Mercenaries and Their Masters

by on June 21, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Originally written in English in 1974, this is apparently still one of the basic studies of Italian Renaissance warfare in English or Italian. Mallett spent some time studying the original sources and came to what were at the time non-traditional conclusions.

It’s a moderately-sized book split up into nine massive chapters. (Plus a very short tenth chapter that might as well be an afterword.) The relatively ‘flat’ presentation seems like it would be hard to use as reference to look up particular points later, but just reading through it is fine. Individual battles aren’t given a lot of attention, though every once in a while one comes up for discussion, and a couple campaigns are discussed when he looks at just how mobile Italian armies were.

The fact is, this is a very general book that looks at a bit of everything, mercenaries and militia, pay rates, the changes towards more permanent contracts/standing armies, and much more. So there’s no room for any one thing to be concentrated on. It is a very good introduction to the period, though having some minimal knowledge of the period going in would probably help.

I’m very glad that Pen and Sword has brought this to ebook format, and the text was in very good shape. (There were a few errors scattered about, but over this is one of the best conversions I’ve seen.)

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Designers & Dragons: Part 4

by on June 13, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The fourth (and kind-of final) volume of Shannon Appelcline’s massive history of the RPG industry finishes up the project well. However, I can’t help a feeling that this one is less important, and unpolished.

Some of this is my prejudices, but some is caused by the nature of how the books are put together. Since each chapter is a look at the full history of a company, instead of being confined to the decade under study, earlier volumes had histories that covered multiple decades in long histories with a lot of context. Here, all the histories are relatively short, since no company could have more than thirteen years of existence at the time of writing. This is shown by the coverage of 26 companies in this volume, plus thirteen company mini-histories, a quick look at OSR, a short look at Glorantha fanzines, and finally two asides talking about his conception of ‘story games’ (which have been brought up since the first volume).

The format also ill-serves overall industry trends, which was a minor problem before, but really damages coverage of the d20 years. I know it was a big thing, and it comes up a lot as a driving force in a lot of chapters, but I still don’t have a clear picture of how it operated because of the fragmentary coverage. Short of the creation of the RPG itself, it’s probably the biggest industry-wide force there’s been, and I have no idea just how many companies (large and small) published during it (and how that compares to, say, the ’80s boom), and so on.

There’s some good coverage of the indie movement, and trends in it (including a much better picture of how it got going than I’ve seen elsewhere), and some lesser coverage of OSR. Of course, the real problem with all of this, is that with it all being so recent (/ongoing), it’s harder to judge what’s going to be of lasting importance at this point. Moreover, the book was written as D&D 5E was preparing to come out, so current events are still playing havoc with important subjects here, notably Paizo.

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The Rival Queens

by on May 28, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Nancy Goldstone’s The Rival Queens is one part biography of Marguerite de Valois, half a part biography of Catherine de Medici, and half a part outline of the French Religious Wars. Catherine getting first billing the in subtitle, the focus is largely on Margarite.

In one extent, this makes a lot of sense, as she wrote, or at least started, her own memoirs which were heavily sourced for this book. The Rival Queens effectively starts with the marriage of Catherine to Henri II, so the early part of the book naturally focuses on her; but as Margarite grows up, she becomes the focal point of the book, with Catherine becoming part of the surrounding cast.

Overall, it’s a very well done look at the period from the general viewpoint of the French court. There is talk about various towns and forts trading hands (mostly between the French government and the Hugenots), that could have used a few maps for a grasp of the geography involved, but the politics and personal relations are the focus of the book.

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Fortifications in Wessex

by on May 20, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Osprey’s book on fortifications in the Kingdom of Wessex is a well-done introduction, but didn’t quite dive into some detail I’d like. At the end, Lavelle admits that the book is even more limited in scope than it could be, but it does manage some interesting discussion.

There’s a good map of the known fortified locations from an administrative record known as the Burghal Hidage, and some discussion of the scholarly work on it. A bit more focused discussion of this (it gets spread out a little) would have been nice, and maybe a real breakdown of how many places are well known, how many the place is known, but the layout is questionable, and how many listed burhs are not identified.

But the real focus is on the more practical matters of considering some of the economy around them, and how these sites served as an actual defense of the area, including secondary (generally hilltop) sites, and signalling. There’s some good color illos of ‘typical’ fortifications, including the ‘generic’ burh on the cover, and there’s reconstructions of Winchester and Lydford shown.

I find myself wanting more with this book on almost everything. But at the same time, I don’t know that there’s much more to be done within the page count. Perhaps really focusing on one location and it’s layout would have helped.

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Oath of Fealty

by on May 16, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The Paladin’s Legacy series picks up, surprisingly, immediately after the end of the original Paksenarrion trilogy. There are a number of things left unsettled by Duke Phelan’s elevation to king of a different kingdom, and that is pretty much the glue that holds what could be a disjointed book together.

Overall, there’s four different plot threads, with limited mobility between them, and Oath of Fealty swings through the set of them two or three times. The opening concentrates on part of Phelan’s mercenary company, and Arcolin who finds out he is now the pro tem head of the company at the start of the novel. This is the second biggest thread of the novel, and is very well done with the internal workings of the company sliding into the particulars of a contract. This is always a strong point for Moon, and it’s no different here.

The smallest arc deals with Phelan/Kieri himself, and has some very interesting moments, and I expect this will lead into much more important doings in later books. But at the moment, it’s mostly just there. It does spin off the fourth arc of the book, featuring Dorrin and the Verrakai family that has been a source of villains. This gets a lot of attention in the middle, and opens up some new cans of worms before merging with the second arc or the book. “Second” in that it is the second one you encounter reading the book, and deals with doings in the capital of Tsaia, and provides some of the initial ‘push’ of the plot.

Paksenarrion is barely present in this book at all. She does show up, and helps out at some important points, but this is really more of a history of the area that Deed of Paksenarrion takes place in (that is Tsaia, Lyonya, and parts of Aarenis), than any sort of work focused on one person as the original trilogy effectively was. Despite that, it’s tightly written enough to still work, and comes to a satisfactory ending. It has been just long enough since I read the original books that I needed a fair amount of mental prodding to remember many details, and therefore I feel some confidence in saying you can pick up the books at this point, though I definitely recommend reading Deed first.

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