Goodbye February!

 

Four snowstorms, three feet of snow.

Six times up on the garage roof – that’s six and a half tons of slush my back shoveled off.

Two hard SF paperbacks put away. Another on WWII.

More of the self-writ epic outlined. It’s now gone from a blueprint to a basic Erector set.

Season One of a TV series re-watched as a family per Patch’s request.

Everyone still healthy and Wu Flu free.

Financial life improving, nice especially that college for Little One 18 months away.

What will March bring?

Thaw, hopefully.

Looking forward to traveling back to Middle-earth.

Have a neat little historical tome on a little-known subject to me, Venice (which will play into the self-writ epic).

Planning on focusing on Bach this month musically. Intrigued by Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations. Doing a little experiment to focus on one major classical composer and his compositions per month, my little part to save Western Civilization. March is Bach month.

And that’s that.

Bye Feb!

 

Book Review: Count to a Trillion

 

© 2011 by John C. Wright

 

Over the past two decades or so, as I meandered about the Catholic blogosphere on my journey to traditional Catholicism, I came across many references to the blog of one John C. Wright. Most, if not all, of the references were of the awestruck reverence variety. Those times I did come across those references of awestruck reverence I followed the links back to the source. And, lo, I too was struck with awe and reverence, and said I need to read this guy regularly. Oh he’s a Catholic and a science fiction writer, too? I gotta pick up some of his books.

Then, as always, life intervened.

And, just as always, I could punch myself for putting off my foray into the science fiction of Mr. Wright.

So back in November I spotted this novel on a used book shelf and immediately purchased it. After taking care of some other reading business first, I finally opened it about two weeks ago. Result? Right from the beginning I realized this novel is unlike any previous SF I’ve read.

How so?

The first thing that struck me was the presence of higher math. Higher math? In a novel meant for mass consumption? Now, we don’t go into strict detail, and there’s nary a formula to scare the gentle reader, but it’s there, and Wright undeniably knows what it is. Higher math is a secondary character in the novel, lurking always in the background, ready to pipe up at a moment’s notice. Whether to offer its insight into relativistic travel, the physics of antimatter energy consumption, artificial intelligence, global socio-politico-economics, or game theory on planetary levels, offer insight it does.

That alone intrigued me. Then I got to know the main character.

Menelaus Montrose, is the odd combination of gun slinging lawyer and mathematical prodigy in a post-apocalyptic Texas. Now, lawfare in the 25th century is conducted a bit different than it is today, most notably in the fact suits are settled Burr-Hamilton duel style. Only now there’s computerized armor, defensive flak and chaff, intelligent bullets that change direction, personal missiles that feint and jab. When Menelaus nearly loses to rival attorney Mike Nails, he realizes that it’s time to hang up the shingle and join that interstellar voyage to the Diamond Star, to decipher the Monument.

Now we slip into Arthur C. Clarke territory. The Monument initially reminded me of the Clarkian Monolith from 2001. However, instead of a one-story sized slab, it’s the size of a small, smooth moon. Writ upon it down to microscopic levels in alien hieroglyphs are equations to open up the universe. Can Man decipher them? And how was the Monument initially discovered? Orbiting the Diamond Star, a star of pure antimatter.

The mission is twofold: decipher the Monument (mapped off into Greek alphabet segments) and mine the star for its antimatter – the greatest, purest form of energy. En route, Menelaus decides to try something risky. Sensing something greater than Man – something Posthuman – would be required to understand the Monument, he injects himself with a brain altering drug –

And so the novel, which I could not put down and read dozens of pages at a sitting, unfolds.

Questions: What – or Who – would leave a Monument to a lesser species? Something good, or something, perhaps, evil? We always read, in these tales, of a benevolent alien civilization nudging us up the evolutionary ladder. But what if that wasn’t the case? And what if they can “see” us mining the Diamond Star? And what if our partial decipherment of the Monument leads us to be able to hoist our own selves up that ladder by our own bootstraps? And should we evolve ourselves into a race of heroes to defend against an invading force that is to us what we are to insects, or should we evolve into a race of – more efficient drones lest we be stomped out of existence?

I thoroughly enjoyed Count to a Trillion, which happens to be, thankfully, Book One of a series of six written to date. The next one, The Hermetic Millennia, is on deck for a mid-Spring reading.

Grade: A+

 

Rush Limbaugh

 

I was never a ditto head.

But, like many out there, it was listening to Rush that converted me to a lifelong philosophy of conservatism.

Well, that’s not exactly correct, at least according to an early memory I’m quite fond of that took place when I was about 12 or so. I was laying on the living room floor (no doubt paging through my Beloved Physics Book) while my parents watched the Reagan Carter debate. Whenever Reagan spoke, I simply felt good; whenever Carter said something, I felt the exact opposite. Now, it could be Reagan’s stage presence, his smooth voice and warm persona. But I felt safe and comforted listening to the man. Though the ideas discussed soared over my head, I knew Reagan and his ideas were … just right.

A few years passed, me blissfully unaware of politics, political theory and political theater (much more preoccupied with the shifting familial landscape of divorced parents), and before I knew it, I was at college. Where I was bombarded 24/7 with anti-Reagan propaganda and full-flung liberal ideology. Man! And this was the 80s! I truly feel sorry for what conservative students today must face.

Soon after, young idiot I was, I cast my first legal vote in a presidential election for Michael Dukakis. And then, like many indoctrinated liberal students, did not vote in any state or local elections for another four years. Then, I decided, after careful research and rumination, to cast my vote for this new up and coming politician: Bill Clinton. “Hey man,” I recall saying to a friend at the time, “Bush is just for big business, and Clinton isn’t!”

A couple more years passed with me preoccupied with friends, a semi-serious girlfriend, a full-time garage band seeking greater success, and business school at night followed by physics classes at a local university. Then, in the spring of 1993, I listened to one Rush Limbaugh broadcast in my car during my lunchbreak.

I’d heard of him before. My bassist, way back in 1989 or 90 or so, recommended me to him, but I brushed it aside. Conservatives were squares, man. Now pass me a beer, and don’t forget to book the rehearsal studio – gotta work on the new songs for the gig next week.

After my tentative first listen that brisk sunny March day, I felt a little weird. A small chink in the cornerstone of my belief system might have been quietly and softly knocked a little out of place. To reassure my liberal persona I made fun of Limbaugh to another friend, and we both had ourselves a good chuckle. This Rush guy certainly was no Howard Stern!

A little while passed – can’t say how long – but I listened again. And again, and again. I was listening in the car at lunch, and this soon followed with listening to him with headphones on the radio at my desk. My reversion to conservatism was soon barreling ahead and out of control.

In the fall of 93 I voted against New Jersey’s longtime senator, Frank Lautenberg. My candidate lost, but it was a major milestone for me. I voted Republican. And every election since, I either voted Republican or third-party.

Why?

Well, without digressing into a personal political treatise, what Rush said simply made sense. I felt he was for the little guy, the small businessman, the man trying to make a living for himself and his family, in ways more authentic than any Democrat talking point. I believed HE believed his message, and his message made SENSE to me. It echoed back to debate Reagan. It just felt right in my gut. And more importantly, I understood the logic of his arguments.

(Course, it didn’t hurt that I had a religious conversion around the same time. As long as abortion is a non-negotiable in the Democrat party platform, I will NEVER vote for them.)

Like I said earlier, I was not a ditto-head. There were only two periods in my life where I listened to him with any regularity. First was probably 94 to 96 or so. At this time I also bought and read his two books, and yes, they did shock me at the time. Primarily because they said things – Rush said things – that no one else in the media was saying. The second period was when I was out of work for most of 2010, when I was having my lung surgeries. During those two phases I listened to him a couple times a week, for most of the three-hour show. But the years in between I would only listen, perhaps, a couple times a year.

I admire his success. I admire his courage. And though he was lacking somewhat in the personal morality department, he was a firm Pro-Life advocate and did much and raised much money for charity. I enjoyed every hour spent listening to him, and thank him for letting me know it was okay to be a conservative.

Rest in peace, Rush.