Ardneh's Sword

I finished reading Fred Saberhagen's Ardneh's Sword a few days ago. As with the earlier work in the series, Empire of the East, I stopped about 75 percent of the way through to read another book. I needed the palate cleansed before I could go on, because the pacing was off for me. The slow build to the conclusion was a steady diet of the same bland questions. I did give it 4 stars because it began and ended well--sort of. The story takes place a thousand years after the events of EotE. Chance, Rolf's heir is off with an expedition to find the titular item. Under the direction of a scholar, he cares for an owl that may have the capacity for speech, but the speech is a dialect of gibberish. The owl is wounded mysteriously while bringing Chance Ardneh's Key; this item comes and goes from around Chance's neck at will. Chance meets a young, redheaded boy and as well as a girl, the boy's twin, and a grandmotherly figure. Turns out that these three are the same entity, a djinn named Zalmoxis, or is it the mighty demon Avenarius? That question persists until near the end of the book.

Meanwhile, the scholarly wagon train is threatened by bandits and attempts to take refuge at a sanctuary of healers--although what they're doing way out there in the blasted lands, or whatever the desolation is call, I never quite understood. There, Chance meets Abigail, who has some magic sense and takes the items left by the dead sorceress who was part of the scholarly wagon train to the treasure. The healers do take them to a cave. The bandits attack; there's some magic; Draffut returns to route the bandits for a time.The Beast Lord then goes off on some other errand--like Reverend Tim Tom--taking part of the caravan with him while Chance, Abigail, Zalmoxis, and others take another way looking for Ardneh's workshop.

As you might expect, the bandits follow with an eye toward the prize. The prize at last becomes revealed. Ardneh's sword isn't one item, but many--spandex suits that turn the wearers into pagan gods with no recollection of their former life. One of these dispatches Avenarius. The many gods go their ways. Abigail and Chance elect not to don this armor of the gods and go make marriage plans. The end.

I was most disappointed by the fact that the big battle at the end of EoftE promised a better and different world. However, a thousand years later, the world appeared to be pretty much the same as before, albeit with fewer demons. The owl's role never amounted to much. Avenarius as an antagonist turned out to be a dud; his demise wasn't attributable to any heroics by Chance. The matter of who was spying for the bandits, and the suspicious activity of one of the minor characters was never resolved, as near as I can remember. I'm not a fan of the resolution, but donning the armor of the gods was a completely unexpected twist that was intriguing. One must wonder whether the humans were worse off with the demons or the new gods that were Ardneh's cure for that affliction. I would have enjoyed the book more if it had been shorter. Again, I gave it 4 stars, so my criticisms should be considered in that light.

The sequel to Accidental Pirates has been written and received a round of editing. I'll make one more complete read/edit pass and send it in for consideration for publication. I'll be the first to admit that Accidental Pirates has a slower start than I prefer. The sequel, on the other hand, hits the afterburners at the end of the first short chapter. Although it does gear down for the curves, it never hits the brakes. The last several chapters are a white hot burn to the finish with no shortage of casualties along the way as the boys face danger from the blood pack, turncoats, magical beasts, treachery, and the Dragon Queen herself. It's a glorious charge into peril to help good prevail against evil.

 

 

 

 

Field of Blood

 

Speaking of Accidental Pirates, I was on The Spaceman and the Hafling podcast/show Saturday. We recorded yesterday; the show should go up on youtube in a couple weeks. Naturally, I will post a link when I get it.

I finished reading Sharpe's Sword. The end made up for the slow middle. The end reflects the ending of the first book in the series with the hero slaying and taking the overalls of the French Imperial Guard cavalry colonel. -- Foreshadowing Sharpe fighting at Waterloo as a colonel? I don't know. I can't remember if he was a colonel at Waterloo, but I think he was. I used to have a very nice matched set of the original series but parted with them during one of our moves when I thought I would never read them again--that was 20 years ago. Now I read them in ebook if I find one that's an exceptionally good price and I feel the yearn to revisit Sharpe and the light company.

Fun Fact History:

During the summer of 1111, a Muslim coalition under Mawdud, atabeg of Mosul, laid siege to Turbessel near Edessa and forced the crusader leader there, Joscelin of Courtney, to pay tribute. The following year, King Baldwin failed in besieging Tyre after the siege machines were burned and a relief army threatened. The next year, 1113, Mawdud and Tughtakin briefly captured Baldwin. The crusader king escaped, and in October, Mawdud was assassinated by one of the Nizari Ismaili sect--also known as the Hashashin. In fighting among the Muslim leaders prevented organized action against the crusaders for a few years. 

Ilghazi ibn Artuk commanded an army of Turcoman warriors and controlled the fortress town of Mardin, between Aleppo and Mosul. Aleppo and Edessa bordered his region of influence. Roger of Salerno was the regent of Antioch on behalf of the 11 year old Bohemund II. Battles for succession in Constantinople left Roger free of potential hindrance from the west. He seized the opportunity to take control of Aleppo's satellite castles. The citizenry made pleas to Ilghazi for help against the invader. Ilghazi, with his father-in-law, Tughtatin of Damascus, began assembling a huge army.

Roger's fb page began to fill with warnings of the massive hostile build up and he responded with #livingmybestlife and began raising his own army. His force even included Armenian mercenaries and light cavalry from Northern Syria and Asia Minor. 

On June 28, 1119, Ilghazi posted #lightyouup and attacked at a location that became know as Ager Sanguinis: Field of Blood. He triumphed after a battle of only an hour, in which Roger suffered a sword thrust through the nose and into his brain. Having left his Excedrin behind, he expired with a splitting headache. One chronicler reported that the Christians who were not flayed or beheaded on the spot were chained like dogs and led away. Many of those lucky prisoners were tortured the next day and slain, while others were taken to Damascus for ransom, death, or slavery. Ilghazi had destroyed Antioch's regent, army, and regional dominance in a single battle.

The above is summarized from Crusaders by Dan Jones.

Wikipedia indicates that Roger had camped in the pass of Sarmada at a wooded valley with steep sides and few avenues of escape; Ilghazi surrounded him during the night.  Roger's 700 knights, 500 light cavalry, and 3,000 infantry assembled in a V formation and initially prevailed in an archery duel and attacked on their right. However, the crusader left collapsed under an aggressive attack, confusing the rest of the force at the same time a dust storm blinded them. The slaughter followed.

 

 

 

Drown Melancholy news

 

Again, one of my stories in Cirsova Magazine made the Tangent Online Recommended Reading List - for 2025 this time: 

Reviewed by Seraph

“Drown Melancholy” by Stanley Wheeler

It is unclear whether this is a case of inspiration being found anywhere, or the result of a dare, but if you challenged someone to write a story purely on the basis of several recently popular sea shanties, it might look something like this. Don’t let that sound like criticism, it came out fantastic, and I confess to greatly enjoying the aforementioned songs. The speaker is a cabin boy on Captain Edwards ship at the height of the transatlantic era of exploration, and heard some things he wasn’t meant to. Like any good pirate tale, superstition and the supernatural abound, bordering cleanly upon madness, and even an accursed treasure is too difficult to resist. The concept that sins committed above the waves are punished beneath them is classic, but the author does a great job of cleverly weaving the shanties in throughout the story in a meaningful way. 

See all Seraph's reviews for Cirsova #24 here. 

 

For the record, that story was sort of the result of a dare: There was a call from an anthology for a story featuring a sea shanty. I wrote "Drown Melancholy" and submitted it (perhaps under a different title) only for the the publisher to delay the selection date by several months. Finally, the new date passed and the publisher failed to post any additional information or respond to requests about whether the anthology had been cancelled. After a year of nothing from that publisher, and it giving every appearance of having abandoned the proposed anthology, I submitted the story to Cirsova Magazine with good results. I had fun with  accents for a character or two as well as making the shanty intertwine with the plot. I started with nothing more than knowing which old shanty I wanted to use, and worked out the story and how the song figured in as I went along. Some would call that making it up as one goes along, but I prefer to think of it as plotting and development from the leading edge position.

Plotting and development from the leading edge was also how the story for Accidental Pirates came into existence. I knew it would feature the boys and pirates; the rest developed as the story grew. Coincidentally, the sequel, which I just completed, followed the same pattern. The sequel features the boys, kings, wizards, knights, and a plethora of fantastic beasts bent on the destruction of our heroes.

I have no idea how the sales are going for Accidental Pirates, but it was still in the double and low triple digits in the three categories in which it ranks best.

The bad grammar in the meme could be intentional, reflecting the frenzied mind of the storyteller pictured.

The sequel came out just a little bit longer than the original, but is filled with even more action and adventure. It's a rip-roaring adrenaline rush mingled with intrigue and magic.