Lawrence Block’s latest theme anthology from Subterranean Press just arrived. All the stories involve games. Patti Abbott’s “Seek and You will Find” concerns a menacing twist on that classic game. “Paladin” by Tod Goldberg takes Dungeons and Dragons to a murderous level.

My favorite story in Playing Games is “Red Billie” by Joe R. Lansdale. An unusual girl moves into town and challenges the boys to a game of marbles. Needless to say, she beats them all. But, more than marbles are at stake as Lansdale slowly reveals who the girl really is.

Robert Silverberg’s “A Tip on a Turtle” features a man who wins every bet. “Chance” by Wallace Stroby involves Russian Roulette. And Lawrence Block closes the anthology with a cunning variation on a classic story with “Strangers on a Handball Court.” I’ve enjoyed all of Lawrence Block’s anthologies. Playing Games is one of his best. GRADE: B+

Table of Contents:

• Shut Up and Deal (an introduction) — Lawrence Block — 9
• Seek and You Will Find — Patricia Abbott — 13
• Game Over — Charles Ardai — 31
• King’s Row — S. A. Cosby — 49
• The Babysitter — Jeffery Deaver — 59
• Paladin — Tod Goldberg — 91
• Psychiatrist — Jane Hamilton — 117
• Knock — James D. F. Hannah — 133
• With the Right Bait — Gar Anthony Haywood — 147
• Two Norths, Two Souths, Two East, Two West, Two Reds, Two Whites, and Two Greens — Elaine Kagan — 163
• A Crokinole Tale — Avri Klemer — 189
• Red Billie — Joe R. Lansdale — 203
• Lightning Round — Warren Moore — 225
• The Puzzle Master — David Morrell — 237
• Challenge Cube — Kevin Quigley — 249
• A Tip on a Turtle — Robert Silverberg — 267
• Chance — Wallace Stroby — 295
• Strangers on a Handball Court — Lawrence Block — 307
• ABOUT OUR CONTRIBUTORS — 321

Randall Kennedy, the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School, presents 29 essays on race in the United States in Say It Loud! My favorite essay is “Why Clarence Thomas Ought to Be Ostracized.” Kennedy criticizes Clarence Thomas and his performance on the Supreme Court over 30 years. The recent revelations of Clarence Thomas and his wife getting millions of dollars of free trips from a conservative billionaire doesn’t help matters. The same with Justice Samuel  Alito. This week’s Supreme Court rulings striking down Affirmative Action and debt relief for students just shows how out-of-touch the six conservative Justices are.

The strength of Say It Loud! focuses on various civil rights leaders who moved the nation and motivated change. I learned more about Frederick Douglass and Thurgood Marshall. But Kennedy doesn’t stop there; he writes about other, less famous, figures in the civil rights struggle like Anthony Burns, Eric Foner, Charles Hamilton Houston, Isaac Woodard, J. Waties Waring, and J. Skelly Wright.

I found Say It Loud! informative and compelling. Racial issues need to be addressed. Trump exacerbated the tensions among races in the United States. We need to work together to change the precipitous course our country is on. What do you think? GRADE: A

Table of Contents:

Preface xi

1. Shall We Overcome? Optimism and Pessimism in African American Racial Thought 3
2. Derrick Bell and Me 31
3. The George Floyd Moment: Promise and Peril 77
4. Isabel Wilkerson, the Election of 2020, and Racial Caste 84
5. The Princeton Ultimatum: Antiracism Gone Awry 93
6. How Black Students Brought the Constitution to Campus 103
7. Race and the Politics of Memorialization 112
8. The Politics of Black Respectability 123
9. Policing Racial Solidarity 138
10. Why Clarence Thomas Ought to Be Ostracized 147
11. Say It Loud! On Racial Shame, Pride, Kinship, and Other Problems 155
12. The Struggle for Collective Naming 172
13. The Struggle for Personal Naming 196
14. “Nigger”: The Strange Career Continues 210
15. Should We Admire Nat Turner? 217
16. Frederick Douglass: Everyone’s Hero 233
17. Anthony Burns and the Terrible Relevancy of the Fugitive Slave Act 240
18. Eric Foner and the Unfinished Mission of Reconstruction 255
19. Charles Hamilton Houston: The Lawyer as Social Engineer 272
20. Remembering Thurgood Marshall 284
21. Isaac Woodard and the Education of J. Waties Waring 321
22. J. Skelly Wright: Up from Racism 331
23. On Cussing Out White Liberals: The Case of Philip Elman 342
24. The Civil Rights Act Did Make a Difference! 352
25. Black Power Hagiography 368
26. The Constitutional Roots of “Birtherism” 390
27. Inequality and the Supreme Court 395
28. Brown as Senior Citizen 410
29. Racial Promised Lands? 425

Acknowledgments 449
Notes 451
Index 490

When you win a Nobel Prize in Economics you’re entitled to write a short book about how it happened. Edmund Phelps was born in 1933 and grew up in Chicago, a few blocks from Lake Michigan on Glenwood Avenue. Phelps was an only child. Phelps’s father worked in a Chicago bank. His mother was very social and became the head of the Parent Teacher Association and the local League of Women Voters. Phelps’s parents stressed education (both of his parents had college educations) and cultural events like plays.

When citing works that were important to him growing up, Phelps lists Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, Jack London’s Call of the Wild and White Fang, H. Rider Haggard’s King Soloman’s Mines and She, Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by A. Conan Doyle, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Once again, a solid grounding in great books leads to greatness!

This short book captures the ups and downs of a career. In this case, it ends in a Nobel Prize for a hard-working, diligent academic. My Journeys in Economic Theory delivers hope and inspiration. GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Preface — xi
Introduction: Formative Years — 1
1. Starting My Career: Golden Rule of Saving and Public Debt — 21
2. A New Direction: Uncertainty and Expectations — 41
3. Unemployment, Work’s Rewards, and Job Discrimination — 61
4. Altruism and Rawlsian Justice — 70
5. Supply-Siders, New “Classicals,” and an un-Keynesian Slump — 87
6. A Revolutionary Decade — 107
7. A Festschrift, a Nobel, and a New Horizon — 131
8. The Great Wave of Indigenous Innovation, Meaningful Work, and the Good Life — 153
Epilogue — 187
Acknowledgments — 197
Notes — 199
Index — 215

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is not Raiders of the Lost Ark or Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. But neither is it Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The action begins back in 1944 with Indy and his partner, Basil (Toby Jones), about to be killed by the Nazis. Director James Mangold uses de-aging technology to put a 45-year-old Indy on the screen…convincingly! The Nazis and Indy end up fighting over the Archimedes Antikythera, a device with awesome powers. Much of that fighting ends up on the top of a moving train.

The plot fast-forwards to 1969 where a 70 something Indy is teaching at a college in NYC. The students are bored and Indy is both bitter and detached. His wife, Marion (Karen Allen), has left Indy and after teaching that class, there’s a surprise retirement party. And, there’s also another surprise. Indy’s godchild, Basil’s daughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), shows up to kick the plot into high gear. She, and a group of neo-Nazis led by Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), want the Archimedes Antikythera. But, for different reasons. Helena wants to sell it because she’s in debt. Voller wants to use it to bring the Nazis back to power.

Helena and the Nazis bring Indy back to life and the chase for the Archimedes Antikythera moves to Tangier where one of the best chase scenes in the Indy series takes place. Indy chases the Nazis in a rickshaw while local gangsters join the mix.

Indy and Helena finally stop fighting and start to work together to decipher the clues to the whereabouts of the Archimedes Antikythera with the Nazis close behind. The conclusion holds a surprise I did not see coming!

Sure, there’s a lot of nostalgia in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny but I think Harrison Ford has finally put his whip and hat down. GRADE: B

Back in the early 1940s, Jonathan Latimer wrote a Private Eye novel titled Solomon’s Vineyard that was laced with alcohol, brutality, and sex. The standards of the time caused U. S. publishers to issue a censored version re-titled The Fifth Grave in 1950. Meanwhile, the U.K.’s Great Pan books reprinted the original version with all the sex and violence and boozing included. It took until 1983 until the uncensored version of Solomon’s Vineyard  was finally available for a U.S. audience on spinner racks.

Jonathan Latimer creates an Old School Private Eye (think Hammett’s Continental Op) called Karl Craven. The Fifth Grave opens with Craven arriving by train to a town in the sticks, Paulson. Craven came to Paulton because his business partner, Oke Johnson, needed help on a case. Craven quickly learns from the local police that Oke Johnson has been murdered. Craven also learns that Johnson was trying to find a missing girl at the nearby religious cult compound.

Craven quickly discovers that Paulton is controlled by a gangster named Pug who rules through the brutal power of his allies on police force. Craven investigates the connection between the corrupt city government and the cult that may be holding the girl. Plenty of pummeling, bashing, and sex result.

The Fifth Grave delivers a shocking story full of hardboiled violence and mayhem and freaky sex. While different versions of The Fifth Grave/Solomon’s Vineyard have been published over the years, this STARK HOUSE edition is the definitive unexpurgated version. You’ll really dig The Fifth Grave! GRADE: A

Sounds of the Seventies was a 40-volume series issued by Time-Life during the late 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s. Over time, 3-CD sets were offered and I found one at a local thrift store for $2. The first disc is subtitled: 70s Gold. Most of the songs on this disc made it into the Billboard Top 10.

The second disc in this set is subtitled: Classic 70s. I’m not sure I would consider Elvin Bishop’s “Fooled Around And Fell In Love” a classic, but this disc includes some very well known songs.

The third and final CD is subtitled: Super 70s. It’s a grab-bag of songs with no theme I can discern. If you can figure out the logic of the song choices, please enlighten us. How many of these 36 songs do you remember? Any favorites? GRADE: B- (for all three discs)

TRACK LIST:

1	The Allman Brothers Band–	Ramblin’ Man	4:49
2	Bachman-Turner Overdrive–	Takin’ Care Of Business	4:54
3	Stealers Wheel–	Stuck In The Middle With You	3:26
4	Todd Rundgren–	Hello It’s Me	3:40
5	Elvin Bishop–	Fooled Around And Fell In Love	2:59
6	Gregg Allman–	Midnight Rider	4:27
7	10cc–	I’m Not In Love	6:00
8	Peter Frampton–	I’m In You	4:12
9	Donna Summer–	Bad Girls	3:54
10	Marvin Gaye–	What’s Going On	3:54
11	Rod Stewart–	Maggie May	5:16
12	The Moody Blues–	Night In White Satin	5:38

TRACK LIST:

AA

1	Redbone–	Come And Get Your Love
2	The O’Jays–	Back Stabbers
3	Bill Withers–	Ain’t No Sunshine
4	Sly & The Family Stone–	Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
5	Santana–	Evil Ways
6	Earth, Wind & Fire–	Shining Star
7	The Hollies–	He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother
8	Electric Light Orchestra–	Don’t Bring Me Down
9	Kansas (2)–	Dust In The Wind
10	Boston–	Don’t Look Back
11	Lynyrd Skynyrd–	Sweet Home Alabama
12	Mott The Hoople–	All The Young Dudes

TRACK LIST:

AA

1	Raspberries–	Go All The Way	3:22
2	Sugarloaf–	Green-Eyed Lady	3:41
3	Andy Kim–	Rock Me Gently	3:30
4	Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose–	Too Late To Turn Back Now	3:24
5	Al Green–	Let’s Stay Together	3:41
6	Ike & Tina Turner–	Proud Mary	3:22
7	Jim Croce–	Bad Bad Leroy Brown	3:01
8	Three Dog Night–	Joy To The World	3:18
9	Daryl Hall & John Oates–	Rich Girl	2:23
10	Little River Band–	Lonesome Loser	3:55
11	The Knack (3)–	My Sharona	4:01
12	Blondie–	Heart Of Glass	3:24

This anthology from 1998 reprints stories that were turned into movies or TV shows. “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” became the 1990 blockbuster movie, Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and directed by Paul Verhoeven. Philip K. Dick shows up again with “Second Variety” that was filmed as Screamers, a 1996 film starring Peter Weller and Jennifer Rubin, directed by Christian Duguay.

Some of these stories were filmed without changing their titles. Johnny Mnemonic, starring Keanu Reeves, followed the story of a cybernetic society fairly closely. The same can be said about Enemy Mine from 1985 starring Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett, Jr., and directed by Wolfgang Petersen.

How many of these stories have you read? GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

A Reel stuff / Brian Thomsen — 9

Mimic / Donald A. Wollheim — 12

Second variety / Philip K. Dick — 19

Amanda and the alien / Robert Silverberg — 65

Sandkings / George R.R. Martin — 82

We can remember it for you wholesale / Philip K. Dick — 124

Air raid / John Varley — 147

Forbidden / Clive Barker — 162

Johnny Mnemonic / William Gibson — 206

Enemy mine / Barry Longyear — 225

Nightflyers / George R.R. Martin — 288

Herbert West: reanimator / H.P. Lovecraft — 353

If you like The Twilight Zone you’ll enjoy Black Mirror. The Sixth Season just started streaming on Netflix with the first episode, “Joan is Awful.” Joan, a CFO at a large corporation, finds her life depicted on a streaming service called Streamberry (with graphics that look a lot like Netflix) in TV program called “Joan is Awful” starring Selma Hayek as Joan. Joan’s life takes some terrible turns and soon Joan meets with her lawyer to try to stop Streamberry from showing her life on TV for the world to watch.

Yes, this is weird but things start to get a lot weirder when Selma Hayek shows up at Joan’s door. I’ll be watching the other four episodes available now on Netflix. GRADE: A

“But a future in which AI systems entirely took over war fighting responsibilities and the only human role was to authorize an AI to initiate conflict might fundamentally change the nature of war. Humans might still be victims of war, suffering AI-directed attacks. But they would no longer be agents of war engaged in the fighting.” (p. 281)

Paul Scharre is a former U.S. Army Ranger and now vice president at the Center for New American Security. He has extensive Artificial Intelligent experience with his time at the Pentagon. Scharre cites actual AI vs. U.S. pilots in dog-fights when the AI systems accelerated their planes to G-Force levels where human pilots would pass out. Scharre has also witnessed robots that he thinks will be the next advance in Army soldiers.

Scharre documents current AI competition between the U.S. and China and Russia. Here are a couple of disturbing quotes:

“Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind. It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the salter of the world.” –Russian President Vladimir Putin

“Science and technology has become the main battleground of global power rivalry.” –Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping

Four Battlegrounds presents the present AI research as a new Industrial Revolution that will change everything. If you want to see what your Future is likely to change into, Four Battlegrounds is your window into a troubled tomorrow. Are you as concerned about AI as I am? GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS — xiii

PREFACE — xv

INTRODUCTION — 1

PART I : POWER

1. The new oil — 11
2. Data — 18
3. Compute — 25
4. Talent — 30
5. Institutions — 35

PART II: COMPETITION

6. A winning hand — 43

7. Maven — 52

8. Revolt — 60

9. Sputnik moment — 68

PART III: REPRESSION

10. Terror — 79

11. Sharp eyes — 84

12. A better world — 91

13. Panopticon — 97

14. Dystopia — 105

PART IV: TRUTH

15. Disinformation — 117

16. Synthetic reality — 127

17. Transformation — 135

18. Bot wars — 141

PART V: RIFT

19. Fusion — 155

20. Harmony — 169

21. Stranglehold — 178

PART VI: REVOLUTION

22. Robotics row — 191

23. Project Voltron — 195

24. Foundation — 200

25. The wrong kind of lethality — 209

26. Jedi — 214

27. Disruption — 219

PART VII: ALCHEMY

28. Control — 229

29. Poison — 238

39. Trust — 249

40. Race to the bottom — 254

PART VIII: FIRE

32. Alien intelligence — 263

33. Battlefield singularity — 276

34. Restraint — 286

35. The future of AI — 294

CONCLUSION — 302

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS — 307

Abbreviations — 310

NOTES — 314

INDEX — 457