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Monthly Archives: December 2008

December Book Round-up

31 Wednesday Dec 2008

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

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WE:  150: River Queen – Charles N. Heckelmann

CR:   151:  Criminal Minds: Finishing School – Max Allan Collins

CR:   152:  Stranger At Home – George Sanders(ghost written by Leigh Brackett)

WE:   153: Calhoon: a Rancho Bravo novel – Thorne Douglas(Ben Haas)

WE:   154: The Big Drive: a Rancho Bravo novel – Thorne Douglas(Ben Haas)

FA:    155:  The Tales of Beedle The Bard – J.K. Rowling

SF:    156: The Secret of The Martian Moons – Donald A. Wollheim

WE:   157: Killraine: a Rancho Bravo novel – Thorne Douglas(Ben Haas)

WE:   158: Night Riders: a Rancho Bravo novel – Thorne Douglas(Ben Haas)

WE:   159: The Mustang Men: a Rancho Bravo novel – Thorne Douglas(Ben Haas)

FA:    160: Myth-Fortunes – Robert Asprin & Jody Lynn Nye

WE:    161: To Tame A Land – Louis L’Amour

It was a slow year for me. Health problems and other things slowed my reading more than any year in recent memory. Of course, starting a blog in May didn’t speed things up any either.

December Movie Round-Up

31 Wednesday Dec 2008

Posted by Randy Johnson in movies

≈ 1 Comment

High Sierra(1941)

Spooks Run Wild(1941)

Casablanca(1942)

3 Amigos(1948)

Wake of The Red Witch(1948)

Rio Grande(1950)

The African Queen(1951)

3:10 To Yuma(1957)

The Tall Stranger(1957)

The Big Country(1958)

McLintock!(1963)

The Incredible Hulk(2008)

Reading Forgotten Books: To Tame A Land Louis L’Amour

30 Tuesday Dec 2008

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

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Tags

Forgotten Books, Louis L'Amour, western

TO TAME A LAND is the first L’Amour novel I’ve read in a number of years. The short story collections I’ve followed, but the last novels before this one were the four Hopalong Cassidys he wrote back in the early fifties.
I used to carry a list of titles I didn’t have in my wallet, handy for whenever I got near a bookstore. As the years went by and the sole bookstore in my little town closed(we don’t even have a used bookstore, a respectable one that is), not to mention health problems, that list kind of fell by the way. This was in the days before the internet was so readily available.
This is the story of Rye Tyler, a young boy who watched his Pap killed by Indians while trying to fix a broken wheel on their wagon. None of the train stopped to help and his Pap made him take off before the Indians got there.
Alone now, we watch the boy grow into a man, mentored by an older man on how to survive in the west.
As James Reasoner pointed out in his original post, this book has a little bit of everything, all the tropes of a good western.
Rye takes a job breaking horses for a rancher, falls in love with the daughter(though he didn’t realize it at the time), then becomes a drover, buying cattle along the way to earn money(he wants a ranch of his own).
Along the way he starts to get a reputation as a gunman, something he mightily tries to avoid. He doesn’t like killing and does so only when nothing else is possible. One thing I liked was that he wasn’t like most gunmen in westerns. Every kill preyed on him, making him wonder if he was becoming like them.
He eventually takes a job as town marshall and, at age twenty-one with his friend Mustang Roberts, tames the town’s wilder element.
And there at the end, when he braves a robbers roost of outlaws just on the possibility that that young girl, now a woman, he fell in love with was being held there against her will, I was surprised by who the head outlaw was and why he’d laid off Rye’s town.
What more can you ask?

Myth-Fortunes Robert Asprin & Jody Lynn Nye

29 Monday Dec 2008

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Jody Lynn Nye, Myth, Robert Asprin

Maybe it’s just me, but  in 2008 it seemed we lost a large number of authors, more so than normal. Many of them I was unfamiliar with or hadn’t read, but there were a few that I read frequently and will miss, just as those I didn’t know will be mourned by their fans.

Robert Asprin passed away on May 22, about a month shy of his 62nd birthday, ironically while reading a Terry Pratchett novel. The both of them did humor in fantasy and science fiction oh so well.

I met Mr. Asprin years ago at a convention in Greensboro(Stellar-Con). It must have been around 1980 as he was their promoting a novel written with George Takei(Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe), who I also met. It was after the first Star Trek film and before the second.

Well known for his humor, he had several series filled with puns. In addition to the Myth books, he had the science fiction equivalent with the Phule series.

Myth-Fortunes is one in his humorous fantasy series, the last one he and co-writer Jody Lynn Nye had finished. In an afterword, she says the series is in her hands now and to have faith.

As in all the Myth books, this is filled with all those touches he was known for, varied and wide interests, pop culture references with that unique Myth twist abound. I’m sure anyone else reading this book would pick up on ones I missed.

Skeeve The Magnificent, magician extraordinare(snicker) was from the dimension of Klah, the residents being referred to as Klahds, and Aahz, the dimensional green skinned resident of  Perv, who referred to themselves as Perv-ects, though most everyone else keeps calling them perverts.They are able to move through the demensions by their magical powers, thus the basis for the word “demon” to the unintiated.

Aahz had lost his powers because of a hundred year long spell put on him and became Skeeve’s magical teacher, Skeeve being inept at his first  chosen profession: thief. The two formed M.Y.T.H., Inc to make money. Lots of money.

AAhz gets the whole team involved in a pyramid scheme when he takes a job from a being named Samwise(whose mother read the classics), an Imp who was building a Pyramid in the dimension of Zyx. Tombs set in stones were sold to customers, inscribed with whatever deeds they wanted. The higher the level, the higher the price, up to the most expensive one on the point.

Samwise’s company seems to be having an inordinant amount of accidents, which cuts into the profits.

Aahz gets caught up in the whole thing, wanting that top stone to “immortalize” himself. As Perv-ects are notoriously tight with a gold coin, the only way he can reduce his cost is to bring in more buyers for the lower stones(hence the resemblance to pyramid schemes in our own dimension).

I liked this book as I have all before. Jody Lynn Nye has written enough with Mr. Asprin that she should have a handle on things. I look forward to many more.

NFL Week 17: WHEW!

28 Sunday Dec 2008

Posted by Randy Johnson in Sports

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Jets, Panthers

The Panthers were hard on my nerves today. They had the game well in hand and gave up three TDs in the fourth quarter to fall one point behind. Not to take anything away from the Saints. They’ve got a very good team and earned all three touchdowns.

There was just to much at stake. Atlanta had pulled ahead of Oakland and that meant if they won and the Panthers couldn’t come back, they would fall from second seed down to fifth. That meant a game next week and no home games. They were the only team in the league to win all of their home games, includng exhibitions.

Jake hooked up with Steve Smith(it looked like he jumped ten feet in the air to make the reception) for a big gain to get them in field goal range. Even then, an illegal procedure penalty kicked them back five yards. Though he’d missed one earlier in the game,  Kasay split it down the middle for the go ahead three points.

I was on the phone with my sister at the end. She didn’t want Brees to break the record(he only needed sixteen yards) for single season yardage. A long time Dolphin fan, it was Marino’s record Brees was threatening. I tried to explain that the Panthers would drop back to make sure nothing long slipped by them with only one play left. They didn’t care if he got sixteen yards as long as there wasn’t a TD along with it.

She wasn’t having any of it. Fortunately we were both satisfied as they pass was incomplete.

It’s been a long season and the Panthers are all I have left.The  Redskins were eliminated last week and the Jets, win or lose, can’t make the playoffs as the Patriots have won. All they can do is give it to New England by beating Miami.

Go Miami!

And the Lions ended with a perfect season in reverse. 0-16

Two More From Porcupine Tree

28 Sunday Dec 2008

Posted by Randy Johnson in music

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

porcupine Tree

Great band. Here’s a couple of moreclips with songs I like. First Blackest Eyes:

and then Wedding Nails:

Their albums are a mix of straight ahead rockers and a lot of experimental stuff. Really out there if you like that. I do, but here I wanted something short and punchy.

Two From Metallica

25 Thursday Dec 2008

Posted by Randy Johnson in music

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Metallica

I guess I’m still an unabashed metalhead. I’ve been listening to rock and roll since I was about twelve and still haven’t grown out of it. I’m not sure if it’s a case of arrested development or not. I don’t care.

Years ago, a young man I knew asked me my age. he did so because I was wearing a Black Sabbath tee shirt. When I told him I was thirty-three, he seemed shocked. “My dad is only three years older than you and he only listens to country music.” If that’s what he likes, fine. I like all types of music(try Mozart for example).

I started early with Metallica. I have Kill ‘Em All and Ride The Lightning on vinyl.

I have a funny story about seeing them live. I had a niece that wanted to see them. In high school, she’d been the “safe” music listener. Whatever was popular with the other kids, it was OK to listen. After high school, she became a little more adventuresome in her tastes. Tom Petty. Nine Inch Nails. And Metallica!

She asked me to if I’d take her when her fiance refused to go listen to that “devil” music. I agreed and it was a revelation for her. As a kid, she’d seen New Kids on The Block and Neil Diamond with her mother.

This was her first “real” rock music concert. She enjoyed the show, but had never seen or heard the kind of antics that went on at a metal show(specifically the profanity and the mosh pit). No, we didn’t hit the mosh pit. My old bones couldn’t have stood that. LOL!

Here’s a couple of my favorites by Metallica:

and:

I was not the oldest one at the show though. I saw several that had me by a good ten or more years.

It’s Christmas

24 Wednesday Dec 2008

Posted by Randy Johnson in Personal

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christmas

I want to wish all out there in internet land a Merry Christmas! I’m off to spend time with my family. See You later!

NFL Week 16

22 Monday Dec 2008

Posted by Randy Johnson in Sports

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Jets, Panthers, Redskins

Not a good week. Only one of my three teams won and the only one that didn’t make a difference as regarding the playoff situation.

The Redskins won, but it was only for pride. They weren’t “mathematically” eliminated when the weekend started, which only means so much would have to happen for them to make the playoffs that it really wasn’t reasonable. I think by the end of the day they were gone.

The Jets stink! They were in a three way tie for first and only had to win their last two to make the playoffs. Then lose to the Seattle Seahawks while the Dolphins and Patriots were winning.

And they shouldn’t have even been in this position. They beat Tennessee and New England, then go out and lose  games  to Oakland and Seattle, teams with a combined record of 8-22.

For them to make the playoffs, they have to beat Miami and hope New England loses, which would put them with the tiebreaker win.

They do this every year it seems. Forty years ago they won Super Bowl III and haven’t done much since. Oh, they will tease you every now and again, they collapse at the wrong time.

The big game was Sunday night, with the Panthers playing the Giants in New Jersey for home field advantage in the playoffs.

It was a great game though the Panthers ended up losing. Starting fast, they run up a 21-10 lead in the first half. The two teams ended up in a 28-28 tie, going into overtime. The Panthers had their chance to win in regulation, just missing a fifty yard field goal attempt, a cross wind blowing it just off course.

The Panthers simply couldn’t stop the Giants’ running game. It was obvious in the overtime they were just wore out. 301 yards rushing, 215 for Ward.

It was a huge loss. A win guaranteed home field advantage. Now the Panthers have to win on the road in New Orleans next week to win the division. A loss and a Falcoms win would make the Panthers the wild card, with no home games.

Oh, and the Lions stay winless. 0-15. I really hope they win next week and avoid the infamy.

Rancho Bravo – Thorne Douglas

21 Sunday Dec 2008

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books, Personal

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Ben Haas, western



I finished the Rancho Bravo series last night and I thoroughly enjoyed all five of them. I’ve decided this group of books is my favorite of Ben Haas’ works that I’ve read. Steve Lewis suggested that in a comment on the first book and I can’t disagree, despite my affection for both Sundance and Fargo under the John Benteen pseudonym.

To be fair, I’ve not read any titles published under the Haas name and only one of the Richard Meade books.

The first four books all take place within one year’s time, involving the building of a dream that started with two men and spread to the two other partners. 1866 is the time and a post-Civil War Texas is the setting. I like that each of the partners is the main protagonist in one of the books. It gives one a look at four different view points as events unfold.

Calhoon is a former South Carolina plantation owner that fought in the war and was a prisoner in a Yankee prison where a sadistic ex-Texas official tortured him, causing him to lose his right hand. He comes to Texas on the trail of that man.

Henry Gannon fought for the South and found, upon returning home, that carpetbaggers, in the form of a North leaning judge, had  levied  taxes against his ranch that he couldn’t pay. Like most southerners  he was cash poor.

Elias Whitton was an ex-slave who’d escaped years before the war and went west where he was taken by the Comanche, adopted because of his skill at horsemanship, something they admired. After the war, with wife and baby dying in childbirth, he returns to Texas to “see” freedom.

Gannon and Whitton hook up and concoct the scheme that eventually becomes Rancho Bravo. In ninety days, Gannon loses his ranch. The brush is choked with wild Longhorns, left alone and breeding during the War.

They decide to round up and brand as many cattle as possible to drive west to the lush grasslands of the Pecos, there to establish Rancho Bravo to supply beef to meat starved Colorado gold and silver miners. They want 2000 for a drive, but there’s only ninety days.

Calhoon becomes the third partner and figures out how to hire help when they have no money. For every Rancho Bravo steer they brand, each drover gets one branded with his own ID.

Philip Killraine is a U.S. Army Captain in charge of the Cavalry backing Federal authorities. He refuses to let those in charge do what they want, insisting on treating everyone fairly. It gets him replaced and transfered out. Resigning his commission, he becomes the fourth partner.

And what a partnership. Two Rebels, a black man, and a Yankee.

Each man has a specialty. Calhoon, an expert fighter, is in charge of defense of the herd and drovers. Gannon is the cowman, in charge of the trail drive. Whitton IS a Comanche  now and feels he can convince the tribes to let them establish a ranch on their land. Killraine, a New Englander, finances the drive and is in charge of the books, as well as negotiating the deals for the cattle.

By the end of the first book, after battle with Regulators sent by the Judge(who happens to be the father of the man Calhoon is seeking), they have 4000 cattle ready to drive.

Gannon becomes the lead protagonist in The Big Drive. They fight Mother Nature, rustlers in the form of the Tryon brothers and their men, Apaches, and a long dry spell in pushing the herd west.

By the third book, Killraine, the herd has been split, Whitton and Calhoon taking 1500 head to get Rancho Bravo started, while Gannon and Killraine take the rest on up to Colorado to sell, then buy supplies for the ranch, as well as goods and weapons promised the Comanche as part of the deal.

Heading out for Rancho Bravo after deals are made, the caravan is shortly attacked and a $100,000 in gold stolen. Gannon is severely wounded. They know the thieves were the Lawrence family, a west Virginia group with an impregnable fortress. Authorities tell Killraine that it can’t be taken without severe loss of life.

So he goes after them alone. You see, they have something else very precious to him: the young woman with which he’s fallen in love.

The third and fourth books have overlapping time frames. In the fourth, Whitton takes center stage in his dealings with the Comanche.

The Comanche are getting impatient. The weapons and trade goods don’t arrive when promised. They keep getting put off, wait a little longer. Winter is approaching, the buffalo hunt should have started two weeks before. Whitton makes a fateful decision: give the Comanche all their spare Henrys, thirty of them, and handguns, as well as powder and bullets, teaching them efficient ways to use them on the hunt.

An old enemy surfaces, a mountain man responsible for Whitton’s child’s still birth, as well as his wife’s death because of an attempted rape that she never mentioned till her deathbed. He brings goods and weapons, offering them free for exclusive trade rights, not to mention the liquor that some of the chiefs want.

By the fifth book, Rancho Bravo is well established. It’s four years down the road and they are branching out, starting a horse ranch to supply army mounts and train their own stock for cattle work.

The main protagonist here is Shan Tyree, a man looking for a fresh start. He’d had a passion that colored his early years that was different from most men. Not liquor. Not women. But fine horses. Whenever he saw a fine horse, he had to have it. By whatever means necessary.

Tyree was a horse thief.

But a close call makes him decide to go straight and breaks up a partnership. He wanders down into Texas a nd gets hooked up with Rancho Bravo while trying to break a wild stallion.

Here was what he’d been looking for, a chance to belong, put his past behind him, training horses. The horse ranch manager and he don’t get along from the start though. Different methods of braking the animals is only the beginning.

Then he sees the manager’s young wife and suddenly he has another passion. He’s still determined to play it straight.

Then his old partner turns up with a gang after the herd of Spanish horses just bought from Mexicans, ruining everything.

How will he get out of this?

I would like to have seen more after reading these five. The fifth was published in the same year as his passing. I  don’t know a lot about the particulars of Haas’s death, but I think we lost a great writer that was just hitting his stride.

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