The Great Democracies

by on June 9, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

For most of the series, “English-speaking peoples” means “English”, but for Churchill’s final volume this really widens the scope, with the United States being an ever more important entity through out the time period of the book.

However, the first section is pretty much all domestic English politics from after the defeat of Napoleon to the mid-Nineteenth Century. There’s some diversions for things like fears of Russia, and the end talks about the mass migrations that happened during this time, but mostly we’re looking at prime ministers, and the bigger events, often legislative, of their governments. For an overview book covering almost a century, this isn’t a bad thing, but as a man engaged in British politics his entire adult life, you can easily see here where his interests lie.

The second part is the American Civil War, which is by no means a bad 130-page summary. Churchill isn’t trying to put any particular ‘spin’ on things, but this means it is representative of the books he had read when composing this in the ’30s and finishing it in the ’50s. It’s not Lost Cause by any means, but elements of it are here, including a full “Man of Marble” view of Lee.

The last part is largely a return to British politics, just with more attention on the international stage, with things like the unification of Germany being called out. There is a good chapter on Reconstruction, as well as America’s emergence onto the world stage. The book doesn’t really give itself a hard ending date, but does wrap up with the death of Queen Victoria and the Boer War.

Despite only covering about 87 years, this possibly the weakest book of the set, possibly because of the variety of things Churchill has to cover, and certainly it is trivial to get better coverage of much of the contents. But it does finish up the series nicely, and Winston Churchill could write. If you don’t know much of the period, this isn’t a bad place to start, and better-written than many, otherwise, its value is more in the prose, or to see some of the attitudes of someone who once wrote, “history will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Thick as Thieves

by on June 1, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The fifth Queen’s Thief book shifts main character again, this time to Kamet, who was last seen rescuing his master and fleeing back the Mede Empire near the end of Queen of Attolia. And he gets teamed up with Costis, the viewpoint character of A Conspiracy of Kings.

While a slave, with all the uncertainties of that position, he has a fairly good, and comfortable life. This is disrupted right at the start, and the rest of the book flows from that event.

This is basic plotting, but its well done, and there is not a long wait that some slower-paced stories use to establish the current ‘normal’ that gets disrupted. One of the more effective elements of the book is we get meditations on what Kamet’s life has been like as we go. Instead of elaborately setting everything up, and then smashing it all, we get a few pages of set up, and the rest we learn on the road.

Because much of the novel does indeed happen on the road, with Kamet and Costis fleeing for their lives. That sort of action, long-term, tends to be hard to do well, and it does make things drag a bit through the middle of the book.

As such, this is more of a ‘buddy movie’ book, and another successful change-up in format. There is also the usual reveal of a crucial bit not told the reader (nor Kamet) for quite a bit to change perceptions of what has happened. (I still have some motivation problems there.) I prefer the bigger political entries in this series, so it’s not a high point for me because they only intrude in summary here. I also think a bit more examination of the nature of various types of power could have helped the themes of the book. Still, it very good, I recommend the series as a whole.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Wasteland of Flint

by on May 24, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

After way too long, I’ve finally gotten to Thomas Harlan’s Time of the Sixth Sun series.

It is well written and therefore easy to get into. It’s also potentially very hard to get into.

At one level, this is general SF: humanity has invented FTL, and is slowly exploring the galaxy (or at least nearby parts of it), we’ve met some alien species, and there’s a number of colonies out there.

However, this is alternate history, one where the Aztec Empire not only survived the Sixteenth Century, but eventually came out on top. The government isn’t really gone into, but is Aztec, with a lot of cultural synthesis going on in the centuries since. In fact, a lot of this is deliberately not gone into. There’s no big ‘as you already know’ speeches. This is the world we have, and you get to roll with it. (Apparently there was a wiki that went into this, but it seems down now; so just think of something in the future of The Gate of Worlds—which is a book that distracts itself too much with setting for the foundation of its alternate history.)

But, people are still people, so while the culture is somewhat alien, everything else is quite understandable. There is some mixing of tone/genre. The opening part has a lot of really good description of a broken world (literally) and an ultralight that’s used to travel across it, along with survival gear, and camp proceedures… it really sets up a nice, grounded, scene in an alien environment, and introduces the story very well. However, later, the novel has split into two major plotlines, and one of them features the kind of pea-soup asteroid belt you get in space opera… which while great entertainment, is very at odds with the harder SF feel of that start.

The bulk of the novel is classic science mystery, revolving around a planet that someone partially took apart in the distant past, and didn’t quite put together right (which does all sorts of things to the geology and atmosphere—I think the thoughts on local gravity are a bit off though). And that’s generally the best part of the book.

However, the alternate history timeline comes into play to give the book a separate feel from the normal. This isn’t necessarily something to puzzle over and pick apart until all the answers are revealed. The series title refers to the Aztec calendar, which plays upon ideas of cycles of civilizations, and in this universe, humans have found remnants of previous civilizations, which are referred to in accordance to this cosmology, and artifacts found here are referred to as coming from the First Sun. This is a somewhat inimical universe, where humans have been staying carefully away from anything that might attract too much attention. (Imagine going to the stars, and finding we’re in the middle of a game of AI War.)

Well, possibly. There’s a lack of a lot of hard evidence for much of anything here, and while there are parts of things still functioning, just what they would do, whether they would contact anything else, etc., is unknown. There is evidence of another civilization that did get the attention of something… and is no longer around, so perhaps caution is indeed the best policy.

The real shame is that this series seems to be the last thing Harlan got published. While there’s a few difficulties here, and it certainly doesn’t hold the reader’s hand, it is very good, and I’d like to have more to read from him past the next two books of this series.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Waterloo 1815 (2)

by on May 16, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Dealing with the other battle on the 16th of June 1815, Osprey’s second Campaign book on Waterloo is more of a companion than a sequel.

Interestingly, while having to cover some of the same ground, the introductory sections are quite different from the first book, dealing more with Napoleon’s escape from Elba, retaking power in France, and the general military structure set up. We then get the Prussian maneuvers as the French cross the frontier, and a full description of the battle of Ligny.

Like with the first volume, we have six full-color maps, three isometric view maps, and three of Gary Embleton’s two page spread illustrations. (This is probably their standard art budget.) “The Battlefield Today” section has current photos of La Haie, part of the Ligne brook, and d’en Ligny.

I haven’t read any other books purely on Ligny, and I think this does go into slightly more detail than Hussey’s two-volume book on the campaign. The only other current book on Ligny (and Wavre) I know of is Grouchy’s Waterloo, which came out two years after this. I haven’t read that, but I can say that this book does a good job detailing much of the action, and the full-color presentation helps a lot.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Waterloo 1815 (1)

by on May 8, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The Battle of Waterloo is a much-discussed bit of military history for many reasons, so it was a logical choice for Ospery’s Campaign series. Really, the surprise is that it didn’t appear until book number 15.

It is much less surprising that it was eventually replaced a set of three Campaign books covering everything in more detail. I haven’t read the original, but the first volume of the new work was offered for free (in electronic formats) during 2020, and I’ve finally gotten to reading it.

As usual, we have a great visual presentation, with six full-color maps, three of their isometric-view maps, and three double-page illustrations by Gary Embleton, along with a host of paintings and engravings from the time. Embleton is one of their better current artists, and while I think a couple of the pieces are more on the passable side, the first is pretty good.

Since this is volume one of three, the real subject matter is the preliminary fight at Quatre Bras. The introduction gives a few words on the abdication of Napoleon, but mostly concerns itself with the formation of the United Netherlands, and then Wellington being installed as the local commander of the allied forces after Napoleon took control of France again. The usual introduction to the major figures and the armies on both sides ends with a 3 1/2 page order of battle down the battalion level – a handy source for those wanting to research such, but a bit much for anything else.

The narrative of the battle itself is well done, and I can tell it was informed by Robinson’s The Battle of Quatre Bras. While it’s not nearly so one-sided as that account, there is generally a lot more detail given on Anglo-Allied movements than French. Sadly, Hussey’s two volume work didn’t come out until about three years after this. However, there is at least some discussion of Allied plans to invade France, and Wellington’s assumption that Napoleon would seek to repeat his 1814 defense of France.

For a detailed treatment of the campaign, Waterloo: The Campaign of 1815 by John Hussey is definitely the place to go. This however still gives a good amount of detail for its size, is a good jumping off point for anyone truly wanting detail, and of course has a wealth of illustrations and maps all in full color. Especially nice are some photographs at the end with an aerial view of modern Quatre Bras, and photos of Petit Pierrepont and Gémioncourt, which are still extant.

└ Tags: , , , , ,
 Comment