robotech_master (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
robotech_master) wrote2004-01-16 03:44 pm
robotech_master) wrote2004-01-16 03:44 pm
Fancy pen, mild literary annoyance
Well, as part of, or relating to, the Event yesterday, we were handed out nice 2004 weekly organizers, and these interesting ballpoint pens. They came in these tubes that looked for all the world like cigar holders, and when I took mine out, I found that it's an LED light-up pen. The upper inch and a half of it, where the pocket clip is, is actually a little LED flashlight system, with (really bright) red, green, and blue LEDs in the lower end and a place to put an LR1130 button-cell battery in the top. The rest of the pen is transparent plastic, with a twist-retract mechanism for little 2"-long ballpoint pen tube built in. It's cute, though doesn't have a terribly huge amount of ink in it. The LED has a button-push mechanism that cycles them through all possible combinations of one, two, and then all three LED, then a "blink in cycle" setting, sort of like the LED disco-light thingies that are plugged into my computer's USB port at home.
Today whilst on the phone I'm reading the Baen book A State of Disobedience by Tom Kratman on my Clie. It's another one of those "don't mess with Texas" books, combining the state myth of Texas rugged individualism with a political screed. Baen seems to like to publish a lot of Republican and Libertarian SF, and this is an example of that...as conservative as they come. It's not too bad...or at least it wouldn't be, if the author didn't do one of the things that tends to annoy me. The book employs what I tend to call a "literary/political straw man"...the villain of the piece isn't just a Democrat, she's an evil amoral murderess Democrat who doesn't even believe the platitudes she's spouting. Thus they get to bash away at Democrats by bashing away at the evil amoral murderess.
I don't mind books where the villains are, within the limitations of their own political system, moral and admirable people. I could deal with a book where a Democrat's conscience led him to commit acts that were seen by the book's protagonists as bad. (Or, for that matter, stories where aliens try to wipe out mankind not from ill intentions toward mankind but simply because they believe that's the right way to live. See John Ringo's Aldenata books, starting with A Hymn Before Battle, for an example of that.) And books that involve evil, amoral villains can be fun to read. But something like this, where you make the villain evil and political...it just seems like a cheap shot to me, and that's coming from a middle-of-the-roader with libertarian leanings.
It's not to the point where I want to throw the book against the wall yet (and I hope it doesn't get to be; that Clie was expensive!), and the book is at least diverting...but all the same, it's not something I could recommend buying if it didn't come with a bunch of other books in its Webscription month. Guess I'll keep reading it.
Today whilst on the phone I'm reading the Baen book A State of Disobedience by Tom Kratman on my Clie. It's another one of those "don't mess with Texas" books, combining the state myth of Texas rugged individualism with a political screed. Baen seems to like to publish a lot of Republican and Libertarian SF, and this is an example of that...as conservative as they come. It's not too bad...or at least it wouldn't be, if the author didn't do one of the things that tends to annoy me. The book employs what I tend to call a "literary/political straw man"...the villain of the piece isn't just a Democrat, she's an evil amoral murderess Democrat who doesn't even believe the platitudes she's spouting. Thus they get to bash away at Democrats by bashing away at the evil amoral murderess.
I don't mind books where the villains are, within the limitations of their own political system, moral and admirable people. I could deal with a book where a Democrat's conscience led him to commit acts that were seen by the book's protagonists as bad. (Or, for that matter, stories where aliens try to wipe out mankind not from ill intentions toward mankind but simply because they believe that's the right way to live. See John Ringo's Aldenata books, starting with A Hymn Before Battle, for an example of that.) And books that involve evil, amoral villains can be fun to read. But something like this, where you make the villain evil and political...it just seems like a cheap shot to me, and that's coming from a middle-of-the-roader with libertarian leanings.
It's not to the point where I want to throw the book against the wall yet (and I hope it doesn't get to be; that Clie was expensive!), and the book is at least diverting...but all the same, it's not something I could recommend buying if it didn't come with a bunch of other books in its Webscription month. Guess I'll keep reading it.