Uncategorized

Stranger thoughts

1 Comment

I’m taking a vacation week this week. It wasn’t supposed to be a stay-cation, but it turned out that way. I had planned (along with the other Vikings) on being at the Tall Ships Festival in Duluth, as part of the penumbra surrounding the visit of the Draken Harald Fairhair replica Viking ship. But the Norns had other plans. So I’m hanging around the house, catching up with maintenance stuff, working (in a preliminary way) on my next novel, reading, and watching Stranger Things on Netflix.

I was reluctant to try Stranger Things. It’s basically horror, a genre that does not entertain me (I was a traumatized child. There’s no thrill for me in fear). But descriptions made it sound interesting. I gave it a shot. So far, so good. There are plot weaknesses, but the characters are good and the writers keep it interesting.

It got me thinking about the whole phenomenon of the Evil Government Conspiracy in fiction and entertainment. It seems to me strange that so many Hollywood productions, created by confirmed liberals who theoretically love government, are based on the idea that the government is secretly running massive projects aimed at enslaving us all and destroying the very fabric of the universe, unleashing unspeakable horrors. Offhand, you’d think that people who believe government can never be too big or too powerful would be incapable of imagining such a thing.

Part of it might be an impoverishment of the imagination. The liberal writer looks for some great force that might be capable of doing really cosmic evil. And the only great force he/she can imagine is the government, because he/she believes in nothing higher.

But perhaps it’s also a question of comfort. The liberal writer imagines a huge government conspiracy because he/she considers the very idea fantasy. Everyone knows the government is good, so an evil government is pure fantasy. Willing suspension of disbelief. There’s no existential dread for them in the mix.

I, on the other hand, consider big government a very real threat in the world. For that reason such a conspiracy is threatening to me. I prefer not to think about it. And so I avoid such stories most of the time.

These are preliminary thoughts. And probably wrong in large part.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Conflict of Interest,’ by Scott Pratt

Leave a comment

Conflict of Interest

Another Joe Dillard legal thriller from Scott Pratt. I’m going through them pretty fast, and growing fond of the regular cast of characters. This one, I thought, was the best I’d read so far.

In Conflict of Interest, Joe (who is back in private practice) is retained as an attorney by a couple whose young daughter has been kidnapped. They tell him the police have been treating them as suspects in the crime, and they want someone to look after their interests. Joe explains that working for both of them could cause an eventual conflict of interest for him, but they assure him they’re in this together and it won’t be a problem. Little do they know.

Joe ends up acting as the bag man, carrying the ransom money (raised by the mother’s wealthy father) to the drop site. A plan by the grandfather’s security people to catch the kidnappers fails, and Joe comes under suspicion. But the greatest suspicion falls on the father, who is arrested, and Joe gets thrown off the case. But he has a passion for the truth, and he goes after the kidnappers himself. Joe is not a man to underestimate.

Conflict of Interest is an excellent entry in a great series. I particularly liked that this one spent a little less time on derring-do than the previous book, and concentrated more on legal maneuvers and relationships. Again, Joe’s wife’s battle with cancer forms one of the subplots.

Recommended. Cautions for language and adult themes.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Reasonable Fear,’ by Scott Pratt

Leave a comment

Reasonable Fear

I’m still reading Scott Pratt’s Joe Dillard books, and so far he hasn’t hit me with the ideological pies in the face I feared at the beginning. I’m finding the books highly enjoyable, though this one gave me moments of genuine distress.

In Reasonable Fear, Joe Dillard, District Attorney General in northeastern Tennessee, takes an interest in the discovery of the bodies of three young women, found drowned in a lake. Evidence points to a real estate tycoon, who turns out to be much more than that. The man is a drug smuggler, closely tied to the Colombian cartels. He feels himself invulnerable, because if someone displeases him he can call on a notorious, merciless assassin to solve his problem. Right now his problem is Joe Dillard. Unless Dillard can come up with a way to stop him, he and his family, already facing cancer, alcoholism, and an unplanned pregnancy, face a horrible fate.

Reasonable Fear was fast and gripping. I enjoyed it. Cautions for the usual. Not for the faint of heart.

Uncategorized

Friday Fight: Carrying a Long Sword

2 Comments

Did warriors ever carry their swords on their backs, like we see in the movies? No. So how did they carry them, particularly long swords? I’m told Claymores were fifty-five inches long on average. Could any man strap something of that length on their waist?

Bookselling

To Work at the Strand

Leave a comment

You have to complete a literary quiz. New York City’s Strand Book Store wants their employees to know something about books, so they ask job applicants who out of ten names wrote Infinite Jest or The Sound and the Fury.

Fred Bass, who with his daughter, Nancy Bass Wyden, owns the Strand, called the quiz “a very good way to find good employees,” regardless of their duties.

“Without good people,” Mr. Bass said, “you don’t have anything going.”

See if you have what it takes.

Uncategorized

Road day

Leave a comment

I spent the day mostly on the road, to and from a meeting of the Georg Sverdrup Society Board in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. James Lileks would have taken Highway 10 and commented on the quaint charms of small towns along the way. I took Highway 94, so I have very little to tell you.

So here’s an article about Viking horses, featuring the Icelandic horses I got acquainted with this spring.

Most likely the first gaited horses appeared in medieval England and were then transported to Iceland by the Vikings. Horses have existed in Iceland since 870 BC. In contrast, no European (Scandinavia included) or Asian horse of the same period carrying the mutation for the alternative gaits was found.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Injustice for All,’ by Scott Pratt

Leave a comment

Injustice for all

I’m powering my way through Scott Pratt’s Joe Dillard series of legal thrillers. Book number 3, Injustice for All, is exactly what the title advertises. The world is full of injustices, and Joe, now District Attorney General in his corner of northeastern Tennessee, is doing everything he can to try to protect a few of the innocent.

There’s a man on death row, a former client of Joe’s, who’s scheduled for execution soon. New DNA evidence could free him, but Joe can’t get a judge to look at it.

There’s one of Joe’s oldest friends, a fellow lawyer, who angers a petty and narcissistic judge. Soon he finds himself with his license suspended and headed for jail. And that’s just the beginning of his troubles.

There’s a lovely young woman, liked by everyone, who hides secrets of past victimhood. More victimhood lies in store for her.

It’s a tribute to author Pratt’s skill as a novelist that a story with this much tragedy and unfairness in it isn’t a complete downer. But he manages it. I’m impressed.

Recommended. Cautions for the things you’d expect. It can get pretty intense.

Fiction, Reviews

‘In Good Faith,’ by Scott Pratt

Leave a comment

In Good Faith

This is the second novel in Scott Pratt’s Joe Dillard series. In In Good Faith, Tennessee lawyer Joe Dillard, disillusioned with criminal defense law, joins the district attorney’s office. Right out of the chute, he draws a horrific crime – the murder of a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses at a rest stop. Soon after that a retired high school principal and his wife are murdered. All the killings include a signature mark – a shooting or stabbing wound to the right eye.

This book skirts the edges of supernatural horror – the concepts of mental telepathy and telekinesis are part of the story and taken seriously. At the center of the crimes is a beautiful young black witch. And as an ally against her power, Joe discovers a psychically gifted young woman who has a strange link to the witch.

The question of religion is particularly strong in this book. Joe’s troubled sister is living with a “Christian” man, a pillar of the church, who turns out to be a violent addict (hint to all women thinking of getting involved with a “Christian” man. If he wants to shack up, he’s a hypocrite). “Black” and “white” witchcraft are central to the story, which is problematic for the Christian reader. Joe, a lifelong atheist, has a breakthrough of some kind of faith, but it’s not clear exactly what he believes in.

But still, a harder line could have been taken against Christianity if that were the author’s purpose, so I can’t criticize the book much on that score.

In Good Faith was exciting and well written, and I cared about the characters. Recommended, with cautions about the supernatural stuff. Also, language and adult themes.

Fiction

Shadows in Netflix’s Stranger Things

1 Comment

Netflix has a winner in its new original Stranger Things, an eight-hour sci-fi/horror show with Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, and Millie Bobby Brown. I’d like to list all of actors, because everyone was fantastic. I want to talk about it here, but I can’t avoid spoilers.

For lovers of Stranger Things (no Spoilers) – Credit to u/pyrobob4


Yes, there’s a bit of an E.T. vibe because we have boys on bikes and bad government agents, agents so bad the public affairs guy at the U.S. Dept. of Energy felt compelled to say, “Whoa! I like Stranger Things like all you guys. It’s a great show, but we do not experiment on people and hunt down monsters, okay? That’s NSA, not us. And Dr. Brenner doesn’t work with us anymore.”

You could say Eggos replace Reese’s Pieces, but the Duffer Brothers aren’t trying to remake E.T. They’re telling a good paranormal story. (By the way, E.T. could have been munching M&Ms, but someone at Mars said, “We know for a fact aliens do not like M&Ms, so the premise of this movie is wildly unrealistic. Hot babes like M&Ms. Why don’t you make a movie about them?”)

When asked about the parallels between Stranger Things and other sci-fi movies, like The Goonies and Close Encounters, co-creator Matt Duffer said,

When you get into the writers’ room and you’re working on individual episodes, actually very little time is spent referencing other movies. Mostly you’re just trying to tell the story, letting the characters guide where everything’s going. Otherwise it would just be a jumble and a mess. Someone sent me that Vimeo video that had our images side-by-side with [‘70s and ‘80s movies] and some of it was purposeful and some of it was not, which was really cool. And some of it I haven’t even seen. Continue reading Shadows in Netflix’s Stranger Things →

Fiction, Reviews

‘Judgment Cometh (And That Right Soon),’ by Scott Pratt

Leave a comment

Judgment Cometh

It wasn’t until I’d finished Judgment Cometh (and That Right Soon) by Scott Pratt that I realized I’d read a previous book in this series. That was An Innocent Client, which introduced the continuing character of lawyer Joe Dillard of Tennessee. I clearly remember composing a review, but if it was ever posted, it’s disappeared altogether from the internet.

In this eighth installment, defense lawyer Joe Dillard takes the job of defending a young man accused of the murder of four judges. He was stopped for driving drunk, and a pair of coolers containing the disarticulated and frozen body parts of the latest victim were found in the back of his pickup. Joe believes the man innocent, and gets the case thrown out.

But that’s not enough for Joe. The real killer is out there, and is very bad news, so Joe starts looking for him himself. He uncovers a pair of the most monstrous murderers he’s ever encountered.

This is a compelling story, and Scott Pratt is a good author. He gives us interesting characters, good writing, and sharp dialogue. Joe’s dealings with his wife (who has been battling cancer) are presented with insight and empathy. His attitude toward religion, which comes up more than once, is hard to gauge – which is probably a good approach.

I disliked some elements of the first Joe Dillard mystery, and read no more. But I’ve picked the series up again with Book Number Two, which I’ll review soon. Scott Pratt has earned another chance with me. He’s good at what he does.

Cautions for language and intense cruelty and violence, though it isn’t overly graphic in presentation.