End – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

June 7, 2020

The End of the Empire (Review)

ith the CORVID-19 virus raging, I’ve been moving though my old stacks, pulling books out that look interesting for a read four decades after purchase. And while the last one I noted was The Somme on old Earth, this one looks at the end of the “Holy Human Empire” in future-space. Colonel Saloman Karff is in deep shit. The rebels are pushing into the capital and he’s an officer in what is technically the Gestapo (i.e. the internal intelligence service). But he’s got a heart under that grim exterior – we open with him burning the files of all his […]

July 3, 2022

Death’s End (Review)

nd this is the third book in the series that started with The Three-Body Problem and ramped up in The Dark Forest. It’s a look at humans, our planet and our place in the sprawling galaxy. Older characters have pretty much faded away and the story focus on Cheng Xin, a thoughtful young rocket engineer who ends up getting caught up in events she is forced (and sometimes unqualified) to face. She is the one, upon finding out that a passing college acquaintance gifted her an actual star (not the name of the star, no, but the entire thing, planets […]

December 25, 2022

The End of All Things (Review)

ell, Scalzi wrapped up the Old Man’s War series with a satisfying conclusion. What more can I say? We went into this with the the alien confederation, the Conclave, and the humans represented by the Colonial Union (the Earth, pissed off at being a sole supplier of soldiers and colonists, forms a weak yet dangerous third party to this anger-triangle). The universe is now soaked in gasoline and the mysterious group, the Equilibrium, is trying to light it on fire and bring everyone down. Sorta sounds like the world today. So we start on a disturbing note – we know […]

January 19, 2023

The End of the Blogatorium (DOG EAR)

ough Sunday night. Went to the clubhouse to help unload modules (even though I’m still in the mask-for-safety aspect of post-covid). Came home. Wrote a blog detailing the show. And then, while it was still in draft status, I poked around. My updates were showing some issues and it told me I needed to upgrade my PHP. I clicked the UPDATE button. It should have been marked APOCALYPSE. It said it would take a minute. Twenty minutes later, the site was still in maintenance mode. I closed that browser and opened another. I was told my site suffered a critical […]

December 21, 2023

Carol & The Blog (DOG EAR)

atching an interesting show on NetFlix – Carol and the End of the World. It’s animated and interesting – I’ve only seen three episodes so far so I won’t be spoiling much. So all we know is that some sort a massive body in space (a planetoid or something) is moving towards Earth and will destroy it in seven months. And so everyone is fulfilling their dreams and living life to the fullest. Happily, there is very little rioting or freaking out (the only evidence are broken windows and national guard tanks outside the supermarket – with bored guardsmen running […]