Serpent Sword

Welcome once again to the world of Battle for the Wastelands in the newest installment of Matthew Quinn's epic steampunk fantasy Serpent Sword! Picking up shortly where the first installment left off, the Merrills are fighting hard to drive as fast as they can to the old capital Jacinto so they can stop the rush of Grendel's numerically superior armies and maybe, just maybe, carve out a land where they can be free. Will our heroes manage to keep Grendel on his heels, or will his forces end up grinding the Merrills into the dust?

As a disclaimer, I was given an advance copy for review purposes.

The sequel is undoubtedly more action packed than the initial installment, with a long series of short, sharp, vicious fights that never let me tear my eyes away from the page for too long. It's a huge rollercoaster from start to finish. The action is up front, up close and personal, and more in line with what we'd semi-recognize in the modern world as the two sides, the Merrills now better equipped with Old World weaponry, and the forces of Grendel now better armed with the might of the Northlands behind them, get to grips with one another. In a nice touch, we often see the Merrills trying to conserve all that Old World weaponry, while Grendel can use it with (relative) impunity.

Andrew Sutter is in the thick of the fray this time as some of the hard riding and hard fighting cavalry at the tip of the spear of the rebel advance. He gets some wonderful character building in a few scenes (and some fun with his new squeeze, Alyssa) which helps ground him and the whole rebel struggle. We, mostly, see the action of the war through his eyes as Alonzo Merrill is either politicking, directing strategy, and the big bad Grendel is doing the same.

Speaking of everyone's favorite warlord, Grendel is once again in action. This time he's first picking up the pieces of the now unlamented dead Jasper Clark, formerly of the Flesh Eating Legion. Rebellious generals, unreliable vassals, and tantalizing hints of what lies across the desert are all at the heart of his worries in this volume. Once again I loved reading the villain perspective. His concern for whether his empire will survive, and how it will survive is at the forefront of his musings. He is seriously concerned about how to keep one (or more) of his unruly vassals from turning on him if his military situation goes south. Indeed, he sees the rebellion as more of a distraction than anything else.

That said, he's just as concerned about his impulsive son Falki. With Falki in the fight he still has a stable of concubines and heirs back home, but they're engaged in harem politics of their own. This is another potential headache as the chaos of war may prompt some unwise decisions by them. One in particular, the imprisoned Catalina Merrill, is still scheming and trying to remind her son of his true heritage. 

Catalina is a much more active character in this book. Though she is still imprisoned, she acts out in small ways to try and influence Grendel, whether appealing to his political nature, or by establishing covert links with the resistance in her homeland. Her plot was quite thrilling to read here as it has all the hallmarks of a spy thriller, but also shows just how villainous Grendel can be. In one memorable scene he calmly talks about destroying the remnants of her family and subjecting her people to a cruel rule, only to ride in as a savior on a white horse and free them from the very oppression he forced on them. It was a very cold and calculating plan, and Grendel's villainous impulses are so well written by Quinn that I loved any scene Grendel was in because of it.

The action too, of course, cannot be faulted. From fighting armored trains, battles with mutants, and the delightful use of language to establish the setting, we have some unique scenes. For me, the most visceral came when the Blood Alchemy Host, one of Grendel's more disturbing band of allies and literal monsters, got involved. It raised the stakes considerably, and had some grim and gruesome connotations. Let's just say, weasels are not fun when they grow past a certain size!

With the Merrills outnumbered and outgunned though, they must resort to desperate measures to try and win a peace on their terms. Hence the name of the book itself. I won't give away any spoilers, but for fans of The Romanov Rescue by Tom Kratman, you'll definitely see something you like in this book! From start to finish Quinn is clever in his use of the technology in his world, and all the ways it can be exploited against the enemy!

Definitely worth checking out, and please go out and support Matthew Quinn with this excellent new steampunk series!

Invasion of Iraq Twenty Years On

On this day in 2003, the announcement was made that land operations were being undertaken against Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the Ba'ath Party which had brutally ruled it for decades. In a little over a month, the Coalition forces overran Iraq and occupied the country. The invasion, while an unqualified military success, contained almost no planning for the political and economic aftermath. Almost immediately Iraq fell into anarchy and the forces of occupation had to struggle to maintain order. A rising insurgency, civil war, and unclear strategic goals, lead to a chaotic war that attempted to stabilize the country. Even so, this paved the way for the nihilistic death cult of ISIL to expand into a power vacuum. Overall, the strategic aims of the United States and it's allies failed spectacularly, and plunged the region into continued chaos with effects that are still felt to this day.

The war began on extremely dubious justification. We now know that ever since the day of the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration was looking for a way to attack Iraq or somehow blame them for the exportation of terror around the world. Enter the extremely nebulous "Weapons of Mass Destruction" which were toted by the administration as the reason Iraq had to be invaded. They were never found. Instead, there was a post-facto justification for "spreading democracy" and rebuilding Iraq, despite the men who decided to invade Iraq having no intention to do anything of the sort.

Over the course of the intervention the US did topple a dictator, but had to spend blood and treasure on rebuilding the country because they had no plans to do so. The appointed governor/dictator Paul Bremer then proceeded to sow the seeds for a brutal little civil war and cock up creating a government quite badly. This allowed nearly a decade of violence to be played out with only a few bright spots until the withdrawal was negotiated and agreed to by the US, with all Coalition troops leaving by the end of 2011. Unfortunately, in linking the war to the wider war on terror the US had allowed terror cells and movements the ability to coalesce around Iraq and use it as a rallying cry. The Iraqi government then became embroiled in sectarian fights which led to the rise of ISIS, necessitating the US to deploy to Iraq once again.

Most damningly, throughout it all Iran steadily increased its own powerbase in the country and plays a large role in internal Iraqi politics to this day. Making an entire aspect of the ostensible reason for the US to be there pointless! It was a strategic failure from start to finish, costing hundreds of thousands of lives, most of them civilian.

In short, it was a baseless, brutal, nasty war that served no purpose.

Yet, against the odds, to this day there are people who will say it was the right decision. Everything from saying "well weapons of mass destruction could have existed" to "well we overthrew a dictator!" Which is all so much whitewashing. The consequences of the US's unsanctioned invasion of Iraq are with us to this day as it showed that power could flout international norms, and the wars we see from Ukraine to Armenia are now proof that countries are willing to use violence to settle their differences in a way we had assumed was not possible or desirable at the end of the Cold War. The casual flouting of the idea of a rules based international order will have consequences far down the road that we cannot yet conceive of.

I was young when the war started, but I have a vivid memory of watching the news one night and seeing the announcement that the invasion of Iraq had started. I turned to my father and said "Dad, am I watching history right now?" 

"Yes, this is history," he said.

What I most vividly remember leading up to the war was the divisiveness, with many media pundits and commentators (and even our then Prime Minister, Jean Chretien) disagreeing with the US policy. The UN was telling people there were no weapons of mass destruction hiding under rocks anywhere, while the Bush Administration aggressively said they were. This was, of course, all lies based on either deliberately selected faulty intelligence or willful ignorance, but it took a long time to discover that.

I remember Jon Stewart lampooning most of discourse leading up to the invasion, and the backlash that he got. France in particular for spurning the American claims so much that there was a briefly known as freedom fries. Journalists who questioned the honesty of the decisions leading up to the war were branded as unpatriotic, while even the Dixie Chicks - as they were then known - received threats for being insufficiently patriotic.

Discourse was heavily divided, the evidence was lacking, and even as a youth I could see that, but the war went ahead anyways. Maybe I'm more cynical because I've looked back on those years and just finished reading some excellent books on the decision making processes, the rush to judgement, and the terrible mistakes made during the war. My mind was further hardened after a visit to the George W. Bush museum in Texas last year where I saw the ongoing effort to whitewash the war. However, even with hindsight, I am happy I was such a little radical as to oppose the war at a young age and still be a staunch critic of it now.

What makes me sad is all the blood, death, and destruction visited on countries that had nothing to do with 9/11, the losses of so many innocents, and the ongoing sectarian and regional violence it has enabled. This war leaves many scars and will have a long shadow cast over not only the Middle East, but the United States as well.

The Last of Us Season 1

In 2003, a mutated fungus which had managed to make its way to human hosts through contaminated crops caused a global outbreak. In mere weeks millions were infected and driven by the urge to spread the infection. The Cordyceps Brain Infection wrought havoc on the globe and forced humanity back into fortified strongholds, leaving those who could not flee behind its walls to fend for themselves in a crumbling wilderness.

On the day of the infection, Joel (Pedro Pascal), his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and his daughter Sara (Nico Parker) are trying to flee like so many others, only for tragedy to strike and his daughter dies in his arms. Twenty years later, he is estranged from his brother and living in the Boston Quarantine Zone (QZ) working as a smuggler alongside his love interest Tess. He gets an offer to transport a girl named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to the headquarters of a group of freedom fighters called the Fireflies. In doing so, he might just save humanity.

Thus begins probably the greatest videogame adaptation of all time in The Last of Us. Spoilers follow!

The opening episode is one of the best adaptations of a game I've ever seen. Expanding on game material and the constraints of live acting, it delivers an amazing rendition of the chaos of the early infection and the loss suffered by the characters. It establishes the bleak tone of this post-apocalyptic world, fleshes out our main characters, and gets the message of grim reality across amazingly well. By the end I couldn't wait to see episode two and what might happen next.

The Last of Us, through its first few episodes, had moments before the opening credits rolled that set up how the virus was scientifically feasible for fiction purposes, as well as showing us some events from before the outbreak. The very first episode opens with a fake TV interview from 1968 in which two scientists talk about their fears over the future. One, portrayed by John Hannah, presciently warns that in a warming Earth many terrible diseases, but also fungus, could well end up infecting humans. In the second episode this is also done through the reaction of a mycologist in Indonesia discovering the first victims of the infection mere days before the outbreak. While a few pre-outbreak moments take place in other opening episodes, it was a sad thing to see that it was dropped across a few and we instead got into the immediate opening credits. I had hoped that each episode would open with some backstory, a cool scene spinning the pre-outbreak world or the post-outbreak aftermath before the present, but I can understand the time constraints.

In episode three, we have one of the bigger divergences for possibly the best post-apocalyptic love story ever told. It's the meeting of lone and closeted survivalist Bill (Nick Offerman) - who has effectively turned himself into Robert Neville from I am Legend - is bunkered down in an abandoned town. One day a trap is set off by Frank (Murray Bartlett) and the two develop an unlikely romance. In a short film style we explore their relationship, problems, and introduction to Joel and Tess. It was a bit of a departure from the full plot, but it expands the emotional stakes for Joel and Ellie each, while also telling one of the most tear jerking stories I've seen in a while. Simply a phenomenal episode.

Episodes four and five are a smaller arc where the characters take a detour through Kansas City only to be caught up in the aftermath of a violent revolution against the old authorities. Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey) has inspired her followers to rebel and take the city from them and is engaged in a brutal series of reprisals. Here the two leads meet Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam (Keivon Woodard) who must work together to escape. In an action packed finale, we see that the wages of revenge are death, and just how bleak this world is! Wonderful series of scenes and acting which made it all come together.

Episode six sees Joel and Ellie meeting up with Tommy again, and meeting his new wife Maria (Rutina Wesley). In some extremely humorous explorations of survivor politics and ideas, we see the brothers reunite and Jeol and Ellie bond. It sets up the ending quite well.

Another small arc in episodes seven and eight address the final bonding of the pair, and an effective flashback to Ellie's discovery of her immunity. It also giving us one of the most iconic game villains, the cult leader David (Scott Shephard). David is an excellent foil as the sinister leader, and his introduction was a magnificent turn around and play on expectations while being supremely well acted. His creepy obsession with Ellie and desire to dominate her is fiendishly portrayed, and the final showdown is perfect. Joel's rampage through his followers sets up the final act of the show quite well.

Episode nine is probably the most divisive for me personally. It's very short for one, probably one of the shortest episodes. It also hews extremely closely to the game which, while very inspiring as an adaptation, felt like it missed some opportunities to do some legwork for the second season. Well done and effective at tugging your emotions, it could have been better I feel.

Overall however, the show is amazing. The acting of Pascal and Ramsey is stupendous with Pascal bringing out the jaded survivor in Joel and the ferocious protectiveness of a father who has already lost one child. Ramsey's portrayal as the 14 year old Ellie is really well done, and she's hilarious to watch, while delivering some amazing lines and well acted scenes. Her chemistry with Pascal is also excellent, making the pair an effective onscreen team.

The supporting cast is also amazing. One of the best performances I felt was given by Lynskey as Kathleen, where she hammered home how brutal this world is, even just between people.

The chemistry of the characters was superb, and we saw many important bonds formed. This was, ostensibly, a zombie show. However, the infected do not take center stage and are mostly an environmental threat, not the drivers of the plot. While the infection is omnipresent, zombies and killing them is not the point of the show. That made it a nice departure from The Walking Dead, but also allowed viewers to focus on the story and the more human element. It added something to the genre that really hadn't existed for a while.

Departures from the game and additions to the story we well done, and for myself, pretty universally well received. I think this is destined to go down as one of the best adaptations of all time, with an amazing story being told and being visually stunning. Definitely one to watch!

Tress of the Emerald Sea

As part of his record setting kickstarter campaign Brandon Sanderson revealed he had a batch of secret novels he had written and planned to publish across the coming year. The first of these was Tress of the Emerald Sea, a touching and extremely humorous story in answer to the question "What if Buttercup went looking for Wesley rather than assuming he was dead?" as its' genesis. Honestly, it delivers so well in Wit and style that this is easily in my top ten list for one of the best books of 2023.

Some general spoilers and cosmere related information follows!

Once again Sanderson crafts a clever and unique world for the reader. Set on a world where spores rain down from the moons, filling the 'oceans' which are moved through the process of fluidization (air drifting up from deep vents causes the 'ground' to move and behave like a fluid). These are no ordinary spores however! Each possesses different properties, from the merely annoying, to the magical and deadly. It is on the Verdant Sea where Tress lives on The Rock, a small, unprepossessing little island where not much happens, but due to its strategic location no one is allowed to leave.

Against that backdrop the titular Tress leads a largely unexciting life. She washes windows at the Duke's manor, takes care of her parents, and talks with the 'gardener' Charlie, who she conveniently pretends is not the Duke's son and heir.

Tragedy strikes when he must leave the island to find a bride suitable for his station. Instead, he finds himself shipped off to try and bargain with the evil Sorceress of the Midnight Sea and is captured. When the king refuses to ransom him, Tress must set off herself to rescue him. Cue pirates, talking rats, Hoid, and many other highjinks which come to befuddle our poor protagonist!

Told through the voice of Hoid himself, we get a delightful story filled with a more mundane magic than Sanderson usually gives, but one no less exciting. It is cosmere related, so many hints from previous stories and other elements play a great part in bringing the whole world to light. For more cosmere aware fans this one is extremely exciting! I myself was making connections that had me more and more eager for the greater cosmere universe.

We also have a lot of humour, but in Sanderson's signature style, genuine tenderness and acts of redemption. An entire ship of pirates seeking to do penance for their crimes provides for a rich backdrop of characters. Tress gets some great moments with them, and her own personality and attitudes towards not wanting to impose are consistent, filled with growth, and wonderful examples of mercy, humility, and overcoming simply staggering odds.

With the nearly whimsical style that the story is told in the reader is almost led along by Sanderson's prose. You're pulled through the narrative rather than having to do any work to read it! I had difficulty putting it down, and ended up reading the last two thirds of the book in one sitting! I genuinely loved the story and characters, but the work was also visually beautiful. 

Like many of Sanderson's recent releases, his work has come to include art from many artists which brings the story to life. It added to my imagination and also set up some humorous images for the reader (a particular one near the end had me in peals of laughter). It's not just a work of art, but a beautiful rendering of the cosmere itself.

Take some time to inject a little joy and hope into your life, get your hands on a copy and enjoy the ride!

What Price Victory?

In the seventh anthology in the Honorverse, David Weber and a host of other excellent authors bring us new stories from various eras in time across the universe Weber hath wrought. In doing so they ask the sobering question What Price Victory? This new anthology gives us five new stories which span a long chronological period across the Honorverse timeline and so necessarily some slight spoilers will follow!

First up, we have the prequel story to the amazing Manitcore Ascendant series Traitor by Timothy Zahn and Thomas Pope. Exploring the background of one of the main antagonists to this series, we are taken back to the early days of the Andermani Empire. Gustav Anderman is still powerful and respected, but getting into his elder years and his eccentricities, in spite of his victories, are becoming difficult for even many of his most loyal followers to ignore. Into this mix a young and fiercely ambitious Cutler Gustavus von Tischendorf is trying to make his mark. However, he feels slighted by the Emperor after the Second Battle of Tomlinson, and when intrigue creeps up on him, he finds himself roped into a conspiracy darker than he can imagine.

Like in their excellent main series, Zahn and Pope are building on their insight into the larger Honorverse and tapping into the rich vein of stories that can be told in Andermani space. The action is focused and tight, centering on the Sorgenfrei Palace on the capital world of Postdam. Some characters from A Call to Inssurection make an early appearance, and their actions may surprise you! What this story does excellently is also show us Gustav Anderman himself. While he's certainly crazy, he remains a very, very dangerous man!

Secondly we have Deception on Gryphon by Jane Lindskold. This one takes us back to the early years of Manticore before the colonization of the third habitable planet in the Manticore Binary system took place in earnest. Stephanie Harrington and her friend Karl, as well as their treecats Lionheart and Survivor are with her parents for a big science conference. They meet, and sort of befriend, a strange geologist who suddenly ends up dead. Was it suicide, or murder?

The story itself is fun because it explores the largely unexplored world of Gryphon. Fans of the Star Kingdom series about Stephanie Harrington and the treecats will definitely enjoy this new short story. The banter between the cats is quite amusing, and how they explore their new location no less so. Lindskold using a murder as a backdrop works well and she manages to bring the story together in a satisfying way.

Third is Jan Kotouč's The Silesian Command which takes place in the opening days of the Second Manticoran-Haven War as Manticore is currently trying to digest the Silesian Confederacy alongside the Anderman Empire. The Royal Navy is overworked, overwhelmed, and stretched very thin, leaving room for opportunists to cause quite bit of damage to the still chaotic former Confederacy.

Evelyn Chandler is working her way through grief after the loss of her daughter, and so much death in the previous war. The new Silesian members are chaotic, corrupt, and not yet resigned to their new roles as subjects of Manticore. Even worse, unscrupulous warlords and pirates are taking advantage of the chaos.

This was probably one of my favorite stories in the whole anthology. Packed with the intrigue, combat, and dilemmas I have come to love the Honorverse for, Kotouč manages to roll together the rich vein of stories in this part of the universe into an excellently self contained story. The characterization is excellent, the tactics of our protagonists and antagonists clever, and overall we get a great look at the wider issues of the local universe at this time.

Next is If Wishes Were Spacecutters by Joelle Presby. This is a little 'slice of life' story from the Protectorate of Grayson. Noah Bedlam is a down on his luck member of Grayson society who is living on social assistance and always just one step away from financial ruin or being run out of social housing. He find himself swept up in the expansion of work in the outbreak of the Second Manticore-Haven War as things go off the rails.

Presby tells a really good story in Grayson society that gives us some expansion and insight into how the 'little people' in Grayson get along. While we've become familiar with the Protector, many of the great Steadholders, and the various armsmen and wives who make up this society we only ever had a few looks at life on the bottom. This was a wonderful exploration of that kind of life, even in the future, and how it can affect peoples choices and outlooks. Presby wrote poverty and social stigma in this society so well! How the various characters bumped into one another and helped drive the plot was quite clever!

Finally we have David Weber's First Victory. This is a story that stretches way back in time, mostly within the Harrington family. It's a touching family drama I think many people can relate to. That said, it is cute to see the younger life of the Harrington clan explored, especially with young Honor and more casual references to greater series events.

This is another excellent addition to the broader universe of the Honor Harrington series. I definitely reccommend it to fans, and more cautiously to casual readers if only because of spoilers! Otherwise, I encourage you to thoroughly immerse yourself in this space opera epic!

Balloons of War

With recent news about the transition of a Chinese spy balloon floating over the United States, my mind got turned to what balloons had done in war before. This was, surprisingly, an older practice than I thought!

The first time hot air balloons (rather than lanterns) were used in war was back in  1794, l’Entreprenant at the Battle of Fleurus by Revolutionary French forces to observe the Austrian movements. The Balloon Corps didn't get too much traction with the French forces, and Napoleon disbanded them in 1799. They would again be used by French forces in 1859 when France and Austria went to war over the fate of Italy and were extensively used for reconnaissance. They were again used in the Franco-Prussian War, most famously at the Siege of Paris, some for observation, but also to fly messages in and out of the city over the Prussian lines.

Most English historians are probably more familiar with the Union Army Balloon Corps in the US Civil War when the aeronaut Thaddeus Lowe used his own balloons to observe rebel movements for the US Army. The observation balloons were used at the battles of First Bull Run, in the various engagements of the Peninsula Campaign, Fredericksburg, and the Siege of Vicksburg. However, without political patronage and a military that did not readily adopt the idea of ballooning, Lowe's Balloon Corps languished and, effectively, ceased to exist in 1863.

Amusingly however, the United States can lay claim to the first use of an aircraft carrier, in a sense. A converted coal barge, the George Washington Parke Custis, was used to float the balloon Washington in the Potomac in 1861. 

The British army tinkered with the concept, and the army of the Empire of Brazil used observation balloons in the Paraguayan War, but it wasn't until the 20th century when ballooning for the military really took off (pun intended).

The most famous use of balloons for military purposes came in World War One. While observation balloons were common, the great zeppelins of the Imperial German military were the most conspicuous use of ballooning in that conflict. As observation vessels, bombers, and rough transports, they were used to good effect in the first years of the war, while also dropping bombs on cities to try and inspire fear.

It was then that the incendiary bullet was invented, bringing the hydrogen filled airships down in flames and generally making your survivability in one nil.

While observation balloons (and even spy balloons) have continued to be used, this is not the most common thing in war anymore. The true heyday was the 19th and early 20th centuries when the technology was emerging and we were not able to turn the most abundant fuel into fiery balls of death. So while the era of great military ballooning is long done, it is nice to see them make the news again once in a while!

What I Read in 2022

I found that 2022 was a good reading year. Not necessarily as good as 2020 with the new non-fiction and huge re-reads I did, but still a banner year for reading. I re-explored some of my favorite fiction, while also jumping into a pair of exciting new series and exploring a lot of wonderful science fiction! I read 68 books; some pleasurably for the first time and a few pleasurably once again! Here's a brief overview of what caught my attention in 2022!

Starting the year I read the phenomenal non-fiction work Revolution in Rojava which is an accounting of the political revolution which took place in northern Syria during the Syrian Civil War and up to the present. It is an older work (2015) that doesn't take into account many updates, but is still a fantastic look at one of the most revolutionary and democratic experiments in the 21st century in the last place you would expect! 

In the first months of the year I also read Stoic Wisdom by Nancy Sherman, which was an excellent modern reading on the great stoic tradition which I aspire to conform to. I also read Michael Coren's The Rebel Christ which is a must read for modern Christians and a truly compassionate look at the revolutionary message Christ espoused.

As for fiction, well that didn't disappoint! I read the exciting new alternate history The Romanov Rescue and Sarah J. Maas's new installment in the Crescent City series House of Breath and Sky which expanded on that exciting new world. I also continued on with a reread of the Honor Harrington series, which rarely fails to inspire joy in the military science fiction reader. I also sat down and read Cory Doctorow's Walkaway which is a radical story of a new society and some amazingly interesting ideas. One of my big recommends from 2022! A fantasy counterpoint would be A Country of Ghosts by writer and podcaster Margaret Killjoy, which is an equally exciting work for its storytelling and ideas!

Another good read was The Word for the World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin, an author I only really got into over the last two years. It, like all of her work, did not disappoint! Really an interesting look into her ideas on violence, pacifism, and the ill effects of colonialism! Very cleverly done, and written at the time of the Vietnam War, which she was of course adamantly opposed to. Interestingly enough, there were comparison's to James Cameron's Avatar film, ones which she amusingly shot down.

One of my big new jumps in 2022 was to get into Ian Douglas's Star Carrier series, where I read the first four books. Expect a full review of that series this year! I was also very lucky to get into David Weber and Timothy Zahn's Manticore Ascendant series which is all the best of Honor Harrington, but without Honor Harrington!

For other fiction, I read Christopher Nutall's Coup D'etat which is a near future thriller and one I sincerely enjoyed. Also, the late, great Eric Flint's alternate history story 1812 Rivers of War which was a work I learned about years ago, and having read, sincerely think it sets the standard for excellent alternate history, but had feared we would never see more! It's sequel was also republished last year, and I'll be reading it this year as well, while sincerely looking forward to more!

In a similar vein to the nonfiction that started the year, I read George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia which, let me just say, if you ever thought Orwell leaned to the right of the political spectrum let his own words in here cheerfully disabuse you! Secondly, a book which paired well with my more utopian reading this year was Joel Wainright and Geoff Mann's Climate Leviathan which took a riveting look at the political theory that may emerge from the looming threat of climate change. Genuinely insightful book on how the world order could respond to this calamitous threat!

Among some of the best fantasy and science fiction I read this year though was Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, which is a short but endlessly funny, inventive and pulsepounding story of the life of a clone worker on a struggling colony and his rough life fitting in with not only his human colleagues, but the dangerous alien life that inhabits that world! Legends and Lattes was just a great low fantasy story that revolves around setting up a coffeeshop for a retiring adventurer, which was oh so fun, and relaxing, to read. There was also Richard Chismar's Chasing the Boogeyman which is a soft horror story where he tells the fictional tale of his hometown serial killer, which as not only a true crime aficionado but also horror reader, loved how he wove the story of his childhood years and home into a truly terrifying/creepy story of an imagined murder spree in the late 80s!

I also finished my reread of the Mistborn Era Two novels just in time for Brandon Sanderson's latest release, The Lost Metal which effectively and heartwarmingly ends the new era on Scadrial. I loved it and I hope all the other Sanderson fans out there enjoyed it too!

However, my big foray into fun reading was in anthologies. The year started with the news that the Expanse series would be releasing all its short fiction in a single collection Memory's Legion which alongside all the previous work, included one last tale from the author which tied up (sort of) a few loose ends and made just as many questions!

The big foray for me though was into some of the amazing anthologies that Baen has released over the years. I started with their recent release Robosoldiers which was a fantastic look at robots, drones, AI and all their myriad uses and abuses on the battlefield. Just a wonderful book.

Next I perused my way through The Founder Effect which is an ambitions project that tracks the founding of Cistercia and the stories of the effort to get the mission off the ground, the trip over, the first colonists and all their myriad struggles, and oh so much more! I sincerely hope there will be more released in that shared universe so I can get my hands on it!

Finally, the most recent release was the horror/scifi anthology Worlds Long Lost by Christopher Ruocchio and Sean Korsgaard who edited the whole compilation. It is, bar none, a collection of some of the best science fiction horror writing ever put together. With stories from old masters and new faces, the anthology was one of the best I read all year! I couldn't put it down, and it gave me some haunting visuals that are still sticking with me! Definitely check this one out! The paperback comes out this year with an all new story from writer/editor Korsgaard which I was priviledged to get a look at and let me tell you you don't want to miss it!

Rounding out the year, I read Origins of the Wheel of Time by Michael Livingston which is a beautiful work by a fan exploring the late Robert Jordan's epic masterpiece. It goes into his notes, what we can glean of his thought process, as well as a long look at all the history and mythology that inspired this modern fantasy epic! If your a Wheel of Time fan check this out!

All in all, a good reading year that I was quite happy with. Here's to a well read 2023!