NEW BOOK REVIEW: Not Okay, Boomer
Helen Andrews displays the Baby Boomers’ failures for the world to see.
By Chris Queen
For years I’ve lamented the Baby Boomers’ hold on politics and culture. I was arguing for my generation – Generation X – to have a shot at the presidency before the 2012 election, and it’s easy to look back at the last five presidential terms to see what Baby Boomers in power have given us.
The Boomers have also given us the sexual revolution, rebellion for its own sake, and declining church attendance and religious adherence. The “do what makes you happy” ethos of the Boomer generation has led to countless ruined lives in the pursuit of selfishness.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to paint all Boomers with too broad a brush. My mom is a Baby Boomer who didn’t fall into the trap that Boomers in power seemed to (I just found out that my late father doesn’t qualify as a Boomer because he was born one year too early), and I have plenty of family members and friends who seem to have their heads on straight.
For years, the Baby Boom generation was the most idealistic group of people. Think of the hippies and the earnest middle-aged politicians who sought to transform the world. Did they? Yes, but not in ways that you’d think.
Writer Helen Andrews eviscerates the liberal Boomers in her new book Boomers: The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster. It’s a quick read – or listen, in my case, since I bought the Audible edition. Andrews takes the tack of Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians and profiled a set of prominent Boomers to peek into the legacy that this generation left on the world.
Another Disappointing Disney Biography
Hourly History’s short bio of Walt Disney lets readers down, but not for the typical reasons.
By Chris Queen
Over the past couple of years, I’ve been a fan of the Hourly History book series. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re short histories or biographies that are written to be read in an hour or less. I love finding an Hourly History book about an era or person with whom I’m not familiar and getting a quick education.
I signed up for the Hourly History newsletter a few months back because they offer several free e-books every week. Not long ago, one of the free books was a bio of Walt Disney. As a Disney fanatic – and somewhat of an amateur Disney historian – I was intrigued to see what the Hourly History treatment would bring to the long list of Walt Disney biographies.
You Should Binge Watch Schitt’s Creek Now
The first 5 seasons are on Netflix
By David M. Swindle
I very much agree with my former PJM colleague Stephen Kruiser. The Canadian comedy show Schitt’s Creek is something special.
Book Review: The Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom
By Tamara Wilhite
One of my earliest memories is of the massive science fiction laden bookcase in my childhood home. I read John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, A. E. van Vogt, Ray Bradbury, Larry Niven and other classic sci-fi authors before I was in middle school. That’s understandable given that I’m named for a character in a Robert Heinlein novel. This means I’m unusually familiar with both the art and stories of Golden Age sci-fi. This is why I chose to read and review “The Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom: Part 1”. Part 1 is devoted to the 1930s and came out in hardback in February, 2020.
Book Review: “Fantastic Schools, Volume 1”
By Tamara Wilhite
“Fantastic Schools, Volume 1” was edited by Jagi Lamplighter and Chris Nuttall. I’d previously read and reviewed his novel “The Zero Blessing”. “The Zero Blessing” is the first novel in his “Schooled in Magic” universe. It is a world very different from Harry Potter, yet his first book is compared to that because that’s become the default comparison for any “preteens sent to magic school” unless they’re vampires. One of the short stories in “Fantastic Schools” is by Mr. Nuttall, but there are more than a dozen short stories in the collection.
Mamelukes Is a Fitting Final Novel in the Jerry Pournelle Oeuvre
By Robert Arrington
Last night, I finished reading the last novel by the late Jerry Pournelle I will ever read.
For me, who has been a Pournelle fan for almost half a century, it was a sad moment. In my last review, of Starborn and Godsons, I reviewed Pournelle’s literary career, so I won’t repeat it. It is extraordinary.
Book Review: Avengers Infinity Saga and Philosophy
By Tamara Wilhite
Avengers Infinity Saga and Philosophy is a collection of philosophy essays seeking to use Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame to present various philosophical ideas. For example, the multiverse theory means that those who use the likely consequences of their actions to determine the right thing do to are paralyzed, while those with a clear moral structure can still act decisively. There are more than thirty essays in Avengers Infinity Saga and Philosophy, so there’s literally something for everyone. (Including those who agree with Thanos’ doomer worldview or literally see him as the hero.)
Book Review: Enjoying Starborn & Godsons and Remembering Dr. Jerry E. Pournelle
By Robert Arrington
Just this past week, I finished Starborn & Godsons by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes, the third novel in a trilogy about Earth’s first interstellar colony, a planet called Avalon orbiting Tau Ceti.
Entertainment in the Time of Pestilence
By Robert Arrington
About two weeks ago (as you read this column), just as the coronavirus lockdown was beginning, I decided I needed a break from anything too contemporary, and to watch something “historical” for entertainment. I picked re-watching World Without End, the mini-series based on the novel by Kenneth Follett.
I wound up laughing at myself. It had been almost ten years since I had read the novel, and seven or eight since I watched the series. I had forgotten that a large part of the story deals with how the principal characters dealt with the Bubonic Plague of the mid 1300s.
Book Review: The Zero Blessing by Chris Nuttall
By Tamara Wilhite
I read more science fiction than fantasy, but my family has seen all of the Harry Potter books more than once. The Zero Blessing has echoes of Harry Potter, but it is very different from the main characters to the world-building to the central plot.
