All Purls. No Swine.
Railroad rivalries played a significant role in nineteenth-century US history. No rivalry was as intense or bitter as the one between the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, and the Denver and Rio Grande railroads. At times it erupted into actual gunfire. From the River to the Sea: The Untold Story of the Railroad War That… Continue reading Book Review By Seawriter: From The River To The Sea–A Tale of a Real Shooting Railroad War
Rear Admiral Terrence Murphy is the son of a famous admiral who died winning a critical battle in a decades-long war between the Terran Federation and the Terran League. Recently, Terrence Murphy won his own battle. That minor success does not erase his reputation as a clothes horse and a fop, but it is enough… Continue reading Book Review by Seawriter: An Unconventional Admiral in a Critical Assignment–Governor, by Weber & Fox
During the decades humans first reached outer space, they were also reaching for the ocean’s uttermost depths. They even managed to reach those depths before placing a man in orbit. Opening the Great Depths: The Bathyscaph Trieste and Pioneers of Undersea Exploration, by Norman Polmar and Lee J. Mathers tells that story. It is a… Continue reading Book Review By Seawriter: To the Uttermost Depths and Back
Jack Pembroke is a Royal Navy officer badly injured during the Dunkirk evacuation, now assigned to command a minesweeping flotilla in South Africa. Emil Falk commands a Nazi auxiliary cruiser – a disguised and armed merchantman conducting commerce raiding far from Europe. In The Cape Raider, a novel by Justin Fox, the two have a… Continue reading Book Review by Seawriter: Adventure in the Roaring Forties
J.R.R. Tolkien may be the most beloved twentieth-century author with the most diverse reader base. He appeals to Christian and New Age audiences as well as readers across the political spectrum. Fame and fortune were the last things he really sought. An Oxford professor, he just wanted to tell some stories. The Real J.R.R. Tolkien:… Continue reading Book Review By Seawriter: A Fresh Look at Tolkien
Eric Flint’s "Assiti Shards" stories are an alternate history series where people from the present are cast into the past by shards of time-shifting artwork striking the Earth. The series started with 1632, in which a West Virginia small town transposed in space with Thirty-Years-War Germany. In 2017, a new branch of the series, Ring… Continue reading Book Review by Seawriter: Cruising the Ancient Mediterranean in a Modern Cruise Ship
He shoots! And scores! (Completely unexpected, and hopefully accurate, sports analogy by the athletically-compromised (and proud of it) RWKJ.) My friend, Mark Lardas--who posts on Ricochet as Seawriter and who graciously allows me to reblog his posts here--has a new book available: Battle of the Atlantic 1942–45: The Climax of World War II's Greatest Naval… Continue reading Book Review By Seawriter: In Which He Calls His Own Number
Before Portland, OR, became the upscale city mocked in Portlandia, it was a down-at-the-heels lumber town and port hard hit by the Great Depression. Its transformation began in World War II, when Portland and its cross-river companion, Vancouver, became major shipbuilding centers in the shipyards established by Henry Kaiser. These produced ships by the score:… Continue reading Book Review by Seawriter: Liberty Factory
On March 22, 1945 Major Max Hignite flew his last Luftwaffe mission; a flight to Switzerland in a Ju-52 loaded with artwork stolen by the Nazis. The plane crashed and was sealed in a cave by a Swiss lake. Hignite, badly injured, survived. Rescued by local Swiss, he spent months near death in a hospital.… Continue reading Book Review By Seawriter: Ghosts of the Past–Seeking Stolen Nazi Art
Larry Correia is best known for hard-edged urban fantasy. His Monster Hunter and Hard Magic (The Grimnoir Chronicles) series involve lots of firearms and fantastic creatures. Gun Runner, by Larry Correia and John Brown is hard science fiction, set in a distant future that has interstellar travel. Yet Correia stays true to form. It is… Continue reading Book Review by Seawriter: Gun Runner, by Correia and Brown–Being the Bad Guy For A Good Cause