Christmas 2013 Books Reading List – Ten Books (plus a few more)

Last year I put together a list of 10 Christmas books for 2012 so I decided to put out a new list of 10 plus for 2013.  I recommend all of these books to the discerning reader who wants to be a bit less mainstream or looking for a challenging read. 

This year’s list seems to have a good bit of non-fiction but I have no apologies.  I have read all of these books (some decades ago mind you) and they were good enough to stick with me over the years to recommend this year.  These are no particular order of preference and my plan is to present challenging non-mainstream books or works no longer commonly read.  There is stuff there for everybody:  SF fans, steampunks, fantasy, biography, history, and surrealism.  2014 looks to be a wild year, so stock up with decent books in case of a zombie apocalypse. 

Fool On the Hill by Matt Ruff (1988) A book I read years ago when it was new, but I think that the average reader is savvy enough to catch the (what was then) obscure and geeky literary references.  It’s a little bit dated but still a fun read.

The English Patient (1992) by Michael Ondaatje.  Forget the movie, read the book!  The portion based on North African archeology of early people is partly based on the fascinating true story of László Ede Almásy.  For background, I had previously read Ralph Bagnold’s Libyan Sands, Journeys in a Dead World (1935) and Johann Ludwig Burchardt’s Travels in Arabia (1839) which gave The English Patient a lot more definition.   

Lola Montez, A Life by Bruce Seymour (1996) an absolutely perfectly and meticulously researched biography from original sources of one of the Victorian Era’s most outrageous rogue women.  Fans of Victorian history and Steampunks need to read this book!

Love In the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1985), and The General in his Labyrinth (1989).  Marquez one of the masters of South American magical realism (but with more violence than Borges).  Try reading Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera and comparing it to Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo (1904) for a bit of fun.

Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness by (1969) and The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away (1972) Kenzaburo Oe with disturbing stories from modern Japan.  OK, so that is two books – I cheat at lists, so what.

Private Perry and Mister Poe (2005) edited by William Hecker.  This is a collection of poems by Edgar Allan Poe which were written while at West Point.  Along with a nice facsimile printing of Poems of Edgar A. Poe (second edition) printed in 1831 and dedicated to the cadets of West Point.  For that matter part of the cost of printing was raised by subscription from those cadets before he departed.  The real meat of the book is an excellent and well researched section on Poe’s short military career often overlooked by biographers.  If you are a Poe fan, you need this book.  I used this book as an important portion for my research in my previous blog entry:   http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2013/11/edgar-allan-poe-writer-poet-literary.html

Skunk Works by Ben Rich (1994) about the mythic secret Skunk Works by one of the top engineers there.  The Skunk Works in Burbank produced the U-2, SR-71, and the F-117 stealth fighter among others.  It puts a human face on the people who made science fiction into reality. 

Heaven’s Command, an Imperial Progress (1973) by James Morris about the early years of the British Empire and how the Empire became Victorian.  It covers most of the personalities of Empire, although it delves mostly on India and later South Africa, there is a lot information to pursue and follow up.  You steampunks need to read this to get a grip on history 19^th century English history.

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington (1974) a masterpiece of surrealism and fantasy by a famous surreal artist.  I read this in the middle 70s and has been out of print for years but is back in print again. 

The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire (1979) by Lord Kinross.  A sprawling view of the Ottoman Empire:  why it worked, why it failed and why it was important to Western history.  Although an older book, it is your one-shop-stop for a definitive read on this juggernaut of history.  You might be surprised by what you find.

Armageddon 2049 A.D. (1928) and Airlords of Han (1929) by Philip Francis Nowland  two novels about Buck Rogers transported to the dim future.  Now wait, this has little to do with the B movies serials and the comic strip characters.  These two novellas often published together as a single book.  It is very advanced for the late 1920s and worth the read when taken in context of the era.

A little lagniappe …      

Also if you are into obscure (in America) Japanese science fiction try out Inter Ice Age 4 (1959) by Kobo Abe – it compares interestingly to Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle (1963).  

Have a happy and safe holiday season.

                  CoastConFan

Victorian Steampunk Wimshurst Electrostatic Generator by Casavitus

Or, “It’s alive, ALIVE!” 

Electricity:  philosophers debated it, alchemists expounded upon it, enlightenment experimenters played with it, Victorian scientists tamed it.  From ancient Greeks, to Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, electricity was one step away from magic and godhood with Zeus hurling thunderbolts at poor mortals.  Amazingly over the  centuries, nobody made the connection between static electricity, which known by the ancients for its attracting power with amber, to static shock, or lightening, to machines to amuse at parties or medical quack cures. 

Early experiments eventually found that electricity was natural, dangerous, and somehow interwoven with life itself.  Eventually, electro-chemical electricity (wet cell batteries), and static electricity generators became dwarfed with huge power plants, first run by steam engine, then by falling water, filling energy.  Now electricity is taken for granted, but there was a time when it was rare and magical and that time was only 150 years ago.

Casavitus Design gives us this magnificent recreation of a static electric generator in a beautiful 19^th century mode of design.  Fully operational and aesthetically mid-Victorian, this machine generates a powerful electric spark that jumps between two metal rods in a dazzling display of simple electric power.  Don’t be deceived by the size of the portable design, the twin Leyden jars can store a very powerful jolt and cannot be treated as a toy, beware! 

Casavitus has kindly allowed me to showcase this artistic work here on my blog.  You will find photos of the finished work here as well as the materials he used to scratch-build the machine.  Additionally he provided a short YouTube video.  His text is a follows:  

 

Dear Ladies & Gentlemen,

    Let me introduce you to a small Wimshurst machine that I recently built. To be honest with you, my knowledge about electro-magnetism is extremely limited. It was more the naive fascination with the Wimshurst machine, that looks so much like it is straight out of an H. G. Wells story, which drove me to this project. I wanted to build a small machine with an functional design.

    There are uncounted instructions, explanations, examples, & whatever about Wimshurst machines in the aethernet, so there was no need to worry about that.  If you are curious & want to know more about electrostatic machines, or are crazy enough to also built one, I can recommend you this page where you find all information you need.

    What worried me much more was the first sketch I made. The electricity-lady & some other details where much too catchy to delete, but how to get all this parts? It looked like an insane amount of labor.  I tried to bury the sketch in a drawer & forget about it. It did not work. Finally I decided to give it a try with casting, to, at least, be able to produce not only a single machine & resigned myself to my fate. Like expected, it proofed to be an even more insane amount of labor then expected, but in the end the whole construction really worked!

    The discs have a diameter of 24 cm; the Leyden jars have a diameter of 4 cm & are 17 cm high. Both are made of acrylic. The frame & bottom is made of beech wood.  The figure of the classical woman, the tops & bottoms of the Leyden jars, the handles and decoration of the shafts are made of super hard cast acrylic gypsum.  The main wheel for the crank is steel and was made for model steam engines, the other wheels are aluminum and made by my self.  The terminal gap can be adjusted by pushing or pulling the insulated handles. This machine produces constant sparks when adjusted to a gap of 6.5 cm length, but is limited at 7.5 cm maximum spacing to produce sparks.

              Casavitus 

I am always pleased to host such works of industrial and Victorian aesthetic art here on my blog.  Casavius Designs is the brainchild of an artist and craftsperson living in Munich Germany.  Be sure to click on his name to find some of his art.  Also you might note, composes and did the music on his YouTube video above.  I expect to see many more fine works from the workshop of Herr Casavitus.

I had always suspected that the big wheel on the back of the time machine was a powerful electrostatic generator.  Casavitus’ efforts show clearly with a practical demonstration of steampunk ethos of uniting history, science and science fiction.  H. G. Welles would have been proud as well as Ray Harryhausen with this functional Wimhurst electrostatic generator.  Well done!

Let me again caution people making or using these static generator machines that they are not child’s play and safeguard the machines from misuse or the curious finger while demonstrating.  They can cause serious injury and worse.

                                                 CoastConFan

Star Wars and Remembrance, 25 May 1977 and the 35th Anniversary*

Wednesday at the noon matinee in a small city, far far away; a personal memoir of geekdom, many years ago.

This 25th of May is the anniversary of the premier of Star Wars.  Weirdly, it is celebrated on the 4th of May due to some interesting misunderstandings or mistranslations of “May the Force be with you”.  The real general release date of the first Star Wars movie was 25 May 1977, which was a sleepy Wednesday when just another SF film was released without much fanfare in the middle of the week for a sultry noon matinee.  Yes, there were previously other private screenings and previews.  I’m talking about the full release to the general public.^

Anyway, I was working at GameScience, a company that designed and sold wargames during the developing period of the modern wargame industry during the 1970s.  We sold wholesale and retail and the famous Lou Zocchi GameScience catalogue had the most diverse listings of anybody in the industry.  Additionally, were also the first and only domestic makers of polydice, at the time.

Most, if not all the employees, were SF fans and gamers.  Many were involved with CoastCon as well, during the planning stage for the first CoastCon in later in 1978. + Things were a bit slow, so we took a long lunch to watch this new movie at the cheap matinee price at noon.  We didn’t hold up much hope that it would be really very good and the general consensus was that it was just riding on the coattails of bad TV science fiction fare of the 1970s.  We expected to at least get our two bucks worth.

We few took our seats and there weren’t but 20 or so people in the whole place, including us refugees from work.  The music and the credit crawler started, in the style of old movie serials and the lively music boomed:  maybe this won’t be too bad after all and worth a few chuckles.  By the time the Imperial battleship had slid over the screen, we knew this film was a cut above the usual SF Hollywood exploitation film.  It had classic elements, at times lovingly campy at others, new and rich.  We were hooked and vowed to see the film again later that night after work.  It’s rare for a film to surprise me and I sure got my two dollars worth on this one.  We decided to see it again.

No, this isn't me!  I found this on the internet.

Word still hadn’t gotten around yet about this obscure film and the evening show was fairly well attended, but no real crowds yet.  Remember this is the days before twitter (flash crowds were science fiction fare), before personal computers, before cell phones (only Star Trek had them).  The only instant news we had was radio or the TV, if you happened to be close to a set at the time.  Within days, word of mouth had gone out and lines for Star Wars became as long as those for Jaws (1975), the only other precedent we could cite for the phenomena. 

The lesson here is not to sell things short, even when the Hollywood hucksters don’t have much faith in a film.  Yes I was one of the few who actually saw the regular release of Star Wars the first time around.  But the secret was out very soon and within a week you couldn’t hardly get near a theater for the lines and the mousey little SF flick tossed out too the summer fans, ended up being the fox that roared.  

Those us, sitting in Wednesday matinee seats in small theaters all over the country were witnessing history.  Yep, we were there and that, with a couple of bucks might buy you a cup of coffee (hold the foam).  Years ago, I met a woman who saw Dracula when it was a first-run movie in 1931 and I was envious at her attendance at a historic cinematic event.  After 24 May 1977, I was no longer jealous. 

In my generation, the touchstone used to be “Where were you when your first found out that Kennedy had been shot”?  I’d like to propose a much happier touchstone of memory and remembrance, “Where were you when you first saw Star Wars”?   It really doesn’t matter if you saw it first run, or a month later, or even a few years back the first time.  They can’t take away that first time, especially if it was in a theater. 

Star Wars:  alive and well.  I just came back from MobiCon XVI and there was a healthy showing of Star Wars Fans in attendance.  Now Star Wars is mainstreamed, shown on TV and generally taken for granted.  SW clubs are still abundant and many are getting new members.  There are many Star Wars oriented groups now, both rebel and empire some are even neutral like the Mandalorians.   Star Wars has even jumped genres and become Steampunk.  Let’s face it, for better or worse, Star Wars is mainstreamed and become an integral part of our culture.  Right now there are budding anthropologists are writing Master’s theses about esoteric subjects in the Star Wars universe and its impact on us.  For those of us who remember a pre-Star Wars Era, the remembrance of that distant period will fade with our generation.  But who knows, a contemptible little film may premier out some boring Wednesday as summer fare, attended by few to be another culture-changer like Star Wars and a new generation will have their cinematic touchstone. 

                                                                                              CoastConFan

=====================

Footnotes for those that care and the overly detail-oriented (or the just plain bored)

My apologies to Herman Wouk for appropriating (kind of) the title to War and Remembrance, well not really.  BTW, the fellow is still kicking around, thanks for the stories about your generation!

*Yeah I know, it premiered 36 years ago, this is the 35^th anniversary. 

^Yup, I know there was a pre-premier on 1 May and I know there were other private and closed screenings.  I’m talking about the hoy polli of fandom, not the elite, not the insiders, not industry people.  In any case, those early, closed screening must not have generated much interest, because the pedaling of Star Wars was a pretty pedestrian trailer and no real follow-up hype. 

+Yes, Wikipedia says the first CoastCon was 1977 … it’s wrong.  CoastCon incorporated in mid 77, and the first convention was in 78. 

DON’T FORGET TO COME TO COASTCON, COMING SOON

  

 

 However, the cake is a lie!

Slouch Hats, Bush Hats, Big Game Hunters, and Explorers

The hat makes the adventurer and although it’s a slouch hat, historically wearers of the slouch hat are no slouch and number among explorers, military men, adventurers, and rogues.  They are worn in the tropics and in the desert, in the deepest jungle and on the veldt; bush hats are de rigor wear only second to the pith helmet in the genre of high adventure.

The slouch hat goes back centuries to the late 1500s, with a brim that went from large to huge.  Eventually these hats had one to three pin ups making a bicorn and a tricorn respectively.  But in this little essay, we will talk about those hats that have either only one side or no side pinned up.  Traditionally they are made of felt from a blend of fibers of wool to beaver fur, although some extra light weight hats are made of cotton cloth or canvass, some with heavy stitching to make a stiffener. 

A slouch hat is a soft hat that is not highly stiffened or having an internal frame to keep its structure.  A slouch hat is soft enough to be reshaped easily.   Versatile, easy to carry, they give good head cover and the wide brim keep off sun and rain.  It won’t crush like a pith helmet and can be packed away easily.  It has a chinstrap to hold on in wind and the hat can be pushed back off the head and hang down the back with the strap holding it on.  You really can’t ask for a more useful, forgiving and simple to store hat.

The Australian/New Zealand military hat has one side pinned up so that a rifle can be carried on the shoulder.  Although that might have been the case previously, slouch hats with one side pinned up have become traditionally associated with military and paramilitary forces.  Even stiffened hats such as the Hardee or Jeff Davis hat of American Civil War fame had the side pinned up, although that hat was stiffened and not a slouch hat.  Although both sides in the conflict wore slouch hats, Confederates were generally depicted as wearing slouch hats in writing and depictions of the time.

British military hats often had a puggaree, which was a cloth hatband in distinctive colors or pattern indicating a regiment, mostly worn by the British military overseas.  Other countries also developed military slouch hats for overseas wear.  US military in Vietnam wore a slouch hat for jungle wear with one side pinned up and a handy mosquito net stored inside.

Military hats often had a puggaree, which was a cloth hatband in distinctive colors or pattern indicating a regiment, mostly worn by the British military overseas.  Big game hunters in film use animal pelts like leopard for tiger as a hatband.  Other countries also developed military slouch hats for overseas wear.  US military in Vietnam wore a slouch hat for jungle wear with one side pinned up and a handy mosquito net stored inside.

Traditionally, the American southwest is associated cowboy hats, which are a form of slouch hat, although many of the later forms make it hard to tell its origin.  The slouch hat became so ubiquitous that it often goes unnoticed.  The great thing is that the slouch hat can be worn anywhere for that rugged outdoor look and its clean lines and simple upkeep makes it proper headgear for men and women alike.  Made of felt or canvass, stiffened slightly or crusher style they remain with us both as an icon of times gone by and a useful piece of practical headgear.

Consider adding a slouch hat to your costuming collection or just for wear while camping, hiking or big game hunting.  As always buy quality hats, which will give you years of wear and don’t overlook thrift shops and eBay as sources for headgear and costuming items.

UPDATE: I have a new hat/helmet post -- Mr. Pratt’s Gun Hat or How to Be Fashionable But Deadly in the Trenches   http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2017/05/mr-pratts-gun-hat-or-how-to-be.html

                                    CoastConFan


Other of my posts that might be of interest on hats and costuming in general:  
 

Classic fedora http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2012/07/fedora-hat-of-intrigue-and-danger.html

Pith helmets http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2012/06/pith-helmets-sun-helmets-and-sola.html

Trench coats  http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2012/05/brief-history-of-trench-coats.html

Steampunk and body armor   http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2012/09/armor-steampunk-style-short-history-of.html

Hourglass Vampire Hunting Kit

  A stealthy vampire hunting kit for the secret hunter.            

Last December, I saw an image on The Steampunk Empire, a social site for people sharing an interest in all things steampunk:  literature, props, costume, history, RPGs, and the like.  The item was a novel hidden vampire hunting kit housed and disguised as an operational hourglass.  I emailed the maker, Artimas Ward for information and received a narrative about making the item along with some photos for this blog.  Many thanks to Master Ward and his ingenious workshop.

 
Imagine having a secret vampire hunting kit that can look like a common object but which can be quickly disassembled to stake out a vampire quick and simple.  The shape of this is one is simply unique!  What follows is Mr Ward’s explanation about how this unusual piece came to be with some construction comments.




"I started it with a find at Michael’s Art and Crafts, (I work there and have a lot of creative ideas looking at all the crafts) and saw that the glass hourglass was on final sale, wanting it to make a steam punk timepiece, so I bought it."

"When I got it home I set it aside and was gonna let inspiration find me later, I didn't have to wait long when I got a idea at 4 am, a week later! I had teak bowls and set to work on building my Vampire hour glass, my father has a nice Carpenter shop and I got good advice on setting the glad in and how to set the drilled holes (hardest part) an Setting the two stakes and handle in place, and leather hinges, you seen what I got, now still have to put in the equipment and such to supply it."

"The hourglass kit has all typical vampire hunting equipment, mirror, stakes, hammer, salt, considerate earth, nails, communion wafers, compass, holy water & holy oil, matches, and a cross.  The stakes and handle of the hammer are stored on the sides of the hourglass and the equipment as stored in the ends in compartments."

A Word of Warning

You know the drill:  hunt the vampire in the crypts just like Van Helsing in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  The bonanza of “authentic” vampire hunting kits have hit new highs in sales.  The real truth is that there are no vampire hunting kits much older than 20 years or so, although some components in the better put together kits might date to the middle or late Victorian Era.  Yep they are bogus, despite the hype and nonsense being bandied around the blogosphere.  A few credulous museums purchased kits and now they are claiming they knew they were fake all along.  If you recall in Dracula, Van Helsing threw together some items ad hoc into a grip and drug it down to the tombs.  Even Van Helsing didn’t have an existing kit; one had to be assembled on the spot.  See also Propnomicon's blog posts for more information:   

 

http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2009/08/35000-vampire-hunting-kit.html

 http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2008/11/1809-vampire-hunting-kit.html

 http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2011/04/vampire-hunting-kit.html

 http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2010/04/deluxe-vampire-hunting-kit.html

                                                                                                                    CoastConFan

UPDATE: 

Vampire Hunting Kits Debunked, June 17, 2014

http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2014/06/vampire-hunting-kits-debunked-props.html  

See also my blog post:   The Logical Vampire – A brief overviewon removing these pests

Military Folding Bicycles and Curiosities

Historical cycles for Neo-Victorian Steampunk Revivalists and historians of the industrial revolution.

I have always like the history of early military bicycles, which for me started years back with reading an article about the U.S. Army’s flirtation with military bicycles and also with a series of pre WWI Dutch photogravures I purchased of a machine gun unit that used bicycles to transport and deploy their weapon.   Add to that an interest in inventions such as the folding bike and we’re off to the races.  There is no point in me “reinventing the wheel” so to speak, so I’ve decided to just post some of the photos and links I have found for others who share an interest in military history, invention, and bicycles. 

For an excellent overview of Victorian military bicycling costume, which is perfect for you military minded steampunkers, click the following link.  http://debyclark.blogspot.com/2012/10/victorian-military-bicycle-uniforms.html

Foldingcyclist.com has some excellent information including an amazing folding penny farthing along with a lot of good period illustrations of other early folding bikes and is perhaps one of the clearest and best sites on the subject in a single post.  http://www.foldingcyclist.com/folding-bike-history.html

Don’t forget to check out the BSA & military bicycle museum site, which as a page about military folders.  I really recommend it.  http://bsamuseum.wordpress.com/page-5/

There are a couple of books that I keep seeing referenced, The Bicycle in Wartime: An Illustrated History by Jim Fitzpatrick and It's in the bag: A History of Portable Cycles in the UK, by Tony Hadland; I haven’t read them, but pass the titles along for others to read. 

Wikipedia has the inevitable article  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding_bicycle

Bicycle Infantry article  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_infantry

Also try the online bicycle museum site  http://www.oldbike.eu/museum/

 Here is an article about the previously mentioned U.S. Army bicycle tests.  I didn’t mention previously that it was performed by Buffalo Soldiers.  http://www.intriguing-history.com/army-cyclist-corps-cap-badge/  And an article about the 25^th Infantry Bicycle Corps and their coast-to-coast journey to prove the bicycle was an asset to military movement and logistics.  http://www.fortmissoulamuseum.org/blackbicyclecorps.php  and http://www.historynet.com/us-armys-25th-infantry-bicycle-corps-wheels-of-war.htm

 An interesting sidelight on the subject of inventions is this chainless shaft drive bicycle that seems to offer possibilities for fresh innovation. http://www.dynamicbicycles.com/?gclid=CL387YutvbMCFWGnPAodKTEAZA

 I hope these articles have piqued your interest in military and folding bikes, somewhat and that you continue follow links to find more information.
                                                                                                     CoastConFan

Update January 2015 -- I have turned up some sequential photos, circa WWI showing a mounted trooper and his bicycle.  It shows him riding, dismounted, firing, carrying his bike, folding it up and then putting it on his back to carry it.  It's actually a pretty impressive way to get mounted infantry around in modern Europe.

 

 

   

 A good deal stranger is the motorized tricycle with a maxim gun mounted on the front.  You can't get more steampunk than that, unless it had a steam engine rather than an early internal combustion engine.