ReddOscarWrites - Fantasy, SciFi, and Horror: Reviews

Sundown on the Vale of Barrows

It was a desolate place to traverse, but their remorseless pursuers had left them with little choice in where to flee, and so they were driven onward into the Vale of Barrows…

5 months ago · 12 likes · Josh Tatter

A tale of deception and worthy sacrifice in the face of evil. Well worth your time.

On Film

The Young Pope

I adore this show, there is nothing else like it that I know of made in this century. The premise is the first American elected Pope, Lenny Belardo, he is young (40-something), an orphan who people say performed a miracle in his teens, and a fanatical traditionalist. The main plot joining the ten episodes that cover many years is Lenny’s search for his hippy parents and the damage they did by giving him up as a young boy, a decision Lenny never understands as all they wanted to do was to go to Venice. Alongside that are plots of doubt, of the self and existence of God, of rooting out corruption within the Church, helping the ill, poor, and the re-establishment of traditional teaching.

Initially the traditionalist reforms of the new Pope, Pius XIII, cause a fleeing of Catholics from their churches and a mass of worry to grip the Vatican. Cardinals plot to oust their Pope with smears and scandals but are turned away either by Pius’s piety or better judgement. This political element of the show is the focus of the first few episodes but as years pass cease to be major plot points.

One element that is touched on in the first episode and throughout is that Lenny Belardo says he does not believe in God, an unimaginable statement for a Pope to make, yet given he has prayed and had answers, one in the form of a miracle that healed a terminally ill woman, then later on a second that granted a baby to an infertile couple and third divine punishment of a corrupt nun. All three are achieved through prayer and acts of God, not man, and this gives Lenny’s statement of not believing in God a different tone. He does not believe because he does not have to, he know, he has felt the Holy Spirit directly and it, rightly, terrifies him. The Pope’s grapple isn’t whether God exists, but the certainty that there is a God and He is all the things the Bible says He is.

Many thanks for reading. As we near the end of the year I will be wrapping up The Mage Hunter, posting a couple of short stories (hopefully), and then reviewing my year of writing, and updating everyone about my aims for 2026.

October Reading Review

Redd Oscar — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 01:30:39 GMT

A review of October’s reading and watching of fiction and some non-fiction. Due to the SubStack app updating to require iOS-newer-than-my-phone-allows I have read almost nothing on SubStack this month, I will look to rectify that next month. Not with a new phone (I use an iPhone 8 and will until it dies or a hand-me-down becomes available) but by sitting at my computer and reading instead of watching.

Books Read - 45/52

On Paper

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

In 111 pages Conrad mogs almost every other writer past and present. Arresting from the beginning with a simple mystery Marlow finding out who Mr Kurtz is. Kurtz is built up to be this incredible, larger than life, character who is revered by many of the other people Marlow meets on his way into the African interior. At the same time we are shown a great deal of degradation along the way and all of that makes the meeting of Kurtz and finding him not to quite be what he is said to be feels a reasonable conclusion. There is more beyond that where Marlow comprehends what that means. Even though this is a century old novel many won’t have read it but you should.

Everyone is convinced that they can develop Africa, can turn a profit, can modernise the world with enough sweat and blood and money. But Marlow’s search for Kurtz reveals that this is false and not only is it false but it is detrimental to the Africans and the Europeans. One is being exploited, the other degraded, and neither is benefiting, both are being made sick by the venture. These are just my quick thoughts and, as with another book I read this month, I advise against accepting the prevailing analysis about a book, any book, and just read it yourself. There is no one correct interpretation, there are popular interpretations and unpopular ones, and some books have many readings and others few, all the more true when the author is dead and/or revealed little about their motivations and intentions.

Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

Four thousand weeks is almost eighty years, a decent length of life in “the West”. But what do most people do with their time? Fret it away worrying about time! Burkeman charts how we came to perceive time in the current zeitgeist, a way totally alien in the world before clocks where tasks took however long they took and demarcations around leisure and work were blurrier.

Most of the book is a good examination of the weird way we work and “manage our time/life” but it is a little repetitive, as many of these ‘self-help/smart thinking’ books can be, and he botches the landing in the final chapter where he answers common questions but gives answers counter to what he has said elsewhere in the book. He contradicts himself at other points, sometimes within a mere page or two, around how to approach politics and taking holiday from work. Some parts his atheism is overwrought and he spends paragraphs upon paragraphs working something out only to return to the Christian position but never realising it.

The Weird and the Eerie by Mark Fisher

Mark Fisher was a philosopher mostly known for his book Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? but here, with The Weird and the Eerie, we have a book about literature, specifically fiction in the styles of H.P. Lovecraft, David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, Alan Garner, and others, looking at which are weird and which are eerie, what the distinction between the two modes is, and how they don’t quite fit in horror or sci-fi or fantasy but instead form their own specific niche. All genres can include a sense of the weird and/or eerie, in the case of Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, but they can also stand alone, such as in Lovecraft’s work, usually in the sub-genre weird fiction.

The book is a series of essays on various authors, filmmakers, and musicians, examining all the ways their work includes and explores the weird and eerie. Some of these essays are dense and on first reading I was unsure as to what they pertain but most are understandable the first go round, though such a book would benefit from multiple readings.

What are they then? Well both are strange but not horrifying and revolve around our fascination with the outside. Whether it be outside ourselves, outside perception, outside our culture/civilisation, outside human experience. Sometimes there is a sense of dread about it, but not full on terror.

The weird is that which does not belong, something has come in from the outside and can never be at home there. This can be objects, experiences, beings, unexplainable phenomena. The term weird originally meant fate or destiny and incorporates that which must happen but cannot be explained because the causality is a mystery to us, it is outside our understanding.

The eerie is also from the outside but focuses on agency. Something is applying its agency on us but we do not know or cannot know what it is. Also eerie are places, ruins, stone circles, places that we know have meaning but we can never know the meaning because it has been lost to time or it is alien to us. The monolith at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey is a prime example of an eerie structure, one in which we think is constructed, thus implying higher intelligence and agency, but we never learn who built it or why and so it remains a relic of the outside imposing itself upon us (literally) and that conjures up the eerie feeling towards it.

The weird and the eerie can often be tangled up, this is especially the case with Lovecraft and any other writer who uses mysterious ancient artefacts as pathways to forbidden knowledge or beings.

The cover accurate to the book.

The cover my library copy has.

Tarnsman of Gor by John Norman

If ever there was a book I did not expect to find in my local library it was this one. The series, now a whopping 38 books long, is infamous for being UNpublished in the 1980s because of its depiction of women, slavery, sex slavery, bondage, submissiveness and the like, all the non-feminist things, alongside a sword-and-planet adventure reminiscent of John Carter. The cover of my local library copy did not help, the more recent cover, with Tarl and his tarn, is far more accurate to the contents of the book. Bear in mind this first book was first published in 1966 so it took awhile for 1. people to notice and/or 2. people to care. The series stopped at 25 books in 1988 before continuing in 2001 until 2024’s 38th release, Treasure of Gor. There may be more to come from the 94 year old, retired Philosophy professor, John Norman.

Based on what I had read about the Gorean Saga I expected something very graphic with regards to sex and violence, a real edge case in the fantasy genre.

That is not what Tarnsman of Gor is. In fact it is rather tame by today’s standards with the likes of romantasy and Bridgerton, the violence is on the grittier end but again not extreme by grimdark standards. The book is about Tarl Cabot, a man from Bristol, England, who is transported to a Counter-Earth, situated on the opposite side of the sun to our Earth in a perfect orbit as to never be visible to us. Those who live on this world, who are human, call their world Gor, or Home Stone in English. Tarl is transported to Gor by a flying saucer when hiking in the American wilderness after finding a letter from his father who he thought had disappeared long ago. Once on Gor he learns it is ruled from the shadows by the Priest-Kings who limit what technology is available the population via various methods resulting in a medieval/Hyperborean world structured around unending warfare between city states led by Warlords, or Ubars, during times of war, and Administrators during peace. Though Administrators sometimes lead during war too. There are plenty of arcane lore tidbits crammed into the rather svelte 180 page novel. Tarl Cabot meets his father, Mathew Cabot, Administrator of Ko-ro-ba, and learns the ways of Gor, the language, the fighting styles, the social structure (caste systems and the like), and all the rest. Once educated he is sent on a, frankly ridiculous, mission to steal the Home Stone of Ar during a festival. The Ubar of Ar has been conquering many cities and building an empire. Stealing Ar’s Home Stone will destroy it without having to fight. Tarl Cabot steals the Home Stone, and by chance the daughter of the Ubar of Ar who was principle in the festival atop on of the cylinders of Ar. She manages to fling him from his mount to almost certain death but Tarl, blessed as he is, and his luck is pointed out, that he must be blessed by the Priest-Kings themselves, survives by landing on a giant spider’s web.

Honestly the story is enjoyable and I was utterly unable to predict what the twists were going to be, adding to the enjoyment. The writing itself has a wonderful rhythm to it as well which makes reading a pleasure.

As to all the elements the series is reviled/revered for they are few and far between in this initial outing. Talena, daughter of the Ubar of Ar, is by no means a submissive woman, in fact a good 25 pages or more, of 180 total, are spent showing her repeatedly betraying or attempting to escape Tarl Cabot’s capture until she eventually relents but even when she has to pretend to be his slave to survive she is combative and risks ruining the whole ruse, which would lead to both of their deaths.

What is incredible about the book is how much Norman fitted into it without it seeming rushed or forced. The political machinations between the Ubar of Ar, Pa-Kur, Mintar, are well executed and kept to an alluring minimum, but minimum is not shallow. How the Priest-Kings operate and are everpresent without ever being seen or even close to the action maintains a mystery that does make me want to read more in the series. The way the combat develops is clear and cutting, reminiscent of Robert E. Howard. The exploration of rationality and humanity in Tarl’s dealing with the giant spider, Nar, is philosophically interesting and thoughtful. A great deal is accomplished with very little wordage.It’s clear that behind this book is a great tome of lore and worldbuilding, or at least the illusion of one, something which every fantasy/sci-fi writer aspires to.

I almost forgot to talk about all those raunchy sex scenes. There aren’t any. Tarl suggests he slept with a prostitute close to when he first arrives on Gor, then later on he sleeps with Talena and Norman describes it as “… after sweet hours of love making, we fell asleep in each other’s arms.”

The lesson from this is read things for yourself, come to your own conclusions, rather than the pre-made, pre-tinned, pre-digested ones of others. (But is this a pre-digested conclusion? Read and find out.)

Hearthspace by Stephen Baxter

Words. Words. Words. Repetitive, excessive, increasingly boring. Horrendous book. Thankful this is a library book rather than something I bought.

The first 50 or so pages repeat the same worldbuilding information about Astronomical Units and types of planets numerous times, even having characters explain it to each other, characters who should already know said information. Too many characters make massive speeches with excruciating and boring details, reiterating things we have already read about seemingly for the sake of the reader. Even near the end details about the world and events are repeated as if Baxter thinks his readers suffer with long term memory issues.

The premise of the book is good, but ideas are easy, execution is hard, and this book is a prime example. The idea is that humans have colonised a distant system made up of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of worlds orbiting a dark-matter star. Two civilisations have emerged, the Hierarchy and the Alliance, who, due to the ludicrous distances involved, have forgotten about each other over the one thousand years since the colonisation ship reached what they call the Hearth. Not only that but knowledge of Earth has fallen into myth as well and so humanity no longer knows its origin. The Hierarchy, situated on the cold moons of Jupiter-like planets are a brutal society of slavery and tyranny, [and cruel to the point of caricature]. The Alliance, on the warm Earth, Mars, and Venus-like planets nearer the star, are democratic, tolerant, peaceful, [and naive like a young child is]. There is some exploration of why and how these two civilisations developed how they did but it is surface level.

The bulk of the story takes place on a Hierarchy vessel that is on an exploration to the Inner Worlds of Hearth space, where the Alliance is situated. This Hierarchy vessel immobilises and raids an Alliance vessel, enslaving the crew and carrying on its mission. The core of the story is ‘Atlantic slave ship in space’ with the mystery of human origin a significant side show. The idea isn’t the problem, it is the execution. The prose is dreadful, stilted, and, what read to me like, purposefully lacking rhythm, even breaking it on purpose to make reading a chore. There would be times when Baxter had a good thing going but then break it with an ellipses, a scene break, an em-dash, or, more often, a hyphen. Another weird choice includes ending sentences with a synonym of the word immediately prior separated by a comma, such as, “But the Hearth was more massive than the Sun, and much more powerful, intense.” [Highlighting my own.] What is the word “intense” doing there, it just hangs there not adding to the sentence, not moving the story along, or explaining the world, it merely hinders the rhythm of reading. This happens throughout the book, along with all other anti-prosody elements to create a start-stop feeling to the writing which is exhausting. I should have noted down more examples of all these egregious faux pas to show you but perhaps it is better I didn’t so we don’t spend too long on bad books.

On Film

Kingdom of Heaven

I adore this film. The sets, the Harry Gregson-Williams soundtrack, the costumes, it’s sublime. Scott and Manahan took a great deal of liberties with the history of the period, but that is to be expected when crafting fiction and especially with a big budget movie that needs to appeal to a wide audience and make money.

The film follows Balian as he goes from blacksmith in struggling French town to Baron of Ibelin and Defender of Jerusalem before having to surrender the city to Saladin. Balian holds his Christian faith close but discovering the politics of court and the frivolous nature of some, not to mention the blood thirstiness of the Templars, he is beset by doubt and while his actions, and certain events around him, reveal the truth of God he is never certain.

Matters of faith and religion feature throughout, a distinction that is made clear at times and less at others, and while the aim is to critique religion and faith it ultimately fails due to narrative requirements and depiction. The war being between Christian and Muslim is mentioned a lot but differences are explored only upon the surface. Given the film is from Balian’s point-of-view this makes sense, he is a Frankish Catholic commoner thrown into the world of noble intrigue and fraught diplomacy with little education in any of it. His pureness of heart and desire to be a “good knight” means he is seen as naïve by the court of Jerusalem but ultimately this pureness is what saves the people of the holy city.

Some characters are far, far removed from their historical counterparts, Princess Sibylla, she was in fact devoted to her husband, and Reynald de Châtillon who was a firm supporter of Guy de Lusignan and did raid Muslim trade caravan, he had been imprisoned by the Muslims for fifteen (15!) years. Once freed he had lost his Princedom of Antioch so returned to Jerusalem were Baldwin IV, the Leper King, invested him with Oultrejourdain which oversaw the major trade routes between Egypt and Syria which Saladin relied on. Later Reynald served as regent when Baldwin IV was too ill to rule himself. I highly recommend the book God’s Wolf by Jeffrey Lee which is an auto-biography of Reynald de Châtillon to learn more.

Even with the historical inaccuracies this film is plenty enjoyable, I do like the character of Reynald in the film too even if he isn’t most accurate, after all we are dealing with fiction and not a documentary.

On Video

link

This one hour video delves into the reasons why contemporary prose, at least in trade publishing, is so poor where every writer seems to share the same voice and nothing is written with any depth. The first section is focussed on how children are taught to read, in the United States at least. In Britain we are still taught via phonics or synthetic phonics but it seems the States has succumbed to whole word which has had a measurable negative effect on literacy. Fascinating stuff.

Many thanks for reading, see you next month in which I aim to have read more independent books and writers here on SubStack!

Expect a short story next Tuesday!

The Hunt For The Divine Beasts

Catch up with my ongoing serial The Mage Hunter here:

September Reading Review

Redd Oscar — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 00:30:40 GMT

An overview of my months reading and watching. Very long this month, read the full post on SubStack.

Books Read - 38/52

On Paper

Of Ants and Dinosaurs by Liu Cixin

A comedic story about the end of the dinosaurs. Imagine if ants and dinosaurs had cooperated develop an advanced civilisation similar to our own and imagine if nations of dinosaurs went to war with each other forcing the ants to intervene to protect Earth, or so they believed…

This is a fun book, short and to the point. The type to be read between denser books or as an appetiser for Liu Cixin’s other work, namely The Three Body Problem.

Ten Poems About Cats

Self-explanatory. We have poems from the 1700s about cats wanting to sit in desk drawers and poems from the present about where all the missing cats go.

The Dream Lords by Adrian Cole

A collected volume containing the trilogy originally published in the late 1970s and reprinted by Cirsova Publishing earlier this year (2025).

A solid sword and planet adventure with a classic heroic fantasy plot of good versus evil that takes place across the Solar System. When I started reading it felt like Dune with Conan style fight scenes and relentless pace of the plot and by the end it felt more like Star Wars with Conan style fight scenes. Regardless, it’s very good but I would suggest taking a break between each book instead of what I did and attempt to read the whole trilogy back-to-back which made the second book feel like a bit of a slog.

If you are a fan of the old pulp writers or the sword and planet genre then I recommend this trilogy.

On SubStack

Fiction

Gibberish

Welcome to a piece of the shard. This is no single tale, but a thousand pieces of one. Each page is a shard, set beside others, until a world begins to take shape…

8 months ago · 34 likes · 3 comments · Scoot

’s addition to The Ynysfall Codex. A lost journal documenting a great king of long ago battling ancient beasts, full of mystery and wonder. A great tale within the Codex.

Loser’s Fiction

10 Ways I Grew My Substack

I have never posted something exclusively non-fiction. For a publication named Loser’s Fiction, this felt right. This post is different though. I wanted to do a brief take on the “How To Grow Your Substack” type posts, because I think they have the potential to be helpful. I love seeing people like…

7 months ago · 189 likes · 140 comments · Keith Long

Excellent tips and definitely remember to enable External Source Advice.

Germanicus Publishing

The Realm of the Tao (Flash Fiction)

Author’s Note: So I visited the Contemporary Art Gallery at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII) a few days ago. This story was inspired by the drawings that were displayed there. Enjoy…

7 months ago · 6 likes · 2 comments · Michael P. Marpaung

An investigation into heaven through fiction and use of art, a very enthralling piece of flash fiction.

Non-Fiction

Samurai History & Culture Japan

Oda Nobunaga’s Azuchi Castle

Oda Nobunaga only ever lived in six castles. He was born in Shobata Castle in Aichi Prefecture. While an infant his father relocated to Nagoya Castle, which Nobunaga would later own. On capturing his kinsman’s Kiyosu Castle, Nobunaga set up court there, before constructing the innovative Komakiyama Castle. Capturing Inabayama (Gifu) Castle from the Sait…

7 months ago · 12 likes · 1 comment · Samurai History & Culture

Fascinating details about Oda Nobunaga’s Azuchi Castle, from the layout, the innovations, stories about where some of the stone went, what the paths were for, and, in Part 2, the exquisite interiors. All accompanied with photos.

Counter Craft

Style Is More than Sentences

Style has become a dirty word in many literary circles. To care about style is “pretentious” and “snobbish” and anyway the goal of fiction is to have the prose “get out of the way of the story.” And what is story except a procession of plot points? I’ve always found this view to be, fairly literally, nonsense. A novel is made of pro…

7 months ago · 104 likes · 40 comments · Lincoln Michel

Falden's Forge

A Conversation with Hilary Layne

“It takes time to find the natural stories that would have been told within the world you’ve created…

7 months ago · 34 likes · 15 comments · Eric Falden and Hilary Layne

On Film

The Golden Compass

I have not read the book this is based on.

One of the worst films ever made and, like with live action Mulan, there is nothing funny about its terribleness. The story lurches from event to event with little storytelling in between only to end in an awkward place that isn’t really an ending. The worldbuilding is poorly done and by the end I still had no idea what Dust was or what it was meant to do, nor what Daemons are for or do except they are a person’s soul - which could be enough in and of itself but then the premise that the Magisterium wants to steal the souls of children to prevent Dust getting into them but the way the Magisterium is shown suggest it is another bog standard “evil Catholic Church” and that’s just laughably bad and I struggle to believe that is actually what Pullman wrote so I guess I will have to read it and find out.

The Others

A ghost film, probably one of the best. Slow to start and then a tumble to the end, which in this case works. Set in 1945 on the isle of Jersey just after the end of WWII the movie follows Grace and her two children as they go about their lives. The children are photosensitive and cannot go outside during the day nor be in a room without the curtains being drawn.

When a trio of staff offer to work Grace accepts and strange happenings begin happening around the house…

National Treasure

This is one of the films of all time. Overly long and completely saved by Nicolas Cage. I know this film is beloved but I had never seen it before and was disappointed.

On Video

The topic of this video is pretty well trodden ground on YouTube and there isn’t anything new in that regard from the video. What is great about this video is the videography and editing along with the narrative she has woven about what is a pretty unoriginal video idea.

Thanks for reading, see you next month.

August Reading Review

Redd Oscar — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 00:30:28 GMT

On Paper

The Government of Qin and Han Empires 221BCE-220CE by Michael Loewe

Intended as an approachable detailed history book for the non-specialist reader The Government of Qin and Han Empires is around 200 pages and quite readable but with all the advantages of a proper academic tome; further readings, references, Chinese characters where necessary, and niche information. Most likely uninteresting to the cursory reader of Chinese history but fantastic for someone like me who wants specific history rather than the common overarching texts. This is an academic book without the academic price tag and Loewe’s intent of writing something for the non-specialist succeeds in that he doesn’t assume you know something and includes a great level of detail and explanation to guide the reader.

BUTTER by Asako Yuzuki

A woman learns to cook after being inspired to do so by a (possible) serial killer.

I am glad I found this book at my local library rather than buying it. Up until the last quarter I was really enjoying it even though it turned out not to be what I thought it was billed as. BUTTER is NOT a mystery, thriller, or crime novel it is about a woman learning to be herself and letting go of the expectations she thinks others, i.e. “society”, have about her. She does this through her interactions and journalistic investigation into the life of a serial killer, and those parts are great, but the fate of the killer, and if she even did the killings she is accused of, is not the focus and is not revealed.

It isn’t a terrible book and there is some interesting delving into Japanese society and questioning aspects of it, not full on critique though, it’s all rather gentle, but there is no big selling point. Nothing I can point to and say it’s worth reading for. It’s a fine book but not ground breaking. The first third is not like other books I’ve read translated from Japanese, being far more descriptive and less on the nose, but the remaining two-thirds gradually slid back to that very on the nose form but with more description.

Personally I was hyped to read a fiction book with lavish descriptions of food, a sort of Hannibal (the Mads Mikkelsen one with excellent cooking scenes) in book form and while there are a couple good paragraphs and pages I find the descriptions are far better in A Song of Ice and Fire. What it did do well was descriptions of taste, something most books don’t include, and some of them go on for awhile.

Not too long at 450-something pages but some parts are very slow, especially near the beginning when Rika is buying and tasting proper butter, and throughout when food is mentioned. These sections will have you running for another book or entice you in further.

On Film

Brotherhood of the Wolf

A glorious film and easily one of my favourites. Rich cinematography, excellent costume design, acting, use and design of sets. Based on the real life legend of the Beast of Gevaudan. The beast has killed hundreds of people and a great party of hunters has been assembled to track it down. Gregoire de Fronsac, knight and naturalist to the King, and Mani, an Iroquois, are sent to capture the beast. Soon Fronsac becomes entangled with Marianne, daughter of the Countess, and finds himself uncovering horrifying secrets and secret societies.

I’d recommend watching in French with English subtitles as the voices in the dub clash with the characters and setting.

The Secret of Moonacre

An adaptation of the book, The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, a low fantasy from 1946. Outstanding set and costume design, particularly Maria’s dresses, worth a watch for that alone. The story opens with Maria Merryweather attending her father’s funeral, her mother is already dead, and she has to leave her home in London to live with her uncle in the west country. Her only inheritance is a book about a feud between the Merryweathers and de Noirs which is to be settled by a marriage but during the ceremony the Moon Princess, daughter of de Noir, reveals she was blessed by the moon with magic pearls but instead of bringing them together the two families become possessed by greed and she curses them and the valley to fall to eternal darkness in five thousand moons, or about 385 years, unless someone of pure heart can find the pearls and return them to the sea.

There are times when the film is overtly a comedic children’s film and others were it slips into a serious young teen film. This warbling tone bleeds into the pace, which is quite slow until about 3/4s through when it speeds up, and the characterisation of Maria’s uncle who flipflops between cold and harsh to warm and caring.

Decent low budget children’s fantasy film.

I plan on reading the book as there are apparently significant alterations.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

A wuxia love story between a woman and a man, a man and a woman, and a woman and a sword. Excellent film, and also an adaption of a book serialised in China in the 1940s, the fourth in Wang Dulu’s Crane-Iron series. There is no English translation of the pentalogy.

Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun Fat), a youxia, or wandering warrior, is retiring and wishes to gift his centuries old sword Green Destiny to Sir Te. Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh), also an accomplished warrior and friend, operates a security firm and offers to transport the sword to the capital and deliver it. Once gifted to Sir Te the sword is stolen by a mysterious warrior who is far too skilled to be just anybody. We learn the thief is a student of Jade Fox, a renowned criminal who killed Li Mu Bai’s master and stealing a secret martial arts manual. After intrigue and martial arts the sword is returned and then stolen again, Li Mu Bai faces the mysterious thief and Jade Fox and becomes intrigued by the thief’s ability and wishes to train them.

On Game

Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny

Finally! Seven years after the Onimusha: Warlords remaster Capcom have given us Onimusha 2 ahead of the new Onimusha title, Way of the Sword, next year (hopefully). This series was one of the finest on Playstation 2. The series is about Nobunaga Oda’s attempt to unite Japan during the Sengoku period, 15th-16th centuries but with the twist that Oda dies at the Battle of Okehazama and is resurrected by the Genma, or demons, in order to bring about the awakening of their king, Fortinbras. The demons terrorise the land and in the first game Samonosuke Akechi is granted power by the Oni clan to fight the Genma clan, he succeeds in killing Fortinbras (the aim of the first game) but not Nobunaga who returns in the second game (and third) as the main antagonist.

Onimusha 2 opens with Jubei Yagyu hearing his family village has been attacked by Nobunaga Oda’s soldiers and he rushes to defend it. He arrives too late. The village is devastated and there are no survivors. A strange voice calls to him from a cave and when he follows it he finds an Oni woman who reveals herself to be his mother, that demons attacked Yagyu village, and that the Yagyu clan carry the blood of the Oni and are demon killers. Jubei vows to take revenge upon Nobunaga. His quest for revenge takes him first to Imasho where he meets Magoichi, Ekei, Kotaro, and Oyu, who all have their own reasons for wanting to kill Nobunaga. Through the game’s gifting mechanic you can uncover more of your companions’ backstories.

The gameplay is hack’n’slash at normal difficulty but a bit more tactical at hard and higher where block, strafe, and parrying becomes far more important due to how few hits you can take before dying. The game is about 10-15 hours long. Potential for multiple play-throughs because of the gifting and ally system that unlocks different scenarios depending on which ally you are closest to.

GENERAL UPDATE

The 2nd half of August was hectic, with a wedding abroad and my daughter’s first birthday, and I have not read much on SubStack nor have I written as much as I would have liked. September should be a little calmer and return to the usual rhythm.

The Mage Hunter serial novella is going to be more than the 10 chapters I aim for all novellas to be, probably around 15.

Thanks for reading, till next month’s review.

Many thanks for reading and have a wonderful day.

July Reading Review

Redd Oscar — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 00:30:48 GMT

An overview of some of my reading and watching through July, not quite as long as last month’s.

Books Read - 30/52

On Paper

The Dynasties of China by Bamber Gascoigne

At barely over 200 pages this may be the shortest history of China ever written. To achieve this Gascoigne covers only the major dynasties, Shang, Zhou, (Qin,) Han, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing, stopping in 1912 with abdication of Puyi. Avoiding the tracts of chaos that define the early inter-dynasty eras, particularly between the fall of the Han and rise of the Tang which is almost 400 years. He makes slight reference to the Three Kingdoms, the Sui, and many short lived kingdoms of that period but nothing substantial.

The book includes a good number of poems and letters that help breathe life into the history and all in all a good introductory book to anyone looking to learn more about Chinese history.

The English Resistance: The Underground War Against the Normans by Peter Rex

It is often thought that Duke William the Bastard defeated King Harold Godwinson and conquered England wholesale. This is far from the truth. William suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Hastings, as did King Harold who famously perished with his army, and while much of the south of England swore fealty to William, often due to losing their fathers, brothers, earls, thegns, or abbots, at Hastings, the rest of England, especially the North and East Anglia, did not. For more than a decade William was plagued with rebellion often because of his own behaviour in not holding to his word of honouring the rights of English lords, awarding those lands to his own Norman host, selling lands he had no ownership of, ousting abbots, bishops, and arch-bishops for no other reason than they were English. Then there were the other claimants to the English throne, namely Edgar the Aetheling, Harold’s sons, and Swein King of Denmark. While the Danes assisted a number of rebellions they never fully committed to an invasion, although it was a credible threat. Edgar on the other hand had few allies, at first, due to his young age and having being born, or at least raised, in Hungary was viewed as a foreigner by many. Upon the death of Harold he was elected King by the Witan but never crowned. He was grandson of King Edmund Ironside who lost England to Cnut, King of Denmark, in 1016. Having submitted to William in December 1066 but after a short time went to Scotland and persuaded King Malcolm to try and reclaim Edgar’s lost throne. He also managed to convince the earls and thegns of Northumbria to fight. They failed but English resistance continued.

The English resistors avoided a pitched battle against King William at all costs for they had no strategy or tactics for defeating his armoured cavalry of knights. Hereward’s defence of the Isle of Ely was heroic and in terrain completely unsuited to William’s army but in all other cases the method of warfare was guerrilla. The resistance would live and fight from the woods and marshes and fens, trusting their knowledge of the land to outwit and outmanoeuvre the invaders. They formed bands of silvatici, men of the woods, and wore green giving rise to the Green Man motifs all over English churches and manors, and, potentially, an early example of a Robin Hood figure.

King William was at first content with accepting submission and oaths of fealty of rebels but something changed in the winter of 1069 when Edgar, the Danes, and the Northmen all joined forces and were beginning to see success. They, however, refused to meet William in the open field and in response the King laid waste to the North, burning fields and villages and slaughtering the inhabitants. This succeeded in starving out the resistance and those who could return to the woods to continue their guerrilla war. Based on the Domesday Book the population of Northumbria, Cumbria, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Cheshire, saw a loss of up to 75% of their populations. Many were killed but some fled to the Scottish Borders never to return. William paid off the Danes, though that did not stop them returning to assist Hereward in East Anglia in the following years. After this William placed his own men into the various posts now empty such as abbacies, earldoms, sheriffs and others.

Before we forget kindness by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

This is the 5th in the ongoing Before the coffee goes cold series about a cafe were customers can time travel. However, there are very specific rules about travelling through time. Only one chair allows someone to time travel, the chair is occupied by a ghost who only stands up once a day and curses those who try to forcefully move her, the customer must finish the cup of coffee served to them before it gets cold otherwise they will die and become a ghost trapped on the chair, they cannot stand up from the chair, nothing will change in the past, present, or future. After hearing these rules many customers give up but those who persevere have life changing revelations and closure.

The book, like all the others, is split into four short stories with an interconnected narrative about the family who own and run the cafe. The joy in reading these books is the catharsis of reading about people having the difficult conversations that repair relationships or of people having their preconceptions about something upturned by meeting someone in the past. Many of the stories deal with dead friends or family and telling them things that never got told to them while alive.

Because nothing changes there are no paradoxes but the world is not predetermined because the future is in flux until it is observed, however once observed it becomes fixed and an event will happen regardless of attempts to prevent, hinder, or accelerate it.

Fantastic series, easy to read light fiction, great between heavier or longer books. Translated from Japanese so the prose is to the point and unadorned.

On SubStack

The Fabled Fry Cook of Fair Fiddlebrook

In the faraway land of picturesque Fiddlebrook, there once lived a legendary fry cook. His burgers were juicy; his fries warm and crispy. His tenders were toasty, and his franks meaty and cozy…

10 months ago · 19 likes · 12 comments · Josh Tatter

A wonderful poetic tale of delish grub made foul by tasteless critique and unsatisfying lies.

They don't all have to be good

The Cog that Spins the Wheel

I recently started on two different novel projects, and wound up shelving one of them to return to later. I really love the ideas I plotted out for it, and I’m super excited to get back to it, but I want to focus on finishing The Narrator Cycle first. Because I know if I don’t do it now, it will be so hard to come back to. Not that I don’t love writing …

a year ago · 6 likes · 8 comments · Ian Patterson

treats us to a taste of a future writing project of his. Rich in detail and imminently immersing for it, like mooners tapping chair to remove the dust, the monochrome dreams, and much more. I hope he writes more to this tale.

E.C. Slusarski, Writer

A Bard of Dayholm | Part 1 of 3

This short story is inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado…

9 months ago · 5 likes · Ethan Slusarski

Oh how pleasurable it is to read Anton Gershin’s dastardly exploits all in attempt to win a bard competition. is superb and I eagerly await Part 3.

And sometimes thro' the mirror blue…

Plight of the Maiden

a year ago · 17 likes · 11 comments · Josh Tatter

gives us a tale as old as time. A princess held hostage in a tower and a knight sent to save her, though this time it does not all go happily ever after.

Falden's Forge

What Were Castles Actually For?

Hi, I’m Eric. I write (and write about) epic fantasy, Sometimes I diverge into the history that informs our understanding of that narrative genre…

9 months ago · 38 likes · 14 comments · Eric Falden

illuminates us on the purpose of castles in fascinating detail with plenty of images of said castles.

On Film

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

The film that almost destroyed Square (now Square-Enix) due to the sheer cost of production and failure at the box office to break even. It did not deserve such a fate. The film is entirely photo-realistic CGI, which for 2001 was an incredible feat, with a stacked voice cast of Steve Buscemi, Alec Baldwin, Donald Sutherland, and others, and written by the creator of the Final Fantasy series, Hironobu Sakaguchi.

The year is 2065 and Earth is a ruin. Aliens roam the surface having arrived on a meteor that crash landed 30 years prior. Humanity had been forced into small cities protected by shields that the aliens, which are ethereal, cannot penetrate. It is assumed the aliens are invading and that the asteroid was calculated to crash on Earth and disrupt all ecology but a group of scientists suspect something different is going on…

A different take on the alien invasion story and worth a watch. The dialogue is corny in parts and the CGI is dated compared to today’s but neither detract from enjoyment.

Thank you for reading.

June Reading Review

Redd Oscar — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 00:30:31 GMT

An overview of my reading and watching throughout June 2025. There was a lot and this post is “too long for email” so to read the full review, dear reader, you will need to click through to my SubStack proper. Enjoy, I hope you find something that you will also enjoy.

Books Read - 24/52

I read a lot of children’s picture books this month as my daughter is starting to follow along and show interest. The highlights were Within my Branches by Nicholas Michel about the life of an oak tree with incredible illustrations and Hairy Maclary From Donaldson’s Dairy by Lynley Dodd which is a tongue twister about Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy going for a walk with his fellow dogs, Hercules Morse as big as a horse, Bottomley Potts covered in spots, Muffin McLay like a bundle of hay, Bitzer Maloney all skinny and bony, and Schnitzel von Krumm with a very low tum, complete with cute drawings of each dog.

On Paper

Lords of Uncreation by Adrian Tchaikovsky

*MINIMAL SPOILERS*

The Final Architecture trilogy is a prime example of series that would have been improved had it been told from third person omniscient rather than third person limited. A great deal of the first and third books is quasi-filler only there to remind the reader about the character the PoV has swapped to, their intentions, mission, location, etc. The second book does this less. Crammed within the third book is an entire political melodrama within the Parthenon that Solace, our Partheni PoV, has no agency in and only serves as the “camera” to see it all through. Then it’s solved, brought up a couple times and then gone. The necessity of the story line is to make good on promises from the first and second books about warring factions within the all-female warrior angels faction but it is limp, too short, and confusing. Were the conspirators influential or not? It isn’t clear. The surviving Partheni fleet is small afterwards but the mutinous ships were able to be commandeered by loyalists all at the same time but it cost most of their ships but only a small number of women. If this plot line was cut out it would have improved the book.

The ending, meaning specifically the final location and final standoff between hero and villain is almost half the book. A state that is made tiresome by the repetitiveness of the narrative, especially the hero Idris Telemmier. Because of the nature of unspace the language is more theoretical than practical, for unspace is a realm of pure thought and at its centre, the centre of the universe, a place of infinite smallness but infinite power over the universe, as Tchaikovsky writes many times, it is where the levers are. The mystery to who the Orignators are, who controls the Architects, why they’re doing, the titular Lords of Uncreation, I found to be satisfying enough. Not unique, Final Fantasy XIV did it before and I’m sure others have too, but it’s also a villain-origin-story I like.

There is a lot that is predictable about all parts of the story but it is also satisfying. If nothing else Tchaikovsky can write a satisfying story from beginning to end even if the actual words amount to twice what they need to.

I read the hardbacks which brings the page count to 1764 with ~300 words a page that is almost 500’000 words. Compared with the unabridged Romance of the Three Kingdoms at roughly 800’000 words, a lot less happens in The Final Architecture. RotK is written in third-person omniscient, like Dune, and covers over 80 years with thousands of named characters and hundreds of them with distinct arcs, many of which overlap. Now there has been some discussion on Twitter and here about how people no longer want third-person omniscient but a lot more happens in RotK and Dune without ever feeling tiring to read or repeating itself than happens in The Final Architecture. Simply put third-person omniscient allows for shorter books with more happening with no loss of investment for the reader.

The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin

Phenomenal book. Hard science fiction at its best. Unfurls like a beautiful peony. Told non-chronologically and from multiple perspectives yet manages to expertly tie the story together into one meaningful ending. Very much the first book of a trilogy and written as such.

On SubStack

Automatic Writer

For the boys.

Wet slaps and lowing. We jeered, us boys. We stood in a line, us boys. Waiting for our turn at the mobile whorehouse in a rural somewhere. Name excluded—preservation of future idyllic excursions, you…

a year ago · 32 likes · 18 comments · Sean Thomas McDonnell

Grim Acres

The Nominal Dragonfly

a year ago · 2 likes · James Kenwood

treats us to a sci-fi air battle, of cloned-sibling defenders and barely human invaders fighting it out in a cataclysmic storm playing havoc with the four-man fighter jets, Dragonflies, facing off against a massive air tank and its escort. The fate of Freyan hangs in the balance. Visceral, punchy, heart-wrenching, a short story with depth of feeling and world building.

Falden's Forge

The First Death of Segitars Arpadi

This story is the first anecdote from the The Samyuzot, an ongoing collection of short stories; I won’t say too much more, lest I spoil the beginning below…

a year ago · 56 likes · 29 comments · Eric Falden

spins a tale of love and feuds, of death and loss. A brilliant story with an unexpected turn. The First Death of Segitars Arpadi is expertly written, absorbing and intimate.

A Work Of Fiction

The Magpie

Once upon a time, there was a hopeless, hapless, feckless young woman who, to her step-mother’s dismay, couldn’t sew, couldn’t cook, nor could she sing or dance. She was incredibly beautiful, but, being from a poor family—especially a poor family with no noble connections—the girl may as well have resembled a toad…

10 months ago · 4 likes · 1 comment · Hanna Delaney

crafts a fairytale for the ages. A young woman with nothing to her credit and a lonely magpie have a chance meeting in which will change their fates forever.

Gibberish

Repent

New To Gibberish? Check out this Navigation Page…

10 months ago · 9 likes · 4 comments · Scoot

Find the Blackpage! is a new serial from . A novice Author searches for a missing legend at the behest of the Blackpage’s arch-nemesis, Targand. but what will he uncover.

On PDF

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorges Luis Borges

The secret creation of a fictional planet begins to alter reality here on Earth. A short, 16 page, read. You can read it here. Almost certainly an influence for The Lemurian Time War by CCRU.

The Last Question by Isaac Asimov

There is only one question, how to prevent the entropy of the universe. Plainly written, very short, and somewhat poignant. It isn’t groundbreaking, though it might have been for 1956. You can read it here.

On Film

The Salt Path

My wife, daughter, and I went to see this at our local cinema as they had a baby friendly showing and we ended up being the only ones there. Our 9 month daughter was very good up until the last 30 minutes when she became a bit grouchy from being unable to nap.

The film is very good, set in south-west England, it’s about a couple who lose their home, their livelihood, and all their money and decide to walk the south west coastal path. Based on a true story and book with the same title. Due to it being based on true events it is less a story and more a segment of a longer journey so the ending is a little flat but it doesn’t detract from the rest of the film which is fundamentally about learning to live no matter what life throws at you.

Sphere

*SPOILERS FOR A 27 YEAR OLD FILM*

I love this film. I have not read the book. I may read the book if I come across a copy second-hand. I first saw this with my dad when I was about 10 or so and I was enthralled and I’ve watched it a handful of times since and still like it just as much. The premise is great, the lighting, the physical effects, the minimal CGI, the physical set, etc. Watching “older” films like this really shows how hollow newer films are, how plastic with all the CGI and mocap and botox-face acting.

An alien spaceship has been found on the Pacific Ocean floor and a team consisting of a mathematician, astrophysicist, marine biologist, and psychologist are assembled. to investigate. The ship is thought to have some form of life on board. Once they board the ship they find it is a human ship, specifically American, from the future but crashed 300 years in the past with the last entry being “unknown” but appearing to be a black hole. Aboard the spaceship is a massive golden sphere which when interacted with grants the power to manifest a person’s thoughts, good and bad, conscious and unconscious.

The film isn’t perfect, far from it, but it doesn’t really matter, it’s a good psychological thriller with a terrible psychologist character. Either whoever wrote Norman Goodman (Dustin Hoffman) didn’t have a clue or Hoffman was given poor direction. When he is required to be a psychologist he comes across as an amateur who read a book or two and now thinks he’s a therapist. Though this could be explained by his going into the Sphere and not realising it for almost the entire movie while becoming paranoid and delusional, which brings into question the nature of forgetting. Norman forgets he went in but still has the power to manifest his thoughts.

The ending is also merely fine and I much prefer thinking that they manifest themselves escaping and “forgetting” and are in fact stuck in the mini-sub at the bottom of the ocean rather than escape and actually use the odd power to forget the power and all events. Though it isn’t clear if forgetting would get rid of the power to manifest their imaginations due to Norman forgetting he entered the Sphere but retaining the power, as I mentioned above. The speech Norman gives at the end is atrocious and unnecessary, in it he goes on about how they aren’t ready for this sort of power, how humans are underdeveloped and too emotional to bear the responsibility of the power the Sphere granted them. It’s overdone and adds nothing to the film.

The time travel elements are not well thought through, but then the only film to do time travel well is Primer because all others succumb to either predestination paradox or grandfather paradox or some other temporal Gordian knot. Sphere suffers from predestination paradox; the characters cannot remember because if they remember then the ship containing the Sphere would know what happened to it before arriving on the ocean floor in the 18th century so the characters are forced into a set of actions in order to preserve the future and the past otherwise they would alter time and the spaceship would not have an “unknown entry event” because the characters would have told people but in order for them to experience the ship having an “unknown event” they can’t tell anyone.

Time travel, mess with it at your own peril.

My favourite scene is when all the cupboards are filled with copies of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, the build up to it and the realisation that the books are empty beyond page 87 because Harry can’t read further because he is afraid of squid is brilliant.

Great science-fiction thriller.

Thank you for reading this longer than usual review post.

Underneath oaken canopy of green, Next to the violet patch that steals sun's sheen, But not the one closest to our house, It's the patch beyond the old field full of cows. There, tucked beneath the royal petals reach, A labyrinth of tiny roots mingle and preach A false gospel, “Nothing beneath us lies.” But when I stopped by t…

May Reading Review

Redd Oscar — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 00:30:48 GMT

A review of the various stories I’ve read/watched during the month of May. My wife and I (and our daughter but she is only 9 months old) now have a weekly film night so there will be a regular film section to these from now on.

Books Read - 13/52

On Paper

Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Book 2 of the Final Architecture trilogy. An improvement on book 1, Shards of Earth, in terms of plot; no awkward double twist at the end of this one. The characters are largely the same cast from the first book but now we know them they can just be rather than be introduced and developed, better for Idris and Solace but worse for Olli who is a little more annoying than in the first book. There is also Havaer Mundy, a spy, and Kris, a renegade lawyer. Kris is, fine, her chapters are necessary for certain plot points to be shown to the reader. Havaer feels more like a main character until he joins with the crew when he fades away into the background a little. Idris suffers from having one amazing ability, well two but they’re connected, him being an Intermediary (and by fluke, immortal) and then being terrible at everything else, even mere talking. A lot of this can be chalked up to the fact he doesn’t need to sleep, though it clearly has negative consequences, but at times it is forced, his incompetence there to highlight the competency of his crewmates. He cannot fight, he cannot explain things well, he cannot sleep, he cannot answer questions, he struggle to introspect, he thinks about prior decisions too much, he is a glass cannon characters, min-maxed to the point he can be annoying to read but all the mysteries about Unspace and the universe are in his chapters so it balances out.

We are treated to a great deal more exploration of Unspace, the Originators, and the Hegemon. Tchaikovsky once again shines with his worldbuilding and how it is presented. This is the turning point in the series, were humanity discovers how to fight the Architects effectively and where to attack.

It is good space opera scifi and beyond disliking some characters the main criticism I have is that there is too much drama. Someimtes violence and arguments seem to happen for no reason other than to make sure you’re still reading and in ways that seem forced. On non-PoV characters the Uskaro family are sometimes presented as comic book villains and I’m not sure whether I should be scared of them or laugh at them, they don’t fit with the rest of the Council of Human Interests. I can understand the irreverance to the Essiel, rulers of the Hegemon, they are four metre tall clams that wave tendrils about to communicate but have developed technology far beyond humanity’s capabilities and have literally hundreds of other species in their Empire that worship them. Viewed from the outside it is a bit silly and is grounds for humour but the Uskaros are mocked beyond their backs for their rigid hierarchy and nobility and quasi-feudal world but then feared for their wealth, power, influence, their private army and well funded fleet. The two we see the most of, Piter and Ravin Uskaro once again flit between comic book villain and debonair noblemen. The Uskaro family seem to serve as merely being there to raise the stakes for the protagonists, to present some enemy to fight that isn’t the main one, the Architects, because they cannot be fought in the conventional sense. This is odd because the Uskaro are crucial to the events, they kidnapped Idris in the first book and now they kidnap Kris in the second book. The family is immanently tied in government and big decision making too but they still feel tact on, there as foil for our heroes.

I am already half way through reading the third and final book, Lords of Uncreation.

The Ghost Lemurs of Madagascar by William S. Burroughs

This short story seems to have been expanded into Burroughs’ novel The Ghost of Chance. He wrote it to raise awareness of the plight of the lemur as they were facing extinction, and still are. The story is about a pirate captain called Mission and his time spent developing a perfect nation of liberty on Madagascar where lemurs are sacred beings who can appear wherever they please and disappear just as quickly. It’s an odd tale and the sort that you can imagine was shared in pubs back during the height of sea voyages where sailors warned of great ocean beasts and sirens and strange sights on the open ocean.

You can read it here.

On Substack

A Secret Door is a poem by . It’s short so I won’t write anything save that I very much enjoyed it.

The Book Quest

A Secret Door

a year ago · 3 likes · Zachary Harned

The Fate of Omega is a sci-fi story by . It follows Edwin as he and his partner Jarn discover the ancient starshipwreck of the Omega, a colony ship that was lost before it reached its destination. Great premise and good mystery with a gradual unfolding. Told in 3, short, parts.

Fragments and Pieces

The Fate of Omega: Part One

The scout took note of his coordinates. He had been searching for close to three months, and now he had finally found the seed ship, Omega. He leaned back in his chair, taking in his momentous achievement. He reached for his canteen of Europa Brandy, savoring the emotions coursing through him as he took a swig…

a year ago · 16 likes · 4 comments · Harold Ember

On Film

Network (1976)

Follows the mental breakdown of news presenter Howard Beale as he realises the world is completely broken, after he has lost his wife and is told he is being taken off air due to falling ratings. He announces he is going to blow his brains out live on television. A few shows later he goes on a rant (linked below) about the state of the world and his ratings spike. His employer, UBS, exploits him for high ratings and lucrative advertising revenue. Howard Beale’s message, initially, is about how each person has meaning and value and that they shouldn’t accept the way of the world just because they are told too through the television, which he also reveals is one big lie, a fantasy machine generating impossible futures for the audience to pine after, endlessly.

Also features an older form of the NPC meme as Beale describes many people as ‘becoming humanoid’, losing their feelings and intellect, but this after Jensen (Chairman of the company that buys UBS) appears beforeBeale as a counter-deity and tells him the world is one giant corporation (globalisation) and the only thing that matters is money.

Beale’s ratings decline as his message has flipped due to Jensen’s pronouncement but he refuses to take the man off the air because now the chairman like Beale’s message. Beale’s producers, fearful of how poor his ratings are becoming and the money they are losing, conspire to kill him live on air. Beale gets his wish, to die on television.

Two stand out elements of the film are the speeches, multiple from Beale and the one linked above by Jensen, alongside the lighting, often in combination.

Uncharted (2022)

This is… fine. Film (and TV) adaptations of video games have a poor track record and this is no exception. It’s a modern Indiana Jones and I remember the game pulling that off well but the film struggles in the same way a great deal of modern entertainment does. There is too much action, as if the writers and director are scared the audience might look away for a second and lose interest. The use of CGI is aggressive to the point that I’m not sure they ever left a studio and yet we are meant to believe they travel from New York to Barcelona to an island in the Phillipines. Holland and Wahlberg are okay as Drake and Sully but both are a little young for their respective characters, their chemistry is awkward, which makes sense because this is their first treasure hunt together. Somehow this film made a ton of money and a sequel has been in production since Summer 2024.

Mulan (2020)

This is one of the worst films I have ever seen. The plot is so thin as to be non-existent, there is barely any character development, the supporting cast are unmemorable, the wuxia is worse than amateurish, the cinematography is the quality of a straight-to-tv Hallmark Christmas film, the dialogue is bland, the CGI use is egregiously obvious. Iconic scenes from the animated version are rehashed into boring, dull, similes that fall flat. Some films, like The Last Jedi, are just incredible scenes stitched together with poor storytelling. Mulan lacks those incredible scenes, there is nothing memorable other than how poor the film is but it isn’t bad like The Room is bad, which is enjoyable to watch because of how terrible it is, because it is quite clear Disney attempted, or at least wanted, to make a good film but couldn’t.

Thanks for reading.

a year ago · 1 like · Jude Whiley

Check out Tuesday’s short, this week it was a poem written in a vague Shijing style:

April Reading Review

Redd Oscar — Fri, 02 May 2025 00:00:53 GMT

The next chapter of The Atlanteans of Proxima b will be late this week due to IRL stuff.

Stories I’ve read throughout April and an attempt to write less about ones I dislike to keep it short. I was not successful.

Books Read - 11/52

In the Giant’s Shadow by D.S. Brandt (AKA: )

A dark fantasy novella in the Nordic vein. Set in Jotungatt where the graveyard dwarfs the town and a massive stone gate dominates the centre. Gaiur is led by a white raven to uncover the towns mysteries and, perhaps, save it from itself. A tale of nightmares and destiny. A solid read.

Hard to write anything else without giving spoilers as the book is only 160 pages long. There is a cute and funny dream fox called Renald.

You can find the author over at his SubStack, Tales of Calamity and Triumph, where he publishes fiction, reviews, and essays on writing, check him out, link below:

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky

A Mass Effect-esk science-fiction novel, first in The Final Architecture trilogy. A mysterious enemy called The Architects transforms ships, worlds, anything in their path where thought is present, into pretty and complicated shapes, including Earth which looks like an eternally blooming orchid. The galaxy features plenty of alien species, Hivers, machine-bug things, Hannilambra, crab-like creatures, Essiel, clam-like creatures and more, humanity has diverged into the Parthenon, an all-female fighting force grown in vats, and regular humans. Regular human’s discovered, and then engineered, Intermediaries to fight the Architects in unspace — which is very much like the Warp from 40K with plenty of Lovecraftian horror at the edge. The Intermediaries made contact with the Architects through the strange psychic-unspace “magic” and then the enemy that had altered Earth disappeared, but 40 years later they reappear.

There’s political posturing and rival empires and everything you’d expect from a sprawling space opera. Tightly written and, for the most part, enjoyable. The character writing is good, though a few are annoying at times and elements of the drama are over-egged so it reads like a TV soap but for the most part it’s all good. THe political aspects of the story aren’t as consistently strong. The delving into issues of identity with Nativisits, Betrayed, Spacers, Settled, Parthenon, and refugenik (what Parthenon call regular humans, meaning refuse or waste genetics) is all explored but a bit clumsy with contemporary politics seeping through in parts. But the main crux of the book is the crew of the Vulture God being contracted to find the lost ship Oumaru. What they find is an “Architected” ship, triggering panic amongst the crew and by those who contracted them. A contingency is put in place in an attempt to keep the news from spreading and this mostly works but various groups want the Oumaru which turns out to belong to a crime lord who is very keen to recover its cargo and so the story goes.

There is a twist near the end which left a sour taste because it neutered the bulk of the book and there is another twist to neuter that twist to basically make the 450 pages leading up to it a very long introduction on the main characters for the rest of the series. All in all a disappointing story with incredible world-building, an annoying combination. I will be reading the rest of the trilogy as my local library as them so will see if it improves.

Unironically used the phrase “all hell broke loose” three times, twice in the prose and once in dialogue. A weak phrase that has long been cliche and oft used where description would be better suited.

If you like Mass Effect, Star Wars, Warhammer 40K, any big space opera, then you will like this or at least elements of it.

Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me by Kate Clanchy

The author was cancelled for this book, at least for a short time. Picador refused to publish Kate Clanchy’s books after an article in The Guardian accused her of writing racist stereotypes because of phrases like “Ashkenazi nose”. Phillip Pullman defended her and the Society of Authors distanced themselves from him for it. Former students of Clanchy wrote letters supporting her. Different ethnicities have distinct features and that’s reality, saying it is racist for noticing is ludicrous. In fiction such details add to worlds, especially in fantasy and scifi were crafting alien races can be integral to good worldbuilding. The author was picked up by a different publisher shortly after.

The book is a collection of stories, real and amalgamated from many students, with all the identifying details sanded off. There are stories about English kids, Scottish kids, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Somalian, Indian, Pakistani, gay, straight, rich, poor kids, and everyone else. Clanchy is very liberal (at least socially), a proper 90s lefty, who is against sensitivity readers for books but also thinks multiculturalism is the best thing since sliced bread and that class can be erased through education. Hence why her article against sensitivty readers was published in UnHerd, the online magazine for people rejected by the left and right for being “out of time” with their respective audiences/political groups.

Anyway, Some Kids is a memoir about Clanchy’s time teaching though it is never clear what she learned, that always has to be inferred and guessed at. She starts the book talking about boys who were secretly, or not-so-secretly, gay then about refugees and immigrants, and then around the middle she starts to talk about education itself, from uniforms to class sizes to examinations all with a story about a former pupil, then she ties the whole thing together with poetry groups which is the best part of the book. Clanchy does not hide her views, she is anti-Christian, especially in education where she thinks nothing Christian should be taught with state money. She is confused about class, though that seems par for the course nowadays due to a mix of miseducation and a genuine, though wrong, belief in the idea that class can be removed through education and social engineering. Almost every story in the book is from a student who is either working class, living on a council estate, from a family who never worked, a refugee or an immigrant, or multiple of these. The stories that come from outside those groups are about her own children or those of friends and often end with some judgement about how dare they send their middle-class kids to middle-class schools because she thinks it deprives the working-class school of their brilliance.

The stories are interesting, the latter half of the book is more enjoyable than the first half, but I was never quite sure what she learned and then the book abruptly ends with a Syrian refugee who barely speaks any English learning the language by writing poetry and crying over all he’s been through.

It’s an odd book and one I don’t know who the audience is nor if any of the discussions would translate well beyond Britain. Easy to read and averagely written. There is no prose that will stick with you, no sentence packed with so much you have to ponder it alone, though there is prose that will stick out for the wrong reasons and phrases she repeats too often; “like stink” comes to mind.

I spent half of April with the flu and the otherhalf was quite busy and as a result I read a lot less than I expected.

Thanks for reading, see you next month for another one.

March Reading Review

Redd Oscar — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 00:30:36 GMT

I write about books and stories I have read throughout March 2025, spending more time on ones I didn’t like compared to those I did like.

Books Read - 8/52

On Paper

Pallas by

Kylan becomes stranded on the asteroid Pallas, believed to be uninhabited and cut off long ago from the Ceres Mining Company, but one green eyed blonde betrays Pallas’s secret and he is welcomed into the hidden colony to be treated like a hero. Soon everything takes a turn for the worst and Kylan Bence is forced to face the secrets of Pallas, mushrooms and all.

Excellent book. You can read here on SubStack at . Her books are available on Amazon (print and digital). I went for print as the cover is delightful.

Doom: A Politics of Catastrophe by Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson attempts to dispel the Great Man Theory of history and any notion of cyclical history in one fell swoop. His aim is primarily at the new field of cliodynamics which treats history as a science where events can be modelled and predicted. Ferguson’s efforts illustrate why history is not a science and that cliodynamics is either wrong or far off being useful but he does not succeed in dispelling the Great Man theory or cyclical history more generally.

While it is clear from his examples of Chernobyl and Challenger, alongside a number of others, that the General Secretary of the Soviet Union or President of the USA may not be responsible for a disaster there are great men in each event who have the bulk of power and responsibility, the final say as it were, while there is also a failure of middle management to either listen or report, and sometimes both. In the case of Chernobyl there were system faults with the type of plant at Chernobyl due to failure at another plant in Lithuania which were known to the Soviet nuclear authorities but had not been shared. As a result when the man in charge was running a test and something failed he didn’t have the knowledge available to mitigate or prevent it escalating. In the case of Challenger the engineers knew the fault of the O-rings and the recommendation was to ‘not launch’, managers at NASA and Morton Thiokol (the contractor who made the rocket boosters) wanted to go ahead, for various reasons from quotas to contracts, and eventually the vice president, Joe Kilminster, of Morton Thiokol signed off on the launch because the president of Morton Thiokol wanted to maintain good relations with NASA and secure the next contract for solid rocket boosters. In the end the managers ignored the engineers because the two groups did not share the same goals, namely safe space shuttle launches, and the decision, the power, was in the hands of small group of men, perhaps 4 at most. While these men were not the Great Men of their day, they were great men in their fields and during those events.

Another example would be the Los Rodeos Airport disaster where two planes collided on the runway due to a mix of congestion (Gran Canaria airport was closed due to a potential bombing), weather (the fog was thick, reducing visibility), and poor communication (the American and Dutch planes didn’t hear each other and the Air-Traffic Control (ATC) was listening to a football game while working). Not only that but the paint had faded on the runway so it wasn’t clear which taxiway was which and the lights in the centre of it had failed. However, at the end it was the decision of the Dutch pilot to begin take off without ATC approval that resulted in the collision which killed 583 people. Why he did so has a myriad of rather unconvincing reasons, from stress, to behaving in habitual flight training ways, to recent legislation regulating how many hours Dutch pilots could fly in a month and him not wanting to be stuck in Tenerife. The fact is he made a decision that no one else could, to begin take off without ATC clearance. His passengers had no power, his co-pilot had already challenged him on the decision and was ignored, the American plane couldn’t see until it was too late, and Air-Traffic Control was not equipped with ground radar to adequately see what was going on. While there were many, many nodes of failure leading up to the disaster, it can be placed on one pilot’s error of judgement in the moment, the great man in the event as it where. Not everyone is Napoleon but there is a Napoleon in every event.

His attempt at dispelling any notion of cyclical history also stumbles, at least in my estimation and undestanding of the idea, in that he attempts to paint it as a only a predictive tool of events when really cyclical history is predictive of human behaviour and recognising that institutions, nations, governments, are just as organic as the people who compose them. His own examples prove the point. During the Spanish Flu, just like with Covid, there were pro-maskers and anti-maskers. The arguments were on similar lines too, safety and spread versus civil liberties and efficacy.

While it is clear to me that not every historical event is orchestrated nor cyclical and many disasters are cumulations of failure, a point he illustrates very well throughout the book, at no point does he finish off the two theories of history he is aguing against. Each time he mentions a specific person who had the weight of power and responsibility or where he compares a past event to a recent one has the effect of reinforcing the very theories he is attacking.

Another factor that comes up time and time again throughout the book is failure of bureaucracy, managers, and middle men, and the schlerotic nature of governments and large corporations which results in lots of policy and “preparedness” but when the event happens, like with Covid-19, all that amounts for naught because very rarely in all the plans is there someone chosen to lead the response and so there ends up being many, which is exactly what happened in America and Britain during Covid. It appears all these procedures and paperwork creates good followers but terrible leaders and in fact what would have helped is a Great Man to take charge.

One other success of the book is illustrating how the media and journalists are wrong in basically every disaster in their rush to simplify and push a narrative, whether blaming the wrong people/person or missing/ignoring vital information, failing to fact check, or simply not waiting long enough to publish. Ferguson also takes aim at governments who either try and cover up disasters, omit vital details to the public, respond too slowly or not at all, and rarely have the health of the citizens as their primary goal. Concerns over quotas and targets, cost, reputation, contracts and money, or the personal success of politicians and bureaucrats all come before the people these institutions are meant to working for.

2020 by Kenneth Steven

*SPOILERS*

Written in 2015 this book tells the story of Britain at breaking point, with political violence exploding, literally, in a few places around the country and then he just wraps it up with a soppy speach that makes everyone feel empathetic again. It reads naive but it is the hope and expectation of the soppy middle class southern Britons. He even captures this element near the end, the North-South divide, but it amounts to nothing. The root of the civil conflict is a terrorist attack on a train that leads to anti-immigration groups taking action, initially as marches and electing an indepedent MP but that leads to his office being firebombed by a Pakistani group and then him being kidnapped, tried in a Sharia court, and murdered. There’s a protest by the anti-immigration group that turns violent. The government is less than useless in the whole affair and the shining point of the book is highlighting the fact that government and media don’t have a clue, nor do the police in the book. Everyone is left looking worse than they started, to the author’s credit he captures each viewpoint with care and accuracy and no-one comes across as a caricature.

The disappointment of the book is probably its realism if such events were to take place, which they have but not in the connected sequence that Kenneth Steven orchestrates. Britain has had terrorist attacks on public transport (2006 bombings), MPs have been murdered, Jo Cox (Labour) in 2016 and Sir David Amess (Conservative) in 2021, and Prime Ministers have resigned but not nearly for anything as horrific as in the book, and even in the book it is suggested he resigns because his affair was uncovered and not for the terrorism and political violence. 2020 turns everything up a notch, but only one notch, and so it all comes across as possible but because it is fiction it falls flat.

The writing itself is fine, there is an over reliance on words and phrases like ‘something kind of like’, ‘simply’, ‘just’, and ‘actually’ and all in combination that make the different viewpoints all read similarly. It is written as interviews and news bulletins after the events, a style I enjoy, and so everything is told, and it works. It’s short, 154 pages, and the majority are spent building up to the MP’s murder by illustrating what is broken in Britain and why multi-culturalism doesn’t work then in the last third or less Kenneth Steven tries to knit it back together and have empathy and unity win out but it doesn’t work and feels forced. The reality is if the events were to occur things would, as they did mid-last year with the Southport murders, crescendo and then settle again but that does not mean the crisis is over it just mean it is resting, readying for the next ignition.

Murder in Cormyr by Chet Williamson

A rather short murder mystery with conspiracy tangled in told from the perspective of the character gathering the evidence but not figuring out whodunit. Fun read where you can play along and try to figure out who the murderer is as our dear narrator, Jasper, does too.

If published today it might find itself in “cosy fantasy” as it is mostly taverns, ale, conversation, and a little bit of sleuthing by a part halfling who is a bit of coward and sometimes comical. Not a book to rush out and buy but if you find a cheap copy second-hand or at your local library it is worth a quick read.

On Substack

Oh, what to do about the meteor?

A marvellous short story from , comedic and sorrowful and serious all at once.

Jude’s Substack

Westlessness

Foreword…

A rich fantasy tale of wandering tribes, prophets, and warring kingdoms. A fine addition to the Chronicles of Cyron from .

Valley of the Old Gods: Part 1

A life of bloodshed and incessant warfare was all Ardysseos had ever known. Not yet thirty years of age, the young soldier had nevertheless fought in countless ferocious battles. He should have been relieved when the Nine Tribes of Shor-Dahn appeared on the eastern borders of Sparos to lay waste to his countrymen’s ancestral and bitter enemies, the Lamo…

a year ago · 14 likes · 4 comments · Josh Tatter

See you later this month for April’s review.

Thanks for reading.

February Reading Review

Redd Oscar — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 23:55:48 GMT

Here I write about what I have read in the past month and hope you find something you would like to read too. This month contains physical books and plenty of short stories and novellas on Substack.

Books Read 2025 - 4/52

On Paper

All Under Heaven by Rayne Kruger

I have read a number of these all-encompassing histories of China and each one highlights vastly different elements of her 4000 years of history. While my favourite era, the end of the Han and the Three Kingdoms period, is often condensed to a few dozen pages the whole history is fascinating. Throughout the cycles of dynastic change, disasters, natural and man made, and the technological advancement - such as the compass centuries before Europe for the purposes of geomancy around the 2nd century BC before being applied to military uses in the 11th century AD and then sailing shortly after in the 12th century AD, though there is reference to iron lodestone and the “south pointing fish” as early as the 4th century BC - it becomes clear there is a rhythm of human behaviour playing out between Emperor, Bureaucrats/Eunuchs, and the People all tangled within Heaven’s Decree. Disaster, whether environmental or manmade, occurs and a strong leader emerges to tackle it, sometimes he succeeds new laws are made that are harsh and strictly enforced. Government is slim, taxes fair, the treasuries full, and the Emperor has the Mandate of Heaven. Within a generation or two the laws are softened, enforcement grows lax the government balloons, expenditure with it, and the treasuries are drained, taxes are increased, despair spreads the Mandate is lost and either a dynasty is brought down or a coup occurs with some cousin or brother being made Emperor to establish continuity. Of course this is simplified but some variant of this story plays out in the Han, the Tang, the Song, the Yuan, the Ming, and the Qing dynasties, whether it will play out in the CCP dynasty is probable but the current regime of China is young, the CCP is 104 years old, while the People’s Republic was only proclaimed 75 years ago, and dynasties often last hundreds of years. However, between the dynasties named above are periods of protracted war where smaller dynasties and kingdoms are proclaimed and fight it out, some becoming hegemonic for a couple decades at a time.

If you are at all interested in reading Chinese history this book is a good start, readable and not too long. Another good one is Jonathan Fenby’s Dragon Throne which tells China’s history through each Emperor’s eyes. I would not recommend John Keay’s China unless you read more academic history or don’t mind a very slow and detailed read.

Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

This is in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold a series about time travel in coffee shops but you can’t change events only feelings and knowledge, and there you only have from the point coffee is poured to when it gets cold at which point if you haven’t drank it you become a ghost. And you can’t move from a specific chair in the cafe. Or visit anyone who hasn’t also visited the cafe. You can go backwards or forwards through time, though forwards is a lot harder to pinpoint who and when you’re trying to meet. The books have 4 chapters, each a story about a person travelling through time to meet someone important, all revolving around some relationship issue or personal problem that must be overcome. Before Your Memory Fades is a solid entry with a frustrating ending to the overall plot which means it will linger in my memory while the ending I was expecting would have faded.

This series is translated from Japanese and as such the story is very much told. Japanese fiction, and this series, is often to the point, straightforward, and plainly written. Don’t expect poetical or implicit writing.

I am currently slogging my way through Niall Ferguson’s Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe which is about disasters in humanity’s history and how they impacted the world. It is long but takes a long time to say anything resulting in a ponderous read.

On SubStack

First up is ’s Tupelo, Honey, a western which Josh is quickly becoming a master at penning. A story with a healthy amount of gunslinging and illicit love affairs written in a satisfyingly crisp manner.

Daniel Billock was not a successful gunfighter because he was particularly quick on the draw. In fact, for a habitual - albeit lawful - gunslinger, he was a bit on the slow side. No; what made him such a formidable adversary was the way his steely-eyed gaze and unflinching demeanor would unnerve those who were reckles…

Tupelo, Honey

a year ago · 6 likes · 3 comments · Josh Tatter

Next is another western with less gunslinging but just as rich language that feels like the wild west. His skill with the western is in the words he chooses and how the sentences fit together, it all pulls you in to a world of horses, dust prairies, and revolvers.

He was born a Cherokee quarter-breed in a West Virginia holler in the year of our Lord 1853. At the tender age of ten, his family sided with the Hatfields in what would prove to be a long-winded war with the dirt poor McCoys on the Kentucky side of Big Sandy River. In 1882, he participated in the killing of three McCoy br…

Spike

a year ago · 21 likes · 7 comments · Josh Tatter

Prisoner of the Megacorp is a promising opening for ’s new serial (I don’t know how long it will be). Full of tension and questions, with a protagonist you want to succeed.

Germanicus Publishing

Prisoner of the Megacorp

As she stirred awake, she was greeted by the freezing cold winds of the air conditioner. Her head felt heavy as her mind drowned in layers of brain fog; her limbs, sprawled on the floor, were barely responsive. Dominating the air was the strange scent of metal and unknown chemical, a constant reminder of her captivity…

a year ago · 7 likes · 4 comments · Michael P. Marpaung

’s forray into scifi has been a breakout success. The Lightbreakers of Orpheus is a tantalising tale following the treatment of a captured Rebel soldier who is brainwashed to listen to “the Voice” at all times and “self-terminate” if captured. Serialised flash fiction on Friday for Science Fiction Friday, well worth a read.

Kathrine’s Substack

The Lightbreakers of Orpheus

“The light is your enemy,” the voice wheezed through the biomechanics in his brain. Wakeup call was the worst part of the day…

a year ago · 37 likes · 33 comments · Kathrine Elaine

Sinkhole is a horror tale about things that should remain hidden and the curses that follow when the do not. has done great work with this one.

Tales on the Way

Sinkhole

a year ago · 11 likes · 7 comments · Brannley Miller

See you next month for March’s review.

Thank you for reading!

5 Stars: The Experience of A Lifetime…

January Reading Review

Redd Oscar — Sun, 02 Feb 2025 13:31:56 GMT

Here I write about what I read last month and update you on the progress of my yearly reading goal of 52 books. Everything on paper, some of my favourites from SubStack, and, this month, a film.

Books Read - 2/52

On Paper

The Last Daughter of Wolves by

A 60 page romantasy novella with likable main characters, a Wolfing in human form and a sensitive young man who prefers books to people. The romance is set in a dark fantasy world full of strife with a decent story to drive it along. Fast paced, has to be at 60 pages, with an immersive world.

Kathrine writes here on SubStack over at:

The Hero of Ages (Mistborn Book Three) by Brandon Sanderson

A satisfactory conclusion to the first Mistborn arc. Well paced (a surprise given Sanderson is known for his avalanche endings) with intriguing and surprising revelations alongsidge predictable twists. While his style is not my preferred he does know how to spin a plot and make an 800 page book seem short. The award for worst sentence must go to, “His sense of smell, like his other senses, was incredibly sensitive.” (Chapter 14, p.129). The sentence is functional, mechanically so, and loses all form and beauty because of it. That is Sanderson’s style, clear pane window, but there is certainly something lost because of it, including metaphor and subtext, “He fought on. And, as he did, the prevalance of death around him seemed a metaphor for all he had done over the last three years.” (Chapter 51, p.460) I think part of why Sanderson’s books are so long is that everything is spelled out, there is little that lingers once finished and few questions remain. This clarity has its merits, for one, it is easy to read, and two, it reduces misinterpretation. It does not prevent foreshadowing or hiding things in plain sight which Sanderson does do very well throughout Mistborn 1, 2, and 3. Revelations in 3 change how events in 1 and 2 are understood, but it does feel like it is all spelled out. Sanderson books are the furthest end of the clear writing style and their polar opposite is probably Steven Erikson’s Malazan series or Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun.

On SubStack

Disposal is a scifi story told through reviews. It’s dark and anything else I tell you would be a spoiler, I highly recommend it.

Andy Futuro

Disposal

a year ago · 23 likes · 25 comments · Andy Futuro

The next story I read on SubStack is a time travel novella that shared for a Throwback Thursday. I wasn’t sure what to expect but Ben’s a good writer and cranks up the tension just enough each chapter to keep you reading. I read the whole thing in one sitting.

SCRIBBLER -- A PORTAL TO FICTION

A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO TIME TRAVEL

3 years ago · 8 likes · ben woestenburg

’s Ride to Deadwood was next. A short Western full of drama and gunslinging. Mighty fine.

Dakota Territory, late 1800’s…

Ride to Deadwood

a year ago · 11 likes · 10 comments · Josh Tatter

’s Best Dad is a series of diary entries from a man with an unusual and terrifying ability but he is definitely not a murderer.

Deupawn: Burning Angels

Best Dad

Previous short story…

a year ago · 6 likes · 1 comment · Derek James Kritzberg

writes a jungle tale of mountain fiends and primitive man. Dark and foreboding.

Tales of Calamity and Triumph

Terrors From the Red Mountain, Ch. 1

A merry Sword & Saturday my fellow scribes and scriveners. Before I begin with my own contribution for the day, a bit of context for what you’re about to read. Roughly a year ago, I wrote a five-part primitive sword & sorcery novelette titled, The Claws of the N’longu…

a year ago · 1 like · 1 comment · The Man Behind the Screen

On Film

A comedy film about a tobacco lobbyist. The story follows the highs and lows of Nick Naylor as he faces off against a US Senator trying to force cigarette companies to print a skull and cross bones with the word poison on every packet, he has to balance his job defending cigarettes with being a role model for his son. Great film.

See you next month for the February review.

Thank you for reading.

Book Review: The Highwayman Kennedy Thornwick by Lisa Kuznak

Redd Oscar — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 01:30:07 GMT

Easily one of my favourite covers.

Due to Forlorn Hope being extended by a few chapters the Winter Season of Ixonia has fallen a little out of sync, hence a book review on a Tuesday. If you still want to read a short story after this review I’ve linked one from the Archive down below. Thanks for reading and make sure to check out Lisa’s book, it’s very, very good.

eARC kindly provided by the author. Can be purchased in ebook or paperback (on release) at Amazon (UK, USA, Canada). Goodreads.

Release date is 27th of February 2024.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

is the author of Pallas and Pull Me Under (serialised right here on SubStack). Her new book The Highwayman Kennedy Thornwick is a fantasy-western charting the lives of Tommy Fellham and Kennedy Thornwick. There's ~~six-shooters~~ flintlock pistols, a rebellion (or war of independence depending on allegiances), unscrupulous ne'er-do-wells, old money aristocrats, wealthy crime lords, a man trapped in bear form, affairs, robberies, mail wagon hold ups, and a whole lot of magic.

Part One of the book charts Tommy and Kennedy in Magelock Penitentiary, a prison for magic using criminals that suppresses their powers by the use of a massive charmstone. Tommy was scheduled for hanging yet the law changed and the death penalty was outlawed leaving a legion of prisoners stuck in legal limbo and awaiting court hearings. Safe from execution but at risk of life imprisonment Tommy and Kennedy get creative, letters from the outside world telling tale of lost loves and hidden fortunes spur them on, and they plot a prison escape.

This was my favourite part of the book. The world is rich and Kuznak drip feeds the relevant information to you over the course of the whole story until you end up fully immersed in the magical world. The prison part is compact, limited, and where we learn who Kennedy and Tommy are, what they want, what their dreams are, and why they're imprisoned (rightly or wrongly...). Within the first couple of chapters we know of Kennedy's lost love, Margery Castmoor, far to the north, living in the midst of the fighting and we learn that Tommy was framed, by his brother no less, and serving time for a crime he didn't commit. While Tommy might have been an innocent law-abiding soul pre-incarceration he has since became a criminal in his own right, whether by necessity or not is for the reader to decide. This is the crux of the book. You're reading the exploits of a bunch of hardened criminals, and Tommy, as they attempt to find lost loves, get rich, while avoiding the law, the Mage Hunters, and romancing innocents along the road.

Is it fun? Most certainly.

Would you want these people as your friends? Not in the slightest, they'd drag you into their own mire and lock you down in the filth with thick bonds of loyalty.

Loyalties are crafted, destroyed, and reforged as and when necessary. The gentler souls, Tommy and Anna, may have a sense of decency or, dare I say, honour, but are still willing to perform evil or at least go along with it. This extends to the truly decent folk met along the way, either they are swooning over the devils, have some secret crime enterprise, or are corrupted by our “heroes”. It's quite brutal for the law abiding how a little charisma and charm can ruin their life, sometimes without knowing what it is their getting involved in.

This book is not for the faint of heart. Visceral, bloody, and grotesque at times while also endearing, sweet, and heart-wrenching at others. I won't reveal where those descriptors go as to avoid outright spoilers but the first of these happens before page 50 when Tommy goes from sweet innocent wronged by the system to outright butchery involving the fingers of a fellow prisoner. How he deals with his nefarious actions is where the book is richest, and most heart breaking. Tommy deserves better but he has no hope given his choice of friends, not that he has much choice their either. All he wanted was a beautiful wife, a little house, and a good job but being framed for murder and horse theft destroyed all that. His position is not enviable, due to be executed, death penalty outlawed, little means of getting a retrial, so he ends up stuck in prison for something he didn't do. Breaking out of prison is a crime but being eternally imprisoned for no reason is unjust, so he is caught in an impossible choice. Beyond this choice, however, is where Tommy's character begins to really plumb the depths.

Part Two of the novel is outside of the prison, the world opens up massively and feels like a new story. First we learn more about magic with one well placed line.

“We don’t have time to go through our personal spell books until we’re all shuddering like whores in an orgy—check his leg!” Kennedy said.

Magic is personal. While the power is universal the spells are unique which adds quite a hefty limitation to the art, not only that but using magic causes exhaustion and in the worst cases, sleep. Even the most expert mages who can sustain spells for hours will have to sleep for many, many hours to recover. Magic allows for massive explosive spells and minor tricks like changing the suit of a playing card. Beyond this the limit is the caster's imagination, and how long they can fight off sleep.

Tommy Fellham continues and while there are little glints of hope for him the trajectory is downward. He has to go through hell, committing evil all the way, before he can emerge on the other side. No one said redemption was easy. At its heart The Highwayman Kennedy Thornwick is a love story. The loyalty of brothers, charity between friends, impulsive passion between lovers, budding romances, and xenia better known friendships of utility such as the rituals of hospitality. This is a story of the many ties-that-bind and how loyal someone should be to another, what breaks a bond and when is it right to sever a link?

Where Part One is confined to the prison, Part Three is confined to the city of Goodkirram. Though confined suggests small which the city is not. Here is where Tommy is really challenged with what life he wants to live, one of criminality or one of honesty. I'll leave you, dear reader, to discover how Tommy's story wraps up.

The worldbuilding is superb, whether it's the atmospheric descriptions or accented dialogue, the actions of men pushed to their wit's end or how magic and its prohibition by the church is shown to effect the lives of everyone. The world is easy to get lost in. While the reader is viewing it from the eyes of low-lives and criminals the whole time there is a hint of an honest world above, one which Tommy yearns to be part of (again) and one which Kennedy loves to take advantage of.

I won't say much more on the writing as my eARC was pre-final edit. The writing was immersive and convincing. The characters are complete, even minor ones have a depth that adds to each and every scene. Not every chapter is from Tommy's point-of-view and there were a few times where I had to double check who I was reading.

Story-wise the book is excellent and though I am left to wonder whether our criminal protagonists can walk the path to redemption or stumble off into the mire once more, I do feel for them and their plight. This is not a story of good people doing good things. Not even decent people. It's about ruffians and scoundrels corrupting others while Tommy (and Anna) desperately try to crawl out of the mire. It's not clear if they do.

Thank you for reading. The Highwayman Kennedy Thornwick can be bought here - UK, USA, Canada.

Those of you spoiling for a short story, don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. Enjoy!

Book Review: Dynasty Killers by Baptiste Pinson Wu

Redd Oscar — Sun, 17 Sep 2023 22:00:19 GMT

Review of Dynasty Killers (Three Kingdoms Chronicles #3) by Baptiste Pinson Wu

eARC kindly provided by author. OUT NOW! The series can be found on Amazon Kindle and in paperback. Amazon links: UK USA

*Spoilers Ahead*

Dynasty Killers accelerates the pace set in the previous books without losing any of the character or historical development. This book may contain the most intense period of the Three Kingdoms era where a great deal of events all occur and overlap within the same four years, starting in 196AD and finishing in 200AD. Lü Bu rises and falls in Xu province along with Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei moving around the central plains a great deal. Yuan Shao and Cao Cao clash at Guandu. Yuan Shu declares himself Emperor and perishes. Sun Ce, independent of Yuan Shu, conquers lands that later become the southern kingdom of Wu. And Zhang Xiu in Wan rebels against Cao Cao. It would have been easy to show some of this through letters or speeches but a great deal is shown on the page as our hero Liao Chun fights for his life time and time again.

This review will be shorter than previous ones as I don’t want to repeat myself. I have written more about characters and setting in my previous reviews for Yellow Sky Revolt (Book 1) and Heroes of Chaos (Book 2).

Plot

This is purposefully brief as a great deal happens all intertwined and my summary of it would be a disservice to Pinson Wu’s writing and the history itself.

Baptiste Pinson Wu creatively entwines Chun’s Scorpions, a special forces unit of Cao Cao’s army, into the history of the Three Kingdoms. He starts off spiking Zhang Fei’s wine to cause havoc in Xu, travelling south to attempt alliance talks with Sun Ce (and infiltrating another city in the process), to destroying Yuan Shao’s supply depot at Wuchao, and more all the while developing his relationship with Tian Guli, the other Scorpions, and Guan Yu amongst others. There’s a whole lot more in the book than that and it’s all fitted into a rather modest 398 pages.

There are many deaths within the book both of fictional characters and historical. The strong definition the characters have makes certain that each one has an emotional hit to Liao Chun and the reader.

Characters

The cast remains similar to the previous instalment with a few additions and changing dynamics. There is a growing tension throughout the novel between Liao Chun and basically everyone else. His fiery personality and all-encompassing commitment to Cao Cao places a great deal of strain on him and those around him as he is sent far afield alone or with a small group, experiences the death of close comrades, and more. Cao Cao, historically and in the book, becomes more determined and, from a certain point of view, more ruthless in his actions to reunite China. He is often portrayed as the villain for his colder and more distant approach to waging war and governing than his main rivals Liu Bei and Sun Ce, and later Sun Quan. Pinson Wu plays on this and uses it to create the divide between Chun and Cao so that Chun chooses to follow Guan Yu, and thus Liu Bei. An event multiple books in the making. This is historically who Liao Chun (aka Liao Hua) fought for until the end of the Three Kingdoms period and the time from his birth to joining Guan Yu is almost entirely unknown. Pinson Wu has taken great advantage of this blank page of history to craft an entertaining and historically grounded story of Chun’s early years.

The Scorpions, Chun’s band of highly skilled but misfit killers, has all the banter and thick bonds you’d expect of a group risking life and limb for each other as routinely as they do. At times echoing the dynamic of the Bridgeburners in Malazan. Entertaining to read and easy to root for.

Sun Ce and Zhou Yu, along with a plethora of Southlanders, make their appearance in Dynasty Killers. Fleeting though it is Sun Ce is well presented as the brash, short fused, warrior-king he is known for being in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Pinson Wu has turned this up to 11 for Ce as his personality is similar to Liao Chun’s but circumstance has placed them in disparate positions. This similarity creates abrasive and tense scenes between two characters still in the early days of proving themselves. Zhou Yu, on the other hand, is the mild-mannered and considerate strategist that serves as the counterbalance to Sun Ce.

Pinson Wu navigates the difficulty in working with well known figures of history whose characterisations are established making them instantly recognisable yet unique to his own take on the Three Kingdoms period.

Writing

Clean, concise, and precise. Written with a rhythm that makes reading a pleasure, and generally in a casual manner. Pinson Wu has developed his style well over the three books, a good sign for future novels in what promises to be a rich, lively, and long series.

Dynasty Killers finishes, what I would say is, the first arc of Liao Hua’s life. He has grown up, learned to fight, to take orders and give them, travelled the land, and chosen who he will swear fealty to till his dying breath.

The three current books can be found on Amazon Kindle for less than $10/£8 for the set.

Book Review: Heroes of Chaos by Baptiste Pinson Wu

Redd Oscar — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 18:30:16 GMT

Review of Heroes of Chaos (Three Kingdoms Chronicles #2) by Baptiste Pinson Wu

eARC kindly provided by author. Release date 15th March 2023. Amazon links: UK USA

*Spoilers Ahead*

Heroes of Chaos is a fast paced adventure through ancient China. Baptiste Pinson Wu has written a sequel that flows naturally from the first book without a hitch. He has once again managed to weave history and fiction together in a satisfying way. Heroes of Chaos errs on the casual side of historical fiction with regards characterisation and dialogue but retains all of the chaos of the Three Kingdoms era.

Everything regarding worldbuilding from my review of Yellow Sky Revolt applies to this book and I won’t be rehashing that.

Recommended listening while reading: Red Cliff soundtrack

Plot

In a short prologue Liao Hua discusses the events of Yellow Sky Revolt, book one, with Chen Shou before continuing his life’s story. Heroes of Chaos opens hard with the famous duel between Lü Bu and the Three Brothers, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei. BPW’s writing shines here and made a duel that occurred almost 2000 years ago seem like it could have turned out differently. An excellent first chapter that pulls you in and sets the tone for the rest of the book. Fast paced and full of action.

The story follows Liao Hua from 190 to 196 on his journey to becoming a professional soldier and finding his place within Cao Cao’s military. Through the wars in Yan and Xu provinces, quelling rebellions in Dong, avenging a death, recruiting a great officer, being imprisoned, and finding a girl, Liao Hua (Chun) does it all. While the first book focussed on Chun travelling with the Yellow Turbans and being too young to act much on his own, we now see him making an impact on the world. He may be ‘a ranker’ in Lord Cao’s army but his bristled nature and sense of self shows he is destined for more, if only someone would see it.

The novel is not 100% historically accurate, how could it be when we know little about the leading man. Some events have been altered in part or totally, some characters have been removed from the narrative and others added in. If you are familiar with the source material and other retellings than you will notice a couple but don’t let BPW’s creative changes deter you from the book and series. He has done an excellent job in crafting a living, breathing, Three Kingdoms. To those unfamiliar with the setting just jump in and have a great time.

Characters

The characters surrounding Liao Chun shift from teachers to comrades for Heroes of Chaos. Chun himself grows from boy to man becoming a soldier and then something more. We continue to see the introduction of big name historical characters, Yu Jin, Yue Jin, Xun Yu, Xu Huang, and more but also minor and fictional ones that are more personable with Liao Chun serving on the frontlines with him. His fellow students from the first book also reappear, namely Cao Ang, Man Chong, and Cao Anmin.

Yu Jin serves as our hard-nosed Captain who trains Liao Chun, and many others, from simpering fools - young and old - into disciplined soldiers. He is loud, foul-mouthed, and wants nothing more than his soldiers to be gods of war. He is a man you will respect but wouldn’t rush to share a cup of baijiu with.

Liao Chun’s immediate tent is made up of a ragtag team comprising:

Cao Anmin, the timid nephew of Lord Cao raised to leadership of the tent but lacking the personality to fulfil the role.

Wu Rang, ‘… could take a jibe from a comrade but would not suffer the foolishness of his superiors,’ aged 46 is nicknamed Grandpa. A veteran to fighting but it would appear never to a captain of Yu Jin’s temperament.

Du Yuan, ex-Yellow Turban who joined Cao Cao’s academy, alongside Chun, as a timid boy but developed into a fearsome warrior, aggressive and skilled.

Jiao Meng, the pampered son of a wealthy merchant, felt nothing but disgust for the life money bought and wishes to make himself into a man.

Bu Lao, or Pox, like the majority of the army is a farmer used to hard labour and unrefined behaviour. His face marked by pox scars.

Together they learn how to be disciplined soldiers, fight their first battles, and become an efficient killing machine on the front lines. Each of Chun’s unit quickly receive nicknames and BPW lays their individual character foundations in a few purposeful strokes of action and dialogue allowing each to develop throughout the story.

Of the established characters from the first book I will only talk of Xiahou Dun. Chun does not like Dun and while he accepts the man is a capable administrator he admonishes him for his lack of military prowess and severe rule keeping. Xiahou Dun’s soldiers complain about ‘the bastard in charge’ who serves punishments for made up mistakes. I don’t mind Pinson Wu taking liberties with the characters or history but with Dun I find it a little much at times. First is the change in how he loses his left eye. According to the Sanguozhi (Records of the Three Kingdoms) Dun loses his eye in a battle against Lü Bu but BPW has him lose it in when taken captive by some lowly peons instead. In Romance it is an arrow shot by Lü Bu’s general Cao Xing while Dun duelled Gao Shun. Xiahou Dun was taken captive by a false surrender trick and later rescued by Han Hao in the Sanguozhi and this has been altered a little to fit better with this story.

Second is the treatment of those in his command and care as the Sanguozhi describes Dun as a righteous man who “carried soil on his back like the peasants” when there was a drought and he blockaded a river for new fields to be planted on the riverbed. It also says “he was a prudent man to himself and generous to others,” though also “righteous but violent.” (All of this can be found here [LINK: https://kongming.net/novel/sgz/xiahoudun.php]. As can many other officer biographies from a range of sources.) Little of this fits with the character we see in Pinson Wu’s Three Kingdom Chronicles and for fans of Xiahou Dun it is hard to swallow the complete shift in natures. This is not uncommon for adaptations to Three Kingdoms era history, Chan Mou’s Ravages of Time features radically different interpretations of characters and events.

I trust BPW has something in the works later in the series for this rivalry of righteousness between Dun and Chun and given how little is known about Liao Hua’s life I do look forward to whatever he has planned out. His characterisation, actions, and responses regarding Xiahou Dun all flow and work well from a story telling perspective even if I dislike it. Though in storytelling some emotional response is better than none and as such BPW has done his job as a writer.

In general characters are well-defined and while some may be a little caricatured all-in-all it fits the tone BPW set in the first book.

Writing

First person perspective lends itself to a freer flow of consciousness style that matches the casual nature of Heroes of Chaos. You are in Liao Chun’s head and the world to him is full of injustice, often directed at him. This ego carries him far and farther still. He is loyal to those around him as much as he is to himself and the writing conveys this well.

It is evident in the writing that BPW is excited by this tale he has woven and that cheer spreads to the reader. Is it perfect? No, there are hiccups. Passages that lack rhythm, clunky sentences with too many commas, and sections that could have been tighter. These missteps do not hinder the story and the feeling and experiences of Chun emanate from the page and carry the reader.

4.5/5

Solid second entry into what is shaping up to be a brilliant series.

Book Review: The Ancient Gate by R. S. Penney

Redd Oscar — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 22:48:57 GMT

Review of The Ancient Gate (The War for Ezryn #1) by R. S. Penney

eARC generously provided by author’s manager.

The Ancient Gate is a combining of R.S. Penney’s Desa Kincaid and Justice Keepers series. Multiverse, blah blah, you know the drill. Everyone has to have their own Cinematic Universe or Cosmere knock-off.

This review is not going to be like my previous ones. I have no desire to write a long essay dissecting the book as much of what I said about Bounty Hunter by R. S. Penney (review here) remains the same. Despite almost 4 years and many, many, books he has not developed as an author. I agreed to review The Ancient Gate because I was hopeful he had improved over time, and I was intrigued by the cover art.

Unfortunately I was left disappointed and perplexed. Here we have a book worse than Bounty Hunter. Where Bounty Hunter showed signs of flourish and refinement, scant as they were, The Ancient Gate lacks. How that is possible, I don’t know.

Was it all bad? No. The cover is good, as our most of R. S. Penney’s book covers. Beneath the cover there are some good ideas but, as I wrote in my Desa Kincaid review, ideas are not enough. The writing needs to be of high quality. I am not talking about style here but the execution of said style. Penney’s work is focussed on character movement, feeling, and thoughts in a to-the-point way, a style that is all clear pane where the prose doesn’t impede on the story being told. Perfectly reasonable style, yet the whole way through the story is tripping over the writing. Whether it is cringe worthy dialogue, repetition, over-description, over-telling, showing followed by telling, uneven characterisation, inconsistent tone, or just verboseness. The ideas are let down by writing that required another draft or two.

I want these stories to be well written. There are good ideas nestled within and with a little more time from the author they could shine. I’ll admit the clear pane style is not my go to but I do read some works with that, and similar, styles. Even my own fiction writing is more clear pane than stained glass, and I want to improve, shift, and carve out a distinct voice. I don’t sense that from Penney’s work, I sense fast writing, under-edited, and published too soon.

Cool Ideas

Conscious bacteria able to be symbiotic with humans enabling magic; Bending.
Depression (Bleakness) as a punishment for sin.
Starships that are massive organic creatures.
Bio-matter as recyclable ‘shells’ for minds to inhabit and vacate at will.

These are not new ideas but they are cool ones and lend themselves to intriguing world building and setting up problems for characters to face and overcome.

Bending, like Field Binding, is a well thought out and fun magic system. The rules are easy to figure out, plainly told or shown to the reader, and both magics are used in creative ways whether in combat or solving problems.

*SPOILER WARNING*

For instance near the end of the book our heroes must overcome a fleet of organic starships that can absorb heat in massive quantities. Using a mix of science and fantasy they figure out that while starships, organic and not, are good at withstanding heat they aren’t good with cold because they don’t need to be. Space isn’t cold, per se, it is nothing and thus a good insulator because heat has nothing to pass to. Thus, with Field Binding, Desa can infuse a missile with a Heat Sink that cripples an organic starship. A clever and satisfying read balancing science fiction and fantasy with a unique solution to a life-threatening problem.

The fight scenes between characters armed with Bending and those with Field Binding also generates its own unique problems and solutions and here is where Penney’s ideas are strongest. Interlocking similar but distinct magics with their own drawbacks and advantages creates its own drama.

*SPOILERS OVER*

For all the cool ideas and the combinations that could develop the prose gets in the way.

Problems

The first paragraph of the Prologue:

Michael swung the bat as hard as he could, striking the baseball with a sound like thunder, sending it flying to the outfield. Billy looked up, desperately trying to track it, but the glare of the setting sun got in his eyes. Sweat made his glasses slide down his nose; he had to adjust them.

Every sentence has excess fat. Every sentence could flow smoother. Alternatives to illustrate my point:

Michael swung the bat striking the baseball with a thunderous crack. Billy shielded his eyes as he failed to track the ball in the glare of the setting sun. He adjusted his glasses and mopped his forehead with the back of his hand.

Or.

Michael swung the bat, his knuckles white, and hit the ball. A thunderous crack echoed through the park as the ball sailed high. Blinded by the glare of the sun, Billy failed to track the ball. Sweat ran down his temples and he adjusted his glasses.

Or.

Michael struck the baseball with a thunderous crack. The ball vanished in the glare of the sun. Billy adjusted his glasses, sweat beading on his forehead.

I only aim to illustrate my point and I do not claim my versions are better. The idea is conveyed in the original but it is stilted, especially the last sentence “Sweat made his glasses slide down his nose; he had to adjust them,” and continues throughout the entire novel, such as, “Checking the clock, she noted the time.” Just write “She checked the clock” or “She checked the time.”

In a similar vein we have repetition of showing and telling. For instance:

“Razor said nothing. When it came to Isara, silence was golden. The most innocuous comment could provoke her. And yet, she was also capable of random acts of kindness. You never knew what to expect from her.”

The last sentence adds nothing, or the previous two don’t. Either way the repetition of telling is grating. But instead in this scene was a prime opportunity for showing rather than telling. I won’t quote at length, it’s multiple pages, but the gist is: Isara leads an army. She has tremendous power while also being attractive. She likes to sleep with the soldiers that stare at her, and many die in the experience. A soldier stares at her, another elbows him. We are told, via Razor, she might not have noticed and then that two soldiers are on a mission and are overdue. The quote above follows about random acts of kindness and cruelty. All of this could have been rolled into one scene of showing the reader these things instead of telling them.

A scene where Isara notices the soldier staring at her, goes over to him, sees he is a recruit and strikes up a flirtatious conversation. Asks about him, coos a little and invites him for a drink. Razor hears the other soldiers warn him about her but the soldier is too smitten to hear. And as Isara is walking away threatens those she sent on a mission with execution (or something else) loudly for all to hear the punishment for failing her.

This is merely an idea but the point is the need to show the reader character traits and events rather than tell them. Telling has its place but in this book it is too common. Continuing with repetition consider the sentence “The creature endured blast after blast, but somehow, it survived the onslaught.” If the creature endured then it survived, no need to repeat. Not to mention the commas are redundant.

Next we have inconsistent tone and poor word choice, the example being, “The bat endured it all with ease, laughing off their pitiful measures.” The bat, an organic starship, didn’t actually laugh but the choice of phrase doesn’t fit the circumstance. The scene is in space, in the middle of a battle of life and death, and we have “laughing off”. The tone is all wrong and the phrase doesn’t mesh with the creature being described. This occurs time and time again throughout the story and makes for tiresome reading.

This is only a sample of the problems, major and minor, with the book. I have skipped over inconsistent characterisations, over describing of scenes and layout of the world, and political commentary with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer amounting to little more than warmed up Star Trek. To cover them all would be a significantly longer review which I am not prepared to write.

1/5

Ratings are particular to the reviewer. There is no universal way for us to gauge how we each feel about a story. We can dig into the qualities of the craft and come to some sort of consensus but even then there will be disagreements. The closest is assessing a story on its own internal logic, tone, and apparent aims but even then just watch an EFAP episode and disagreement is still rife.

I’m not a fan of number ratings in reviews but I do rate books on Goodreads and Storygraph. There you can parse out what I like, why I like it, and the ratings work relative to one another, but that’s all. One man’s 1 star is another man’s 5 star. For me, The Ancient Gate, is firmly, 1 star.

Book Review: Yellow Sky Revolt by Baptiste Pinson Wu

Redd Oscar — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 01:13:52 GMT

Review of Yellow Sky Revolt (Three Kingdoms Chronicles #1) by Baptiste Pinson Wu

Offered to write a review for the author after purchasing the book myself.

*Spoilers Ahead*

Yellow Sky Revolt is an action packed adventure following the life of Liao Hua, a historical warrior during Three Kingdoms China whom we know little about. Being historical fiction there are events and characters that must appear and Baptiste Pinson Wu does a brilliant job of weaving history and fiction together to create an exhilarating romp through ancient China, regardless of reader familiarity.

Plot Summary

This is a rundown of Liao Hua (Dun/Chun), I’ve missed out a number of characters.

Yellow Sky Revolt follows Liao Hua during the Yellow Turban Rebellion and the beginning of the Tyranny of Dong Zhuo. The prologue sets the scene, Liao Hua is an old man and has seen his Kingdom, Shu-Han, fall to the might of Wei near the end of this turbulent period of Chinese history. He has been summoned to the Wei capital and asked by the victorious general Zhong Hui if he would write down the history of Shu-Han. Chen Shou is assigned as Hua’s scribe, a young man, idealistic and born into comfort, a comfort built by Liao Hua and his many, many dead friends and heroes. Hua is bitter at Liu Bei’s son, Liu Chan “that piss poor example of a son,”having lost the war. He is bitter at Chen Shou for being young and soft handed, unused to the hardship his predecessors, Liao Hua’s friends, had to suffer to build Shu-Han. He is bitter he has to ride in a carriage rather than on a horse, even at 83. But he agreed to tell his story, rather than slit his own throat, and so he begins with his childhood and becoming involved in the Yellow Turban Rebellion.

Liao Hua, named Liao Dun as a child (I will discuss naming and other cultural factors later on), is a boy of 6. His father is a farmer, a mild mannered and, in Dun’s eyes, weak man and his sister is a baby. Dun’s hero is his Uncle Cheng, an Adept of the Way - a healer and travelling warrior - spreading the word of the Great Peace founded by Zhang Jue. Cheng Yuanzhi visits Dun’s village of Fa Jia Po every few months and Dun looks forward to it every time. A boy obsessed with fighting and battles and martial prowess while the adults around him try, and fail, to temper his martial instincts.

Liao Dun travels with his Uncle Cheng to the massive city of Xiangyang on the pretext of selling the family’s crop there will fetch a higher price. While there they witness the execution of a fellow Adept of Cheng Yuanzhi’s, He Luo, who screams, “Death to the blue sky,’ before the executioner botches the job. When He Luo’s head is held up the crowd respond with silence, not adulation, and the Yellow Turban uprising is all but guaranteed. Dun, being a child, pisses himself and faints later waking on the back of his empty cart. Cheng returns with fresh clothes dyed yellow and with a long length of yellow fabric which Dun ties round his waist. The pair travel back to Fa Jia Po and Dun promises not to tell his father of the execution until Cheng has left town.

Dun shares the story of He Luo’s death and while his father is angry at Cheng the story spreads and gains a life of its own. Soon the whole commandery knows of the injustice. Months go by before Cheng returns and when he does the rebellion has begun. He is being chased by Han soldiers of the local militia and tells the villagers of Fa Jia Po to get rid of their yellow “belts” and to hit him and tie him up to make it look like they are loyal to the Emperor. The soldiers arrive, arrest Cheng, and leave but Dun and others think this an injustice. They retie their belts, find what few weapons they have, mainly farming tools, and plan an ambush on the soldiers to free Cheng. The plan works with minimal losses and Cheng is at first angry but thanks them all the same. He tells them the yellow cloths aren’t belts but turbans, meant to be tied around the head. The villagers can’t return to Fa Jia Po and Cheng offers to lead them to the city of Wan to join up with the Grand Adept Zhang Mancheng who is leading the revolt across the nearby commanderys and provinces. And so, at age 8, Liao Dun marches to war…

Dun wants to learn war. Fighting. Riding. His father is against it and while Cheng attempts to temper Dun’s desire at first he soon relents and along with Deng begins the boy’s training.

Along the road to Wan more and more peasants join the march and soon thousands are following Cheng Yuanzhi. They arrive and find Zhang Mancheng, the Grand Adept, leading the siege of the city but only on one side. Messengers are readily escaping from other gates and Imperial reinforcements will soon arrive. This, along with prior tensions, create sparks between Cheng, Deng, and Zhang. The Grand Adept is portrayed with a lack of military prowess and somewhat conniving character that works well as an early pseudo-villain for Cheng, Deng, and Liao. He is an ally, being of the Yellow Turbans, but obvious grudges and tensions run between Cheng and Zhang which Liao Dun does not always understand. Zhang orders an attack and Dun’s father is killed in action. Following the siege, sack, and capture of Wan Cheng Yuanzhi is ordered north to the main Yellow Turban camp. Dun marches, along with thousands of others, from Wan to Julu having to cross the Yellow River and avoid Imperial armies.

We meet the three Zhang brothers, Bao, Liang, and Jue who lead the Yellow Turbans and while Bao and Liang are distant Jue is not. Jue has had a dream of an eagle landing amidst their camp, signalling the end of the blue sky - Han Empire - and beginning of the yellow. Coincidentally Dun had been nicknamed Eagle-eye by those who marched from Wan to Julu. As such Dun is asked to participate in a ritual with the Grand Master. The man of mystery at the heart of the Yellow Turban Rebellion is shielded from the eye of his followers for good reason. He is deathly ill and when Dun arrives at Julu and meets him he can scarcely believe it. Zhang Jue is dying and Dun is sworn to silence. Dun is sent with his uncles to find food and protect Ji province from approaching Imperial forces. While Cheng Yuanzhi’s Golden Eagle division is successful the same cannot be said for the other Yellow Turban forces. Zhang Mancheng dies and Sun Jian eventually retakes Wan. Other Han generals, Lu Zhi, He Jin, and Huangfu Song see success also but the heroes are The Three Brothers, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei, who under the command of Zou Jing are advancing on the Yellow Turban main camp in the mountains of Julu. The Golden Eagle force marches back but is ambushed and almost entirely destroyed. Deng Mao is slain by a ferocious warrior with a serpent blade while Uncle Cheng falls to a ruddy faced warrior with a flowing beard. Dun is devastated and in the ensuing panic is knocked unconscious and captured by the Imperial forces.

Many months are spent in a bamboo cage forced to labour and fed little. The Imperial army is unable to crack the Yellow Turban’s final mountain camp, the weaving valleys and peaks making for difficult terrain, as well as the hundreds of thousands of rebels. On a fateful day Liao Dun overhears a conversation between three army officers about Zhang Jue and blurts out his secret. The man is dead, or close to it. The commanding officer of the three is none other than Cao Cao and asks the boy to explain while his officers, Xiahou Dun and Yuan listen on. Dun is brought to Cao Cao’s tent and as a reward for his information (corroborated by other prisoners that know Dun performed the ritual with Zhang Jue) is offered a choice, back to the cage or swear fealty to Cao Cao. He would be trained in courtly and martial skills, taught to read and write, and serve Cao Cao in his militia. Liao Dun accepts whole heartedly on two conditions that Fat Ling, a friend and guardian from Fa Jia Po, goes free and that Cao Cao helps Liao Dun to find who killed Uncle Cheng so he can kill him. Cao Cao accepts.

Liao Dun’s (now Chun) fortunes change drastically and he is soon in Chenliu, Cao Cao’s city, being educated alongside the sons of powerful nobles including Cao’s own, as well as other “strays” that Cao Cao has found in the years of the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Differences are immediate and fights between the strays and nobles are common until a particularly brutal event results in a punishment where Liao Dun and Cao Ang (son and leader of the school boy nobles) make peace. It is not easy going. Years pass in this school until Dun is 13 and Dong Zhuo has seized control of the Empire. During this time Cao Cao comes and goes from Chenliu to Luoyang often until he returns a final time with Chen Gong and waving a call to arms supposedly written in the Emperor’s own blood. Cao Cao claims to have failed in an attempt to rid the land of Dong Zhuo. The call to arms is copied and spread far and wide until an army gathers. The Loyal Rebels gather near Hulao Pass and prepare to face off against Dong Zhuo’s forces led by Hua Xiong. Around this time Cao Cao discovers the name of the man leading the man who killed Uncle Cheng. Liu Bei. As fate would have it he joins the Loyal Rebels alongside Gongsun Zan at Hulao Pass, while other divisions marched on Luoyang from other directions. Alongside Liu Bei is the bearded warrior who clew Uncle Cheng.

Hua Xiong, a skilled warrior eager to prove himself to Dong Zhuo, challenges a champion to a duel - a common event in ancient China - and proceeds to slay three expert warriors in quick succession. The Loyal Rebels cannot go around Hulao Pass otherwise Hua Xiong’s forces would be behind them and the Loyalists surrounded. Guan Yu, a man of little renown and low rank, offers to slay Hua Xiong, but the generals are unwilling as he is a nobody. Cao Cao offers Dun an opportunity to indirectly slay his uncle’s killer and gives his favour to Guan Yu. The customary wine is brought but Guan Yu says he will drink it after he has Hua Xiong’s head. No sooner than he leaves the soldiers are heard celebrating and Guan Yu returns with the enemy commander’s head, his wine still warm. Liao Dun inadvertently makes Guan Yu a hero.

Worldbuilding

Ancient China is a historical period rife with potential and little known in the west, save through games like Dynasty Warriors and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Baptiste Pinson Wu has given life to the Three Kingdom’s period by including a wealth of foreign and ancient culture to craft the world of 2nd century China.

To start with, names, surnames are first, given names second. But we also have childhood and adulthood names. Liao Dun becomes Liao Hua once he reaches adulthood, which is not in this first of a, hopefully, many book series. Within the nobility, moneyed, and courtly classes there are courtesy names. Cao Cao’s is Mengde. It is rude for someone his age or younger to use his given name, Cao, rather than his courtesy name, Mengde. A man older than Cao Cao may get away with using his given name but it depends. Furthermore, it would also be rude to call an adult, Cao Cao, by his childhood name, Cao Anmin, though this has not yet come up in the story. Those familiar will be glad to have this included and those unfamiliar do not worry Baptiste Pinson Wu has pulled off the naming conventions very well. It is clear who is who and the reader will be able to follow along without issue as BPW has limited the use of courtesy names only to prominent characters.

BPW has chosen to include Chinese measurements too, so cun, li, shi, and others appear. Usually these are applied in the lightest way, word changes, cun instead of inch, li instead of mile (which is 1/3 of a mile), and shi instead of hour (which is actually 2 hours). These changes help the worldbuilding and storytelling while posing no issue for the reader’s understanding.

Other terms are included, such as zuoyi, liangguan, dao, and jian but again are utilised in a way that doesn’t impact understanding while adding to the worldbuilding. When the reader needs a little extra information BPW will include it, for instance for a zuoyi which is a military salute were one’s fist sits inside an open hand around chest level. These things are explained and the exposition flows as you experience the world through Liao Hua’s memory of his life. Later in the story we are treated to the most important of arts, poetry, and its companion, calligraphy even being shown how different styles of calligraphy will be important in later books. These are all impactful to the story, character development, and plot and helps craft a rich and vibrant view of ancient China.

Being a historic period there are events that have to happen, happened a certain way, people who existed, and some who didn’t. BPW has included some of the romanticised events, and characters, from Luo Guanzhong’s legendary Romance of the Three Kingdoms rather than the more factual Records of the Three Kingdoms. Though both have errors. Historically speaking Romance has been absorbed into Chinese culture to the point where veering from the novelised events is often frowned upon. Those familiar with Dynasty Warriors will be familiar with Romance as well and find great enjoyment in Yellow Sky Revolt. It is also clear BPW has done a wealth of research on the history and culture of China and taken the pains to get things as accurate as possible while maintaining creative flexibility. BPW has weaved together his fiction, with Romance, and Records with impressive elegance. I especially enjoyed Liao Hua’s first encounter with Guan Yu and the subsequent encounter at the end that weaved his own ideas with Luo Guanzhong’s.

Characters

From the moment I met Liao Hua I liked him. He’s a grumpy old man detesting the youth that lost the Kingdom he helped build and called home. Furious that the young man, Chen Shou (the writer of Records of the Three Kingdoms) is happy there is peace rather than angry his now former-Emperor’s dream is dead. Hua was much the same as a child, fiery and eager for excitement. We follow Liao Dun on his journey from a 6 year old son of a farmer to an 8 year old Yellow Turban in revolt against an Empire and all the way up to thirteen as a messenger for Cao Cao and more during the Loyal Rebels attempt at removing the tyrant Dong Zhuo from power. For a child Dun is not passive and while events unfold around him it certainly feels like Dun plays a part in moving the story along and the older he gets the more he drives events.

Uncle Cheng Yuanzhi and Uncle Deng Mao, uncle being an honorific and not necessarily to do with blood, are affable, healers and warriors of the Way of Great Peace. It is easy to understand why a fiery child such as Dun who longs for battle and fighting would look up to this pair of skilled warriors who are free to roam the land doing what they are called to. Both care for the boy and teach him basic fighting, horse riding, and more mostly out of necessity. The land is dangerous and chaos is coming.

Zhang Jue is a master of illusion. Hiding his own calamitous health from almost all his followers, excluding his brothers and the high ranking Adepts. His way of healing is also a mirage. There is no magic, though it is claimed there is, but understand it is about confession. A person’s ill health is often caused by a build up of guilt and admittance of this guilt can cure the individual. Uncle Cheng admits this late in the rebellion and Dun is amazed and hurt by the revelation. But he undergoes the healing with Uncle Deng and attests to it’s power first hand. A grand leader, an expert in people, Zhang Jue builds the Yellow Turbans, during his one on-page appearance, to a religious frenzy all with help of Liao Dun.

After the Yellow Turbans are crushed we are treated to a who’s who of Three Kingdoms heroes and villains. Dong Zhuo, Liu Bei, Cao Cao, Xiahou Dun, and many officers in Cao Cao’s forces which will be well known to fans of Dynasty Warriors and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Many follow an expected portrayal with slight warping from the story being told from the point of view of an old man remembering his childhood. This difference helps set Yellow Sky Revolt as a distinct work while also flowing with the point of view of the book. I found Xiahou Dun to be the biggest difference to how he is usually portrayed.

Cao Cao, as always, lives up to his moniker - the Hero of Chaos. A cunning and perceptive man capable of war, leadership, poetry, and strategy. Careful and at times machiavellian he sees the world for what it is and holds considerable ambition for himself and by extension those around him expecting only the best from those he deems trustworthy enough to serve him. Though an off line of dialogue about not being able to house another orphan of war because “my wife will kill me,’ struck me as un-Cao Cao-esk. The wife in question, Lady Ding, did poison Cao’s concubine who birthed his eldest son, and heir, Cao Ang, so perhaps the fear is justified, while Lady Ding has been unable to birth any children.

Xiahou Dun is a strict task master, firm with the rules and law, free with the cane, and straightforward to the point of boring in Liao Dun’s eyes. An expert at military logistics and prickly around honour. Cao Cao sends Liao Dun to Xiahou Dun’s household instead of his own. Liao Dun becomes Liao Chun by Xiahou Dun’s request and Cao Cao’s order. Chun is poor at serving around the Xiahou household and the general’s wife sends him to work in the stables where the boy excels under the tutelage of old Xin Ping. A lazy, knowledgeable, one handed stable hand who teaches Chun a great deal about caring for horses. At every point Chun is learning the skills he needs to survive in war torn land and at every point it is enjoyable to read.