Michael Z. Williamson's That Was Now, This is Then

(Welcome to Day Two of Jimbo's Memorial Day Extravaganza! Today we're featuring Michael Z. Williamson.  Mad Mike seems to think I know how to do math. He's done five years in the US Air Force, three years in the Army National Guard, twelve years in the Air National Guard, then another two in the Army National Guard and another three in the Air National Guard. I think. Any mistakes are mine.  He deployed for the Mississippi flood in 1993 and for Operation Desert Fox in 99, as well as Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2008, retiring as a Technical Sergeant. His army MOS was Untilities Equipment Repairer (52C30) and his Air Force MOS was Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration.

He got to play with some construction equipment and some small arms. 

He's married with a total of four kids from two marriages, three cats and some livestock.He is also the proprietor of sharppointythings.com and michaelzwilliamson.com, to go along with The Sacred Cow Slaughterhouse

 

Being a book geek (and I think I qualify, what with having a blog about books and all) there are few better feelings that finally getting a chance to read a book that you've been waiting on. You all know what I mean, right? It's a rush to finally crack that spine (okay, open the file on your Kindle, but work with me here, okay?) and get to readin'. It is, however, better when that book is everything you wanted it to be.  So when I got to read That Was Then, This is Now by Michael Z. Williamson, I was both excited and happy. That's a powerful combination. And if you're reading it a little late because you didn't realize that it had released, that's your bad, or mine, as the case may be. 

Those of you who remember the first book in the series, A Long Time Until Now, will find all of their old friends back, if not always for a long time. Some of our friends have decided to stay home this time. I can't say I blame them. As much fun as these books are to read, living them might not be the most enjoyable thing ever. Living in the dim, dark past isn't always all it's cracked up to be. Personal lives are a thing too, and not all of the old crew is still in the military, so they can't be ordered to go. All this to say that, if someone is missing, it makes sense that they're missing.

Of course, we have a couple of additions to the team as well. Both are females that have their Ph.D.s and neither has my phone number. The former is fine. The latter would be unacceptable if they actually existed. Ya'll need to stop hogging up all the brainy chicks. Anyway...

This time we're headed back to grab another squad that got stuck, and things didn't go so well for them. They didn't have the skills that the first squad had, and they've been there longer. Things are pretty grim. But not everyone wants to go home, and their reasons, while not always admirable, make sense. And that leads to one of the cruxes of the novel.

When is it okay to take people's lives over and tell them what to do? If someone has established a life in a place where they are welcome and doesn't want to leave, do you have the right to drag them away? What if they're being there could cause problems for someone else later? What if you want to kick the dude in the junk for the reason he wants to stay? Does that have any bearing?

And, without getting too far into spoiler territory, I think I might just kick that dude in his junk if I ever meet him. Seriously. Read the book, you'll get what I'm saying. Fortunately, dude doesn't actually exist so I get to stay out of prison, but some things I just don't countenance. Ick. Not that he's portrayed as a hero or anything, but still. Then again, it's something that comes from the real world, so I get why it's here.

Military conflict with the natives of the time they've gone back to is part and parcel of the series. It's about what you'd expect. Williamson has a knack for showing the adaptability of literal cavemen in the face of technology they can't match, too. It's not a situation where the primitives give up and it's not to a point where they do something stupid either. Certain situations lead to conflict and always will. They do their best with what they have and they don't waste their lives. I'l take it.

I want to take a camping trip with the gear they get to take to the past this time, too. Seriously, every year when I do this (at least for the last few after I got a better idea of how to do this right) I send the authors a questionnaire so I can do their bio, and I always ask about what cool toys they got to play with while they were serving. I frequently hear about a lot of cool stuff, but I've never heard about ANYTHING that comes close to some of the field gear the Bykos (not the Cogni) have.

All of that aside, That Was Now, This is Then was a very human novel. The speculative element is there in the technological sense but, honestly, Mad Mike does one of the best jobs about really getting things down to the people and emotions that I've ever read. I'm guessing dude has some education (maybe formal, maybe not) in psychology, sociology and anthropology. I have a bit (freshman level classes I took in college but I got A's in all of them) and I'm seeing some things in here that look awfully familiar. Williamson has considered things in early societies that most authors would miss. Kudos to him. 

I'm also a fan of Williamson's take on time travel. Too many times it's something that's either taken for granted (Dr. Who) or at the very least one hundred percent accurate (Back to the Future) but that doesn't really make sense in a lot of cases, especially with what, for the Bykos, is new technology. Things get wonky and they don't always go right. Longer gaps in time are less precise, it all makes sense. It's consistently inconsistent. I like that. Too much science fiction makes technology infallible. That is clearly not the case here. 

There is an obvious opening left for a third book. I've heard rumors that we'll see it, but nothing seems to be confirmed at this point. While I can't make any guarantees, I really hope to see more soon, because there is too much awesome here for this series to die early. If it comes, you'll get a review here. If not, I will personally stick my bottom lip out so far that I step on it. Test me if you think I'm playin'.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Stun Guns

That Was Now, This Is Then

Michael Z. Williamson

Baen Books, 2021

That Was Now, This Is Then is available at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

William S. Frisbee Jr.'s The Return: The Conglomerate Trilogy, Book One

(Author's Note: Welcome once again to Jimbo's Memorial Day Event,  where I publish four reviews of four science fiction or fantasy books written by veterans in four days, all over Memorial Day Weekend. It's my way of saying thank you to the people who risked their lives to protect mine. And yes, I get that Memorial Day is actually about those who fell in the line of service but I can't find an author who fits that description. 

Today'author is  William S. Frisbee. Corporal Frisbee served four years as Rifleman in the Marines. He says he got to play with ALL THE GUNS, including the M19, by which I think he means the Mk 19, a grenade machine gun. 

After growing up in Europe and living just two hours from the Soviet Union he was deployed to the Middle  East for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Okinawa, South Korea and the Philippines, earning the Kuwait Liberation Medal, the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon and Southwest Asia Service Medal. Frisbee states that he got out of the military "Because he was stupid." Of course, being the nerd who stay in the barracks studying the tactics and techniques of other militaries on Friday nights.

Now-a-days he has a wife, a daughter, two dogs and a ferret. He also runs the website MilSF.com which you should totally check out. I'm disappointed that I didn't know about it sooner, but it's all about writing military science fiction and it's pretty awesome.) 

Somewhere out there, in the nerdiverse, there is a beginning more heartbreaking and poignant than a married couple on patrol in deep space that spots a task force that promises to end both of their lives and the lives of the people they're out there protecting. Somewhere out there is a story with a couple that is more endearing than a wife who won't swear, her husband who will and their absolute and utter dedication to each other and their cause. Somewhere out there, is an author who can make my heart bleed worse than William S. Frisbee did in the first couple chapters of The Return. I mean, I'm not sure who that person is, but they're almost certainly an asshole if they'd do that to their audience. I'll give Frisbee a pass just this once because The Return kicks ass, but the opening to this one hits pretty hard.

And it keeps rocking along. The Return is not for the faint of heart. The action is intense. It seems like there's always something happening. It could be human/alien, it could be human/human, I think at least once it was alien/alien, and well...

Whatever. Just know that boredom will not be a problem while reading The Return. Even down time can be exciting, because you never know what is going to happen when or from where. Or to whom for that matter. Seriously, keep your head on a swivel, because a feeling of safety is often misleading, especially in the beginning of the story, when you haven't really learned the rules yet.

Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure The Return is set in a new universe and I love that about it. We get to learn the rules and the characters as we go. And it's really cool because there is a lot here, and not a lot of bottom dragging while the author tries to make us understand his creation. Don't get me wrong, we learn a lot as we go along, but Frisbee does a damn good job of Heinleining in the details instead of navel gazing. 

Our hero is a guy named Luke, and he has been through some things. He fights for humanity in a part of the universe where there aren't many of us. He has a tactical style similar to that of Will Riker and the bedside manner of Dr. Gregory House. His ship is crewed by robots because he doesn't like having people around. Actually, that's not fair. His robots, some of them anyway, are people.

I'm guessing Frisbee read some Asimov at some point, because the robots in The Return are a lot like the robots in the Robots series, only without the Three Laws of Robotics and like ten thousand times the personality. Seriously, Daneel and Giskard were both brilliant and dynamic, but Frisbee's robots have pizzazz. Think HAL except not murderous, at least to humanity. Seriously, watch out for that martial arts instructor.

Of course, Luke is inevitably forced to work with fellow human beings and he does not like that turn of events at all. Apparently, emotions are hard for him to deal with and he's got heartbreak issues...

Yeah, he's in need of some counselling, I mean, I feel him. I've been there. I didn't get it when I needed it either.  And he ends up not really knowing how to deal with what he's got to deal with because he hasn't. Fortunately, things go a bit better for him than they did for me. 

It's when Luke and his group of human people encounter other human people that shouldn't be there (IE they're from Earth, which is on the other side of a wormhole) that things really start to pick up. It seems that bad things have happened back home, and if things don't go right humanity could end up being wiped out to the last person. So it's once more unto the breach with some people that he doesn't know all that well and doesn't want there and, oh yeah, his robot buddies. 

And Luke goes through a bit of a character arc. Training new subordinates, feelings starting to function again, he's caught off guard by all of it. It's like he's been on his own fighting for decades (and, since the world has an aging treatment similar in effect to prolong in The Honorverse, he has) and not dealing with human beings has stunted his emotional growth and made him unused to feeling much. It's almost like losing someone important and shutting out the rest of the world had a poor effect on him personally, even if it work for his career. Who woulda thunk it?

So he ends up taking on the real challenge: Fighting is easy. Emoting is not. Granted, I've never been a deep space warrior intent on saving the human race, but I did take karate as a kid and I've had to deal with feelings and, well...

Kicking something in the face is really a lot easier than dealing with a lot of what Luke has to deal with. I'm pretty sure he'd agree with that. Or course his workouts are a lot more intense than mine were, but he has better medical facilities than I did. I mean, humanity has colonized the Solar System and moved out into space through a wormhole, so obviously they have better medical tech than we had thirty years ago. This leads to him getting fixed up after some pretty serious hand to hand training sessions, which ends up putting him out in harm's way much faster.

Of course, this leads to more conflict, which leads to more action, which leads to...

The end of the book.

I wasn't ready for that. I mean, why didn't someone warn me that it was coming? I didn't want the book to be over. 

I was really kind of upset that there was no more to read. The good news is that there are two more books after this one. I can't wait to get to them, and I wouldn't have...

Except, yeah, Memorial Day. Three more veterans/authors to go!

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Rag Dolls

The Return: The Conglomerate Trilogy, Book One
William S. Frisbee, Jr
Chakram Publishing, 2014

The Return: The Conglomerate Trilogy, Book One is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you,

Green Lantern: The Animated Series

So listen, your humble host, Jimbo, writer of Awesome reviews (in his own mind at least) is, and has been for closing in on forty years now, a Green Lantern mark. See, when I was a wee little Jimbo, much younger and thinner although not as good looking because, let's face it, I get better looking every day, one of my neighbors came over with a box of comics that his nephew was throwing out because he was too old, or too cool or some crap for them. I don't buy that, but thanks, guy! Because I had never read a comic before that. It's too bad I lost that box of comics along the way too, because it had some good stuff in it, most notably a Transformers #1 and a GI JOE #3, albeit both in well-loved condition. Also in that box, though, were a few Green Lantern Corps comics. I didn't learn about the much loved Green Lanterns of Sector 2814 until later, when I became old enough to ride my bike to The Antique Paper Shop in Hazel Park, Michigan. It's gone now, but they used to sell grab bags of back issues for a buck and I'd pick through them until I found one that had a Green Lantern comic visible from the outside. Sometimes I even got two.

I saw the Green Lantern movie. It was very pretty. The special effects crew did a damn good job. The writers tried to stuff two complete story arcs into one two hour movie when you'd have been lucky to do justice to either one in that much time. That didn't really work, but it was cool. I got a dirty look sitting in the audience and reciting the Green Lantern Oath during the movie, but hey, get over yourself kid. I've been reading this stuff since before you were born.

Anyway...

I was unaware of The Animated Series when it came out, probably because I was married and going to grad school at them time. I decided to take a look at it recently though, because I found it on streaming. And you know what? I loved it.

Okay, first off the disclaimer: Starting off with a fight with the Red Lanterns was a bit weird to me. I mean, I get the whole In Media Res thing, but I don't know if that was the way I'd have done things. Then again, they did a good job with it. We end up segueing into the War of the Light ala the Blackest Night crossover event (without, it has to be admitted, many of the crossovers) and they followed things fairly closely. They didn't get all the way through it, they didn't really even get into the Black Lanterns, but it was fun.

The animation was a little cheesy, but that's okay. It's a cartoon. It worked. And the constructs were cool. The best thing about a Green Lantern (other than the part where they can travel through space with no ship, and speak every language) is being able to build awesome stuff out of light just because you want to. Seriously. How freaking cool would that be?

And yes, they do all of the cool stuff with the ring and make all the things and go all the places...

And Larfleeze is still a turd. That's good though. It made me feel grounded when he was a stinkpot. I get the fact that he's an Orange Lantern and that greed is their thing, but hey, he still sucks and I hate him. That's okay though because he doesn't really exist. Or sumfin'.

Speaking of older characters:

Hail, hail, the gang's all here!

Kilowog is everywhere in The Animated Series and you're a poozer. Sinestro makes an appearance, although as a member of the Green Lantern Corps and not the Sinestro Corps which makes no sense for where they are in the timeline, since the Sinestro Corps War had already ended, but hey it was fun to see him. We got Ch'p, Tomar Re, Carol Ferris, Guy Gardner and more. I was really happy to see Ch'p because he's my favorite. It's too bad what happened to him in the comic, but that's the life of a Green Lantern I guess. Guy is still his annoying, cocky self. They got that character perfectly when they wrote and acted him.

Seeing Hal Jordan arguing with the Guardians was good for the soul as well. It's a part of his character that gets lost sometimes, but it's been part of the comics on and off for years and it needed to be there. I'm still trying to figure out why Paralax was there, as it was the wrong time for that as well. 

And that, my friends, is my biggest beef with comic book movies, and TV shows. Stop trying to cram in everything all at once! Let things play out, especially in a series. And, let's face it, Paralax killed Hal Jordan in the comics, there's no reason to show that in the first season of a TV show anyway. 

All in all though, it was a good binge. I had just finished The Sopranos and I was looking for something fun. I found it here and I'll probably binge it again at some point in the future. 

I read somewhere that the reason the show failed was because of poor toy sales, and I blame all of you for that. It wasn't my fault. I was still married when this came out and I got my ex-wife to buy a bunch of the stuff for Christmas. I had it set up all over my computer desk. It didn't really match. Most everything else was done in knights and mythological creatures, but no system is perfect and fandoms don't always go together. That's totes not my fault. At all. 

And anyway, I needed a bigger basement for my Battletech stuff and my GI JOE stuff, too. Unfortunately, I've lost it all since. But that's neither here nor there.

Whatever.

Just go watch the show.

Bottom Line:  5.0 out of 5 Power Rings

Green Lantern: The Animated Series
Warner Brothers, 2012

Some Green Lantern related items are available for purchase at the following links. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.