Black Gate

If you have a book you’d like me to review, please see this post for instructions to submit. I’ve received very few submissions recently, and I’d like to get more.

Forgotten Soldiers is the story of Tyrus, a sergeant in the Turine army. Turine has been at war with the Geneshan Empire for over a decade, and the war is almost over, the Empire on the defensive. Tyrus’s tactical skill and magic resistance make him a highly valued asset, and he is sent, along with his well-trained unit and powerful mage sister, on the critical mission of recovering a magical artifact, an ancient superweapon in the hands of the Geneshans. He succeeds, and the Geneshans immediately surrender. It turns out the Geneshans are even more afraid of the artifact than the Turines are, and the only condition of their surrender is that the Turines not use the artifact. Tyrus and what remains of his unit are discharged.

Their reception is not quite as warm as they anticipated. Many people have heard rumors of what the army has been up to, and it’s not pretty. People regard the soldiers with suspicion, refuse to do business with them, and there is even an attack by a mob at the first town they visit. When Tyrus and his friends are forced to defend themselves, the situation becomes worse and they have to leave town in a hurry, every soldier hoping that they’ll at least be welcomed back in their hometowns.

For Tyrus and his friends, that’s not to be. Tyrus returns to find himself presumed dead, and his family in dire straits. The town has changed, consisting mostly of newcomers hostile to him, and even his old friends are either suspicious of him themselves or too afraid of the current climate to help. It’s up to him to rescue his son and daughter, Zadok and Myra, from indentured servitude and try to find a place for his family.

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Was once a captain,
the story goes,
who led me in battle,
though in death’s throes.
Oh, senores! What an apt man
was that brave captain.
— E. Marquina, The Sun Has Set in Flanders

Spain’s Golden Age ran from roughly 1492, the final year of the Reconquista, until 1659 and the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees with France. During that period seemingly endless rivers of gold and silver from the kingdom’s colonies around the world flowed into its coffers. The disciplined soldiers of her vaunted tercios (commands of about 3,000 men) were respected and feared across Europe. Great cathedrals and palaces were built and painting and literature flourished as never before.

But a rot had set in, unseen by many, by the early 17th century. Inflation, corruption, expulsions of Jews and Moors, and endless wars would render Spain a mortally wounded empire that would slowly wither away over the subsequent two centuries. In 1623, though, Madrid is a glorious city of poets and dashing swordsmen. One of the greatest of the latter is Diego Alatriste y Tenorio, the hero of Captain Alatriste (1996) by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. It’s been a while since I reviewed a historical adventure, so I decided to dive into the first book in this still-running series.

Disappointed with the lack of information about the Golden Age in his daughter’s textbooks, Pérez-Reverte took it upon himself to write a book exploring that dramatic period. His most obvious inspiration were the swashbuckling historical romances of Alexandre Dumas. Undoubtedly influenced by two decades as a war correspondent, his exposure to the darkness of combat also permeates Captain Alatriste.

Alatriste is a veteran of years of conflict with Spain’s recalcitrant subjects in the Netherlands and the Turks, having run away as a drummer boy at the age of 13. Now, some thirty-odd years later, the recently ended truce with the Netherlands has brought him back to Madrid. Struggling to make a living with the only skills he posseses, Alatriste sells his sword and strong arm to whomever will pay. In the past he has been hired to kill one man’s rival at court, and the lover of another’s wife. In this novel, the first of seven to date, he and the Italian swordman, Gualterio Malatesta, are hired to waylay and rob two men. Initially told not to hurt the strangers too badly, they are later given conflicting orders to, in fact, kill them. During the attack Alatriste comes to believe things are not as simple as they seem, as well as being struck by the honor of one of his two intended victims. The rest of the novel involves the fallout from Alatriste’s decision to prevent the men’s deaths, as powerful men at the center of the Empire’s complex and corrupt power structure turn their attention to the veteran sell-sword. And that’s it. That’s pretty much the plot of Captain Alatriste.

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Werewolves! A Study of Lycanthropes in Film, Folklore and Literature
By Thomas McNulty.
BearManor Media (215 pages, including Notes and Sources, Selected Werewolf Filmography, Bibliography, and Index; $19.95 in trade paperback, November 17, 2011)

Thomas McNulty’s Werewolves! is an insightful, informative and scholarly look at the legend and cinestory (film history) of werewolves.  Now, I consider myself a pretty fair hand when it comes to all things “lycanthropic,” but McNulty has me beat by a mile.  I learned about films I’d never heard of before, such as The Werewolf, a lost 1913 silent film; 1995’s Huntress: Spirit of the Night; and 2003’s Dark Wolf (which I have finally viewed and highly recommend.)

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