"To read is to fly; it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the the fruits of many inquiries."
- A C Grayling, Financial Review (in a review of A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel)
So I buckled down a read this thing like crazy for the past week in my spare time between waking up at 6 a.m. and getting to X-Scream Halloween (the haunted house I help work on building over the summer) at 9 a.m. to begin the hard labor. Okay so it's not that bad, but I did hunker down and read the book this week and it was worth every moment. If you have read my first post, you will know that the book I had read and enjoyed last was Ben Bova's "The Leviathans of Jupiter", so it should come as no surprise to you that "Able One" (another of Bova's beautiful works) was another intense and amazing book. But I'm catching myself rambling, so I'm going to get on with my review of the rest of the book.
We left off with the Emergency Action team meeting in the Pentagon and Jamil arguing with the Generals (General Schieb and General Higgins) that there is a large possibility that one of the two missiles on the launch pads in North Korea could be aimed at San Francisco. Right where the president is headed for what is supposed to be a live speech, broadcasted across the country. As we know though, that won't happen thanks to the rogue DRPK army faction that had sent a nuke into orbit and knocked out most of the satellites.
So in order to try to defend America and test out the new ABL-1, the order is sent for the ABL-1 to head for North Korea. The crew has a general reaction of 'I-- buh-- Aah fine!' so they head in that general direction.
Down in the laser housing, while the plane is in the air, after some small talk and a little bit of character development, Harry finds out that the ranging assembly had been taken out of it's housing.
Before I go any further, I just wanted to tell you that from right here, I had predicted who had stolen the ranging assembly.
From here, it tells you the story of Harry. He was one of the nerds in school, paying a tough guy by doing his homework to protect him from the other bullies around school. He graduated and eventually went to work for Anson Aerospace Corporation. There he was selected as part of the small team to build a high powered laser, capable of shooting down missiles while in the 'boost' phase.
The development team was eventually visited by General Higgins to show him that the laser was fully operational, but that night, a speck of oil was leaked into the lasing cavity and the entire thing exploded, killing their boss, Pete. Months later, Harry and his soon to be ex were invited by Victor Anson to a party where Anson secretly informed Harry that he would be the new boss-man and he was to travel everywhere the plane went.
From here, you learn over the next few chapters that Colonel Christopher had an affair with General Schieb, Harry is in the middle of the divorce with his wife, Harry's team is semi-resenting him because of him accusing one of them trying to sabotage the laser (while they still knew it was a test run, though. Harry made it clear that nobody on the plane would try to blow it up), and that there is a LOT of tension in a tiny space! Harry eventually finds the ranging assembly though, but keeps it hidden and an eye on the lavatory to see if whoever did the deep would co to wipe it down at some point during the flight.
Now to the real action. The president (along with Harry's almost-ex and two daughters) is on the ground in San Francisco despite two advisements by his staff that landing in San Fran would not be a very advisable idea, and ABL-1 is flying exactly 20 miles off of the cost of North Korea. The ever-cautious DPRK sends two fighters out to escort the ABL-1 to land in North Korea. Keeping radio silence, they coast along (the coast) until they see one of the missiles launch. Moments later, the laser takes out one of the missiles, and one of the ATA missiles takes out one of the planes left engines!
They regain control and are barely able to take out the second missile before the plane stalls, then level back out and follow the DPRK planes. For the moment. Once behind one of the planes, they fire the laser at the engines, causing the fighter pilot to eject and the other fighter to follow him. The ABL-1 then proceeds to turn tail and get back to Japan as fast as possible.
After the fight, and on the return trip to Japan, Harry confronts his long-time friend, Monk. He accuses Monk of removing the ranging assembly, being paid by a competitor of Anson Aerospace Corp., and killing their boss Pete. Monk tries to scare Harry into forgetting about it, but Colonel Christopher comes by at the right time and takes Monk down in a brief fight.
The story concludes with Harry and the Colonel on the verge of a relationship, Monk in custody, and Anson about ready to profit from the tons of Satellites out of comission in orbit.
This is the super abbreviated version, but it honestly was an amazing book, and worth every penny if you buy it!
Now for the assignment part of this.
The authors intent was varying obviously, but mainly Bova tried to keep you on the edge of your mental seat, always ready to fall into the action! The organization was spatial and the book divided up by Major heading (like 'Engagement' for the last part)- then Location (pentagon, ABL-1 cockpit, San Francisco...).
I hope you enjoyed reading my little Blog and I'll probably start posting again once I have found a new book to read! Take care people!
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!
July 22, 2011
July 15, 2011
Able One- Part Two
"The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade."
- Anthony Trollope
All right, I know it has only been hours since my last post, but this one might be a bit longer, have more detail, and is needed to do my assignment for my FLVS class. On a side note, I think I will continue with this after my class is over like I'm doing it now. No great detail, just summary and my feelings on it. All right, lets roll!
Fun stuff in this installment! We start off this segment of the show with Lieutenant Sharmon and Colonel Christopher (apparently the Colonel is a woman, so the name threw me off for a bit) talking about the lack of a GPS. Sharmon tells the Colonel that he can navigate the plane, it would just be more reassuring with the GPS to back him up. The Colonel and Lieutenant then go around the corner and speak privately, Colonel Christopher asking Sharmon to call her Colonel instead of ma'am, and Sharmon telling her that his friends call him Jon. The Colonel reassures Jon that this flight is only a test run, nothing serious, and he has nothing to worry about.
A few moments later, the Colonel finds herself talking to Major Kaufman who informs her that there is no metsat (civilian satelites) operational in orbit, but the milsats (military satellites are fine). She takes this info with a grain of salt and continues to the flight line.
Another character, Harry (who had moved to California to get away from the snow and unrelenting weather of northern states), finds himself on the flight line next to the 747-400F trying to make a cell phone call to his superior. Unfortunately, the cell service is still down, so he just entered the plane. What else could he do?
At the Pentagon, General Higgins (the same general from before) is quickly trying to recall Air Force One from it's path to San Francisco out of fear that there might be a nuclear attack on the city. As this happens, Jamil and others in the room are forumlating theories as to who exactly is behind the outages and possible attack on America. Muslim Jihadists? Chinese who are angry at the U.S. for the world-wide recession? Eventually, they decide that until they can get eyes in either country again, they won't have a clue.
On Air Force One, the president's Chief of Staff, Norman Foster, delivered the request to the President, who didn't much like what he heard. He tells Foster that he won't turn around for four reasons. One, if he turns back, he looks like a coward. Two, he has faith in the missile defense systems in place on the west coast. Three, he's going out there to calm people down about the sudden outages of our satelites. And four, because he says so. With that, the conversation ends and Foster exits the room, thinking that he really doesn't want to be anywhere near San Francisco tonight.
Back in the Pentagon, the sae group from before is discussing the different forms of defense they can use, and what they're going to use it against. One member points out that we can try to hit it white it's in midcourse (coasting) phase with our two subs on their way to Japanese waters. Another points out that we have the missile defense systems in Alaska and California. But General Schieb adds one more possibility for attack during the boost phase, the Airborne Laser or ABL-1. The ABL-1 is able to shoot down missiles using a laser beam to pierce through the aluminum hull and blow up the fuselage. The General tells them to let the ABL-1 team know that they're headed for North Korea.
The ABL-1 (also pronounced Able One) is the source of the name of this novel.
Again, loved it and wish I had the time to read more of it. I did notice that this time I think the author's intent was more towards suspense for the President story, but revving up the pace for the upcoming missile chase over North Korea.
- Anthony Trollope
All right, I know it has only been hours since my last post, but this one might be a bit longer, have more detail, and is needed to do my assignment for my FLVS class. On a side note, I think I will continue with this after my class is over like I'm doing it now. No great detail, just summary and my feelings on it. All right, lets roll!
Fun stuff in this installment! We start off this segment of the show with Lieutenant Sharmon and Colonel Christopher (apparently the Colonel is a woman, so the name threw me off for a bit) talking about the lack of a GPS. Sharmon tells the Colonel that he can navigate the plane, it would just be more reassuring with the GPS to back him up. The Colonel and Lieutenant then go around the corner and speak privately, Colonel Christopher asking Sharmon to call her Colonel instead of ma'am, and Sharmon telling her that his friends call him Jon. The Colonel reassures Jon that this flight is only a test run, nothing serious, and he has nothing to worry about.
A few moments later, the Colonel finds herself talking to Major Kaufman who informs her that there is no metsat (civilian satelites) operational in orbit, but the milsats (military satellites are fine). She takes this info with a grain of salt and continues to the flight line.
Another character, Harry (who had moved to California to get away from the snow and unrelenting weather of northern states), finds himself on the flight line next to the 747-400F trying to make a cell phone call to his superior. Unfortunately, the cell service is still down, so he just entered the plane. What else could he do?
 |
| This is an example of a Boeing 747-400F |
At the Pentagon, General Higgins (the same general from before) is quickly trying to recall Air Force One from it's path to San Francisco out of fear that there might be a nuclear attack on the city. As this happens, Jamil and others in the room are forumlating theories as to who exactly is behind the outages and possible attack on America. Muslim Jihadists? Chinese who are angry at the U.S. for the world-wide recession? Eventually, they decide that until they can get eyes in either country again, they won't have a clue.
On Air Force One, the president's Chief of Staff, Norman Foster, delivered the request to the President, who didn't much like what he heard. He tells Foster that he won't turn around for four reasons. One, if he turns back, he looks like a coward. Two, he has faith in the missile defense systems in place on the west coast. Three, he's going out there to calm people down about the sudden outages of our satelites. And four, because he says so. With that, the conversation ends and Foster exits the room, thinking that he really doesn't want to be anywhere near San Francisco tonight.
Back in the Pentagon, the sae group from before is discussing the different forms of defense they can use, and what they're going to use it against. One member points out that we can try to hit it white it's in midcourse (coasting) phase with our two subs on their way to Japanese waters. Another points out that we have the missile defense systems in Alaska and California. But General Schieb adds one more possibility for attack during the boost phase, the Airborne Laser or ABL-1. The ABL-1 is able to shoot down missiles using a laser beam to pierce through the aluminum hull and blow up the fuselage. The General tells them to let the ABL-1 team know that they're headed for North Korea.
The ABL-1 (also pronounced Able One) is the source of the name of this novel.
Again, loved it and wish I had the time to read more of it. I did notice that this time I think the author's intent was more towards suspense for the President story, but revving up the pace for the upcoming missile chase over North Korea.
Able One
"No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance."
-Confucius
Hello people, I have good news and bad news. Good news, you will still be able to read my posts and stuff until I finish my class on FLVS. Bad news, I'm reading a new book. I just couldn't get into the other one and gave up when it was overdue, so now onto another book, Able One by the sci-fi writer who has won the Hugo award six times, Ben Bova. So what I'm going to do is read a few chapters at a time, not doing the detailed thing I was doing before, and give a basic summary according to what I remember and write my reaction to it.
So without further delay, here is the first part of Ben Bova's Able One.
The book starts off with a truck driver trying to find a diner in the middle of a town, but he can't because his GPS wouldn't work. He pulls into a truck stop and he finds out that nobody's GPS or cell phones are working. All across the country, anything that requires a satellite to work is shut down, non-functioning paperweights. The Stock Exchange is down, people die on operating room tables because of communication failures with the doctors operating remotely, and the government is wondering what the hell just happened.
You find out that a satellite was launched from North Korea hours before, and only three hours before the satellite outages, the satellite was actually a nuke and was detonated in the orbit of earth, taking out our unhardened satellites. The country is placed in DEFCON 1 (which is the highest level of readiness and war in imminent, also called the "cocked pistol" stage.) and there are talks of evacuating Honolulu, Anchorage, and Juneau. The President is due to give a speech in San Francisco later that day.
In the Pentagon, inside the Situation Room there is an emergency meeting taking place with top military officials and civilian experts about what could happen and what the U.S.'s best course of action is. The talk for a while about evacuating the aforementioned cities, then when a man named Jamil enters, he brings an interesting point. If the payload of the warhead was light enough, the missile could hit San Francisco. This doesn't bring an overly fearful or surprised response from anyone, simply a 'well crap...' (EXTREME PARAPHRASING) from the emotions of the people in the room.
When asked why someone would attack San Francisco, Jamil brings up the Sarajevo scenario. When WWI started, Archduke Franz Ferdinand I was assassinated in Saravejo, Serbia. The Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia. Russia had a treaty with Serbia, so they declare war on Austria-Hungary. Germany had an alliance with Austrio-Hungray, so they declare war on Russia. England and France had an alliance with Russia, so they declare war on Germany, and thus began WWI. He explains that this is applicable to us if the Koreans attack the United States. North Korea hits us, we hit them. The Chinese doesn't like that so they attack us. We counterattack China, Russia gets involved, then NATO, then full-scale nuclear war. As you might be able to guess, that's not very good for us.
That is where I stopped reading for today, but I'm foreseeing an amazing book. While I was reading this my mind was constantly asking 'what if this really happened?' and soaking up the information like a sponge. What I'm really liking about this book so far, is that it's realistic, and the actual military terms are broken down for you to be able to understand. For example, when the president is speaking with some others about missile defense, at the end of the chapter, before the next, he breaks down the different stages of missile defense from Boost Phase Defense to Terminal Phase Defense. And later when they're talking about the warhead strength, someone says something about 250-kilotons, someone else says that this is half a Megaton, and yet another explains that this is 25 times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
I believe the authors intent was to evoke the response of 'poop is about to hit the fan!' and cause a tense atmosphere and feeling in the reader. Honestly, without their cell phones, many people would go insane, so imagine the whole country without a cell phone, GPS, country-wide broadcasting like the Weather Channel, and then imagine the countless nutcases out there now panicking and killing people.
There is definitely spatial organization in these chapters and probably the whole book seeing as it's split up by cities and locations instead of real chapters.
-Confucius
Hello people, I have good news and bad news. Good news, you will still be able to read my posts and stuff until I finish my class on FLVS. Bad news, I'm reading a new book. I just couldn't get into the other one and gave up when it was overdue, so now onto another book, Able One by the sci-fi writer who has won the Hugo award six times, Ben Bova. So what I'm going to do is read a few chapters at a time, not doing the detailed thing I was doing before, and give a basic summary according to what I remember and write my reaction to it.
So without further delay, here is the first part of Ben Bova's Able One.
The book starts off with a truck driver trying to find a diner in the middle of a town, but he can't because his GPS wouldn't work. He pulls into a truck stop and he finds out that nobody's GPS or cell phones are working. All across the country, anything that requires a satellite to work is shut down, non-functioning paperweights. The Stock Exchange is down, people die on operating room tables because of communication failures with the doctors operating remotely, and the government is wondering what the hell just happened.
You find out that a satellite was launched from North Korea hours before, and only three hours before the satellite outages, the satellite was actually a nuke and was detonated in the orbit of earth, taking out our unhardened satellites. The country is placed in DEFCON 1 (which is the highest level of readiness and war in imminent, also called the "cocked pistol" stage.) and there are talks of evacuating Honolulu, Anchorage, and Juneau. The President is due to give a speech in San Francisco later that day.
In the Pentagon, inside the Situation Room there is an emergency meeting taking place with top military officials and civilian experts about what could happen and what the U.S.'s best course of action is. The talk for a while about evacuating the aforementioned cities, then when a man named Jamil enters, he brings an interesting point. If the payload of the warhead was light enough, the missile could hit San Francisco. This doesn't bring an overly fearful or surprised response from anyone, simply a 'well crap...' (EXTREME PARAPHRASING) from the emotions of the people in the room.
When asked why someone would attack San Francisco, Jamil brings up the Sarajevo scenario. When WWI started, Archduke Franz Ferdinand I was assassinated in Saravejo, Serbia. The Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia. Russia had a treaty with Serbia, so they declare war on Austria-Hungary. Germany had an alliance with Austrio-Hungray, so they declare war on Russia. England and France had an alliance with Russia, so they declare war on Germany, and thus began WWI. He explains that this is applicable to us if the Koreans attack the United States. North Korea hits us, we hit them. The Chinese doesn't like that so they attack us. We counterattack China, Russia gets involved, then NATO, then full-scale nuclear war. As you might be able to guess, that's not very good for us.
That is where I stopped reading for today, but I'm foreseeing an amazing book. While I was reading this my mind was constantly asking 'what if this really happened?' and soaking up the information like a sponge. What I'm really liking about this book so far, is that it's realistic, and the actual military terms are broken down for you to be able to understand. For example, when the president is speaking with some others about missile defense, at the end of the chapter, before the next, he breaks down the different stages of missile defense from Boost Phase Defense to Terminal Phase Defense. And later when they're talking about the warhead strength, someone says something about 250-kilotons, someone else says that this is half a Megaton, and yet another explains that this is 25 times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
I believe the authors intent was to evoke the response of 'poop is about to hit the fan!' and cause a tense atmosphere and feeling in the reader. Honestly, without their cell phones, many people would go insane, so imagine the whole country without a cell phone, GPS, country-wide broadcasting like the Weather Channel, and then imagine the countless nutcases out there now panicking and killing people.
There is definitely spatial organization in these chapters and probably the whole book seeing as it's split up by cities and locations instead of real chapters.
June 26, 2011
Now hearing the case of: Chapter Two- In The Shadow Of Gotham
"Give me a man or woman who had read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a dangerous enemy indeed."
-Anne Rice, The Witching Hour
Hello again! I just have to tell you how much I love these quotes that I'm putting in the beginning of each post. There's this great website that has them all listed out for me (If it were up to my memory, you would be quoteless!) and somebody (maybe the community?) has rated them according to something, but there are stars next to it so yeah, anyways though here's the link: Reading Quotes. Enjoy!
All right, second thing, I have noticed how weird this page makes the body of the text look for these posts and I'm sorry, I'll try to get that sorted out to make it wider and save your scroll wheel/ touchpad.
But alas! I must stop going on tangents and give you the summary of (a rather short) chapter two!
So we ended chapter one with Ziele rushing outside to meet his partner, Joe Healy, who has found something of importance to the case. And it turns out he has found two very important things! First off, he has found muddy footprints leading in and out of the house. The mud isn't yet dry, so that must mean that the man who had committed the crime came from the woods behind the Wingate home. These footprints were measured and photographed for later. One thing that struck odd to Ziele was the way the print was pressed, with a well defined toe and a smudged heel. This would have shown that he had something caked onto the back of his boot, or he had a limp. This would normally mean that the person is old, has a cane, and/or had broken a leg/hip and it hadn't healed right? The last sentence was all me simply assuming stuff, but it's a possibility.
The second thing found was a locket, covered with mud and blood and engraved with 'For S.W.'. This locket was tied to a blue ribbon and was engraved with this really fancy word that translates into 'EXPENSIVE'. Inside were mini-portraits of an older man, and Sarah. This is mentioned later in the chapter, but it is kind of odd to have a picture of yourself in a locket. Normally you would have pictures of mom and dad, son and daughter, cousins, brothers, sisters, but yourself? Who does that??
But anyways, after those two discoveries, Joe and Ziele decide that the house should be cleared for the night and proceed to do so. On his way to grab his things, Ziele is reminded that Abigail is waiting in the library for him and he needed to ask her some things. As they speak there isn't really anything important until she asks where Stella, their maid, is. All of her clothes and her suitcase were still at the house, and she had no friends nearby because she had only been in the area a few months.
So we'll keep that in mind. Next is some more information about happenings at the approximate time of the murder. So the murder happened at about three o'clock. Convenient, because that's when everyone will have left the house that day. Maud Muncie, the head cook, housekeeper, and mother of Charlie Muncie was out shopping, Abigail was out walking the footballs- sorry, the terriers, and Mrs. Virginia Westgate went out for tea with Ms. Stratton. Very convenient, right? Abigail did mention one oddity with the afternoon though, there was an odd man walking in the forest wearing a 'bushy hat'. Do we have out murderer? I think not. If the murderer were to approach the house through the forest, he wouldn't have walked so close to the road/sidewalk that he could be seen. Not in the right mind of a murderer anyways.
These were the big events of the chapter though, some small things like Mrs. Wingate not wanting to leave the home that night happened towards the end of the chapter, but that was all of the major things. As usual, thank you for reading and since this was such a short chapter, later today I will be posting the summary of chapter three!
-Anne Rice, The Witching Hour
Hello again! I just have to tell you how much I love these quotes that I'm putting in the beginning of each post. There's this great website that has them all listed out for me (If it were up to my memory, you would be quoteless!) and somebody (maybe the community?) has rated them according to something, but there are stars next to it so yeah, anyways though here's the link: Reading Quotes. Enjoy!
All right, second thing, I have noticed how weird this page makes the body of the text look for these posts and I'm sorry, I'll try to get that sorted out to make it wider and save your scroll wheel/ touchpad.
But alas! I must stop going on tangents and give you the summary of (a rather short) chapter two!
So we ended chapter one with Ziele rushing outside to meet his partner, Joe Healy, who has found something of importance to the case. And it turns out he has found two very important things! First off, he has found muddy footprints leading in and out of the house. The mud isn't yet dry, so that must mean that the man who had committed the crime came from the woods behind the Wingate home. These footprints were measured and photographed for later. One thing that struck odd to Ziele was the way the print was pressed, with a well defined toe and a smudged heel. This would have shown that he had something caked onto the back of his boot, or he had a limp. This would normally mean that the person is old, has a cane, and/or had broken a leg/hip and it hadn't healed right? The last sentence was all me simply assuming stuff, but it's a possibility.
The second thing found was a locket, covered with mud and blood and engraved with 'For S.W.'. This locket was tied to a blue ribbon and was engraved with this really fancy word that translates into 'EXPENSIVE'. Inside were mini-portraits of an older man, and Sarah. This is mentioned later in the chapter, but it is kind of odd to have a picture of yourself in a locket. Normally you would have pictures of mom and dad, son and daughter, cousins, brothers, sisters, but yourself? Who does that??
But anyways, after those two discoveries, Joe and Ziele decide that the house should be cleared for the night and proceed to do so. On his way to grab his things, Ziele is reminded that Abigail is waiting in the library for him and he needed to ask her some things. As they speak there isn't really anything important until she asks where Stella, their maid, is. All of her clothes and her suitcase were still at the house, and she had no friends nearby because she had only been in the area a few months.
So we'll keep that in mind. Next is some more information about happenings at the approximate time of the murder. So the murder happened at about three o'clock. Convenient, because that's when everyone will have left the house that day. Maud Muncie, the head cook, housekeeper, and mother of Charlie Muncie was out shopping, Abigail was out walking the footballs- sorry, the terriers, and Mrs. Virginia Westgate went out for tea with Ms. Stratton. Very convenient, right? Abigail did mention one oddity with the afternoon though, there was an odd man walking in the forest wearing a 'bushy hat'. Do we have out murderer? I think not. If the murderer were to approach the house through the forest, he wouldn't have walked so close to the road/sidewalk that he could be seen. Not in the right mind of a murderer anyways.
These were the big events of the chapter though, some small things like Mrs. Wingate not wanting to leave the home that night happened towards the end of the chapter, but that was all of the major things. As usual, thank you for reading and since this was such a short chapter, later today I will be posting the summary of chapter three!
June 10, 2011
Lets Read- In the Shadow of Gotham- Part one!
"If you can read this. thank a teacher."
-Anonymous Teacher
All right! Post number three and chapter number one! Really quick, I did some research and it turns out "Gotham" from the title is a nick name for New York City, originally used by Washington Irving (you know, the writer of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"). Lets get this thing started!
So first off, we're in Dobson, New york (remember kids, that's an imaginary town) on Tuesday, November 7th, 1905. Where in Dobson are we? 27 Main Street at the police HQ. The time is 5:00 p.m.. As a little not-so-off-topic side note, this book is in first person, and if it stays the same the whole way through, it's all in past tense, as if Detective Ziele is remembering it. And speaking about detective Ziele, the book starts with him sitting at his desk finishing up a report on one Thomas Jones who showed up drunk to work and punched his foreman. I'm guessing he was arrested.
Anyways, it's about closing time for the police office of Dobson, Joe Healy, the police chief, is getting ready to leave and tells Ziele to close up when he leaves, but a young Charlie Muncie comes bolting up the stairs to tell the two that help is needed at the Wingate home.
Going to teak a quick pause in the story here to give a bit of background. Charlie Muncie is about 18 and was hired as the village secretary and operates the only phone in the building. Charlie's mother works for the Wingate family and when he receives news that they need help up there, he becomes unsettled, obviously fearing for his mother.
And now for Police Chief Joe Healy. He is a stout, ruddy, pleasant man in his early 60's who has been on the force 27 years. He doesn't like the fact that he has a new (noticeably younger) partner because he fears that the mayor wants to force him into retirement. He, I deduce (haHA! Spy words!), has ties to the Wingate's because when he hears the news, he gets a little emotional. Not the sappy chick-flick emotional, like wide-eyes 'oh God, what happened?!' kind. I think that might play a role in the story at some point down the road.
Finally, Detective Simon Ziele. He is about 30 years old and worked at the NYPD Bureau of Detectives 7th precinct. The 7th consists of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It is the second smallest precinct in the NYPD and does exist. He also has a weak stomach for some kinds of cases (like murders or accidental deaths?). But anyways, he moved north of NYC (so Dobson is north of NYC.) to Dobson in search of a quieter life and to escape the memory of his fiancé, Hannah.
He and Hannah were on the General Solcum (the ferry from the disaster from the previous post) when the ship burst into flames. From what I read, he was knocked off of the boat by a piece of the falling deck and survived the ordeal. Hannah and a thousand others died on the boat. He moved out of the city a few months later.
Back to the story, Joe and Ziele both head out to the Wingate home which in in the "estate section" of the town. This has me confused now. It says that "Behind us the cragged cliffs of the Palisades loomed large over the Hudson River." So I have no clue WHERE this is, but obviously it's near the river (leading to a water escape?) and somewhere near the Palisades. Which happen to be cliffs. Next!
They passed a place called "Churche's Corner" and any place that has an actual name and a description has got to be important. So this seems to be a divided neighborhood. At least when it comes to religion. There are three churches, all catholic, on or near this corner. An Italian Catholic church, an Irish Catholic Church, and a Polish Catholic Church. I get the feeling something is very important here, but I can't put my finger on it.
Next up is the Wingate home. The text says something about the steeper the hill, the more expensive the home, or something like that, and I'm assuming that there is a "king of the hill" kind of mentality among the estates. Also a "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer" kind of thing. But anyways, the Wingate home is a stately home, Victorian-style stone architecture, with a Pink mansard roof. Here are examples of a Stone Victorian house and a mansard roof (not pink, sorry).
These are just two examples.
Joe and Ziele pull up to the Wingate home to find the yard abuzz with action. The two white terriers are tied to a stake in the yard, yapping nonstop, and Dr. Cyrus Fields son, Henry, is keeping some pesky neighbors off of the porch. Mrs. Wingate is sitting on her front porch.
Time for more breakdowns! First of all, the two small white terriers are simply breathing, fluffy, footballs. Okay not really, but they are so annoying! But back on topic, we have a few new characters.
Dr. Cyrus Fields is a short, middle aged, energetic man with graying hair. Under the circumstances, he remains calm (on the outside at least, the book doesn't describe his feelings much) and that says to me that he is able to be the calm, cool, and collective type. He isn't exactly the chosen doctor of the estate families because he helps out the blue collar, working class families. He also serves at the morgue and has a son that is being prepared to take over the practice.
Henry Fields is not really described much and is being prepared to take over the business. Really, that's about it.
The preferred doctor of the estate families hough is Dr. Adam Whittier. That is the weirdest name ever, and there isn't much description here either.
Mrs. Wingate is a very old lady living with two of her nieces, Abigail and Sarah. She is almost 80, and seems not to know anything about the murder. I'm not implying that she does, but you never know.
Next up is the last couple murders mentioned in the story before this one. The first murder Joe had dealt with was in 1893 when a farmer was shot over a land dispute, the case was never resolved. And the last murder before this one was six months ago, just before Ziele has joined.
They head inside and Joe leaves Ziele to look at the crime scene. What Ziele sees was extremely unexpected. To describe it, it would take a paragraph, but I'll just say that it was... Brutal. That would be the right word. Anyways, Ziele checks out the crime scene and finds that the blood is still wet which means that the girl has only been dead for 2-3 hours. Sarah Wingate, the victim, had been visiting since the friday before, and had come to have a nice comfortable quiet place to study. Well, that didn't turn out so well.
Sarah Wingate was an interesting girl. She was about 25 and was a brilliant college student. But her life ended with a deep throat wound, blunt head trauma, and multiple lacerations plus a piece of her blonde hair removed. My reaction was 'wow' when I saw that and could describe the room, but I don't think I really need to. Use your imagination.
As Ziele looks the room over, he is grateful, but disappointed. Grateful, because the Wingates have electricity in their home, which will allow him to work later, but disappointed because through his searching he found nothing. On his way in, he remembers seeing the other niece of Mrs. Wingate, Abigail, sitting in the library.
Something in the room that he did find that I thought might be important later on were a few books and magazines. of the books were: The Ambassadors and Dracula, and of the magazines were: The House of Mirth and Harpers (the September issue).
As Ziele is wrapping up though, a sudden call from Joe outside brings him to the back yard.
Aaand CUT! Whew! I'm sorry this one was so long, but she threw a lot of information at the reader the first time around and I tried to shorten it. Either I'm really bad at summarizing or this was just a LOT of information. But thank you for reading this, sorry if you didn't read the warning at the top about spoilers, and stay tuned for another episode of me breaking down "In the Shadow of Gotham" by Stefanie Pintoff.
Now for the assignment part of this.
My personal reaction to this was, in short, this is gonna be a good book! I was impressed with how well she blended the description of the characters with their history and the events taking place as they did their thing. I guess if I were to take notes differently while I was reading, I wouldn't take so many long notes and keep it short and to the essentials.
-Anonymous Teacher
All right! Post number three and chapter number one! Really quick, I did some research and it turns out "Gotham" from the title is a nick name for New York City, originally used by Washington Irving (you know, the writer of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"). Lets get this thing started!
So first off, we're in Dobson, New york (remember kids, that's an imaginary town) on Tuesday, November 7th, 1905. Where in Dobson are we? 27 Main Street at the police HQ. The time is 5:00 p.m.. As a little not-so-off-topic side note, this book is in first person, and if it stays the same the whole way through, it's all in past tense, as if Detective Ziele is remembering it. And speaking about detective Ziele, the book starts with him sitting at his desk finishing up a report on one Thomas Jones who showed up drunk to work and punched his foreman. I'm guessing he was arrested.
Anyways, it's about closing time for the police office of Dobson, Joe Healy, the police chief, is getting ready to leave and tells Ziele to close up when he leaves, but a young Charlie Muncie comes bolting up the stairs to tell the two that help is needed at the Wingate home.
Going to teak a quick pause in the story here to give a bit of background. Charlie Muncie is about 18 and was hired as the village secretary and operates the only phone in the building. Charlie's mother works for the Wingate family and when he receives news that they need help up there, he becomes unsettled, obviously fearing for his mother.
And now for Police Chief Joe Healy. He is a stout, ruddy, pleasant man in his early 60's who has been on the force 27 years. He doesn't like the fact that he has a new (noticeably younger) partner because he fears that the mayor wants to force him into retirement. He, I deduce (haHA! Spy words!), has ties to the Wingate's because when he hears the news, he gets a little emotional. Not the sappy chick-flick emotional, like wide-eyes 'oh God, what happened?!' kind. I think that might play a role in the story at some point down the road.
Finally, Detective Simon Ziele. He is about 30 years old and worked at the NYPD Bureau of Detectives 7th precinct. The 7th consists of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It is the second smallest precinct in the NYPD and does exist. He also has a weak stomach for some kinds of cases (like murders or accidental deaths?). But anyways, he moved north of NYC (so Dobson is north of NYC.) to Dobson in search of a quieter life and to escape the memory of his fiancé, Hannah.
He and Hannah were on the General Solcum (the ferry from the disaster from the previous post) when the ship burst into flames. From what I read, he was knocked off of the boat by a piece of the falling deck and survived the ordeal. Hannah and a thousand others died on the boat. He moved out of the city a few months later.
Back to the story, Joe and Ziele both head out to the Wingate home which in in the "estate section" of the town. This has me confused now. It says that "Behind us the cragged cliffs of the Palisades loomed large over the Hudson River." So I have no clue WHERE this is, but obviously it's near the river (leading to a water escape?) and somewhere near the Palisades. Which happen to be cliffs. Next!
They passed a place called "Churche's Corner" and any place that has an actual name and a description has got to be important. So this seems to be a divided neighborhood. At least when it comes to religion. There are three churches, all catholic, on or near this corner. An Italian Catholic church, an Irish Catholic Church, and a Polish Catholic Church. I get the feeling something is very important here, but I can't put my finger on it.
Next up is the Wingate home. The text says something about the steeper the hill, the more expensive the home, or something like that, and I'm assuming that there is a "king of the hill" kind of mentality among the estates. Also a "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer" kind of thing. But anyways, the Wingate home is a stately home, Victorian-style stone architecture, with a Pink mansard roof. Here are examples of a Stone Victorian house and a mansard roof (not pink, sorry).
 |
| Stone Victorian House |
 |
| Mansard Roof |
These are just two examples.
Joe and Ziele pull up to the Wingate home to find the yard abuzz with action. The two white terriers are tied to a stake in the yard, yapping nonstop, and Dr. Cyrus Fields son, Henry, is keeping some pesky neighbors off of the porch. Mrs. Wingate is sitting on her front porch.
Time for more breakdowns! First of all, the two small white terriers are simply breathing, fluffy, footballs. Okay not really, but they are so annoying! But back on topic, we have a few new characters.
Dr. Cyrus Fields is a short, middle aged, energetic man with graying hair. Under the circumstances, he remains calm (on the outside at least, the book doesn't describe his feelings much) and that says to me that he is able to be the calm, cool, and collective type. He isn't exactly the chosen doctor of the estate families because he helps out the blue collar, working class families. He also serves at the morgue and has a son that is being prepared to take over the practice.
Henry Fields is not really described much and is being prepared to take over the business. Really, that's about it.
The preferred doctor of the estate families hough is Dr. Adam Whittier. That is the weirdest name ever, and there isn't much description here either.
Mrs. Wingate is a very old lady living with two of her nieces, Abigail and Sarah. She is almost 80, and seems not to know anything about the murder. I'm not implying that she does, but you never know.
Next up is the last couple murders mentioned in the story before this one. The first murder Joe had dealt with was in 1893 when a farmer was shot over a land dispute, the case was never resolved. And the last murder before this one was six months ago, just before Ziele has joined.
They head inside and Joe leaves Ziele to look at the crime scene. What Ziele sees was extremely unexpected. To describe it, it would take a paragraph, but I'll just say that it was... Brutal. That would be the right word. Anyways, Ziele checks out the crime scene and finds that the blood is still wet which means that the girl has only been dead for 2-3 hours. Sarah Wingate, the victim, had been visiting since the friday before, and had come to have a nice comfortable quiet place to study. Well, that didn't turn out so well.
Sarah Wingate was an interesting girl. She was about 25 and was a brilliant college student. But her life ended with a deep throat wound, blunt head trauma, and multiple lacerations plus a piece of her blonde hair removed. My reaction was 'wow' when I saw that and could describe the room, but I don't think I really need to. Use your imagination.
As Ziele looks the room over, he is grateful, but disappointed. Grateful, because the Wingates have electricity in their home, which will allow him to work later, but disappointed because through his searching he found nothing. On his way in, he remembers seeing the other niece of Mrs. Wingate, Abigail, sitting in the library.
Something in the room that he did find that I thought might be important later on were a few books and magazines. of the books were: The Ambassadors and Dracula, and of the magazines were: The House of Mirth and Harpers (the September issue).
As Ziele is wrapping up though, a sudden call from Joe outside brings him to the back yard.
Aaand CUT! Whew! I'm sorry this one was so long, but she threw a lot of information at the reader the first time around and I tried to shorten it. Either I'm really bad at summarizing or this was just a LOT of information. But thank you for reading this, sorry if you didn't read the warning at the top about spoilers, and stay tuned for another episode of me breaking down "In the Shadow of Gotham" by Stefanie Pintoff.
Now for the assignment part of this.
My personal reaction to this was, in short, this is gonna be a good book! I was impressed with how well she blended the description of the characters with their history and the events taking place as they did their thing. I guess if I were to take notes differently while I was reading, I wouldn't take so many long notes and keep it short and to the essentials.
May 31, 2011
And away we go!
“A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it."
All right, starting the book assignment thing-a-ma-bob! And step one to world domination (or reading the book, whatever you want to call it) is breakdown of the summary of the book in question. So here we go! (And a quick heads up, a lot of this information is STRAIGHT out of the summary, so I'm no Sherlock Holmes.) The setting is Dobson, New York... And according to the great and glorious Google... Dobson doesn't exist. So now that we've moved past that, the year is 1905. I guess some cool things happened in 1905. Las Vegas was founded... founded... that was a long time ago! This was also the year Einstein presented his Theory of Relativity, So I guess that's pretty important. But I guess other than that, it was a boring year, so this books events should mark a fairly large event, shouldn't it? |
Next up is a main character: Detective Simon Ziele. Simon meaning "to hear/be heard" and Ziele meaning... well I actually couldn't find an exact meaning, but I guess it is a real last name... somewhere out there. He is a widower, due to the fact that his wife died on the Gen. Solcum on June 15, 1904 in the East River, New York City, New york. This event actually happened (thank you Google!) and claimed the lives of 900-1000 people on board. According to what I've read, the boat had a fire in the lower decks and, because of it's swift speed, caused the entire boat in flames in the middle of the river. So Detective Ziele moved North of NYC.
Now to the case! A young girl, Sarah Wingate, was murdered in her bedroom in the middle of the day in the winter of '05 (the same year the book is set in). Now I'm just thinking here, but for a young girl to be murdered in her bedrooms in the middle of the day, this needs to have been a family member, delivery person, close family friend, or somebody that worked on the house that knows the ins and outs (what kind of locks they would have on the doors, where you can enter unseen, how you could hide inside the house well. That kind of thing.)
Yay for more new characters! Okay, now we have someone named Alistar Sinclair. I looked up the name and found that Alistar means "mans defender" in one translation, and Sinclair means "from Saint-Clair." Saint-Clair is a place in northern France supposedly. Anyways, this Alistar Sinclair is a "noted criminologist" at Columbia University. According to the summary she has one research subject, Michael Fromley, that she offers evidence about. It says nothing about possible other work, and the book might not either. But I guess if you're going to do study somebody/something, you might as well put all of your effort into it, right? Back on topic, this Fromley fellow seems to have been muttering things that sound shockingly close to facts about this case. Obviously he's nuts, just saying.
Detective Ziele I guess teams up with Mr. Sinclair to solve the murder and bring peace justice back to the imaginary town of Dobson, New York! One thing that puzzled me about the summary was one line of text. Blah, blah, blah, catching killers, haunted dudes... a-ha! "...while on the run from his own demons." Ziele's wife died, so I guess that would make him... slightly crazy for a while. but from his "demons"? Maybe he has PTSD and this case brought out the bad effects? I don't know, but I soon will!
Not sure what's up with the formatting issue at the top, but thanks for reading my little blog over here in the corner of the massive sea of blogs, and if you have any feedback feel free to leave a comment or use the little rating checkboxes!
May 28, 2011
Post number two!
I know the title was a teeny tiny bit unnecessary, but it made me feel good... Yeah okay not really, but anyways, some news, bragging, and books to share with you guys!
First off, I went to Universal's Islands of adventure yesterday, and went almost immediately back to the Harry Potter world thing that was just added recently. I felt like I was that 11 year old watching the first movie (Harry Potter and the Sorcerers/Philosophers Stone) again. But I wasn't, I'm 17. But we walked around, didn't get to try out the butterbeer or check out the wand selection thing at Olivanders (Though I did get a wand that the test I took TODAY told me I should get; the Holly 18" wand) but I did get the chance to go on the magical floaty chairs ride inside of Hogwarts.
But back to the main topic, books!
I finally got the book I've been waiting for from the library: In The Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff.
so what I'm going to do first is give you a rundown on how my book analyzations are going to work.
First off, I went to Universal's Islands of adventure yesterday, and went almost immediately back to the Harry Potter world thing that was just added recently. I felt like I was that 11 year old watching the first movie (Harry Potter and the Sorcerers/Philosophers Stone) again. But I wasn't, I'm 17. But we walked around, didn't get to try out the butterbeer or check out the wand selection thing at Olivanders (Though I did get a wand that the test I took TODAY told me I should get; the Holly 18" wand) but I did get the chance to go on the magical floaty chairs ride inside of Hogwarts.
But back to the main topic, books!
I finally got the book I've been waiting for from the library: In The Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff.
so what I'm going to do first is give you a rundown on how my book analyzations are going to work.
- I'm going to read the summary of the book.
- From that I'm going to post an analytical break down as to when and where the book takes place, what kind of book, and any awards it may have been given.
- Then I'm going to start the book, reading chapter by chapter and posting HERE with:
- What happens in the chapter
- Which characters are involved
- and when it takes place.
Hopefully I will be posting weekly, but with my schedule, that would be pushing it! I will probably add onto the list as I get pointers and such from the community and my teacher(s). And please feel free to comment with anything I could add to the list that would make it better in any way.
And this is the only post that will not have a quote in the beginning, I didn't want to waste one on this post!
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