I read this book many moons ago so I re-read it for fun and then again for this review and I had forgotten how good this jolly little text reads.

Let no-one fool you into thinking that this book’s depth comes from the page count – for at 64 pages I consider this ‘teeny’. The value comes from Phil Hine’s description of the mental attitude generated, invoked and lived with by a magician following a Cthulhu mythos.

[amazon.co.uk] [amazon.com]

But also the mentality of a magician actually living magic:

"Magic is not something which one merely ‘does’. It’s personal, pu-close. It twists you and skews your perception of the world, tipping you into a world of signs and portents."

Now that sounds better than Harry Potter – right kids?

The explanation of Phil’s rethinking of invocation and banishment to make them contextual for the mythos should encourage the working magician to rethink (again) their approach to magic and default beliefs about magical working.

I also liked the reversal of focus description:

"I have found that, in working Mythos magick, it is useful to develop a reverse talent, the widening of awareness without particular focus, until one perceives all aspects of the immediate environment as a medium for possible communion."

I had not encountered the notions of Theory-In-Action and Theory-In-Use before but the description of Theory-In-Use provided by Phil maps on to my practitioner’s understanding of magic.

"…Theory-in-use, which relates to the guidelines and patterns that a practitioner learns, through practice and individual experience, which enable him to be effective"

I heartily encourage all practicing magicians who have not read this – to read it, and all those who have read it – to re-read it.

Related Reading:

• philhine.org.uk
• Phil Hine Wikipedia entry
• freely downloadable ebooks collated and written by Phil Hine, including Ray Sherwin‘s "Theatre of Magick"
• amazon.co.uk
• amazon.com

"What’s that?"

"What?"

"That?"

"This?"

"Yes!"

"That’s my key."

"Key? What’s it the key to?"

"None of your business."

"Yes it is."

"No it isn’t"

"Is too."

"Nope."

"It is so! You’re just scared it’s rubbish and I’ll laugh"

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Not."

"Prove it! What’s it the key to?"

"Llama mountain"

"What’s that, is that a new toy?"

"Nope, it’s a place."

"You can’t have a key to a place, you’re too young."

"I am not. I have the key see."

"Yeah but you’re still too young, I don’t have a key to my house and you don’t have a key to you’re house, so how come you have a key to llama mountain?"

"’cause I do."

"’cause it isn’t a real place! I bet you just found the key."

"I did not, it was given to me."

"Yeah, like that big key I found on the mud heap."

"No, this was given to me, it is a special key, it opens up the door to llama mountain."

"Where’s that?"

"Llama mountain?"

"Yeah, where is it."

"I don’t know."

"Well how are you going to open up the door to llama mountain then."

"I don’t need to know where llama mountain is to use the key. I just need to know where the door is. Sheesh you’re stupid!"

"So where’s the door?"

"Wherever I use the key."

"That’s rubbish. A key only opens one door, and doors don’t move. My house door doesn’t move, and only the key my mum has and my dad has opens the door. s’not me who’s stupid, your door doesn’t move. "

"Neither does the llama mountain door, it doesn’t move to the key, the key moves to it. Your mum has to move the key to the front door doesn’t she?"

"Uh huh."

"And your dad."

"Uh huh."

"well then, its the same with this one."

"Go and use it then. Move the key to the door to llama mountain."

"No."

"You can’t can you."

"I don’t know, I haven’t tried."

"Then how do you know?"

"’cause Mr Buttoon said so."

"Who’s he?"

"I don’t know."

"Is he a stranger? You’re not meant to speak to strangers! They give you sweeties and push you on the swings and stuff."

"I know but he’s not a stranger, he’s Mr Buttoon. I know Mr Buttoon. He hides at the bottom of the garden."

"he does not."

"He does!"

"I’ve never seen him."

"That’s ’cause he hides."

"But there isn’t enough room for you to hide at the bottom of the garden."

"Yeah but i’m bigger than Mr Buttoon! Huh, you think you know everything."

"Yeah, but if you’re bigger than him then he can’t be a mister, ’cause misters are grown up and they are bigger than us."

"Well Mr buttoon is a smaller-than-us grown-up."

"There’s no such thing!"

"There is! There’s Mr Buttoon."

"Why did he give you the key?"

"So I could visit llama mountain."

"So why don’t you?"

"’cause its very far away."

"How do you know?"

"Mr Buttoon said so."

"Oh, but the door isn’t you said the door was here."

"Not here, just wherever I use the key."

"but that could be here if you used it here."

"Uh-huh"

"so that means the door is nearly here. And that means it isn’t far away at all."

"no, that just means the door isn’t far away, llama mountain is still far away."

"Well let’s go, it will be an adventure."

"I can’t, mum won’t let me go far away, I’m not allowed out the street, and I’m waiting for my tea, it must be almost time for tea and if I go now then mum will shout for me and I won’t be here and I’ll get into trouble and I’ll have to tell her why and then I’ll have to tell here about Mr Buttoon and then I’ll get in trouble for talking to strangers."

"Oooh i thought he wasn’t a stranger, you said he wasn’t, you’re not meant to talk to strangers, they might take you to see their puppies or something. you shouldn’t talk to him again."

"But he isn’t a stranger, he’s Mr Buttoon and he lives at the bottom of the garden and he’s always lived at the bottom of the garden."

"Oh. So why would your mum be annoyed?"

"’cause I’d miss tea."

"oh yeah!"

"But we could just take a look, just a peek, just to see what it is like, just a quick shifty."

"No."

"Pah, you’re rubbish. Why did Mr buttoon give you the key if you’re not going to use it. I think you should give it to me. I’d have used it already. I’d have been to llama mountain and back a trillion times and still not miss my tea. Give me the key."

"No, you don’t know how to use it."

"So show me."

"no."

"Why not?"

"’cause… its nearly tea time."

"We’ve still got time for a quick look though, just to open the door."

"Well, I don’t know."

"Well, I do, and I’m older than you."

"Not much!"

"Just enough!"

"Pah!"

"I told you how to climb the bendy tree, you couldn’t have climbed that without me!"

"I’d have figured it out."

"Yeah in a few years. and, and who told you how to catch sticklebacks in your hand?"

"My Grandad."

"Did not."

"Did so."

"But i told you first!"

"But that doesn’t count ’cause someone else showed me too."

"Does too count."

"does not."

"Does."

"not"

"Does."

"n’t"

"’too."

"No."

"You’re just scared."

"Am not!"

"Prove it!"

"how?"

"Open the door."

"how else?"

"The door, open the door."

[amazon.com][amazon.co.uk]

Problems I had with Zero Option – a first person narrative on this did not help create a dynamic tension between the kidnap and the ongoing missions that the hero takes part in. And I found the final situation so tiresom, easily dealt with and lacking in tension.

I assume that in the 11 years between writing Zero Option and Strikeback that Chris Ryan has improved dramatically as a writer. So I shall try to work backwards through his catalogue and stop when I hit something turgid.

So my recommendation on Zero Option – avoid.

[amazon.com][amazon.co.uk]

I do not normally read books as long as this. And this book has well over 1000 pages of small text. I bought it after reading The Fountainhead ([amazon.com][amazon.co.uk]) and then every time I opened Atlas Shrugged I was put off by its length.

Eventually I got around to reading it and the first 500 pages roar along. It reads like a horror novel and a sci-fi novel combined. Every page reveals new depths of horror at the decisions of the controlling stupid majority.

After about 700 pages the book started to slow down. I felt it could have benefited from some editing to remove the expositional chapters and speeches – the book had already achieved the aim of getting the point across through the actions and side conversations – I did not think that the many big speeches were required, the point of the novel felt laboured in places.

Some of the character development doesn’t work and even the heroic characters feel like they lack depth. In some ways it seems like a very long pulp novel (perhaps I enjoyed it because of that).

A motivating book in that I felt horror at the actions in the novel’s world. A warning though, if you relate to the protagonists then you may unfortunately end up more likely to ‘strike’ or quite your current occupation rather than help prop up and continue to propagate an unworkable situation at work.

Are there any companies that do things different enough that Atlas Shrugged will not serve as a metaphor for their organisation? Are there any governments that don’t map on to Atlas Shrugged?

I can see why some people rate the book so highly but it has flaws and you have to read over them to get to the end of the book – I found it worth persevering but I did skim some of the later pages and pages of pontification.

Having read the novel there are unfortunately far too many parallels with today’s UK government:

• Centralised control
• Targets
• Windfall Taxes
• Talk of ‘saving’ small businesses on high streets
• Favours to friends – BAA expansion despite other systemic solutions
• Payments for ‘being’ rather than production
• Quangos
• Jobs for the boys – despite any previous failures
• Perks for the boys – MPs expences

And overly many parallels with today’s businesses:

• Middle management that don’t make decisions
• Middle management that don’t set concrete goals
• Recruiters that hire based on title rather than success

There are elements of the protagonists behaviour and reaction that are useful to model. But the book serves a better warning to businesses and politicians in terms of ‘don’t do this stuff that the mass and people in power are doing’ rather than ‘do copy the protagonists’

I don’t think I’ll watch the film when it comes out . The proposed cast don’t hit the mark for me in terms of embodying the characters in the novel.

I recommend it, but you have to know when to skim.

Related Links demonstrate the obsessional focus that the book has received:

• [amazon.com][amazon.co.uk]
• John Todd claims it as an illuminati book and has an ‘interesting’ take on the novel, which was nice
• Mahalo links to book excerpts and audio excerpt
• A 3 part video course! Chapter by chapter- discussion of the book (4.5 hours – I haven’t watched it)
• The Philosophy of Atlas Shrugged
• Spudworks has a pretty good and entertaining abridgement in about 20 paragraphs
• A 3 and half minute YouTube posted tribute

• blog 1 – 130 comments (all spam), ok that didn’t take long
• blog 2 – 90 comments (all spam), easy peasy
• blog 3 – 40 comments (all spam), ho ho
• blog 4 – 10,545 comments – ! gulp!

I thought Akismet was supposed to catch this…oh, it wasn’t active.

<sigh>

Mental note – perform this comment spam trimming much more regularly.

And switch on Akismet.

<Kick myself>

<Kick myself>

But this is a great archive with lectures aplenty, and books that you’d struggle to find anywhere.

A great site.

I really enjoyed it – either a massive budget increase since the first film or special effects have really come down in price.

Night Watch seemed to have a well used and  relatively low budget. The story of a young man, framed into joining the ‘Night Watch’ monitoring the legal and illegal activities of the ‘dark ones’ and then fighting to retain a relationship which his son.

The Day Watch picks up where the preceding film left off and we see the continuing fight of light trying to suppress the activities of the dark with the dark constantly trying to find some way to offset the balance and attain the upper hand.

Day Watch got a little confusing in places but some high enjoyable set pieces.

I love action films with subtitles. I only really appreciate Jackie Chan when he has subtitles at his feet and because these films come from Russia we get to enjoy hearing emotive language that we don’t understand and read the subtitles beneath. All of which helps reinforce the notion that we watch a battle between 2 ‘other’ races engaged in a struggle we can’t understand and talking in a language that we can’t comprehend.

I’d love to recommend Day Watch in isolation since it has better production values but you really need to watch the two films in sequence.

During the course of writing this blog post up I discovered that a trilogy of books by Sergei Lukyanenko formed as the basis for the films. So either a 3rd film called Twilight Watch requires approval and filming. Or I have to read the novels to find out what could happen next.

I suspect I will do both.

I loved the first 107 books.

Collecting Destroyer novels provided endless excitement. Trawling through cardboard boxes of old paperbacks looking for those elusive missing numbers – and the excitement of finding a missing book. ebay has put an end to all of that now.

The publisher managed to ruin it for my by changing the writer although some of the later writers seemed OK, but my enthusiasm for the series had waned.

But I have finally finished all the Destroyers that I own and I don’t think I’ll buy any more.

The new Destroyer series never really took off for me – despite having Jim Mullaney as writer (Jim, Murphy, Sapir and Murray wrote the best destroyers).

So bye bye Remo and Chiun – I’ll miss you.

… until of course I learn to read French and then start collecting l’implacable.

Much though I love pulp fiction I could find nothing to endear me towards Hawk.

For some reason the author would never consistently refer to him by one name. One sentence we call him Hawk, the next we say Mike, then we say Hawk, then we say Mike. Bah humbug. That alone ruined the books for me. Sometimes we even say Michael, or Michael Hawk.

I used to read the Tarzan comics as a kid – fab.

I think I read one Tarzan book as a kid – illiterate slob.

But now I have built up my Tarzan book collection and have decided to work through them in sequence. Boy have I enjoyed this ride so far.

Boy did Hollywood mess Tarzan up.

Film Tarzan bears no resemblance to book Tarzan.

“I want to make a film about Tarzan.”

“Have you read the book?”

“I read the first 50 pages”

“Good enough”

No, Not good enough. And then the next person to make a Tarzan movie – just watched the first movie. And so on, and so on.

So a message to Hollywood – start again. Make a new Tarzan film – but start with the second book, then go on from there.

I don’t think I can really begin to express how excited I feel to read these books. You get a cliff hanger every few pages and the action roars forward.

Thus far each book has ended on a cliff hanger – pulling you into the next book.

And unlike ERB’s turgid Mars series (which I really hated). Tarzan bleeds excitement.

Check it out if you like pulp and haven’t read them yet – but start at the beginning – well worth it.