Well, in many ways as decrepit as ever. And still not over my cold. But, for the first time in a long, long time, I am binging on fiction. Several books at once without losing interest in any of them.

And I haven’t updated the side bar yet, so you’ll have to read it here.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Not sure what I think about it, but I am finding it engaging enough that I am going to finish it. Thoughts in some future post, perhaps.

Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. I read this in seventh grade from the Delora (sp?) Jr High Library. I shouldn’t have been permitted to check it out but I think most of it went over my head. I certainly don’t remember anything so weird. When I got my copy from our local public library system (hardback) I was amazed to read the VIPs who gave it blurbs. Tom Clancy? What have his novels ever had to do with Market Anarchism? Yet he makes it sound like Heinlein is the father of the modern world.

Ugh. It’s the whole “left-libertarian” thing. Everyone pays lip service to the idea of a min- or anarchic arrangement but is perfectly happy in a totalitarain democracy so long as 1) they are middle class and 2) have free sex (there my not be any such thing as a free lunch but a taxpayer funded abortion is just dandy). The The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a pansexual utopia. The entire rest of Heinlein’s political vision is entirely secondary to this–for him and for everyone else.

And really, was Heinlein even capable of imagining a female protagonist who did not want to offer herself up to the male lead without obligation? Even his “conservative” stories, as I recall, always have the woman trying to get the man to at least try her out once or twice before they get hitched. Before the late sixties the man always insisted on “doing the right thing” even though the woman had the moral compass of Hugh Hefner. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch but there is no other kind of space chick in Heinlein’s worlds.

In the meantime, I finished Old Man’s War and liked it enough to want to read all sequels. The starting premise is that earth has been cut off from interstellar travel. They can be passengers, but those who live in space (relative to Earth) are in charge. The arrangement is that all the impoverished areas may migrate, but not wealthy North Americans. However, there are unreported wars going on and the Colonial Military is recruiting… seventy-year-olds. Basically, you get to sign up for some mysterious kind of “after life” in the trust that they have the technology to make you young again. There is more to the scenario, but I don’t want to give away anything beyond the cover and the first few pages. For reasons I can’t reveal there are some rather inappropriate passages in one chapter–so I don’t recommend this for everyone (of course, flipping past pages is easier than fast-forwarding a dvd).

I have to admit, despite really interesting dialog, I was getting disappointed toward the middle of the story. I couldn’t help making correlations with Halo–I’m surprise the name “Cortana” was never used–and Starship Troopers (a better Heinlein story). I started asking myself how much a person could ask of me just because of a brillian premise… And then suddenly everything changed. The whole story turns out to be a new version of Orpheus only with Orpheus coming out much more successfully. It’s a romance billed as a war story.

Speaking of great military space opera, I am entirely entranced by BSG. Lee Adama’s speach at Balthar’s trial was a Girardian triumph. And then the cliffhanger was excellent! It really bothers me however to learn that the show is not as popular as it used to be. What’s up with that? Any ideas?

To return to my first news, both Jennifer and I are still pretty sick (Jennifer much more so). We’re really busy and this would be a good time to suddenly get well!