War on Peace - First World Fantasy Awards
Subtitled The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence, Ronan Farrow's book tackles the changes that have happened at the State Department and the devaluing of diplomacy in favor of more military-dominated foreign policy.
I was totally unaware that Farrow had worked in the State Department through more or less Obama's first term. He worked in close association with Richard Holbrooke, in his role as Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the best and most engaging part of the book is really a fly-on-the-wall biography of Holbrooke's career and his successes and failures. And his own activities, of course, like talking with Afghan warlords about (their own) potential human rights abuses. Some of the details about some of our 'friends' in Afghanistan will curl your toes -- not unexpected, but grisly in detail.
On the whole, I'm not sure it adds up to a coherent picture or argument. He was on the iside during Obama, when he saw this discounting of State happening. But now he's on the outside during Trump who's setting everything on fire. The two ends don't quite match up.
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Gahan Wilson put together an idiosyncratic anthology of the winners of the First World Fantasy Awards in 1975, which were held in HPL's hometown of Providence, Rhode Island. Wilson, of course, also designed the HPL bust that once served as the Award itself. The bust has been replaced (Howard can take it).
Bob Bloch's acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement award is pretty hilarious.
I love the voice of Aickman's "Pages from a Young Girl's Journal". It has a good Carmilla-esque feel to it, and the antiquated diary styling is entertaining in itself. But I'm not that wild about the ending, so I think it's a shame this beat TED Klein's 'The Events at Poroth Farm'. But since Gahan's making the rules, he printed both.
Manly Wade Wellman's "Come into my Parlor" made me rethink Lance Shoeman's story in Strange California. Either Shoeman was doing a 'remake' or (more likely) both stem from some bit of backwoods lore (as many of Wellman's stories do).
I was totally unaware that Farrow had worked in the State Department through more or less Obama's first term. He worked in close association with Richard Holbrooke, in his role as Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the best and most engaging part of the book is really a fly-on-the-wall biography of Holbrooke's career and his successes and failures. And his own activities, of course, like talking with Afghan warlords about (their own) potential human rights abuses. Some of the details about some of our 'friends' in Afghanistan will curl your toes -- not unexpected, but grisly in detail.
On the whole, I'm not sure it adds up to a coherent picture or argument. He was on the iside during Obama, when he saw this discounting of State happening. But now he's on the outside during Trump who's setting everything on fire. The two ends don't quite match up.
--
Gahan Wilson put together an idiosyncratic anthology of the winners of the First World Fantasy Awards in 1975, which were held in HPL's hometown of Providence, Rhode Island. Wilson, of course, also designed the HPL bust that once served as the Award itself. The bust has been replaced (Howard can take it).
Bob Bloch's acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement award is pretty hilarious.
I love the voice of Aickman's "Pages from a Young Girl's Journal". It has a good Carmilla-esque feel to it, and the antiquated diary styling is entertaining in itself. But I'm not that wild about the ending, so I think it's a shame this beat TED Klein's 'The Events at Poroth Farm'. But since Gahan's making the rules, he printed both.
Manly Wade Wellman's "Come into my Parlor" made me rethink Lance Shoeman's story in Strange California. Either Shoeman was doing a 'remake' or (more likely) both stem from some bit of backwoods lore (as many of Wellman's stories do).