Search Results for: the battery

The Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava, October 25, 1854, Part I of II

Comments 7 comments

Introduction At 11:10 a.m., on October 25, 1854, one hundred sixty-one years ago, the almost seven hundred men of the Light Brigade stood waiting. The Brigade moved forward when the officer’s trumpeter sounded the “Walk.” It was immediately taken up by the regimental trumpeters to the right and left, so that it could be heard by the whole body of cavalry. When the first line was clear of the second, the order came to “Trot.” The bugles sounded again and…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Science Fiction of the 30’s edited by Damon Knight

Comments 4 comments

Windy City Pulp and Paper is a fabulous convention and, as its name implies, it’s focused mostly on vintage magazines and paperbacks. Wandering the vast Dealer’s Room is like stepping into a Cave of Wonders for fans of pulp science fiction and fantasy. But it’s also a den of surprises and a pleasant one awaited me while browsing a table piled high with pulps and digest magazines. A hand-written sign proclaimed all items were “3 For $10,” so I decided…

Read More Read More

I’ll Look Down and Whisper “No”: “Before Watchmen”

Comments 5 comments

Last Wednesday, DC Comics announced a new publishing venture: “Before Watchmen,” a set of related miniseries that would act as a prologue to the best-selling and critically acclaimed Watchmen graphic novel. The news was met with a considerably mixed reaction. Alan Moore, writer and primary creator of Watchmen, has spoken out against the project. Personally, I’m not going to buy any of DC’s new series, and I want to explain why. First, some more details. From The Beat website, a…

Read More Read More

Hi-Tech Lo-Tech: Alphasmart NEO

Comments 7 comments

My MVP Award for Writing in 2008 goes to a miniature machine that has made this year one of the most productive of my life: The Alphasmart NEO Behold a piece of technology that uses all the miniaturization and power-saving abilities available today to make what is essentially the typewriter of the new era. The Alphasmart NEO writes. And that’s about it. It weighs as much as a 8” x 10” spiral notebook. It runs for seven hundred hours in…

Read More Read More

Long, Long Time: The Last of Us, Episode Three

Comments 2 comments

And we’re back with the next episode of The Last of Us. As I outline this piece, the episode has aired a few days ago (vastly different from when this article will be published, I know), and the internet is absolutely buzzing. Most of the chatter I hear is about how devastatingly wonderful this episode is, which makes for a nice change. I’ve curated my social media well. Let’s get into it, shall we?

When You’re Lost in the Darkness: The Last of Us, Episode One

Comments 2 comments

Hello! It’s me. Your wildly introverted author/gamer, who is very excited to be sharing my thoughts with you regarding HBO’s recent adaptation of The Last of Us from the perspective of someone who absolutely loved the game on which it is based. I’ll be examining each episode independently. Unfortunately, due to my working an obscene amount, I have limited time, so I’ll only be able to post every second week or so. For that reason, though they’re written shortly after…

Read More Read More

Galloway Gallegher — Kuttner’s Sauced Scientist

Comments 7 comments

Robots Have No Tails (Lancer, 1973). Cover by Ron Walotsky Try this one on for size…you go to sleep one night and have a lively dream. You see yourself doing wonderful things, creating new devices based on principles so advanced you can’t even image how they could be. You don’t question the fact that it is a dream because you know that, normally, you could never build such fabulous, world-changing technologies. It’s all kind of fuzzy though — what you’re…

Read More Read More

Goth Chick News: Game Over Man! Let Me Introduce You to the M41-A

Comments 5 comments

It was July 18, 1986 in the movie Aliens (where the year was 2122), when Ellen Ripley told Corporal Dwayne Hicks to “show her everything.” Ripley was actually referring to the totally badass M41-A pulse rifle, standard issue for the Colonial Marine Corp who is defending space at that time. Ripley ultimately weaponed up and used an M41-A to wreak alien carnage in what has become one of the most iconic combat scenes in cinema history. Fast backward 101 years…

Read More Read More

Isaac Asimov’s Fantastic Voyage from Film to Novel

Comments 4 comments

Fantastic Voyage by Isaac Asimov First Edition: Houghton Mifflin, March 1966, Cover art Dale Hennesy (Book Club edition shown) Fantastic Voyage by Isaac Asimov Houghton Mifflin (239 pages, $3.95, Hardcover, March 1966) Cover art Dale Hennesy Isaac Asimov’s early novels were published over a period of just eight years, from Pebble In the Sky in 1950 to The Naked Sun in 1957, with linked collections like I, Robot and the Foundation “novels” along the way. Some of his early short…

Read More Read More

The Responsibility of Progress: Leigh Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow

Comments 2 comments

The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett; First Edition: Doubleday, 1955. Cover art Irv Docktor. (Click to enlarge) The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett Doubleday (222 pages, $2.95, hardcover, 1955) Cover art Irv Docktor This novel, first of all, is one of a handful of highly regarded 1950s novels that deal with the aftermath of nuclear war, a theme very much of concern in that post-World War II era. Others include, of course, Walter M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz;…

Read More Read More