Those of my readers who are fathers of daughters will likely recognize this. I surely did.

This afternoon, Jane and I and our two boys attended a matinee of Guys and Dolls done by the local high school’s drama department, and we had a rousing good time. That’s the main thing, and I want you to keep it in mind. I’m going to pick a few nits in just a moment, but we had a hugely entertaining afternoon–which is to say, the show is a success.

Naturally, the production wasn’t perfect. Most of the actors spoke a little too fast in the first few scenes; the phrasing in the songs was often just slightly off–technically correct, but still not quite right; the lighting was a bit erratic; the acting skill was variable; and no matter how much make-up you put on a seventeen-year-old, she’s not going to look like an old lady.

But they found eighteen guys who could dance–no mean feat. The music was excellent. Miss Adelaide and Sky Masterson were outstanding, and Sarah Brown and Nathan Detroit have nothing to be ashamed of. Many of the folks in the smaller parts did outstanding jobs as well.

But most important–they treated the show with respect. More than that, they performed with joy, and they had a good time. A classic show like Guys and Dolls is like a well-oiled machine: treat the show with respect, and give it your heart, and it’ll get you where want to go. Today it certainly did.

Muck with it, on the other hand, and it’ll bite you. I’d much rather see a high school production like this than a Broadway revival. And if I ever sit through the movie version of Guys and Dolls again, it will be with a remote in my hand, fast-forwarding through the songs butchered by Frank Sinatra and (why? why?) Marlon Brando.

Why did they cast Marlon Brando for Sky Masterson? I don’t get it. Sinatra is at least plausible–though far too smooth to be Nathan Detroit. His version of “Sue me” sounds pretty instead of anguished and resolute. But Brando! The man can’t sing, and his version of “Luck Be A Lady” is a crime.

Fortunately we didn’t have to put up with anything like that today. The singers might not have wrung every bit of nuance out of each song, but they were singing them the way they were supposed to be sung, not trying to put their own imprint on them. Congratulations to them!

For what it’s worth, I don’t much like the movie versions of Camelot or West Side Story either.

This is one of Turtledove’s early books, dating back to 1987, and one of
the first of his works to appear under his own name; prior to this, he’d
written mostly short fiction under the name Eric G. Iverson. These days
Turtledove’s best known for his novels of alternate history;
this is something similar, yet not quite the same.

Marcus Scaurus is the commander of a Roman legion fighting under Julius
Caesar in Gaul. During a battle with the leader of a Gaulish troop, druid
magic sends Scaurus and his legion (and his opponent) to another world, a
world almost impossibly strange, to a place called the Empire of Videssos.
Videssos is what we’d think of as a proper empire, ruled by an emperor
and controlling vast regions; the Roman empire Scaurus knew was still
ruled by the Roman Senate in the name of the Senate and People of Rome.
Moreover, Videssos is an empire of long standing, and its court protocols
and politics are singularly convolute. The people of Videssos and most
of the surrounding countries worship a single god named Phos, though in
slightly different ways from country to country, which leads to a fair
amount of strife; Scaurus and his men naturally worship the gods of Rome.

Has the penny dropped yet? That’s right, The Misplaced Legion
is really about what the Byzantine Empire, an empire which still called
itself Roman, would look like to a Roman of Caesar’s day. And the
answer, like nothing on earth. Oh, Turtledove’s dressed it up a bit.
Persia is to the west of Constantinople–excuse me, Videssos the
City–instead of to the east; there’s no analogue of Rome, Videssos the
City has always been the capital of Videssos the Empire; the religion is
roughly Zoroastrian instead of Christian; all the names have been
changed, except they mostly sound like Greek anyway. Oh, and there’s
magic; and since the dominant religion is Zoroastrian with the Videssians
as the followers of Ahura Mazda, naturally the bad guys are wicked as all
get out and worship Ahura Mazda’s opposite, the loathsome Ahriman.
Though of course, they call him Skotos instead, just like they call Ahura
Mazda Phos. This is called poetic license, I suppose.

Anyway, it’s an OK book, if not quite as good as I remembered; there are
three more in the immediate series, plus some spin-offs, and no doubt
I’ll get to all of them again in time.

Ah, the heck with it. It’s been three weeks, I’m still on the diet, I’m still walking 30 minutes a day, weight is coming off, and we’re all coping with the details. ’nuff said.

Modesitt’s books are invariably about the ethical use of power, and
The Ethos Effect is (unsurprisingly, given the name) no
exception. More bluntly, The Ethos Effect concerns this
question: if in the 1930’s you could foresee the rise of the Third Reich
and all of the associated pain, suffering, and death it would cause,
would you be justified if, given the capability, you were to nuke Germany
off of the map? It’s all cast in the far future, and the players are
different, but that’s more or less the question.

Spoiler Warning: I don’t usually include spoilers in my reviews,
but I feel I need to in this case. In case you don’t wish to read further,
I’ll give the bottom-line: this is a weak story well-told, and not up to
Modesitt’s usual standards.

Van Albert is a commander in the navy of the Taran Republic, one of a
number of large space-faring powers. The political situation is too
complicated to go into, but the most serious threat is a theocratic
totalitarian space empire which supposedly grew out of some unholy union
of Islam and the Mormon church–

I digress. Modesitt really seems to have it in for the Mormons, as this is
the second series in which they’ve been the bad guys. I don’t see it
myself. I don’t buy Mormon theology, and I find the origins of the LDS
church to be highly suspect, but there are lots of Mormons here in the
Foothills, many of them folks I grew up with, and they’ve never struck me
as any more prone to jihad than, say, the local Methodists.

But anyway, the Shepherds, as they called, have been expanding slowly for
a couple of centuries. They’ve avoided a major war in that time,
choosing to take over small systems one by one, first economically and
then politically. And where ever they take over, the populace are sent
to re-education camps to learn to be good little Shepherds. As such,
they make a nice bugaboo for 21st century blue-staters. It’s always
dangerous to guess an author’s views from a work of fiction, but I have
to believe that Modesitt doesn’t like or understand religion very well
(certainly, a sythesis of Islam and Mormonism strikes me as unlikely
in the extreme) and thinks that strong religious feeling is dangerous.
It’s telling that throughout the book we never really get to know any of
the Shepherds.

I digress again. None of the other major powers are willing to stand up
to the Shepherds; the last time any tried, the result was an enormously
bloody war that left both sides reeling (that story is told in
The Parafaith War). A man Commander Albert comes to esteem
highly has devoted his life to strengthening the smaller systems on which
the Shepherds feed so that they can avoid been swallowed, but reluctantly
comes to the conclusion that his best efforts are insufficient. The
Shepherds cannot be turned from their path by ordinary means; and so he
uses advanced alien technology to trigger a solar flare that renders the
main Shepherd system uninhabitable in a matter of hours. Billions of
Shepherd civilians lost their lives, both then and during the political
aftermath.

Later, Commander Albert determines that his home star-nation, the Taran
Republic, has become fascist, racist, xenophobic, and expansionist. His
home planet is known for being the most freethinking and friendly to the
arts in the entire Republic; it’s also the only one where gay marriage is
commonly accepted. (Albert himself has two fathers, a lawyer and an
opera singer.) As the fascists take control, Albert’s homeworld is
is brutally suppressed.

There’s an odd hint that the Taran Republic has become so through an
over-reliance on free market economics and soulless capitalism, which
frankly makes no sense to me; fascism breeds in bad economic times, not
prosperous times as indicated here. In Albert’s view, the Republic has
become just as corrupt and evil as the Shepherds at their worst.
Albert’s friend left behind a second solar-flare device…ought he to
stop the problem before it starts by destroying the Taran capital system?
And would doing so make him a horrible monster or a savior ensuring the
greatest good for the greatest number? As to the first question, he
eventually decides that he must. As the latter, you’ll have to decide
for yourself. Modesitt’s answer seems to be that Albert’s action is, if
not completely justifiable, at least understandable.

Frankly, I don’t think Modesitt makes his case. As I read it, it seemed
to me that the subtext was, “I don’t like free-market neo-cons, and I
don’t like religious fundamentalists; both kinds of people are
fundamentally flawed and since I can’t fix them and though it’s probably
wrong of me I wish I could just blow them all up.” I don’t know that
this is what he was thinking; but that’s the impression I got, and the
only explanation I can give for the general weakness of the book relative
to his usual standard is that political rancor got the better of him.

If there are any other Modesitt fans in the audience who think I’ve
misread the book, I’d be glad to hear from them. I read this during
the first week of a really nasty physician-mandated diet (think Atkins
with the good parts left out), and I was in rather a jaundiced mood.
But Modesitt doesn’t usually strike me this way.

I meant to link to this yesterday, and forgot. Amanda Witt has posted Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee”, along with a wonderful description of teaching it in Freshman English. I mean, who would have thought that you could sing “Annabel Lee” to the tune of….but no, you ‘re going to have go read Amanda’s post to find it. It’s fitting, though, I’ll tell you that.