Monday, January 1, 2024

What I read in 2023


On New Years, 2019 a friend of mine posted a list of the books they had read in 2018. I thought it was a great idea so I've been posting such a list myself ever since, first on Facebook, now on my blog. I find it a very useful exercise in self-reflection - though I am sure it is really just another example of my narcissism. 😏

If anyone else makes such lists, I'd love to see them. Feel free to share the lists, or links to your lists, in the comments.😀 You can find my previous years here: 201920202021 and 2022.

Looking over this year's list (see below), I had fewer rereads then normal. Lots of fantasy as usual, but not many Tolkien reads. Overall, I read as many works as I usually do. But I didn't have as many focused topic reads this year. I continued reading the Frigate Navy period, of course, and my normal interests - the Corps, Thieves' World, the Lovecraft circle, ect. - all show up but over all it was a fairly mixed year. As usual, the fantasy genre dominated my non-professional reading. As usual, I only listed books I read all the way through, so the massive amount of reading I did for work isn't included. Only the few books I read over to cover. 

# of Rereads: 25 (I've marked rereads below with an *) 
# Military History reads: 8
# of fantasy works: 40
# by or about Tolkien or Inklings: 4
# related to Lovecraft or the Mythos: 5
# of Marine reads: 5 
# Frigate Navy period reads: 9
# Thieves' World & related: 12
# Matter of Britain/France works: 3
# of holiday reads: 8
# historical fiction reads: 7
# World War II reads: 5
# Late Roman/Byzantine reads: 2


All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

Monday, December 25, 2023

Yule Review: Santa Claus in Fantasy Fiction

 


A version of this article appeared in 
Knights of the Dinner Table #182 (December, 2011).

Some of the pictures of Father Christmas in our world make him look only funny and jolly. But now that the children actually stood looking at him they didn’t find it quite like that. He was so big, and so glad, and so real, that they all became quite still. They felt very glad, but also very solemn. 

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis.

It is once again the merry time of Yule, when the old year dies and the new is born again. It is natural in the northern hemisphere, and especially in the truly northern regions, to associate this time with death and rebirth. It is a special time for myth and religion, a time that seems to attract mythical figures like moth to a flame. Christianity and Mithraism both chose this time to honor the broth of their respective deities, of course, but equally entwined in the season is the legend of the Gift Bringer, a magical figure that rewards children for good behavior and, sometimes, punishes the bad children. 

The gift figure takes many forms throughout Europe, ranging from the Yule Goat of Scandinavia to La Befana, the Old Woman of Italy or the Christkind of Bavaria and Austria. The more common form, however is a bearded old man, usually connected to the Christian Saint Nicholas, called Father Christmas in the British Isles. In America he is Santa Claus, and like many American things he has sprung from his old world origins to spread back out throughout the world. 

Whatever we call him, Santa Claus is a powerfully mythic figure and a seeming natural for fantasy fiction, especially the more mystical, dream-like style of fantasy that follows in Lord Dunsany’s footsteps far from the  fields we know and deep into the realms of Faerie. But as I have mentioned before, Christmas remains a difficult subject, and perhaps its relentless commercialization and the plethora of children’s stories have dissuaded fantasy authors from exploring its fantasy potential. Regardless, there are some very good fantasy tales of Santa, by the greatest writers in the field, and fantasy lovers looking for a fantastical take on Christmas should give them a try.   

Perhaps the earliest fantasy novel to tell a Santa story is L. Frank Baum's excellent The Life and
Adventures of Santa Claus
(1902), which I reviewed here. Baum revisited Santa in the short story "A Kidnapped Santa Claus" (1904), a sequel to the origin tale which the five "Daemons of the Caves" (Selfishness, Envy, Hatred, Malice, and Repentance). They try to eliminate Santa and his influence on children first through temptation then when that fails through kidnapping. It's an excellent short parable, with plenty of fodder for gamemasters.

C.S. Lewis, of course, employs Father Christmas, but his momentous appearance in Narnia in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950) was indistinguishable from Santa save in name. His appearance is a pivotal plot point, and the gifts he brings are not mere toys, but essential to the tale.


Rather similar to Galadriel's gifts in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Lewis’ friend J.R.R. Tolkien produced a series of letters from Father Christmas to his children, written over two decades and first published in 1976.  Letters from Father Christmas (revised 1999), notable not only for its engaging prose and episodic tales of life at the North Pole, but also because so many of the motifs and events of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and Silmarillion are foreshadowed in the letters.

Of course, as well written as they are, the Santa works of Tolkien, Lewis, and Baum are aimed at children.  Seabury Quinn’s Roads, first published in Weird Tales in 1938 and then in hardback by Arkham House in 1948, is written for adults, asking the question, "What if Conan the Barbarian became Santa Claus?"  The Arkham House novel was well illustrated by Virgil Finlay, and was reprinted in 2005.  It is divided into three parts, ‘The Road to Bethlehem,’ ‘The Road to Calvary,’ and ‘The Long, Long


Road.’ 
Santa is really "Claudius" an immortal German mercenary who apparently spent centuries slaughtering his way across Europe and the Middle east with his equally immortal wife (a sort of Jewish Red Sonja who begins life as a prostitute in a brothel run by Mary Magdalen). The book positively reeks of anti-Semitism and Anglo-Saxon triumphalism. Quinn is best known for writing occult detective stories, which appeared in the pulp magazines alongside the tales of H.P. Lovecraft, R.E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. 
Roads is a religious Christmas tale told through a Sword & Sorcery lens and dripping with 1930s style anti-Semitism that it simply never rises above.

A more modern take comes in Bill Willingham’s long running comic Fables. The comic addressed Santa, in “Jiminy Christmas” (issue #56). Santa is a


‘Fable’ (a living, breathing fairy tale) of course, but he is a particularly powerful one who somehow transcends the other Fables in power and influence. The tale is very adult, all though it portrays a young child’s quest to see Santa during his gift-giving (the explanation provided for Claus’ miraculous Christmas Eve global service is sublime). Like Lewis, Willingham uses Santa as a deus ex machina who passes gifts and knowledge onto the protagonists. It also provides one of the best explanations for how Santa reaches all the houses around the globe in one night. 
Another modern fantasy take is Tony Abbot's Kringle, from 2005. It isn't a traditional Christmas book but rather a Dark Age bildungsroman. Kringle has goblins, elves, magic, all against a back drop of Anglo-Saxon Britain. It's very
good, but it is really only about the start of the tale, how Kringle transform into Santa is barely addressed. But as far as it goes its a great, fun, fantasy tale. It reminds me a great deal of Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword, with the magic world existing alongside but hidden from the barbarity of the Dark Ages.

An even more modern take is The Christmas Chronicles: The Legend of Santa Claus by Tim Slover. It is a pleasant enough tale, but it doesn't quite scratch the Santa and Fantasy itch I've always had. It doesn't catch the magic of the elves and faerie quite right. Magic only enters the tale after Claus and his wife have had a long life as toy givers. Even then, it ignores or changes most of the Christmas legends, (Rudolph gets a different name and totally different story). It lacks that connection to older, deeper mythologies
and is very Christian, aside from an odd digression concerning the Dalai Lama.

For gamemasters looking to add some Christmas spark, Lewis and Willingham’s use of Santa as a gift-giver provides an excellent example. Lewis’ Santa, especially, is similar in role to Tolkien’s Galadriel. Santa can pass on wisdom or knowledge (suitably hidden in rhyme) as well as providing precisely the needed magic weapon or spell. If limited to a one time, special event for a particularly mythic quest, this can work extremely well. Of course, Christmas scenarios can also be drawn from these Santa tales, especially the ongoing war between Santa and the goblins in Tolkien’s The Father Christmas Letters.

Whether you read these tales for fun, for a window into the holiday, or merely to get some ideas for the Christmas Eve role-playing session, I hope you will sing:

Goday, goday, my lord Sire Christëmas, goday!
Goday, Sire Christëmas, our king,
for ev'ry man, both old and ying,
is glad and blithe of your coming;
Goday!

(Anon. Christmas Carol, 1458)

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

Saturday, December 9, 2023

Israel and Palestine

 All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

It seems we have to make our stands clear these days.

I am Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestine. 

The following statements are not contradictory. A sane, ethical personal can, and I believe should, hold all these beliefs at the same time. These are NOT presented in any sort of order of importance or validity. 

No one wins the competition to be the greatest victim. 

The nation of Israel exists and deserves to exist.

The nation of Palestine deserves to exist. Sadly, there is no functioning Palestinian government.

A Two State solution is the only moral solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine. 

That requires Palestinians and Israelis to both acknowledge the other’s right to life and existence. It requires both to compromise on other issues. 

It is wrong to call for the destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews. 

Hamas does this in its charter. It is fundamentally a terrorist organization. 

The Attacks of 7 October 2023 on Israel were wrong. Killing civilian men, women, and children is wrong. Raping women as an act of terrorism (or for any other reason, of course) is wrong. 

Israel is right to seek to root out and destroy Hamas, the terrorist organization.

Netanyahu is a far-right extremist who has empowered far-right extremists in Israel. The democratic state of Israel needs to remove him from office to protect its democracy.

Israeli settlers in the West Bank have used threats, intimidation, and violence in an attempt to drive out Palestinians. This is text book ethnic cleansing and it is wrong. 

Hamas uses other Palestinians as human shields in Gaza. 

That does not absolve Israel of its obligation to prevent war crimes and reduce collateral damage. 

Civilian deaths, aka “collateral damage”, cannot be prevented in warfare but the only acceptable level of such damage is 0. This applies to all nations, everywhere. For example, it applies to the American wars against the Taleban and Al-Qaida as well as Ukraine versus Russia. It is universal. 

The Law of War is not suspended because one side violates it. It is not a pact. You follow the law of war because civilization and morality demands it. Nations that willingly and knowingly violate the Laws of War are tainted by their failures.

The Holocaust happened. It was real. We must never allow it to happen again. 

The Holocaust doesn’t excuse all Israeli actions, forever. 

Israeli actions against the West Bank and Gaza do not excuse terrorist attacks.

Those attacking Jews or Muslims in the United States or elsewhere because they are Jews or Muslims are wrong. There is no place in the world for such hatred and evil.

Knowing these things are true doesn’t solve the problem. But starting from this foundation makes peace between those of good will possible. 

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

A Halloween Review: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

 A version of this article appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #168 (October, 2010).


From 2006 through 2012 I was the "Off the Shelf" columnist for Knights of the Dinner Table, a magazine and comic book devoted to tabletop fantasy role paying games. I reviewed classic and modern fantasy, horror, and science fiction novels. Every October I tried to review a work of classic horror in honor of Halloween. I am trying to continue that tradition with my blog. You can find previous Halloween Reviews here. 

The witch is on the broomstick and a chill is in the air as haunted old Halloween arrives. This year I review Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Mary Shelley was a remarkable woman from a remarkable family; her father was a famous philosopher, her mother a famous feminist, her husband the renowned poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her early life was remarkable for the early 19th century, ‘radical’ even by today’s standards and colored by a remarkable amount of grief.  Aside from the creation of his monster, she in fact led a far more fascinating and interesting life than her novel’s protagonist. But a full accounting of her life would require a thick biography.

The story of the genesis of Frankenstein is well known. In 1816 she and Percy visited Lord Byron at a villa near Lake Geneva, Switzerland.  To pass the rainy days, Byron suggested they write ghost stories themselves, and from that summer came the story that she later worked into the novel: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.

The plot of the novel is well know: Frankenstein, a Byronic figure, becomes infatuated with creating life through electricity and his obsessive studies and experiments allow him to eventually give life to a creature he has constructed from cadavers.  His reaction is not what he expects:


It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. 

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

Frankenstein violently rejects his creature and abandons it, returning to his home and trying to resume his life as though his demented escapade had never occurred. But of course one’s mistakes cannot be so easily buried or forgotten and tragedy stalks Frankenstein’s loved ones until finally he and the creature race to a final confrontation in the far north. The novel is narrated by the device of a framing tale to the captain of an arctic exploration vessel as Frankenstein recovers from exposure.

Frankentsein is a major influence for gamers, directly inspiring villains in various horror settings like TSR’s Ravenloft. Frankenstein himself serves as an excellent model for either PC protagonist or NPC antagonist, indeed stripped of his scientific trappings he makes an excellent wizard.  The Creature is equally fascinating, and gamemasters who study how he plots his actions and justifies his actions can model truly tragic and emotionally painful foes for their players on him. Of course, for those gaming in a ‘Steam-punk’ setting the novel is practically required reading.  

Frankenstein is a classic novel that fully deserves the attention it receives, but it has perhaps been over-exposed.  High school English teachers reach for it easily, since it grabs the attention of students and the author’s life touches on so many important themes: Romanticism, Feminism, Liberalism, and so forth. But few of us truly enjoy works we are forced to read as homework, and when our memories are tainted by dozens of movies which pay only a passing nod to the novel while employing its themes and characters with casual abandon, it is only natural the one begins to think of it as an anemic, unoriginal motif.

But Shelley’s novel is more than that, it is a rich, full-bodied gothic experience that induces in the willing reader a deep despair. Her prose is as carefully crafted as any other from that most literary period, and just as passionate as anything written by Byron or Shelley themselves. 

When the moon is full and you wish to delve into the soul of horror and despair, leave the urban vampire tales alone and revisit Frankenstein.  It will be time well spent. 

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Society for Military History 2023 - Saturday/Sunday

 All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

More from the Society for Military History 2023 conference.

 For my Friday at the conference is here

Saturday

8:30 a.m.  13 panels to choose from.

Saturday morning began with more excellent panels, including panels on history & podcasting, the law of war, Vietnam, & war’s aftermath. I was intrigued by Beyond Belleau Wood: Three Cantankerous Marines Ponder the Great War chaired by my friend and former colleague, Annette Amerman but I’m not currently working on World War I, and I knew my colleague, Lisa, who is working on that period, would attend and let me know what I missed.

So, I was able to attend a panel on ancient military history, Making Sense of Ancient Strategy. Ancient history was one of my minor fields, and Ancient Roman/Byzantine military history the subject of my Master’s thesis, I have an abiding interest in the topic, but at SMH conferences I usually only manage to make one panel on the subject, since professional obligations usually send me to more modern topics.

This panel was attended by over 40 people. The first paper, “The Grand Strategy of the Achaemenid Empire” by Michael J. Taylor, SUNY-Albany, was an excellent look at one of the earliest military forces from which we have enough information to draw conclusions about their strategy and tactics. Popular movies like 300 have almost criminally inaccurate depictions of the Persian Empire, and of course this professional presentation based on solid ancient sources was nothing like that. Ancient empires had significant challenges concerning resources, distance, and communication. Taylor spoke of an “escalation ladder” in Persia’s response to rebellion or resistance, his analysis of this was well thought out, and he provided several examples. He included the Ionian revolt, but other examples as well. That really bolstered his argument – documentary and archaeological sources on the Persian Empire are dominated by the Greek periphery, which can make a solid understanding of the empire difficult.

The second paper was “Systems Theory and Strategic Sense-Making in the Peloponnesian War” by Paul A. Johstono, Air Command and Staff College. No ancient war has been studied as thoroughly by modern students of military science, and I don’t believe this presentation opened any new ground. However, it was professional and solidly backed by ancient sources. He argued that it studied strategy from a non-Empire point of view, but I would argue that Athens certainly fit the definition of empire during this period. He also spoke of communal mores, and that points to the more salient difference, IMO, i.e. group authority (democracy perhaps is too strong a word) versus autocracy.

The last paper was the one that most people anticipated, I believe. “Could the Romans do Strategy?” by James Lacey, U.S. Marine Corps University. This was essentially a preview of his new book, Rome: Strategy of Empire (Oxford University Press, 2022). I haven’t yet read Lacey’s book, though I think now that I will have to.

I found his presentation disappointing. It was very focused on the idea that modern scholars of ancient history have rejected the idea that the Romans thought or acted in strategic terms, especially in their rejection of Edward Luttwak’s The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire from the First Century AD to the Third (1976). Lacey himself admitted that he felt like he was constructing strawmen in his arguments, and it certainly felt that way to me. I studied Luttwak’s work in grad school, and still have my well-worn copy. The Ancient historians who taught me didn’t reject Luttwak or claim that the Romans could not “do” strategy, they criticized the work for some anachronisms and Luttwak’s assumptions that ancient Roman strategists thought in the same way as late 20th century American strategists. I think that criticism is valid, and something that absolutely needs to be controlled for when studying the ancient world for lessons to apply to the modern world. It’s an inherent difference between military history and military science. Lacey’s work straddles that divide. Even when I think he’s getting things absolutely right and making good points, that anachronistic issue makes those lessons questionable and dangerous. 

But that’s all based on his 20-minute presentation, which may be seen almost as more of a sales pitch. It certainly worked on me. I had wavered on whether or not I should take the time to read his book before, given my other professional obligations (which are currently focused on the 19th century). Now I am absolutely going to read it this year.

10:30 14 panels to choose from

The second slot of morning panels was again excellent, with military suicide, counter-insurgency, and maritime strategy amongst the offered topics. I thought the panel Visualizing Empire in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the United States in the 1890s might be an excellent preview of the Marines in the Steam Navy book I hope to write next, but instead I decided to attend a panel with two historians of the Marine Corps whose work I respect and want to support.

That was Masculinity and its Discontents: The Effect of Masculine Identities on Service Culture in Elite Units. Too many Marines (and others) get their brains locked down when words like masculinity or toxic appear, but you cannot honestly understand the cultural and institutional history of the Corps without addressing them. The Corps is, after all, a self-created, self-maintained, and self-selecting (and self-centered?) “elite” in every sense of the term.

This was the only panel which had any tech issues, the slide projector not working properly. But all of the presenters handled this well, even those whose presentations were heavily dependent on images. The panel was standing room only, in one of the smaller rooms in the conference. Around 30 attendees, I believe.

The first paper was “The Few, the Proud, the (Relatively) Stagnant: 100+ Years of the Corps' Depicting Women Marines” by Heather Venable, Air Command and Staff College. Heather is the author of How the Few Became the Proud (2019) which is easily one of the top five histories ever written about the Marine Corps. Her presentation was entertaining and informative, showed how far behind the Corps still was in its presentation of Woman Marines. I should point out that Heather was the conference Chair, she organized all of SMH 2023.

The second paper was ““Semper Woke”: Race, Gender, Sexuality and the Ugly Side of the Marine Corps' Debate Over Force Design 2030” by Mark Folse, U.S. Army Center of Military History. In his past Mark served as an infantry Marine in Afghanistan, and his conclusions about Marine culture were both searing and highly accurate as a result. He is also one of History Division’s many success stories, since he was one of our interns and has gone on to teach at the Naval Academy and now write for the Army.

The third paper was “A “Rough” And “Proud” Group Of Men: Marine Corps Masculinity In The Late Twentieth Century” by Thomas Scovel, United States Naval Academy.  A professional paper that reinforced the findings of the previous two papers, in my opinion. 

The final paper was the only non-Marine Corps paper for the panel, ““Our Problem Children”: Constructing Paratrooper Masculinity in World War II and its Modern Legacy” by Robert F. Williams, Ohio State University. He deftly combined evidence and personal experience in his presentation.

Overall, I thought this was a critical but important set of panels on a difficult issue. I never got to ask the question the panel inspired in me, unfortunately. I wonder if the extremely performative masculinity of the Marines and the paratroopers today comes, in part, from the sense that both may feel sidelined or marginalized in modern strategic calculations. Airborne assault has arguably been identified as of only marginal use since World War II, and the many have claimed that first nuclear weapons and then anti-ship missiles and drones have made amphibious assaults obsolete as well.

3:30 14 panels to choose from

Saturday finished with another outstanding set of panels covering a diverse set of topics, commemoration, masculinity, gender, ethnicity, ancient and medieval history, and operational warfare topics. And an excellent roundtable, “War in Afghanistan Oral History Roundtable.”

Keynote Address

The keynote address was given by Dr. Craig L. Symonds, Professor Emeritus of History at the United States Naval Academy. Symonds is the author of many excellent works on naval history, most notably the Civil War and the Second World War. His most recent book was a biography of Admiral Nimitz, and I was frankly hoping that his keynote would primarily talk about Nimitz, or at least would speak specifically about naval history. Instead, it was a fairly short talk (maybe 20 minutes?) on the importance and value of military history broadly. Symonds is a gifted speaker, and the presentation was convincing and enjoyable. But I could not help being just a touch disappointed since I was hoping for a more in-depth discussion.

Sunday

Sunday panels are traditionally poorly attended, as many attendees leave early on Sunday.

8:30 a.m.  14 panels to choose from.

The Sunday panels this year were actually pretty good, however. They covered fascinating topics like courage in antiquity, expert language as means of controlling access in modern militaries, medicine in warfare, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf War. Of especial note for official historians were two roundtables: “Light at the End of the Tunnel”: The Army’s Official History of the Vietnam War Nears Completion and Pervasive Myths in U.S. Naval History.

10:30 a.m.  13 panels to choose from.

The final batch of panels was as varied as the others. A naval panel with papers from ancient Greece to Vietnam, operational World War II and Global War on Terror panels, as well as panels on science and ethnicity.

The final panel I attended was Fulfilling our Nation’s Promise to those in the Forgotten War: Research into Locating and Identifying the Korean War’s Missing. The panels three papers were ““Operation Pickup”: Recovering War Dead from the Korean Demilitarized Zone, 1953-54” by Kyle Bracken, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, “Accounting for UNC (and ROK?) prisoner of wars (POWs) during and after the Korean War” from Anna Rindfleisch, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, and “Seventy Years Later: Attempting to Account for Those Still Missing from the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea” by Abraham Shragge, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. The panel’s chair and commentator was Annette Amerman, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

Annette is a former History division colleague and a good friend. This panel was not the normal sort of topic I am interested in and it really brought home to me the diversity of the papers, presenters, and attendees at SMH meetings.  Yes, as I mentioned earlier, the Society is split between “academic” historians and government historians, but there are several subgroups there as well. Government historians include the “Title 10” types - historians who teach at the various service academies or war colleges, such as Marine Corps University as well as the service history office historians who produce official histories, who work for place like my own employer, the Marine Corps History Division or the U.S. Army’s Center for Military History. But there are also the museum curators from places like the Smithsonian or the National Museum of the Marine Corps, National Park Service rangers manning the nations preserved battlefields, forts, and other military history sites like Gettysburg, and the historians like my friend Annette, working to find and identify every one of America’s lost war dead.

“Academic” historians include university professors, and their students, from large research institutions like Ohio State University, but also professors from smaller liberal arts schools and community colleges. It also includes, in my estimation, historians working in private sector think tanks and contractors like RAND. And there are many “independent” scholars in the Society as well, doing work in the field on the side while they are either retired or working in another field for their primary means of support but producing books and articles furthering the study of military history nonetheless.

On Sunday, the conference concluded at noon. Myself and a couple fellow historians went to the USS Midway Museum (https://www.midway.org/) for the afternoon, which offered free admission to all SMH attendees with their badges. The Midway tour was excellent, illustrating living conditions typical to large Navy vessels in the 1970s and 1980s. The deck was covered with Navy aircraft from the 1950s on, and the since we visited on a Sunday, there were many volunteers, many former naval aviators, giving excellent talks and presentations on the ship and its aircraft. It completely brought me back to my days as a young Marine on the USS Belleau Wood and USS Guadalcanal

A personal highlight was the very first display seen when boarding, the three major WWII naval aircraft that were employed in the Battle of Midway – F4F Wildcat, SBD-3 Dauntless, and TBD-1 Devastator. The only negative was the film shown about the Battle of Midway, which was jingoistic and a little inaccurate. It also did a poor job covering the battle, or even just the story of the naval aviators in the battle, during the time allotted.

Overall, though, the museum was excellent.

An excellent conclusion to a memorable, if a bit exhausting, annual meeting for the Society for Military History. I look forward to next year’s conference, though having the conference in Arlington, Virginia will be a mixed blessing. It’s actually less convenient, since I’ll need to travel up from Fredericksburg every day (2 hours or so each way, whether I drive or take the train). Much easier when I can just stay in the conference hotel. But no long flights or clock changes, at least, and I'll be able to see my family every night.   

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

Society for Military History 2023 - Friday

 All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

Last month I attended the 2023 Meeting for the Society for Military History, in San Diego, California. I thought some folks might enjoy a "peak behind the curtain" at this conference.


The Society for Military History is the primary professional organization for military historians. Unlike other academic societies, which are dominated by civilian college and university professors, SMH members come from three distinct communities in roughly equal numbers: civilian professors, military college professors (i.e. Title 10 professors from war colleges and service academies), and staff historians (GS employees from service history offices). This unique membership makes the conference an excellent networking opportunity for military history professionals, leading to intellectual cross-pollination within the subcommunities and within the specialty as a whole.

The conference, by my count, comprised roughly 140 panels, out of those 11 panels had at least one panel dealing with an aspect of Marine Corps history.

Friday

8:30 a.m. 14 panels to choose from.

Friday was an excellent example of how packed the schedule was. There were two different panels I wanted to attend in the first session. One was From the Jaws of Defeat: Military Leadership in Times of Crisis, Part 2, which included papers on the USS Chesapeake (relevant to my Marines in the Frigate Navy book (MIFN) and another paper from my colleague Henry Himes on his studies on USMC officer diversity efforts. I choose to attend the other panel, since I know Henry’s work well, and I could get info from him on the other paper. Henry came through for me, telling the USS Chesapeake  author about my work. We later met during one of the coffee breaks and exchanged information and business cards.

Instead I attended "Tell it to the Marines": Reassessing the History of the U.S. Marine Corps, I felt that professionally this panel was one I needed to attend, especially since two of the papers directly tied into my own paper that I would be presenting in the afternoon. The panel was well attended, with over 20 people in the audience.

            The first paper was “Evaluating Doctrine: Reconsidering the U.S. Marine Corps' Tentative Manual for Landing Operations” by Chris K. Hemler, Independent Scholar. It was a well-presented paper that hit on a well-known weakness in early U.S. amphibious warfare doctrine, naval gunfire support, and showed how it slipped through the cracks in the ‘20s and ‘30s.  A solid, thoughtful, and professional presentation. My only criticism is that I thought he was perhaps a touch too critical of the Caribbean exercises of the Interwar period – given constraints of funding, safety, and the availability of equipment. 

The second paper was “Duffer's Drift Comes to I Corps: The Tactical Relevance of Khe Sanh's Hill Fights” by Mike Morris, School of Advanced Warfighting, Marine Corps University. I wasn’t certain what to expect from this paper. The author applied the principles behind the famous “Duffer’s Drift” tactical study method to the battle of Khe Sanh. As a tactical study it was superb, I thought, completely achieving its objective. He was particularly convincing laying out the deficiencies of the Khe Sanh defensive position and why the Marines could have done better. As history, however, he never explained the key point – if the position was this weak, why did the NVA not over run Khe Sanh?  Did the defenders know something he didn’t show us or did they just get lucky? SMH papers are about scholarly possibilities, so this paper presented intriguing areas of study on a battle I had thought studied to death. Well done.

The last paper was “MCDP 1: Warfighting: Retrospect and Prospect” by Nate Packard, U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College. I was heavily biased in favor of this presentation. MCDP-1 is one of the “holy trinity” of Marine doctrine manuals, alongside the Tentative Landing Manual and the Small Wars Manual, but it has received far less scholarly attention then either of those works. I know Nate, and his work was just as concise and professional as I would have expected. He explained Warfighting purpose as a foundational doctrinal document and its connection to maneuver warfare quite well. Then he argued persuasively that manual needs revision, a “Warfighting 2030.”

10:30 a.m. 14 panels to choose from.

            Again, difficult to choose which panel to see in this time slot, panel topics included the war in the Ukraine, nuclear strategy, third world conflict, atrocities, and senior U.S. military leaders, including a paper on Cunningham, the father of USMC aviation.

            I choose to attend New Sources and Interpretations in Early Modern British Military History hoping to get insights to help with my MIFN work, as the British are involved, even when they are not actively our enemies, in nearly all of the events in the first half of the 19th century. This panel was also well attended with over 20 in the audience.

“Medical Practitioners during the English Civil Wars: The Evidence from Civil War Petitions” from Ismini Pells, Oxford University, was a gory but enjoyable talk on typical wounds of the pre-modern era. It reminded me of some of my own research in U.S. pension records for the Barbary War.

The next paper was “General Sir Henry Clinton's First Notebook: The Junior Officers Reading List” by Huw J. Davies, King's College London. This was a fascinating look at a newly discovered source, recently discovered by the author in the holdings of the “Society of Cincinnati” in D.C. It showed the professional military history reading that prepared one British officer for the American Revolution. NOT merely classical events studied but “recent” campaigns in Europe. An eye-opening presentation.

The last paper was “Major General Sir George Murray's Papers: Discovery, Controversy and Importance” by William Fletcher, King's College London. Insightful presentation into the papers of Wellington’s Quartermaster General (i.e. Chief of Staff).

1:30 p.m. 13 panels to choose from.

            Panels on military medicine, the OSS, the Tet offensive, and draft resistance were highlights of this time slot.

I attended a roundtable: Military University Presses and You: Navigating the World of Open Access Academic Publishing, including MCUP, Army War College Press, and Air University Press. I write official history, so I’m not looking for a publisher, but it was good to see how the different services handled this.

3:30 p.m. 14 panels to choose from.

            This period again had too many good panels to choose from. Highlights included 3! panels on aspects of Marine Corps history, including one on the Vietnam War and another on interwar innovation. Fascinating panels on music, espionage, occupations, and women in war were also included. I was upset that I missed the following paper, “A Failed Insurrection: The Burr Conspiracy and its Military Connections, 1805-1807” by Timothy C. Hemmis, Texas A&M University Central Texas. Marines were involved in the Burr conspiracy on the fringes, and I need to find a way to contact the author so we can exchange information.

            The panel I organized, Controlling the Littoral: Aspects of Naval Operations in the Second World War, was during this time slot. I was very pleased with attendance, we had over 50 people in the audience.

My own paper was “Land, Air, and Sea: The United States Marine Corps' as a Combined Arms Naval Force in the Second World War,” mostly a historical look at aviation and defense battalions as a historical precursor to FD 2030. I was happy with how it went.

The second paper was “The Blunted Harpoon: Luftwaffe Anti-shipping Operations in Normandy, Summer 1944” by Russell A. Hart, Hawai'i Pacific University. Russel is a fellow Ohio State military history alum, and one of the world’s experts on D-Day. He gave an excellent peak into a little-known aspect of the German defense, and how it failed. The technological innovations appeared to have been bleeding edge, but based on his presentation I think a large, better supplied, and better trained air force would have served Germany better than the wunderwaffe.

The final paper was “Writing the Book: Lessons Learned in the Combined Operations of the Central Pacific Force, November 1943 to February 1944” by Andrew Blackley, Independent Scholar. An excellent presentation on seizing advanced naval bases, just as my paper had focused on defending them. Our papers were inadvertently well connected - we had nearly identical slides on Ellis.

Our chair, Sarandis Papadopoulos, U.S. Navy, and commentator: Lisa Budreau, History Division, Marine Corps University, both did an excellent job guiding discussion which was lively and full of excellent questions. I met a Marine colonel after who wondered how well FD2030 was linked to Navy doctrine and future plans. I had assumed they were tightly connected, but certainly a question worth asking.

All in all, a great way to end the first day of the conference.

For the Saturday/Sunday at the conference, look here

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

Friday, March 24, 2023

Review: Sanctuary by Lynn Abbey

 A version of this article appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #198 (April, 2013).


All the good things of the earth flow into our city because of its greatness…

(Pericles' Funeral Oration, Thucydides 2.38)

Pericles was speaking of Athens, one of the marvels of the ancient world, a city whose institutions have
come to us through the centuries and whose reputation may be tarnished but has never descended from greatness. It was literally a ‘city on a hill;’ the original great cosmopolis or ‘world city.’ Cities have long captured our imaginations, and usually there are two types. One is the great, shining city that was Athens, or if one looks at fictional cities, Superman’s Metropolis. But it is the other sort of city, the city into which all vile things flow that this novel explores, a city ironically named Sanctuary.

Lynn Abbey’s Sanctuary is a unique novel for many reasons. It is intended as a bridge between the original incarnation of Thieves’ World and its second life. Thieves’ World was the first ‘shared world’ setting, and it was primarily a fantasy short story anthology series edited by Robert Asprin and Lynn Abbey, though novels, board games, comics, and a truly excellent multi-system city RPG boxed set were also produced. Its influence on shared worlds, the fantasy genre, and roleplaying was significant, but it reached creative and sales exhaustion by the 1990s.  However, fans of the series never completely disappeared and Abbey was persuaded to resurrect it in 2002. 

Sanctuary is not your normal hero’s quest tale, though it a coming of age tale. It merges the tragic history of Sanctuary with the equally tragic back story of its protagonist, Cauvin. Cauvin is the adopted son of a mason, adopted following the flaming, bloody demise of the Hand of Dyareela cult. This cult, devoted to a hermaphroditic deity of chaos, disease, madness, and death (first introduced in the second anthology of the series, Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn in 1980), had gained control of the city in the years following the last anthology. The Hand prefers children as followers; it gathered orphans and raised them to be corrupt, mad, and cannibalistic. Cauvin was one of the very few sane survivors, saved by those who destroyed the cult because he displayed a spark of humanity. Still a child, he is adopted by a stone mason and becomes his servant/apprentice, and he settles into the humdrum life of a Sanctuary working man. Then he discovers on his daily business a decrepit, aged, and wounded Molin Torchholder. 

Torchholder appeared or was mentioned in more stories than any other character in the original series, often just a cameo or an off-screen threat, but always there, always involved. His choice as the bridge character was inspired, as was the idea that he would chose an heir to whom to pass his knowledge of the secrets and lore of the city. Cauvin, Molin, and Cauvin’s younger adopted brother, Bec, are forced to confront the demons and angels of the past while facing a new, yet familiar threat to the city.  

And the city is the real hero of the story. Cauvin is endearing and the reader will certainly root for him, but the soul of Thieves’ World has always been the city of Sanctuary itself, and Abbey manages to show its shifts and changes over time, its many physical alterations, while holding true to the Sanctuary's soul. The city is alive and real, it attracts pain, suffering, corruption, and despair yet the city itself is neither corrupt nor wicked but rather a tough survivor battered and bruised by tragic life and yet unbroken.  

In the past, when I've read this novel I've been very focused on the easter eggs and hints to the past, this time around I am trying very hard to focus instead on this novel as its own thing, with its own story to tell. For example, the Dyareelans make INCREDIBLE fantasy world villains, Sanctuary has never had a scarcity of evil and cruelty but the Dyareelans surpassed everything previously seen. - they make Roxanne look like a mildly difficult hedge witch of quite banal "evil" in comparison. Their focus on children as both victims and tools in their atrocities makes them feel very real and very abhorrent.

The Molin/Cauvin relationship with reminds me a little of Merlin and Nimue in Mary Stewart's The Last Enchantment (obviously without the romantic element). And Molin and Cauvin's relationship with Arizak and Raith remind of Merlin's relationship with Uther and Arthur. The idea of a younger heir taking over for a lamed great king is a common Arthurian motif, but stripping it from its Faerie and British environment and instead applying it to the succession crisis for a barbarian tribe ruling a conquered desert city is inspired. Or... I've just read far too much of Thieves' World and the matter of Britain both and I'm seeing things that aren't there. 😀


Gamemasters will find in Sanctuary a wonderful example for rebuilding or advancing old, stale campaigns. It is also an excellent example of city design, and the importance of forming a cohesive history for your settings. The Hand of Dyareela is a wonderful example for structuring an evil cult to oppose your players. For players, Cauvin, Bec, and Soldt all provide excellent character templates that can be altered and emulated to provide depth. Players running priests who wish to be something other than clerical healing dispensers will find Molin Torchholder inspirational as well.

Sanctuary was followed by two new short story anthologies, Turning Points (2002) and Enemies of Fortune (2004), each structured like the original Thieves’ World anthologies with a stable of writers from the old series as well as new comers.

I said earlier that Sanctuary is ironically named, yet it is aptly named as well. The city draws all that is vile to it, but also acts as a protector to it citizens, and for readers the city is a sanctuary as well, you will truly enjoy your time in Thieves’ World. So check your purse, loosen your sword, and give the city another chance. 

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.