A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Book cover photo by NASA.  © 2019 HarperCollins “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”  - John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961 It's hard to believe that fifty years have passed since three manned missions (Apollo 10, 11, and 12) made the still-amazing voyage from the Earth to the Moon and fulfilled President John F. Kennedy's 1961 pledge that American astronauts would go to our closest celestial neighbor and return safely to the big, blue marble we call home before 1970. Of the three Apollos that flew between May and November of 1969, only two (11 and 12) landed on the Moon; Apollo 10 was a dress rehearsal that involved everything in a lunar mission except the landing itself. To commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing (July 20, 1969), many publishers have published new books about various aspects of Project Apollo, including the t...

American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race  delves into the origins of Project Apollo and President John F. Kennedy's determination to land a man on the Moon before 1970. © 2019 HarperCollins Hello again and welcome to another installment of A Certain Point of View. It's a sunny autumn morning in my corner of the Sunshine State, with temperatures in the high 70s and no rain in the immediate forecast, although it is expected that it will be hot later today. Per the Weather app on my PC, today's high is estimated to reach 86℉ later this afternoon. Well, it looks like you're going to have to wait a little while longer for a new review; I went to sleep sometime after 2 AM, and even though I got close to six hours of sleep, I'm feeling a bit worn out now. So I think I'll take the rest of the day off from writing and relax with a good book or watch a few episodes of 24's Season Five on DVD. Looking forward to reading (and reviewing) Harr...

Main menu screen from Strategic Command WWII: World at War. © 2018 Fury Software/Slitherine Ltd. Hello again and welcome to another edition of A Certain Point of View. It's Saturday, October 19, 2019, and it's a cloudy afternoon here in my little corner of the Sunshine State. Well, I had hoped to have a new review of either  Strategic Command WWII: World at War, a World War II-themed turn-based strategy game that was released by Slitherine Ltd. last winter, or Douglas Brinkley's book  American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race.  However, while I have played World at War in dribs and drabs, I still don't feel confident that I can write a review that will do the game justice. I've played a few rounds as Germany (letting the game's artificial intelligence play Italy and Japan for me) in the scenario titled 1939 World at War ; in one instance, I managed to play well into the summer of 1941 and the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. Yet, even...