When The Tide Rises-- David Drake-- Review

When The Tide Rises by David Drake is military space opera. The book is part of a larger series, The Republic of Cinnabar Navy series. The main character, Lieutenant Leary is patriotic, astute, politically savvy, and willing to take risks. He is a gentleman adventurer much in the style of the historical Lord Cochrane who the character is based on. The book is an ode to the sailing ships of old. The space ships even use sails and rigging to travel through the matrix (hyperspace).

The setting is rather interesting. It is in a distant future. The Republic of Cinnabar, an imperial elitist republic, and the Alliance, a totalitarian government are at war. Both control many different worlds. The Cinnabar characters are jingoistic, patriotic, and class conscious. The naval men and women act like sailors, they fight, brawl, drink, and carry on with the native populations. The main character, Lieutenant Leary has a loyal servant, Hogg, and his freind, the spy, Adele Mundy, has a servant Tovera.

This is one of the few science fiction novels that describes the freindship between a male and female lead character well. Adele Mundy, spy for Cinnabar is a close freind of Lieutenant Leary, commander of the corvette Princess Cecile.

In this novel, Lieutenant Leary is sent to Bagaria to help the rebel government remain free from being taken over by the Alliance. The Bagarians are plagued by inept and corrupt leaders. By todays standard, they would be called a "banana republic."

Lieutenant Leary promptly starts a series of commerce raids, capturing prizes for the Republic of Cinnabar. He also attacks an Alliance base. One of the nice things about this book, is that it is not in the slightest bit politically correct. A spacer is a spacer, and Leary recruits naval troops from his captured ships, as well as calls some of the natives "wogs."

A lot of the action is based on deceiving the enemy. Leary uses the tactics of surprise, espionage, subterfuge, and first strike. On a few occassions, he poses as the enemy using captured ships.

The fights are fast and furious, but often unreal. This is of course a story. However, I find not enough people die or are wounded in the story. Leary loses a few of his allied ships, and one of his crew members Woetjans is injured. This is explained away by Adele Mundy's ability to penetrate the enemies communication networks and collect critical intelligence to turn the tide. She after all was a librarian and is a communications specialist and spy.

There is a political element to the story. Leary's father is a senator in the Cinnabar republic. Also, Admiral Vocaine views Leary as a potential enemy. Because of this, Leary is sent into the hot situations where he will have to be savvy or end up rotting in prison or dead.

Adele Mundy and Daniel Leary also help refine the environment of the science fiction worlds they visit. Daniel Leary is interested in the "natural history" of alien worlds. He observes the odd plants and animals. For example at one point in the novel he is watching a small tentacled flying creature the size of his thumb. Adele Mundy is interested in archaeology, literature, and librarianship. At the end of the book, she visits the megaliths of Diamondia.

I am looking forward to reading more of this excellent series. At the end of the book, Lieutenant Leary is to become Captain Leary. David Drake, the author is an interesting writer. He is best known for his series, Hammer's Slammers about a mercenary tank company in the far future. David Drake also served as an interrogation officer during Vietnam. He is described as often making very exacting descriptions of combat. The books in this series are With The Lightnings, Lieutent Leary Commanding, The Far Side of the Stars, The Way to Glory, Some Golden Harbor, and When The Tide Rises. With the Lightings is available for free from the Baen free library if you want to see what the series is about. http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm

A Little Poetry, Thoughts for Today

I have the fire in me this morning to write a little poetry. I finished reading the books of poetry last night and did a few exercises. Now it is in me. There is often no way to know where it will take you. With instruction book, the only way of knowing the quality of the instruction books is the results they give you.

I have a poetry open microphone to do on Thursday, and I would rather read some of my own poetry than be a professor and read from a book. I think if I read some of my own work even if it is uneven, it will make the program go better. These are being worked on.

This first poem is about a bar that scared me enough to never go there again.

Red Room
Red light plays in a red room
Cocktail dresses with warm bodies
Red lights with red wallpapers
Smiling faces with plump lips
Red light screams sex darkness
Hollow eyes with red red rims
Red light carries me upstairs
Where a bed awaits empty soft
Red light warns me why are you here?
I wait lost, hollow, full of sex
Blood, sex, death heart of red
The red light pierces my heart
As I wait for a lady or a man in red.

Boatman (It just came to me)

The pen rolls across the paper
like waves in a deep blue sea
The ink rolls out of the pen
like water in a smooth river
I can feel the pens grip heft
Solid comforting like a boat
I am the boatman of words
The steerer of the word ship
The holder of this fine pen

Lost Mists (A Little Dream)

Forgotten mists roll through the hills
Crying who am I? Who am I?
They are the lost forever wandering
They cry where am I? Where am I?
Is this a a waking dream like you and I

A Clerihew of T.H. White

T.H. White
Was always right
He'd always write
From left to right

Deli (I am still working on this).

I order an egg sandwich
I pick some fresh berries
I pour myself fresh coffee
I drink water from s stream
I stand behind a tall rack
The tall trees surround me
I get milk from the freezer
A stream fills my waterskin
The paperbag has my breakfast
My satchel and waterskin are full
I head home

Green

Green is the ocean
Green is the sea
Green is the grass

I ride on a bullet train
From New York to San Francisco

Green are the fields
Green are the trees
Green are the moss

Fields of switchgrass roll by
Stacks of algae oil refineries

Green is the earth
Green is the frog
Green is the snake

Cities are in bright bloom
With flowers and brown trees

Green was the desert
Green was the dump
Green was the sand

Every community has a park
Every community has gardens

Green grows the pepper
Green grows the grape
Green grows the apple

I watch the clear rivers flow
Clear, pure, clean, sweet water

Green is my thumb
Green is my mind
Green is my spirit

There are no huge landfills
There are no massive dumps

Green is a color
Green is a feeling
Green is a thought

Windmills spin like flowers
Solar towers shine brightly

I wear bright green
I touch green plants
I smell green earth

Biodiesel and electric trucks
Roll by on smooth highways

I ride green transport
I buy green products
I invest in green stocks

Tree farms grow fresh timber
Greenhouses dot the land

I can hear green
I can see green
I can feel green

The train moves by the ocean
Wave farms float quietly by

Green is not plastic
Green is not pollution
Green is not refuse

The skyscraper farms of San Francisco
Are in the distance, tall vertical

The city is quiet, peaceful, clean
America reindustrialized clean and green







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This morning my machine was a little slow. I had to use a little program called
Spybot, Search & Destroy. This program cleans out spyware, tracking programs hijacking, keyboard hacking, malware, cookies, and trojans from your machine. It is very easy to get this stuff when you are searching through blogs a lot. These are not viruses but tracking program from companies like doubleclick, 24/7 Media, and other companies that want to sell things to you. I had over 194 such programs on my computer. I also cleaned my internet files, history, and cache to make my machine run better. Then I ran the defragmenter for extra measure. You need to do this even if you have a good firewall once in a while.

Right now, I am reading When The Tide Rises by David Drake. The main character, Lieutenant Leary is loosely based on the life of Lord Cochrane, a historical ship commander who served the revolutionary government of Brazil and Chile. The genesis of the Lieutenant Leary series is based on Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey Maturin series of historical novels. The difference is that this is military science fiction with flourishes of space opera. It is quite enjoyable. I am glad that David Drake included an acknowledgement.