the month in snapshots

 

the year in books [I]

The first entry in this year's 'Reading Queue' is a continuation of the Star Wars: Legends (with the addition of From A Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back, which is considered Disney canon). Barbara Hambly's Planet of Twilight and Vonda McIntyre's The Crystal Star were honestly duds, but Mcdowell's Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy was a breath of fresh air. As much as I love reading Star Wars books and immersing myself in that universe (yes, I'm a dork, and unashamedly so), the bitter truth is that most Star Wars books simply aren't that great. This has been changing over the last few decades, but unfortunately most of the Legends fall into the category of sub-par. McDowell's books, while nothing extraordinary, are a cut above most of the Star Wars Legends books. 

On a better note, however, are all the new Star Wars spin-offs promised by Disney. I'm excited by a lot of these, particularly Rogue Squadron and the Obi-Wan Kenobi movie. I've never grown tired of telling my daughters about the time I made Obi-Wan one of the best lattes he'd ever had (Ewan McGregor came into Tazza Mia nigh on a decade ago, ordered a latte, and was blown away at how good it tasted). The funny thing is, despite being a Star Wars fanatic, I didn't even realize it was him until after the fact. Had I known, I may have attempted to draw a foam R2-D2 on top. 

Dino of the Week: Coelophysis

Type Species: Coelophysis bauri

Classification: Dinosauria - Saurischia - Theropoda - Coelophysoidea - Coelophysidae 

Time Period: Late Triassic to Early Jurassic

Location: Southwestern U.S.A. and Africa

Diet: Carnivore

Coelophysis fossils have been found in the southwestern United States and in South Africa and Zimbabwe. It was a small, slender bipedal carnivore that could grow up to nearly ten feet in length and was about three feet in height at the hips. It appeared in the Upper Triassic of the Norian stage and survived through the Triassic-Jurassic extinction before dwindling to extinction in the Jurassic. Coelophysis probably weighed around forty pounds and was a fast, agile runner. Coelophysis’ anatomy was advanced from that seen in the Carnian-era’s Eoraptor and Herrerasaurus, and the type species (Coelophysis bauri) already had a wishbone (the earliest example in dinosauria, and which would become a central piece of bird anatomy). Coelophysis’ forelimbs were designed for grasping prey. The long tail had an unusual structure within its interlocking prezygapophysis (the ‘pipe-fitting’ of vertebrae) creating a semi-rigid lattice that prevented the rigid tail from moving up and down. Its head was nearly a foot long with large, forward-facing eyes that provided stereoscopic vision and excellent depth perception. Its sclerotic rings indicate that it was a diurnal (it was most active during daytime and likely slept at night). A study of its sclerotic rings further indicate that its vision was far superior to that of lizards and ranked up with those of birds of prey; Coelophysis’ orbital structure closely resembles those of eagles and hawks. It probably had poor night vision.

Gregarious behavior for Coelophysis is hotly debated

Coelophysis’ teeth indicate it was carnivorous: the teeth were blade-like and recurved with sharp, jagged serrations. It likely preyed on small, lizard-like animals, and many scientists believe it could run in packs and coordinate with others of its pack to bring down larger prey; however, because its forelimbs – despite a wide range of motion – were weak, and because its teeth were relatively small, it’s likely that it spent most of its time chasing after small prey. This doesn’t mean, of course, that Coelophysis wasn’t gregarious: the Ghost Ranch bone-bed of New Mexico contains over a thousand of Coelophysis remains, and it may very well  be that Coelophysis ‘flocked’ like modern birds. Another theory is that Coelophysis generally hunted on their own but congregated around watering-holes. It may be the case that Ghost Ranch is the scene of a one-up tragedy: while gathering together to feed on a spawning run of fish before being buried in a catastrophic flash flood. Proponents of gregarious behavior among Coelophysis point to sexual dimorphism as evidence: two ‘morphologies’ of Coelophysis exist, and these may indicate a male or female species. Dimorphism among a species usually indicates gregarious behavior, and a further study of sexual dimorphism among this dinosaur showed that the different morphologies were split close to half-and-half of the population – exactly what you’d expect in a gregarious social hierarchy. A wrench in the theory, however, is the growth rates of Coelophysis: hatchlings grew rapidly during the first year of life and likely reached adulthood by their third birthday. Such fast growth is seen in animals that need to fend for themselves upon birth. A 2009 comparative study between Coelophysis and modern birds and reptiles indicates that Coelophysis laid between 24-26 eggs in each clutch and that parental care was necessary to nurture the relatively small hatchlings during the first year of life. When all these threads come together, there’s no consensus on whether Coelophysis was gregarious – further study (and discoveries) are needed.

a lone Coelophysis on the prowl

Dino of the Week: Camelotia

Type Species: Camelotia borealis

Classification: Dinosauria - Saurischia - Sauropodomorpha - Prosauropoda

Time Period: Late Triassic to Early Jurassic

Location: England

Diet: Herbivore

During the Upper Triassic, England was part of Laurasia, the northern continent produced by a splitting Pangaea, and this northern realm was cut by swathes of conifer forests. Camelotia—named after the infamous court and castle of the fabled King Arthur—roamed this pre-Arthurian world. Camelotia stretched thirty feet and reached up to three tons. This dinosaur has a rough history: it was originally named Avalonianus in the 1890s, but Avalonianus consisted of the teeth of an ornithopod and the body of a primitive sauropodomorph. In 1985 all the bones but the teeth were given their own name: Camelotia. The scant remains are limited to a few vertebrae, parts of the pelvis, parts of the hind legs, some fingers, and teeth. Many scientists think Camelotia and Plateosaurus were closely related.

Classifying Camelotia is no easy task, and its placement within the “dinosaur family tree” is changing one year to the next. It has features that belong to both advanced prosauropods and primitive sauropods, making its position on the spectrum murky. The curve of its thigh bone and muscle attachments echo those of the early sauropods; its femur has characteristics of both sauropods and prosauropods; the trochanter minor is a throwback to the prosauropods, but the presence of a fourth trochanter is strictly sauropod-like in nature. These features make Camelotia a mixed bag—a “mutt” of sorts—and scientists take a variety of positions on its identity. Some believe it to be a primitive sauropod, others take it as an advanced prosauropod, and still others point (rather hopefully) at Camelotia and proclaim it an “intermediate species” between prosauropods and sauropods. This last claim would forge a connection between sauropods and at least one line of prosauropod evolution.

Dino of the Week: Camposaurus

Type Species: Camposaurus arizonensis

Classification: Dinosauria - Saurischia - Theropoda- Coelophysoidea - Coelophysidae 

Time Period: Late Triassic

Location: North America

Diet: Carnivore

Camposaurus emerged in the Norian stage of the Late Triassic of North America. These feisty carnivores belonged to a group of theropods called the coelophysids; these were slender, carnivorous dinosaurs that include Coelophysis, Procompsognathus, and Liliensternus. Some coelophysoids lived in packs, but not necessarily all. They may have had scales, pebbly hides, or even feathers. Camposaurus, as one of the earliest coelophysoids, has been regarded by many paleontologists as the oldest known neotheropod (a group of theropods that emerged during the Upper Triassic and would spawn the dilophosaurs, ceratosaurs, and tetanurans – the latter of which continues to the present day in the form of birds). 

We have only fragmentary remains of this carnivorous dinosaur – mostly partial leg bones – so our knowledge of this creature isn’t spectacular. What is known is that it was small, but not much else. Its classification in the ‘dinosaur family tree’ has been here and there over the years. In 1995 it was considered a Ceratosaur; slightly later it was identified as simply another species of the infamous Coelophysis. In 2011, based upon phylogenic studies, it was distinguished from Coelophysis but only by a hair’s breadth, making them closely related. Because of its close affinity with Coelophysis, scientists guess that Camposaurus may have been a social animal that lived in packs and that it would’ve fed on small mammals, insects, fish, and the plethora of amphibians of the Upper Triassic ecosystems.

Dino of the Week: Blikanasaurus

Type Species: Blikanasaurus cromptoni

Classification: Dinosauria - Saurischia - Sauropodomorpha - Prosauropoda

Time Period: Late Triassic

Location: South America

Diet: Herbivore

This 16½ foot “Lizard from Blikana” hails from the Upper Triassic rocks of South Africa. This entire species is known only from a stout limb bone and feet fragments. These scant remains tells us a lot while raising more questions. The bones tells us, on the one hand, that Blikanasaurus had proportionally small feet, indicating that it probably had a fully quadrupedal lifestyle. On the other hand, the scant remains make Blikanasaurus’ relationship to other dinosaurs murky. Some scientists classify it as a prosauropod; still others think it’s the earliest known ancestor of the sauropods. However, Blikanasaurus had a reduced fifth toe while the later sauropods had well-developed fifth toes to assist with weight bearing. Perhaps, then, Blikanasaurus represents a failed off-shoot from the prosauropods that simply wasn’t cut from the right cloth to make it through the Jurassic.

books read: 2020

 

this year I read 164 books, definitely down from last year but not a number to be ashamed about!

~  Religion and History  ~ 

Religion and Miscellany
  The Last Superstition (Edward Feser, 2010)
  Elements of Style (Strunk and White, 2018)

  Wordsmithy (Douglas Wilson, 2011)
  Bigger Leaner Stronger (Michael Matthews, 2019)
  12 Rules for Life (Jordan Peterson, 2018)
  Thoughts for Young Men (J.C. Ryle, 2017)

  Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Anthony Esolen, 2017)

  The Household and the War for the Cosmos (C.R. Wiley, 2019)

  Man of the House (Wiley, 2017)

  Biblical Manhood (Stuart Scott, 2009)

  Eve in Exile and the Restoration of Femininity (Rebekah Merkle, 2016)
  The School of Obedience (Andrew Murray, 2012)
  Gospel Culture: Living in God's Kingdom (Joseph Boot, 2016)

  Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men (Hugh Ross, 2018)

  The Unseen Realm (Michael S. Heiser, 2019)

  Supernatural: The Unseen World (Heiser, 2015)
  When the Man Comes Around (Douglas Wilson, 2019)

  Dinosaur Books
    The Jurassic Period (Charles River, 2019)
    My Beloved Brontosaurus (Brian Switek, 2014)
    Dinosaurs Rediscovered (Michael Benton, 2020)
History 
  The Conquests of Alexander the Great (Alison Behnke, 2007)
  Rome: Village to Empire (Mary Boatwright, 2011)
  Julius Caesar (Philip Freeman, 2009)
  Attila: The Barbarian King Who Challenged Rome (John Man, 2005)
  Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War (Nathaniel Philbrick, 2007)
  Washington: The Indispensable Man (James Thomas Flexner, 1994)
  A People's History of the American Revolution (Ray Raphael, 2019)
  The Pioneers (David McCullough, 2020)
  Undaunted Courage (Stephen Ambrose, 1997)
  Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War (Max Hastings, 2014)
  Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad (William Craig, 2001)
  Retribution: The Soviet Reconquest of the Crimea (Prit Buttar, 2019)
  Day of Infamy (Walter Lord, 1991)
  The Fall of Japan (Craig, 2017)

  Dunkirk (Levine, 2017)

  The Battle of Britain: A Day-by-Day Chronicle (Patrick Bishop, 2009)

  The Desert War (Stephen W. Sears, 2015)

  D-Day: The Battle for Normandy (Antony Beevor, 2010)

  Biblical History 
    Battles of the Bible: A Military History of Ancient Israel (Herzog and Gichon, 2006)
    In the Footsteps of King David (Yosef Garfinkel, et. al., 2014)
    The Bible and the Ancient Near East (Cyrus Gordon and Gary Rendsburg, 1997)
    A Survey of Israel's History (Leon J. Wood, 1986)
    The Books of History (James E. Smith, 1995)
    Bible Manners and Customs (Packer and Tenney, 2003)
    Peoples of the Old Testament World (Alfred J. Hoerth, et. al., 1998)
    Atlas of the Bible (Carl G. Rasmussen, 2010)
  War Memoirs
    S.S. Panzer Voices: From Barbarossa to Berlin (Sprech History, 2019)
    The Last Panther (Wolfgang Faust, 2016)
    A Higher Call (Adam Makos and Larry Alexander, 2012)
    Spearhead (Makos, 2019)
    Guadalcanal Diary (Richard Tregaskis, 1988)
    A Rumor of War (Philip Caputo, 1977)
    Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War (Matthew Gallagher, 2011)

~  Fiction  ~

HISTORICAL FICTION 
  Historical Fiction of the Ancient and Medieval World
    Empire of Israel: A King to Rule (Dale Ellis, 2019)
    The Secret Chord (Geraldine Brooks, 2016)
    Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome (Robert Harris, 2007)
    Conspirata: A Novel of Cicero (Harris, 2011)

    Dictator: A Novel of Cicero (Harris, 2016)
    Pompeii (Harris, 2005)
    Fire in the East (Harry Sidebottom, 2009)
    Sword of Kings (Bernard Cornwell, 2019)

    War Lord (Bernard Cornwell, 2020)
    Stormbird (Iggulden, 2015)
    Margaret of Anjou (Iggulden, 2016)
    Bloodline (Iggulden, 2017)
    Ravenspur: The Rise of the Tudors (Iggulden, 2017)
  Historical Fiction of the Napoleonic Era
    The Shores of Tripoli (James L. Haley, 2016)

    The Thirteen-Gun Salute, 1813 (Patrick O'Brian, 1989)
    Sharpe's Revenge: The Peace of 1814 (Cornwell, 1989)
    Gone for Soldiers (Jeff Shaara, 2001)
A PANOPLY OF FICTION

  The Sun Down Motel (Simone St. James, 2020)

  The Andromeda Evolution (Daniel Wilson, 2020)
  Heat Lightning (John Sandford, 2009)
  Adjustment Day (Chuck Pahlanuik, 2019)
  Lullaby (Pahlanuik, 2003)
  The Litigators (John Grisham, 2012)
  Skeleton Coast (Cussler, 2006)
  Devil's Gate (Cussler, 2012)
  The Jungle (Cussler, 2012)
  The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum, 2004)

  Infection (Scott Sigler, 2008)

  Naked in Death (J.D. Robb, 1995)
  The Enemy: Jack Reacher (Lee Child, 2009)
  Night School: Jack Reacher (Child, 2016)
  The Institute (Stephen King, 2019)

  Firestarter (King, 1980)
  The Dark Half (King, 1989)
  Cujo (King, 1986)
  Science Fiction
    2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke, 1968)
    The War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells, 2014)
    Nemesis Games (James S.A. Corey, 2015)

    Babylon's Ashes (Corey, 2017)

    Off Armageddon Reef (David Weber, 2008)

    The Stars Now Unclaimed (Drew Williams, 2018)
    Mars (Ben Bova, 1992)
    Green Mars (Kim Stanley Robinson, 2003)
    Galileo's Dream (Robinson, 2009)
    Red Hope (John Dreese, 2015)
    The Far Shore (Glenn Damato, 2019)
    Proxima (Stephen Baxter, 2015)
    Echopraxia (Peter Watts, 2015)
    The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Becky Chambers, 2015)
    The Draco Tavern (Larry Niven, 2006)
    World of Ptavvs (Niven, 1966)
    A Rain of Fire (Ralph Kern, 2020)
    The Praxis: Dread Empire's Fall (Walter Jon Williams, 2009)
    The Facade (Michael Heiser, 2014)
  Fantasy

    A Clash of Kings (George R.R. Martin, 2012)
    The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (Martin, 2017)
    Wild Cards (Martin, 1987)
    Into the Darkness (Harry Turtledove, 2000)
    The Blade Itself (Joe Abercrombie, 2015)

    The Heroes (Abercrombie, 2011)

    Half a King (Abercrombie, ????)

    Half the World (Abercrombie, 2015)

    Sins of Empire (Brian McClellan, 2017)
    The Color of Magic (Terry Pratchet, 2005)
    Roma Eterna (Robert Silverberg, 2004)
    The Witcher: The Last Wish (Andrzej Sapkowski, 2020)

    The Witcher: Sword of Destiny (Sapkowski, 2015)

    The Eye of the World (Robert Jordan, 2019)

    The One Kingdom (Sean Russell, 2009)

    In the Eye of Heaven (David Keck, 2018)

    The Thousand Names (Django Wexler, 2013)

    Hawkwood's Voyage (Paul Kearney, 2002)
    The Heretic Kings (Kearney, 1997)
    After the Flood (Kassandra Montag, 2019)
    Into the Storm (Taylor Anderson, 2008)
    Undertow (Michael Buckley, 2016)
    Trysmoon: Ascension (Brian K. Fuller, 2014)
    Prince of Thorns (Mark Lawrence, 2012)
    King of Thorns (Lawrence, 2013)

    Emperor of Thorns (Lawrence, 2013)
  American Westerns
    Sackett's Land (La'Amour, 1984)
    Far As The Eye Can See (Robert Bausch, 2014)
    Many A River (Elmer Kelton, 2009)
    The Rebels: Sons of Texas (Kelton, 2007)
    Doc: A Novel (Mary Doria Russell, 2012)
    Epitaph (Russell, 2015)

    The Cold Dish (Craig Johnson, 2004)

    The Far Empty (J. Todd Scott, 2016)

    Crack in the Sky (Terry C. Johnston, 1998)
    Port Hazard (Loren D. Estleman, 2004)
    The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Ron Hansen, 2007)
  The Animorphs Series by K.A. Applegate, continued...

    Animorphs: The Graphic Novel, Invasion (2020)

    Animorphs: The Stranger (1997)
    Animorphs: The Alien (1997)
    Animorphs: The Secret (1997)
    Animorphs: The Android (1997)
    Animorphs: The Forgotten (1997)
    Animorphs: The Reaction (1997)

    Animorphs: The Change (1997)

    Animorphs: The Unknown (1998)

    Animorphs: The Escape (1998)

  Star Wars Legends, continued...

    From A Certain Point of View (Meg Cabot, et. al., 2017)
    X-Wing: Iron Fist (Aaron Allston, 1998)
    X-Wing: Solo Command (Allston, 1999)
    The Courtship of Princess Leia (Dave Wolverton, 1995)
    Heir to the Empire (Timothy Zahn, 1992)
    Dark Force Rising (Zahn, 1994)
    The Last Command (Zahn, 1994)
    Isard's Revenge (Michael A. Stackpole, 1999)
    Jedi Search (Kevin Anderson, 1994)

    Planet of Twilight (Barbara Hambly, 1998)

    The Crystal Star (Vonda N. McIntyre, 1995)

    The Black Fleet Crisis: Before the Storm (Michael P. Kube-McDowell, 1996)

    The Black Fleet Crisis: Shield of Lies (Kube-McDowell, ????)

    The Black Fleet Crisis: Tyrant's Test (Kube-McDowell, ????)