Another Volleyball Update

Colorado State University Volleyball played great this weekend (well, sort of a weekend), in getting 3-0 sweeps of both New Mexico and TCU at Moby Arena in Fort Collins. The Rams beat the Lobos Thursday night in what Coach Hilbert called "the most complete match of the season." Redshirt Freshman Megan Plourde particularly shone, with 10 kills and a massive .786 hitting percentage.

The Rams then put away the Horned Frogs Saturday afternoon, with Plourde again playing well. The whole team is coming together well, and playing at a high level. The chemistry among these mostly-young players has been a pleasant surprise this fall. I like CSU's chances of winning the Mountain West Conference and returning to the NCAA Tournament. They should get a chance to work some bench players into the mix this week, when the Rams host Northern Colorado on Wednesday (a good, but lesser team), and then travel to Wyoming on Friday (an okay team that seems down this season). Go Rams!

Read about Plourde here.

Volleyball Update

As I Tweeted recently to my legions of Twitter followers, “Nothing could be finer than three wins in Carolina!” Colorado State University Volleyball this weekend won a tournament in Chapel Hill. The Rams lost just a single set in the event, sweeping previously undefeated Marshall, beating Tennessee 3-1, and sweeping host North Carolina. CSU played very well, especially since this was the first road trip for a bunch of young players. The Rams did lose at Duke to begin the trip, a few days earlier, but showed they quickly figured out how to stay composed and competitive on the road. This will be a valuable lesson for the rest of the season. Danielle Minch was named MVP of the North Carolina Tournament after racking up an impressive kill total in each match, so congratulations to her and to the entire team.

I’m writing this now so I’ll have something to look back on in the weeks and months ahead. I could be wrong with my prediction, but I think the Rams have a good shot at winning the Mountain West Conference and returning to the NCAA Tournament for the 14th consecutive season. Yes, the Rams are breaking in a bunch of young players, who are new at their roles, but they are settling in and, after finding success at home, now also started to win away from the friendly confines of Moby Arena, as mentioned above.

CSU is fortunate that all the traditional powers in MWC Volleyball are also in rebuilding mode. Utah, like CSU, lost to graduation some of the best players in their program’s history. The new players have struggled, losing to teams Utah normally beats. BYU lost good players, and their coach in only in her 2nd season, so they’ve struggled too. New Mexico graduated one of the best hitters in the country. And I’m not sure what is up with UNLV, but they have played poorly so far this season.

CSU seems to have reloaded and forged ahead sooner than their rivals, the teams that will be their primary opponents in the weeks ahead. From all I have seen or read so far, I expect the Rams to lose a few matches along the way, but to emerge in late November at the head of the pack in a league where the automatic bid to the NCAAs is up for grabs. Go Rams!

See Ram Volleyball for more about the team.

Edited to add a link to a nice article about Minch

The Case for Garrett

Glen Cook is best known as the creator of the Black Company series. His Instrumentalities of the Night series is in-progress, and his Dread Empire series is back in print in nice omnibus editions. He has written other series over the last 30 years, including Darkwar and the Starfishers. Yet since 1987 there’s been one constant to Cook’s writing: Garrett, P.I.

Garrett debuted Sweet Silver Blues. That book introduced readers to the human investigator in a fantasy world. He was a modern character, based on the hard-boiled dicks of American 20th Century detective fiction. His city, Tun Faire, and the surrounding kingdom of Karentia, were similar to 17th Century London and Britain, only with the existence of magic and non-human races such as Elves, Dwarves, and Ogres. Thus, familiar elements were made fresh by an unusual setting and the mixing of genres.

Cook has been writing about Garrett ever since. He has mentioned in interviews that he generally has a Garrett book in progress all the time, no matter what he is focused on writing at a given moment. The series continued in the late 80’s, through the 90’s, and into the new millennium. The twelfth volume, Cruel Zinc Melodies, came out in 2008, and the thirteenth is under contract for eventual release.

Most of the earlier titles have been reprinted recently, and Cruel Zinc Melodies is on its fourth printing in a little over a year. The series has benefited from Cook’s latest round of popularity, which was touched off by the Black Company and Dread Empire omnibus versions. In fact, there’s a visible correlation between how successful Cook’s other books are, and how well Garrett sells. Cook’s success grew through the 80’s as the Black Company books became word of mouth successes. This led to the continuation of the Black Company series, with three new books coming out in 1989 and 1990. The first five Garrett books were available by this time, and each had several printings. The final four Black Company volumes were released between 1996 and 2000, and so 1999’s ninth Garrett book, Faded Steel Heat, went through at least four printings. Cook then didn’t write much for several years, so that 2002’s Angry Lead Skies and 2005’s Whispering Nickel Idols each had but a single printing (the latter was recently reprinted). But as mentioned above, the success of the Dread Empire and Black Company omnibuses, which debuted in 2006 and 2007, respectively, helped renew interest in Garrett, and helped the latest Garrett book sell very well.

Cook was ahead of his time in writing the gritty, militaristic fantasy of the Dread Empire and Black Company books. Just as those helped influence a generation of writers such as Steven Erikson, the Garrett books helped set the stage for the current poularity of urban fantasy. Authors such as Jim Butcher wouldn’t be writing their own fantasy detective stories if Cook hadn’t shown that it could be done successfully.

Why does this mix of detective and fantasy work? In Garrett’s case, it is because Garrett IS Glen Cook, just as Croaker is in the Black Company. The stories are told first person by Garrett, as if he was relating them to some buddies at the bar while downing a few pints of ale. Garrett is a good guy who means well, but who sometimes makes mistakes and falls prey to his weaknesses. He likes to sleep late, chase redheads, and avoid work as much as finances allow. He has a sarcastic sense of humor, and interesting friends such part-Elf rogue Morley Dotes and a physically dead (yet psychically alive) elephant man. Garrett’s cases involve murder, kidnapping, and a criminal underworld.

The cast of supporting characters grows and evolves over the course of the series, and becomes quite large. By the time of Cruel Zinc Melodies the actual plot isn’t as important as simply spending time with all of these familiar inhabitants of Garrett’s world. I thought Cook mixed them all together successfully, though some reviewers wanted more action in the book. But the Garrett, P.I. series has never really been about action. It’s about showing how fantasy can be fun even without the clichés of swords and dragons and faux-medieval settings. If you like Cook’s other books, or think this premise sounds promising, don’t hesitate to give Garrett a try. I predict you’ll soon be like I was a year ago, frantically trying to hunt down all twelve books in the series.

See Wikipedia for a good summary of the individual books.

Malazan Musings

I should like The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Steven Erikson's 10-volume series of epic doorstopper fantasy novels. Erikson is influenced by authors I enjoy, such as Glen Cook, and takes the notion of "gritty fantasy" to the nth degree in his works, which often top 1000 pages per book. He is a trained archeologist, as is his friend Ian C. "Cam" Esslemont. Together, the two put their love of exploring cultures and history into the creation of the Malazan world for their GURPS roleplaying, and eventually began writing fiction in that mileu. Erikson just released the ninth entry in his series, while Esslemont has published two of a projected five or six Malazan books of his own.

I became aware of Erikson (and then, by extension, of Esslemont) because of the mutual admiration society that he forms with Cook. They have been quick to praise one another over the past few years, as can be seen on book cover blurbs and in interviews. Erikson has become extremely popular with fantasy readers over the last five years, and this fandom has often suggested that those who enjoy Erikson's books ought to give Cook's works a try. I encountered this notion often enough on various websites that, in a reversal of the pattern, I sought out Erikson's series.

I've been collecting the mass market paperbacks of The Malazan Book of the Fallen for a little over a year. I bought the first, Gardens of the Moon, new, and volumes 2, 3 and 5 in gently-used copies from stores where I have trade-in credit. At this writing, I have Erikson's books 4, 6, 7 and 8, and Esslemont's debut borrowed from the library, all in trade paperback format (Erikson's 9th volume, and Esslemont's 2nd, aren't released in the USA yet).

I very much enjoy having all the books of a series together at once. It greatly enhances my enjoyment to be able to look at volumes I haven't read yet, and collect hints and ideas about what is to come. Far from being "spoilers," as this information is to some readers, it allows me to to function as an observer as to how the author gets characters from the situations I am currently reading, to those I read later. For Erikson, I know from the cast list that several inhabitants of the city of Darujhistan, that I'm presently following in Gardens of the Moon, are still alive and kicking in Book 8, Toll the Hounds. From what they are experiencing in this first book, they shouldn't survive until that later one!

I'm almost done with Gardens of the Moon. Its story has become engrossing in the second half. I was expecting this, as it is widely reported online that the book is initially quite difficult to get into. First-time readers are encouraged to put in the effort to reach the "juicy" parts, and so I perservered, and now I'm enjoying the payoff. I can see the Cook influence, which is supposed to be much less pronounced in later volumes. The Bridgeburners unit of soldiers bears a resemblance to the Black Company, and Kruppe seems to be Erikson's take on Mocker from the Dread Empire series.

There's lots of high powered magic flying about in Gardens of the Moon. Reviews I've read suggest that this only increases as the series progresses. This is a problem for some readers, since they feel it defies logic. My guess at this point, as a neophyte Malazan reader, is that, in a sense, Erikson is retelling the roleplaying adventures of high-level game characters. I know that when I was around 13, my friends and I used to pretend that our AD&D characters met up with various demons and devils from the Monster Manual, Asmodeus for example. We'd roll the dice, and every now and then, we'd manage to do sufficient damage to kill these powerful creatures. I suspect that Erikson is having his own form of fun by putting enounters of this sort into writing.

I had tried off and on to get into Gardens of the Moon, and this time it finally worked. I now expect to continue to enjoy Erikson's books for years to come. Each is so massive that it will take weeks to get through. I read all twelve of Cook's Garrett, P.I. series between June of 2008 and January of 2009, but those average under 300 pages per book, and I'm ready for a long, pleasurable haul through the Malazan world. Esslemont's books will only prolong the experience, in a good way. I'm ready for the challenge, bring it on!

See Malazan Empire for background on the works of Steven Erikson and Ian C. Esslemont.

Pre-pub offer on Polizei Division Book

Fedorowicz, who released my first book over a decade ago, have finally put up a pre-publication offer on the long-awaited second and final volume of their translation of the veterans' history of the 4. SS-Polizei-Panzergrenadier Division. Read about it here.

The Polizei-Division has been maligned for decades as a second-rate unit. In fact, it was equal to the best divisions in the German Army, and, in the last two years of the war, was as good as other SS-Armored Divisions. It only fell short in comparisons circa 1940-41, when its human material wasn't as special as the very carefully selected manpower found in the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (the eventual 1. SS-Panzer Division) and the SS-Verfügunstruppe (the eventual 2. SS-Panzer Division). The Polizei-Division was originally intended to be like a first-line Army infantry division, and then, from 1943, to be the equivalent of an Army Panzer or Panzergrenadier Division, and the unit succeeded admirably in attaining those goals.

There's a myth about the World War 2 Eastern Front, which holds that after the late 1941 German defeat before Moscow, everything important up to the summer of 1944 took place in Ukraine and the sector of German Army Group South. This is because Soviet accounts ignored the Red Army's defeats on the Army Group Center front, west of Moscow, and the Army Group North Front around Leningrad. The Soviet (now Russian) archives have become available to researchers over the past 20 years, and their records corroborate German records of massive, important battles on the central and northern sectors.

Fedorowicz have been making rare German books available in English for over 20 years. Their books have regularly turned up in bibliographies, along the way to expanding the understanding of the war for historians who struggle with the German language. This has subsequently helped expand the understanding of the war for the readers of the works of the aforementioned historians.

This second volume of the Polizei-Division history will continue the trend. The first volume gave some of the only detailed descriptions in English of the dreadful Battle of the Volkhov Pocket (first half of 1942, it was where Andrei Vlassov was captured by Dutch volunteers of the Legion Nederland) and the First Battle of Lake Ladoga (autumn 1942). Now this second and concluding book will allow English language readers to learn about the Second Battle of Lake Ladoga (early 1943), the Third Battle of Lake Ladoga (late summer 1943), the retreat from the Volkhov River (early 1944), the anti-partisan war in Greece (summer 1943-summer 1944), and the defense of the Tisza River in Hungary (autumn 1944).

The latter campaign was recently covered in English in Perry Moore's chaotic (but informative) Panzerschlact, and the Polizei-Division's history will be a useful supplement to this (see also Fedorowicz's recent translation of the History of the 23. Panzer Division, which was in this campaign).

The Polizei-Division then fought in the little-known Pomeranian campaign of early 1945, before being assigned a section of the Oder River defenses during the last weeks of the war. Its participation in so many little-known, yet very important campaigns, means that anyone who enjoys studying the Nazi-Soviet portion of World War 2 in detail, will benefit immeasurably from this book, and from its companion first volume. Together, they advance the cause of learning.

Black Company Back in Print!

I haven't seen this news posted anywhere, but I had a look recently on Tor's website, and noticed, to my surprise, that the entire 10 book Black Company series was available again as single volumes. This is Glen Cook's most popular series, and Tor had let the individual books go out of print, other than the first eponymous release (for those wanting to try the series out cheaply) and Water Sleeps (the 9th volume, which I had assumed would soon follow the rest into being unavailable). In their place, the company has been releasing omnibuses, with the first three books in the first collection, and the next three in the second one. The thrid collection is due in around two weeks, and the final one in January (see earlier posts to read about both).

As the later Black Company volumes went out of print, they began to become expensive on secondary markets such as e-bay, and next to impossible to find in used bookstores. I had thought Tor wanted this, as it would drive up interest in the omnibus versions. The first two collections have proven extremely popular (the first is on its 6th printing in under two years), and the next two will likely sell well too. (The Raymond Swanland covers have helped draw in casual readers, to go by comments I've read online, even if Cook has stated that he doesn't like Swanland's art!)

I'm now confused as to why and how Tor has reprinted the out of print Black Company individual books. I know that Cook has expressed displeasure at not having them available, perhaps they wanted to placate him. Water Sleeps now lists for $1 more than its original and long-standing price, but the others sell for the same cover price as they did 5 years ago and more. So my guess right now, until I learn otherwise, is that most of these books haven't been "reprinted." Rather, they've been made available as Print on Demand titles, printed from computer files (instead of set type) in versions that are roughly 80-90% as nice as conventionally printed mass market paperbacks. If this is the case, it will be most noticeable in the covers, which will have a pixelated quality and a lack of depth in the art. Further, if these are POD editions, they will probably be sold only online, via Tor's website and vendors such as Amazon.

Regardless of the specifics, this is a cause for rejoice for the many who have been desperately trying to complete their Black Company collections for the past couple of years. I'm lucky to have bought the books years ago, when they were readily available. But those who are interested in these individual volumes are advised to get them while they can. These new copies turned up quite suddenly, and perhaps they'll disappear equally quickly. Carpe the Diem!

Thought for the day: Better luck this weekend to the CSU Volleyball team, after today's first home loss in two years! Go Rams!

Almost Volleyball Season!

Colorado State University Volleyball begins its 2009 season in a few days. I'll have to miss Friday night's match against Pepperdine, but I plan to be in Fort Collins Saturday and Sunday for the matches against Oregon State and Cal Poly.

I don't know what to expect this season. The Rams graduated three of their best players ever: Ashley Fornstrom, Jaime Strauss, and Mekana Barnes. Fornstrom was the setter all four of her seasons, and will be the toughest act to follow. Sophomore Evan Sanders played sparingly last season as Fornstrom's backup. There may well be a learning curve for her early this season. Several new players are competing for playing time, and it can take a few weeks for players to gel in their on the court performance. So the start of the season may be rougher than I and the rest of Ram fandom hope.

On the positive side, CSU has probably its best overall height ever. Tall and talented young women have arrived on campus, and reported are already giving the established players runs for their money in practice. The Rams could be a formidable team by the end of the season. At this point, I'll hope for the best while repeating the mantra "Go Rams!"

To read more about the team, check out their blog at Ram Volleyball Blog.