Author: Brian J. Noggle

This is the third of the three local history books I picked up in our trip up north in 2018 which featured a brief visit to Mackinac Island, a famous resort island more famous because it does not allow cars, so people traverse the island in horse-driven conveyances or bikes. In the summer. I have to wonder if they use snowmobiles in the winter and presume so.

I read Mackinac Island: Its History in Pictures in 2018 and We Live on Mackinac Island in 2021.

This book, of course, is more like the former than the latter. A high-level history of the region chronologically, with a paragraph for various years starting in 1624 and continuing to the present day, although the story thins out toward the end “continued being a resort, basically” was the history. In its history section, it also goes far afield, talking about some of Schoolcraft’s trips in the upper Midwest and some of Pere Marquette’s trips which were outside Mackinac Island.

But it’s sprinkled with historical photos and starts with Indian legends and ends with touring information, so definitely a tourist take-away. Which I was and did.

We only visited the island for a couple of hours on a summer day. What did we do? Took a tour in a horse-drawn carriage. Walked around the fort. Walked around the lower commercial area a bit. And took the ferry back to the UP where we crossed the bridge back to the LP where we were staying.

When I showed my beautiful wife what I was reading, she started to daydream about places we could visit: Sanibel Island again, maybe the keys, Mackinac Island (staying on the island, perhaps)…. But, you know, that’s interesting and all, but when I do that sort of thing or when I’m on vacation, I think, “What would it be like to live there?” Like, for a period longer than a week? Wintering on Mackinac Island? Spending a year on Sanibel Island? I would still be an outsider–hell’s bells, I still feel like an outsider in Southwest Missouri even though I have ancestors from the area and I’ve lived here for sixteen years. Probably I’d feel like an outsider anywhere, and I would probably adjust and get bored living anywhere.

Perhaps it’s just best to visit places for a little bit and to read up on their history from the comfort of my own home.

I don’t know when I got this book, but I picked it up with a couple of other shorter books not so much because I’m looking to pad my annual stats (although I am), but because they were on the collapsed bookshelves where I last think I spotted Time and Again by Jack Finney which I wanted to pick up since I just finished Time & Again by Clifford D. Simak. I didn’t find the book I was looking for, but I did find this little Scholastic sports bio.

Bo Jackson was a big deal in the late 1980s, ainna? He played baseball and football and had a huge Nike ad contract–remember the Bo Knows commercials?

This book, written in 1990, was at the peak of his career. It’s kind of read that kind of bio, brimming with optimism. In 1991, a football injury caused him to miss time in the football season and the whole baseball season; he came back to baseball, won comeback player of the year, but retired in 1994. So he probably did not play long enough to get into either sport’s Hall of Fame–although he is the only athlete so far to have been a two sport all star. But that’s beyond the scope of the book.

The book itself tells about his youth, 8th of 10 chlidren and a bit of a J.D. but not a gangbanger or anything (apparently). It talks about him taking up sports after he straightened out and being a natural athlete who didn’t like to practice, but got through on sheer athleticism, much to his coach’s chagrin. He did multiple sports in college and completed his four years despite being drafted his junior year.

So the book’s a bit of a hagiography, of course, and geared to kids, although perhaps Jackson would not be the best inspiration for them, at least in how practicing and study of a particular sport go. However, he seems a standup guy. He’s remained married to his college sweetheart and has done charitable work after his retirement.

The book mentions, in passing, Deion Sanders, who was just coming into the leagues then. I mention this because I read a similar biography of Sanders in 2012.

So the hunt for the Finney continues after a couple of other books.

Whenever I read Clifford D. Simak’s books (such as City, Mastodonia, or Project Pope), I think they’re…. interesting. But not compelling, which is why they are spaced so far apart in the archives (2010, 2017, 2020, and now 2025). They all feature great sweeps of time or time-travel or distant futures and big questions and although the characters are not bad, they’re do not make for heroes or compelling reading.

At any rate, in this book, a spacefarer who has been missing after going to an isolated and potentially dangerous planet returns after twenty years, but before he does, an unknown person or entity approaches an agent of Earth’s security forces to explain that they should kill Sutton, the traveler. The unknown person is from the future, and he wants to make sure that Sutton does not write a book. Because Sutton, who died in a crash on the planet but was revitalized by the aliens there and put in touch with the entity paired to him, his Destiny, which all living things have. And Sutton will write his reflections in a book which will become a religious text at the core of a inter-time war between a faction that wants Man to be the supremest being in the galaxy and to conquer and rule through a corporation that lasts a million years and one that wants to recognize the dignity of all life, particularly androids, which are not robots but rather are humans who are built organically but are sterile.

So that’s the setup, but it’s not the setup–it’s the story as it is revealed two and experienced by Sutton, the main character, who is approached by both factions and others and struggles with his Destiny–well, not the entity he calls Johnny, but he tries to wrap his head around how it’s all going to come to pass, whether he’s in real danger since he has not yet written the book, and discovering the non-human abilities he has been given by the aliens–including the ability to die and to then revive from the power received from twinkling stars–or a ship’s engine.

So it’s a lot of hopscotching and cogitating on the questions about destiny and the paradoxes of time travel, but events just seem to happen to Sutton, and although he’s a sympathetic character, a stranger both to the future where the factions are sending him back in time and to the past (1981, which is 30 years after the book was written, so the future from the book’s present but closer to the book’s publication date than to today), the alien abilities which are revealed as the book progresses makes him a bit of a Mary Sue, and the ending indicates how one faction has successfully nudged Sutton to fulfilling his destiny. So it smacks a bit of nudge and behavioral economics which I find unpalatable.

So I might have a couple of more Simaks lying around, but it is likely to be another half-decade or more until I get to it if I find it.

I do think I have a copy of Time and Again by Jack Finney around here somewhere, a 1970 book with the same title which also involves time travel. Maybe I’ll pick that up sometime soon (when I find it) just because it would seem to be just the right time to do so.

Of all the sets of authors’ books which I would complete in 2025, the smart money would be on the Ben Wolf books I bought in 2024 and 2025 especially as I have stated my goal to read them in case I am again in Davenport, Iowa, in October. But it turns out I have completed the three books I bought from Julian Lynn at ABC Books in 2019–I previously read Divine Fruit in 2019 and Yoga’s Devotional Light in 2020. This book took me a while because the title sort of seemed like it would be hints at diet and whatnot, but that’s not what it is at all.

First, though, a story from the ABC Books book signing. I guess I was talking to Mrs. E., who used to attend our church, about church or other people from church before picking up the three Hindu-influenced books by Ms. Lynn (which are unsigned for some reason, or at least this one is). After I left, Ms. Lynn expressed surprise that a church-going person would pick up her books, and I guess Mrs. E. eventually gave the author an answer she could accept: He is a poet. Given that Divine Fruit is a collection of poetry, maybe she thought I bought them all in solidarity with a fellow poet. Truth be told, I buy too many of these books both to help out ABC Books and to encourage the authors.

At any rate, this book is not a dietary guide. Its basics are that the Four Gates are considering:

1. The short term affect on my vitality
2. The long term affect on my vitality
3. The short term affect on society’s vitality
4. The long term affect on society’s vitality

It comes in an early chapter, so it’s not like I am spoiling the whole book for you.

It focuses a lot on the concept of vitality, which is the, I dunno core energy of your person, breathing exercises, and self-improvement the yoga and Hindu way.

So it’s not as deep as say post-sesshin talks from Shunryu Suzuki or Joko Beck, but I suppose it’s helpful if you’re into yoga. The book doesn’t smell like essential oils, but the target audience probably has some handy even today.

One thing I did dispute, though, was a couple of exhortations to leave behind toxic or unuplifting relationships once you start your journey. I bet this eat pray love-styled advice blew up a lot of families when some wives started taking yoga and got this message, and ultimately led to unhappier lives and less vitality for those involved, including the women. But I espouse stoicism, which is not far off of these teachings but definitely differs in vital ways.

Ah, gentle reader. I bought this book in the swirling mists of pre-history where by “pre-history,” I mean before I started tracking book purchases on the blog–probably not long before, as the real book sale frenzies would have not begun before the 21st century–well, not much–although it might come from my Ebay days where I bought books like this for a buck or less each and listed them for a couple of bucks a throw on Ebay. I did come up with boxes of books then, and when I gave up on them, I put them in my sainted mother’s yard sale, and she once set up the night before, and several hundred dollars’ worth of books, or at least books I paid several hundred dollars for, were ruined.

But not this book. It remained in my to-read stacks, most recently (and maybe for 16 years) in the hall between the offices. I must have pulled it out and put it back many times, as I remembered that mid-70s cover with the, what, sasquatchish creature on the cover? The back of the book looked interesting, but not compelling, but eventually the time came to read it, and that time was last week.

So: On a cold planet which has a narrow habitable band between a sun-blasted side and a side where the sun never shines–and where the narrow band has a year of sun and a year of darkness–a species called the Onhla are dying out from a disease which sickens but does not kill the last, Hult. He’s on his way to human settlements with invaluable furs from the starside of the planet where only the Onhla can travel. They’re stolen when he’s sick, though, but they create a sensation as traders from a galactic corporation want more. Hult agrees if the traders will help him to another planet where some Onhla were taken centuries ago so he can find a mate. They do, but the senior trade delegate dies on the return trip, and the more militant and haughty junior member of the group “renegotiates” the deal by demanding additional furs, but Hult renegotiates by killing the two troopers and breaking the back of the now-senior trade manager. Who comes back to the planet generations later (space travel, you know) seeking revenge on the Onhla race and helps the grandson of the previous tyrant to track down a renegade band who can remember the old ways to Starside. The expedition goes bad for everyone.

So, I’m pretty sure I’ve said it before, but some of the midlist (Midlist! The copy I have is a book club edition, which meant people were buying stuff like this in enough quantities to print book club editions, although perhaps this was the bulk of the print run at the time.), the midlist (he repeated so you could remember where we were in the sentence) the midlist science fiction was far more speculative than what you would get later. I guess in 1977, you could find the James Blish Star Trek books, and Star Wars was about to hit big, meaning science fiction would suddenly be awash in space opera. But with these little midlist books, you never knew where they would go. This one skips generations, but with the main character evolving into almost a god amongst the creatures on the planet including the humans whose settlement grows over time (but will probably decline, as the epilogue is the trading company abandoning its contact with the planet).

So perhaps I should not have dodged this book for decades. It made me want to try out more of the era, but maybe not that boxed set whose first volume I picked out the night before last but will likely put back the next time I pass by the chair. I will continue to dodge that boxed set for another decade or maybe forever.