Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz
In Blue Latitudes journalist Tony Horwitz follows in the footsteps of Captain Cook, beginning with a week working as a member of the crew on board a replica of Cook’s ship Endeavor. I’d always thought of Cook as this stereotypical British officer, all his buttons properly polished and looking down a very long nose at all these dreadful loincloth-clad natives. In fact, Cook was born in a pigsty, was subject in his youth to a strong Quaker influence, and worked his way up from shoveling coal to captain in the British Navy. He wrote about the aboriginal people he met with respect and admiration. His name is now a bad word all over the Pacific, but in truth Cook was the best white man they’d ever meet. This already lively narrative is made more so by Horwitz’ travelling buddy Roger, one of the funniest, most cynical guys ever to walk through the pages of a book.
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“Even then, if you did get lucky, three months later your luck went south again.”
When the phone rang he’d been curled up on his warm, wide couch, submitting happily to an enthusiastic and comprehensive ravishment by Alice Sampson, a pert young barista of nineteen, to whom Larry had given some thought to proposing. In this small town on stilts twenty-five miles north of the Arctic Circle the ratio of…
Read more “Even then, if you did get lucky, three months later your luck went south again.”
The Better Part of Valor by Tanya Huff
Even better than the first in the series (Valor's Choice). Torin Kerr and her three-species space-going marines lead a team of civilian scientists and a pain-in-the-ass reporter into an enormous alien vessel they call Big Yellow. Their only handicaps are a glory-hound commanding officer the brass want to shine so as to placate his species' representatives in the galactic Parliament, and, uh, oh yes, the enemy ship that unexpectedly shows up, loaded and ready for bear. Turns out they've got people on board Big Yellow, too. It's like a haunted house story, only, you know, on a big, sentient banana with transmogriphic powers, with nothing but the cheery presence of absolute zero and fighters exchanging missile fire on the other side of the hatch.
# Permanent link to Spreadable Broccoli
Sea chanties
A number of readers have expressed interest in the sea chanty Kate sings in Dead in the Water. The last time someone asked I promised to post the lyrics, so here goes:
“The General says he wants you.”
THE CALL CAME IN on Kate’s cell phone too early on a Monday morning. She was up but not necessarily coherent. “What?” “It’s Kurt Pletnikof, Kate.” “Your name on the display was the only reason I answered,” she said. “What?” “Victor Boatwright’s son is missing.” Steam rose from her first mug of the day, stopped…
Tony Hillerman
[From the stabenow.com vaults, October 27, 2008] Aw, hell. Tony’s dead. I think we’d all come to think of him as indestructible. He’d survived half a dozen diseases any one of which would have taken any one of us out. But he continued to thrive, and continued to write, thank heavens. If you want to…
Perhaps, but it sure is humongously onomatopaeic.
humongous Disagreeable for huge (or similar words). * There are lengths of natural cherry and red and white cedar, and three pine tie beans 23 feet long, the center one humongous at 13 by 15 inches. USE huge. * Surfing the online GRS scene you’ll find giantesses galore — in reality, photos of normal-size women manipulated to…
“Except maybe all the ones she put in jail, and sometimes I’m not so sure about them.”
…although this dentist she took me to in Anchorage, Dorman, was okay, even if he was way too tan to be an Alaskan. He likes Kate, I can tell, but then every man she’s ever met likes her. Except maybe all the ones she put in jail, and sometimes I’m not so sure about them.…
Read more “Except maybe all the ones she put in jail, and sometimes I’m not so sure about them.”
Fall Haiku
Orion is back And so are the daddy long Legs in the garage.
The Stone War by Madeleine E. Robins
A spooky book. In the unfortunately not too distant future, architect John Tietjen lives in and loves New York City, in spite of the homeless on every street, and the gangs on every other street, and the security guards on every street corner. Then things really go to the dogs. When John is out of town on a job, some mysterious force unleashes true evil on the city by way of earthquakes, flooding, and an horrific force creating monsters of many of the few people left living. John makes his way back to help the survivors take back their city. Dystopian, horror, fantasy, mystery, noir, there are too many labels to choose from, but here's another one for you: Mesmerizing.
Also, spooky. Did I say?
# Permanent link to A spooky book.