Cody C. Engdahl's Blog, page 3

Review of Fletcher’s Fortune by John Drake

Fletcher’s Fortune has a fascinating premise, which I could not wait to see how it would play out. It’s as much of a mystery as it is an action-adventure story. 

It starts with an introduction in which the author claims to have won in an auction the memoirs of the “notorious” Jacob Fletcher, the main character of the series. He then claims he used these, plus boxes full of letters, articles, and other things to flesh out the novels in this series. I’m pretty sure this setup is also part of the fiction.

The story runs in two tracks: Fletcher’s account in his own words and the story of a seemingly unconnected aristocratic family written in third person, assumedly from the boxes of letters and articles. 

The story starts with an angry father in a drunken rage, threatening to exclude his wife and two boys from the family fortune. Then there’s Fletcher’s story: A street-smart orphan picked up by a press gang and forced into the Royal Navy at the onset of the French Revolutionary Wars. The mystery lies in how these two stories are related. At some point, Fletcher not only has to worry about the French but an unknown enemy aboard his ship, who the reader can try to guess from the clues.

The narrative voice of Fletcher is fantastic for the time, place, and class. More than any other writer, I can hear the salty maritime English accent in every word. The author also gives in-story notes, as if adding context to Fletcher’s words from the 21st century, thus playing up the “found memoir” trope.

This book was a lot of fun. So often, I read authors who really want to tell you how awful everything was. I’ve always felt that being pressed into the Royal Navy was akin to going to prison or being sold into slavery. Certainly, the main character despairs at his fate but there’s a lot of joy as well as he makes friends and grows as a seaman and eventually even takes pleasure and excitement in it. 

There is a fine-line balance between maintaining historical realism, with creating escapist entertainment. Author John Drake walks it expertly. He also has a profound understanding of the ships, technology, history, and culture of the Age of Sail but never gets so lost in the details that it goes over the head of a neophyte like me.

I really enjoyed Fletcher’s Fortune. I bought the box set of the first seven novels of the series. I’m looking forward to reading through it. Drake has recently put out an eighth Fletcher novel and is planning two more at the time of writing.

So, if you want a long series of historical adventure on the high seas, Fletcher’s Fortune is a good place to start.

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Review of Diamond Hunter by Paul Fraser Collard

A deeply textured look into the South African diamond rush of 1871 

…and a very different kind of adventure for Jack Lark.

This is the second book of the series I’ve read. I read Book One, The Scarlet Thief, a few years ago. So it was quite a leap to read Book Eleven. It was also an experiment to see if I’d be able to follow the story in Diamond Hunter, having skipped the other nine books in between. I’m happy to report that I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and whatever I needed to know was contained within its pages. 

That said, I’m aware that most, if not all Jack Lark’s stories are military adventures where he’s a soldier of some sort. So, it was interesting to see him cast in a new adventure as a diamond prospector.

The story (no spoilers, I promise) starts with Jack Lark arriving in Port Elizabeth, South Africa (Now Gqeberha) with his “salt-stained” carpet bag in his hand and his pistol at his side. There, he meets up with his companion, Anna Baker. Together, they must find passage four hundred miles inland to the diggings at Du Toit (Now Kimberly), buy a claim, and start digging. This is a long, arduous process, but just as things go well, everything goes terribly wrong, and Jack Lark must once again fight his way out of trouble.

The story has, what I believe, a deliberately slow start. We follow the two as they hire an oxen train, find fellow passengers to help with the cost, then make the month-and-a-half-long journey to the diggings. This is where we meet the rest of the cast and plant the seeds of the main conflict of the story. There’s the shady Australian, whom we meet in the midst of taking a beating for an alleged theft. There’s the sullen youth from London, the jolly, aptly named Mr. Goodfellow, and the pair of brothers whose mischief causes the first conflict with the standoffish Boers who are sharing their journey. 

Once at the diggings, author Paul Fraser Collard takes us through the grueling process of securing a thirty-by-thirty-foot claim and then digging and sieving, day after day, as the Jack Lark’s hands blister and bleed in the search of a diamond big enough to make it all worth it. I think it’s to impress upon the reader the sacrifice it takes to find success in this dusty, desperate place.

But that’s only half the story. 

Once the slow fuse finally meets the powder keg, everything goes to hell. All those characters and the subplots that have been building come to play for a nonstop, knockdown, drag-out, no-prisoners battle that’ll take up the rest of the book. It’s full of twists, turns, and surprises. At one point, I was like, “How much can this poor guy take?!”

Diamond Hunter is a great adventure, well worth the read. Collard is very descriptive of places like Port Elizabeth and Du Toit, as well as the workings of the digging. He has obviously done his homework. I especially liked the descriptions of the weapons and how they work. This is also an interesting look at the growing tensions between the old Dutch Boers, who had been in South Africa for generations, and the newer British Colonists, which eventually erupted in the famous Boer Wars of the late nineteenth century.

Having read and enjoyed the bookends of this series, I’m confident and excited about reading any of the other books in the interior. I think you could pick up any of Collard’s books and enjoy them on their own, but Diamond Hunter is certainly a gem worth digging into.

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Review of Stigmata by Colin Falconer

Far better than I even imagined. 

Honestly, I was constantly surprised at how much I was enjoying this book. Colin Falconer masterfully captures the time and place of early thirteenth century France with rich textured details and well-rounded characters.

Stigmata follows a young woman blessed and cursed by strange abilities, a knight returned from the Middle East who’s lost everything, and a priest haunted by his sins and desire to do right. Their stories converge as the Cathar Crusade comes crashing through southwestern France, burning heretics and laying waste to cities and villages. 

Ultimately, this is a love story full heroic moments and plenty of surprises all the way to the end. It includes historic characters like Abbot Arnaud Amalric and real events like the Massacre at Béziers. 

Stigmata has short chapters making it an easy read that’s hard to put down. It’s one of the fifteen stand-alone novels that makes up Falconer’s Epic Adventure Series which span from ancient world to post World War II Saigon. I’ve read two so far and if the rest are this good, I look forward to exploring more of Falconer’s Epic Adventures.

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Review of Sharpe’s Command by Bernard Cornwell

Another Exhilarating installment in the Richard Sharpe saga.

Bernard Cornwell reminds us once again why he’s still the master of military historical fiction.

The setup is simple: two French armies have a river keeping them from uniting and destroying a British Army that’s intent on driving them out of Spain. Major Sharpe and his green-jacketed riflemen must reconnoiter the one bridge that could bring those French armies together into an unstoppable force.

But nothing can ever be simple for Sharpe. Treachery and his own hotheadedness turn a simple reconnaissance mission into a desperate fight for his life.

Sharpe’s Command is the twenty-fourth novel in the Sharpe series. But chronologically, it’s book fourteen. The story lies between the Sharpe’s Company and Sharpe’s Sword novels. The book centers around the historic Battle of Almaraz in Spain during the Napoleonic Wars in the Spring of 1812. It features real historical characters like General Hill and Lieutenant Love, among others.

Cornwell published the first several books of the series in chronological order in the early eighties, but has since written novels that take place earlier, later, and even, as with Sharpe’s Command, in between previously published books. That’s more easily done because the Sharpe novels are more episodic than serialized, meaning each book is a self-contained story that can be read out of order, like watching a TV episode of The A-Team. Even though I’ve already read novels about Sharpe’s adventures at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and after the war, I could still enjoy this story, which takes place years earlier in his career. Cornwell gives you all you need to know in each novel as if it’s the first of the series you have read, instead of forcing you to do homework and read everything prior.

Sharpe is the embodiment of class struggle. He’s a bastard son of a long-dead prostitute. He was raised in an orphanage and promoted from the enlisted ranks. He has an anti-authority chip on his shoulder that causes him to rail against slights,real and imagined, from upper-class officers. He soothes his self-conscious impostor syndrome with crassness, disobeying orders, and diving headlong into fights with brutal savagery. This causes him plenty of problems.

But Sharpe is also fair-minded, heroic, and sometimes even kind, making him a hero we can root for. This book is full of intense action sequences, some of which had me gripping my Kindle with white-knuckled anticipation. Cornwell is a master of writing battle scenes as well as foreshadowing, leading you through the narrative page by page. Cornwell also deftly explains many technical aspects of early nineteenth-century warfare, like the advantages of British rifles over French muskets, the seven-barreled volley gun, and the heavy cavalry saber.

Sharpe’s Command is an action-packed romp which I plowed through with reckless abandon. I can hardly wait for the next installment!

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Review of Fire in the East by Harry Sidebottom

Rich, complex, and deeply textured with a cast of well-rounded characters.

Ballistra is a German-born Roman officer sent by the two emperors on an impossible mission to shore up the defenses on the eastern outskirts of the empire against the rising Sassanid threat. He’s surrounded by enemies from outside and within who want nothing more than to see him fail. As the great battle looms, Ballistra must navigate a maze of spies, saboteurs, and murderers if he’s to survive and save the city of Arete from the overwhelming Persian horde.

I really enjoyed Fire in the East. I found out that Harry Sidebottom is first, a historian and college professor who has published several nonfiction works on ancient Rome and ancient warfare. It certainly shows in this novel with its depth of understanding of Roman tactics, weapons, and siege machines. I learned quite a bit, which is always a goal for me in reading historical fiction. Sidebottom follows up the narrative with a historical note in which he lists his sources, some of which are his own scholarly works. There’s a glossary and a list of characters that denotes the ones who are historical. The action sequences are riveting and diverse like a navel battle against pirates, cavalry charges, artillery duels, covert night missions, and all-out siege warfare. I was sucked in immediately with the opening sequence.

Fire in the East is book one of the Warrior of Rome six-book series set in the tumultuous third-century Roman Empire. If the rest of the novels are as good as the first, this looks like an exciting and well-researched series. So, if you’re looking for authentic Roman adventure, put on your helmet, strap on your sword, and jump into the Fire in the East!

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Review of Saxon Dawn: Wolf Brethren Book 1 by Griff Hosker

Rise of the Wolf Brothers!

Saxon Dawn is a compelling start to what looks to be a riveting series. It’s the origin story of our hero Lann told in the first person. 

He’s seven years old when his narrative begins. We watch his beginning as a shepherd boy who learns to use a sling and then a bow to hunt as his father teaches him and his brothers how to survive off the land. This is the same time he first hears of the Anglo-Saxon invasion and their raiding parties, which destroy villages, rape, kill, and take people away as slaves. 

At the dawn of his manhood, the invaders finally arrive at his family’s hilltop commune, causing a tragedy that will put him and his younger brothers into the wilderness, where they must use their father’s lessons to survive. From there, Lann and his brothers grow from boys hiding in the woods to powerful warlords in the fight against the invasion.

This book paints a vivid picture of the post-Roman world of late sixth-century Britain. The characters live in the nostalgic shadow of the once-powerful empire as they build their own world. We see the foundation of medieval society as the Kingdom of Rheged grows and gives rise to its first lords who must build their fiefdoms from the remnants of old Roman forts and leftover weapons.

The battle scenes are vivid and intense, with explanations of how weapons and tactics of the time worked. I like historical fiction that teaches as it entertains, and Griff Hosker does an excellent job balancing the two. There’s a historical note at the end that explains much of the real aspects of the story, as well as a glossary that denotes which characters were real historical figures. 

If you want to learn something about sub-Roman Britain while enjoying a rip-roaring adventure. Join the wolfpack and read Saxon Dawn!

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Review of Malcolm’s Bridge by Loyd Elmore Jr.

Small-town science fiction on a cosmic scale!

Loyd Elmore Jr.’s Malcolm’s Bridge combines a nostalgic return to growing up in the 80s with the awe and dread of the fantastical unknown.

Malcolm Martin, the only black kid in a small town, dreams of Star Trek-like adventures in space as an escape from the everyday cruelties of his life. Everything changes when he finds a mysterious object in his closet that defies all logic. The thing quickly becomes a blessing and a burden, changing his life and perhaps the very state of his existence forever.

I really enjoyed this novel, and read it in record time for me because I couldn’t put it down. I was overwhelmed with memories of my own nerdy childhood in the 70s and 80s and was compelled to read on as the unworldly story unfolded. 

Malcolm’s Bridge reads much like the Sci-fi/ fantasy adventure movies of the ’80s like E.T., The Goonies, Gremlins, and the like, where the mundane world is visited upon by the unimaginable. 

If you’re sitting on the fence, I bade you to cross the bridge, jump right in, and read Malcolm’s Bridge.

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Book Review of The Northern Wolf by Daniel Greene

Michigan Cavalry Rides in Glory

Johannes Wolf is a German immigrant destined for a destitute life of bitterness after an accident in his father’s shop leaves him with a bum leg in a brace. A drunken bar brawl ends up with another trip to the city slammer, but also an opportunity to make something of his life in the Michigan Cavalry. To do so, Wolf and his friends must prove themselves on the training grounds and, ultimately, on the battlefields at Gettysburg.

Northern Wolf is an absolute romp through the real history of the American Civil War. Author Daniel Greene does a great job of weaving historical and technical aspects with an exciting adventure with likable characters, both fictional and real. I especially liked his authentic depictions of Generals George Custer and Wade Hampton.

So much has been written about the Battle of Gettysburg, but Greene manages to bring a fresh perspective through Michigan troopers and the cavalry battles in the rear of the Federal line, which happened during the same time as Pickett’s infamous frontal assault. 

If you’re looking for an exciting new look at America’s most controversial war, saddle up and ride with the Northern Wolf!

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The French Fiasco Preview:

The first public preview of The French Fiasco is out!

They were waiting for him dressed in the uniforms of the local Garde Mobile when Carl got to the clearing on the French side of the river. Monsieur de Villeneuve glared at him, then spoke to his seconds as Carl stepped onto the field. The one who had done the talking in Captain Schultz’s office a few days before turned to look at Carl, then approached him as the other stayed with Villeneuve.

“You were limping. Are you injured?” he asked in English.

“No, just a cut on my foot,” Carl said.

The man looked down at the foot in question, then looked back at Carl’s face. “Where are your seconds?”

“I don’t have any,” Carl said, stopping short of telling him that he had no friends either. He decided that sympathy-mongering would get him nowhere with these men.

The man looked at him for a moment with undisguised scorn. “Wait here, please,” the man said, then returned to the others. 

They spoke in hushed tones. Monsieur de Villeneuve guffawed loudly, throwing a poisonous look toward Carl, then looked back to his seconds. The conversation continued in which Villeneuve seemed to become more agitated and the other men had to calm him down. At last, he seemed to acquiesce with a dismissive hand gesture and a roll of his eyes.

The Frenchman with whom Carl had been speaking returned, his face stone cold and business-like. “Due to your inability to enlist a single gentleman to stand with you, I volunteer to act as your second. Do you accept?”

“Um…yeah,” Carl said, surprised by the offer. “Thank you.”

“I assure you I take no pleasure in it, but I will perform my duties in good faith.”

“Of course. I would expect nothing less,” Carl said, feeling the weight of the man’s contempt.“Can I at least ask your name, sir? I’d like to know who it is that stands with me.” 

“Lieutenant Gabriel d’Archambeau, Garde Mobile Nationale de Forbach.”

“I’m Carl Smith,” Carl said, extending his hand. “…actually, my mother is French.”

D’Archambeau looked at the proffered hand then back at Carl. “I know who you are. What are your instructions for your body?”

“Um,” Carl said as he lowered his hand. “I guess return it to my camp, maybe discreetly if you could.” His voice trailed off as it was a strange thing to ponder. 

“It will be done,” d’Archambeau said. “Now I shall inspect and load the pistols with my counterpart. Once we’re done, you will be given first choice. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Carl said, dropping his eyes. 

“Excellent.” Gabriel turned to walk away.

Carl looked up at him again, “Monsieur d’Archambeau…”

The man stopped and turned. “Yes?”

“I didn’t do it…” Carl stumbled as rage flashed across the man’s face. “…I mean, I didn’t rape her…” That only seemed to make it worse. “…and I’m not the one who hurt her.” 

The man seemed to struggle for a moment, then returned to his cold countenance. “If that’s true, then perhaps God will grant you mercy,” he said then turned to join the other second who was waiting near a small field table on which the pistols and accessories lay. 

Click here to read more: The French Fiasco

What do you think? My editing team and I went through a few choices. This one seemed to tell a story even out of context, yet it doesn’t give too much away. Even though this bit doesn’t have a lot of action like the other scenes we looked at, we felt the tension was there.

More importantly, what do you think? Should we have gone with something with more action? Is the subtext of what’s going on too disturbing? Does it make you want to read more? I’d love to know!

Coming April 16!The French Fiasco

Pre-order for just 99¢ or the equivalent in your country. It will be $4.99 or the equivalent when it comes out.

Book Review of The Stars Entwined by Jon Del Arroz

Authentic science fiction, a fun space fantasy, and a damn good love story!

I enjoyed this far more than I expected. I grew up on Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, and Battle Star Galactica. I spent hours acting out my own space adventures in my backyard. I didn’t realize how much I missed that feeling until I read The Stars Entwined. By the way, the title does have meaning as you read the book, so pay attention!

Humans and the Aryshans are on the brink of war. A lowly internal affairs officer may be the only hope for humanity. Through training, cosmetic surgery, and nanotechnology microviruses reprograming his brain, Lieutenant Sean Barrows is transformed into Retai Aeveron and is installed as a spy on an Aryshan battleship. But the one thing he was not prepared for was falling in love with the enemy commander!

Jon Del Arroz does a great job entwining classic sci-fi tropes with grounded technology and imaginative fantasy elements. The fight scenes are riveting, especially the one in open space during a spacewalk! I liked that he gave perspective to both sides of the conflict. It’s an interesting contrast between Aryshan collectivism and human individualism.

The Stars Entwined is a promising start to the Aryshan War Trilogy. The end will certainly make you want to pick up the next book. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take my plasma pistol and play The Star’s Entwined in my backyard.

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