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Blaise Maximillian #1
Bitter Defeat
For 8 long years the Great War has raged. Blaise Maximillian has been there from start. A bright-eyed and fearful young Ensign, the realities of war change him into a hard-bitten soldier and an even harder policeman.
Detective Inspector Blaise Maximillian of the Combined Imperial Special Intelligence Bureau, now works to protect the British Empire any way he can. Nothing will stop him from carrying out his duty. Not the law, not morals, not even ethics. A flawed man, he will do anything it takes.
Detective Inspector Blaise Maximillian of the Combined Imperial Special Intelligence Bureau, now works to protect the British Empire any way he can. Nothing will stop him from carrying out his duty. Not the law, not morals, not even ethics. A flawed man, he will do anything it takes.
- GenresAlternate History
202 pages, Paperback
First published September 30, 2015
9 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
About the author
Matthew Sylvester
24 books48 followersMatthew has been reading and writing fantasy and science fiction since he first read the Hobbit at the age of 7.
Since starting writing, Matthew has created the LitRPG/LitFPS Permadeath Series, the alternative history dieselpunk Blaise Maximillian: Bitter Defeat series, Shadow Company - a military fiction series, and is currently working on the Devil's Run RPG with Red Scar Publishing.
He is also the author of the critically acclaimed 'Practical Taekwondo: Back to the Roots'.
Since starting writing, Matthew has created the LitRPG/LitFPS Permadeath Series, the alternative history dieselpunk Blaise Maximillian: Bitter Defeat series, Shadow Company - a military fiction series, and is currently working on the Devil's Run RPG with Red Scar Publishing.
He is also the author of the critically acclaimed 'Practical Taekwondo: Back to the Roots'.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 12, 2016
A gritty collection of short stories, set in the trenches of an alternate World War I. Sylvester's visceral, muscular style that has the reader right down in the blood and muck with his put-upon protagonist, as he deals with the horrors and humiliations of trench warfare. While some of the stories herein are more vignettes than anything else, each one nevertheless builds upon the last in a satisfying manner, ratcheting up the tension with every turn of the page. Personally, I can't wait to read more of Blaise Maximillian's adventures. Highly recommended!
October 2, 2016
As always you can also find this review on my website: TheTattooedBookGeek.wordpress.com
3.5stars.
Bitter defeat tells the story of Maximillian Blaise through a series of intertwining yet separate short stories. The book contains a total of twenty chapters/stories with eighteen focusing on tales about Maximillian and the final two focusing on two separate female characters.
I’ll just quickly mention the final two stories and write both introduce a couple of interesting characters and are fun little snippets into the characters lives.
The book itself has its base in reality and history with WW1 but it’s an alternate version of our history and the war itself lasts far longer, finally ending on St George’s Day in 1923, a humiliating way for the war to end for Britain. Incorporated into this alternate version are elements of ‘dieselpunk’ where the Germans won because of the armour and weapons that they invented. The German technology is all very plausible and the author does a great job of showing the feeling of dread that comes from not knowing what they will create next and what is likely to come over no mans land and attack the trenches, be it a new weapon, armour or an even more deadly and lethal gas. Making this an alternate history that feels very accurate due to the details and depiction of The Great War.
Now, back to Maximillian, the eighteen stories take place during the years of WW1 (The Great War) starting from the begin of Maximillian’s journey as a patriotic and fresh-faced ensign, who dislikes killing as taking a life is wrong “though shalt not murder” from the seven commandments through to the war’s end years later with the bitter defeat. Then moving onwards into Maximillian’s post war career in the Police force.
Incorporated throughout the selection of stories is Maximillian’s transformation from that young unblooded officer into a grizzled and battle-hardened veteran who does what’s needed to survive and who will take the life of an enemy without thinking twice about it. The actual characterisation of Maximillian is really good throughout the collection as we see him change from the character we first encounter and with each short we see that change happening just a little bit more. In the end he is a dark and does what needs to be done without a second thought – it’s a completely different genre but by the end I was really feeling a Grimdark like anti-hero character vibe coming from Maximillian.
Each of the shorts during the time frame of WW1 give a small snapshot into the life in the trenches of The Great War, and are as such dark and grittily depicted with the horrors of trench warfare showing you the appalling nature in vivid and graphic detail.
The shorts that take place after the Bitter Defeat of the title are also dark in nature showing you an oppressed Britain under a dystopian German rule. And the setting, will feel recognisable to anyone that has played the most recent Wolfenstein: The New Order video game, likewise the German technology during the war whilst not as advanced as in the video game is definitely reminiscent of it. Yes, for any of you reading this who are gamers, I’m one myself to and I know that Wolfenstein: The New Order takes place after WW2 and not WW1 like this book, I’m merely making the comparison.
The writing of the book is vivid and brutal and is perhaps not for those who don’t like violence and gore in their books. Likewise there is also quite a lot of swearing. Swearing doesn’t bother me but I’m not sure if it is authentic to the era or not.
The pacing of the book is also generally good, none of the shorts overstay their welcome but some could do with being longer and you find that they have finished before they have even began.
Also, on occasion the author has a slight tendency to repeat himself, the main culprit being when Maximillian and his soldiers are in the trenches, wet, sodden and caked in mud and then a grenade goes off or something explodes and the author states that the heat is drying them. It’s only a slight point that’s not really worth mentioning if the book were an actual book but being a collection of shorts, those few repeated words could have been used to better effect in the short.
Another problem that I had, was with the editing, there’s nothing wrong with the formatting – I read the book on the Kindle, the grammar or even the spelling. But, on quite a few occasions the wrong word is used, taking you out of the story as you have to stop and think for a second before realising it’s an error and having that ‘ah, he means that’ moment. Now, I myself did that on a blog post the other week even after spell checking as the word wasn’t actually spelt incorrectly only the wrong word. It was Brian and Brain and while typing the author’s name I had inadvertently typed Brain instead of Brian, so it’s easily done and I had to have it pointed out to me. But in an actual book, you would think that not necessarily the author but the copy and proof editors should have picked up on the fault.
I’m not the biggest fan of short story collections but overall I thoroughly enjoyed my foray into this selection and don’t regret my time spent reading Maximillian Blaise: The Bitter Defeat. Even with its flaws this is a decent book and the author is talented with a good concept and idea that is open to future possibilities. And, I would like to see both the concept explored further in either another collection of shorts or a proper full length book and for Blaise to return.
There’s a lot to like in the book and I would recommend it for fans of WW1, alternate history and those who enjoy a decent quick read with an engaging hero as the main character.
3.5stars.
Bitter defeat tells the story of Maximillian Blaise through a series of intertwining yet separate short stories. The book contains a total of twenty chapters/stories with eighteen focusing on tales about Maximillian and the final two focusing on two separate female characters.
I’ll just quickly mention the final two stories and write both introduce a couple of interesting characters and are fun little snippets into the characters lives.
The book itself has its base in reality and history with WW1 but it’s an alternate version of our history and the war itself lasts far longer, finally ending on St George’s Day in 1923, a humiliating way for the war to end for Britain. Incorporated into this alternate version are elements of ‘dieselpunk’ where the Germans won because of the armour and weapons that they invented. The German technology is all very plausible and the author does a great job of showing the feeling of dread that comes from not knowing what they will create next and what is likely to come over no mans land and attack the trenches, be it a new weapon, armour or an even more deadly and lethal gas. Making this an alternate history that feels very accurate due to the details and depiction of The Great War.
Now, back to Maximillian, the eighteen stories take place during the years of WW1 (The Great War) starting from the begin of Maximillian’s journey as a patriotic and fresh-faced ensign, who dislikes killing as taking a life is wrong “though shalt not murder” from the seven commandments through to the war’s end years later with the bitter defeat. Then moving onwards into Maximillian’s post war career in the Police force.
Incorporated throughout the selection of stories is Maximillian’s transformation from that young unblooded officer into a grizzled and battle-hardened veteran who does what’s needed to survive and who will take the life of an enemy without thinking twice about it. The actual characterisation of Maximillian is really good throughout the collection as we see him change from the character we first encounter and with each short we see that change happening just a little bit more. In the end he is a dark and does what needs to be done without a second thought – it’s a completely different genre but by the end I was really feeling a Grimdark like anti-hero character vibe coming from Maximillian.
Each of the shorts during the time frame of WW1 give a small snapshot into the life in the trenches of The Great War, and are as such dark and grittily depicted with the horrors of trench warfare showing you the appalling nature in vivid and graphic detail.
The shorts that take place after the Bitter Defeat of the title are also dark in nature showing you an oppressed Britain under a dystopian German rule. And the setting, will feel recognisable to anyone that has played the most recent Wolfenstein: The New Order video game, likewise the German technology during the war whilst not as advanced as in the video game is definitely reminiscent of it. Yes, for any of you reading this who are gamers, I’m one myself to and I know that Wolfenstein: The New Order takes place after WW2 and not WW1 like this book, I’m merely making the comparison.
The writing of the book is vivid and brutal and is perhaps not for those who don’t like violence and gore in their books. Likewise there is also quite a lot of swearing. Swearing doesn’t bother me but I’m not sure if it is authentic to the era or not.
The pacing of the book is also generally good, none of the shorts overstay their welcome but some could do with being longer and you find that they have finished before they have even began.
Also, on occasion the author has a slight tendency to repeat himself, the main culprit being when Maximillian and his soldiers are in the trenches, wet, sodden and caked in mud and then a grenade goes off or something explodes and the author states that the heat is drying them. It’s only a slight point that’s not really worth mentioning if the book were an actual book but being a collection of shorts, those few repeated words could have been used to better effect in the short.
Another problem that I had, was with the editing, there’s nothing wrong with the formatting – I read the book on the Kindle, the grammar or even the spelling. But, on quite a few occasions the wrong word is used, taking you out of the story as you have to stop and think for a second before realising it’s an error and having that ‘ah, he means that’ moment. Now, I myself did that on a blog post the other week even after spell checking as the word wasn’t actually spelt incorrectly only the wrong word. It was Brian and Brain and while typing the author’s name I had inadvertently typed Brain instead of Brian, so it’s easily done and I had to have it pointed out to me. But in an actual book, you would think that not necessarily the author but the copy and proof editors should have picked up on the fault.
I’m not the biggest fan of short story collections but overall I thoroughly enjoyed my foray into this selection and don’t regret my time spent reading Maximillian Blaise: The Bitter Defeat. Even with its flaws this is a decent book and the author is talented with a good concept and idea that is open to future possibilities. And, I would like to see both the concept explored further in either another collection of shorts or a proper full length book and for Blaise to return.
There’s a lot to like in the book and I would recommend it for fans of WW1, alternate history and those who enjoy a decent quick read with an engaging hero as the main character.
June 11, 2018
Cracking good read.
Loved this book. Once you get in to it it keeps you gripped to the end. Great characters,plenty of twists and turns and the promise of more to come.
Loved this book. Once you get in to it it keeps you gripped to the end. Great characters,plenty of twists and turns and the promise of more to come.
September 14, 2016
It's a really interesting idea. A young fresh faced ensign joins up to fight the Hun and the reader is carried away on a typical first word war story that gradually twists and turns into a plausible alt history. It's well written, paced and gripping but sadly the novel falls apart at the end of the war and the return to England. There's no real sense of narrative at that point or overall plot, just one violent fight after another and the sudden end of the book with two chapters introducing two POV characters for no good reason. Overall it lost its way but worth reading for the first two thirds.
February 26, 2016
This is a solid start to a really interesting premise - what if the German's won WWI? Not simply because of thir tactics but because of the arms and armour they developed.
This collection of short stories follows Blaise during and after the war. Besides being a rip roaring adventure it also focuses on the impact of violence on the men who commit it and those to whom it is done.
A great collection of stories with, I believe, more to come.
This collection of short stories follows Blaise during and after the war. Besides being a rip roaring adventure it also focuses on the impact of violence on the men who commit it and those to whom it is done.
A great collection of stories with, I believe, more to come.
April 8, 2017
Bloody hell, this is an incredible book! It starts off as an honest look at the warfare of the first world war, but slowly introduces an alternative history to rival any other. The story switches to the aftermath of the war (the titular Bitter Defeat), and follows Maximillian as he becomes a policeman of sorts in London. Good God, this book is harsh! My favourite line: "F*** off Colour, there's a good chap"
I love it!
I love it!
September 17, 2016
Even with the end of the war the main character kills a person in every chapter. Less would have been more with more being left to the imagination in the ways people were killed. The scene with the German Ritters reminded me of the W.W. I . scene in the movie Sucker Punch.
November 5, 2019
Good read
Interesting concept of linking short stories to make a fairly contiguous book. Could use a little editing, but I enjoyed the book.
Interesting concept of linking short stories to make a fairly contiguous book. Could use a little editing, but I enjoyed the book.
April 15, 2017
Bloody hell, this is an incredible book! It starts off as an honest look at the warfare of the first world war, but slowly introduces an alternative history to rival any other. The story switches to the aftermath of the war (the titular Bitter Defeat), and follows Maximillian as he becomes a policeman of sorts in London. Good God, this book is harsh! My favourite line: "F*** off Colour, there's a good chap"
I love it!
I love it!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews