Blog – Page 97 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

July 31, 2016

Lost in Space (7/31/2016)

ummer is a lousy time to be an astronomer. The skies are muggy-hazy and often cloudy. I haven’t had a chance to go eyeballing since mid-May. And I’ve got that new double-bracket for my spotters (laser and optical) – wanted to get them lined in. Today was as good as it would be – somewhat clear, somewhat hazy, but doable. Set the scope up at dusk. Soon enough Mars showed up so I tooled the barrel around and got a visual on it. Then I got the optical lined. The laser was trickier – it’s got the pen mounted in […]

July 31, 2016

The Search for Fierra (Review)

knew there was a reason to store all those paperbacks up in the attic. Found this scifi-er, something I bought in 1985 (before I was married, b’Gad. I was still at NRL and going to college to learn Fortran on punch cards). But this review isn’t about my life, it’s about Orion Treet, a traveler and gentleman of the world, and also a historian (meaning a man running ahead of his debts) who gets hoodwinked into a mission to fly out to a corporation’s hidden colony world and report back about their efforts now that they’ve been there a year. […]

August 4, 2016

Athos (DOG EAR)

een thinking of Athos a lot recently, the oldest, wisest, drunkest, and darkest of the famous Musketeers. In the recent BBC adaptation, Athos is played handily Tom Burke, who might be a wee bit young and drunk on demand. No, for my money, it was Oliver Reed back in the 70s who hit it on the head, portraying the man who’d once been the Count de la Fère before he’d hung his wife for the thief she was and sank into low-class oblivion as a lowly musketeer. There have been other Athoses of course, including John Malkovich, which is all […]

August 7, 2016

Cæsar’s Column (Review)

sually change-the-world socialist stories of the sort I read from the late 1800’s, such as In the Days of the Comet or The Sleeper awakes, the break between rich and poor, privileged and oppressed is generally specific, antiseptic, and clear-cut. The poor are good, the rich bad. Usually there is a happy sort of ending (or a expected continuance of the system, as with The Time Machine). In the end, things get solved pretty neatly. There is also an expectation that our fore-authors wrote nice and clear fiction, without too much grime and grit. Hate to tell ya, but Ceasar’s […]

August 11, 2016

Andre (DOG EAR)

o last week, we chatted about Athos, the literary character I see myself as. This week, we’ll look to Andre-Louis Moreau, the character I wish I could be. Andre, a lawyer from Gavrillac, is a man famously described as “born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” He gets royally screwed (actually, in this case, nobly screwed) by the Marquis de la Tour d’Azyr, who butchers his friend and forces him (like Athos) to hide in the gutter. But Andre undergoes a series of transformations, eventually becoming a man of influence, power and deadliness. […]

August 12, 2016

The Blockade Runners (review)

eeded something to tide this column over while I chew through the massive Seven Eves. Of course, I turned to my old friend, Project Gutenberg, for assistance. Was looking, actually, for Journey to the Center of the Earth (which I’d just seen (the old one, not the crappy, stupid new one. Please!). Anyway, it wasn’t up except in audio format. But I did find this book, The Blockade Runners, which you gotta admit looks like a promising short story. So without further ado, let’s start the review. And my opening hook to this review, late yet relevant? So, you think […]

August 13, 2016

Perseid Meteors (8/11/2016)

’ll bet that after a night of seeing cup handles on Saturn and seas on the moon, Galileo slept in. Not me. For the Perseid Meteor shower, JB and I linked up with a couple of CFAS members over at the Geneva gun range. I got about three hours of laying down in the evening before heading over (couldn’t drop off to sleep – my brain was cycling at 100hrz and my stomach was tossing about those broccoli quesadillas). So with the lawn chairs loaded in the mini, we left the house at 12:15am and got to the site at […]

August 18, 2016

Punked (DOG EAR)

o I did the three R’s on a friend’s book, The Eyre Affair (Received, Read, Reviewed). Attempted to Rave but, as mentioned HERE, I got Rejected. Man, felt bad about this. However, my wife and I did do dinner with this person a while later. It was one of those comfortable evenings; a quiet restaurant, good conversation, good food. And even though she’d bombed the book, I mentioned it anyway. I thought it was good, regardless. Hey, everyone’s a critic, present blogger included. Oh, and minor spoilers ahead, that is, if you are going to read Jane Eyre and wish […]

August 21, 2016

Guns, Germs, and Steel (Review)

aught out this week – still slugging through Seven Eves, and didn’t get a short story done that I was also attempting a stopgap with. So, to fulfill my effort to review every week (something I’ve managed for years) I’m hauling something off the shelf and doing it out of memory. So, Guns, Germs, and Steel looks at the broad idea of racial technological acceleration. Why do some races have everything (and are rich, floating in iPads and Burger Kings and nuclear bombers) and others are nothing more than muddy townships of rusting castoff technology? Is it the people of […]

August 24, 2016

OpsLog – LM&O – 8/24/2016

razy night at the club house. First, after all the work we did on electrical things over the last month, another failure, this time caused (we think) by a bad toggle or turnout motor in Martin Yard. So, rain delay until Fearless Frank and Big Bob could root around in the catacombs and bypass it. If we had to lose a turnout out of the dozen in the throat, this was the best. So, lucky break for us. I ended up on the dispatcher panel again. The night was fun but weird – trains weren’t sequencing like I usually see. […]