I found out what the book is all about yesterday!
“Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,- Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.”*
* https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/42/moby-d...e-of-the-hand/
No, I have never grown up.
The Secrets Within: Samantha Jamison Mystery Book 15
Edelheit, Peggy A.
4/5*
I'm 80% through it. It was assigned reading. I'll not likely read any of the others in this series. This is a warning as much as a recommendation.
Told First person singular by a mystery author who solves real mysteries, then writes about them. Apparently the real author has at least 14 other books by this fictional author.
In the story she meets somebody who has read her books. At one point he responds to her with, “Ahh direct and to the point, jut like your books.”
!!!!!
Lady …. It took you three chapters to get from the front gate to the front door. You spent two and a half pages describing the Kudzu on the fence and gate. Direct and to the point ??? Not a phrase I’d use to describe your writing.
Here she describes her Bond arms Stinger. she says, "It held two, 22LR (long range) bullets, which packed a deadly punch." sigh ... Two deadly Long range Bullets.
*That is a very generous rating that may not stand with 20% of the book to go.
Robert Heinlein. 1956.
A down on his luck actor gets hired-bullied-shanghaied into being a body double for a kidnapped politician.
From this very simple premise Heinlein weaves a tale of interplanetary and inter-species politics and culture with a lot of very economical world building.
The story of how the book came to be written is pretty interesting.
Heinlein's wife worked at a local theater troupe, and their house soon became the after rehearsal drinking hole. The Heinlein's were incredibly social, maintained a huge circle of semi-permanent guests and their liquor bill alone must have been staggering. Heinlein found the techniques, traditions and lore of theater absolutely fascinating and soaked it up. He soon realized that he had a story and a character centered around the theater, and just needed a plot.
Thus "The Great Lorenzo" is born. Supercilious and smug, incredibly vain, completely devoted to his craft and always "on", he is a wonderful insider's view of the Theater and those that love it. Lorenzo is a keen observer of humanity in his pursuit of mimicry and characters to play, giving us disquisitions on everything from how to recognize Spacers by their walk to altering a man's appearance to the art of strolling.
The book won the very first Hugo award. ..which Heinlein knew nothing about and wasn't notified of for months.
The ever present thorn in his side, Forrest J. Ackerman, accepted the award for Heinlein...and simply kept it for years.
I recently listened to the audio version and the narrator does an excellent job of capturing Lorenzo's snotty vanity and self centered disdain for anything not related to the Stage.
Thanks for the background.
Another of the same era with the same low pressure storytelling is 'The Door Into Summer'. At one time the protagonist lived in an old house with seven outside doors. All Winter, his cat was going from door to door, looking for the door into Summer. An inventor's trials and tribulations bringing his designs to market. I like the old stories' versions of high technology, especially the way they handle - or gloss over - computational requirements. Dan makes use of the recently declassified Thorsen Tube which can store an extended series of actions. Reprogram a device just by plugging in the appropriate Thorsen Tube.
Code Name: JET STREAM
I had a cat named Petronius the Arbiter in the 70s.
He wasn't near as smart as Pete, though.
I really enjoy the dated mechanical engineering approach to tech in Heinlein's Future History. Slide rules and three brained analog computers. I remember just before the electronic calculator revolution(remember that?) how the math and physics geeks would carry their slide rules in holsters like gunfighters.
He was constantly on the cutting edge of science, describing Radar stealth in Between Planets, remote microsurgery in Waldo, using analog robot hands; Artificial Intelligence in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Time Enough for Love; hyperlinked internet in Friday, and calculating by hand every orbit and boost vector he described.
I heartily recommend his two part biography by William H Patterson. He was given complete access to Heinlein's voluminous papers and correspondence by Virginia Heinlein. It's both a life and writing biography.
Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz, translated from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin in 1896. The basis of a pretty well-known movie from the early fifties, it's a romance to a certain degree, and Christian allegory to a good degree, and a critique of Polish society in both ways. It is set in a well researched but luridly described Nero-era Rome. It was one of the most popular books of its time; it has been translated into 40 languages and was a major part of the author's Nobel-winning body of work.
There are better translations (Kuniczak's is much more readable -- Curtin uses a ton of thees and thous which isn't representative of Sienkiewicz's modernish Polish), but I breezed through it. If we remember that there's a difference in credibility between a historical novel and a history text (Sienkiewicz takes liberties, which are hard to describe without spoliers), it is really excellent allegory. Its critical target -- the culture of materialism and relativism -- was as much a problem in Sienciewicz's Poland as it is in today's America. I may try a different translation in a few years, but I found it rewarding.
Ignore Alien Orders