Book Reviews: Blackout (2010) and All Clear (2010). Connie Willis.

I recently re-read these two thick science fiction and historical novels, which were originally intended to be one volume, but grew to be two because Connie Willis couldn't fit the whole grand story into one book. They are built on the same time-travel plot premise introduced in The Doomsday Book, which I reviewed recently.

It's six years after the events of The Doomsday Book (it’s now 2060), and the time travel missions of the student historians at Oxford have proliferated, but trying to manage the complexity of it all is becoming an ever more chaotic process. Planned drops into past eras are being reshuffled by Mr. Dunworthy (the head of time travel historical studies) at the last minute, no one can get the right period outfits from the Costume department because the historians' schedules keep changing, and it seems to be increasingly hard to find drop sites (exact times and places in the past) that will work with the time travel machinery.

Into this organizational maelstrom come three young historian innocents, Merope, Polly and Michael, each headed for different periods and situations in World War II Great Britain, including the children's evacuations from London, the evacuation from Dunkirk, and the Blitz (the German bombing of London). But once they arrive, they slowly discover their return drops won't open, and they eventually have to face the possibility that perhaps there's no way back to their own era.

Is time travel broken? Could they be altering the outcome of the war by their own actions (which isn't supposed to be possible, according to their time travel theory)? What is going on back in future Oxford? And how can they make contact with each other, to figure out what’s wrong and how to return to their future?

Using Connie Willis's trademark plot devices of missed connections, endless frustrated plans, messages not received or answered, and time travelers under unexpected duress having to constantly improvise new solutions, these two books are a truly wonderful tour through the heroism and bravery of the British people in World War II. Marvelous, moving and really fun to read! Highly recommended.

Book Review: Indestructible: One Man’s Rescue Mission that Changed the Course of WW II (2017). John R. Bruning.

This is the story of "Pappy" Gunn, a legendary air force officer in World War II, who was forced by his military obligations to leave his family behind in Japanese-conquered Manila, then waged a virtual one-man war in the Pacific to rebuild, redesign and improve American aircraft as ground and sea attack weapons delivery systems, fight the war himself as a decorated combat and transport pilot, and at the same time try desperately to rescue his family from brutal Japanese internment in the Philippines.

The stirring story of a brave and unstoppable pirate, pilot, engineer, warrior and military leader to many in the South Pacific theater, and a moving family story of survival against impossible odds. Recommended.

Book Review: Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II (2017). Liza Mundy.

This story is reminiscent of the excellent book and movie Hidden Figures, but without the racial discrimination component to the story. It tells the story of how young women (mostly white) with high math and language aptitudes were recruited by both the Army and the Navy from top American women's colleges in the early 1940s, and then went on to play a crucial role in cracking enemy codes throughout World War II.

It’s yet another inspirational story about previously-unheralded women who contributed to the victories and legacies of the Greatest Generation at war. Recommended.

TV Review: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Season 1 (2022). Disney+.

The first two live-action streaming TV series that Disney launched, based on the Star Wars universe, were The Mandalorian (Seasons 1 and 2, so far), and The Book of Boba Fett (Season 1). Both stories are set in the Star Wars galaxy and timeline, but at least initially have little connection to any of the main plots and central characters of the eleven feature-length Star Wars movies that have been made.

Although there are aspects to both of these Disney TV series that will appeal to die-hard Star Wars enthusiasts, these first two Disney Star Wars TV shows have left me (as a dedicated Star Wars fan who has enjoyed all the big-screen films since the first one was released in 1977) feeling distinctly underwhelmed, and missing some of the vital appeal and magic of the movies.

This is all just background and prelude to the new (and third) Disney Star Wars live-action streaming TV series Obi-Wan Kenobi. And I am happy to say: “This is the droid (oops, I mean, the Star Wars TV show) you are looking for”. Thus far, I’ve only seen the first four of six episodes of Season 1 (and I do hope they make a bunch of seasons). But they have been extremely enjoyable, and fully worthy additions to the Star Wars canon.

To begin: having Ewan McGregor reprise his role as the (then-young) Obi-Wan Kenobi from the prequel trilogy is marvelous good fortune. He is appropriately aged in real life to be playing Obi-Wan as he is now, as his story resumes, ten years after he defeated Anakin Skywalker in The Revenge of the Sith, but then was forced to flee as a Jedi refugee from the Empire just to stay alive, and to guard the life of the hidden child Luke Skywalker on Tatooine.

McGregor is a wonderful actor, who captures perfectly the defeated, discouraged and isolated former hero he has become, now hiding out alone in a desert wasteland, with only a tiny spark of his former brilliance or his many talents visible. Watching him carve off and hide small bits of alien meat product every day for his trusty mount, at his dead-end meat-packing job on Tatooine, conveys better than any words how far he has fallen from the glory of his former Jedi Master days.

But there are plenty of new adventures awaiting Obi-Wan. He will have to confront new and old enemies, and he'll be drawn into unexpected events, and a dangerous plot initiated from the planet Alderaan, which will bring Luke’s hidden twin sister Leia into the story.

And the young Leia Organa (as played by Vivien Lyra Blair) is a delight – a petite, 10-year old girl with preternatural awareness of the adult world around her, a kind and generous spirit toward droids and other lesser beings, a wise guy mouth, and an irreverent, non-compliant attitude that is completely consistent with the young adult Carrie Fisher version of Princess Leia we have all come to know and love from the original trilogy.

I can’t say how this series will end, or whether we will have more seasons ahead to which we can look forward (I would assume so). But for now, it's looking good! If you love Star Wars, watch Obi-Wan Kenobi as soon as you can on Disney+ (new episodes each Wednesday). And May the Force Be With You.

Book Review: Kindness Goes Unpunished (2008). Craig Johnson.

This is the third Walt Longmire mystery novel. Sheriff Walt’s daughter Katie is viciously attacked and put into a potentially fatal coma in Philadelphia, where she has been working as a young lawyer and has an apparently abusive boyfriend.

Walt and his best friend Henry Standing Bear, in town for a display of Native American cultural artifacts, go looking for her attacker, while meeting Walt’s deputy Vic's whole family of Philly cops. Vic comes back from Wyoming to help Walt, and there is a race to see whether she or her divorced mother (or both) might end up in bed with Walt. No spoilers here! But another worthy addition to the Longmire saga, this time in an East Coast urban environment. Recommended.

Book Review: Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter that Changed America (2020). Jim Rasenberger.

This book was a bit slow and academic in style as popular biographies go, but had a very iconic American mid-nineteenth century historical figure as its subject. Of course, everyone has heard about Samuel Colt, his invention of the Colt revolver, and the old line about “God made men, but it took Colonel Colt to make them equal”. But there is a great deal more to Colt’s story.

Colt spent decades trying to invent things, frequently impressing people with his ambition and his inventing skills, but constantly being short of money, and continuing to tinker with his revolver design over many years, before he was finally able to convince the U.S. government to start buying it.

He is considered to be the real father of industrial mass production, which he created by building his own factories for gun manufacture. He survived several scandals, including the notorious trial of one of his brothers for murdering a young woman, and only saw his fortunes finally take off as a result of the Union’s industrial build-up for the Civil War.

By the time he died, he was presiding like a lord over his own “company town” in Connecticut, filled not only with the factories where his guns were made, but also the planned housing of his employees, for whom he had the same sort of godlike status as a modern-day Gates, Jobs or Zuckerberg.

Revolver is an interesting account of a controversial American industrialist, inventor and public figure, and the mid-nineteenth century American society in which he lived. It also gives some important historical context to how lethal modern repeating firearms were first developed and marketed to American society, culture and the government, long before our era of the NRA-supported gun industry, high-capacity pistols and military-style assault rifles. Recommended.

Book Review: News of the World (2016). Paulette Jiles.

This is a very satisfying Western story about an old man, a veteran of several American wars of the early and mid-19th century, who travels from town to town across the post-Civil War west, eking out a living putting on one-man shows, where he reads and comments on stories from the newspapers of the time.

At one stop, he reluctantly accepts the job of returning a 9-year old white girl, who's been abducted by and lived among Indians, to her surviving family members.  It’s a great Western adventure tale about two lonely but strong-willed people, who learn to love and care for each other across the wide bridges of age, culture, language and understanding between them.

I previously reviewed the movie version based on this book, starring Tom Hanks.  I would rate the book as even better than the movie, due to its sensitive and powerful evocation of the complex emotions and slowly-developing relationship between the old man and the girl, and its focus on the unusual history of whites kidnapped by Indians, who then didn't want to return to white society, or to be "rescued" from their Indian families and tribal life.  Highly recommended.

Movie Review: Being the Ricardos (2021). Amazon Prime.

This movie was heavily reviewed last year, mostly favorably, and was written and produced by Aaron Sorkin.  It features Nicole Kidman playing the role of Lucille Ball, during a particular week of filming of the second season of "I Love Lucy", in which she and her husband Desi Arnaz ((Javier Bardem) are trying to deal with tabloid reports that she is a Communist, how to reveal the fact that she is pregnant with a new TV season ahead of her, and pressures in the marriage as Lucille finds out that Desi may be cheating on her.

Kidman's performance is excellent, but the script doesn't require her to re-create many of Lucy's hilarious "physical comedy" performances in the show -- instead, she shows the "behind the scenes" Lucille, especially her genius at envisioning what would make a scene hilarious and believable, and her tough, calculating professional actress side, as she tries to get and retain the fame and respect she seeks. 

There were some disorienting "flash back" scenes, where I lost track of when the scene was taking place relative to the main story line.  But in general, this was an interesting and believable story of two famous Hollywood and TV icons, and their complex professional and personal relationship.  Recommended.