Category Archives: Review

Review, Scenes from a Life

A new review of ‘Scenes from a Life’

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This 5* review of Scenes from a Life appeared a few days ago on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/review/R6J302CZ1LN1Y/ref=cm_cr_dp_title), and I am delighted to share it in full:

Richard Abbott’s latest book “Scenes from a Life” nearly floored me! It’s a revelation about this journey we call life, the connectedness of people, choices, events. We are not always in control of what happens to us — sometimes we are, sometimes we aren’t. Our choices (this is not news), how we handle ourselves and deal with others, reveal who we really are. Discovering and facing the truth about ourselves can be a struggle on many levels; that challenge is wonderfully addressed in this book.

At first, the main character Makty Rasut, an ancient Egyptian scribe specializing in the design and decoration of tombs, is an interesting but not particularly empathetic character. As the story flows through a series of dreams and real life encounters, his past and the depths of his personality are gently revealed. The author employs a technique I’ve never encountered before, with a chapter concerning the past alternating with one in the present. It works, connecting people, places, events, and cleverly reveals to us what makes this young man tick. What surprised me was the timelessness of some of Makty’s concerns and how relative they are in our modern world.

But with Dr. Abbott’s works, history and life truths go hand in hand. I found the history of tomb design/decoration and the description of life in New Kingdom Egypt and the area of Canaan to be very interesting. The author provides notes, maps, and a glossary that, in my opinion, comprise a small primer on the lands and people of those times.

I was glad to become reacquainted with some favorite characters from his previous book “In a Milk and Honeyed Land”. Richard Abbott’s stories are not over-emotional, but they are beautiful and sensitive. They are not textbooks, but the reader cannot help but learn. They are not travel books or fantasies, yet one is transported.

Highly recommended.

After preparing this post another 4* review also appeared on Amazon: let’s hope there are plenty more to come.

Historical fiction, Reading Challenge, Review, Writing

Review – My Splendid Concubine, by Lloyd Lofthouse

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My Splendid Concubine is set in 19th century China, as seen through the eyes of Robert Hart, an Irishman posted to Ningpo by the British civil service as an interpreter. The main part of the story covers about a decade, starting in 1854 as he arrives. A brief epilogue narrates his final departure in 1908.

Buy My Splendid Concubine from Amazon.co.uk
Buy My Splendid Concubine from Amazon.com

Cover image - My Splendid Concubine
Hart is a fascinating character, who became completely enamoured with Chinese culture and devoted his life to it. At the start this focused on tackling the immediate human horror of opium addiction, sponsored by European mercantile interests. As he proved his ability and loyalty, and rose in rank within the Chinese bureaucracy, he became able to tackle internal corruption and external threat on a much wider scale. For all this, he was trusted and honoured in quite extraordinary ways by the Imperial dynasty.

Lloyd’s story mixes Hart’s official and personal lives, and in particular the ways in which his love for a girl he took as concubine shaped, and ultimately conflicted with, his advancement. Hart begins the book driven by pure hedonism (constantly at war with his Methodist upbringing), but gradually converts this into a rather exhausting level of altruistic service. By the end of the story, his personal relationships have been pushed firmly to the back, and are driven by the same commitment to duty as his official tasks.

As other reviewers have commented, the early parts of the book are heavily laced with sexual detail. This is, I think, not gratuitous but mirrors Hart’s own preoccupation in his younger days. As he becomes more committed to his work, so his attention largely turns to political and cultural matters. The pursuit of pleasure is still present, but its target has broadened. His sex life dwindles as his political life expands.

Lloyd clearly has great passion for this place and time, as well as for Hart himself. He went to considerable trouble to track down documentary sources outside those which were readily available. Unfortunately, the actual production of the book shows less care than the research behind it. There are a surprising number of spelling and grammatical mistakes. Stylistically the occasional insertion of historical notes or comments on future actions tends to throw you out of the story, and I think these could have been incorporated more smoothly. He talks at some length about aspects of Chinese culture which were strikingly beautiful – in contrast to Hart’s first impression of smelly squalor – but the writing itself retains very little of this elegance. The few extracts from Chinese poems scarcely make up for the general lack of style.

The book has two major sections, which give the impression that they were written separately and then simply combined without continuity editing. Several episodes from Part 1 are carefully explained in Part 2, which might have been needed when released separately but make no sense now the book is a whole. Some Chinese phrases, such as “lose face“, are italicised early on to show they have a technical meaning, but are treated as normal text later. On the other hand, the epilogue, which deserves to be presented as a separate section, runs straight on from the previous chapter – this is confusing when first read. Some parts of dialogue carefully use period-specific terms or direct renderings of Chinese terms, but these are mixed with words like “okay” which jar somewhat.

In short, a four star book for me. Lloyd successfully invites the reader to appreciate this part of Chinese history, and the challenges of Hart’s own life. It is an unusual setting, and deals with a remarkable man. However, the execution of the book distracts from the story in various ways, and I could have wished that the prose style mirrored the content more closely.

Historical fiction, Reading Challenge, Review

Review – The Mystery of the Egyptian Scroll

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The Mystery of the Egyptian Scroll, by Scott Peters, is a children’s book set in New Kingdom Egypt, in and around the southern city of Luxor. The pharaoh of the time is deliberately unspecified.

Buy The Mystery of the Egyptian Scroll from Amazon.co.uk
Buy The Mystery of the Egyptian Scroll from Amazon.com

Cover image - The Mystery of the Egyptian Scroll
The plot is lively and straightforward; two children who run a market stall selling pottery, witness a neighbour being accused of theft, and take it upon themselves to investigate. In the process they find out that the accusation is false, but that there is a much deeper and more sinister plot behind it. Basically, in adult terms, they have stumbled into the path of a political move aiming at a palace coup – a problem which did indeed face certain pharaohs of that time.

This is a children’s book, so the writing is simple and direct, the characters’ motives are plain and easy to grasp, and the children are supremely competent at solving the problem (albeit at considerable risk to themselves and their family).

But the book is also a fantastic introduction to Egypt for children. Places, people and customs are well explained and engaging, so the book is highly educative as well as fun. Problems are solved by thought, perseverance, q the gathering of evidence, and negotiation with key people. There is no magic, and religion is dealt with as a normal part of everyday life. I would happily use this book as a way to bring something of the reality of ancient Egypt to life for a young audience.

Technically the Kindle copy I downloaded had a number of problems, in particular with incorrect representation of some characters such as apostrophes. This made the book hard to read in places, especially for a younger audience. I understand that this problem is being addressed and should be fixed before long.

Overall a four star book for me – although I prefer adult fiction, I can easily see myself reading The Mystery of the Egyptian Scroll with young people wanting to learn about Egypt.

Fantasy, Reading Challenge, Review

Review – Initiate, by Tara Maya

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Initiate, by Tara Maya, is a young adult fantasy book with a difference. It is the first in a series with overall title The Unfinished Song. Unlike some of the standard fantasy settings – such as medieval era swordsmen or contemporary vampires – Tara has placed her story in a Stone Age context. So life is at a tribal subsistence level, and there is no writing, and virtually nothing one would describe as technology. Coming from my own preferred Late Bronze Age setting, this had a refreshing simplicity and directness.

Buy The Unfinished Song – Book 1: Initiate from Amazon.co.uk
Buy The Unfinished Song – Book 1: Initiate from Amazon.com

Cover - Initiate by Tara Maya

Tara has deliberately not geographically located the tale, but to me it has a Central American feel, with a mix of arid and fertile land, forest and plain, and transport routes between the tribes often following rivers.

The premise of the magic is not exotic herbs or complex spell-casting, but forms of dance. These are tailored to the situation, and differ between men and women as well as the desired outcome. It is a mixture of sympathetic magic, symbolic power and actual connection with the unseen world. There are distinct echoes of George MacDonald’s flower fairies – not the simple pretty ones of modern poster art, but the darker and more mysterious ones of his fantasy fiction.

As befits a young adult book, the story revolves around a coming of age initiation ceremony. The story follows various groups of initiates as they head towards the traditional holy place, a set of concentric stone circles. Along the way we get insight into back-stories by means of visions or direct recollection.

The story is young adult – intimacy or violence is touched delicately rather than in detail, and characters are clear-cut in motivation and personality. It is also only the first in a series, so ends on something of a cliffhanger. I’m never totally convinced that I like this, and feel better about stories that are closely linked but stand alone. However, this first book in the series is free to download from a number of the usual sites, so you get a chance to see how much you like it before buying in to the series!

Technically the book was well produced. A tiny handful of typos do not in the least detract from the story. The navigation worked well on my Kindle copy.

YA is not really my thing, and on balance I would have preferred the same storyline and setting with more depth and ambiguity in the telling. But so far as I can tell this is a good book of its kind, and I am very happy to give it a solid four stars.

Tara kindly supplied on request a short biography, book blurb, and extract, which now follow:

Bio:
Tara Maya has lived in Africa, Europe and Asia. She’s pounded sorghum with mortar and pestle in a little clay village where the jungle meets the desert, meditated in a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas and sailed the Volga river to a secret city that was once the heart of the Soviet space program. This first-hand experience, as well as research into the strange and piquant histories of lost civilizations, inspires her writing. Her terrible housekeeping, however, is entirely the fault of pixies.

Blurb:
A DETERMINED GIRL…
Dindi can’t do anything right, maybe because she spends more time dancing with pixies than doing her chores. Her clan hopes to marry her off and settle her down, but she dreams of becoming a Tavaedi, one of the powerful warrior-dancers whose secret magics are revealed only to those who pass a mysterious Test during the Initiation ceremony. The problem? No-one in Dindi’s clan has ever passed the Test. Her grandmother died trying. But Dindi has a plan.

AN EXILED WARRIOR…
Kavio is the most powerful warrior-dancer in Faearth, but when he is exiled from the tribehold for a crime he didn’t commit, he decides to shed his old life. If roving cannibals and hexers don’t kill him first, this is his chance to escape the shadow of his father’s wars and his mother’s curse. But when he rescues a young Initiate girl, he finds himself drawn into as deadly a plot as any he left behind. He must decide whether to walk away or fight for her… assuming she would even accept the help of an exile.

Extract:

Blue-skinned rusalki grappled Dindi under the churning surface of the river. She could feel their claws dig into her arms. Their riverweed-like hair entangled her legs when she tried to kick back to the surface. She only managed to gulp a few breaths of air before they pulled her under again.

She hadn’t appreciated how fast and deep the river was. On her second gasp for air, she saw that the current was already dragging her out of sight of the screaming girls on the bank. A whirlpool of froth and fae roiled between two large rocks in the middle of the river. The rusalka and her sisters tugged Dindi toward it. Other water fae joined the rusalki. Long snouted pookas, turtle-like kappas and hairy-armed gwyllions all swam around her, leading her to the whirlpool, where even more fae swirled in the whitewater.

“Join our circle, Dindi!” the fae voices gurgled under the water. “Dance with us forever!”

“No!” She kicked and swam and stole another gasp for air before they snagged her again. There were so many of them now, all pulling her down, all singing to the tune of the rushing river. She tried to shout, “Dispel!” but swallowed water instead. Her head hit a rock, disorienting her. She sank, this time sure she wouldn’t be coming up again.

“Dispel!” It was a man’s voice.

Strong arms encircled her and lifted her until her arms and head broke the surface. Her rescuer swam with her toward the shore. He overpowered the current, he shrugged aside the hands of the water faeries stroking his hair and arms. When he reached the shallows, he scooped Dindi into his arms and carried her the rest of the way to the grassy bank. He set her down gently.

She coughed out some water while he supported her back.

“Better?” he asked.

She nodded. He was young–only a few years older than she. The aura of confidence and competence he radiated made him seem older. Without knowing quite why, she was certain he was a Tavaedi.

“Good.” He had a gorgeous smile. A wisp of his dark bangs dangled over one eye. He brushed his dripping hair back over his head.

Dindi’s hand touched skin–he was not wearing any shirt. Both of them were sopping wet. On him, that meant trickles of water coursed over a bedrock of muscle. As for her, the thin white wrap clung transparently to her body like a wet leaf. She blushed.

“It might have been easier to swim if you had let go of that,” he teased. He touched her hand, which was closed around something. “What were you holding onto so tightly that it mattered more than drowning?”

Reading Challenge, Review

Review – The Tribute Bride, by Theresa Tomlinson

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Almost exactly a year ago I read and reviewed Theresa’s book A Swarming of Bees on Erin Eymard’s Bookworms Fancy blog site. I was thrilled to get a free review copy of her latest book, which I finished earlier today and have immediately set fingers to keyboard.

Buy The Tribute Bride from Amazon.co.uk
Buy The Tribute Bride from Amazon.com

The Tribute Bride is set a little earlier, and is almost entirely set in the two kingdoms Deira and Bernicia which together made up the old kingdom of Northumbria – basically the area from modern Hull up to Edinburgh, so a rather larger region than modern Northumberland. The book traces the fortunes of Acha, a princess of Deira (the southern half) from her marriage as a secondary wife to Aethelfrith, king of Bernicia. The marriage is a political necessity for Deira, and an opportunity for male heirs for Bernicia. Acha is caught in the middle of the royal male political games being played out north of the Humber. However, she proves herself well able to manage the situation, forging alliances and friendships with key women – including Aethelfrith’s principal wife Bebba – and men – including senior priests of Woden and Christ. It is a difficult path to tread, and Acha faces considerable suffering and disappointment over the years before finally achieving a form of resolution.

Lindisfarne Bay with the much later fortified house
The period Theresa has chosen to write about here is one that I find fascinating, and as synchronicity would have it I have had a lot to do with key locations in the book this year. Northumberland is a county I have loved for many years, and I have recently returned from visiting there. In the time that Theresa writes about, however, the old names such as Metcalfe (Medcaut) and Dun Guardi were being used rather than Lindisfarne or Bamburgh. At that time already, Lindisfarne was recognised as a sacred, liminal space, alternately joined and separated to the mainland. Earlier in the year, I saw Radwald’s former home at Sutton Hoo, as well as the associated exhibits at the British Museum. Radwald makes a brief but significant appearance towards the end of The Tribute Bride.

The bay looking north from Seahouses towards Bamburgh
Theresa successfully blends detailed characterisation of the main characters with a credible retelling of the social and political context they move in. An additional ingredient in the mix is the vivid flow of religious activity as the newcomer Christianity starts to displace the older religions. Aethelfrith himself is memorable, along with both of his official wives as well as the bed partner he takes campaigning. The remnant of the royal house of Deira is present, and the cast is rounded off with a fair number of supporting characters up and down the land. That list sounds as though the book could be confusing, but in fact the near-consistency of focus through Acha’s eyes resolves the world into a comprehensible – if painful – whole.

One of the Sutton Hoo mounds
The documentary sources recounting this era are few, and often, because of the interests of the chroniclers, scanty on details other than battles and the rise of Christianity. Theresa is clearly familiar with these sources, as well as the growing store of archaeological material which is slowly filling out a more rounded picture of the age.

A few minor comments which do not detract from the quality of the book as a whole. As mentioned, most of the book is from Acha’s viewpoint. However, there are occasional interjections where we jump to another viewpoint – for example we suddenly switch at one point to Aethelfrith musing on his future cunning plans – and for me these were rather intrusive into the main flow. On occasion, these also served to defuse narrative tension by giving away too much information about a coming crisis.

These, however, are very minor points, and I have no hesitation in seeing this as a five-star book. The technical production of the soft-back book is good, the storyline and the people that populate it are credible and fascinating, and for a time you can feel yourself thoroughly immersed in northern England around the start of the seventh century. HIghly recommended if you like this setting.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

Historical fiction, Reading Challenge, Review

Review -The Serpent and the Staff, by Barbara Wood

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I really wanted to like The Serpent and the Staff, by Barbara Wood. Here was a historical fiction book claiming to address a place and time close to my own heart – the city of Ugarit (on the coast of modern Syria), in the time of the early New Kingdom Egyptian pharaohs Hatshepsut and Thutmose III. Sadly, however, I struggled to finish it, and cannot give more than three stars to it. Basically, it was a potentially good story spoiled by insufficient research.

First, the good stuff. As already mentioned, full marks for Barbara’s choice of place and time. The characters were (for the most part) interesting and well-crafted. The recurrent theme of herbal medicine and healing was a convincing thread around which to hang the story. The technical production of the Kindle copy was good, with a mere handful of very minor slips in a long book.

Where I struggled, however, was with the intended historical rooting of the people and plot. Barbara has apparently done far too little background research into the period to be able to write persuasively about it. And I am not talking about research taking several years and a PhD, but a very ordinary level of background reading from reliable sources readily available on the Internet.

U Chicago image – an Ugaritic ritual text
U Chicago image - an Ugaritic ritual text

I abandoned the whole book for several weeks at the point where a long passage digresses to celebrate one of the protagonists inventing the alphabet. If you want to enjoy a fictional presentation of this, you would go a long way to beat The TwentyTwo Letters by Clive King. But there is plenty of readily accessed technical material about the relative roles of the different competing scripts of this age, and the sheer uphill struggle alphabetic scripts had in gaining acceptance. The naivety of the description here, on top of the difficulties I was already finding in the book with iron weapons factories being set up (way way way too early), fictitious kinglists (when we have real ones), Egyptian chariots with four horses (like everyone else’s they had two), and a rather cavalier approach to geography, led me to close the book and give up on it.

However, I returned after a couple of months, partly out of a sense of duty and partly through stubbornness. I decided that the best way to read the book was as a kind of fantasy story without any actual real-world context. Taken on that level, and pretending to myself that the storyline had nothing to do with the start of the Late Bronze Age in the Levant, it was quite a fun romp. The outcome was never really a surprise – my main uncertainty was when and how a particularly brutal individual was going to reappear and unintentionally advance the fortunes of the protagonists.

In summary then – as fantasy I might well consider giving it four stars, though it could easily have been somewhat shorter without losing anything much. But as an intended work of historical fiction, and with all of the historical flaws and anachronisms, I cannot give it more than three. I do hope that Barbara will consider returning to this period – which has a great deal of intrinsic interest – but for my part it would need considerably more investment in background research.

ABNA 2014, Fantasy, Reading Challenge, Review, Writing

Review – Athame and Wrath by Morgan Alreth

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ABNA General Ficton categoryTime for a review amongst all the excitement of Scenes from a Life and the ABNA awards.

So, this review covers the first two books in Morgan Alreth’s The Unfortunate Woods series – Athame and Wrath. The series continues in a third book which at the time of writing has not yet been released.

These are fantasy books, set in a world where humans are the most numerous species, but share the land (and especially the forest) with several other natural and supernatural life forms. Relationships between the species tend to drift from neutral towards hostile, with occasional times of cooperation for specific shared goals.

Magic is, as you might expect, a vital part of the setting. The magic system is based around the four classical elements (fire, water, earth, air), with connections to the four seasons as well as other binary or four-fold natural or human divisions. Each element is linked to a deity with suitable qualities. It seems to me to be fundamentally well thought-out, particularly in Wrath where there is more development of the interconnections. An important plot theme is that pretty much any serious use of magic tends to have unpredictable side-effects, small compared to the original purpose but needing to be taken into account.

Athame opens in a wild and dangerous forest. A woman living here, Jess, chooses to help a man, Pete, who is lost, saving his life from any number of potential threats. He turns out to be a significant player in the royal succession drama unfolding in the country. Unsurprisingly, but credibly, the two eventually become lovers.

The plot continues with Jess and Pete venturing out of the forest and back to the capital city. This turns out to be every bit as dangerous as the wild forest, but with human rather than exotic enemies. There are definite echoes of Crocodile Dundee here, though the gender roles are switched, and the couple here is much more equally matched in talent and ability.

Athame ends with them having resolved a serious external threat, but separating for what appear to be perfectly sensible and necessary reasons. However, this is a source of grief to both.

Wrath – over twice as long according to my kindle – tracks subsequent events. They start separately, in different regions of the world, as they try to resolve their individual destinies; both have to face different but significant threats. Eventually they reunite, but tact and spoiler avoidance forbids me saying how this turns out. Suffice it to say that their quest returns them to their country of origin, which by now has fallen into serious civil unrest.

The hints and clues you get about the third book indicate that the overall problems of succession and disunity will be resolved, perhaps with a level of reconciliation between the various non-human species as well.

So, the books are interesting, and many aspects of the world seem credible to me. What are the down sides? Firstly, there is a theme I have also encountered in some of Morgan’s other writing. Rural settings may well be dangerous, but are basically clean and honourable; rural individuals are poor and bluntly spoken but honest. In contrast, cities and towns – anything bigger than a handful of houses together – are filthy, disease-ridden, and full of cruel and wickedly motivated individuals. Countryside is good: towns are bad. I am not really convinced by this.

In Athame, another rather simple binary opposition is between organised religion (largely in the hands of men and fundamentally corrupt) and personal spirituality (largely in the hands of women and basically uplifting and respectable). Wrath is more nuanced about this, and smooths out the earlier stark contrast into lots of intermediate shades of a spectrum.

Another difficulty is with the opponents. I guess it is par for the course for fantasy heroes to get increasingly more powerful themselves, and have a coterie of increasingly powerful followers. But how do you then find worthy adversaries? Somehow, the filthy, disease-ridden cities and their temples manage to turn out a whole collection of fearsome, top-of-the range fighting men and magician-priests.

The production of the kindle copy is mixed. My copies were downloaded from Smashwords, and the rather patchy navigation may be a consequence of that site’s conversion software. However, there are a surprising number of spelling errors, format problems, and other minor issues which should have been caught during rounds of proof reading.

In summary, these two books still come out as four star books for me. Certainly worth the read if you like fantasy books, and the series develops some interesting ideas. The gradual build-up of the plot is credible. Speaking as a Brit, some of the dialogue rather grates, but US readers might appreciate it more. However, the flaws which I have mentioned diminished my enjoyment of the whole, and made me feel that Morgan could have lavished a little more care on the production of the books as well as the imaginative aspects. I do intend to catch up on the conclusion of the series in time, so these flaws have not deterred me from carrying on.

These books were made available to me without charge but with no expectation of a review.

ABNA 2014, Review, Scenes from a Life, Writing

Amazon ABNA expert review comments

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At some stage soon the excerpts for all the ABNA quarter-finalists will be published on Amazon.com – as soon as I know where I’ll post about this. Meanwhile the two review comments by (anonymous) ABNA expert reviewers have appeared. Here are some highlights…

  • We learn so much about the life and work of Makty. I found it very interesting…
  • Elegantly written and full of rich back story about Makty and how he’s fashioned his current existence…
  • On a line level, this is one of the strongest pitches I have read…

The full review comments follow… at this stage the reviewers were only exposed to the “Excerpt”, ie the first 3750 or so words (rather less than the first chapter). At the next stage then (so I understand) the general public gets to see the “Excerpt”, and the reviewers the whole lot.

  1. First reviewer
    • What is the strongest aspect of this excerpt?
      We learn so much about the life and work of Makty. I found it very interesting …not only how he worked at decorating the tombs but also his life style i.e. how he, although he worked hard and was very frugal, still chose to move on to a new location after not staying too long in any one place.
    • What aspect needs the most work?
      Maybe it would have been even more interesting if we had gotten even a hint as to where we were heading and not so much detail of Makty’s painting etc.
    • What is your overall opinion of this excerpt?
      I found it very interesting and, although I would have preferred to have at least of a vague idea of what was coming, I believe it would ultimately turn into a very good story. I also learned some things about tombs it never occurred to me to wonder about.
  2. Second reviewer
    • What is the strongest aspect of this excerpt?
      Elegantly written and full of rich back story about Makty and how he’s fashioned his current existence. The author does a good job of toggling back and forth between past and present action, making us feel as though much more has actually happened in this chapter than actually does. Makty’s strange dream plants just enough of a seed that we can see conflict is on the horizon. His nomadic lifestyle and desire for space and movement also complicate his character, deepening a character otherwise defined by his work. Lots of potential in the the scope and historicity of the work.
    • What aspect needs the most work?
      I mentioned not a lot happens already, but really, not much happens. Outside of the dream, I’m not sure I see a true hook. This is a chapter full of throat clearing and set up. Nothing wrong with that, but the lede is buried under an awful lot of information and description, mostly Makty ruminating, ruminating some more, and then slightly re-calibrating. Without other characters, dialogue, or a shift in scene, I found it hard to stay closely with Makty’s thoughts throughout the chapter. Give this guy something else to ping himself off of, and I think this chapter opens up and breathes a little better.
    • What is your overall opinion of this excerpt?
      On a line level, this is one of the strongest pitches I have read. This author has a sense of what he’s doing, even if I’m not as engrossed by the writing as I could be. I worry about audience with this piece. Who is the market? Is it for people who value character driven stories or historical fiction? A modern novel or more fabelistic? Movement and the journey the author promises in the pitch will be key. ACTION will be key. This excerpt is certainly well crafted enough to demand further attention, especially given its superior style.

Schematic map - the area around Waset (modern Luxor)

History, Review, Writing

Three geeky review snippets

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Well, three snippets for today. Full reviews will follow on Amazon etc but I am a bit short of time today.

Cover image - The End of the Bronze Age
First up is Robert Drews’ The End of the Bronze Age which of course I have blogged about a couple of times before. I have now finished this so it’s time to draw it together. Basically my feeling is that Drews makes a good case for his principal point, which is that the collapse of almost all of the major Late Bronze civilisations around 1200BCE (which Drews simply calls The Catastrophe) was primarily the result of changes in military technology and tactics. Not everyone will agree with this, and Drews is happy to acknowledge that factors such as climate change, drought, migration, natural disasters such as earthquakes, and so on contributed to the collapse in particular locations. However, his most persuasive point is that these factors cannot have affected the whole of the eastern Mediterranean at the same time, and also that the great Late Bronze empires had faced these challenges before and overcome them.

His military explanation is built around an exploration of methods of warfare before and after 1200. Before, major powers (even minor city states) fought battles using elite bow-armed chariotry, supported by youths (called ‘runners’ in several traditions) who looked after their own and finished off the fallen enemy. Massed infantry formations did not exist as an active force, only as static defenders, and cavalry were used for scouting and pursuit rather than fighting. After the Catastrophe, infantry ruled the battlefield, having worked out how to neutralise the effect of the chariot arm. Weapons changed accordingly, with new designs of swords and javelins sweeping around the Mediterranean within a decade or two.

I am sure the debate will continue for some time to come, since solid textual and archaeological information is scarce around this era, but Drews has, in my view, put forward a compelling argument here.

Cover image - Anglo-Saxon Runes
Second up is a book which I purchased at Sutton Hoo a few week ago, Anglo-Saxon Runes, by John Kemble. This is actually a very old book, dating from 1840 but given a make-over and some editorial notes by Bill Griffiths in the 1990s with several reprints since. For me, reading this has more to do with historical interest since it is not an especially good source book for learning runes. It does, however, have some fascinating glimpses into the 19th century pursuit of language as well as a review of the major runic inscriptions available in his day.

Kemble was amply fitted for this study, having produced the first modern English version of Beowulf as well as a six-volume critical edition of various Anglo-Saxon documents and other similar stuff. His personality comes over very strongly in his writing – combative, passionate, and determined to get a wider knowledge of Anglo-Saxon runes into the general consciousness. It is clear from Griffiths’ notes that the better part of two centuries of research has altered some of Kemble’s conclusions, but a remarkable part of his work seems to have survived the passage of time. Tolkein fans will recognise some of the words that he re-energised for modern use from their Anglo-Saxon roots.

Bede Ecclesiastical History - cover image
Finally (and strictly speaking still in progress) is The Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, a purchase inspired by my recent visit to the Vikings exhibition at the British Museum. I have wanted to read Bede for a considerable time and never got around to him, so now is my chance. It is clear even from a casual encounter that Bede writes as a historian in the same way that Luke does in the biblical book of Acts – both are keen observers of events but are more interested in their moral and spiritual implications than in a simple factual retelling. Some modern readers are put off by this, but it goes with the territory. Bede wanted to record what he saw as the pivotal events in English history up to his time (around 730 CE), and he understood ‘pivotal’ to mean those things which either advanced or thwarted the spread of the Christian gospel. A secondary interest was how royal morality or its opposite affected the life of the nation.

It is clear that Bede was selective in his sources, and aware only of some aspects of the life of the nation. He was diligent in finding sources, but not exhaustive. His geographical location in Northumbria rather limited the extent to which he could find out about events in the south. Other written or material information is now available to us for comparative purposes, so that a more rounded picture can be built up, but Bede remains a hugely important commentator on national religious life of that age. Great stuff.

Reading Challenge, Review

Review – No Man’s Land

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No Man’s Land, by Nilesh Shrivastava, was a book I bought as part of a long-term plan to get to know Indian authors and writing. So unlike many of my choices it is set pretty much in the present day – the main action occurs in the late 1990s, with some flashback events set about twenty years earlier than that. Not everyone will like this book: it deals with the inter-personal relationships and conflicts in a small family rather than having grand political or military scope.

Buy No Man’s Land from Amazon.co.uk
Buy No Man’s Land from Amazon.com

The crux of the story is a stretch of land between Delhi and one of the new technology cities which have sprung up nearby (Gurgaon, to the south-west). The land has traditionally been farmed and can provide an adequate though not lavish income: with the explosive demand for building work it now has the potential to be worth a considerable fortune. As such, it becomes the focus of a family feud.

Cover image - No Man's LandNow, it is clear from occasional comments in the book that the plot draws from traditional Indian literature, in particular the Mahabharata. My knowledge of this is quite scanty, but fortunately I was able to get some pointers from Indian friends. I suspect that a greater familiarity with both the history and myth of India would open up other dimensions of this book which remained largely opaque to me. Even without that, though, there is enough here of humanity’s common sources of comfort and conflict that the story hangs together well.

For me, this was a four star book. I would have liked there to be more times when Nilesh’s obvious skills of lyrical writing came to the fore. One character, Shashwat, a family advisor and confidant, is well placed to offer words at a deeper level, but all too rarely does so. I found myself longing for more times when he was given the opportunity to speak. However, like the others he is to a great degree caught up in his particular fate – this is part of the tragedy of the situation that each character tries without real success to surmount.

This book worked for me in part because I am strongly motivated to read about north India, and especially the area around Delhi. I do feel that it would have been more powerful if the deeper background such as that of the Mahabharata had been brought into sharper focus. That would not only have satisfied my regular desire for historical fiction, but would also moved the characters onto a wider stage than they reached in No Man’s Land. All in all a good read, but one which could have done more with the material to hand.