Tag: 2020s

Review: Aviation Stories For Curious Kids

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Aviation Stories For Curious Kids

Reading a book made extensively with AI is a genuinely interesting feat for me. The illustrations in Aviation Stories For Curious Kids give it away from the start-diffusion image models are notoriously bad at making airplanes without an established outline. That the text parts follow the Q and A quiz model of “Here’s things in a whimsical tone, now a question” gives it away more, though I’d be curious how much was manual.

As it sticks to the famous events that LLMs can (generally) get right (even if it’s just big sample size), there isn’t much too objectionable here. The exception is Laika, which is treated as a wonderful canine adventure and not a cruel sacrifice of a dog one on what everyone knew was a one-way trip for the sake of a publicity stunt.

At least it’s interesting, which is more than I can say about a lot of books reviewed here. Even if it’s not exactly recommended.

Review: War Dispatches Volume 1

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War Dispatches Volume 1: Stories from the Front Lines of World War III

War Dispatches Volume 1 (note: not the most smooth title) is what is known in the anime/manga industry as an “omake” to Alex Aaronson’s 1980 World War III alternate history. It’s a set of stories that didn’t quite fit into the main books, but were/are still interesting enough to be told. These take place in the Middle East, from the Caspian Sea Monsters to MiGs in the sky to BMDs on the ground.

Being omakes, they are limited in scope. But this is no knock on their quality. In fact, they’re influential and good enough that I’m already starting work on a similar set of vignettes set in the Soviet-Romanian War. How’s that for a positive opinion?

A Thousand Words: Titan

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Netflix’s Titan

Netflix’s new documentary Titan is about the submarine that sank near the Titanic in 2023. It’s a well-produced film with many heartfelt interviews. However, I felt it wasn’t as good as it could have been, with one small thing the filmmakers did have control over and a much larger thing that they didn’t. Let me explain.

I think the film could have gone into more detail on showing what a proper deep-sea submersible looks, sounds, and feels like. It would have highlighted Rush’s obsession with making the nautical equivalent of the Bonney Gull even more effectively. While I can understand why they might not have wanted to get too technical, I also think i could have been explained in ways a non-scientist could understand.

The larger issue is that the cause of the disaster really wasn’t very complex. Disasters typically have a ‘swiss cheese phenomenon’ where a bunch of ‘holes’ in the countermeasures all align. So even if the initial catalyst was simple, the situation where it could become catastrophic was not. This isn’t the case here. The carbon fiber hull was fatally and fundamentally flawed, and Rush was a megalomaniac who believed his own propaganda.

That said, this is a worthwhile movie and some of the non-technical parts are actually the most interesting and telling. The CBS crew falling for Oceangate’s potemkin village is a perfect example of how the media can get strung along by people who seem like they know something. I found the host being assured by their safety checks interesting-it’s the kind of thing that seems right and would be if the hull was fundamentally sound, but the equivalent of an early Comet isn’t going to care if the fuel gauges are moving correctly. The other thing is how we see Rush trying to put women who had no seafaring experience into being the pilots of the submarines because he wanted to stand out in the media-another strike against it.

For all my nitpicks, this is a worthy documentary about a real-life terrible person who did terrible things.

Review: Soviet Attack Submarines

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Soviet Attack Submarines: Cold War Operations and Accidents

Mark Glissmeyer’s Soviet Attack Submarines is a short book on a subject that should be pretty obvious. It covers all the bases on the Soviet submarine fleet. Though this doesn’t try to go much deeper, which is a problem for me because me being the CMO player I am has me already knowing almost all of what the book had to say.

That specific problem would not be an issue for many or even most other readers, but I still can’t really recommend this book. It’s just insubstantial for lack of a better word. Basically all it says can be found through trustworthy sources online with just a tiny bit of searching. So it’s kind of a glorified fact sheet and little more.

Review: Steel Rain

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Steel Rain

TK Blackwood’s Steel Rain continues his series of early 1990s alternate World War IIIs. It’s a little hard to review something that hasn’t noticeably dropped in quality and which you’ve already reviewed several previous installments. Note: This means I liked it!

Anyway, what this has done is inspire me. With my latest book done, I’m in the mood for more writing, and am thinking something. Namely, what about I finally write what I’ve always blogged about and make a conventional World War III or something similar?

Review: Red Bandit

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Red Bandit

Mike Guardia’s Red Bandit is a brief history of the MiG-29, covering its basic designs and all the conflicts it participated in. Do not expect a technical deep dive or a massive tactical overview. This is a short and small book.

It’s also a book that won’t surprise any serious scholar. The MiG-29 was really just a rich man’s Fishbed meant as a point interceptor first and foremost. It did not have the versatility or capability of western 4th gen fighters or the Su-27. In most of the conflicts it’s fought in, it’s suffered heavy losses, though not always by fault of its own. We see its service in the Gulf War to Ukraine in a short overview.

This isn’t the most illuminating book on the Fulcrum. But it is an excellent start for a plane I have a soft spot for.

A Thousand Words: Nip For Speed

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Nip For Speed

One rarely encounters a work of fiction, much less a video game as deep and enlightening as Nip For Speed. It is a point and click adventure game where you, sitting in the front seat, have to help a cat drive a car. The game is very short but I had a hugely fun time laughing my head off at it.

Make of this what you will, be it a game on materialism, a lecture on the beauty and stress of travel, or just a silly surreal game where you help a cat drive a car.

A Thousand Words: Chains of Freedom

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Chains of Freedom

the XCOM-esque game Chains of Freedom is a new turn-based strategy game that I’ve just completed. It’s well, uh, something. So I wouldn’t have finished the game if it was bad , but man is there so much that drags it and keeps it from being what could have been. A lot of it.

The first issue is the story and setting. Do you want Brown Age throwback graphics of one Cyrillic wasteland after another? Do you want a plot and setting that’s what you’d get if you prompted an AI to go “Make me a science fiction setting based on Command and Conquer, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Metro, and throw in a couple of general cliches for good measure”? Do you want characters who are either dull or who you’ll hate from the start?

Then there’s the gameplay. Probably the most distinct thing about it compared to other XCOM-likes is that you have to scrounge and craft for items between battles. This is one of those things that’s a lot better in theory than in practice. Other than that, it’s a pretty standard “cover turn based strategy.” Which is a problem when you get into the final act and the game throws monotonous giant swarm after monotonous giant swarm at you. As if to compensate, the last few encounters and the final boss are anticlimactically easy.

This is a 49% game. And as the last couple of Super Bowls have shown for the team that bears that name, close doesn’t let you win. (Hey, gotta drop a football reference on NFL Draft day!)

Review: The Shot That Kills You

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The Shot That Kills You

A short story centered around one of the most realistic and sensible Warhammer Astartes chapters, The Shot That Kills You is about the Raptors. As it’s short and explody, one shouldn’t expect it to be anything except short and explody. Which it succeeds massively at.

It’s good enough to wash away the internet cruft surrounding the Raptors, who are the poster child for what I like to call the “Gothic-style Halo” ‘fans’ of Warhammer 40k, where the setting is tried to be made respectable and its exaggerated elements downplayed in a manner that annoys me. Thankfully it’s not the case here-an Astartes seemingly flees and lures the overconfident xenos into a trap, not uplinking to his servo-skull drone and calling down a Whirlwind missile strike that obliterates the melee duelists.

A Thousand Words: Buckshot Roulette

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Buckshot Roulette

A minimalist and creepy horror/puzzle/party (seriously) game, Buckshot Roulette is “what if instead of a revolver, you used a randomly loaded pump-action shotgun in a game of wits with a creepy big-teethed guy?”

While it might sound like a trolling anti-game, it actually works as a combination of luck and skill. Power ups can see which shell is chambered, can eject a shell, and so on. Whoever can get lucky the most wins. While this isn’t the deepest game, it works for what it is.