Airplane manufacturing is a very tough process. Barring some strange point of divergence, it’s hard to avoid large airplane builders sorting out into a few giants. Yet airlines are another story altogether. It’s interesting how in the “Goldilocks businesses”, airplane builders and airlines fall on opposite disadvantageous ends.
For the manufacturers, it’s the “too many barriers to entry, thus you end up with a oligopoly” issue. For the airlines, where existing planes and even crews are just a few lease deals away, it’s the “too few barriers to entry, which leads to too many participants chasing too small a market”. In many cases both of these are unavoidable. (Novels, sadly, were the latter even before the rise of internet self-publishing).
What this means is that it’s incredibly easy to change the fates of the airlines, and even easier with a point of divergence after the large and successful deregulation of the late 1970s.
The name High Disaster is fitting for the 22nd (!) Penetrator novel. By now co-author Chet Cunningham had clearly gotten sick of the series. That was the first problem, though someone as prolific as him could have just powered through a contract potboiler. The second and worse problem is that the ‘kill the mobster’ plot had played out and the ‘kill the terrorist’ plot had not yet become big.
So most men’s adventure novels in that period simply ended, with the oil crises not exactly helping things either. Yet the Penetrator kept going like a large caliber tank shell penetrating through a BMD-1. You ended up with things like High Disaster, where the threat/villain is (without spoiling anything) not exactly overwhelming, and the big gimmick is…. wildfires. In the American West. Which is kind of like rain and floods in Southeast Asia.
To appreciate the highs of a genre, you need to see the lows. And that is the only reason I’d recommend this book.
The Hitman series of stealth video games involves super-clone assassin Agent 47 hitting various men (and women). The games are centered around disguises. 47 can be a master of disguise despite being a bald near-albino with a barcode tattoo on his head who’s tall enough to be a viable basketball player. It’s just video game logic. Anyway, Hitman Absolution is regarded as one of the worst in the series, albeit in a way that spawned the absolute best let’s play series I’ve ever watched:
There’s far more focus on story in this game, which would be interesting if it was good, but it isn’t. So let me explain just one series of events:
47 goes to “South Dakota” (the Danish IO Interactive devs do not know what South Dakota is and have apparently mistaken it with Texas). He’s there to pursue a genetically modified girl/hitwoman-to-be who’s been kidnapped.
47 on the streets of the South Dakota town kills several anachronistic greasers who are the friends of the man who kidnapped her. The connection is incredibly tenuous.
47 counter-kidnaps the kidnapper and kills him.
47 goes through an amazingly precarious entrance in an Uncharted/Splinter Cell hybrid that’s nothing like previous Hitman games. He goes this way to get to a supervillain lair.
47 kills three mad scientists in the supervillain lair, only one of which has the most tangential connection to the kidnapped girl.
47 leaves the lair and kills the giant hulking man who doubles as a luchador MMA fighter. While up to the player, he potentially disguises as the man’s opponent, beats him in a semi-fair cage fight to death, and then like every true master of disguise, takes off his mask in front of a large crowd.
47 stays at a hotel and fights off a group of hitwomen dressed as latex fetish nuns.
Finally, in an actually sensible plot plan, 47 finds the girl is in the hands of the sheriff and goes to the courthouse/prison/whatever to find her. In this part of the mission you can disguise yourself as a judge and beat people with a gavel.
This cannot last for master assassin 47 is (out of player control) surprised and captured by a creepy ineffectual sheriff. Instead of killing them the antagonists leave him tied to a chair like every good supervillain.
47 then escapes (SPOILER ALERT) and battles/sneaks through a wave of stormtroopers sent by the assassin agency. He pursues the sheriff, who has been wounded by said stormtroopers, to a church and finishes him off.
Finally 47 leaves “South Dakota” for the final showdown. And thus ends the arc. Somewhere Jon Land is going “uh, I think that’s too absurd”.
All this is punctuated by some of the worst cinematography ever, long after most games had figured out the basics. This gets to the point where one of the lets players reasonably called a cutscene in it the worst ever. What makes this strange is that publisher Square Enix basically invented the use of cinema in games. Or at least perfected it.
As for the actual game, it is a strange combination of cargo culted stealth movement through levels, occasional platforming, and a simplified, often made too easy version of the Hitman formula. It’s not unplayable or broken, but if you want Hitman, either the earlier Blood Money or the later remakes are vastly superior.
You might have notice me slowing down. This is because I’m in the final stretch of A Period of Cheating and want to devote more writing energy to working on that. So March may be sparse in terms of content.
ATP 7-100.1, Russian Tactics, the newest OPFOR document, is now out.
Yes, it is of the nation that already had the mostanalysis and published doctrine there. Yes, the document includes a disclaimer that basically goes “we know you’re asking this question”:
This ATP is not meant to represent how the Russians are currently fighting in Ukraine. Many insights and observations can be collected daily to either affirm or refute Russian doctrinal strategies and tactics, but it’s far too early to acknowledge any definitive changes in doctrine. The Military District and unit diagrams in this ATP may be affected based on early observations of the conflict in Ukraine. With so many Russian units now in Ukraine, it will take some time to determine a new laydown of forces if that becomes necessary. Furthermore, with the losses Russia has suffered, it is too early to assess the structure and equipping of any Russian unit for the next 5 to 10 years. We are still studying the conflict in Ukraine and continuing to revise our assessments. Therefore, the ATP is not the correct medium for publication of our initial observations nor potential future changes for the Russian Army. Instead, this type of information will be available at https://oe.tradoc.army.mil/how-russia-fights
Still a great and highly anticipated (by me at least) resource.
Lawyer Richard Morris’ recent Death by Pitbull takes a look into something involved with dogfighting-and not the kind that involves airplanes. Namely, it looks at the Pit Bull Terrier, the monstrous beasts that have terrorized human and other animal alike since the 1800s. The tone is rather sensationalist and its politics are frequently right wing, but it still cites its sources and makes a good argument.
Morris repeatedly hammers the ‘it’s how you raised them’ claim, one as faulty as it is a part of the dangerous Harley Quinn/serial killer lover “Tame the Beast” fantasy. To his credit he also includes a model law and regulation for banning dangerous dogs (since pit bull fans are notorious for mysteriously switching claimed breeds to dodge bans).
I think the book could have used a bit more context with the dogfighting culture to explain why pit bulls ended up, as well as dispelling the misunderstandings people used to tamer dogs have to explain their psychology (you can’t compare two “normal” dogs fighting emotionally over a concrete thing with a breed designed to fight naturally, and instead of lashing them along, pit bull kennels have to work hard to have their dogs not fight until the time comes). But this is a small quibble.
Pilot Chris Manno’s Aircrew Confidential is a set of short stories about airliner crews. He does a convenient disclaimer saying “Oh some is true some might not be, that’s how gossip goes”. I obviously have no way of verifying that but it’s important to note its not being claimed as totally 100% factual. The only real solid historical benchmark is one story that takes place during 9/11.
For all the “look behind the cockpit door”, it’s really nothing one with even the slightest bit of knowledge or experience hasn’t seen or heard a million times before already. None are particularly shocking or funny or even engaging. I just can’t recommend this book.
A 2013 book by noted PLAAF watcher Andreas Rupprecht, Dragon’s Wings is one of the first looks behind the curtain of the Chinese aircraft industry. Though now obviously old, it’s still a good snapshot into the past. Besides the familiar J-6/7s and the newer domestic J-8/10-etcs, it provides a look at many of the never-were (and frequently technically impossible at the time) aircraft proposed.
However much it’s shown its age, it’s still a great book. It’s an excellent coffee table book for aircraft enthusiasts.
The Disney animated film Wreck It Ralph was one of the most pleasant surprises I’ve ever had. I’ll start by describing the movie itself, which while not an absolute is still a perfectly good animated family fun adventure film. The video game gimmick is actually somewhat mild, because the bulk of the film takes place in only one game, the racing game Sugar Rush.
And this is what sets the movie apart from what I was bracing for. From the trailers I was expecting some kind of post-Shrek “lolwacky” snarky mess of nothing but references to increasingly obscure games. The actual film is not that, with the references there but not overwhelming. And they often pass the “would someone who doesn’t know the referenced material still get the idea?” test.
When I saw the words “A nuclear forensics thriller”, I knew I absolutely had to read Atomic Peril. That it’s about nuclear terrorism and involves a scratch-built bomb (a rarity in such cases) made me more eager to finish it. Given the legitimate qualifications of author Sidney Niemeyer, that was even more of a reason to keep going.
The issue is that I know too much. The bomb is a realistic but simple gun type, which is not particularly novel to anyone who knows anything about nuclear weapons beyond the basics. And as a thriller author, its writer is a pretty good nuclear forensics expert. Which is to say the book is a lot more Herman Melville than Tom Clancy. Unsurprisingly, it definitely goes into the “too realistic for its own good if judged as a cheap thriller” category, and even more unsurprisingly, this makes the attempt at a conventional action climax even more dissonant and clumsy.
While I sound like I don’t like this book, I’m actually a lot softer on it than my writing might indicate. Niemeyer had a story he wanted to tell, knowledge that he knew, and was earnest in telling it. And that is to be commended, however many stumbles there are. Besides, if I want a conventional cheap thriller there’s no shortage of “shoot the terrorist before he blows the nuke” books out there.
Fuldapocalypse Fiction 