Book review

Adventures in Bookland: Tank Commander by Bill Close

18 December 2019
Edoardo
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Categories: Blog, Book review

These are the astonishingly laconic memoirs of Bill Close, who fought in the 3rd Tank Regiment from the fall of France in 1940 to the end of the Nazi regime in 1945, with stints in Greece, Crete, North Africa, Normandy, France and through Germany. I lost count of the number of times Close had his tank shot out from under him, with men in his crew either injured or killed, yet every time he got back into another tank and continued fighting. In our therapeutic times, he would have been invalided out of the army for stress but Close just kept on going, only stopping when he was physically incapacitated through injury. But once he recovered, he got back in his tank. There’s also an appreciation of another astonishing tank commander, Bob Crisp, Test cricketer and, according to his Wisden obituary, the most extraordinary man to ever play Test cricket. Read Crisp’s obituary and you will agree, but Bill Close was not far behind.

Adventures in Bookland: Severed by Nate Crowley

18 December 2019
Edoardo
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Categories: Blog, Book review

The fourth in Black Library’s novella series and my favourite thus far, in particular for its gonzo take on the Necrons. Who would have thought you could successfully transplant Jeeves and Wooster onto a bunch of sentient robots? But with his class clash twosome of aristocratic but barking mad Zahndrekh and devoted but doubting servant Obyron, Nate Crowley does exactly that – well, insofar as is possible in a galaxy of constant warfare and thoroughly unpleasant monsters. And as is the way with the best comedy, the end becomes surprisingly moving. Highly recommended for the quality of the writing, conception and characters, and a thoroughly individual take on the 40k universe.

Adventures in Bookland: Inferno! Volume 4

17 December 2019
Edoardo
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Some great Warhammer and Age of Sigmar short stories in here, with a particular highlight for me being Denny Flowers’ The Hand of Harrow, which manages to inject a little humour into a universe not notably blessed with laughter. The volume also has a particularly good story, ‘Green and Grey’, about a tank loader trapped in a wrecked Leman Russ who starts to hear the approaching roar of a raiding, and looting, party of Orcs. It’s by some chap called Edoardo Albert.

Adventures in Bookland: Genghis Khan by Frank McLynn

17 December 2019
Edoardo
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Categories: Blog, Book review

Having read Lionheart and Lackland, Frank McLynn’s enthralling twin biography of Richard the Lionheart and his younger brother John, I was looking forward to his life of the world’s greatest ever conqueror, Genghis Khan. But while McLynn brought Richard and John and a cast of other characters (particularly the psychotic troubadour Bertran de Born) vividly to life in Lionheart and Lackland, he never achieves the same synthesis of historical scholarship and storytelling verve in this book. Genghis Khan and his band of generals remain obstinately stuck on the page rather than entering the reader’s imagination: ciphers with an astonishing propensity to slaughter vast numbers of people. Maybe the problem is the one Hannah Arendt identified: evil tends to banality, and after slaughtering the inhabitants of yet another city for having the temerity to resist the Mongol onslaught, it all becomes, for the reader, a little tedious. Also, given the vast areas conquered and the part that rapid rides across difficult geographies played in the Mongol conquest, the book’s allergy to maps is really rather puzzling. Many a page describing how the horde rode here, there and on could have been rendered superfluous and more understandable with a map. Still, the book is a solid overview of the conquests of the Khan and his immediate descendants.

Adventures in Bookland: Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian

9 December 2019
Edoardo
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This is my first re-read of Master and Commander (I read it first about 15 years ago) and, if anything, it’s even better second time around. What sets O’Brian apart from the run of historical novelists, and that sub-set that write about the Napoleonic wars, is his use of the language of the era in a way that remains true to the early 19th century while being appropriate for modern readers. Couple this with, in Jack Aubrey and Steven Maturin, two of the most vivid characters ever written and you have the start of what is the best series of historical fiction novels ever written. All that’s left to say is, time to start rereading Post Captain!

Adventures in Bookland: Candide by Voltaire

8 December 2019
Edoardo
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Categories: Blog, Book review

There aren’t many books that are still funny, as the saying goes, laugh-out-loud funny, in translation almost three hundred years after they were written. Candide is one of that extremely select group. The sheer fact that the Church somehow survived the, often deserved, ridicule heaped on her by Voltaire, and the the subsequent attentions of the revolutionaries, does tend to support her view of herself as a divinely instituted and protected institution – just as well, really, since if she was a wholly human institution the incompetence and cupidity of her ministers would have seen her consigned to history not long after the Enlightenment assault upon her. There is no better instrument in dealing with the particular weaknesses of the religious psychology than ridicule, and Voltaire’s application of that to the church is salutary and, probably, necessary.

Adventures in Bookland: Isha’s Lament by Thomas Parrott

30 November 2019
Edoardo
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Number 3 in the second Black Library Novella series and the standard hasn’t dropped at all – if anything, it’s improving. Brakus Andradus, the ex-Imperial Guard sniper with a mordant tongue and a death wish, makes for a suitably driven 40k hero, but Parrott skillfully blends him with a varied cast of Aeldar, Dark Aeldar and the other ne’er do wells that skulk around the Blackstone Fortress, hoping to make their fortunes or find their souls. It’s a great setting, and Parrott does it justice, with something of the deep weirdness of the Fortress itself coming across in the denouement. A fine novella and hopefully notice of a major new 40k writer. Get it here.

Adventures in Bookland: Wreck and Ruin by Danie Ware

30 November 2019
Edoardo
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Nuns with guns in the 40th millennium! Really big guns. Plus a female Inquisitor, all on the trail of a Chaos witch (who is actually a man). With these bolter-toting women gunning for him, the Chaos witch doesn’t really have a chance, but Danie Ware does a brilliant job of keeping the suspense ratcheted to the max while riffing on the tension between the sisters and the inquisitor. A thrilling, enjoyable read. Indeed, so well do nuns go with guns that someone should really suggest the concept to Pope Francis. I think the Bridgettines would be an ideal order to begin weapons training with – as you can see below! Get Nuns at the Run – I mean Wreck and Ruin – here!

The Bridgettines – ideal candidates for nuns with guns.

Adventures in Bookland: Iron Resolve by Steve Lyons

30 November 2019
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review, Warhmmer 40k

This is the first in the new Black Library novella series and Iron Resolve gets the set off to a storming start with its transplanting of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift from Natal, South Africa, to the jungle planet of Kallash in the 41st millennium. What’s more, it’s the field hospital in Kallash that suddenly finds itself under attack from an army of feral Orcs. They don’t seem to do Victoria Crosses for the servants of the Emperor, but a fair few of them would have deserved the honour by the end of the novella. A diverting and entertaining read. Get Iron Resolve here.

Adventures in Bookland: The Leeward Islands Squadron by Chris Durbin

12 November 2019
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review

Excellent continuation of the naval adventures begun in The Colonial Post-Captain. While it doesn’t have the depth and colour of O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels, it does have the advantage of a writer who served in the Navy himself and who understands the sea and sailing in a way that no landlubber author can match. Captain Carlisle and Lieutenant Holbrooke are engaging characters, the setting (in this case the Caribbean) is vivid and the story, drawing on the real-life exploits of 18th-century frigate commanders, is as extraordinary as the exploits of those naval commanders. Thoroughly recommended to fans of naval adventures.