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.

It's called disclosure, ya d--- h---

That line, from Miss Mona Lisa Vito, seems appropriate to a post written in New Jersey. The disclosure arises in my stating, for the record, that I've become a friendly acquaintance with Chris Evans.

Who is that? Evans is the Military History Editor at Stackpole Books, and is also the author of The Iron Elves, a fantasy series. I began reading his novels after seeing them compared with Glen Cook's Black Company. Meanwhile, I've watched as Stackpole released affordable paperback editions of books first published in hardcover by J.J. Fedorowicz, Helion, and other companies. I've had one of my books published each with JJF and Helion, so I keep tabs on what happens with those companies' titles.

I read the first Iron Elves volume, A Darkness Forged in Fire, last summer while attending the Denver Publishing Institute. Soon after, I started planning my late-October reconnaissance-in-force to New York, and contacted Evans via email. We arranged a meeting, and had a pleasant lunch together, discussing many book topics.

We met up again this weekend, at Luna Con, a science fiction and fantasy convention held in Rye Brook, New York. Evans was a guest of the con, and held a reading and book signing. In and about those, we had further discussions, and I was introduced to an author whom Evans had met earlier in the day.

It was Peter Brett, author of The Warded Man (also known as The Painted Man, in some editions). Brett proved to be a great guy, as we got to know each other a bit, and he read a section from his short story collection The Great Bazaar and other Stories. I was intrigued enough to seek out the paperback of The Warded Man, but as the preceding link shows, that will not be released for a few more days.

I'm currently reading the second Iron Elves novel, The Light of Burning Shadows, and I'll discuss this series in a future post. I'll also soon be posting reviews of a couple of Stackpole books provided to me as review copies. When these posts are available, feel free to take them with as many grains of salt as necessary. I feel better mentioning the above from the outset, rather than hide it all, and have it somehow revealed later to my adoring public. However, if any of you out there are truly not aware that most reviews on the web are solicited, well, there's this bridge in my new part of the world that just might be for sale. You read it here first ;-)