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THOMAS Pleydell Bedford would delight in the irony.
On a famous night, back in July, 1974, and in most august company, Tommy Bedford staged his one-man protest at the lack of Natal players in the Springbok team to play the British Lions; this week, head coach John Plumtree was grumbling about the lack of Springboks in his Natal team to play the British Lions.
Bedford, in front of that large gathering at a post-match British Lions reception 35 years ago, welcomed the Springbok selectors.
"I congratulate you on finally finding your way to Durban," he said, "Welcome, welcome," and then raised his fingers in a two-fingered salute and held the pose.
The Durban architect was angry that none of his Natal team-mates had found their way into the South African Test squad during a disastrous season when players from other provinces were going in and out the Springbok team like a dose of salts.
Dramatic wasn't the word for Bedford's action. Cocktail parties were a time for handshakes, politeness and cheerful conversation, not harsh political statements, and the conservative South African rugby hierarchy that day was stunned.
The extraordinary incident came at the fag-end of a long and emotional day. Bedford had been physically and mentally pummelled in Natal's controversial, at times brutal clash against the unbeaten British Lions.
Natal, as the Sharks were in those days, met Willie John McBride's Lions in Match 20 and a week before the fourth and final Test at Ellis Park. The series had already been lost (3-0) and with their rugby reputation in tatters, South Africans were suddenly looking to captain Bedford and Natal to burst the Lions' bubble.
"I think it's ironic," said a smiling Bedford at the time, "that Natal are now being put forward as South Africa's last hope. The last outpost of the British Empire is the last hope for South Africa."
Briefly, it seemed that Bedford would have his impossible dream that afternoon.
They were 9-6 down with 10 minutes remaining and the Lions, who had 70% of the ball but spent much of the game kicking it away, appeared rattled. And they took it out on Bedford.
First came JPR Williams, a talented but abrasive fullback who showed on tour that he was prepared to run vast distances to join a scrap. The fist-flying Welsh doctor, who seemed eminently qualified to both inflict damage on opponents and then repair them, launched what seemed an unprovoked attack on Bedford after being tackled by him into touch. Bedford, lying in the foetal position and covering his head, was struck several times before a spectator restrained Williams.
Moments later, at the back of a lineout, Lions prop Fran Cotton flattened Bedford. The referee did nothing, but the crowd did and bottles, tins and naartjies, the standard ammunition of the rugby spectator in those days, were tossed on to King's Park and McBride took his players to the middle of the field until order was restored.
Referee Piet Robbertse, who Bedford later said was trying to impress the Lions so that he might be appointed to handle the fourth Test, added a bizarre 11 minutes of injury time to the game and in that period Natal folded and the Lions scored 21 points for a 34-6 win.
Bedford was hurting afterwards and it certainly showed in his actions and words.
A Rhodes scholar, he had played rugby for Oxford and said British rugby had provided him with the most enjoyable moments of his career.
"But I saw another side of British rugby today and I know which I prefer," he added darkly.
The Natal captain did keep his sense of humour. He said South Africans had been bewildered by the Lions' excellent scrummaging on their tour. He had done his research in East London, he said, where the Lions had played their midweek game against Border just days before.
Holding up a Daily Despatch newspaper banner which read "LIONS AND GIRLS IN NUDE SCRUM", Bedford said he had found the secret, adding that the Boks had simply been doing the wrong type of training.
JPR may have escaped the referee's attention during the game, but later in the evening he was cornered and harangued — this time by Bedford's wife. It certainly was a day to remember — for Williams, Bedford and and indeed everyone at that reception.
There was a further irony. A year later and Williams was back in Durban with fellow-Lions, wing JJ Williams and prop Mighty Mouse McLauchlan — playing for Natal with Bedford as their captain.
The Bloemfontein-born Bedford was a remarkable player. He weighed just over 70 kg when he made his Natal debut as a 19-year-old at a time when the Banana Boys, with small forwards, little possession but big hearts, played a daring, unique style of rugby.
Two years later, this instinctive and astonishingly quick loose forward joined the giants in the Bok pack and with Jan Ellis and Piet Greyling formed one of the Springboks' most effective backrows.
He played 25 Tests over an eight-year period, but his loyalty to his beloved Natal was even more remarkable, with 16 years (1961-76) of service, and he became the province's most-capped player (119 games).
It was his outspoken views against the apartheid government and those running rugby — "from their grass-chairs" — in South Africa and Natal that kept him in the headlines in his later years.
He was once a Witness columnist and always kept up a relentless attack on the game's bosses.
Today he is settled in London and there are self-serving South African rugby administrators and interfering little men in parliament who will be relieved about that.
Bedford prompts vivid memories of a remarkable time and none is more vivid than the night of July 20, 1974. They just don't make cocktail parties like that anymore.


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Victoria's Secret Million-Dollar Bra Through The Years
Next « Back to Story Replay
Year/Name: 2010, Bombshell Fantasy Bra Cost: $2 million Fun Fact: Last year's bra featured more than 3,00 white diamonds, blue sapphires and oval-shaped topazes. It took six craftsmen over 1,500 hours to complete the design!
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text: EPA wraps up air permit hearings for proposed Navajo power plant By: dmc-admin October 13, 2006 , 1:00 am Speakers at hearings on a proposed power plant on Navajo land are urging the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate lesser known contaminants from the plant and to consider traditional Navajo culture. Houston-based Sithe Global Power and the tribe's Dine Power Authority plan to build a 1,500-megawatt power plant that could power up to 1.5 million homes ... Subscribe Login Email Address: Password: Already a paid subscriber but not registered for online access yet? For instructions on how to get premium web access, click here.Forgot your password? Share this:EmailPrintFacebookLinkedInTwitterGoogle +1 1:00 am Fri, October 13, 2006 Arizona Capitol Times dmc-admin tweet


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As Africa SOMA's 2014 Scholarship Cohort enters the midway point of their first year in secondary school, Abigael, Dorcas, Kelvin and Alex would like to pass on their sincere thanks to the donors that have supported Africa SOMA's scholarship fundriasing efforts. These four students, along with the
With two cohorts of Africa SOMA Scholarship Recipients having now graduated secondary school, it has been wonderful to see where their educations have led them. Of the 8 graduated students, 7 have continued on to follow post secondary training, and one has started his own business. Three of the graduated students have themselves become teachers.
However some changes are coming to Africa SOMA's scholarship program. Thanks to feedback from community members it has come to our attention that, due to inflation, the amount of our scholarships need to increase. This will of course require renewed fundraising attempts. This year, Africa SOMA is fortunate to have two summer Montreal-based interns focusing on fundraising and grant writing. These ambitious interns have organized a fundraising comedy night that will take place this Friday, July 19th at 7pm at Montreal's Comedy Nest. For those who are interested in coming, check out the link to the facebook event below to find information about tickets!
At Africa SOMA we believe education is the key to so many opportunities otherwise inaccessible to these rural Kenyan youth, and we than you for your on going support.
Africa SOMA is proud to announce our 2014 Africa SOMA scholarship students!
Each year Africa SOMA awards the two boys and two girls who receive the top scores on the KCPE exams in the Elangata Wuas District with full four year high school scholarships. These scholarships are supported by donors such as yourself.
This Tuesday our coordinator, Isaac Kakeni, met with head teachers from each school to determine which students received the top scores in the district. Without further ado we are proud to announce Africa SOMA's 2014 scholarship students:
The top two KCPE scoring girls are Sampuru who attends Emurkea Primary and Dorcas from Enchorro Primary. The top scoring boys are Kelvin from Indupa Primary and Mesheti from Singiraine Primary. We hope you join with us in congratulating them on their hard work and wishing them all the best in their high school careers.
Africa SOMA also awards a 10,000ksh ($116 USD) school improvement bonus to the primary school which has the highest number of high scoring students. For 2014 we're proud to announce that Emurkea Primary is the winner and will be receiving the money to improve their school as they best see fit.
Thank you again for supporting education. For these rural Maasai students, high school education is something that is out of the reach for the majority of the students in the community. Yet education has been proven, time and time again, to have the greatest impact on increasing the social, economic and health outcomes not only of individuals and their families but communities as a whole.
"It [the Africa SOMA Scholarship] will help me to continue with my education and continue with my goals that I have set for my life" - Gideon, one of Africa SOMA's 2013 Scholars
Africa SOMA is continuing to fundraise for the four year high school costs of our 2013 scholarship students. To facilitate this work we have been creating microprojects associated with this project which allows us to highlight the talents of the individuals who are the recipients of our scholarships. In September Africa SOMA was pleased to see that the microproject fundraising for Damaris' secondary school costs reached it's goal.
With this in mind we would like to introduce you to Gideon, one of our two male 2013 scholarship recipents, and our current microproject focus. Gideon loves math and his goal is to become an electrical engineer when he grows up. You can learn more about him by checking out the microproject associated with him here (http://www.globalgiving.org/microprojects/help-gideon-finish-school-and-become-an-engineer/)
Africa SOMA has been offering scholarships to the highest achieving students in the Elangata Wuas school district since 2005. As a result we have many past scholars who have gone on to further their studies or enter the workforce. Recently, Isaac, a member of the Africa SOMA team, caught up with some of our previous scholars. Ruth started a bachelors degree in Human Resource Management this September at Kenyatta University. Everlyne also started a teaching diploma this September at the Polytechnic University of Nairobi. Tony is currently back in Elangata Wuas working as a teacher at Inaudot Primary School and hopes to start University sometime soon. Nathan started a bachelors degree at Egerton University in Wildlife Management. Africa SOMA would like to wish all our previous scholars the best of luck in their future educations and careers and thank all our previous supporters for their investement in Kenyas future!
Thank you again for investing in the students of Elangata Wuas. Your hard earned money is being well spent on the education of bright Kenyan students who hold the future of Kenya in their hands.
On behalf of them, the Elangata Wuas Community and the rest of the Africa SOMA Team, thank you.
In an effort to raise funds for Africa SOMA's 2013 Scholarship winners, we have begun creating individualized microprojects, under the umbrella of this Global Giving project, in order to highlight each individual student to potential donors. All the money raised directly through this project will be divided equally among our students however we wanted to give potential donors the chance to get to know our students on a more personal and individualized level. I encourage you to check out these related microprojects.
We have already had enormous success with fundriasing for Monica, one of our scholarship students, as she works towards her dream of becoming a doctor. Monica would like us to say "Thank you" to all of those donors that contributed to the great fundraising success of her microproject. We have great confidence in Monica and thank all our donors for helping provide the finances necessary for her to pursue this goal.
Currently Africa SOMA's has two summer interns, Brooke and Helen, working on the ground in the Elangata Wuas community. As volunteer teachers they have become very aware of the rewards and challenges the community's hardowrking students engage with on a daily basis. Our interns have been interviewing the 2013 scholarship winners about the impact Africa SOMA's scholarship has made on their lives, how their adjusting to high school as well as thier future plans and goals. Damaris, one of 2013's two female scholarship winners was recentlly interviewed regarding the impact her schoarship has had on her life.
Again we would like to thank our donors for their support. Education has long been understood to be one of the most successful methods for increasing the social mobility, health, climate change resilience and empowerment of not only the youth that are educated but their communities who benefit from the ripple effect of education.
Thank you for choosing to support Africa SOMA in our work. We could not do it without you.
Africa SOMA is proud to announce our 2013 Scholarship Award Winners! We are excited to award full four year high school scholarships to the two top scoring boys and girls in the Elangata Wuas District. The 2013 top male students are Olubi (Scarlet) from the KMQ Primary School and Leken (Gideon) from Elangata Wuas Primary. Tumanka (Emily) from Indupa Primary and Oseur (Damaris) from Elangata Wuas Primary School are the top two 2013 two female students awarded with Africa SOMA's scholarship. Each of these students studied very hard in order to be the leading students in the district. With these scholarships Leken, Olubi, Tumanka and Oseur will be able to choose which high school they will attend for the next four years. In a region struggling with drought and unpredictable rainfall patterns education allows youth a greater range of options for their livelihoods. While many of our previous scholarship students continue to raise livestock they have diversified this traditional income source with a wide variety of other career pursuits.
On February 28th Africa SOMA held a comedy fundraiser at Montreal's Comedy Nest and raised $850.00 towards the cost of supporting our 2013 Scholarship winners over their four year high school career. We encourage you to tell your friends and family about our cause and help us move closer to our goal of fully funding these students.
Africa SOMA believes increased access to education is key for the long term economic, cultural and environmental sustainability of the Maasai living in the Elangata Wuas region. Thank you for joining us in our work towards this cause.
Project Reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you will get an e-mail when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports via e-mail without donating or by subscribing to this project's RSS feed.
Fundraising Officer


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Here you will find everything you need to make your plan of action, manage the logistics and ensure girls are learning every step of the way.
Getting started can seem like a big hill to climb, and that's why seasoned volunteers and council staff members are here to help. If questions arise as you are reviewing material, or you just don't know where to begin, think about who to contact in your support net:
Sale Dates: September 20 - November 9
Independent Girl Members can also reach out to Susanne Wells for support. She can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com or 602-478-5745.


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Production Manager Heavy Duty Diesel-2022
Job Ref.: 2022
Job Title: Production Manager Heavy Duty Diesel
Role: Engineering or Related
Relocation Available: Yes
Industry: Manufacturing
Location: Tennessee
Town / City: Morristown
Job Type: Permanent full-time
Job description:
The Production Manager is ...
Oct 20 -
Senior Process Engineer-Medical Device
This Position is located in Knoxville, TN
Responsible for providing process and equipment development for the manufacture of medical devices and products.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES include the following. Other duties may be assigned.
Work with ...
Oct 7 -
Senior Design Engineer
Responsible for product design and development, design changes and technical aspects of inflator product. Responsible for supporting design concepts as well as Value Analysis/Value Engineering (VA/VE) efforts on a particular program. May train, supervise ...
Manufacturing Engineer
Develop, evaluate and improve manufacturing methods. Estimates production times, staffing requirements, and related costs to provide information for
management decisions. Support quality and environmental systems. Analyzes and plans work force utilization, space requirements ...
Oct 7 -
Director of Product Engineering - Seat
**Candidates Must Have Automotive Seating Experience**
Director of Product Engineering - Seat Design
The Engineering Director is responsible for several complete seat design teams and projects. They manage a team of Design Engineers to ensure that ...
Oct 1 -
Director Design Engineer - Mechanical Engineer, Seating
Director Design Engineering - Seating
Salary 100K - 150K
The Director Seat Design Engineering is responsible for directing the engineering team in the design of all commercial truck and bus vehicle seating products to meet market and regulatory requirements around the ...
Sep 23 -
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Nike Kobe AW77 Deadly Hoodie
Details:Kobe Bryant logo screen print - Swoosh screen print on sleeve - Front pocket - 100% cotton
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Based in California, Sneakerhead.com is a leading Internet retailer committed to providing unrivaled customer service, exclusive footwear, and a superior experience. We are passionate about sneakers, and continually strive to carry the best selection available anywhere - including athletic shoes, limited editions, retro classics, and lifestyle models.
Copyright© 2001 - 2014 Sneakerhead.com. All Rights Reserved. | 12325 Imperial Highway #326 Norwalk, CA 90650, USA


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Diamond, Missouri: George Washington Carver's Talking BustFirst national monument to an African American. The outdoor bust of the agricultural inventor recites a poem -- in his own high crackly spry voice (as an old man) -- at the push of a button.
George Washington Carver National Monument
- Address:
- Macon Lane, Diamond, MO
- Directions:
- George Washington Carver National Monument. Two miles west of town on Hwy V, then south on Carver Rd. On the right. The bust is on the right side of the visitor center, toward the back.
Visitor Tips and News About George Washington Carver's Talking Bust
Reports and tips from RoadsideAmerica.com visitors and Roadside America mobile tipsters. Some tips may not be verified. Submit your own tip.
3/4 mile walking trail, visitors center, scenic view, and short audio presentation at the monument of George Washington Carver reading a poem.[Joshua Walderbach, 07/06/2010]
Big grounds -- 240 acres -- and a visitors center mark the birthplace of this "famous black agronomist." First national monument to an African-American. When we visited, the shiny bronze bust offered push button-audio and GWC's actual high crackly spry voice (as an old man) reciting an inspirational poem. Dioramas in the museum, boyhood statue on the nature trail.
Nearby Offbeat Places
- Undercliff Grill and Bar, Joplin, MO - 4 mi.
- Precious Moments Park and Chapel, Carthage, MO - 9 mi.
- Volkswagen Beetle Hydrant Crash, Joplin, MO - 10 mi.
- Giant Milnot Condensed Milk Can, Seneca, MO - 18 mi.
Latest Tips Across Roadside America
Catch up on the latest discoveries from the road.
Explore Thousands of Oddball Tourist Attractions!
Unique destinations in the US and Canada are our special obsession. Start here.
Use RoadsideAmerica.com's Attraction Maps to plan your next road trip.


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The Long and Short of PoE
Power where you need it
Together, this cable with media converters creates a PoE extender system (Figure 2). The powered media converter, or power injector (a midspan device), located in the TR injects both power from the DC source and data from the Ethernet switch. The composite cable assembly attaches to the injector through fiber LC connectors and screw terminals for the copper/power conductors. The total distance is limited by the power provided through the active media converter on the termination side as well as the gauge of the copper. The more power needed, the thicker the gauge. Distances up to 3,850 feet between media converters can be achieved.
The remote module is a passive media converter that converts the cable assembly to an RJ-45, IEEE 802.3af compliant output. An additional 328 feet (100 meters) of horizontal UTP cable may be added from the remote module to increase the total distance beyond 4,000 feet.
PoE is becoming an integral part of IP devices, not only for security cameras, but access control, HVAC controls and other building automation systems that are becoming attached to the network. Make sure that the cable choices selected today will accommodate all the applications of tomorrow.
Carol Everett Oliver RCDD, ESS Specialist is a Marketing Analyst for Berk-Tek, a Nexans Company.
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St. Johns, FL, United States | Member Since 2009
"Foundational SF"
The Martian Chronicles is a collection of Ray Bradbury's stories about the human colonization of Mars which were previously published in the pulp magazines of the late 1940s. The stories are arranged in chronological order with the dates of the events at the beginning of each story. In the first edition of The Martian Chronicles, published in 1950, the events took place in a future 1999-2027, but a reprinted 1997 edition pushes all events forward to 2030-2057. Because it's a story collection, The Martian Chronicles has an episodic feel which has been made more fluid by connecting the stories with short vignettes, similar to the structure of Bradbury's collection The Illustrated Man.
In the first story, "Rocket Summer," we visit a small town in Ohio while the first human exploratory spaceship takes off for Mars. Bradbury explains in the introduction to The Martian Chronicles that this small-town mid-America feel was influenced by Sherwood Anderson's novel Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life which Bradbury admired and hoped to emulate.
The next two stories, "Ylla" and "The Summer Night," show us what the Martians are like. They're humanoid in form with brown skin and round yellow eyes. Like humans, they live in houses and towns, eat and drink, sleep, age, read books, study science, desire love, become jealous and irritable, and commit murder. (I find it amusing that the Martians have the same kinds of depressing marriages we see in Bradbury's stories set on Earth.) But the Martians are telepathic and the humans' approach is causing them to quote our poetry, sing our songs, and adopt other aspects of human culture without understanding why.
The first spaceship was unsuccessful, so a second expedition was launched a few months later (it seems reasonable for Bradbury to expect that by 1999 we'd be able to get to Mars a lot faster than we actually can). In "The Earth Men" we learn the fate of this crew and we learn that Martians, just like Americans in 1950, have to live with bad psychiatry and insane asylums. Stephen Hoye, the narrator of Blackstone Audio's 2009 version of The Martian Chronicles, was particularly brilliant with this story.
Next comes "The Taxpayer" in which an Ohio man is trying to get on the third expedition to Mars (the second one failed). This very short vignette tells us that things are going badly on Earth and that an atomic war is expected in about two years. "The Third Expedition" (originally published in Planet Stories as "Mars is Heaven!") describes what happens when the third doomed mission lands on Mars. This story doesn't quite work with the chronology of The Martial Chronicles because it portrays astronauts from 2030 growing up in the small Midwestern towns of early 20th century America. It also ironically highlights the biggest problem with The Martian Chronicles when one of the astronauts asks "Do you think that the civilizations of two planets can progress at the same rate and evolve in the same way?" Clearly the astronaut doesn't think that's possible, but in these early stories, Bradbury's Martian culture is just too much like ours. Even so, "The Third Expedition" is a clever little horror story and one of my favorites in the collection.
"And the Moon Be Still as Bright" is the story of the fourth, finally successful, expedition to Mars. The Martians have mostly died of chickenpox — humans, in our blundering way, have inadvertently killed them off. Most of the men of the expedition don't care, eager to begin exploration and colonization, but Captain Wilder and an archaeologist named Spender regret that humans have destroyed such a beautiful civilization, like they destroy everything else they touch. There's a lot of social commentary about 1940s American culture in this story.
The next several stories are about the rapid spread of humanity on Mars. "The Settlers" and "The Shore" describe the type of people who came to Mars from Earth, "The Green Morning" follows a Johnny Appleseed type of character who plants trees to increase oxygen levels, and "The Locusts" and "Interim" describes how men and women made Mars look just like another Earth. In "Night Meeting," we learn that "even time is crazy up here" when a colonist from Earth meets a Martian who seems to be in a different time-stream. This story also reminds us that civilizations both rise and fall and that perhaps it's best that we don't know the future of our own civilization.
I especially liked the next story, "The Fire Balloons," in which a group of missionaries prepare to bring the Gospel to the Martians. They don't know what the Martians will look like and must consider how a different culture, and even a different anatomy, might dictate the types of sin a society is prone to. (It seems unlikely that the missionaries don't know what the Martians look like by now, but we must keep in mind that The Martian Chronicles is a story collection, not a novel with a continuous story.) When the missionaries meet the Martians, they have even more theological questions to deal with. "The Fire Balloons," has a beautiful ending.
Male explorers and settlers have been the main characters so far but "The Musicians," a story original to The Martian Chronicles, shows us what boys do for fun on Mars, "The Wilderness" features two women who are getting ready to emigrate from Earth, and "The Old Ones" focuses briefly on the elderly. Those first courageous men won't be forgotten, though; in "The Naming of Names" we learn that they've been immortalized — many places on Mars have been named after them. These human names, and other industrial-sounding names, have replaced the nature-focused names used by the Martians.
In "Usher II" Bradbury returns to one of his favorite pet peeves — book burning. A man who has left Earth to get away from the "moral climate" police is angry that they've now shown up on Mars. To get back at them for outlawing Edgar Allen Poe's work, he uses his fortune to build his own House of Usher and he invites them all to a party. This story is entertaining, but I'm not sure that Bradbury makes his case. After what happens, I think the moral climate police will feel they have even more grounds for banning Poe.
"The Martian" is a terrific horror story which shows us what becomes of one telepathic Martian when humans, full of painful memories and wanting to start over, arrive on his planet. This is one of the best stories in The Martian Chronicles.
The next few stories, "The Luggage Store," "The Off Season," and "The Watchers," tell of the nuclear war on Earth that was predicted in earlier stories. It can be heard on the radio and seen from Mars and soon the colonists get an urgent message: "Come home." And so they go back to Earth.
"The Silent Towns" tells the story of Walter and Genevieve, living hundreds of miles apart, who assume they're the last humans left on Mars. This story is entertaining, but highlights the rampant sexism so often found in the science fiction written for pulp magazines. Where does Walter decide is the most likely place to find a woman? The beauty shop. (Genevieve, what the heck are you doing in a beauty shop on a deserted planet?) Then, after driving for hundreds of miles to find her, Walter rejects and runs away from the last woman on Mars because she's overweight. Really.
Bradbury is back to doing what he does best with the next two stories. "The Long Years" tells of Hathaway, one of the crew of the Fourth Expedition, who stayed on Mars with his family when the rest of the colonists left. When Captain Wilder, his former commander, returns to Mars after exploring other planets in the solar system, he finds Hathaway and wonders how his wife and kids stayed young while Hathaway kept aging normally.
"There Will Come Soft Rains" returns us to Earth where the atomic war has wiped out most of the people. An automated house (common in Bradbury's stories) still stands in California, going about its daily routines as if the family who lived there is still alive. This story was inspired by Sara Teasdale's post-apocalyptic poem "There Will Come Soft Rains" in which we see nature taking back the Earth after humanity is destroyed. This imagery in this excellent story is chilling and unforgettable. Unforgettable.
After all of the destruction that humans brought upon themselves (we nearly obliterated the population of two planets), the last story, "The Million-Year Picnic," offers a bit of hope as two families escape the devastated Earth and plan to start over. To ensure that humans don't make the same mistakes we made before, they burn books, maps, files and anything else that contains the sorts of ideas that may have led to our destruction. (A little ironic, I think. Apparently, Bradbury thought it was noble to burn some of our literature.)
Whenever I read Bradbury, I'm struck by his lofty visions, in the early 20th century, for future technological developments and space exploration. He envisioned a degree of achievement by the 21st century that we're not even close to yet. However, at the same time, it seems that he didn't foresee how much American social culture would change even during his lifetime. Thus, in most of his stories set in the future we find the juxtaposition of robots and rockets with the same sexism and racism experienced in 1950. Fortunately, the nuclear world war that he and many SF writers imagined has also not happened. Perhaps we can give Bradbury some of the credit for warning us so vividly.
The Martian Chronicles is some of Ray Bradbury's most-loved work and foundational reading for science fiction fans. If you've never read it, or haven't read it recently, I encourage you to try Blackstone Audio's version.
Leaving behind a world on the brink of destruction, man came to the red planet and found the Martians waiting, dreamlike. Seeking the promise of a new beginning, man brought with him his oldest fears and his deepest desires. Man conquered Mars and in that instant, Mars conquered him. The strange new world with its ancient, dying race and vast, red-gold deserts cast a spell on him, settled into his dreams, and changed him forever. In connected, chronological stories, a true grandmaster enthralls, delights, and challenges us with his vision, starkly and stunningly exposing our strength, our weakness, our folly, and our poignant humanity on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong.
Originally posted at FanLit.
"Aliens in Belfast"
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature. 3.5 stars
Ian McDonald grew up in Belfast, a city known for the turmoil and unrest it has endured because of the conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Some of McDonald's novels allegorically explore the causes and results of a divided city. In Sacrifice of Fools, McDonald presents a vivid and lively conflicted Belfast, and then he throws a third element into the mix: aliens.
The Shian are a peaceful alien species who, upon arrival on Earth, are allowed to settle in Belfast in exchange for sharing the secrets of their technological superiority. The Shian are humanoid in appearance, but have enough biological differences that they cannot successfully mate with humans. They also have very different languages, laws, culture, and customs. While their similarities make them attractive to many humans (and weird fetishes evolve), the differences cause misunderstandings and culture clashes.
The Shian Welcome Center is manned by Andy Gillespie, a human (Protestant) ex-con who knows more about the Shian than almost any other human because of something that happened to him while he was in prison. Andy is able to understand much, but not all, of the Shian language, so he can help them transition to life on Earth and to navigate through the oddities of human civilization. Especially Belfast.
When some of the Shian are murdered at the Welcome Center, Andy, who has a felony on his record, is the prime suspect. If Andy doesn't figure out who the actual culprit is, not only is his personal freedom at stake, but so is the peace of his city and, in fact, the world. As he investigates he is joined by a Shian lawyer and followed by police detective Dunbar, a (Catholic) woman who has her own personal struggles and prejudices to deal with.
Once again Ian McDonald gives us a fascinating what-if scenario set in a familiar city that has become almost unrecognizable due to the influence of advanced technology and, in this case, an influx of aliens. As the humans try to understand their new alien neighbors, the Shian, in turn, try to understand Belfast and the humans who live there. This is not an easy thing to do since even Belfast's human citizens have trouble understanding and getting along with each other.
Sacrifice of Fools is a murder mystery that has a lot to say about language, dreaming, psychology, eugenics, gender, sexuality and genetics. Children play a major role in the story. They're not point-of-view characters, but they're often in the background and the three main characters' actions are affected by the children they are responsible for. This is perhaps a metaphor that represents the entire story (I need to be vague here so as not to spoil the mystery), but I'm not sure if McDonald actually intended that.
Sacrifice of Fools is often violent, gruesome and ugly. It's disturbing in so many ways which, of course, is exactly how Ian McDonald wants it to be. I listened to the audio version produced by Audible Studios. It's narrated by English actor Sean Barrett who sounds (at least to this American) like he was born and raised in Belfast. He's brilliant. If you're going to read Sacrifice of Fools, I definitely recommend the audio version.
"A fascinating pilgrimage"
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.
Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone is a fascinating short novel by Ian McDonald. At the beginning of the story we meet Ethan Ring, who's feeling conspicuously tall and red-headed as he chants in a Buddhist temple. Ethan and his friend, a famous Japanese manga artist, are on a bicycle pilgrimage in Japan. Neither of them knows what kind of demons the other is struggling with, and neither does the reader at first, but as they journey on, their stories come out and even though each man's tale is different, they realize that both of them are searching for redemption and peace.
Many stories deal with a hero's search for redemption, but Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone is unique. The setting is a neo-feudal Japan where tech corporations are the fiefdoms and gangs of armed vigilantes threaten citizens' peace and security. This is jarringly juxtaposed (to excellent effect) with the peaceful contemplativeness of a Buddhist pilgrimage. Like other works of McDonald's that I've read, Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone reminded me of William Gibson's stories. Both writers like to explore the effects of large impersonal mega-corporations and high technology on familiar settings.
Another fascinating juxtaposition stems from the reason that Ethan is seeking redemption. He and one of his college buddies have created something beautiful that has been perverted and made into something horrible. His girlfriend, an artist, warned Ethan of the dangers, but he ignored her. That ended their relationship and it turned out that she was right. Now Ethan suffers from both the loss of that relationship and the guilt he feels about the destruction he has inadvertently caused. While he tries to use his discovery for good, he knows that it has too much potential for evil and, therefore, it's better for the world if he keeps it secret. This is a difficult moral quandary for Ethan.
I loved the slow discovery, via flashbacks, of Ethan's powers — how they work and how they were perverted. In my opinion, the publisher's blurb gives too much away about this and I would have preferred to have known nothing going into the story. However, even if you've read the blurb, there's plenty of mystery left. I'll just say that it's a really cool idea.
A major theme in Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone is how the mind can be unconsciously manipulated by a symbol (such as a manga hero), art, or even the typography that a message is written in. The novel also explores heroism, idealism, creativity, perception, religiosity, lawlessness, friendship, guilt, and redemption. As always, McDonald's prose is rich and vibrant and his dialog is excellent.
There's a lot to get out of this short book and it's one I'll likely read again. I listened to Audible Studio's version which is 4.5 hours long and excellently read by Matt Addis. I highly recommend this version.
"3.5 stars, Tragic and Painful"
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature
In Winter's Shadow is the final book in Gillian Bradshaw's DOWN THE LONG WIND trilogy, an elegantly written historical fantasy about King Arthur that's inspired by the Welsh legends. While the first two books, Hawk of May and Kingdom of Summer, have focused on Gwalchmai (Sir Gawain), this last novel is written from Gwynhwyfar's perspective. You certainly don't need to read the previous books to fully appreciate In Winter's Shadow, but if you're a fan of the time period or the legends, you'll probably want to read Hawk of May and Kingdom of Summer at some point. They are lovely historical stories.
In In Winter's Shadow, Gwynhwyfar gives us some of the history of the Roman Empire and its relationship to Britain. She tells of how when Rome left, the petty kings of Britain squabbled amongst themselves and were in danger of being overrun by the Saxons until Arthur declared himself emperor and forced them to unite. She also gives some of her own backstory — how she hates women's work, prefers to study, and was her father's pet. She spends her days working tirelessly to advance Arthur's kingdom while he's away on campaign. She runs her household, manages supplies for Arthur and his soldiers, and extracts taxes from the petty kings and the church. It is hard to deal with a war-torn country, plotting kings, and resentful clergy.
Gwynhwyfar desperately wants a child who will be Arthur's heir. So far she has miscarried the children she's conceived. She fears that Arthur will divorce her, but he refuses. She is jealous of Medraut, Arthur's bastard son whose mother was the evil Morgawse. Medraut's presence at Camelot reminds Gwynhwyfar of her barrenness. It frustrates her that Arthur has a son out of that hateful relationship with his stepsister, but can't get one out of love with Gwynhwyfar. Medraut is still disrupting the unity of Arthur's band and Morgawse haunts Arthur and Gwynhwyfar's relationship. Thus, Morgawse, even though she's dead, still threatens to bring Arthur — and all of Britain — down.
All of this is a lot of stress for Gwynhwyfar, which explains why she makes a couple of REALLY BIG mistakes, and why we, the readers, feel empathetic toward her even as we realize she's being REALLY STUPID. The consequences of Gwynhwyfar's sins are severe and instead of making Arthur's reign more secure, she ends up destroying everything.
Though the story is slow and repetitive at first, In Winter's Shadow eventually takes off and becomes quite compelling. Gwynhwyfar faces several moral dilemmas that are just as relevant today as they were back then. Is murder ever justifiable? What about adultery? When our leaders fail to act, when is it okay to take matters into our own hands?
In Winter's Shadow is tragic and painful. It's a disaster story. It's the story about how well-meaning people can royally screw things up. It's about the end of personal relationships and the end of an empire. Gillian Bradshaw succeeds in making both seem equally tragic.
Once again, I listened to Nicole Quinn's narration of the audio version. She has such a beautiful voice and I especially liked her in this book because it's told from a woman's perspective.
"3.5 stars"
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.
In Kingdom of Summer, Gillian Bradshaw's second novel in her DOWN THE LONG WIND trilogy, Gwalchmai (the Welsh version of Sir Gawain) is traveling Britain in search of Elidan, a noblewoman he fell in love with off screen. He wronged her eight years previously and hasn't seen her since. (We didn't see any of this happen in the previous novel, Hawk of May, but he tells us the story near the beginning of Kingdom of Summer.)
During his travels, Gwalchmai stays with the family of the farmer who helped him in the last book. Rhys, one of the farmer's sons, is fascinated by King Arthur and his band of warriors, so he asks Gwalchmai if he can be his servant. Gwalchmai accepts him and takes Rhys to Camelot before they set out again to be King Arthur's ambassador to King Maelgwn, who Arthur distrusts.
When they get to Maelgwn's court they discover that Gwalchmai's parents, King Lot and the evil Queen Morgawse, and Gwalchmai's brother Medraut are there trying to stir up dissent against Arthur. Gwalchmai and Rhys try to foil their plans, but Morgawse, full of hate and power, is a formidable and dangerous opponent. Together Gwalchmai and Rhys must use all their wits, and the help of others, just to survive. Gwalchmai learns a lot about himself and his family and, in the end, gets some answers about the woman he loves.
Like Hawk of May, Kingdom of Summer is a well told and often beautiful recreation of part of the Arthurian legend. The pace is nice, the prose is lovely, and there are some gorgeous descriptions of Britain (especially the wild uncanny regions of Powys) along with some pretty poetry. The good guys (e.g., Arthur, Gwalchmai, Rhys) are easy to root for and it's nice to see that Gwalchmai isn't the perfect servant of "The Light" that he wants to be. He makes big mistakes and, because he does, he's easier to love. It's also nice to see Rhys, who was so enamored with Arthur's warband, realize that there are consequences to killing. He grows up quickly when he has to face some ethical dilemmas. Morgawse is still too-evil-to-believe, but that's a fairly common interpretation of Arthur's half-sister.
I can't understand Bradshaw's choice to have Gwalchmai tell us the story of his love affair with Elidan. This would have made an emotional and exciting story if we had witnessed it rather than heard about it. As it is, the story is told succinctly and dryly and it seems like so much potential lost. Gwalchmai's life story should have been stretched to four books instead of three and this love story should have been book two. (Never before have I advocated for lengthening a trilogy!)
Readers who enjoyed Hawk of May are sure to like Kingdom of Summer, too. I'm looking forward to the third book, In Winter's Shadow. I'm listening to Nicole Quinn's narration of Sourcebooks' recent audio version of Bradshaw's trilogy. I would have preferred a male narrator for these first two books, since they're written from men's perspectives, but Quinn has a charming British accent that suits the story well.
"Surreal visions of the horrors of war"
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.
Ian McDonald's The Broken Land (Hearts, Hands and Voices in the UK) is a book I admired more than I loved. It's an allegorical look at the horrors of civil war caused by religious zeal and division. The story is set in a fictional country that feels like it could be in a future Africa where biotechnology has led to the development of mechanical infrastructure that is part organic and part artificial intelligence. The citizens are divided by their religious affiliation — some are Proclaimers and some are Confessors. All are subject to the Emperor who lives across the river.
Our protagonist is a young woman named Mathembe who, because of her particular convictions, decides not to speak. Mathembe is a confessor, so she is skilled in the manipulation of genetic material to create new life. When members of her family die, their heads are attached to a huge tree where they are eventually absorbed into "the dreaming." As the story starts, Mathembe's grandfather has recently died and is in the process of being absorbed into the tree with the other ancestors. But when their village is attacked, Mathembe grabs her grandfather's head and runs. All of her family members eventually get separated and her brother joins the rebel fighters. The rest of the story follows Mathembe as she tries to find and reunite with her family. She experiences many of the struggles that civilians encounter in war-torn lands — homelessness, hunger, refugee camps, disenfranchisement, and most of all, loneliness.
Ian McDonald uses the plot to thoughtfully explore many issues associated with war, prejudice and oppression, to show us how our differences divide us and cause much human suffering, and to suggest that there is much more that unites us than divides us. His tone is often cynical, but he lightens the mood with quite a bit of humor (much of it centered on the grandfather's decapitated head) and he succeeds in sending an important message without sounding preachy.
McDonald's world, with its mix of the familiar and the unknown, is fascinating and intriguing. It reminds me of some of William Gibson's work (there's even a woman with razor blade fingernails). But often it's frustratingly sketchy and surreal (e.g., what, exactly, is a "trux?") and more than once I felt like I was on an acid trip during a police raid. Though I admired McDonald's world, I never felt like I fully settled into it; it was always uncomfortably alien. I'd love to spend more time exploring it — I just wish I had been able to in this book. Something else that's slightly uncomfortable is Mathembe herself. She never talks. It's easy to feel for her, but it's hard to get to know her. The heroine's silence is such an interesting device, but it adds to the distance between story and reader.
McDonald's style is forceful, gripping, and very often beautiful:
"You are asleep in your bed. No, you think you are asleep in your bed. You are in that half awake, half aware state when even the familiarities of your own room are strange and unfamiliar. Awake or dreaming? You cannot be certain. You had dreamed of a great thrashing blade moving in space, carving slices off the edge of the world as it moves along its orbit; the sound of its thrashing fills the universe, the thrash of destruction, and you rush to the window to look out and see the street full of people running as the great blade comes down out of the sky. All around you is a great beating noise, and you do not know whether it has come from the dream inside your head into the outside or from the outside into your head. The thrashing sound fills your room, fills the air, fills up the spaces in your lungs and between the joints of your bones with its beating beating beating."
As you can see, the imagery is startling and the prose is delightful, but after several hours of it, it starts to become tiresome and repetitive and eventually starts to feel like a quirk.
This is a good time to mention the audio production that I listened to (Audible Studios). It's just over 14 hours long and is narrated by Adjoa Andoh, a British actress of Ghanaian descent. She is absolutely brilliant and her voices really add to the African feel of the story. The Broken Land is worth listening to just because she performs it. If you're going to read The Broken Land, you absolutely want to read this version.
If you're looking for something totally accessible and light, this isn't it. But if you'd like to be challenged by Ian McDonald's surreal visions of the horrors of civil war (something that, as a native of Belfast, he knows something about), try The Broken Land.
"A satisfying self-contained story"
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.
Janny Wurts' The Master of Whitestorm is a stand-alone high fantasy that, like the author's other work, differentiates itself from other fantasies published in the late 20th century that feature a medieval-style setting. The book has recently been produced in audio format by Audible and is read by British actor Simon Prebble, a highly decorated audiobook narrator and someone whose name I'm always happy to see in the credits. As expected, he does a wonderful job with The Master of Whitestorm and I recommend this audio version to anyone who wants to read or re-read this exciting and emotional story.
The story begins in the slave galley of a ship. Haldeth, whose wife and children were slaughtered by the Murghai, is now chained to the oar of one of their ships. As he slaves for his captors, he observes his benchmate, a man named Korendir who looks fierce but so far has never said a word — he just stoically rows. All the other slaves (and the Murghai) think Korendir is stupid or mute, but it turns out that he has spent his time studying and planning and suddenly, after years of slavery, Korendir announces to Haldeth that he plans to escape their captors. Haldeth reluctantly decides to throw in his lot with the enigmatic man and thus starts a lifelong friendship in which Haldeth will watch Korendir accomplish many other seemingly impossible feats and quests, mostly by outsmarting his opponents.
On the surface, The Master of Whitestorm is an episodic adventure story with a hero who will remind you of Hercules or Odysseus. He fights monsters, saves princesses, breaks curses, resists sirens, builds an invincible castle on a cliff, and outfoxes an elemental spirit. All of these exploits are exciting and there are many delightfully unique elements such as a city where everyone is cursed to be happy. There are some memorable characters such as a dwarf couple who contribute a bit of humor that helps to offset the grimness of the main characters. There is also a sweet romance.
But the story is more than just a series of exploits and quests. More than anything it's a character study of both Korendir and Haldeth. We follow both characters for many years and it's slowly revealed that Korendir is not as aloof and stoic as he seems. We learn that his courageous deeds are actually motivated by fear. In contrast, Haldeth, who observes Korendir's reckless behavior, is also fearful. Both men struggle with the traumas of their past and their fears about an uncertain future. Korendir and Haldeth employ different coping strategies and their outcomes differ significantly.
The Master of Whitestorm is a satisfying self-contained story. Again, I highly recommend the audio version read by Simon Prebble.
"An epic political drama"
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.
Wolfblade is the first book in Jennifer Fallon's WOLFBLADE trilogy which is a prequel to her DEMON CHILD trilogy which I read several years ago. These are fat epic fantasies with lots of characters that are focused mostly on political drama but also contain plenty of magic and romance.
This story takes place in Hythria, one of the kingdoms in Fallon's world. Lernen, the current High Prince (a Wolfblade) cares nothing for his country and is not respected by his people because he spends his time in the pursuit of unusually decadent pleasures. All of the nobility agree that Lernen should not be running the country, but they disagree about how they should take care of the problem. Some are content to wait him out, some want to kill him, and some want to take his place. Since Lernen doesn't seem to be interested in begetting a son, his heir will likely be any future son of his sister Marla Wolfblade, a beautiful teenage girl who Lernen can basically sell off to the highest bidding potential husband. At the beginning of the story Marla is immensely silly. She is more interested in the romantic idea of marrying a handsome warlord than in how her status as mother to the next High Prince gives her (and her husband) political power in Hythria. When Lernen decides to marry her off to the king of the neighboring barbaric country of Fardohnya, Marla is devastated, especially since she thinks she's in love with the younger son of a Hythrin warlord.
Fortunately for Marla, there are several people in Hythria who don't want her marrying the Fardohnyan king either, including many of the nobility and the head of the Sorcerer's Collective. She has another strong ally in a clever dwarf named Elezaar who she has recently purchased from the slave market. Elezaar has his own reasons for keeping Marla happy. Together they will attempt to save Marla from this disaster, but the plan they come up with will have terrible consequences for almost everyone involved. Marla must navigate a political landscape filled with secrets, treachery, sorcery, adultery, kidnappings, and assassinations. By the end of the story many of her family, enemies, and accomplices are dead, some have gotten in way over their heads, and Marla is transformed into a completely different person.
If you love long soap-opera-ish epic fantasies with a medieval setting, lots of characters, many plot twists, complicated political intrigues, and lots of treachery and death, you'll probably love Wolfblade. In many ways it's similar to A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, though not as dark and compelling. For the most part I like Fallon's world, but there are some aspects that I have a hard time believing in. For example, Hythria seems like a typical patriarchy where a woman is valued only for her beauty and the sons she can bear and is expected to remain a virgin until it's time to be married off to the man of her father's choosing. Yet just before she's married, she's given a court'esa (a purchased male whore) who teaches her all about sex and she's allowed to have court'esas when she's married. I find this unlikely in that type of society. I also couldn't believe that Lernen would be unwilling to spend just a little time trying to get an heir. I mean, for such a decadent guy, how hard would that be? And in a country that has an all-powerful High Prince, would the assassins' guild really be allowed to keep secrets about who's trying to kill members of the royal family? Unlikely. This didn't dampen my enjoyment of the story too much, but it kept me from being completely immersed in Fallon's world.
Readers who are familiar with the DEMON CHILD trilogy will recognize the origin of a couple of the main characters in those books, namely Damin Wolfblade and (I think) R'Shiel. We also get to visit the Harshini Sanctuary in Wolfblade and learn a little more about their lifestyles.
I listened to Wolfblade in audio format. This has recently been produced by Audible, it's 25.5. hours long, and it's narrated by Maggie Mash who has a lovely warm British accent and does a terrific job with the character voices and the pace. I will be choosing this format for the sequel, Warrior.
"Surprisingly gripping"
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.
Arkamondos the scribe has just been given a new and unusual commission. He's been hired by a notorious band of Syldoon soldiers to travel with them and observe and transcribe their adventures. The leader of this motley crew is Captain Killcoin, a brooding authoritarian figure whose weapon of choice is a frightening looking flail that has magical properties. Killcoin is accompanied by a few loyal companions who are just as scary and tough as he is. Arkamondos is intimidated by all of them, and he wonders if he's made a big mistake, but Killcoin's insistence that important events are about to occur makes Arkamondos decide that it will be best for his career if he stays… Plus, they'll probably kill him if he leaves.
So off he goes with Killcoin's band. They are coarse and vulgar but their dialog is frequently sharp and witty. There is much drinking, cursing, barfing, bleeding, pissing, etc. (Should be appealing to Joe Abercrombie's fans.) But at the same time, there is something underneath, at least for Captain Killcoin, that suggests a nobility of purpose that he may be purposely repressing for now.
It takes a while for Scourge of the Betrayer to really get going, but once it does the plot becomes quite interesting. Arkamondos witnesses many strange and horrible things — bar fights, long gruesome battles, murders, curses, sickness, healing, treachery, trickery, manipulation, and magical weapons and boundaries. By the end of the story, Arkamondos isn't much more enlightened about the impending important events than he was at the beginning and neither are we, the readers. Who does Killcoin work for? Why is he so feared? Why does he seem like such a tortured soul? Is he a good guy or a bad guy? Why is his band so loyal? What is happening in the realm? It's obvious that something significant is happening, but what is it?
For a book that provides so little information, it's surprisingly gripping. I was transfixed on the very first page. My reaction, I think, reflects a weakness for bookish protagonists who find themselves thrown in with warriors. I wasn't really aware of this little fetish of mine until I read Scourge of the Betrayer, but the contrast between Arkamondos and his new comrades — a rough seemingly uncivilized little group — made me recognize it, and when I stopped to think about this, I realized that I almost always like these sorts of characters. I think it's because they're introspective. They think about what they're seeing and they report it in the first person. They can react emotionally or mentally, and they can judge the actions of others, but they are neutral figures — they are not supposed to influence the action. This allows for some interesting observations, insights, and ethical dillemas. But of course, occasionally Arkamondos does make the decision to act and these are some of the best scenes in the novel. Arkamondos is also engaging when he relates what he sees and experiences to his own life and the low self-esteem he feels because he's the bastard son of a prostitute. Arkamondos doesn't learn much about his companions' plans in Scourge of the Betrayer, but he does learn a lot about himself, about other people, and about companionship, loyalty, and love. I look forward to seeing how he develops in Veil of the Deserters, the second book in BLOODSOUNDER'S ARC.
Scourge of the Betrayer is a promising debut. Jeff Salyard's has created some unique and likable characters, the writing is strong, and the story, though it takes a while to get going, is exciting and mysterious. I listened to Kris Chung narrate the audio version produced by Audible Studios. This was the first book I've heard by Chung (he's fairly new to the audiobook world, I think) and I was pleased. I will choose this format for the sequel.
"Read this if you love Fawlty Towers"
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.
Andrew and Rose Vanbergen have recently purchased a California inn which they are fixing up and getting ready for guests. They live in the inn along with aging Aunt Naomi, her numerous cats, and her companion, Mrs. Gummage. The Vanbergens have only one real guest so far — the mysterious Pepto-drinking Mr. Pennyman.
Andrew has grand plans for the inn. Unfortunately, he's also a bit of a slacker and he's always managing to find excuses for doing anything but the actual work that needs to get done. While his good-natured and industrious wife is cleaning or sewing linens, he's daydreaming about a gourmet kitchen and purchasing luxury items that aren't really necessary. (He fancies himself an epicure).
Andrew also tends to have crazy ideas that sometimes border on delusional. Sometimes he acts on these. He knows he's being silly and that it upsets his wife, so he's in the habit of being secretive and lying to hide his ridiculous notions and activities. This often gets him in trouble because he ends up lying to cover up his lies. Oh, what a tangled web he weaves! It doesn't help that his new friend, Pickett, tends to see conspiracies everywhere. When Andrew and Pickett notice Mr. Pennyman's strange behavior, they decide that Pennyman has some dastardly plan and, in their bumbling way, they start to investigate.
But the truth is even stranger and scarier than Andrew suspects! Mr. Pennyman is at the inn because he's trying to find the last of Judas Iscariot's cursed pieces of silver and he knows the last few coins are somewhere on that California coast. If he finds them, the entire Earth is doomed! Inadvertently saving the world will require a series of hilarious misadventures involving a spoon, a carp, smuggled breakfast cereal, a pot of jambalaya, a fake advice column, prank letters, a car chase, several murders, a treasure hunt on the beach, a dangerous Chinese restaurant, and a huge cast of strangely behaving animals.
I loved The Last Coin. More than anything, it reminded me of my favorite British comedy, Fawlty Towers. Andrew is Basil Fawlty, the innkeeper who's played by John Cleese. If you've seen that hilarious show, you know that Mr. Fawlty, who thinks he's more sophisticated than he really is, just can't help but hate most of his guests. He's also nosy, eavesdropping and sneaking around and spying on his guests. He lies to his wife about silly things so she won't know what he's up to. Andrew Vanbergen is exactly like that, without the British accent. Some readers will despise Andrew, and I have to admit that he's a bit overdone in parts (especially in the middle of the book, which drags a bit), but anyone who loves Basil Fawlty is sure to enjoy The Last Coin just for the characters and humor. Add in the cool premise of Judas Iscariot's cursed silver coins and Blaylock's delightful prose and you've got an extremely entertaining story that's bizarre, amusing, clever, exciting, and unpredictable.
Christopher Ragland's narration of Audible's version was excellent. His voice and tone are perfect and he gets the humor exactly right. I highly recommend The Last Coin on audio. It's one of my favorite books I've read this year.
Note: The Last Coin is the first of Blaylock's books about Christian holy relics, but each book stands alone.
"Janny Wurts' debut now on audio"
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.
Most readers are probably familiar with Janny Wurts' epic fantasy series THE WARS OF LIGHT AND SHADOW or the EMPIRE trilogy she wrote with Raymond E. Feist back in the '80s, but Wurts also wrote a few stand-alone fantasies, two of which have just been released in audio format.
Sorcerer's Legacy, Wurts' debut novel first published in 1981, is one of these. In some ways it feels like a 1981 high fantasy novel (e.g. the medieval setting) but, in the most important ways, it stands out. The story is about Elienne, the recently widowed and pregnant wife of the ruler of a conquered country. She's been taken captive and awaits what's certain to be a nasty fate when a wizard from another country saves her on the condition that she marries his endangered prince. She has no choice but to agree, of course, and off she goes to an unfamiliar land where she is alone and unloved and expected to marry a stranger while she grieves her lost husband. At this new court she discovers not only the political intrigue she expects, but also treachery, violence, torture, child abuse, and black magic. Elienne has no idea who she can trust and her only sure ally is the prince she's supposed to marry.
How does Sorcerer's Legacy stand out from so many of the other high fantasy novels published in the early '80s? First of all, it's a stand-alone novel — hooray! (Though many readers will wish it was the first of a series.) It's also got a terrific heroine. The setting is medieval, but Elienne doesn't try to unrealistically bust out of her traditional gender role. She's foul-mouthed, independently-minded, tough and opinionated, but Wurts doesn't try to convince us that Elienne could whip ten men in a sword fight. Elienne's feminine traits are actually her greatest strengths — she's compassionate, protective, and loving.
The story is also fast-paced and the plot is almost completely unpredictable — two qualities that I don't expect to find in a high fantasy novel written in 1982 but that I have come to expect from Janny Wurts after reading her excellent stand-alone To Ride Hell's Chasm. Everything does not turn out well in the end — there is much loss and grief — but there is also beauty and hope.
The audio production of Sorcerer's Legacy, produced by Audible, is wonderful. Narrator Emily Gray has a lovely voice and handles Wurts' complicated sentences with ease. The book was a delight to listen to. Sorcerer's Legacy is an impressive debut and the audio version does it justice.
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Cancer invasion and metastasis transform a locally growing tumour into a systematic and life-threatening disease. But how tumour cells (green in the image above) migrate between organs is still largely a black box. Friedl and colleagues have developed a tool to watch cancer cells as they move through the skin of live mice. From these experiments, they've found that tumour migration is remarkably "plastic": cells adapt their transportation styles for various tissue conditions and even remodel the tissue itself to facilitate mobility.
In the image above, invading melanoma cells (green) are seen using both single-cell and collective invasion along and into tissue structures of a mouse dermis. Muscle fibres expressing GFP are orange, nerve fibres and collagen are blue (third harmonic) and grey (second harmonic) respectively. AlexaFluor660-dextran is in red.
Research originally published in the journal Cell. Image taken from the Cell Picture Show.


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The Green Mile
Adapted from a Stephen King Who would have expected The sanctimony used to justify Starting with the concept Typical of nonserious fiction, Instead, The Green Mile That's why the film's Much of The Green Mile Spielberg wouldn't His last request feels very
novel by Frank Darabont (the writer-director of the loathsome The Shawshank
Redemption), this film puts the unequal Forrest-Bubba fraternity in a meaningful
context. Hanks as jowly death-row guard Paul Edgecomb meets the black John Coffey
(Michael Clarke Duncan) in symbolic social circumstances–prison being "where
you see society's malfunction" (as Buñuel said of poverty).
While Gump and Shawshank insulted political events and social
types, The Green Mile manages an air of morally conscious reverie.
spookmeister Stephen King to turn out a sociological potboiler? Or Darabont
to stage it effectively? Their combined bad taste in Shawshank is not
totally absent here–the new film includes a sappy subplot with an indestructible
brown mouse representing the "indomitable spirit" of you-know-who.
Yet something basic, really heroic, sustains their story. Remember, there was
an unconquerable cricket in another prisoner's drama, Bertolucci's
The Last Emperor–far from his best movie and the critter idea palled
there, too. But sometimes in pop art, a bad idea is forgiven when it touches
something true. In this case, it's surprising how much Darabont and King's
hokiness subverts their hokiness. The Green Mile makes little sense to
me as a testimony to the eternal (The End of the Affair is more sensitive
and serious on such concerns), but within Darabont and King's shamelessness
we find a bold, honest confrontation with America's delusions about itself.
our criminal justice system and the convenient racial stereotypes that gird
our unchanging social structures are here blown up to Macy's Thanksgiving
parade proportions. Formidable as Michael Clarke Duncan stands, playing the
7-foot, 350-pound John Coffey, it's impossible to condescend to him. He's
not just a figure of animal strength or the dark unknown, he's the size
of an obsession. It's immediately apparent that these guards, employed
by the state, are trying to harness an illusion. They've pledged allegiance
to myths about black people and about white authority. Their jobs reinforce
those attitudes until John Coffey's mystical powers make them question
what they believe.
of John Coffey (convicted to die for the murder of two white girls, but possibly
innocent), the film's symbolism overlooks painfully real social oppression.
The film's pop analogies to King Kong in chains go toward romanticizing
historical evidence; the Southern prison guards–with one exception–are
depicted as humane. Edgecomb walks about death row (a cellblock where the floor
is painted "the color of faded limes") with an ache, a bladder infection
that makes peeing excruciating and sex impossible. But it's all a gimmicky
setup for when John Coffey unexpectedly pulls Edgecomb against the iron cell
bars, and places his huge black hand on the sweating, wincing white man's
privates. The boldness of the symbolism is electrifying. It goes from the black-white
homoeroticism Leslie Fiedler examined in "Come Back to the Raft Agin, Huck
Honey" (Edgecomb has looked sympathetically upon John Coffey) to the racial
preoccupations Fiedler analyzed in The Inadvertent Epic (a study tracing
links among Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Birth of a Nation,
Gone with the Wind and Roots). Black John Coffey (his name frequently
diminished to the even more symbolic "J.C.") exists to relieve white
people of their pain–not guilt. (Racial guilt doesn't seem
to work in the 90s.) The Green Mile's fable plays out the idea that
people whom society abuses will forgive and redeem it.
The Green Mile tends to sentimentalize profound subjects. That's
why the prison comedy Life with Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence was
a better film. Life analyzed prison through its characters' adjustment
to it, showing the enduring effects of society's worst efforts at racial
control. But lack of authenticity is also why there're parallels to Of
Mice and Men in Edgecomb and John Coffey's relationship. King and Darabont
don't leave any situation unexploited, unsoftened. This leads to some suspicious
moments like the flashback explanation of John Coffey's arrest while holding
the bodies of two dead white children: the grieving father punches John Coffey
repeatedly. But would the punching impulse occur before grief? Lynching would
have been instant in such a case. Certainly William Faulkner's Intruder
in the Dust understood those tensions better and Clarence Brown's 1949
film of that novel gave semidocumentary evidence of lynching culture–from
anxious, angry white faces to anxious, stoic black faces.
uses its lack of sophistication and probably works more popularly than Faulkner
because of it. The cultural catastrophe of Beloved's box-office
failure suggested only that Jonathan Demme and Toni Morrison's fable was
too sensuous, too complex on issues that now confound or alienate the popular
audience. Even Altman's remarkable, subtly race-aware Cookie's
Fortune is already forgotten by critics. The way The Green Mile's
sentiments keep interest and build ideas through a three-hour running time feels
like a finger snap away from the greatness that pop art should achieve. Darabont
obviously has learned the old Hollywood humbug. Emphasizing King's mystical
fantasy makes a difference from Shawshank's presumed realism. He
responds to harsh reality with wishfulness, even addressing President Clinton's
previous infamous state execution of a mentally incompetent black man in Arkansas,
and the national distress on racial stereotyping that arose from the Susan Smith
case. There's even a prisoner named Willie Wharton (Horton).
fable effect feels anomalous. Justly confounding Manny Farber's old distinction
between high and low, smart and dumb filmmaking, it is both white elephant and
termite art. John Coffey's defense attorney (played by Gary Sinise–reprising
his George Wallace enmity) contradicts his own liberalism with the cautionary
idea that "a Negro is like a mongrel–you love it, you think it loves
you." And three showcase scenes of churchlike ritualistic executions (in
the electric chair "Old Sparky") elaborate those moments of social
and moral jeopardy into what are probably the most unnerving since Oshima's
Death by Hanging. All this exemplifies old-fashioned mainstream moviemaking
(and sentiments) being used to redefine crude, hoary social presumptions. Yes,
it solicits white guilt, but what's wrong with that when the aim is to
provoke audience consciousness? John Coffey's a monumental figure of noble
suffering and yet the film forces you to ask which black movie stereotype do
we prefer? Duncan as J.C., a "praise Jesus miracle" or as the boogeying
strong-arm man in Armageddon? These are not Entertainment Weekly
polling questions but issues determining humane perception.
represents Darabont's continuing polemic against capital punishment and
is, predictably, simplistic and contradictory (since the narrative conveniently
pleads the case of an innocent man then handily kills off the real murderer).
It's tied to p.c. sympathy for convicts of color (Graham Greene as an Indian;
Michael Jeter as an effeminate Cajun) but the film is best at scrutinizing the
culture's conflicted racial viewpoints. Darabont's coup de grace is
John Coffey's healing and resurrection of the warden's wife (Patricia
Clarkson). Edgecomb brings J.C. to the warden's home in the middle of the
night to lay hands on the sick woman. Darabont attempts subtlety by first backing
away from the incident (a move that invites Mel Brooks derision) but then he
goes for it. In cinematic terms, what follows is fake. Yet it dramatizes a psychic
and social wound. All pain and hope reside here. There's a Dreyer-worthy
look of knowing on Patricia Clarkson's face. She stares at John Coffey
and asks, "Why you got so many scars? Who hurt you?" For a brief moment
it suggests a benign revision of the Joe Christmas scenes in Light in August–but
without Faulkner's modernist pessimism. This is simpler, plainer, overpowering.
dare most of the things in The Green Mile even though Darabont pays homage
to the courageous Spielberg of The Color Purple and Amistad throughout.
(Unfortunately, there are bracketing scenes of an elderly Edgecomb that just
don't work as well as Saving Private Ryan's inspired brackets.
The actor impersonating old Edgecomb lacks Hanks' impish-yet-moral bright-eyed
countenance.) Overall, instead of seeking white forgiveness Darabont asks for
humane understanding, but he's stuck with his story's most patronizing
aspect–that J.C. is more a conceit than a person. "Tell the truth
boss, I don't know much of anything. Never has," Coffey says to Edgecomb.
Is this kindly white view of black ignorance what we call liberalism? It's
barely acceptable. "I'm sorry for what I am. I'm tired of being
lonely, tired people being ugly to me" J.C. cries.
postmodern: to see a "flicker show." And here Darabont homages Sullivan's
Travels where the pitiful and ignorant received the opiate of cinema. J.C.
watches Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance to "Cheek to Cheek" in
Top Hat, his head haloed by the movie projector's light. "Why
dey's angels! Like up in heaven!" J.C. smiles. The Green Mile
would have been a better movie, maybe a completely laudable one, if Darabont
had dared to show John Coffey's response to Stepin Fetchit initiating Hollywood's
scurrilous black American legacy. We live with the dread irony. Next week I'll
examine how Denzel Washington tries to turn it around playing Ruben "Hurricane"
Carter in Norman Jewison's brilliant The Hurricane.
Adapted from a Stephen King
Who would have expected
The sanctimony used to justify
Starting with the concept
Typical of nonserious fiction,
Instead, The Green Mile
That's why the film's
Much of The Green Mile
Spielberg wouldn't
His last request feels very


text:
Tonight is tonight,happy to have all these to keep me awake
#sushi #pepero #Highland #spring #water #day #07 #MAY #Night @MBS #SHOPPES #MALL
Quote reblogged from Le Prévisible with 252,861 notes
If you have the person you really want. You are one lucky fucker
Source: sweetnsourpussy
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it's funny when people think high school students take things seriously because this is what we do
my friend did this last year and the principle saw him but instead of yelling at him he actually just laughed
Source: copyranter
Photo reblogged from Le Prévisible with 524,729 notes
I don't think that was scripted
Source: imrsammy
Photoset reblogged from Le Prévisible with 214,350 notes
This is disgusting. I love it.
I can just imagine his wife yelling at him "YOU COCKY LITTLE SHIT!"
Is he wearing a blazer over a leather jacket?
He's Tony Stark, what do you expect?
Robert, your Tony is showing
Source: robert-downey-junior
Photo reblogged from Whiskey Grade with 24,823 notes
Source: jasonrobson
Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.
#Memories #Remains #as #people #fade #away
Photo reblogged from Le Prévisible with 332 notes
BBC spell check is drunk.
Source: lickystickypickyshe
Photo reblogged from BEAUTIFUL EXPLOSIONS with 318,712 notes
Source: dissap0inted
Page 1 of 74


text:
Old Macs always spoil the best parties
We love our old Macs, but sometimes they are party-poopers -- shutting down and scaring the children in this amusing Joy of Tech comic.
Subscribe to Newsletter
Software Updatesmore updates
- Dropbox adds support for TouchID
- YouTube for iOS gets updated with full support for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus
- iOS 8.0.1 update now available (Updated -- Don't update!)
- NFL Mobile updated for 2014 Season with new Fantasy Football features, NFL Now integration
- Yahoo Mail improves email inbox searching with new filtering options
- Ember for Mac gains 'hugely-requested' screen recording feature


text:
"When the New 52 started, we tried to keep a lot of Batman's history intact. A lot of it is intact, but we realized a lot of the things from Year One couldn't stand. It's something we've been dying to do for a very long time. I had an origin story that I had been playing with in my mind and if I ever got to do one this is what it would be. I'm crazy proud of it and nervous about it and I hope you enjoy it."- Snyder
To see more of the Wonder Con'13 at DC Comics All Access Panel CLICK HERE
Visit Dark Knight News HERE


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text:
Definition of vandalism in English:
vandalismLine breaks: van¦dal|ism
Pronunciation: /ˈvand(ə)lɪz(ə)m /
noun[mass noun]
Action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property: an act of mindless vandalism surveillance of the building would reduce vandalism and theft
More example sentences
- He called on the public to report any instances of criminal damage or vandalism.
- Reports of criminal damage and persistent vandalism were also relayed to councillors.
- This is just mindless damage and vandalism, which will hit us hard in the pocket.
- More example sentences
- So far, the general opinion seems to be that a small group of people were involved in a vandalistic prank, rather than a conspiracy to extort or steal money.
- Police investigating a weekend vandalistic attack on an unoccupied advance factory have described the incident as one of the most outrageous and disgusting they have ever encountered.
- Full marks to Waterford County Council for acting with such haste in having the place boarded up to prevent further vandalistic assaults on the building.
- More example sentences
- Someone was either vandalistically angry or wanted to use my car without telling me.
- It was vandalistically demolished in the early 1960s.
- You're sternly and speciously warned against vandalistically breaking the law.
Pronunciation: /-ˈlɪstɪk/adjective
Pronunciation: /-ˈlɪstɪk(ə)li/adverb
Definition of vandalism in:
- The US English dictionary
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Word of the day rebuff
Pronunciation: rɪˈbʌf
reject (someone or something) in an abrupt manner…


text:
The Washington Redskins add another new face to the team, this time on the offensive line. ESPN's Adam Schefter reports that the Redskins have signed Cleveland Browns guard Shawn Lauvao. It was no secret that the Redskins were looking to upgrade the interior of their offensive line, and the signing of Lauvao will help with that.
At 6-3, 315 pounds, Shawn Lauvoa is a bit bigger than the interior linemen the Redskins typically used under former head coach Mike Shanahan. And new head coach Jay Gruden seems to prefer bigger linemen, even though the Redskins will continue to use some of the zone blocking schemes that they've used previously.
It's reported the Lauvao signed a 4-year deal worth $17 million. Shawn Lauvao is a good pass blocker, and getting better in that area is something the Redskins needed to do, with quarterback Robert Griffin III taking a lot of hits over the course of the 2013 season. Lauvao's bigger size should also help in taking on bigger defensive linemen.
The Redskins may also look to upgrade their right tackle position, so they may not finished adding to the offensive line in free agency. And they are expected to draft a few linemen as well.
2014 – Redskins NFL Free Agency Tracker – (updated)
Report: Andre Roberts signs with the Redskins
Sign Up! – Riggo's Rag News Letter – Get Redskins and NFL news sent to your Inbox Every Morning!


text:
- Maintains healthy body cells
- Fights free radicals
C-Gel Vitamin C 1000 mg boosts the body's natural defenses.
C-Gel Vitamin C 1000 mg may enhance the body's defenses against common colds. Vitamin C has antioxidant properties that help combat cell-damaging free radicals. Vitamin C helps to maintain healthy teeth and gums.
Safflower Oil assists in maintaining normal cholesterol levels. Safflower Oil possibly eases breathing problems and chest pains. Safflower Oil may maintain proper blood viscosity' unclog blood vessels' and stimulate heart functions. Carob potentially regulates blood sugar and insulin levels. C-Gel Vitamin C 1000 mg helps boost the immune system.
C-Gel Vitamin C 1000 mg 100 Soft Gels Includes the Following Ingredients:
Vitamin C: Boosts the immune system
Safflower Oil: Regulates cholesterol levels
Carob: Supports the digestive system
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These products are not meant to diagnose' treat or cure any disease or medical condition. Please consult your doctor before starting any exercise or nutritional supplement program or before using these or any product during pregnancy or if you have a serious medical condition.
Serving Size: 1 Soft Gel
Amount Per Serving / % DV
Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) 1000 mg / 1667 %
Use as directed by a healthcare professional.
Consult a healthcare professional before use.
Allergy / Dietary Needs
- Corn Free
- Gluten Free
- Milk Free
- Salt Free
- Starch Free
- Sugar Free
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Ratings & ReviewsReview This Item
Overall Rating for C-Gel 1000 mg 100 Soft Gels
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Gel pills for cream
I bought C-Gel to open it up and use cream on my face. These are gritty inside.
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1. You have agreed to Pay Broxtowe Borough Council for a Garden Waste Collection Service covering a period of one year, March 2014 to March 2015 inclusive. Full payment will apply irrespective of joining date.
2. There will be no refunds.
3. Payment covers supply and ongoing maintenance of the container.
4. Garden waste will only be collected in bins supplied by us; these remain the property of Broxtowe Borough Council and are for garden waste only.
5. If you move to another address within Broxtowe, take your brown-lidded bin(s) with you. To continue having your garden waste collected contact us to transfer the service to your new address.
6. If the bin(s) contain non-compostable waste we will not empty it. Recurrent contamination may result in the bin and service being removed with no refund.
7. The brown-lidded bins will be supplied displaying a current payment sticker. If you already have brown-lidded bin(s) a sticker(s) will be applied to show payment has been made on the first collection.
8. If your sticker does become detached/lost then email us using the contact details located on the right.