And I mean LOUD.

All the folks 'round you at work can go like "What?!"

http://youtu.be/tnpYTMreJY4

Ease
        I guess Destiny had stayed up and read or something. I woke up about six, started coffee and was glad the robots were almost as good at cooking as they were bad at making coffee. Unless it had to do with barbecue sauce, and who has barbecue in space? Especially for breakfast?
        Or pork, I remembered. I don't eat pork, it's too damned expensive these days and I like beef and chicken better, anyway, but George Wilson, one of our guys who hauls first class passengers, eats it sometimes because the company has pork on first class boats and he tells me the pork is as bad as the coffee. Odd that they cook bacon pretty good, but all you have to do with bacon is microwave it. The robots would have to be dumber than they already are to mess bacon up. Besides, only rich people eat pork bacon, normal people have turkey bacon and you cook them both the same way. I had a pork bacon sandwich with lettuce and tomato in a restaurant once and couldn't tell the difference. Except for the size of the bill, that was a damned expensive sandwich!
        But that one trip I was hauling frozen pork to that big science station in orbit around Venus I had plenty of pork. Too much damned pork. Especially since I can't cook pork much better than the damned robots can. Yeah, my parents taught me to cook when I was a kid but we were poor, had to print everything out and we damned sure couldn't afford a luxury like pork.
        I was twenty three before I ate my first ham and cheese sandwich, as a treat to myself on my birthday. I didn't see what all the fuss was about, I thought thin sliced turkey was better, and a hell of a lot cheaper...
        Huh? Oh, sorry, my mind wandered. Anyway, while coffee was perking and the robots were making breakfast and Destiny was sleeping I took my shower and got dressed.
        The smell of decent coffee that robots can't make must have woke Destiny up, because she walked in as I was pouring the first cup. I handed it to her, said "Good morning, sweetheart," and poured a cup for myself and kissed her. "Hungry?" I asked. "I had the robot make waffles and sausage."
        "Sausage? You have pork?"
        I laughed. "Of course not, it's beef sausage. The company sure isn't going to pay for pork unless there's rich passengers traveling first class. And I damned sure can't afford it on a Captain's wages."
        "That's too bad," she said, "I love pork sausage but it's way too expensive to eat very often, I feel guilty when I do eat pork. I usually just eat it on my birthday for breakfast."
        "I never ate any," I said. She switched the video on and we watched the "news" while we ate. There was one item about a robot probe that was on its way to Alpha and Proxima Centauri at five gravities thrust. I wonder how fast that thing would be going by the time it was halfway there? Compared to that, Neptune's right next door, and it's a long way off, even from Mars! It was already months ahead of its telemetry, and no, I don't know what "telemetry" is but that's what they said on the news. It sounded impressive to me, anyway.
        It was almost eight so I kissed Destiny and went to the pilot room. Everything was normal so I started my inspections. It would be a light day, since I didn't have to inspect quarters. I still had a hell of a lot of ion engines to check out, though.
        After the generator had blown out I'd reduced power to a third of the engines, and twenty four, the one I'd made sputter when I'd killed all them damned pirates in the rock storm, and sixty four and seventeen, the ones with the funny voltages, were offline.
        I plugged robots into all three of them and had them do a "twenty four hour diagnostic" which is what they tell me the robots do when you plug them in like that. I'd see the results tomorrow. I might need those motors when we were closer to Mars and pirates were more likely.
        I climbed the five damned flights of stairs, and walked past the commons on my way home. The German woman was in there eating, and four more were playing cards. I wondered what they were gambling for... oh hell, I'm a dumbass, they were gambling for drops, of course. What else would they be playing for? I pretended not to notice and went home.
        Destiny was reading, so I got a cup of coffee and started to sit down. "That's robot coffee," she warned.
        I poured it down the drain and started a new pot and turned on the video and watched an old Western. She put her tablet down when it started. I asked what she was reading.
        She grinned. "A history of fones. I was reading an old historical novel about a 1930s prison where they executed criminals by electrocuting them. Creepy book, but hard to understand in places, I have to look stuff up to see what the author is talking about. Back then 'fone' was spelled with a P H instead of an F and they weren't really fones, they only did speech and they were all wired together, either attached to a wall or by a wire than went into the wall.
        "That prison book was creepy, I haven't finished it yet. Barbaric back then. What are you putting in?"
        "An old western with that one guy from Rawhide, called The Outlaw Josey Wales," I answered.
        "I haven't seen that one yet," she said, which surprised me. She's the one that got me liking these old westerns. I said "There's a movie listed that says it's about a 1930s prison, I wonder if it could be from that book you're reading?"
        "Probably not," she said, "but anyway the movies are never faithful to the books and usually aren't nearly as good. Are you hungry?"
        "I could eat."
        She told the robot to cook a pizza and bring us some beers, and I started the movie.
        That was a long movie, but it was a really good one. We went to bed after it was over, well, after cuddling and listening to music a while...

The Counter-Revolution of 1776
Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America
Gerald Horne

363 pages
April, 2014
ISBN: 9781479893409

The successful 1776 revolt against British rule in North America has been hailed almost universally as a great step forward for humanity. But the Africans then residing in the colonies overwhelmingly sided with London. In this trailblazing book, Gerald Horne complements his earlier celebrated Negro Comrades of the Crown, by showing that in the prelude to 1776, the abolition of slavery seemed all but inevitable in London, delighting Africans as much as it outraged slaveholders, and sparking the colonial revolt.

In the prelude to 1776, more and more Africans were joining the British military, and anti-slavery sentiments were deepening throughout Britain. And in the Caribbean, rebellious Africans were chasing Europeans to the mainland. Unlike their counterparts in London, the European colonists overwhelmingly associated enslaved Africans with subversion and hostility to the status quo. For European colonists, the major threat to security in North America was a foreign invasion combined with an insurrection of the enslaved. And as 1776 approached, London-imposed abolition throughout the colonies was a very real and threatening possibilityâ"a possibility the founding fathers feared could bring the slave rebellions of Jamaica and Antigua to the thirteen colonies. To forestall it, they went to war.

The so-called Revolutionary War, Horne writes, was in large part a counter-revolution, a conservative movement that the founding fathers fought in order to preserve their liberty to enslave othersâ"and which today takes the form of a racialized conservatism and a persistent racism targeting the descendants of the enslaved. The Counter-Revolution of 1776 drives us to a radical new understanding of the traditional heroic creation myth of the United States.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Counter-Revolution-1776-Resistance-Origins/dp/1479893404

Engineering
        The company's co-founder, largest stockholder, and CEO was annoyed; this was certainly not his best day, golf aside. He'd spent too much time on the course and only had time for a little more of Knolls' report, and now he had to chew out that incredibly stupid chief engineer, who was knocking on his door and in danger of losing his job. This could have crippled the company. "Come in," the CEO said.
        It seemed the company he and Charles had practically built from scratch was falling apart. God damn it, quality was deteriorating badly, and he was starting to think he needed a new head engineer.
        "Talk to me, Gene."
        "Sir?"
        God damn it, he thought. He opened a folder and handed a piece of paper to the engineer. "I'm talking about this schematic wiring diagram. How in the hell did this happen, and why was it spotted by someone who wasn't even an engineer?"
        Richardson said "I honestly don't know, sir."
        "Your teams are getting really sloppy, Richardson. This has been built into ten ships already and they're all going to have to be rewired because engineering screwed up on the blueprints. How in the hell could your team miss this? How the hell could you miss it? An intern discovered it! And he wasn't even an engineering student, he was just an electronics hobbyist."
        Richardson hung his head. The CEO continued. "If these ships had been operational a lot of people would have died and it would have caused the company great financial hardship; we're self-insured. One more mistake like this and you're fired, Richardson, and I'll get someone competent.
        "Now tell me, who programmed our robots to make coffee?"
        "Sir?"
        "Robot," Mister Green said, "Make this man a cup of coffee. Richardson, I got a report from a ship's captain complaining about the coffee so I had one of the ship robots sent here to check. He's right, this is the worst coffee I've ever tasted."
        "Well, sir, I don't like coffee myself, I had Larry Jones program it."
        "Why in the hell didn't you test it? That's the kind of sloppiness I'm talking about."
        "We did do chemical tests, sir..."
        "But you never thought of having anyone who actually drinks coffee try it? Look, Richardson, I'll be blunt: you're on the verge of losing your job. We have paying customers booking passage on our boats and they don't expect to make their own coffee and they expect the coffee they're served to be good coffee. I want a program for a robot to make not just drinkable coffee, which this isn't, and not just good coffee, but great coffee. I want the program in a week and a demonstration in two weeks and updates sent to all the coffee robots as soon as it's tested, and by that I mean by a group of people who enjoy coffee. Put Jones on a project he's good at. This is unacceptable. Am I understood, Richardson?
        "Yes sir."
        "And I want you to weed out the incompetents in your shop. This sloppiness is inexcusable."
        "Sir, the union..."
        "Tell the union that if they give you any trouble there won't be a new contract, I'll replace every engineer and programmer in the shop as soon as the contract expires. The union is supposed to give us quality employees, and it doesn't look to me like we're getting them.
        "Now, one more screw up and your career is over, Richardson. Now get out of here and get to work, I have a report to finish reading."
        After Richardson left, he buzzed his secretary. "Get Human Resources on the fone. And schedule a meeting with all the department heads for nine tomorrow morning. And I don't want to take any calls unless it's the company President, my wife, kids, or an emergency after I talk to Human Resources." He drummed his fingers for a few seconds and the fone buzzed again. It was Osbourne.
        "What's up, Charles?"
        "Have you tasted our robots' coffee, Dewey? I was curious after reading Knolls' report. That's the nastiest coffee I ever drank. And I was in the Army."
        "Yes, I did, and Richardson got a good ass chewing. I threatened to fire him, and I might still. And his might not be the only head to roll, Knolls' report was an eye opener. I want reports from all the Captains after each run from now on."
        "So do I, I already ordered it. I'm leaving for Mars tomorrow on whatever of our first class passenger boats can get me there the fastest right after the meetings. I wish I could skip the board meeting.
        "I'm especially worried about engineering, that's our most important function. I'm not too happy about financial, either. How did we let this slip past us, Dewey?"
        "Hell if I know, Charles. Both of us are going to have to be more vigilant. Look, I have to finish reading this report. I may not finish it this afternoon so I want you to mostly take charge in the meeting since you've read the whole thing and have more information. I'll see you in the morning. Goodbye."
        "See you, Dewey."

Sorry I haven't been here lately, but I've been working furiously on the book. There are five more chapters ready to post, followed by a few that haven't been written yet, then six more written chapters that go at the end of the book. The manuscript stands at 40,261 words as of this writing.

Today Donetsk, tomorrow Detroit.

A leaked memo attributed to RAND corporation think tank suggests the Ukrainian govt should engage in an all-out war in the east, including shutting down all communications, putting citizens in internment camps and killing all who resist such actions.

    In the shocking letter, which has been leaked to online media, the advice offers a step by step brutal guide in how to deal with the population in eastern Ukraine. The authenticity of the document which bears the RAND corporation logo, however, could not be independently verified.

    The RAND Corporation is non-profit global think tank which offers
    research and analysis to the US armed forces.

http://rt.com/news/170572-rand-east-ukraine-plan/

I just lost a long post explaining why, suffice it say that two sources of modern liberalism, the creole revolutions in the US and Spanish colonies and JS Mill's philosophy, are central to imperialist ideology.

Liberalism appeared "progressive" among other reasons because it sought the transfer of power from European monarchs to colonists. Often, as in the US where the War of Independence was led by a land speculator who risked losing tens of thousands of acres of illegally "purchased" land, the basic issues had to do with the fate of aboriginals. The Royal Proclamation of 1763, banning the purchase of Indian land except by the Crown and preventing colonists from crossing the Alleghany mountains, was a major grievance. In Spanish colonies there were similar issues. Colonists wanted the liberty to plunder-and enslave- on their own account without restraint from Europe.

As to Mill, who was a key figure in the East Indian Company's rule of India, he was an ideologist of both imperialism and representative democracy. The Liberals shared a contempt for non-European cultures with a cynical and ruthless justification of the employment of military force in order to bring foreigners under imperial rule. Their attitude towards workers was equally contemptuous.

Then there was the great French liberal de Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America and one of the leaders in colonising Algeria, a fervent defender of the theft of North African land and the enslavement of muslims.

Conservatives often opposed imperial adventures, Burke being a prime example, while liberals wrecked civilisations, and caused untold millions of deaths, by tearing down, for example, China's government in order to impose liberal trade policies. In China among the disasters was the imposition of opium on a government which rightly feared mass drug addiction. This was a policy carried out under the direction of one of Bentham's executors and disciples. In India the demolition of controls over grain storage and distribution, and a refusal to allow famine relief, born of market monomania, were policies imposed by liberals, often liberals of the highest distinction. Macaulay, for example, who held the view that a shelf of English literature was worth all the books ever written in Asia- a judgement of astonishing ignorance but the founding principle of an educational system which still exists.

  All those American college professors who joined the CIA in the late forties were real inheritors of the liberal tradition. Their ideology lives on in Samantha Power, Obama and those vast swathes of the Democratic party's leading cadres who cannot get their heads around the notion that imperial wars are never justifiable and that imperialism is, and always has been, a force for evil, dyed with the blood of those it has wiped out in serial genocides.

Of course there is much more to it, as their always is, but my assertion, far from being bullshit is hard to deny: Liberalism is the wellspring of western imperialist ideology.

Posted by: bevin | Jul 3, 2014 9:32:10 PM | 71

Interesting article at the Guardian about the Open-Source Everything Manifesto, the latest book by Robert David Steele "former Marine, CIA case officer, and US co-founder of the US Marine Corps intelligence activity", who posits (a) that conditions are ripe for a revolution in the USA and the UK and (b) that the only forward for humanity is by open-sourcing everything and conducting all government business â" even foreign intelligence â" in an open-source, let's-share-everything manner. Robert Steele is known as the inventor of open-source intelligence.

Note: There will be a chapter inserted between chapters nine and ten. Chapters have been renumbered in the manuscript.

Animals
        Destiny was already awake and dressed when I got up the next morning. I'm glad she was there or I might have overslept.
        "Are you going to sleep all day? Your breakfast is going to get cold. I'm eating."
        I groaned, rolled out of bed, put on a robe and followed her to the dining room. She'd made coffee and had the robots make French toast, bacon, and tater tots. I didn't feel like tater tots. "What time is it?" I asked.
        She laughed. "You need a clock right there on the wall! Computer, what time is it?"
        The computer said "The time is seven twenty eight." Good, plenty of time. I finished eating and took a quick shower and started my morning chores about five minutes early. This time two of the computers disagreed with the other two. Two said "systems were nominal", one said that engine sixty four was getting three volts too much and the other said number sixty four was two volts short. Oh, well, I was going to have to walk the stairs anyway, so I decided I'd get engine and generator inspections out of the way first. Even though two or three volts was almost nothing when you're talking terrawatts.
        As I passed the commons Lek walked up, the one that talked English kind of okay.
        "Captain Knolls?" she said, which confused me because the whores usually called me "Joe" even though my name is John.
        "Lek?" I said, "how can I help?" I read Tammy's book, I didn't want to piss these dropheads off.
        "Look, Captain, you surely know what not having drops does to us by now."
        I almost said "I ain't got no drops, bitch" but I didn't. Instead I said "You're short of drops? Look, talk to..." Damn, I almost screwed up and gave Tammy away. Damn it, John!
        "Uh," I continued. "You need drops? Look, Lek, I finally get it. I do inspections and can confiscate..."
        "No," she said, "It's Sparkle. She going to..." she hung her head. "Buddha, but I really hate myself. I not human without drops! What has happened to me? But Sparkle need drops or she be dangerous wild animal."
        I really felt sorry for these women. I didn't think of them as whores any more, life had really kicked their asses. Tammy's book had really opened my eyes. Poor women. I called her on my fone, but she was already on it.
        "Tammy, could you get some..."
        "Drops to Sparkle?" she interrupted.
        "Yeah. Is she..."
        "She's okay. Now, anyway. But John, even though I knew, thanks. Please, if it comes up again call me, don't hesitate!"
        "Jesus, Tammy," I said, "Of course I will, after I read your book I know how dangerous a dropless drophead is."
        I finished walking down the hall to the stairs, then down that five damned flights. Most of this boat is engines. Second is generators, the generators take up more space than quarters and storage, and storage is as big as quarters.
        I checked number sixty four first, of course. It read normal. I almost logged that, but it suddenly dropped two volts, then immediately to a two and a half volt overvoltage. Bill told me once that that usually meant a bad connection, he's kind of a nerd.
        It's good to know nerds.
        I shut sixty four down like the book says, then inspected the rest of them. I don't know why I have to check the port generator, since it's broke, but I do so I did.
        The starboard generator was fine.
        The damned alarm went off. Fire in cargo seven. I didn't know whether to cuss the damned whores or the damned stupid engineers who design shit that catches fire and have emergency drills when there's a real emergency.
        I fucking hate it when there's an emergency upstairs when I'm downstairs. I have to run up five flights of stairs. Yeah, we're at half gravity now but it goes down slow, after the first day you don't really notice it dropping. The droppers hadn't complained, except when it had sudden changes like when we sped up to beat the rocks. I'm just glad I didn't have to run up the stairs that day I was climbing around outside. Oh, wait, I did, didn't I?
        I wished we were at zero G, I could have made it to the top in seconds. But then, of course, the women would kill me.
        The red light was flashing on cargo seven. "Computer, is there anybody in there?"
        "Parse error, please rephrase question."
        God damned computer. "Is cargo seven, uh, occupied?"
        "Negative." That was a relief; not only does the company get pissed off when cargo was damaged, these weren't just cargo, they were people. Human beings.
        At least, they were human when they had their drops. What Lek said was spooky, like one of those old horror movies Destiny likes, the old two dimensional ones with werewolves and vampires and no colors. I kind of shivered a little.
        The flashing light went out and I went in. There was a burned up maid in the room. Hell, was it noon already?
        Another burned up... wait, what was the number on that thing? R2? That's the same maid that burned up before. Whoever programs the robots that repair the other robots needs an ass kicking, or at least an ass chewing.
        I pulled out my fone. "Computer, take R2 out of service until the Martian maintenance."
        "Acknowledged." Another robot dragged it off to storage, and a third started noisily cleaning up the mess.
        I went to the commons, which right now was a restaurant with robot waiters and robot cooks and about a hundred naked women. I thought "I'm going to start inspecting cargo at meal time!" Not that these girls eat much, except the fat blonde with the German accent. They slept more than anything.
        "Attention," I yelled. They ignored me, the din continued. I pulled out my fone and addressed the PA, they can't ignore that.
        "Attention, ladies, who lives in number seven?"
        "That's Crystal," one of them said.
        "Where is she?"
        "I don't know. Oh, there she is," she said as another woman walked in.
        "Where have you been?" I demanded. "You're supposed to go to the commons when your quarters catch fire."
        "What?" she said, startled. "My quarters caught fire? I was in Leslie's cabin and got hungry. Is my stuff okay?"
        What stuff? "Yeah, the only thing that burned was the maid."
        "Good, I hate that noisy damned thing! Robot, I want a ham and cheese sandwich and a chocolate shake."
        I finished inspection by one thirty and was starved by then. Destiny called. "Where are you? I'm starved," she said.
        "Walking back to our apartment," I said. Oh, shut up you two, that's what I said. I told you I don't want that "professional" shit, I ain't no God damned professional.
        We had pizza and beer and watched an ancient comedy called Blazing Saddles and I didn't understand a lot of it, but some parts were funny. Destiny thought it was hilarious, and told me to read some history.

First, I want to thank you folks for your suggestions, although I didn't see them until I logged in this morning. The answer came to me last night when I was sitting on my porch with a beer in my hand and several in my gut.

The answer was simple and I don't know why I hadn't already thought of it, maybe I should drink more. I hacked out maybe 500 words, about half a chapter that will go between the present chapters 9 and 10. I'll post it when there's more than a skeleton, tomorrow is chapter 24.

And the answer was something you guys have probably seen way too many times at work -- corporate bureaucracy and lack of communications. What I wrote last night had the CEO chewing out the head of scheduling, a women with a BS in math who had only taken one physics class, and the head of finance, who held an MBA.

Stopping the boat a couple of times (like to help Captain Kelly) and detours around meteors didn't hurt.

As to the CEO, I have to apologize to you folks for something that may be a bit confusing; I'm changing the CEO's name.

The first germ of an idea for this book came last spring when I was sitting in the beer garden at Felber's talking to a couple of guys about Nobots. I hadn't realized that the patrons there were more literate than the general population, probably half of them read Nobots when I published it.

A few crack whores were walking down the street (it's a pretty bad neighborhood with plenty of characters who make fodder for fiction), and Dewey laughed and said "you ought to write a book about whores in space." I'd never seen a book with space whores, so it might be a unique idea, and writing a book about whores without it being pornography was a challenge.

A few days ago, Dewey said he wanted to be in the book, so I named the CEO after him, even though the Dewey Green in the story is nothing like the real Dewey.

I'm having a math and physics problem: math and physics is getting in the way of the plot in Mars, Ho!

I originally thought it would be a six month trip, but math got in the way since they were getting gravity from propulsion. So I shortened it to a two month trip, and to do that I had to have Earth and Mars on opposite sides of the sun -- but orbital mechanics makes waiting shorten the time.

The best bad way around it I can see is a little hand-waving, with the captain wondering why the company didn't wait a week to launch. But I'm not satisfied with this. Does anybody have any ideas?

Junk
        I felt pretty good the next day when I woke up. Destiny was still asleep, so I started coffee, told the robot to make breakfast and no robot coffee, damn it! And took a shower.
        Huh? Bacon, eggs, and hash browns for two. Destiny would be awake by the time I got out of the shower. Huh? Why? Over easy. Christ, guys! What difference does it make how the God damned eggs are cooked?
        She was just waking up as I got dressed. "Hungry?" I asked. "I made coffee and the robots are making breakfast."
        "I'll probably be hungry when my stomach wakes up. What time is it?"
        "About seven thirty, we have a half hour before I have to go to work."
        "Is the coffee done?"
        "It should be by now, I started it before I got in the shower."
        "Well, I guess I'll get up, then," she said grinning, and got up.
        She put the news on the video... or is that "olds" since it's the same old shit? There was something on it about pirates, they had arrested thirty after a firefight on Earth, and fifty pirates and twenty policemen died. Hell, I killed hundreds of the bastards just throwing rocks at 'em. And only the bad guys died.
        Stupid news.
        Destiny I weren't paying attention to it anyway. Five 'til eight I went to the pilot room to make sure we weren't going too fast or too slow or the wrong way and started my inspections.
        There was arguing coming from the commons, damn it. I stopped and called Destiny. "Hon, could you call Tammy and have her handle these crazy women?"
        "Sure, what are they doing?"
        "They act like they need drops."
        "Okay, I'll call her."
        I decided to inspect the commons last. I didn't need a dropless whore.
        For once the cargo didn't give me any trouble in inspection; they were all asleep and the doorbells didn't wake them up.
        Odd, what with the commotion in the commons.
        When I went into the passenger section there was a funny smell in number eighteen. Burning insulation, it smelled like. I got out fast and pulled out my fone; systems should have seen that and fixed it already.
        "Computer, fire in number eighteen."
        "There is no fire in cargo eighteen."
        "PASSENGER eighteen you stupid computer!"
        "There is no fire in..." There was an explosion in eighteen! Shit!
        "Computer," I said as alarms went off. "Report."
        "Fire in passenger eighteen" it said as the door light flashed red. "Fire suppression technologies in play."
        Damned computer. "Cause of fire?" It had smelled like an electrical short circuit to me, ozone and burned plastic. They don't make these boats like they used to. This was the third damned fire on this ship! It wasn't a brand new boat, thank God, or the damned robots would talk. But the ones with three generators, the old ones that got retrofitted with fusion generators, almost never had electrical problems.
        "Unknown at this time," the stupid computer said. Stupid computer, something shorted out and a fuse should have blown but didn't. Same as the port generator, it should have shut itself down before it caught fire and melted lots of the parts.
        I decided to investigate later. "Computer, do not repair until ordered by me. Continue fire suppression and keep the door locked.
        "Acknowledged," it said. Why do them damned things talk like that? I'm glad my robots are old, I hate talking robots.
        Well, except that the old ones catch fire. That's never any fun.
        I inspected the good generator, the ion engines, and the messed up generator. One robot was working on engine One Thirty Two and I noted it in the log.
        Back at P18 the light was no longer flashing, so I went in. Yep, a burned up panel. I opened it, it was fried; something had shorted. I logged it.
        This shit didn't use to happen on old boats.
        I went to the commons and finally inspected it. The commotion was over.
        I went home and had lunch with Destiny. "What was going on in the commons?" I asked.
        "Thieves. You read Tammy's book, most of these girls had criminal parents and stealing is normal for them. Well, there were about fifty of them that had all their drops stolen and were in the commons accusing each other of stealing, when the thieves were all asleep. Tammy took care of it."
        "I'm sure glad we have her," I said.
        "Me too," she agreed. "Do you have to work this afternoon?"
        "I hope not. Not unless something breaks or the whores act up or pirates attack or..."
        "Okay," she said laughing. "I get it. Want to watch something?"
        "Sure. Pick something."
        "How about..." she started before an alarm went off.
        "You jinxed me," I said, grinning. "Damned dropheads!"
        It was another fire, this time in P19. Why in the hell are unoccupied quarters powered? It don't make no sense. It's a fire hazard, especially the shitty way they build boats these days, glad I didn't get a brand new one. I'll bet they're even worse than this one, and it's only ten years old.
        But it wasn't a real fire, just a drill, there only to waste my free time and annoy me. I have enough real emergencies that I don't need no drills. The company's programmers are idiots.

Golf
        "You've been practicing, boss."
        "Putting," the CEO replied. "Been practicing putting, that's where I'm weak at this game. First time I ever beat you, Bob."
        "Well, Charlie, I was a little off today. And you only beat me by one stroke," Bob said. "That was a great hole three, you eagled that one."
        "I got lucky on the initial drive. Bartender, two beers. Guinness draft, please. Bob, you're paying for a change! Oh, bartender, a couple shots of your best scotch, too."
        Bob laughed. "Well, that was the deal. Maybe we should try some zero G golf sometime."
        "Zero G? Damn, Bob, I'm not twenty any more. That's a young man's sport. Besides, I hate space."
        "Really? You run a shipping company and hate space?"
        "No, I just hate traveling in it. You did pretty good on number two or I'd have done even better against you. How are we doing on the sabotage front?"
        "Come on, we're just starting. You can't just solve a complex problem like that in a few days. Did you finish that report Knolls wrote?"
        "No, I got sidetracked by the book Doctor Winters' wrote that Knolls mentioned in his report. Damn, we need to check cargo closer, that book was horrible. I'm sure glad the charity sent her, it might have been catastrophic otherwise.
          "Then I read the report she made to her charity. I'll finish Knolls' report when we get back from 'lunch'."
        "How did you get Doctor Winters' report? She works for the charity, not for us."
        The CEO smiled. "Don't be stupid, Bob."
        "So, how much of Knolls' report have you read?"
        "Past where he saved her life. You know, Bob, you have a terrible taste in literature. Knolls couldn't write his way out of a paper bag and you enjoyed it? Damn, man."
        Bob shrugged. "We were sure lucky the charity sent Doctor Winters."
        "Yes, we were. Like I said. And Knolls was even luckier, and is probably glad he had her and the whores, he'd have been a dead man, and probably Kelly as well. Nobody expected what happened."
        He continued. "Have you talked to Human Resources to see about training a replacement for Knolls?"
        "Of course. I hate to replace him, especially with a greenie. Some of the maneuvers and weapon use he displayed in his second encounter with the pirates should go into our training manuals. "
        "Yes, he was a damned good captain. The company will miss him."
        "Well, I intent to try and talk him out of retirement."
        "Good luck with that! If you succeed you're the world's greatest salesman. I'm taking the afternoon off today, Charlie, I want to be refreshed and rested for the board meeting Monday. Do you want to shoot another nine?"
        "Sorry, Bob, I can't. I should have gotten back earlier, I want to finish reading Knolls' report, and I have a meeting with Richardson from engineering. I'm that close to firing that dumb son of a bitch. That was a hell of a boner he pulled, and I'm sure glad you brought the matter to my attention."
        "Hell, if I hadn't we should have both been fired!" the underling said, smiling, as if that was ever likely; between the two of them they owned 63% of all company stock.
        The CEO laughed. "Yeah," he agreed, "we should have! Look, Bob, enjoy the afternoon and I'll see you Monday morning. Like I said, I have to get going."
        "See you, Boss. Bartender, can I get another beer?"

I was yanked three and a half decades back today, and Rority had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Two things from the past reached thirty five years into the future and snagged me for their apparent enjoyment. They were books.

The first was Pratchett's Strata. I'd ordered a hold at the library over the internet, and when the librarian handed me the book, my reaction was "wow, skinny book." It was no longer than Nobots, which is only 2042 words past the line between a novel and novella.

The story itself didn't yank me back in time, the actual book itself did. It was old. The pages were even yellowing. It was obvious they had purchased this book when it was first released in 1981; at least, that was the year the copyright was registered. I found it odd that Pratchett didn't hold the copyright.

There was the then ubiquitous envelope glued to the inside cover that you just don't see today, because today they're not needed; they're anachronisms. See, those of you younger than thirty can't possibly fathom what it was like, any more than I can fathom the wonder and excitement my grandmother felt when she saw her first airplane at age eight. Grandma was a few months older than powered human flight, being born in 1903.

The envelope was necessary to hold the card, and to tell the truth I don't clearly remember how it worked. But it made me think of the card catalog, and how computers have changed everything. They used to have a card for each book on the shelf in a smallish wooden filing cabinet (this was every library I was ever in, and I was in a lot of them; I'm addicted to reading, particularly nonfiction) and a slip in the envelope contained the names and/or card numbers (you need a library card to check out a book, even today). When you checked a book out, and like I said I might be misremembering this, they would keep the slip and store it with the card from the catalog in a separate case only librarians could access.

Today, of course, there is no card catalog. It's not needed, computers are so much better. Also, as far as I know there were no interlibrary loans. At least, that I knew of then.

Either losses from theft were horrendous, or people are a hell of a lot less honest today because back then, they didn't have those things that scream when you walk out of a store without paying, that they also use in libraries today.

When I returned it today I noticed the ISBN on the back had no bar code. I could have sworn bar codes were older than that, but I guess I was wrong. Just wait, you millennial who is laughing. What was it like when you were two years old. Can't remember?

They were having their annual book sale today, I noticed.

I had reserved another Pratchett title over the internet the day before yesterday, but it wasn't behind the desk yet. So I wander over to the new science fiction, hoping to see Nobots but knowing I wouldn't because I just looked in the "card catalog" on the internet and searched for it by ISBN. But I did see the magic name Pratchett. Along with a co-author named Stephen Baxter. The title was The Long War. Copyright last year. I haven't started reading it yet.

I went up the elevator and had a polite discussion with a young man on the third floor about the two copies of Nobots I had donated a month ago and was assured would be cataloged and put on the shelf, and I walked outside. The books for sale were dirt cheap, two bucks for hardcovers that looked brand new, a buck for full sized paperbacks and fifty cents for smaller paperbacks. One caught my eye, a big, fat paperback book. The illiterate in Wagons, East! who asked the gay bookseller to sell him a "big damned book" would have been pleased with it. It was titled The Writer's Manual and looking at the chapters listed on the back, it looked helpful. So I gave the lady a dollar, went home, and started reading.

The first chapter concerned the tools of writing. These tools included typewriters, carbon paper... WTF? I looked at the copyright date: 1979. This thing must have been in a warehouse for the last three decades. If I had taken a writing class in college, what I had learned would have been completely obsolete by the time I would have needed the knowledge; it's as useful as the vacuum tubes and analog circuits I learned as a teenager. Which is no use at all.

What wasn't obsolete was, as they would say across the pond, bleeding obvious.

How times change... it spoke of publishers' budgets, and how publishers wanted shorter books because printing was expensive and spoke of "one 80,000 word book, or two 40,000 word books?" with the assumption that the publisher would rather publish the two smaller, and trying to publish a big novel wasn't a good idea at all.

Baen won't accept anything shorter than 100,000 words.

Oh, well, it was only a buck. I wonder what I should do with it?

Several chapters ago I decided to see if I could do what James Patterson did (badly IMO) in that one book of his I read, mixing first and third person. A few months ago I figured out how to do it with this book, and wrote a new chapter one that goes before the posted chapter one.

I was on a roll yesterday, adding 3000 words, some scattered through the entire existing book but most at the end, past where we are now.

I wasn't going to post chapter zero, but if I don't, then chapter 22 will make no sense. Chapter 22 is a continuation of "chapter zero", the third person chapter before chapter one. Here it is. I hope to have chapter 22 posted in a few days.

        "Come in, Bob. Did you bring Knolls' report?"
        "Yes sir, here it is."
        "Did you read it?"
        "Yes, sir, I did. It's interesting. Knolls could be a writer if his grammar wasn't so atrocious, it was actually a good read. These reports are usually pretty dry."
        "Well, he's just a ship's captain. It's not like he's been to college or anything. How detailed is the report?"
        "Heh, too detailed in places. I didn't really need to hear about his bowel movements."
        "How much did he leave out?"
        "Nothing important. At least I don't think he left anything important out."
        "It says he saved her life? Is that correct?"
        "Yes, sir. He apparently kept a cool head, kept his wits about him and did everything right. It looks like he saved Kelly's ship and cargo as well."
        "Yes, I read the investigation report. Sabotage to Kelly's ship during the Mars overhaul so they could get his ship and ores. One of the workers was arrested, he'd been paid a huge sum of cash to do it. It wasn't hard to catch him, they just looked at spending patterns to find who was living beyond their means. He confessed, we need to figure out how to prevent that from happening again."
        "yes sir, we're on it already. If Mark Johnson can't solve it, it's insoluble.
        "It had better not be. What were damages to cargo?"
        "One specimen was severely injured but recovered before reaching the port on Mars. A few of the specimens got into physical altercations but there was no real damage to them. Not nearly as bad as we'd anticipated.
        "Other damages?"
        "One of the ship's two fusion reactors was ruined, as well as three of its ion drives. The other fusion generator was damaged but easily repaired. One battery incinerated. Minimal damage considering the dangerous cargo it was carrying and the problems Knolls encountered. May I ask, sir, why you allowed her on board with such a dangerous cargo?"
        "No, Bob, you may not, but I will say she's going to do whatever the hell she wants no matter what I think. I'm just glad it turned out the way it did."
        "Sorry, sir. Anyway, I hope you read that report. It answers a lot of questions the investigators didn't."
        "Don't worry. I will, you can be sure of it. Afternoon open? Want to shoot nine holes?"
        "Of course. But please, sir, read the report first."
        "Don't worry, I've been looking forward to it, especially considering... get the hell out of here, Bob. Let me read this thing. I'll see you on the golf course."

"In space. no one can hear you scream like a little girl." -Mark Watney

I'll be succinct before I become verbose: This is the best book I've read in years, including the ones I wrote.

If you like my stuff, you'll love this book. This guy writes like me only a lot better. Seriously. What's more, he looks to be half my age so damn it, you'll read more of his books than I will, I'm ageing.

This is his first book. I want a second.

I went to the library to return a couple of books and see if Nobots was on the shelves yet. Nope. Damn, they're slow. I'd reserved a Pratchett book I hadn't yet read that morning and didn't expect it to be ready (it wasn't) so I looked at the new science fiction section. I read the back cover blurbs but usually don't take any stock in them, but two caught my eye, one by one of the greats and one of my favorite authors, Larry Niven, who was quoted as saying "Gripping. Shapes up like DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe as written by someone brighter."

But the one that caught my interest was Chris Hadfield, and if you don't know who he is, what are you doing here? He says on the back cover "It has the rare combination of a good, original story, interestingly real characters, and..." what especially caught me eye, "and fascinatingly technical accuracy."

I had to read this book, and damn, it was good. Pratchett and Adams good, I laughed all the way through it; Whitney's sense of humor is his biggest weapon against the hostile Mars that's trying to kill him.

Whitney gets stranded on Mars and survives (oops, spoiler alert?) against all odds and with... well, very little.

RTFB. It's a damned good book and is at his website.

This book's history is interesting, too. I wanted to see what other books he'd written because I want more, but there was just the one. But the one, according to wikipedia, had a history. He'd submitted it to publishers and been rejected (much like Rowling and her Harry Potter) and released it on his web site in HTML and as a 99 cent Amazon e-book, which soared to the top of Amazon's charts.

So a major publisher has given him six figures for the rights. Lucky (and talented) guy. Wikipedia says that Ridley Scott will direct the movie, so fuck. The book made me laugh more than once, I can't see a Ridley Scott movie making me laugh. "Blade Runner, the Comedy?" Can't see it.