Showing 1 - 10 of 31
Friends and enemies
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 22/11/2019
» People have friends and enemies -- fair-weather and true friends, run-of-the-mill and mortal enemies. It takes an emergency to sort them out.
The Future isn't now
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 29/08/2019
» A term I keep encountering is "The Future". You see it on billboards everywhere. Stadiums, department stores, condos, supermarkets, restaurants, theatres, whatever. They eschew the current autos and mobile phones and computers. Space rockets are only a generation or two away.
Good cops, bad cops
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 18/05/2018
» Few things are more disheartening than learning that those sworn to protect us from society's predators are corrupt, indeed evil themselves. Then who are the good guys, if any? Many a crime novelist raises this question without presenting a satisfactory solution.
A fatal prank
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 16/03/2018
» Pranks are supposed to be fun. They seldom are. They're cruel. The victim invariably suffers. When complaining, he or she is admonished: "Can't you take a joke?" A pail of water falling on the head when opening the door. Being told that a loved one has had an accident. A snake put in a car. Hilarious?
Quantum thriller
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 02/02/2018
» The upside of the digital age is our ability to contact one another in moments. The downside is our lack of privacy. The powers that be intercept and record our conversations and messages. Our thoughts and expressed feelings are common knowledge to authorities determining whether we are security risks.
A treaty for peace
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 23/11/2017
» Following the two-decade-long Napoleonic Wars, Europe, not least France, licked its wounds and agreed "never again". Then they set about making a lasting peace. They felt able to do it. It was the Age of Reason and they were was intelligent as one could be in 1815.
A Druid victory
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 13/10/2017
» I didn't realise how many contemporary historians there are until I began reviewing their books. However, their interests don't vary greatly. Ancient Rome and the Tudor periods are predominant. Followed by World War II and the Templar knights. Then Ancient Egypt and the Napoleonic Wars.
Vatican thriller
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 25/08/2017
» Christianity hasn't been around long, its two millennia shorter than Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism. The God-Mary match captured the public's imagination and Holy Mother Church has been matched with God ever since. It survived its encounters with the Saracens and the Reformation, and now has an estimated following of 1 billion.
Open season on IS
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 27/04/2017
» Though the president of the United States is a character in more than a few novels, he is a product of the authors' imaginations and bears little if any resemblance to the actual incumbents. In some stories he's idealised, in others vilified.
First century AD
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 04/11/2016
» The first century AD automatically brings to mind Jesus of Nazareth. The New Testament, thought to have been penned up to a century and a half later, told of his extraordinary birth, miracles and ascension to heaven. Two millennia later, circa a billion people believe it.