More Links, Pre-travel edition
May. 22nd, 2013 11:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chris_gerribI will be in the air tomorrow en-route to KCMO, as the locals call Kansas City, Missouri, where I will be attending the ConQuest 44 science fiction convention. Posting will be light and variable. For your reading pleasure now, have some links.
A) From the always-interesting Toby Buckell, five SF novels that capture the experience of living on a boat. Toby was born in the Caribbean and lived on a boat as a kid.
B) The best rejection letter ever. (Paging John Scalzi, John Scalzi please pick up the white courtesy phone.)
C) Presented without comment - In Oklahoma, safe rooms save lives.
D) Able Archer, or how Ronald Reagan almost blew up the whole world. It takes two to tango, in love and in war. Your enemy may not be thinking what you think they're thinking.
A) From the always-interesting Toby Buckell, five SF novels that capture the experience of living on a boat. Toby was born in the Caribbean and lived on a boat as a kid.
B) The best rejection letter ever. (Paging John Scalzi, John Scalzi please pick up the white courtesy phone.)
C) Presented without comment - In Oklahoma, safe rooms save lives.
D) Able Archer, or how Ronald Reagan almost blew up the whole world. It takes two to tango, in love and in war. Your enemy may not be thinking what you think they're thinking.
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Date: 2013-05-23 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-23 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-23 01:28 pm (UTC)Ah, Ronnie Rayguns, will you ever cease to be convenient? Mr Beckhusen's article makes it plain that it was the whackyjack paranoid Soviet military-intelligence establishment that was the real danger throughout - but that doesn't play to the cocaine-and-granola crowd here.
If Able Archer had happened five years later, when things over there were REALLY coming unglued, events might have gone very badly indeed.
But if you want to talk about 1983 false starts and convenient excuses, let's talk about Lt Col Stanislav Petrov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#The_incident)!
Update: On a more peaceable note, I'm reminded of J.F. Bone's tough SF story “Triggerman,” originally appearing in Astounding Science Fiction, December 1958, pp. 47-55 (it says here), where a US military officer is very much in Col Petrov's position, watching a positive missile track coming in over the pole, headed straight for the US East Coast - headed, increasingly obviously, for Maryland - damn near zeroed in on Washington DC - but it's a SINGLE missile, not a wave, and the Reds weren't stirred up, and no, sir, he will NOT launch a retaliation based on such an anomaly, no, Mr President, I will NOT release the missiles to your control - yes, sir, you may fire me if you wish but only when my shift is over, this bunker is secured - and BLAMMO, the meteor strikes somewhere in the Potomac swamps… He accepts the President's apology graciously. “It's all in a day's work, sir,” he says.