Teaser Tuesday (8 February)

Teaser Tuesday once again...

                Submit! 

               After more than five decades of unrelenting mental strife, T'Prynn's answer remained unchanged.

               Never. 

ST Vanguard: Harbinger, David Mack

The ancient Greek philosophers, as ever, had their own vies about the nature of living things and, as in most of their well-meaning pronouncements, they were utterly but engagingly wrong. The self-styled god Empedocles, for instance, shortly before he unwisely chose to demonstrate his own divinity by hurling himself into the crater of Mount Etna, had supposed that animals are built from a universal kit of parts which, conjoined in various combinations, gave elephant, gnat, horned toad, and man. 

p. 6, Galileo's Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science

"That's how you do it!" he shouted at the archers, 'you rip their bellies open, shove blades in their eyes, slice their throats, cut off their bollocks, drive swords up their arses, tear out their gullets, gouge their livers, skewer their kidneys, I don't care how you do it, so long as you kill them! Isn't that right, Father Christopher?"
"Our Lord and Saviour could not have expressed the sentiment more eloquently, Sir John."

p. 106, Agincourt. Bernard Cornwell.

This is funnier in context, wherein a warlord berates and cajoles a group of new men being trained to fight under his command; ever tirade is followed by a bland  affirmation from the warlord's chaplain. I don't know if Cornwell meant to make Sir John Cornwaille sympathetic or not, but his blustering dialogue was great fun to read aloud throughout the book. 

Agincourt

Agincourt
© 2009 Bernard Cornwell
451 pages

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers -- for he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, be he ne'er so vile.  This day shall gentle his condition, and gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day." 

("Henry V", William Shakespeare. 'Harry' is speaking.)

In the year 1066, William of Normandy crossed the English channel and claimed England's crown as his own.  In the year 1337,  William's distant relation Edward III returned to France to return the favor.  Thus erupted the Hundred Years' War, a succession of wars punctuated by treaties, royal deaths, and plague. The French bore the worst of it, as her enemies were not all across the channel:  the French kings never quite had control of their vassals, and following the madness of King Charles VII,   France fought not only against the English but against herself when rival houses vied to seize the crown themselves. In the midst of that furore, Henry V landed in Normandy  intending to achieve great things. He brought with him young Nicholas Hookton, a man declared outlaw in England after gut-punching a randy and addled priest.  Nick is a master longbowmen plagued by enemies who is determined to save his soul by accomplishing great deeds of his own -- and as an archer destined for Agincourt, he will do just that, for Agincourt is one of the most singularly famous triumphs in English history.


Like most Cornwall heroes, Nick is a decent man in troubled times, forced to succeed not only against enemies in combat, but against personal foes. His exile from England began with a blood feud, and the two men with whom he has a date with death will arrive in Normandy in their own sweet time. Agincourt begins in the winter of 1413 and ends immediately after the famous battle, during which time Nick survives the sacking of  Soissons, the dreadful siege of Harfleur (of "Once more into the breach, dear friends.." fame), and the road to Calais which will be interrupted by death, horror, and glory. He serves England along with some of the more colorful characters I've ever read, and the king of them is the blustering Sir John Cornewaille, whose fantastically hilarious speeches are filled with references to guts, bowels, bollocks, and detailed instructions on how to maim and savage the enemy. I took perverse pleasure in placing Robert Lindsay in his role, given Lindsay's 'large ham' moment in The Duel, a Hornblower movie based on "The Even Chance".  Cornwell's writing is top-notch: the dialogue is lively (very fun to read aloud), and during battle scenes his pacing and use of short sentences punctuates the text like drum-beats, emphasizing the drama of war.  When the titular battle begins, Cornwell uses multiple viewpoint characters -- essential given that the archers, including Hook, ran out of arrows fairly quickly.

I've heard many explanations for the English victory at Agincourt, various scholars placing more emphasis on the climate, the setting, or the weaponry. I wondered if Cornwell would favor one of the other. His depiction honors the skill and potency of the archers, their weapons, and  the horrid battle conditions (I knew the field was muddy, but had no idea the French were forced to march through deeply plowed ground which made maintaining cohesion difficult and limited their speed), but also mentions a lack of French organization, which seems commonplace in other battles of the time (like Crécy).  As is usual for Cornwell, the amount of small details is enormous, and gruesome to read during the battle scenes.

Though I haven't read the majority of his work, I'm most impressed by Agincourt: it is right up there with The Lords of the North, and should find fans among most of its readers. Those interested in medieval stories will find it especially appealing.

Related

• The Hundred Years War: England in France, Desmond Seward. My favorite Hundred Years War text, used in two term papers to successful effect. (The first was on Jeanne d'Arc,the other on the role that internal French rivalries played in the course of the war.)
• "Henry V", William Shakespeare
• Grail Quest series, Bernard Cornwell. Set during the war, and starring another master archer named Thomas Hookton. 
• Great Tales from English History II, Robert Lacey. 
• Animorphs, Megamorphs #3: Elfangor's Secret, in which a time-traveling slug controlling an actor's mind travels to Agincourt in hopes of killing Henry V, just to keep the actor from quoting the 'band of brothers' speech over and over again.

Harbinger

Star Trek Vanguard: Harbinger
© 2005 David Mack
388 pages

Cover Art: Doug Drexler.  

Returning from from the edge of known space and haunted by the memory of having to kill his best friend, Captain James T. Kirk is astonished to find a massive, fully-operational Starfleet base far from the Federation's core worlds. Starbase 47, also known as Vanguard, sits at the entrance to the Taurus Reach, an unexplored area of space that has evidently caught Starfleet's attention -- for reasons unknown to Kirk, and to most of the Vanguard crew, save the four officers briefed by Starfleet Intelligence. Kirk is only too happy to put in for shore leave and enjoy the aminities of the station, but no sooner are his ship's repairs done than does terrible news reach the base: the USS Bombay, attached to Vanguard, has been attacked. Because Vanguard's other ships are away on assignments of their own, the base commander asks Kirk to investigate Bombay's disappearance -- and a mystery involving a 'map written in the stars' begins to unravel.

Star Trek Vanguard is hailed as one of the superior Trek series out there, and I've been curious about for a long while. I almost started the series at its inception in 2005, interested by the space-station setting. Like Deep Space Nine, the Vanguard books will make use of long-running plot arcs, in this case a great mystery hidden inside the Taurus Reach that has the Tholians and Klingons interested to boot. Though Jim Kirk and the Enterprise make a strong showing here, Vanguard isn't their series:  while the Enterprise will move on to the rest of its first-season adventures (the Gary Mitchell episode starting TOS) following Harbinger, Vanguard's robust set of characters will explore the mystery of the Reach and avoid war with their prickly neighbors. In addition to the usual Starfleet folks, Mack introduces a soulful Vulcan woman with a mysterious past who works for Starfleet  Intelligence; a charming rogue with his own cargo ship who sometimes breaks the law, but isn't as big a rascal as Mal Reynolds or Han Solo;  and Tim Pennington,  an enthusiastic reporter whose overactive interest in what Vanguard is up to may get  him in trouble.  The writing is superior, as is to be expected from Mack: particularly in regards to dialogues. He does emotionally difficult speeches and snappy conversation well.  There are plenty of  little references to Trek canon (and lit-canon), which help in reader immersion, and the setting (immediately following "Where No Man Has Gone Before") sees the transition from the pilot sets and uniforms into the TOS era, where command officers wear gold,  operations wear red, and "women wear less".

Excellent start to the Vanguard series: the reader is thrown into the thick of things from the get-go as the Vanguard officers try to keep a lid on their operation in the amidst of alien aggression, tragedy, and a conscientiously nosy reporter. I'm looking forward to what transpires. This series looks to have been planned well from the star: the book even includes diagrams of the station, which was most helpful.

Related:

• Star Trek Vanguard on TvTropes
• Author's Annotations, including a funny story about a cold little bird and a hot cow pie.
• David Mack's  home page and Memory Alpha bio
• Vanguard at Memory Alpha

This Week at the Library (26 Jan - 2 Feb)

In terms of blog news, I've linked the entries in the cumulative reading list up with their respective reviews and comments. I also added a new label, 'occupational accounts', which applied toward 50 Jobs in 50 States and Waiter Rant. I enjoy reading about occupations; I used to follow blogs from policemen, soldiers, and so on. It's not a genre I've read much from here, though there's one book (Hack: How I Stopped Worrying About What to Do with My Life and Started Driving a Yellow Cab) I'm sort of interested in.

I started this week off with Beyond Band of Brothers, the memoirs of a recently  deceased parachutist, which I remain ambivalent about. Electric Universe kept me busy through the weekend, fascinating me with science, the transformation of society, and tales from history I'd never heard before. On Monday evening I realized I'd been sent a galley to review exactly a week before, only I didn't realize  it. I opened 50 Jobs in 50 States up to look at its prologue, and remained reading for a couple of hours.  Generally impressive: I especially enjoyed learning the details of all the many jobs, though some of them -- especially the chapter in a meatpacking plant -- were gruesome.  Lastly, I read another entry in the Titan series, one which has fun with the space-time contiuum.

2011 Nonfiction Reading Challenge Update:
Since the challenge began, I have read six applicable books, three of which I added this week:
Beyond Band of Brothers (Memoir)
Electric Universe (Science)
50 Jobs in 50 States (Travel).

My tally thus far:

• Science (2)
• Travel (1)
• Money (1)
• Memoir (1)
• Undetermined  (1) [Rise and Fall of Bible, either culture or art. Not sure yet.]

Next Week's Potentials:

• From Here to Eternity, Jim Jones. I have been reccommended The Thin Red Line, but it's second in a trilogy of swords. From Here to Eternity examines life in the pre-war army, and inspired the movie that turned Frank Sinatra's career around.
• Depending on what arrives in the post, I may finish off the Typhon Pact series with Paths of Disharmony, or start the much-hailed Vanguard series. 
• First World War by Keegan is probably a keeper, though I haven't started it yet. 
• I also have my usual dates with St. Gus. 

Sword of Damocles

Star Trek Titan: Sword of Damocles
© 2007 Geoffrey Thorne
370 pages

While exploring a dark-matter nebula, the USS Titan receives a distress call from her sister-ship Charon. Braving inexplicable subspace turbulence, Titan proceeds through darkness to find a topsy-turvy solar system where people live in terror of a god whose eye haunts their sky and rains down destruction at the slightest provocation. Sword of Damocles is more a high-concept book than Taking Wing (political/action thriller) and Orion's Hounds (scientific/adventure thriller): the plot is driven by a magnificent distortion in the space-time continuum, one involving  temporal mechanics and multidimensional shenanigans.  The book begins with its own epilogue, and the plot is similarly contorted, told from multiple perspectives within time and dimensions. As fascinating as the story was, trying to wrap my head around the central idea left me making "o_O" faces at the book, a face not relieved by my perusing of articles on tesseracts.


Though the scientific paradox at work takes up most of the book, Thorne also engages in a good bit of character development, focusing on some of my favorite characters (Commander Christine Vale and Cadet Dukal, the ship's resident Cardassian). He uses two characters -- a mystic Bajoran scientist named Jaza and a strictly rational ensign who sees faith as 'perverse' -- to explore the relationship between science and religion, though it's a timid venture and not altogether successful. Both characters lacked the nuance necessary for an effective take on that subject, though I enjoyed seeing their friendship grow throughout the book. It's not as though they had much of a choice in the matter, given that they had been thrown thousands of years into the past and were mucking around the ruins of a Luna-class ship, ostensibly the Titan.

Sword offers an interesting story and a fair bit of character development in a mind-twisting setting. Definitely memorable and mostly enjoyable, though I'm hoping for a little lighter fare next time. This is apparently Thorne's first full-length novel:  strong first showing, I'd say.

Related:

• Star Trek Titan at TvTropes
• Sword of Damocles at Memory Alpha
• Geoffrey Thorne at Memory Alpha

Top Ten Book Debuts

The Broke and the Bookish inquire: what are some of your favorite debuts by authors?

In no particular order...and bear in mind these are just the first ten authors I thought of that qualified.

1. Syrup, Max Barry

Max Barry loves to satirize corporate America, and this take on advertising and marketing may be his best novel.

2. Life in a Medieval City, Frances and Joseph Gies

Before seeing this book in the store a few years ago, my perception of the medieval era was that of William Manchester's: the Middle Ages were a long, bleak time in which nothing besides war ever happened. As I found out through this book and later studies, the medieval epoch had a life of its own, albiet not as philosophically rich or politically stable as the Roman period.

3. Stiff, Mary Roach

Mary Roach started a series of books incorporating interesting science, humor, and gruesome detail with Stiff, which I read in late September and enjoyed far more than was appropriate, given this was a book about the uses of dead people.

4. A Stitch in Time, Andrew Robinson

Andy Robinson's debut novel is remarkable for being the first Deep Space Nine novel set after the end of the television series, but is notable as well for being penned by the actor who portrayed the mysterious Mr. Garak -- plain, simple Garak, an ordinarily tailor and not in any way connected to the fearsome intelligence agency of Cardassia, the Obsidian Order.

5. The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins

This is, as far as I know, Dawkins' first published book, and one that still informs my science reading. While the book's focus is a gene-centered view of evolution, he also coins the word 'meme' to describe ideas which are passed from person to person and change over time: a 'meme' is the building block of cultures. Meme has become a very popular word: how many Facebook and Blogger quizzes, surveys, and games have been labeled as such?

6. Barefoot Boy with Cheek, Max Shulman

Bareboot Boy is not the first Shulman novel I read, though it's the only other Shulman work I've read that comes close to matching the brilliant wit of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. It's a satire of college life, particularly liberal-arts academica, and so delightfully silly that even reading my comments on it amuses me.  Good memories.

7.  Redwall, Brian Jacques

This was my first epic fantasy novel,  one that introduced the world of Mossflower to me. I'd never read a story like it before, and even though I probably haven't read it in a decade, I can still remember how many little stories it contained inside the greater narrative.

8. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling

I've read the series several times now, listened to the audiobooks once, and have watched the movies...more times than I can count. None of them capture the charming magic of the Potterverse the way the original does, and I suppose none could -- since it's as new to Harry as it is to the reader, and we enjoy the wonder through his eyes.

9. In the Forests of the Night, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Rhodes wrote this book, one of my very favorite fantasy titles, when she was fifteen. 

10. The Boxcar Children, Gertrude Chandler Warner.

Though the four siblings (Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny) later made a series of solving mysteries,  the first book reads more like an adventure. Four orphans decide to run away on their own, rather than stay with their grandfather, whom they think to be very mean. They find an abandoned boxcar in the woods and make a home of it.  This story enthralled me as a kid -- I loved reading about how they cooked for themselves and did their own laundry. 

-- Questionable Bonus -- 

11. Avatar, S.D. Perry

I'm cheating here, as Avatar is not Perry's first work. It is, however, her first contribution to Star Trek literature and it initiated and gave shape to the entire Deep Space Nine relaunch, which was an unprecedented "eighth season in book form" with rich characters and a continuity of its own. Other relaunches followed in DS9's -- and Perry's -- footsteps. While the Relaunch decision was probably made by the editors, Perry made it work. 

Teaser Tuesday (1 February)

Rabbit rabbit, it's teasin' time again.

"I'd like to rent a car for the night," I told the agent, selecting a good old-fashioned white Jeep Wrangler. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I was ready for my usual Jeep routine and scouted a place to sleep for the night. I drove to the nearest hotel parking lot and, in my usual fashion, climbed into the backseat to rest.

At 4:00 a.m., I returned the car. When I turned in my keys, the employee checked my mileage. "Two miles?" he asked, bewildered. 

p. 250, 50 Jobs in 50 States. Daniel Seddiqui.

"What are you doing there, you lazy batos?" said a voice he instantly recognized as his mother's. Which was odd because he was sure he remember her as being quite dead for quite some time. 

p. 6, Sword of Damocles. Geoffrey Thorne.