Stephen

November 13, 2022

The Classic Railway Signal Tower (Review)

od, I wish I’d had this book before programming TUSK tower, my computer-driven interlocking tower on my Tuscarora Branch Line railroad. More on that in a bit. So, Interlocking Towers are those control-tower-looking-structures you used to see along railroad lines. They came about because sending crews scrambling about in the middle of the night, in the rain, to align a route for the express sometimes ended up with hard feelings and smoldering causalities. Interlocking Towers were the computers of their era (from the 1880s to the 1960s). The operator, standing in his high perch, would use long levers to set […]
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August 16, 2026

Jumper (Review)

read this when it hit the shelves in the early nineties and remembered loving it. Even gave my copy to my sister-in-law to read (and, evidently, misplaced in Horder’s Hell). Alas. So, Jumper is about a young boy whose father is extremely abusive. Having chased off his mother (more like her fleeing for her life), his father turns his rage on the boy, often beating him with a belt with a rodeo buckle on it. And one night, because he’s drunk, hates himself, hates his life, for whatever reason, he turns his rage (and belt) on his son again. David […]
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