I’ve always had a fondness for tales of early Hollywood. It was an amazing time and place in history, in a sense the culmination (as author Loren D. Estleman himself argues in this novel) of the American Wild West. There, in the dusty hills of sleepy Los Angeles, a dysfunctional aggregation of eastern Jewish businessmen, stage actors, vaudevillians, European artistes, and ordinary cowboys improvised like mad to create an art form that had never existed before, and so had no rules or traditions to which to appeal.

Loren D. Estleman is best known as a mystery novelist, but he also writes good westerns, and The Rocky Mountain Moving Picture Association contains elements of both genres. It’s a fun book, and I enjoyed it quite a lot.

Presented in the form of three long flashbacks, interspersed with vignettes describing the main character’s (and Hollywood’s) later history, TRMMPA tells the story of Dmitri Pulski, who when we meet him in 1913 is working for his father, an ice merchant with an operation in northern California. His father, who has received a huge order for ice from the titular Rocky Mountain Moving Picture Association, has grave doubts about the likely solvency of such an enterprise (“Moving pictures are a fad,” he explains, “but people will always need ice.”). So he sends Dmitri south, along with a Russian immigrant co-worker, in a Model T to investigate. Continue reading The Rocky Mountain Moving Picture Association, by Loren D. Estleman →

Hannah Notess and Jeffrey Overstreet watched The Hunger Games and talked about it as a film, an adaptation of a novel, and a story in itself. They say it’s fast-paced, touches lightly on disturbing questions, and doesn’t give you time to think about them.

Notess states, “This is one of the biggest questions the book asks: What does it mean for such a violent spectacle to be broadcast in great detail, as entertainment?”

Overstreet says, “The Hunger Games concludes in a very interesting place, one that seems carefully contrived so that those who want a “happy ending” can see one, and those interested in darker possibilities can look closer and see those too.”

Notess also asks how much, if any, violence does God allow his followers to commit in order to survive. I think the answer in the context of The Hunger Games is different than a real world context. Christians will reasonably and honorable die, if necessary, when placed into a totally unjust, deadly entertainment venue. But if the question is whether to use force to defend your village from the viking hoard or to join the army to destroy the raiders from across the sea, then Christians may reasonably and honorably fight and kill. Perhaps Christians in the world of The Hunger Games should storm the Capitol by every possible means to stop the evil madness. What do you think?