Minority Report Television Show Pilot review

 Minority Report Television Show

Pilot

So most of the time, I try to get a whole season or so in for these but the only way to view this series is to buy the episodes on iTunes. So I coughed up for the pilot and if people want more they can join Patreon and help me pay for it. That may be a bit ungracious but it is gonna be my position folks. Anyway, Minority Report started production in September 2014, was approved in May 2015, and aired on Fox from September 21st to November 30th, 2015, all 3 months. Fox even canceled three episodes dropping the season from 13 to 10 and then canceled it altogether in May 2016 after leaving it in Limbo for half a year. So let's take a look at the pilot.  Warning: I will be spoiling the plot of an 8-year-old television show. 

The show is set in Washington D.C. 2065, 11 years after the precogs have been freed and relocated and Precrime has been shut down. One of the precogs, Dash has returned to the city to try and use his ability to prevent murders. He's aided by a truly amazing artistic ability to draw what he sees and is smart enough to put together fragmentary details shockingly fast. He however has a problem: his visions never convey enough information for him to get to the right place at the right time to actually save anyone. 

 Detective Vega of the DC Police has a similar issue in that she joined up hoping to get into Pre-Crime and is tired of just showing up after a crime and cleaning up after it. She also has the rather cliché motivation of her father, a cop, being murdered and his killing never being solved. Now to be fair, the show does a good job of displaying that she's actually fairly good at putting information together and coming to correct conclusions. Like figuring out a murder victim had a daughter they were trying to protect when they were killed. So when Dash tries to pass on some information to Vega on the sly, only for her to hunt him down it's not a shock. They of course decide to team up and fight crime. 

Using Dash's visions and a terrifying police surveillance network (What in many places already exists, or has the technological capacity to exist.), they're able to narrow down a threat to a former Pre-Crime officer now running for mayor. His platform is promising to bring crime back down to pre-crime levels using technology as a substitute. The Hawkeye program uses the already massively common and intrusive surveillance systems in DC paired with an Algorithmic search engine to figure out who might be committing a crime in the near future, flag them for law enforcement, and place them under close surveillance (Some counties in Florida actually do this. You can imagine how racist the results are because it is very easy to build a racist classification algorithm.  The result is black teenagers having surveillance vans in front of their homes, being randomly searched, etc.). Speaking as someone who has to deal with Google and YouTube algorithms fairly regularly? That's terrifying. 

The threat is of course from two victims of Pre-Crime, suffering some brain damage from the method of detention that Pre-Crime used. Which leaves me asking, why did anyone think putting people in some bizarre torture coma was even a good idea? Let alone people who couldn't be formally charged with a crime! (I mean, they're already arresting it and prisoning people who haven't actually done anything. Why not torture them at that point?)So it's not enough to put them away for life without a trial but to use a method that torments them and leaves them brain-damaged? Why!?! Just Why!?! (Our criminal justice system already does this to the limits of technology. Pre-trial inmates in tent cities in the Arizona desert, pretrial inmates on Rikers Island … being on Rikers Island.  Often in solitary confinement for months or years at a time for no reason…) Of course, our two villains are men who despite their brain damage are capable of working together to create a rather complex plot to conduct what I can only call a terrorist strike to kill not just the guy running for mayor, but his wife, his 2-year-old son and hundreds of innocent bystanders in a political rally.

Now points for novelty because their plan to pull this off involves a homemade bio weapon delivered by computer-controlled passenger pigeons. Because the species was deextinctified by one of the men in question before being arrested for being in a vision of committing murder. Seriously, I used a bunch of creatures I wrenched from the oblivion of extinction and controlled through computer chips in their brains to deliver a bioweapon I cooked up on the sly while suffering brain damage is one hell of a science flex and I respect that. It's a completely evil and kinda depraved science flex but a science flex it remains. Also readers, yes I enjoyed every moment of typing that sentence.

Our heroes of course save the day, but the plotters are killed. Which left me sighing and points I think to what went wrong. Well, several things went wrong. Well, the pilot has this theme of surveillance and the use of it by authorities but doesn't engage with it. There's no debate if the Hawkeye system is a good idea or a bridge too far, it just sits there. Now maybe future episodes will engage that but this would be the time to establish that as a theme of debate of the show if you were going to do that. Instead, the pilot seems to quietly suggest that it would be great if our protagonists had this power because then they could stop all these murders but I have to ask... What else would be done with it? If you haven't realized by now that that is a question we have to ask about any power we hand our government or any other organization, I have to ask if you slept well through the last 2 decades.

Also, everything wraps up a bit to neatly. Our heroes don't ask, where did these guys get the resources to pull this off. They weren’t holding down jobs, and even homemade bioweapons that kill hundreds quickly can't be cheap. It's also odd that no one asks Detective Vega how she got all this information, either (does this seem like a society that cares over much about evidence to you?). Now beyond that, the acting is decent, although the dialogue suffers through sad attempts at Joss Whedon-style banter and comedy. Not to mention hit-or-miss humor using precog powers. As an adaptation, it comes in at D+ because it is rather far off the field of the original short story. As a stand-alone product? Honestly, the show is rather mediocre, coming in at a C at best. It's not awful or bad but it's not good either. I don't hate it but I can certainly think of a better use for 45 minutes of my time. 

Well, I hoped you enjoyed this review.  If you did consider joining the ranks of the ever-wise patrons at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads Where for a dollar a month you can vote on upcoming reviews and content, get access to special patron-only content (for example a podcast discussing the Minority Report movie) and more.  Next week we’ll be reviewing the book Anglo-Saxon Myths: The Struggle for the Seven Kingdoms by Brice Stratford, and the week after I’ll be releasing a video on Anglo-Saxon mythology. Hope to see you there, until then take care of yourself, take care of each other, and of course, keep reading! 

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

Minority Report By Philip K Dick

 Minority Report

By Philip K Dick

Minority Report was published in 1956, in a magazine called Fantastic Universe. Fantastic Universe ran for about 7 years from 1953 to 1960, publishing 69 issues. The main editors of the magazine were Leo Margulies who edited from 1953 to 1956 and Hans Stefan Santesson who edited from 1956 to the last issue in march 1960. The story became the basis for the movie starring Tom Cruise (patrons will get an audio cast of a friend and me discussing and comparing that). As well as a television show that ran for a single season (Dear God, I didn’t know about this, and now I cannot un-know it. {There’s gonna be a review of the pilot later!} Excuse me, I’m just gonna go Full Denethor). Now there are going to be spoilers below but the story is old enough to qualify for social security so, I'm past the limit (on caring) I feel folks.

The protagonist of our story is John Anderton, the aging creator and commissioner of the Pre-Crime police division.  Which under his leadership has grown to be the most powerful and effective national police force in the Federal West-Bloc (It’s very easy to be highly effective when you can violate causality, I guess.). I should note that pre-crime in the story can see all sorts of crime but they focus on the big nasty ones, like murder, rape, kidnapping, and assault. Because of this, no one has gotten away with a crime in nearly five years in the entire nation. (In addition to the causality issues, there are also some spectral evidence issues, but I’ll get to that later.)

The story opens with Anderton meeting his Senate-appointed assistant and eventual successor Ed Witwer and he’s resentful about the idea of being replaced. I'm honestly not that sympathetic to him here because frankly, there's a damn point where you just hang up the hat and go home, man. There are too many people in the world who grimly try to hang to every shred of power well past their due date and that's one of the reasons for a lot of the issues facing people of my generation and the Zoomers (I really enjoy being ruled by people old enough to fondly remember the original runs of US government anti-homosexual propaganda films.). You've done your work Anderton, go home, enjoy your wife (We have medication that can help.), and get a hobby while you're able to. Let the new blood have their time in the sun!

Sorry, sore point, there.  Well, the resentment explodes into full-blown suspicion when Anderton intercepts a prediction that he'll murder a man in a week. Now the predictions are given by mutants, who are strapped to metal chairs. They are pretty much vegetables. The story explains that the pre-cogs ability to see the future destroys their brain's ability to do anything else. So they have no personalities, or ability to function in any way.  Instead, they mutter their predictions constantly with them being translated by vast and powerful computers (that run on punch cards, this tickles me). The predictions are printed in Pre-Crime headquarters and the Army headquarters to prevent anyone from mucking with them. I honestly find this ominous, why is the army involved in a law enforcement matter? Why not the FBI? (And this is where we get into spectral evidence.  Like, there hasn’t been a crime.  The only evidence is the unverified say-so of a precognitive.  Put them under surveillance, sure…but arresting them?  Really? {Yeah, you think instead you would issue them some sort of precrime warning, there was an episode of Sliders built around that})

At first, he assumes it's Witwer as the victim and he's being set up so the Senate can replace him (weird how there's no mention of a President anywhere in the story). However, when his much younger wife corners him... He finds out that he's actually predicted to murder a man he's never met. Leopold Kaplan was a retired general who fought in the Anglo-Sino War leading the now-abolished Federal West-Bloc Army. These little tidbits raise all sorts of questions and I could spend days just chewing on them honestly (Someone really didn’t want to give Hong Kong back?). Kaplan actually has moles in the Army General HQ (You’d think the precogs would see the moles… You’d think moles would rate, at the very least.{What if the mole was the guy who got to the predictions first though?  These things are being printed directly from a computer run on punch cards after all…} Which is the other problem.  You shouldn’t ever have these going to just one person.) who send him a warning and he has men kidnap Anderton as Anderton makes his escape from Pre-Crime. Kaplan decides to turn Anderton in however rather than risk his own life (And you’d also think that they’d peg to the kidnapping…{Well when you got a mole directly editing the reports…}).

Anderton escapes with help, leading to a game of cat and mouse as he realizes he needs to break back into Pre-Crime HQ to find out if one of the pre-cogs gave a different prediction of the future. A minority report as it's called. Anderton finds one and realizes the implication of this if the pre-cogs can see different futures than everyone they've arrested for having a prediction of doing a crime now as an argument for innocence (Shocking!). It could undermine the entire system. We also have another wrinkle in that we find out that Kaplin has created a veteran's society with officers from both sides of the war and a following within the active duty service. Additionally, Kaplan carried a grudge over having his old position having been abolished and has political ambitions (Happy birthday to you, have a militant coup…)

In fact, when Anderton arrives to meet Kaplin again, we're treated to a full-blown military rally. Kaplin is aware of the minority report, intends to announce it and prove Pre-Crime doesn't work, and overthrow the Senate. Faced with these options, Anderton goes along with Kaplin until the cameras are rolling and murders Kaplin live on international television, and turns himself in. Since Kaplin was about to lead a fascist coup, the Senate decides to grant Anderton exile to a frontier planet as long as the secret of the minority report is buried. Anderton explains to Witwer, his assistant, that the flaw in the system is that anyone who sees the report may change their mind leading to a new prediction. Since the commissioner is the most likely person to see the report, that now makes Witwer the most vulnerable man on the planet.

The story is very much focused on the balance between the needs of individual freedom and security provided by a system (Is it really secure, though?  I mean, with causality being violated…{Anderton argues that this would only work for someone who can see the report and change their mind, so only the police commissioner, it says something that no one suggests, what if we just showed people that there was a prediction of them doing a crime?}  Of course not!  It wouldn’t be a police state if they gave someone meaningful due process.). It's also powered by Mr. Dick wrestling with what free will is and what it means. Mixed into this is Mr. Dick's anxiety towards authority in general but it's a lot lower-key than in later works like a scanner darkly. We also don't see him wrestle with the idea of identity which he'll start to do in later works. It is a good example of his early work though, willing to confront the idea of different timelines and possible futures and how knowledge of your own fate alters it. That said, it feels rough and due to the length (only 20 pages), there's lot left unexplored here. So I'm giving a C+.

    

            I hope you enjoyed this review, if you did consider joining the Ever Wise Patrons at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a dollar a month.  You get access to hidden content and a vote on future reviews and videos!  Next week we’ll be looking at the television show that was a sequel of sorts to the film.  I hope to see you there.  Until next time, take care of yourselves, each other and of course, keep reading!

Video themes of Philip K Dick, a brief overview

 Decided to go ahead and link the videos I've made making to the blog as well.  Enjoy! 

The Iron Dice (Breach of Faith book 7) by Gary Stevens and Daniel Gibbs

 The Iron Dice (Breach of Faith book 7)

by Gary Stevens and Daniel Gibbs

I've already gone into depth on Mr. Stevens and Mr. Gibbs in this review series at length, so I'm honestly gonna point you to the double hand full of reviews on other works in this universe. That said I will go ahead and repeat the disclaimer, I know Mr. Stevens. He's been a good friend and supporter of this review series for years. I'm also proud to consider him a personal friend. That said, all my remarks are my honest personal opinion, take that as you will (Same goes for me of course.).

The Iron Dice is the last book in the Breach of Faith series(For which the author is grateful.), set in the universe created by Daniel Gibbs. I won't spend too much time discussing the universe at large because I've already done so repeatedly, I'll just tell you to go ahead and check out other reviews that I've done on those books and there will be links at the end of this review. This book picks up the plot directly from the last book in the series Fortune's Favor and I'll go from there.

The Jalm'tar, an alien race that worships the concept of fickle fortune running the universe, had their plot to conquer the Independent Systems Federation through addiction to the powerful pain killer known as Curall fail. So they've decided they'll simply resort to brute military force (That tracks for Imperialist Scum.). After all the ISF doesn't have much of a fleet being a newly created weak confederation of worlds. Meanwhile, the Terran Coalition is still reeling from its decades-long war with the League of Sol, as are the alien races such as the Saurians. Because of that, their fleet is bigger and their worlds are untouched by war. The biggest issue is that the Jalm'tar didn't want to embark on a plan with so much risk, as the humans and their allies have shown themselves willing to go to in their eyes psychotic lengths to avoid being conquered.

Admiral James Henry of the ISF navy knows that his still small and frankly ramshackle fleet made up of a half dozen shiny new cruisers, former pirate flotillas, and planetary defense forces aren't gonna be able to win such a war. So he embraces a new plan, where he will attempt to prevent the war from happening at all by backing a rival to the current emperor of the Jalm'tar when he attempts to seize the throne and thus avert hostilities (Or so he hopes, the way these things go.). That rival is a prince of the blood and the actual son of the last emperor who lost the throne to his power-hungry uncle (This is why the Ottomans…. Ottomaned.). The prince was banished to a comfortable if boring exile on a frontier planet far from the centers of power in the empire but remains under heavy guard. On top of that anyone who wants to get to him has to go through the empire, as the frontier planet in question is on an edge of the empire that doesn't border human space.

So Admiral Henry needs a group of skilled, determined people capable of taking a spacecraft on a long journey through enemy space, landing on an enemy planet, and extracting someone likely under fire and keeping them alive. This group will then have to smuggle this person to the enemy's capital planet and into the palace of the Emperor! This is something that entire nations would devote millions of dollars worth of resources for training and equipment to pull off. Admiral Henry has the crew of the Venture Star, a group of independent civilian spacers with a single civilian ship.

However, the crew has already survived missions that would kill experienced special forces units or spies. Plus they're led by Captain Miriam Gaon, one of the best spies that the Terran Coalition ever trained. In addition, they have a pair of Jalm'tar defectors who have enough information to give them a shot of not only pulling this off but living to brag about it later. On top of that, the Prince still has supporters in the nobility so if he can get close enough to the palace before being discovered and then announce his challenge, the Emperor will have no choice but to accept. How will this contest for the throne of an incredibly powerful empire be decided? Literal rolls of the iron dice, as in dice made from actual iron. That's right the Jalm'tar will decide who rules billions of sapient beings through a series of dice rolls (What the actual fuck?  No way in hell.  I call bullshit on that society functioning. {It doesn’t seem any more insane than doing it through hereditary means.  That said only people with the right ancestry get to even try to roll, you can’t just walk in off the street}}). Whoever has the highest cumulative score after about 3 rolls... Wins everything. There's a lot to unpack here so I'm going to discuss it in the companion video.

Mr. Stevens does a good job of letting us explore the alien mindset of the Jalm'tar by letting us interact with them as individuals, who in many cases have common beliefs and a worldview but express them all in different ways. This is usually done in discussion with other characters in the story, letting us not just explore the Jalm'tar but the human and allied aliens in the setting as well. The book does a good job of expanding on characters like Piper, the 1st mate who has to make her peace with her active role in events and the weight of command. Janet, a survivor of League occupation and the student/mentor relationship she develops with Stephan the withdrawn Russian navigator who shows a truly inspiring level of patience and understanding with her. While also teaching her how to pilot and navigate the ship.

While the book does suffer the usual problem of Mr. Stevens's work of having so many characters that it's difficult at best to give each one the time and page count to really grow. Mr. Stevens does make a valiant attempt and at the very least keeps any of the characters from turning into cardboard cutouts with only 1 or 2 vague character traits. He also continues giving us a widely varied cast to work with of different faiths (or lack of), races, backgrounds, and species, among other things. He also manages to avoid turning the varied cast into feeling like something assembled from a list to give an appearance of diversity. Instead, you get a cast of people from different cultures, planets, and backgrounds who live and work together and sometimes engage in thrilling heroics for a common cause and it works well and feels real.

Mr. Stevens also puts an effort in to keep our heroes from winning too easily and ensuring that the victories they do win, while meaningful, come at a price. He also avoids wandering into misery porn but makes it clear what the full weight of that price is as well. We see this not just in the main storyline but in the character arc of Mei Ling Lou, who was serving as a Captain in the Federation Navy but during this and the last book finds herself weighing the cost of her service. Not just the risk to herself but how it affects her children.

I'm not a parent, but even I know how difficult it can be to serve miles and miles away from your spouse and children. It's a strain that many families break under and never recover from. There are also plenty of families who can make it work but even then that comes at a cost to the person serving and to their loved ones. A cost in missed moments, doubts, and fears that can never really be completely exorcized for good, and the knowledge that you could lose the loved one serving at any moment and there's nothing you can do about it. It's a hard row to hoe and even wealth and privilege don't make it any easier. Mei Ling is forced to confront that and make a final decision on where her priorities and loyalties lie and the thing is there is no real right answer here.

For some people being there for their children and spouse is going to be more important and they're not wrong to choose that. For others, service for something they believe to be important and greater than themselves and overrides individual concerns and I'm not going to say that's wrong either (Though I will say, if you have that mindset, maaaaybe don’t inflict that on someone else unless that person goes into it eyes wide open.  And even then, maybe try not to have kids.  Just my two cents.). After all, our society couldn't function without people making that choice. Not just in the context of military service but consider the demands we put on medical professionals, firefighters, teachers, and the legion of other professions and services that keep society grinding forward through the efforts of good men and women doing hard and often personally painful work. (Yes.  But our society also expects too much of such people. They shouldn’t have to make that choice in the first place because their pay and working hours should be sane.)

This is the last book in the series as far as I am aware and Mr. Stevens does a good job of bringing the character arcs to a close or at least to a satisfactory stopping point. As far as conclusions go, I feel this is a pretty good one. We have seen these characters grow, change and become stronger and better people, even if they've collected injuries and wounds along the way. This is one of Mr. Steven's greatest strengths, his ability to move characters through a believable path of growth and advancement while keeping a plot moving with a good amount of action and intrigue going. That said I wouldn't call the book perfect as I mentioned before the cast still feels a bit too large and because of that some arcs do suffer. Not everyone feels like they're at a good stopping point for their character arc honestly. 

Additionally, there was a political plot where the Federation, the Coalition, and other powers came together to discuss alliances. I honestly feel that the antagonists were not handled as adroitly as they could have been... It's not as heavy-handed as the League was for example but could have been done better. For that matter, the Jalm'tar Emperor was a bit of a miss as a villain for me but he was more than made up for by the other Jalm'tar characters. Because of that, I'm giving The Iron Dice by Gary Stevens and Daniel Gibbs a B+. The action is good as is the intrigue and most of the faults are easy to breeze by. Keep in mind though if you start at this book you'll be hopelessly lost so you'll need to start at the beginning of the series.

I hope you enjoyed this review.  If you did consider joining the patron at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a dollar a month.  Where through polls and discussion you have a voice in what future content gets made.  Next month we’ll be examining Minority Report as part of Dick Month, a tradition that has been supported by a majority patron vote. Patrons also receive bonus content!  Either way, thank you for reading and I hope you join us next week, until then take care of yourselves, each other, and of course, Keep Reading! 

Red text is your editor, Dr. Allen Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders Companion Video: https://youtu.be/iJJ3I73Fvs0 Prior Reviews in this universe: http://frigidreads.blogspot.com/2020/05/echoes-of-war-fight-good-fight-by.html http://frigidreads.blogspot.com/2021/12/echoes-of-war-strong-and-courageous-by.html http://frigidreads.blogspot.com/2022/01/so-fight-i-echoes-of-war-book-iii-by.html http://frigidreads.blogspot.com/2021/03/breach-of-duty-by-daniel-gibbs-and-gary.html

http://frigidreads.blogspot.com/2020/09/breach-of-faith-book-ii-by-daniel-gibbs.html

http://frigidreads.blogspot.com/2020/08/breach-of-peace-by-daniel-gibbs-and.html

http://frigidreads.blogspot.com/2022/03/breach-of-trust-by-gary-t-stevens-and.html

http://frigidreads.blogspot.com/2022/10/spacers-luck-breach-of-faith-book-5-by_21.html

http://frigidreads.blogspot.com/2022/12/fortunes-favor-breach-of-faith-book-6.html

Empire of the Black Sea: The Rise and Fall of the Mithridatic World by Dr. Duane W. Roller

 Empire of the Black Sea: The Rise and Fall of the Mithridatic World

By Dr. Duane W. Roller

There's not much about Dr. Duane W. Roller, the author of this book. He was born in the United States on October 7th, 1946, and graduated with a BA of Letters from the University of Oklahoma in 1966. He also got an MA in Latin from the same University in 1968. He then went to Harvard University where he obtained his Ph.D. in classical archaeology. Before I go forward, a quick note on what a BA of Letters is, because it's not a degree offered by most colleges or universities anymore. It's an interdisciplinary degree, meaning you have to pursue studies in multiple subjects, mostly History, Literature, and a variety of other courses depending on the student's interest (It’s basically a generalized degree in the Humanities).

After graduating he would take on a number of teaching positions, including work in India, Poland, Malta, and Austria where he received four Fulbright Awards. He also led or took part in archaeological digs in Turkey, Israel, Jordan, North Africa, and other locations. He later took a teaching position at Ohio State University, retiring and becoming Professor Emeritus of Classics in 2007. In 2008 he was granted the Karl-Franzens Distinguished Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Graz in Graz, Austria. On top of that, he's written over 200 articles and 14 books, the most well-known being a biography of Cleopatra released in 2010 and a look at ancient geography in 2015. Our current topic is his latest book.

Pontus was a kingdom founded during the fall of Alexander's empire, when his generals, surviving family members, and all manner of men and women fought over his empire, dividing it up between themselves (Because Alexander was an idiot manchild and basically told everyone that his empire would go to the strongest of them.  And left no clear lines of succession {I’m going to point out that the witnesses to that were the generals all of whom were trying to justify their claims to chunks of the empire. There are just as many claims that Alexander was delirious with a high fever and raving or that he couldn’t even speak in his last days.  So I would take that bit of lore with some salt.}) It was an incredibly dangerous time when alliances and fortunes shifted by the minute and a man could see himself a king one moment and a crippled beggar, if not a corpse, the next. Pontus was the name for the southern coast of the black sea, the northwestern part of modern day Turkey for the most part and like the entirety of the Greek and Persian world it was up for grabs. Because Alexander had utterly destroyed the old order but died before he could forge a new one.

It was a place with a long-standing connection to the Greek world. The Argonauts were said to have adventured there. Allies of Troy were said to have marshaled armies that marched into the Epics to battle Achilles, Ajax, Odysseus, and the legion of other Greek Heroes that besieged the doomed city. At one point the Greeks believed it to be the homeland of the Amazons. In the Iron Age, the Greeks colonized the coasts of the Pontic region, founding cities and engaging in trade, intermixing, and fighting with the native peoples. Then the Persians conquered the region, settling their own cities and fortresses there creating a diverse array of peoples that called the place home.

Dr. Roller makes it a point to discuss these people in the book, giving you a view of what the region was like before the establishment of the kingdom. He also gives us a good look at the economy, and geography of the region, painting a picture of a prosperous and intermixed region that was divided into feuding city-states, independent temple states, tribes, clans, and federations. Onto this scene came an adventurer fleeing the collapse of the Persian Empire, Mithridates I. He claimed descent from Persian kings like Darius the Great, suggesting that originally the dynasty was made up of Persians. He would, with the aid of an uncle who would be slain in the riotous violence of the time, build a fortress and later declare himself a king, founding a city called Amaseia.

From there Dr. Roller takes through an at times spotty historical record, as Pontus was a minor power at the northern edge of what was considered civilization by the emerging empires of the time. In fact, there are entire Kings and their lifetimes who simply don't show up in recorded history because no one considered them important enough to write about. Remember this is a time when everything has to be handwritten, including all copies and most of the population can't read. So there is much that simply wasn't written down and worse much that was lost because no one was available to copy it.

Despite this handicap, Dr. Roller does a truly great job of leading us through the early history of the kingdom of Pontus and the region of the eastern black sea. We are taken through what records are available and shown how each monarch used a combination of warfare, marriage, and diplomacy to play great powers off each other and dominate smaller ones. As well as battle it out with other emerging rivals. We also see the dynasty increasingly claim a Greek heritage, taking on the trappings of Alexander and working to establish connections between the monarchs and figures of note in Greek history while not letting go of their Persian roots. Which creates an enthralling Hellene-Persian identity.

This takes up half the book and is fascinating to me because it's a whole world that was never covered in any of my history courses and involves things and customs both familiar and strange. This includes the incredibly repulsive things like the sibling marriages that Pontus and Ptolemaic Egypt both engaged in and the strangely interesting scholarly bent of the kings and queens of these eastern Mediterranean states where many of the monarchs were known to have written widely acclaimed books on topics ranging from economics, warfare, botany, and medicine.

But from the west arises a new power, a juggernaut that will end this world order as surely as Alexander ended the last. I speak of course of Rome and the 2nd half of the book is very much tied to Rome's advances into the Hellenic world. The 2nd half of the book is also very closely focused on the most famous of the Pontic kings, Mithridates the VI. Also known as Mithridates the Great, the Poison King, father of empirical toxicology, Eupater Dionysos, and the man who was determined to succeed where Hannibal failed and not just stop Roman expansion but to destroy Rome and conquer it.

Dr. Rollins leads us through his 57-year-long reign, and if I can be honest is a bit of a killjoy when it comes to the myths and legends surrounding Mithridates VI. Which I'm not criticizing him for, as he's writing as a serious historian, not a storyteller. Dr. Rollins openly doubts in the text that Mithridates spent his entire childhood in fear of being assassinated by his guardians. Well, in any more fear than a royal of his time and culture, which still meant a healthy amount of fear. This is an era where parents slew children and siblings murdered each other for the throne regularly. Dr. Rollins does point out that Mithridates himself worked hard to create a mythology around himself and build himself up as a figure of legend and take on the mantles of Alexander, Cyprus, and other legendary kings and emperors. On top of this the Romans gleefully mythologized fallen enemies because they knew that you're only as hardcore as the people you've defeated. Because of this, he rightfully suggests that some skepticism is called for when looking at the approved stories that came down from us from yore.

Even sticking to only the cold hard verifiable facts still paints a vivid and compelling picture, of a King throwing everything he has against a vastly more powerful opponent and coming so much closer than anyone thought possible to victory. It would take Roman generals like Sulla and Pompey the Great to finally put an end to this King and even a young Julius Caesar would get in on the action. These wars not only cemented Roman control over Greece proper but would ensure Roman rule over Asia Minor. A rule that was so complete and deeply rooted that the Romans continued to rule Asia Minor and the eastern Mediterranean even after the fall of Rome itself and would carry the banner of that empire for almost another 1000 years. All things considered, this is a pivotal moment in western history if not world history and I think Dr. Rollins rose to the challenges of describing and leading us through it with aplomb.

Now I would suggest you read some other works first if you have no idea what happened after Alexander died or don't know the basics of the late Roman Republic. Because to save space Dr. Rollins doesn't wander off to discuss what's going on in Egypt or Iran or Italy, he stays laser-focused on Pontus. Considering this is what the book is about, I consider it a good thing. So I would suggest looking at books like “Dividing the Spoils” by Robin Waterfield to get a broader view of things before picking this book up. That said if you do have a good idea of what was going on in the eastern Mediterranean at the time, this book is great and I think would help fill in some blind spots as most histories aren't going to spend time with smaller nations like Pontus until they become relevant to the history of larger more dominant empires or kingdoms.

So with that in mind I am giving Empire of the Black Sea: The Rise and Fall of the Mithridatic World by Dr. Duane W. Roller an A, but warning you not to make this the first book you read about the post-Alexander world. As for this book to have the best effect you do need some prior knowledge and at least a basic grasp of the era. If you have though, this is a great read, as Dr. Rollins looks at not just the superstar king Mithridates VI but his entire dynasty and how they built the foundations for his ambitions and rise to power.

I hoped you enjoyed this review and the companion video that I’ll link to below.  If you did, consider joining the ever-wise patrons of this work for as little as a dollar a month where you can vote on upcoming content and discuss the reviews with others.  Next week, we turn back to science fiction and look at the last book in the Breach of Faith series by Mr. Stevens and Mr. Gibbs, the Iron Dice.  I hope to see you there until then take care of yourself, each other, and of course, Keep Reading.  Watch the video: https://youtu.be/9QP2svbBzn0 Join the ever-wise: https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads Red text is your editor Dr. Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders.

Fortune's Favor (Breach of Faith Book 6) By Daniel Gibbs and Gary Stevens

 Fortune's Favor (Breach of Faith Book 6)

By Daniel Gibbs and Gary Stevens

A quick disclaimer, I know Mr. Stevens and consider him a friend of mine. While everything in this review is my honest opinion, I feel that I would be remiss not to state that upfront. (Same for me.)

Once again we return to Mr. Gibbs's universe through the lens of Mr. Stevens. A science fiction universe originally structured around a confrontation between the (idealized)Capitalist, Democratic, and mostly Religious forces of the Terran Coalition and the (strawman)Communist, Totalitarian, and enforced Atheism of the League of Sol. (Sometimes I think the John Birch Society had a hand in the raising of Mr. Gibbs) Mr. Stevens's books however branch away from that conflict to take a look at what is going on in the neutral corners of human space and what other hostile forces may be lurking in the fringes of the known galaxy. Looking at the universe through the eyes of a crew of a small interstellar starship that is often swept up in historical events that will have an impact long after they are gone. For further details, I'm going to encourage you to look at past reviews of books in the series that I will link to below. 

This book focuses on the crew of the Venture Star as they are asked by their former Captain (now Admiral) James Henry to commit a daring act of espionage. It's a necessary act of espionage as an alien empire known as the Jalm'tar have been using a highly addictive drug known as Curall to spread their influence and outright control over the human population of neutral space. Curall is marketed as a miracle medicine capable of curing almost any disease and at the very least is an incredibly effective painkiller. I do mean incredible here, as fighters can use it to basically shrug off a bullet in the gut or keep fighting with broken limbs or worse. In reality, it's incredibly addictive and only masks the symptoms of the diseases it's taken to “cure.” A single dose is enough to addict you, as it takes over neutral transmission functions in your body and withdrawal is 100% deadly (Gonna be honest here.  Spreading that drug into a population is a straight-up act of war.). 

For the Jalm'tar the plan is simple, spread their miracle drug far and wide at a ridiculously low price and then slowly racket up the price by claiming that demand is outstripping the supply. While this is going on large parts of your population now hopelessly addicted and dependent on Curall will get... Rowdy. Even if they are not prone to rowdiness, don't worry! The Jalm'tar have helpfully seeded your world with agents to encourage... Rowdiness. Of course, it doesn't need to come to that. The Jalm'tar aren't heartless, they have nothing but compassion for the suffering and downtrodden of all worlds! Which is why demand is outstripping supply but... If you just sign a little treaty of association with the Jalm'tar, well then you would be moved to the head of the line. After all, people willing to align with the empire should be considered more than mere customers right? (Yyyyeeeeaaaah, this is when you do the security crackdown.  This is in fact what a state security apparatus is for.{What happens when half your security force has family members taking the drug?} Not against the users.  The sellers and enemy agents. {Which would cut off those family members from the drug, killing them})

As for the treaty, it's nothing major. Just granting the Jalm'tar control over your foreign policy and preferential trade rights. Also some extraterritorial enclaves for the Jalm'tar on your world and some minor basing rights. Plus immunity from your legal system to all Jalm'tar while on your world as well. Sure some alarmists would call this a virtual annexation but don't you feel that? That burning feeling in your veins? That shaky weakness in your limbs? The increasing struggle to take a deep breath? Shouldn't you focus a bit better on the clear and obvious benefits this treaty provided, like complete free access to the Jalm'tar market and all the Curall you need? By now, you all need it don't you? (I read this in the voice of Weyoun. {Thank you!})

Because while the crew of the Venture Star under Captain Miriam Gaon managed to bring back a sample of the Curall and prove that it's not medicine, just a super addictive pain-killer (I feel like there should be an FDA for this? {there are several agencies and no planet’s/governments FDA has approved this but the drug keeps getting smuggled in and people decry their FDAs as just propping up corporate profits. It doesn’t help that there are government officials singing the same tune.}). Many disbelieve the announcement considering it pure corporate propaganda trying to keep them from their miracle cure (That tracks, given various antiparasitics since 2020. {Before 2020 I would have been doubtful of this plot point}). They decry any effort to stop their access as mere actions to protect the medical industry's profits at the cost of the lives of the poor and ill. Even those who believe that Curall is just a drug are willing to fight for it, however, because they know without it, anyone who uses it will die in terrible agony if the drug stops coming. When the choice is to fight for a drug or watch your children scream themselves to death... Most people will fight tooth and nail for the drug and I can't even blame them for it. 

That said, here is some good news, given that intact samples of Curall were recovered, humanity now knows the chemical makeup of Curall. This leads the scientists and doctors of humanity to the certainty that there is a cure for this addiction. However, figuring out what that cure is from just Curall could take years. Years where the Jalm'tar will be taking over neutral space one planet at a time. So there's only one way to keep the new and relativity fragile union of the neutral worlds intact. Someone has to go to Jalm'tar space to find and steal a cure for Curall addiction. This is going to be a problem since the Jalm'tar keeps much of their space closed to outsiders but they do keep one world open for aliens to come and trade. 

Unfortunately, the Independent Systems Federation as a government system is more like the Articles of the Confederation than anything else, so there's not much of a budget for a spy service (This is one reason why I’m not an anarchist.  Loose confederations like this cannot function. {Their new central government doesn’t have the ability to levy taxes just put the cherry on top, that’s a lethal problem for a government} Marx Preserve Us). Fortunately, they have Captain Miriam Gaon, a former spy of the Coalition and a woman desperate to appease her own guilt over actions she took as a spy in conquered Coalition territory during the war. So once again she will walk into the lion's den to do a good and necessary deed in the murky shadows of espionage with a rag-tag crew of maniacs, who have become frighteningly experienced in these kinds of do-or-die missions. They're going to need every bit of skill and luck they can muster for this. 

This isn't the only reason she and the crew will take the job. Bridget, a former citizen of the League who escaped, is savagely devoted to maintaining not just her freedom but the freedom of others. New crew member Janet has lived under brutal totalitarian systems before and will do whatever she reasonably can to prevent a new one from rising. Even Piper the reluctant first mate, is willing to take the job out of a combination of loyalty to Admiral Henry and horror at the effects of Curall. Each crew member has their own reason for being willing to risk their life and freedom in this effort and they're all rather believable with varying intensities and levels of personal commitment. This is one of Mr. Stevens's strengths, as he can juggle a rather wide cast without having them blend together. 

To do that he does have to have characters take a back seat in some stories. Samina the engineer's mate and Pieter the chief engineer, for example, aren't as prominent in this book as they were in the last one. On the positive side, Admiral Henry also takes up less of the book, taking more of a mentorship and patron role. I'm a fan of this since as I mentioned in my last review I really feel that his arc has reached its completion. We do see new characters on his side introduced, most notably Mei-Ling Lou, who serves as a staff officer for Admiral Henry and provides us a viewpoint of the neutral world of Ubana, a human world where the secondary plot plays out. 

Mr. Stevens also shows his ability to create somewhat sympathetic antagonists in the form of the Chancellor of Ubana, Olivia Lilley. Chancellor Lilley is a champion of Curall, fiercely attacking any critics as corporate shills for big Pharma and decrying the Independent Systems Federations for feeling out an alliance with the Terran Coalition.  Her solution is to sign a Treaty of Association with the Jalm'tar to protect Ubana from being enslaved by the Coalition. As her motivations for doing this become clear, it's hard not to understand why she would do this. I won't say anymore because I want to avoid spoilers but it's because of Lilley that you find yourself thinking that even if the crew of the Venture Star pulls this off. It's not going to be an entirely happy ending. 

Which is a good thing, because it adds complexity to the plot that makes it feel all the more real. Yes, the people who decide to believe in Curall instead of their own doctors and scientists are throwing reason and caution to the winds but the suffering that Curall abates is just as real. The underlying resentment of corporations that profit from medical treatments and products is also real. If you don't feel that resentment, I'll encourage you to speak to someone in your life who is dependent on insulin and take a look at what they're being charged for it. I'll admit that's an American-centric example but according to my data, a vast majority of my readers are either American or very aware of our current system. Because of things like this and other fairly recent events, the book plays out with a good deal of sub-text that provides food for thought. I don't know if Mr. Stevens intended that but it's hard not to see it in the book. (He’s very intentional in his writing. {I do think even a socialist medical system would experience issues vs Curall but bluntly I think the issue would be easier to deal with than in a for-profit medical system.  At the very least you can’t scream about corporate profits if medical treatment is kept low-cost and easily accessed by the government})

I enjoyed this book a lot more than I did the last one and found myself provoked to stop and think more about it as well. On top of that, I really enjoyed the peek at the completely alien and different worldview of the Jalm'tar.   Mr. Stevens was able to bring that to life in the story, even in causal conversations between humans and Jalm'tar. I'll be discussing that more in a companion video that I'll be linking below. Fortune's Favor is getting a B+ from me. This is my last review of the year but I'll be back in January and hopefully, y'all will join me then.  What we’ll be looking at is up to my ever-wise patrons, who you can join here https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a dollar a month.  Whether you join or not my readers and friends, let me say Happy Holidays, I hope you have a wonderful time with your families and friends, you stay safe, and of course, that You Keep Reading. 

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin