The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

A MIDWEEK BOOK POST APPEARS!

Posted on | June 16, 2022 | Comments Off on A MIDWEEK BOOK POST APPEARS!

— by Wombat-socho

Anya about to punch a kid out.

Usually I do these on the weekend, because the workdays are usually full of other things that need doing, but Hans Schantz is hosting a humongous book sale on behalf of writers who are actually on our side in the Culture War. So stop giving money to people who hate you and instead support authors who are doing something about the culture. Every book listed is 99 cents or free, and there are some big names involved like Larry Correia, David Drake, Tom Kratman, David Weber, and John C. Wright. Also some newer talents like yours truly, whose short story collection The Anti-Dog Tank & Other Stories can be found in the New Additions section of the sale for just 99 cents.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

Well, after seeing all kinds of memes about the Forger family, I went and picked up the first three volumes of Spy x Family, and it was well worth it. Loid Forger is a superspy for what’s obviously West Germany, his new bride Yor is an elite assassin, and his daughter Anya can read minds. Of course, Loid doesn’t realize that Anya can read minds or that Yor is an assassin; Yor doesn’t realize she’s married a super spy or that her daughter is psychic – but Anya, of course, knows EVERYTHING. Fortunately, she’s fascinated by spy stuff (her favorite TV show is about spies) and terrified that she’ll be dumped back into the orphanage Loid found her in, so she’s doing her best to make Mom & Dad happy. This is a hilarious blend of family comedy and espionage novel, as if Lucy & Ricky Ricardo were playing he lead roles in the James Bond movies. Highly recommended.  

I’ve been fascinated by the story of the Czech Legion ever since I was a young wargamer and they made a destructive appearance in SPI’s Russian Civil War, but it was hard to find any English-language books about them, as first the Nazis and then the Soviets did their best to memory-hole the history of the men who fought their way literally from one end of Russia to the other just so they could go home – with a brief stop in France to fight the Hun, of course. So when Dreams of a Great Small Nation came out, featuring a lot of source materials never seen before in English, I jumped right on it. Unfortunately, the book spends a lot more time on the politics of Czechoslovakia’s creation and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian & Russian Empires than it does on the actual Anabasis of the Czechs from European Russia through Siberia to Vladivostok, and I lost interest. If unlike me, you’re more interested in the political than the military history, this book may be for you; as for me, I think I’ll just go reread David Drake’s The Forlorn Hope. 

Way back in the day when I was discovering science fiction and reading everything I could get my hands on, I came across Olaf Stapledon’s Last & First Men. This was a thick tome recounting the history of mankind into the far future, and directly inspired many British SF writers as well as Freeman Dyson, who says that Dyson spheres should be more properly referred to as Stapledon spheres…anyway, John C. Wright has gone Stapledon not just one better, but far beyond that with the series that begins with Count To A Trillion. The Eschaton Sequence follows the adventures of Menelaus Montrose, gunslinger & mathematical genius who plays a stupendously outsized role in the future of humanity, pitting himself against his archrival Ximen “Blackie” Del Azarchel and his fellow Hermeticists in an aeons-long battle to determine whether humanity will be free, exist as slaves to the aliens from the Hyades, or be exterminated. I started reading this series years ago when I lived in Virginia, and only recently had the time to follow up on the last three books of the series, which comes to a final, cataclysmic battle between Montrose and Del Azarchel for not just the fate of humanity, but the universe itself in Count To Infinity. Highly recommended.

Remember, your purchases through the Amazon links here and your contributions to my tip jar help me afford the purchase of new (and occasionally used) books to include in these posts. Thanks in advance!

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