Q3 2021 Roundup

With the fall equinox, summer is now over.

This blog has passed 2800 daily posts in a row, though reported hits are way down from last year.  Posts will continue until readership improves.  : – )

This summer saw many posts on favorite topics, including dinosaurs, robots, solar energy, and cryptocurrencies.  And robot helicopters on Mars.   And the melting cryosphere.

If we hear about a solar powered robot dinosaur that eats cryptocurrency you know it will appear in this blog!  Especially if it emerges from a melting icecap and goes to Mars to transform into a helicopter.

Book Reviews

As always, weekly reviews of 14 fiction and 6 non fiction books.

Notable book:  The Amazons by Adrienne Mayor

Fiction

Antkind by Charlie Kaufman
The World Gives Way by Marissa Levien
The Very Nice Box by Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman
Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Captain Moxley and the Embers of Empire by Dan Hanks
The Paris Labyrinth by Gilles Legardinier
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Questland by Carrie Vaughn
The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
Elysium Fire by Alistair Reynolds
The Invention of Sound by Chuck Palahniuk
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Non-fiction

The Amazons by Adrienne Mayor
Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen
Venus and Aphrodite by Bettany Hughes
Forget the Alamo by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and Jason Stanford
We Had A Little Real Estate Problem by Kliph Nesteroff
Pastels and Pedophiles by Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko

Great Names For a Band

Terms found in real technical papers, not made up at all.

“Spin Orbit Torques”
“Cadmium Telluride”

Book Review: “Captain Moxley and the Embers of Empire” by Dan Hanks

Captain Moxley and the Embers of Empire by Dan Hanks

We know from the cover and from the dedication that this book is inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark and similar films.  And Captain Samantha Moxley is a promising protagonist. Hanks has a YouTube video on “How to Write Pulp Fiction”.  So we know what he’s trying to do.    Let’s see how Hanks does here.

Not so great, for my tastes.

There is a fine line between being inspired by movies and simply copying the concept.  Moxley is very derivative.  Adventurer in leather jacket, sister is archeaologist / plunderer, seeking mystical treasure artifacts in the catacombs of Paris and under the sands of Egypt, racing Nazis and America’s secret government.   We’ve seen all this before and better.

Hanks adds in some new agey stuff with an appearance by Edgar Cayce and his Atlanteans.  This junk was stupid (and antiscientific and racist) the first time around, so it’s not a great addition to a story as far as I’m concerned.

I’ll note, too, that the novel is historically wrong in many details, starting with the fact that there weren’t any female Spitfire pilots in the RAF.  But, hey, if there are Atlanteans under the Sphinx, then who cares about pesky details of actual history?

But the big problem is that the style needs work.  There is way too much talk, and way, way too much introspection.  Captain Moxley worries too much, or anyway, we are told far too much about how much she is worrying about things.  This is not the swashbuckler’s way.

For a story that is supposed to be full of action and wonder, there is far too little detail about the wondrous scenery and gadgets.  Even the fights and chases are not described in much detail.  It’s telling that after reading the story I couldn’t tell you what the key artifacts looked like.  One is a pendant the other is a stone.  Something to do with Isis and Osiris. That’s all I know.

Ya know something is missing, when that’s all I can tell you.

But the biggest problem, in my opinion, is that there are no flashbacks.  There is a gigantic backstory here.  Samantha keeps remembering earlier adventures and events, but we are given no flashbacks or even detailed recollections.  We just hear about “the things I’ve seen” and witness very personal animosity from the bad guys, apparently based on previous encounters.  But we don’t get to see any of this.  It’s very disappointing, and undercuts other parts of the story.

Overall, this is far too pulpy for me. 

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1. Dan Hanks, Captain Moxley and the Embers of Empire, London, Angry Robot, 2020.

Sunday Book Reviews