The Meaning of Everything (book)

     Simon Winchester The Meaning of Everything (2003) The story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. It’s amazing the thing was done. Nowadays, it would either not have been funded, or it would have cancelled at the first sign of exceeding its budget. It took 70 years and at least £350,000. James Murray, who oversaw the project through most if his and its life, did an enormous amount of the work: at first, all definitions went to him before going to the printer. Later, Bradley joined him, and the work progressed faster.
When it was done in 1928, the Oxford University Press took a good deal of the credit. The Dictionary has become an ongoing project, the computer has made production easier, and it’s likely that there won’t be any more new paper editions. A pity, since I really like my 2-volume compact edition. The OED website offers the 20-volume 2nd edition of 1998, but I didn’t check the price.
     This history’s main strength is its brevity. Winchester knows how to write the general narrative with enough detail to provide a sense of what it was like to be part of the task. The photos are poorly reproduced, unfortunately. High-resolution scans were available in 2003, so there’s no excuse. Otherwise well done. ***

British Model Railway magazines

Miscellaneous British model railway magazines (1970s to present) I’ve been clipping and tossing these. In decided to keep Model Railways and Model Railway Journal, but all the others will be gone.
     There are some common features: an irritating absence of detail drawings and methods in construction articles. More recently, step by step photos and instructions are showing up, and are very well done. Most magazines feature very good outline drawings of locomotives, rolling stock, and structures, along with excellent photographs and thorough historical and technical data. The product  reviews are generally OK. A couple of magazines regularly give necessary wheel dimensions and/or comparisons with prototype measurements. They tend to be more laudatory and “grateful to the trade” than US reviews; some read more like press releases than reviews.
     Layout photos are generally superb and very inspirational, showing a very high quality of modelling. I am especially impressed with the modelling of landscape and structures. In townscape modelling, North American modellers are far behind British ones. The texts on the other hand are pretty much the same format: a brief history of the prototype (imaginary or real), vague narratives of construction, and stock lists. The layouts themselves tend to be much of a muchness, with the same visual themes regardless of  prototype. One observes a trend towards more accurate prototype modelling, a trend repeated in North America some 10 years later. This trend does not improve the variety, however. It seems to me that the days of free-lance modelling will return. Some of the most interesting layouts ever have been pure fantasy (Allen’s Gorre and Daphetid) or prototype inspired (McClelland’s V & O or Koester’s Midland Road.) Frank Ellison’s observation that model railroading is like playwriting and production still holds. In other words, model railroading is both a narrative and a visual art. As with drama, interpretation of reality and pure invention work better than exact imitation of nature.
     The useful British habit of using fiddle yards (termed storage sidings in earlier times) has been taken up here, with a change in terminology: we call them staging yards or staging for short. Some modellers (e.g. Dave Barrow) have argued that staging should be out in the open, and scenicked. Barrow claims the advantages of avoiding the problems of any hidden trackage (i.e., what’s not a problem in the open becomes one on hidden track), and easier visualisation of the operating scheme. If his p.o.v. catches on, we will have come full circle to the early days of layout planning: division point plus a stretch of mainline and/or branch. Plus ça change!
All in all, I spent a pleasant if somewhat exhausting time reviewing these old magazines. They varied in quality from acceptable to excellent. (2000)

Flesh and Gold

Phyllis Gotlieb Flesh and Gold (1998) I didn’t finish this book. The premise is interesting, involving many beings co-operating more or less in a future interstellar federation of sorts. Humans (Solthrees) have been bioengineered to adapt to different planetary habitats. Interstellar commerce profits only when the trade-ware is people, many of which are conveniently labelled as animals. Bribery and other forms of corruption abound. But the book holds only intellectual interest for me; it does not engage my empathy or sympathy for the characters. It is a clever book, a merely clever book. I can’t quite put my finger on what’s lacking, really. I think it is the language: Gotlieb writes competently, but she hasn’t the knack of making a place become vividly present, such as Heinlein and Kipling have. Those writers could make the most alien landscape and lifestyle seem familiar within a page or two. Gotlieb can’t do that, so although the alien setting is an interesting one, and she has done a lot of work to make it plausible, it is not believable. ** (2000)

The Severn Valley Railway (book)

     Roger Siviter The Severn Valley Railway (1995) A Then & Now book, consisting almost entirely of paired photos. A brief history and a typically uninformative map are included. The map shows no topographical features, is not scaled, and omits other connections between cities, so that references to through trains are hard to follow. The photos range from mildly interesting to fascinating, as one might expect.
     For the SVR enthusiast, and the GWR modeller, there is a great deal of useful information. For the industrial archeologist, there is an overwhelming impression of the transience of engineering works. A few hours or days with earth moving equipment eliminates even embankments and cuts. The vast loco maintenance works at Worcester have disappeared, and only tracts of wasteland remain to show where they once stood. Track alignments however are remarkably stable, showing major changes only where former junctions have obviated the need for crossovers and sidings. The outlines of railway property are also traceable where housing developments (“estates” in UK parlance) haven’t redrawn the lot lines. Many of the photos show no traces of the railway, or pathways and roads that betray nothing of their railway origin. But it is heartening to see how well the station buildings adapt to purely domestic use. They make splendid homes, and I would love to live in one. Most new owners have eliminated platform edges and have modernised windows, but have kept the old canopies, which make lovely coverings for patios.
     The captions are a bit twee in places, and perforce somewhat repetitive. Siviter has done his best to get a similar perspective on the sites in the “now” photos, and almost always succeeds. The rolling stock is shown mostly in 3/4 front views, and of course we see mostly locomotives. All in all, a excellent book of its kind. *** (2000)

Great Model Railroads 2000 (Magazine)

Great Model Railroads 2000 (1999) Kalmbach’s annual compendium of layout visits. Heavy on pictures, light on text. A few sidebars on technique (eg, tree making.)  Brief bios of builders. As usual, the photos are spectacular, the trackplans contain errors, and the text is too skimpy. Layout comments:
     Leigh Creek Lumber Co. Geoff Nott. HO, 27x37. Many alternate routes and branches.  Spectacular in the John Allen tradition, romantic and wild scenery. Focused on NW US logging. Geoff Nott has an eye for the overall scene. He builds to photograph, but the trackplan permits intensive operation. Light on actual lumbering (which has rarely been modelled convincingly by anyone), heavy on scenery and structures. ****
     The Great Northwest Railroad. Bob Roach. O, 39x25. (22x16 in HO). Folded loop with terminal. A train-watcher’s layout. Long runs, wide curves. The builder likes pristine models, and doesn’t care about prototypical time frame, etc, so the layout does not look realistic, but does have a unified style. It has well-done scenery of the Frank Ellison stage-set type, is nicely finished, and looks good. Also, the rail is code 100, a great plus for O scale.***
     B&O and WM. Bob Bales. HO, 25x44. Hidden-loop to loop, short branch. Good balance between operation and train-watching. One half of the layout is huge yards (plus staging), the other half good-looking mountainous scenery. Double track main with passing tracks. Scenes based on prototype, but not exact reproductions. Some good examples of crowded track/structures/scenery. ***
     NYO&W’s Kingston Branch. Mike Bourke. N, 3.5x5 portable. (6.5x9 in HO) Oval with terminal. A little bit of everything: a town, a yard, a tunnel, etc. Streetcar is operable by viewers. The whole thing very much a display layout, with lots of detail, and fudging of prototype for sake of interest, but fun. ***
     Winged Foot & Western. Charles Patti. On3, 10x2. (5.5x15.5 in HO) Point to loop with continuous run cutoff. Old-time logging. Train-watching plus some operation. Lots of scratchbuilt structures and well done scenery. Good balance of RR and scene, enhanced by use of structures to separate lines. ***
     Clark Fork. John Flann. HO 13x15 shelf layout. Point to point switching with staging. Flann describes a neat way to use playing cards to determine consists and switching schedule. Good balance of scenery and track. Good use of structures to justify trackage. Neat and somewhat too clean, but unified appearance. ***
     White River & Northern. David K. Smith. N 7x10 (13x19 in HO.) Oval with staging and branch to reverse loop. Urban, Conrail era. Good individual scenes, good use of structures and urban landscape to justify dense trackage. Operation friendly but also good for train watching. **1/2
     Spiral Hill Railroad. Frank Titman. S 19x20. (14x15 in HO). Oval with branches, one of which climbs up and over on a spiral (helix.) Crowded, with good individual scenes, but unrealistic if more than one scene within view, and some unrealistic patches; I’d have used fewer structures in several places. The main yard crosses the room on a diagonal - good idea. Operation friendly, but good for train-watching, too. No staging, although there is room for it under upper terminal. Good concept for small space, even better for slightly larger space. Min R is 30" (=22" in HO.). **1/2.
     New Haven Shore Line. Bill Aldrich. HO 21x28. Double track oval with large yard set diagonally inside oval. A train-watcher’s layout, historically accurate (summer 1948.)  Aldrich scratchbuilt most of the locomotives and over half the rolling stock. *** (2000)

Inconstant Star (book)

     Poul Anderson Inconstant Star (1991) A space opera in two parts. Robert and Dorcas Saxtorph have managed to buy a hyperdrive ship, and are hired to fly to a dull red star. There, they discover a Kzin base, which they eventually destroy. In the second novella, they are hired to search for an anomaly that a Wunderlander may have helped some Kzin to find. They find it and the man (who is flying in a sub-light ship), and have a brief encounter with a Kzin ship, which they destroy.
     These stories have the few virtues and many vices of their genre: plots well constructed, characters wooden, politics simplistic (to put it charitably), social milieu marked by adolescent fantasies of willing females and unbelievable fighting skills, relationship problems treated with laughable solemnity and minimal insight, and so on. Anderson usually does much better than this. I guess he wrote these to put bread on the table. Or maybe it's an unpublished early work refurbished for a quick sale.* (2000)

Voices in Summer (book)

Rosamunde Pilcher Voices in Summer (1984) An old-fashioned, discreet, and nice romance. Nothing much happens. The flyleaf blurb says Pilcher creates fine wholesome characters, but the fact is they’re so bland that they’re not very interesting. There’s a mild mystery, which is resolved when Silvia, a widow,  admits to having written poison pen letters in order to capture her childhood sweetheart Alec by turning him against his young wife, Laura. But even that revelation lacks tension, in part because Silvia’s bundled off decently and discreetly to a mental hospital.
     Laura supposed to be devastated by the death of her dog, but you can’t persuade a reader by telling him she’s depressed, you have to show it. Also, she’s recovering from some mysterious operation that is supposed to fix her womb so she can have a long-desired baby, but I for one don’t believe it matters all that much to her. The divorced Alec’s child by his first wife shows up (and conveniently falls in love with Alec’s uncle’s stepson Ivan, and he with her), the old nanny is going senile, and so on.
     All potentially very interesting stuff, with lots of scope for tensions, unresolved conflicts, and ancient hurts, but Pilcher glides over the surface of these matters like one of those water-striding insects over a pond. Scarcely a ripple disturbs the placid surface of the charmed upper-middle-class life of these people. It’s all too nice to be true. It’s frustrating when one can see ways of improving the story, both in style and substance. Pilcher apparently has achieved some fame since the 80s as a minor Maeve Binchy, but I won’t be reading another one. I will sample Binchy, though. Well-written soap-opera can have great interest. * (2000)