The Reading Corner.

[Metaliturtle]

Have you read his stuff Buncle?

[Buster's Uncle]

'Fraid none of it even sounds familiar.

I did score some new comics today, so when I finish my re read of Forever Man, by Gordon R. Dickson (not good at all - reads like it was written by innerwebs nerdz arguing), I'll have a Nightwing collection to report on.

[Metaliturtle]

Read Pat Rothfuss, he's the Tolkien of our time.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'll have a look if I see him.

[Metaliturtle]

[Rusty Edge]

Finished The Otto Prohaska Novels, by John Biggins

More history and irony. The main character is somebody I can care about. Just a young officer trying to do his best for himself and his men under increasingly impossible conditions.

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I'm going to re-read my father's favorite author, Stephen W. Meader. The reason is that I was looking at other books at Amazon and noticed that these have really few reviews. I figure I can help with that.

He was a social worker who wrote stories for boys. He wrote over 40 books. I bought re-prints. Read them all and enjoyed most of them, then leant them to my parents and uncle with similar results. They were set in different decades and states, teaching lessons in character ( stand by your friends ), history, geography, and entrepreneurship. They used to be common in American school libraries.

He didn't modernize with the times. Not much about the environment or psychology as was increasingly common theme material in the 60s and 70s. The books were much alike, the main character was normally a boy, but sometimes a dog. He was frequently lost or kidnapped. Sometimes he made an important discovery. Sometimes he meets an historical figure. In the end everything works out, he gets the girl, or money for college, or  a start in business, or helps his country.

Kind of a sentimental series for me, some of the first historical fiction sailing stories I ever read, ties to my Dad, my youth, etc.

[Buster's Uncle]

...Did he write those books about the cocker spaniels?  I liked those as a kid...

[Rusty Edge]

One was about a bull terrier.

Another was about the author's family dog, a mixed breed.

He wrote a book about a Rebel blockade runner operating from the outer banks during the war between the states, I'll see if I can find that one to start. Goodnight.

[Buster's Uncle]

I intended to write up Battle Circle by Piers Anthony when I reread it a month or so ago, but somehow didn't.  It's a collection of three fairly short novels, Sos the Rope, Var the Stick and Neq the Sword.  It's amazing how the quality and worth falls off with each new novel.

Sos the Rope is why I wanted to talk about the collection - it is Camelot with barbarians, the story of an Arthur, a Lancelot and a Guinevere, in a unambitious milieu, a tragedy of three people who should have been happy if not for being forced up against one insurmountable sticking point at every crux.  The protagonist, really the better man in all the ways that matter except the one that matters most in their society, finds himself locked into an insoluble dilemma to eventually find another way only to find himself locked again into another, faced with no good choices.  People forced into paths they don't want to walk, forced to do things they don't want.  Greatness with the seeds of its own destruction in its beginning.

It's crap science fiction, but a beautifully-crafted story of people.

[Buster's Uncle]

Has anyone else read Sos the Rope?  Anthony never sucks, for all that he's always formulaic and mostly pedestrian as SF/Fantasy, but this one is my favorite of his works I've read over a long life of reading stuff.

[Rusty Edge]

"Phantom of the Blockade" by Stephen W. Meader   Southern Skies Publishing

Forward by the author-

"The American Civil War, fought a hundred years ago, still stirs the memories and feelings of millions. Some say the war was an unnecessary war, others that it was inevitable. But it demonstrated one thing- the courage of Americans rich and poor, North and South. It proved for all time the fact that we are one nation, indivisible. And it put an end to the institution of slavery.

This story takes place in the final year of the long struggle. The inexperienced youngsters  who marched out so gaily in '61, smart in their new uniforms, with bands playing and pretty girls cheering, were long gone. Thousands had been killed or wounded or taken prisoner. Other thousands had turned into hard-bitten veterans, able to march all night, ragged and hungry, and fight a battle at dawn.

Half a dozen times in those years, the tides of fortune for both sides has risen high - the war almost won. Then by some mischance victory had slipped through their fingers. The Confederate armies were nearly always outmanned. But fine generalship and stubborn determination had kept them in the fight.

The superiority of the North in manpower, supplies, and food grew greater every day after the slaughter at Gettysburg. Yet the men in gray had a spirit that wouldn't give up. They tightened their belts and fought on, trusting in such great commanders as their beloved Lee.

One of the things that kept the Confederate cause alive far longer than might have been expected was the daring of the blockade runners. With most Southern ports sealed tight or in enemy hands, the little gray steamers dashed in and out of Wilmington, North Carolina, through cordons of Federal gun boats.

Unarmed and depending wholly on speed and deception, they carried cotton to Bermuda or Nassau to maintain Southern credit. And they brought back guns, ammunition, food, and medicine for the troops. The dangers were great, but the pay was high, and plenty of fine seamen were willing to take the risk.

The feats of the blockade runners described in this book were duplicated many times by actual ships. Their exploits and escapes form one of the least known, but most thrilling chapters in the War Between the States. "

The hero is a 17 year-old boy from Ocracoke island. He had sailed a little coastal trading sloop, but the USN destroyed his livelihood. When an old neighbor invited him aboard a blockade runner, he joined.  Because he didn't drink, he was able to amass $2500 in British gold by the end of the war.

Another excerpt, referring to Bermuda -
 "It sure is a beautiful kind o' place", said Anse,"Dunno's as I'd want to live here always, though."
"Why?" Lucy asked him, curious.
"Reckon it's just too old an too settled down", he tried to explain."Maybe it's too British. Our country isn't kept as nice- leastways my part of it. But there's a chance for young folks to do things- to grow as big as it's in 'em to grow. In North Carolina there's no limit to how far a boy can go if he's got the right stuff."

Does he survive the war? Get the girl? Forge a future? This is Americanism at it's best!

The books also usually go into detail about how they used to do something, in this case coastal community whaling.

[Rusty Edge]

"Boy With a Pack" by Stephen W. Meader

This one is one of my favorites, but I didn't read it until I was an adult.

It takes place circa 1840. Our 17 year old hero, Bill Crawford makes a bold decision. Rather than taking a job sweeping up in a woolen mill for 2$/week, he stakes everything he has on a peddler's outfit, planning to hike to Ohio and sell notions where stores are few and far between. He works and trades for his food along the way.

His adventures take him include a brick yard in New Hampshire, a horse thief in Vermont, the Erie Canal in New York, a horse race in Pennsylvania, and the "underground railroad" in Ohio.
He encounters criminals, villains, fair folks, and saints. Lessons learned are along the lines of Golden Rule/ karma , and "discretion is the better part of valor".

Does he escape with his life?  Turn a profit? Get a good dog or a fine horse? Get the girl? Find a future? This is Americanism at it's best!

[Lord Avalon]

Smuggler's Gold, Merovingen Nights #4, ed by CJ Cherryh

[Rusty Edge]

"The Lumberjack" by Stephen W. Meader

The setting is New Hampshire about the 1910s. This is another favorite, unread until I was an adult, and among the best of his books. The reason is that the author's father was a foreman in a lumber camp, so the main character, Dan Garland, is semi-autobiographical. It goes into all kinds of interesting details about moving and setting up a steam-powered sawmill, and logging with horse teams, axes, cant hooks and crosscut saws.

This is also the tale of two boys.  Dan, an orphan living with his 80 year old story-telling grandpa, during the year following high school graduation. The other an 11 year-old named 'Lysses Grant. He was a tenant  on the farm with the 300 acres of prime pine. No girls, but plenty of horses, and a collie. There are episodes with fire, frostbite, a horse race, a horse pull, making maple sugar and syrup.

Do they all survive the elements? Catch a criminal? Find a century-old treasure? Go to college  or become a lumber camp foreman? Americanism at it's best!

[Buster's Uncle]

you are burning through a lot in a hurry, aren't you?