Quotes - Part Four

 So #48 is taken from a book by Kage Baker.  It's said by a wife at the funeral of her husband.  I just found it beautiful.  kage Baker's writing tended to be pretty amazing all of the time.

34.                   People refer to “the good ol’ days”, but I don’t know what they’re talking about. As someone who’s battled cancer, if I lived more than 20 years ago, I’d be a dead man.

--Lance Armstrong

35.                   I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.

--Neil Armstrong

36.                   Not all construction work is equally enjoyable.  For example, enlarging a drilled hole is boring, but fastening pieces of metal together is riveting.

--@aromanticduck

37.                   I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it.  The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.

--Isaac Asimov

38.                   The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I’ve found it!), but “That’s funny…”

--Isaac Asimov

39.                   Theories are not so much wrong as incomplete.

--Isaac Asimov, The Relativity of Wrong

40.                   I’ve never understood Christianity’s obsession with homophobia.  Because if you read the 1,700-page bible. and think the main message is to hate gay people, you probably think the main message of Harry Potter is to not date Asians.

--Geoffrey Asmus

41.                   I’m sitting at the opera, and I’m thinking, “Look how much work it takes to bore me to tears.”

--Dave Attell

42.                   Some things just aren’t funny. Beatings aren’t funny. Mimes aren’t funny. But beating a mime… why is that so hilarious?

--Dave Attell

43.               I have this thing I call “The Two Rogers Rule of Manliness”: Basically, if Steve or Fred wouldn’t do it, neither should I.  It’s stupid, it’s simplistic, and it’s geeky, but it works.

--Greg B (@ak404)

44.               G: If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?

EB: Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area.

--BA4, Somewhere in No Man’s Land

45.               Many a man owes his success to his first wife and his second wife to his success.

--Jim Backus

46.               The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other

--Francis Bacon

47.               If Paul saw the church in America, we’d be getting a letter.

--Chad Bailey

48.               Will you never open your eyes to me again? Once you walked with me in the long grass, where the lilies poked through and opened their bright throats, and the white mist was on the hillsides and concealed us when we lay down; and your eyes looked into mine.

Will you never speak to me again? Once you lay with me in the summer groves, and the blossoms drifted over us and the branches bowed down to my lips, and the long red sunlight of summer dappled the forest floor; and you sang all night long.

Will you never lift your head again? Once you rose, you moved without tiring, and on the dancing green under stars you were light-footed, and through the red and yellow leaves that drifted you were the swiftest in the chase, and brought me down, best of all the young men; and you rose above me high and strong.

Will you never hear my call again? Once I sang like a bird, no heartbroken note, once I sang and you heard me over the meadows, over valleys, over mountains, and groves; once you came to me voice dropping down swift from where you soared. You heard if I turned in my sleep, you woke if I murmured in my dreams.

But you have been unfaithful, you have listened to the earth’s voice, you have despaired, gone down into sleep and left me to my grief. How will I go after you and leave your children unprotected? Who will care for us now?

--Kage Baker, The House of the Stag

49.               The reason everyone my age has back pain is because our entire lives it was super uncool to carry your backpack on both shoulders.

--Missy Baker

50.               Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories: those that don’t work, those that break down, and those that get lost.

--Russell Baker

My Book Report

So let's see where we are.

I have recently read the latest Kate Daniels book, Magic Breaks, from Ilona Andrews.  In keeping with the theme, may I just say the the manure carts never stop hitting the windmill.  I was happy for the forward which states that while the book may seem like a last book, they are under contract for three more.  It is another wonderful continuation of the series, and I highly recommend it.

Then I tried to read a new series beginning with Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines.  I had scanned a recommendation from iO9, and it soon disappointed.  I had picked it up because it was described as a good story with super powers.  Since i had recently read Steelheart, I thought another in that vein might be good.  Then the zombies appeared.

I have to figure there is a geek somewhere in Japan that doesn't like anime.  On another island in the Land of the Rising Sun is another geek who is tired of Kaiju.  And sometimes I feel I'm the only geek in the US that doesn't like zombies.  I've read one zombie book (Death Troopers), and was kind of "meh..." about it.  I've only watched two full zombie movies, and those was "Sean of the Dead" and "Zombieland", and that's only because they were comedies.  Now it's not like I'm disparaging Doctor Who, but zombies are a big wedge of the geek pie chart.

(Oh wait, I also saw "28 Days Later", and then maybe 20 minutes of "28 Weeks Later".)

In Ex-Heroes (not really spoiling anything, this is revealed pretty quickly), a meteor falls to earth and seems to be the catalyst for some people getting super powers.  Then somehow (I stopped reading before this reveal) that also starts creating zombies.  I think I could have made it through, but then Clines started in on the graphic descriptions of the zombies.

Look, I get it.  There are dead-ish bodies walking around.  They're rotting and missing limbs, appendages, or digits.  And they're the full cross-section of the population.  We all have seen it.

So I moved on.

I read a few of the short stories in George R.R. Martin's Rogues.  The Neil Gaiman story was great as was Patrick Rothfuss'.  But they were each about supporting characters in a great book and a great series.  It just made me want more.

So this morning, I had a little time, so I started going through my library of e-books, for something else.

I moved over the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia, and the Huger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  But then I saw the Kage Baker folder.

I remember reading the Company series, having started it early on, and reading each book as it came out.  I quickly wondered how it would be to read it straight through.  And so that's what I'm doing now.

News and Such

First off, I just found out that Kage Baker passed away this past Saturday. The more I read about her, the more I wish I could have met her.

Then there's this news about bad science and medicine. I wonder how long it will take to fix the damage one bad paper caused.

Well Wishes

I read today on iO9 (through a link to Tribe.net) that one of my favorite authors, Kage Baker is fighting against cancer that has metastasized.

I've been reading her work since I first read Mother Aegypt, a collection of short stories, I have been reading her works as soon as I could get my hands on them.

One of the most touching pieces I have ever read comes from her book The House of the Stag:

Will you never open you eyes to me again? Once you walked with me in the long grass, where the lilies poked though and opened their bright throats, and the white mist was on the hillsides and concealed us when we lay down; and your eyes looked into mine.

Will you never speak to me again? Once you lay with me in the summer groves, and the blossoms drifted over us and the branches bowed with down to my lips, and the long red sunlight of summer dappled the forest floor; and you sang all night long.

Will you never lift you head again? Once you rose, you moved without tiring, and on the dancing green under stars you were light-footed, and through the red and yellow leaves that drifted you were the swiftest in the chase, and brought me down, best of all the young men; and you rose above me high and strong.

Will you never hear my call again? Once I sang like a bird, no heartbroken note, once I sang and you heard me over the meadows, over valleys, over mountains, and groves; once you came to me voice, dropping down swift from here you soared. You heard if I turned in my sleep, you woke if I murmured in my dreams.

But you have been unfaithful, you have listened to the earth’s voice, you have despaired, gone down into sleep and left me to my grief. How will I go after you and leave your children unprotected? Who will care for us now?

Get well soon, Kage. I know it will be a fight, but we all wish you recovery, health, and wellness.

Worn out

Well, Ms. Baker never fails to entertain.

I finished The House of the Stag during lunch today. A bit of a long lunch, but I could not stop reading.

Each portion of the story is told so well, and has its own voice. I had to read through to see if it would end before I ran out of pages, or if it was to be a cliffhanger.

And I am not unsatisfied.

There is action, humor, and even some religious commentary.

A truly amazing book.

Time Travel and Fantasy

Sunday, while Jennifer was the the Raiders' game, I spent most of the day reading.

I finished The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman. It was very engaging for the first two thirds of the book. Imagine a time machine that can only go forward (preserving all the pesky laws of conservation and such), and each time travels approximately 12 times farther each jump.

So first jump, 1 second. Second jump 12 seconds. Third jump 144 seconds. And so on.

Matthew quickly learns how to get things to travel with the machine, and later begins his jumps through time.

The hand-waving kind of ending with what seemed like a quick summary of events went by too quickly, and left me unsatisfied.

But now I am on to The House of the Stag by Kage Baker, which is a prequel of her Anvil of the World. Kage Baker's style of writing captivates me. Mother Aegypt, a collection of short stories, was the first thing I read by her, and her language and skill made me want more.

I'm already halfway through this latest book, and then I will get back to (and hopefully finish) The Well of Ascension, before picking up Paul of Dune at the library.

Cincinnati of the Damned and other vacation locales

Right now I'm about half through Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan series. I've been en joying the stories and have to agree with my friends who have also read them that Rachel is constantly doing stupid things, and that the background characters are usually more interesting that Rachel is. But I'd still recommend it for people who like a little romance/modern fantasy.

I also like it because the local home for non-humans (vamps, weres, and witches) is across the river from Cincinnati, and that's where I was born.

For other books in a similar vein (sorry), I like Magic Bites the first of the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews.

But the best of all is Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld. It's almost a scientific modern fantasy series. There are werewolves which are covered in the first two books and I think the sixth, and then witches, warlocks, demons, vampires, and necromancers are slowly introduced. The characters are captivating and you can really feel their emotions as you read.

And now, I have to admit that aside from the old Thieves' World series, I don't usually read women authors. I think I got a bad taste in head over them from Lynn Abbey and Janet Morris. Morris always wrote of violent men and aloof and/or helpless women. Abbey, just never thrilled me. And so I was very surprised when I read my first book by Kage Baker.

I read a collection of short stories called Mother Aegypt, and I had never had my emotions played with so much while I read. So I started her Tales of the Company, and thoroughly enjoyed it, both the full length books, and the short story collections. And the Anvil of the World was a great fantasy world.