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36) Naked in Baghdad: Anne Garrels' memoir of her time in Baghdad leading up to and during the Iraq war is a fascinating read, and is clearly authentic - both in her on the spot observations and how it so clearly reads in Garres' 'voice', that there is no chance of a ghost wrter being involved (or if there was, he was the best the world has ever seen). At 222 pages and in an engaging voice I thought I'd tear through this, but i couldn't. Part of that was probably due to being tired and in hotel rooms (back on the road last week), but another part was that while it was at times funny (the title comes from her habit of making her reports from her hotel room at night without a stitch on, so that if Iraqi secret police came by she could claim to be getting dressed from the shower to have time hide her illegal sattelite phone), heartwarming (her story was interspersed with the e-mails her husband sent out to their friends about her adventures, entitled Brenda Bulltens after intrepid reporter Brenda Starr) and depressing, but it was mostly Sobering.
About how little we, or anyone, knew what was happening, and about how everyone had their own story in their heads. She manages to be sympathetic to the proud Iraqis who resented American aggression, the ones who managed to quiety reveal their hopes of an American invasion (no matter how bad the aftermath would be) whenever she can slip away from her government minder, and for the peace activists Human Shields who entered Iraq in the hope that their presencce would deter bombing of humanitarian sites (only to find themselves placed in military ministries and army bases), without fully taking definitive sides with anyone. Garrel's is very good at this, but it makes the book slow to digest.
I also skimmed through the rest of the Blue Beetle run. I will be stealing several villains from it for my new campaign, but it's clear another reason the book died is because the hero never wins a fight, and seldom even stops the villain from succeding in their plans. It's hard to root for someone who keeps getting his ass kicked.
(edit at 10:30 to fix a sentence in the Blue Beetle stuff)
About how little we, or anyone, knew what was happening, and about how everyone had their own story in their heads. She manages to be sympathetic to the proud Iraqis who resented American aggression, the ones who managed to quiety reveal their hopes of an American invasion (no matter how bad the aftermath would be) whenever she can slip away from her government minder, and for the peace activists Human Shields who entered Iraq in the hope that their presencce would deter bombing of humanitarian sites (only to find themselves placed in military ministries and army bases), without fully taking definitive sides with anyone. Garrel's is very good at this, but it makes the book slow to digest.
I also skimmed through the rest of the Blue Beetle run. I will be stealing several villains from it for my new campaign, but it's clear another reason the book died is because the hero never wins a fight, and seldom even stops the villain from succeding in their plans. It's hard to root for someone who keeps getting his ass kicked.
(edit at 10:30 to fix a sentence in the Blue Beetle stuff)
