Furious Tides and Heavy Metal

I'm at a big chain bookstore in Union Square, Manhattan, typing this just a few hours before seeing Blind Guardian tonight at the Nokia/Best Buy Theater in Times Square. I took the shuttle over to NYC from New Jersey a few hours ago, and after lunch at Yoshinoya, walked a few blocks to the theater. I'd never been there, and wanted to learn where it was, precisely (I vaguely knew more or less where to look for it). I also hoped that, just maybe, I'd bump into some of the Blind Guardian guys. SevSon1 and I were lucky enough to meet Hansi, Marcus and Fredrik before the Denver show four years ago.

I found the Nokia without difficulty, and across the street from it was the fourth member of Blind Guardian, Andre, using his video camera to film the animated marquee above the theater, which at certain moments was announcing Blind Guardian's show. He was very friendly and gracious when I approached him. We chatted a bit, and he signed my At the Edge of Time and Imaginations From the Other Side booklets (I made sure to bring several booklets and a sharpie with me, for just such an event). I decided not to bother him further by asking for a photo, since he was preoccupied in trying to get the video he sought, and I was distracting him.

Strangely enough, I'm not listening to Blind Guardian as I type this. I'll listen to them later, soon before the show, to psych myself up (make that, further psych myself up!). But yesterday I picked up the new Dio-related releases. These are the Dio band double-CD set of their Monsters of Rock shows at Donington in 1983 and 1987, and the Heaven & Hell concert from the 2009 Wacken Open Air Festival. The latter is available as separate CD and DVD, and I have the ripped-CD playing through my MP3 player. Finally, a modern show that captures Dio sounding as good as he could late in life! He was sick for the Holy Diver Live (2005) and Radio City Music Hall (2007) concerts, but was in magnificent voice when I saw Heaven & Hell later in 2007 and again in 2009. This Wacken concert is just like those, with Dio sounding great and the band far tighter and in-synch with each other than they were for the RCMH DVD.

Surrender to the Will of the Night is out. Officially, the release date is Tuesday, three days from now. However, someone on the Glen Cook email list already picked up a copy at Borders, which often puts books on the shelves early. I have had no luck in a finding a copy in my wanderings yesterday and today, just as I failed to find an early copy of Gilded Latten Bones.

Speaking, or writing, of Gilded Latten Bones, I defied a nasty case of food poisoning to get to the store and buy a copy on the day of release. I then read the book gradually, over the next two weeks. Why rush it? I savored it, since for all I know it could be the last-ever Garrett book. I expect that it isn't, and I certainly hope for more, but I try not to take things for granted. I have some thoughts on the book, but they are full of spoilers, so I'm going to leave some space below, for anyone who wants to avoid them.












Ok, still with me? Gilded Latten Bones is a fine addition to the Garrett saga, but is a really lousy place for newbies to jump in. Not that much actually happens, the mystery is really just a background catalyst and motivator. The book is really about advancing the interactions between the numerous characters in the Garrett universe. They have aged and changed over the 23-year course of the series, and Cook was wise to not have them acting static, as if time was not passing. I'm a big fan of ratgirl Pular Singe, and she is shown to be becoming an adult, and a very responsible one for what it's worth. I've never much cared for Tinnie Tate, but even she is beginning to realize how difficult a person she is. Garrett gets swept away by a Furious Tide of Light, literally and figuratively.

That was the biggest surprise, for me. The in-progress title for the book was Gilden Latten Lovers, and I thought the "Lovers" portion referred to Garrett and Tinnie. Instead, Garrett basically gives up on Miss Tate, and instead starts an affair with Windwalker Furious Tide of Light. She had a small role in the preceding Cruel Zinc Melodies, in which she did nothing to hide her attraction to Garrett. I found her the most memorable part of that book, but it was completely unexpected that she would return in this new book to shake up Garrett's life. Even Tinnie's relatives like her, so perhaps Garrett has found a keeper! We'll see in the next book, if there is one. For now, fans of the series will probably greatly enjoy Gilded Latten Bones, but the merely-curious should go back to the start and read their way up to this one. It's a great ride, and well worth the trip!

German Metal (no, not Panzers)

I was vacationing back in Colorado this past week, catching up with old friends and reliving some of my old routines. I took in two Colorado State Volleyball matches, and was pleased to see the Rams stomp all over the University of Denver and then Wyoming (never mind that I'm a graduate of DU's Publishing Institute, my BA's from CSU!). I did a lot of reading, finishing John Mosier's The Myth of the Great War, and getting most of the way through Steven Erikson's House of Chains (I just have the final convergence left, it should make those final 150 pages fly by).

I stayed at SevSon1's place, and took the opportunity to listen to a few of his new CDs. I've been lax in acquiring new music, partly because the last efforts by some of my favorite bands were lackluster. I'm still not too fond of Kamelot's Ghost Opera, and so I wasn't too surprised that the new Poetry for the Poisoned did nothing for me. I will admit, however, that the lead song, The Great Pandemonium (video link), is pretty good.

I was more intrigued by Blind Guardian's new At the Edge of Time (video link for A Voice in the Dark). It's gotten mostly rave reviews so far, and SevSon1 was in agreement with those. The predecessor, A Twist in the Myth, was a bit too rock-ish for me, lacking the grandiosity that is Blind Guardian's reason for existence. I understand that they wanted to simplify everything (arrangements, concepts, number of overdubs, etc.) after the over-the-top-and-far-beyond nature of A Night at the Opera. They probably also believed they were going back, a bit, to their roots. But there's a reason the Guardians no longer make conventional Power Metal of the Helloween and Gamma Ray sort. Their particular skill is to make the intricate sound epic and overpowering.

I was pleased to listen to At the Edge of Time (video channel), because it could almost be A Night at the Opera, part 2. The first ANatO took me a good 5 years to fully appreciate, but now I adore it. "Spinal tap go to 11? Let's go to 12!!!" was the philosophy, and that spirit is back. Of course it is cheesy, that's half the fun. No other band can make such complex arrangements actually sound catchy and ass-kicking. If you have no interest in songs about The Wheel of Time and A Song of Ice & Fire, then Blind Guardian might not be for you. Blind Guardian also write about Michael Moorcock's Multiverse again, with a piece about Tanelorn. I didn't notice anything based on Tolkien this time, but I still hope they'll eventually continue their coverage of The Silmarillion, begun in the awesome Nightfall in Middle Earth.

Even if I wasn't crazy about A Twist in the Myth, I still jumped at the chance to see Blind Guardian, when they played Denver on that album's tour in 2006. SevSon1 and I drove up to the venue early, and were fortunate to bump into three of the Guardians returning from dinner. They were gracious enough to chat with us for a few minutes, and sign some CD booklets. Perhaps I'll get to meet them again in a few weeks. They are playing New York City on November 20, and I have my ticket purchased. By then, I'll have my own copy of At the Edge of Time, and will be fully familiar with the songs. We all need some cheese in our diets, Happy Headbanging!

The War You Don't Know

World War 2 didn't occur as you probably think it did. Oh, the over all outline of the war is known, but popular accounts, until recently, rarely reflected the course of events that led to the known results.

This is particularly true of the events of the Eastern Front, so the so-called Russo-German War (which in fact involved numerous other nationalities on both sides). During the first 25 so years after the end of the war, it was normal to ascribe the Soviet victory to their masses of manpower and enormous number of tanks. This was followed by increased admiration for the Red Army, which was considered to have high quality armaments (especially armored vehicles), and a superior strategic vision. If it never mastered tactics, it still achieved victory through its own means, destroying the fighting capacity of the Wehrmacht. The Soviet Union thus deserved the bulk of the credit for the defeat of Nazi Germany.

I believed this latter view of the conflict, even if I had some nagging doubts. I own numerous rare unit histories and personal accounts from the war. I had trouble reconciling some details with the generally understood course of the war. The turning point, which finally allowed me to start making sense of things, came when Military History Journal, published an article by Eastern Front expert David Glantz. It was a preview of his 1999 book Zhukov's Greatest Defeat, about the fighting near Rhzev in late 1942.

I knew something awful had transpired near Rhzev at that time, because every history of the Grossdeutschland Division makes it clear that this fighting was the worst it faced during the war. Yet most campaign histories of the Eastern Front indicated that the fronts of German Army Groups Center and North were quiet at this time. Glantz had learned, from German unit histories and Soviet archived documents, that a massive Soviet offensive had been utterly defeated there at the same time the Red Army was finding success to the south at Stalingrad. However, the more northerly offensive was erased from Soviet official records because of its failure. Glantz soon realized that other Soviet failures had been similarly covered up, such as the late 1943 fighting around Vitebsk (the first attempt to destroy Army Group Center) and the May 1944 offensive in Bessarabia (subject of Glantz's Red Storm Over the Balkans). Even at the end of the war, the best the Red Army could do along the Oder was to frontally assault Berlin via the Seelow Heights, suffering appalling casualties in the process.

How can this be reconciled with the very real success that the Soviets had in driving the Axis forces back into German and Austria? John Mosier has explained it better than anyone before in his recent book Deathride. He has a repuation for turning history on its head, but this was my first exposure to his work. I came away enthralled by the most mentally-stimulating book I've read in several years.

Mosier demonstrates that fiction was the order of the day in the Soviet Union during Stalin's rule. Stalin was told what he wanted to hear, whether about agricultural harvest yields, or the output of tank factories. Soviet official histories consistently overestimated the casualties inflicted on the Germans, while minimizing Red Army losses and inventing tank production numbers. The Red Army in fact ran out of armored vehicles on many occasions, which explains why they made such extensive use of allegedly-inferior British and American models. They often ran out of men, too, and could not have continued the war without conscripting women, men considered too young/old/unfit for service by other armies, and men from lands that were liberated or occupied during the advance to Germany. Only the most elite units were kept up to strength with fit Russian men of prime military age, the rest had to take whatever they could get or find.

What doomed the Germans, Mosier argues, is that they had to divert substantial resources to the Mediterranean theater, to Western Europe, and to the airspace over Germany. This removed manpower and armored divisions from the Eastern Front, but more importantly, it robbed the armies in the east of most of their air support. Meanwhile, American lend-lease supplied the Red Army with hundreds of thousands of trucks and similar vehicles. Previously, up to mid-1943, the Germans could make orderly retreats, exacting heavy losses from the Red Army. Thereafter, the Soviets could advance faster than the Germans could retreat, so that German defensive efforts became less and less effective, even as they continued to inflict far higher casualties than they suffered. German resources were stretched too thin, which saved the Red Army from the defeat it would have suffered if the Germans could have devoted their full effort to the Eastern Front.

It all makes sense to me. Mosier backs up his ideas with detailed end notes (including a minor reference to one of my own books). I'm familiar with many of his sources, and believe he interpreted them correctly. At the same time, I can understand how this unorthodox view of history will bother some historians. It makes some books on the same topic seem irrelevant. At the same time, the topic is too vast for comprehensive coverage in one book of 300 pages. So Deathride is essentially a guide for how to approach studying the Eastern Front, from now on.

I have since acquired Mosiers earlier The Myth of the Great War and The Blitzkrieg Myth. I've read the latter, and found it to have good ideas, but with execution less successful than in Deathride, which I think benefits from having stronger source material. I assume Mosier acquired much of this material in his research for Deathride's predecessor, Cross of Iron (a study of the Wehrmacht, which I haven't read, but intend to purchase).

This is a golden age in the study of World War 2. Numerous detailed, extremely informative books are easily and cheaply available to anyone who wants to learn about the era. Deathride is a fine addition to this body of literature.

Listen Up, Glen Cook Fans!

As the publication dates for Gilded Latten Bones and Surrender to the Will of the Night get closer and closer, I noticed something more on Amazon. Audible.com, owned by Amazon, has the entire Black Company series available as audio books for download! The series is split into its original ten volumes, and each sells for $24.95 on Audible, or $18.71 on Amazon. The individual books each take roughly ten to twenty hours to narrate, so that should keep listeners entertained through plenty of commutes and road trips. I haven't listened to any of them yet, but I'm sure I will before long.

The image this time is from another Glen Cook reprint, Nightshade's upcoming omnibus of the Darkwar series. It has all three volumes, Doomstalker, Warlock, and Ceremony. Doomstalker was actually the first Glen Cook book that I can recall seeing in a store, when it was new roughly 25 years ago. I own all three, but have yet to read them. I think a shiny new package can sometimes make a book more enjoyable than reading the same tale via a beat-up old massmarket paperback. Of course, the opposite can also be true, but I still plan to get the Darkwar omnibus to sit on my shelf next to my other Cook collections. It is scheduled for release in December.

Finally, Tor have made available an excerpt from Surrender to the Will of the Night. It's from the first chapter, and no, it doesn't make any sense to me either. Since Lord of the Silent Kingdom resolved most ongoing issues in the series, it makes sense to have new ones introduced. I presume this mysterious excerpt is connected to some new plot development. We'll know more in a matter of weeks, meanwhile, anyone who has listened to the Black Company audiobooks, please feel free to comment.

Finnish Thunder!

The mighty Moonsorrow have entered the studio to record their next masterpiece! You can follow along with the progress on their blog here. The album is scheduled for release in February of 2011, and I can hardly wait. As it is, Moonsorrow's existing catalog makes great background music for reading Glen Cook and Steven Erikson. You can hear sound samples here and via many other Youtube clips. I hope another North American tour will follow this new album's arrival, bring it on!

Another "Cookbook"

Amazon now has the cover up for Gilded Latten Bones, the next of Glen Cook's Garrett, P.I. series. It's due in stores on November 2, but the previous volume, Cruel Zinc Melodies, was on some shelves a week or more ahead of schedule Will history repeat itself?

Get Ready to Surrender in November

Amazon now shows the cover design for Surrender to the Will of the Night, the third volume of Glen Cook's The Instrumentalities of the Night series. It uses the same Raymond Swanland image that I displayed a few weeks ago, and I think it is attractive, even if it doesn't really suggest the grittiness of Cook's work in the same manner as Swanland's other covers.

As part of the preparation for Surrender's November release, Tor have reissued the first two Instrumentalities books, The Tyranny of the Night and Lord of the Silent Kingdom, as trade paperbacks. The latter was released this past week, and I was able to examine a copy today. It is a handsome book, and I will eventually get a copy of it and its predecessor to replace my mass market paperbacks. However, this leaves me in a quandary. I'm anal retentive enough to want my books to be in uniform editions, and that would mean waiting for an eventual trade paperback for Surrender to the Will of the Night. But, of course, I want to read the books as soon as possible. I might end up buying the hardcover upon release, and then also buying a copy of the trade or mass market paperback. Sometimes I envy those of you who aren't bothered by such issues, but that envy is more than offset by the collector's feeling of satisfaction I get from looking at my uniform editions of various book series on my shelves ;-)

I hope that Cook will do an interview or three soon, to promote the releases of Surrender and of Gilded Latten Bones. If so, perhaps he'll pass along more information about the forthcoming Dread Empire Wrath of Kings omnibus. Nightshade Books hasn't issued any sort of update, and I'm itching to learn a publication date, even one far off. I recognize the possibility that the book will never come to pass, and I try not to take anything for granted. But I do hope and believe the book will eventually appear.

In distantly-related news, the Malazan re-read continues on Tor.com. It looks to be one of the most popular features on the site, with this week's installment receiving over 100 comments (including #2, by yours truly). Bill and Amanda, the hosts, are roughly 2/3 of the way through Gardens of the Moon, and the discussion is bringing up numerous insights that I missed during my reading of the book. Every Wednesday, I eagerly check the site for the posting of the latest entry. I'd love to see some Glen Cook book receive similar treatment, perhaps the Black Company series, omnibus by omnibus, chapter by chapter. Maybe I should suggest it to Tor!

Turning 29, again!

Is 40 the new 25? I turned 40 yesterday, and feel great. Mentally, I've finally reached my mid-to-late 20s. Maturity is catching up to me, no matter how hard I try to fight it off. I can understand why my dad was 40 when I, his only child, was born. I'll be even older, of course, when and if I ever become a parent.

I marked the occasion by taking the day off from work. I met up with Jazzy Joe in Queens for a couple of libations, and then did some shopping in Manhattan. I found the book I sought, Knight's Cross Panzers. This is the English translation of Hans Schäufler's history of Panzer Regiment 35, from the 4. Panzer Division, the most highly decorated German division in World War 2. The German edition, So lebten und so starben sie ("How we lived and died," or something close to that), was released in 1973, and I'm surprised it took until 2010 for a translation to appear. The book is full of personal accounts from veterans, both officers and enlisted men. The unit saw more than its share of combat on the Eastern Front, and the accounts seem extremely interesting at first glance. I think Knight's Cross Panzers will be similar to the veterans' histories of Tiger Tank Battalions 503 and 507, which give a human face to campaigns that are not well-known to English language readers.

For anyone interested in the 4. Panzer Division, there's plenty of additional material in existence. Joachim Neumann, a former artillery battalion commander in the division (and a holder of both the Knight's Cross and the German Cross in Gold), assembled a two-volume sort of divisional war diary, which is expensive and hard to find, but follows the unit day-to-day from the invasion of the USSR until the end of the war. This is probably too detailed for most readers, even if the German is easy to follow, even for untrained amateurs such as myself.

More useful for many, and now also hard to find, is a five-volume set by Polish Militaria, which includes an English text summary and photo captions. The archive of the 4. Panzer Division's official photographer ended up in Polish hands after the war, and around 550 of the most interesting photographs were published a decade ago via this set. Soon after, Concord in the USA put out a two-volume distillation of the Polish set, with 200 or so photos in total. This Concord duo, in particular, would make a good companion-piece for readers of Knight's Cross Panzers.

I'm sure it's obvious by now that my attention is constantly being pulled in many directions. On the way to meet Jazzy Joe, riding the NYC Subway, I read most of Red Pearls. This is Michael Moorcock's entry in Swords & Dark Magic, and his latest Elric story. I have a strange relationship with Moorcock, as I love his invention and creativity, but often dislike his writing. The Elric stories, especially the classic early ones from almost 50 years ago(!), are the only work of his I've ever truly enjoyed. Red Pearls is a fine addition to the canon, as it just goes about its business, without trying to mix in outside elements from Moorcock's Multiverse.

Still on the topic of Fantasy, I DMed again this past Saturday, and had what I consider a successful game. I wasn't perfect, but I managed to run several rather large fights without losing track of anyone, or anything. The players had fun in a very challenging adventure (ADAP 1-5: Menace of the Icy Spire), one that I much preferred to the module I was given for my first session. I believe I have been correct in my assessment that the most important thing for a beginning DM, in 4E, is solid preparation. I knew the material and had maps ready, and this made it all progress as smoothly as possible. (I trust all aspects of my DMing will improve with practice!)

Finally, for the Glen Cook fans, Amazon now has the blurb posted for Gilded Latten Bones, the forthcoming 13th volume of the Garrett, P.I. series. It reads as follows:

For Garrett, P.I., loyalty and love come a close second to survival... Garrett's attempt at domestic bliss with the fiery Tinnie Tate is sidetracked when he waylays a pair of home intruders and learns they've been paid by an unknown source to kidnap Tinnie. But as Garrett rushes to find out who is trying to push his buttons, his best friend is attacked. Now, Garrett has to track down both malefactors. Unless they're really one and the same-in which case Garrett might be next...

I hope that between its variety of topics, this post had a little something for everyone.!

To Mega-Therion

A guy came into my place of employment a few weeks ago, wearing a Sirius B tee shirt. I told him that I am a big fan of Therion. He replied that it was the first time anyone had recognized the shirt and commented upon it, in the two years he had owned it! I guess that shows the band's lack of an audience in the USA.

I don't understand that, as the group is one of the pioneers of operatic, symphonic Heavy Metal music. Actually, Therion is really more of a project, as it consists of founder Christofer Johnsson and a changing, sometimes rotating, cast of supporting players. The brothers Kristian and Johann Niemann held down the lead guitar and bass positions, respectively, from 1999 to 2008. They were joined by drummer Petter Karlsson in 2004, though he also left in 2008. The lineup with those three was probably the best Therion has ever had, so it saddens me that the 2007 double album Gothic Kabbalah was the one studio project to include them all.

Mats Leven and Snowy Shaw assisted as vocalists in this era, with all five contributing to the songwriting. It gave Gothic Kabbalah (and the concert CD/DVD Live Gothic) a dynamic lacking in the band's previous work. The album confounded many listeners upon its release, as the songs were more accessible, and less bombastic, than the rest of Therion's catalog. Were they selling out? Hardly, instead they were bringing the concept to its fullest realization. That's now clear, listing to the material with an experienced ear, three years after its release. The older songs, even many of the great ones, sound plodding and underwhelming by comparison. I would very much like to have heard what this crew could come up with on a second go-round.

Leven left, and Shaw has done so too, though Snowy did contribute vocals and songwriting to the forthcoming Sitra Ahra CD. But Therion is for all practical purposes a new band, and this is perhaps the fifth time in its history that this has occurred. It emerged triumphant from all previous changes, so I need to have some faith, based on Johnsson's track record. But the shoes to be filled were never before so large. I have a nagging fear that Sitra Ahra will somehow be a disappointment. I hope I'm wrong! Eight years ago, I had low hopes for an album by Nightwish, a band heavily influenced by Therion, but Century Child turned out to be my favorite of theirs, so, as Chris Tonozzi likes to say, anything's possible.

Here's a sort of game to play, listen to these two samples, and decide if there's any similarity. The first is Helheim from Therion's Secret of the Runes album. The other is a Waffen-SS March from the World War 2 era. For all I know, both were influenced by some earlier source, but it is also possible that this was a sort of in-joke by Johnsson. If the latter is the case, it would likely be because Secret of the Runes was intended to emulate Wagnerian operas, and Richard Wagner was a favorite of many leading Nazis. As well, Heinrich Himmler and the SS leadership dabbled in concepts based on Nordic Mythology, the subject of the CD. Regardless, please note that I'm not accusing Johnson of any negative associations, but the similarity is there to be heard!

I'm writing this before bed on a Friday night. The plan is for me to DM an adventure known as Menace of the Icy Spire, on Saturday afternoon. I like this one a whole lot, so I'll give it my best and hope the players enjoy it too.

That's MR. DM to you!

I finally did my turn at DM-ing a 4E D&D game on July 10. I jumped through all the hoops necessary to make it happen, and if I was falling asleep by the end of it, after a very long day, it was worth the effort. I think the players had fun. They recognized that I was dealing with an unusual sort of module, and unusual composition from them.

The adventure apparently presumes that most characters will be human, since it involves being hired by a Dragonborn (a sort of Lizardman, somewhat like Dragonlance Draconians) to shepherd him and an Elven girl to a wilderness location. The twist came from three of the four player characters being Dragonborn themselves. So I ad-libbed much of the initial portions of the adventure, to reflect that Dragonborn players would handle the events differently than what the creators of the module intended. The encounters in the adventure involve insect and worm monsters, rather than two-legged beings of the human or recognizably-similar sort. The actual fighting went rather easily for the players, because they happened to have a perfect set of powers for dealing with their opposition. All in all, I would have chosen a different module for my debut, but it was the one I was given, and the improv moments were certainly fun.

Today, a week later, I ventured back out to the good old Montclair Book Center to see if they had any interesting new acquisitions. I found one book that I had my eye out for, the recent anthology Swords & Dark Magic. I couldn't pass up a like-new copy for only $8. This is the Sword & Sorcery collection filled with new stories by leading names in the field, including Glen Cook, Steven Erikson, Michael Moorcock, and Joe Abercrombie. I've only read the Cook, so far, but look forward to all of them.

Cook's tale is Tides Elba, which tells of a minor adventure of the Black Company during the years between The Black Company and Shadows Linger. I think many fans will enjoy this look at the simpler time, when Croaker was merely the surgeon and annalist, and not the leadership figure he became later on. I happen to prefer the latter-day character (based on the ability to watch his career-arc and see him grow into his role), but I suspect I'm in the minority here. Even if this story isn't of vital importance to the overall storyline, it was good to revisit the characters. It almost feels like another of the lengthy chapters in The Black Company, only set after the climax at Charm. Will there be more such slices of the unit's history forthcoming? I believe the planned future books, A Pitiles Rain and Port of Shadows, are to be continuations from where Soldiers Live left off, and not fill-ins for the existing timeline. It could be a good thing to eventually have a Black Company short story omnibus, similar to the Soldier of an Empire Unacquainted With Defeat collection for the Dread Empire.

Swords & Dark Magic has received excellent reviews so far, so don't let the meh cover art scare you off, if you like any of the authors involved. I'll post additional comments as I read more of the stories.

NYC and Cool, Cool Kitties

This is the first post I've typed up on my laptop computer. I just got this new toy, an HP and my first ever laptop model, around 10 days ago. I've used my friends' Macs before, that turned out to be good practice for getting accustomed to a different sort of keypad and using my a touch pad in place of a mouse. The most important aspect of this acquisition is that I'll no longer be at the mercy of my desktop computer. That one is over 5 years old, and showing strain from the years of heavy use. It sometimes has trouble contacting the server I access, which left me with difficulty in emailing some people in a timely manner on an important matter.

This new laptop will also aid me in my D&D efforts. I promised a DM-ing update, but my debut was postponed until July 10. Even that ran into a roadblock, but as of this writing, I believe I have sidestepped that. I've been familiarizing myself with an adventure titled Faint Hope, and the gaming should commence roughly 23 hours from now.

There's a trend developing for Ian C. Esslemont books to receive nautical-themed covers. The illustration above is an in-progress design for his forthcoming Stonewielder. It's by Steve Stone, and is even better, IMHO, than his previous fine efforts for Esslemont's Night of Knives and Return of the Crimson Guard. Stone has been Steven Erikson's primary UK cover artist, but only his painting for Deadhouse Gates was used on the American edition. The rest, starting with Memories of Ice, had art by Todd Lockwood. I seem to be in a distinct minority in really liking Lockwood's work. His efforts have been widely derided around the web, and Tor has apparently finally bowed to fan pressure. Already, Tor's Dust of Dreams used a modified form of the book's UK artwork. Now, I see that Midnight Tides and The Bonehunters have been retro-fitted with Stone paintings. I assume this will please many readers. The Stonewielder cover has quickly received acclaim at MalazanEmpire.

BTW, Malazan fans, or the merely curious, should check out the read/reread that just began at Tor.com. It had an abortive start a few months ago, but now seems to be ready for a fun year or more of discussion and commentary. I've already posted a comment in one of the threads, and plan to add many more as it progresses.

Finally, here's an off-topic bit of advice. It's been extremely hot in the NYC area lately, especially in my apartment. I don't have air conditioning, and the heat overwhelmed my usually-reliable fans. My kitty, Ember (you can see her pic if you scroll back on this site to over a year ago) was suffering from the heat. I found her on her side, panting, which meant her little body was overheating. I did a websearch on how to keep cats cool in hot weather. The best suggestion I found was to place a wet towel in the freezer for a while, before allowing the feline to lie on it. This was extremely successful in getting Ember back to normal. Even when the frozen parts thawed, just being atop the dampness kept her in good shape. Cats sometimes have an aversion to wet things, but Ember spent the better part of 48 hours on that towel! So don't hesitate to give this a try, if you think it will benefit your furry friends.

D&D, D&D-er, D&D-est

I bought a battle mat this weekend. I’ve never owned one before, because I never needed one until now. My experience with Dungeons & Dragons goes back to 1981 or a1982. I had heard mention of the game at school, but was able to examine it for the first time one summery day when my neighbor John came home with the Moldvay Basic Set. This was the famous “red book” with the Erol Otus cover, presented in a box with module B2, The Keep on the Borderlands.

Even at the tender age of 11 or 12, I immediately understood the implications of the game. I didn’t have to actually play it to have fun. Its mechanisms were a tool for organizing my daydreams and stories. How powerful was that heroic warrior? He was a 5th level fighter, and far tougher than that other character, who was merely at the 3rd level. I was fascinated (and still am) by the many worlds created to support (A)D&D and other games. I’ve written before of my love for Mystara, in particular, but many other realms caught at least a bit of my fancy.

I think my friends and I were typical, in that our games were hybrid ones, with rules plucked from here and there. We soon also collected the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books and modules, since they were more comprehensive and there were more of them. But I liked the simplicity of “basic” or “BECMI” D&D. I especially enjoyed Frank Menzner’s Basic and Expert Sets for the way they explained how to play the game, since AD&D essentially had to be taught to novices by experienced players.

I remember playing AD&D into my early 20s. We had a game going my sophomore year of college, and tried getting one going after my senior year, circa 1992. I then drifted away from it. I made new friends, and they weren’t gamers. I was busy dealing with life, with things such as settling my mother’s estate and learning my place in the world. I had no interest in 2nd Edition AD&D, since the layout and artwork seemed unappealing, and the mechanics struck me as clunky. I was aware of Wizards of the Coast taking over the brand and introducing 3E and 3.5, but I never so much as examined a product from those lines (FWIW, I did consider the Open Gaming License a fine idea, and collected the occasional neat product from other companies).

The itch to game again came over me after, say, 2005. I started looking into finding a game, and in Denver, I found a gamer to play against. He wasn’t into D&D, but was a fan of Squad Leader (and ASL) and Axis & Allies. We played those frequently, and in lighter moods, also Zombies!!! and its sequels.

I arrived in New Jersey at the beginning of January this year, as I wrote about below. My first weeks involved using my free time to settle-in. However, by early February I started looking at Meetup to find some sort of gaming that fit my schedule. The best option was the Fourth Edition (4E) D&D gaming that was held on many Saturdays in midtown Manhattan. All I knew about 4E was what I had read online: Grognards didn’t like that it had a heavy focus on gizmos and tricks that could be used in combat. Actual roleplaying was not emphasized, in favor of making D&D seem more like a video game. Most of the activity involved portraying fights through the use of miniature figures on a battle mat. Still, I knew very few people in my new home area, so this was a chance to have some fun and make new friends. I’ve now been attending quite regularly for over four months.

I’ve learned that 4E is indeed based on trying to create the biggest badass of a character that the rules allow. It’s not my first choice for how to game, but it is fun none-the-less. The best aspect, to me, is the way the current generation of designers have invested enormous amounts of imagination into creating character races and classes. No longer do the types out of The Lord of the Rings rule the day. Now there’s psionic collections of animate minerals (the Shard Mind), battle droids (the Warforged) and other interesting races that were never part of the game until recently.

My first 4E character was a Longtooth Shifter Melee Ranger, that I named Growler. Shifters are beastmen, the descendents of were-creatures. Longtooths (Longteeth?) have werewolf ancestry, and they go berserk when wounded badly enough. Rangers these days are either twin-weapon proficient (one in each hand), or archers. My guy isn’t heavily armored, but still enjoys rushing into combat to hack up whatever enemy he can reach. I like him a lot. I’ve recently created a second character, an Eladrin Swordmage known as Korgath (Eladrin are like more mystical Elves, while Swordmages are swordsmen who enhance their attacks with magical tricks, without being true spellcasters).

The website for the New York City D&D Meetup group is here. The games are scheduled at RPG Connect. The latter site tracks karma points, and it is necessary to serve as DM sometimes to keep one’s karma up. Mine is failing badly, as I haven’t felt familiar enough with the new rules to give DMing them a try. However, my time is near, and so in the past few days I bought a battle mat of my own on which to draw maps for encounters, some wet-erase markers, and additional dice. I’m especially pleased with a set I found that has red numbers set into a charcoal-drawing-like grey and white plastic. I also stopped by a local chain bookstore and got myself the 4E Starter Set, a sort of new-era Basic rules. I already owned a used 4E Player’s Handbook, so I now should have all the reference works I need to run a game, and I still have loads of miniatures from 20 or more years ago. I will probably DM my first 4E session on July 3. I’ll post here on how that goes!

If the above leaves you thinking, hey, that could be me, then don’t hesitate to try out a 4E game, wherever you can find one. D&D is still fun, even if it is different. And if the above left you confused, yet intrigued, the 4E Starter Set is a worthy investment of only $17. Roleplaying gaming, under most circumstances, is a healthy way for friends and families to interact and use their imagination, and doesn’t have to be expensive. D&D and its competitors have given me countless hours of fun, over the course of almost 30 years, so I’m very pleased that it has found a way to capture my interest anew. I think I’ll create a Shard Mind character soon…


Inevitable Glen Cook side note: At the chain bookstore I also bought the paperback of An Empire Unacquainted with Defeat. This is the Dread Empire short story collection, which was released in hardcover in 2009. The trade paperback wasn’t due until July 13, but Nightshade has released in ahead of schedule. Good for them. I waited for the paperback because I own the predecessors in that format, and I’m retentive enough to want my set to match. I’ll be really torn on what to do when The Wrath of Kings is finally released, as I may not be able to stand waiting for the paperback ;-)

Glen Cook Update Time!

I again have bits and pieces of Glen Cook news that I haven't seen reported elsewhere. We begin with the picture attached to this post, by the great Raymond Swanland. He's been Cook's primary cover illustrator for the past five years, providing awesome pieces for the Instrumentalities of the Night series, and for the Black Company and Dread Empire reprints. The work seen here I found on his site, under the title "Surrender to the Will of the Night," and so it is presumably the cover art for the third Instrumentalities volume, which is due on November 23. Amazon now has the jacket blurb for that book available, it reads as follows:

Piper Hecht’s first and greatest secret is that he knows how to kill gods. What’s not a secret is that he knows how to win wars

Piper Hecht’s secrets make him dangerous, but his skill and his reputation put him in danger—from his enemies, who fear what he might do, or who want revenge for what he has already done; and from his friends, who want to use his military gifts for their own purposes. His sister Heris and his living ancestor Cloven Februaren, the Ninth Unknown, have made Hecht part of their fight against the return of the dark god Kharoulke the Windwalker. At the same time, the half-mad Empress Katrin wants him to lead the armies of the Grail Empire eastward on a crusade against his old coreligionists the Praman.

Meanwhile, all around them, the world is changing. The winters are growing longer and harder every year, and the seas are getting shallower. The far north and the high mountain ranges are going under the ice, and fast. The Wells of Power, everywhere, keep getting weaker. And the old evils, the Instrumentalities from the Time Before Time, have begun to ooze back into the world. As ever, the genius of Glen Cook’s storytelling lies in his common touch: in soldiers who are like real soldiers, in men and women who love and laugh and sweat, with real hopes and real fears, united only in their determination to face the oncoming night.


Meanwhile, speaking (or writing) of the Dread Empire, I saw at a chain bookstore today the recent Third Printing of the paperback of A Cruel Wind, the first Dread Empire omnibus. It was good to see that book reach a third printing, but more exciting was that Nightshade Books had edited the listing of Cook's works, found in the front. Previously, the forthcoming final Dread Empire omnibus, The Wrath of Kings, was shown to include The Wrath of Kings as the third volume (following Reap the East Wind and An Ill Fate Marshalling). This is the book that Cook is rewriting, to replace the manuscript stolen over two decades ago. It is now shown to have the title A Path to Coldness of Heart, which was Cook's working title for it back in the day (it comes from the final six words of An Ill Fate Marshalling). I think this is a good decision, to have different titles for the omnibus itself and for the new final volume.

Finally, as I discussed below, the latest Garrett book, Gilded Latten Bones, is also scheduled for release in November of this year. Perhaps this influenced Roc to finally reprint Angry Lead Skies, the tenth Garrett volume. Get it while you can, if you need it, as some of the recent reprints are again out of print. A couple of the older titles have still not seen recent reprints, and I wonder if Roc has any intention of making the entire series available when the latest one comes out in a few months. I certainly hope so, since, while I have them all, many other fans of the series still need to complete their collections. Regardless of how this shakes out, Glen Cook fans still have plenty to look forward to in the months ahead!

What a Rush!

The new Rush Digital/CD-single Caravan came out today, and I already bought it off of Amazon. Two good, aggressive songs with complex arrangements, essentially a continuation of the sound of 2007's Snakes & Arrows CD. I like both songs, Caravan seems good, while BU2B ("Brought Up To Believe) I like even more, especially for its biting lyric:

All is for the best
Believe in what we're told
Blind men in the market
Buying what we're sold
Believe in what we're told
Until our final breath
While our loving Watchmaker
Loves us all to death

I hope the rest of the eventual Clockwork Angels CD, due in 2011, lives up to this standard! Rock on, kids!

Ladies is Pimps Too!

Has it all just been wasted time? Nah, I don't think so, but I was reflecting recently that I hadn't heard the song Wasted Time, one of the best by the Eagles, in quite a while.

Meanwhile, my Saturday quest began from the realization of something else I hadn't partaken in quite a while, a burger from Smash Burger. My last year in Colorado involved working a schedule that left me eating dinner very late most nights, usually after 9:30pm. There weren't too many places still open at that hour, at least in my part of Denver, so I found myself eating entirely too many burgers and fries. The best burgers were at the new, Colorado-based chain Smash Burger. They are all-over along the Front Range, and are expanding rapidly around the country. There's only one in New Jersey, with another due to open soon. That first one is not too far from where I live, but still too out of the way for me to have gone there before today.

I had seen its location on the map, and knew it was close to a good used bookstore, the Montclair Book Center. When I did a Google map check, I realized the two places were actually within a mile or so of each other, and so I decided to scratch two itches on one trip. I hoped I might find some old Harold Lamb biographies, or other pulpy treasure.

I found the Smash Burger easily, and my lunch was a wonderful flashback to the burgers I had enjoyed back in Colorado. I've been preaching the Smash Burger gospel to my new coworkers, who are mostly Five Guys disciples. One of them tried it so far, and he loved it, so there's hope I can convert the others.

The Montclair Book Center didn't have any Lamb that I needed. However, I found more than enough good reading material. I bought a used mass market paperback of The Bonehunters, Book 6 of The Malazan Book of the Fallen, continuing my streak of finding quality pre-owned versions of Erikson's books. In trade format, also used, I acquired R. Scott Baker's The Darkness That Comes Before. This is the first volume of his Prince of Nothing series, a set of books that is often recommended to Erikson and Glen Cook fans. I've never read any of it, but I'm aware of it, and seized this opportunity to have it at hand for eventual consumption. I also picked up a recent used Doonesbury collection that I didn't own yet.

The real gem for me was the fourth book I found. I was looking in the humor section, and had just added the Doonesbury to my stack. I noticed Wasted Time playing from a nearby speaker, and stopped to listen to that sad tale of too much hard living. That's when I realized that one of my long quests had ended. Facing me on the shelf was Anka Radakovich's Sexplorations.

I doubt many people remember Radakovich these days. Her heyday was 1996, when the sex columnist for Details Magazine was a regular guest of late-night TV hosts such as Conan O'Brien. Her book The Wild Girls Club, a collection of her magazine articles, was a best-seller in hardcover. I bought the paperback and found it wildly amusing. I loved her bawdy adventures among the allegedly-hip and cool crowd on both coasts. They pushed the same buttons for me as Berlin's music, with it's lurid, tawdry depictions of the nightlife of the coked-up, over-sexed party set in LA. I generally like my music and my reading to be full of epic, manly adventure, but I'm occasionally a sucker for a woman embracing her inner sex-kitten.

Sexplorations was released in hardcover in 1997. I planned to wait for the paperback, but the book apparently tanked, and never came out in a cheaper edition! I'm not sure what went wrong, and why Radakovich dropped off societal radar. I did a web search on her, and she's still writing articles here and there. Be that as it may, I've kept an eye out for many years for a used hardcover copy, but it took me 13 years to bump into one! I read a good chunk of it at various stops this afternoon, and was again amused and entertained (it's not a long book). I'm not sure the wait was entirely worth it, but it put a smile on my face none-the-less.

Minor Glen Cook Update: Later in the day I had a look at a Barnes & Noble, and saw that Angry Lead Skies, Book 10 in the Garrett, P.I. series, has been reprinted. This is good news for those who still need the book, and weren't looking forward to paying the $17 or more (plus shipping) that the book commanded on ebay. I don't understand Penguin/Roc's plans for this series, since several of the recent reprints are again out of print (Old Tin Sorrows, Dread Brass Shadows, and Whispering Nickel Idols), and two of the back titles haven't been reprinted at all (Red Iron Nights and Deadly Quicksilver Lies, which often sell for over $20 each on ebay). The next Garrett volume, Gilded Latten Bones, is still scheduled for release in November of this year. Perhaps some of the out of print volumes will be re-released to coincide with this.

More Malazan Musings

I keep plugging along at Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series, of which nine volumes are currently available. Somewhere back on this blog I discussed Gardens of the Moon, the first book. I may have mentioned reading the second volume, Deadhouse Gates, on my visit to New York City last October. I had plenty of time to read, while riding the coach 75 minutes each way, to and from my friend's house in western New Jersey. Fortunately, Deadhouse Gates was engrossing. I liked it quite a bit more than I did the debut.

Why? Because the characters and locales were more to my taste. The series is built in layers. The first book takes place on the continent of Genabackis. The second introduces many new characters, mixes in a few returnees, and sends them all to the Seven Cities sub-continent. The third then returns to Genabackis, before the fourth picks up the Seven Cities storyline, with the events being concurrent. The fifth introduces the continent of Lether, and again mostly new characters. The remaining books then blend the various storylines.

Why did Erikson do things in this back-and-forth manner? I saw in an interview that much of his in-progress manuscript for Memories of Ice (which became the third volume) was lost due to computer trouble. This depressed Erikson to the point that he felt the need to step away from the Genabackis setting for a while, and start to tell the Seven Cities portion of his overall arc. This made Deadhouse Gates the second book, when it was originally intended to be the third one. If that had happened, then Gardens of the Moon and Memories of Ice would have been one and two, telling a complete portion of the arc. House of Chains would be book four in either case, and would have continued directly from book 3, instead of from book two, as it now does.

I almost wish the books had been written and published in the originally intended order. Upon finishing Deadhouse Gates, I was eager to see what happened next in the Seven Cities storyline. I didn't really want to return to Genabackis, but I did. I read Memories of Ice bit by bit, over the winter. It is certainly a good book, but I don't share the often-expressed view that it is the best Malazan tale. It is too melodramatic for my taste, and too contrived in places, especially in Whiskeyjack repeatedly refusing to allow magical healing of his injured leg. Deadhouse Gates seems better written, which makes sense in that it is, to an extent, Erikson's third Malazan book. Meanwhile, I know from personal experience that recreated lost writing is never as strong as the original. A bit of magic disappears forever, and that magic was missing from Memories of Ice, even if Erikson had grown in experience since his first attempt at writing the book.

I'm now reading House of Chains, and it is enthralling. I'm near the halfway point, and so far it is the best of the Malazan books. For me. Opinions on its merit seem to vary widely on review and discussion sites. I like that the groundwork has been laid in earlier volumes, so that now the bigger picture is emerging. Erikson is taking fewer heavy-handed shortcuts to play with readers' emotions. I hope the understated quality continues.

It'll be a while yet before I get to book five, Midnight Tides, but I'm looking forward to it. A segment of Malazan fandom considers it Erikson's finest moment. My taste might well match theirs, since it doesn't for those who champion Memories of Ice. Of course, there's no true right or wrong in the arena of opinion. Ultimately, the lack of consensus on which Malazan book is best is really a praise to the strength of the series. I expect Erikson's works, and those of his colleague Ian "Cam" Esslemont, will continue to entertain me for many months to come.

The Butler Did It

Terry "Geezer" Butler, bassist for Black Sabbath and Heaven & Hell has posted a wonderful tribute to Ronnie James Dio, on his site.

You can read it all via the link, but here's a few lines that stood out:

"Most people who were there for those last days chose to keep their thoughts private. I wanted to keep my thoughts private, too, but I’ve been overwhelmed by emails, and requests from the media and fans for comments.

I can truly say I’ve never known anyone to have such loyal, loving friends, fans, and family as Ronnie. He really was a special person, blessed with a unique voice and presence. He loved his fans- he would stay meeting and talking to them until the early hours of the morning. One of my fondest memories of him comes from last year, at the Sonisphere Festival,Knebworth. He noticed my sister and her husband at the side of the stage. During our opening song, he took the time to go over and hug them. Just a little thing like that made him special to me. Of course his music will live on forever, as will his influence. I have never seen so many tributes from so many musicians and fans, so many good wishes, no cynicism, just pure love and appreciation for a great man.

God bless you Ronald – thank you so much for the wonderful memories."

RIP RJD

Ronnie James Dio died this morning, at the age of 67. He had been battling stomach cancer for perhaps 6 months, and had recently canceled touring plans for this summer. I knew that couldn't be a good sign, so his passing was not unexpected. I'm sad right now, but not really for Ronnie himself. Like Jaws a year ago, he had lived a good long life. He was a professional musician for 50 years, doing what he loved. Such longevity is a sign of blessing. He was always the first to state in interviews how fortunate he'd been in life.

It is a little surprising to realize that I saw Dio live, fronting Heaven & Hell (Black Sabbath), as recently as August 15 of last year. It was my fourth time seeing him, and my second Heaven & Hell show, after twice seeing his solo band. Ronnie sounded great, and seemed poised to continue on forever. It turned out to be around that time that he started feeling the stomach pangs which lead to his eventual diagnosis.

Tribulations are pouring in from around the world, the best I've read so far comes from Lars Ullrich:

"Dear Ronnie,

I just got off stage in Zagreb. I was met with the news that you've passed on. I'm kind of in shock, but I wanted you to know that you were one of the main reasons I made it onto that stage to begin with. When I first saw you in Elf, opening for Deep Purple in 1975, I was completely blown away by the power in your voice, your presence on stage, your confidence, and the ease with which you seemed to connect to 6,000 Danish people and one starry-eyed 11 year old, most of whom were not familiar with Elf's music. The following year, I was so psyched when I heard the results of you joining forces with my favourite guitar player. You guys sounded so right for each other and I instantly became Rainbow's #1 fan in Denmark. In the fall of 1976, when you played your first show in Copenhagen, I was literally in the front row and the couple of times we made eye contact you made me feel like the most important person in the world. The news that you guys were staying in town on your day off somehow embedded itself in my brain and I made the pilgrimage to the Plaza Hotel to see if I could somehow grab a picture, an autograph, a moment, anything. A few hours later you came out and were so kind and caring... pictures, autographs and a couple minutes of casual banter. I was on top of the world, inspired and ready for anything. Rainbow came to Copenhagen a couple more times over the next few years and each time you guys blew my mind, and for a good three years were my absolute favourite band on this planet. Over the years I've been fortunate enough to run into you a half dozen times or so and each time you were as kind, caring and gracious as you were in 1976 outside the hotel. When we finally got a chance to play together in Austria in 2007, even though I may not have let on, I was literally transformed back to that little snot nosed kid who you met and inspired 31 years earlier and it was such a fucking honor and a dream come true to share a stage with you and the rest of the legends in Heaven & Hell. A couple of weeks ago when I heard that you were not going to be able to make it to the Sonisphere shows that we would be sharing this June, I wanted to call you and let you know that I was thinking of you and wish you well, but I kind of pussied out, thinking the last thing you needed in your recovery was feeling obligated to take a phone call from a Danish drummer/fan boy. I wish I'd made that call. We will miss you immensely on the dates, and we will be thinking of you with great admiration and affection during that run. It seemed so right to have you out on tour with the so-called Big Four since you obviously were one of the main reasons that the four bands even exist. Your ears will definitely be burning during those two weeks because all of us will be talking, reminiscing and sharing stories about how knowing you has made our lives that much better.

Ronnie, your voice impacted and empowered me, your music inspired and influenced me, and your kindness touched and moved me. Thank you.

Much love,

Lars."

I couldn't put it any better myself. I'll close with some of Ronnie's lyrics, from the Black Sabbath song Over & Over:

Too many flames, with too much to burn
And life's only made of paper
Oh, how I need to be free of this pain
But it goes over, and over, and over, and over again

The More Things Change....

I was born in Albany, New York, and raised in Guilderland, between Albany and Schenectady. My maternal grandparents lived to the north, first in Fort Edward and then just south of Lake George. Many battles or skirmishes took place in the 17th and 18th Centuries close to roads I frequently traveled. So it is natural that since childhood I've had an interest in the French and Indian Wars and the War of the American Revolution. My recent return to the Northeast has rekindled my desire to read about this era. It helps that bookstores here in New Jersey have "local interest" titles that simply aren't available in Colorado (and of course, many Colorado titles aren't stocked here). I found one such title, Bloody Mohawk - The French and Indian War & American Revolution on New York's Frontier, at a nearby chain bookstore, and couldn't pass it up.

I was first captivated by the magnificent Don Troiani cover art, which is from his painting The Oneidas at the Battle of Oriskany. I had been thinking about Oriskany, and its reputation as one of the most horrific engagements of its era. I wanted to learn more about this battle, which I first read of as a child in Paul I. Wellman's Indian Wars & Warriors East (Paul was the brother of imaginative fiction author Manly Wade Wellman, who is better-known today). Allan W. Eckert's The Wilderness War furthered my interest. Many fictional battles are based on ones from real-world history, and I thought Oriskany might be a good source of inspiration for a story I may someday spin. Bloody Mohawk includes a chapter on the fighting there, and that was enough for me to purchase the book on the spot.

Bloody Mohawk isn't an exhaustive study of the Mohawk River Valley between 1754 and 1783. Author Richard Berleth didn't consult archival sources for his research. Instead, he synthesized the best secondary works, and applied his excellent writing to create a solid introductory work on the subject. He pays more attention to the later years of the era, showing how the conflict became a civil war that left the countryside devastated, and largely depopulated. The Iroquois were split, as the Oneidas and some elements of the other tribes sided with the American Patriots. Much of the White population became Loyalists Tories, forced to abandon their homes, only to return as brutal raiders.

It was an age of cruelty, something not widely recognized or understood today. Berleth doesn't touch on earlier precedents, but by the 1750s Robert Rogers was leading his Rangers on horrible raids against Indian and French settlements, in retaliation for bloody French and Indian raids on British settlements. Both sides regularly killed and scalped as many enemies as they could get their hands on, both because of blood lust, and in order to collect the scalp bounties paid by French and British colonial officials. Twenty years later, Bloody Mohawk explains that the Tory Butler's Rangers were frequently hard to distinguish from their Iroquois allies, as together they attacked every settlement west of Schnectady. American forces burned down numerous Iroquois towns in return, with only occasional pitched battles such as Oriskany and Newtown.

This makes for compelling, if depressing, reading. For me, it was a good reminder that "total war" was not invented during World War 2. The partisan war behind German lines in the occupied USSR had similar cruelties and divided loyalties, and, of course, was on a much larger scale. I am apparently not the only person to share an interest in both the New York frontier fighting and World War 2, as I've seen the listing for Michael O. Logusz's new book, With Musket and Tomahawk - The Saratoga Campaign and the Wilderness War of 1777. Logusz is also the author of Galicia Division - the Waffen-SS 14th Grenadier Division 1943-1945, a decent study of the Ukrainians in the Waffen-SS. I've owned the latter for many years, and now look forward to acquiring his book about the decisive year 1777 in New York.

You Had Me at Hello!

Moonsorrow (or as we fans often say, "The Mighty Moonsorrow!") kicked all sorts of butt at the Gramercy Theater in New York City last week. I'm glad I was there, to finally see one of my favorite bands in concert. They played as part of a quadruple bill, one that was originally to be all-Finnish in composition.

Moonsorrow were the third band to play, serving as a sort of co-headliner to the full headlining act, Finntroll. Swallow the Sun were the second band, and the openers should have been Survivors Zero. However, the latter couldn't get their work visas, and had to drop off the tour. Their replacements were local acts, changing from site to site. At the Gramercy, I was able to see the decent New Jersey project Operatika.

Swallow the Sun were pretty good. They have a good reputation, and I respect the occasional song of theirs that I've heard. Finntroll were good too, loud and aggressive in a way that their studio albums can't capture. But ultimately, I'm not a true fan of either band. I was there for Moonsorrow, and they delivered big time. It seemed that much of the crowd was also present for them, as the audience was eating out of their hands (well, figuratively) from the moment they took the stage. The guys were pleased with the reception, and poured their hearts into their performance (again, figuratively, of course). You can watch a clip of The Mighty Moonsorrow from this show here and here.

I arrived before any band had taken the stage, so I went to the basement to look over the merchandise and grab a beer. I bought a Moonsorrow shirt that features an axe-wielding Viking/Pagan warrior, standing over a crusader who has already been pierced by several arrows. I'm told it's just the thing for making small talk with the ladies. Be that as it may, I was correct in my hunch that some band members would be hanging out at the bar. Ville Sorvali and Janne Perttilä were in the company of a couple of Finnish journalists, and graciously made time to chat with me. They signed the booklets I had brought along for Voimasta ja Kunniasta and Tulimyrsky.

Moonsorrow hope to be able to tour North America yearly. If nothing else, they are like many other foreign bands, in that they play New York City every time they come to the USA. So I expect to see them again eventually. I just hope it is sooner, rather than later!

Never So Happy to Admit I was Wrong!

Amazon is now showing November 23, 2010 as the release date for the long-awaited Surrender to the Will of the Night, Book 3 of Glen Cook's Instrumentalities of the Night. I've been saying for a while that the trade paperback reprinting of of the first two books of the series, scheduled for this month and for August of this year, suggested that the series would be continued in only that format, with it likely that this third volume, and the in-progress fourth volume would never see hardcover release.

I'm delighted to be proven wrong. The Amazon listing says it will be a hardcover release, and only a hardcover release, unlike, say, Steven Erikson's and Ian C. Esslemont's Malazan books, which see simultaneous hardcover and trade paperback release (from the same gallies, for which a small percentage receive a hardcover, while the majority get a softcover). I would guess that the trade paperback for Surrender... would come out in 2011, and perhaps there won't be a massmarket paperback, or that might come still later.

Speaking of Esslemont, I just picked up the massmarket edition of his Night of Knives. I read the trade paperback last year, and enjoyed it. However, since I'm collecting Erikson's Malazan books in massmarket format, I wanted my copy of Knight of Knives to match them, even though the trade version was recently offered at a remaindered price. Esslemont's second Malazan novel, Return of the Crimson Guard, comes out in around ten days. I look forward to reading it, but I've seen suggestions that readers ought to be through at least Book 6 (The Bonehunters) of Erikson's series, for Return... to fit in place properly, and I'm only ready to begin Book 4 (House of Chains). I have plenty of time to continue with Erikson's books at a leisurely pace, before the eventual massmarket edition of Return... comes out to look good on my shelf with the other Malazan titles.

Back to Cook, November of this year should be an exciting time for his fans, since Gilded Latten Bones will be out at the start of the month, and Surrender to the Will of the Night three weeks later. I'm not a fan of November, in general, but I'll be looking forward to it this year!

This Ain't No Diet Plan!

I learned about the Battle of the Bulge, the German counter-offensive of December 1944, differently from how many Americans get their information. The successful stand of the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne has been widely written about, and was filmed in a realistic fictional manner in the Band of Brothers series. Studies of George S. Patton's campaigns examine the way he turned his Third Army north, from Lorraine, to strike the flank of the German advance and relieve Bastogne. But while these elements of the campaign are the best-known ones, I first learned about the more northerly fighting around Elsenborn Ridge.

My primary source was the masterly memoir Company Commander, by Charles B. MacDonald. His unit was Company I, of the 23rd Infantry Regiment, in the American 2nd Infantry Division. He earned a Silver Star on December 17, 1944, for the defense he and his men made (in conjunction with the rest of their battalion) against heavy German attacks made by the 277. Volksgrenadier and 12. SS-Panzer Divisions. This effort made possible the withdrawal of the rest of the 2nd ID, and associated elements of the 99th ID, into the joined farming villages of Krinkelt and Rocherath. It further gave time for the 1st ID to assume positions around the Bütgenbach Estate, and for the 30th ID to defend near Stavelot and Stoumont. Other parts of the 99th ID also made defensive contributions in the first days of the German offensive, which further aided the American side in containing a German operation that expected to cleanly break through the American lines on its first day.

Mac Donald's account is full of exciting reading, but he was one man, at one point, in a large campaign. A similar level of excitement is found in the many personal accounts in John Toland's Battle: The Story of the Bulge, but it covers the entire course of the Ardennes fighting, and this limits how much attention can be given to each part. I was 11 or 12 when I found Company Commander, circa 1982, and it was soon after that I was able to read a library copy of Toland's work. Toland included especially good detail about Krinkelt and Rocherath, from 2nd ID veterans, and reading about this at such a young age left images forever burned into my imagination.

In later years I was able to acquire some expensive, highly-specialized books about the Ardennes. Jean-Paul Pallud's Battle of the Bulge: Then and Now, provided thorough photographic coverage of the campaign, and the English translations of Munin-Verlag Waffen-SS unit histories told of the fighting at Krinkelt-Rocherath, Bütgenbach, Stavelot, and Stoumont from the German perspective (I was fortunate enough to be able to serve as a proofreader for Hubert Meyer's History of the 12. SS-PD, and for a portion of the Rudolf Lehmann/Ralf Tiemann History of the 1. SS-PD).

All of this reading allowed me to develop a good understanding of the early stages of the northen sector of the Battle of the Bulge. I've retained my interest up to the present, and I became aware some years ago that Dutch researcher Hans Wijers shared it. In the late 1990s, he self-published six volumes on the battle, combining accounts he collected from veterans and civilians with material from unit histories and after-action reports. Recently, Stackpole Books reissued four of these in two omnibus volumes titled Battle of the Bulge. Volume One comprises The Loshiem Gap and Holding the Line, while Volume Two includes Hell at Bütgenbach and Seize the Bridges (hopefully, Wijers's remaining titles, on the Schnee Eiffel and the defense of St. Vith, will be collected in a future Volume Three).

The Loshiem Gap covers the largely-successful American defense of the area around Loshiem, to the south of Krinkelt-Rocherath and north of the Schnee Eiffel. The 99th ID was able to hold out here against heavy attacks made by low-quality German infantry, until a retreat could be made in organized fashion to defensive positions farther west. This helped create a fatal delay to the overall course of the German offensive. Holding the Line tells of Krinkelt-Rocherath, and how the 9th and 38th Infantry Regiments of the 2nd ID were able to withdraw from their own attack area to assume defensive positions there. The actions of MacDonald's battalion are put into the context of the overall course of operations. Hell at Bütgenbach is by far the shortest work, as it describes the successful defense of the Bütgenbach Estate by the 26th IR of the 1st ID, against elements of the 12. SS-PD which were not at Krinkelt-Rocherath, or that had been rerouted from there. Kampfgruppe Peiper of the 1. SS-PD figures into the last chapters of The Losheim Gap, but its operations are described more fully in Seize the Bridges. This last, and longest, work follows the battlegroup from its breakthrough of the American defenses until it had to abandon its heavy weapons at Stoumont a week later. Also included is a chapter on Otto Skorzeny's Panzer Brigade 150 and its failed attack on Malmedy.

These were all decisive engagements which blunted the attack of the 6. Panzerarmee, and thus doomed the Ardennes Offensive to failure. I have gone to some effort to give the background on the bigger picture of the Battle of the Bulge, because none of Wijers's works do so. They look at their particular portion of the battle with a tight focus. This means that these works aren't suitable for beginners to the study of this campaign. Beginners will be lost amid all the details, especially of the many small towns and villages of the region. The maps are inadequate, to the point that I made use of Gerd J. Gust Cuppens fascinating book Massacre a Malmedy? to trace the routes of various units. Cuppens' volume is very difficult to find, and a more realistic alternative for most readers is Michael Reynold's works The Devil's Adjutant and Men of Steel, both of which have extensive sections on the 6. Panzerarmee in the Ardennes.

Wijers' Battle of the Bulge books are, instead, of most use to those who have read extensively on the battle, but want to learn what the men at the sharp end experienced. Most of the documentary material has not appeared elsewhere, and what has is often presented in greater length. The source material is roughly 2/3 American. One published source, Michael Schadewitz's The Meuse First and Then Antwerpt, provided a substantial amount of the German content. Since this is a rare book in English, translated from a far-scarcer German original, few readers of these Stackpole editions of Wijers will be familiar with it. Perhaps this will generate some sales for Schadewitz's fine study of the 150. Panzer Brigade.

In sum, The Battle of the Bulge, Volumes One and Two, are a fine supplement to the body of literature on this famous campaign. They'll be less useful as introductory works, but those who enjoy personal accounts may find them a gateway towards further study. At worst, they provide some exciting, if confusing reading. I'm just glad that such specialized books, created as a labor of love, are now widely and easily available.