Review: Swords and Deviltry

Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a 2-star review which is a good estimate of my experience with this book.

The book is really a collection of short stories.

Honestly, several stories into the book and I really didn't care about the main characters. It was far too easy to move on to something better.

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Review: Shadow & Claw

Shadow & Claw by Gene Wolfe
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a 2-star review that is a good estimate of my experience.

I managed to get roughly 1/3 through this book before giving up. Fortunately, I found this review that does an outstanding job of breaking down the significant flaws in this book. They have saved me a ton of time.

I've been told by many people that this is a classic of the fantasy genre and an excellent example of the grimdark subgenre.

It isn't.

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Review: 100 Fathoms Below

100 Fathoms Below by Steven L. Kent
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 3.5-star review which is a fair representation of my experience.

The book is a straightforward vampire tale. One of the crew is bitten just before his submarine deploys from Pearl Harbor for a mission. As with the old shampoo commercial, he bites a friend, who then bites a friend, and so on, and so on.

The tale centers around how the unbitten crew reacts to the sudden presence of horror that is slowly consuming their ship. The crew are highly trained submariners. Their initial responses of treating the problem as a common virus/disease are predictable.

The characters are reasonably fleshed out with unique motivations and perspectives. The authors wisely placed this in 1980 due to the use of racism as a very minor plot element. Racism in the military was not unknown in 1980. Opposition to racism was more prevalent in 1980. The presence of racism as a plot element manages to accurately walk that line.

There are a few plot-related issues that keep this from being a solid hit.

- The crew's responses to the unfolding problems are predictable throughout the book.

- Chekov's Gun makes several appearances. As one example, the book talks about the crew and mechanical spaces but clearly doesn't mention the nuclear-powered engine room. It's not a big surprise when we find survivors here. Nor is it a big reveal as to why the vampires haven't taken over this space. There are many other occasions where something with an obvious implication of utility or danger is mentioned in one chapter only to be revisited as a "reveal" a chapter or two later.

- Up until the last few pages, there is zero effort to explore the motivations of the "big bad". Vampirism is the result of some entity. It is implied that there is a single source of it. Late in the book, it is implied that there is an intelligence for its motivations beyond the need to feed, but no effort is made to explore that intelligence.

- Spoiler - In the closing chapters, the captain intends to dump all of the dead bodies overboard and then return to Pearl Harbor. There isn't any consideration for the impact on his career (and that of the remaining crew) from bringing a partially crewed ship back to base without also bringing the bodies. What explanation will he offer? What proof will he have? That his career (and his crew's careers) is over as a result of this incident is left unacknowledged.

- Second spoiler - The vampires die when exposed to low levels of radiation. The crew has access to waste coolant water that is not radioactive enough to do them serious harm, but radioactive enough that contact with a vampire has instantly corrosive effects on the vampire. They have one...one!!...bucket available to slosh the radioactive water around the ship. No effort is made to locate spray bottles or other containers. Using radiation to kill vampires is kind of a neat twist. The execution was lacking. 

If you like vampires and you like books with a military setting, then this is a great book for you. It is a straightforward and entertaining read. You'll just need to enjoy it for what it is; straightforward and fun without any serious depth.

I think this could be an excellent movie!



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A Quilt for Wesley

Having successfully produced a first progeny, one of my colleagues and her husband decided to take another stab at it.  The product of their labors...literally...is a fine young man named Wesley.

For his quilt, I opted for a selection of fabric featuring Peanut's characters.  

The whole quilt modeled by my beloved bride.  Click to embiggen

Single panel.  Click to embiggen

This pattern is known as "log cabin".  It was the first pattern that I learned and it is one that I enjoy using.  You can do so much within the confines of that pattern.  

Unfortunately, I ran into the quilter's nightmare with this quilt.  There are lots of different approaches to laying out a log cabin quilt.  You can rotate the panels to make several different patterns.  But the ever-present risk is that you can end up unintentionally making swastikas.  This particular fabric selection seemed to make it hard to use any of the other layouts that I know without making a swastika here and there.  There are other quilting patterns that have similar problems.

And well, I wouldn't do that to young Wesley.  So here we are.  He approves!

Young Master Wesley.  Yup.  He's a keeper.  - Click to embiggen

Master Wesley's canine compatriot also approves! - Click to embiggen

A Quilt for Holly

 As detailed elsewhere, I had made a quilt for my sister-in-law Tracy.  It was supposed to be a Christmas present last year.  But my beloved bride wanted to give one to my sister-in-law Holly at the same time.  So off we went to the fabric store!

Oh the pain!  The torture!  To have to buy fabric!

The pattern is the same basic pattern that I used for Tracy's quilt.  The big difference was in the fabric.  Holly is a Detroit Lions fan.

The ever-stylish Holly modeling her quilt - click to embiggen

I did one thing differently on this quilt.  I always complain about using fabrics that are not dimensionally stable.  That fleecy backing material is no exception.

This time around, I used some spray adhesive to hold the backing material to the batting.  That made it quite dimensionally stable when I was quilting the layers together.

Merry Christmas, Holly!

My 2022 Year In Books

Ordinarily, this is the time of year when I would be talking about nominations for the Hugo Awards. I'm not participating this year for a couple of reasons. The most important reason is that this year's Worldcon will be held in China. While I'm sure that Chinese SF/F fans are nice people, they are saddled with a murderous regime that will not hesitate to use any opportunity to propagandize their actions.  I'm unwilling to help create such opportunities. 

Free the Uyghurs.  Hold free/fair multi-party elections.  Leave Taiwan alone.  Then we can talk.

Instead, I thought I would review the books that I have completed this year. Included in the "completed" list are books that I set aside due to a lack of interest. There are some Hugo Award-related comments included.

This was a pretty good year for me in that most of the books I picked up were books that I actually enjoyed. There were a few where the book couldn't live up to the "elevator pitch" and one where the "elevator pitch" was completely wrong but the book was fantastic anyway.

For more complete thoughts, you might consider connecting with me via Goodreads. Or follow this blog. Both work!

Like others, I read for enjoyment and seek books that interest me.  There are times when I read a book simply based on my past experiences with an author's work.  Other times, I will pick up a book based on a recommendation from a trusted source.  On rare occasions, advertising works!

Many of these books are the first in a series.  I once heard Peter V. Brett talk about his approach to writing a series.  The first book, in his opinion, should be a complete story.  The reader shouldn't be left feeling that there is more to come.  After that point, if a reader opts to continue the series, then cliffhanger endings are fair game.  I agree.  I wish more authors agreed with that approach as well.

The books are (mostly) in reverse order of when they were read.  Those at the top (mostly) are the ones that I read most recently.

Title	Author	Rating	Quick Take
The Dream of the Iron Dragon	Robert Kroese	4.5 Stars	People from our future being chased through outer space end up being teleported to our past. Suddenly cut off from modern technology, the survivors have to find a way to make themselves useful so they can survive. Furthermore, they have to find a way to send a coherent message to the future to hopefully prevent the imminent end of humanity back in their own time. By the end of the book, the only thing of value they possess is the knowledge in their heads. A good premise with reasonably interesting characters. This is the first in a series. Fortunately, it tells a complete story.
36 Streets	T.R. Napper	5 Stars	The story is about a Vietnamese girl who went to Australia as a refugee from the war. Not that war. The other war coming a few years in the future when China starts taking control of the Far East and no one is around to stop them. After returning to Vietnam, our protagonist, Lin, ends up in a purported street gang acting as an enforcer. She didn't start out that way, but she had training. A lot of it. Only after her friend and sister end up as collateral damage in the war between the street gang and the occupying Chinese forces does she learn exactly why the gang exists. The story is fully laced with cyberpunk elements as well as crime noir and a bit of MilSF. A great combination. Very worthy of Hugo Award recognition.
Iron Truth	S. A. Tholin	4 Stars	This book recently won the Self-Published Science Fiction Contest. So I had high hopes. The book was reasonably well written with characters that were intriguing. Future miners dig too deeply on an off-Earth planet and unleash "something" that seizes control of people's minds. The event prompts the formation of an authoritarian state to "defend Earth". So fantasy mixed with science fiction. Not really in my wheelhouse. Also, this is the first book in a series and it shows. A good read, but I'm not anxious to return to the series.
Transmutation Texas	R.H. Snow	3.5 Stars	This first in a series is set in a world where some sort of virus has wreaked hell on humanity. Much of civilization is gone. What remains is a population of normal humans and those that have been changed by the virus. Remarkably, there are very few women that survived the virus. The post-apocalyptic society that remains is twisted by the new reality. The story is reasonably well written. A few of the character interactions didn't seem well justified. And this is the "first in a series" where the end of the book is clearly not the end of the story.
Against All Gods	Miles Cameron	5 Stars	This first in a series appears to be based on Bronze Age deities. Ignore the elevator pitch/summary and just strap in for one helluva ride. This world is inhabited by humans and a race of insects. Both are dominated by "gods" that possess immense power. The gods are slowly losing their ability to use that power. By the end of the book, the origins of their power and their ability to control the world become much murkier as the humans and insects are in turn thrust together and then forced into conflicts by gods playing power games. Definitely worthy of Hugo consideration.
Tread of Angels	Rebecca Roanhorse	5 Stars	This is a standalone novella set in a fantasy world where angels and demons once fought on Earth. The main demon, Abbadon, fell in battle and now humans and "Fallen" demi-humans mine the bones of his corpse for the element Divinity that powers the world in steam-punkish fashion. Within that tableau is a tale of a caste structure that condemns some to lesser lives while granting others great privileges. It takes a deft authorial touch to write a story containing so much social critique while keeping the sub-text behind the text. Ms. Roanhorse possesses just such a deft touch. Just take my money, ma'am. Hugo Award worthy.
Warlord	Doc Spears	3.5 Stars	The elevator pitch got me. You take an elite team of US Army Green Berets and drop them in a fantasy world. The fantasy world just happens to be a pastiche of Barsoom as envisioned by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Instead of John Carter, we get Benjamin Colt. A self-doubting professional soldier. His team is teleported to Mars along with a magic taco generator that can print anything. So they will always have ammo for their weapons. If you can set aside the fact that the plot is ripped almost whole from Mr. Burroughs, the repetitive "Green Berets are big and bad" mini-essays, and the beauty worship of Talis Dorman then this is a fun book.
Servants of War	Larry Correia and Steve Diamond	5 Stars	Larry and Steve team up to tell a fantasy/horror tale about people that have been teleported from our world into this magic-infused world as some sort of cosmic refugees. But this new world isn't necessarily better. Our protagonists live in a country with a dictator that demands military service during a war, murders/disappears people for marginal infractions, and generally keeps his people poor and disempowered. If it sounds a bit like the 1930s under the old Soviet Union, then you get the vibe exactly. The dictator's army includes a special unit that operates a set of magical golems/automatons. You have to have some innate magical ability in order to communicate with the golems. One of our protagonists has that in spades. Despite having such power, the dictator's army is at a stalemate (and perhaps losing) with an opponent that embraces change and technology. The fact that they lob hellfire bombs probably helps keep things even. A great ride. Absolutely to the top of the genre writing. Worthy of Hugo consideration.
Fairy Tale	Stephen King	4 Stars	Mr. King is America's master storyteller. He can twist nothing into an engrossing tale about characters so vibrant that you could swear that one of them just walked in the room. In this case, he starts with a pedestrian family dealing with significant (if mundane) challenges. He makes you care about their ordinary lives and starts tossing curve balls at them and at you, constant reader.
The Flock	J. Todd Scott	2 Stars	I'm not sure what attracted me to this novel, but I couldn't finish it. I think it is intended to be suspenseful with an implication of fantasy/horror elements. I moved on after reading roughly 1/4 through the book as there weren't any characters of interest and the implications of supernatural activities were not evolving/resolving.
Strange Company	Nick Cole	3 Stars	I think Nick Cole is too frequently overlooked as an author of memorable genre fiction. But this book was a bit of a miss. It features a modern military unit in a universe where something akin to "magic" is possible. The magic is enhanced "scientifically". I'm not a big fan of mixing science and fantasy, but if that's where you are going, then go all the way. There were powerful magics available in the story that were left unused while people were shooting weapons with wild abandon.
A Crown for Cold Silver	Alex Marshall	3 Stars	I wanted to read this book after reading a short story by Alex contained in the Evil is a Matter of Perspective anthology. The short story comes from the same world as this novel and was very good. Unfortunately, this book didn't live up to expectations. This competently written book was undermined by the use of modern vernacular in a fantasy setting and characters being constantly high/drunk/whatever without any consequences (with one exception) to their ability to otherwise participate in the story.
A Touch of Death	Rebecca Crunden	3 Stars	This book was noted as a hidden gem by the File770 team participating in the Self-Published Science Fiction Contest. I found substantial flaws in the world-building and in the contrived dilemma of the main characters. I only finished it because of the File770 team's recommendation.
Reign & Ruin	J.D. Evans	2 Stars	This book won SPFBO in 2021. I am usually thrilled to read a SPFBO winner. This is a rare clunker. Poor character development/motivations. Poor plotting. If it hadn't won SPFBO, I'd have given this book the Dorothy Parker treatment at least halfway through it.
Fevered Star	Rebecca Roanhorse	5 Stars	The second book in a series continues the tale of Serapio who has been re-made as the Crow God in a world inspired by pre-Columbian Americas. Ms. Roanhorse is the rare author for whom I don't need an elevator pitch to know that her work will be worth my time. Just take my money! Hugo Award worthy.
King of the Bastards	Brian Keene	2 Stars	This book could have been great. But it refuses to stick with any constant plot. The protagonist is a Conan knock-off living in a world of magic that uses modern vernacular. I finished it, but all I can say is that it is "a book".
Tales of the Greatcoats Vol. 1: Swashbuckling Fantasy Stories	Sebastien de Castell	5 Stars	A series of short stories from de Castell's world of the Greatcoats. Sadly, you need to have read the Greatcoats series to maximize your enjoyment of these stories. But they are entertaining nonetheless. Sebastien is an overlooked gem of an author.
Titan	Robert Kroese	4 Stars	A billionaire inventor/businessman looks to increase his holdings by mining asteroids and other celestial bodies. He develops the technology to capture those bodies in the earth's gravitational well. Previously, he had developed a functioning sort of electronic currency which was tangentially related to social media. At the same time, governmental debt is threatening to cause global hyperinflation. His mining operation gets sabotaged at precisely the wrong time. Engrossing characters/plot where the sub-text wears to a diaphanously thin veneer in just a couple of spots. Worthy of Hugo Award consideration
MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors	Richard Hooker	4 Stars	I grew up watching the TV show MASH. The earlier seasons are better, in my experience. I finally took some time to read the source material for the TV show and the movie. The book is a series of vignettes rather than a longer narrative tale. The humor and the tall tales are easily recognizable to anyone who has served in the military. Surprisingly and refreshingly, it didn't contain any of the forced anti-militarism that was present in the TV show.
The Girl in the Gun Club: My Time as One of the Few Good Men	Tracy Salzgeber	5 Stars	Ms. Salzgeber is a US Marine. The book details her relationship with the Marine Corps and the Marines with whom she served. Ms. Salzgeber doesn't hold back in praising or criticizing the Corps, individual Marines, or herself. A refreshing critical take on our beloved Corps.
Son of the Black Sword	Larry Correia	5 Stars	My first Larry Correia novel. It is a dandy of a fantasy novel with a setting reminiscent of India. The best warrior in the world has been living a lie. He is not a favored son of a powerful house. He is a servant from the lowest social caste that mistakenly became bonded to the house's most powerful sword. What happens when he learns the truth. Worth every minute. I'll definitely be back for more. I know it isn't likely, but this series should be a strong contender for the Hugo Awards.
Ice and Monsters	Peter Nealen	3.5 Stars	A US Marine recon team ends up passing into another world populated by fantastic people and creatures with magical abilities. Can the recon team survive? There is a MilSF sub-genre that involves putting a modern military into non-modern settings. This book did a decent job of avoiding the penchant to handwave away serious questions like "what happens when we run out of bullets". If you like that sub-genre, then this book is for you.
Island in the Sea of Time	S.M. Stirling	5 Stars	Great time-travel story sending a US Coast Guard training vessel back in time. They face the challenge of life without modern conveniences while also seeking to preserve their technological advantages. I'd like to continue reading the series. Side note - the author covers several modern social issues within the story without letting them get in the way of the story. Something modern authors need to re-learn.
Isolate	L.E. Modesitt, Jr.	4 Stars	A slow-burn fantasy setting for a discussion of politics and political systems. The political ideas are thought-provoking and interesting. The fantasy setting was intriguing, but not without issues. A couple of plot issues. While a fan of Modesitt's work, I probably won't continue this series.

Ratings in italics are pending. Sorry. Just haven't gotten around to posting a formal review.

I hope your 2023 in books is plentiful and enjoyable.

Edited for spelling and to add 2 books that my Kindle reader didn't share with Goodreads. 12/29/2022

What Sort Of Dwarves Do You Have There

This year, the team where I work came up with something special for our boss.  He has been with the company forever and I consider him to be a good friend as well as an excellent mentor.

The team - click to embiggen

Aside from there being the seven of us looking up to our "prince", there is the array of animals.  The company where I work is at the end of the road with no real traffic and woods on all sides.  The boss keeps the local fauna well fed.

For accuracy, we don't get many rabbits.  We do have a large group of turkeys and a couple families of sandhill cranes.  A couple of the cranes and a couple of squirrels will actually take food from the hands of those that keep them fed.

Review: A Touch of Death

A Touch of Death by Rebecca Crunden
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star review. That accurately represents my experience.

Some sort of biological/chemical warfare has dramatically altered the Earth. The survivors lived underground for years and upon emerging, had to live with the resulting environment.

The rules that work for a society limited by the needs of living underground are grafted onto a society with much more room above ground. The new government is quite authoritarian and forms a sort of modern royalty caste. Those with connections get the goodies.

Within the narrative of the book, it is suggested that attempting to live beyond the range of this society is a death sentence. Yet people have done just that and survived.

There is an underground/resistance movement of sorts.

The biggest plot hole for me was the suggestion that people couldn't live anywhere else despite there being strong proof that they could. Simply leaving is the one solution that is left largely unexplored.

The other weakness is the contrivance of main character's dilemma. Two characters just happen to be hiking when a storm comes and drives them into an abandoned building. That building just happened to be the place where a specific scientist had done experimental research years before. Residue from one of the research projects was still present and the characters become compromised. Too many coincidences all stacked up together.

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Review: The Flock

The Flock by J. Todd Scott
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a 2-star review which adequately describes my experience.

There weren't any characters of interest. I made it 1/4 way through and still don’t know if the cult’s beliefs are mythical or if there is something supernatural. I was waiting for a cliff of character/plot engagement that never arrives.  I put it down and moved on to something better.



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Review: Fairy Tale

Fairy Tale by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 4-star review which appropriately represents my experience.

America's master storyteller is back at it. Gently sucking you into one of his fantastical worlds only to make to stick around while he maims and slaughters characters with sadistic glee for your reading pleasure. If you've read the summary, you have the tale's basic nuts and bolts.

I was in terms enthralled and amused as the story unfolded. In true Stephen King style, if you make it past the first few chapters, then you have to hang on to see how it ends.

The only criticism I can offer is that, at the end of the day, it is just another fairy tale. It is well told, but read this book once and you probably won't be back because there isn't anything truly groundbreaking in the telling of this story.



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When A Mind Drifts

Dementia is not forgetting a grandchild's birthday.  It is forgetting who they are.

Dementia is asking the same question.  Again.

Dementia is wearing slip-on shoes because you have forgotten how to tie shoe laces.  You are not likely to ever relearn how to tie them.

Dementia is asking when a person is going to visit when they have been dead for decades.

Dementia is asking when a person is going to visit when they left 10 minutes ago.

Dementia is asking the same question.  Again.

Dementia is not just losing your way.  It is never knowing the way in the first place.

Dementia is not remembering that you broke a bone in your foot.

Dementia is asking why your foot hurts all the time.

Dementia is a series of inappropriate responses.

Dementia is biting your nails.  Please don't bite your nails.  Dementia is biting your nails.  Please don't bite your nails.

Dementia is asking the same question.  Again.

Dementia is asking to go home.  The house in question was sold decades ago.

Dementia is swinging from cooperative to confrontational and back on a moment's notice.

Dementia is pouring your pills into the water cup instead of your mouth.

Dementia is wandering the house at all hours of the night.

Dementia is asking the same question.  Again.

Dementia is napping.  Until your companion naps, and then you are out the front door.  Woohoo!

Dementia is pouring water into your pill cup instead of your mouth.

Dementia is asking to go "home".  The house in question was sold decades ago.

Dementia is expecting kindness in every interaction while being unable to respond in kind.

Dementia is being concerned with modesty one minute and being stark naked the next.

Dementia is biting your nails.  Please don't bite your nails.

Dementia is thinking that your family has abandoned you.  Your family is standing right in front of you.

Dementia is wondering where the guy who was in your room earlier in the morning has gone.  It was your son.  He has a day job.

Dementia is removing the night light from the socket in the bathroom because "I have to turn out all the lights."

Dementia is not being able to see well enough at night to be able to find the light switch.

Dementia is asking the same question.  Again.

Dementia is not giving your family any good options while they are giving you the best options available.

Dementia is always closing the bathroom door despite being told to leave it open.

Dementia is wetting yourself because you forgot where the toilet is and the bathroom door is closed.

Dementia is asking the same question.  Again.

A modest postscript.  This was written over several weeks/months.  I started receiving spam emails for dementia-related services after I started writing but well before it was posted.  The emails started showing up at an email address not directly associated with this blog long before I published the piece.  With Google, we are the product, not the customer.

Review: Strange Company

Strange Company by Nick Cole
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star review. It is closer to 3.5 stars, but I couldn't round it up.

I have become a big fan of Nick Cole's work as a solo author. He writes convincing characters and compelling action sequences. Those skills are widely present in this book. The back half of the book as our heroes fought a series of running gun battles was engaging and almost captivating.

However....spoilers lie ahead

Review: A Crown for Cold Silver

A Crown for Cold Silver by Alex Marshall
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star review. I think it is closer to 3.5 stars, but I have a hard time rounding it up to 4 in this case. I made it to the end, but it was a close thing.

A while back, I read the "Evil is a Matter of Perspective" anthology that included a story written by Alex Marshall from the Crimson Empire universe. (also, read that anthology. It's great!)

Like Veruca Salt seeing a boat driven by Oompa Loompas, I so wanted to read A Crown for Cold Silver. I want it, daddy! I want it nooowwww! I did not break out into song.

The short story told of the ascension of the new Black Pope to her current office.

But then I got roughly halfway through the book.

I changed my mind, daddy. I do _not_ want a boat driven by Oompa Loompas.

While the book is reasonably well written, well-paced, and with relatable characters, there were a couple of features that undermined my experience.

The first feature was the use of modern phraseology coming from characters that are obviously not living in our modern world. That approach works when the book is obviously riffing on a modern cultural feature such as Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. It creates a disjointed reading experience when characters in a fantasy setting are using modern vernacular.

The second feature was the abundance of drug use. Almost everyone was almost always high/drunk on something despite either wandering in dangerous wastelands or on the brink of martial combat where a drug-addled mind almost certainly will lead to disaster rather than success.

The combination of the two led to the observation that the characters really were just playthings allowing the author to have a series of "wouldn't that be cool" moments; periodically driven by a smattering of identitarianism.

The third feature is that this was obviously written as the first book of a larger series. It ends with none of the plot threads resolved. I like the Peter V. Brett approach of the first book being a standalone novel with few (if any) cliffhangers.

If those features do not interrupt your reading experience, then give this book a read as it is otherwise well written. I doubt I will be returning to this series anytime soon.

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History Honored - Clarkston, MI - The Maybees

Almost two decades ago, my great-great-great-great-grandparents left New Jersey to take a chance on a wooded lot in Independence Township near what would eventually become Clarkston, MI.  Their descendants worked the farm until the late 1950s.  My great-grandfather's brother eventually sold the farm and the land was converted into various subdivisions.  

The area where the farmhouse once stood (northwest of this marker) is now a very nice subdivision.  A local group that is dedicated to making the community more walkable decided to erect a plaque honoring my family's history in the area.  (Click all photos to see a larger version.)

The main body of the plaque reads:

John and Malinda Maybee started it all when they left New Jersey in 1836 to take a chance on 80 acres of wooded land in Independence Township.  Their success here as settlers was due to careful planning: They brought enough money, supplies and tools to survive for two years until their farm became productive.  The family farm grew to 240 acres, including Spring Lake at its south end and a separate 80-acre "woodlot" at short distance down the road to the west.  Five generations of Maybees thrived here, headed by John, Jesse, John, James Russell, and Charlotte Ann.  They enrished the community and farmed this land into the 1950s.

The "Charlotte Ann" mentioned was my grandmother's cousin and James Russell was her father.  She was a prominent fixture in my life growing up and was my first "date" to a concert at the Pine Knob amphitheater that is located a few miles from the family farm.  I think it was Paul Anka, but don't quote me on that.  It could have been Neil Sedaka.

I don't think that Charlotte Ann ever "headed" the farm, but I know that she worked it with her parents.  After high school she went on to get a teaching degree from Michigan State University; it was probably a college at that time.  She retired from Flint Community Schools and went on to serve as a consultant for the State of Michigan inspecting various primary educational institutions.

The marker is on Maybee Road near Spring Lake.  The family history is that every bull that was kept on the farm was named Sashabaw and that the nearby road was named Sashabaw due to that fact.  It is entirely probable that either the bulls and/or the road were actually named for the First Nations Chief Sashabaw. 

Malinda and John Maybee, in the 1850s. 
All images courtesy of the Clarkston Community Historical Society.

A portion of the 1872 map of Independence Township shows the location of the Maybee property.  #1 is what became Sashabaw Road.  #2 is what became Maybee Road.  #3 is the 160-acre Maybee farm.  #4 is their 80-acre "woodlot" property.  #5 is the Saginaw Turnpike that became Dixie Highway.  #6 is the village of Clarkston.

The Birdland subdivision along Maybee Road was built in the 1950s.  It occupies the 80-acre "woodlot" property that the Maybee family maintained for wood for lumber and firewood.  The Maybees' careful conservation of this woodland is indicated in the large mature oak and other trees that endure amount these homes.

James Russell Maybee milking a cow, late 1940s.  In 1933, he was honored by the Nation Dairy Association for his 11 cows, each producing an average of 316 pounds of butterfat for the year.

Cutting ice in 1911, on Spring Lake on the south end of the Maybee far.  Ice was stored for year-round use before electrical refrigeration became common.

The Maybee farm in the late 1940s.  At that time, under the stewardship of James Russell Maybee, the farm was focused on dairy agriculture.

The occasion for discovering the placard was the memorial service for Charlotte Ann Maybee that was held in May of 2022 at the Clarkston United Methodist Church.  News of the plaque spread during the reception and several of us make the trek out to the site.

We were fortunate to be able to show the plaque to my mom, Nickie Vance.  Nickie's mom, Isabel Stark was born Isabel Maybee to William and Beatrice Maybee.  William was the brother of James Russell Maybee.

Nickie Vance with the plaque honoring the Maybee family farm.

 

Dad Made It To TikTok

I'm not a TikTok guy.  The platform seems questionable, the content is (to say the least) not my speed), and I have enough rabbit holes to dive into already.

Last year, a friend pointed out a TikTok video that included my dad.  Dad died in 2019, well before TikTok was around.  And yet he made it there nonetheless.

He wasn't really a social media guy even when he was around.

Here is a still from the video.  Dad was directing one of his choirs.

The video was a compilation of images from the 1971 yearbook.  You can follow the link or just view it below.

New (to me) Music - Porcupine Tree

Take the following groups/performers, and toss them in a rhetorical blender.

• Pink Floyd
• Styx
• Journey
• Led Zepplin 
• Duncan Shiek
• Yes
• Chemical Brothers

What do you get?

Porcupine Tree  

I came across Porcupine Tree a while back due to their song Blackest Eyes from the In Absentia album.  I finally got around to listening to their complete discography.  So far, I've just been listening to their studio albums.

It is like walking in a musical wilderness where one moment you are looking at a bucolic pasture and the next you are watching a river crash down a mountainside in a raging set of mountain waterfalls.

One moment you are listening to an ethereal and melancholic tune with a singer lightly singing wistfully.  The next moment comes as the same song will transition into something with a thumping drum beat and guitar riffs that make you look around to see where all the metalheads came from.

The band has been around for over 20 years and it is probably the best band that you've never heard.

I heartily recommend listening to the albums Signify and In Absentia.

Steven Wilson formed Porcupine Tree and provide both instrumental and vocal leadership in their music.  He has been praised by musicians as varied as Alex Lifeson (Rush), Steve Howe (Yes), Robert Trujillo (Metallica), Jordan Rudess, Michael Portnoy (both of Dream Theater), and others.

Give them a listen.  Spotify - YouTube 

Review: King of the Bastards

King of the Bastards by Brian Keene
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a 2-star review which is a fair evaluation of my experience with this book.

Our protagonist (??!?) is a Conan knock-off who has all of the bravado and toughness but none of the nuance. He conquers and kills because that is what he does. Others are expected to submit to his will. That apparently includes raping women just because.

This book is an amalgamation of cosmic horror, fantasy, and science fiction.

Our protagonist is out adventuring when his group is attacked by various monsters from the ocean's depths as well as raiders arriving across the sea. He and one of his crew survive after running aground on some foreign land. They beat off the remainder of their attackers and are discovered by some of the locals.

The locals are afraid of some wizard that lives on the top of a mountain. In exchange for agreeing to help rid the locals of the wizard, the locals agree to travel with our protagonist as he sails for his home that has been taken over by raiders working for the deity that fomented in the original attacks.

There are two primary issues with this book.

1. Our protagonist is a cheap Conan knock-off.
2. The author is attempting a pastiche of the original RE Howard stories, but he is unable to consistently use language that is in keeping with that pastiche. He uses terms and phrases that are not appropriate for a Conan-type character.

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Review: Reign & Ruin

Reign & Ruin by J.D. Evans
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a 2-star review. My experience would be closer to 2.5 stars.

This book won the SPFBO this year. I have read every winner since becoming aware of the competition. Those books have been uniformly fantastic...until now. The grammar and spelling were fine. The pacing was fine.

But I spent the first 15-20% of the book wondering if I was going to toss it across the floor in disgust.

The book is centered on a princess/sultana who is slated to marry whomever the powerbrokers want her to marry. Her father's memory and grasp on reality have fractured to the point where he really doesn't know what is going on. She is working to protect him and to protect her country from an aggressive nation to the north. Naturally, she disapproves of this marital arrangement and is working to get out of it. (as a reader, I sympathized with the Sultana) The Sultan's dementia is a result of employing his specific type of magic.

There are six magic houses. Each has a different skill (i.e. air, fire, water, etc.) and each has a different color. I had no real idea of how that worked after reading 15% of the book. There were some indications on some of the houses, but no real establishment of how magic works.

Why? Because in the first 15% of the book none of these supposedly powerful mages does a lick of meaningful magic. We are told they are powerful (mostly by the Sultana who is the focus of the book) but there is no evidence of that power in their actions.

The author does not understand the principle of "show don't tell".

That is the primary flaw with this book. We are told there are powerful mages. We rarely see that power in evidence. We are told that there are some nefarious characters but rarely see them behaving in a nefarious manner. We are told there is a threat from the neighboring country to the north and they never show up in the book.

The Sultana ends up falling in love with a prince from the country to the west. The two nations used to be one nation hundreds of years ago but were split apart. The prince arrives on a diplomatic mission that is part of the Sultana's machinations to avoid a forced marriage.

The two fall in love. Why? She is pretty and he is handsome. They don't actually do much of anything to justify each other's love. We are told they are pretty and that's that.

Then there are the obligatory sex scenes that do nothing to advance the larger narratives of the various storylines.

The last few chapters were predictable. Very little of the consequences in the story are actually earned.

While I usually am enthusiastic about continuing a series that begins with a SPFBO winning book, I have no interest in continuing this series. If not for winning SPFBO, this book would have received the Dorothy Parker treatment after reading 15% of the book.

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Review: Fevered Star

Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have been an active Worldcon member for over a decade; nominating and voting for the Hugo Awards. And I've been a fan of science fiction/fantasy since I learned to read.

This book is why I am usually a Worldcon member. The first book in the series was nominated for the Best Novel award in 2021. I had the first entry in the series (Black Sun) in the first position on my ballot.

This year's book from Ms. Roanhorse, Fevered Star, continues her tour de force in the fantasy genre.

The series is based on the first nation's traditions of the pre-Columbian Americas. In this book, two opposing gods have had their essences imbued into their respective "priests". The people carrying those divine beings don't necessarily want to fight, but the gods most certainly do.

Coupled with that are seven competing clans who all want to control the city of Tova. Each uses the current conflict as a premise for maneuvering events to the advantage of their individual clans.

Rather than using the first book to coast further down the established narrative, Ms. Roanhorse uses this next installment to change the stakes and some of the players to tell an enthralling story.

This book is a singular example of why fantasy fiction exists. Just as JRR Tolkien introduced the world to a completely new epic tale, Ms. Roanhorse is introducing the world to her vision of fantastic characters and places.

Assuming that I am participating in Worldcon 2023, Fevered Star will be on my nominating list.

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Review: The Last Dance

The Last Dance by Martin L. Shoemaker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Captain Nicolau Aames commands a spaceship that travels the Armstrong cycle/circuit from Earth to Mars and back. It really is more of a space train that shuttles people and material to Mars and back.

The Captain is obsessed with details. Along the way, he trains people going to Mars and his own crew by forcing them to train for obscure scenarios. Essentially, he envisions a stream of cascading errors and demands that his crew be prepared to respond to any contingency.

Captain Aames finds himself in trouble as he refuses an order from command. The ensuing investigation eventually becomes centered on a death on Mars. If the Captain is correct, it is a murder. Command doesn't see where it could be a murder and just wants the investigation closed.

A second feature is the potential for the spaceship to become a self-contained polity that is free from the dictates of Earth. As an independent polity, the Captain of the ship would be free from many of the regulations imposed by Earth.

Mysteries within mysteries with the question of self-determination in the balance.

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Review: The Liar of Red Valley

The Liar of Red Valley by Walter Goodwater
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Our protagonist's mother possesses the magical ability to cause reality to change based on what she writes in her book. Whatever she writes comes to pass.

Rather than using that power to run things, she mostly just exchanges her talent for money.

Mom eventually dies and our protagonist discovers that she also possesses this ability, it has been passed down from mother to daughter since the founding of the Valley.

There is some sort of powerful being (an alien? something supernatural?) that is attracted to the valley. He wants her for her power.

Fans of Stephen King will recognize many of the features of this book. But this is a reasonably unique story and setting. Worth a read for any fan of horror and fantasy.

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Review: The Last Campaign

The Last Campaign by Martin L. Shoemaker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another fantastic installment in this series. Where before our protagonist was a spaceship captain, he has lost that high position and now works with his wife running various businesses.

Murders occur and those in power seek someone capable of running a detailed investigation. It turns out to be his wife that is called to serve rather than him. This naturally causes a great of stress between them.

What follows is a collision of principles in front of a background of people struggling to build a new civilization on Mars that is not dependent or based on an overly bureaucratic Earth.

The tension between personal principles, love for another, and the desire to live free creates space to explore the human condition from many directions.

This was on my nomination list for the Hugo Awards in 2021.

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Review: Bystander 27

Bystander 27 by Rik Hoskin
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This book is populated by cliches and cardboard characters. The protagonist is some sort of high-speed special forces guy with an apartment in New York City. There aren't any SF bases in NYC. It goes downhill from there.

The ghost of Dorothy Parker rose in a manner adroit and definitive.

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In Memoriam - A Headstone

Fans of the band Rush are aware that drummer Neal Peart lost both his daughter and his wife within a very short period of time.  It crushed him. 

His daughter's headstone is engraved with part of the following poem.  Having never read this before, it moved me.

---

Funeral Blues by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Review: MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors

MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors by Richard Hooker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 4-star review.

I was a big fan of the TV show as a kid. At least, I really liked the early seasons. I didn't see the movie for many more years but liked it as well.

The book was a different experience. It attempts to be a "year in the life" sort of book with what are effectively a series of vignettes that follow our heroes over their tour in Korea during the Korean War*. There isn't really an overarching story being told across the various chapters.

Most of those stories end up in either the movie or the TV series. At least, all of the better stories end up in some sort of video format - and sometimes both!

The primary problem with the book is that the number of hijinks that our heroes experience over the course of a year seems to be far too great for only two US Army doctors to achieve over such a short period of time. The author indicates in the preface that Hawkeye and Trapper John are really amalgamations of a larger number of doctors.

But as a single narrative, it's hard to believe that two doctors drink that much, conduct extended surgery sessions that much, and make side trips to so many other places within a single year.

It would be interesting to encounter this book without having had prior exposure via the TV series or the movie.

People that enjoyed the early years of the series but not the later years should enjoy this book. People that didn't enjoy the early years but liked the later years probably will not enjoy this book.

*I know. "conflict" - "police action" - nonsense. Men and women died in huge numbers fighting against enemy armies. It was a war.

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Review: Terms of Enlistment

Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star review. It's a weak 3 stars.

Read this some time ago, but had not reviewed it. The story wasn't terribly memorable. As I recall, it had some anti-Starship Trooper elements. Or at least it was trying to subvert the ST narrative in some way.

A couple of plot points stood out to me.

One was that so many people were basically being warehoused. They received a subsistence level of money from the government. Their access to good food was poor. And there was precious little explanation of how this came to be and how it was sustained.

Downstream from the inexplicable economics was the suggestion that people should just take what they wanted as well as the suggestion that those people had no options in which they could demonstrate their usefulness to humanity by pursuing meaningful work.

The second was that the author made the unforgivable mistake of conflating an "assault rifle/weapon" with a semi-automatic rifle. Being a veteran, he should know better.

The unexplained economics were a much larger problem.

There are better works of MilSF out there. Pursue them instead of this.

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Review: Isolate

Isolate by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 4-star review. My experience is closer to 3.5 stars.

Isolate is the latest book from L.E. Modesitt Jr. It is the first in a series. I have been a fan of Mr. Modesitt for many years and was hoping that this book would be worthy of being on my Hugo Awards nomination list this year because that sort of recognition of his work is long overdue. Sadly, it fell a bit short of that high bar.

There are many plot elements to this book that mostly interlock. The characters are well developed. Despite the flaws and the predictable ending, I was fully engaged with the book from beginning to end.

The Isolate world appears to be steam-punk-ish. Automobiles are powered by water and kerosene. There might be electricity, but it isn't a significant feature. Gas lighting is evident. Long-distance communication is accomplished via light reflectors sending coded messages. Travel over long distances is done via rail. Technologically, the world is on par with roughly the 1910-1920 era.

The most significant speculative fiction element is the presence of a range of empaths; people capable of sensing/projecting emotions/thoughts. On that range are "isolates" who are anti-empaths with emotions/thoughts that cannot be sensed by empaths.

The author likes to explore issues of social science in his work. In this book, the political framework is a sort of parliamentary system with a monarch; sort of like the UK. There are three parties formally recognized in the nation's formal organization. There are electoral restrictions that are intended to prevent any one party from becoming too strong without preventing an outright majority.

The three parties are separately presented as representing labor, business, and inherited wealth. Inherited wealth tends to line up with business more as a matter of convenience than ideology. The regulatory framework tends to enable corruption with big businesses controlling construction contracts.

Another unique feature is that votes by members of parliament are secret. Members enter a voting booth and vote via a mechanism that hides their hands. They select a tile that indicates their party that is then dropped into the appropriate yes/no slot. This is intended to prevent voters from responding against votes cast by a single individual. This in turn causes a plot point where some citizens are campaigning for changes so that a politician's discreet voting record will be public. "People not parties!"

The story centers on a politician, Axel Obreduur, and his security team of one empath, Avraal Ysella, and one isolate, Steffan Dekkard. The two are teamed together as their relative "abilities" are complementary.

There are several plot lines that are woven together in the central story. Most of them have to do with the powers of the government and how laws are made/changed/etc. That sounds pretty dry, but it really isn't. Most of the political negotiations occur behind closed doors while the reader is engaged with other characters elsewhere. Some of the plotlines deal with personal/private relationships either as a result of government policies and in some cases despite government policies.

There is some action (Steffan kills a few people while defending Axel and Avraal). But this is largely a quieter story that unfolds gracefully.

The author introduces some interesting twists. The policies and interests of the three parties do not map perfectly onto modern American political parties. Axel supports some interests that might be considered "left" and others that would be considered "right" relative to American political interests. That skewing of interests relative to party labels opens up opportunities to consider/re-consider different perspectives.

There were some plot issues that detracted from the overall story.

- There are several instances of markets being distorted by government regulations/taxation. It never occurs to the characters that less government might result in greater individual success due to the increase in individual autonomy.

- All of the policies that Axel supports are considered to be desirable. All of the policies that he opposes are considered undesirable. Conversely, the business party is presented in all their mustache-twirling glory. In a book with moral grey areas, that sort of binary characterization seems out of place.

- The conclusion(s) of the book is/are predictable after reading roughly a third of the book.

- In an attempt to explore social conditions, there are a few features that are nonsense. The first of those features is the fact that the police are armed with revolvers and the rebels/terrorists/youpickaname have semi-automatic pistols with a larger magazine capacity than the standard revolver. If pistols are available, then why wouldn't the police have them? Another would be Axel's penchant for campaigning outside of a "sportball" arena on game day, but never actually engaging with the event. He campaigns while the crowd is filtering in and then leaves when the game starts.

This book is worth reading, once. I doubt I will continue reading the series.

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A Quilt for Olivia

Our son Josh married his beloved bride, Kayla, last fall.  As circumstances would have it, bun number 2 was already in the oven!  

I haven't had much time to quilt over the last year.  I lost my quilting space during some home renovations.  I've got a new/better space now, but for a while, there just wasn't anyplace to work.

We've had some other changes in our lives that have also cut into my quilting time over the last few months.  But this is a grandbaby!  One must make time for such an occasion.

I have a nice little stash of Dr. Seuss fabrics.  I just haven't had the opportunity to use them.

Until now.  Click to embiggen any photos of interest.

The pattern is a modified log cabin design.  I call it "Log Cabin Deconstructed".

Instead of doing a more traditional layout (see Quilt #1 for a good representation of a more traditional layout), I modified the pattern with a larger 4" x 4" centerpiece and a semi-random distribution of fabrics.  The larger centerpiece was a bit of a crutch/time-saver as the first three pieces of a log cabin quilt are small.  Combining them into a single block helped move the project along.

I used a process that is related to the one used in the stained glass quilt that I made my mom to distribute the fabrics.  In this case, I sorted the fabrics so that no two adjacent pieces would use the same fabric.  I also shuffled the blocks as they were being added to the pile so that none of the finished blocks would have exactly the same arrangement of fabrics.

I'm pretty pleased with the result.  Once I had the quilt finished, the hard part was done and our grandbaby could arrive on schedule.

We are ecstatic with the arrival of Miss Olivia Gene Todd on April 6, 2022.

Review: Titan

Titan by Robert Kroese
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 4-star review which is a fair representation of my experience with this book.

There are a lot of moving pieces to this book. Our protagonist, Kade Kapur, dreams of starting an aerospace company to help humanity make the jump from Earth to the stars. He is in turn driven, charming, and a techno-geek hesitantly feeling his way through the world.

Unlike past generations of world-changing titans of industry, Kade comes of age at a time when the last free (or at least semi-free) nation is slowly tightening the regulatory and taxation vise that stifles innovation. He is a modern John Galt adapting as quickly as possible; slithering through the closing gap of government interference like Indiana Jones escaping an ancient, trapped tomb.

The story includes native elements about electronic currencies, blockchain systems, privacy concerns, and space mining technologies. The primary characters are engaging and fully realized. Some of the secondary characters are mildly two-dimensional.

The primary reason why this didn't get 5-stars is the economics treatises that get info-dumped in the middle of the story. Most of these come in the form of monologues from an 18-year old prodigy. At some point, the dense economic info-dumps coming from an unlikely source turn into a case where the sub-text supersedes the text. The ideology displaces the story.

The preaching upstages the entertainment.

This was largely an enjoyable read. I look forward to reading the next installment at some point.

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Systemic Biases

I was reading a profile of former California Governor Jerry Brown.  He is living a more private life on his farm.  He also serves as the head of the board that maintains the "clock" that measures the threat of nuclear war.

Within that story it was noted that the "clock" stands at 100 seconds to midnight...nuclear war...and that it had not been changed with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin having increased the alert level of Russia's nuclear forces.  President Biden elected not to make a corresponding adjustment to the alert level of America's nuclear forces.

Based on what I see, I think President Biden's choice was correct but that isn't what prompts me to set fingers to keyboard.

It is my opinion that this would not have been the situation had the nations been reversed.  Had the US President increased the alert level of our nuclear forces, then the "clock" would have certainly been moved towards "midnight".

Such is the bias of international non-governmental organizations and the media that report on their activities.  Their reactions are predictable and inequitable.  A shift in American policymaking is greeted with significant responses.  A shift in the whims of the world's dictators barely ruffles the feathers of those international organizations.

8/6/2025 - modest grammar correction

Review: The Girl in the Gun Club: My Time as One of the Few Good Men

The Girl in the Gun Club: My Time as One of the Few Good Men by Tracy Salzgeber
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Everyone has a slightly different experience serving in the Marine Corps. This book tells the story of SSgt Sulzgeber's ~13 years on active duty.

As with every other Marine, she's still a Marine - just a No-LOAD (No Longer On Active Duty), like me!

I went into this book expecting to read the worst. My brother Marines have a bad and well-deserved reputation for treating our sister Marines pretty poorly. I figured this book might lean into that negative reputation.

It didn't. There were some instances where SSgt Sulzgeber experienced negative consequences due exclusively to her gender. Far more frequently, her gender caused a little extra negative consequence on top of other, larger consequences that are the sort of routine stories Marines tell one another all the time.

That doesn't make those "extra" consequences right, it makes her story real.

I'd recommend this book to any Marine (active, reserve, No-LOAD) as well as to any person that is looking to join the Corps. It is an unflinching look at both the good and the bad when it comes to Marine Corps leadership and their care and feeding of the average jarhead. I'd recommend it for non-Marines as well, just be prepared. Marines can be pretty salty.

There are tales of success. Tales of failure. (SSgt Sulzgeber doesn't pretend that she is the second coming of Dan Daly or Smedley Butler). Tales of frustration at the hands of bureaucracy. Tales of success despite the best efforts of "leaders" to create failure. Tales of stress. Tales of the random goofiness that comes with being in the military (in general) and the Corps (specifically).

The book is well written and unflinching. I could not put it down.

Outstanding job, Marine!

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