May 16 2020

The Crusades by Jonathan Riley-Smith

How could I resist a book that took my alma mater‘s motto as its epigraph? Of course I couldn’t, all the more so because I wanted to read something about knights and journeys and castles, and none of the fantasy that was close at hand was as immediately appealing.

The version of Riley-Smith’s book that I have is a second edition, published in 2005 as a revision of the 1987 edition. The brief preface to the new edition was very interesting to me because it sketched how the concerns of historians had changed over more than a decade and a half, a glimpse of the historicity of history, so to speak. (It also leads me to wonder what has changed in the time since, though not, mind, enough to seek out a current book on the topic.) Here was one of the most interesting points:

The Crusades by Jonathan Riley-Smith

“Most historians also seem to have lost interest in the question of whether the Latin settlements in the East were colonies or not. This may also be a result of general disillusionment with Marxism, but it should be added that the conviction that the settlements were examples of early colonialism is still axiomatic in Arab and in some Israeli circles.” (p. xxv) There are some adjectives missing between “Most” and “historians” that would go a long way toward clarifying who Riley-Smith thinks matter. It’s an interesting glimpse into how history informs and is shaped by current relations and controversies to say that viewing the crusades as colonial enterprises is “axiomatic” in Arab circles. It sets the stage for, at best, a great deal of miscommunication.

More aspects that changed between 1987 and 2005, according to Riley-Smith, include growing interest in the motivation of crusaders, greater knowledge of the smaller crusades to the East in between the traditionally numbered crusades, deeper understanding of the Latin settlements in the East, and increased interest in the military orders including the order-states of Prussia, Rhodes and Malta. All of these changes were shaped by greater access to a wider range of sources, something that will have only expanded in the meantime, especially as archives have become digitally accessible. (I do wish the maps had been re-done with 2005 technology instead of keeping 1987’s dot-screen overlays.)

In the course of just over 300 pages Riley-Smith lays out the history of crusading, from the ideas about violence, penitence and just wars that gave rise to the First Crusade just before 1100 through Napoleon’s extinguishment of Hospitaller Malta in 1798, by which time crusading had long since ceased to be a vital force in Western Europe. Riley-Smith gives the most details on the First Crusade as a way of explaining the movement, its trials, its successes, and its many legacies. He takes what is called a “pluralist” view of crusading, showing how similar acts, theology and papal perspective apply to crusades in the Baltic, Iberia and within Western Christendom every bit as much as to crusades to the Holy Land. Apparently this was in opposition to a traditional view that crusading only involved lands around the eastern Mediterranean. I am not sure who supposedly held this view, as the German and Polish history I am familiar with certainly regarded the actions in the Baltic realm as crusades. (And not just historians: the title of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s popular novel from 1900 is Krzyżacy, which is usually translated as The Knights of the Cross or The Teutonic Knights but could simply be rendered as Crusaders.) At any rate, that is more a matter for the guild of historians than for the general reader at whom Riley-Smith’s work is aimed.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/05/16/the-crusades-by-jonathan-riley-smith/

May 11 2020

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Ah, if only, if only. I’ve enjoyed enough romance novels to be able to differentiate between the wonderful modern-day version and the traditional version described by Sir Walter Scott, and only sometimes do the twain meet in ways more convincing than mere bad plotting. It’s bittersweet to feel that this charming tale of the First Son of the United States of America and the youngest prince in the direct line of the English monarchy falling in love with one another should feel at once realistic and achingly unlikely, a fact acknowledged by Casey McQuiston in her, er, acknowledgments when she mentions that the germination of the book came to a screeching halt following the debacle of America’s 2016 presidential election. But if you’d like to escape our present, miserable reality for a convincingly realistic parallel world with wildly different people in the White House and Buckingham Palace, then by all means crack this book open for some truly lovely writing about being in love against all odds.

Note: if progressive politics dismays you a/o you’re a member of #Cult45, you probably won’t like this book, and that’s too bad for you.

Anyway, Alex Claremont-Diaz is the younger child of America’s first female president, white Texan Ellen Claremont and her ex-husband, the Mexican-American Senator from California Oscar Diaz. Ever since an unpleasant encounter at the Olympics, Alex has held a grudge against Prince Henry, the youngest grandson of England’s reigning Queen Mary, but after the two accidentally fall into a cake together at Henry’s older brother’s wedding, political forces go into overdrive to cover up any hint of tension between the two. Towards this end, Alex and Henry are forced into bff photo ops, then slowly begin to discover that they actually like each other. And then they begin to discover that they actually like each other. Chaos ensues against a backdrop of international politics.

As with all romance novels, the reader’s buying into the relationship proceedings will depend on their own views in re a healthy romance. Personally, I’m of a mind with Oscar in his estimation of Alex and Henry’s relationship: it could all turn out to be a disaster in the end but that doesn’t mean love isn’t worth fighting for in the meantime. I’m not so convinced of a pledge of True Love from two young men in their early 20s in the first openly gay relationship each has ever had, especially when it’s primarily been conducted long distance for months, but I’m a curmudgeon so. The book does end in a good place, but I’d be intensely surprised if the two were still together ten, even five years down the line: YMMV, of course. I did like that a good chunk of the book deals with Alex realizing that he’s bi, a topic that isn’t often covered in romance but is extremely well-handled here. I was also really impressed by how Ms McQuiston got all the voices to sound authentically of their backgrounds. As someone with an Anglo-American upbringing, I’m super sensitive to missteps in this regard, so the authenticity of voice in this book is honestly one of the most impressive literary achievements I’ve read in decades. I don’t necessarily believe in the depiction of British monarchy (too rigid) and press (not aggressive enough) here, but the portrayal of American politics was both realistic and aspirational, a panacea to the “how the fuck did we get here?” times we’re living in now.

Red, White & Royal Blue was a good, escapist read, and I’m very much looking forward to Ms McQuiston’s next book, a queer time-travel romance with female leads. Also, I frigging love her round, over-sized tortoise-shell glasses and wish I could get away with wearing same.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/05/11/red-white-royal-blue-by-casey-mcquiston/

May 07 2020

Threading The Labyrinth by Tiffani Angus

I’m at the stage of the stay-at-home order where I’m craving beauty but am too tired to do the gardening or art that I want to — homeschooling special needs 6 year-old twins is really, really hard, and God bless my 9 year-old for being remarkably fuss-free. So for these difficult times, a novel like Tiffani Angus’ Threading The Labyrinth is the perfect balm. Featuring the beauty of gardens and art without skimping on what exhausting, difficult work they can be to create and maintain, it’s a terrific reminder that life isn’t just picture-perfect social media posts, that the things we appreciate take effort and time to bring into being. Almost without saying so, it’s a reminder for us all to be a little kinder to ourselves if we’re not perfect in our aspirations for love or beauty, because time is the great leveler.

And time, as much as gardens and art, is the central concern of this ghost story that travels between several distinct eras to tell us a multi-layered tale of inheritance and belonging. In 2010, American art curator Toni has discovered that she’s been entailed The Remains, as she’ll call it, of an English estate. The manor house is a crumbling ruin, but something about the walled garden calls to her. Almost four score years earlier, an actress named Irene will join the Land Girls, and come work that same garden to help prepare food for the war effort. An almost equal time before that, a young Victorian woman will inherit her aunt’s talent and equipment for the newfound art of photography, even as she’s asked to pose for the paintings of an artist coming to a crossroads in his career. And then there are segments following the American Revolutionary War, and even earlier, stretching back through time for a wide-ranging, loving look at the history of England and how it all comes together in this one secret, beautiful place.

As far as speculative fiction goes, this is definitely on the gentler side, with scares coming less from the supernatural aspects of the narrative than from the very ordinary human malice that challenges our heroines and heroes as they struggle to preserve the garden and its stories. That said, nature is creepy and will kill you without a second thought, so the thing with the vines totally freaked me out. I also enjoyed Dr Angus’ quiet criticism of the mores that stifled women throughout the centuries, as well as the sex-positivity on display. Her writing is beautifully evocative of a beloved England, and while I enjoyed the acknowledgments of that country’s colonial legacy, it was easy to tell — in perhaps my only criticism of this book — that Toni was written by someone not-American.

Threading The Labyrinth is at once a romance of England and a gorgeously layered story of ghosts through the centuries. It is a remarkable debut novel from an author whose work I look forward to reading more of.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/05/07/threading-the-labyrinth-by-tiffani-angus/

Apr 29 2020

The Colours of All the Cattle by Alexander McCall Smith

The back cover of The Colours of All the Cattle calls this book, the nineteenth in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, “the one with the election.” Indeed, a special election for a seat on the Gabarone city council dominates the stories told in The Colours of All the Cattle. The council is closely divided about a proposal to build Big Fun Hotel on some land next to a cemetery. Many people are unhappy about the implied disrespect of a boisterous resort near where people go to visit their dearly departed, but it looks like big money is involved and the fix is in. But Mma Potokwani, the formidable matron of the orphan farm, knows that a vacancy is coming up because a council member is ill and will resign before his term is complete.

She looked intently at Mma Ramotswe. ‘And that means that there will be an election for that seat, and a new member.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Mma Ramotswe.
Mma Potokwani lowered her voice again — almost to a whisper. ‘And that also means, Mma, that some good person — some person who might be a woman this time — could stand for that seat.’
It took a few moments for Mma Ramotswe to respond. The, eyes wide with surprise, she said, ‘You, Mma?’
Mma Potokwani smiled. ‘No, Mma. You.’ (pp. 22–23)

The titles of the chapters that follow give a sense of Mma Ramotswe’s enthusiasm for campaigning: “I Am Not the Right Person” or “Sign Here, Please, and Here…” To add to Mma Potokwani’s powers of persuasion, the filing deadline is just a few days away, and only one other candidate has submitted the papers necessary to get on the ballot: Violet Sephotho, the closest that the series has to a recurring villain.

The Colours of All the Cattle

The set-up is contrived, but it provides McCall Smith with opportunities for lovely set pieces with his characters. Mma Makutsi, for example, practically bursts when she finds out who Mma Ramotswe’s opponent will be, and pens a manifesto that spends a couple of paragraphs on her virtues and several pages lovingly detailing all of Violet Sephoto’s shortcomings and mean deeds. More seriously, Mma Ramotswe and other characters reflect on public good versus private profit, and what small-time individuals can do to prevent the latter from overwhelming the former. For her election poster, she chooses the words, “I am Mma Ramotswe. I am not much, but I promise you I’ll do my best.” (p. 178) The contrast with the flashy, up-and-coming, on-the-move Violet Sephoto could not be clearer.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/04/29/the-colours-of-all-the-cattle-by-alexander-mccall-smith/

Apr 28 2020

Firefly: The Ghost Machine (Firefly #3) by James Lovegrove

Oooh, a novel set between the end of the series and the start of the movie! First, tho I’m a big fan of the entire Firefly ‘verse, I must admit that my grasp on the details is a little shaky, so I was seriously impressed by James Lovegrove’s commitment to calling back to details from the series actual. It really grounds the whole book in the canon, and makes it feel that much more “real,” as much as can be said of a fictional universe anyway.

Second, there’s a reason Titan Books proclaims that this novel was written in consultation with Joss Whedon. I didn’t feel like it was super necessary with the first two books in the series but it’s definitely something readers would wonder about otherwise here, so it’s super neat that any speculation is headed off at the pass.

So Firefly: The Ghost Machine begins with the crew stopping at the backwater planet of Canterbury to pick up cargo for Badger. Trouble is, once Captain Mal Reynolds finds out that their cargo is actually an experimental mystery box that “fell off a truck” from a nearby Blue Sun testing facility, he puts two and two together and decides that this job is way too hot for the Serenity to handle. He politely declines, gunfire ensues, and he and Zoe head back to the ship to break the news to the crew that they’re leaving the planet empty-handed. Only Jayne has other ideas, and sneaks the box on-board with a view to getting his own personal payday from Badger.

Joke’s on him, however, as the box contains a so-called Ghost Machine that starts to mess with everyone’s heads, lulling them into waking dreams of their deepest desires. Well, everyone except River, because her head is impervious given all the messing about that’s already been done to it. As the rest of the crew succumbs, leaving their ship to spin out of control, River needs to dig deep into her addled psyche in order to free her friends and save the day.

Given the timeline, obviously, everyone will survive, so the real draw here isn’t the suspense of seeing our crew in harm’s way but in seeing what makes each and every one of them tick — and then seeing how their deep-seated fears begin to warp their own fantasies. For Mal, unsurprisingly, it’s living a life of happy luxury with Inara and their children. Perhaps more surprisingly, Zoe imagines a universe where the Browncoats won and she’s free to be a bounty hunter tracking down Alliance war criminals. It was actually really refreshing to see most of the men dream of romance and family whereas the women longed for independence and professional aptitude. Which isn’t to say that there wasn’t any overlap, just that Mr Lovegrove writes very convincingly of the motivations and fears of our crew as we know them, and doesn’t fall back on any tired shtick to do it.

I could absolutely envision this book as an episode or arc of the series, tho there were definitely bits that were much gorier than you’d ever see on-screen. I also loved how Mr Lovegrove captured everyone’s courage and pluck, without overlooking their flaws. This was another great installment in the Firefly series that makes me miss the TV show while simultaneously satisfying my desire for more from the ‘Verse. Excellent, as always!

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/04/28/firefly-the-ghost-machine-firefly-3-by-james-lovegrove/

Apr 21 2020

Shorefall (The Founders Trilogy #2) by Robert Jackson Bennett

Ahhhh, so lovely to slip back into the genre-bending fantasy-cyberpunk world of The Founders Trilogy, like a nice warm bath for my mind. The first novel Foundryside was one of my favorite books of 2018, and I was ecstatic to be able to get my hands on an advance copy of the sequel, which begins about three years after the events of the first book end. Sancia, Berenice, Gregor and Orso have radically altered the power structure of Tevanne by opening their own scriving house in what’s now known as the Lamplands, inspiring numerous others to break away from the sprawling campos of the three remaining large houses in order to found their own small enterprises. That isn’t enough for our Foundrysiders tho, who have been working on ways to topple the large houses and their dependence on slavery for good.

Shorefall opens with a heist, as the Foundrysiders infiltrate the Michiel complex in order to steal all their scrivings (basically, all their patents/programming.) But a nocturnal visitor warns Sancia that something terrible is on its way, that Dandolo House has done the unthinkable and resurrected the First Heirophant himself. As the mad heirophant Crasedes draws closer to Tevanne, Sancia and crew must find a way to contain him, but soon find themselves pawns in a struggle spanning centuries, a struggle not all of them will survive.

I feel like this novel had a bit of second book syndrome, where the author had to cram in all the between bits before being able to turn his gaze to the finale. Which doesn’t make it a bad book at all, but I certainly felt less invested in the proceedings and more hurried along than I had in Foundryside. To a certain extent, the breathless nature of Shorefall’s narrative was the necessary result of certain plot twists, but the rapid exposition thereof lent the reader little time to empathize with our characters. I was also pretty mad about what happened to Orso. Like, I get it, but I certainly don’t have to like it.

I did like that we find out more about Crasedes and Clef and their relationship, tho again, if the narrative hadn’t felt so hurried, I would likely have felt it more deeply at the big reveal. I’m guessing that Valeria is Clef’s wife and Crasedes’ mom? I imagine that will be explained in the sequel. And while I absolutely prefer the idea of radical empathy as a solution to the age-old problem of “how to stop people from abusing power”, especially in contrast to Valeria and Crasedes’ differing but equally terrible solutions, I found myself instinctively recoiling from the mindmeld technique as I’m not convinced that it will preserve autonomy or necessarily promote goodness and humanity. The Foundrysiders could do it because they’re all good people, but what if, say, the Morsinis had discovered this and used it to convince the powerless that whatever benefited the Morsinis was the only thing that mattered? I’m hoping this is another thing addressed in the last book, which I am no less looking forward to despite Shorefall not being quite as spectacular as Foundryside. It’s still a solid read and an entertaining novel, and sets the stage for a brand new world in the trilogy’s final installment.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/04/21/shorefall-the-founders-trilogy-2-by-robert-jackson-bennett/

Apr 18 2020

A Second Chance by Jodi Taylor

A Second Chance, the third book in Jodi Taylor’s series about the time-traveling historians of St Mary’s Institute, shows signs of settling in for a set of tales that is going to continue. Taylor dials the pace back just a bit from madcap to merely rapid, she’s willing to develop the settings the historians visit a bit more, and she introduces some new characters who look likely to become recurring. Not only that, Taylor allows her first-person narrator, Dr Madeleine Maxwell (Max, to nearly everyone), to admit that they travel in time and not merely “investigate major historical events in contemporary time” as she had previously insisted.

A Second Chance by Jodi Taylor

Having promised at the end of A Symphony of Echoes that the historians would be off to the Trojan War in the next book, Taylor opens with a prologue that puts Max in terrible danger — separated from the other historians after the fall of Troy, in a mass of captive women the victorious Greeks are winnowing, deciding who to carry off on a ship into slavery and who to put to the sword on the spot. Then Taylor rolls back the action to a more light-hearted time, with historians having painted themselves blue for reasons that remain obscure, and St Mary’s doing their director a favor by taking an old friend of his on a pre-retirement jaunt to see Sir Isaac Newton during his Cambridge days. Things of course go sideways as soon as the friend reaches out to shake Sir Isaac’s hand. Professor Penrose turns out to be sprightly for his age, have a cool head when being chased by a mob, and a knack for helping Max in unexpected ways. This is his first appearance in the series, but I bet it won’t be his last.

Troy, however, takes up most of the book. For the first time, Taylor shows St Mary’s undertaking a major mission. The historians bracket the years of the war until they have a fairly precise idea of when it happened, then they settle in some years before to get to know the city and understand the civilization before its final conflict. It’s a pleasure seeing them work, and an additional one to have Taylor show Troy in its splendor and its humanity.

“Everything had changed on our second visit. By our calculations, the war was well into its tenth year now and the Trojans were suffering. Long years cooped up behind their own walls had taken their toll. The arrival of their allies had more than tripled the population. The streets were packed with Lydians, Carians, Phrygians, Lycians, Thracians, and many more, all noisily pushing their way through the crowds and filing every roadside tavern and eating-place.” (p. 131)

They have timed it right and get to see the epic confrontations that Homer describes in The Iliad. Achilles, Paris, Priam, Cassandra, Hector and more are all there. The epic turned out to be right about many things, but some of the most famous aspects of the war didn’t quite happen as described. The historians find themselves in the unusual position of not actually knowing what is going to happen next, even in general terms. It’s about that time that Max winds up in a bad way: alone, captive, soon to be sorted by Greek soldiers who take her for a Trojan woman. Worse, Cassandra has prophesied bad things for Max’s future. Unlike anyone else in Troy, Max believes her.

She escapes Troy, of course, because it’s that kind of a book, but the choices she makes and the actions that allow her to escape have ramifications up and down the timeline, because it’s that kind of a book, too.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/04/18/a-second-chance-by-jodi-taylor/

Apr 16 2020

An Interview with Tim Lebbon, author of Eden

Q. Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. How did Eden evolve? (No pun intended, but since I like puns, I’m leaving it in there anyway.)

A. Ha! I like it. Well, I can remember when the notion of Eden hit me, and I still have the notebook I snapped up and started scribbling with notes. I was in New York towards the end of a great trip visiting set of The Silence (in Toronto), staying with Christopher Golden (near Boston), and finally a couple of days of meetings and sightseeing in NY. I was in my room after a nice meal and a few drinks with my agent, and the idea of Eden hit me all at once––the landscape, the adventure racers, the idea of nature establishing itself again. It wasn’t quite that ‘whole novel in one idea’ moment that some writers talk about, but it was the basic concept and theme, and from there I built the rest of the novel. Subconsciously it was writing a novel based on something I love (endurance sport) and something that frightens me (climate change). Sometimes, bringing two ideas or themes together can really help.

Q. Though written as an action-adventure gone wrong, Eden is a thoughtful look at the future of our planet’s ecology, positing plausible solutions to modern day problems. Are there any particular audiences you hope will connect with this story? That said, do you write with any particular audience in mind?

A. I don’t really write with an audience in mind. I write the novel I want to read, and my hope is I’m one of many! I always hope my work will find an audience, and over the years I have probably built a small core of readers who like most of my work. But at the same time I try not to restrict myself to ‘what my readers might want or expect next’. I hope Eden will find a good audience because I think it’s one of my best novels, but that’s pretty much out of my hands now. And in the era of Coronavirus and lockdown, the fate of a newly released novel is hazy at best.

Q. Are you a pantser (someone who writes by the seat of their pants) or a plotter?

A. More a pantser than a plotter. Although each project is different. If I’m collaborating on a novel we’ll tend to plan a bit more first. My current new novel (tentative title: Fall), I planned quite a bit before starting writing, but it’s curious that I’ve only looked at the plan notes a few times even though I’m 50,000 words in. I think for me, even writing lots of notes on a novel is just me mentally circling before I start in, and not necessarily me actually planning. It’s … complicated, I guess! Generally though I much prefer the more organic approach––set sail and see where the ship take me.

Q. It’s known that you keep a fairly structured schedule for your daily writing, focusing on words from 9 to 2, then the less creative side of the business for the rest of your work day. Do you have any tips for authors trying to adopt a similar framework?

A. Honesty, everyone is different. I have a friend who does social media and business in the morning, coffee at 11, lunch, then starts work early afternoon and works into the evening. I have another friend who writes from 7am and is finished by midday. My approach suits me and my family, but if I had TOTAL freedom I’d likely get up, make tea and start by 7:30. The longer a day goes without me getting some words down, the tougher I find it. I love writing … but I find it really f•••••g hard, too. And sometimes there are many distractions to tear me away from the page.

Q. With COVID-19 upending the daily lives of millions, if not more, how are you coping with living in what feels like it could be the preamble to one of your own novels?

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/04/16/an-interview-with-tim-lebbon-author-of-eden/

Apr 15 2020

D-Day Through German Eyes by Holger Eckhertz

Holger Eckhertz’s grandfather, Dieter Eckhertz, was a wartime correspondent for German army publications such as Signal and Die Wehrmacht (The Army). Shortly before the Allied landings in Normandy, he visited that sector and interviewed quite a number of soldiers while preparing articles for the army’s magazines. After the war, he left journalism, but ten years later he did pursue one final project: finding men who had served in Normandy on June 6, 1944 and interviewing them about their impressions and experiences, their frames of mind and their motivations. The elder Eckhertz passed away in 1955 before he could shape the interviews into any final form.

D-Day Through German Eyes

In 2015 and 2016 the younger Eckhertz published the two books, collected in a single volume in the edition that I read, of interviews detailing, just as the title promises, D-Day through German eyes. After I had read the book and written most of this review, I saw that there are questions of whether it is true or not. Unfortunately, the most prominent places claiming that the book is fiction are outlets such as the New York Post and England’s Daily Mail that at the very least flirt with publishing fiction themselves on a regular basis. On the other hand, the book’s publisher, DTZ History Publications, does not appear to have any other titles on the market. Self-publishing is a totally legitimate way to get to the market in the 21st century, but coupled with the classic framing narrative and lack of any supporting apparatus, I think I have to at least express some uncertainty about the whole enterprise. A little bit of research shows that some reputable books have used Eckhertz’s volume as a source. Checking in on a couple of scholarly locations did not turn up any discussion of the book, which doesn’t say anything either way about the book’s veracity.

Given that I am in Berlin, I suppose that I could clear up this question definitively by checking records. If someone is willing to foot the bill, I could take a few days to do that. But for the rest of this review, I will presume that D-Day Through German Eyes is what it purports to be.

The first half of the book contains five interviews, one soldier from each of the five beaches where the Allies landed: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. The second half contains interviews with service members who had different functions: observation post, Luftwaffe pilot, military police, self-propelled assault gun crew, and so forth.

The soldiers’ experiences differed, but definite patterns emerged. The German army expected the Western Allies to invade France and establish a second front some time in the spring or summer of 1944. Up and down the coast, the soldiers were told from March or so onward that an attack could come at any time. Most of the soldiers were glad to be stationed in France because it was much less of a hardship than the Eastern front. Some of the men Eckhertz interviewed were veterans of previous campaigns and were transferred to France because they had been wounded and were not fit for more demanding duties. It is also true that by 1944, the fifth year of the war in Europe, the Third Reich was running low on manpower. Several accounts mention foreign conscript workers, often Poles or Russians, who were compelled to do construction work on German defenses in France.

The days preceding the invasion were like other days of the war, none of the men (and they were all men) interviewed mentions unusual levels of Allied activity until the night of June 5th. Nearly all of them say that the amount of planes flying over France that night was immense. Some saw signs of paratroopers landing, or of gliders bringing in airborne troops. At first light, soldiers who were stationed close to their sea caught an initial glimpse of the invading armada. To a man, they were astonished at its size. The account of Henrik Naube, a corporal in the infantry at Omaha Beach, is typical:

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/04/15/d-day-through-german-eyes-by-holger-eckhertz/

Apr 13 2020

Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan

Come for the Alan Turing fanfic! Stay for the… um. Oh, dear. I knew going into this that it would be terrible, but I hadn’t realized exactly how terrible till I finished this utter nonsense of a 21st century novel.

Ordinarily, I like to just review a book without taking into consideration anything the author might have said outside of the work. If it can’t speak for itself, then it’s not as good as it ought to be, after all. In most cases, when I’m urged by a fan to read an author interview after I’ve excoriated the work, it’s because said interview is meant to answer questions the book does not, and somehow vindicate the lapse (note: it never does.) In this case, I’ll reference the much derided Guardian interview with Ian McEwan to explain why this novel is so bad, and how his words only confirmed what I suspected about his motives for writing such a flaccid piece of self-aggrandization. At first, I thought it was weird that the interview was less about Machines Like Me than it was about Mr McEwan himself, but then I realized it was of a piece with this miserable book, with their shared odd airs throughout of how lucky science fiction and technology and particularly the field of Artificial Intelligence were to have Britain’s Novelist turn his Discerning Eye to the subgenres.

Total bollocks, of course, because nothing in this book is a revelation to anyone with a working knowledge of sci-fi, which includes the millions of people who don’t even read the stuff but have watched, say, episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, or a Terminator movie (the last one was hilarious, btw. Arnie still rules.) MLM is set in an alternate history 1980s Britain where Alan Turing never committed suicide and thus laid the foundations for technological marvels like cellphones and autonomously driven automobiles to be commonplace by the time the Falklands War/Invasion set off. The politics are mostly distracting and seem more like an excuse for Mr McEwan to get his digs in, deserved or otherwise, where he may; given how they make up so much of the book, it’s completely off-putting that they are then of little consequence to anything that happens in the narrative. And for all that this book slobbers over poor Mr Turing, who I agree died far too soon and in the most depressing of circumstances, it also makes him out to be an asshole. But maybe that’s just because he has to deal with our protagonist, the shiftless and clueless yet unceasingly superior Charlie Friend.

Charlie is a day trader with a chequered past. When he comes into a large inheritance, he impulsively decides to spend it on one of the 25 newly rolled out Adams and Eves: lifelike androids that are meant to be “companions” or somesuch nonsense (they’re all anatomically correct, so you can guess what they’ll actually be used for.) Since his Adam is meant to be programmed by him for personality traits, but since — in one of his few moments of self-awareness — Charlie doesn’t just want to make a clone of himself, he offers the opportunity to his upstairs neighbor, Miranda, to help him choose half of Adam’s personality, hoping it will draw him and Miranda closer, as he’s been in love with her for a while. Long story short, Adam falls in love with Miranda then winds up fucking everything up because of his “logic” circuits, then when Charlie tries to shut him down, Alan Turing gets mad.

What I can’t fathom is how a machine whose programming allows it to fall in love, that least rational of feelings, can also misunderstand justice and obligation as thoroughly as Adam does. No one can gainsay that there is a natural, if rough, justice to what Miranda did to Peter, so Adam’s insistence on following the letter of the law — when he with his alleged depth and breadth of learning in history and literature knows that the law is often unjust, and when everyone else is ready to put it all in the past — just seems like pedantic nonsense, especially given the book’s over-long ruminations on achieving ends in logic problems (we get it, Mr McEwan, you did your research. My undergraduate degree applauds you.) It’s also rubbish that he only returned the thirty quid to Charlie given that his upkeep cost far, far more than that, and you’d think he’d at least take that into consideration given how “broad” his “consciousness” was. Ugh, the entire thing was so insufferable. Mr McEwan plays fast and loose with logic in order to scaremong and draw false parallels. I’m sure he meant to be thought-provoking, but honestly this was just provoking nonsense.

Anyway, I put off reading it as long as I could because the reviews weren’t wrong, and I didn’t want to diminish my opinion of the author of one of the best books ever written, the chillingly brilliant Atonement. Granted, I thought Saturday, the only other book of his I’ve read, was over-hyped, tho I’ll acknowledged that when I first reviewed that novel, I was also far too generous with my praise of what, in retrospect, strikes me as banal. Perhaps a decade on, I will also revise my opinion of MLM, this time for the better, but given that it currently reads like second-rate genre trash from the 1970s — I mean, honestly there is nothing innovative about anything in this book and I am baffled by how disconnected its boosters must be from popular culture of the last forty years — I sincerely doubt it.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/04/13/machines-like-me-by-ian-mcewan/