The Six Wives of Henry VIII

by on November 5, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

After the Wars of the Roses, some much-needed stability started returning to the English court. Alison Weir starts her book with Henry VII’s negotiations with Ferdinand of Castile to marry his son Arthur to Ferdinand’s daughter Katherine.

Nearly half of this book is with Katherine of Aragon, a bit surprising when you think of the bare fact of the book is split into three parts, but this was the most stable part of Henry VIII’s reign. And, as already mentioned, there’s plenty of background before Henry comes on the scene. The negotiations were protracted, and then when Prince Arthur dies months after their marriage, there are more protracted negotiations all around for a second marriage to Henry.

From there, it’s the more familiar tale, but told in much detail, and careful looks at all the principle actors. That said, I’ve only ever known the barest outlines of this period, so it was all very informative for me. Between Henry, his current wife, whoever he’s starting to look at next, advisors, ambassadors with vested interests, and a few other subjects, there’s a lot of things to keep track of at the same time. Weir handles all of this very well, while sticking with a fairly strictly chronological format. This is deeply appreciated, and cannot have been easy to manage.

Weir’s writing here is also the best I’ve seen from her, and helps carry a complicated narrative forward with infectious interest from the author.

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J40 Might Makes Right

by on November 1, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After finishing up “Confusion Reigns“, I accepted a request for another game from Tracey. I looked around a little, and found a fairly simple and fast looking one with a minimum of fancy toys. J40 “Might Makes Right” from ASL Journal 3 is set a month after the invasion of Norway. The British have started evacuating, leaving a Norwegian force to hold a village that had recently been retaken against a German counterattack.

The Norwegians get a mix of eight squads and two leaders with a LMG and two MMG (which are B11 by SSR) to defend half of boards 18 and 10. The Germans have three and a half elite squads on one hexrow of board 18 at start, with another eight and a half coming in on turn 1. Out-of-play terrain is still treated as being there, probably to allow use of a gully. The Germans get one LMG, MMG, and 50mm MTR each in both their on-board and off-board forces, and need to take 13 building hexes on board 10 in seven turns. All buildings are single story, leaving the rolling hills of board 18 as the only Level 1 terrain, and Alpine Hills are in effect, cutting off LOS in those hills.

Tracey had the defenders this time, and set up a loose net of “?” across board 18, with the obvious concentrations being towards the rear. The Norwegians get 12 “?” to cover eight squads, so there will be a couple Dummies. I set up my MMG to be able to fire on the two most-forward stacks, and the MTR would shell the northern positions from behind a hedge (I wasn’t thinking in terms of Alpine Hills yet, so that was blind hex with few possibilities even after advance, and I didn’t realize it until after I fired), while the second MTR would advance to a firing position in the gully with the MMG. My major advance was along the north edge, but the south edge got a lot of attention as there was some brush to use in an otherwise open expanse.

All of his sighting announcement for stripping “?” as I moved came from the edge positions, implying that his two central ones were Dummies, and I sent one stack out in LOS of K3 without being shot, which tended to reinforce that supposition. But I certainly wasn’t going to take too many chances with them. He did reveal a squad in 18I8 for fire, but didn’t get a result. My advancing fire went better, with the MMG getting a PTC to reveal K6 as Dummies, and another shot broke I8, but set off his sniper, who pinned the second MTR HS IN the gully of P4.


Situation, German Turn 1, showing the full map. Blue hexes are the off-board entry area.
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Castle Hangnail

by on October 29, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

I mostly know Ursula for Digger, and other less kid-oriented books. Those all show a wonderful sense of humor that would find itself at home in a younger audience, and so it is here. A definite advantage of her younger books is that you get even more of her wonderful art, which is nicely formatted in on the Kindle version (generally not a given).

Pretty much all the action happens in Camp Castle Hangnail and a nearby village, which feels a bit like it should be in England, but everyone’s using dollars, and I should probably just stop trying to look at the setting too closely. The cast of characters never gets huge, but there are a lot, and they’re nicely paced out through the story so there’s no chance of getting overwhelmed by them all. In fact, overall, the pacing of the story is pretty much perfect, a few slow bits to show Molly’s life and growth, and some real action when needed.

A really nice touch is that while Molly is the central character, she is not the only viewpoint character, and both her and Majordomo (the other viewpoint character) get an opportunity to really grow. It’s Molly’s coming-of-age story, but both characters learn something from their experiences.

Definitely a fun and worthwhile read; Ursula has yet to disappoint.

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Anime Summer 2019

by on October 26, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Anime

Still on a minimal viewing schedule, and running late on this post. I did attend the CrunchyRoll Expo, and enjoyed it, though the programming felt a bit more ‘corporate’ this year. Didn’t get any video, but did get the soundtrack to Rising of the Shield Hero, and attended an interesting panel with the composer.

Violet Evergarden — Shortly after mentioning this in my last anime post, we hit an episode where it really turned the corner for me, and the second half was unreserved excellence for me.

Demon Slayers — Smudge got me on to this recently, and I’m just past the first season’s worth. This is an excellently done series, and I can see why it’s one of the big things, and why Smudge has passed it on to me. Still, I find myself still somewhat resistant to it. I recommend it, but I feel like it isn’t entirely for me. At the moment, there’s also the problem of the other two major characters are being introduced, and right now they’re really annoying.

Fairy Tail — Okay, this is over. Which is good, as the ending was starting to outstay its welcome. It had been going on for a while, with drama, and climax, and cycling through a large number different villains. After all that, the actual ending was fairly fast, and well done. This may be the first long-form fight anime I’ve seen all the way through.

Saga of Tanya the Evil — Finally got to see the movie. The series ending promised a North African campaign, with Tanya cast as Rommel. I wasn’t looking forward to that as an idea, but I was still annoyed that that promise was broken, and aborted to a prologue. However, the actual plot is very good. There’s some effort towards the new watcher, but see the series first; too much of this isn’t going to make sense without at least seeing the basic setup. I still recommend the series and this, and hope to see more as the writing has been good throughout.

Pokemon Sun & Moon Ultra Legends — We’ve seen hints of the start of the tournament arc (yes, I know its over already in Japan, the delay to over here is hideous), but we’re in a largely episodic holding pattern. Still fun, introducing Meltan was a bit mixed, but certainly worth the watch.

Black Clover — Way behind on this, but slowly catching up. It’s interesting that Asta having his arms broken turns into backstory opportunities for other characters. That was a neat way of handling things, and there’s been some important things said for the large arc that the series has going. Often we’re at the point where that’s been mostly forgotten about here.

A Certain Scientific Accelerator — I’m not an anti-hero fan, but there was a hope that Accelerator’s attitude would keep a lot of the weak points of the series this is a spin-off of at bay. That hope died in the second episode when we got a group of villains who insisted on delivering their meaningless monologues. Thankfully, they’ve been largely shunted to secondary status, and in the main this has been better than the recent Index series. If you’ve liked the others, certainly watch this, otherwise… nah.

 

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‘Ware Hawk

by on October 23, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

This was something of a random pick up in the middle the Estcarp books. It stands well on it own, though there is a lot that follows from the previous few books. However, a three-page summary of the major events of the previous books more than covers what is needed here.

Again, this is an independent novel, and reads well as such; the cast of characters is all new. (The early books all follow Simon Tregarth, but this period is all more independent.) Previous books had fairly earth-shattering consequences, and this is more of an adventure in picking up pieces.

This starts with the main characters, where we start with the main character, Tirtha, and slowly pick up everyone else over the course of the book. It is very much in the ‘journey’ style of plots, with both physical and mental/social travels being made. This is well done enough that it’s hard for the climax to entirely measure up. This is made more difficult by the final parts being a bit hard to follow. The worst problem is that Tirtha gets disabled for a bit during important events, and as the only viewpoint character, the narrative gets a little confused. Compounding this, it is easy is mistake just what has happened to her, and miss the corrected explanation later.

I’m pretty sure I read this back in the ’80s. I kept half remembering things as I came across them. But that would have been a borrowed book, and I’m glad to have my own copy now. Certainly recommended, and a good entry-point into the Estcarp series.

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