Christopher Landon: Ice Cold in Alex
Interesting and well developed characters, in genuinely tension inducing situations - even when the matter of "who did it" is not really a mystery. Vivid enough for the place and period - WW2 North Africa to early 1950s Britain - to come to life inside your mind. (***)
Karl Von Clausewitz: On War
I read this first many years ago.
The author then impressed me as being more lucid and broadly learned than many contemporary writers on this and similar areas. He still does. (****)
Loren Lomasky: Person's, Rights, and the Moral Community
Well written, and clear. Many interesting ideas and explications of problems, but his theory itself - on a derivation of rights, seems possessed of unnecessary elements. Worth reading. (***)
J.G.Ballard: The Drowned World
Another (long-time) re-read.
Ballard tends to play one note - but it's a good one - and he plays it VERY well. Some uncontrolled/unforeseen calamity engulfs the world. Protagonist(s) confront general realization of the coldly impersonal nature of the world and how human responses are to a large extent a product of the interaction of those forces with his/there-own biological pre-dispositions - engraved in the structure of each and every one of their cells. And, that the true and only expression of one's authentic self and humanity, lies in how and whether one can/does inwardly accept the truth of these constraints, and expresses that realization, in those (few) opportunities available for actual personal choice.
Intentionally or not his work gives powerful and poetic expression to the Existentialist perspective.
The world of this novel happens to be slowly drowning in the over-heated flood-tides that result from a run-away solar anomaly. But, it could be just about any such occurrence - e.g. A "Wind From Nowhere," or the Japanese invasion of Shanghai (both of which served as the backgrounds of others among his novels). The story-line, character-types, dilemmas, decisions, and general moods are much the same in each story, but the pacing, poetry, intensity, and aggravating authenticity of the characterizations in each instance are gripping enough to make every reading worthwhile. (***)
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There are no qualifications here - no gratuitous genuflections to the normal pieties concerning "ignorant warriors mislead into fighting - courageously - for an evil cause, etc." Mitigations usually acknowledged in regards to the average German draftee serving in the Wermacht during World War Two - let alone American soldiers, airmen and sailors who fought in Vietnam - are conspicuously lacking.
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wow..I actually had a best friend who fought in VietNam David and it was horrific the way he was received upon returning "Home"..great read!
Posted by: Angel | 07 November 2006 at 22:18