Reviews for Yankees Coming, Yankees Going: New York Yankee Player Transactions, 1903-1999

The average rating for Yankees Coming, Yankees Going: New York Yankee Player Transactions, 1903-1999 based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-03-13 00:00:00 Dee Harrington Paraphrasing Whitehead, I would say that the safest general characterisation of the science-fiction tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to H. G. Wells. Indeed, The War of the Worlds is probably the most influential novel of the whole science fiction genre, as well as a significant part of the horror category. I remember reading this short novel as a child and being viscerally engrossed and terrified. Rereading it now made me aware of a few more things. First, I realised how this book sums up and, in a way, accomplishes some of the things H. G. Wells had experimented with before. To name a few: the Darwinian conflict between two similar species (The Time Machine), the fascination for freakish life forms (The Island of Dr Moreau), the chase around working-class London and its surrounding area (The Invisible Man). It is possible that H. G. Wells’s remarkable book was perceived, at the close of the 19th century, as just a fin de siècle catastrophic story — similar to, say, Mad Max or Terminator at the end of the 20th. In hindsight, The War of the Worlds is much more than that. It is indeed the kernel and the seed of all the later tales of extraterrestrial invasion and tropes of apocalyptic destruction, from H. P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space to Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood's End, Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters, Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, Arkady Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic, Michael Faber’s Under the Skin, Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life, or Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation… Not to mention films and TV: Alien, Independence Day, and so many more that I forget as I write this short note. What strikes me the most is that Wells depicts humanity in the shoes of the invaded party and pictures the invaders as an alien race of bloodthirsty molluscs — which, in itself, sounds like a veiled but stark criticism of Western imperialism and sense of superiority. But, as it turns out, Wells’s prophetic vision was not so much that of a War of the Worlds with extraterrestrial invaders, but precisely a vision of the World War between fellow humans, that would break out some twenty years later, with a technological arsenal not unlike that of the Martians (cf. mechanised artillery, chemical warfare, surgical strikes). Later still, when the Second World War began, and the Nazis were about to invade the whole of Europe, Orson Welles remembered this old tale about a Martian invasion. He turned it into an incredibly relevant radio sensation. The masses of refugees, described by H. G. Wells, fleeing the war in a disorderly and life-threatening manner is a sight anyone may witness even today, despite all the concrete walls or steel fences that are supposed to stop them. In short, this is an unavoidable masterpiece. The only reproach I could make is regarding the ending. The deadly flu epidemic the Martians eventually suffer from feels a bit like a disappointing Deus ex Machina. As a side note: historically, things unfolded the other way around when Spanish Conquistadors landed on the shores of the New World. They didn’t win against the Aztec and Inca Empires so much because of the superiority of their weapons, religion or culture, but because they were bringing the smallpox virus along with them — the first major and unwitting case of biological warfare. Edit: Wells’s novel has been brought to the screen a significant number of times, one of the most recent ones being Steven Spielberg’s adaptation (2005) with Tom Cruise. The film takes a few liberties with the book, setting the story in present-day Connecticut. However, one very clever unfaithfulness is that the aliens do not come from Mars but from underground (a nod to The Time Machine, no doubt). Spielberg isn’t new to the alien-first-contact genre. But this is an outright nightmarish and nail-biting take on what had once been a benevolent musical spaceship or a heart-warming horticultural E.T. longing for home — in this film, aliens also play the trombone and are versed in landscaping. Still, they spray their gardens with human blood. Spielberg’s War of the Worlds comes after the intense and graphic scenes of the Omaha Beach assault in Saving Private Ryan and is roughly in the same vein. Some scenes, like the innumerable bodies, suddenly floating down a glistening river, or the empty cloths raining from a blazing sky, are strangely beautiful and horrifying. In the midst of the gruesome devastation, Tom Cruise, Tim Robbins and Dakota Fanning are exceptional, playing the parts of regular people, suddenly overwhelmed with PTSD and facing the brutal ending of all things.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-03-13 00:00:00 Edmond Ko The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. — H. G. Wells (1898), The War of the Worlds. The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells, first serialized in 1897. The War of the Worlds was one of the first and greatest works of science fiction ever to be written. Even long before man had learned to fly, H.G. Wells wrote this story of the Martian attack on England. The plot has been related to invasion literature of the time. The novel has been variously interpreted as a commentary on evolutionary theory, British imperialism, and generally Victorian superstitions, fears, and prejudices. Wells said that the plot arose from a discussion with his brother Frank, about the catastrophic impact of the British, on indigenous Tasmanians. What would happen, he wondered, if Martians did to Britain what the British had done to the Tasmanians? The Tasmanians however lacked the lethal pathogens to defeat their invaders. ... عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «ج‍ن‍گ‌ ج‍ه‍ان‌ه‍ا»؛ «جنگ دنیاها»؛ نویسنده: جرج هربرت (اچ‌.ج‍ی) ول‍ز‏‫؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: سال 1999میلادی عنوان: ج‍ن‍گ‌ ج‍ه‍ان‌ه‍ا؛ نویسنده: اچ‌. ج‍ی ول‍ز‏‫؛ مت‍رج‍م: ع‍ل‍ی‌ ف‍اطم‍ی‍ان‌؛ ت‍ه‍ران‌ وزارت فرهنگ و ارشاد اسلامی، سازمان چاپ وانتشارات، نشر چشم انداز، سال1377؛ در 254ص؛ مصور، شابک 9644220749؛ خلاصه شده از نسخه اصلی؛ چاپ دیگر 1379؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان بریتانیا - سده ی 19م عنوان: جنگ دنیاها؛ نویسنده: اچ.‌جی ولز؛ مترجم گروه ترجمه انتشارات آریانگار؛ تهران آریانگار، ‏‫1389؛ ‬در 64ص، رنگی؛ شابک9786009214389؛ عنوان: جنگ دنیاها؛ نویسنده: جرج هربرت ولز؛ مترجم: سیدرضا مرتضوی؛ تهران آفرینگان‏‫، 1394؛ در 64ص؛ شابک9786006753935؛ عنوان: جنگ دنیاها؛ نویسنده: اچ.جی. ولز؛ مترجم میرپویا حسینی‌اصل‌اسکویی؛ تهران انتشارات قافیه‏‫، ‏‫1397؛ در 64ص؛ شابک9786226605496؛ جنگ دنیاها عنوان رمانی علمی-تخیلی است، که «اچ.جی ولز» نویسنده ی «انگلیس»، در سال1898میلادی نگاشته و منتشر کرده اند؛ این رمان شرح تجربیات یک راوی گمنام است، که در حومه ی شهر «لندن»، شاهد هجوم موجودات بیگانه‌ ای از «مریخ» می‌شود؛ «جنگ دنیاها»، یکی از نخستین رمان‌هایی است، که ستیز بین نژاد بشر، و موجودات ماورایی را، با واژه هایش به تصویر می‌کشد؛ با الهام از این رمان، کتابهای مصور، مجموعه‌ های تلویزیونی، و فیلم‌های سینمایی بسیاری ساخته شده اند؛ «استیون اسپیلبرگ» نیز، در سال2005میلادی، با اقتباس از این کتاب، فیلمی با شرکت «تام کروز» را کارگردانی کردند؛ لندن، سالهای پایانی سده ی نوزدهم میلادی: مدتی است برجستگیها و انفجارهایی در سطح سیاره‌‌ ی «مریخ»، به چشم می‌خورد؛ چند دانشمند در رصدخانه های گوناگون، متوجه این پدیده ‌ی شگفت انگیز شده اند؛ آیا روی این سیاره، موجودات هوشمندی زندگی می‌کنند؟ کسی پاسخی برای این پرسش ندارد، تا اینکه شیئی به زمین اصابت می‌کند؛ نخست به نظر می‌رسد، این شیء شهاب سنگ باشد، اما شهاب سنگی در کار نیست....؛ جنگ دنیاها، نوشته‌ ی «هربرت جورج ولز»، یکی از نخستین آثاری است، که ستیز انسان و موجودات فضایی را بازگو میکند؛ این اثر خواندنی و هیجان انگیز از آن روز انتشار الهامبخش نویسندگان بسیاری بوده است؛ موجودات مریخی به سبب استفاده ی بسیار از هوش خود، تنها مغزی بزرگ و دهانی از آنان باقی مانده است، و با آشامیدن خون انسان نیرو میگیرند؛ در مقابل اما دستاوردهای فنون و آلات جنگی آنان چندین برابر بزرگ‌تر از ماشین جنگی «انگلستان» است؛ و مردم در برابر آن زبون و هراسان هستند، و جز تن دادن به مرگ راه چاره‌ ی دیگری ندارند؛ اندیشه ی نوشتن رمان جنگ جهان‌ها زمانی برای نویسنده پدید آمد، که استعمارگران اروپائی، با حمله به جزیره «تاسمانی» در نزدیکی «استرالیا»، مردم بیگناه و بومی آن جزیره را میکشتند؛ نویسنده با برادرش «فرانک»، درباره ی این جنگ گفتگو میکرد، که برادرش گفت: «فرض کن که موجودات سیاره‌ ای دیگر از آسمان فرود آیند و سراسر انگلستان را به تسخیر خود درآورند!»؛ تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 27/10/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 11/07/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی