Pages Tagged “War”

Reviews

Captain America: The First Avenger ★★★★☆ Better than I remembered, Captain America stands out from the MCU both because it’s a war film and because the formula hadn’t solidified yet.
Changing Planes ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
Lighter than most Le Guin I’ve read, Changing Planes is a Gulliver’s Travels for the present era, the social satire made possible through interdimensional travel.
Cordwainer Smith: Short Fiction ★★★★☆ Paul Linebarger
Three mid-century science-fiction stories about the future of war, space travel, symbiosis, and the dangers of cutting off your own humanity.
Five Ways to Forgiveness ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
Five loosely-connected stories set in the final years of a color-based enslaving society, the war for liberation, and the messy aftermath.
Interference ★★★★☆ Sue Burke
An intriguing followup to Semiosis that weaves several drastically different sentient species (both plant and animal) into a story about factions, community, freedom, communication and war.
Nomad of the Time Streams ★★★☆☆ Michael Moorcock
A 19th-century British soldier in India is flung into three wildly different future wars, forcing him to reexamine the world he thought he was building.
The Old Iron Dream ★★★★★ David Forbes
An extended essay tracing the strand of military authoritarianism and white male supremacy in science-fiction, from John Campbell through Heinlein, Pournelle and other major names up through the then-present of 2013.
Star Trek: Discovery - Season 1 ★★★★☆ Star Trek with the pace of Farscape, weaving through existing lore and focused on one crew member’s quest for redemption.
Stellaris - First Impressions ★★★★☆ An empire-building game, like Heroes of Might and Magic in Space, but more complicated, with diplomacy, espionage and alliances along with base building and battles.
Usurpation ★★★★☆ Sue Burke
A different sort of book than Semiosis and Interference, taking place entirely on Earth long after the second Pax expedition returns. Can the bamboo keep humans’ chaotic conflicts in check? Where do the robots fit in? With so many forms of intelligence, who counts as a person, anyway?
The Word for World is Forest ★★★★☆ Ursula K. Le Guin
Infuriating to read…and that’s the point. A story of colonial exploitation, asymmetric warfare, dehumanization and environmental destruction.

↑Top

Les Misérables

Waterloo At a cliffhanger in Valjean's story, Victor Hugo pauses to spend 45 pages describing the Battle of Waterloo and what makes it the hinge of the 19th century.
Return to Waterloo Waterloo draws you in immediately with the perspective of a visit to the battlefield, before it breaks down into a long string of opinions.
Abridged Abolitionism I always wondered what 'Lee's Miserables,' Confederate soldiers who were fans of the book, thought of Hugo's abolitionism. It turns out a Virginia publisher cut those parts out.

↑Top

Blog Posts

Comics and the World War II Home Front
Two months ago I picked up a copy of the comic book All-Flash #15 (Summer 1944), published during the thick of World War II. In the bottom margin of each page is a slogan, in rhymed couplet form, on how children could help with the war effort: Bottom Lines on Following Pages Tell What to […]
(May 2007)
Fighting Irish
I caught a story on The World (PRI) today about Los Angeles band Ollin’s song tribute to Saint Patrick’s Battalion (in Spanish, El BatallÃ³n de Los San Patricios)—a group of several hundred primarily Irish Americans who, during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), left the US Army to fight alongside the Mexicans. They fought fiercely for a […]
(Mar 2007)