Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 8

SHIELD OF POWER Table of Contents

I am finally far enough along in the editing to share the Table of Contents for SHIELD OF POWER, which you can see below!

If all goes well and nothing goes wrong, the book should be out next week.

-JM

Coupon of the Week, 6/30/25

Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week!

This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Dragons, Book #1 in the Cloak Mage series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store:

DRAGONAUDIO50

The coupon code is valid through July 21, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this summer, we’ve got you covered!

-JM

Chivalry

It is interesting to reflect how the meaning of words shifts over time, and how a word can sometimes long outlast its original purpose and meaning.

“Mile” is a good example, since it originally derived from the distance covered by a Roman soldier marching a thousand steps. Nowadays, the usage of miles has nothing to do with marching Romans, and most of the world uses kilometers anyway, but the name remains, having long outlived its original meaning.

“Chivalry” is another good example. Nowadays “chivalry” or “chivalrous” typically means a man acting in a deferential way to a woman – holding the door, pulling out a chair for her, taking her coat, standing when she approaches the table, etc – that an individual woman will find either charming, annoying, patronizing, or perhaps some combination of the three, depending on her particular disposition and her opinion of the man in question.

But that definition of the word is only a ghostly relic of what it used to mean.

“Chivalry” comes originally from the French word Chevalier, which means “mounted warrior on horseback”, which was the French term for the medieval knight. In the Middle Age, the term chivalry both referred to the expected conduct of a knight, and in a larger sense knighthood as an institution or perhaps the proper behavior expected of the knightly warrior class as a whole.

Medieval knighthood originated from essentially three sources – 1.) the practice of barbarian kings and chieftains gathering a “comtitatus” around them, a group of chosen warriors who lived with him and were expected to die with him if necessary, 2.) the influence of the medieval Catholic church, and 3.) how a combination of the stirrup, the lance, and heavy armor meant that cavalry dominated the battlefield for most of the Middle Ages.

Number three meant that knighthood was usually available only to the wealthy. The knight fought on horseback, and fighting on foot was for lesser men, peasants, serfs, and churls. Mounted combat was his defining trait. Horses were (and still are) very expensive, and suitable armor and weapons were likewise expensive. Additionally, learning to ride a horse in battle while effectively wielding melee weapons was a difficult endeavor, which meant that the boys and men who did needed to make a full-time profession of it. Which, again, limited knighthood to those able to afford it.

A lot of what we think of as chivalric behavior evolved out of the medieval church’s efforts to control and regulate knighthood. Early medieval knights were essentially armed thugs employed by local warlords. The early history of feudalism in post-Roman Western Europe tends to boil down to “local warlordism” based around holding land, with centralized states only slowly developing. In the late 800s and the 900s, the church advocated movements like the Peace of God, which tried to instruct knights and nobles not to kill or rob women, children, the elderly, monks, nuns, priests, and other noncombatants, and the Truce of God, which tried unsuccessfully to ban fighting on holy days and any possible holidays. The fact that the church felt the need to be that specific shows just how widespread that kind of local warfare was.

While many knights adopted the external forms of piety, movements like the Peace of God and the Truce of God did little to dissuade them from the practical business of looting and seizing as much land as they could hold. Evidence of this is found in the First Crusade and the subsequent crusades. One of the motivations for the First Crusade was to drain off a lot of the belligerent young knights out of western Europe and send them off to fight infidels in the Holy Land instead of making trouble at home.

“Chivalry” as a code of conduct developed out of a combination of the fact that it was expensive to be a knight and the church’s attempts to regulate it. That meant that knighthood saw itself as a distinct social class with standards of behavior. A knight was supposed to be pious. He should show no fear, and charge to meet the enemy without hesitation. A knight fought on horseback – fighting on foot was for lesser men and churls. A knight should be pious and reverent toward the church and obey his lord unquestionably. He also ought to show courtesy to women of noble rank (this did not apply to peasant and townswomen). He also should develop romantic love for an unattainable married woman (since marriage between nobles was usually for reasons of power and not love), and should use that unrequited love to spur him on to feats of valor. A knight should also be generous and open-handed to the poor and his fellows.

All of this sounds good, but in practice a lot of these virtues twisted around into vices. Fearlessness in battle turned into arrogance and delusions of invincibility. One of the reasons France did so badly for much of the Hundred Years’ War was because the French knights insisted on charging into battle at once to demonstrate their knightly valor and prowess, which let them get slaughtered en masse by English longbowmen. Additionally, readiness to fight evolved into fighting for any excuse at all, which frequent led to wars both ruinous and utterly pointless. Knighthood’s class awareness often caused nobles to treat warfare as a chivalric adventure, which was not conducive to sound strategy and victory. Generally the most successful medieval monarchs were those like Henry II, Edward I, Charles V, and Philip II Augustus who did not allow knightly virtues to get in the way of hard-headed practical policy. Generosity turned into extravagant displays of public magnificence, which in turn meant attempting to squeeze more tax money out of the peasants and merchants. A knight’s respect toward the church often meant giving large donations to have masses said in perpetuity for his soul after a lifetime of plunder. And, of course, a knight might have unrequited Lancelot-style love for an unattainable married noblewoman, but in practice many knights had many, many bastard children, and sometimes with their “unattainable” married noblewomen.

Moralistic writers in every century of the Middle Ages bemoaned the laziness, greed, and luxurious living of their contemporary knights, and frequently exhorted them to return to the hardier, more virtuous knights of past years. Even the Middle Ages had the Nostalgia Filter.

As is so often the case with institutions that have outlived their useful utility, knighthood was never really reformed but eventually became obsolete. By the end of the Hundred Years’ War, the French king maintained a professional standing army, which was far more useful than giving land to nobles and attempting to get knights out of them through feudal obligations. Other nations soon followed suit. Longbows and crossbows heralded the weakness of armor, and then gave away to trained infantry soldiers equipped with firearms. Horsemen remained an important part of warfare for centuries, since they were vital for scouting and attacking unprepared infantry formations. The American Civil War was the first truly industrial war, and yet the war still had numerous significant cavalry battles.

But the armored knight’s days as master of the battlefield were over, and while knights remained part of the upper class, knighthood gradually became a ceremonial honor that had nothing to do with its original purpose of mounted warfare. Recently filmmaker Christopher Nolan became Sir Christopher Nolan, Knight Bachelor of the United Kingdom, for reasons entirely unrelated to wielding a lance on horseback while wearing heavy armor.

So as we can see, the word “chivalry” has a long, long history, so it is amusing to see how the last remnant of its original meaning in the modern era is “hold the door open for women.”

It occurred to me as I wrote this out that the reason I’m a fantasy novelist and not a historian is that I thought “hmm, there’s the ideas for like twelve different books in all of this.” Which is perhaps the point. Chivalric knighthood was something of a myth, but the myth inspired some great stories over the centuries.

-JM

Sign up for my newsletter and get a free short story!

If you sign up for my new-release newsletter, you’ll get a free ebook copy of the short story CONSORT OF DARKNESS when SHIELD OF POWER comes out next month!

A few people have asked if CONSORT OF DARKNESS will set up my next epic fantasy series, which will be set in the realm of Owyllain about a hundred years after the end of SHIELD OF POWER. The answer to that is no, I want to start fresh with a bunch of new characters in the new series, hence the time jump.

CONSORT OF DARKNESS, rather, is the origin story of one of the major villains in THE SHIELD WAR series.

Which villain? We shall have to read and find out…

-JM

SHIELD OF POWER cover image!

I am now far enough along with SHIELD OF POWER that I can share the cover image, which you can see below.

I had hoped to have SHIELD OF POWER out in June, but it’s not going to happen – the book was fairly complicated to write, and I had a bunch of other stuff to do in June. So early July now looks much more likely.

I’m also 113,000 words into STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE: FINAL QUEST and 13,000 into GHOST IN THE SIEGE.

-JM

Question of the Week: The Waiting Room

It’s time for Question of the Week, which is intended to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics.

This week’s question: how do you pass the time when you find yourself compelled to spend a good chunk of time waiting away from home or work, such as in a hospital waiting room, in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, or waiting in your car to pick up someone from sports practice? A situation like that.

For myself, the answer is easy – I bring my laptop and work on my current book. The inspiration for this question is that I have to bring my car in for some maintenance, so I am passing the time by working on STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE: FINAL QUEST.

I’ve been doing that for a long time – I think the earliest I can recall working on a book in a waiting room would be SOUL OF SKULLS waaaay back in 2013.

-JM

 

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 256: Spring/Summer 2025 Frozen Pizza Review Roundup!

In this week’s episode, I take a look at the frozen pizzas that I enjoyed in 2025, and give my recommendations for the best frozen pizzas.

You can listen to the show with transcript at the official Pulp Writer Show site, and you can also listen to it at Spotify, Apple Podcasts , Amazon Music, and Libsyn.

-JM

Coupon of the Week, 6/23/25

Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week!

This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragontiarna series at my Payhip store:

WARDEN25

The coupon code is valid through July 14, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we’ve got you covered!

-JM

Spring/Summer 2025 Frozen Pizza Roundup

My previous pizza review roundup post was pretty popular, so I decided to do another one!

Unlike my movie reviews, the pizza reviews will be in chronological order based on when I ate them. Grades are totally subjective and based on my own opinions. I will also be rating the pizza by eating it hot and eating it cold, since cold pizza is a different experience than hot pizza. Cold pizza for lunch the next day is something to look forward to, especially during a busy day.

I should mention that I bought each pizza myself – no one sent me any free stuff, so while my opinion is subjective, it is nonetheless unbiased. Additionally, I exactly followed the preparation directions for each pizza, since I wanted to avoid the phenomenon you sometimes see on recipe blogs where a commenter will complain that a recipe didn’t work, and then admit they took out the butter, cut the sugar in half, replaced the flour with corn starch, and substituted canola oil for frosting.

So with those disclaimers and caveats out of the way, on to the pizzas!

ORV’S ULTIMATE RIZER THREE MEAT PIZZA – 2/28/2025

Orv’s is a pizza brand owned by Minnesota-based pizza maker Bernatello’s (in the last post I mistakenly said they were based in Wisconsin, though they do have several Wisconsin facilities), which also owns many different pizza brands I’ve mentioned in the last roundup. I had never tried Orv’s before, so I thought I would give it a try.

Eaten hot, the sausage, Canadian bacon, and pepperoni are quite good, as are the cheese and sauce. However, the crust is really quite bready and kind of overwhelms the other tastes. This is a thick crust pizza, and I really prefer thin crust because it’s (generally) less caloric and the crust has a greater chance to work in harmony with the other flavors and not overpower them.

Eaten cold, it’s pretty much the same experience. This is definitely a pizza that would benefit from a bit of added oregano, garlic salt, or perhaps other spices.

Overall, I do think I prefer Bernatello’s Brew Pub Lotzza Motzza pizza instead of Orv’s, though I should mention that Orv’s is quite a bit cheaper.

Overall grade: C+

RED BARON FOUR MEAT CLASSIC CRUST PIZZA – 3/7/2025

Red Baron is a frozen pizza brand started in 1976 by the Schwan’s frozen food company of Minnesota. Currently Schwan’s is owned by a large Korean conglomerate.

Whatever one might think of large corporate consolidation, the fact that the stylized WWI fighter pilot mascot of a Minnesota company is now owned by a Korean conglomerate is hilarious in an absurdist sort of way.

Anyway, the pizza! Eaten hot, I liked the crust – it was a bit thicker than usual for a thin crust pizza, but was crisp and didn’t get bready. Sauce was a bit sweeter than usual but I still liked it. The various meats and the cheese were good as well.

Eaten cold, it’s pretty good. The cheese and sauce set well and remain flavorful.

Overall grade: B+

GOOD & GATHER PEPPERONI PIZZA – 3/14/2025

Store brand foods can be hit or miss, since it really depends on the company that is actually supplying the food with the store.

That said, I’ve had good results with Good & Gather, which is the store brand of Target, which is a major big box retailer in the United States. So I thought I would give the Good & Gather pepperoni pizza a try.

Eaten hot, I was pleasantly surprised. The crust was crisp, the cheese and sauce were good if not outstanding, and the pepperoni was flavorful. A good, workman-like frozen pizza.

Eaten cold, it still tastes quite good.

An important detail is that this is a good deal cheaper than many of the more premium brands. So I would say this is a solid option for the budget-minded consumer.

Overall grade: B

BELLATORIA’S ULTRA THIN CRUST MEAT TRIO PIZZA – 3/21/2025

Bellatoria’s is yet another brand of the Bernatello’s frozen pizza company, and it seems to be the more “premium” brand compared to Orv’s. It also has a less heavy topping load compared to Lotzza Motzza, which is another Bernatello brand.

Despite that, I quite liked this one. Eaten hot, the crust was crisp and just a bit flaky in a good way, and the cheese, sauce, and meat toppings were all good. Sometimes on a pizza you can’t taste the crust, and other times you taste it too much, but I think this was a good crust that complimented the toppings, which were all flavorful.

Eaten cold, it fares well. The thin crust doesn’t get soggy, and the meat and cheese remain flavorful.

A very good pizza. I prefer a thin crust to a thick crust, but this was an excellent thin crust.

Overall grade: A

TOTINO’S PARTY PIZZA TRIPLE MEAT – 3/26/2025

Totino’s was famously one of the first companies to make frozen pizza, and was later acquired by General Mills. These days, Totino’s is mostly known for its pizza rolls, but they still put out small individual pizzas, so for the sake of historical continuity, I decided to give it a try.

It was okay. It definitely tasted like pizza, but didn’t compare to the stronger ones I’ve tried like Heggies or Pothole Pizza. You do need to cook it for a long time for the crust to be adequately crispy and not soggy. I didn’t bother to try it cold since I didn’t think it would be improved, but this is definitely a pizza where you might want to add some oregano or garlic salt.

It’s biggest advantage is that it’s quite inexpensive.

A cheap meal, but don’t expect much.

Overall grade: C+

AUTHENTIC MOTOR CITY PIZZA COMPANY THREE MEAT PIZZA – 3/28/2025

Authentic Motor City Pizza Company is owned by the Ilitch billionaire family of Michigan (the original founders of Little Caesars Pizza), and is a Detroit-style pizza, which is a square pizza cooked in a square pan with a thick crust and lots of cheese. The square shape comes from the fact that it was originally cooked in a car oil drip pan, since the commercially available pans at the time weren’t suitable for the pizza. There’s some dispute about this, but it seems Detroit-style pizza started at a restaurant called Buddy’s Rendezvous in the 1940s, which later became the local Michigan pizza chain Buddy’s Pizza.

I have to admit I was only vaguely aware of Detroit-style pizza, but in 2019 I went to the Detroit area (for a funeral, alas) and had dinner at Buddy’s Pizza, which was amazing. (There was also a guy getting arrested in the parking lot at the time, but thankfully that did not affect the dining experience.) If your travels ever take you to the Detroit area, you definitely should try Buddy’s Pizza.

Anyway, when I happened across a Detroit-style frozen pizza, I decided I needed to give it a try.

It is quite good hot. I’m generally not a fan of thick-crust pizza, which this is, but it’s a good thick crust, crispy on the edges and bottom without being bready or chewy. The toppings are all excellent, which is helped by the fact that the sauce is good and has a good garlic flavor.

I was curious how it would hold up when eaten cold, and I actually liked it a bit better than hot. The cheese seemed to have set quite well.

A good pizza, though I still prefer a thinner crust. Because Detroit style pizza is delicious, but dang it is a heavy meal.

Overall grade: A

POTHOLE KITCHEN SINK PIZZA – 4/4/2025

This is another pizza from the Midwestern convenience store chain Kwik Trip, and features pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, onions, and red & green peppers.

I really liked this one. Like the other Pothole varieties I’ve tried, it’s quite good. Good crust, good sauce, good cheese, very flavorful toppings. This has a slight advantage over my favorite version, the Meat Sweats, since the lesser amount of meat means it isn’t as greasy.

Eaten cold, it is likewise good.

I think this ties with the Meat Sweats pizza. They both represent excellent versions of two different pizza experiences. If you don’t want mushrooms and vegetables on your pizza, get the Meat Sweats. But if you do want vegetables, go for the Kitchen Sink.

Overall grade: A+

HEGGIE’S SIX PACK PIZZA – 4/11/2025

Another pizza from Minnesota company Heggie’s, which had one of my favorite pizzas of the last roundup.

The Heggie’s Six Pack Pizza comes with sausage, pepperoni, Canadian bacon, bacon, mozzarella cheese, and cheddar cheese.

Let’s just say if you’re eating this, you probably don’t have a six pack.

Anyway, eaten hot it was quite good. I liked the thin crust, and all the meat was good. I would say the biggest weakness is that you can mostly taste the cheese and the Canadian bacon, since they kind of drown out all the other flavors. Eaten cold, I would say it tastes better  – you can taste all the individual toppings, and the cheese, sauce, and crust are pleasant when cold as well.

This was good, but I do like the pepperoni-only version better since I think the taste is superior.

Overall grade: A-

TOMBSTONE TAVERN STYLE MEAT CRUMBLE PIZZA- 5/2/2025

This is a more upgraded version the basic model Tombstone pizza with a thinner crust, slightly different cheese, and a mixture of pepperoni and crumbled pork sausage.

Honestly, it tasted about the same as the regular model Tombstone. The crust and meat were slightly better, but I thought the sauce was rather watery.

Eaten cold, it was better, since the watery flavor of the sauce wasn’t as strong. That said, I do think the standard model Tombstone pizza is better.

Overall grade: B-

BREW PUB PATRIOT PEPPERONI PIZZA – 5/9/2025

When I saw this pizza, I wondered my the New England Patriots NFL team had gotten into pizza. However, it’s yet another brand of the Bernattelo’s frozen pizza company. Evidently it is set up in conjunction with a charitable foundation for the families of military veterans and first responders.

Anyway, the pizza was basically the same as the Lotzza Motzza pizza from Brew Pub. Good thin crust, good cheese flavorful sauce, and spicy pepperoni. Eating cold, it tasted about the same as the Lotzza Motzza variant.

Overall grade: A-

There was a bit of a gap here because I had basically tried most of the pizza brands that I actually wanted to try. There are some more lower-cost brands out there, but I figured they would mostly be similar to the cheaper ones I had already tried. But then I came across the final pizza for this review roundup.

SCREAMING SICILIAN MOUNTAIN OF MEAT – 6/6/2025

This is another pizza on the Screaming Sicilian line, which is part of the Palermo Pizza company of Wisconsin. I tried an all pepperoni version for the last pizza round up and thought it was pretty good (it got an A-), so I decided to try the Mountain of Meat, which has pepperoni, sausage, ham, and bacon, and has a “stone-fired” crust.

I liked it better than the all pepperoni version. The different meats blend together well, and I think this version of the crust is quite a bit better. It’s a little bit thicker but quite crispy.

Eaten cold, it likewise holds up quite well. The spiciness of the meat remains flavorful even when cold, and the cheese holds it all together.

Overall grade: A

So, to sum up after two pizza review posts, here are my favorites.

Overall favorites: Pothole Meat Sweats and Pothole Kitchen Sink.

Excellent runners-up: Heggie’s Pepperoni Pizza, Lotzza Motzza, and Bellatoria.

The downside of all these is that they tend to be expensive, usually $10 USD and up. So with that in mind, here are my choices for best budget options:

Tombstone Pepperoni & Sausage and Good & Gather Pepperoni.

Also, one advantage of frozen pizza is that you can add spices to flavor to taste. I’ve found that frozen pizza in general frequently benefits from the addition of oregano or perhaps a dusting of garlic powder.

So, if you are looking for some frozen pizza, hopefully this will help you find one!

-JM

SHIELD OF POWER rough draft done!

I am pleased to report that I have hit the first milestone of my Super Summer Of Finishing Things – SHIELD OF POWER, the sixth and final book of THE SHIELD WAR series, is finished at 101,000 words!

Next up is CONSORT OF DARKNESS, which will be a bonus short story that newsletter subscribers will get a free ebook copy of when SHIELD OF POWER comes out. That will probably be in July. I was hoping it would be in June, but at this point July is more realistic.

As for the other two series I am finishing, I am 109,000 words into STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE: FINAL QUEST, and 10,000 words into GHOST IN THE SIEGE.

-JM