A few years ago, fellow Yard Dog author Gary Jonas passed me a copy of Bimbos of the Death Sun.

The novel, which won the 1988 Edgar Allen Poe award for best original paperback mystery, was right up my alley.

The novel takes place at Rubicon, a literary and gaming convention where newbie author Dr. James O. Mega (writing under the pen name Jay Omega) has come to promote his first book.

Much to his embarrassment his Hard SF novel has been repackaged by his publisher with the title Bimbos of the Death Sun, and given an almost R-rated cover.

As a new author, James is like an innocent lamb when faced with the culture of Fen that surround the convention. Fortunately, his companion Marion (smartly dressed in an Emma Peel cat suit) is there to guide him through the nuances of fandom.

Complicating things is the presence of the convention's big name author guest, Appin Dungannon who makes it a point to offend everyone who crosses his path.

The game is afoot when Dungannon is murdered in his hotel room. Dungannon's personality is such that his agent, the con staff and Fen alike don't know whether to be sad at his death, or relieved that he's gone.

What I liked about Bimbos: I'm a fan of random funny, and I love the outsider perspective. Nothing pleases me more than to read stories where the wide-eyed innocent observer makes social commentary on the delightful weirdness of a situation. When the author is a part of that group and the humor is self-mocking it particularly works.

This is the case with Bimbos, which reads like a primer for newbies surviving their first convention experience.

The author, Sharyn McCrumb, has said that her husband was entrenched in gamer culture. It was from these experiences that she drew her accounts of the convention.

In 1941 Joe Volmar repatriated along with his parents into Nazi Germany. He was 14 years old, and would have been considered the typical midwestern American teen, having grown up on a farm and participated in the boy scouts.

When Volmar arrived in Germany, he was certain that he would never fall for the Nazi propaganda. Yet within six months he had joined the Hitler Youth, and begun to train as a gilder pilot.

Why the book interests me: Although the book is a wealth of factual information about the Nazi aviation program, a more compelling aspect of the book is the exploration of the power of association.

Psychologists have written entire libraries about Stockholm syndrome and brain washing. When we were teenagers, most of our parents cautioned us to be careful who our friends were, because we become like the folks we hang out with. I've even heard it said that up to 18 people daily will shape your life in some way.

What interests me in Volmar's book is how these kinds of influences can be institutionalized into a society, and then used to so completely transform someone from an apple-cheeked farm boy to a goose-stepping Nazi, and how that speaks to human nature in general.

While reading the book, think about how that kind of power is used, abused and taken for granted in our own society. How many of us watch whatever is on television or listen to what is on the radio with little thought to the way we internalize what we see? And what is taking that power for granted doing to us?