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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 27, 2024 12:47:39 GMT -5
Essex Dogs by Dan Jones
Historian Dan Jones' first historical novel follows the adventures of a mercenary company, The Essex Dogs, from Edward III's landing in Normandy through the Battle of Crecy. The focus here is on this small band and their attempts to survive and to attain their personal goals for the fight, getting paid when their time is up and looting the French cities and people to supplement that expected payment. As you could expect from Jones, who has written extensively about the Middle Ages, the history is spot on. And he forgoes the glamorization of war to show a truer picture of what warfare was like at the time, particularly for those who were not of a privileged class. Overall a very solid historical novel. If there are any problems, it does drag a bit in places and the characters aren't as fully developed as one might like. But it's still well worth a read. I just checked and our local library has a copy of this, so I put in a request. Wasn't aware of this book or author before you posted. Thanks. -M I’ve read a couple of his straight history books and have one or two in the hopper. He also does a lot of presentation work in British documentaries.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 27, 2024 20:39:18 GMT -5
That sounds really interesting! Definitely going on the list!
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Sept 27, 2024 20:47:29 GMT -5
Reread The Servants of Bit-Yakin (which I still think of as The Jewels of Gwalhur) last night as part of my CimmerianSeptember journey. I don't think I will get to all of the Howard Conan stories by the end of September (I have 4 left, but not much reading time today or tomorrow, so likely that my read through spills into October.
-M
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 27, 2024 21:29:57 GMT -5
Future Imperfect by James E. Gunn
I hadn't read any old school sci fi short stories for it bit, so it was time. James Gunn is one of those people who you don't really know who they are until you look them up, and then you find out they are everywhere. To my knowledge, I'd never read anything of his before.
All these stories were written in the mid 50s, and you can tell.. Most of them are pretty dated, and a bit cringy as far as gender roles go.
There were 2 stories I liked.. 'Every Day is Christmas' was a fun one about consumerism gone amok... I liked the REASON it happened alot (turning advertising into science instead of art... sounds familiar, right?), but the very short period of time it took place it (3 years) was silly.
The other, by far the best of the bunch, was 'survival policy'.. a story about an insurance agent and a woman who asked to take out a policy on the survival of her race. I would totally read more stories about Malachi Jones.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 27, 2024 21:42:34 GMT -5
Future Imperfect by James E. Gunn I think that Gunn was ultimately better know for his writing about SF and his “The Road to Science Fiction” anthology series than his actual fiction.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 27, 2024 21:54:20 GMT -5
yeah I think so too... when I went to do the review on good read it said he had 267 books... and quite a few were reviews/history of sci fi stuff... I had seen the Road to Science Fiction' before but didn't know the author's name.
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