Tag: books

Adieu Divine Right

You can put this one squarely in my list of failures. This morning, I relinquished all of the development and publication rights to the excellent fantasy wargame Divine Right, nine months before our rights to it expired, due to my inability to get Divine Right reprinted or get the computer game developed. The project wasn’t a complete failure, as we did manage to get Minarian Legends published, but I didn’t have the bandwidth to oversee the other aspects of the project and the volunteer project leaders didn’t have the ability to complete either the boardgame or the computer wargame.

Anyhow, as a fan of the game and its creator, I wish the next group of developers great success with the updated Divine Right, and eventually, one hopes, Scarlet Empire. Sadly, it will not be featuring this excellent cover, based on the original artwork, that we had produced for our now-cancelled edition.

For some reason, it appears that gaming volunteers are reliably less able to get a job done than those who volunteer in various other areas of development, from print books to open source office projects. I was very briefly involved in what was supposed to be a Linux distro dedicated to games, and I have never, ever, observed a more useless horde of worthless gammas, all of whom had multiple, often contradictory, opinions, and none of whom were willing to lift a finger to actually do anything at all. I quit the project three weeks after being given responsibility for overseeing the development of the first demo game for the distro.

Despite being 21 years old, The Battle for Wesnoth is still the flagship for open source game development.

My theory is that those who are actually willing and able to successfully develop games are mostly already doing it on their own, as the thriving independent game scene demonstrates. That leaves a lot of people who very much like the idea of game development, but are more interested in the trappings than in actually dealing with the decidedly less-romantic reality of it. The same is true of those who want to be a writer more than they want to write anything; it was surprising to observe how many of the members of a much-accomplished Minnesota writers’ group of which I briefly was a guest never actually wrote anything at all. However, it’s important to keep in mind that one can’t actually know if one has the ability to do something new until one tries; volunteers must always be respected for being willing to try rather than criticized for an inability to do.

That being said, it’s still rather remarkable that the Arkhaven, SocialGalactic, and UATV teams have been able to accomplish bigger and more difficult tasks in less time than the various groups of game volunteers have. I have some ideas as to why, but nothing concrete enough to state an opinion on them.

So, if you want to know why we’re not planning to pursue anything in the game space beyond finishing the ALT-HERO RPG for the backers and possibly licensing various properties to other game companies, now you know why. I’m not blaming anyone but myself here; that experience with the Linux project was 14 years ago, and I should have reached the correct conclusions at the time.

This doesn’t mean I won’t do any game design, but in the future, I’ll do the development myself or we’ll hire a proven professional team to do it. And let’s face it, it’s not the worst thing to give up the Divine Right license, as this means we’ll own all the rights to whatever fantasy wargame I end up designing in the future.

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An Exclusive Look

Bounding Into Comics has an exclusive first look at the second Chuck Dixon’s Conan novel, CARAVAN OF THE DAMNED, including several illustrations and a draft of the paperback cover, which is not the image below.

In my opinion, both Dixon’s text and Ademir’s artwork are even better than in the first paperback. Note that the current paperback editions of THE SIEGE OF THE BLACK CITADEL now include Ademir’s illustrations and incorporate the typo-fixes identified in the first edition.

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We’re Number 20

I’m not sure exactly what these lists are supposed to represent, but according to Ron Unz and Similarweb, the popularity of this site has risen four spots, from number 24 to number 20, on his comparative list of 87 alternative media sites.

  1. ZeroHedge
  2. The Epoch Times
  3. National Review
  4. Daily Caller
  5. Infowars
  6. Daily Stormer
  7. Jacobin Magazine
  8. Reason Magazine
  9. The Unz Review
  10. LewRockwell
  11. Unherd
  12. Alternet
  13. Foreign Policy
  14. Moon of Alabama
  15. Conservative Treehouse
  16. Prager U
  17. Lifesite News
  18. The Daily Sceptic
  19. New Republic
  20. VoxDay

While the numbers upon which these rankings are based are an estimate piled on top of a guess added to a surmise, which is to say they are nearly entirely fictional, they are probably more legitimate than any numbers you see for the mainstream media. As Cerno and others have noted, even a massive headline article in a major magazine doesn’t move the needle by any objective metric, whereas a link from one of these sites is almost certain to sell a few books.

It would have been interesting to see where this blog ranked vis-a-vis the other sites before it was ejected from Blogger. As far as I can tell, pageviews dropped to one-quarter of what they were before, but I don’t trust either the Google or the WordPress numbers; other metrics appear to indicate that not much has changed in terms of the size of the community. Certainly there are more people on SG than before, but this blog is not the only conduit, so that’s probably not relevant. Regardless, we’re better off on our own servers.

The one thing that leaped out at me is the way in which many of the straight conservative sites such as American Conservative appear to be losing readers. This makes sense given the worse-than-uselessness of the conservative media and the Republican establishment. I expect next year’s list will be even harder on neocon sites like National Review and Prager U.

Speaking of writing, Castalia is about to publish the print edition of THE ALTAR OF HATE, my collection of non-Selenoth, non-QM short stories. If any established, published authors would be interested in having a look at the stories and writing a forward to it, please shoot me an email and I’ll get a draft epub out to you. I’m not looking for anything hagiographic, much less serious literary criticism, just the general perspective of an experienced and well-read fellow author capable of intelligently discussing the works for the benefit of the casual reader.

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Smarter Than You Think

At first, I thought this was just social justice nonsense gone too far. I mean, if a Dutchman can win Miss Holland, Elizabeth Warren can be an Indian, and Godfrey Elfwick can be a black man, then why can’t a goat identify as a rabbit? But then, it occurred to me that Snowflake knows perfectly well just what those books in the library are bound in, and it isn’t rabbitskin.

She knows what she’s doing. Clever little goat… I mean, rabbit.

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Last Chance at Landmark

A selection from The History of the Pelopponesian War by Thucydides, the Landmark edition of which is the first in the Castalia History series. From now until Friday, new subscribers will be subscribed from the first book, after which new subscriptions will begin with the second book in the History series, which will be announced on July 1st.

Due to the enthusiasm for the series, the print run for The Landmark Thucydides will be 500.

So bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression which it made was the greater as it was one of the first to occur. Later on, one may say, the whole Hellenic world was convulsed; struggles being every, where made by the popular chiefs to bring in the Athenians, and by the oligarchs to introduce the Lacedaemonians. In peace there would have been neither the pretext nor the wish to make such an invitation; but in war, with an alliance always at the command of either faction for the hurt of their adversaries and their own corresponding advantage, opportunities for bringing in the foreigner were never wanting to the revolutionary parties. The sufferings which revolution entailed upon the cities were many and terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur, as long as the nature of mankind remains the same; though in a severer or milder form, and varying in their symptoms, according to the variety of the particular cases. In peace and prosperity, states and individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough master, that brings most men’s characters to a level with their fortunes. Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the places which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been done before, carried to a still greater excess the refinement of their inventions, as manifested in the cunning of their enterprises and the atrocity of their reprisals. Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defence. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries. In fine, to forestall an intending criminal, or to suggest the idea of a crime where it was wanting, was equally commended until even blood became a weaker tie than party, from the superior readiness of those united by the latter to dare everything without reserve; for such associations had not in view the blessings derivable from established institutions but were formed by ambition for their overthrow; and the confidence of their members in each other rested less on any religious sanction than upon complicity in crime. The fair proposals of an adversary were met with jealous precautions by the stronger of the two, and not with a generous confidence. Revenge also was held of more account than self-preservation. Oaths of reconciliation, being only proffered on either side to meet an immediate difficulty, only held good so long as no other weapon was at hand; but when opportunity offered, he who first ventured to seize it and to take his enemy off his guard, thought this perfidious vengeance sweeter than an open one, since, considerations of safety apart, success by treachery won him the palm of superior intelligence. Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are as ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first. The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in contention. The leaders in the cities, each provided with the fairest professions, on the one side with the cry of political equality of the people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy, sought prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended to cherish, and, recoiling from no means in their struggles for ascendancy engaged in the direst excesses; in their acts of vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not stopping at what justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party caprice of the moment their only standard, and invoking with equal readiness the condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour. Thus religion was in honour with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation. Meanwhile the moderate part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not joining in the quarrel, or because envy would not suffer them to escape.

Thus every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries by reason of the troubles. The ancient simplicity into which honour so largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow. To put an end to this, there was neither promise to be depended upon, nor oath that could command respect; but all parties dwelling rather in their calculation upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of things, were more intent upon self-defence than capable of confidence. In this contest the blunter wits were most successful. Apprehensive of their own deficiencies and of the cleverness of their antagonists, they feared to be worsted in debate and to be surprised by the combinations of their more versatile opponents, and so at once boldly had recourse to action: while their adversaries, arrogantly thinking that they should know in time, and that it was unnecessary to secure by action what policy afforded, often fell victims to their want of precaution.

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The Logistics of Tolkien

An operational and logistical analysis of the Witch King’s attempt to storm Minas Tirith:

The goals here (operational objectives) of Sauron’s plan here absolutely check out. Minas Tirith contains most of Gondor’s military, and functionally all of its leadership and administration – its destruction could very well be war-ending. At the very least, control of Minas Tirith would open the rest of Gondor to raiding as well as enable Sauron to control the resource-rich Pelennor Fields. Delivering a powerful and effective siege (the operational objective) is very likely to lead to victory over Gondor and territorial control of it (the strategic objective). Now the question is Sauron’s plan to achieve that operational objective (we will talk about Gondor’s planning too – a little later in the series).

Now, as we’ve noted, operations are all about the problem of moving large armies. Late season Game of Thrones notwithstanding, armies do not generally teleport around the world, they have to march. That imposes all sorts of restrictions and costs on movement: where are the roads? Mountain passes? River Crossings? The terrain Sauron’s army must attack over is defined (as we’ll see) by a series of transport bottlenecks that have to be negotiated in order to deliver the siege. Then there is the issue of supplies – even orcs need to eat.

Logistics of the Army of Mordor
Looking at the logistics of moving the Army of Mordor to Minas Tirith is actually a great way to introduce some of these problems in more depth. They say ‘amateurs talk tactics, but professionals study logistics.’ Well, pull up a chair at the Grown-Ups Table, and let’s study some logistics.

The army Sauron sends against Minas Tirith is absolutely vast – an army so vast that it cannot fit its entire force in the available frontage, so the army ends up stacking up in front of the city: The books are vague on the total size of the orcish host (but we’ll come back to this), but interview material for the movies suggests that Peter Jackson’s CGI team assumed around 200,000 orcs. This army has to exit Minas Morgul – apparently as a single group – and then follow the road to the crossing at Osgiliath. Is this operational plan reasonable, from a transit perspective?

In a word: no. It’s not hard to run the math as to why. Looking at the image at the head of the previous section, we can see that the road the orcs are on allows them to march five abreast, meaning there are 40,000 such rows (plus additional space for trolls, etc). Giving each orc four feet of space on the march (a fairly conservative figure), that would mean the army alone stretches 30 miles down a single road. At that length, the tail end of the army would not even be able to leave camp before the front of the army had finished marching for the day. For comparison, an army doing a ‘forced march’ (marching at rapid speed under limited load – and often taking heat or fatigue casualties to do it) might manage 20 to 30 miles per day. Infantry on foot is more likely to average around 10 miles per day on decent roads.

Ideally, the solution to this problem is to split the army up. By moving in multiple columns and converging on the battlespace, you split one impossibly long column of troops into several more manageable ones. There is a danger here – the enemy might try to overwhelm each smaller army in turn – but Faramir has had to pull his troops back out of Ithilien, so there is little risk of defeat in detail for the Army of Mordor. The larger problem is terrain – we’ve seen Ithilien in this film and the previous one: it is heavily forested, with few roads. What roads exist are overgrown and difficult to use. Worse yet, the primary route through the area is not an east-west road, but the North-South route up from Near Harad to the Black Gate. The infrastructure here to split the army effectively simply doesn’t exist.

This actually understates the problem, because the army of Morder also needs supplies in order to conduct the siege. Orcs seem to be able to make do with very poor water supplies (Frodo and Sam comment on the foulness of Mordor water), so we can assume they use local water along the march, but that still leaves food. Ithilien (the territory they are marching through), as we have seen in the film, is unpopulated – the army can expect no fresh supplies here (or in the Pelennor beyond, for reasons we’ll discuss shortly). That is going to mean a baggage train to carry additional supplies, as well as materials for the construction of all of the fancy siege equipment (we, in fact, later see them bringing the towers pre-built – we’ll get to it). This would lengthen the army train even more.

All of that raises a second point – from a supply perspective, can this operation work? Here, the answer is, perhaps surprisingly, yes. Minas Morgul is 20 leagues (around 60 miles) from Minas Tirith. An infantryman might carry around (very roughly) 10 days or so of rations on his person, which is enough to move around 120 miles (these figures derive from K. Chase, Firearms: A Global History to 1700 (2003) – well worth a read! – but are broadly applicable to almost any army before the invention of the railroad). The army is bound to be held up a bit along the way, so the Witch King would want to bring some wagons with additional supplies, but as a matter of supply, this works. The problem is transit.

As a side note, the supply issue neatly explains the aggressive tactics the Witch king employs when he arrives at Minas Tirith, moving immediately for an assault rather than a siege. Because the pack animals which pull wagons full of food eat food themselves, there is literally no amount of wagons which would enable an army of this size to sustain itself indefinitely in a long siege. The Witch King is thus constrained by his operational plan: the raw size of his army means he must either take the city in an assault quickly enough to march most of his army back, or fail. He proceeds with the appropriate sense of urgency.

That said, the distances here are short: 60 miles is a believable distance for an army to make an unsupported ‘lunge’ out of its logistics network. One cannot help but notice the Stark (hah!) contrast with the multi-hundred-mile supply-free lunges in the TV version of Game of Thrones, which are far less plausible.

I’d like to think that the logistics of Selenoth work out well, but I’ll have to leave that for others to decide. Regardless, it’s a much more interesting take on Tolkien than most, as far as I’m concerned. And the analyst is right, it’s not a siege of the city so much as an attempt to storm its walls.

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Amazon in Decline

It’s not just Dem Rangz. Amazon’s other businesses are also in decline:

Here’s the big thing, Amazon is currently in retraction. This a company that bought everything on the internet it could get its tentacles on because they had all the money, and didn’t know what to spend it on, so they went with the Bezos default of, “Just throw some shit at the wall and measure what sticks.”

Those days are now over. The subsidiaries that were “loss leaders” were tolerable in the days of mega-money income for tax purposes but not anymore.

I had a conversation with a European publisher the other day. Their book sales are down 40 percent from 2021. This is remarkable because book sales usually increase during recessions, as it’s one of the most cost-effective forms of entertainment outside of video games that provide hundreds of hours of playtime. They put much of it down to Amazon, on whom they’d placed their bet for both ebooks and print editions, but Amazon’s A9 algorithm has pretty much destroyed the “bookstore” angle and replaced it with “these are the books the SJWs at Amazon think you should read.”

So, not only is it harder for readers to find the authors and publishers of interest to them, they’re being actively dissuaded from shopping on the site.

This is the inevitable outcome of the centralization of book publishing. Convenience kills.

Fortunately, Castalia saw this coming, which is why we’re building up our direct sales model in the aftermath of the Aerio shutdown. Based on the success of our recent experiments, we also anticipate adding a third leatherbound subscription later this year, albeit a low-cost one for pulp novels and comics designed to appeal to those who have not hitherto had any interest in collecting high-end books.

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The Bindery is Installed

If posting and streaming are light and I’m generally unresponsive this week, don’t be surprised. Today marked the completion of the Castalia Bindery installation, which means that all of the machines we require, and more, are now physically present inside the bindery space.

This is a more significant development than it might seem, since today was a major operation that, in the case of one machine, required two forklifts, two ramps, eight men, and the partial disassembly of the machine concerned. It took three hours, and we faced challenges that ranged from missed trains to a rented forklift that was DOA, but there were no accidents or incidents, and by the time we knocked off around 7 PM, the big machine was fully reassembled inside the building.

Tomorrow, all the machines will be tested, connected to the compressed air system, and the training will begin in earnest. We’re not live yet, but we are on the verge of getting there.

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Officially Outdated

If you’re still not sure it’s worthwhile to subscribe to Castalia Library and/or History, or if you’re still not convinced that the literature you treasure is actually being targeted for eradication by the Zero History crowd, consider the way in which the funniest writer in the English language, PG Woodhouse, is already being bowlderized:

Publishers have issued the works of PG Wodehouse with a blanket trigger warning over concerns that it contains ‘outdated’ social attitudes.

Novels including Leave it to PSmith and Something Fresh have both been reissued by their publisher, Penguin, with a caution, despite the fact that neither have been flagged for potentially offensive or contain racist terminonlogy.

All news editions of Wodehouse’s work will come with warnings saying that his novels depict obsolete attitudes, the Telegraph reported.

The trigger warning issued by Penguin read: ‘Please be aware that this book was published in the 1920s and may contain language, themes, or characterisations which you may find outdated.’

The move comes after publishers rewrote Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster books to remove ‘unacceptable’ prose, in April.

This is why we are actively looking into a variety of ways to preserve the Western literary canon, both physically and digitally.

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Monday Arktoons

SILENZIOSA Episode 34: Midnight Confrontation

GORGO Episode 16: ‘Nothin’ But Minnows’

TREASURY OF TALES Episode 5: The Little Red Hen

RIOT TOWN, USA Episode 21: Public Service Announcement

A MIND PROGRAMMED Episode 22: House Dai Zhan

GIVE MY REGARDS TO BLACK JACK Episode 6: The Beginning of Reality

Now that we’re approaching 100 episodes of Hypergamouse, the question is whether Arkhaven kickstarts various editions or just publishes a normal cartoon paperback ala Garfield and The Far Side. Feel free to express your opinion, but note that unlike most cartoon paperbacks, it will be in color either way.

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