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Over on Twitter, I asked for recommendations of little-known books that deserve more attention. Richard Pastore answered the call by recommending this one, a post-apocalyptic tale from the 1950s.

While reading it, I thought to myself that there is an easy way to summarize this book: “Catholic Fallout.” This describes it remarkably well, in my opinion, but since I’m guessing few of my readers have played any of those classic RPGs, more elaboration will be necessary.

The story begins with a young monk, Francis, holding a vigil in the desert. When a mysterious wanderer passes by his outpost, Francis uncovers a fallout shelter from the past nuclear war, which holds artifacts which appear to belong to “the Blessed Leibowitz”–an engineer from the pre-war era who, after surviving the nuclear holocaust, joined the church and strove to preserve knowledge during a Dark Age called “The Simplification.”

Francis’s discovery of the relics paves the way for the beatification of Leibowitz, and ultimately, after many years, the young monk makes his way to New Rome for an audience with the Pope himself.

Time–measured in centuries–passes. Technological progress begins, and with it comes a kind of renaissance, as well as feuding tribes and political machinations and scientific progress. All the while the Order of Saint Leibowitz carries on.

More time passes, until society has developed computers and off-world colonies. And, most significantly, nuclear weapons have returned, and the Order is once again faced with preserving their traditions and teachings in the face of horrific devastation.

The book, in short, is not really a feel-good tale. But it does include two of the hallmarks of 1950s and ’60s zeitgeist: space travel and nuclear war. In that sense, it’s very much a work of its time, and that, of course, is one of the great things about Vintage Sci-Fi Month: the opportunity to look back on what people of the past thought were the burning issues of the day.

Ah… perhaps that was an unfortunate choice of words. But, never mind! The techno-optimists of the era were enthralled by space travel, the techno-pessimists obsessed with nuclear armageddon. It’s clear enough that Miller, in addition to being a Catholic, was definitely in the pessimist category. And this is rather understandable when you learn he fought in World War II, and was present at the destruction of a Benedictine Abbey at Monte Cassino. It haunted him, and that comes through clearly in the text, as the cyclical destruction of all efforts to build civilization is perhaps the central theme of the book.

Usually, I don’t like generational epics. Stories that span huge swaths of time tend to leave me feeling distanced from the characters. Call me simple if you like, but I generally prefer my stories to follow one character, or group of characters.

However, while this book spans centuries, it definitely worked for me. Each set of characters was so carefully-drawn that I could relate to all of them, and get involved in their struggles. Which in turn made it all the more poignant when their time came, as it always does.

All right, I’ve tap-danced around the issue long enough; I can’t put it off any longer. This book involves some very weighty moral and religious ideas, and does not shy away from taking a stance on certain issues. How one feels about this may color one’s perception of the entire story.

I, however, am in no position to pontificate about such matters. I have my opinions, as everyone does, but in the grand scheme of things, I am just a thirty-something blogger who has probably consoomed more Content than is really healthy. It is not for me to sit in judgment of the philosophy of a man who led the life that Miller did, and saw the things he saw, as though I am somehow “above” him. Nothing is more obnoxious than to judge the past without at least being willing to ask how the past would judge the present.

So, yes; the last third especially might be off-putting to some readers. Nevertheless, I encourage approaching it with an open mind and an understanding of the author’s experiences. Seen in that light, it is an especially haunting and gloomy story, but one which I recommend to all sci-fi fans.

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After the rather depressing tale that was Childhood’s End, I needed something lighter to lift my spirits during this über-bleak month of January. I needed a cozy mystery. But, not just any cozy mystery; so I searched Amazon for cozy sci-fi mysteries and this came up.

It’s about a pair of twins, Milly and Tilly, who run a restaurant on a space station. But when the competitor who runs the diner across the way is found dead after having an argument with the twins, it’s up to them to find the real killer, with the help of their cybernetically-modified cat.

Is this deep, like Asimov and Clarke? Not even remotely. Is it goofy and amusing? Absolutely yes. It’s a breezy, funny, quick read with a lot of standard tropes of both sci-fi and cozy mysteries. And this reflects one of the great dichotomies in literature. As Chuck Litka reminded me on last week’s post, not everyone wants their sci-fi drenched in philosophy and intellectualism. Sometimes you just want to sit back and read a fun story.

And is there anything wrong with that? Nope, not a bit! Stories are meant to be primarily used as entertainment, and that is exactly what this is. Sure, it’s kind of unbelievable and the mystery in question is not especially tough to solve. That’s not the point. The point is to have fun. Otherwise, what are we even doing?

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I first read this book more than 20 years ago, when I was only a 12-year-old lad.  I remember enjoying it immensely, especially a certain plot twist about 1/3 of the way in. For years after that, I felt no hesitation about listing it as one of my favorite science-fiction books.

But, a curious thing happened as the years went by. When I would hear Clarke’s name or the book mentioned, I would think back and remember it fondly, but I realized I had only the vaguest memory of what actually happened in it. There were aliens, of course; and I remembered the revelation regarding their physical appearance very well, but what happened after that? I found I couldn’t recall.

I started to wonder what the book was actually about. After all, my 12-year-old self’s judgment is not always to be trusted, and the fact that I had forgotten huge swaths of the book made me wonder if it peaked at the Big Reveal scene, and perhaps the rest was mere twaddle.

So, what better excuse to go back and reread it than Vintage Science Fiction Month, during which we all revisit and review the classics of the genre? Vintage Sci-Fi Month was made for things like this, and you should be sure and check out all the posts related to it.

Now then, Childhood’s End. Again, as a boy, I thought it was a pretty cool story. But now, upon re-reading it with a mature eye…

…I think it is perhaps the greatest science-fiction novel of the 20th century, and it’s holding its own well into the 21st, as well.

The plot twist that blew my mind as a kid still works, sort of like a Twilight Zone punchline. The difference is, that’s only the beginning of the story, not the end. It’s only the end of Part I, after all. From there, it gets much more interesting.

In broad outlines, the story of Childhood’s End is that aliens come to Earth, demonstrate that they have vastly superior technology, and quickly begin to reign as benevolent overlords, so much so that they are actually called “the Overlords.” Under their firm but peaceful rule, humanity is shepherded into a new Golden Age of Peace and Plenty.

And yet… there is a strange sense of something not quite right about it all. The Overlords seem to have some greater purpose, yet no one can tell what it might be. Early on in Part II, we learn that the old customs have been shattered:

“…by two inventions, which were, ironically enough, of purely human origin and owed nothing to the Overlords. The first was a completely reliable oral contraceptive: the second was an equally infallible method—as certain as fingerprinting, and based on a very detailed analysis of the blood—of identifying the father of any child. The effect of these two inventions upon human society could only be described as devastating, and they had swept away the last remnants of the Puritan aberration.”

Clarke wrote this in 1953. The birth control pill was introduced in 1960. DNA testing came along in the 1980s. How’s that for some prescience?

Still, here we are in 2024. This is 40 -to-60 year old tech at this point. So what if a dude in the 1950s predicted the next 30 years? That’s like reading somebody in the 1800s predicted the existence of the airplane; a mere minor curiosity.

This middle part of the story dragged a little; although there is a scene with a Ouija board. Personally, I’ve always been suspicious of Ouija boards, largely because Art Bell, a man known for his openness and willingness to be exposed to the strange and surreal, unequivocally cautioned his listeners against using them, for reasons he refused to explain. When a man like that tells me not to do something, I listen.

In any case, the Ouija board in this story reveals key information to several characters, although exactly what it is does not immediately become clear. Instead, Part II ends on this haunting note:

“They would never know how lucky they had been. For a lifetime, mankind had achieved as much happiness as any race can ever know. It had been the Golden Age. But gold was also the color of sunset, of autumn…”

And then we come to Part III, which begins innocuously enough on an island colony of artists, called New Athens, created by a man who wanted to give humanity a chance to excel at something on their own merits, apart from the watchful eye of the Overlords.

As one of the residents of the island explains:

“There’s nothing left to struggle for, and there are too many distractions and entertainments. Do you realize that every day something like five hundred hours of radio and TV pour out over the various channels? If you went without sleep and did nothing else, you could follow less than a twentieth of the entertainment that’s available at the turn of a switch! No wonder that people are becoming passive sponges—absorbing but never creating. Did you know that the average viewing time per person is now three hours a day? Soon people won’t be living their own lives any more. It will be a full-time job keeping up with the various family serials on TV!”

Again, this was written in 1953, people. Nineteen Fifty-Three.

We can’t write this off like we did the stuff about the pill and the DNA testing; this is getting into the realm of eerie prophecy. Which is particularly disturbing considering where we’re about to go from here.

Gradually, it becomes apparent that human children are mutating into… something else. Some kind of inhuman psychic hive-mind consciousness that no longer recognizes their own parents. The Overlords ship them off to a sequestered colony, and people just… stop having children. That’s right, the human race ends.

Well, except for one guy who stowed away aboard an Overlord ship to visit their homeworld. They send him back, and thanks to relativity, he has only aged a little while everyone else is dead. Lucky him, he wins the special prize of getting to witness the psychic collective consciousness gang annihilate the Earth and ascend to the heavens.

The Overlords, who explain that they have witnessed this same phenomenon occur many times with many species, simply move on to their next assignment.

Here’s the weird thing about this book: the Overlords are practically as irrelevant to the plot as Indiana Jones is to Raiders of the Lost Ark. They really are neutral observers.

Which leads us to another realization: so many of Clarke’s other predictions came true, without the intervention of the Overlords. Should we feel a bit unsettled about what this means for the future?

Words fail me, reader; they really do. When I finished reading this book I was left with a haunting disquietude that was frankly rather hard to shake. The Overlords, and the implication that due to the non-linear nature of time, their appearance heralds the end of humanity, wasn’t even the most disturbing thing in the tale.

If you enjoy science-fiction at all, and given that you are reading this I presume that you do, then this book is a must-read.

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This is a collection of Christmas-themed science-fiction/fantasy short stories. You may be asking, “Why are you reviewing a Christmas book in early January?” Well, I could try to be clever and point out that Eastern Orthodox Christmas is on January 7. But, the actual truth of the matter is that I started reading it December 25, so I couldn’t very well review it before then, now could I?

The book includes five stories by five different authors. I’ll give very brief reviews of each, though the nature of short stories is such that I can’t say too much without spoiling them.

“Workshop Rebellion” by T.J. Marquis, which is a sort of dark fantasy re-imagining of Santa Claus as some one who does battle with ancient demons after they cast a spell over his elves. Very Robert E. Howard-esque.

“Grandpa Got Run Over by a Bane Deer” by Kaylena Radcliff. Also a dark fantasy with some unsettling monsters and hints of parallel universes, all uncovered by a very tired man on Christmas Eve. The image of the Bane Deer really stuck with me.

“Julinesse Pays A Visit: A Reversed Black Maria Story” by Jeff Stoner. This is a sci-fi tale, about Christmas on another planet where the controlled climate suddenly goes haywire and brings snow for the first time. Cozier and more light-hearted than the first two.

“The Fairy Tree” by William Jeffrey Rankin. This is a dream-like magical realism story about (what else?) Christmas fairies. Very ethereal, a bit like one of Lovecraft’s more mystical Randolph Carter stories in a way.

“Christmas Spirits” by Alexander Hellene. A fun adventure about a roguish Han Solo-type on a quest to get a bottle of wine for his grandmother as a Christmas gift. Sci-Fi action and banter; probably my personal favorite story in this collection.

The foreword by Katie Roome, who edited the collection, explains that it is intended to “provide you with a little holiday escape,” and indeed that’s exactly what it did for me. Obviously, it’s too late for you to read it at Christmas (unless you are Eastern Orthodox) but I’d say if you’re into speculative seasonal fiction at all, it’s a good one to bookmark for next year.

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I’ve written about this film before, but I fear my review of three years ago fell short of its intended purpose. A friend of mine, a fellow writer whose opinion I greatly respect, watched it on my recommendation, and she hated it.

It could be due to an age difference, I suppose. Christmas Crush has what I think of as a millennial sensibility. Joke-y, banter-y, with lots of cultural references in the dialogue. It’s a bit like Adam Bertocci’s writing, and as I’ve mentioned before, Bertocci’s fiction is what I consider quintessentially millennial.

And let’s face it: we millennials are a polarizing bunch. Our culture is one people either love or hate. So it is with Christmas Crush. It is not by any means a complicated story. The plot is simple: a woman named Addie has a crush on her next-door neighbor, Sam. She makes a wish that her next-door neighbor will fall in love with her.

Unfortunately, her careless wording results in the wish being misapplied, and her other next-door neighbor, a man named Pete who is engaged to be married shortly after Christmas, falls in love with her. What follows is a series of humorous episodes as Addie tries to undo her wish and make the lovestruck Pete go back to his fiancée, Gina. All the while, trying not to give Sam the impression she’s two-timing him.

Such is the basic synopsis. Nothing earth-shattering, I’m sure you’ll agree. But as Chuck Litka reminds us, why does every story need to have high-stakes? Isn’t the future happiness of the characters reason enough to care about them?

So why do I like the film so much? Well, let us count the reasons:

#1: I’m Sick Of The Grimdark

“Grimdark!” Isn’t that a wonderful word? It comes to us from the world of Warhammer 40K, a science-fiction universe where life is nasty, brutish, and short. But there are countless films, books, TV series, etc. that feature the grimdark aesthetic. It’s got to where it’s seeping into everything. They made a horror spin-off of Winnie the Pooh, for crying out loud.

Now, I don’t mind a bit of darkness in my stories. I regularly re-read H.P. Lovecraft, you know. But recall the Duke of Dunstable’s speech from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience:

Duke. Tell me, Major, are you fond of toffee?

Major. Very!

Duke. Yes, and toffee in moderation is a capital thing. But to live on toffee – toffee for breakfast, toffee for dinner, toffee for tea – to have it supposed that you care for nothing but toffee, and that you would consider yourself insulted if anything but toffee were offered to you – how would you like that?

For “toffee,” read “grimdark.” At some point, the consensus in the entertainment industry became that nothing wholly pleasant can be allowed to exist. Or if it does exist, it should be mocked. And that is why everything became saturated with gloom and serial killers.

Christmas Crush, like any good Christmas movie, is not grim. Even when Addie’s spirits are at their lowest, the mood is still one of holiday cheer. Also, Hollywood, if you’re reading this: it’s in color!

#2: Sincerity 

Now, I have to be careful with this one, because even Christmas Crush has its share of ironic humor. That banter I referred to above can’t exist without a certain style of comedy that relies on a developed sense of irony. To a degree, this goes hand-in-hand with that millennial sensibility I alluded to earlier, and is again something Christmas Crush shares with the works of Bertocci. (I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Zachary Shatzer is the millennial P.G. Wodehouse, and Bertocci is the millennial Oscar Wilde.)

But the conclusion of Christmas Crush is sincere, as all Christmas movies are.

I’ve got a theory that most people who watch these Christmas movies with a mocking eye secretly hope to be charmed. We actually want to see a nice, sweet story that is pleasant and predictable. But, our culture does not exactly reward wholesome content, so we mask our desire with a veneer of irony. And of course, a lot of the movies are quite silly, so it’s not like it’s hard to find things of which to make fun.

But, as Nietzsche said, “He who scoffs at Christmas movie cheesiness should take care that he does not become a cheesy Christmas movie antagonist. And when you hate-watch the Hallmark channel, know that the Hallmark channel also hate-watches you.”

Or something like that. The point is, once you get used to sneering at sincerity, you become immune to it. You can’t appreciate it, even when it is earned.

#3: …But Also Comedy

If you’ve made it this far into this post, you probably can at least tolerate comedy. But some people just aren’t into it. They will see no humor, for instance, in the scene where Pete’s jilted fianceé, working at a Christmas pop-up store to pay for her canceled wedding, tearfully greets customers with a somber, “Welcome to Santa’s Ho-ho-holiday emporium, the happiest place south of the North Pole.” They will not delight in the numerous references to the holiday event that Addie and her friend Drea are planning for a client named Donner as “the Donner party,” before hastily correcting themselves.

Obviously, there are many different kinds of comedy. For Christmas Crush, you’ve got to like wordplay and maybe a dash of light slapstick. If these don’t do it for you, then probably Christmas Crush will fall flat. Actually, probably all of my top favorite Christmas movies (Fitzwilly, Jingle All The Way, and The Lion in Winter) will not work for you. And that’s okay.

#4: No Villain

So many movies feel obliged to give us a villain: the cheating fiancé, the wicked step-mother, etc. There’s nothing wrong with that in most stories, but in the spirit of the Christmas season, isn’t it nice to have a story where no one is motivated by evil intentions? Pete, even at his most obnoxious, is only doing what he is doing because a spell has twisted his inherently good nature. Gina, even when she is rude to Addie, only does so in reaction to understandable hurt feelings.

I don’t mind a good villain. But I also find it refreshing to have a story without one.

#5: Avoiding Clichés and Boring Romance Tropes

We all know how holiday movies rely on clichés. It’s a running joke on Twitter: how many movies are there where the overworked big-city something-or-other is forced to go to a small town for Christmas, where, despite her best efforts, she falls in love with the man of her dreams, who as often as not turns out to be the Prince of Monte Carlo traveling incognito?

Instead of Addie being a workaholic who finds love when she is whisked away to a bucolic setting, she actually likes her job, and finds love with the guy next door. And instead of bonding over something superficial, like, I don’t know, chocolate or something, Addie and Sam discover they actually have mutual interests in philanthropy. That’s something that can be a foundation for a relationship.

#6: Addie Takes Action

Instead of waiting around for the plot to resolve itself in her favor, Addie steps up and takes responsibility. At the end, she says something that is, by the standards of made-for-TV Christmas movies, rather profound:

To everyone in this room, I wish you all the courage to tell the people close to you how you really feel about them. Whether it’s your best friend, your fiancé, or even your next-door neighbor. Even if you’re scared. Even if you’re not sure if they feel the same. Because making a wish, even making a wish for Christmas, it’s not enough. You have to tell them. Because you don’t know what you might be losing if you don’t.

Now, I can’t live this past week over again. But I hope that next time–No. No, I have faith that I won’t make the same mistake again. 

Unlike so many stories of this type–or maybe of many types–Addie grows and learns over the course of the story. She realizes her mistakes, she admits them, and she vows to grow. Maybe you laugh and say that’s a low bar to clear for a story. Maybe it is. But ask yourself this: how many modern Hollywood blockbusters give us this level of character development?

#7: A Beginning, not an Ending

And what I like best of all is that at the end, it’s suggested that Addie and Sam will start dating. Not get engaged, not have a royal wedding, but maybe go out for coffee. I’m not saying whirlwind romances can’t happen, but in general, it makes far more sense for people to fall in love over a period of months or years, not a few days as so often happens in these things.

A real romance is a whole life-time long, and a wedding is just one stop along the way. So many stories treat it as the Final Boss, the last quest before the story ends. Real relationships seldom work in such a cut-and-dried manner, and that is what makes them magical.

Conclusion

Here, my case rests. It may be you are unmoved by all this. Like my friend, you might find Christmas Crush the most awful dreck. And, well, after all, you may be right. I may be crazy. But it just may be etc.

If this blog has an agenda–which I am not prepared to admit, but I say only if it does–that agenda is to convey to people that the media that is easy and accessible may not be the greatest art there is. To find great work takes great work.

The flip side of this is that you can find it anywhere, and sometimes in places where the critical consensus least expects it to be. Thus, we find that when our curators of High Culture are debating whether video games are art, some of the greatest stories being told in that form. And when we hear the voices of the taste-makers putting down made-for-TV Christmas movies, we wonder: are the lavish, big-budget productions of the major studios any better?

And of course, there is the humble indie book. We all know, beyond any doubt, that great stories are being told in the pages of little volumes sent out into the world by lone authors, supported by nothing more than their desire to tell them.

My technique when reviewing something is to try and forget, insofar as possible, how and where I found it, and evaluate it on its own terms, independent of who wrote it or whether or not fashionable people sing its praises, and simply ask myself if I like it.

(There is of course a final irony here in that, by publishing my opinion, I am in some measure trying to be one of those people who influences other peoples’ thoughts on the matter. And indeed, there have been times when I have had to ignore myself in order to evaluate something clearly.)

I don’t mind if anyone else’s opinion varies wildly from mine on these things. I am, indisputably, a highly idiosyncratic critic. There is only one key to reviewing anything, be it a Christmas rom-com or a war epic, a Renaissance painting or a video game, a big-name publishing house novel or an indie ebook; and that is to make sure that your opinion is authentically yours, not one that somebody else told you to have. It’s not as easy as it seems, but it’s more rewarding that way.

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In my undergraduate poli sci classes, they told us that Aristotle defined three forms of government: rule by the one, rule by the few, and rule by the many. Of these, each came in good and bad flavors, so the good version of rule by the one is “monarchy” and the bad version is “tyranny.”

As the title suggests, Zachary Shatzer’s latest comic novel concerns itself with the latter, and we are quickly introduced to the land of Kragolia, which is ruled with an iron fist by the Grimheart family.

But within a few pages, the reigning Dictator and his eldest son perish in the course of terrorizing the population, and the role of dictator falls to Trin, the younger son, who is a mild lad with no appetite for cruelty. However, he is quickly urged on to more tyrannical acts by the senior advisor to the dictator, Mysborn.

Ah, Mysborn! One of the most interesting characters in the story, because he is a classic archetype from history. From Michael Psellus to Talleyrand, the figure of the clever, manipulative advisor is a familiar one. For fictional equivalents, see Grima Wormtongue or Sir Humphrey Appleby.  Mysborn is a man who uses deceit and manipulation to get his way.

At first, he thinks he’ll easily have his way with the soft-hearted Trin, but the reluctant dictator refuses to oppress the people. Eventually, he decides to sneak out of the castle, along with his faithful manservant Malcolm, and see the kingdom for himself.

Meanwhile, the people of Kragolia, led by a woman named Gail, are contemplating rebellion against the oppressive regime. But they’re not very optimistic about their chances, since the military might of the Empire seems overwhelming. That is, until a mysterious hero named Eric Strongbow appears, and rallies the resistance with his bravery, not to mention his good looks. He looks like “a conquering hero, but not the kind of conquering hero who had let his victories go to his head. No, his appearance was that of an easygoing sort of conquering hero. The kind you could make a mild joke about without fear that he would be obliged to slice open your torso to restore his sense of honor.”

I have to say it: men, what’s stopping you from looking like this?

As with all his books, Shatzer’s humorous prose sparkles throughout, and I love the style of the narration. It’s a sort of distant third-person tale, with occasional reminders that we are, in fact, being told a story, as the omniscient narrator makes frequent parenthetical asides. This style of storytelling has fallen out of favor lately, and I think it’s high time it made a comeback.

The thing that makes this book great, right up there with Shatzer’s wonderful Beach Wizard, is that it has a real emotional core to it. The scenes with Trin and his mother are perhaps the most poignant, although there are several others. While the book has a jolly tone, Shatzer is never afraid to shy away from moments of true emotion, and that gives it a certain weight that so many humorous stories lack.

For this is more than just a silly comedic adventure. It is also a commentary on government. Dare I say, it’s a kind of mirror for princes, meant to instruct on the virtues that make a hero and warn against the vices that make a tyrant. The contrast between the cruelty of Mysborn and the Grimheart regime vs. the heroism of Eric Strongbow is the distillation of the difference between Aristotle’s good and bad forms of government.

This is a wonderful story. On Twitter, I said it was “like if P.G. Wodehouse wrote fantasy,” and I’m hard-pressed to think of higher praise. Shatzer is a national treasure. (Admittedly, I don’t know what nation he resides in, but whichever one it is, he’s a treasure of it.) And I wish like anything I could persuade more people to read his books.

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Don’t ya just love good old-fashioned pulp adventure stories? You know, the kind where there’s a fearless adventurer on a quest for some long-lost treasure, joined by loyal companions, as well as maybe some not-so-loyal companions, and plenty of exciting battles, ancient puzzles, and terrifying monsters.

Well, this is the book for you. Look at that cover; isn’t that just everything you want in an adventure book? Drew Struzan couldn’t have done it better.

The protagonist of the story is Merona Grant, the daring mercenary treasure-hunter and her faithful dog Argos. When she finds herself down on her luck after being double-crossed, a wealthy aristocrat offers Grant a job to lead her on a hunt for an ancient treasure. Grant accepts, on the condition that her friend, the burly Russian pilot, Sasha Durov, joins them as well.

Together, along with the beautiful Carlotta and the timid Dr. Watt, the group sets out in search of adventure.

What follows is a tale of derring-do in the vein of The Mummy (the 1999 one) or Indiana Jones. Of course, those films were themselves homages to an earlier era of adventure fiction. Indeed, Merona’s mercurial personality reminds me more of Charlton Heston’s character Harry Steele in Secret of the Incas than of Dr. Jones. Kudos to Williamson for creating a new character and setting for a new generation of adventure lovers.

I’d been wanting to read a good treasure-hunting book ever since I finished Peter Martuneac’s latest tale, and this one proved to be just the ticket. If you liked any of the stories I referenced above, check this one out.

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Yes, you read that right.

I promise not to turn this into an all-Napoleon, all-the-time blog, but it just so happened that while looking something up as I was writing my review of the Ridley Scott film, I stumbled across the fact that the old Emperor of the French had written this short romance story in his youth.

The book was unpublished during Napoleon’s lifetime, and had to be gradually pieced together by scholars and collectors. That’s right; before he was renowned as a military genius, before he was Emperor of most of Europe, before he was regarded as either one of the most brilliant leaders or most ruthless tyrants ever to appear on the stage of History, Napoleon Bonaparte was, like so many of us, an indie author. Reader, how could I not review it?

The book tells the story of Clisson, a brave and accomplished young French officer, who has won great honors for his military victories, but who is unfairly slandered by enemies jealous of his success.

Um… okay, so there might be just a tiny bit of Mary Sue-ism here. Clisson is a thinly-veiled version of Napoleon himself. And Eugénie, the woman with whom he falls in love, is a thinly-veiled version of Désirée Eugénie Clary, a woman to whom he was engaged.

The story has the feel of a young man’s work. It’s big on passion and romance and adventure, and a bit short on realism. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; that’s very much as it should be.

A modern critic would no doubt rebuke Bonaparte for his reliance on telling instead of showing. But, this is just how people wrote back then, and plenty of classic works of literature do this all the time. So, maybe we can just ignore the modern critics on this point.

Still, there’s no question that drawing deep and multi-faceted characters is not Bonaparte’s strong suit. Clisson and Eugénie’s relationship feels not unlike one you might find in a YA novel. On the plus side, there are no sparkling vampires.

The story ends on a tragic note, which I wasn’t expecting. Napoleon always seems like a fellow who thought he could get out of any trouble, however dire. So the way he has Clisson’s story end up was surprising to me. (Then again, a tragic ending is in line with the original Mary Sue story.)

Overall, my reaction to the story was pretty indifferent. Not horrible, but also definitely not something anyone would find noteworthy, except for the fact it was written by Napoleon. But that in itself is pretty noteworthy! And so the next time you find yourself reading some unremarkable tale by an unknown author, just remember… you might be reading the work of one of the great icons of our age.

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I was patient this summer, when all the internet was abuzz with fascination over the pink doll movie and the nerd scientist movie. I was biding my time, waiting for the moment when cinema-goers’ eyes would turn to the tale of the Corsican artillery officer.

It’s been a while since I’ve been actively anticipating seeing a movie. It brought back memories of when I was a lad, waiting for Star Wars I – III to premiere. Of course, I am not comparing Napoleon to the prequel trilogy.  Those films are about a gifted but emotionally unstable young man, trying to balance his military and political ambitions with his turbulent love life, while all around him a dying republic is giving way to an authoritarian regime. Whereas Napoleon… hey, wait a second! Maybe my tastes haven’t matured as much as I thought.

But seriously, folks; who doesn’t love a good sweeping epic, with massive battles, steamy love scenes, all telling a tale of destiny and struggle, heroism and villainy, and all the different shades of poetical feeling that form the kaleidoscope of the human experience? And who better to direct it than the versatile Ridley Scott, the director of such classic films as the sci-fi masterpiece Alien and the historical opus Kingdom of Heaven?

Then again, he has also directed such turkeys as the inane sci-fi mess Prometheus and the historical snoozefest Exodus: Gods and Kings.  Would we be getting Good Ridley or Bad Ridley for this outing? It only added to the suspense.

In case you can’t tell by now… this is going to be long. If you want a quick review, or even a moderately lengthy review, look elsewhere. Here at Ruined Chapel, we believe reviews are meant to be a little bit winding, even meandering. There’s nothing wrong with taking the long way.

Napoleon begins in the French Revolution, with the grisly execution of Marie Antoinette. In a bit of artistic license, the young officer is witness to the morbid spectacle. Unlike the jeering crowds, he seems rather put-off by the whole thing.

We then see him bravely leading the French against the British forces at Toulon, for which he receives a promotion to brigadier general and catches the eye of Josephine de Beauharnais, a striking widow with whom the youthful officer quickly falls in love.

Okay, pause right there. I said “youthful” because Napoleon was 27.  Joaquin Phoenix, who plays Napoleon, is 49. I’m not in favor of this business of “de-aging” actors, but it’s pretty disconcerting to see a middle-aged man portraying a brash young officer who is becoming infatuated with a woman who is supposed to be six years older than him, but in fact looks about 15 years younger. (Because the actress is.) I’m not saying it ruins the movie or anything, but it’s odd.

Oh, well. That’s why they pay these actors the big bucks, right? To play someone they’re not. I won’t get mired down by a little detail like this. There are much more important things by which to get mired down.

Like the already-infamous pyramid scene. In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it treatment of the Battle of the Pyramids, the film shows French artillery blasting the top off one of the iconic monuments. This didn’t happen. It is seemingly a riff on a story that French soldiers shot the nose off of the Sphinx, which also didn’t happen. Ridley Scott, however, claims it’s a fast way of communicating that Napoleon took Egypt. And Lord knows he wants to be fast, because this movie gallops along at an insane pace. Hardly are Josephine and Napoleon married before she’s cheating on him with another officer while he’s in Egypt, so then he has to come back from Egypt and confront her, but then they make up, sort of, and then…

It’s a tall order to compress 20 years of history into a 2.5 hour movie. Which is one reason I would have been in favor of not doing it.

The famous director David Lean once said that a mistake filmmakers make when adapting a book is to try to give audiences a little sample of everything in it, but the end result is no one aspect gets its due. The better approach, Lean said, is to find the core of the story, and tell that as richly and fully as possible. I’d argue this applies also to adaptations of historical episodes generally, not just particular books.

Lean directed a number of historical epics, including Doctor Zhivago, A Passage to India, Ryan’s Daughter, and, oh yes, a little picture called Lawrence of Arabia, which I consider to be one of the greatest films ever made, and certainly the bar against which all historical epics must be judged.

Now, in all fairness, Lawrence of Arabia is close to four hours long, and Scott plans to release a cut of Napoleon that will exceed even that. But Lawrence covers only a period of a couple years, whereas Napoleon is attempting to cover the entire career of one of the most accomplished soldier-statesmen in history. It would take 50 hours to do justice to the period Scott is tackling.

Or… it would take judicious thought about what the story really is.  I know we’re only a little way into the synopsis yet, but it’s not too early to ask the question: what is Napoleon about?

Well, obviously, it’s about the titular emperor. But what about him? What we want to know is why he did the things he did.

The film has an answer. Sort of. But it hasn’t given it yet, and meanwhile, we’re getting scenes of Napoleon bit by bit working his way up the ladder in France. First, it’s a coup against the French Directory, then it’s his coronation as Emperor of the French.

About this coronation: indulge me while I tell a little story not depicted in the film. Originally, Ludwig van Beethoven dedicated his third symphony, the Eroica, to Napoleon. (BTW, it’s an absolutely gorgeous piece and in my opinion old Ludwig van’s second best, trailing only the incomparable Ninth) But when the composer got word of Napoleon declaring himself Emperor, he just about had a fit, and angrily struck Bonaparte’s name from the score, supposedly saying:

“So he is no more than a common mortal! Now, too, he will tread under foot all the rights of Man, indulge only his ambition; now he will think himself superior to all men, become a tyrant!”

Man, when you’ve lost Beethoven, you know you’re in trouble. More seriously, this quote points us towards discovering the theme of Napoleon’s story. Namely, that he rose to incredible heights, and then lost it all.

And it’s worth pausing to reflect on how he rose to those heights. As the film depicts pretty clearly, the French Revolution was a disaster. While on paper it may have been for liberty, equality, and fraternity, in practice, it was a hellish orgy of psychopathic mass murder and weird cults. Anyone with a good head on his or her shoulders, (something the revolutionaries tried their best to eliminate) would obviously prefer being governed by the competent administration of a successful military officer to the so-called Committee of Public Safety.

To seize control of a society that has essentially collapsed into anarchy takes a certain level of drive and will and energy, all qualities which Napoleon possessed. Whenever I am accused of harboring unduly pro-Bonapartist sympathies, it is to this period in his career that I will point. Someone had to govern France. And frankly, in such a dire situation as that, it is quite believable that no amount of committee meetings or parliamentary votes would do the trick. The state of nature, Hobbes tells us, is a state of war; and who better than a daring officer to win a war?

So, we can see why Beethoven admired Napoleon up until his coronation. Even more interesting, though, is the fact that Beethoven instantly recognized that this moment signified a seismic shift in Bonaparte’s career, and not for the better. Events were to prove his instincts exactly right.

The coronation is the great turning point, and the film indeed uses it as such. Not least because it’s the last time in this movie that we get to see a glimpse of color. Enjoy those red robes and glittering jewels, because after this, we slide straight into blue-gray filter hell. They actually did the meme.

What has happened to modern filmmakers? Where does this absolutely hideous palette come from? Personally, like so many of our present social ills, I blame it on the Harry Potter films. They made a ton of money with this horrible washed out aesthetic, and now all the studios unthinkingly copy them. Talk about a situation where we need a heroic figure to break the fetters of unthinking consensus! Where is the brave director who will stand up and give us once more the vibrant hues of color cinema?

Anyway, back to Napoleon. After the coronation, things go wrong in a hurry. It does have a certain Faustian irony to it: the point the film makes consistently is that Napoleon loves Josephine; that she is the main guiding force in his life. And yet, when he “finds the crown of France lying in the gutter, and picks it up with his sword,” his political ambitions ultimately lead him to distance himself from the one person he cares about most. In his quest for an heir, he divorces Josephine and marries Marie Louise of Austria, who bears him a son. In a very telling moment, and possibly my favorite scene in the film, when Napoleon gets his heir, the first thing he does is run off and show him to Josephine.

From there, the inexorable downfall begins, as Napoleon learns that the Tsar is cheating on his continental embargo against English goods. Naturally, in Napoleon’s mind, the only reasonable thing to do is raise a massive army and invade Russia.

You know, I’m not as much of a free trade absolutist as I was in my younger days, when I bought unreservedly into what the Econ books told me. I think there can be good arguments for restricting trade. Nevertheless, it’s worthwhile to understand the Ricardian arguments against barriers to trade. And it’s especially worthwhile, if you find your barriers to trade can only be maintained by marching across Europe and into the desolation of Russian winter, to ask yourself whether the whole thing needs to be rethought.

And this is where I want to say a word about the little-heralded heroes of the story: the French Army. We don’t see much of the ordinary French soldier; they’re just a mob of extras that the Emperor directs with waves of his hands. Yet, once you realize that those gestures could be translated into deeds only by the well-practiced discipline of thousands of men, all drilled to work together as a unit in the face of gruesome death, do you understand the sheer awesomeness of his army. Whether it’s overthrowing the Directory, crushing the Austrians at Austerlitz, or the iconic moment on the road to Grenoble, the French soldiers loved their commander, and they came through for him time and time again. Napoleon may have been nothing without Josephine, but he was also nothing without his soldiers. If there isn’t anything else that may serve as evidence of his greatness, I think the fact that he had the loyalty of these men right up through Waterloo says quite a lot.

As Napoleon’s final words suggest, the three things he loved most were France, the Army, and Josephine. And here again we see the tragic irony of his life: France was left weakened at the time of death, its army shattered after the losses in Russia and at Waterloo, and its great enemy Britain ascendant. Josephine died during Napoleon’s first exile, without even being able to call herself his wife. Everything that Napoleon loved, he unwittingly destroyed.

By the time the film is slogging through Waterloo, which takes place in some sort of Mordor-esque hellscape with, again, NO COLOR, you can feel the weight of the inevitable bearing down. It feels like a chore, not helped by the one-dimensional and hammy performance of the actor playing Wellington, who seems like a sneering British aristocrat from central casting. Christopher Plummer did so much better in the film Waterloo.

Waterloo feels more like a doomed last gasp than a legendary clash of great generals, and so in short order, Napoleon is packed off to St. Helena to ponder where it all went wrong.

And where did it all go wrong? I found myself musing, if I could go back in time and give Napoleon some advice, what would I tell him? (Curiously, this is also the premise for an episode of I Dream of Jeannie.)

Remember how I said that it takes a gifted individual of tremendous talent to build something out of nothing, to craft a working society out of an anarchic horror show like the French Revolution? Well, I very much believe that’s true. But the corollary to that is, after the functioning society has been built, it takes more than one person to maintain it. Once the rule of law and order has been restored, and peace and stability established, it is beyond the abilities of anyone, no matter how supremely gifted, to keep it all running for long.

And this is where you need to have a good succession plan. I once read in some philosophy book somewhere about the importance of a great leader having a good officer corps; someone to whom he can hand off what he has built. Napoleon wanted to do that with his heir, which is why this became such a fixation for him, but this was because he had fallen into his enemies’ way of thinking. He was still in the mindset of the European aristocracy he so despised, believing that this was the only way to ensure his posterity.

What if, instead of crowning himself emperor, he’d just retired to the countryside with his beloved Josephine, secure in the knowledge that he had saved his country, and turned over the administration to the most capable hands in his officer corps? Probably the allied coalitions would have tried to crush France anyway, but maybe a true republic, governed by the people who had fought alongside Bonaparte for the security of France, would have been more robust, and better able to cope with the threat. And Napoleon could have gone down in history as a man who knew when to hold ’em, knew when to fold ’em, and knew when to walk away.

Well, c’est la vie. Hindsight is 20/20, and it’s easy to say all this from the viewpoint of an armchair historian 200 years later. I’m sure at the time, there were good reasons why Napoleon did what he did. It’s hard to stop once you’re riding the tiger.

The movie is good to the extent it makes the audience ponder questions like these, but too often, it just gets lost in trying to show all the highlights of Napoleon’s career, and ends up not giving you enough time to process it before we’re on to the next thing. Vanessa Kirby is fantastic as Josephine, and Phoenix does a solid job as Napoleon, but it’s all so hurried it’s hard to get to know them as characters. Maybe the Director’s Cut will be better. Maybe with the miracle of modern science, they will even discover a way to capture the full spectrum of visible light.

Ultimately, everything hinges on whether this movie is the beginning or the ending of your study of the Napoleonic era. If everything you know about Napoleon comes from this movie, then I’m sorry to tell you you’ve just been given a wildly distorted version of history. But if it sparks your interest to learn more about the story of the Corsican officer and the woman he loved, then it’s well worth the time and money.

Making a film is rather like building an empire, come to think of it. It takes a director leading a motivated crew to make it in the first place, but it is ultimately up to the masses to determine whether it has any lasting impact.

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It’s always tough to review sequels. Especially a sequel to a sprawling book like Sunder of Time, that has a large cast of characters and multiple different timelines. Thus, there are not only a lot of characters, but different versions of the same character. (Probably this is one of those books where it’s helpful to keep notes, so you can remember who is who.) And when you add in that I don’t want to spoil what happens in the first book, it’s pretty hard to explain the plot of this one.

So, what’s a poor book reviewer to do? I could just say that if you liked the first book, you’ll probably like the second one, too. And that’s true. But, of course, probably not very helpful. Especially if you haven’t actually read the first book yet. (My review is here.) I highly recommend it.

But as to this book, it carries on the story of the first one, although in an interesting way. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that while the first book takes place mainly in the distant past, this one is largely in the far future. But still, the same kind of intrigues and political machinations are there, as is the brisk pace and intense action.

I think what I’ll focus on here, to avoid giving away major plot spoilers, is McTiernan’s keen grasp of psychology. Everything the characters do is informed by this, perhaps most notably in the way one character uses subtle psychological tricks to manipulate people into giving him loyalty he really doesn’t deserve. There are people like this in real life, and knowing how these kinds of mind games work is helpful in dealing with them.

This is an excellent sequel to a very good book, and I’ll be interested to see where the series goes from here.