World's Long Lost

It is rare that two of my favorite ideas like science fiction and horror get combined so well, but the new anthology from Baen, edited by Christopher Ruocchio and fellow blogger and writer Sean Korsgaard titled World's Long Lost has really managed to scratch that itch! I had been looking forward to it for many months now, and it's fabulous to finally get to run through these pages! Korsgaard does the opening blurbs, and he builds the stories up quite well, while expounding on the central themes to the overarching anthology. The stories themselves are a fabulous mix of creepy, mysterious, and downright horrifying.

I will be endeavoring to write spoiler free reviews, so feel free to read on ahead, and I promise only minor spoilers if necessary!

To start out, we have The Wrong Shape to Fly by Adam Oyebanji, which starts out as an embarrassed collector of the artifacts of dead civilizations is divesting themselves of a piece misidentified as that belonging to a dead civilization which could not possibly have had the technology described. Academics were far too eager to identify a pet theory rather than look at the evidence. Now an art dealer is embarking on a journey to the edge of civilized space to ponder his own theory. It's not creepy in the way many in this story are, but the reveal at the end just blew my mind with the subtle hints and tensions Oyebanji was able to build on. A superbly strong opener!

Mother of Monsters by Ruocchio is a short story set in his own Sun Eater series. Ever battling against the forces who despise humanity like the Cielcin, the hapless soldier Valen discovers there are worse things than even those that eat human flesh. Things hide in the dark which can warp human minds, tangle with the laws of physics, and damage conscious itself. Told part by interrogation and part by flashback, it's a chilling look at alien intelligences and the ways they don't necessarily care about what our puny minds think of how the world is supposed to work. Genuinely chilling end, which makes me merely want more in that universe!

Next up is Rise of the Administrator a story by M.A. Rothman & D.J. Butler, which details the rise of the mysterious administrator. Set against the background of the discovery of incomprehensible ancient runes and sandstone of unusually indestructible properties, it also tells the tale of an extradimensional being which has risen beyond our plain of understanding. It's a sort of prequel to Time Trials, which details the machinations behind this alien administrator's decision to test humanity in such a way. The reasoning, and extremely destructive outcomes, are laid out in a sort of dispassionate bureaucratic manner which is both alien, and extremely terrifying in its mundanity. To learn more, you must go read Time Trials!

Coming from Les Johnson (of Saving Proxima fame) we have Mere Passers By which sees an exploratory vessel USSS Alligator stumble across what should, by all rights, be an impossibility. Planets held together in a way which defies our understanding of physics. Even more unsettling is the lack of any indications of a technological society in this system. This merely raises disturbing questions of, what kind of technology could do this? Would they even notice our existence? Do we even want to meet them? Unsettling in it's own way, the story really pulled me in and got me quite excited (if a little terrified) by the idea of what could be out there in the universe.

Erica Ciko writes perhaps one of the best pieces in the story with a clear Lovecraftian theme. Never Ending Ever-Growing sees the contractors of "Verdant Dreams" responding to a distress call on the planet Vaenmyr, where the thriving rich settlement has gone mysteriously quiet. The terraforming agency which sterilized the planet to standard for human colonization needs its' crown jewel up and running again, but the aliens they thought they wiped out might not be so dead after all. It's an amazing sweep of horror which catches you off guard and sucks you right in. One of the most unsettling and mesmerizing in the whole anthology!

They Only Dig at Night by Sean Patrick Hazlett is another short, but spooky, story that wouldn't look out of place as a piece from Tales from the Cryptkeeper or another TV horror serial like the X-Files. Ostensibly two old pals who work at the same company are sitting down to coffee and one is trying to get a transfer, but as the conversation goes on, much more disturbing things come to light. Is it a good idea to try and monetize something you don't understand?

Howlers in the Void by Brian Trent combines some of the best of Lovecraftian fiction with classic scifi. After a run in with alien pirates, Captain Shayne Dunsay discovers that he may have found the origins  of strange artifacts which can be found throughout space. The question is, does he want to know what made them? Marooned on an alien world, he and what remains of his crew must fight past increasingly strange encounters and hostile weather in order to stand any chance of making it out alive.

Gray Rinehart presents us with what I consider an amazing combination of Michael Creighton style adventure and exploration, and Stephen King or Lovecraftian style horror. The Building Will Continue chronicles the unravelling of a series of academic expeditions on a world whose inhabitants built fantastic artifacts, and then simply vanished. The engineer Leland has terrible nightmares, and the whole crew soon seems to be equally infected by them. As his team are slowly driven mad by whatever haunts these ruins, Leland finds himself questioning whether it could all be caused by innocuous seeming life forms which infest the area. But can he find the secret before he is consumed by his dreams?

re: something strange by Jessica Cain delivers horror at its best. In a series of increasingly strained, chaotic, and horrifying phone calls and texts, we see a seemingly insignificant discovery of an ancient statue devolve into a horror show. The story is made all the more tense by the fact the two people talking are jilted lovers who broke it off in questionable circumstances. The reader can wonder whether anything real is even happening, or whether this is all a desperate plea for attention. By the end, you'll really be wondering just what happened! A genuinely freaky story it really belongs in this anthology and was one of my favorites.

The Sleepers of Tartarus by David J. West sees the dying special operator Cormac on a one way ticket to a lonely asteroid which is now believed to be undergoing militarization by a hostile power. With a deadly cancer eating him away, he really doesn't care and only wants to complete one last mission. However, when he arrives, he winds up with more than he bargained for as the asteroid is not quite what it seems. A tale of adventure and mild cosmic confusion, this one really deserves your love as I can't say anything without some major spoilers! If you can, dive in and read it and I guarantee you won't be disappointed! West turns this one on its head!

Dark Eternity by Johnathon Edelstein is one which, I admit, I did find difficult to get into. It lays out its background and the world lovingly, with excellent attention to detail and world building, but I feel I lacked an overall context for it. The story was told well, and I genuinely enjoyed each little piece of information fed to me from the narrator Kalonde, but without a fuller understanding of his work, I don't think I appreciated the genius of the ending as much as I could have.

Patrick Chiles delivers a sense of mystery and wonder in his Rocking the Cradle where a little bit of geology and a lot of language class pays off after a crew investigates what appears to be an alien ruin in a far solar system. The way Chiles unpacks the mystery at the heart of this story is slow, deliberate, and not something you wouldn't expect outside a techno thriller. The revelations are disturbing to ponder on at least. You wonder about the longevity of human civilization, and whether we have a way forward from traps of our own devising. Chiles doesn't scare you with aliens, monsters, or impending black holes, but some mundane and fundamental questions about how we manage. A wonderful story!

Giving Up on the Piano is a prize inclusion by Orson Scott Card, which compared to much of the anthology is a more mundane delivery of a creepy factor. Not the most terrifying inclusion, but a good capture of what can go wrong in suburbia. It wasn't my favorite in the anthology, but it did provide perhaps a bit of relief from the heavy going of many of the other stories with its more domestic setting and almost tragicomedy presentation.

Finally, we have Retrospective by Griffin Barber. This one is haunting just as much for it's vagueness vs what we actually see. The story is told as an interrogation of a soldier who touched an unknown alien artifact during a firefight. However, the exact nature of the artifact, what it did, and fully what happened to said soldier is left vague as even those discussing it don't seem entirely sure of exactly what they're dealing with. The ending is just creepy enough with how little you know despite all this that your mind can fill in the blanks in unpleasant ways! A great end for the anthology and really helps capture the spirit of it all.

With science fiction and horror being among my favorite types of story, I was enthralled by how well this was put together. There are so many good stories it's impossible to choose just one to love. All were well crafted with skill and and a love for the genre. This is one you should absolutely pick up!

The Costs of Being Left Alone

Prompted by a recent tweet, I began to ruminate on the idea that certain people only want to be left alone. Now, that can seem extremely enticing, indeed for some even desirable. The problem is, many of the people who want to be left alone don't really want to leave you alone necessarily.

The tweet in question is provided by famous whistleblower and defector Edward Snowden. In it he compares being afraid of Libertarians politically to being afraid of cats. I do admit that, on some level, there is a bit of a point as the Libertarian Party of the United States is so whacky in its politics that the odds of them ever forming a stable government are damn near impossible. However, the ideas that they do hold are downright terrifying in what they could do to you.

I've never understood the political fear of Libertarians.

"Sure, they're not in power now, but someday they might take over and... uh, leave you alone, I guess, since that's kind of their whole deal."

It's like being afraid of cats.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) November 3, 2022

Lest it sound like I'm just down on libertarians, I'm not really. Libertarian ideology actually has a few principles in personal liberty, property rights, freedom of speech, and various decriminalization ideas that I do admire. However, most of that was coopted from it's original libertarian socialists/anarchists of the late 20th century and bastardized into an extremely schizophrenic defense of laissez-faire capitalism, which means many of the good things about the ideology do come from a completely different place in the political spectrum. That one of the main ideas of libertarianism is that it wants to completely dismantle many existing government regulations on just about everything and let "the market" take over is really just an enormous problem. Essentially, while I like their take on personal liberty and rights, I find their look at trying to craft a society to be downright horrific.

I've written a bit before using fictional examples of how this is probably a bad idea, but I'd like to just make a quick summary of why that is. For reference, in the Libertarian Party's platform is a stated desire to allow employers to refuse to recognize a worker made union, effectively negating the leverage of collective bargaining or such protections. While it is not against unions, it does not offer any protection or inherit legitimacy, which is an enormous blow to the mere existence of labor organizing when one traces its history.

Secondly, it supports free market solutions to healthcare. The free market solutions in the United States as it already exists are so hideously expensive and inefficient in delivering care that it's near cartoonish, and this is with minimal government intervention in the healthcare system. Among wealthy nations it has the highest rate of hospitalizations from preventable causes, and the highest number of deaths from preventable causes. Quite simply, it spends an enormous amount of money on healthcare, while creating an enormous financial barrier to actually seeking that care (indeed, most bankruptcies in the US result from unexpected medical spending). Any objective analysis would conclude that the problem rests with the issue of making healthcare a commodity rather than a public service, but the Libertarian Party concludes the opposite.

Thirdly, it supports market based solutions to the environmental crisis. This is, put simply, almost so ludicrous that it barely rates a comment. However, it is an insidious idea that is in vogue that we can simply use the free market to get out of climate change, even though oil and gas companies spent decades running climate denial propaganda, and private corporations are notoriously unaccountable for the environmental damage they cause, while overselling their commitment to fighting it. But the market will solve all!

While these are just small examples of what is really wrong with the Libertarian platform and ideology, let me swing this back to Snowden's original message. He says "Sure, they're not in power now, but someday they might take over and... uh, leave you alone, I guess, since that's kind of their whole deal."

Let's look at this for a second; on one hand, he's saying that with a Libertarian government they will say "We can't tell you what to do," and well, sure, here's a question? What's the flip side of "we can't tell you what to do?" It's "You can't tell me what to do."

That's where the problem sets in. It's a similar problem I have with anarchism, where it depends very much on community norms and peer pressure to enforce conformity, but in libertarian ideology the extreme emphasis on individualism creates a Randian nightmare where what you want doesn't really matter if no one is going to bother to help you. With one ideal of libertarian ideology being a "night watchmen state" which merely enforces contracts through the judiciary and police, while enforcing the 'non-aggression principle' through the same and defending liberty with an army, the ability to do much beyond basic property rights becomes a bit complicated.

Broadly speaking this is a problem with both libertarianism and anarchism since both tend to look at the vacuum a loss of government function would create and assume utopia. As the old adage goes, nature abhors a vacuum and so something must fill it. In the libertarian world that's the market, which as I lay out in my longer essay, has no accountability to the public good. 

As an example, let's say for instance that a company builds a factory on a river. Since there is no regulation on what kind of waste they can dump into that river, they begin dumping harmful industrial byproducts into it. This causes the local environment to be poisoned, leading to the drinking water supply of a local town to be contaminated and people die. Naturally, some people will organize and try and sue the company that caused it. In the libertarian philosophy, case closed, but is it? Quite a lot depends on the people being able to afford a good legal team, and a company which has the capital to build that factory in the first place will almost overwhelmingly be able to afford a good legal team (or potentially SLAPP suit the problem away before it starts). The corporate legal team will almost inevitably win this, and the people who have lost loved ones or who are still living with a poisoned water supply will still have that problem. The overwhelming legal defense for the corporation might be "it was their individual responsibility to prepare for what might happen, no one stopped them from looking into living downriver from a factory might be like, it's their fault if they weren't prepared!"

If that seems like a ludicrous idea, projective personal responsibility onto the victim, allow me to refer you to the story of the MacDonald's Hot Coffee lawsuit. Despite becoming the poser child for a frivolous lawsuit, most of what you know about the case is actually wrong. The victim, Stella Liebeck, was a 79 year old woman who was in a parked car when she accidentally spilled coffee on herself, because the coffee was at 180–190 °F (82–88 °C) it caused third degree burns to her legs an genitals, nearly killing her, requiring extensive surgeries and skin grafts, costing 20,000$. Liebeck merely wanted her medical expenses covered, but MacDonald's framed this as a case of greed, among a litany of other crazy claims. Indeed, this was framed as a 'personal responsibility issue" and a concentrated effort was made to portray this as a "clumsy, greedy woman wanted money for her own mistake" rather than "company serves coffee capable of melting skin" to the public. That Liebeck won was astonishing.

Though let me give you another, more concretely libertarian example. In his book A Libertarian Walks into a Bear,  tells the story of personal liberty run amok in a New Hampshire town called Grafton. A weird mix of libertarian activists moved in and, effectively, took over the town government. They cut services to the bone, paring down police, fire, road maintenance, and even the public library to an absurd degree to the point where they almost existed in name only. The town's legal fees skyrocketed because it became an extremely litigation heavy region, the local police force was so handicapped by budget cuts that they could hardly ever put their single police cruiser on the increasingly pothole cratered roads for fear it was so unsafe, and the number of accidents and medical incidents practically overwhelmed what medical services were available.

The title comes from the fact that, by doing away with bylaws and many other ordinances that prevented big groups of people from living in the woods, trash began to be dumped everywhere. So bears showed up. With easy food, and some people even feeding them just because they enjoyed it, bears lost their fear of humans. That led to confrontations and bear attacks. When some frustrated people got mad at people who fed the bears, they were told that anything that happened wasn't really the bear feeders problem.

As I said, the flip side of "we can't tell you what to do" is "you can't tell me what to do" and as seen here, with the government pared down to nothing, life got immeasurably worse as no one bothered to take responsibility for anything. The book did show a fascinating divide among the libertarian ideology, and how many people had such broad ideas on what libertarianism is. The author treats most of the people sympathetically, and does an excellent job showcasing the slow motion collapse of a civil society. While he treats the people with sympathy (and occasional incredulity) I can say for certain that there was a lot of "fuck you, got mine" on display, which unfortunately tends to be a very common underlying theme in many proponents of libertarianism. 

These examples are, overall, just a few reasons why people are genuinely afraid of libertarianism politically. While the broad ideas of freedom and individual liberty are indeed admirable, they come attached to a series of poorly thought out other political ideas. From dismantling healthcare to effectively ceding economic primacy to unaccountable corporations, libertarian political emphasis on individual freedom does not make up for the broad structural damage it could introduce from a lack of protections or responsibility. 

Manticore Ascendant Series

Beginning in 1993, readers were introduced to the world of Honor Harrington and the cold war between the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the People's Republic of Haven by David Weber. We see Manticore as it is gearing up to fight one of the greatest conflicts in the Post Diaspora era in 1900 PD. However, it was not always so, and the Star Kingdom had a very rough beginning. This review will be as spoiler free as possible.

The Manticore Ascendant series coauthored with Timothy Zahn (and Thomas Pope) which brings us all the way back to 1529 PD, centuries before Honor Harrington was born, and well before the Royal Manticoran Navy ever reaches its prime. The Kingdom is beset by political troubles, the aftermath of a deadly plague, a navy which is merely occupied by career chasers, well meaning patriots, and dead weight looking for a paycheck. In short, not the well disciplined, elite force which people have come to know and love.

Enter Travis Uriah Long, a well meaning kid adrift in a family situation defined by indifference. After getting caught up with a bad crowd, he gets the chance to turn his life around in the Navy in A Call to Duty. Joining the navy however, Travis is seeking structure and comradery, and he finds that structure in the rules and regulations that all spacers are supposed to follow. Unfortunately, he finds himself instead mocked and disliked for his "Stickler" attitude to rules and the way they can be too binding at times.

This plays out poorly with his fellows, and leaves him on a fast track to being stuck at low ranks forever. However, when an effort to sell warships in the Secour system is highjacked by pirates, Travis plays an instrumental role in saving the day. However, he becomes embroiled in national politics as his brother Gavin, Baron Winterfall, is enmeshed with the schemes of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Earl Breakwater. This sets the stage for a political saga which will roil the Kingdom for years to come.

Meanwhile, an unseen enemy is plotting against the Kingdom, and in the sequel,  A Call to Arms, the Kingdom is on a slow roll to invasion that Travis must also fight against. It's a steady burn towards an absolutely momentous series of action packed battles which culminate in the first threat to the Star Kingdom in centuries.

From there, the series heads to A Call to Vengeance where the perpetrators of the attack are tracked by Manticore and her allies across numerous star systems in order to attempt to bring them to justice. From the Silesian Confederation to the outer edges of Haven space, Travis and his friends track the men responsible for the brutal assault on their homeworld. It combines the best aspect of space warfare with some clever diplomatic and spy thriller drama. 

I can't spoil the resolution, since it was genuinely surprising and fun for me, but I will say that it does an excellent job at fleshing out the larger Honorverse. Introducing more of the politics of the Andermani Empire, and the broader context of the Silesian Confederacy well before we saw it in Honor's time.

The most recent installment, A Call to Insurrection, picks up a few years after the last great engagement, and leads us directly into some of the fallout from the battles after the attack on Manticore. Here, we see that Gustav Anderman's new empire is, if not in turmoil, still not as secure as he made it out to be. Rebellion and rivalry still crop up at all levels, and many are worried that whoever inherits the Empire will not be able to fill his shoes. 

While not quite as action packed as the previous installments, it does deliver a finale to be proud of. I really enjoyed the wider look at the Honorverse, while also seeing how the characters were growing.

The series truly is a wonderful successor (precursor?) to the Honorverse main series. It shows us the rough edges of Manticoran politics, and the time before it was a power to be reckoned with on the galactic stage. From backbiting politics, the troubles of monarchs, and the rough and tumble nature of early space travel, we see a lot of what it took to create a modern, vibrant star nation.

Travis is our principle viewpoint character, but he's not the only one. His Academy friend, Charles "Chomps" Townsend, is our second most encountered character, and the way he deftly works through intrigue and the intricacies of various politics will leave you guessing as to his ultimate assignments, and his journey is one you really have to read to enjoy! Gavin Velacott is the next most used character as he keeps us up to date with the various trials the politics of Manticore are undergoing. The little "slice of life" moments for all of our characters really do flesh out the universe too.

Each book is rounded out by a larger supporting cast, and an equally colorful array of villains (and so far only one overarching antagonist) who interact and often plot against one another. These all tie together in a series of plots which, as yet, have yet to reach their full ramifications. It's going to be interesting to see how it all ties up!

Of course, it also delivers on prime space battle action, which if you're reading David Weber, isn't that what you're looking for? The exploration of early Honorverse warfare is perhaps one of my favorite matters. From early impeller rings, the logistics of using spinning habs to keep people from experiencing full weightlessness, and big radiators hanging off the side! It makes for a very different form of battle from what we see in later novels.

Readers who love good military science fiction will be enthralled by the stories told and the battles fought. The collaboration between two great authors in a familiar setting has produced some excellent results. I can't wait to see what they produce next, and you should definitely check out the series!

Prey

In 1719, a young Comanche woman trained as a healer seeks to become a hunter. In doing so she challenges the norms of her people, but finds that rather than the animals of the wild, the hunter may just become the hunted.

Prey is a new film in the Predator franchise which takes it away from the 20th and 21st centuries, and instead places it back in a much hinted past from scenes in both Predator 2 and Predators which were both very clever pieces of world building, and set us up for a very rich expanded universe. And Prey delivers quite well on that expansion.

Using the early 18th century Comanche on the Plains is a clever idea, and I felt that it was an excellent use of the concept. What was just as intriguing was that there was no attempt to hide the Predator in this film, and it was front and center the moment it showed up, instead being used as a known element to slowly build tension as the characters unravel the mystery that is confronting them.

We follow Naru (Amber Midthunder) as she navigates her desire to be more than a healer in her tribe. She is looked down on by the young warriors of her village and only her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers) openly indulging and encouraging her. With her dog Sarii, she is found just as often practicing her hunting skills as her healing skills, though both do her well in the wild. While preparing for a hunt, she sees a Thunderbird in the sky – of course it’s actually a Predator ship dropping off a young hunter. This leads to our first tense scenes, early action, and some well shot lead up to the final confrontations.

The action in Prey is also gloriously violent. From short scenes of hunting and man vs wild action, to the head to head confrontations with the Predator itself, it is an excellent view of older technology being leveraged against a familiar enemy. Even more interesting is the Predator itself is being shown using much less sophisticated examples of the equipment we see in later films, suggesting a level of technological sophistication that their species is aiming for. Made for fun surprises that really kept me guessing.

Adding to the action are some excellent special effects which brought the setting alive. From well used CGI to very good practical effects I enjoyed everything I saw on screen. Honestly there was nothing to complain about, save finding some of the CGI animals a little wonky, but I’d rather wonky animals than harming real ones.

Overall the tone of the film is one of tense buildup and subtle dread, and then the action picks up. It’s well acted by our principle leads and the supporting cast, and all the work done on the Predator from the bodysuit to the CGI is simply fantastic. I loved the new setting, the fun female lead, and the shoutouts to other films in the franchise, which made for exciting watching. I am sincerely hoping for more from this universe. Though as a rule, it should either be set in the past, or the future. We’re well overdue for the Marines from Aliens fighting the Predator on the big screen, or some version thereof.

If you have yet to see Prey, go watch it. You will not be disappointed

Coup D'etat

In the near future, the ruler of the Emirate of Kabat has died, and after having brutally murdering most of his sons, his final traumatized son shall inherit the throne. In bad news for his very skilled daughter, her brother has become a religious fanatic from his father’s awful treatment. If he enacts his mad plans that can only mean destruction for her country. She has no choice but to enact a coup d’état.

Christopher Nuttall brings us another pulse pounding thriller through the eyes of the forces of Executive Solutions, a mercenary company hired for the task of overthrowing a sovereign government.

Though the unfortunate Princess Sultana is our eyes in the Palace, the main plot revolves around the leader of Executive Solutions, former British special forces soldier Malcolm Smith. He’s on what promises to be a life long vendetta against Islamic terrorists after a revenge squad targeted his family and killed his wife and child. When it was covered up by the government for security purposes, he dedicated himself to his own private war. In a way, he reminds me somewhat of George Taylor from Ralph Peters The War in 2020, but if he’d formed a mercenary company instead. Competent and full of blood lust, he has a cadre of loyal men and women around him, and will do his damned best to ensure they all make it home while inflicting maximum damage on the enemy.

The management for how exactly a small mercenary company is supposed to overthrow a sovereign state with a functional military is explored in depth. While much of Kabat’s armed forces are revealed to be embarrassingly inept, it does have a core Royal Guard of foreign mercenaries who are effective and aggressively adaptive. This, alongside their access to heavy weapons and air support, is one of the greatest problems to be overcome.

While looking at the logistics of a not strictly sanctioned coup, it also goes into major details on how mercenary recruiting in Britain tends to work, who often provides the manpower, and how hard it is for private armies to form because buying weapons beyond rifles and grenades is actually something many governments want to keep a lid on. That makes the unofficial help from the British government a godsend, but doesn’t get them everything they might wish they had!

The problems in many oil monarchies are also examined and ruminated on in depth. From the lazy elite, the use of what is tantamount to state bribery to placate people, the effects of gilded cages, and the effective slavery of many so-called guest workers is all showcased. This is a problem known to many Gulf monarchies, and the fictional Kabat is merely a patchwork of ideas from many smaller states like Yemen or the UAE with their history and economy. From old British imperialism to modern oil and economic wealth, its a system which breeds corruption and misery. The mercenaries are aware they may not be fighting for the most benign of states, but a terrorist harboring theocracy is much worse.

All of this insightful societal examination and the major plotting for the coup is what forms the lead up to the quite explosive third act. There’s plenty which goes well, and a lot that goes wrong. I was impressed by the detail used from the reconnaissance in earlier chapters which was directly incorporated into the way the action in the finale gets framed. It’s a very pulse pounding ride to the end, which leaves a lot of the ultimate outcome in doubt, both for the heroes and the villains of the story.

Nuttall delivers on the action in many visceral scenes with appropriate exchanges of gunfire and heavy ordinance, with commentary on the tactics (or lack there of) for terrorist fighters, and the skills of the mercenaries. One particularly enjoyable moment comes from them finding a pair of functional A-10 Warthogs, which make a grand slam appearance at a moment of crisis. Any work which uses them gets a positive nod from me.

Coup D’etat is an exciting near future thriller which incorporates some elements from the early 2010s, the War on Terror, and an unorthodox cast of characters who are fighting against some nicely unsympathetic villains. I managed to binge read this from start to finish and quite in enjoyed it the whole way through. For a well thought out thriller you really can’t go wrong with this one!

1812 The Rivers of War

In 1814, as the War of 1812 rages, Andrew Jackson has trapped the Creek religious extremists known as the Red Sticks at a place known as Horseshoe Bend, in leading the charge up the impressive barricade erected by them a young Sam Houston is not shot in the groin, enabling him to win much glory and go on a special mission to Washington.

This copy was provided by Baen for review purposes. I give you 1812: The Rivers of War, by Eric Flint.

In reading and reviewing this piece, I actually found it hard to do. Only recently has the late, great Eric Flint left us, and he was a titan of the alternate history genre. I was, in fact, originally drawn to this piece years ago but had only read some of his short fiction at first. In writing the review of this republishing of an underappreciated piece of alternate history, I am also writing it as a tribute to the skills of this fantastic author.

The story starts, as described, with a vivid telling of the historical Battle of Horseshoe Bend in the crushing of the British allied Red Stick movement in the latter part of the War of 1812. Jackson wins a resounding victory, but a young lieutenant who had taken up a place in his command is not wounded. So far as divergences from history go, this is not the biggest, but the ripples from here spread out far and wide, with quite startling consequences. From an inauspicious beginning, the story branches out to include a colorful cast of historic characters, and a few fictional ones. 

In the second part we are treated to an in depth look at Winfield Scott's invasion of Canada in 1814 with an excellent depiction of the Battle of Chippewa, which introduces us to perhaps the most important secondary character, Irish sergeant, and British hater, Patrick Driscol. He provides an excellent grounds eye view to many action scenes, and is an invaluable source of knowledge for young Sam Houston. Also a compelling character in his own right, the sergeant is an excellent character for us to see the horrors of war and hatred through, and he doesn't stint about the battered state of his soul either.

What may shock many readers is that, in the broad strokes, there is not too much which changes in history across the year 1814 in this story. In the broad picture things are very similar, but in the fine details a lot changes thanks to one seemingly trivial event which cascades into greater changes down the line. It is in these fine details though, where the story shines. Using both historical knowledge and his own characters he weaves a detailed image of life in the 1810s from class to class, from the faction ridden ranks of the early United States Army, to the occasionally confusing and confounding peoples of the Creek Confederacy. 

This attention to detail is deep and merciless. Characters vent their prejudices whether they be racial or class, and in one sentence a man can criticize the Creek as barbarians while then claiming the United States is little better in its own dealings. Flint is no wide eyed idealist, and he portrays history in a refreshing warts and all attitude, without bias for either side of this multifaceted conflict which I found immensely refreshing. The man knows his history from dress to events, and he does a magnificent job selling it.

Aside from portraying fun history, he also does a wonderful job showcasing action. From small skirmishes to epic battles between American militia and British regulars, Flint shows off historical knowledge with visceral descriptions of combat in scenes of terror and pulse pounding action. Knowing history, not once did I read a line and believe that the characters might be safe and fully expected some to drop dead from the chaotic battles around them. There was always a rough tension about who would live and who would die, with no guarantee of how things would turn out. 

Overall, it is a brilliant piece of alternate history which shows you don't need a flashy point of divergence, some radical new technology, or even a battle lost, to change history. Instead, a small change can create big ripples which are well populated by characters who help tell an engaging story. That was, in truth, what Eric Flint always did. The genre is richer for him, and I merely hope we can find more story tellers of his caliber.

Canada's Telecom Oligopoly

Recently, if you were one of over eleven million Canadians who depends on Rogers for telephone communications, internet, or a myriad of other digital services, you were left without access to service. Many Canadians woke up on Friday and realized they could not text, make phone calls, access their banking information, internet, or streaming services. Worse, phones could not even call 911 in an emergency. This is despite the fact that, by law, Canadian telecom providers are supposed to enable their devices to reach 911 at all times.

How did a third of the Canadian population suddenly find themselves without service? Well, no one actually knows yet.

While the exact problem which brought down over a third of the telecommunications industry is currently not known, why this is such a problem is not a mystery. 

In Canada, over 90% of the telecoms market is owned by the Big Three providers, Rogers Wireless, Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility, with these big three controlling nearly twenty-nine million subscribers. The only other network that comes close is Freedom Mobile with another two million subscribers. The smaller networks are not national, and none even come close to providing the coverage that would be reliable or desirable outside large cities, which makes them untenable for Canadians who live in rural areas. Furthermore, this will be Rogers second major outage in the last few years. Not a good look for Canada's largest telecoms provider.

This oligopoly, essentially, sets prices for Canadians on a whim. The government did, in the last few years, force the major telecoms companies to reduce prices by 25%. However, with recent inflation and the attempted merger of Rogers and Shaw, this is not quite the boon we had hoped for. And in truth, there is nothing stopping the Big Three from raising prices in the future to 'cover costs' as they see fit. Canadians already pay some of the highest costs in the world for communications, and we're very much aware of this.

While I can't give you an easy answer on the outage, I can give you an easy answer on how to fix bad service and high prices.

Most would argue that the best way to fix the telecoms problem is the regular capitalistic slogan of 'increase competition' which would, probably, lower prices initially as the market was flooded by foreign competition. However, that would not last forever and might end up seeing much of Canada dominated by the US's own version of the Big Three in corporate mergers we're unable to stop.

However, we already have a home grown solution to this. Crown Corporations provided much of the regional and provincial communications for nearly a century across much of Canada. In fact Sasktel in Saskatchewan still does for that province. It used to be the same in Alberta and Manitoba until those were privatized or bought out with regulator permission. The only private communications distributor who still can compete on a regional level with the Big Three is Québecor which provides much of the French language services and entertainment. For further reading on the power and innovation of Crown Corporations, I'd heartily recommend The Sport and Prey of Capitalists by Linda McQuaig.

These regional exceptions and crown corporations are important because they show that the Big Three are not remotely necessary to provide us with communications. In a supreme irony the Big Three also cease to apply 'exchange rates' in regions where regional operators supply real competition and require pricing adjustments to keep people with their services. The ability of Canada to create a national telecommunications Crown Corporation is not seriously in doubt, and it could be run quite easily off government revenues, if Canadians paid even a fraction of their annual phone bills in tax revenues to run a national telecoms service we could have some of the cheapest telecommunications in the world. The average Canadian spends over 2,000$ on phone bills a year, almost 10% of what the median income earner pays in taxes!

While I can see the objections to a national telecoms provider, I would point out that treating telecommunications like a basic service such as road maintenance, sewage maintenance, and healthcare, can only benefit Canadians. All attempts to privatize the former mentioned services anywhere in the world have only led to suffering, higher costs, and lower standards of care. Should we treat something as necessary to 21st century living as cell phones and the internet any different? This outage has shown just how much of a disaster allowing a third of any industry to be dominated by an ultimately unaccountable corporation can be; putting it back in the hands of the public is only right.

Robosoldiers

In this exciting new anthology from Baen, we are examining the non biological soldiers of the future. This isn't as crazy as one might imagine. Older than we think, the first UAV was the "Aerial Target" flown in 1917, while a robot for antitank purposes was deployed by the Wehrmacht in 1942. Drones and robots are becoming more common on the battlefield every year. From little bomb disposal bots, to enormous fixed winged unmanned aerial vehicles. What might the future of autonomous warfare hold? These authors intend to stretch our imaginations and find out! Real thanks to Sean Korsgaard for tipping me off on the release date so I could snag it!

It's a collection of thirteen stories that I'm looking at, so here's a brief primer on each and my own thoughts. There's some gems in here and ones which expanded my own thinking about the way we might see robots in future wars. Here are the Robosoldiers, thank you for your servos!

Higher Ground (M. T. Reiten): In the sequel to Afghan War I the US is back, but this time with mobile autonomous Guardian soldiers. Clever, but not especially bright in some cases. It's a really well contained story that sets up a tactical problem, the limits of a system, and how even mundane robots could be used to deadly effect in the future.

Today I Go Home (Martin L. Shoemaker): A mechanical warrior has been found deep in the jungles of Central America along the border of Belize and Guatemala. An expat technician is called home so he can help end the threat of a now rampaging machine which kills anyone who comes near. Can he overcome old grudges and find a way to save his country from chaos? 

I enjoyed this one because it was a fairly close knit story of a technician and not a soldier. Some clever use of machine learning and programs as well, which added to an overall mystery element in a way which built some very well plotted tension.

All Is One (Doug Beason): A clever take on the future of Space Force and the potential for space based satellite surveillance. It's a bit of an "AI doesn't understand humans and that's dangerous" story which is always good to counter the 'uber AI' narrative it's proponents tell. It has a clever conclusion, but might have been on the weaker side, if only because it was constrained by the short story aspect which didn't give it enough room to make the story really eerie. I loved the subtext around the dangers of constant surveillance however, and it's something too few people think about.

Edge Case (Richard Fox): With the advent of telemetry and better sensors, a bomb-disposable bot is now the best way to save lives when an explosive is involved. This was a very clever story with an interesting twist on a bomb disposal plot with an extremely clever ending that had me yelping with surprise! Genuinely good writing and an impressive grasp of the mystery genre as well. Cannot praise this one highly enough for how it really used tropes well and did an amazing job challenging my own ideas on how one could write a story like this!

Manchurian (Sean Patrick Hazlett): A very fun story about special forces operators, a resurgent and depraved series of human experiments, and a title with a play on words which left me rather shocked by it's ending. A special forces soldier uses the terrifying weapons at his disposal to fight off a Chinese encroachment, only to realize that the enemy has weapons far deadlier than he can imagine. Not my favorite story in the anthology, if only because I'm poorly disposed towards nanite swarms in fiction, but it was a good story to subvert my expectations!

Resilience (Monalisa Foster): Honestly, this was one of the cleverest and most beautiful stories in the whole anthology. PTSD is a very poorly represented aspect of a soldier's life in fiction, often only portrayed in the negative and destructive sense, but one which is real and hard hitting. Sergeant Karlie Engel has survived a traumatic event and is running through a course of therapy with a neural implant which is supposed to help calm her racing thoughts and dampen her triggers, but what happens when that course of therapy isn't working? 

Really emotional and quite exciting in how it manages to tie things up at the end.

The Rules of the Game (Phillip E. Pournelle): The two global superpowers are once again facing off over Taiwan, and the US and China are both using advanced AI and computer learning models to predict, preempt, and overcome their opponents strategies. On one side, an advanced battle computer trying to predict and map all American moves, on the other a series of plans and machines designed to frustrate those predictions. It's a really good examination of the issues within AI learning and the weaknesses of depending on such a system can have. Interesting run at overcoming the potential advantages another side might have in using this system, while also making a poignant point about the problems in rigid ideology.

My Dog Skipper 2.0 (Weston Ochse): Can you really bring back your best friend? When a military experiment between a man and his dog, unknowingly, goes wrong, a Frankenstein's monster style situation erupts. It was an interesting take on the 'man and his dog' story, but was almost one better relegated to a horror anthology than a military anthology!

Uncovered Data (David Drake): A short, but slightly confusing interrogation story. I admit I couldn't quite piece this one together other than there was an interrogator, he was interrogating someone, and there was a kind of psychic uplink? Otherwise, I don't really know how robots were involved in this one.

The Handyman (T. C. McCarthy): Jed has signed a twenty year contract as a maintenance man on a Lunar base for the United States Marine Corps, mostly automated. Easy money he thinks, until the Russians attack. Then it's up and running to make sure his goose isn't cooked by Russian combat units, and that he has enough Jim Bean to see him through this hard run across the Lunar surface. An excellent read with lots of action in a pulse pounding story. Loved how this one just ran with 'hillbilly berates robot soldier' and made it laugh out loud fun.

The Pinocchio Gambit (Brad R. Torgersen): In a secret war over robotic systems, a system man must become an interrogator must try and feel out whether a Chinese defector is an ally or an enemy. Extremely well written look at shifting allegiances, spy games, and the potential for spy games to get very lethal very fast. 

Nightingale (Stephen Lawson): This was a real winner. When an engineer is kidnapped by a nefarious agent for personal gain, a rogue rescue team has to used its many robotic assets to get him out. I loved this one because it was a James Bond style story tied up with really cool robots that fight little battles of their own. There was a very cleverly integrated human element too, with a little love triangle that made you, somewhat, doubt the good intentions of everyone involved. Fast paced action all the way through and it wired years of backstory and forefront action into a very small package.

Operation Meltwater (Philip Kramer): What happens when an experimental probe for NASA's exploration of Enceladus gets checked out by some snoopy Russians? An action packed comedy of errors and discovery where a scientist finds himself in way over his head. 

This was one of my favorite stories in the anthology because it took a regular scientist and put him in a few amusing 'fish out of water' situations. From his confronting of a few irregular personnel assigned to the project, to his own ingenious grasp of his own project to make a third option, it was a rather heartwarming, and exciting, conclusion to the anthology. I definitely enjoyed his hard bitten pessimism coupled with a lot of weird stuff happening around him.

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Like any anthology, it won't work for everyone, and some stories are hit or miss depending on your preferences. I thoroughly enjoyed the work though and a lot of good authors have some fantastic short work on display here. Genuinely loved the combination of heart, artificial soul, technological know how and gunplay which covered this anthology. Great read for anyone who loves science fiction and robots!

Halo: The Fall of Reach

We all know the story of Halo: Combat Evolved, but did you know the story of the Spartans? Their rise to super soldiers and their history from a black ops organization to the most feared of humanities warriors? In 2001 Eric Nylund took on this task and wrote the story of the early days of the Spartan program, the origins of the Human-Covenant War and most importantly, the Fall of Reach.

As a note, I am reviewing the original 2001 publication of The Fall of Reach, not the 2012 reprint which fixed some continuity errors and expanded some of the story.

After an action packed prologue, the story begins in 2517 with Lt. Jacob Keyes escorting a UNSC specialist Dr. Kathleen Halsey to a planet in the Outer Colonies. Curiously, they tour a school looking for a 'subject' that is being examined for some obscure program that the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is undertaking. The young boy, John, is a rough, adventurous, and courageous child who, ultimately, also has a lot of luck on his side. He is considered a perfect candidate.

Fast forward some months later, and John has been kidnapped and placed in a training facility under the care of Chief Petty Officer Mendez, and he will be trained in the ways of war, strategy and tactics. He will become the ultimate soldier for the UNSC and help quell the maelstrom that is coming. Little do any of them know, humanity's first contact with a hostile alien species is just around the corner.

I've been interested in the concept of supersoldiers for a while. My own novella Reintegration, deals with the idea, and it was partially inspired by this story. The Spartans are supersoldiers made to be the last line of defence against a civil inssurection which could tear humanity apart, and how they are formed is quite a fascinating tale. Nylund captures it with a lot of discussion on why the government feels it's necessary, the extreme lengths gone to in order to make the perfect soldiers, and how it changes them over time. It also explores how, in some small ways, these children turned soldiers lose their humanity, but become it's ultimate guardians in the end.

Nothing in the novel fails to deliver, and it fleshes out the history and character of Halo protagonist John 117, who is the lens through which the player/reader sees much of Halo's world. It also exposes us to other Spartans like Linda, Fred and Kelly who are John's teammates and friends for much of the later games and novelizations who add depth to the world and the Spartans overall. Alongside stellar characters like the brilliant tactician Captain Keyes, the enigmatic Dr. Halsey, and of course Cortana, it gives a lot more to each of the characters it explores.

Of course it also has some amazing action scenes.

From Spartan infiltration missions to duking it out with Covenant ships with superior weaponry, it does a lot to give us some amazing action sequences. 

My favorite part is the whole Sigma Octanus campaign, which has some simply awesome space battle action and some very memorable moments with the Spartans on the ground. It has a particularly memorable sequence which has ignited a love affair with space battles that continues to this day in what I read and write. Nylund really nails the pulse pounding action and gets me pumped up for every alien encounter. It's a perfect companion to a first person shooter.

The Fall of Reach is a fun, and very easy read. Somewhat heavy in a moral direction, it's a fun action romp that will hopefully get you thinking on the morals of supersoldiers, but also suck you into the world of Halo and the many stories it has to tell. 

A Country of Ghosts

“The steepest places have always been the asylum of liberty.” – Baron de Tott

The Boril Empire seeks to conquer the mountains. It has coal, iron, and other resources necessary for the empire to continue it's expansion. There are no nations there, or so they tell everyone. Dimos Horacki is sent to report on this war for the broader public. He believes the nation is going to war in order to give resources to the people, not just for simple conquest, but he is soon disabused of this notion and captured by the Free Company of the Mountian Heather. Now in enemy hands he finds all his assumptions challenged in this, A Country of Ghosts.

From goodreads

In Margaret Killjoy's novel we are given a little slice of utopia and war in a secondary world. The 'country' of Hron is being invaded by a colonial empire as told through the eyes of this wayward observer to war. It makes for an extremely effective analysis of the world and the premises of each side.

Killjoy writes a very believable anarchist society, in a way perhaps that Ursula K. Le Guin would not have dared for her own The Dispossessed but not quite in the sci fi spectacle of Michael Z. Williamson's Freehold where the ideological conflict and military conflict are synonymous. It makes for something of a refreshing in between.

 A Country of Ghosts is a book that is meant to showcase a society, and one that the author is exploring through this fictional lens. The people of Hron are a curious mix. Many of them are the descendants of herders and isolated mountain communities who have always governed themselves and lived as they liked. Then an influx of refugees fleeing a failed revolution who have in turn revolutionized the society into a more confederal mix of refugees and mountain communities, all living in (mostly) harmony.

Young Dimos finds this confusing, hypocritical, and is a very believable fish out of water! Looking through his eyes I also found confusion, but also appreciation for the people of Hron. The secondary characters are no less deep for all that they may have the life of a mayfly on the stage of the impending war! The ways they introduce our viewpoint character to the ideas of Hron are very organically laid out and tend to flow with the story so you are gradually introduced to this world. It makes for some very fun reading, especially as Killjoy does not skimp on details in this secondary world, from the flora, fauna, and even how these people build their homes! It's all quite entertaining.

Nor does she skimp on the horrors of war. Honestly war is occasionally portrayed as invigorating, but always with a cost. You'd be hard pressed to say anyone walks away unscathed.

Just as importantly, nothing is monolithic. The people of Hron are varied, quarrelsome, and often don't get along as well as they should. Nor is it depicted as some paradise or land of plenty, but it is plenty free. The people like how they live overall, and don't care to be told what to do. It honestly makes me flirt with the idea of anarchism.

The story has it's highs and lows, with a grimly satisfying conclusion. Killjoy establishes a beautiful world and I hope she returns to it! Definitely one to keep an eye out for!

A Climate Leviathan

Recently, I was able to read Joel Wainwright and Geoff Mann's book Climate Leviathan, an intriguing look at how global politics must (and will) change as a response to looming climate change. The two analyze the problem from a leftist perspective, using previous philosophical discourse, political commentary, and the truly global nature of the problem to arrive at a simple conclusion; some form of supranational entity may be the only way to address the creeping climate emergency.

They lay out their reasoning quite well, pointing out how, in the words of Ursula K. Le Guin (quoting others) "it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism" and this is, especially in the political and economic sphere, rather true. From the failures of the world to band together in any meaningful way, to the flub that was the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, to increasing use of fossil fuels and no existent plan to meaningfully reduce their use. This is contrasted to the poisoned pill that the Obama administration took up in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis where banks were bailed out and, rather than hold those responsible to account, next to no one was prosecuted or censured for the outrageous acts that lead to the greatest recession in nearly a century.

With these somewhat depressing facts in mind, the authors both critique capitalism and the current liberal/neoliberal establishment that, as yet, has proven almost completely incapable of meaningfully addressing climate change. With no national solution (no single country can address or alter the global climate trajectory) to the problem, the authors posit a Hobbesian Leviathan which takes on supranational importance to govern the global response to the climate emergency. It would be, largely, the existing capitalist/liberal system we know, with tweaks to allow for supranational action. This is contrasted between the 'Climate Behemoth' which is a reactionary rejection of Leviathan where reactionary elements fight and defeat it, making a muddled, uneasy, and disunified fight at regional scale or simply national against climate change.

In contrast to those, we see Climate Mao, an authoritarian supranational entity which would be swept up by not only a populist clamoring for action to mitigate and adapt to the climate emergency, but also punish those responsible. On a global scale this would be rank authoritarianism of the worst kind, while also a means of cathartic solution to popular unrest as those deemed responsible (even their descendants) meet an unkind fate.

The authors stress though that none of these would be in any sense democratic. Mao is the most notably authoritarian, but Leviathan, despite coming with the trappings of liberal democracy, would still command the power and respect to crush dissent largely beneath its heel, and have the justification of saving the world in order to quash any other objections to its programs.

Only one imagined system, dubbed Climate X, would see this not come to pass. A decentralized and supranational, but not quite coordinated, movement of resistance to control, green energy initiatives, and effective decolonization of the modern neoliberal/capitalist systems and other statist means of control. It is moderately utopian in its vision, but the authors stress, not impossible or unimaginable. They lay out no specific goals, and only some examples, but offer it as a tantalizing image of a world where many old inequalities are torn down, but not one which is perfect.

Interestingly, this is not the first I have encountered the idea that planetary governance may be the only way to mitigate the worst fallout from climate change. In the world of The Expanse for instance, after centuries of climate disaster, the nations of the world prove unable to fight the devastation in isolation and so abdicate their political sovereignty in exchange for help to the UN which works to right the wrongs of a ravaged planet. In the Star Carrier series, we see something similar with the Terran Confederation and other supranational entities having banded together to help mitigate the damage. And in Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312 we see a world just hinting at better multinational collaboration for future cooperation.

While science fiction often is often only an examination of the present through a futuristic lens, it does say something that you can find many works envisioning the horrors of climate change only being capable of being resisted by humanity (more or less) united. As the authors of this work posit, fighting climate change in isolation is most likely going to be impossible, leading to supranational organizations and demands to fight against it, or even correct further damage. While this is, for now, only the speculation of some political wonks and science fiction writers, science fiction has occasionally been predictive rather than merely speculative.

Climate change and the various crisis it will entail is a threat to all of humanity, and despite this many people pretend that they can hide from the effects, whether with walls or money. A change in the planet though, is a change for everyone, and as changing weather patters, wildfires, and extreme weather events have shown, even the wealthy and powerful in the West are not immune. Whether we willingly, or unwillingly band together to fight this crisis remains to be seen, but the speculation on the nature (or necessity) of a potential Climate Leviathan is there, and does deserve some pondering on.

The Second Sleep

In 1468, a young priest is sent to bury his predecessor in a remote village. In arriving he sees that the man was distinctly odd, with a number of coins, bone fragments and bits of glass from the ancient world in his collection. Did his seeming obsession with the ancient world lead to his death? What does he know of the lost world of the ancients?

For you see, this is not our 1468.

In his new novel, Robert Harris delivers another exciting tale of alternate history. The world is only just rising from peril, and it is enduring a time of The Second Sleep. Some spoilers follow.

I've reviewed Harris's work before, Fatherland being a staple of the alternate history genre, but he delivers exciting reads in straight historical fiction and thrillers as well. This new work of his is merely another excellent exploration on these themes with a twist. Considering it came out in 2019, just before our own cozy catastrophe took place, it seems fitting to review it after the fact.

Young priest Christopher Fairfax sets out from Exeter to a small village called Addicott St. George, where he is tasked to perform a funeral and at least perform mass for the people until a replacement can be sent. There he discovers that all is not as it seems in this little village. The people are dour, rural, and insular, which bothers Fairfax as he goes about his duties and tries to flee as quickly as he can. Unfortunately, bad weather traps him in the little valley, and he thus must work to do his duties. 

He does though, come upon a mystery. The old priest had a collection of items from before the apocalypse, coins, plastic, dolls and a complete Apple iPhone on display. Alongside them, a series of heretical books that seem to challenge the teachings of the Church where the world was destroyed by the Beast. At the funeral he meets local notables John Hancock and Sarah Durston, who verify the priest had strange doings. A minor tension mounts between Hancock and Fairfax as they both seem to vie for the affections of Lady Durston. The mystery deepens as they learn that there is supposedly a treasure hidden near where the old priest died. They set out to discover more about his yearnings for the past.

In turns out that the story has picked up up roughly eight centuries after an unspecified calamity which has been identified as the Apocalypse of John from the Book of Revelation by the people at the time. It is an interesting response as, in a similar story to A Canticle for Leibowitz, the people living through this calamity have knowingly thrown off the technological society of their forebears and then wrapped the fall of the old world in religious significance, which has been spun into official history by the power of the Church in order to keep England (mentioned as now unified under Church and Crown) in order unlike the calamity of the bad old days.

With this forceful renunciation of technological society, old superstitions come back hard. Ghosts, demons, evil spirits, and other ideas are rife in rural areas, and even some cities. The Church does little to dissuade these ideas, and even frowns on many innovations. Wind, water and muscle power are the primary movers of society, and though they have not lost access to gunpowder, the weapons of the day are crude in comparison to those that came before the Apocalypse. Harris also paints a haunting picture of a world where the old has washed away, the glories of the 21st Century looked on at like ancient Roman ruins, and barely a trace of the ancient world still stands. It's emblematic in how many of the (now ancient) manor houses of England are either in ruins or barely kept afloat by proud aristocratic families.

That this old history is presented as a minor mystery is a bit odd. Everyone knows the world collapsed, and it seems that the Church also helped tie society together again, which meant that at some point in the past the collective trauma of the Apocalypse pushed people to adopt this story that the world did indeed end - in a way. After eight hundred years much of that would be forgotten, and Church teaching would have calcified into a more mystical version and other histories might indeed be suppressed. But with everyone knowing technological society collapsed, one of the main mysteries (especially the how and why) never quite gets addressed satisfactorily. Indeed, for what one of the major revelations turns out to be in the end it is barely hinted at, at all and could have provided a much more compelling drama!

That being said, the obfuscation of the calamity, the Church efforts to cover up the past, and the way society has regressed, does create an interesting crusade to find out about the old world. The mystery and interplay between characters is fun as it shows a healthy skepticism amongst many which runs up against rigid attempts at imposing order on society in the after a calamity long ago.

While perhaps not the great mystery it was meant to be, it certainly paints a vivid picture of a world which has moved on from its former glory. Humanity has survived, but has it thrived? The characters present interesting contrasts and make for some amusing drama, while showing us just how people live in this world. It also reminds us that no society is immune from decline or collapse, and raises disturbing questions about just how secure our own world is. Fascinating reading.

Cinco de Mayo

Every year in the Fifth of May, many Americans mistakenly believe they are celebrating Mexican independence day (It's September 16th by the way, the Cry of Dolores). While this is often a veneer for eating many tacos and getting drunk on tequila, the Fifth of May is in fact an important day in Mexican history. However, it was not a moment of independence, but instead when a Mexican force which, by conventional wisdom should have been overrun and scattered, held out and threw back one of the armies with the highest prestige in Europe. Let me tell you the story of the true Cinco de Mayo.

It begins in 1861, not a great year for a lot of people, but after a nasty little civil war the Mexican government under Benito Juarez decided that in order to get their house back in order and get around to running the nation they would need some financial relief. This not being the era of the IMF, that meant they needed to default on loan payments to the European powers. The powers of Europe, primarily Spain, Britain, and France, didn't much care for that and decided to sign the Convention of London, in which they declared they would use force in order to make Mexico pay its loans back.

Thus in October of that year, an allied fleet landed at the port of Veracruz and took hold of the important port city. The intention was that Mexico would be forced to divert at least some of its national incomes to paying the foreign powers, but one man had much more grandiose ideas.

Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, who had overthrown the Second Republic and established the Second Empire in a coup, had grand imperial ambitions. Exiles from the conservative side of Mexico's previous civil war had whispered in his ear that he might gain glory, and perhaps more importantly, money from engaging in an adventure to overthrow Juarez and his republican allies. Napoleon, readily agreed and dispatched 6,000 men to the country under the command of Count de Lorencez, Charles Latrille. Lorencez was the scion of a minor noble family born in 1814 he had studied Saint-Cyr and graduated in 1832, earning the rank of colonel after service in Algeria. He fought in the Crimea, fighting in the successful French assault on the Malakoff Redoubt earning his rank as a major general.

Facing him would be Ignacio Zaragoza, a republican general who was a confidant of and fiercely loyal to President Juarez. He had under him some 4,000 troops who were a motley assortment of army regulars, militia with odds and ends, and locals with whatever came to hand. They were expecting reinforcements, but they would not arrive in time for the French assault. He did however, prepare to defend the town by positioning his men on two forts that had been built to defend the town in the late civil war. 

Fort Loreto and Fort Guadalupe defended the town of Puebla right along the French line of advance. To capture the town the French would necessarily have to assault these two forts. Knowing he faced a far better armed and more experienced force, Zaragoza dug a trench between the two forts along the saddle of the two hills on which they sat.

The French meanwhile, were quite overconfident in their analysis of their capabilities. The 6,500 men under Lorencez's command were veterans of recent wars in Europe and China, and armed with the latest modern Minie rifles and artillery. Such was his disdain for his Mexican opponents Lorencez declared that his men were “…so superior to the Mexican in terms of race, organization and moral discipline that now at the head of 6,000 soldiers I am the master of Mexico.” Indeed, most observers thought that the French would handily win the upcoming battle.

Overconfident at winning a skirmish with Mexican forces on the 28th of April, as Lorencez's French troops approached Puebla on the 5th of May at a leisurely pace. So overconfident was Lorencez that he decided he would attack the Mexican fortifications head on. His officers attempted to dissuade him from this course of action, but with what he assumed were superior men and weapons, he decided to bull ahead anyways. 

French cannon began a bombardment of Fort Guadalupe, but poor terrain, and getting too close made it difficult to aim. The defenders were further protected by their trenches and the masonry of the forts. Having fired off over half their ammunition, Lorencez ordered his troops to advance. A glittering array of French Zouaves supported by marines advanced a 12pm noon, only to be driven back by withering Mexican fire from their trenches. Lorencez decided to change his tactics, and this time made a diversionary attack south of Fort Loreto, while again sending his Zouaves up the center covered by marines. This proved more successful and the Zouaves actually managed to rise the tricolor along a section of the Mexican line before being beaten back again. In this action, fierce combat ensued against the French diversionary attack led by Mexican leader Porifio Diaz.

Finally, Lorencez allowed his men to rest and bombarded the Mexican forts again. By 2pm he had used all of his artillery ammunition, but was determined to launch a do or die attack and assembled all of his remaining men to launch an assault. This time the French advanced, making it to the Mexican line and fighting hard, and the battle became a general melee. After an hour of fighting, it began to rain turning the battlefield to mud, and Zaragoza, who could not believe his luck, ordered his cavalry under Diaz to strike the French in the flank. This unexpected attack demoralized the French and inflicted further casualties. Fearing the worst, and seeing no hope of breaching the Mexican lines, Lorencez ordered a withdrawal and dug in for an expected Mexican counterattack which did not immediately materialize.

It was an amazing victory for the Mexican forces. They had lost only 83 killed and a 132 wounded, while inflicting over 700 casualties on the French. In total, the French would lose 462 dead and 300 wounded. A humiliating reversal for French troops, and Zaragosa would say "The national arms have been covered with glory.”

Zaragoza was soon reinforced to a strength of 12,000 men, and while he pursued them and attempted to assault their positions at Orizaba, a French counterattack convinced him to retreat back to Puebla where he would fall ill and pass away a mere four months after his great victory. His incapacity meant that the Mexicans lost the Battle of Cerro del Borrego in June, leaving both armies where they had started. Tragically, their failure to drive the French to the coast meant the French would return with 30,000 men a year later and besiege the town again, and inflict a humiliating defeat on the Mexicans at the Siege of Puebla. A further four years of war would see a short lived French occupation, and finally an expulsion of the puppet monarchy installed by the French.

The 5th of May, once the war was won, became acknowledged as a great victory against the odds. In a battle no one expected Mexico to win the French were driven back at great cost, while Mexico could proudly say they had brought great honor to Mexican arms and won the first battle to maintain their independence. So raise a glass of cerveza and have some hot peppers and cry Viva Mexico!

There's Something About Halo

Back in 2001, one of the greatest First Person Shooters was released. Halo: Combat Evolved quite memorably pit Robocop alongside the Marines from Aliens against scary dogmatic aliens on Larry Niven's Ringworld, oh, and there were zombies! Or more seriously, in the year 2552, the UNSC Pillar of Autumn flees the Covenant destruction of Reach and making a blind slipspace jump, discovers the eponymous Halo.

From there, a new game franchise was born. Going on it had a brilliant first trilogy, spin off games, and numerous outrigger novels which expanded the world of the Halo series into numerous planets, ships, battles and other moments which gave us exciting new ideas and characters. The series has continued recently to the newest installment in the series, Halo Infinite, and while it has given us more Master Chief, something hasn't felt quite right about the plot. That there is now a new television series, which confusingly creates a new timeline (the so-called Silver Timeline) we can expect to see more unique content in that universe. 

Though is it good?

Many would argue no. Now while there's not a whole lot to be said for the depth of Halo's plot - which can be boiled down to "shoot the bad aliens and blow up the ancient artifact" - the outrigger novels have had some gems. The 2001 prequel novel Halo: The Fall of Reach, by Eric Nylund does a wonderful job expanding the universe, the backstory of the Spartans, why they were created, and the beginning of the Human-Covenant War which is the backstory for the series conflict. It is a personal favorite of mine because it examines all the really dark thinking that goes into creating a unit of supersoldiers. This is not really explored in the videogames, but in the novels it creates a backstory that is interesting enough to be adapted in multiple formats and influence the portrayal of the Master Chief from then on.

The games themselves then proceed to get a bit weird. In the sense of upping the ante, Halo 2 begins with the invasion of Earth, which is supposed to be the pivotal moment of the Human-Covenant War, except that doesn't get resolved by the end. Halo 3 returns to Earth, and then somewhere else, and another Halo installation... the storytelling is a bit of a mess.

It can't really be a new surprise then that the new TV series is, while visually stunning, a chaotic mess. In it's first episode it probably breaks the cardinal rule of Halo and shows the Master Chief's face. Over six games now it's been hinted at, he's been vaguely described in the books, but otherwise we never saw the Chief's face. In all of these series from the games, and even to the books, Master Chief has remained a faceless vessel for us to project onto so that we could imagine ourselves in this universe and having these adventures, and enjoy him as an audience surrogate. In a live adaptation, Master Chief as a character in and of himself can be a fatal mistake.

This is compounded by having an overarching plot that was already seen in Halo 5, Master Chief goes rogue, but the reasons are just awful in the television series. In the game, Master Chief is going after the AI Cortana who has been his companion and friend since the first game, players are invested in his journey to re-establish contact with her. In the TV series meanwhile, he touches an alien artifact and is somehow able to simply break years of training and indoctrination and decide to go rogue in favor of an rebel kid who he's just met. An odd decision for a series with some well established relationships which have been done better.

So Halo storytelling being bad is nothing new, but could it be improved?

Arguably we have the template for that already. Eric Nylund wrote The Fall of Reach and Halo First Strike as well as Ghosts of Onyx among other stories like The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole (an unsung hero of the backstory) showing that he, unlike so many others, probably gets the themes and stories to be told in Halo better than anyone. From the exploration of the why of the Spartan program, the tortured emotions of Dr. Halsey, it's creator, to the wild military exploits of humanity's greatest admiral, he captures the essence of what it means to fight and thrive on the bitter edge in this universe. It's dark, witty, and full of edge of your seat action.

If the games had done more of this, arguably they might have been better for it. The false crescendo we got in Halo 2 with the invasion of Earth for instance, most likely needed to be done away with. A videogame following the attempts to get home and the struggle to link up with the UNSC to fight on against the Covenant would have been a more suitable plot, with some wonderful moments to be exploited in space or on alien worlds. The third game being the penultimate Battle for Earth, to save mankind's homeworld, would be more climactic and given the conclusion of the trilogy far more emotional punch.

I won't say too much for the second trilogy, as that is a far longer dissection than I am prepared to undertake today! However, a more structured plot, a few familiar ideas and themes, and the games could have indeed been much more effective in their storytelling, almost as effective as they were in delivering excellent gameplay.

Overall, Halo has had an enduring presence in popular culture since it's debut two decades ago. From some amazing games to an enduring story for super soldiers the Halo series stands strong in science fiction.

Age of Ash

An interesting beginning to a new fantasy trilogy. The city of Kithmar is old, has a grand character all its own, and politics and plots that span centuries. When Alys, member of a street gang, runs a pull that goes awry, she sets in motion a series of events which could undo the whole city. 

In a new trilogy Daniel Abraham, of James A. Corey and The Expanse fame, brings us a stunning visual of the city of Kithmar and its environs. From the sprawling palace complex of Green Hill to the gutters of Long Hill. He is taking us on a new journey with thieves, gods and ancient magics. This is an Age of Ash.

The story revolves around Alys and her friend Sammish, two gutter thieves from Longhill. Her older brother Darro is a hired knife who gets in over his head. Wanting to unravel the mystery of her brother's work she begins treading down the same path as Sammish tries to stop her. Though we also see the trials of some of Kithmar's other residents, especially Andomaka who lives mainly in the sprawling Palace Hill complex and the temple of the Daris Brotherhood. The rich and the poor intertwine in some surprising ways, and we do see true compassion from the top for those on the bottom. One outsider who emerges is Saffa, giving us a small glimpse into the magic of this world, and a mother's vendetta.

It is more about thieves and loss than palace intrigue, and it shows us the poorer side of the city and the desperate struggles to eke out a life on the fringes of society. This is quite well done and I could almost breath in the desperate and grinding poverty of the citizens of the city. Sammish having no family to turn to and scraping out a living by running odd errands, doing odd jobs, and of course crime, makes for some heart rending moments as her life is explored. The progressive strain of her relationship with Alys merely adds to this and I was impressed at how these material conditions also effected her emotional journey as well.

Alys began as my favorite character in the book, but her vendetta became almost background to Sammish's mundane struggles. Both characters worked well as foils for one another and their struggles were almost literal mirrors, becoming intertwined almost by accident. They made for some great reading and a very, very suspenseful third act!

Kithmar itself is a character, in a way. Abraham details so much of it so well that you can see yourself walking these streets and getting lost in the alleys or marveling at the homes of the wealthy and the palace. There's a depth to the city that you don't get from a lot of fantasy locations and I'm looking forward to how it gets used as the trilogy expands. The bare bones of a broader mystery and sprawling contest are laid down for us and it will be fascinating to see them built upon.

However, I do think that for all this detail we were sparse on some background details. There are the Hansch and Inlisc peoples who inhabit the city, but beyond some broad cultural differences we don't get much information. There's gods about, but we get little information on who worships what and why. We also never really get a broader sense of the world, or whether the magic is so powerful. It leaves a lot of mysteries, but also slightly unclear stakes overall beyond our main characters. This is made up for by making the stories so personal and the stakes rooted firmly in their struggles, but it does leave many mysteries unexplained.

Told against the sprawling backdrop of Kithmar, which comes to life as a living, breathing, city, it's a tale of friends at odds and gods in the streets. The story shows us a lot of mysteries, but never quite answers them to our satisfaction. I'll certainly be looking to see more of Kithmar in the future.