Atomic Robo & The Fighting Scientists of Tesladyne By Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener

 Atomic Robo & The Fighting Scientists of Tesladyne

By Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener

Scott Wegener is a self-taught American-born artist who has done a lot of work for Marvel comics. He's also worked for Dark Horse and Image comics. He's worked on Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Punisher War Journal, and the Human Torch but prefers people focus on the fact that he is Atomic Robo's co-creator. He currently lives in New York City with his family. 

Brian Clevinger was born in the United States on May 7th, 1978. He is known as the creator of the webcomic 8-bit Theater, which used the sprite art from the old NES game final fantasy to tell the story of a group of dysfunctional manics trying to save the world, well mostly trying to become powerful and wealthy but you need a world around to do that. The webcomic ran from 2001 to 2010 telling a complete story and if you were online back then odds are you've at least heard of it. He's also created other webcomics, Dynasty Memories, Field of Battle, Warbot in Accounting, and How I killed Your Master. He's also self-published the novel Nuklear Age. 

Atomic Robo got its start as a limited series in 2007 published by Red 5 Comics, an independent comic book publisher known for producing creator-owned titles. This continued with Mr. Clevinger and Mr. Wegener releasing limited runs focusing on single storylines taking place over Robo's long life until 2015 when the contract ran out. At that point, they decided to publish Atomic Robo as a free webcomic, including prior stories that had been printed by Red 5 Comics. In June of 2015, they reached a deal with IDW to publish physical copies of Atomic Robo including multi-volume softcover collections. I tend to think graphic novels are the best way to experience Atomic Robo, as they are all self-contained and each one tells a self-contained story(I’ve read Atomic Robo as well, but I have read all of them online I might have to give it a re-read in dead tree format). You don't need to read the novels in order as they're for the most part non-linear(no but I would recommend it because you get a better sense of Atomic Robo as a person this way). For example, the one graphic novel tells a story of Robo's confrontation with a creature from outside the universe which stretches out across several decades with the second novel switching gears to tell about Robo's adventurers as a behind the lines operative in the European theater of World War II fighting Nazi Mad Science. 

Today we'll be reviewing the first graphic novel, however, which is centered on the decade-long battle between Atomic Robo and Baron Heinrich Von Helsingard. Baron Helsingard is nothing less than a traditional comic book villain powered by Mad Nazi Science (I should trademark that)(totally should start listing comic book villains like menu items at a fast food place, “I’ll have a number 1 with a side of extra monologue…”). The graphic novel maps several of their confrontations, the first one in the 1930s. The US Army has figured out where Baron Helsingard had holed up, figured out what he was up to, and realized they had two problems. One they couldn't leave the doctor and his army there, it was 1938 and the man was already an international outlaw for a massive list of crimes against humanity and was openly working towards godhood. Second, the Baron was holed up in the Himalayas in an honest to God Mountain Fortress with an army of Nazis at his command. Bluntly the US Army of 1938 didn't have the reach or manpower to even get to him with enough men to have a chance of success(US was also pretty isolationist at this time, might have pulled the US into WWII early without sufficient pretext to get congress to sign off on that {I’m not sure that parachuting into the Himalayas would have pulled us into WWII, I mean the Nazis would have to explain what the hell they’re doing right north of India.  On the flip side, the US army of 1938 can’t deploy any sizeable number of men to the Himalayas, we just weren’t capable of it}). The nations that could, like the British for example,  were staring an incoming world war in the face and focused on that. 

The US Army does have a solution to this though, an Atomic powered solution. In exchange for US citizenship and legal personhood, Atomic Robo is going to be parachuted solo into a mountain fortress of doom full of Nazi troops to arrest a Mad Nazi Scientist(see he’s not a US citizen till after the job is done, that’s plausible deniability children.) Don't worry though, he's packing enough steel on his frame to be bulletproof and a lightning gun that would make Thor reconsider who's in charge of lightning(See that’s one of the things I like about atomic robo, he knows his limits and takes jobs that sound insane for a human but are significantly less risk to him.). Of course, here's the problem when it comes to dealing with Nazi Mad Scientists, they treat death as a causal and temporary occupational hazard but they carry grudges until the grudge dies of old age. Then they use Nazi Mad Science to resurrect the grudge, weaponize it and use it to commit war crimes as if there were cash prizes for the scale and speed of crimes against humanity committed. I mean, there's a reason no one likes Nazis…(Well no sane, rational person likes them as anything other than villains we can use when we need a good target to punch or shoot.)

That's not all you get though, we also get stories that show just how insane Robo's life is. Whether it's battling giant ants to keep them away from Reno (I say let them have it {now, now, we would lose access to a perfectly good lake}), or stopping a steam-powered death ray armed pyramid from destroying modern Egypt. We also get a sense of his relationship to the US government, for example, there's an instant of Robo agreeing to be smuggled to Mars to make sure the Viking probes work. I like the little touches such as Robo being on friendly terms with Carl Sagan but having some sort of weird hate relationship with Stephen Hawking. There are also more sober moments, like Robo staring down at a letter letting him know that a fellow Flying Tiger has passed away and confronting the fact that he's 83 years old. Not just that he's 83 years old but he's likely to live a lot longer and keep losing old friends but he resolves to keep moving forward and take joy in having these friendships in the first place. (I think there could be a whole lot there to play with and I actually want to see more of that, Robo making friends wanting to be part of humanity and feel that connection but still having the weight of possible immortality nagging him.)

This is a fun and straightforward series and I honestly enjoyed it. The art is nice to look at without being overloading and carries a nice dynamic feel to it(there is also a subtitle shift in color palette between different time periods that lends itself well to the storytelling style used here). The storylines are the kind of crazy stuff you would get in a universe where an Atomic Powered Robot Man created by Dr. Tesla is running loose and commanding his own business. Frankly given everything going on out there in the world, a dose of fun and good storytelling was pretty much what I needed. That said the characterization for everyone who isn't Atomic Robo is kinda thin.  We're not really introduced to other characters and just kinda have to infer their relationships and personalities on the fly from really bare-bones clues. Those Fighting Scientists in the title could have used some more screen time is what I'm saying(More Dr. Dinosaur we need him and his true science facts, like how the human body contains just so much blood! {So much!  But we’ll get to Dr. Dinosaur when he shows up}). While I like Robo, he needs a supporting cast. If for no other reason than to give his sense of humor something to play off of. Atomic Robo and The Fighting Scientists of Tesladyne, by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener, gets an A- from me. Give it a shot(Having actually read this one YES I agree do go give it a read). 

I’d like to thank Mr. Davis for joining us as a guest editor for this review.  Mr. Davis is also one of our ever-wise patrons, so he gets to vote on upcoming reviews and theme months.  If you’d like to have a voice in upcoming reviews, join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where a dollar a month gets you a vote!  Next week we’re reviewing Clockwork Daggers by Beth Cato, hope you’ll join us.  Until then, stay safe and keep reading!  

Blue Text is Mr. Davis

Black Text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

Mr. Davis listens: “Those Who Fall” by John G Muirhead

 Mr. Davis listens

Due to various events over the weekend and the week I was unable to finish the review, for which I apologize.  However, Mr. Davis who is a guest editor, ever wise patron, and great friend of mine stepped in with a guest review.  I’d like to extend my gratitude to him and I hope y’all will enjoy the review. 

Hello, readers once again your regular reviewer has fallen into the same blunder as public schools and given me a platform.   While June is usually WWII month, I thought it might be good to share a history book, as well as a little bit of a story.  So, some of you know me in the real world, others do not but the reason I go by Mr. Davis here is that I am an educator and as such, I often take my work home with me.  What you may not know is that I also drive a fair distance every day to get to the school where I teach, and because of these two facts I find that audiobooks are often a better option for me than sitting and reading.  So to that end, I may begin offering a new type of review with your usual host’s permission (or to be useful during holidays and other time off) where I review audiobooks.

The first book I’d like to offer here has as much of a story about how I found it as what I have learned about the author.  “Those Who Fall”, is the first and only book ever written by retired Army Air Force bomber pilot John G Muirhead, written in 1987.  This book does not feel like many of the other stories that we have come to know about the European Theater, and was recommended to me by a close family friend.  See nearly every year my family returns to Topsail Island North Carolina, just south of Jacksonville, and I less frequently go with.  We have the kind of family there who is not related by blood or marriage, but older family friends are called “aunt” or “grammy” by younger generations.  This is how I know my “cousin” Dave who operates a charter fishing operation and several other maritime operations.  One night we were having dinner with him and his wife, and afterward while the kids played, my mother chatted with his wife. He turned to me and started asking what I like to read.  Suddenly Dave opened up about this book and how he first read it when it came out, he had taken it to sea with him and ended up reading it multiple times.  When he got back to shore he realized how much it had stuck with him and contacted the publisher and managed to track down contact information for the author (this is in 1988 so that means writing a letter or calling).  After a few days of trying he manages to get a phone number in Hanover Massachusetts, which he calls and learns that John G. Muirhead passed away just three days prior. 

After that summer I went to find a copy of this book spoken of so highly by a man whose own family was shocked that he could speak with someone for two hours straight. When I searched online I found it was out of print and there were some copies available but not many at the time one was asking for over $500 but there was an audiobook.  This audiobook was narrated by Robertson Dean, who started as an actor but later transitioned to audiobooks.  Robertson was raised in Connecticut which you will see why that is fitting in just a moment, and he trained at Yale’s Drama School before working on Broadway than Hollywood.  He has appeared on Star Trek: TNG, and Nemesis, as well as Vanilla Sky, and the show 24. But, when he found audiobooks he decided that this was a much better career option for him.

First Lieutenant John G. Muirhead was born in 1918, grew up in New England and was the younger of two brothers.  Most of what can be learned about him is from only a few scattered sources and his book as it is a first-hand account of his time in the service.  Muirhead’s book follows his time as a B-17 bomber pilot stationed in southern Italy during the latter half of the second world war.  Muirhead begins his book and each chapter with snippets of poems, some of them tie nicely in with the chapter that follows, others are jarring and feel like they pull you out of the memoir.  The poem “Mystic and Cavalier” by Lionel Johnson, opens the book and within the poem’s first verse the name of the book is found.  This is the unique strength of the writer where he demonstrates a powerful command of English literature. The combination of his writing tone and the voice of Mr. Dean combine to bring you the impression of someone who has truly lived the experiences described.

The book opens by describing life on the Foggia Army Airfield Complex, describing it in almost pastoral terms punctuated with the kind of crass language you would expect on a military base.  With the exception of one vividly described bombing mission, Muirhead spends most of the first quarter of the book talking about the mundane aspects of life in allied occupied Italy (This would have been the majority of his experiences, even when you’re on the ground, actual combat that is people actively trying to kill you makes up a very small part of your time.  It's an incredibly important time since you know, people are trying to kill you but it’s often over in minutes).  He discusses a trip south into town with a fellow pilot which nearly ends in disaster when their agreed ride drops them off miles from where they thought they were going, they are caught in a severe rainstorm and wander into a small farmhouse where a stereotypical Italian mother feeds them finally and takes care of them for the evening. Muirhead paints a vivid picture of these kinds of events that are rich in detail so you feel that you are taking this long miserable but ultimately positive walk with him.  This is contrasted when he talks about flying combat missions, there his descriptions become much more clipped (I couldn’t say without reading the book but it sounds like he’s adopting the language of a military report){to clarify it sounds almost like minimalist poetry, rather than use stronger language he repeats words, for example describing the movement of his plain he repeats “shaking shaking shaking” to clue the listener that it is a violent movement}. The sentences are short and choppy stripped down to an almost poetic cadence giving only the barest minimum to show what is happening and how he and his crew are filled with terror (I have to wonder if that terror ever went away.  My own time was brief and frankly much safer than Lt. Muirhead’s but some of the emotions still lingered even years later, I can only wonder if writing the book helped him expel those feelings or not.){I have a strong suspicion it is, I feel like the whole book written 40 years after the events is a final attempt to exercise these demons and trauma from his soul.}  . 

After these descriptions of terror, he returns back to his well-read, cultured prose where you actually learn the most about his mental process and the nature of flying a bomber.  The middle of the book takes a long break from combat to conduct very routine procedures of getting planes in working order and training co-pilots.  Here his reminiscing becomes more and more maudlin, showing very clear depression and stress in his situation.  He starts forming friendships with more individuals including an intelligence officer whose appearance reminds him of one Vladimir Lenin.  He shows a kind of gallows humor here joking with his friend nicknamed “Ilyich '' saying he is going to blow up New Jersey, which communism aside I can’t really disagree with.  But when his friend is reassigned back home Muirhead becomes increasingly withdrawn from those around him while he returns to combat duty.  Here the book changes tone again becoming its darkest, Muirhead watches completely disconnected from the world around him as he flies mission after mission watching comrades die (We deployed over 10,000 B-17s in Europe in WW2 and lost over 4,000, 26,000 men were killed, 28,000 taken prisoner.  Imagine having to live through that and realizing that every friend you make is a very real chance to suffer lost to the reaper.  For comparison the modern USAF fields about 5,400 manned planes and is one of the largest modern air forces in the world and is so overwhelmingly dominant that most nations wouldn’t even bother to take the field against it.)

Muirhead takes us down this very dark path of watching him become more and more broken by his experiences.  Finally, in the last quarter of the book, the action that was promised from the beginning happens as a final push to the oil fields of Romania.  There Muirhead and his crew are shot down and quickly captured by Bulgarian forces and taken to a POW camp.  The last quarter of the book is an unvarnished account of being taken captive, there is no great act of heroism though.  This is not the great escape, or Saving Private Ryan, this is one man, who though he is an officer he realizes he is woefully unprepared to lead his men in this situation (I’m not sure anyone can be prepared){True but I feel like he is especially harsh on himself especially when he points to enlisted men who take command and start ensuring that the injured get food and water}.  Muirhead shows no shame in admitting to feeling weak and beaten, as he finds himself sick with lice and dysentery.  The book ends with the end of the war in Europe, Muirhead and two friends who both had suffered more serious injury than he had walking out of a POW camp on the top of a hill somewhere in Bulgaria. 

This book and by extension audiobook feels deeply personal, like a man exercising his demons, yet it still is a powerful and informative read.  The book begins with Muirhead literally saying that he supposes all men who have served end up boring their, wives, friends, and children with stories of their service.  As such, unlike your usual reviewer, I feel it's improper in this instance to put a letter grade on the story itself.  However, I will give Robertson Dean’s reading of the tail an A-, he brings a familiarity to the words that keep true to what is written without distracting. My only complaint with his work is a slight mispronunciation of a few Italian words, but that can be forgiven and I only notice them because I’ve heard them in my family growing up.  With that thought I turn you back over to your usual reviewer and fade back into the biology supply closet to plot my next appearance. 

.  I should be back next week folks, barring any additional disasters.  Until then, please stay safe and keep reading.  Thank you. 

Gold text is your normal reviewer Garvin Anders

Black text is your guest reviewer Mr. Davis

The Peshawar Lancers By SM Stirling

 The Peshawar Lancers 

By SM Stirling

Stephan Micheal Stirling was born on September 30th of 1953 in Metz France, to Alfred Bruce, a wing commander in the Royal Canadian Airforce, and Marjorie Stirling. At the time Metz was the site of a Canadian Air Force base. He spent most of his childhood in Canada, graduating from Carleton University with a BA (with honors) in history and graduating from Osgoode Hall Law School in York University. He became an American citizen in 2003 and lives in New Mexico with his wife Jan. His first book Snowbrother was released in 1985, which means he's been writing for 35 years and doesn't show any signs of stopping.

As you might guess this has resulted in a simply massive body of work, which if you're a fan of fantasy and science fiction the odds are incredibly high that you've at least heard of some of his work. Such as the Draka or Emberverse series, both of which could be considered alternative histories. There's also the General series with David Drake and his current series which starts with the book Black Chamber, an alternate history where Theodore Roosevelt beats Woodrow Wilson to win a 3rd term as President. Lesser known works of his include his 5th-millennium series, a fantasy series that takes place in a far future where humanity is still recovering from the fall of our civilization.  There is also the Lords of Creation series, and books like The Peshawar Lancers. 

The Peshawar Lancers was published in 2002 by Roc books, it's a stand-alone novel, although there is a short story titled Shikari in Galveston that takes in the same world only in Texas. The Peshawar Lancers is an alternate history that is in some ways a spiritual sequel/retelling of the 1916 book, King of the Khyber Rifles. The book tells the adventures of Captain King in Afghanistan at the start of the first world war operating as a spy for the British Raj. That said the Peshawar Lancers actually carries a lot of Mr. Stirling's standard themes, which helps set it apart from its inspiration. Such themes as his enjoyment of kicking over the table of our world so he can write adventures in the aftermath, his love of alternate history and his willingness to both explore non-western and non-modern viewpoints, and his willingness to look at some dark places to do so(Neat, though I like speculative biology/ecology from a somewhat global viewpoint). Mr. Stirling enjoys writing adventure novels and that's clearly evident in the adventures of Athelstane King here. Let me delve a bit into the world of the Peshawar Lancers, a fair warning there are some mild spoilers ahead as the book is 18 years old now. 

In October of 1878, a series of objects struck the earth in the northern hemisphere. Whether they were pieces of a single comet or asteroid or a group that just happen to hit together has never been determined. It is known that a series of impacts ranging east to west from just south of Moscow to the middle of the North Atlantic have been estimated to have an impact strength estimated to range from 100 to 300 megatons each. The North Atlantic strike was the most devastating, however, as it triggered a tsunami that slammed into the shores of North America and Western Europe. This wiped out most of the coastal cities on the Atlantic coasts of both continents as the wave was powerful enough to reach the Appalachian mountains at some points (Did it return Florida to the sea? Please tell me Florida became a giant coral reef {Florida remerges from the sea sad to say} Damn it Sarasota why wont you die!). 

However, London and a large chunk of England were protected by the island of Ireland absorbing the wave. Although I have to assume the Irish would not be thrilled by this. The British Isles as a whole would also protect the low countries and parts of Germany and France. This frankly would have been bad enough and while it wouldn't have slain western civilization, it would have likely broken the colonial empires on its own. There were, however, additional problems following in the wake of the impact. The strikes altered the climate, disrupting the Gulf Stream and cutting off enough sunlight to cause a miniature ice age where farming basically became impossible in large chunks of the northern hemisphere until the 1890s. See this is the kind of thing I’m oddly interested in, would this slow all of the gulf stream by cutting off its energy supply in the low latitude regions of the West African coast? Does this concentrated heat in the Gulf of Mexico creating a biological haven? DO ICE AGE CONDITIONS SAVE THE BUFFALO? {He doesn’t say, but I would be interested in your opinion}(Ok so at this point the American Bison is facing extinction however this climate shift could foster conditions that are not good for wheat, corn and other cereal crops but do heavily favor tough prairie grasses.  DC is a swamp so its definitely gone and so there is no one pushing for the final extinction of the Bison, I can see Native American groups of the great plains essentially retaking much of their land because they either didn’t rely on agriculture or farmed plants that were much more hardy.  Additionally, while this would make agriculture in the central states harder it MIGHT make the climate more mild or even wetter in places like the badland or the high deserts of the American West.  Meanwhile, the Bison is a descendant of a species that not only thrived during the last ice age in exactly these conditions. Also elk, elk don’t care about the cold, they love it, we tried to wipe them out too as a second way of driving Native peoples off their land but the tricky bastards were too hardy.) Let's be blunt, the modern world would have trouble surviving such an event. For the late Victorian era? It was a death blow. 

When this was realized the British government came up with an ambitious plan, using every ship they could get their hands on, they would evacuate as many from the British Isles as possible to ensure the continuation of the Empire. Of the 20 million who survived the impacts, the evacuation would save 3.5 million, the various European powers would attempt various evacuations of their own. Some like the French were very successful, others like the Russians would have dark consequences down the line. Most, like the Germans and central Europeans, would be failures. By 1890, there were under 10 million survivors in all of Europe. 

Meanwhile, in India where most of the ruling elite and the army had been relocated, rebellion exploded and the Afghani tribes came sweeping down from the mountains desperate for food. The next couple of decades were a bitter struggle for food, land, and survival but the British and their allied native groups like the Sikhs and Gurkha survived and won. They would spend the 20th-century rebuilding and slowly being absorbed into India even as they believed they had conquered it. Because of this effort and the sheer loss of life (the population of the world in 2025 is like half a billion people), the speed of technological and social advancement has been greatly slowed. (This is interesting to me because it effectively means the green revolution of the 1960’s never happened anywhere, but the forces that drove that revolution are magnified in this world {Would we be at the point of needing it?  I mean there are only 500 million people alive and large chunks of unsettled land at this point} yes they would be needing it, the green revolution is what allowed the human population to explode, more food= lower childhood mortality, the world population was about 500 million in the year 1800, the average woman had between 4 and 6 children but what kept the population from growing was largely food limitation.  In 1964 there were 4 billion people on earth but ¼ of them were in direct risk of starvation, by 2000 there were 6 billion people on earth but less than 800 million were at risk of starving.  As I tell my students, we never lived in ecological balance with nature we died in ecological balance with nature. ) The British Empire would also hold on in places like Australia and South Africa with the Angrezi Raj (Did they abandon or keep the apartheid system? Seems like it would be harder to hold onto without the same backing from the British army {They did not instead a million extra white Englishmen got dumped into South Africa, which likely reinforced the system}), as this new Empire came to call itself, becoming the most powerful state on Earth. It's into this world at the beginning of the 21st century that Athelstane King is born. 

Our story proper begins in 2025, when after a successful campaign into Afghanistan Captain King is sent home for medical leave with his right-hand man (is it Malaria like Dr. Watson? {Stab wound to the shoulder}) and hereditary retainer Narayan Singh,  On the way home, however, a strange and unpleasant meeting with Sir. Manfred Warburton of the Imperial Service, the spy agency of the empire, followed by an ambush by Muslim Assassins, forces Captain King to abandon any ideas of a quiet holiday. Instead what follows is an adventure through a strange but somewhat familiar world of the Angrezi Raj. Captain King must venture into the shadowy world of espionage and diplomacy to learn just who is trying not just to kill him but also his twin sister Cassandra and why the fate of a family of small untitled landowners might also be the fate of the world. Because mixed into this is not just the fate of the Royal family, or their current efforts to seal a dynastic marriage with the rulers of France Outer Mer and eventually unify the two most powerful European Successor states but something even more important. 

To do this he'll have to also pursue hidden knowledge of his family's past as it's not just the current generation that finds a target painted on its collected backside but his father was a target for assassination as well. Captain King lost his father at a young age, so he knows very little of his father's life except through the stories that his Mother and his honorary Uncle, Narayan's father, told him. So the discovery that his father may have some sort of shadowy feud going on with the dark cult that dominates the Russian Empire is kind of a revelation. See when the Russian court marched south, it fell under the sway of a mad priest (Ra-ra-Rasputin…) who decided that everything going on meant that Satan had finally defeated God. This turned into a merger of Satan with the Slavic god Chernobog and a misinterpretation of the peacock angel, Melek Taus, the central figure of the real-life Yazid religion. It's a bloody-handed cult that celebrates cannibalism and degeneracy. Just for the record I don't mean the party hard have fun degeneracy you're thinking of. I mean real, let's do things that destroy our self-respect and ability to trust people, degeneracy. (It’s always rural cannibal death cults, you would think these things would collapse under their own weight.  How do you get anything done if you are always keeping an eye on your neighbors to see if they are looking extra hungry)

Honestly, the Russian cult part is the part of the book I like the least because I kind of have trouble believing in it. I mean I can see priests and others going mad when it looks like the end of the world and believing that Satan himself has impossibly triumphed against the Almighty. But I have trouble seeing such a cult take over an entire nation and hold control for almost 150 years! I mean, for fuck sake they eat people! Not just once in a while but regularly and they celebrate it! This really seems like something that all the neighbors would get together to wipe out (EXACTLY!). For that matter, you think a realm where the nobles and priests are regularly culling the lower classes for brutal blood-soaked rituals that end in dinner would be one constantly on the edge of open rebellion! I mean, you're a serf and sooner or later they are going to eat you or your kids, what do you have to lose here? Even if they kill you, at least you've forced them to do it quickly and they'll have to figure out how to do their own damn farming now! (I understand an increase in animal agriculture in the wake of this sort of climate shift, but humans have absolutely crap energy conversion in terms of feed to protein ratio.  The time and energy needed to raise a kid for food is just not worth it, there are much better uses for orphan parts if you are getting into black magic or any other forbidden knowledge.) 

That said, I do love hating Count Ignatieff, the Russian agent sent to kill King and pull off a greater, darker plot. Count Ignatieff is highly intelligent, motivated, and quick on his feet but he also views everyone around him as either a tool to be used or a possible future meal(oh hey look an actual controlled sociopath not leatherface on a bender that's nice). He's also a religious zealot and true believer in the Russian Cult, to the point that he is fully on board with not just human extinction but the extinction of life itself on the planet. This puts him on a plane above your normal villain as normally our villains aren't... You know... Omnicidal(Giant Asteroid 2024, vote for a candidate who makes their intention clear.). He's an utter monster but one in complete control of himself, so he's able to function in a normal society even as he plots its downfall. Mr. Stirling even gives us a couple of scenes from his viewpoint so we can see how an utterly amoral monster from our view looks at the world. Additionally, the seeds of Count Ignatieff's fate come from the fact that he can only view people as tools or possible meals. So I kinda enjoy that as well. 

The Peshawar Lancers takes place in a vivid, wondrous world with sights great and terrible to show you, with a diverse and honestly interesting array of characters. What I really like is the Angrezi and other European descended characters don't think like we do and act like people from a different society. Although one that is rather close to ours so they're not completely alien. I honestly enjoyed the sheer adventure of the book through a different world, I also enjoyed the fact that I was reading an Alt-History novel that wasn't what if the Nazis won World War II or if the Confederacy won the Civil War (seriously there is more to history guys)Ok yeah but I low key want to know if this impact event killed or escalated the North American Sharecropping model? {Well given that the only civilization mentioned in North America is weird theocratic Californian city-states... }The action is well written and the characterization is well done if a little sparse. The dialogue is peppered with a number of non-English terms like Bhai and Chalo but honestly, you should be able to figure out most of that through context. That said elements like the Russian Cannibal Satan cult and elements of the plot keep it from A status in my mind. This puts The Peshawar Lancers by SM Stirling at a B+ for me. I would encourage anyone who has never read a Stirling book before to start here because if you enjoy this book, you'll enjoy most of his other work. 

I hope you enjoyed this review, this book was voted on by our ever-wise patrons.  If you’d like a vote on what books get reviewed and even monthly themes and more, join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where a dollar a month gets you a vote.  Hope to see you there soon.  Next week we take a look at a primary source The Travels of Ibn Battutah!  Until then, stay safe and Keep Reading! 

Blue text is our guest editor Mr. Davis

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

Kingdom of Copper by SA Chakraborty

 Kingdom of Copper 

by SA Chakraborty

I feel like I've covered Mrs. Chakraborty with enough depth in the last review of The City of Brass and I honestly hate repeating myself. So I'm gonna ask folks to go take a look at that review for the information on the author. Instead, I'll note that The Kingdom of Copper was published in 2019 by Harper Voyager books. Harper Voyager is an imprint of HarperCollins Books, one of the five biggest publishers in the English-speaking world. It was founded in 1999 as Eos Books and relaunched in 2011 focusing on fantasy, urban fantasy, and science fiction. They also published The Poppy War and authors you might know such as Raymond E Feist, RA Salvatore, and more. The Kingdom of Copper itself is the second of a 3 book series, the first of which we've already reviewed, so let's go ahead and dive in, shall we? 

The Kingdom of Copper takes place in the magical city of Daevabad, the central city and capital of the world of the Djinn. The Djinn are a magical people (the bigger, badder leprechaun of the Levant). They're not entirely unlike humans, but whereas humanity are creatures of earth, Djinn are creatures of fire. Once upon a time they were more spirits than physical creatures, but as punishment for tormenting humanity the prophet Suleiman (aka King Solomon) turned them into what they are now, excluding a group of outcasts who refused to submit called Ifrit. The modern Djinn are split into 6 tribes who inhabit the Earth out of view of humanity, living within the bounds of the traditional Islamic world stretching from Central Asia to the western shores of Africa. Another group in Djinn society are the Shafit, who are people with mixed Djinn and human ancestry, who aren’t members of the tribes by law but can be adopted, even against their will. 

While there are six tribes, only 3 of them hold any importance in the series so far. The first is the Daevas, the tribe of our main character Nahri. The Daevas used to be the head tribe of the Djinn world due to being the first Djinn to submit to the prophet Suleiman, and thus their ruling family was allowed to keep and maintain rather wondrous powers to harm or heal (a-ha! Vichy djinn {They were kidnapping people and starting wars and etc so I feel comparing Suleiman to Nazi Germany is incredibly unjustified}). After submitting to their punishment, the Daevas built Daevabad as a refuge and a place apart from humanity.  They practice a type of Zoroastrianism with the focus of their religion being the temple in Daevabad itself.  They're also deeply bigoted towards the Shafit, as they see the very existence of people with mixed blood as a violation of the rules given to them by prophet Suleiman in the first place, chief among them leaving the bloody humans alone! (“These folks ain’t djinn! Hell, they ain’t even old-timey!”) As a result, under Daeva rule the Shafit would suffer terribly to the point that they could be enslaved and literally bought and sold under the guise of being “reunited” with full blood kin who had full power over them. 

The Geziri overthrew the Daevas, claiming that the cruelty of the Daevas towards the Shafit left them unfit to rule. They took up the rulership of Daevabad as well as taking control of Suleiman's seal which allows the holder their own magical powers within the bounds of the city separate from the innate powers of the ruling family of the Daevas. The Geziri for the most part follow Islam and live closer to humans than other Djinn tribes, so they're more traditionally sympathetic to the Shafit. However, the ruling Geziri family has maintained control over Daevabad by playing the Daevas and Shafit off each other, allowing carefully measured atrocities to happen so both groups are so busy fighting each other that they can't present a threat to Geziri leadership. This has caused a rift within the tribe itself as more traditionalist and religious members of the tribe deeply disapprove of this and of the luxurious lifestyle of the royals on top of that. I'll come back to that. 

To combat the rift within the tribe and try to expand their alliances the current King Ghassan took a wife from a 3rd tribe when his first wife died - The Ayaanle tribe, who live along the Nile and are incredibly wealthy, especially in gold and salt. While most of them practice Islam or at least claim to publicly, it's a very different Islam than the one followed by the Geziri (sounds like a more… worldly interpretation{Given the princess can discuss wines in-depth, gonna say yes}) and despite one of them being the queen, they find themselves undecided on whether an alliance with the royal family is that good an idea. On top of this, the Ayaanle have their own secrets to protect, and becoming too deeply invested in the politics of the capital is a threat to those secrets. 

The other 3 tribes, while mentioned, don't really carry any weight in this story as they've all decided to stay at arm's length away from royal politics and who can blame them? Especially when the risks are high and the rewards are low. There is a non-Djinn group getting involved - the Marid, creatures of water as the Djinn are of fire, start to move again after having disappeared for centuries (that is not dead which can eternal lie, / And with strange aeons even death may die + insert eerie fish-type noises). What their goals are and why they're moving now may have consequences beyond the borders of Daevabad but let's look at our characters. 

Nahri, who grew up on the streets of Cario scourging for every scrap of healing knowledge she could find and dreaming of getting enough wealth together to get formal medical training is living both a dream and a nightmare. A dream, in that she is now a figure of wealth and political power, the last surviving member of the old royal family of the Daeva tribe. She is also gifted with powerful healing magic that can pull people back from the very brink of death which makes her a figure of near-religious veneration among the Djinn. A nightmare in that she is a hostage held by King Ghassan, and any move she makes that displeases him results in punishment for other Daevas. She is trapped in a palace that should be hers, in marriage to Ghassan's eldest son Muntadhir, and in the politics of blood feud and ancient curdled hatred that she despises. Nahri is determined to build bridges between the Shafit and the Daevas and at least try to stop the cycle of atrocities and make life better for the people of the city. She also dreams of taking vengeance on her jailer King Ghassan for the humiliations and slights piled on her and her loved ones. 

Meanwhile, the exiled younger son of the King, Ali, is returning to the city of Daevabad against his own better judgment, drawn by rumors of the city balancing on the edge of rebellion and of fear for his own family (but is this Prince Ali also fabulous?? {Only when his mother dresses him}). Ali finds himself torn between his love of his family and his sense of right and wrong. He loves his father but believes that his father is destroying thousands of innocent lives. He loves his brother but believes his brother is being a coward in refusing to confront his father. On top of that, he's in love with Nahri, but can't bring himself to admit it and Nahri is incredibly angry with him given that she believes that he killed her best friend Dara, who was also the Djinn she was half in love with. Worse, the Marid have meddled with him and left him with mysterious powers over water that have driven his sister and mother frantically to find a way to protect him. Queen Haaset, his mother, wasn't much of a character in the first book but shows up to much greater effect here, as a mother trying to protect her only son, even from his own father. Ali increasingly finds himself having to make a choice between virtue and loyalty in this book. 

But that choice might not even matter because Dara, the Daeva everyone thinks is dead, is alive and has been called to service once again. Outside of the city, a rebellion is forming in the countryside, one made up of unlikely alliances and willing to use dark knowledge and powers. Dara finds himself in the familiar position stuck between loyalty and virtue. It was his loyalty to the ruling family of the Daevas in the last war that led to him being remembered as a war criminal by the Geziri, and frankly, that's because much of what he did was criminal. He, under orders, engaged in mass slaughter. The hands of the Geziri are just as dirty, mind you, but they won so they got to write the history books (“I am the writer of all history books everywhere! Suck it down!” - Victor Victorson). Dara's life has been extended unnaturally (even for a Djinn) but he's prepared to go to the well one more time and the people using his loyalty are set to wring every advantage from it. The rebel alliance however is fragile at best (easy pickings for a few star destroyers) and as it grows increasingly morally compromised the question of will they be any better than the people they replaced becomes a very important one. 

The Kingdom of Copper is a book of deadly royal and familial politics, where the ties of brotherhood, filial piety, and marriage are strained past the snapping point by paranoia, ambition, and cold calculating ruthlessness. Where layers of crimes and brutality lay between people of goodwill and create massive barriers to trust as a mistake can lead to the deaths of hundreds if not more. It's a story about people trapped in a cycle of violence and hatred and how that cycle is protected by the people in power because they're afraid of what happens if they try any other way. Of course, this book is also about the danger of getting so wrapped up in your own infighting that you don't see the wolf pushing in through the front door. Mrs. Chakraborty does an amazing job of breathing life into this and if I'm going, to be honest does a better job with 2 books than George RR Martin did with 5. 

The character interactions are just beautiful and incredibly believable. My favorite example of this is a scene where the entire royal family is gathered for a private dinner. Everyone is straining very hard to be friendly, polite, and mend ties. There is, however, so much resentment, misunderstandings, and paranoia towards each other's intentions that it takes everything the family has not to break down into infighting on the spot. Between the King and the Queen, between the two brothers, between Nahri and both brothers, between the princess and just about everyone else. It's an amazing scene that would single-handedly justify a book all on its own and the rest of the book is just as good. As an example of intrigue, feuding and brutal political infighting The Kingdom of Copper is a great book. Most of the action of the book takes place near the end as everything comes to head but people looking for clashes of arms and action can take comfort that there is a good amount of it in the last quarter or so of the book. The Kingdom of Copper by SA Chakraborty gets an A and a well-earned one.  Don't miss your chance to enjoy this fantasy inspired by the legends of medieval Islam full of well-realized characters, shocking magic, and dark secrets.  

        Apologies for the late post dear readers, various goings-on with my living situation had me a bit distracted.  For the record, I’m okay and will be so for the foreseeable future.  Anyways, The Kingdom of Copper was chosen by our ever-wise patrons, and as always you can join their ranks at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where a dollar a month gets you a vote on upcoming reviews, theme months and more.  This also helps pay for editors and other expenses.  Speaking of editors, a special thank you to our guest editor Mike this week!  Next week, we review a book also chosen by our patrons, the Peshawar Lancers by SM Stirling!  Until then stay safe and keep reading!

Purple Text is our editor Mike

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders