STRANGE BUT TRUE
Bizarre and grippingly true historical stories about the spies and scientists who sabotaged the Nazi atomic bomb make up Sam Kean's The Bastard Brigade. The book's principle actors include a Major League Baseball player-turned-American spy in Nazi-occupied Europe, scientists who published sensitive research leading to atomic weapons out of a commitment to free research, an American government without a civilian spy service because "gentlemen don't read each other's mail," and a Kennedy dedicated to military glory at any cost, among others. Kean interweaves these stories into an exciting and complex narrative that combines the dread of the atomic bomb with the thrill of espionage. (JACKSON ELLIOTT)
THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST
Some noteworthy new music arrives online and in stores Aug. 9. To wit:
Slipknot, We Are Not Your Kind. Thanks, guys, I kind of knew that when I saw the scary masks.
Ra Ra Riot, Superbloom. New record label, same tasty indie-rock from these upstate New Yorkers.
The Regrettes, How Do You Love? If their "I Dare You" single is any indication, this power-pop crew deserves your attention for their new
FIXING PEE PROBLEMS
The first big problem I faced in Oxygen Not Included, a charmingly rendered, impossibly hard spacebase-building game, was pee on the floor. (That's what happens when you wait too long to unclog the outhouse.) So I had my little space-faring adventurers mop up the urine. But that left Culligan bottles of urine sitting around. How to get rid of a dozen bottles of pee? That took setting my dudes to research technology to build a supercomputer advanced enough to research the design to create a water filtration system, and then wiring it up to my coal-powered generator. But you couldn't just dump the water into the filter — you needed to pipe it in. So that meant building an ad-hoc swimming pool to collect urine, sticking a water pump in the mess, piping up the pee to the filtration system. And that's all! (DANIEL WALTERS) one. (DAN NAILEN)
BACK TO BUNDYVILLE
I'll admit, I was surprised that Bundyville was getting a second season. But I was hooked after the first episode, and you'll see why once you give it a listen. Former Inlander staffer Leah Sottile is back on the militia/anti-government/patriot beat, this time following a bombing in a small Nevada town in 2016 that is seemingly connected to the Malheur standoff. At one point, Sottile questions a conspiratorial former militia leader in Utah about racial bias and the exchange is *Italian chef kiss* bellissimo! (QUINN WELSCH)
12
Yup, 2019 marks Terrain's last year as a pre-teen, and the call for artists working in all genres for the juried annual Spokane art extravaganza is now live. Creative types, head on over to terrainspokane.com/terrain for the lowdown on getting your work in the Oct. 3-4 showcase. (DAN NAILEN)
