“Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures”, by Robert E. Howard, illustrated by John Watkiss

 

576 pages, Del Rey, ISBN-13: 978-0345505460

In the early oughts, Del Rey began producing the complete works of Robert E. Howard; Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures, illustrated by John Watkiss, was the eleventh and last volume to be published; the tales and other items contained within are: Blades for France, The Blood of Belshazzar, Gates of Empire, Hawks of Outremer, Hawks Over Egypt, The Lion of Tiberias, Lord of Samarcand, Red Blades of Black Cathay, The Road of Azrael, The Road of the Eagles, The Shadow of the Vulture, The Skull in the Clouds, The Sowers of the Thunder, Spears of Clontarf and Sword Woman; the poems A Thousand Years Ago, The Outgoing of Sigurd the Jerusalem-Farer, The Sign of the Sickle and Timur-lang; and other Miscellanea, such as Mistress of Death (uncompleted draft), Recap of Harold Lamb’s “The Wolf Chaser”, The Slave-Princess (fragment), The Track of Bohemund (unfinished draft),Untitled fragment (“He knew de Bracy…”), Untitled fragment (“The Persians had all fled…”) and Untitled fragment (“The wind from the Mediterranean…”).

I have to ask myself why, in the modern era in which everyone is Woke and the past is seen as nothing short of dismally unenlightened, does a writer such as Robert E. Howard endure? How is it that this 20^th Century straight white male of a dinosaur still attract legions of fans almost a century after he took his own life? First and most obviously is his quality; few can write such meaningful characters from a broad milieu of peoples and places in such a convincing manner – and then place these characters in one blood-drenched action-packed scenery-chewing scene after another. Sword Woman contains a plethora of such characters, such as *ahem*: Cormac Fitzgeoffrey, the half-Norman/half-Gael Knight of the Third Crusade and protagonist of Hawks of Outremer, The Blood of Belshazzar and The Slave-Princess; Diego de Guzman, a Spaniard who visits Cairo in the guise of a Muslim on a mission on revenge in Hawks Over Egypt; Giles Hobson, the rotund vagabond protagonist of Gates of Empire and possibly Howard’s answer to Sir John Falstaff; Godric de Villehard, another Crusader who fights the mighty Genghis Khan after being wounded and nursed back to life by the medics of the empire of Black Cathay (China?) in Red Blades of Black Cathay;

And, of course, there is Agnes de Chastillon – aka Dark Agnes, Agnes de la Fere and The Sword Woman – who stands as one of Howard’s most interesting and least-appreciated characters. The protagonist of Sword Woman, Blades for France and Mistress of Death, these tales were not published until well after Howard’s death, perhaps accounting for poor Agnes’ lack of recognition. Agnes de Chastillon’s biography begins with beatings by her brute of a father and her arranged marriage – a fate she avoids by killing the would-be bridegroom and fleeing the inevitable wrath of her father and bespoken husband’s family. She meets Etienne Villiers, who at first attempts to sell her to a brothel, and Guiscard de Clisson, a mercenary captain who trains her as a swordswoman. Agnes has red hair and a short temper (much like Howard’s character Red Sonya of Rogatino), but while Red Sonja’s skill in the handling of swords is a divine gift, Agnes’ skill is a mixture of innate talent and training (The Sword Woman may be partially based on Novalyne Price, an American schoolteacher and writer who became close friends with and occasionally dated Howard; wonder what she thought of aka Dark Agnes…)

But Howard’s longevity with fans and critics alike is due to the depths of his intellect, along with his action scenes and humane characterizations. Perhaps unusual for his time, Howard expressed a melancholy for that which had been lost to the march of time, always seeming to cast a forlorn glance over his shoulder at receding history and the glories of those lost chaotic, freer times (one cannot help but feel that Howard did not read his Nietzsche and that he allowed the abyss to gaze back into him). What one also reads in Howard’s fiction is his long-standing belief that barbarism was Mankind’s natural state and that, indeed, one had more to learn and admire in “uncivilized barbarians” than with civilized city-folk. Furthermore, the longer humanity remains civilized the farther they drift from their strong beginnings carved out by the sword and the more decadent they become. Well, whatever one believes – I, for one, like my civilization’s heat and indoor plumbing – Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures shows yet another side to Robert E. Howard and displays once more his knack for character creation and storytelling – and it makes one mourn his too-early passing all the more.

“Twilight in the Forbidden City”, by Reginald Fleming Johnston

 

568 pages, Martino Fine, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1684226658

Everything I know about Aisin-Gioro Puyi (that would be The Last Emperor of China) I learned from “The Last Emperor”, the 1987 film by Bernardo Bertolucci, much of the material for which was taken from Puyi’s autobiography From Emperor to Citizen, and from Twilight in the Forbidden City by Reginald Fleming Johnston (that would be Peter O’Toole from the movie), the tutor to Puyi from 1919 to 1924. As Johnston was one of only two foreigners who were permitted to enter the imperial palace, Twilight provides a unique Western perspective into the transformational events of the period – it is, therefore, subjective, to say the least.

As a proper tutor, Johnston gives a great deal of background as to the current events (current for him, that is) then engulfing China, and so his memoirs actually begin in 1898, more than 20 years before he even took up his post. As Johnston was not an historian, much of this introductory material is rather verbose as it meanders about discussing this Warlord or that Imperial Tutor, some of which can get rather…long. But Johnston was nothing if not thorough, and I must admit that I learned a great deal about late 19^th and early 20^th Century China. So there’s that.

Another insight into Chinese culture that Johnston expounds upon is the reverence students have for their teachers, a reverence that, at least in Johnston’s case, was reciprocated (when he retired to Scotland in 1937, he bought a small island in Loch Craignish, proceeded to cultivate a Chinese garden and even flew the flag of Manchuko, the new (puppet) kingdom of his one-time pupil). All of which displayed the faith that Johnston had in the Last Emperor, in his character and his judgment and even, perhaps, in the Chinese people – none of which helped him with convincing his country to help the man who was the head of state of their rival’s puppet nation.

While Johnston is often accused of being a monarchist (a hard accusation to fight against, after having read this book), his association with monarchist ideals was driven by what he encountered during his time in the Forbidden City. The gross mismanagement by the Empress Dowager Cixi saw the standing of the Dragon Throne squandered in the eyes of the Chinese people and the outside world, while compared to what followed the collapse of the monarchy, the death of millions and untold suffering could have been prevented had the monarchy been reformed and strengthened (even before the triumph of the Communists).

This is all included in Johnston’s enlightening memoir, along with other items of interest, such as a preface by the emperor Puyi (in Chinese), detailed descriptions of palace rituals (including Puyi’s wedding ceremony), translations of key documents, Johnston’s personal perspective on the revolution of 1911 and the 1917 restoration, his observations on Chinese society as a whole and eyewitness accounts of the political intrigues inside of the palace. In all, Twilight in the Forbidden City is an important book indeed, providing as it does a rare glimpse into the very secretive court life of China from a well-placed Westerner.

Furthermore, written and published at a time when the great empires of the Earth were still thriving and before the Communist takeover of the Middle Kingdom, it is one of the most engaging and enlightening accounts of perhaps the most tumultuous period of Chinese history, without the benefit of academic hindsight. Through it all, Johnston provides remarkable opinions on the issues of the day through his dry but clear writing, as should be expected from the last tutor to the Last Emperor.

“The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, edited by John Joseph Adams

 

350 pages, Night Shade, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1597801607

It’s sad but true that, inevitably, all Sherlockians will read the last of Conan Doyle’s tales and be left bereft in a world in which the game is no longer afoot for the denizen of 221B Baker Street, and that all of those tantalizing hints dropped by Watson throughout all of the other adventures will be forever untold. *gasp!* *sigh!* *choke!* But fear not, Gentle Reader, for many other writers have taken up the task of chronicling these and other adventures of Holmes and/or Watson, some of which are chronicled here in The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, edited by John Joseph Adams.

Some of the tales collected herein are, in my very ‘umble opinion, worthy enough to be included in the regular Canon of Conan Doyle stories, while others…are not. As should be expected in any compilation work such as this, all of these stories have been published before – sometimes decades ago – and have appeared in any number of other sources under a number of themes; in this case, the theme is one in which science fiction and fantasy invade the world of the ever-rational Holmes. While many of these stories are meant to be taken seriously, others look to have been written strictly for fun. The quality of these selections also varies, with many page turners equal to Doyle’s own stories interspersed with some that are surprisingly amateurish and others that are, well, shitty.

• The Doctor’s Case • (1987) • novelette by Stephen King
• The Horror of the Many Faces • (2003) • novelette by Tim Lebbon
• The Case of the Bloodless Sock • (2001) • short fiction by Anne Perry
• The Adventure of the Other Detective • (2001) • novelette by Bradley H. Sinor
• A Scandal in Montreal • (2008) • short fiction by Edward D. Hoch
• The Adventure of the Field Theorems • (1995) • novelette by Vonda N. McIntyre
• The Adventure of the Death-Fetch • (1994) • short story by Darrell Schweitzer
• The Shocking Affair of the Dutch Steamship Friesland • (2005) • short story by Mary Robinette Kowal
• The Adventure of the Mummy’s Curse • (2006) • short fiction by H. Paul Jeffers
• The Things That Shall Come Upon Them • (2008) • short fiction by Barbara Roden
• Murder to Music • non-genre • (1989) • short story by Anthony Burgess
• The Adventure of the Inertial Adjustor • (1997) • novelette by Stephen Baxter
• Mrs Hudson’s Case • (1997) • short fiction by Laurie R. King
• The Singular Habits of Wasps • (1994) • novelette by Geoffrey A. Landis
• The Affair of the 46^th Birthday • short fiction by Amy Myers
• The Specter of Tullyfane Abbey • (2001) • novelette by Peter Tremayne
• The Vale of the White Horse • (2003) • short fiction by Sharyn McCrumb
• The Adventure of the Dorset Street Lodger • (1995) • novelette by Michael Moorcock
• The Adventure of the Lost World • (2004) • short fiction by Dominic Green
• The Adventure of the Antiquarian’s Niece • (2003) • novelette by Barbara Hambly
• Dynamics of a Hanging • (2005) • short fiction by Tony Pi
• Merridew of Abominable Memory • (2008) • short fiction by Chris Roberson
• Commonplaces • short fiction by Naomi Novik
• The Adventure of the Pirates of Devil's Cape • short fiction by Rob Rogers
• The Adventure of the Green Skull • (2008) • short fiction by Mark Valentine
• The Human Mystery • non-genre • (1999) • short fiction by Tanith Lee
• A Study in Emerald • (2003) • novelette by Neil Gaiman
• You See But You Do Not Observe • (1995) • short story by Robert J. Sawyer

I got my edition cheap at 2^nd & Charles, and I would advise that you pick up a cheap copy yourself for, as stated above, while many of the tales are top notch all are not pearls. Still, for a change of pace to entertain any Sherlockian worth his salt, Improbable Adventures was alright.

“Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons”, by Jon Peterson

 

The MIT Press, 400 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0262542951

I can’t remember a time when Dungeons & Dragons wasn’t a part of my life. Way back when I was a wee nipper, my oldest brother Rob bought my next-oldest brother Tom the original Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set sometime in the late 70s. That is, this thing right here:

 

And Tom was hooked from the get-go. It wasn’t until many years later that I started to tag along with him to gaming sessions with his regular crew, but I was still hooked on the whole Fantasy Dragons Swashbuckling Sorcery Blood Gore and Stuff thing, too (especially after watching the Rankin/Bass take on “The Hobbit”). So when I was in 2^nd & Charles and saw this, Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons by Jon Peterson, a behind-the-scenes history of E. Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.) and All That, I thought “What the Hell; gotta spend my credit somehow”.

Be advised: this is NOT a history of D&D’s development as a gaming system, but of how the game and company behind it came into being and how it was all fought over virtually from Day One. Oh, that stuff is covered somewhat throughout the book as needed, but the focus is really on the feud between, especially, Gygax and Arneson and, later, Gygax and…everyone else.

What Jon Peterson has provided is an inside history of TSR, starting when it began life as Tactical Studies Rules, the sort-of-club that players formed to publish a set of cribbed-together rules for table-top wargames and the like. It all started in the early 1970s, with Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson collaborating with other friends; they had a bit of success here and there and so decided to form a company to distribute the rules they made up on the fly, as it were, which would eventually become Dungeons & Dragons and other games.

But bad blood, bad dealings and questions of ownership and authorship soured the deal early on, with the fallout especially from early authorship issues haunting TSR for a long time, especially when TSR seemed to be raking in the money. But inventors seldom make good businessmen, and Gygax, Arneson and the Blumes (that would be Brian and Kevin) definitely were not. So on October 22^nd, 1986, Gary Gygax was maneuvered out of his own company in order to save TSR. Under new management, TSR lasted another 10 years until another crisis ended with a sale to Wizards of the Coast, who own it still.

What to make of all this? Whose side should one be on? That can be a difficult question to answer, but after closing the covers for the last time I determined that, while Gygax could be insufferable, overbearing and unwilling to share glory, at least he put the work in to make TSR in general and Dungeons & Dragons in particular a success. Arneson just comes off like a petulant, flaky loser who was lucky to have parlayed his incoherent idiocy into years of royalty checks and who was perpetually developing games that never seemed to be completed (the fact that he had no ability to either write or design makes this a fairly one-sided battle).

Many of his ideas made it into D&D – such as the experience points thing – but so much of what he wanted to do remained undone, due to his inability to buckle down and just do it, already. No doubt Arneson’s partisans have their own gloss on the Battle of TSR, but in Peterson’s telling, at least, their boy does not come off well at all. What I was left with at the end was a sense of gratitude to TSR – whoever created it – for making this game and others that gave me such joy and adventure at times when I especially needed it, and sadness for Gygax, jerk that he may very well have been, for his untimely professional and personal ends.

“The Battle of Arnhem: The Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II”, by Antony Beevor

 

480 pages, Penguin Books, ISBN-13: 978-0143128830

If you ever saw “A Bridge Too Far” – based on the book A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan – then The Battle of Arnhem: The Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II by Antony Beevor will be familiar to you, being as it is a history of Operation Market Garden. This was the Allied attempt to create a broad salient into German territory with a bridgehead over the River Rhine, creating an Allied invasion route into northern Germany through complimentary sub-operations: the seizing of nine bridges with combined U.S. and British airborne forces (Market) followed by land forces swiftly following over the bridges (Garden), all taking place in the Netherlands between September 17^th through 25^th, 1944. While Market Garden succeeded in liberating the Dutch cities of Eindhoven and Nijmegen (along with many other towns) and limited V-2 rocket launching sites, it failed in its principle objective to secure a bridgehead over the Rhine, with the Allied advance being halted at the river.

As might be expected, while much is written about victory in war, relatively few memorialize lives given for lost causes. Even after Market Garden fell to pieces, the men who fought in Arnhem showed remarkable determination, grit, bravery and sacrifice. The Allied defeat at Arnhem was as honorable as any victory – right up there with Dunkirk, I would argue – and Beevor pays it a worthy tribute while weaving a human story about defeat and the inhumanity of war. In the world of strategic and military studies, the name Market Garden has come to signify something of its own: poor planning and confusion, roughly similar to what those on the battlefield describe as FUBAR (that would be F***** Up Beyond All Repair). While such associations can sometimes provide historical reference points, they short-change the human character of battle when they supplant deeper understandings of war, which is something Beevor endeavors to undo by placing the heroism and suffering of the soldier at the forefront of his history.

Beevor is scathing and unrelenting in his critique of the British commanders, but he doesn’t really accurately describe the true reason for Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad plan. Oh, he informs us that the plan was bad, but leaves it to the reader to imply the true reason for the horrific plan: namely, that it was never a military plan but rather an attempt by Monty to regain his position as Allied Ground Commander. This is not to say that Monty didn’t have a military purpose for the operation, but that the main reason Monty pushed it was because if it worked, Monty would be top dog. That was Monty’s priority, not liberating the Netherlands and crossing the Rhine and capturing the Ruhr on the way to Berlin and ending the war in ’44 and all that. Monty was absolutely certain that he was the best commander in the Allied forces – hell, in the whole damn war – and resented that Eisenhower – a YANK – was his superior. If Operation Market Garden has succeeded, he no doubt would have made a push to oust Ike.

And a bad plan with bad commanders it was. Beevor points out repeatedly that the Koninklijke Militaire Academie – the Dutch Royal Military Academy – had, in fact, war gamed this very scenario of the single highway advance prior to the war, but without the airborne element; any cadet who attempted Monty’s strategy was always given a failing grade. And what was attempted? Market (the largest airborne operation of the war to date) dropped the British 1^st Airborne Division, the American 82^nd Airborne Division, the American 101^st Division and the Polish 1^st Parachute Brigade on six major water crossings in order to seize and hold them until, Garden (the ground component) advanced up a single raised highway with boggy land on either side for much of the way that wasn’t suitable for tanks to operate upon, led by the British XXX Corps. In such a situation, a smaller German force could (and did) hold up a larger British force for hours, and as it would turn out, the Germans would repeatedly attack the highway.

From that fatally flawed start, Beevor makes clear that things only got worse: there weren’t enough planes to drop all the troops in one drop; there weren’t going to be two drops on the same day to start off; Allied Air command wouldn’t let troops drop close to the bridges in many instances; other commanders gave greater priority to protecting their flanks from German attack than capturing the bridges; the British corps commander, Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Gwynne Horrocks, was still suffering from wounds he’d received during the Italian campaign, potentially affecting his judgment; the Airborne Corps Commander, Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Arthur Montague “Boy” Browning, was also a disaster, taking up 38 gliders in the first lift for his HQ for what would be a battle fought at the divisional and lower level by the airborne units; and the commander of the British 1^st Airborne had never made an airborne assault, never really understanding the difference between how an airborne unit and a regular division would operate.

And then the actual assault took place, where things got even worse (if you can imagine). Major General Robert Elliot “Roy” Urquhart, the British 1^st Airborne commander, would exit his HQ, thus leaving his division leaderless for crucial hours when he was trapped behind enemy lines; the distance to the bridges delayed their capture, allowed the demolition of the first bridge and, in the vital case of the Rhine bridge at Arnhem, only a small force made it to the bridge itself; there were the radios, as the British at Arnhem couldn’t communicate with their home base or even with the Allied fighters who were supposed to be listening for calls to attack ground targets (worse, Beevor relates the many witnesses to the sluggish nature of the British ground advance, and not only because of German defenders, but the 9-to-5 soldiering attitude of the British). Anything and everything that could go wrong did go wrong, but if the planning, organization and leadership had all been better, then perhaps – just perhaps – something may have been salvaged.

Beevor is unsparing in his criticism of this hastily thrown together plan and it’s terrible execution, while at the same time giving full accounts of the incredible bravery of so many involved, whether British, American, Polish or Dutch, and even German. Where Beevor surpasses Ryan is in telling the aftermath of the attempt and the terrible consequences the Dutch population would suffer as a result. Beevor also makes clear how badly the 1^st (Polish) Independent Parachute Brigade was treated, especially its commander, Major-General Stanisław Franciszek Sosabowski, who would be removed after the battle as the commander it what appears to have been an attempt by Gens. Browning and Horrocks to scapegoat him for the failure of Market Garden. God knows there was plenty of blame to spread around, and after reading The Battle of Arnhem, you’ll want to know why more heads didn’t roll.

“Sea of Glory: America’s Voyage of Discovery, The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842”, by Nathaniel Philbrick

 

480 pages, Penguin Books, ISBN-13: 978-0142004838

Sea of Glory: America’s Voyage of Discovery, The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 is Nathaniel Philbrick’s history of the American surveying expedition of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands, which began on August 18^th, 1838 when the squadron departed Norfolk, Virginia, and ended officially on June 10^th, 1842, when the USS Vincennes arrived back in New York. Sadly, it has largely been forgotten, which Philbrick is to be congratulated for writing this fine history of one of America’s earliest scientific achievements. Led by one Charles Wilkes, a lowly naval Lieutenant (and not a Captain, you note) with little hope of promotion in the Jacksonian navy, the squadron of six ships carried US Naval personnel and a score of scientists across the globe, collecting data on the earth along with samples of flora and fauna from a diverse array of environments, from Antarctica (indeed, discovering that snow-trapped continent before anyone else, despite what the damn French may say), to Fiji, Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest. The U.S. Ex Ex (as it was known shorthand) was as follows:

• USS Vincennes: 780 ton sloop-of-war
• USS Peacock: 650 ton sloop-of-war
• USS Relief: 468 ton full-rigged supply ship
• USS Porpoise: 230 ton brig
• USS Sea Gull: 110 ton schooner
• USS Flying Fish: 100 ton schooner
• USS Oregon: 250 ton brig

While the scientists of the expedition took measurements and collected samples, charted the shores of Antarctica for the first time, solved the mystery of the formation of coral atolls, climbed the volcanoes Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa and charted the area surrounding the Columbia River to help the United States solve an ongoing border dispute with the United Kingdom, there was disharmony a’brewing amongst the crew. There is no question that Wilkes’ considerable cartographic skills made him an excellent choice to command the Ex Ex; what also cannot be denied is that his seamanship left much to be desired and, after promoting himself to Commodore without authorization from the Department of the Navy, his other, less-then-agreeable attributes emerged, such as his prickliness, micromanaging command style and strict – not to say inhuman – disciplinary philosophy that would all lead to his being so hated by his junior officers and crew that he would face a series of Courts Martial upon the Ex Ex return to the United States.

While Philbrick focuses on Wilkes and his many many conflicts with his officers and crew for much of his book, it is the voyage itself that forms the bulk of this highly entertaining and informative tale. But it cannot be denied that the series of human conflicts that developed during the voyage give the story its suspense. As the Ex Ex wound its way around the world, it gave ample opportunity for Wilkes to demonstrate his serious character defects, rendering him in this telling as a martinet of the worse kind – as if Captains Bligh and Queeg had had a demented love child. The portrait Philbrick paints is of a hard-working would-be scientist longing to make his name by heading a grand voyage of discovery, a man all-too desperate for renown. Once the mission sets sail he becomes autocratic and cruel to his men, as Wilkes consciously decided to adopt the manner of a prima donna, taking offense at real or imagined behavior and imposing severe punishments in thoughtless and ill-considered moments.

By the end of the voyage, even Wilkes’ closest allies had turned against him, which was truly unfortunate, because the drama and endless bickering between the expedition’s members drew attention away from the voyage’s many real accomplishments, effectively erasing the Ex Ex from memory. You read this book knowing that there is going to be a prosecution but because this is such an obscure bit of nautical history few will know what the outcome will be and what will become of all these gallant men. Further, you will wonder why this expedition and all of its considerable accomplishments is so unknown (hell, many of the charts prepared by this expedition were still being used by the Navy during WWII a century later). This is a uniquely entertaining history and well worth reading.