My Year in Books

As near as I can figure, the books below are what I read in 2009. This list does not include graphic novels, game books, Osprey titles, or magazines. Looking it over, you'd never guess I'm a raging leftist. I guess I was in a bellicose mood in 2009.

11th Month, 11th Day, 11th Hour: Armistice Day 1918, World War I and Its Violent Climax by Joseph E. Persico

1453 and Empires of the Sea by Roger Crowley

Blackbeard: America's Most Notorious Pirate by Angus Konstam

Camouflage by Joe Haldeman

The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume 1 by Shelby Foote

The Clash by the Clash

The Crimean War by Clive Ponting

A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman

Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne by David Gaider

The Family Trade, The Hidden Family, The Clan Corporate, The Merchant's War, and The Revolution Business by Charles Stross

Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany 1942-1945

The Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky

Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman

Gods and Heroes: Myths and Epics of Ancient Greece by Gustav Schwab

Greene, Revolutionary General by Steven E. Siry

Halting State by Charles Stross

Lives of Hitler's Jewish Soldiers by Bryan Mark Rigg

Mechanicum by Graham McNeill

The Napoleonic Wars by Gunther Rothenberg

Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, and Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi

Passage at Arms by Glen Cook

Paths of Glory, The French Army 1914-1918 by Anthony Clayton

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Russian Sideshow: America's Undeclared War 1918-1920 by Robert L. Willett

A Separate War & Other Stories by Joe Haldeman

Soldier of the Mist and Soldier of Arete by Gene Wolfe

Toy Wars: The Epic Struggle Between G.I. Joe, Barbie, and the Companies That Make Them by G. Wayne Miller

Pramas and the Olympians

In my "free" time I've been boning up on my ancient Greek mythology. I had an idea for a skirmish miniatures game set in the Age of Heroes. The idea is that the captain of your warband is a hero like Achilles or Perseus. You play a series of battles with other heroes and monsters and try to win enough glory to become a demigod like Heracles. Not sure I'll do anything with the idea, but it's simmering on the back burner.

In my research I ran across a reference to some novels by Gene Wolfe set an ancient Greece. I'm reading the first one, Soldier of the Mist, right now. It's about a Roman mercenary named Latro who fought for the Persians during their invasion of Greece. He receives a head wound which causes the loss of his short term memory. By the morning he forgets the events of the previous day. He thus keeps a journal and that supposedly provides the text of the novel. The premise is reminiscent of the movie Memento, but the book came out long before the film (1986).

I'm about halfway through and enjoying the book quite a bit. Due to his head wound, Latro can see the spiritual world that lies hidden from most mortals, so he has many encounters with gods and spirits. Wolfe evokes the beliefs and superstitions of the ancient Greeks vividly and I'd recommend it to gamers looking for a good portrayal of day to day polytheism. He stresses the idea that gods are strange beings and hard to understand. Their actions may help you, but showing mercy to mortals is an alien idea to them.

My only complaint is that Wolfe chose to use the literal translations of all the place names in ancient Greece. This is certainly evocative and reads well, and it would not bother someone who doesn't know much about the history of the period. I have read a fair bit about the Persian invasion of Greece, however, and the naming conventions are throwing me. I had to figure out that the "Rope Makers" are Spartans and "Thought" is Athens, for example. I was overjoyed to discover a glossary in the back, but it was no help in that regard. It would have been nice if at least the glossary clued you in on the more common names. Overall though, this is good stuff and I look forward to finishing it and moving on to the sequel, Soldier of Arete. You can get both in one trade paperback called Latro in the Mist.

The True Story of the Man Who Would Be King

For years I have joked that it was old British movies that made me love imperialism. When I watched films like the Four Feathers and Gunga Din on our black and white TV, I knew there was a historical background but I was in it for the action and adventure. Two of my favorite films growing up were Zulu and The Man Who Would Be King, both starring Michael Caine. My brother and I would "play Zulu" with our neighbors on a regular basis. Two of us would play the British, crouching at the bottom of a small hill with wooden rifles. The other two would play the Zulus, hurling a stream of sticks at the (very) thin red line. To represent their enormous army and British firepower, the Zulus would get gunned down over and over again until was time for hand to hand combat. Then we'd switch sides and do it all over again. Considering the number of sticks we threw at each other, I'm surprised none of us lost an eye.

It is thus no surprise that when I was in NYC a couple of months back and browsing the temple of knowledge that is The Strand, I was drawn to a book called Josiah the Great: The True Story of the Man Who Would Be King. A quick skim convinced me to pick it up and I'm glad I did. Ben Macintyre has written a cracking good biography of a little known American named Josiah Harlan, who was likely the inspiration for Kipling's tale. Harlan was a Pennsylvania Quaker who swore he would never return to America when his lover jilted him. He traveled to India in 1820 and on the strength of having read his brother's textbooks got a job as a surgeon in the army of the British East India Company.

This proved just the start of an amazing series of adventures inspired by his idol, Alexander the Great. He met the ousted ruler of Afghanistan and offered to put the man back on the throne in exchange the viziership. He then recruited a small mercenary army under American colors and marched into Afghanistan. Harlan should have died 20 times over but somehow he did not. He ended up working for Dost Mohammed Khan, the very man he had sought to depose. He became a governor for many years and eventually led the Khan's army. He led an expedition into the Hindu Kush, and while there won a princedom of his own. He never had a chance to rule, however, as the British were marching on Kabul by the time he returned. He was forced to leave Afghanistan and eventually returned to America. He attempted several schemes to get himself back to Central Asia, including one to import camels for use by the US army, but never returned to claim his princedom. Still, this unlikely character managed to raise an American flag in the Hindu Kush in 1839 and become Prince of Ghor, even if briefly.

Ben Macintyre has done some excellent historical detective work and manages to skillfully evoke both the period and Harlan's eccentric personality. If you like true tales of adventure, I heartily recommend Josiah the Great.

Not Much Fun In Leningrad

I read Leningrad: State of Siege by Michael Jones recently. This is the tale of the city's epic resistance to the Germans during WWII in a siege that lasted almost 900 days. The author skillfully weaves a gripping historical narrative and punctuates it with diary excerpts and interviews with survivors. I have read accounts of this before but always as part of larger works. It takes a full book to really portray the horror of the siege and to tell some uncomfortably truths that Stalin and his successors suppressed for decades.

The Germans were frighteningly clinical about the whole thing. They decided they were going to starve the population into submission and then wipe the city from the face of the earth (as it was the "birthplace of Bolshevism"). Scientists advised the army on nutrition and calculated how long the mass starvation would take.

Stalinism made everything worse. Stalin, much like the Bush administration of today, rewarded loyalty over competence. So it was that one of his old cronies from the Russian Civil War, Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, was in charge of Leningrad's defenses. As the Germans raced across the Soviet Union, Voroshilov failed to disperse Leningrad's food supply. He left it all in a group of old wooden warehouses that were packed closely together. The Germans knew exactly where they were and firebombed them, destroying vast quantities of food before the siege even began. Heckuva job, Klimie. Later the Soviet trade minister rerouted a train full of food to Leningrad. The area it was originally sent to had already been overrun by the Germans and he rightly thought Leningrad could use the supplies. Voroshilov intervened and turned the train around. He would not accept the food because he did not want Stalin thinking he needed the help. Better that thousands starve to death (and they did) than Stalin get the idea that he was incompetent (which he was).

Oh, and did I mention the gangs of cannibals? Yep, at a certain point in the siege it became dangerous to leave your house alone because desperate people were killing and eating stragglers. When winter ended many corpses with breasts and buttocks hacked off were found in the melting snow. Not much fun in Leningrad.

Leningrad: State of Siege is not a cheery book, but it's compelling history and I recommend it.