Theodicius
Good. Evil. Bratwurst.

Within sight of my desk is an abundance of printed matter. Including magazines, a conservative estimate is a bit over 3000 items. Limit the count solely to books, and we’re still talking around 2000. There are floor-to-ceiling shelves on two walls, with three other free-standing shelves, plus a double-decker closet shelf. (I have a button with the motto: “Of course you’re out of book space. Everyone’s out of book space. If you’re not out of book space, you’re probably not worth knowing.”) Since the question “Why so many?” is heard often from non-book people, I thought I’d set out some reasons.

1) They serve notice on visitors. This is probably the least important reason to have books, but it’s still useful. If you walk into someone’s home and see books, check out the authors and subjects. They tell you something immeditely about the owner. If you see lots of paperbacks, the owner likes to read for entertainment. If the books are hardcover bestsellers, the person is impatient. If you see hardcovers laying on their sides on shelves (more than just the one or two the owner might currently be reading) rather than standing up, You know the owner is Faking It. No one who cares about books would do that. In addition, if those piles are artfully arranged on multiple shelves, the owner is anathema, a believer in Book As Art Object, and you should make a polite excuse and leave as quickly as possible, never to return. True Believers in the printed word do not associate with that ilk.

2) They’re cheap travel. Histories and biographies can take you to places and times you will never be able to visit, for less than the cheapest airfare, and you don’t even need to pack.

3) Unlike real people, many of the characters you meet in books are intentionally likable. This means you’ll associate with a much better class of people in a book than outside of one. These people can also show you how to behave yourself; while your friends can only serve as Bad Examples, the characters in good books can serve as positive examples.

4) They stretch your mind. Most people associate with like-minded folks. This is human nature, to want to be around more of Our Kind. But a book is a great way to explore a different point of view, to see life through different eyes. You can invite an author into your house to preach, pontificate, or simply propose and you will not incur any further social obligations. You can stretch your mind by trying to wrap it around new ideas. To quote Oliver Wendell Holmes, “A mind, once stretched by a new idea, never quite returns to its former shape.” Books are dangerous that way, good ones will change you. But change is good. No human is ever 100% accurate; everyone (including yours truly) is wrong about something; the only way to reduce that amount is to be exposed to other views.

5) Books are “off-line storage.” They can serve are references for both data and opinion. The Internet is gaining on the Library as repository for fact (once you acquire the skill of sorting out the crap; too many people still believe that if it’s on the ‘net, it must be true) but it still lags as far as opinion goes. If I want to know what Alexander Alekhine thinks of 3 Nc3 in the Slav (chess reference, if you don’t know chess, just pass on by) I won’t find it on the net. But I will find a nice article on it written by him in a book. And if the rodent-worshippers down by Orlando have their way, that will continue to be the only way for me to find anyone’s opinion published after 1932. And that’s important, because while access to data is essential for forming a good opinion, it’s also essential to see what other intelligent people have made of that data. “If I see farther than those who came before me,” said Isaac Newton, “it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.” Only a fool would reject out of hand the chance to learn from the great minds which have already tackled an issue. The previous thinkers can be wrong about the data, unquestionably; keep that firmly in mind. But even if wrong, their views will help strengthen your own, “just as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17).

Yes, I have a lot of books. I’ve sold to used book stores over twice as many books as I have, and the turnover continues. I have a few hundred right now in a box waiting for the next trip to the used book store. (In addition to “normal” turnover, I just cleared off 7+ linear feet of shelf space this morning, to make room for other books stacked around the room). I will continue to have a lot of books (as long as you define “a lot” as “more than 1000″) for the forseeable future. Some I need for reference, some are part of specific collections (such as chess biographies, or Sherlock Holmes) and some are, quite simply, friends.

Excuse me. I have to go. With a few more volumes I “could just fill that gap on the second shelf. It looks untidy.”

(That final quote is offered in honor of a departed friend, Al Kovacic. I was holding it together at his funeral rather well, until I encountered the Complete Sherlock Holmes on the memorial table. The quote is, of course, from “The Adventure of the Empty House,” but, unlike Mr Holmes, Al will not return from his particular Reichenbach. Still, whenever I return to Baker Street of 1895, I’ll feel his presence there, and that’s something.)

OK, so I gave in and tried it One More Time. I succumbed to the temptation, after a little encouragement from Saint Hellen herself.

Desk surface 60% clear which, given a 17″ monitor, two (non-tower) computers, a printer/scanner, and a day planner is about all I figure is realistic to expect. Floor surface 50%+, and only one step to my desk now requirs any sort of extra care.

Summary: Progress is slow but visible. But then this is early days, and the “hump” has not yet arrived. Still I am optimistic.

I go now to dance with the White Death. 5-7 inches on the eve of my tournament. I love Wisconsin!

Brain Sludge, by the infrangible Bill Roper. And he looks like such a nice man, too! (I’d point to the lyrics, but Bill hasn’t posted them anywhere.)

And let me give a shout to Filk Radio while I’m at it. Especially made for those who like their music on wry. (If you have iTunes, you don’t need their dedicated player, but you won’t get the song titles if you don’t.)

by Jonathan Kellerman. This is the second Alex Delaware mystery I’ve read (the first being The Web.

Kellerman’s books aren’t really “whodunits.” as they don’t play by those rules. They’re more “novels of suspense.” There’s no real puzzle to solve, as you can generally keep up with the sleuth’s knowledge through the entire book, and you know who did it as soon as the sleuth does. But it’s a good ride.

Kellerman keeps you wondering, though I admit my attention did flag a couple of times during the ride. There’s always enough suspense to keep the pages turning. You get a lok inside the world of psychologists (”pop” and otherwise) with agood cynical look at both TV types and activists. Along with a quite plausible scheme for bilking the California government for a 6-7 figure income. (Given the state of California’s finances, that in itself, is probably not very hard.)

Another Doc Savage (I got lucky). Men in silver outfits are attacking all over Manhattan. What’s going on? Doc, Monk, and Ham track down what’s happening, with a brief cameo from his cousin, Pat. Among the gadgets that makes its appearance here is the Helldiver, Doc’s small sub.

Still getting comment spam thrown at me. Even though Google has kicked the legs out from under the business model for them. (Hat tip Dave Winer)

OK, the dirty secret is out, now. I collect the Man Of Bronze. Yep, I have 5+ feet of books about Doc Savage, plus some of the original pulps.

Partly it’s because I enjoy a world where Right and Wrong are a little more clearly dilineated than today’s world. In Doc’s stories, the Bad Guys are, well, bad, and easily recognizable as such. And the same goes for the Good Guys. And, more importantly, the Good Guys win. I find that point of view refreshing in a society that increasingly tries to claim that no one is bad, except, perhaps, those who win.

In Spook Legion, Doc has to deal with a plot revolving around invisible men (hence the “spook” of the title). But the plot isn’t really important, now, is it? What is imortant is that Doc, aided only by his own intellect (and, of course, the ominpresent Monk and Ham) succeeds.

Doc is the human we’d all like to be. He has no weight problems, no energy deficiencies. He has stuck to a serious training regiment that has resulted in a superb physical specimen (while his height and his bronze coloring seem to be genetically defined, the rest was up to him) and along the way he trained his mind, putting it through an “exercise program” no less rigorous.

But I think the real reason I’m attracted to Doc is much more primal than all that. The underlying theme in almost all the stories is how brilliant, capable people just don’t Fit In with society. They can’t, because society is composed of people who are neither brilliant nor capable. And because these people don’t fit in, they have two choices: to act against society, or to act in support of it. It’s almost Nietschean, but rather than being beyond the concepts of Good and Evil, the Doc books insist that these people must by their very thoughts and actions define, even embody, Good and Evil.

And that, my children, is what it’s all about. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life , that you and your descendants may live…”

The Cat is bemoaning conversations with someone who doesn’t believe in evolution. It’s a topic I’ve grown tired of “debating” on the net, but I’ll visit it One More Time, in the hope that perhaps I can shed some light.

A big problem, as evidenced by the comment thread, is that both sides never tire of turning the opposition into a straw man, and both keep trying to win the argument by definition. A good case in point is the description of the “anthropomorphic all-God” in the comments. It’s a misstatement of Christian positions to say God is “man-like.” Man is, in fact, God-like. (”Let us make man in our image” — KJV) Is “theomorphic” a word? The point is God is the original, man the derivative being. Characterizing God as “anthropomorphic” is a good way to antagonize your respondent.

What’s my position?

1) I find many of the suppositions made following the theory to be suspicious, to say the least. They may be true, but they don’t make sense to me, and there really isn’t way to test them. They are assertions, which make a sincere (at least most of them do) attempt to cover/explain the currently known facts. But several explanations can manage that, so without being able to test the theories, I don’t see a compelling reason to select one over another.

2) Just because I find it unlikely, I’m not going to tell you that you can’t believe it (there’s another problem in terminology — one doesn’t believe in evolution, one believes evolution; there’s no person there to believe in, after all) and forbid you telling other people about it. This attitude, alas, sets off the howler monkeys on both sides of the question.

3) Also, simply because I don’t see it as true doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. I’ve learned long ago not to limit God’s behavior by my own understanding. I don’t have His brainpower; when I know more, I’ll understand more.

Just to explain more about my point #1 above: Let’s say you know nothing at all about the world. You see a video which shows someone entering rooms in a house and turning on lights. Without being able to set up an experiment to test, you can theorize:

1) There is pressure plate under the floor which turns on the light.
2) There is a motion sensor which turns on the light.
3) The house demands you scratch it on a sensitive area and the light is its pleasure response.
4) The beings in the house have an abundance of energy and they power the lights by touching a contact plate.

(I’m sure there are other theories possible, but that’s enough, I think, to make the point.)

There isn’t an experiment we can perform that will *prove* that life on this planet emerged and developed according to the current theories (I use the plural, because there’s not complete agreement among those who accept evolution — nor is there agreement among those who do not, for that matter) this side of time travel. At best we could demonstrate that it could have happened that way, but even that hasn’t been done, yet.

We look at old bones, and we build fleshy creatures that may only vaguely resemble the actual being in question. You would, for example, have a hard time reconstructing my fleshly body from just my bones. I’ve had the same bones all my adult life, yet my height varies by 5% or more routinely, and occasionally by more. My weight has varied by 60% and more. Now imagine you’ve never seen a human and explain where they carry their body fat. They’re just guesses. Do they hold tegether, yes (for the most part) they do, but so does the future histoy of Miles Vorkosigan, does that mean he’s real? Or the Tharks? How about the Puppeteers and the Kzinti?

You see what I mean? Evolutionary theory is largely guesswork and suppositions, unproven and unprovable. (I once ran in to someone who claimed a computer simulation could prove it. Try as I might, I couldn’t get him to see it was tautaulogical: You build a simulation that runs according to the rules of evolutionary theory and behold, the result supports evolutionary theory! Yah think? Computer simulations are useful tools when we understand the problem domain; we don’t know enough about this one. The problem is when you build the solution into the test, you never can learn anything.) It’s just a case of choosing the set you find yourself comfortable living with.

by Dick Francis. I’ve always liked the way Francis has with a plot, though it has seemed in his recent books he’s gone out of his way to toss in more sex. I suppose he’s trying to be modern, but it just seems forced. I’ve never minded sex (or violence — why do those two always seem to go together?) when it’s a part of the plot or the character development. But both are off-putting when they’re just tossed in without thought or purpose. At least he only wastes a tad under a page on it in this book; as I said, he seems to be treating it as an obligatory add-on, rather than an integral part of the story. Sort of like those gratuitous scenes in an American movie that are there to give it an ‘R’ rating, showing it to be a ’serious’ movie, but which can easily be excised for sale to American broadcast television.

The theme is a variation on “You can’t go home again.” A newly-promoted member of the British Foreign Office makes some friends in the US, and accompanies them back to England, where they run into a spot of bother. Since his mother remarried and he was adopted by his stepfather, no one in the English countryside they’ve traveled to tumbles to the fact he actually grew up there (including the sister of one of his playmates). A tad difficult to swallow as he instantly recognizes some of them, but there you have it.

Beyond that little faux pas, Francis does his usual good job. We see the people both through the eyes of a child growing up there, and through the adult coming back, who realizes he doesn’t know these people as well as he’d like, and who doesn’t fit in there any more. The child draws the man into some complications (including the unnecessary sex scene mentioned above). It’s also hinted at rather strongly that he may actually be a half-brother to one of the locals, from the “wrong side of the blanket.” It’s not a cozy, and it’s not a whodunit in the strict sense, as Francis tips you off very early as to who at least one of the Bad People is. But he can’t let that go untwisted, and so deftly palms an ace, only to reveal the major player from the bad side right at the end. The final trap the hero walks into is again obvious, but the face behind it isn’t.

As usual for Francis, no loose ends are left dangling, and not only does our hero emerge from his trials victorious, he also gets the girl. Escapist? Of course. But if I wanted realism, I’d read the paper. Or one of the hundreds of biographies being published today. I get enough of reality by living, thank you very much. I need to see the Good Guy win and even get the girl from time to time; it gives me what I need in order to pick up my lance, mount my charger and Get Back In There. Highly recommended.

…Buttigieg, that is. She of the TV show neat.

As an incorrigible Mess Monster from Planet Chaos, I’ve never understood neat people. How do they do it, anyway? Anytime I’ve ever tried to get organized (from Franklin Planners, to Covey — before they merged — to 189 different books and shows) I’ve always ended up worse than before. Rather like a fad dieter, I always end up farther away from my goal instead of closer. (I write these lines in a 110 square foot office with maybe as much as 8 square feet of floor space showing — including the space under my desk. It takes two strides of about a meter — that’s in honor of Hellen, a Canadian — length each to get to my chair. Any less and I either break myself or something else. Currently the stacks on the desk top out at about 14 inches. The desk itself is 16 square feet of surface area with less than ten square inches visible.)

But Hellen gives me hope. I watch her in action (highly recommended, BTW) and unlike the rest of the organizers, I see she doesn’t come in with a pre-built solution, but actually tries to learn why the disorganization is there in the first place, and then construct a system that not only works but isn’t one that you have to fight against yourself to use.

Almost I think of giving it one last try. Thank you, Hellen.

One of the “Home Repair” mysteries from Sarah Graves. This is my first venture into this series, and I’m disappointed. I was looking for a modern series; It struck me that, aside from Dick Francis, all the mystery authors I was seriously reading and collecting were dead. There was Tom Clancy, but I gave up on Jack Ryan after he became president and solved all the Isreali/Palestinian problems, and John LeCarre didn’t seem the same after the Soviet Union fell.

I have to say, though, that I’m not sure if I’m disappointed at the book itself, or because the book didn’t come close to living up to the hype that was stuffed into the first three pages. I found little of the “tart wit”, “zingy dialogue,” etc., I was promised.

What I found instead was a fairly serviceable plot, with the only “home repair” I noticed being dumpster diving for shutters and the handy tip that you need to clamp the work in place before applying the belt sander (so much for “Diane Mott Davidson with a toolbelt insetad of recipes;” since woodworking is my hobby, perhaps there were more tips that went by without being noticed). It wasn’t hard to see the end coming, especially when the (rather obvious) dope dealer died. Still it was handled with aplomb, and I always say I don’t mind knowing where I’m going as long as the trip is fun. I did wince, however, when the murderer, who went to great pains to remove something incriminating from one of the victims, was found, some 200 pages later, to still be carrying, in a pocket, that incriminating piece of evidence.

Bottom line? Don’t go into this book expecting the greatest mystery read of all time, or even of the year. The characterization is reminiscent of James Patterson’s all-woman murder society (it strikes me as I write this that, aside from Hercule Poirot, I haven’t run into any male protagonists in quite some time, the guys are always the villains and sometimes the sidekicks) but it’s a rung or two below that in terms of execution. It’s an adequate storyline, though; not a waste of time.

Recommendation? Tentative. I’m going back to sample another book (and possibly two) from this series before I give up on it. I haven’t however, decided to start buying hardcovers of it.

As I was doing some other research, I ran across something disturbing. There’s apparently an organization at Tuskegee which has had a regular practice of putting its pledges in a hospital. According to what I found, it appears this has been ongoing for 25+ years, and the University hasn’t stopped it. It would seem the least it could do is warn incoming students that pledging to this organization could be hazardous to their health, but it hasn’t even seen fit to do this. I don’t know if it’s afraid, or what, but that seems downright irresponsible behavior. I suppose it has the legal refuge of “plausible deniability” but it seems unlikely to me that something that results in injuries to pledges with such disturbing regularity can really pass unnoticed to anyone that cares to look.

I am going to continue to dig into this particular organization. I haven’t named them because I lack complete enough information to determine if the problem is local to Tuskegee or is endemic to the national organization, but I do know of specific cases (yes, plural) where this sort of abuse has happened at Tuskegee. I know they routinely employ intimidation and threats to prevent their victims from prosecuting. I appeal to those within the reach of my keyboard; I will compile the facts and statistics and maintain your anonymity, and when the complete case is built, I will publish, in an attempt to publicly shame them into doing the right thing. And if you don’t wish to work with me on this, that’s OK. I would still urge you to talk about it openly with your friends, and especially with young people you know who might be in danger of walking in to this situation; if they’re intent to pledge, they deserve to walk into it with their eyes open, don’t they?

And if you’re a member of this group, particularly if you’re one of the ones (and there are several of you) who are also leading Bible studies in the community while endorsing this abuse, I am ashamed of you. You, especially, should know better. Jesus didn’t say, “Let the children come to me and suffer,” and you know it. I don’t see how you can sit by and watch this happening, much less condone it or even actively take part in it. You should be ashamed of yourselves; by your actions you bring shame not only on yourselves, but the whole Christian community as well.

Ultimately, the blame lies with the local organization, including the adult alumni in the area who are helping to perpetuate this abuse. (I was tempted to characterize them as “thugs” but I’m not sure if I mightn’t be insulting thugs by doing so.) I know this, and endorse this viewpoint. But I can’t help but feel the University bears some responsibility, because of the “code of silence” that it is participating in. Because I feel this way, I can no longer recommend this university to any of the youth I work with.

This is the fourth book in the “Steerswoman” series from Rosemary Kirstein. I’ve not read the entire series so I can’t comment on it in detail as a whole. (I found “The Outskirter’s Secret” and read it a few years ago, but never found the first book in the sequence, and the third, “The Lost Steersman” somehow escaped my notice. Her first two have been re-released in omnibus form from DelRey, so all are currently in print, in trade paper size if your bookstore shelves by size as well as author and genre.)

The book stands on its own. Having knowledge of What Has Gone Before can lend a little more significance to some events but such knowledge isn’t necessary for the enjoyment of the story. However, I have to note that it is less independent than the earlier book I read. She may be in the process of moving towards episodic novels in a larger story, which is unfortunate. I stopped reading James P. Hogan for this reason, and have put George R. R. Martin in abeyance until he claims to have finished the Fire and Ice saga he embarked on since being so disappointed in the lack of significant movement in Episode 2. I understand the economic impulse behind it, though, so I don’t condemn the practice out of hand.

While the sequence isn’t a single tale broken up into book-sized chunks, a la Tolkien, it’s more than a collection of tales set in a common fantasy world. It has an overarching story arc that it follows. The Steerswoman (a Steerswoman, by the way, is an itinerant collector of knowledge; she is allowed to ask any question, and she will truthfully answer any question put to her) has discovered something momentous (a geosynchronous satellite, which the people call a Guidestar, has fallen) and there is A Plot Afoot by someone which is resulting in a lot of deaths among the frontier folk (called outskirters) and maybe the entire world.

One of the reasons I’ve looked for these books is that I served on a panel at PhilCon with the author, and found she possessed one of those minds that really enjoys turning things upside down to see what they look like from angles usually unseen. I don’t know, but I rather suspect, she would enjoy those puzzles Games magazine runs from time to time where you are asked to identify an object from a very close-up photograph of a small part of it. I’ve always found that sort of mind enjoyable, even fascinating, and I wanted to see what she did with her plots.

She didn’t disappoint. It’s not difficult to see the technology behind the “magic” or “charms,” but the terminology her unsophisticated folks use for the intrusions of hi-tech into their world is more reasonable than McCaffrey’s “agenothree” (from Pern; the etymology of this term never did satisfy me).

I found the concept of the Steerswoman office to be especially intriguing. In a nutshell, they collect and store knowledge for the world. They are entitled to pry into anything, and the price for not answering them (or worse, lying to them) is to be placed under ban, in which case no Steerswoman will ever tell you anything. It presupposes, of course, that you actually care whether you learn anything from a Steerswoman. Kirstein quite evidently considers this to be a horrible punishment; my experience with humanity leads me to believe that viewpoint is a minority one for the species, but it works well in the society she has created, so it’s hardly a serious complaint. In any case, it’s a creative way to solve the age-old problem of how to get strangers to talk meaningfully to your viewpoint character and, by extension, your readers.

To return to the book in hand, our heroine has been tracking the wizard, trying to find out what he is up to, and found the place where he served his apprenticeship. Wizards have a bad rep in this society, but here she finds the tale of one who suddenly changed to a Nice Guy. The larger arc is concerned with the why and when of the change; the immediate problem is how will the steerswoman survive being discovered there by the one she is investigating.

Kirstein paints well; my enjoyment of the characters and the society almost completely obscured how dependent the plot of the book was on What Has Gone Before (which is an achievement, considering I had missed 2/3rds of The Story Thus Far). The larger arch is definitely of the “puzzle” variety, but the individual stories themselves are character-driven. Recommended.

I’ve gotten behind on writing about the books, haven’t I?

In this one Dame Agatha’s favorite avatar, Ariadne Oliver, calls Hercule Poirot to come party because she thinks something is wrong. They have their usual discussion about women’s intuition, and, sure enough, someone dies.

The story is her usual good puzzle, though definitely not prime Agatha. (Of course, once you’ve tumbled onto her tendencies, you can pick out the killer, but that’s cheating. Stick to following the clue trail.) It comes from the mid 50’s, a prolific period for her, even if the quality of the period is adversely affected by the quantity.

Party begins, famous writer Ariadne Oliver on scene to write the clues for a Murder Hunt. The Girl Guide who was playing the part of the victim in the hunt is found dead. The Lady of the House vanishes after her brother, whom she fears, arrives in his yacht.

Dame Agatha was the Queen Of The Cozies. This book, while not of the mettle that defined her greatness, is still a good puzzle.