The Awakening: The Vampire Diaries One

Have read one other book in the series. My motivation being a check to see if I feel it worthwhile to get interested in the CW TV Series based on the original books. Unfortunately it appears to be just another in the YA high school romance genre with Vampires thrown in. The similarities to Twilight are endless. It appears to be another opportunity to employ pretty boys and fawning girls to sell cosmetics ads and teenage fashions to a demographic loaded with disposable income.

The love triangle that forms the basis for this story is as old as history. A woman, who will not make up her mind as to which of two suitors she wants to favour turning brother against brother, friend against friend, even nation against nation. Helen of Troy; Lana Lang in Smallville; Tristan and Isolde; Joey Potter, Pacey and Dawson. None of these stories have happy endings. Of course when men do it we call it adultery, bigamy, or in male dominated societies allow multiple wives or harems. Where passion and jealousy are involved rational thought is abandoned.

Book two follows immediately even numbering the chapters sequentially.

The Guns at Last Light

Matters discussed here are all part of the historical record. Those who have not studied the history of WW#2 may find them spoilers. This is not the first history of WW#2 but it does have the advantage of using records recently declassified.

First comment from a Canadian, of course, is to highlight the fact that this History of WW#2 is written from an American point of view. The Yanks maintained their isolationist stance until December 7, 1941 when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbour at which point it took another two years for them to ramp up their efforts and make any significant contribution to the war effort. Therefore the Liberation Trilogy of which this is book 3 begins in 1943, four years into the war. What the rest of us were doing until that point hardly seems to matter.

Three things stand out over and over again:

Military Intelligence. Planning depends on it and the best laid plans can fall apart when the unexpected happens and in war it usually does.

Fraticide. Before GPS finding a precise location from the air, by sea, and even on land was a tenuous process. Bombs were dropped on allied positions. Airborne troops were dropped over open ocean or miles from their intended drop zones. Fire missions hit wrong targets. Troops got lost or advanced into friendly fire and were landed by boat on the wrong beachhead.

Transport. An army marches on its belly. Landing troops is one thing. Keeping them fed and in ammunition quite another; motorized equipment cannot run without fuel. Air fields and ports become critical for materiel transport. Battles were won or lost by Quartermasters. Soldiers can't fight once they run out of bullets.

Of concern to the supreme commander, Eisenhower, was the need to mollify the egos of the generals who held command of the armies of the various combatants: Britain, France, Canada, and the US. Each wanted their opportunity to win glory and felt slighted when deprived.

The author continues to give historical background to the locations where engagements occur and to introduce new personalities as they appear. Attention is paid to both the Allied forces and the German leadership.

With the liberation of Paris High Command and Logistics move there. High Command balloons to 24,000 staff. With that many they could well have transported Gerry Cans of fuel across Europe by bucket brigade. To keep equipment fueled it took 1.5 gallons of aviation fuel to fly 1 gallon of truck or tank fuel. Supplies involved 800,000 separate items ordered from half way round the world for troops ever on the move that took up to 4 months to arrive. Imagine keeping several million men fed and in toilet paper. Americans are noted for prodigal wastage, they lost their guns, their ammo, their grenade launchers at ridiculous rates. Tires were shredded on tossed ration cans. Not only did they bomb Europe, they trashed it as well.

After Monty's Market Garden design fails he continues to be an exasperating egotistical little peacock planning pushes into Germany while neglecting to clear the approaches to Atwerp. While troops are forced to stand fast for lack of supplies ships lay anchored offshore for lack of berths to unload and supplies lay waiting in America for lack of transport. Meanwhile Monty fumes that sufficient resources are not being allocated to his schemes. Attacking Germany is sexier than clearing ports so his troops can have supplies.

Given Hitler's decrees that German soil be defended to the last man to the last bullet cities such as Aachen were pulverized building by building right down to their basement foundations.

In Band of Brothers a general is quoted as saying: “Flies spread disease, keep yours closed.” Venereal Disease is one of the dirty little secrets of war. The lack of proper clothing, malnutrition, and the spread of disease among men in close quarters lacking clean water and proper sanitation created more casualties than the actual fighting. Maladies of neglect such as trench foot invalided hundreds of thousands. None of this touches the psychological affects of endless warfare.

My pacifist leanings will become apparent. When the state sanctions the killing of their own citizens they call it capital punishment. When the state sanctions the mass-murder of the citizens of another country they call it war. Whatever jingoistic terms are used to pretty it up soldiers kill other human beings. Once that taboo is broken putting limits on the means used to do it seems specious. Until the American Civil War soldiers lined up on the battlefield and shot at one another. When labelling another the enemy makes killing him legitimate how do you define atrocity? Can there be gentleman's agreements as to the limits of barbarism.

Canadian Documentary Film Makers named McKenna were vilified by Veterans for portraying the Canadian War Effort in less than glowing lights. This author describes Bomber Harris and his bombing of German Civilian Targets in similar fashion. Some people seem to get a charge out of killing their fellow creatures. Military training instills that killer instinct for the murder of their fellow human beings. What the military has yet to deal with is deprogramming for a return to civilian life. How do you turn that off?

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The decisions generals make gets their own men killed as well as the enemy. When generals make bad decisions their own men die needlessly and/or without accomplishing any useful objective. The exercise of that kind of power requires a certain amount of ego, some are better at keeping their egos in check than others.

In the end the Allies won the war because the Germans ran out of cannon fodder first. Wars are lost not won and in a war of attrition the loser is he who runs out of men and materiel first. This history makes it plain that this war was not lost because the Allies possessed such superior military skills. One of its strengths is the fact that it makes no effort to hide the blunders made by both sides.

One such blunder is known to history as the Battle of the Bulge. Allied intelligence believed that only a madman would initiate an all-out offensive in December 1944 but they discounted the fact that the orders were given by Hitler, not his generals. When their leaders make mistakes, soldiers die.

As portrayed Monty was an egomaniac who refused to follow orders and kept insisting that he be put in charge of all troops in the European Theatre. Problem being that this was Ike's job and the Generals in his fellow Allied Countries found Monty impossible to work with and assumed an either he or I stance. Once more Monty dithered and failed to act in time prevent German Troops from retreating when the “Bulge” failed them. His public statements antagonized British Allies. The writer is an American. It would be interesting to see how a British Historian would interpret the same set of facts. It is also obvious that the subject of this “History” is dead. To quote Churchill: “There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.” Lovers quarrels are part of Love.

The final sections of this book dealing with the discovery of the Concentration Camps is not reading for the faint of heart. Reading these books will have you reaching for your dictionary more than once. New words were coined to describe this war and new meanings given to old ones. The author uses some rather arcane language at times.

Mr Midshihpman Hornblower

If you’ve seen the mini-series starring Ioan Gruffuds this is the first in the series of Hornblower books upon which it was based. In the age of wooden sailing ships and iron men the officers of ships of the line commanded sailors recruited by press gangs from local jails and bars in port. Callow 17-year-old midshipman were officers in training giving orders to men twice their age.

The setting is a British man of war at the turn of the 18th Century. To be learned was the art of commanding men, the mechanics of cannon firing, the art of navigaion, the handling of sail, and manoeuvring a ship under sail. Advancement was as much a matter of luck as it was intelligence, keeping a level head and learning quickly under pressure. Cannon balls and grape shot are no respecters of rank or privilege. The art of leading men involves keeping a level head and knowing your own limitations so that you delegate authority to those who know their business. The captain of a ship must be seen to know all in order to keep the confidence of his men.

Written at the turn of the 19th Century the author appears to know his seamanship creating a series of historical novels set at sea that follows the career of a navy brat from midshipman in this first of the series through the ranks in succeeding novels all the way to Admiral. At a time when military officers purchased their rank rather than earning it competence was not guaranteed. This young officer learned his trade working his way up through the ranks. Beginning as a navy puke who became seasick in harbour getting rowed out to his first boat he gains his sea legs and the confidence of his men.

If you enjoy adventure at sea and the thought of hanging onto ratlines a hundred feet above a heaving deck doesn’t make you turn green then you’ll enjoy this series.

Borstal Boy

So I've watched the movie multiple times. Reading the book is somewhat spoiled for me and the differences made in the adaptation are immediately apparent. The picture on the cover clearly shows that Shawn Hatosy is far better looking. Whatever ratings the movie is given the book is not G rated.

Remember the it describes prison life. The language is of the lowest form of Cockney/Irish/English dialect laced with enough profanity to make a dockyard stevedore blush. These aren't choir boys. Fully half the book deals with his stay in the English Prison System before he is ever sent to Borstal.

The reading is rather tedious being excessively wordy. Eight people tell one another good night rather than putting it as I just did. We are given the words of the author's extensive repertoire of Irish ditties in Gaelic as well as English. The movie cast obviously weren't singers.

On the other hand to say that the movie version of this book is a loose interpretation is to understate the case. Behan's book may have been partially fictionalized but the script writers altered the facts presented here so radically the author would not have recognized himself were he alive today.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue

The Raven Cycle takes fortune telling for granted. A principal character is a ghost. A group of private school boys are searching for an ancient king who lives in a magical realm situated on a line of power. If you accept these little details it's not a bad tale. It does require a fair dose of imagination and a great deal of suspension of disbelief. Oh, and we learned in book one that one of the boys will die before the year is out and Blue has been hearing as long as she can remember that if she kisses her true love he will die.

There's Richard Gansley III who lives in the converted factory he owns.

Noah Czerny, the ghost who lives in a room there.

Another Roommate, Ronan Lynch who has a younger brother Matthew and an older, Declan. Ronan has a pet Raven and in book 2 we learned he can dream things into existence—his father in fact dreamed his mother into existence.

Adam Parrish, the victim of child abuse who lives in rooms above a parsonage. A townie he lacks the other's financial resources.

“The students kept coming in. Adam kept watching. He was good at this part, the observing of others. It was himself that he couldn't seem to study or understand. How he despised them, how he wanted to be them.” (p. 63)

And Blue Sargent who lives with her Mother Maura, her Aunt and several other relatives and friends who make their living as psychics.

Book three tends to drag, it just hasn't grabbed my interest quite the same as books one and two. The private school boys have a sense of entitlement. It is taken for granted that what they want they'll get. When Gansley joins Adam before the judge the two are practically on a first name basis. The results are so foregone they aren't even mentioned.

Stuck Together

Third in a Cowboy Romance Series entitled Trouble in Texas. Set in the imaginary frontier town of Broken Wheel near Palo Duro on the Texas Panhandle in the mid-1800's. The story centres around a group of Northern Civil War Veterans whose bond was forged in the worst of circumstances in The South's most notorious prison. Luke Stone returns home in book one to find his father murdered and a stranger living on his spread. His buddies are Darius Riker the town's unofficial doctor, Jonas Cahill town preacher, and Vincent Yates town lawyer. This being a romance series in book one Luke marries a gal he rescues from a river flood. In book two Dare, the doctor marries Glynna adopting her teenage son and daughter after she takes over the town restaurant. Life is complicated when Jonas' sister arrives unannounced and as this book gets underway Vince's family arrives in town: ageing father, senile mother, illegitimate daughter—Vince's half sister and a fox hound. Vince's romance with his buddy Jonas' sister Tina is well telegraphed so that leaves Jonas to hook up with Melissa the new arrival. If this sounds like a spoiler the storyline is that obvious. Getting there the principals will lurch from disaster to disaster.

Mid-way through the book matters transpire exactly as predicted.

The Promise

I started this book which is number five in a series because of the number of plot lines left unresolved in book four. As the book begins it introduces an entirely new character and so far is silent on the subjects that interested me. As before, the population of Thunder Point keeps growing. And as it turns out the simple solutions are always the easiest.

Children graduate high school and leave home for college. In Canada it's grade 12, in America they're Seniors and go to fancy Proms and attend Fall Commencement and/or Homecoming. I graduated high school before the results of my provincially graded exams had even arrived. Deputy Yummy Pants becomes Lieutenant. Life continues and the drama of their lives lurches on from crisis to crisis.

The plot lines continue to be predictable and the characters petting, tonsil hockey, fore-play, and bedroom gymnastics remain a prominent part of the telling. There are three more E-books in the series and another in the works. Were I not reading them for free I would not have gotten past book one and as it is will not be going any further.

Go Set a Watchman

(Isaiah 21:6) For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman; let him declare what he seeth:

This verse quoted from the prophet Isaiah would seem to be the source of the title. Chapter 7 in the book.

The adult Jean Louise returns home from New York to the community Scout grew up in, seeing it with adult eyes. There are frequent flash backs to her childhood experiences inspired by what those eyes now see.

The traumas she experienced listening to school yard gossip and picking up miss-information she lacked a mother to correct continue to haunt her.

(1 Corinthians 13:11) When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a (wo)man, I have put away childish things.

The genie is out of the bottle but part of Scout would love to put it back.

This is a woman who smokes and defies convention by walking around in public in pants.

Those who are disturbed by this book have probably never read To Kill a Mockingbird, knowing it only from the romanticized movie version, a common error in this post-literate society.

Just a Minute More

If the vignettes in the previous two books in the series were read on air in one minute then Ms. Boulton started talking much faster as the set in this volume are at least half again as long. She still continues to make history interesting but this set of stories seems to feature events more than individuals and the people she talks about often don't live happy lives.

The Chance

Follows directly from The Hero incorporating people we've already met. Still set in Thunder Point, the community just keep growing. I've never been a fan of Romance Novels but this series just seems to keep growing on me. Book four in the series ends with many plot lines unresolved making it imperative I read Book five.