news from the front

Okay, I'm really behind and I know it. But that's what this post is intended to rectify.

First off, the outlook for Korea no longer looks bleak. After weeks of trying to go through other channels, other recruiters, other schools, our original recruiter—the first one we e-mailed, and with which I dealt when I went to Asia last time (ESL Park)—contacted us with a job a few days ago.

Huzzah!

It looks good. It's in Dongtan, a smallish town on the outskirts of Seoul (connected by express bus and subway line). The pay is 2.2 million won per month per person, and we get paid housing, airfare, and all the other benefits. The unexpected plus side to being in Dongtan is that it's where Jeff, my Canadian homey from the old days on Geoje Island, now lives. It'll be just like old times!

Only problem is, the job doesn't start until late February.

Rats.

So that leaves us to find temporary employment here (one of the worst places in California) for a meager three months until we leave for Asia. We have to make ends meet somehow: we both have bills to pay, supplies to obtain, and thirsty cars to buy drinks for. We need jobs, and quick.

To that end, Miss H and I have decided to stop by the local employment offices tomorrow morning and see if they can place us anywhere. And I do mean anywhere: Miss H and I are young, strong, and unafraid of toil, and we'll be happy to make ourselves useful instead of lounging around all day. The money coming in will sure help eliminate them Poverty Blues. (I might just take my harmonica or my concertina down to the Target parking lot and sing some of them "Poverty Blues" for passersby. Maybe I can get some pocket money that way.)

I'll let you know how it all goes.

So! That's the news. Now, I'm way behind on my reading updates and I should let you know how they're going. It's far too late to do a detailed review so I'll just summarize for you quickly:

• The Sand Pebbles: Richard McKenna's breakout novel stars Jake Holman, mechanic's mate aboard the gunboat San Pedro on a routine patrol of the Yangtze River...right before the Kuomintang's Northern Expedition of 1926 shatters the warlords' grip on the country and unifies China under one flag. Caught in the midst of the chaos and struggling to find meaning in it (and his burgeoning love affair with a missionary's daughter), Jake must somehow keep his wits and his spirit together as the world he knows dissolves all around him.
  The book was simply but beautifully written; the description was rich and satisfying; the drama was heartrending, visceral and pulse-pounding; the characters were so real that they seemed to sizzle; the action resounding and the suspense torturous. It was an epic work which took a snapshot of the world at a pivotal moment in time (seen through the eyes of a straight-shooting, hell-raising boy from Nevada); and that snapshot was so fleshy and vivid that it practically leaped off the page. I'd highly recommend The Sand Pebbles to anybody interested in China, American naval history, or a damn good read. 
• Into the Storm: The first installment of Taylor Anderson's Destroyermen series. Lieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy, a Naval Reservist, and the weary but battle-hardened crew of the aging destroyer U.S.S. Walker desperately flee the fearsome Japanese cruiser Amagi after the disastrous Second Battle of the Java Sea...only to be sucked into a mysterious squall which dumps them out in an unfamiliar world. The continents, islands and landmarks are the same, but the ocean waters teem with strange monsters and dinosaurs roam on shore. Reddy and his crew happen upon an enormous seagoing vessel filled with what appear to be sentient lemur-like beings, under attack by vicious reptilian warriors. After routing the reptiles, Walker befriends the furry sapient things, who are known as the Lemurians. Their enemies, the scaly Grik, are an evil race who mercilessly attack and slaughter any living beings they encounter. Reddy vows to help and protect the Lemurians, but as the numbers of the Grik swell (and the ammunition and fuel supplies aboard Walker dwindle), will that promise become too much to for the destroyermen to keep?
  Despite receiving some rather lofty praise from others in his field, Anderson didn't cut ice with me. His writing, in my opinion, was absolutely terrible. His grammar was infuriatingly juvenile: at times I felt a four-year-old child could've produced better. He employed sentence fragments with vexing frequency, and his descriptions lacked poetry and subtlety. His heavy-handed approach to characterization and dramatic elements soured what might otherwise be an excellent story. Nonetheless, the plot and premise were sound, and all in all I enjoyed the work. I might even be persuaded to pick up a sequel or two and see what happens, because for all his shortcomings as a writer, Anderson did create some rather lovable characters and forged engaging relationships between them. I'm curious for more.
• The Hammer of God: Arthur C. Clarke had nothing to prove when he started writing this book. He was already the accomplished and world-famous author of some astounding science fiction. Nonetheless he surpassed himself and created a humdinger of a book, and what might arguably the forerunner of all Armageddon-type sci-fi stories and movies. The Hammer of God concerns, simply, the massive peanut-shaped asteroid dubbed Kali, her imminent impact on Planet Earth, and humanity's concerted efforts to divert her from her course...sabotage, religious fanaticism, bureaucratic fumbling and unforeseen problems notwithstanding.
  What I enjoyed so much about the book, apart from its suspenseful (and yet unpretentious) plot, was the manner in which Clarke gleefully and effortlessly fleshes out his stories with intelligent and scientific speculation. He envisions marathons run on the lunar surface; artificial brains so intelligent that they have been granted human (or near-human) status and rights; homes which are entirely self-contained and self-sufficient, right down to their food-recycling systems; genetic advancements which allow us to miniaturize any animal and turn it into a household pet; concepts of marriage and sexuality free of confining religious mores; and the first digital religion, an amalgam of Christianity and Islam conceived by disillusioned veterans of the First Gulf War. The book, whose format is a rapid-fire burst of one- or two-page chapters and frequent side-notes and prosaic enrichment, is vastly enjoyable and a must-read for any disaster sci-fi fan. Clarke makes this look easy. 
• Transgalactic: Two novels by A.E. van Vogt compressed into one, both concerning the nuclear mutant Clane, born into the royal family of a world devastated by war, where men on horseback ride into giant spaceships and do battle on other planets with bows and arrows and spears...a world where a special caste of scientists worship "the atomic gods" and tend to the giant machines which run on divine power. Clane was a natural-born genius: not only did he figure out how the machines worked (and what the power of the gods really was), but he also discovered that an alien race, not the humans themselves, had decimated the surface of Earth. Those invaders had been likewise destroyed, but now they were rebuilding, and would soon come to reclaim the humans and their planet. Only Clane could stop them.
  So far I'm liking it. Van Vogt, like Clarke (who speaks quite highly of him), has an approachable style, a way of telling science fiction stories without sounding lofty, high-minded, pretentious or sanctimonious. (That's a rare quality, in case you didn't know.) I'll let you know more when I've finished reading.  

Satisfied? Okay. Immediately after I finish Transgalactic, I'm starting A Man's Life by Mark Jenkins (or sooner, depending on when Miss H gets done with it). Mark Jenkins has a life I'd like to emulate: he's a veteran travel journalist, one of the old breed who still likes to be the first to climb mountains and explore uncharted jungle depths instead of twittering about how nice the tea in the picturesque village is. He's hitchhiked across three continents, was the first man to bicycle across Russia after the Soviet Union dissolved, and has climbed more unfriendly-looking mountains than the average snow leopard ever dreams of doing.

Oh yeah, and he's also married and has two daughters.

Miss H and I would really love to know how that works.

If you want to do me a favor, raise a glass and toast my triumphant return to East Asia in late February 2012.

Thanks. I'll keep you posted.