For the first time, all five Doctor Death pulp adventures are collected in two volumes …
He turned sadly away. The hell-pack swept over the body of the murdered man. They pawed at him, pulling his hands, his arms, his body, satiating themselves in the vitality that still remained before rigor mortis set in. The library reeked with a hellish charnel scent...
For the first time, all five Doctor Death pulp adventures are collected in two volumes …
Decided to read something a little lighter, and I'm a big fan of old pre-war pulps.
This one is a villain pulp, built around a scheming evil mastermind instead of a pulp hero. There were a bunch of these back then, all inspired by Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu stories. Few of these were particularly successful, usually only lasting a few issues.
I'm quite fond of them, and this one looks particularly over the top (in a good way).
Meet Charles™, the latest in robot butler technology. Programmed to undertake the most menial household …
In the beginning, he understood, humans had built a lot of robot soldiers. Technically there had to be some earlier beginning where someone or something built humans, and so on ad infinitum, but Uncharles felt that was of diminishing relevance and needlessly metaphysical.
Why humans had built so many robot soldiers was unclear, although the robots themselves had a variety of theories to justify their existence. Uncharles heard that human soldiers were less capable of making war than robots, or else less willing and reliable than robots. He also heard that other humans elsewhere had built robot soldiers, and the local humans had then had to build their own to avoid there being a robot soldier gap.
Nobody seemed to ask why soldiers at all. Apparently the existence of soldiers was a fundamental given in their cosmology.
Meet Charles™, the latest in robot butler technology. Programmed to undertake the most menial household …
Light satirical tale of a robot valet after the apocalypse.
4 stars
The somewhat satirical tale of Uncharles, a robot programmed as valet traveling across a collapsing, nearly post-human society, after the death of its master.
Very reminiscent of a lot of 50s and early 60s sci-fi, in that it uses bits of the apocalypse setting to satirize modern scoeity. It's pleasant, but somewhat unchallenging. Good as a lighter read.
My first Didion. Fascinating tour though a vision of a drug-soaked, nihilistic, 1970s Hollywood.
Most of it was seen through the point of view of Maria, the main protagonist, as we follow her slow decline. There are a few bits where POV switches to other characters so we see Maria through their eyes.
I expect all of the sex & drug scenes were a lot more shocking in 1970, but the cynical mood is as up-to-date as ever. Planning on checking out more of Didion's stuff.
Jacob Burckhardt was born in 1818 in Basel, Switzerland. He studied history at the University …
In 1478, when Piacenza was visited with a violent and prolonged rainfall, it was said that there would be no dry weather till a certain usurer, who had been lately buried in San Francesco, had ceased to rest in consecrated earth. As the bishop was not obliging enough to have the corpse dug up the young fellows of the town took it by force, dragged it down the streets amid frightful confusion, and at last threw it into the Po.
Jacob Burckhardt was born in 1818 in Basel, Switzerland. He studied history at the University …
One of the classic works on the Renaissance. I'm told it's quite influential, though Renaissance scholarship has advanced greatly since 1860, so a lot of this quite obsolete. Apparently a lot of the popular preconceptions about the Renaissance come from this book.
It's still well written (and well translated from the Italian).
Lanark, a modern vision of hell set in the disintegrating cities of Unthank and Glasgow, …
“Judging by your face you don’t think much of the lesson.”
“No. It’s rotten, isn’t it?”
“Is it? Have we not to master the techniques before practising them?”
“But technique and practice are the same thing! We can draw nothing well unless it interests us, and we only learn to draw it well by first drawing it badly, not by drawing what bores us stiff. Learning to draw from dead bulbs and boxes is like learning to make love with corpses.”
One student grinned and muttered that that depended on the corpses. The other said sternly, “Are you a Communist?”
There's a certain irony around reading a book like this shortly before I make a transatlantic flight. Yeah I'm vegetarian, I own an EV, and recycle etc. etc., but I also know that a single long haul trip can completely offset the carbon emissions I'd otherwise save, which doesn't even account for the inevitable flight back.
What I appreciate here is that this book doesn't browbeat you into being a Luddite through guilt tripping (though it does mention and discuss other individuals and organizations that try to). Instead, it does acknowledge the necessities and positives of air travel and how it's made the world more connected and accessible. But that doesn't mean it's not without cost.
So is anyone doing anything about it? Turns out, yes, but the technology isn't there yet, and barring some unforeseeable breakthrough, it might never get there on the scale needed. There's specific foci on …
There's a certain irony around reading a book like this shortly before I make a transatlantic flight. Yeah I'm vegetarian, I own an EV, and recycle etc. etc., but I also know that a single long haul trip can completely offset the carbon emissions I'd otherwise save, which doesn't even account for the inevitable flight back.
What I appreciate here is that this book doesn't browbeat you into being a Luddite through guilt tripping (though it does mention and discuss other individuals and organizations that try to). Instead, it does acknowledge the necessities and positives of air travel and how it's made the world more connected and accessible. But that doesn't mean it's not without cost.
So is anyone doing anything about it? Turns out, yes, but the technology isn't there yet, and barring some unforeseeable breakthrough, it might never get there on the scale needed. There's specific foci on SAF (sustainable air fuel), biofuels, hydrogen gas, and electric battery-powered aircraft, as well as which firms and individuals are putting the most work into realizing these alternatives, and their unique shortcomings. And it turns out there are a lot of shortcomings, and it doesn't seem like anything is going to change about it anytime soon.
Are we doomed? Probably, especially considering the post-COVID projections for "revenge travel" (this book came out in 2022, and it seems that has played out exactly as forecast), as well as a growing middle-class in China which is supercharging a domestic air industry to rival those in "mature" economies. But this book tries not to make it seem like a downer and highlights that some people are trying to do something about it.
Then the wooden image of the Baby Jesus bowed down, hugged the little boy, and spoke: 'You don't need to weep any more, little child, for in three days you shall eat together with me!'
