Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed

 Throne of the Crescent Moon 

By Saladin Ahmed

Saladin Ahmed is an American writer born on October 4, 1975, in Detroit. His father Ismael was a member of the merchant marine, a factory worker, and a labor leader. In 2007 Ismael Ahmed was appointed director of the Michigan Department of Human Resources and served until 2011. Saladin Ahmed's mother was also a political activist and active in the community. Saladin Ahmed grew up in Dearborn Michigan, he graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Arts in American studies. He also graduated from Brooklyn College with a Masters in Fine Arts and from Rutgers University with a Masters in English. 

Mr. Ahmed has written for Marvel comics, with such titles as Black Bolt, Exiles, and Miles Morales Spider-man. He has also written a large number of short stories, two of which, Where Virtue Lives and Judgment of Sword and Souls are set in the same world as our novel. There may be others but I couldn't find them. I will take a moment to just say the two I could find are great stories in their own right and everyone should read them. Throne of the Crescent Moon is Mr. Ahmed's only full-length novel. It was published in 2012 by DAW books and in 2013 was nominated for a Hugo Award for best novel, David Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer, and 2012's Nebula Award for best novel. So let's take a look at it. 

Dhamsawatt is the greatest city in the world, the seat of the Kalif, and home to great teeming masses of humanity. It attracts merchants, scholars, warriors, priests, heroes, thieves, villains, and monsters all in equal measure. All of them come to the city drawn by its ancient history, its wellspring of learning, and its vast store of wealth and treasure. In its tea-houses and cafes, you can find food and drink from across the world and in the market, there are no goods that cannot be found, if you have the money. The city of Dhamsawatt is a city in distress, the Kalif is a half-mad tyrant whose watchmen butcher children for stealing bread from wealthy merchants while ignoring the brutal and violent murders of the poverty-stricken areas of the city.

 They are challenged by the self-titled Falcon Prince, a thief who's open defiance of the Kalif and the guard have pushed the streets of Dhamsawatt onto the edge of open warfare. Meanwhile, people disappear and bodies are found with their rib cages torn open and their hearts devoured. 

Because it is not just the evil of men that people have to contend with here but the creatures of the Treasonous Angel, a rebel against the one true God. Monsters stalk the shadows of the city, worse among them, creatures called ghuls that straddle the line between undead and demons. They’re not undead, never having really been alive; instead they are constructs of spiritual energy but certainly physical enough to kill and terrorize the people of Dhamsawatt in their homes.  These creatures however cannot roam our world without a mortal magician summoning or creating them and the process of doing so is usually very taxing. Rare is the blood-soaked magus that can rise and control more than one or two at a time. Given how resistant a single Ghul is to mortal weapons however this is perhaps of cold comfort. 

Against this creeping evil stands the last Ghul hunter in Dhamsawatt, Doctor Adoulla Makhslood who is getting older and fatter and more tired of his calling every day.(I feel this character) It's hard to blame him, every job means seeing people slaughtered like cattle, facing monsters beyond the ken of a normal person with nothing more than his wits, his mean right hook, and invocations.  Which are based on verses of the Heavenly Chapters, and exhaust him and sap at his health as they’re powered by his physical strength. On top of that, his vows bar him from marrying the woman he loves and has basically destroyed his relationship with her. However, he can't turn away from people who have seen their loved ones killed, devoured, or worse.

 So every day he gets up and puts on his enchanted kaftan, a kind of robe or long coat that will remain pure white no matter what and protect him as well as armor does... As long as he keeps his vows and treks out to fight sorcerers, magi, ghuls, and even worse creatures of the night to try and maintain some safety for the people of the city he loves. Because Dr. Makhslood does love his city with the fervor of a true patriot and despite how annoying he finds the teeming masses of Dhamsawatt, I would say he loves them too. 

Nor is the Doctor alone in this venture, his partner is the Dervish Raseed bas Raseed. The Dervishes here are an order of Holy Warriors who are stronger, tougher, and faster than normal men and wield forked swords, to separate the wrong from the right in men. While Raseed is committed to acting righteously and piously, he's also a young man who is barely 17 and is increasingly finding himself trapped between the iron dictates of “holy” tradition and strict adherence to what an increasingly hidebound religious leadership declares is acceptable behavior and practicing the actual virtues that human beings need from one another to create a society that isn't a pointless exercise in cruelty and waste. This becomes a greater problem for Raseed as he finds himself between Dr. Makhslood and a new movement called the Humble Students, who roam the streets in an ever more aggressive campaign to enforce a stricter and more extreme religious order on society. 

Dr. Makhslood is also forced to turn to old friends to face the latest threat to the city, namely the married couple of Dawoud and Litaz.  Hailing from the Soo Republics to the south, each is powerful in their own right.   Dawoud is a magi, a magician who can use fantastic powers mostly to heal people but each spell he casts is fueled by days off his life, rapidly aging his body. While Litaz is an alkhemist, to use the book spelling, using advanced learning of chemicals and other substances to create potions, vapors, and other tricks and weapons as needed. Both of them however are also old and had at this point retired but like the doctor, their sense of duty and unwillingness to see suffering has forced them back into the line of duty. However, their own age and losses in the line of duty sap their strength. 

Finally is the young lady, Zamia Banu Laith Badawi, she shares a common enemy with the doctor, as her band was wiped out mysteriously leaving her the sole survivor. This is a heavy burden for Zamia as her band was outcast by the rest of their tribe due to the band's chief Zamia's father appointing her the official protector of the band.  As the tribe has a tradition that only a man can be appointed the official protector of a whole band.  The reason he went against tradition to do so is that Zamia is blessed with the ability to shapeshift into a lion with silver claws and teeth at will. This makes her every bite and scratch poisonous to the many agents of evil that haunt the streets and the dunes of their world. This is admittedly a pretty awesome and useful superpower in their current situation, with our heroes needing every advantage they can get. 

Because before the rise of the Kalifs upon the Crescent Moon Throne, the city of Dhamsawatt was the seat of the Cobra Kings of Kem. These men used blood-soaked magics from dark gods to hold the people of the land under bondage to their will and were able to summon legions of ghuls and monsters as well as slay thousands at a time. The Cobra Kings were overthrown however and their secrets were willfully lost. Now someone seeks to bring those days back and is willing to slay men, women, and children with wild abandon to do it. In older days he would be opposed by dozens of Ghul Hunters and other holy warriors, in better days the Kalif would be leading his guard through the streets to find such a terror and root it out himself. 

These days, however, there is only Dr. Makhslood, too old, too fat, and too tired for this(Just @ me here already, Mr. Ahmed) and the bare handful of friends and allies he has left to rally against the greatest threat of his career. That handful will have to do and somehow they'll have to avoid being pulled into the growing political and social uproar threatening to upend their society so they can stay focused on the true threat. Because if they don't the price could be paid in rivers of blood. 

As you can see the Throne of the Crescent Moon is focused on a very Islamic-influenced fantasy world. Mr. Ahmed does a wonderful job providing the world with life and the appearance at least of depth while staying very focused on his plot. There's plainly a lot going on in this world beyond the plot too, so it would have been easy to get lost in the world-building and let the plot get bogged down. Mr. Ahmed however keeps the pace snappy, if a shade too fast for my taste. Given this is our first real look at his world I would have preferred something a bit slower so I could get a deeper and longer look at the place. Keep in mind however that I do enjoy the slow burn so your mileage may vary. 

Mr. Ahmed also demonstrates great character work and gives us complicated and very human relationships between our characters. For example, Dr. Makhslood and Dawoud are clearly best of friends who would fight and die for each other without hesitation, they also like to tell each other rude jokes and play silly games together that exasperates Litaz and Raseed to no end. However, like any friendship that has run decades there are buried resentments, half settled arguments, and frustrations that crop up between them. For example, Dawoud resents that Dr. Makhslood's magical abilities aren't actually killing him. While Dr. Makhslood is envious that Dawoud has found happiness and completeness in his marriage to Litaz, something denied to him by his vows and traditions. This doesn't stop them from working together or even being friends but it does add complexity and complications in how they both deal with one another. I think this is the greatest strength of the book. (I love authentic friendships in stories, with depth and real emotion. To me a well-written friendship is more compelling than most romances.)

On the flip side, some of the supporting characters like the Falcon Prince felt a bit weak to me. I could never really grasp the Falcon Prince's motivations or what convinced a street thief that he could try and make a play for the throne.(Welllllllllll looking at history an abundance of Dunning Kruger over leadership/political skills seems pretty darned plausible to me.{Sure, but Mr. Ahmed convinced me that the Falcon Prince was an incredibly cunning and canny man so what tipped over the edge of “I can totally do this thing no else has ever done”?}) I mean to be blunt about it, what makes him think that the surrounding nations would accept him as a replacement to the Kalif's religious authority? Or the city itself for that matter because while he has support, it's nowhere near universal or even large enough to be considered a majority rule situation. So where does his legitimacy, his claim that he is a rightful authority come from? If it's just brute force, such situations tend not to stand very long or be very stable.(But then there are a lot of people who think that just stabbing/shooting a sufficient quantity of people will settle things down. Some of them have even managed it.) Ironically I'm asking these questions because of the great worldbuilding by Mr. Ahmed, which convinced me that there was more to ruling the city than who had the most military force. That said, the Falcon Prince was still an entertaining character to read at least, being incredibly bombastic and prone to playing a crowd shamelessly. 

The book is well-written, entertaining to read, and incredibly hard to put down. If it's as I've mentioned a tad fast and with some shaky parts, in my opinion, it keeps up enough pizzazz to get you through those parts. Mr. Ahmed writes with clear talent and ambition which is praiseworthy in and of itself. I'm giving the Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed a B-. It's clearly better than average and tries to bring us something a bit new, backed with great character work and relationships. Which does make me rather forgiving of its faults even if I feel it's not quite where it could be. That said Mr. Ahmed has been promising a sequel for years now so maybe the next book will show us the full potential of this world. 

    I hope you enjoyed this review which was chosen by our ever-wise patrons.  If you would like to have a voice on what books I read and review, theme months, and more, you should join us at  

https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where a vote is only a dollar a month!  That said I would like to thank our guest editor Josh Simpson who is the co-writer of the Warp World series which we reviewed waaayyyy back.  Seriously though they're good books so why not get a copy of Crescent Moon and Warp World?  Next week, we return with a patron favorite, Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty. Until then dear readers, stay safe and keep reading!    

Blue text is your guest editor Mr. Simpson
Regular text your reviewer Garvin Anders

Stalag: U.S.A. The Remarkable Story of German POWs in America By Judith M Gansberg

 Stalag: U.S.A. The Remarkable Story of German POWs in America

By Judith M Gansberg

Judith Gansberg was born in Passaic, New Jersey, the daughter of Martin Gansberg, a reporter and editor for the New York Times. She spent time in post-war West Germany in the 1960s living with her family and that planted a seed of curiosity in her. She wanted to know how American influence had impacted the Germans after War World II. That stayed with her even as she returned to the US to attend the University of Michigan and did her graduate work at the University of Maryland receiving a master's degree. She became an adjunct professor of speech at Southeastern University in Washington, as well as a noted television scriptwriter and producer. In 1976 she married Robert Berger in the Beth loin Reform Temple in Clifton New Jersey and they moved to Silver Springs, Maryland. 

Stalag: U.S.A was published in 1977, after some 8 years of research and work. Ms. Gansberg interviewed both American officers and former German prisoners, many of whom didn't want to be found as they were trying to forget the war and their part in it, a common action among West Germans at the time. She also sifted through thousands of formerly classified papers as part of her research. As she did this, a secret project to de-Nazify POWs emerged, one whose goal was not only to reeducate the German POWs, without their knowledge, away from the ideology of national socialism and towards liberal democracy. In short, the US Army was doing nothing less than trying to turn the 371,000 German POWs into a pro-democracy nucleus for a new Democratic Germany. 

The program was kept a secret as it was felt that if the POWs found out they would become even more resistant to the ideas of democracy, freedom, and apple pie. Well, maybe not apple pie. Additionally, there was the fear that if the Nazi Government found out they would attempt to indoctrinate American soldiers or otherwise subject them to abuse. On top of that, there was a running resistance to the idea in the US Army and the US government. Many officers and officials felt that German prisoners were treated too gently and that the German people had proven they were an untrustworthy breed of humanity no longer worthy of consideration. The counterarguments were many, including pointing out that American prisoners were being held by the Germans and that treating German prisoners with a level of respect ensured American treatment would remain mostly within the bounds of the Geneva Convention.  Another argument was that some effort had to be made as Germany simply couldn't be held under armed occupation forever. Perhaps the most convincing argument, however,  was that of the Soviet Union. If the Western Allies didn't find a way to organize and live with a German state, the Soviets would, and, even as early as 1943, the US Army considered the possibility of a unified German state under Soviet control a nightmare. 

There were also profound logistical problems to overcome. By 1941 it was clear to the US military that it was simply a matter of time before the US was dragged into the maelstrom of war that had devoured a large portion of the planet. The Roosevelt administration certainly agreed, given that FDR was willing to commit to actions that the fascists viewed as increasingly hostile and provocative. Congress and elements of the civilian government were not entirely convinced however which hampered preparations. That said, it was agreed that POWs should be taken to the continental United States. This was for several reasons. First,to limit the strain in the theater of operations as all supplies were shipped from the US. It was easier to pack German and Italian prisoners into empty supply and troop ships heading back to the US where they would be closer to the factory and farms that would clothe and feed them and their supplies wouldn't compete for space on a ship with the supplies for American fighting men and women. Second, it would be easier to build and guard such camps on American soil, not to mention solving the problem of escaped prisoners. I mean, let's say a prisoner in a prison camp built in Missouri escapes, what's he gonna do? Walk the 1300 miles to bloody Mexico? Even if he reaches Mexico, he's still out of the war! He could try the slightly shorter trip of 1000 miles to the coast of North Carolina I suppose but how's he gonna charter a boat to Germany in the middle of the war? With no funds to speak of either! These were also obstacles for any rescue attempt for POWs, and that's why over 371,000 Germans ended up in the US. 

Of course, things got more complicated in 1942 when the British pushed hard for the US to take over holding the POWs that they had taken. This was because, frankly, feeding the nearly 100,000 German and Italian prisoners was straining British food production already under attack from German U boats. So the prison camps had to be built and staffed with alarming speed but there was another motivation for accepting these prisoners and moving American-taken POWs to the states. Bluntly, they were a labor force. With increasingly large amounts of American manpower tied up in the military and traditional means of importing Hispanic workers becoming harder as the Latin American States joined the war, there was an increased demand for farm labor and labor on various civilian industries that weren't considered war critical. Now, this is legal under the Geneva Convention as long POWs are paid and aren't put to work indirectly war-critical industries. So the US would take advantage of this new labor pool to reduce the strain. 

Stalag: U.S.A takes us through all these issues to help provide the context in which the program was assembled and operated, and helps explain why it wasn't until 1944 that the damn thing got off the ground in the first place. Ms. Gansberg also gives a short exploration of problems within the camps themselves. Not every German was a hardcore Nazi, but at least 10% of the prisoners were and throughout 1943 those prisoners conducted a covert reign of terror over the POW camps. This involved midnight beatings, threats to loved ones still in Germany, and the constant pressure to conform to the party line at all cost. Even going to the chapel regularly was enough to be marked for persecution and admitting that Germany might be losing the war could get you hounded to death. The US Army would win this struggle against Nazism in the POW camps but only by rounding up the hardcore Nazis (mainly SS, long-term party members, and Gestapo prisoners) and shipping them off to separate camps. While those camps were also subjected to the program, only 3% of the hardcore Nazis ever really shifted their beliefs. However, by separating them from the normal, less committed troopers, prisoners could be made open to the ideas of democracy and a more open society. 

Throughout 1944, 1945, and even into 1946, German POWs were carefully led through a program meant to expose them to the ideas of democracy, mostly through an American-centric lens. Interestingly enough a lot of this was led by German POWs themselves, as the battle for the camps allowed the army to identify hardcore anti-Nazis, and recruit some of them for the program. They were gathered into a special camp called The Factory where they designed an educational program on American history and government.  As well as engagement through media via movies that showed democracy in a good light or were educational in nature. These works were everything from feature films to documentaries on government and infrastructure, including films on the Roosevelt projects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority. 

The Germans recruited for the Factory also released a newspaper for circulation within the POW camps, Der Ruf (The Call), which was very popular in the camps and had an impact of eroding open Nazi support. Despite prisoners having to pay for it, the paper achieved a sell rate of 90%. Consider that, at the same time, the prisoners could read newsletters from their own camps or even American newspapers. In fact, they were openly encouraged to read The New York Times. Der Ruf, while openly political and critical was also intensely philosophical and cultural carrying reviews of musical performances, books and films, and articles on the need to rebuild German and Austrian spiritual and intellectual life from the ruination of Nazi influence. Encouraged by this, the Germans of the Factory, also published the Bucherreiche Neue Welt (New World Books) a 24 volume of books that assembled the works of Germans exiled by the Nazi party, as well as past German works that had been banned and works the German creators felt would speak to German POWs such as Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. 

From this program, further efforts were made to train German POWs to provide a corps of approved Germans for police and government work. It is unknown how effective these efforts were, however, in large part because the occupational authorities in Germany itself refused to cooperate in any meaningful way,  as they were unimpressed with Germans showing up from largely unknown POW camps, with certificates of completion from a training program most of them had barely heard of. Once again showing that the US Army doesn't really need outside enemies, as an institution, it is perfectly capable of battling itself. Despite that, tens of thousands of Germans were cleared and sent directly to post-war Germany and ended up in education, local government, and law enforcement, as was intended. What part they played, if any, in the long process of Germany grappling with and confronting the full extent of their past under Nazism is difficult to say. 

Ms. Gansberg is not a trained historian and that shows in this book. It's rather unorganized and often struggles with providing enough in-depth examination and coverage of its main topic. This is her first book and, as far as I could find, also her last historical nonfiction book. Still, this is practically the only full-length book I could find on this specific topic and Ms. Gansberg should be saluted for her years-long effort to gather the information together before it was lost. Especially for devoting years of unpaid labor to research and interviewing. As a secondary historical source, it seems to sit in a unique place and has value for that. Overall I'm giving Stalag: U.S.A. The Remarkable Story of German POWs in America by Judith M Gansberg a B+. I wish someone had applied more organization to it but the material in it is interesting and Ms. Gansberg writes in an approachable and easily understood way. If you're interested in the time period or how the US historically dealt with the largest group of foreign POWs it ever dealt with, this book is for you. 

    This brings American History month to end for 2021, I'd like to thank everyone who took part, especially our guest editors.  This week guest editor chose to remain anonymous so let us all give thanks to this mysterious hero of the word and letter who edited these pages.  Next week our ever-wise patrons voted for Throne of the Crescent Moon by Salman Ahmed.  If you would like to vote for upcoming reviews, theme months or other content join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for a dollar a month!  Until next time folks stay safe and keep reading! 

Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage By Sherry Sontag and Annette Drew and Christopher Drew

 Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage

By Sherry Sontag and Annette Drew and Christopher Drew

Blind Man's Bluff was the work of 3 people, Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew both are generally credited as the main writers of the book. Both of them are investigative reporters with Mr. Drew currently working for the New York Times, as well as teaching investigative reporting at Colombia's Graduate school of Journalism. He is known for this book and his work with the Navy SEALS where he revealed an increasing lack of oversight, work he was given a George Polk award for. Before then he had written for The Times in DC and New York. Sherry Sontag was a writer for the National Law Review and wrote about the Soviet Union, international affairs, and domestic banking scandals. Before that, she wrote for the New York Times and is a graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Dr. Annette Drew is Christopher Drew's wife and is mainly credited as the book's researcher, she has a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University and currently lives with Mr. Drew and their daughter. Blind Man's Bluff was published in 1998 by HarperCollins books. 

Before we jump into the novel... The Cold War, let me talk about it a little. The Cold War was a combination of a Mexican Stand-Off and a game of Chicken between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America and the respective allies, clients, and pawns of both powers. What happened was after the dust settled in World War II, it was realized that there were now only two powers that mattered, especially as the colonial empires of the European states fell apart due to the exhaustion and ruin that the Europeans had inflicted on themselves. 

Those two powers were the United States and the Soviet Union and while these powers had been allied against the genocidal madness of the Axis powers in Europe, the alliance could not hold. I'm going to state for the record that there are many arguments over this, some people blame the US entirely for the cold war, stating that the capitalist democracy could not accept an alternative system existing and therefore sought to kill the socialist dictatorship that was the USSR. Others blame the USSR, stating that its actions in Eastern Europe and other places in the world provoked the US and Western European governments into the belief that the USSR was an expansionist power out to export its ideology across the globe to the ultimate ruin and domination of the west. Still, others believe it to be nothing more than a continuation of traditional Great Power Politics only made vastly more dangerous with the inclusion of nuclear weapons. 

My own belief is that confrontation was simply inevitable, both the US and the USSR dared to envision global systems that were dramatically opposed to each other. Neither nation would surrender its interests, ideals, or fundamental principles and in such a situation, misunderstandings, confrontation, and competition cannot be avoided. There was also fear, undergirding the entire enterprise. In the US, there was the very real fear that the USSR was committed to the violent and revolutionary expansion of its ideology and someday its vast army would come thundering across the plains of Europe. Meanwhile in the USSR, the leaders of the communist party looked at the alliances and military deployments across the globe and saw a mighty chain being forged to strangle their nation to death. (My own personal view is that yes, it was inevitable, but there was also a complete lack of understanding of intentions on each side. The Soviets, having fought the bloodiest war in history in an alliance of convenience with powers that had tried to murder their nation in the crib, felt that it was just a matter of time before the alliance rearmed Germany and turned on them. So they absorbed Eastern Europe to give themselves more land to trade for time for what had to feel like an inevitable next go-round. The Allies saw the Soviets absorbing the states they’d liberated from the Nazis and installing friendly governments and read this as the natural product of the ambition for global revolution, enforced by what seemed like an endless, inexhaustible army. Everybody assumed the worst, and not without reason.)

It's in this context that Blind Man's Bluff covers the trials, losses, and victories of the US Navy Submarine Service and its mission to counter and contain the Soviet submarine force. It begins in the early days of the diesel navy when submarines were still running on diesel-fueled engines. Despite running on batteries when submerged, diesel fumes would linger and  foul the air inside the sub, forcing it to surface regularly to snorkel in fresh air as well as recharge the batteries. These subs had to spend almost as much time on the surface as they did under the water. (There is also the matter of the fact that diesel boats were much, much faster on the surface than underwater. Battery drives were sloooooooow.) Despite that American submarine captains were wildly fearless in their runs towards the Soviet Coast, and they did so in the search of very specific prey. Soviet submarines, who were louder and often slower than American submarines.

 

At this point many of the American submarine officers were veterans of the Pacific front where American submarines learned painful lessons in their brutal war with the Imperial Japanese Navy, often while being victimized by the Navy Department of Ordinance but that's a whole different review. 

The job of American submarines was to get close to Soviet submarines undetected and record them, both visually and more importantly audibly so that the fledgling defensive listening posts across the Atlantic and Pacific could identify Soviet Submarines and track them. This could lead to collisions between the submarines if these Captains weren't on the ball and staying aware of their prey's position during their recording sprees. (And here we learn the no kidding origin of the Crazy Ivan maneuver, when Soviet subs would make a hard turn to shake pursuit.) Also if detected American subs could face attacks from Soviet destroyers determined to chase American subs away from their home waters and their growing fleets. 

While they had terrible equipment, the Soviet submariners and surface ship sailors were trained professionals determined to their duty to their country and the Soviet navy was constantly improving. This led to a race between the US and the USSR, as the US worked to maintain its technological edge and hone the training needed to ensure its subs could track and stalk Soviet missile subs and Soviets worked to find ways to elude and escape US attack subs. This however also led to the birth of submarines as an instrument of espionage and intelligence gathering as the increasingly sensitive sonar and radar devices used in these intense but usually bloodless underwater duels were found to have other applications. (Well, it led to a lot of innovation in how subs could be used for intelligence gathering, but they had long been part of the picture in terms of monitoring fleet movements, particularly in the Pacific Theater.)

The writers of this book are careful to include a good overview of evolving navy politics introducing the reader to such figures as the legendary Admiral Hyman Rickover(there’s a name that can start arguments to this day), who is the father of the Nuclear Navy. As well as civilians like Dr. John Craven who created the search method that would find two lost subs, a lost hydrogen bomb and played a large role in the Sealab project. We are given a ringside seat to the battles between Admiral Rickover who was determined to hold absolute dominion over nuclear submarines, their deployments, and missions, and the Navy Intelligence department represented by a series of officers all of whom were determined to maintain their independence and freedom of action.(In most things standing in Rickover’s way was a good way to get run over by a bulldozer for most people. Including LBJ’s Secretary of the Navy, as it happens.) There are naval stories of wild action and death-defying stunts by submariners out in the water, but readers should be prepared to see bureaucratic battles and budgetary duels as well, as our authors explore every dimension of struggle here. Not that these bureaucratic feuds were entirely bloodless, as the battle for Congressional dollars led to more than one fistfight in this book. 

The internal battle inside the Navy is only one front, there was also the struggle for control between Naval Intelligence and the CIA. The CIA was bound and determined to control every intelligence operation that didn't take place within the United States and often wanted control of many operations that did take place in the US. Within the book, the pivotal confrontation is between the CIA and Naval Intelligence over the downed Soviet sub the K129. 

The downed sub was discovered by the USS Halibut, a submarine that had been extensively modified for intelligence operations, including using remote-controlled “fish.” The “fish” were also the creation of Dr. John Craven and would be used extensively in a number of operations. The Navy wanted to use Halibut and its “fish” to retrieve from the wreck a nuclear missile, the codebook, and various pieces of intact equipment that would be invaluable. The CIA swooped in however and declared the program lacking in ambition, given that it used existing technologies, had limited but practical goals, and could likely be pulled off in a decade. 

What the CIA proposed was instead building an entirely new kind of ship using Howard Hughes as a cover with entirely new technologies and hoisting the entire Soviet sub from the seafloor which was over 3 miles down. The CIA Project Jennifer was approved of course, and well... You should read the book to see just what a disaster it was. 

It wasn't all disasters however, the book also goes into great detail covering one of the greatest intelligence successes of Naval Intelligence, Operation Ivy Bells which involved finding an underwater telephone cable in the Sea of Okhotsk connecting the main Soviet sub base in the Pacific to Soviet Naval Command and to Moscow itself. Once the cable was found US divers operating from the Halibut and other subs, later on, would attach recording devices to the line and as a result, the US would find itself listening in to phone conversations between Soviet admirals on the most sensitive of subjects. 

This was one of the great intelligence coups of the Cold War and secrecy was maintained for almost 9 years from 1971 to 1980 (when a disgruntled NSA agent revealed it to the USSR for 5000$) and not only did the US tap the cable in the Sea of Okhotsk, it would use the technologies and techniques developed in the operation to tap other underwater cables across the world in cooperation with the CIA and NSA. I find myself thinking of this as a critical moment as even today the US intelligence community is regarded by its friends and enemies as a master of signals intelligence able to reach out and tap into communication networks across the globe to gather intelligence. 

Blind Man's Bluff is a frank and unapologetic view of our efforts to spy on the Soviet Union. Which I don't feel requires an apology because in the confrontation of the cold war, spying by both sides was a tool to pursue their national interest in a battle that both sides believed to have their very survival at stake.(Well, them and the entire rest of the planet, given the whole MAD situation.) Given that the USSR didn't survive the Cold War, both sides might have been right. 

Now that should note this book does not go into the wider context of the Cold War or other historical events but stays focused on the submarines and the Navy, although it does branch out to look at times where secret programs were almost revealed to the public and Congressional budget battles. 

If you're interested in Cold War history, US Naval history, or just enjoy strange stories then this book will work for you. The format of the book is fairly interesting as well as most of the chapters are fairly stand-alone focusing on a single event that influences the next chapters. This allows for a unified narrative but also for easy reading as you can focus on parts you're interested in. The book ends basically with the fall of the USSR and the fact that the Sub force had lost its reason for being and was struggling to reinvent itself. This honestly leaves it feeling a bit incomplete but that may be because I'm looking back at it 23 years later. It's honestly an informative, brisk, and fun read though. 

So I'm giving Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage by Sherry Sontag, Annette and Christopher Drew an A. (I concur with this review, having read the book around fifteen or so years ago. For those who are interested in more history of submarine development and usage, I’d recommend The Submarine: A History by Thomas Parrish, which includes a hearty dose of the antics, shenanigans, and mildly insane career of Admiral Rickover. 

        As a further aside, one of the operations mentioned in Blind Man’s Bluff was actually one that my father was part of, the testing of a torpedo tube deployment system off the coast of Vietnam. That was a pretty cool little tidbit.)

        So I'd like to thank Josh Simpson author of the Warp World series for being our guest editor today. Y'all might remember that I reviewed the entire series and I still recommend it to this day. As for Blind Man's Bluff it was voted on by our ever-wise patrons. If you'd like a vote on what books or other works I review, theme months or other ideas join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a dollar a month. Hope to see you there. Next week join us Stalag: USA a story of us the US Army ran a covert denazification campaign on German POWs in WWII. Until then, get your shot and Keep Reading.

Get book one of warp world here https://www.amazon.com/Warpworld-Kristene-Perron-ebook/dp/B009QRXHXK    

Thoughts on Falcon and the Winter Soldier II

https://youtu.be/eDI3bGCyQX8

Falcon Video, extra thougths.

 https://youtu.be/PAvSEvptW9U

So this is the second in a set of audio/visual experiments.  Let me know what y'all think.  As always it's a work in progress, so constructive criticism is welcome. 

Falcon and the Winter Soldier episodes IV-VI Created by Malcolm Spellman and Directed by Kari Skogland

 Falcon and the Winter Soldier episodes IV-VI

Created by Malcolm Spellman and Directed by Kari Skogland

Welcome back for part II, I hope everyone will excuse me if I just jump right into things. Let's start with the plot.

So in the second half of the series, we're confronted with Sam wrestling with unpleasant revelations and things have gone south alarmingly quickly. He makes an attempt to talk Karli down peacefully, which honestly considering she's a grieving teenager who's not entirely in a rational state I feel was the right call. This of course was ruined by everyone's least favorite Captain America so far, John Walker. Karma was swift to repay Walker, both via the death of his best friend Lamar, aka Battlestar (I know this is a ridiculous name but Battlestar was actually a comic book character because the 80s were weird) and him publicly murdering a man who was trying to surrender. Part of this is fueled by the fact that Walker stole and took some serum but most of it was him. We should remember that the serum only magnifies what's already there, and what's in Walker is about 3 tons of unprocessed trauma in a 1-ton bag plus a small mountain of aggression and insecurity all wrapped together in a lack of support or even vague concern.

I know I talked a lot about Walker last time but again I don't hate the guy. He had no business being there, displayed a lot of unearned privilege (which I dare to think may be a metaphor) in his conduct, and deserved the punishment he got and more but I don't hate him. Walker honestly does want to do good things, he wants to be a hero. That said, he's simply not ready for the weight that's been thrust on his shoulders. Hell! Steve Rogers wasn't ready for that weight! It took him at least a year serving with good men to learn what he needed and even then, there's a good argument that he didn't grow into his role until Winter Soldier. Steve also had the howling commandos, Peggy Carter, and later the Avengers with him. There's a damn reason we always see Steve operating in a group because a man operating on his own with this weight on his shoulders would go mad. Another big thing is Walker is very focused on external validation - He wants people to acknowledge him, to accept and praise him. Steve however pretty much ran on internal validation... Not that he didn't want people to praise and accept him, but as long as he had his own self-respect he didn't need that praise and acceptance.  This is what made Steve so dangerous to the powerful.  Walker, however, does need it.  This is what makes Walker so easy for “Val” (a mystery woman with ties to darker parts of our government) to recruit him after his fall from grace.  The fact that Walker is sympathetic but still so hateable makes me tip my hat to Spellman and the other writers.

The scene of Walker haphazardly wandering around the city in a daze with Captain America's shield stained in the blood is incredibly well-shot and will stay with me for a long time. Especially when tied in with the revelations of Isaiah Bradley to Sam of the experiments done on black men after Steve disappeared to recreate a super soldier, and how he was jailed and outright tortured. Isaiah also serves as a good stand-in for America's long, shameful treatment of African Americans as the white-dominated government had no trouble treating African Americans as expendable, whether through denying them their rights through the law or through things like the Tuskegee experiments. The fact that Isaiah is angry and bitter is frankly justified and even a patriot like myself can't argue with his rejection of the nation that has used and abused him as if he wasn't even a human being. While Isaiah and his torment is fiction, what he stands for is very much historical fact and something that white America is only now really starting to grapple with. I say white America because black America has had really no choice but to grapple with these sins every generation, usually while suffering fresh wrongs in the bargain. I do not say this to demand guilt - Wallowing in guilt would make us feel more righteous but accomplishes very little. Instead of that, we need to confront what's been done, what is being done, and ask how we're going to do better and what we can do to help with healing. I would argue that our first step has to be to stop inflicting fresh injuries which unfortunately looks to be a massive struggle at this time. That Spellman can address much of this through metaphor and through Sam's situation is a solid example of good writing and craft I think and honestly makes me feel pretty good about his taking over the next Captain America movie. 

With everything in ruins, Sam retreats to what he can fix. In this case, his parent's boat and his family life with his sister. To do this, Sam demonstrates some of that soft power I mentioned by calling forth aid from his community by reminding people of everything his parents had done. Even Bucky comes back and Sam is able to invoke his training in dealing with traumatized veterans to get Bucky to finally do the work he needs to do to turn the page on the Winter Soldier and try to start becoming Bucky Barnes... But I'll talk about him in another space. When he finds out Karli's end game, which is brought about in turn by an announcement that the multi-government international agency that runs the displaced camps is voting over whether or not to start sending people back to their nation of origin. To be clear, this is a discussion about people who moved to different countries after the snap when half the world's population disappeared. With the disappeared returned, things got awkward. I'll be honest and say the idea that there's a single multinational authority able to make a one size fits all decision is the most unbelievable part of the story. Yes, even more than the super-soldier serum. I don't see the United States or Russia for example willing to have this kind of policy dictated from outside. Nor do I see the European Union and the People's Republic of China having remotely the same idea of how to deal with imported workers. But I'll let it rest. What I do find interesting is how reasonable the people in power are presented, the people meeting to vote are deeply divided on this issue and haven't reached their decision (I am willing to bet that they never would have either leaving each nation to decide for themselves honestly). However Karli moves before any kind of final action can really be decided, trying to kidnap the entire voting council to force some kind of settlement. Throughout the final act, Karli is shown as a young woman who is reacting to her entire world falling apart around her and it's hard not to feel some sympathy here. Sam for example refuses to fight her but he isn't going to let her commit kidnapping either and what follows is a confrontation between a teenager desperate for something to strike out against to express her loss, pain, and rage and an adult just as desperate to keep her from hurting anyone and to help her.  Karli wants the simple emotional catharsis of beating the crap out of someone she can blame for her trouble.  Sam wants to help her out of this hole she's dug for herself and show her a better way forward.  This shows that Karli is an antagonist but in a real way isn't a villain, she is honestly trying to help people, she's just doing it in a crap way. Villainy is more of an honor held by Baron Zemo and Sharon Carter in this story and frankly, they win in this story as both of them achieve their objectives.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier tells a story about power, how governments and powerful people can destroy or save lives with the smallest action. It reminds us that we need to be mindful of that and it doesn't take an angry purple alien with the power of a god to wreck and upend the lives of hundreds of millions if not more innocent people. It's also a story about symbols and the ownership of those symbols - for example,who owns Captain America Shield? Who has the right to decide who carries it? What I like about the story is it makes the strong argument that the government has no right to these symbols but leaves it open as to who should be making these decisions, if anyone. Because the series leaves the field open to answers from the audience I think it avoids getting too preachy but at the same time, I'll admit that there is a sermon here, especially in the last episode as Sam gets some things off his chest when confronting said powerful government figures. I think we can give Sam that one though. I'm giving Falcon and the Winter Soldier an A and a recommendation. Go take a look, I think you won't regret it.

(Temporary editor’s post-script: The lack of comments on the past two reviews has been largely due to the fact that my exposure to the MCU has been limited at best. I’ve seen… maybe 30% of the films, with most of that being distributed at the front end (pre-Avengers). I’ve heard of the Thanos snap via Twitter osmosis but all I know about it is that Spider-man was like “ugh I don’t feel so good” before exploding into CGI triangles like he was in that one Dire Straits music video that Weird Al parodied in UHF. Similarly, 49.99999% of all other life experienced the same - The remainder, presumably, getting money for nothing and chicks for free. But… all those snap folks are back now? Also, that all the fictional properties merge together into a massive shared multiverse and the spinoff films will keep coming at a relentless pace until either the universe tears itself apart or the copyright is allowed to lapse on “Steamboat Willy.” I can’t help but feel the former will happen before the latter. I mean, we haven’t even seen the X-men universe integrated into the Avengers cocktail. Synergy goals for the 2030s, I suppose - CGI is improving at a geometric rate whereas Hugh Jackman’s aging is mundanely linear.

In some ways I’m jealous of Marvel fans; my formative preteen years were spent reading the Sonic the Hedgehog comic, laboring under the arbitrary and fanatical reign of Ken Penders. The mind reels in horror at the concept of a shared cinematic universe drawn from that specific Katamari junk sphere. Still, one wonders how much longer the current model of filmmaking will last, and what might come next - Could someone in 1955 have anticipated the new wave and the era of the director-driven film? What will be the reaction to the current IPocene epoch?)

I hope everyone enjoyed this review.  This series was voted on by our ever-wise patrons, if you like a vote on upcoming reviews, theme months and whether or not the video experiments continue, join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads Speaking of our experiments with audio/visual formats, there will be two videos going up this weekend with further thoughts on Falcon and the Winter Soldier.  Next week, Blind Man’s Bluff, stories of submarine espionage during the Cold War!  I hope you join us and until then, stay safe and Keep Reading!

Purple text: Mike our temporary editor Black Text: Your reviewer Garvin.

Falcon and the Winter Soldier episodes I-III Created by Malcolm Spellman and Directed by Kari Skogland

 Falcon and the Winter Soldier episodes I-III

Created by Malcolm Spellman and Directed by Kari Skogland

So at the end of Endgame, an aged Steve Rogers hands off his shield to Sam Wilson, telling him that the shield was his now. Falcon and the Winter Soldier answers the question of what Sam Wilson does now? The series was written and produced by Malcolm Spellman, an African American writer and producer who is also well known for his work on the musical drama series Empire. Canadian-born Kari Skogland directs the series, previously working mostly in television directing episodes of Boardwalk Empire, The Borgias, Sons of Liberty, and Vikings. Now Mr. Spellman was the person who gave the series its direction from what I can find, deciding that race and identity had to be at the core of the show but that didn't mean the show couldn't be fun and action-packed. That at times means walking a fine line but I feel that Mr. Spellman and his writers did a great job doing so. Meanwhile, Ms. Skogland was a Canadian directing an intensely American show and a woman directing an action series. I got to be honest and say I think she also did a pretty great job in delivering us some bone-jarring action series while allowing the series to have room for emotional depth and more mundane drama. I don't want to go in-depth into the whole series this week, so instead let me focus a bit on the characters.

Sam Wilson (played by Anthony Mackie) is our lead character and is the character who has to answer the main question of Falcon and Winter Soldier:Can a Black Man even be Captain America in the first place? Now, this is a loaded question given how much of a symbol both Captain America and Steve Rogers have become both within the fictional Marvel Universe and in our real world. Now I would argue that the reason that Captain America is a symbol is Steve Rogers. If it had just been some standard infantry trooper plucked from a combat unit and slapped into a colorful suit and shot up with the super-soldier serum, Cap would not have become the legend he is today. That said, while Steve Rogers gave life to the Captain America legend, what Captain America and his shield symbolize has taken on a life of its own. Because in the eyes of millions if not billions Captain America symbolizes a nation, not just a single man. This means that shield also symbolizes the darkness and brutality of the American government and society, as well as the brightness and promise of the American Dream. It's no surprise that Sam isn't super excited to carry that weight as a black man, and the series does a good job of showing why. For example, when Sam has a discussion with Bucky in public that gets a little loud and heated, the cops are quick to show up and start hassling Sam while ignoring Bucky entirely. Then there's the subplot of his parent's boat, which is becoming a weight dragging down his sister's business. You know there's an issue when an Avenger of all people can't get a small business loan. Sam is struggling to define his life and deal with the fact that he's been gone for five years and on top of that he's got this question about does he even want to be a symbol for the United States, never mind does the United States want him to be a symbol for it?

Meanwhile, Bucky is struggling to try and finally bury the legacy of the Winter Soldier and become a human being. It's harder than it looks and he's haunted by nightmares, an inability to open up to people, and a deep-seated fear that he can't ever be anything but the Winter Soldier. So when Sam passes up on being the new Captain America, he makes it about him instead of it being about Sam. This kind of drives a wedge into their relationship, which without Steve there isn’t a lot of common ground left to build on. While Sam has his sister and nephews and a community to fall back on, Bucky doesn't even have that.  Everyone he knows from his childhood is dead. So it's no surprise that Bucky clings to Sam and that shield like a pair of lifeboats, even using them to duck the hard issues of the rest of his life. This isn't welcomed by Sam as he sees Bucky as another person judging him for making his own decisions and doesn't want Bucky hanging his mental and emotional well-being on Sam's life choices. Luckily for them, there is someone who comes along and gives them some common ground to build around. Several someones really but we're going to focus on Karli and John Walker this week.

John Walker is the government-mandated Captain America 2.0: Blonde, blue-eyed, physically and mentally in the top 10 to 5% of humanity. A decorated soldier, a good friend, and a loyal husband... And walking proof that a government committee has no business picking Captain America. I had a friend tell me that John Walker is total butts and frankly he does seem widely hated as a character. Strangely, I don't hate John Walker, which is weird because I completely loathe the comic version. Instead, I take one look at John Walker and go 'oh no buddy you should not be in the field at all.' John Walker wants to do a good job, all his life all he's wanted was to do a good job and he's suffering for that. He's not emotionally stable nor is he mentally all there. In some ways, he almost seems to be tweaking as if the government doped him up with something before handing him the shield. Worse, he only seems to have two supports in his friend Lemar Hoskins, Battlestar, a fellow veteran who is tapped to be Cap 2.0's partner, and his wife, who he honestly doesn't seem to completely confide in. This is realistic - When you're a vet telling the person you love everything that happened on the battlefield is a hard ask. There are things you simply do not want them to know. You don't want them to know about the smell or the sounds or the aftermath. You don't want to risk that they'll look at you with that same flicker of doubt you see in the mirror sometimes. Lamar, having been part of his unit, was there and now provides extra support but you can't just have one pillar of support. What if it cracks? Or isn't there one day? I look at Walker and I see a guy who wants to be good but his whole idea of good is externally enforced and he's only now coming to grips with that. On top of that, he hasn't had a chance to come to grips with what he's already suffered or done. Whoever put John Walker in that damn suit did him no favor and may have set a perfectly decent man on the road to destruction. One thing though that Bucky and Sam can come together over is that Walker isn't fit to carry the shield and they want nothing to do with him. I can't blame them as Walker seems to breeze in and expect everyone to treat him as if Steve has returned from the dead and frankly when you're talking to veterans of a war against a Mad God? That ain't happening.

Then we have Karli Morgenthau, who serves as an antagonist. I don't think of Karli as a villain. I don't agree with all of her goals or methods but I fully understand why and if nothing else I respect that Karli isn't doing this for personal power or enrichment. Karli is one of the people who weren't snapped away and whose life improved in some ways because of the snap. Due to a lack of labor, national borders were eased and all sorts of emergency measures were likely put in place to keep the lights on. Now that the snap has been undone, many of the folks in power would prefer to return things to the way they were and that means destroying Karli's life and community. Frankly, it's not surprising that Karli has turned to violence and created the Flagsmashers, she is having violence done to her. We can dress it up all we want but when you tear apart a community or tear down someone's life by taking away their house or destroying their identity, you are committing violence. It doesn't matter if you do this through laws, court orders, or by uniformed men with boots and guns, it's still violence. Karli doesn't have laws, she doesn't have court orders but she does have super-soldier serum she stole, people willing to follow her, and nothing left to lose. That said, I'm not surprised by her turn to violence. She frames her struggle in wartime rhetoric, turns to theft, and creates a cadre of super-powered followers to carry out her will, embracing direct kinetic action over any other form of resistance from day one. Her escalating the violence of her movement was inevitable, she just needed the right emotional push and opportunity. Now, none of this seems to be a conscious decision on her part but she never really seems to grasp the fact that she has a mass international moment of people willing to break the law for her and that's vastly more powerful than 9 or 10 super soldiers. The CIA once estimated that it only took resistance from as little as 5% of the population to unseat a government. Imagine if Karli could convince her followers to go on a general strike for just 3 days? It would be a gamble but if it worked frankly the governments of the world would have to give her and her moment a seat at the table and listen to her. It would be more effective than blowing up a single building at least but it wouldn't be as immediately satisfying or feed into Karli's need to strike back directly. A lot of this is because she is young and she needs to do things for herself and her thought process is being influenced by that damn serum. We'll talk about that next week though.

No grade this week although just based on the 3 hours I've seen I'm going to encourage you to watch Falcon and the Winter Soldier if you haven't already. Next week we'll look at the entire series and I'll give my final grade. Until then, stay safe and keep reading. 

Editor Mike, who had no comment.

Reviewer Garvin