Humans rule, except when they don't: A Fred Pohl collection

Frederik Pohl. The Abominable Earthman (1963) Collection of some of Pohl’s early pieces. The title story tells about a sociopathic but genial ne’er-do-well who inadvertently becomes humankind’s saviour when he discovers how to control the insectoid invaders (from a planet trailing Sirius) by offering them regular hits of CO2, which for them is an addictive and mind-addling drug.
     Several of the other stories have an equally shaggy-dog denouement, e.g. Punch, which warns us to beware of aliens bearing gifts. This genre was very popular at the time, and Pohl’s work is better than most, I think because he takes his serious themes seriously, even in his comic writing. He uses SF to explore what it means to be human. Like Ambrose Bierce, he “sees things as they are, not as they are supposed to be.” Which makes him a cynic, but an entertaining one. In his longer, more ambitious works (like the novella, Whatever Counts, included here) he tends to portentousness.
    Still, he’s one the best writers of the era, and any of his books is worth reading. ** to ****.

L'amour pot boiler: Cattle drive, murder, gold.

Louis L’Amour. North to the Rails (1971) Tom Chantry comes West to buy cattle. He was raised in the East by his mother after his father, a marshal, was killed by three outlaws. She impressed him with her horror of violence, which leads to his refusing a fight, and having to redeem his reputation. This he does on the cattle drive, after partnering with French Williams, a man of dubious integrity. A subplot involving Williams' equally dubious cousins complicates the story enough to fill the usual 200 or so pages of a mass market paperback.
     Here L’Amour is writing to formula. He’s best in his sparse but intense descriptions of the landscape, the work, the weather. The characters and the plot provide just enough scaffolding to prevent the story from collapsing. Below average for L’Amour, which makes it merely average for the genre. *½

Early Andre Norton fantasy about a gemstone

Andre Norton. The Zero Stone (1968). Morduc Jern inherits a ring with a strange home-seeking stone from his gem-dealer father. His master dies when a weird priesthood targets them both as potential sacrifices. And then one complication after another tangles the path of Murdoc and Eet, a mind-talking and -reading entity that commandeered the ship’s cat to produce a cat-like body for itself.
     They’re marooned on a planet that may have been colonised by the Old Ones, the stone behaves as no stone should, and so on. There’s double-crosses and hidden agendas and the Thieves Guild and such. Pretty good fantasy, but the plot is basically that of a role-playing game: hero must find his way to the prize. Which he does, and the denouement hints at future adventures of the intrepid pair.
     Norton writes well, so that most readers will likely read as I did, turning the pages to find out how Murdoc and Eet would escape whatever predicament they’re in, only to tumble into another one. Well done example of the genre. **½

The Christmas Train ( a re-read)

David Baldacci. The Christmas Train (2002)  I re-read this book (previously reviewed) because we had watched the Hallmark Movies adaptation. The book is both better and worse than the movie. Better in its depiction of railroading (albeit with a healthy dose of AMTRAK public relations stuff tossed in), and its handling of the storm-caused entrapment of the train.
     Worse in its characterisation. Actors can fill in the gaps in a thin script, and hint at depths that in writing must be done with throwaway lines and trifling details. There is none of that here. Tom Langdon is 2D. Everyone else is 1.5D, even Eleanor Carter, his long lost and ever after pined for love. Like Dickens, Baldacci uses defining quirks to set up his characters, but unlike Dickens, he doesn’t give us the incidental details that make these characters real enough to serve the illusion.
     The writing is often indifferently general and abstract. Baldacci is one of those writers who believes that Latinate words (like “inclemency” for “storm”) elevate the style. And he is incapable of riffing on cliches to make them not only fresh but apt.
     I kept on reading mostly because I wanted to see how the movie and book compared. The movie omits a few incidents, and cranks up the sentimentality (easily done with visuals, after all). The book could have been much better with more ruthless editing. Baldacci’s story is a typical love-romance, and the tropes of the genre must be respected. But a lot of the time it reads more like a travelogue than a novel. His attempts at ironic witticism fall flat.
     The plot hinges on Tom’s understanding that his past life was a refusal to accept reality, and Eleanor’s willingness to take him back. That requires more complex and subtle dialogue than Baldacci gave himself room for. The acknowledgements suggest that the book was “project” proposed to him, perhaps by AMTRAK. It doesn’t feel like a story he felt compelled to tell.
     Schlock, barely OK as a beach or airplane read. *

Neanderthals are humans

More evidence  that Neanderthals were people like us. Doesn't look like  much, eh? It's a piece of string.

It takes a lot of insight to make string. You have to understand that twisting fibres together makes a stronger product. You have to see that string is useful for tying stuff. You have to have stuff that needs tying. And so on. Quite an achievement!

Now I know why I save string.

What most people think but don't want to say

The Guardian is saying it out loud: Trump has destroyed the USA's international reputation. One of several blunt quotes:

"Erratic behaviour, tolerated in the past, is now seen as downright dangerous. It’s long been plain, at least to many in Europe, that Trump could not be trusted. Now he is seen as a threat. It is not just about failed leadership. It’s about openly hostile, reckless actions."

Before Trump was elected, I pointed to uncomfortable parallels between him and several well-known (mostly dead) dictators. Comments claimed I was being disrespectful. Fact is, I was saying less than I thought at the time.

Mother Nature: A thought.

Mother Nature doesn't care about shareholder value.

Photo of an iris

An iris from a few years ago. We are looking forward to this year's blooms.