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Forward Motion for Writers

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I'm going to aim for 50 books.

Account of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment's pre-Civil War creation by Jefferson Davis, then War Secretary of the Union, and their "peacekeeping" mission on the Texas frontier. Fascinating reading, even if neither the Cavalry, the Texans, nor the Comanches come off as exactly appealing.

Fellow Transformers-obsessed children of the 80s will be amused to learn that the fastest horse in the Regiment was named...Bumblebee.

Meh. Well, i actually read it all the way through, with some skimming, which is more than I can say for the other books by her that I've tried, but I just found this very blah.

The universe is still fascinating, but the supporting cast isn't holding up particularly well, except for the Dragons, and my urge to bludgeon the heroine to death seems to be increasing.

I'd heard a lot of complaints about how static this one is at a plot level, I found it a bit talky but not unbearably slow going.

Meh. Boring, barely coherent fanfic about a group of First Ladies plus Sally Hemings.

I don't think I'd like the author if I met him in real life, and I'm not at all sympathetic with the people he mentions having done biographies about. But he's intelligent and thoughtful about the process of writing biography, and it was exactly what I needed to know at that moment.

This is a series of biographical essays on various British writers, reviews of biographies (mostly of British writers), together with a couple of "life abroad" essays where the author talks about his time in America and Ireland in a fun but patronizing way.

The endless parade of narrow little middle-to-upper-class people with outsized neuroses got kind of old. The last two book-length biographies I read (late in 2010) covered Audie Murphy and Louis Armstrong: hot-tempered but generous American Southerners who came up from horrific poverty and personal suffering to show the world what they could do. Holroyd's subjects-E. M. Forster and the Sitwells, the Bloomsbury set, etc.-kind of suffered by comparison.

Self-published book by an English professor about the filming of the first movie version of Graham Greene's "The Quiet American." It's well-researched, but often haphazard in terms of writing and presentation, and most of the pitfalls of self-publishing your work are on display here. I felt that Russo treated the cast fairly kindly, while painting a rather negative picture of writer-director Joseph Mankiewicz. And there was certainly a lot of craziness going on, between the arrogant director and the location shooting (in 1950s Vietnam!) and the male lead with appendicitis and an epic case of PTSD and the other male lead who might have been showing early signs of Parkinson's, etc, etc.

But the book requires an awful lot of patience to get through, and if you're not vastly interested in either this particular film or somebody involved in the making of same, it's hard to recommend it.

This is a series of brief essays about the writing of creative nonfiction by someone who's seen as kind of a guru. The parts dealing with the legal repercussions were helpful, very plain and simple and intelligent. There also some good pieces about stylistic and narrative concerns. But a lot of the essays were short and trite.

A noted nonfiction writer and journalist brings his experience to bear on the question of how to compile biographies or personal histories of your family members. He offers enormously practical, basic advice on the process of interviewing, the logistics, the psychology, the courtesies involved, with an impressive list of starter questions. He talks a little bit about other forms of research (at courthouses, for instance), and a fair amount about the process of converting what you've learned into a prose narrative. There's a lot of insistence on the value of undertaking a process like this, sometimes touching and heartfelt but at other times pretentious.

If you have any interest in undertaking a project which might require you to interview people or compile oral histories, this is a must-read, despite its limitations. And used copies are dirt-cheap.

A hilarious update of (or unofficial sequel to?) A Turn of the Screw, with a thoroughly modern woman taking charge of her ex-husband's child wards and their creepy old house. There's a somewhat weak romance angle, but the real charm lies in watching the fun, feisty heroine put right all the obvious problems with the situation she walks into, only to find that the supernatural issues are more than she can handle alone. It helps that I read Turn of the Screw at an impressionable age, and remembered the specific "ghost sightings" fairly clearly, because Crusie updates them in interesting ways.

I didn't care for the straw-man version of Christian theology that gets brought up briefly in the late stages of the story, especially given that the book is remarkably broadminded about nearly everyone else. But aside from that, this is a gem.

Originally published in 1958, this books covers the inner workings of the LAPD of the era, naming prominent police figures, covering some well-known cases, and explaining the police procedures of the day. The credited author (who may or may not have had a ghostwriter on board) was of course the star and producer of Dragnet, and his politics and attitude towards the LAPD are about what you'd expect from Sgt Joe Friday. There are parts that made me cringe, as when he mentions the use of LAPD intelligence to collect and detain the Nisei (Japanese-Americans) during WWII as if that's a good thing, and the discussions of "race relations" in the fifties are patronizing at best. But it's still an immensely informative look at law enforcement in a certain time and place, and he includes a glossary of police jargon and a departmental org chart.

Biography of Mary Lamb, sister of English essayist Charles Lamb. She killed their mother in a fit of insanity and suffered from periods of mental instability all her remaining life, but also coauthored several books with her brother and caretaker, the best known being "Tales from Shakespeare for Young People." Interesting snapshot of the Georgian and Regency eras-I found it sympathetic towards both siblings and very informative about them and their more famous friends (Coleridge, Wordsworth, Hazlitt, Godwin, etc.) The author however did tend to get carried away in characterizing Mary Lamb's matricide as liberating her from a conventional female life.

Asaro's Skolian Empire novels are something I dip into periodically, like an ongoing soap opera, with only the faintest idea of who is related to whom in what way. This is one of the better ones I've read recently: an interesting take on the rival Eubian Empire, and a set of Skolian characters I found more interesting than normal (I've never read any of the other books relating to the dice game/political modelling tool known as Quis. I'll have to track those down, I guess.)

I do wish Jai wouldn't keep antagonizing Corbal Xir, though.

Interesting book about the rise and fall of the Comanche nation, w/ an emphasis on their last major leader, Quanah Parker.

Yet another take on the Patton assassination theories. Alot of the peripheral stuff is interesting and educational (about OSS activities for instance, or the US-Soviet situation at the end of WWII) and Patton himself is as always a picturesque figure. Trouble is, the core thesis hinges very heavily on the author's interviews with Douglas Bazata and excerpts from that gentleman's diaries. Bazata did have a distinguished career in the OSS, but also a reputation as a self-aggrandizing liar: my father, who had been something of a Patton geek in his youth and read both the Ladislas Farrago books, rolled his eyes and snorted when I mentioned Bazata and his claims.

So, primary source is/was unreliable at the best of times, plus Wilcox interviewed Bazata after a stroke, when he was not necessarily at his sharpest, plus the diary excerpts sound a lot like a man with a hazy grasp on reality, and you have...a book that's more honest than a lot of conspiracy/secret assassionation fare, but isn't necessarily more trustworthy. Entertaining read though.

Sigh. "Murph" so needs a better general biography. No Name on the Bullet was a standard gossipy Hollywood bio, better sourced than some, and better written than others, but still the kind of biography that dishes out colorful stories about its subject with a side order of relish and a cluck of disapproval while thinking itself a good deal more profound than it actually is.

American Soldier has pretty much the opposite virtues and vices. Col. Simpson was primarily a rather dry military scholar, and the two areas where he really shines are in his discussions of Murphy's military career (both Army and Texas National Guard) and the airplane crash that cost him his life. A lot of the rest of the book is bland, though there are some interesting facts I hadn't seen elsewhere, and the appendixes are helpful.

Fast paced and entertaining mix of action and intrigue in a Dumas-plus-magic world, but it felt kind of shallow and had a really annoying cliffhanger ending. Still nice to get a fantasy with a European but non-Anglocentric setting, and I liked its take on Richelieu better than some other fiction I've read that included him.

Fairly entertaining pulp western from the 70s(?), marred by some truly mind-boggling racist parts, and by the (British) author's decision to dump a whole passel of English characters into the middle of post-Civil-War Texas.

Wouldn't have bothered if I hadn't checked it out at the same time as the other Edson. Has all the same failings as Trigger Fast, plus the problems of being part three in a loose trilogy.

Much better pulp western than the last two. This one had kind of Robert E Howard prose, but without the pretentious nihilism. I'm kind of torn on its merits relative to the film version (Gunsmoke, from 1953, not to be confused w/ the tv series of the same name). The movie has more humor, and a less sappy take on the saloon girl with the heart of gold. But the book has a better climax, and does a better job of laying out why the hero can't go on indefinitely being a gunslinger-the film version's take on the taming of Reb Kittredge comes off kind of patronizing and unpleasant.

There's an awful lot of buildup, but it's a good take on that type of story you find in mythologies all over the world, that kind of story that is simultaneously grandiose epic and sordid soap opera. I was very impressed by her take on magic/psionic warfare.

I'm in the process of reading Hawkmistress, by the same author, but I don't think I'm going to bother with the rest of the Darkover cycle.

Too much one-with-nature telepathic stream of consciousness stuff in this one, and although there are plausible reasons why the heroine acts kind of bratty and hostile in the second half, it's no fun to read about. There's some entertaining stuff going on here though.

Not worth the hype-it's a rambling, technically competent chunk of backstory pertaining to an entertaining but profoundly shallow and rather unlikable anti-hero, and the best thing about it is the world building.

PS: to steal a line from Oscar Wilde, it would take a heart of stone to read those descriptions of the "silence divided into three parts" without laughing.

Whatever opinion you have of the author when you start...is the same one you will end up with at the end.

The mystery angle is too convoluted for words, and too gothic even for Hambly but no one's better at bringing the past to life than she is, and it's nice to see her applying that to something interesting, like the fur-trapping "wars" of the late 1830s.

I think I liked this one better than the other Benjamin January-it takes place in and around New Orleans (with one trip "upriver" but still in modern Louisiana proper), and so avoids that travelogue-y feel that Shirt on His Back had.

Interesting stream-of-consciousness nonfiction about a narcotics cop so far undercover that he's starting to lose track of which side he's on. I found some of the flashbacking and flashforwarding confusing, and the bragging about how tough the main character is got really old, but it was an interesting insight into what people like that have to do and how they do it and what it does to them spiritually.

It's impressive that the author can make military training and logistics seem interesting.

It being impossible to say anything, pro or con,about the storyline or the beliefs behind it without wading eyeball-deep into a political controversy, I'm not gonna do so.

Borrowed this and the other Kratman from a family member when i was short on things to read. Everything I said about the other Kratman applies to this one as well.

formulaic but fun.

I despised the stacked-digression effect of Kvothe's time away from the University, particularly the Felurian segment, which I only skimmed through. And I was downright annoyed when I figured out that the Amyr were basically Dan Brown Templars.

As with the first one, the main character's life is fascinating in a trainwrecky kind of way but I'm not actually sure I care what happens to him. The silence in three parts passages are still downright stupid.

I didn't like either of the film versions I've seen, but I was pleasantly surprised by this-has nothing to do with the film plot, it's more of a sagebrush Count of Monte Cristo. Story was unrealistic in places (the most obvious issue to me being the hero's Thoroughbred mare with nigh-magical speed and endurance and the sure-footedness of a burro). But it was fun and larger than life, with a writing style that struck me as a cross between Edgar Rice Burroughs and Lester Dent. I may track down some more of this Brand guy.

Awesome food content, but the mystery felt kind of unfocused-it's dealing with the murder of a PI, and the cases left hanging by his death, so it wanders around a lot trying to clear up the various cases and tie them back to the murder investigation somehow, and I just couldn't care.

This series has always had its fair share of weaselly, profoundly unpleasant people lurking in the shadows, but for some reason the way Davidson handled them this time just felt particularly nasty and immature and vindictive, on her part.

This is one of those "catch up with the whole clan" Liaden books, so I spent a fair amount of time going "who are you again?" but it was fun.

The other two books I read by this guy were interesting yarns written by someone who seemed knowledgable in his field, whatever you thought of his politics. This one's just a thesis statement.

The main thing I learned from this book about African American troops serving in 19th c. New Mexico is that there's not a whole lot of information about them. The author spends a lot of time talking about the lifestyle of the enlisted man in general at the relevant forts, singling out what incidents he can trace that happened specifically to the African Americans.

It's very dry (although I found it more informative about the frontier military than some other things I'd read), and the fact that he saves most of the discussion of racial discrimination to one chapter late on was confusing. I'd run up against some incident in the early chapter that might be personality conflicts, or might be discrimination, and found myself wondering why the author wasn't addressing the question.

Fluffy fanguide to the films of Audie Murphy. Pulled together some interesting soundbites from interviews with costars and vintage news items, but mostly just a bunch of reproductions of lobbycards and posters, which is really only interesting if you collect them yourself, which I don't. Kindle edition seemed to have formatting issues.

Not his best (he all but explicitly states near the end that it is a parody of a kind of mystery he doesn't care for), but amusing.

First off, the book's opinions on the films are really, really dumb. Larkins, the one writing the movie reviews here, tromps all over the movies I like, overhypes the ones I'm comparatively indifferent to, and treats almost any piece of film footage that requires Murphy to not dress like a cowboy as a personal insult.

The parts of the book by Magers, which are largely taken from interviews w/ coworkers and so forth, are quite interesting, although they tend to reinforce the idea that a lot of people knew this guy but not a lot of people knew him well.

It gets kind of boring once you move away from the fifties and early sixties period, where Egypt was recruiting Nazi-era rocket scientists and Mossad was countering with letter-bombs, intimidation, and a jetsetting secret agent with a cover story as a horse fancier and former SS officer. But it is very educational overall.

I ended up skimming the flashbacks, but on the whole I felt like this one held together better than any book in the series since White Night. Curious to see where it goes from here.

This is an earnest and dignified but rather bitter recounting of a movie star's life by the movie star's son. The younger Ford does a good job of summarizing the ups and downs of his relationship with his father, without sounding whiny or entitled, but is not as dispassionate as he thinks he is. It seems to me pretty clear, for instance, that Glenn Ford subconsciously resented his son for putting his wife Eleanor Powell through a very difficult and possibly dangerous childbirth, and that Peter Ford would have been a much weaker, less industrious personality without his father's attempts to discipline him and instill a work ethic in him.

But at the same time, it's clear that Ford did a lot of things wrong in handling his marriage and his child-you could take him as an archetype of that generation of men who put their careers and their professional colleagues-male and female-above their family commitments.

The actual film industry stuff is kind of boring, unless you're really into the "who slept with who" material, which is largely a catalog of name-dropping. I found myself glad for the lack of salacious detail on that aspect of it, but also bored by the comparative lack of humor and emotional content.

The thesis is that the psychiatrist in the famous "Sybil" MPD case probably unwittingly induced MPD-type symptoms in her imaginative but fragile and needy patient by bombarding her with drugs, including Pentathol, and that the the reporter who turned the case into the best-selling book had her doubts about the truthfulness of the case history even from the time she started writing it up in earnest.

The author spends a lot of time conjecturing about what goes on inside the main players' heads: the psychiatric patient known as Sybil, her (also female) psychiatrist and the (also female) reporter who wrote a book about the case. But her inferences seem plausible, and the facts of the case are compelling and disturbing: the reporter gradually sacrificing her professional integrity to her ambition and need to publish, the psychiatrist sacrificing hers very early on to her own god complex, the meek and very religious "Sybil" submitting to these more forceful personalities.

Sounds like an intriguing book. I remember being very drawn to the original book, fascinated by the concept of multiple personalities. I'll have to check this out.

~~~~~~Signature's Off~~~~~~

I cracked the book to refresh my memory about something and ended up reading it all over again. Still a lot of fun.