Starship: Flagship by Mike Resnick

Starship: Flagship by Mike Resnick

This is the fifth book in the Starship series by Mike Resnick. The book is set in the Birthright Universe which Mike Resnick writes most of his stories in. He even includes a summary of the setting at the end of the book. It is at the end of the period of the Republic as it is moving towards a Democracy in the setting.

Captain Cole is one of those prominent figures who makes history in Mike Resnick's setting. You can tell this because his small actions have big impacts. You can also read it in the ship which he is flying, The Teddy Roosevelt.

I think this is the final book in the series. The characters make this book enjoyable to read: the Platinum Duke, a cyborg who owns a casino, Val short for Valkyrie who is a buff and beautiful pirate captain, David Copperfield, the alien who believes he is a Dickens character, and others make this quite memorable. Mike Resnick successfully takes many genre characters and makes fun of them.

The character of Captain Cole is written to turn the idea of the six guns blazing hero on its head. He does not consider himself a hero; instead he uses strategy, tactics, trickery, and political acumen to reach his goals. He bombs abandoned planetary cities to show his destroying the Republic, he breaks people out of jail, boards and takes enemy ships, and spreads wild rumors about his whereabouts and what he is doing.

Ultimately, Captain Cole reaches his goal with his wits and reforms the Republic into a democracy. He does it by being able to make quick thinking leadership decisions.

Mike Resnick successfully shows how thinking on your feet wins the day in a very entertaining manner. He also makes fun of a lot of the silly ideas in military science fiction and space opera that don't work very well.

Daily Thoughts

James Weldon Johnson

Daily Thoughts

On the train to work I was reading Mike Resnick, Starship: Mercenary. The main character, Captain Wilson Cole uses his brains to outwit the enemies he is facing. It is both entertaining and funny. I am on finishing my third book without reviewing a book yet.

This morning I spent some time switching old reference titles with new reference titles. I also put some new reference titles in our ready reference section behind the main reference desk.

I am also working on rearranging the furniture in the Job Information Center room. It looks to be going pretty well. We are moving six computers into the job center that are not internet connected. Moving the computers will allow us to shift the new books to be a better location. It was a lot of working preparing to move the annual reports, filing cabinets, and resume books.

We are putting in slat walls to display the new books. It should be much more visually appealing.

I did a bit of work with the law books. I have next week off starting with Presidents Day which will be a nice relief. I did a lot this week. More than I usually do.

I found a few peculiar things while wandering around the internet that I thought were worth posting. This is from Library Journal. Never Mind the Bollocks, Librarians Invented Sex, StupidAlfred Kinsey's "Lost" Report on Librarians and Sexuality
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6637320.html

The other equally irreverent thing was a book title on the Locus Bestseller list for paperbacks. None of our local libraries have it. It is a little odd. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Warren Buffet Recommendations, Good Morning

Pinkerton's Detective Agency Logo

Warren Buffet Recommendations

This is a short list of ten recommendations by Warren Buffet for business books. We have three of them. I am planning on getting the other seven.

http://www.businesspundit.com/10-investing-books-recommended-by-warren-buffett/

Good Morning

I am awake having had my coffee. I'll be doing a little more weeding this morning. I read a little bit of the science fiction romance paperback, Shades of Dark, by Linnea Sinclair. Oo, sexy telepath take me away.

Chris Garrett sent me a link to a free ebook on Twitter. Here it is:
http://www.chrisg.com/killer-flagship-content-free-ebook-to-download/
I think it is about how to improve traffic and blog posts for your blog.

In a few minutes, I should start doing some more weeding. I just ordered a few more business books. My day is starting with a bang.

I took a few minutes to look at Locus Magazine, what is new in paperback and reserved Mike Resnick, Stalking the Unicorn. It is a fantasy detective novel set in an alternate Manhattan. I rather liked Mike Resnick's book Kirinyaga.

Good Evening

I spent some more time weeding social science books this afternoon. Also, a whole lot of new social science books came in.

I read a bit more of Impact by Ken McArthur. I am on page 57. I just did an exercise where I wrote down 100 of my current dreams and then crossed out the ones which did not match with my current goals. This took quite a bit of time to do. I also logged into the website attached to the book and filled out a survey. With the exercises and survey, it took a bit of time to do. It will take at least a week or two to finish reading this book if I do all the exercises.