We Few

Here's a first: instead of talking about IPSC, RKBA, current events, cultural issues or any of The Usual Subjects, I want to talk about books.

(Most of the people, websites, etc. I talk about here are represented on the sidebar ... that bunch of links you see over on the right side of your screen.) ==========================>

If it can be said that I am 'into' IPSC, then it must be also said that I am WAY into books.

I keep several books in my desk at work, for reading on breaks or on weekends. I keep books in my briefcase. Beside my bed. In my car. Anywhere I go where I may have a few unfilled minutes, I can reach out and lay my hand on a book. Or two, or three ...

At any time, I have at least three books 'going'. And I don't have any problems with keeping the story-line or theme separate. Where books are concerned, I'm not only vociferous, I'm omnivorous. I choose 'themes', or 'authors', and I read a slew of books in this category until I burn out. I have (as far as I know), and re-read frequently, every book that Robert Heinlein ever wrote. I'm currently working my way through a 10-volume set of the works of Rudyard Kipling (printed 1923), and earlier this month I bought two more volumes of Kipling because I learned that he had written a lot of his best work after that publication date.

Science Fiction has been my first love, since I discovered an omnibus of the works of Lewis Padget's (the pen name Henry Kuttnerand his wife Connie "C.L. Moore") in the Pendleton, Oregon, Umatilla Ccounty library about 1960. I had previously read Phillip Wylie's "Generation of Vipers" and "Tomorrow" and "The Disappearance" and "Gladiator" (a progenitor tale of the 'Superman' myth), and found them fascinating although I didn't realize that what I was reading was social commentary often disguised as Science Fiction; but when I read Padget I was hooked forever.

(Incidently, Wylie also wrote the "Crunch and Des" stories, which was made into a brief television series starring Forrest Tucker, he of later "F-troop" fame. Wylie also wrote the scripts for a number of movies and television shows. Can you tell I'm a big fan of this misunderstood writer? He died in 1971, somewhat after I was drafted. I blame Lyndon Johnson for Wylie's untimely death.)

When I got to high school, I discovered the Russian Novelists:, Anton Chekov, Ivan Turgenov and the unreadable - in - any - language Dostoevsky (not to mention the equally uncomprehensible, but charming, German and/or Bohemian and/or Chech author Franz Kafka) ; my classmates were wading through Mark Twain, whose works I had read years before ... right after Doctor Doolittle. But that's another story (Aren't county libraries wonderful?)

My latest SF discover is John Ringo, who is . . . surprise! . . . still alive! He's ex-embassy kid, ex-military, and he writes "Military SF" with a gritty sorta-realism that makes me believe that he knows he meaning of the term "The Sharp End" (not to be confused with a David Drake novel of the same name.)

Ringo has written about a dozen books by now, mostly in a couple of series. The best of them is the "Marching ..." series (Marching Upland, Marching Upland, Marching to the Stars) and the final book is "We Few", the subject of this post.

You're probably waiting for the punch line by now. Expecting there to be a "point" to this.

Well, the point is that I enjoy this author so much that I ordered his latest book (We Few) in September of last year, expecting it to be published on schedule in November. It didn't happen. In fact, this book has been republished for an April, 2005, release date, but Amazon.com received a shipment and filled my order early enough that I finally received it today.

So I'm going to close my little "I Like To Read" post, finish cooking dinner, and curl up with my latest literary acqusition. It'll probably mean I'll read through the night, get to work late tomorrow morning, and not be worth a damn because I'll only have had a couple of hours sleep.

Or maybe I'll only read a couple of hours, turn the lights out, and get a good night's sleep.

It could happen.