The third and final part of my new story, Staring from the Abyss, is now up on the Zeo Genesis website. Marius Gwerre is trying to get the man he has been hired to protect to safety on the Abyss Station. But something is after them, something more powerful than even Gwerre could imagine. Read the story here.
The bridge had been breached. Whoever was after Halem had peeled open the most secure space in the Abyss Station as if it was a food can.
That at least answered one question. Only a zeo could do that.
This is narrative history as it should be done: a story that’s as compelling to read as any novel but which is nevertheless deeply grounded in the primary sources with the necessary leavening of later scholarly analysis. It’s not actually an easy balance to pull off but Thomas Smith does so masterfully. He sets his stall out in the very first pages where he reconstructs the Crusader assault on a fortified stone tower squatting in the middle of the River Nile, guarding access to the vital port city of Damietta. Smith vividly brings the battle to life, plunging the reader into the reality of crusading, where knights far from home had to adapt to entirely new conditions and challenges. In this case, they adapted by building floating assault stations, lashing together boats and building siege towers on them to allow their knights direct access to the upper storey of the Ayyubid fort.
But not only does Smith bring these campaigning vignettes to vivid life, he also illuminates the context for the calling of the Fifth Crusade, the reasons for its enthusiastic adoption and the complex preparations necessary to transport thousands of knights and their accompanying logistics across Europe and the Mediterranean. Where Smith really shines, though, is in showing how a campaign that started so well slowly fell apart as the result of a cascade of poor decisions, each of little particular importance but ultimately fatal when they came together in the disastrous decision to march south on Cairo.
If you read just one book about the Fifth Crusade, read this one.
Part 2 of my story, Staring from the Abyss, is now live on the Zeo Genesis website.
What had been a routine bodyguarding job for Marius Gwerre suddenly turns serious as the Abyss Station comes under attack from unknown enemies. You can read it here. And if you haven’t read part 1, that is here.
Here’s a taste of the action:
“What’s going on?” asked Halem. “Is it a flare?”
Marius ran to the crystal dome. He looked out.
There.
A ship, fast burning towards Abyss station.
But even as he fixed the ship by sight, his feeds flared out again. Whatever this incoming ship was, it was able to blank out sensor arrays. Not many factions were able to do that.
“What’s wrong?”
Marius turned around to see Warq staring at him.
He gestured out into the black. “We have a visitor.”
Venice and the Mongols by Nicola di Cosmo and Lorenzo Pubblici
There are books of popular history. There are academic histories. And then there are books that straddle that divide. Venice and the Mongols attempts to do that and almost succeeds. Its success comes through the authors, despite being eminent professors, almost entirely escaping the usual word salad of academic writers, and the excellent translation by Sylvia Adrian Notini. The failure lies in the very specific focus of the book, which is both its strength and its weakness.
As a history of the trade relations between Venice and the Mongol Empire, it will surely become required reading; this is the best sort of forensic historical work, with not only qualitative investigation of the trade in goods as varied wax, dried fruit, wine and slaves, but detailed charts showing the equivalence of various weights and measures between Venice and the Mongol Empire.
However, the detail of the examination, and the breadth of the Mongol Empire, requires of the reader a reasonably thorough understanding of the politics and history of the region from the time of the Mongol invasions through to the rise of the Ottomans – and that’s a long time, a lot of people and quite a few fairly short-lived realms.
One myth that the book lays to rest is the recent notion that Marco Polo fabricated his memoirs, never having travelled further east than Persia. However, Polo’s knowledge of Chinese trading practices, down to specific details of areas as specific as Hangzhou’s tax revenue offices, proves that Polo was, indeed, what he claimed: a confidant and officer of the Great Khan.
This book is also what it claims to be: the best history yet written of Venice and the Mongol Empire.
There are some books that are defined by their titles. 1984. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Guns, Germs and Steel. However, there are others that are undone by their titles and Conquest is one of them. Any reader scanning the bookshelves would think this a detailed account of the Roman conquest of Britain – after all, that’s what it says on the cover! But in fact, the conquest only takes up about a quarter of the book.
A better, but less marketable title, would have been Britain: from prehistory to posthistory by way of the Roman occupation. What Addis does, and does brilliantly, is weave the history of Britain from a time before there was any history (that is, before any local historical records) into the wider history of Europe and then take that through the conquest, the centuries as a somewhat restive Roman province, through to the fall of the western Empire and the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons.
Addis is particularly good at bringing readers up to date with the astonishing results of aDNA testing, which is completely rewriting our understanding of the movements of people in prehistoric Europe. Archaeologists, suspicious of tales of the mass movements of people, have been busily reinterpreting all such migrations as cultural transfers. However, what is now clear is that many of these cultural transformations were indeed the result of one lot of people moving in and kicking out the previous residents: the Beaker folk and the Anglo-Saxons among them.
This is narrative history at its best but don’t believe what it says on the cover: the sweep of this book is truly panoramic, from the end of the Ice Age through to the start of modern Britain, and it deserves the widest readership. Hopefully, the title won’t put potential readers off.
ZeoGenesis is a new tactical skirmish game set in the universe of the Hundred Suns, where the civilisations of the different systems travel via slipways to the different heliospheres, each committed, to varying degrees, to either the philosophy of the Hegemony, which seeks to unify the Humanverse under a single government, or the more anarchistic Accord, who want to let each heliosphere develop according to their own lights, despite the fracturing this will cause.
Most of humanity’s material needs have been met through Z-technology but this has also spawned a new style of combat: Zeoforms, big armoured suits that their operators control through the Kanai-Edelman Bridge, which provides for direct mental control of the Zeoform. These are fast, tough, rugged battle suits that work at speeds far beyond normal human capacity.
As yet, both sides avoid outright war but there are skirmishes, raids and other provocations as each try to enhance their control. But there are other powers at work of which neither the Hegemony nor the Accord are entirely aware. These include the Fleet, the ancient fleet that piloted humanity, on the run from both an alien civilisation and a devouring AI superintelligence, to the Hundred Suns, and the benign superintelligence that seeks to guard and hide humanity from the powers that would destroy it.
For a thousand years, humanity has lived in relative peace, safe among the Hundred Suns. But now people are beginning to think that the Hundred Suns are not so much a refuge as a prison, while distant rumours tell of things beyond imagining searching for the location of the Hundred Suns.
It’s a truly fascinating setting and it’s a great pleasure to write a story (hopefully the first of many) set in this universe. The game was designed by Andy Chambers and the lore is by the great Gav Thorpe, one of the most legendary names in game designing.
My story is called Staring From the Abyss and here’s the beginning:
Marius Gwerre, bodyguard to the rich and occasionally the famous, looked up at the crystal dome. Beyond, the stars spread across the void. They were turning, slowly, gently, in a vast circular dance as the abyss station danced, too, spinning slowly on its axis while it orbited the Pinnacle slip point.
“This is so…so real.”
Gwerre looked down from the wheeling stars to the man who was speaking. Warq Halem. The man whom he had been employed to protect by Halem’s clan family.
And the question occurred to him: Why?
Gwerre watched as Halem’s commentary, relayed through his feeds, brought an answering chorus of real-time responses. Yes, it was true, the man had his followers, but anyone with a crackpot theory and a loud enough voice could always attract a following. It still didn’t seem sufficient reason for Halem’s clan family to have contracted Gwerre as close protection.
Will Sergeant is a few years older than me and he played guitar in Echo and the Bunnymen, one of the bands that formed the sonic accompaniment as I sat in my teenage bedroom, drowning myself in teenage angst, ambitions and anxieties. At that age, music has a greater impact than at any other stage in life and the Bunnymen were one of the key influences in what I became. What’s more, I went to a lot of gigs when I was young and among those were some key Bunnymen concerts, including their legendary show at the Royal Albert Hall in 1984. So when I saw that Will Sergeant, of the fringe and the scowl and the jagged guitar, had written a memoir of his life as a Bunnyman, I wanted to read it – particularly as Sergeant wasn’t himself a particular hero. I would fight shy of reading the autobiography of my real musical heroes for fear that they would reveal the boots of clay, and the personal failings, that underlay their music. But Sergeant wasn’t Mac: he was the guy standing beside him on stage. It would be safe to read his memoir.
And indeed it was. This was an entertaining foray down shared experiences of growing up in the sixties and seventies: the bombed-out sites left over from World War II, the grey estates, the poor food, the general lack of supervision, the sudden crazes, from clackers to chopper bikes, and the appalling treatment by teachers in schools. It brought it all back.
Then Sergeant met the rest of the Bunnymen – well, apart from drummer Pete de Freitas, whose job was originally taken by a drum machine. It’s notable how things fell into place for the Bunnymen, who benefited from being in the right place at the right time, as well as interesting gossip on how the other Liverpool bands of the late 70s and early 80s, particularly how Julian Cope formed Teardrop Explodes.
There’s remarkably little rock ‘n’ roll excess – some desultory drug taking but really what comes through most strongly is how set on being cool Sergeant and the Bunnymen were – and how they succeeded.
It’s an enjoyable story that’s competently written, rather like listening to Sergeant reminisce at the pub.
There really is a radio programme called Literary Friction hosted by Carrie Plitt on NTS Radio. Of course this is a scam but I replied to see what would come back and here is the answer.
So here’s where it switches to trying to get money from the writer. No legitimate radio station would charge £150 for a Zoom interview. Next step in extracting money.
I suggested the next day at 9am. They just so happened to have a slot available.
I queried the account name – not obviously related to Carrie Plitt or NTS Radio.
I then mentioned that I had heard there were some dastardly people running scams and, while I hoped this wasn’t the case, could they reassure me. I must say, this is where the fraud really comes into its own.
The registered company name is correct so on the face of it, it seems legitimate. So well done, fraudsters, for doing some research. I will now reply saying that Carrie Plitt hasn’t heard of me (sadly, she hasn’t), and see what the response is.
They don’t give up easily! However, I wrote back saying I had spoken to Carrie Plitt, who confirmed that she, unfortunately, has never heard of me.
Here’s another scam email I just received. It’s better than most – what author doesn’t dream of a Hollywood producer getting in contact, wanting to turn his book into a film. What’s more, The Stone Quarry is a legitimate production company and Deborah Snyder really is the head of the company. So it looks legitimate at first sight. But let’s see what happens when I reply. After all, if it’s a real film company, they will pay me money for the rights to use my book. A scammer will have to change that around. Let’s see how pseudo Deborah does that.
I, along with many other writers, have been receiving many, many emails recently, purporting to be from readers or publishers, but which are actually AI-generated scams. Here are two recent examples. Would you fall for them?
