Not bad...

Think her name is Laura Henderson...decent indie rock...

Review of THE WAR GODS MEN

The War God's Men by David Ross Erickson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even though I'm into fantasy, historical fiction has always been a huge influence, in part because there is quite an overlap in many of the ways that matter. Both tell stories that take place in worlds which do not exist, the main difference being that with historical fiction it's a world that was was in the past, while fantasy is set in a world that never was and never could be.

With that in mind, THE WAR GODS MEN is a solid entry that should appeal to readers looking for a fast paced tale of war, betrayal and bloodshed that will satisfy fans of both Robert E. Howard and Bernard Cornwell, and should prove especially appealing to those with an interest in stories set in the glory that was Ancient Rome. Most Roman historical tales focus either on the era of Julius Caesar and the Fall of the Republic, or on the final Collapse of the Empire four centuries afterward. David Ross Erickson's story instead places it;s focus on an era usually ignored by readers and writers – the First Punic War.

When most people think of Rome's struggle with Carthage, they think of Hannibal and his elephants crossing the alps and the titanic Roman defeat at Cannae. THE WAR GODS MEN is set a generation earlier, when Carthage was the dominant power in the Mediterranean and Rome merely an Italian upstart with no navy to speak it. Several narrative threads are woven together, the main one being that of Juba, a Numidian cavalryman in service to the Carthaginian army led by Hannibal Gisgo (a different man with the same name.) The action begins at the city of Acragas in Sicily, where a Roman army is besieging the Carthaginian garrison. After seeing one of his men crucified at the city gate by Hannibal Gisgo, Juba swears vengeance, embarking on a long strange journey that see's him fighting on no less than three separate sides. Meanwhile, the Roman Consul Scipio has recovered an abandoned Carthaginian warship, which the Romans use as a template to construct their own war fleet. Having little experience with fighting at sea, they enlist the help of the ancient genius Archimedes to design a new weapon that will even the odds with their enemies in naval battle.

Erickson is a talented writer, and the story flows well. The level of historical detail is quite high and the characters well rounded, giving the impression that they were actually living in their period. That said, I do wish the author had explained more – the reader is dropped right into the story, and immediately surrounded by numerous characters and historical facts without much in the way of context. More than once I found myself asking “who are these people?” and logging onto Wikipedia to find out. Also, the narrative is a bit off-putting. The plot basically follows the fortunes of Juba, Hannibal Gisgo and Scipio over the course of several years without weaving them into some sort of larger plot, more like a documentary about ancient warriors than a traditional story. The book ends every abruptly with a “the battle shall continue” set-up and no sense of resolution for two of the main characters, suggesting this is merely the first part of a larger series.

Still, the good parts of the story balance out the bad. The characters were compelling, and Erickson's level of historical knowledge, and the sheer joy he takes in exploring this ancient conflict, comes through with every word. A good read, all things considered.

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Jerusalem Delivered and Epic Roots

Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Over the last decade or so, fantasy fiction has emerged from a geeky underground genre to become a real cultural force in it;s own right. Go into any bookstore (or just check the Amazon sales rankings...) and you'll see and endless line of titles featuring wizards, warlocks, damsels in distress (or causing distress) and the whole sword swinging, shining knight and evil wizard deal providing fuel to the imagination. Any day of the week you can turn on a tv or head into a movie theatee and see CGI orcs, trolls and dragons battling it out across a wide variety of imaginary landscapes.

Yet the roots of fantasy go back far and deep into the bones of our culture. Tolkien is often called the father of fantasy (or one of the fathers at least) but even he had his influences, as did all the others who preceded him. To my mind, the chivalric romances are the original seed of what today we could tall fantastickal fiction. IN the courts of medieval and Renaissance Europe, poets and troubadours spun stories of brave knights and powerful wizards, princesses locked in towers and perilous quests, creating many of the tropes that we still use to this day.

To my mind, Torquato Tasso's epic poem JERUSALEM DELIVERED can be considered one of the first true epic fantasies. Ostensibly a retelling of the First Crusade, it mingles the bloody history of holy war with sorceresses, demons and magical happenings drawn from a wide variety of sources. Under the leadership of the noble lord Godfredo (the historical Godfrey of Boullion) and the mystic Peter the Hermit, a Crusader army drawn from all the Kingdoms of Christendom, and featuring many heroes familiar from numerous other medieval epics, gathers to capture Jerusalem from the armies of the Pagans (as he calls the Muslims) led by the Soldan of the Turks. Among the champions in the Christian army is the warrior Tancredi (the historical Tancred, Prince of Galillee), who faces off against the warrior-maiden Clorinda. Though fighting on the opposite side, they fall in love, which ends in tragedy when she mistakenly dies at the hands of her beloved. And there is the knight Rinaldo, who in the story is made out to be descended from one of Charlemagne's paladins (as well as being the ancestor of the House of Este, the poet's real-life patrons.) The greatest of all the Crusader knights, he falls under the spell of the sorceress Armida in a manner similar to Odysseus and Circe, before being rescued by his comrades and returned to fight in the final victory.

By today's standards this story would be reckoned grossly un-PC, the culture nowadays viewing the Crusades in a very different light then 16th Century Italian poets. And those who grew up reading modern prose might find the old-fashioned style (particularly the allusions to classical mythology mingled with Christian piety) frustrating. But there is a sense of wonder in this story, of unashamed glory, that still resonates even four centuries later. If you enjoyed reading the Lord of the Rings, this will give an idea of where Tolkien got his ideas.

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Kewl....

Interesting...

The way it was...and never will be again....

I miss that old style sword and sorcery.

I grew up in the Nineties, right on the cusp of fantasy's initial breakthrough into the mainstream. I remember when it was still very much and underground things, when there was still hysteria about Dunegon's & Dragons being a gateway drug into Satanism and suicide (though given some of the DM's I've known over the years, one or the other seemed quite attractive at various points during badly run campaigns...) Fantasy was for losers back then, geeks, dorks, dweebs, and that was just in high school. Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons made flesh.

The thing about being beneath the cultural radar though is that no one cares what you do. Which means you can do what you want. You can say what you want, write what you want, lose yourself in a world that doesn't exist except on paper, and no one cares. There is an entire universe inside your head and by God and all His Saints it's ten thousand times better than the dead end existence that constitutes The Real World.

For me the drug of choice was sword and sorcery. Conan, Elric, Dragonlance Chronicles...ordinary men swinging swords against the orcish hordes, wizards standing on mountaintops calling down the fire on the world. Witch Queens wearing jewels and not much else, dwarves with beards that dragged on the ground, elves and barbarians facing off against the dark denizens of the Seventeenth Abyss. I'd read them in Robert E. Howard, imagine myself as John Carter striding across the wastelands of Barsoom, try and recreate it around the gaming table to the rattle of d20's and accompanied by the smell of cold pizza, truly the food of the gods to the hungry gamer. There was no ambiguity, no second guessing, none of that bloody angst and irony which permeated the 90's like cheap cologne, for which my fellow Gen X'ers will have to spend the rest of their lives atoning for. The heroes were heroes, the villains were villains. The damsels were in distress, the fiends of the Pit were there to be cut down, and if your heroes had a Dark Side driving them onward, it only them made all the more bad ass. It was simple, straightforward. High octane fuel for the imagination.

I miss it.

Now it's different (though isn't it always?) Fantasy has entered the mainstream. And given that we live in a repressed post-modernist post-feminist post-whathaveyou age where Certain Things Are Not To Be Said, so too is the genre hobbled. Every story must have a point, every plot line an allegory for something related t owhat's happening in the world, and if the old tropes are dusted off and brought in, it's only so they can be deconstructed for the greater purpose of showing how everything is Inherently Oppressive. There are no more heroes and the villains are merely misunderstood. Evil is just another version of Good, and Good doesn't really exist as such, since it's all subjective and nothing is absolute. Everything is a metaphor - the barbarian invasion from the North is meant to be an allegory for the War on Terror, the Dark Plague sweeping the land a stand-in for Obamacare. No more simply telling a story, no more Art for Art's sake. Art is political and the political is personal...even if the personal is pure crap.

Nostalgia is a dangerous thing to indulge, and I know there's plenty of stuff coming out today that exceeds by a length too great to measure the works of the past remembered in such a golden haze (and let's be honest, a lot of that stuff was second-rate hackwork, only highly prized because there was nothing else available.) But am I the only one who feels that something unique has been lost? That the genre gained the world and lost its soul, or at least its sense of humor?

Thus endeth the rant.

Fantasy Art Inspiration

Just as clothes make the man, so does art make the story. There is a long and happy history of collaboration between the visual arts and fantasy fiction, all the way back to the beginning. I know that when the well of inspiration starts to run dry, perusing some of the more fantastickal creations of the Western artistic heritage is a good way to get the juices flowing. 

The Pre-Raphaelites are a good place to start - part of the Romantic reaction against the industrialization of society, they looked to myth and the mediival past for their inspiration. 

Edward Burne-Jones, who began as a Pre-Raphaalite, then went on to become a leading light the Aesthetic movement. Look on the following works from the latter period and tell me they don't have some kind of effect.

Of course, nowadays we can skip right past the art museum and consider fantasy art as its own genre. Often derided as little more than kitschy covert art (a charge that is all to often true in many cases) nonetheless there are many fine artists working in this field whose works can act as dynamite against an attack of writers block.

Frank Frazetta (may he rest in peace) who virtually defined the modern image of Conan.

Michael Whelan (one of the true greats.) Everyone has at least ONE book featuring a cover of his, even if they don't know it.

Boris Vallejo, for that old-timey lost-in-the-70' pulp feel (try getting away with this nowadays...)

And one of my personal favorites, Ruth Thompson. I met her at the New York Renaissance Faire, and been following her every since. Most excellent talent.

Of course, this just my humble opinion, and I make no claims as to actual good taste....

Thirty Thousand Words

Just topped thirty thousand words for the second book of the Nine Suns. Don't have a title yet, but so far things seem to be going swimmingly...