Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

by on October 10, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

So, we’ve got a few different things going on here. Jack Weatherford is an anthropologist who has spent a lot of time in modern Mongolia, and has a much better grasp of Mongolian culture than anyone else who will write in English. Along with modern, full, translations of The Secret History of the Mongols (which was, despite what he says, available to the west in various partial translations from the 19the Century on, and Lamb’s 1927 biography also references it, though with a lot of definite differences), this is probably the best biography of Genghis Khan we will ever get.

And this volume is great at getting into his motivations, and how he thought about a lot of things, where his tactics came from, etc. It isn’t just a biography of Genghis himself, and goes into his heirs, and the unstable state that was established until it finally breaks up for good in the mid-14th Century, with lots of help from the Black Death. There is some talk about the finances of the empire, including the strain of funding everything through commerce instead of looting. Sadly (understandably, but sadly) there’s not a lot of detail here, though there are some interesting observations that the various Mongol leaders were kept financially dependent on each other, possibly to counteract the political strains between them.

Much of the later part of the book goes into the ‘making of the modern world’; showing how Mongol-sponsored trade, and their habit of appropriating anything that looked useful spread plenty of inventions and ideas from China to Europe and back. He contends, with good reason, that this made some of the Renaissance possible, and Europe benefited from many inventions spread by the Mongols throughout Eurasia.

However, he at no point goes into how much of a demographic and cultural disaster the Mongols were. He mentions cities that were destroyed as an example to others, of populations rounded up and forced to assault another city in front of the Mongol army. He mentions artisans being valued and saved out of the populations… and sent back to Samarkand to work there. At no point does he look at just what all this did to the populations involved (and admittedly, in most places its overshadowed by the Black Death), nor contemplate just what happens to a culture who’s just had all its best skilled people, especially artisans, forcibly removed from it.

So as an account of what happened, its good, and is excellent on Genghis’ early life, but it gets overenthusiastic on other subjects.

└ Tags: , , , ,
 Comment 

The Empty Chair

by on October 2, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

I’m glad I came to the later part of Duane’s Rihannsu series late, as there was a six-year publication gap between the middle part (the previous pair of books) and this one, with it picking up just as things get dangerous with a state of war being declared between the Federation and the Romulan Empire. It’s also ~400 pages and allowed to be one book, thankfully.

There’s plenty of action this time, with several large actions as the war escalates. In fact, this novel is unusual for Star Trek (especially original series) in depicting fleet battles instead of smaller engagements. Kirk gets to actually act as more of an admiral for once, managing things instead of charging straight into the middle of the action. There’s a fair number of macguffins around some of this, more that I prefer to see thrown around in one novel, but at least they all fit with each other.

At the same time, the plot more revolves around finding a true way forward. Oppression and rebellion are coming even without a war, and in fact, war with the Federation is a distant thing for most of the book, which concentrates on the internal troubles. The large cast of character really shines in this type of story, as there’s no real way to present all the important facets without them. The conclusion follows very naturally from much of what has come before, and is the satisfactory ending all of this has has deserved.

There’s an attempt to paper things over at the end, to give an out to The Next Generation‘s bit where the Romulans have cut themselves off from the rest of galactic society for decades. It feels forced, and is a squaring of the circle that just wasn’t needed. But that’s a minor problem in a strong conclusion to a series that does a great job with its material.

└ Tags: , , , ,
 Comment 

Defending Heaven

by on September 24, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The Mongols, and their conquest of an exceedingly large chunk of Eurasia is a subject well known in history. Their conquest of China regularly gets good coverage in books talking about this in general, but there’s few, if any, books in English about just that. Waterson concentrates especially on the conquest of the Song Dynasty by Kublai Khan. This is looked at largely from the Song point of view, largely to prevent it from just looking like a focused version of those other books.

He starts with the formation of the Song Dynasty, and how it shaped a desire to acquire northern lands that they felt had been ‘lost’ to the Liao. This becomes part of a pattern of blindness in a fairly dysfunctional government, and the loss of northern China to the Jin. Initial Mongol conquests were against the Xia and the Jin, with the Song helping. The Song regained three important cities… and we enter the biggest focus part of the book

The Mongol campaigns against the Song took twenty years to really break the dynasty, and it was a decidedly hard slog for the Mongols the entire way. Waterson then goes into the Yuan Dynasty (Kublai’s effort in becoming a Chinese, rather than outsider, government), and how its various problems turn into a sense of ‘everything was better under the Song’. He finishes up with rebellions against Yuan rule and the founding of the Ming Dynasty.

I’ll admit that while I found the book well written, argued, and structured, I am at more of a geographical loss. Maps are limited, and on the Kindle app, flipping back to them is inconvenient; my knowledge of Chinese geography is quite limited compared to what I’d like to follow some of the action. Still, I enjoyed it, and plan on looking up his other works as well worth a read.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Honor Blade

by on September 17, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Part two of Duane’s novel of the Rihannsu Empire picks up where the previous left off naturally enough. The rest of Star Fleet’s task force is finally on hand for tense negotiations as events continue to spiral out of control in Romulan space.

The viewpoint characters are all outside the primary negotiating teams, so the main thing we see are some of the more public posturing, and a reception or two. Duane’s cast is large enough to show a lot around this, and she introduces a new secondary character, Gurrhim, who turns into a plot-point, and is a great character on his own.

The final part of the novel dissolves down into action, which is well handled. Duane does a great job of showing a lot of what was going on, and yet when it’s all over, it becomes apparent that, yes, other things were happening too. There’s also a very well-done tense emergency surgery scene right at the end. She describes things well enough so you know what’s going on even as a lot of unfamiliar terminology is thrown around; a neat trick.

However, while this is definitely the end of the novel, it is still not the end of the series. Things have come to a real head, and ‘middle of trilogy’ conclusion, but its not over yet.

└ Tags: , , , ,
 Comment 

Swordhunt

by on September 11, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Published thirteen years after The Romulan Way, it takes place a couple of months after that novel. There’s a lot effectively unsettled after that, and this book picks up on all the threads, and even brings in K’s’t’lk from her novel The Wounded Sky.

Past all that, other forces are in motion. Duane’s Romulan (sorry, Rihannsu) Empire is struggling economically, and with recent events, the Klingons are preying on outer colonies. The government is tightening its grip on colonies, which are getting more restless, while concentrating on Ael, who took one of the most unimaginably priceless relics of the Empire, and the Federation, which is sheltering her.

It’s a big story, which Duane tells very well. There’s a lot going on, and sadly, it does take a while to start cohering into a solid shape. There’s a good mix of action and setup at the beginning, which then settles down to get the main plot going.

Unfortunately, the determination of Pocket to keep all its Star Trek novels short gets solidly in the way here, as this is literally the first half of the book, even though the full version would be ~400 pages, which is a merely moderate sized post-70s novel. The second part was the next one released (#96), and it picks up with chapter 6. So at the end, we’re still in the setup phase.

└ Tags: , , , ,
 Comment