The Heroic Legend of Arslan by Yoshiki Tanaka

 The Heroic Legend of Arslan

 By Yoshiki Tanaka

So last year I reviewed the three volumes of The Heroic Legend of Arslan, so let me sum up the situation. The ancient and wealthy nation of Pars was invaded by the religious fanatics of Lusitania. The royal army through a combination of internal treachery and magic was crushed in open battle and the capital was taken by storm after a brief siege. Queen Tahamine has been taken captive and the fate of King Andragoras III is unknown but everyone suspects he's alive because if the invaders had killed the king, they would have told everyone. One thing everyone knows is that young Prince Arslan survived the battle and is roaming about the countryside but where he is exactly is an open question. 

Prince Arslan has managed to gather about himself an incredibly capable crew of retainers in his quest to both stay alive and throw out the abusive invaders of his homeland. Last issue we saw the beautiful and skilled priestess Farangis join alongside the bard Gieve. While neither are as brilliant as Narsus or as point-blank lethal as Daryun, they're still capable of matching several normal soldiers in battle and Arslan needs all the capable men and women he can get. Although I have to admit to giving some side-eye to Farangis' temple here. I mean your country is being invaded by a nation that as a matter of policy will kill you all for being priests and priestesses to a heathen god, you know there's only one member of the royal family left who can rally the resistance and you send... One person as support? It kind of makes me wonder how this country managed to hold together in the first place.

This isn't to say that the invaders are showing themselves off to any great advantage either (Invading armies seldom do). Their conquest is at best half done and they're already fighting each other like a band of hungry hyenas at a kill. This is inflamed by Queen Tahamine, who is being courted by the Lusitanian King Innocentius VII, she leads him on by telling him she could never remarry while her husband is alive. So she would need King Innocentius to bring her King Andragoras head on a stick pretty please. This turns out to be a really intelligent move on her part as it paralyzes everyone and means no one can claim he's dead without actual proof. (That is incredibly clever.  Glad they seem to have norms around consent in marriage though, because sometimes that doesn’t matter. {King Innocentius in a lot of ways lives up to his name, although he pairs that with being utterly useless so he comes across as rather childlike.  He pawns off the actual work of running things on his younger brother and honestly seems to be in love with Tahamine and concerned with her happiness in a very self-centered and bumbling way.} Huh.)

This request also really upset Lord Silver Mask who it turns out is keeping King Andragoras prisoner for personal reasons and is really focused on dragging out the death (What the fuck?  This is why you consolidate power into a bureaucratic state apparatus and either sideline or kill off the nobility.). He doesn't want to give King Andragoras up because he's super focused on making him suffer. This is always a mistake by the way (No Mr. Powers, I expect you to die…Now activate the unnecessarily slow dipping mechanism!), and I'm pretty sure it'll come back to bite him before too long. It also roils the Church led by Bishop Bodin who doesn't want to see his king marry a heathen queen. That after all might mean someone putting the breaks on his mass executions and book burnings (Oh come now, the executions would of course continue.). As you can guess I really don't like Bodin and I like him even less when he's leading an army of fanatic Knights Templar and ignoring everyone else. 

This volume also introduces us to Xandes, the son of the traitorous Lord Kharlan whose betrayal helped win the battle for the Lusitanians. Lord Kharlan was slain by Daryun and Xandes is looking for revenge, so he's entirely willing to swear loyalty to Lord Silvermask for that and other reasons. We do get a reveal of what Lord Silvermask's motives are and what his back story is and let me just say it's a doozy. I'm not going to spoil it but it makes sense even if I'm not left feeling all that sympathetic to him afterward (It better be good.). 

This is a guy with a legitimate complaint but his methods resulted in vast suffering and pain being caused to the people of Pars. Lord Silvermask comes across as wildly indifferent to any pain except his own and his constant invoking of his “rights” and privileges only rankles me further (God, just commit regicide like a normal person…{This is easily his biggest mistake in the series so far}). I'm going to talk more about this in a couple of months when I'm hoping to review volume 5. He's a very selfish character in my view but an incredibly realistic and believable one, which makes him a satisfying villain that you can hate despite having elements that might make him sympathetic. It's a complex characterization and I'm thrilled by it. 

With Queen Tahamine engineering a split between the secular and religious Lusitanian forces with a simple request, the invaders are now spending more energy fighting each other than hunting for Arslan. Now this doesn't mean that Arslan is having a trouble-free life here. He's still having to deal with squads of Lusitanian and Pars soldiers who answer to traitor nobles hunting for him. I'll admit that Gieve, despite me not really caring for the character, shines in this volume. Ironically when he's not busy trying rather ham-handedly to seduce Farangis, he shows himself to be very capable and dare I say honorable. In fact, he saves Arslan from death and capture several times at great cost to himself. He also shows his abilities when Arlsan has to deal with nobles who are trying to play both sides to get the best deal possible. Helping him avoid captivity at the hands of “allies” and open enemies alike.

 

The quarreling between the different factions of his enemies does give Arslan time and space to learn several important political and military lessons in this book. He learns that fulfilling his promise to Narsus to free the slaves of Pars isn't gonna be a simple one to fulfill. His first attempt at emancipation is a dismal failure. He learns that a number of his nobles are going to put politics ahead of the good of the country and won't help him without reward (Which should be really obvious.  Or maybe I’m just cynical, bitter, and have good reason to hate the concept of nobles. {Our hero is a 14-year-old boy raised on tales of noble virtue and kept away from the nobility, I feel he deserves some leeway here}. That's fair.). He also learns that some of these nobles are going to be more focused on removing his retainers to make the Prince more dependent on them than on actually fighting the Lusitanians. It's a good thing for the Prince to learn these lessons at a low cost due to the inattention of the enemy. (When he retakes the country, the executions should continue. {I remind you these nobles are fictional and therefore not actually what you call class enemies} And?  If I were the kid, I would remember all of the things they tried to do while I tried to regain the throne, and some of them would be defenestrated upon my victory.)

We also learn something interesting about Prince Arslan. We learn that he spent much of his boyhood being raised outside of the palace by a merchant couple but when they died of poisoning, his true heritage was revealed and he was brought into the palace and his training as an heir commenced. I'm finding this rather strange, especially when paired with the revelation of the backstory of Lord Silvermask. This raises some interesting questions but we'll have to look at future volumes for the answers. 

This was a good volume, in all honesty, we got important revelations about the villains and our heroes. It mixed together chase scenes, intrigue, and brutal combat in a way that keeps our interest and kept the story from getting stale. I enjoyed it a lot and I think the pace was well-maintained and well-written. The Heroic Legend of Arslan by Yoshiki Tanaka gets an A from me. I do recommend you check out the prior reviews and the book series yourself. By the way, if you enjoyed this review consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where you can vote on upcoming content for as little as a dollar a month. Also a special thank you to Big Steve who is my biggest patron supporter. I'll be returning soon but until then, take care of yourself, each other and of course, keep reading! 

Red Text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

To Dream in the City of Sorrows by Kathryn M Drennan

 To Dream in the City of Sorrows

By Kathryn M Drennan

Ms. Drennan is an American writer born in 1956, she attended San Diego State University and graduated from Clarion University. It was at San Diego State University that she meet J. Michael Straczynski. They moved to Los Angles in 1981, married in 1983, and divorced in 2003. Ms. Drennan is mostly known for her script work, on shows such as She-Ra Princess of Power, The Real Ghostbusters, Defenders of the Earth, Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, and Babylon 5. She's also written a good number of articles and short stories for magazines focused on science fiction. What we're reviewing today is her only full-length novel, which is set in the Babylon 5 universe and one of the few novels that have been declared completely and totally canon on the same level as the show itself. (It is worth noting: I have written fanfic in the B5 universe.  It is very very good.  And it is worth noting that unlike say, Star Trek or Star Wars canonicity is basically determined by Creator Fiat.)

Now some of you may be asking, what the hell is Babylon 5? So let me explain that setting briefly before diving into the novel itself. Babylon 5 was a science fiction television series that aired from 1994 to 1998, along with a brief 2nd series Babylon 5 Crusade running for 13 episodes in 1999 and 6 made-for-television movies. The main series ran a 5-year arc running from the year 2257 to 2262 covering the story of the giant space station Babylon 5. The station was conceived to operate as a sort of interstellar UN where humanity and other alien races could meet in a neutral location and resolve their differences peacefully. This is after humanity had an incredibly close call with extinction at the hands of the Minbari due to a lethal misunderstanding that spiraled out of control (Really really bad first contact.  Earth was an hour away from being Exterminatused when the Minbari called it quits for reasons I won’t spoil.). The Minbari for their part also wished to avoid this happening again and they supported the building of the station, which gave it a lot of weight in the universe. As to whether or not Babylon 5 lived up to being our last, best hope for peace? Well, I encourage you to watch the show, it's one of my favorites (Mine too). 

It is notable as one of the first shows to run in a serial format. Let me explain, unlike today where most shows have a single overarching plot uniting at least a season that each episode advances, back then it was more common to have each episode be entirely self-contained. This is so they could be shown out of order when studios would sell the rights to rerun the series. Babylon 5 didn't do that and as a result, was unpopular with the executives. To be fair the cost of makeup for the various alien characters and special effects (Space scenes were done entirely in CGI, which basically meant a chain-gang of Amigas because they didnt have the budget for higher-end machines {Yeah the special effects for space battles really need remastering} They would need to be redone entirely, but for the early 90s, daaaaamn) likely didn't help as television executives almost always prefer low-cost shows. Such is life. Please note there will be mild spoilers for the show ahead but I'm going to try and keep it to an absolute minimum. 

The novel itself is focused on the first captain of Babylon 5 Jeffery Sinclair after he mysteriously disappeared from the station and his time on the planet Minbar. Sinclair finds himself stationed as ambassador to the Minbari but without a staff or a budget and increasingly isolated from an Earth that seems eager to get rid of him (Which they were.  Earth is not actually the good guy, as a political body, in this series.). Things come to a head when he finds out the Minbari aren't all that interested in having an ambassador. Captain Sinclair has been called to Minbar to lead a paramilitary force known as the Anla'Shok or the Rangers. Why they want Captain Sinclair to lead this force is a bit complicated and I'll try to sum it up. 

When the Minbari first achieved interstellar travel, roughly 1000 years ago, they walked into a massive war (Editors note: we did some digging and figured out that a lot of their tech was due to alien meddling in their development and factional warfare before they figured out interstellar travel). On one side an ancient alien race called the Shadows, on the other side, everyone who didn't want their civilization reduced to ashes. The Shadows were basically running loose in the galaxy playing a game of burn all the ant hills, only the ant hills were the planets and settlements of any other alien race that had achieved a certain level of space flight. Almost as if their Prime Directive was If they can achieve Warp Speed, then blow up their cities. A lot of races tried to hide out and hope they weren't noticed. The Minbari don't do hiding out, however, and despite all the odds being against them decided to sally out to challenge these dragons running riot among the stars. They got their asses whupped. Like as if they were toddlers fighting a full-grown professional boxer whupped (The Minbari are the most advanced of the younger races.  They have gravitic drives, and their weapons consist of antineutron beams when most others are using lasers and plasma cannons.  This is a setting where almost nobody has energy shields of any kind.  The Shadows in turn, laugh at them.). 

Then a special Minbari, not born of Minbari, named Valen showed up, literally out of nowhere.  He founded the Rangers as a united military force, reorganized Minbari society, and with the use of a powerful space station he led the Minbari and their coalition of alien allies to victory. With Valen's leadership that coalition included the Vorlons, a mysterious and old race that was almost a match for the Shadows (Caveat.  Ship for ship, they overmatch the Shadows, they just don’t have as many ships. {Hence almost a match since the Shadows will never be stupid enough to go for 1 on 1 fights, their tactical skill was another point in the show's favor}). After the war, the rangers were reduced in number and pretty much put on standby... For a thousand years, we have languages that didn’t last that long on Earth for comparison.

Some of the Minbari believe the Shadows are returning so they need to expand the Rangers back to their wartime strength, ready the other races, and get ready for the kind of throwdown that breaks entire species. The reason they think Sinclair is the man to do this is they believe that Sinclair was somehow born with all or at least part of Valen's soul. This is complicated by Sinclair openly stating he doesn't believe a word of it but the Minbari are willing to just shrug that off as most true believers would be. 

 

Now not every Minbari believes this or approves of this. In fact, most of the professional military is violently opposed (They’re still mad they didn’t get to flex/prove their manliness by genociding that comparative child-race that is humanity.). So the novel covers a number of the early struggles to bring up the ranger's numbers and the fact that the decision is made, if we have a human leading this force why not recruit a bunch of humans to fight in it with the Minbari? So Sinclair has to fight against Minbari who want to get rid of this weird alien on their homeworld, his own government, and the attempts of the Minbari and Vorlons trying to force him into their own pre-determined mold of Messiah, to create a force that can prevent everyone from... You know... Dying, and doing it in secret because if the Shadows find out about this before he's ready to fight them, then things aren't going to go well. 

The novel covers a period that isn't touched on in the show and gives us the fate of a character that disappeared after the show, Catherine Sakai, Sinclair's fiancee. It also shows us the origin of a character that first appeared in season 3, Marcus Cole. I have to note that one very well-done piece of writing was bringing in Cole rather late in the game, making him this honestly cool and interesting character that the fans didn't loathe on sight. There are a lot of shows that fail to do that and I think the secret sauce here was that JMS knew to make Cole cool and interesting but never let him upstage or overwhelm the pre-established characters. Here we get to meet Cole before his days as a Ranger and see the incident that caused him to drop everything else in his life and join the cause. Both of those threads are handled well without detracting from Sinclair's storyline. They are blended together to create a solid and entertaining story that fills in a lot of gaps in the space between Season I and Season II. 

Now the big issue here is for anything in this damn novel to make sense you have to have seen Season I. The good news is that you don't have to watch all 110 episodes of the series, but nothing in this book makes sense without the grounding of Season I. It's honestly not a good introduction to the Babylon 5 universe, which to be fair was never intended to be and is relentlessly geared towards someone who, if not a fan, has at least some knowledge of the show's events and plot. Although I must ask: if you're not a Babylon 5 fan, why would you read this book in the first place? This novel is meant as a bridge between stories, not as a doorway into the universe itself. So if you're looking to get into Babylon 5, this isn't the place to start. Go watch The Gathering or In The Beginning television movies instead is going to be my advice. 

One thing I do like is the treatment of Sinclair and his character here (Hot take: I always preferred Sinclair to Sheridan {Your loyalty to the Master Control Program is noted user}). He doesn't believe he's the reincarnation of Valen and is very open, very firm, but polite in his unbelief. He also makes it clear that he's not interested in being forced into a pre-existing mold or acting out a role that he had no say in. He'll do the job but he'll do it his way and he's not giving up his life to do it. Ms. Drennan manages to give Captain Sinclair a massive amount of gravitas and quiet dignity in his diplomatic but unyielding stance on this issue even in the face of an alien Vorlan who might as an individual be older than the English language (Oh, the Vorlons are older than that, on an individual level.  More like older than written language.). There's very little teenage angst or posturing so you're left believing that every character here is a mature adult capable of making thoughtful decisions. Which is a nice change of pace compared to a lot of fantasy series! 

There's a fair bit of action as Sinclair is training and leading a military force gearing up to fight aliens who as a society are older than our very species. The novel does a good job of showing the Shadows as a terrifying but not invincible force, just one that will not be defeated without a lot of sacrifice and pain. The action scenes in this book do a good job of foreshadowing the kind of battles that will be fought later in the show and are honestly pretty fun to read. To Dream in the City of Sorrows by Kathryn M Drennan gets a B.

I hope you enjoyed this review, if you did consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a dollar a month.  The ever-wise patrons get exclusive content, votes on future subjects of book reviews and videos, and more!  Speaking of, special thanks to frigidreads biggest supporter Big Steve! Next week we’ll dig deeper into the Minbari with a video about their canon history.  The week after the unofficial history video will go up.  I 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

Silver Magic By Dr. Bruce Davis

 Silver Magic

By Dr. Bruce Davis

First, a quick disclaimer. I know Dr. Davis, I've been over to thanksgiving dinners at his house. His eldest son is one of my best friends (He’s the dad I never had.). I've received a lot of consideration and friendship from the entire Davis family. I will always be grateful and very glad to have that friendship (For me, they are family in all but adoption papers, and have been since I was 12.). Now that said, everything in the review below is my honest opinion, I just feel it's best, to be honest, and upfront where there is a prior relationship between the writer of the story and myself. 

Doc Davis has had his medical degree longer than the internet has existed, receiving it from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago in the 1970s. He served his surgical residency at Bethesda Naval Hospital and with the Navy as a surgeon for 14 years. During that 14 years, he met his wife, a staggeringly skilled doctor of nursing in her own right, got married, had children, and served in the first Gulf War. They currently live in Arizona enjoying their extended family and dogs. As a writer he has written a great many books, most of them reviewed on this website, whether it be the science fiction Profit Logbook series, the stand-alone book Queen Mab's Courtesy, or the Magic Law series, of which this book is the third one. 

The Magic Law series takes place in another world in a universe where magic is possible, and humans share this world with elves, dwarves, and orcs. All the species seem rather closely related as there are half-elves and half-orcs all over the place. As you can imagine the history of this world is rather complicated. What we know is that once upon a time Mages ruled in something called the Magisterium, which was so traumatizing that everyone agreed that Mages should never be allowed political power again. There was also at least one genocidal war where the Orcs tried to wipe everyone else out and the elves, being immortal, still hold a grudge. Due to humans methodically and systematically studying magic, magic has been brought to the masses via easy-to-use magic items. Everyone has a magic mirror that can be used to communicate instantly with someone else by text or full call. There are weapons that fire needles that can be used to knock people out or kill them. People transport themselves in flying sleds, and so on and so forth. 

The books take place in the nation of the Commonwealth, a multi-racial society ruled by a Constitutional Monarchy (*Whistfully yearns to end that monarchy, in Communist*) and a parliament. Our main character Lt. Simon Buckley is a peacekeeper who is trying to serve justice and push society toward the better while fighting crime. This is harder than it sounds as he is often having to deal with not just the organized gangs and cartels of his city but elements of his own government who don't care for Simon's insistence that even the lowest Orc day laborer has rights protected by the law and even the most connected elf politician is bound by the law (This entirely tracks.  The system itself is designed this way, and a cop trying to make headway against that system is eventually either driven out, or is destroyed.  Funnily enough, Doc Davis and I are very very very different politically.). They also dislike the fact that he's promoted at least two Orcs and is championing still more. It's an interesting position to take given his father was murdered by an orc and he was raised by a Dwarf family. In fact his adopted father Haldron Stonebender is a police sgt and serves with him.

Silver Magic takes place right on the heels of Gold Magic, so if you haven't read that book, you'll find yourself swiftly lost. The city of Cymbeline is burning, as word has gotten out that a number of orc crime bosses were burned to death by an unknown human fire mage and the crime was covered up (You mean a corrupt government will take advantage of a fire to murder it’s enemies?  Nooooo.{The Government actually had nothing to do with it.  Also going to remind you that due to the mages being an oppressive governing class that were overthrown, there are actually laws against mages being rulers.  They can stand for elected offices from what I understand but they can’t be kings, etc} Ooh, plot twist!). Under the cover of the riots, Simon finds three murders, the first being an elf gossip journalist whose blood was blasted out of her body and a pair of orc break-in specialists who were drowned on dry land. At first, most are inclined to shrug off the murders as riot-related violence but Simon isn't convinced and is sure that all three murders are linked. As he and his department dig deeper, the political resistance grows and the stakes climb higher as he gets pressure from his own department's internal affairs team, the Mayor's office, and the hidden orc crime lords of the slums. All of these groups are either interfering or trying to steer this investigation for their own ends. 

Complications increase as a former Peacekeeper who was outed as dirty also appears to be involved and at least one member of the internal affairs team wants to nail Simon or his police captain as revenge for outing him. On top of that, Sylvie, an Elvish Ranger of the Elvish state, an openly progressive and disowned member of a noble Elvish house and Simon's girlfriend, is in danger. As the traditionalists in her homeland have gained power and rumors swirl of them getting ready to attempt a coup and launch a purge of progressives in the government (Aaaah, homegrown elf-fascism.). This is somehow related to a plot against the Commonwealth's own royal family using non-magic weapons modeled on something that Simon encountered back in the first book Platinum Magic.

Simon finds himself racing against time and a vast web of corruption and underhanded dealings to pursue not just simple justice for people who were murdered for knowing too much; but to keep his homeland from exploding into civil war or falling to invasion. Simon is also fighting his own self-doubt and frustration as he realizes that he's been battling the same forces since book 1 and feels he's made marginal progress against them at best. This is on top of feeling the pressure of being a Lt and needing to mentor and lead basically a platoon of investigators all pursuing their own cases. The plot is tense but moves at a good pace so you never feel bogged down. This made the book a page-turner for me that I really enjoyed as I followed Simon parsing through the murder investigation and various plots and schemes swirling around it. 

Dr. Davis continues with his world-building through slow revelation, avoiding long info-dump conversations instead preferring to reveal the history and facts of the world through events and causal dialogue in the story. This means the reader does need to pay attention to put various pieces together and get a coherent picture of the world but also means you don't get jared out of the story by a 10-page history lesson in the middle of your criminal investigation. I enjoy this style of world-building and consider piecing things together and theorizing as part of the fun, that said if he ever releases an appendix of history and background information for this world I would jump on it. That said the world feels real. He reinforces this through subtle but what I find to be truly effective means. 

For example, the characters in this story don't talk like modern Americans or historical characters but instead have their own phrases and word choices. You don't call people on your magic mirror for example, you summon them. It's small things like having your characters not say “Ok” or “All Right” that really cement the feeling that you're dealing with a different culture and people. Simon being raised by dwarves doesn't talk about being at a dead end but in a blind tunnel, he doesn't worry about being thrown under a bus but under a rock pile. 

I also like that we got to see more of Simon's adopted family and Dr. Davis manages to make them feel like family. Simon's adopted brother is happy to see him and teases him about his girlfriend. Molly his mother worries about his health and happiness. Hal, his father supports him in his career choices and is openly proud of him. I also have to admit that I'm really glad to see a functional caring family that works and plays well together. There's nothing wrong about writing dysfunctional family dynamics mind you but there are days that it seems like everyone and their mother is writing either that or outright abusive families. So this does make for a pleasant change of pace (I think it helps that Doc Davis actually knows that a healthy family dynamic looks like.). Plus it's good to see an adoptive family that isn't just brushed aside for the dead “real” family or shown as terrible people (Well he does have two adopted kids, one legal, one not, so…). 

That said there are some small issues to be aware of here. First of all, you will be utterly and completely lost if you haven't read the last two books. Because this book is full of payoffs from the prior two books, relationships that were defined earlier, and references to events covered in those books. As a reader, I don't regard that as a burden as they were great books in their own right but if you're coming in cold, you're in for a bad time. As a reviewer, I do feel I have to consider that when giving a grade. On top of that is that the ending is a bit of a cliffhanger. While the case is solved the bigger implications and the various political plots aren't entirely done and Simon finds himself having to take care of some business and maybe go on a road trip. Possibly a road trip with the entire family, which I'm gonna be honest I'm excited about this and can't wait to read the next book. 

So I'm going to be rating Silver Magic by Dr. Bruce Davis an A-. That said, I think this is the best-written book in the series so far. There's action, personal moments, and well-written relationships, intrigue, and everyone is acting in a fairly believable way. Honestly, if you're looking to start a new series, I would tell you to go ahead and get Platinum Magic and just work your way through. I'm dead certain you won't regret it. If you are feeling like that why not head over to the publisher of this work and other fine works Brick Cave Media, at https://brickcave.media/ You'll be supporting an independent publisher and the authors that way and getting a good book so everyone wins. 

I hope you enjoyed this review, if you did consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a dollar a month.  The ever-wise patrons get exclusive content, votes on future subjects of

book reviews and videos and more!  Speaking of, special thanks to frigidreads biggest supporter Big Steve! 

Next week we have a creature feature video where we look at different mythological creatures and hopefully

bring you something you’ve never heard of before. 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

Anglo Saxon Myth, 9 herb chant and The Dream of the Rood

 https://youtu.be/tnFf67I5tWU

https://youtu.be/522uaEKSJf4

https://youtu.be/hqwTX7TSAYM

With thanks to Jason Berman for reading the 9 Herb Chant and Anonymous Reviewer 37 for reading the 9 Herb Chant and The Dread of the Rood poems. 

Anglo-Saxon Myths: The Struggle for the Seven Kingdoms By Brice Stratford

 Anglo-Saxon Myths: The Struggle for the Seven Kingdoms

By Brice Stratford

Brice Stratford is an English-born director, actor (both voice acting and stage), and writer. He is also listed as a folklorist and a writer. I can't find much information on him, other than he founded the Owle Schraeme theater company in 2008 to explore and recreate historical theater practices in a modern context. One such example is the recreation of Drolls, which were illegal street performances conducted in England during a short period when the theater was banned, which would have been 1642 to 1660 when the Puritans ran England (Oliver Cromwell was such a buzzkill he banned Christmas.  Remember Kids, just say no to Puritanism.  Granted, Christmas back then was incredibly raucous but Puritanism bans all fun. {These are the people who thought church organs were too exciting, so he isn’t wrong. }). So I can't speak to any academic credentials.  Then again, I don't have any academic credentials for book reviewing, so I suppose that makes me and Mr. Stratford even. 

Anglo-Saxon Myths is his first written work and was published in 2022, along with another work New Forests Myths and Folklore. According to his Twitter account, Anglo-Saxon Myths is the first in a planned trilogy. Mr. Stratford was kind enough to clarify over Twitter, that the New Forests book isn’t part of that trilogy. Which will be 2 more books meant to be focused on Anglo-Saxon culture. So I admit I’m somewhat excited to see that.  Anglo-Saxon Myths was published by Batsford which is an independent publishing company that was founded in 1843. 

Anglo-Saxon Myths is heavily focused on British myths and stories. The Anglo-Saxons were the people who moved into/invaded Britain after the withdrawal of the Roman Empire and were the dominant people in the region that is now England until the Norman invasion. So if you're interested in the beliefs and stories of the continental Saxons of Germany this book might not entirely work for you. That said even if you're focused on the German Saxons, the British Saxons were related to them so there may be some insights that make this book of value (There isn’t a whole lot of information on the German Saxons directly, because they didn’t write anything down if I recall. {Correct, also they picked a fight with Charlemagne and Charlemagne went completely metal on them} Yeah, never pick a fight with a German or Nordic guy who gets renamed in Latin with Magnus appended to it.  Just don’t do it.). The book itself is divided into three parts, each part has its own title and theme uniting the stories within which makes for interesting reading as each tale flows almost organically into each other. 

The first part entitled Scop, an old English word for poet or bard, tells of the creation of the universe and the generations of the gods. Creation is presented as a generational act, with each generation building on what had come before. It's here that we see a lot of the common roots with other mythologies from northern Europe.  For example, there being more than one world united by a world tree or a set of beings above even the gods who speak of fate or to use the Anglo-Saxon word wyrds. The gods themselves are shown as generational in nature, as we're shown at least 3 generations of gods each performing a specific set of tasks and often dying violently to make room for the next generation (It’s almost like their gods reflect their society or something.). This section sets up the scene for the future ones, explaining how the world came to be, why people exist, and where all the monsters and dragons the various heroes are going to be fighting came from in the first place. 

The second part is entitled Wreccan, which was a Saxon word for exile. The men and women who were Wreccan would sometimes become nomadic warriors, not unlike the Knight Errands of medieval stories or the Japanese Ronin. A lot of the heroes in the story are young men who have voluntarily exiled themselves in search of adventure and glory. It's here that Mr. Stratford starts introducing us to various Anglo-Saxon concepts such as mod, comitatus, and peace weaving. I won't spoil the book by defining them here but I will say that Mr. Stratfords does a rather fine job of carefully setting up each term, and the role it plays in the stories and using them so that we can understand them. Most of the stories are short but interrelated which keeps the organic flow of story into story. 

It's the second section that also contains a set of stories I found very interesting, the family of Weyland Smith. Weyland Smith is an incredibly interesting mythical figure and an enduring one. Even in the modern day, he's appeared in works such as the Fables comic line for example. He's often compared to the Greek god Hephaestus due to being a crippled smith and craftsman famed for his ability to make gear beyond imaging. Mr. Stratford goes further than any storyteller I know of in telling us the story of his great-grandfather Waellende Wulf, his grandfather Wada, and his father Wade before finally telling us of Weyland. Each of these beings has an interesting tale to tell, nor are they strictly human or mortal because while Weyland isn't quite a god, he's more than a man (Which is another common thing in a lot of Germanic legends, as I recall.). 

We're taken through Weyland's education and how he learns the various arts that would make him immortally famous, the loss of his grandfather to dwarvish betrayal, and the most famous story of his imprisonment and escape. I do have to note that this version presents the least morally dubious Weyland I've run across. A number of versions of this story I've heard before presented a much darker take on the relationship between Weyland and Princess Beadohild (Oh No.). The story also tells us of Weyland's son by that same Princess but again I won't spoil it. This family set of stories does however make for a good central narrative to hold the section together and provide the theme. As well as reinforce the generational cycle that was introduced in the first part of the book. There is more in this section than just Weyland's family but they take up the lion's share and provide much of the narrative glue if you will. 

The last part of the book is called the Bretwalda and refers to the kings and heroes who slowly but surely built the idea of a unified English identity. Unlike the first section which is set in a mythical prehistory or the second section which is set in the illiterate period of the medieval era after the fall of Rome but before the Christianization of Britain; this third and last section is set in an increasingly literate and historical time as the pagan faith of the Anglo-Saxons is slowly but surely superseded by Christianity. What makes this different from a lot of other stories that carry the same theme is that Mr. Stratford presents a Saxon conceptualization of the Christian god, referring to him as the Allruler and the GloryFather for example (I am seeing some definite bleedthrough of the All-Father Odin/Woden.  It’s almost like Christianity is incredibly syncretic.). As an aside, those are really awesome titles and as a practicing Christian, I can really appreciate them. Mr. Stratford also presents the Anglo-Saxon gods, especially Woden as fully supportive of this wave of conversion to a new religion; why is left unspoken, but then the plans of Woden presented to us in this book are hard to guess for mortal men. As they are dictated not by our own standards or morality but by a vision that measures time in generations of generations and works towards ends not entirely within our grasp. I have to admit I've never run into this before and it's a dizzyingly unique take on this part of history. It is however fairly historical in presenting many people as worshiping the Christian God and worshiping the pagan gods at the same time (Well, yeah.  They were polytheists. And also, Christianity is incredibly syncretic.  The Old Gods become saints or angelic beings over time or intentionally; elements of folk religious practice meld into Christian holy days.  Christmas didn’t derive from Saturnalia or Yule.  It derived from Both which had a lot of parallel traditions like robbing rich people, masters of fools, and ritual cross-dressing.  Oh, and Santa Claus is basically Odin.  This is also why Cromwell banned Christmas.  It was too pagan for the Puritans. Same in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Put up a Christmas tree there and your neighbors would lay hold of you, and deliver ye to the magistrate of the court in the shire in which ye dwell.). This was a thing that actually happened as people tried to split the difference between maintaining their old customs and embracing new identities and beliefs. 

As a result, we're left with the impression that the Christian GloryFather of the story is really just a new generation taking its place in the cycle of the universe. Not that it’s an entirely peaceful changeover, but the book doesn't gloss over the sheer amount of violence being done in this period. It does point out that much of the violence wasn't simply Christian vs Pagans but muddled by the goals and desires of the people performing the violence. For example, we have Pagan kings siding with Christians to expand their territory or kill rivals and Christian warriors battling for Pagan kings for glory and gold. Which weaves it rather well into the conception of the cosmos presented to us here in the story. It also gives a solid feeling of reality as in any conflict whether it be Anglo-Saxon Pagans fighting Christians, or Hungarian Christians battling Muslim Ottomans the simple fact is that the conflict is rarely as simple as everyone in one group on one side versus everyone in another group on the other. 

So what did I dislike about the book? Mr. Stratland doesn't give us much in the way of sources or in fact any in the book. So I'm left wondering where did he get his information? Is this a distilling of the historian Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth or is he adding a bit to the brew himself? For most readers, that's not going to matter and honestly, I'm not going to criticize him too heavily for that myself. Mythologies are living, changing things. One only needs to look at Arthurian Mythology or how we reimagine Greek stories, like Hades and Persephone or the Trojan war. It's just me being a bit of a snob, I would like to know how much is coming from the storyteller and how much comes from older sources. 

Also in the third section, I find myself wondering how much is being bent in the service of modern values and morals. The values and morals are ones I agree with: tolerance for people of different beliefs and customs, being willing to live in peace with others, and accepting the idea of diversity in people (I should hope, he’s still friends with me.  The gay atheistic vaguely Jewy communist) but... Are they the values that the original Anglo-Saxons would have held and preached or are we projecting? This is important to me because I want to understand the people in question and I feel looking at their stories and seeing what they valued and what they believed in brings me closer to understanding them. On the flip side, this could just be complete insecurity on my part and this is part of the Anglo-Saxon mythology (It kinda makes sense.  Polytheists don’t get their bees in a bonnet over other religions as much as monotheists do.). I'm not an expert on Anglo-Saxon culture so I can’t really say. So this isn't going to affect my final grade on the book either way. 

What I did like was this book was incredibly easy to read and utterly spellbinding. It was also presented in an entertaining style and manner with a first-person narrator that made you feel like you were sitting before a fire listening to a bard sing of the beginning of the world. I really didn't want to put it down. I'll admit that I preferred the first and second sections to the third.  I think most other readers will too but hearing the Almighty given such great titles did tickle me and I'd be lying if I said that didn't ease my opinion.  I've mentioned repeatedly Mr. Stratford has a very flowing, organic style of connecting his tales and stories and does a good job of setting up concepts and characters in a way to make them easy to remember and grasp for readers. 

I'm giving Anglo-Saxon Myths: The Struggle for the Seven Kingdoms By Brice Stratford an A-. While it lacks citations and any list of sources which makes it somewhat lacking for someone wanting to seriously study Anglo-Saxon myth on an academic level. It has great presentation and style and gives you accessible, exciting-to-read stories that introduce you to several new concepts and a small window into how Anglo-Saxons over a thousand years ago may have thought and viewed the world around them. This is a good book for anyone who is interested in Anglo-Saxon myths but simply doesn't know where to start or someone who just enjoys a good set of stories. I would keep them out of the hands of younger readers though as some of the material is mature but not explicit in nature. 

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Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders