Word: blende
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...film's do-good hero, first made the big time as Michael in The Godfather. He made it again as the run down hero of Serpico thee years ago, but there's been a drought since. Now comes Arthur Kirkland, who works perfectly for Pacino because he's a blend of Michael Corleone and Serpico. Like Corleone, Kirkland wants to do everything himself; like Serpico, he's a man fighting society in the name of justice. The part's tailor-made for Pacino...
...trend shown in his last few books and by his switch last year from Analog, which appeals to a limited science fiction readership, to Omni, one of Bob Guiccione's glossy publications. Bova is aiming for the mass market with Kinsman. It's science fiction, yes, the reliable Bova blend of advanced science and backward bureaucrats, but science fiction intended primarily for the uninitiated--those sad souls who do not see the value of space travel or the vast potential of the raw materials out there; short, those who are letting, and helping, the space program go down the tubes...
...Vietnamese proved incapable of putting their house in order and fighting a successful counterinsurgency war against the Communists, should have reduced its aid and refrained from becoming more militarily involved...Certainly there was no chance to impose a Western democratic system on an antipathetic Asian framework or to blend American habits and customs with the far different and more elusive attributes of the Vietnamese...
...This blend of new and old was apparent at the Pearl River Fisheries Research Institute, where we saw mammoth carp that had been raised from tiny fry in the center's ponds. One innovation: the use of female hormones to encourage spawning. But the biologists there also adhered to the Maoist maxim to "change wastes into treasures and turn harmful into beneficial." They feed the fish animal and even human wastes (after fermentation to kill fecal parasites). Elsewhere, the Chinese are introducing "digesters" (small tanks) that convert biological wastes into methane gas, which in turn powers electrical generators...
There have been lawyer-detectives and priest-detectives and even jockey-detectives, but perhaps the most intriguing blend of workaday occupation and avocational sleuthing is Charles Paris, an invention of English Writer Simon Brett. Charles is an actor-detective, perhaps the first and last of his breed. Performers are generally too self-absorbed to be much use in searching other people's motives...