For the Record…

Posted on September 5, 2025 by JE

I finally replaced the turntable that broke a couple of moves ago, and have been enjoying long soaks in analogue sound. It’s fun to finally listen to the vinyl I’ve been buying to support bands over the last few years, & also to drag old favorites out of boxes in the basement.

4 album sleeves: the Wolverines Classic Jazz Orchestra (but not the one you’re probably thinking of), an album of Prokofiev’s music (“Lt. Kijé Suite”, “Suite from Live for 3 Oranges”, “Classical Symphony “), an SP by the Fearless Flyers, “Nouvelles Aventures” by Calibro 35).

The Prokofiev is the first album I bought with my own money. Weird that I still have it when so many other things and people have been lost over the years.

The aforesaid boxes are completely disorganized, so discoveries are somewhat random. Can’t find my Yes albums, Hendrix, or Lamont Cranston. I did find some of the original non-musical Cranston. Remember kids: the weed of crime bears bitter fruit!

Photo of an album containing 2 episodes of the old radio show THE SHADOW. The cover art is from THE SHADOW MAGAZINE for Sept 1, 1936 and shows the eponymous character holding a theatrical mask.
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This Means Snore: THE WAR OF THE ROSES by William Adler

Posted on September 3, 2025 by JE

I’ve never seen the Danny De Vito film The War of the Roses (1989). It came out during the first Christmas season that I celebrated with my first wife and my first child. I had lots of things to occupy me in those days, and going to see a dark comedy about a nasty divorce didn’t seem like a worthwhile thing to add to the list. Much later on I had my own divorce to contend with, and a movie like that seemed still less appealing.

But a remake has just been released (The Roses, 2025), featuring Olivia Coleman and Benedict Cumberbatch. I like both those actors, and may eventually see the newer movie. But, in looking into it, I found that both movies were based on a novel by William Adler.

I don’t know if you knew this about me, but I’ll read a book occasionally. I looked up Adler’s The War of the Roses (Warner Books, 1981) and read it on Saturday. A few days later, the book is still banging around in my thoughts, so I’ll try and exorcise it with a review.

Though the book has a number of things going for it, on balance I didn’t like it much. De gustibus etc. I can’t really talk about the things I liked and didn’t like without indulging in spoilers, so if you want to read the book and haven’t yet, you might want to stop here.

The cover of the first edition of Adler’s THE WAR OF THE ROSES. The cover illustration shows a wedding cake surrounded by barbed wire. Atop the cake, the bri
Scourge the Bad Revolting Stars Beyond the Jump!
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CW: Trumpolatry

Posted on August 13, 2025 by JE

Many things about Trumpism are disgusting, but there’s a specific kind of abject ecstacy in Trumpolatry that is really repulsive. “It’s like something from Tacitus,” I always think. Today I ran across the quote I’d been not-quite remembering.

clamor vocesque vulgi ex more adulandi nimiae et falsae: quasi dictatorem Caesarem aut imperatorem Augustum prosequerentur, ita studiis votisque certabant, nec metu aut amore, sed ex libidine servitii.

—Tacitus, Historiae 1.90

“The shouting and the slogans of the crowd were over-the-top and dishonest—as if they were honoring the dictator Julius or the emperor Augustus. They were competing with worship and prayers not from fear or love, but from the lust of servitude.”

Libido servitii “the lust of servitude”: that’s the behavior of Trumpists (e.g. Howard Lutnick, Jeanine Pirro, Pam Bondi, etc) in a nutshell. (The crowd in the quote is an assembly summoned by the usurper Otho, much like a Trumpist rally.)

When Howard Lutnick raises his chin and moans in bearded ecstacy about the glories of “this president”, I hear echoes of that rally for Otho almost 2000 years ago.

Otho was emperor for about four months. Just tossing that out there.

visual example behind the cut
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The SF/F Watcher’s Lament

Posted on August 11, 2025 by JE

Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
the saddest are “Prequel again?”

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Deus Ex Homine: Brackett’s THE SWORD OF RHIANNON and Zelazny’s ISLE OF THE DEAD

Posted on August 10, 2025 by JE

I’ve been following with interest Steven Silver’s great series of reviews of the Tor Double books at the Black Gate. His latest, scrupulously fair, review of Brackett’s The Sword of Rhiannon+de Camp’s Divide and Conquer reminded me of one of my favorite Latin sayings: de gustibus non disputandum est. Or, in the words of a cinematic classic:

“Your point of view is so different from mine.”
Michelle (Robyn Paris) in The Room (2003)

People get to like what they like and not like what they don’t like. Personally, I like The Sword of Rhiannon (a.k.a. Sea-Kings of Mars) a lot; it’s my favorite of Brackett’s sf/f novels. But I hadn’t reread it in a while, so I thought I’d see if I still found it good. (Spoilers: I did. Details and complications below.)

In the course of the reread, I thought of a much more effective pairing for Brackett’s novel: Zelazny’s Isle of the Dead. Both the Zelazny and the Brackett share the same conceit (men who overlap with gods), and they share some other weaknesses and strengths—so much so that I began to think that Isle of the Dead was at least partly inspired by and in response to The Sword of Rhiannon, something that had never occurred to me before.

First up: my thoughts about the older book, then the later, and finally some points of comparison.

Sail the ancient seas of Mars beyond the jump!
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Two Duds: WAS IT MURDER? by James Hilton and A QUESTION OF PROOF by Nicholas Blake

Posted on August 9, 2025 by JE

Fiction set at upper-class British schools was a popular genre in the 19th and early 20th C, and murder mysteries were the dominant form of popular fiction in the early and mid-20th century, so it’s only natural that cross-pollination would create a subgenre: the murder mystery set at an upper-class school.

I’ve read three of these things: A Question of Proof by “Nicholas Blake” (really C. Day Lewis), A Murder of Quality by “John Le Carré” (really David Cornwell) and Was It Murder? by “Glen Trevor” (really James Hilton). And I can safely say at this point that the subgenre is not for me.

The cover of WAS IT MURDER by James Hilton; Bantam edition from March 1946
Tedious Thrills Beyond the Jump
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Water We Fighting For?

Posted on July 31, 2025 by JE

Typo of the day: Tuhursday (for an intended Thursday). Easily fixed, but now I’m wondering who Tuhur was.

Mr. Internet tells me it’s a Sundanese word meaning “dry”. Maybe Tuhur was the archenemy of that Wonder Twin who turned into water?

Screenshot of an old Super Friends cartoon. The image shows a bucket of water with a face imprinted on the water.
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Dumkupf vs. Laocoön

Posted on July 29, 2025 by JE

A cartoon from an old (1927-vintage) issue of The New Yorker. It made me smile, even though it’s probably supposed to appeal to class and ethnic biases.

Cartoon of a shop window for "J.M. Dumkupf—Plumber". The window displays a version of the Hellenistic statue group of Laocoön and his sons being consumed by snakes, except in this version the snakes are serpentime pipes. The caption: "on beautifying the city."
cartoon by O. Soglow (?) in The New Yorker issue for Sept 17, 1927

“Look, my dear friend Amaryllis Partington-Smith-Symythe-Vanderbilt-Smythington-Smyth–a banausic of foreign abstraction, decorating his shop-window with classical statuary! Très amusant!”

“Wasn’t your dad a fruit-peddler named Rabinowicz?”

“SHUT UP, YOU WHORE!”

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De Rerum Natura

Posted on July 18, 2025 by JE

A wonderfully cool day for July here in the Great Black Swamp—the high temp around 75ºF (≈ 24ºC). I opened all the windows in my bookroom, so now I can hear the musical sounds of people mowing their dumb lawns and the mechanical groan of the AC unit next door.

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Adventures in Entropy

Posted on July 17, 2025 by JE

My son Nick claims that I have an entropic field that causes things to break down in my presence. There’s a lot of evidence to support this. Today, for instance, I discovered a new method of breaking the department printer. Apparently it’s offended by NEW.

a graphic of text that says "ERROR: undefined OFFENDING COMMAND: New STACK: /AAAAAB+*Times *Times /AAAAAB /FontName"

That gives us two things in common: I don’t like new things either, lately. (They usually involve the president showing his unfitness for office in unexampled ways.) Also, I use any excuse not to work.

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