Empire of Avarice

I've started re-reading Tony Roberts Kastania Chronicles. I've been waiting so long for the next book in the series I'm afraid I'll have forgotten most of the story when it does come out. I've been singing this series of books praises for years, but when I started re-reading the first one I'd forgotten just how good it really is!

The Kastanian Empire is in decline. Most of the territory it once covered is lost and the five provinces it still controls are disarray. Astiros Koros, was the general of the Imperial army putting down a rebellion in Bragal province. Just as he was about to win the emperor calls back the troops and negotiates a peace. He claimed the war was costing too much money and lives.
Astiros bribes the captain of the palace guards to give him entry into the palace and assassinates the emperor and empress. He makes himself emperor.
His family joins him in Kastan at the palace. His wife Isbel, 20 year-old daughter Amne, five year-old son Argan, and infant son Istan. His oldest son, Jorquil, is in command of the Imperial Guard awaiting orders to invade another province in revolt.
Upon seizing power he discovers the imperial treasury is empty. He convenes the imperial council made up of the high priest, members of the five largest noble families, merchants guild and the imperial treasurer.
Astiros informs them that he intends to march back and finish the job in Bragal in six months. In order to do that he needs money. 
He starts by telling the high priest that all the temples will be taxed. When the high priest starts threatening Astiros with destruction from the gods, the new emperor slaps him down. He reminds the priest that after every defeat the priest blamed their lack of faith instead of their lack of numbers and supplies. That the treasury was empty because the temples take money, but never give it back. He tells the priest he is no longer welcome in Kastan and is to leave immediately.
When one of the nobles tells Astiros he can't legally do that, he turns on the man and asks him, "Who makes the law?"
Astiros then tells the nobility that their tax exempt status is at an end. They will start paying taxes or have all their possessions confiscated. Turning on the merchants he tells them their taxes will be increased. 
The imperial treasurer is then ordered to reduce the palace staff as there's no money to pay people who have no work. The staff had never been reduced from the days when the empire was powerful.

Think of the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the fall of Rome, or just about any empire. Astiros has described the major causes of their decline and fall. The church is tax exempt, but collects tithes making it rich which it spends on temples and vestments, but nothing to help the poor. The nobility are leaches soaking the masses with their monopolies, but paying no taxes. The merchants paying little in taxes saying if they are taxed they'll have to raise prices. The poor are the only one who pay taxes and when the poor are staving and have no money everyone wonders whey there's no money in the treasury. When there's not money the military is neglected, infrastructure deteriorates, crime increases and the empire is conquered.

Naturally after this meeting the high priest is vowing revenge, the nobles meet to hire a hit man from the guild of thieves and squabble among themselves which family will take over the empire.
What makes this story compelling is the number of balls being juggled at the same time. 

• Jorquil is with the army and given the task of retaking a rebellious province. 
• Astiros recruits and trains a new army to go back to Bragal.
•  Amne is sent as an ambassador to the country Mazag, south of Bragal to negotiate a treaty. 
• Isbel is to stay in the palace and run the empire while her husband is off fighting. 
• The two children are growing up. Argan is a precocious five-year-old and Ishtan does nothing but cry when he doesn't get his way.

The added worry is that Kastania is surrounded by enemies. Nomadic tribes to the west defeated the empire ten years earlier causing the accelerated crumbling of the empire. Countries to the east that once were part of the empire now want to conquer them. The imperial navy has only four ships to protect their shores.  

While Astiros marches to Bragal he is joined by mountain tribes he's bribed with what little money he has and Bragalese loyalists. He's forced to fight an army raised by Duras, one of the noble families. He easily defeats them and marched into Bragal.

Amne travels with three diplomats and a hunter/guide to travel through Bragal incongnito. It's the first time the young woman has faced any type of hardship and she develops feeling for her guide. This enrages the diplomats as he is far beneath her and trouble ensues.

In Kastan, Isbel finds a loyal captain of the palace guard who fights off all attempts to cause riots and revolt within the capital. In the palace itself Argan is poisoned on his birthday, he survives, but it places that much more stress on Isbel as she doesn't know who to trust in her own home.

The Bragalese is where a little magic come to the story. The women of Bragal are witches. They have magical healing power. Having sex with one is like taking a drug. The man is addicted to her and enslaved by her. Usually when an army wins a battle the victors rape and enslave the women, but with a Bragal witch; she rapes the victor. Most of the men die. Astiros orders the army to kill all women and children after the battle for this reason.
With the loyal Bragal he warns his men not to have sex with a Bragal woman even if she initiates it. If they do the father will kill them.
They have a funny idea of marriage. The father will kill any man who sleeps with his daughter before marriage. The husband is enslaved by the wife. After marriage she can sleep with any married man she wants and the man can sleep with any married woman he wants. This results in a large population.
In a subsequent book Jorquil sleeps with a Bragalese servant and marries her creating havoc for the empire.

Hope this is enough to whet your appetite for the books. They are even better the second time because there is so much going on things get lost in the shuffle.

Another Wednesday Challenge

Hmmm... What do you read when you're not feeling well?

Since I started using a C-pap machine I haven't had a single cold or flu in three years. I have had some problems that put me in bed for a spell. Fell and broke my hand, fell and wrenched my back, just had cataract surgery one more to go. Two basil cell melanoma's removed.
I get my dog Sammi and she lies down next to me and sleeps. I have to bother her a few times when she starts moving her legs like she's running. Then I grab my Kindle fire and read or listen. No matter how many times I read or listen to these books I am entertained and enlightened.

 

If my eyes are bothering me I can't read for any length of time. I have 22 of Barry Sadler's: Casca audio books on my phone and Kindle. I listen to them in chronological order, not by published order. I've heard them so many times if I fall asleep, when I wake up I know where I am and don't have to backtrack.

 Michael Scott-Earl has a number of books in his Tamer: King of Dinosaurs series.  He's in a subset of fantasy called "harem novels." They're silly and having been married for over 40 years I know you'll never get five or ten women living together with one man and everything is hunky dory. It's escapism. Sex is mentioned, but nothing as detailed as women's romance books. In this series a guy is beemed off of earth to a distant planet by unknown aliens where dinosaurs rule. Others are periodically beemed onto the planet from other parts of the universe making for a wide variety of other life forms. Victor has the ability if he comes in contact with a dinosaur to mind meld and tame it. He then has a pet brontosaurus, or triceratops. He avoid male aliens as they usually try to kill him, and instead rescues female aliens and they begin to build a compound that is rampage proof from larger dinosaurs and hostile bands of aliens.

Alert: Right now Michael Scott-Earl has been banned by Amazon. You can get his books as audio, but cannot buy his hardcopy or e-books. He's in a legal dispute that is supposed to be resolved in a few weeks.

Tony Roberts: The Kastania Series.

Roberts has written 35 Casca books and that's what he's most known for, but starting with Empire of Avarice set in the empire of Kastania there is a series of books that becomes multi-generational. The empire is beset by hostile neighbors. One family decides to take control of the empire as the other noble families are only draining the empire's resources to enrich themselves. There are fantasy elements, but this more about fighting to preserve and empire and keeping political power.

Another series of his is about a half dark elf and human raised as an outcast with humans until her mother dies and she is forced to leave and discover her elven side. This is quest story and fantastic fantasy.

Tuesday top ten

Today's top ten is tropes. 
The tropes that bug me:

•  In mystery or horror movies: splitting up when everyone in the audience or the reader knows that's the surest way to become the next victim.
•  A group trapped in a cave or elevator or closet, etc. Someone has to be claustrophobic and freaks out.
• In legal thrillers someone finds a body and stupidly picks up the knife or gun.
• In legal thrillers someone is knocked out and found with the body. Dumb detectives automatically assume the person with a concussion did it.
• Having the villain explain everything before he or she thinks they're killing Bond or Bourne or hero.
•  The ticking clock. Ethan Hunt has to run a mile in four minutes to save his wife. Do they really expect the audience to think someone can run through the crowded streets of Shanghai that quickly and arrive like they just took an easy stroll? Can Anyone believe Tom Cruise can run a four minute mile?
• The countdown: God this is really bugging. "Ten minutes and counting. Nine minutes and counting" ad nauseum.
•  Technology before its time. Countless movies and TV shows have gunpowder waaaaaay toooooo soooooon. 
•  The white savior. Tom Cruise telling the Samurai battle tactics. He was captured by their superior tactics at the beginning of the movie. He is the one who changes the Emperor's mind. Pure crap. Richard Harris in A Man called Horse training Native Americans to shoot arrows in volleys. Don't get me started on Avatar.
•  An ancient artifact that can destroy the world. Lost Ark or magic wand or gold monkey. If the artifact had that much power why is it lost or hidden? Why didn't whoever had it in the first place use it? I can buy treasure, but doomsday devises unless it has a natural cause like a virus or bacteria don't grab me.

Bloggers needed

Lydia has a post today regretting the lack of response posts. She gets tons more comments than I do, but response posts from the old blogger days were different. She explains well so check out her explanation.

I used to have a blogger friend in Oklahoma. He was an assistant principle at a middle school. Every week he'd give a small blurb about his other blogger friends telling what they'd written and leave a link. It was nice to be mentioned. The only blogger friend I have left is Berthold that will provide links when he mentions a fellow blogger or writes a review of their books. He mentioned me in his last post as he responded to my post on The Fifth Element
 I had two blogger friends here in Albuquerque and there were two others in Colorado. We called ourselves the Old Curmudgeons. Once the guys in Colorado drove down here and met with Russ, Woody and me. We had a great time drinking beer and bashing Bush and Cheney. (That really says how long ago it was.)

At the time I was writing Human Sacrifices. I would post each chapter as I finished it on a different blog. I picked up a few readers that would give encouragement and offer advise. It was a back ackwards way of doing things and the beginning of the story was down the list of posts. My sister was working the night shift at a hospital in Dallas and when she had free time would read my story, she got a number of the other nurses there reading and she'd let me know what they thought. I wrote the story to strengthen my female characters and this was invaluable advise.

This was also when my sister was battling ovarian cancer. My blogger friends were invaluable in giving thoughts and prayers through this bitter and sad time.

Russ still has his blog and we're friends on fb, but since he remarried has little time for social media. Woody and I still communicate on fb. I've lost touch with all my other blogger friends and am so grateful for Berthold for opening up a new avenue for blogging with Lydia and other writers as we share ideas,  reviews and out thoughts.

Work on hold

For six years I could sit and write in an office and even get paid. Then I broke my hand, hurt my back, lost my business. While I was healing I did some editing on books already in print, but not much on my works in progress. I'm recovering right now from cataract surgery with another one to go. I've been doing a lot of reading, blogging and posting on fb. Maybe I need to get back to some writing again. Here's what I was working on:

Stephanus -- The sequel to Optimus: Praetorian Guard. I have Optimus's eldest son as a freedman in the palace with Domitian, his other son Sextus on the German frontier. Optimus is exiled to Patmos where the Apostle John is exiled.
I've done a good job with the palace intrigue setting up Stephanus to assasinate Domitian. Sextus fighting in Moesia and Dacia leading to the Praetorians turning against Domitian after he negotiates a weak treaty with Dacia.
I've bogged down with Optimus as he acting as a scribe to the aged John while he writes his Gospel, three epistles and Revelaton. In twelve years since the novel Optimus I've researched Revelation putting the apocalypse in context with the first century Christians. 
My problem is trying to make the writing of John interesting and not dry or boring. Spacing out between Rome and Germania helps some, but it's been a long process. I think I've got a reasonable explaination of Revelation for the time period, now its butt in seat time.

Matthew Fontaine Maury: My wife's maiden name is Maury. Her father has a family tree book and it is full of articles on Matthew Fontaine Maury.
MFM is known as the pathfinder of the seas. I had never heard of him, but he is the father of oceanography, meteorology and the inventor of naval mine warfare.
There have been two naval vessels named the USS Maury, both were research vessels mapping the floor of the oceans.
I found a biography and read it. His life is absolutely fascinating, but there are a number of biographies, one by his daughter. I thought I would try my hand at fictional history. Historical fiction is like Optimus. Not a real person, but he carries the story in the time and setting with historical people around him. Fictional history is where every character in the book is historical and everything in the story actually happened.

Here are a few of the facts about MFM:

• His grandfather was the Rev. James Maury. James Maury was the tutor to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Both of whom were living with him when MFM's father was born and were witnesses. My wife's ancestor was the second son of James while MFM's was the youngest son.
• As a midshipman in the Navy MFM was onboard the ship that took the Marquis de Lafayette back to France after his tour of America twenty years after the revolutionary war. The ship went on to be the first US warship to circumnavigate the globe.
• He injured his leg in a stage coach accident and was unable to return to active sea duty.
• He was assigned to take over the newly built Naval Observatory in Washington DC. (Now the residence of the Vice President.)
• He organized all the captains logs naval and merchant aquired over the previous years. With two assistants he compiled and tracked the flow of the oceans. This revealed and he charted the Gulf Stream. Creating new charts and distributing them in 1848 to all sea captains this cut the time for sailing from the Atlantic to the Pacific by six months just in time for the gold rush in 1849.
• He oversaw the first sounding across the Atlantic and laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable to England. The first telegraph message was addressed to him congratulating him for the accomplishment.
• He took part in the first meeting of scientists to chart and graph weather.
• He wrote the Naval Academy textbook on oceanography used until 1927.
• He sided with the confederacy in the Civil War, which is why history is a little silent on him.
• He developed the first naval torpedo as it was called at the time. They were used to mine the rivers and ports of the South keeping the Union from taking Richmond by ship. The famous saying of Admiral Farragut when taking Mobile bay was, "Damn the torpedoes full steam ahead.
• He's buried between James Madison and James Monroe.

There are many more things that he accomplished. It's a daunting task to try and fictionalize his life.

Wednesday challenge

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

Today's challenge is books we read in school that we didn't like.

Having taught English the number one reason students don't like a book is that they have to read it.

1. The Biological Basis for Human Freedom by Theodosius Dobzhenski  -- My sophomore English teacher made us read this to blend with our biology class. I re-read it after graduating college. It was way too difficult at that age.

2. Don Quixote by Cervantes -- Had to translate it in Spanish class and then read it for World Literature. Bombed both tests and it kept me from getting an A in WL. Grrr.

3. A Separate Peace by John Knowles -- I could suffer no more than ten pages. 

4. Silas Marner by George Elliot -- I read after college and grew to like it.

5. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens -- I was in 9th grade and was out with strep throat when the teacher showed the movie. When I got back I had to read it and take a different test. That would ruin any book.

6. Pilgrims Progress by Paul Bunyan -- My mother made me read it as punishment when I was suspended from school (8th grade) my one and only time.

Top Ten Tuesday

Today's top ten is literary characters I want to be besties with.

1. Mike Hammer: This is a guy you can have a drink with talk sports, women, and politics. Just be sure to have your back to a wall facing the door and be ready to duck for cover if need be.
I the Jury by Mickey Spillane 

2. Rhett Butler: This is a guy who knows what he wants and how to get it. Riding his coat tails could get me rich.
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

3. Aslan: He may be a lion, but he's willing to lay down his life for others.
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

4. Blood: The telepathic dog. It would be cool to have an intelligent conversation with a faithful friend. Even if in a post apocalyptical world.
A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison 

5. F'Lar: Oh how I would love to talk about having a telepathic link with a dragon, flying between to get from place to place and fighting thread, and how to become a dragon rider like him.
Dragon Flight by Anne McCaffery. 

6. Killishandra Ree: To have a conversation with someone who has perfect pitch and can sing for crystal that is the key to all communication in the universe. Maybe be with her while she's doing it and is sexually turned on.
The Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffery

7. Pappy Zack: Oh the tales he could tell about discovering Little Fuzzies and the fight to keep them from being treated as slaves by unscrupulous mining companies.
Little Fuzzie by H.B. Piper

8. Faerowyn: What a joy it would be to travel with a half dark elf trying to find her father and claim her royalty in an enchanted world.
Dark Blade by Tony Roberts.

9.Sextus Casca Longinus: To have a drink in a bar and listen to just one of his adventures ranging from the time of Tiberias in Ancient Rome to the present day. What a trip.
Casca The Eternal Mercenary by Barry Sadler

10. Hillary Ashton Pellham-Martin: To meet and know someone who could fit into the world of Hindu and English. Married a princess and live to tell the tale of fighting in Kabul against the Afghans. What a conversation that would be.
The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kay

Wednesday Challenge

Today's challenge is top ten books I've never reviewed.

Little Fuzzy by H. Bean Piper
  A series of books dealing with a sentient species called Fuzzies, great books, prototype for Tribbles.

The Trouble with Tribbles --David Gerrold
    Interesting telling of how Gerrold sold the screen play to Star Trek for Trouble with Tribbles. It includes the screenplay.

Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein
     Learn how to Grok religion

An Innocent Man -- John Grisham
     A factual account of how an innocent man spent years on death row and how he was exhonerated.

Ultimate Punishment -- Scott Turow
     Arguments for both sides on the issue of Death Penalty. Sophistry at its best. Recommend listening to the audio with Turow reading it. He doesn't give his oppinion until the last sentence.

The entire First Man in Rome series by Colleen McCullagh
     From the rise of Marcus Crassus in the First Man in Rome through the fall of Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra. Historical, political, social, military understanding of ancient Rome.

The Discourses -- Niccolo Machiavelli
     Everyone focuses on The Prince, but The Discourses are one of the documents that influenced the U.S. Constitution.

No Rust Swords -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
 A compilation of sermons by a great mind killed by Hilter.

Worthy is the Lamb -- Ray Summers
     Amillennial interpretation on end times. No rapture, no mellinnial reign. First half of book explains appocolyptic literature the send half is an interpretation of Revelation.

Sun Tzu -- The Art of War
     Ancient Chinese philospher who in 13 short chapters still influences military, business and romantic thought.

Bonus
Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus -- John Gray
     This was a game changer in my marriage. When I taught sociology and pschology in high school it was a textbook.

Fifth Element

Ever had a really bad week? I mean a week where by Friday night you're dragging and wanting to do nothing but curl up in bed, watch a movie that will take you into an escape world that will make you forget all your problems?

My wife and I found such a movie. For years whenever we've decided both of us have had a meatgrinder week and need to escape and forget; all either one of has had to say was, "Big Badda Boom."
We pop some popcorn, snuggle under the covers and watch The Fifth Element.
There's just something about the universe this movie displays. It has technology galore with flying cars crisscrossed in layers from the ground to the stratosphere. Aliens helping an ancient evil intent on destroying all life. A super rich guy, superbly played by Gary Oldman. An ex-military guy (Bruce Willis) turned cab driver; divorced, living in a dump and out of nowhere a woman drops through the roof of his cab. All he can understand of her gibberish is, "Boom, big badda boom."
The woman is Leeloo (Milla Jovavich), she's the fifth element sent to Earth to stop the ultimate evil. It gets crazy from there.
Chris Tucker plays a DJ named Ruby Rodd, and when he's broadcasting is non stop jabber. I wanted to stuff his mouth with a dirty sock by the end of the movie the first time I saw it. Now he's the funniest part of the movie.
There's one scene where a Diva is singing she's about ten feet tall and blue with tentacles for hair, but has the most amazing voice and in one spot she runs the scale from deep bass to high soprano effortlessly. Amazing.
This did the trick for us for many long years before we retired. Now we're not under the weekly stress of having to put up with nit-wit administrators and passive aggressive students for me and for her a weekly deadline to put out a paper when she was the assistant editor--the movie is now something we enjoy about once a year just of the hell of it.

Wednesday Challenge: favorite food & recilpe

Wednesday challenge: Favorite food and recipe


I don't cook. I heat. For a couple of years I lived alone and got by with doing easy to fix stuff like Hamburger helper, tuna helper and such.

Here are a couple of things I came up with to heat.

1. Barbeque sloppy joes: Brown a pound of hamburger, smother with French's Cattleman's BBQ sauce, add diced bell pepper, chopped onions or dehydrated onions. Make sandwiches out of it.

2. Pineapple angle food cake: 1 can shredded pineapple, box of angle food cake. Mix pineapple in the cake mix. Bake as directed on the box.

3. Cheese and olive spread: Take a package of Philadelphia Cream Cheese, mix with a small can of diced ripe olives. Mix and let set in the refrigerator of an hour. Use as a spread on bagels, on crackers, as a sandwich.

4. Green Chile dip: 1 package Philadelphia Cream Cheese,  tub of sour crème, package of diced green chili. Mix ingredients, dive in. Got this from a Mexican Restaurant in Farmington, NM.

5. Pan fried fish. Take fileted tilapia or salmon or thawed frozen shrimp (I like larger ones with the tails off) Cook in a skillet in butter or olive oil cover with rosemary and garlic.

6. Spicy spaghetti: Fix noodles, instead of using tomato sauce try on can of El Pato sauce. Add frozen meatballs or ground hamburger or chicken strips.

Top Ten Harlan Ellison Books

For my top ten Tuesday I chose Harlan Ellison one of favorite authors.

Three essays on television: The Glass Teat, The Other Glass Teat and Watching. The first two are full of fire and vinegar as he lambasts the medium, politicians and society. He gives them both barrels. Watching he toned things down and stuck to just critiquing  television.

Short story anthologies of some of the weirdest, depressing, funny and  downright strange. All of them take you on a wild ride. His titles are say so much. A number of his top awards are for stories in these books. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Paingod and Other Stories, Deathbird Stories, The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World.

An absolute must have for any Harlan Ellison aficionado. I got mine from the SF book club for a song compared to what is would cost today. The Essential Ellison a 50-year retrospective.

Memos From Purgatory. An autobiographical work telling of him as a young man joining a street gang in New York before writing his first novel. It was turned into a teleplay as the first episode of Alfred Hitchock Presents with a young James Caan playing Harlan in 1960.

Lastly is Strange Wine another anthology of short stories.

This only scratches the surface of all the books of his I've read, and there are so many yet to read.

Wendi Zwaduk Bound by Desire

From the Wednesday blogger challenge I've discovered numerous authors plugging their books. I read some of them from time to time. If the story is not my cup of tea I'll not say anything. If I find one I like I'll post my thoughts. I prefer if the books are on KDP and free with Kindle Unlimited, but if the price isn't too high and it's around payday I'll spring for one if it catches my interest.

Wendi Zwaduk's Bound by Desire caught my eye.
This book is similar to 50 Shades of Grey in that the sexuality is BDSM. An intelligent middle aged woman gets divorced. She's running her own business and explores a submissive role to one of her employees who is a few years younger. This is the flip side of Christian Grey.
Stella leaves her controlling husband who repeatedly cheats on her and meets Wes Chase. He works in her IT department, but since he wants to own his own Vinyl record store moonlights as an escort a women's establishment and Dominant at a BDSM club.
Wes fell in love with Stella when he tried to pitch his record store idea to James, her husband at the time. Stella like his idea and tried to talk James into investing in it, but her husband refused by heaping abuse about not interfering in his business. Stella then decides to divorce him.

At a celebration of her divorce Stella meets up with Wes at the night club where he's an escort. He safe since she works for him and pays for his services for the night to keep her friends from picking for her.
Stella's been invited to her ex-husband's wedding and she decides showing up with a hunk like Wes would be a kind of revenge. She asks Wes to be her escort and offers to pay him. Wes turns the tables on her by saying he'll go for free if in the three weeks leading up to the wedding they fall in love.
The romance begins with many pitfalls and lots of kinky sex.
Wes  has an ex-girlfriend that doesn't want to let him go and Stella's ex-husband tries to control her life and break them up to add a little conflict.
There is no one trying to kill them or stalk them as is the main source of conflict is many women's romance novels which is refreshing.
The erotica was well written and arousing without being repetitive or mechanical. Overall an enjoyable read.

Quotes from Books

This weeks challenge.
Favorite quotes from books.

Plain Speaking by Harry Truman: Behind every successful man is a good woman and a surprised mother-in-law.

Mark Twain Tonight by Hal Holbrook: I think the devil is much reviled. You have to say something good about someone who can control three fourths of the world's population and all of the politicians.

De Provedencia: Lucius Annaeus Seneca: It is not the man has too little that is poor, but the man who hankers after more. You ask what is the proper limit of a person's wealth? First what is essential, and second, having what is enough.

Cross of Gold Speech by William Jennings Bryan 1896: There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, there prosperity will find its way up through every class that rests upon them.

Dynamics of Faith by Paul Tillich: One cannot be strong without love. For love is not an irrelevant emotion; it is the blood of life.

Kurt Vonnegut's Law: multiple sources. 90% of everything is crap.

The Princess Bride by William Goldman:
Life is pain, anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
Learn to live with disappointment.
As you wish.

National Love Proverbs :
German: Love knows hidden paths.
Spanish: He who finds not love, finds nothing.
Scottish: A pennyweight o' love is worth a pound o' law.
English: Love will find a way.
American: Love makes the world go round.

I missed the moon landing.

I was fifteen that day. I lied about my age to get a job at Taco Bell in June of '69. I worked there for three weeks in the night shift as I was going to driving school. It paid 75 cents an hour, but all you could eat for free. They lost on the deal. There was a Dairy Queen next to us and we'd swap food for banana splits and parfaits (they had them back then.) Everything on the menu was a quarter. What I loved they don't have now. It was called a bell beefer. Ground hamburger with red chile and shredded cheese. They were good. The problem was we were only allowed 30 minutes to clean up after closing and the lady I worked with did nothing be piddle around and smoke. I had to clock out and it took another hour to get everything done. My mom meanwhile was waiting out in the car for me until 1am. She said there were times she would have paid me the 75 cents an hour not to work. Believe or not I got fired. Talk about a blessing.
I got another job in a few days at Ham's A&W root beer drive-in. It was kind of the Sonic of that day. I was paid $1.15/hour and it was within walking distance of home. We could have all the root beer or soft drinks for free everything else was charged to our paychecks. After a week of drinking root beer I noticed that the skin around my Adam's apple was tight. When I mentioned it at work they all said they stopped drinking the root beer too for that reason and switched to water. I still love A&W root beer, but now it's diet.
 I was working there the day of the moon landing and learned about it the next day when I got up.
I worked the drinks and took the orders off the intercom. There were two car hops, a guy with me at the drink station and cooks behind us. It took about ten minutes after we closed to clean up, but the coolers where we kept the glass mugs had a stainless steel top and the counters were stainless steal. The last thing we did was wipe them down with pure ammonia. Talk about leaving with a buzz.
When I took the order I also had to add up the amount owed. If I added up wrong and it was more than ordered the car hop would catch it from the customer, have to bring it back with to get the right amount and then go back to collect. They also didn't get a tip. On a busy night this stacked things up and I caught hell. If I was short it came out of my paycheck. I quickly learned to double and triple check my figures.
Once Mom, my brother and sister came. I could see them from the window at the order station. One of the items we were out of so I said, "Mom, we don't have that today."
The other guy at the soda station came unglued. "You don't talk to customers that way!"
I said, "That's my mother."
One of the car hops was waiting for an order, she'd just graduated high school. She said, "That's really your mother?"
I said, "Yes."
"Good," she said. "I want to take it out. I'm going to tell her she's going to be a grandmother."
I learned that summer, the one before I started high school as a sophomore. They had Junior highs back then. That the last place I ever wanted to work again was in food. My next job was working at a Skaggs Drug store.

Fictional Worlds I'd like to visit.

Wednesday challenge for today is which fictional world I'd like to visit or live.

I've already mentioned my desire to have a fire lizard so Pern would be a natural.
I'd love to live in the Shire of Middle Earth, not too sure about the rest of it.
The flying cars and McDonald's of Fifth Element, not too sure about being a taxi driver there, though.

Here's some worlds by Tony Roberts I'd love to visit:
Kastania: A ruling family trying to restore a crumbling empire back to glory while beset with enemies from without and within.

His Dark Elf series:

A dark elf princess trying to find her kind after being raised by humans.

Favorite Authors List

I read lots of books and always have. There was a time I focused on an author and read everything of his or her that I could find in a book exchange. It's still there, you take in a sack full of books and for less than a dollar you walk out with a hand full. As a teacher with two small kids that's all I could afford at the time. Here are some of the authors I gorged myself on.

Isaac Asimov: I don't think it's possible to read everything he wrote. I grew up on his science fiction, branched out into his history books, anthologies then his science books, read his magazine. Perhaps the greatest author of all time.

James A. Michener: I hit a brick wall with him. I read and read and read, book after book and barely made a dint in what was still out there to read. The books are so long and time consuming I gave up. When I was teaching World History I hit ever used book store I could find and picked up around fifty copies of the book and used it as a text book with a short story over most of the time periods covered.

Harrold Robbins: He was my guilty pleasure. 1950'-60s porn in accompaniment to Playboy. My wife is a huge Elvis fan and when his movies came out on VHS she had to buy them. I was surprised when watching King Creole, considered Elvis's best movie. It was Robbins A Stone For Danny Fisher. It was after reading everything he'd written up to that time I thought I could tackle Michener.

Harlan Ellison: I was going through a divorce and the life I envisioned evaporated. I was depressed. There was a book store across from a park I took my dog to run around and went in. It was a childrens and science fiction store. A wonderful lady, now deceased, recommended Death Bird Stories. It is a collection of the most depressing stories you'll ever find. His words expressed what I was feeling and the weight of my despair lifted. I was hooked on him for life. I have a shelf full of his books and treasure them.

Favorite non-fiction books

I am immensely enjoying Lydia Schoch's blog especially the Wednesday challenges. It makes me think about a number of things I've read, gives me the opportunity to write about them and learn about other authors and books to read in the future.

This weeks is my favorite non-fiction books.

Future Shock and Third Wave by Alvin Toffler. In the movie 9 to 5, most of the changes to the work places implemented come from the Third Wave.

Death of a President by William Manchester. I was ten when Kennedy was assassinated. I started reading this book on the tenth anniversary. It had a profound impact on me.

Strategy by H. D. Liddell-Hart

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Face of Battle, The First World War, A History of Warfare, Fields of Battle by John Keegan

I taught history for 27 years. World History fascinates me the most.

A number of plays, books and movies have come from this 4 box set:
The Conquering Family, The Magnificent Century, The Three Edwards and the Last of the Plantagenets by Thomas B. Costain

History books by Isaac Asimov: These are the most detailed, yet easy to read history books you'll ever find. Alas they were sold to libraries and not the general public and are scarce as hens teeth today.
The Greeks a Glorious Adventure, The Roman Republic, The Roman Empire, The Egyptians, The Near East,  The Dark Ages,  The Shaping of France, The Shaping of England 

Biographies:
Elizabeth The Great by Elizabeth Jenkins
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley

In theology: Eschatology or the study of end times.
I am not looking forward to the Rapture and don't believe in a literal thousand year reign of Christ on this Earth. I was before I read the following books.

Worthy is the Lamb by Ray Summers. This book has two parts. The first explains apocalyptic literature from books like Daniel, Ezekiel in the Bible and apocryphal books like Enoch. The second part is a detailed interpretation of Revelation. This book lays out the amillennial interpretation of eschatology. It's basis is that Revelation was written to people living two thousand years in the past and had to mean something to them. To interpret it properly you have to understand the context in which it was written

Victorious Eschatology by Harold R. Eberle and Martin Trench. These writers don't refer to their interpretation as Amillenial, but as Preterist and Partial Preterist, but they're pretty close.

Books to movies

Today's challenge by Lydia is: What books would you like to see turned into a movie or series.

1. The Dragon Riders series of books by Anne McCaffery. There are books with dragons and books about the harpers who have fire lizards as pets.

2. The Casca the Eternal Mercenary series of books, now at 49 and counting. TV series on History Channel or Sci Fi could do a book every three of four episodes.

3. The First Man in Rome series, by Colleen McCullagh. The history channel, or BBC could do a cheap daily soap opera like I Claudius. The series runs from the rise of Marius to the ascension of Octavian after the deaths of Anthony and Cleopatra. This could run for decades.

4. The Source by James Michener. It's a series of short stories held together by the discovery of artifacts by archaeologists. Each short story could be an episode that would cover two or three seasons on the Networks or four to five on the shorter series of cable channels.

Dennis Carstens

I've discovered a new legal mystery author. Dennis Carstens. I downloaded a six box set of his stories from Amazon Unlimited. When I was done with them I downloaded his remaining 3 books. It took some time to get through them all. I don't want to review all nine and I doubt if you would try to read them. I'll sum up his books.

Mark Kadella the attorney/protagonist is a struggling one shingle lawyer. His main point is that most attorney's have a hard time paying the rent, employee salaries, and the cost of covering the costs of providing a service to clients when some of them don't pay. The setting for these books is Minneapolis/Saint Paul.

I have an affinity with the first few of these books. After retiring from teaching I worked for general council attorney. He handles civil cases, divorces, writes wills, and on a rare occasion criminal defense. I know how much he struggles to keep his practice profitable. Some months and years are good and some the well runs dry. 

The first book Carstens mentions an IRS case that he includes, but it was a personal one and real. The rest are fiction. This case is fascinating reading.
Mark Kadella in the rest of the books has defendants running the gamut from serial killers to a cop tried for murder shooting a suspect, a judge accused of murdering his wife, to a soldier charged with treason. Some of the cases he wins and some he loses. This is not a Perry Mason type of legal mystery series of stories. Each book has a wicked twist at the climax.

The bad guys include a Russian mob boss, The President of the USA and first lady, naturally a journalist who withholds evidence, a drug kingpin a couple are his clients.


The cast of characters include an retired police detective now a PI, a gorgeous PI who used to be a cop until she posed for Playboy, a judge Kadella is a friend with benefits, a beautiful TV reporter that becomes a friend that he gives exclusives. Then there is the wealthiest woman in Minnesota and after Kadella defends the man set up for killing her son and reveals the real killer, then becomes a source of money for other cases. Lastly there is a sociopathic hit man that is used a number of times by the bad guys.

All of the stories are easy to read, there are running lawyer jokes throughout and good natured kidding and flirtation. Sometimes things turn serious. In one story Kadella is run down and nearly killed. the female PI is attacked in her apartment, but she picks the guy up and throws him out of three story window, she also gets shot, but survives.

One of the stories really bothered me at the beginning. A single teenage mother does something really stupid. She is arrested and tried for killing her child. She didn't. The media crucifies her. When I got through the opening and got to the media feeding frenzy it became a really good story.

My biggest problem with most of the stories is the sugar momma paying the bills. I'm sure most attorneys would love to have someone like that, but it don't happen in real life. As Carstens constantly reminds his readers that the average attorney barely makes a living this becomes too convenient. I liked the earlier books where he is worried about if the check will clear. Maybe Carstens thought that would get tedious and adds the sugar momma to keep the story flowing.

What I learned

Today's question from Lydia Schoch: Lessons I learned from a book character.
The book is Friendly Persuasion by Jessamine West. William Wyler made it into about the best movie ever made. I posted a review of the movie here.
 I learned a lot from a number of characters in the story.

1. The entire Birdwell family taught me that those of deep faith are human and fail to uphold their beliefs. They realize their failing, feel shame, guilt, forgive each other and then go on learning from their mistake.
Acceptance of what is to come. When told that Rebel raiders are coming Eliza says, "If they come they come, like fire or flood."
2. Jess Birdwell taught me that self doubt is vital in understanding the future. He taught me to accept all those around me, even those who condemn or judge unfairly.
3. Eliza Birdwell taught me that there comes a time when force or violence in necessary if there is no other option. When her pet goose is threatened and there was no way to keep a man from ringing it's neck she picks up broom and clobbers him over the head to stop him. Violence should be only a last resort and then to get the other person's attention.
4. Friend Purdy made me realize that of all the characters in the story he is the one most like me, to my shame. He's self-righteous, judgmental, a braggart, and hypocrite. A character named Sam Jordan summed it up when he says to him: "Whatever's right for Purdy and to be right for everyone else." I have the tendency to think those who agree with me are right and those who don't are stupid.

Books I liked that became movies or tv shows.

Lydia Schoch has a Wednesday challenge on her blog. I've only recently begun blogging with her becoming acquainted with from Berthold Gambrel.
The Wednesday challenge this week is which books we loved have been turned into movies or TV Series. Here goes:
The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye.
Great book. I've read the poor paper back book I got at a book exchange store in town more times than I can count. Recently bought the e-book as my eyesight works better today when I can control the font size.

 I told the story to my 8th grade literature class (I did not read stories. At that age you can't take your eyes off the students for a second or things start flying.) In my novel Human Sacrifices, Jan, my protagonist reads this story to her students too, and catches hell from the parents and administrators.
It was made into a min-series. I didn't watch it when it came out and rented the video. The first half of the book on video was done only in flash backs so I don't know if on the original series they did the story of Ash as a child growing up as a playmate for the crown prince. The video only covered the second half of the book as Ashton Pelham-Martin comes back to India from England. They messed it up terribly. Ben Cross and Amy Irving play Ash and Anjuli, which wasn't a problem, but they got the story out of order. Ash goes off to Afghanistan and fights surviving the massacre of the regiment because he can blend in with the inhabitants, then he escorts Anjuli to be married. Bass Ackwards. It made no sense and put the climax of the story in the beginning instead of the end. Stupid stupid stupid.
I first read the story in the early 80's. When Dumb King George II decided to invade Afghanistan in 2002. I knew from reading this book that it would be the single biggest mistake in American History. I think that the fact we have soldiers stationed there who were in diapers when we invaded the grave yard of empires it's proven my assessment.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.
My 7th grade literature teacher, Mrs. Mohica, read this over a nine week period. The summer between 8th and 9th grade I read the Lord of the Rings.
Peter Jackson did a superlative job with all three books. He stayed as true to the books as a visual medium would allow. He cut out Tom Bombadil, but he can be forgiven for that. One complaint, when Frodo tries to offer the Nazgul the ring at the battle with Faramir before going into Mordor is senseless. Sauron would know where the ring is and attacked to reclaim it. Third book not needed.

The Hobbit started off well.  stuck to Jackson the story, but then just had to turn a short book into three movies. Staying with the book would make basically a movie and a half. He could have stretched it to two movies and it would have OK, but the fight with Smog in the mountain where they cover him with molten gold was just plain ridiculous. It made no sense for Smog to go after the men of Lake Town when those trying to steal his treasure were in the mountain. The extended fight scene between Thoren and Ork king was merely gratuitous.

I Robot by Isaac Asimov.
I read I Robot in 9th grade. It's an anthology of short stories giving the evolution of robotics. Asimov created a whole universe based on the 4 laws of robotics in a series of books. None of them resemble the movie with Will Smith. It was an okay movie. They made a movie based on Asimov's masterpiece short story Nightfall, and it was so god awful I turned it off and almost burned the video tape before returning to the Blockbuster.

A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison.
This was a short story about an after the nuclear war apocalypse where dogs and humans were telepathically linked. The movie starring a young Don Johnson stayed fairly true to the story. What was left out of the movie was Ellison's punch line. In the story it ends with the question "Did I find love," The answer is, "Yeah, a boy loves his dog."

Ellison also had a short story entitled: Brillo. It's about the first robotic police officer. Brillo stood for metal fuzz. It's a sixties slang thing. A number of TV shows and movies have been made on this theme. Most notable is the Robo Cop movies. Ellison was pissed off that he wasn't give credit for inventing the genre.

Balloons over my house

My house is downwind from the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Park. On clear mornings over the years the various dogs have awakened us barking at one or more of them flying over or near us. The burners make a distinctive noise that seems to set dogs off.

There's an empty mesa behind us and the balloons will either land and exchange passengers or deflate. These are commercial flights and business is good. The gondolas can hold anywhere from five or ten people.

People come from all over the world to see the balloons. I only have to got out my back door and point my camera. I don't do that much anymore as its mostly the same balloons and it gets repetative.

I worked at an office close to the balloon park and during the Fiesta could walk out and take pictures of a sky full of them.

This was the Zebra special shape directly overhead.

Somehow after over forty years of balloons flying over Albuquerque skies, the first one I saw was while I was in high school back in the early 70's. Seeing them never gets old.

Mark Dawson: Author

Kindle Unlimited is great for retired old farts like me with little to do but read. Of course I read prodigiously before I became a retired old fart, but it was with real books not electronic ones. My eyes can't handle the miniscule print of most books today.
That was a preamble for my latest author find. Mark Dawson.
In the past two months I've read 21 of his books.This guy writes like crazy. It is non-stop action from page one to the heart pounding climax at the end.  The first 14 are his John Milton series. It's a simple premise. John Milton is Number 1 in Group 15. A governmental hit squad for MI6. He gets burned

out after killing over a hundred people. The problem is that this isn't a job he can retire from. He knows too much.
What prompted this attack of conscience is his alcoholism. The way he chose to forget all those he killed was by drinking it away. He starts going AA meetings. Something that Group 15 frowns upon as he could divulge state secrets. The most important part of the twelve steps in number 9. Restitution. He can't do much for all those he's killed, but his form of restitution is to help those in need around him. A kind of one man A-Team. In the first book he tries to help a single mother and her teenage son living in a project dominated by a gang. It doesn't turn out well as Group 15 sends out someone to eliminate him and innocents get caught in the crossfire.
The first few books have him being chased by Group 15 until he fights back and eliminated the paranoid head of the agency known as Control.
This leads me to the next seven books. A former Number 1, Beatrix Rose went into hiding from Control when Milton just joined the team. Control Killed her husband and kidnapped her daughter. She hid and didn't seek retribution for the safety of her child. When Milton decides to go after Control he teams up with her and they get Control to flee and get Group 15 under better management.
Beatrix gets her daughter back, but she's dying of cancer and doesn't have long to teach her how to survive without her.

 This leads to a three book set of Rose hunting down the five agents that murdered her husband and kidnapped her daughter. At the same time doing intensive training for her daughter to defend herself from those wanting to use her for revenge. Beatrix is aided in this by the new Control Alexander Pope.


This is followed by a four book set, so far, on Isabella Rose after her mother dies. Alexander Pope is fired from Group 15 and Group 15 is disbanded. Pope enlists the aid of Isabella to infiltrate a private school to befriend the son of a man he suspects is supplying money to ISIS. And the stories keep coming.

I just found out that there are three Beatrix Rose novels out set during the time while she was hiding out in Hong Kong. Now I've got three more of his books to read. Mouth is drooling in anticipation.