Travis Books

An Unwelcome Truth

In his Myth of the Cave Plato says that leaving the cave of ignorance and looking upon the truth revealed in the sunlight of reason causes the cave dweller to suffer pain and vexation, so much so that cave dwellers would rather kill any person who attempts to lead them to face the truth.

There are two unpleasant existential aspects of the truth for those having spent their lives living in ignorance. The first is knowing that one has lived falsely by having chosen to live in ignorance. It is a betrayal of one's humanity to do so, since seeking and accepting the truth is humanity's ontological responsibility as rational animals--and doing so is one of humanity's highest achievements.

The second unpleasant aspect of the truth is often what it reveals. Understandably, humans tend to prefer untruths that soften the harsh realities of existence. In other words, they would rather remain in the cave of happy illusion. Even Plato sought to escape the harsh realities of existence illustrated by the barbaric and fratricidal behavior of his countrymen toward one another (such as the Peloponnesian War and the slaughter at Melos) by assuming that the ultimate truth was good. Undoubtedly, an undesirable aspect of the truth is what it reveals about some of our cherished beliefs about ourselves and our society. Until the 20th century only a few thinkers had the courage to abandon the comfortable firelight of illusion for the unpleasant glare of the truth, thinkers such as Democritus, Lucretius, Thomas Hobbes, Galileo, Schopenhauer, and Charles Darwin.

Reading Teenage Shooters, I thought of Galileo's revealing the "imperfections" of the moon as seen through his new and improved telescope. Barrett's novel, like Galileo's telescope, reveals many unpleasant truths about contemporary society as seen through the eyes and experience of Freddy Louche, a high school sophomore. Like many teenagers, Freddy sees the world for what it is. Living in a broken home and attending a gang and bully infested high school, his life has forced him to swallow reality's red pill (a la The Matrix). And when offered the opportunity to return to the cave of happy illusion, Freddy refuses because he does not want to live untruthfully, in part because he believes that living truthfully is the one thing that distinguishes him and his loser friends from blue-pill mainstreamers.

In addition to the harshness of his life, there are three other mediums through which the red-pill reality of existence is revealed to Freddy.

Riding Darwin's Skateboard

The first is skateboarding, an activity that Freddy and his friends engage in that reflects their iconoclastic vision of things. Skateboarding symbolizes their unwillingness to embrace a Pollyannaish, idealized worldview of mainstream America, such as that found in the old western movies Freddy is forced to watch with his dad, when it has little or no connection with their own lives. Riding his skateboard Freddy declares his status as an outsider and independent thinker. In addition, while skateboarding he witnesses revealed in the hurried, aggressive, frustrated motorists humanity's true nature and existential condition: a Darwinian struggle of one against all.

It's a Video Game World

Freddy also believes that video games, especially the Resident Evil series, in which the player's character struggles to survive an array of hostile forces, reflect the reality of his existence, especially at school. In video games, moreover, he has the power to protect himself by killing the human and alien monstrosities that threaten to destroy him.

The Unwelcome Truths of Literature, Science, and History

Though Freddy believes school is a waste of time and that his teachers are a bunch of losers for returning to high school, it becomes clear that much of what he learns at school in his English, science, and history classes explains and illustrates his personal experience of life (separated parents, bullies, a financially struggling father, etc.).

In his English classes, for example, Freddy learns that life can be a brutal struggle for survival (Beowulf), that human behavior is essentially irrational (Lord of the Flies; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), and that in the long run science is just as likely to make a mess of the world as to improve it (Frankenstein). In his history class he learns that human history has been pretty much a horror story that continues to repeat itself (wars; revolutions; and greedy, misguided and often downright stupid leaders). In science, finally, he learns that the beastly behavior of human beings is much more consistent with Darwin's theory of evolution than with any religious notion of humanity's being the children of an all powerful, benevolent God. He also learns from science that as bad as things are, they will eventually to get worse (a vision clearly express in H.G. Wells' science fiction novel The Time Machine). So in spite of his dislike of school, Freddy learns a lot at school that seems consistent with his own dismal view of things.

Inheriting the Adult-Made Hyperreality Wasteland

Teenage Shooters also reveals that for modern teenagers, reality has radically metamorphosed into an artificial hyperreality, an environment in which the distinction between the real and artificial has disappeared. Today's teenagers have become enthralled by commercially produced artificial realities, so that whereas it appears that they pass their days in ordinary space-time, in fact much of their time is spent in the hyperspace of movies, music, video games, television, iPhones, and the Internet, and when they are located in ordinary space-time it's usually in some commercial environment, such as shopping malls, where various products are bought and consumed. America has been rapidly transformed into a culture of consumption, a hyperreality connected to nothing deeper than manufactured images and momentary pleasures offered by consuming a Big Mac or the latest Hollywood movie. Though adrift in this weird, rootless cultural sea of manufactured images and activities, Freddy sees this matrix for what it is, an artificial construct designed to provide, for a price, an escape from the boring, unsatisfying reality of the real world.

I rated it 5 stars for this reason: 4 for overall content and 1 for portability. Not every book can have everything and if it did, it would be huge. Since sometimes size alone can determine if I will take the time to pull out a reference, I gave it an extra star because it is indeed a **Pocket** guide.

This one managed to be informative in a technical area without being too dry or alienating for a novice. After looking at this book and Russell's other book Telecommunication Protocols, 2nd Ed., I went with this one because I wanted a smaller reference which wasn't just a dictionary and had detail to it. The main things I wanted are there: Basics of Telecommunication Protocols, LAN/WAN Networks, Ethernet,TCP/IP, Signaling System, ISDN, SONET, Cellular Networks and more.

It is not a dictionary as stated before, which is what I liked about it. In fact I did compare the start of matching chapter titles for this one, to his larger book, Telecommunication Protocols, and it matched verbatim. Though definitely not as thorough as the other book, it is cheaper and does have the key reference points I was wanting.

I have used this book for years, and have recommended it to my employer. Jacobus does an excellent job of introducing the layman to the essentials of Texas land law, which has a colorful and complex history.

What a great book! Children should read this book. So enjoyable! I did not like to finish it. You should LOVE this series.

The story of "Thomasovitch"'s conception and publication is inspiring for all young writers with a desire to leave an early mark on the literary world. Author Travis Muir drafted the novel when he was a 19-year-old freshman at Princeton, and published it less than two years later. The plot and tone of the book match what you might expect from someone at the beginning of a long journey toward promised (yet never guaranteed) success: it is a story of a young man who is excited and deeply flattered by the opportunity to achieve greatness in whatever field he chooses. However, as he navigates through college life and approaches graduation, he begins to fear that his achievement is less a product of his own efforts, and more an inevitable consequence of a privileged upbringing. The narrative begins with Thomas at Princeton, then flickers ahead to reveal Thomas as a graduate and budding investment banker, and also as an old man analyzing the consequences of his life choices. Muir's style is somewhat inconsistent, but the novel actually benefits from its shifts in pacing and presentation; bursts of stream-of-consciousness writing amid slower narrative sections correctly portray Thomas as emotionally unstable and frightened by a fixed destiny. Fans of "The Rule of Four"'s Princeton setting will appreciate "Thomasovitch," although be forewarned that the plot structure of "Thomasovitch" is much less straightforward and simplistic than that of "Rule." Muir's novel actually has much more in common with coming-of-age classics by F. Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce; if you liked "This Side of Paradise", pick up "Thomasovitch" and you'll be impressed by Muir's ability, especially as you consider that his novel was published when Muir was a young college student, an age at which most budding writers haven't tried their hands at serious and lengthy work.

Though it might be unusual for a man to be a romance writer, nonetheless, Mr. Thrasher proves that men can be romantics.

In these three novellas, three very different couples find themselves dealing with aspects of love. First, a young woman spends many tortured hours of waiting when her husband's plane is reported crashed, and the last words they had spoken to each other were angry and suspicion filled. She prays for a second chance that she fears will never come.

Secondly, a young author has the chance to reunite with his first love; there is but one problem. He has a well established family life. Is a moment's pleasure worth wrecking all that?

Finally, a young woman returns to her home town, a place she left filled with broken relationships. As she ties loose ends and says a painful goodbye, she finds it might be time to say hello to something new and wonderful.

***** Touching and different, these stories reveal true love, the love of God revealed in human love. The answers are not always what you might expect to follow a formula, but then, life does not follow one either. *****
Reviewed by Amanda Killgore

The Images of America series of books from Arcadia are a great concept. In this one, Major Newlin, the historian and deputy curator at the Jimmy Doolittle Air & Space Museum located at Travis near San Francisco has collected 200+ photographs that show Travis from when it was started in 1942 (as the Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Field) until now.

Travis is a huge base, and has been active in every aspect of Army Air Corp and Air Force life since 1943. The photographs start with one of newspaper headlines saying JAPS OPEN WAR ON U.S.! Within a few months bulldozers went to work building two runways to handle bombers for their last stop as they headed further west.

Through all of the wars since then, Travis has been involved and this photographic record shows the people, the equipment, the action.

This is the fourth entry in the Ben and Zack sereis by talented children's author, Lucille Travis. Her talent derives from a much apprecited ability to set a plot in motion and propel it along, keeping the reader running with it (happily). Her characters are so perfectly blended with this ever-quickening narrative that you worry, from one chapter to the next, about how things will unfold for Ben and Zack. These are comments from an adult, but kids have the same sort of reaction, expressed differently: they keep on reading 'till they are done--even foregoing Nintendo and other digital delights.

This is one of the best collections of short, relatively mainstream erotica that I've run across. There are a few of the 30 or so stories that involve slightly kinky sex, but most of them cater to a fairly straightforward taste; if you're looking for kinky, this is probably not for you, but if your tastes are mostly vanilla, with a touch of homoerotica, a touch of exhibitionism, perhaps a small touch of bondage (mostly in the last story, "Safe World" by Carrie Weatherfield, which is the only example I can think of that involved more than a touch of that particular kink) this will be a delight. The stories are all delightfully erotic, and equally delightfully competently written and edited, a rarity in sexually explicit material.

It is, perhaps, telling that the stories by Anais Nin were far from the best stories in the book, either in writing quality or in erotic quality.

Jeffrey Thomas has an endless imagination, and this collection solidifies that attribute. He throws your conscience into the darkest depths of Hades with seven vivid tales. "Burning House" being my favorite among them, although it's difficult to choose a favorite among so many strong stories.

If you're interested in something out of the ordinary, something that will linger in your mind for countless days after completion then pick up Voices From Hades.