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Monthly Archives: November 2011

November 2011 Book Round-Up

30 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

≈ 3 Comments

216: TH: Already Gone – John Rector

217: SF: The Sentinel Stars -Louis Charbonneau

218: HB: Beat To A Punch: Hardboiled(ebook) – edited by David Cranmer & Scott D. Parker

219: WE: Blood Bond: Arizona Ambush – William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone

220: SF: Time Tunnel – Murray Leinster

221: TH: The Immortalists – Kyle Mills

222: CR: Fight Card: Felony Fists(ebook) – Jack Tunney(Paul Bishop)

223: CR: The Last Good Kiss – James Crumley

224: CR: One Lonely Night – Mickey Spillane

225: HR: Nine Frights(ebook) – Jeffrey J. Mariotte

226: CR: Fight Card: The Cutman(ebook) – Jack Tunney(Mel Odom)

227: SF: The Time Tunnel – Murray Leinster

228: WE: Rancho Diablo: Dark Horse(ebook) – Colby Jackson(James Reasoner)

229: Tarzan and The Valley of Gold – Fritz Leiber

230: Red Sky In Morning – Patrick Culhane(Max Allan Collins)

231: SF: Dumarest of Terra: Zenya – E. C. Tubb

232: SF: Beat To A Pulp: A Rip Through Time(ebook) -edited by David Cranmer stories by Chris F. Holm, Charles A. Gramlich, Garnett Elliott, & Chad Eagleton essay by Ron Scheer

November 2011 Movie Round-Up

30 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in movies

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Massacre(1934)

Two-Gun Man From Harlem(1938)

Harlem Rides The Range(1939)

Spy In Black(1939)

Godzilla, King of The Monsters!(1956)

A Rip Through Time: Beat To A Pulp

30 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in ebook

≈ 5 Comments

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A Rip through Time, Beat To A pulp, Chad Eagleton, Charles A. Gramlich, Chris F. Holms, David Cranmer, Garnett Elliott, Ron Scheer, Science Fiction

David Cranmer’s new BEAT TO A PULP book, A RIP THROUGH TIME, is one I’ve looked forward to since it was first announced. I’d read the first adventures of Simon Rip in the e-magazine and loved them.

Time travel tales have always been a favorite of mine and I couldn’t begin to tell you how many I might have read in my long reading life. Wells I started with, of course, Heinlein had a few, and I remember a series of twelve called The Time Wars. A novel titles RUN, COME SEE JERUSALEM by Richard C. Meredith is a particular favorite(and highly recommended).

These are the stories of Simon Rip, head of temporal security for The Company, and his pursuit of Dr. Robert Berlin, a scientist who’d stolen his own device, the Baryon Core, and disappeared in time. Rip goes after him to find out why and retrieve the device. In the course of the five tales in this book, he meets famous people, gets involved adventures of various types, crime, sword and sorcery(which takes advantage of that old Arthur C. Clarke saying, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”), and hard science fiction.

Cranmer recruited some ace writers to help out on these stories.

The Dame, The Doctor, and The Device – Chris F. Holm

Battles, Broadswords, and Bad Girls – Charles A. Gramlich

Chaos In The Stream – Garnett Elliott

Darkling In The Eternal Space – Chad Eagleton

The Final Painting of Hawley Exton – Chad Eagleton

There’s a fine essay by Ron Scheer on time travel in fiction, both prose and film.

I had a fine time reading these tales and they are available on SMASHWORDS at a ridiculously low price. Definitely worth checking out.

One final note: it’s my understanding that Chad Eagleton is working on a new Simon Rip tale, a novella. Looking forward to that one.

Overlooked Movies: Little Chenier: A Cajun Story(2006)

29 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in movies

≈ 2 Comments

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Overlooked Movies

I’ve posted on this movie before, but I thought it a good candidate for Overlooked Movies. It does seem largely unknown.

It was one of the better movies I’ve seen in a long time, fitting into the drama category rather than action, though there’s a bit of that as well.

A story of two brothers and the love between them, what lengths one will go to to protect his mentally challenged younger sibling. Fred Koehler(billed as Frederick Koehler) is exceptional as Pemon Dupuis, the mentally challenged young soul and the only cast member I was at all familiar with. He’s appeared in such films as Mr. Mom, Death Race(the 2008 Jason Statham version), and did a bit of television as well.

An interesting note is that Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster in this country, also wiped out the area this movie was filmed and the footage here is the only known of it.

Here’s the trailer:

For other overlooked films, as always, check outTodd Mason over at Sweet Freedom.

New In The House

27 Sunday Nov 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

≈ 4 Comments

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New In The House



1: The Chalk Girl(ARC) – Carol O’Connell: A Mallory novel.The small girl in Central park found wandering had red hair and blue eyes, was perfect. Except for the blood on her shoulder. It had “fallen from the sky while I was looking for my uncle, who had turned into a tree.” Then the body in the tree was discovered. Mallory, newly returned to the Special Crimes Unit, wants to help her. She has her own damaged soul recovering. That desire leads to murders going back fifteen years, blackmail, and a cruelty that only someone with Mallory’s history will recognize. The tenth book in the series, it’s due out in January.

2: Deep Sky(ARC) – Patrick Lee: a missile has taken out the White House and the President. Travis Chase of the covert agency Tangent and his partners have only twenty-four hours to unearth a decades old mystery. And a shadowy government wants that mystery to remain secret.

3: Rancho Diablo: Dark Horse(ebook) – Colby Jackson: James Reasoner has written a new addition to the series, a fine one, that has Duane Beatty caught up in the new woman in Shooter’s Cross. And the magnificent stallion she brought with her. And the trouble that follows.

4: Gallows Pole(ebook) – J. D. Rhoades: the latest from Mr. Rhoades. He’s a North Carolina boy like myself so it’s almost mandatory that I like him. Fortunately, he writes mean thrillers. I expect to love this one.

5; Beat to a Pulp: A Rip Through Time(ebook) – another offering from David Cranmer and some very fine writers. Five stories as well as an essay by Ron Scheer on time travel in fiction. Three of them I’ve read previously. One new to the collection, the fourth I’d held off waiting for this book. Simon Rip is a Time-cop and is chasing Dr. Robert Berlin through time. Berlin stole his own invention and disappeared down the rabbit hole. So to speak. I’ll probably start on this one in the morning over coffee.

The authors involved here are Chris F. Holm, Charles A. Gramlich, Garnett Elliott, Chad Eagleton, and Ron Scheer.

Food For Thought…And Humor

27 Sunday Nov 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Humor

≈ 1 Comment

http://www.wimp.com/thoughtexperiments

FFB: Suspicious Circumstances – Sandra Ruttan

25 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Forgotten Books, Sandra Ruttan


It’s Canadian authors this week and I guess Sandra Ruttan qualifies. A transplanted Canadian, yet she a citizen and proud of it I would assume. SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES was her first novel and I bought it on May 11, 2007 from Amazon. Good thing, judging by the prices today, Only a handful are available on the used book sites and command almost as much, and up, that I paid for my copy way back then. And only one new copy that someone is asking a ridiculous price for(I dare say that even Sandra would be amazed at the price). Fortunately, it’s available on Kindle for a reasonable price.

And worth the price I might add.

A reporter named Lara Kelly gets her hands on a tape that shows a woman falling to her death from a cliff. She’s suspicious when the man delivering the tape says the police had refused to look into it. She starts to investigate and build her story. In short order, the tape is stolen and Lara attacked and it starts to look like maybe more than just a suicide.

Police detective Tyman Faraday is assigned to discredit her story of police incompetence. He soon joins her in hunting down a killer before he can get her.

A complexly plotted novel that does demand attention, it seems to be some reviewers’ main complaints. I like a book that makes one think and when I read this one years ago, it made me a Sandra Ruttan fan. A sequel seems headed our way, that’s good, and I have another novel and collection of short stories in my Kindle I really need to get to. She’s also the editor-in-chief of Spinetingler Magazine.

This week Forgotten books will be gathered by Todd Mason, over at SWEET FREEDOM, I would imagine.

The Spam Is Relentless…And Getting Worse

22 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Personal

≈ 6 Comments

Just logged onto the blog to find the spam queue clogged with forty-two entries. Earlier today, after a return from a doctor’s appointment, I found twenty-seven awaiting me. In the past week, it ‘s been nothing less than a half dozen. And I check in a number of times a day.

These assaults are getting worse. Just a few years ago, it was pretty rare to have more than two or three and often there were none when I logged in. Fortunately WordPress has a good filter. One of them today, at an estimate, had close to seven, eight hundred words. I didn’t try to count them, just had to page down a lot while I was deleting the current crop.

Whew!

Overlooked Movies: Spy In Black(1939)

22 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in movies

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Alexander Korda, Conrad Veidt, Overlooked Movies, Sebastian Shaw, Valerie Hobson

SPY IN BLACK seemed a most unusual movie for it’s time. Released in October, 1939, shortly after Germany had invaded Poland(and the unofficial beginnings of World War II), the protagonist, and surprisingly sympathetic figure, is a German naval officer, one Captain Hardt(Conrad Veidt), a submarine commander on a secret mission.

Based on the novel by J. Storer Clouston, the screenplay was done by Emeric Pressberger with scenario by Roland Pertwee. It was the first collaboration by British filmmakers Pressberger and Michael Powell. brought together by Alexander Korda.

Captain Hardt, commander of U-29, is back from a long mission at sea and looking forward to a meal other than sardines. He can recount every can, every fish in each can, and wants a full blown meal the first day back. Unfortunately, in 1917, things aren’t going well for Germany. With many cutbacks, this day is meatless day in all restaurants(and they are out of potatoes as well).

Hardt soon receives a new mission. He doesn’t know what as his orders are sealed until at specific time at sea. All he knows is that a motorcycle and civilian clothes accompany them.

At the appointed time, he leans he’s to be inserted into the Orkney Islands to spy on the British fleet and get movements with the idea that the U-boat force would be there when they move out to sink as many as possible and strike a blow for country. He’s to make contact with a female agent sent in, posing as the new school teacher,(Frau Tiel(Valerie Hobson) for the families of the British navy, unknown to anyone in the islands. She’d intercepted the original teacher, Anne Burnett, and tossed the body off a cliff and had been cultivating a dissatisfied British officer, a man who drank too much and had been demoted for a wrong order that damaged a ship. There are maps that will get them through the minefields that Germany had laid down around the islands.

He slips in at night and meets the woman, who has a house near the base where he can watch Fleet movements with binoculars. One of the first things the two do is gorge on meat and butter, devouring a ham in short order. Hardt is a prideful man and insists on wearing his uniform in the home. “If I’m going to be shot, it will be as a German officer, not a spy!” With that in mind, he has to stay out of sight when visitors come. He meets the traitorous British officer, Lt. Ashington(Sebastian Shaw) and they begin their mission. Ashington promises he will get ship movements in a timely enough manner to get word out to the U-boat force waiting out there.

The original teacher’s fiance makes a surprise visit, the Reverend John Harris(Cyril Raymond). He seems a bit of a fuddy-duddy and doesn’t recognize Hardt’s uniform. He does think the medal ribbon he wears looks a bit unusual, doesn’t know it. “It’s The Iron Cross…Second class.” Hardt informs him. “Then you must be a prisoner of war?” Drawing a Luger from under his jacket, Hardt says, “No…you are!” “Oh dear!”

Things are not as they seem though. It’s all a set-up. Ashington and Frau Kiel are really Commander David and Jill Blaylock, a married couple. That school teacher had lived long enough to be picked up by a ship and tell who she was. The female agent had been intercepted and the couple inserted in the place of the other two. The plan is to let Hardt get his information out, then arrest him. The U-boat force would be the one set-up instead.

Hardt overhears them talking when they thought he was in his room. He’d begun to have feelings for “Frau Tiel” and thought of a life with her in Kiel and had come down to see her, spotting her slipping out, following, witnessing the meeting of the couple. He hears he’s to be arrested after she’s out of the house and on a ship leaving the islands.

Hardt stays a step ahead, swapping clothes with the prisoner Reverend Harris, getting released by someone sent to get Harris out, and is gone by the time Blaylock gets there.

Aboard ship as Harris, he sees a group of German sailors brought aboard under guard and overhears that they were a U-boat crew that ran afoul of one of their own mines and were captured. Thinking fast, he slips below after the ship gets underway and manages to free the crew and they take over the ship. the civilians, mostly women and children are herded below with the ship’s crew, and Hardt orders them to remain quiet. Any noise and you will be shot. About that time, a baby cries and Hardt shows a little-heart-, “Except for one.”

Then begins a chase. British ships are chasing the civilian ship, Blaylock has figured out where Hardt is, and we see just how cutthroat even the British are. The officer in charge of the chase is willing to sink the ship, never mind the women and children, rather than let the German officer escape.

A far worse fate awaits Hardt and his comrades on U-29. They see the civilian ship and not the British fleet behind, taking a chance to sink it. Hardt is last seen going down with his ship, both of them, after getting the women and children, the crew, into life boats.

Much enjoyed this old film. Below is a clip from the movie of our two protagonists meeting:

http://youtu.be/z9OMpPkPrB8

For more overlooked films and other related stuff, check out Tood Mason over at Sweet Freedom.

New In The House

21 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

New In The House



1: 11/22/63 – Stephen King’s latest, it’s another hefty novel. His last one, Under The Dome, was one of his best in years so I hold out hope that this one will be as well.

2: Diving Into The Wreck – Kristine Kathryn Rusch: recommended around the internet in several places, I thought I’d give it a try. It will be my first rusch.

3: The Moneypenny Diaries: Final Fling – Kate Westbrook(Samantha Weinberg): the third and concluding volume of the diaries of M’s personal secretary, and the eternal flirt with James Bond. She comments on Bond’s missions and takes part in minor ways. She’s finally given a first name, Jane. There’s also a couple of short stories as well.

4 & 5: Night Medicine & The Sabeteur(ebooks) – Axel Brand(Richard S. Wheeler): a Lieutenant Joe Sonntag of the Milwaukee police department mystery. Set in the late forties.

6: Sci-Fi Private Eye -edited by Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg. A heavyweight line-up with stories by Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Robert Silverberg, Donald Westlake, Philip K. Dick, Wilson Tucker, Tom Reamy, and Philip Jose Farmer. Except for the Asimov and Dick(both from the fifties), the other stories came from the seventies.

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