“Count Brass” by Michael Moorcock

 

 

339 pages, White Wolf Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1565049871

 

Over the course of the mid-to-late 90s, White Wolf Publishing produced this massive omnibus collection of Michael Moorcock’s “Eternal Champion” stories, a recurrent aspect in many of his tales. Count Brass was the fifteenth (and last) in this series and the second volume featuring the character Dorian Hawkmoon, Duke of Köln, and includes the tales Count Brass, The Champion of Garathorm and The Quest for Tanelorn. Count Brass is the protector of Kamarg and the ruler of Castle Brass and, as such, is an ally of Dorian Hawkmoon and an enemy to the Dark Empire of Granbretan. According to Moorcock, “I must admit that Hawkmoon was never my favorite character but there are still a lot of people who like him best. I thought Count Brass was one of my weakest books, for instance, and yet it picked up rave reviews.” Just goes to show that the public likes what it likes, so just give ‘em what they want.

 

Count Brass picks up where the original Hawkmoon trilogy left off. It has been five years since the Battle of Londra where Dorian Hawkmoon and his allies defeated the evil Dark Empire of Granbretan and bought peace to a Europe far in the future. All that remains for Dorian now is to hold court in Kamarg and watch his children grow up as he grows older…or is it? Old friends long dead are beginning to reappear, and their intentions towards Hawkmoon are not friendly at all, while old enemies are steering Hawkmoon towards a confrontation where he must make an impossible choice. And there are consequences to these outcomes that even Dorian Hawkmoon cannot envisage. What happens next, essentially, is that Hawkmoon spends the book either explaining his theory or having his theory clarified and explained back to him, which got ridiculous after a while. The purpose of the first book of a trilogy is to set the scenes for all subsequent books, but Count Brass takes this approach a little too far and doesn’t leave much room for a story, not good for a tale of less than 200 pages. It has its moments with courageous heroes full of derring-do and evil villains with plans for world domination at any cost; all the makings of a great pulp tale, but only when it was allowed to have its head and run, which is rare.

 

Next is The Champion of Garathorm, which also serves as a sequel to the Erekosë novel Phoenix in Obsidian; perhaps because of this, the book is divided into two halves. The first finds Dorian Hawkmoon in a deep depression due to the shift of time and space he experienced in Count Brass that resulted in his wife, Yisselda, dying in the battle of Londra before they were married and, so, the children they had together no longer exist. The second involves his journey across Europe on a quest to alter the past not only to ensure Yisselda’s survival but also the defeat of the Dark Empire; this second half is more action-packed and involves that curious mix of medieval and futuristic weaponry that typifies any story involving Hawkmoon. Whereas Count Brass was a thin piece of work that was useful more as a set-up for these subsequent works, The Champion of Garathorm is a more full-bodied story that has a purpose and a more satisfying story arc, what with the many plot threads and characters from other books tying into this one, while it’s enjoyable to see threads from earlier books picked up and threads thrown out for works to follow (if you’re a fan of these books, you should be able to see what I mean). Overall a most satisfying second entry into this trilogy, an atypical thing to say.

 

Lastly, we come to The Quest for Tanelorn, in which Dorian Hawkmoon was successful in his quest, but his two children still remain to be found. If Hawkmoon is to finally reunite his family he must first find the mythical City of Tanelorn, the main McGuffin of this tale. But many perilous perils lie between Hawkmoon and his destination, the most dangerous of which will be reached by a ghost ship carrying more than one incarnation of the Eternal Champion and promising an apocalyptic fight at the voyage’s end. But this will prove to be the least of Hawkmoon’s worries when he finally reaches Tanelorn and finds the true identity of the shadowy figure that has dogged his every move. The Quest for Tanelorn attempts to do an awful lot in a few pages, this time wrapping up a trilogy AND tying up elements of his whole Eternal Champion series – which he actually manages to pull off. Mostly. If you haven’t read any of the other stories relating to the Eternal Champion then some of this may be foreign to you, but for me and other geeks, too, it was satisfying to see not only the conclusion of the Hawkmoon Saga but of other tales in the Moorcock Mythos, as well. How he managed to keep all of the facts straight I don’t know, although I suspect a good editor or two or twenty helped.

 

And with that…we come to the end of the Moorcock Cycle of Really Big Books and Thoughts. Altogether I thought it was rollicking good fun and I am delighted that I managed to get each of these books – all used, all hardcover and all in great condition – and enjoy a truly independent author and thinker and the many unique characters and worlds he crafted. Bravo, Mr. Moorcock, and thank you.

“The British Fighter since 1912 (Putnam Aeronautical Books)” by Francis K. Mason

 

448 pages, Naval Institute Press, ISBN-13: 978-1557500823

Who wouldn’t want a book for a buck? That’s what I paid for The British Fighter since 1912 by Francis K. Mason, part of their Putnam Aeronautical Books series, from the Clinton-Macomb Public Library book sale. And why not? Can’t do wrong for a buck, can I? This encyclopedic 80-year history of the British fighter aircraft, spanning development from the Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.2 to the British Aerospace EFA (forerunner of the Tornado), is by far the most comprehensive, book on the subject I have ever come across. The design, development and history of 272 aircraft in all are covered between its covers, including many prototypes for which no production contract was awarded.

Most of the fighters portrayed are shown with 3-view drawings and all with detailed specifications, seemingly reproduced from the official factory drawings. 123 of the subjects are WWI era planes, including the Pemberton-Billing P.B.9, the Robey Peters Tractor Scout and the Austin-Ball A.F.B.1. Mason does an equally good job on the interwar period and early monoplane developments, and even into the cold war jet age. In all cases the author is informative, readable and the text is crammed with detail I have never seen before, e.g. the Martin Baker M.B.5’s roll-rate of 94deg/sec. Props to Mason for all the intellectual legwork in putting this book together – and props to me for a helluva buy.

“The West Point Atlas of American Wars. Volume 1: 1689-1900, Volume 2: 1900-1953 by the United States Military Academy, Brig. Gen. Vincent J. Esposito (Editor), Dwight D. Eisenhower (Introduction)

 

West Point Dept. Of Military Art and U.S. Military Academy, ISBN-13: 978-0275200800 

I inherited these books from my Dad, and they are absolutely brilliant. When I was I kid I loved to pore over a good atlas, and The West Point Atlas of American Wars. Volume 1: 1689-1900, Volume 2: 1900-1953 certainly count. Printed on thick Buckram paper, with clear lines and colored markings for the different armies involved in the action, along with sparse but easy to follow descriptions of the battles and campaigns, it’s no wonder these atlases have withstood the test of time in the 50+ years since they were first published. I have no idea where Dad got these books from – and I wonder at the fool who allowed them to slip away from him – but he purchased them almost solely for the maps of the Civil War battlefields that he soon-after began to visit, dragging Mom and their brood along with him.

“Military works are almost universally lacking in adequate maps” Brig. Gen. Vincent J. Esposito wrote in his Introduction to these books, and he was certainly right. Whenever I am reading a work on military history, especially on the American Civil War, and I find the maps (if there are any) to be inadequate, I no longer launch into a hate-filled tirade at the author and/or publisher for their obvious intellectual and creative deficiencies; rather, I walk over to my The West Point Atlas of American Wars and seek out the battle being discussed in order to better follow just what in hell is going on. And they have never failed me. Made to last the ages, I am certain that I will continue to use these atlases on my never-ending quest at self-education and improvement, and I pity the poor bastards who do not have such a brilliant resource.

“Berlin: The Politics of Order, 1737 – 1989” by Alan Balfour

 

269 pages, Rizzoli, ISBN-13: 978-0847812714

The history of the architecture of Berlin can perhaps be boiled down to the desire to impose order from above, rather than to let a city grow organically, a conflict that would affect the city to the present day. In Berlin: The Politics of Order, 1737 – 1989, Alan Balfour shows that the buildings and monuments of Berlin reflect this conflict, of a city that was born of autocracy – order – feuding with a populous that wanted a city that reflected their needs – democracy.

Thus, we have King Friedrich Wilhelm I imposing a top-down rationality on his medieval capitol when he had three gates built in 1737: the Brandenburg, Potsdam and Hallesches Gates, which forced all future builders to follow the plan of the first. All of the big names are here: Friedrich Gilly, K.F. Schinkel, Erich Mendelsohn, Albert Speer, Mies van der Rohe, James Stirling, Peter Eisenman and their impact on the landscape of Berlin.

Covered as well are the political, socioeconomic and architectural backgrounds of the era in which they lived and worked and how it all affected the physical space they builders were working with. If one is not well-versed in the visual language of architecture then I’m afraid that the images within will seem ever-so esoteric, at best (at least, they did to me). But stick to it, for the message within is as interesting as it is enlightening.

“Lincoln’s Smile and Other Enigmas” by Alan Trachtenberg

 

400 pages, Hill and Wang, ISBN-13: 978-0809042975

Author Alan Trachtenberg was an American historian and the Neil Gray Jr. Professor of English and professor emeritus of American Studies at Yale University and was, by all accounts that I have seen, a respected scholar in American cultural studies for more than forty years before his death in 2020. In his book, Lincoln’s Smile and Other Enigmas, he examines a famous American symbol or icon from over the 250 years and how it impacted the people of the time and up to the present day. In the 19^th Century, many believed that the new method of photography was a way in which a person’s personality could be captured in more honest detail than a painting; in his essay on Lincoln, Trachtenberg undertook to explore this concept and the sociological implications this entails for later societies. A related essay examines the extent to which Walker Evans’ Depression-era photographs created, rather than revealed, images of the South that to this day shape national discourse about the region, for good and ill (mostly ill).

I must admit I was surprised by this book, picked up for cheap from a little out-of-the-way place called Avalon Books in Shelby Township, Michigan (now, sadly, defunct). I wasn’t at all familiar with Trachtenberg and I certainly wasn’t prepared for some of the concepts he threw at me, and while these essays are always enlightening and thought-provoking, they are also often maddening and rage-inducing, like, for instance, this one: “Newspapers respond…to the increasing mystification, the deepening estrangement of urban space from interpenetration, from exchange of subjectivities”. Hmmmmm…yeahhhhh…this is esoteric verbiage of the first order, and I found myself reading this book with a dictionary at hand on my right and a thesaurus at hand on my left. There are moments of pleasure, to be sure, like his analysis of the political meanings of daguerreotypes in the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and a discussion of deadpan in the work of Mark Twain. Not for the faint of heart or the short of attention.

“The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III” by Andrew Roberts

 

784 pages, Viking, ISBN-13: 978-1984879264

I have read two other biographies by Andrew Roberts: Napoleon: A Life, reviewed on April 13^th, 2015 and Churchill: Walking with Destiny, reviewed on February 8^th, 2019, and both were absolutely brilliant. So when I saw his work The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III on Barnes & Noble’s remnants shelves – brand new for EIGHT BUCKS! – well you just know I had to have it, knowing full well that I would get as complete and exhaustive – though not exhausting – biography of the Tyrant Who Lost America as one could get. And, naturally, I was right. Roberts is one of those authors whose books I would buy just on his name alone with the subject matter coming a close second; besides, being more familiar with the American Revolution from my side of the ocean, I thought it would be no bad thing to get the other, British side of the story of the same.

First things first: Roberts tries mightily to disprove that George was a tyrant while simultaneously admitting (under duress, perhaps) that his policies were a “colossal disaster” that left Britain with “vast debts, powerful enemies, no allies and even neutral powers united in hostility”. But tyrannical? Perish the thought. One way in which he attempts to defend the king is to show that the Colonists objected to policies and customs that subjects of other monarchs would not have found at all oppressive – which is moot at best, for the Colonists, as proper Englishmen all, correctly pointed out that said policies violated their rights as members in good standing of the empire. The rights or not of subjects of other nations have nothing to do with it. Furthermore, said policies were an intended hardening of the relatively lax taxation scheme and, thus, resistance to the same should have been foreseen.

Under Robert’s pen, George III is a really nice guy who was smart and accomplished, but who was also extremely political and capable of holding petty grudges. Under the unwritten British constitution, George’s greatest powers were to choose the men who ran the government and to distribute royal patronage in the form of titles and lucrative sinecures, and he wielded this power without compromise or remorse, though his selection of ministers was decidedly spotty. While he could be progressive when it came to the arts, music and architecture, he was much less so when it came to changes in British society. He was traditional to the core and a stickler for protocol, especially among the aristocracy; his and their inability to see the changes occurring in British society with the Industrial Revolution and understand the complaints of the Colonists in the New World are much to blame for their eventual Revolution.

Roberts gives us an enlightening insight into the role that American propaganda played in rallying the Colonists to war – including, in his opinion, the Declaration of Independence, a document that is rather more than mere “propaganda”, thank you very much. As a Yank I found his point-by-point refutation of Jefferson’s and the Colonist’s complaints about Britain and the King a touch over-the-top, and it’s not the only place where the author comes off as defending his subject a bit too vociferously, if you ask me. However, it does drive home his point about how out-of-touch British leaders were when it came to the progressive growth in the Americas and how if, just possibly, other leaders (and another King?) had been at the helm of the British ship of State at the time of the Revolution then things may just have taken a different turn – ah, what historian, professional and amateur alike, doesn’t like to play “What If”?

“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it” said Benjamin Franklin, while Thomas Paine called him “a wicked tyrannical brute” and Thomas Jefferson (in the Declaration of Independence) said his character was “marked by every act which may define a tyrant”. Roberts tries hard to redeem his subject in the eyes of history and succeeds a little – but not entirely. Reading The Last King of America put me in mind of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 2) when Gertrude, in response to how she likes the play, says “[t]he lady does protest too much, methinks”. As does Roberts, methinks.