Tag: Castalia House

Why Western troops can’t win

Martin van Creveld, the author of The Transformation of War, Technology and War, and the newly published Castalia House books A History of Strategy: From Sun Tzu to William S. Lind and Equality: The Impossible Quest, explains how the technological transformation of war has ruined the effectiveness of modern Western militiaries despite their massive technological advantages over their opponents. From his essay entitled “Pussycats”:

For several decades now, Western armed forces—which keep preening themselves as the best-trained, best organized, best equipped best led, in history—have been turned into pussycats. Being pussycats, they went from one defeat to the next. True, in 1999 they did succeed in imposing their will on Serbia. But only because the opponent was a small, weak state (at the time, the Serb armed forces, exhausted by a prolonged civil war, were rated 35th in the world); and even then only because that state was practically defenseless in the air. The same applies to Libya in 2011. Over there, indigenous bands on the ground did most of the fighting and took all the casualties. In both cases, when it came to engaging in ground combat, man against man, the West, with the U.S at its head, simply did not have what it takes.

On other occasions things were worse still. Western armies tried to create order in Somalia and were kicked out by the “Skinnies,” as they called their lean but mean opponents. They tried to beat the Taliban in Afghanistan, and were kicked out. They tried to impose democracy (and get their hands on oil) in Iraq, and ended up leaving with their tails between their legs. The cost of these foolish adventures to the U.S alone is said to have been around 1 trillion—1,000,000,000,000—dollars. With one defeat following another, is it any wonder that, when those forces were called upon to put an end to the civil war in Syria, they and the societies they serve preferred to let the atrocities go on?

By far the most important single reason behind the repeated failures is the fact that, one and all, these were luxury wars. With nuclear weapons deterring large-scale attack, for seven decades now no Western country has waged anything like a serious, let alone existential, struggle against a more or less equal opponent. As the troops took on opponents much weaker than themselves—often in places they had never heard about, often for reasons nobody but a few politicians understood—they saw no reason why they should get themselves killed. Given the circumstances, indeed, doing so would have been the height of stupidity on their part. Yet from the time the Persians at Marathon in 490 B.C were defeated by the outnumbered Greeks right down to the present, troops whose primary concern is not to get themselves killed have never be able to fight, let alone win.

Thanks to many of you, A History of Strategy: From Sun Tzu to William S. Lind is the #1 bestseller in History>Military>Strategy. The reviews are excellent; even the single 3-star review concludes: “Belongs of the shelf of every person who is interested in the theory and practice of warfare.” 

Another review says: “A History of Strategy: From Sun Tzu to William S. Lind earned five stars from me for being so readable and packed with content, despite being so brief. This is the first book of Martin van Creveld’s I have read and I look forward to delving into his catalog. In addition to being a good read, Martin van Creveld’s svelte A History of Strategy: From Sun Tzu to William S. Lind is a wonderful way for those not well read in military strategy to begin their self-directed study. Martin van Creveld discusses all the notable war theoretician authors more or less in accord with their significance as well as some of the war artisan authors. Creveld also provides a “Further Readings” section to aid those so inclined. Given the limitations imposed on him (low page count) Creveld does a fine job covering the material.”

I’m in the middle of reading van Creveld’s Technology and War myself, and I can say with confidence that the reviewer will find delving into that catalog more than worthwhile. As for the “Pussycats” essay, the observation by a military historian should cause some serious strategic rethinking on the part of those who insist on repeatedly sending unmotivated troops unsupported by popular enthusiasm into unwinnable military conflicts. It won’t, but it should.

“A necessary supplement to Clausewitz”

A HISTORY OF STRATEGY: From Sun Tzu to William S. Lind

Martin van Creveld ranks high among military historians, and given the changes in technology since Napoleonic times, his work is a necessary supplement to Clausewitz. His reflections have influenced strategists and grand tacticians since his first books appeared, and as an Israeli historian, he has been in a unique position to observe the changing nature of modern warfare on both the grand strategic and tactical levels, particularly with regards to asymmetric warfare. Scholars and military planners ignore his thoughts at their peril.
 
I don’t entirely agree with him on the effectiveness of guerilla operations absent a sanctuary, or with his conclusions concerning Viet Nam, which I consider to be a victory won, then given up. And while the Iraq War was certainly unwise, I don’t believe that it was necessarily unwinnable, as the U.S. military was given an impossible mission, then undermined by political errors made above their pay grade. That being said, if winning is defined as a nation being better off after the war than it was before, it is hard to see how winning in Iraq was ever possible. So perhaps we agree after all.
 
But whatever your position on modern conflicts might be, Martin van Creveld’s writings are worth reading and they are vital to reaching informed conclusions about the art of war.

Jerry Pournelle
Studio City, California

Castalia House has published a lot of books over the last twelve months. I’m proud of those books and I believe all of them are worth reading by at least one specific group of readers or another. But most books, even the excellent ones, are not what I consider to be absolute must-reads by everyone of sufficient intellect to comprehend them. Such books are very few and far between; the last one we published that I personally felt this strongly about was AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND by John C. Wright.

I feel much the same way about A HISTORY OF STRATEGY: From Sun Tzu to William S. Lind by Martin van Creveld, although for very different reasons. Most of you are aware that I am very well-read in strategic matters. I read Caesar and Mahan and Oman for entertainment, I rely heavily upon Frontinus, and to a lesser extent, Onasander and Vegetius, in my fiction, and I am no stranger to the great works of military strategy and tactics from the ancients to the moderns.

And yet, in A HISTORY OF STRATEGY, van Creveld not infrequently cited military thinkers of whom I’d never even heard before, let alone read. This is not a history of war, but a history of thinking about war, and it is arguably one of the most masterful summaries of a single millennia-spanning train of thought ever written. It’s not long, it’s not deep, and it’s not hard to follow, but it is an education in 116 pages. Read this and you will be better-informed on the subject of war than 99.99 percent of the human race.

Better still, you will be in a position to dive deeper into any one of a hundred areas and to understand where you are diving as well as the historical significance of that area. Van Creveld begins at the beginning, with the ancient Chinese, and proceeds methodically through time, crediting each cognitive breakthrough to its author before explaining its significance as well as its consequences.

I highly recommend this book, especially to parents who are homeschooling teenage boys. Featuring the foreword by Dr. Jerry Pournelle quoted above, it is available for $4.99 at Castalia House in both EPUB and Kindle formats and at Amazon.

Equality: a review

Henry Dampier reviews Equality: The Impossible Quest by Martin van Creveld:

Throughout history, ‘equality’ has tended to mean different things, and it usually only pertained to certain situations or within certain groups. The most powerful argument that he makes is towards the end of the book, in which he points out that equality is an essential concept in military life, but that it isn’t generally sustainable outside that context. Members of a military unit of similar ranks must be somewhat equal — else the army loses coherence. It can’t hold a formation in reality, or be conceived of in a useful way by officers, if there is no attempt to make those men more equal.

van Creveld: Without equality, cohesion is inconceivable. Cohesion, the ability to stick together and stay together through thick and thin, is the most important quality any military formation must have. Without it such a formation is but a loose gathering of men, incapable of coordinated action and easily scattered, and of little or no military use. In all well-organized armies at all times and places, the first step towards cohesion has always been to put everyone on an equal basis. Often the process starts when all new recruits are given the same haircut. Beards may have to be taken off, moustaches trimmed, piercings and jewelry discarded.

This is the proper understanding of equality: equality of rank within a hierarchy. It has a limited conceptual and practical utility that becomes wasted when thinkers apply the concept beyond its carrying capacity, so to speak.

I thought this was a perceptive review. The important thing to remember when reading the book is that van Creveld is a scholar, not an ideologue or a polemicist. While he doesn’t hide his personal opinions, he also doesn’t place any particular weight on them in comparison with the historical facts and concepts that he delves into and describes.

Interview with Martin van Creveld

Daniel Eness interviewed Dr. Martin van Creveld, the author of the newly published Equality: The Impossible Quest, at Castalia:

Q: Do you think that some of the contradictions regarding equality in the U.S. Constitution made the document a more stable guide for a new society, or do you see similar contradictions in Rousseau’s influence on the French Revolution?

MvC: Any attempt to institute equality, of any kind, is bound to result in restrictions on freedom. Personally I think that the U.S Constitution did a credible job in balancing between the two (and, of course, justice). Not so Rousseau who, in his quest for equality, went much too far. Not for nothing did my teacher, Jacob Talmon, see him as the father of “totalitarian democracy.” More problematic still, with him equality is the product of, and requires, constant plebiscites about everything. Given the technical means of the age—there was no Net—such a system implied a very small polity indeed. Against the fiscal-military states of the time it simply stood no chance.

Q: You argue that social equality is not a necessary outcome of economic or legal equality. Can social equality be achieved? Should it?

MvC: The only way to achieve equality is to restrict, or even do away with, liberty. Along with liberty justice and the quest for truth—namely the right to think, believe, say and write that equality is not the supreme good—will also disappear. With political correctness reigning as hard as it does, in many places that is already the case. Just try and say that women, or homosexuals, are and should not be equal in this or that way, and you will see what I mean. So I would argue that equality is a dream, and not even a beautiful one.

Q: What are the sexual and property impacts of organized equality in communal bodies?

MvC: It would differ from one type of community to the next, so let me focus on the kind of community, the Israeli kibbutzim, I know best. The kibbutzim were famous for having no private property. Everybody had his or her meals in the communal dining room and his other needs from the machsan, or magazine. Couples lived in “rooms” Children grew up not with their parents but in their own houses. A few specialists apart, people took turns at doing all kinds of jobs. Decisions were taken by the kibbutz assembly in which everybody had one vote. It elected the secretary-general and also set up special committees for such things as education, culture, etc.

For some two generations, it did not work badly at all. The fact that kibbutzniks saw themselves, and were seen by the rest of Israeli society, as an elite helped. What brought the system down was the women. First, they were unhappy with the endless routine of communal kitchen/communal laundry/communal child houses. Starting in the 1970s, they started taking on paid work outside the kibbutz. Next, they wanted their children back home with them. Families with children at home needed better houses, more appliances, and so on. Gradually the place of the communal dining room as the center of kibbutz life was taken by the home. Once that happened private property re-emerged and the kibbutzim started falling apart.

Read the rest of the interview there. And if you’re interested in the book, you can find it on Amazon as well as at Castalia House.

Equality: The Impossible Quest

We are very pleased to be able to announce the publication of an intellectual tour de force by the world-renowned military historian Martin van Creveld, entitled Equality: The Impossible Quest. Although this is a serious, scholastic history, it is a fascinating read that delves deep into the history of an important, but almost completely unexamined philosophical concept. Featuring a cover designed by Christopher Kallini, it is 282 pages and is now available at Amazon as well as in both EPUB and MOBI formats at Castalia House.

Despite being one of the three most important political concepts of the
modern age, unlike Justice and Liberty, Equality has seldom been
examined from an intellectual perspective. What does it mean to be
equal? What is being specifically demanded when calls for equality are
made? Is inequality justified when the objective is to make up for past
inequalities? Which inequalities are unacceptable and require government
intervention, and which are acceptable and therefore do not merit any
action? Where did the idea that equality was a desirable state come from
in the first place? These, and other questions, are addressed in deeply
researched detail by Martin van Creveld, the well-known military
historian and theorist, in Equality: The Impossible Quest.

The book begins with a search for signs of equality throughout the animal kingdom as well as in the primitive historical societies that never heard of the concept. Next, van Creveld
traces the development of the idea and its implementation in various
societies throughout history. This include ancient Greek equality as
realized in Athens and Sparta, monastic equality in both East and
West, social revolts aimed at establishing equality, utopian
equality, liberal equality of the American and French Revolutionary
varieties, socialist, communist and kibbutz equalities, Nazi
equality, the equality of women and minorities, and biological
equality through medical and genetic science. The last chapter deals
with the greatest equalizer of all, death.

This
survey of the history of equality demonstrates that the vast
majority of human societies have not only survived, but thrived
without equality. And it appears that despite its popular appeal, if
carried too far, equality will present a threat to justice, liberty,
and even truth. More problematic still is the observable fact that
the various versions of equality tend to be contradictory. For every
form of equality achieved, another must often be sacrificed. That is
why the attempt to establish it on a lasting basis has, in every
previous instance, proven ephemeral.

Dr. Martin van Creveld, Professor Emeritus of the Hebrew
University, Jerusalem, is one of the world’s leading writers on military
history and strategy. He
is fluent in Hebrew, German, Dutch, and English, and has authored more
than twenty books, including Fighting Power: German and U.S. Army Performance, 1939-1945 (1982), The Transformation of War (1991), and Wargames: From Gladiators to Gigabytes
(2013). He is known for his development of the concept of
“nontrinitarian” warfare and two of his books are among the seven considered to make up the 4th Generation Warfare canon as defined by William S. Lind.

A taste of things to come

John Wright is pleased with Jeremiah’s artwork for the first volume in his Unwithering Realm series, Somewhither, which will be coming out in April. And if you’re interested in supporting an esoteric, but worthwhile project, Castalia House blogger Ken Burnside and Ad Astra game developer needs just $2k more in order to fund his AVID Assistant via Kickstarter.

Speaking of Castalia, we’ll have a new offer going out to the New Release Subscribers next week, but for various reasons I’m not going to bother going into, we will be releasing not just one, but TWO new books the week after that. I’d like to find 10 volunteers to review both of them, so if you’ve got the interest and the intellectual chops to handle either Equality: The Impossible Quest or The Art of War: The History of Military Strategy, both by Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld, email me with EQUALITY or WAR in the subject. UPDATE: have all 10 for both books, thank you.

The former is conceived as the third in a conceptual trilogy with Plato’s work on Justice and J.S. Mill’s work on Liberty, whereas the latter features a foreword by none other than Dr. Jerry Pournelle himself, who describes van Creveld’s work as “a necessary supplement to Clausewitz.” It’s a short, but as you can probably imagine from that description, brilliant history, and anyone who has appreciated Mr. Lind’s work is going to find it fascinating and educational. Thanks to Chris Kallini, who did both of the van Creveld covers.

They can hear you

In space, the demons can hear you scream.  

Hyperspace Demons is a novella from our newest author, and it is one you’ll want to check out if you’re a science fiction fan. From the reviews:

Mixed in with hyperspace and spaceships is the interesting concept of “hyperspace microbes” that can possess a human mind, driving the person insane. These microbes are kept out of the spaceship by a special shield, so there shouldn’t be any problems, right? That’s where the plot pulls off some unexpected twists and turns, making for a fun read. Moeller keeps up the pace all the way to the end. Amazingly, for a novella there is much more that could be said, but I fear explaining anymore will reveal too much.

The story grabs you, and you don’t want to put it down until it is over.
Once the action begins, it builds and builds without letup until the
very end. I can’t think of any higher praise than: When I was done, I
wished it was longer, because I was enjoying it so much. 

In other Castalia House news, I’m pleased to be able to announce that we will be publishing a second book by Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld this year. In addition to Equality: The Impossible Quest, we will be publishing The Art of War: A History of Military Strategy.

Hyperspace Demons

In space, the demons can hear you scream.

Space travel has always come with risks. But hyperspace travel comes with one particularly frightening hazard, namely, the non-corporeal dark energy-based macrobiotic entities that inhabit the void and are insensibly drawn to the presence of human minds. Once penetrated by a macrobe, the infected human mind rapidly devolves into raving insanity, which usually presents in a homicidal manner. Fortunately, hyperspace-capable ships are protected by a dark energy resonator that keeps the macrobes away and thereby permits safe interstellar travel.

But what happens when a ship’s resonator is sabotaged while it is traveling through hyperspace? And who would be so insane as to unleash a demonic infection of mutating madness on an entire ship’s crew?

Hyperspace Demons is a novella by Jonathan Moeller, one of the most prolific self-published authors of science fiction and fantasy today. Featuring a cover by JartStar, Hyperspace Demons is his first publication with Castalia House. And in respect of Anonymous Conservative’s newly announced free days (about which more after the jump), we’re extending the New Release newsletter offer for two more days, which means that if you buy Hyperspace Demons from Castalia House today or tomorrow, you will also receive a free copy of Jonathan’s Frostborn: The Gray Knight. If you would like to sign up for the New Release newsletter to take advantage of similar offers in the future, you can do so here.

I’m also looking for ten volunteers to review Hyperspace Demons. If you’re interested, please email me with HYPER in the subject and specify MOBI or EPUB.

Now about those free books. Anonymous Conservative writes:

For those interested, The Evolutionary Psychology Behind Politics,
How to Deal with Narcissists, and The Altar of Hate by Vox Day will all
be free in ebook form at Castalia House on Monday and Tuesday.  The Altar of Hate is a compilation of ten great stories ranging from fantasy to military fcience fiction. As one reviewer wrote, “Each
offering contained in The Altar of Hate tickles or provokes the mind
with salacious ‘what ifs’ and glances behind the veil of reality. The
stories move along, but one feels the uneasy eyes of the abyss staring
back as you progress, as it were, through a darkened ancient forest.
Only an author of the first rank could achieve this.” While I don’t have that big of a readership compared to Vox, I’m
hoping those here who haven’t yet stopped by Castalia’s website and
partaken of their incredible titles will maybe find a great new source
for all their high quality
sci-fi/fantasy/military-theory/educational/non-fiction needs, and in so
doing help establish our foothold on this great new beachhead in the
publishing world. If we can get Castalia to the point it is the new
Simon and Schuster, we will have helped alter the very terrain on which
our future battles will be fought. It is an exciting time in Conservatism. The theories beneath
political science are shifting, the cultural tides in publishing are
changing, and maybe the very natures of our citizens are becoming more
K-selected. It feels like we are approaching a turning point rapidly,
and just at the right time. Until the turning point comes, take some free books, then tell your
friends about r/K, and rave to your friends about how awesome Castalia House is. We are making a difference with every person we tell.

In other words, if you buy Hyperspace Demons today, you can pick up as many as four free books for $2.99. Not a bad deal. And speaking of “how awesome Castalia House is”, if you have any interest in fantasy and science fiction and haven’t already bookmarked the Castalia House blog, you are really missing out on some excellent and intelligent content. One of our newest bloggers, Morgan, is rapidly demonstrating that he’s capable of hanging with Jeffro, Daniel, and Scooter with his detailed anthology reviews; you’ll want to read his post on The Sword & Sorcery Anthology, with an introduction by David Drake, complete with a comment by David Drake himself:

A couple of years back, if you searched for Tachyon Publications’ The Secret History of Fantasy on Google Books, this is what would come up:

“Tired of the same old fantasy? Here are nineteen much-needed antidotes to cliched tales of swords and sorcery. Fantasy is back, and it’s better than ever!”

The lure of filthy lucre must have proven to be too much as Tachyon published The Sword & Sorcery Anthology in 2012…. The 1970s entries are dependable. Karl Edward Wagner’s “Undertow” is
one of the most memorable Kane stories. The Ramsey Campbell story has
never been reprinted to my knowledge.

Some of the seven post 1980 stories get dodgy. There was sword and sorcery in the 1980s in Fantasy Book and Space & Time. The 1990s were lean and grim but still you had Shadow Sword and Adventures in Sword and Sorcery. The editors did no deep excavation.

I never thought of Jane Yolen as a sword and sorcery writer. I used to read her stories in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
decades back and liked them. Her story is good if not a bit clichéd.
Does anyone find it disturbing there was an anthology entitled Warrior Princesses? That is where “Become a Warrior” originally appeared.

Two stories are from Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress
anthologies. My view is Bradley’s anthology series quickly created a
new category that can be called femizon fantasy that is distinct from
sword and sorcery. The Charles Saunders story was a highlight of the
original Sword and Sorceress and the highlight of the chronological later stories. Why was Rachel Pollack’s “The Red Guild” included (Sword and Sorceress #2)? You can stamp generic femizon story on this one.

There will be war

Back in March, about a month after we launched Castalia, I contacted Jerry Pournelle with the idea of reviving his great military science fiction anthology series, THERE WILL BE WAR. He was entirely open to the idea, but he was busy and quite naturally had a lot of more important things to do than be pestered by an insignificant publisher who at the time published a single novella by Tom Kratman.

So, I gave up on the notion, contacted Tom, and we put together RIDING THE RED HORSE instead. That went rather well, as you know, and Dr. Pournelle became sufficiently interested in the project to graciously contribute two pieces to it, one fiction and one non-fiction. I was rather pleasantly surprised when, after he received a copy and had the chance to read a few reviews, he asked if I might be interested in having Castalia re-release the nine volumes of THERE WILL BE WAR in ebook format.

You can probably imagine that it didn’t take me long to indicate that, yes, we might be willing to contemplate the notion. I daresay we contemplated and cogitated at least a nanosecond or two. The result of all this cogitation was the suggestion that with war looming on nearly every horizon, it might be the right time to consider reviving THERE WILL BE WAR as an anthology series, since it had lain dormant since the end of the Cold War. Dr. Pournelle concurred, which made the timing of this Amazon review of RIDING THE RED HORSE more than a little ironic:

Should be called “There Will Be War Volume 10”, February 2, 2015
By Chris Gerrib “Author, Pirates of Mars”

Generally a very solid work, modeled after the old “There Will Be War” military SF anthologies. The difference is that there is a mixture of non-fiction and fiction in this work. I don’t agree with some of the ideas presented (others I do) but everything is thought-provoking and well-written.

On the full disclosure front, Jerry Pournelle’s contribution is “His Truth Goes Marching On” which is a classic but has been reprinted seemingly everywhere. Having said that, it’s probably Pournelle’s best short work. All in all, well worth the time and money.

I say ironic because on that very day, Dr. Pournelle agreed to revive the series with Castalia House, beginning with THERE WILL BE WAR Volume X. The two anthology series will remain entirely separate, as RIDING THE RED HORSE will consist of entirely new material while THERE WILL BE WAR, as before, will primarily consist of high-quality reprints. Tom Kratman and I will continue to edit RIDING THE RED HORSE, while Dr. Pournelle will edit THERE WILL BE WAR.

There have been a lot of military science fiction stories published since Volume IX appeared in 1989. We’re going to want to identify and feature the very best of them in Volume X, so if you happen to have any suggestions in this regard, or believe that you happen to have written one of them, please don’t hesitate to bring them to my attention.

As for the original nine volumes, we intend to release them in individual ebooks and as a set of three three-volume hardcover omnibuses, beginning later this year.

The future of SF

“Science Fiction for the Fourth Generation”: Ann Sterzinger reviews Riding the Red Horse in Taki’s Magazine:

Here’s a brilliant idea for an anthology: collect essays about the changing face of war and war technology, then alternate them with short stories and novel excerpts from the cutting edge of military-focused sci-fi and fantasy.

Riding the Red Horse, edited by fantasy star Vox Day and Army Ranger vet Tom Kratman for Castalia House, is a tailor-made compromise for those time-pressed souls who find the consumption of unalloyed fiction to be too useless a practice in which to indulge. It’s also a treat for sci-fi readers who retain an interest in the world around them—and the two groups’ overlap is large enough to make it a very good idea indeed.

Every tale or essay is fronted by an editor’s introduction, placed conveniently before each piece rather than in some tedious index or intro; they perk up the reader’s ears for the key factual and speculative themes of the collection.

Essays are fully half the mix, with the fiction serving as not only pleasure reading but as exercises in imagining how the technological and population changes the essayists describe might play out in the future. The tone is set early on by William S. Lind’s discussion of the four generations of modern war strategy, in “Understanding 4th Generation War.”

Lind’s unsettling conclusion is that the U.S. military is stuck in the second-generation mindset used by the French in World War I, while our adversaries—particularly those who aren’t based in a state, i.e. the jihad—have moved on to an updated version of pre-nation-state warfare, where neither the battlefield nor the combatants are clearly defined. Lind writes: 

We have no magic solutions to offer, only some thoughts. We recognized from the outset that the whole task might be hopeless; state militaries might not be able to come to grips with Fourth Generation enemies no matter what they do. …

“Wherever people go, conflict seems to follow, and one always prefers to be on the winning side—so we might as well be ready for the physics problems we’ll encounter if the conflicts move into outer space.”

His essay is preceded by a dramatic fictional illustration of the unpredictability of the near future of war, albeit a state-based one: Eric S. Raymond’s “Sucker Punch,” a near-future military tale in which an American attempt to stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is rendered both impossible and unnecessary by the gruesome new weapons both sides have in store for each other.

The American pilots’ disorientation is so stark as to be almost darkly humorous: 

“Hey. What are those flashes from the tin cans?”

Blazer: “Cool off. We’re stealthed, and radar’s clear. They’ve got nothing in the air that can hit us at angels twenty.”

Blazer’s plane disintegrated less than three seconds later.

 This is what future sci-fi is going to look like, this collection predicts: as nervous as its past, with future-tech tactical guesses mixed into the drama. (Although if you prefer your sci-fi laced with humor, the winner in the anthology is longtime Navy fleet veteran Thomas Mays’ “Within This Horizon”—with Rzasa’s solo contribution, “Turncoat,” as an oddly touching runner-up.)

This focus on military realism doesn’t surprise me in a Vox Day-branded anthology. What makes A Throne of Bones, the fantasy series that gave Day his name, outstanding is the weakness of his magician characters—which makes his military generals work harder, which is more interesting to read than the standard Robert Jordan-type fantasy plot wherein Rand Al-Thor points at your army and it disappears. The authors in this anthology are reclaiming the same logic for sci-fi; instead of seeing the limitations of physics as an inconvenience to be juked around, they turn them into the driving power of their story lines.

The stories and essays talk back to each other in this manner
constantly; regardless of whether their predictions will be accurate—my
own military and technological knowledge is too poor to place any
bets—they result in a conversation so entertaining and stimulating that
the reader feels most privileged to listen in, especially for an entry
fee of five dollars.

Riding the Red Horse hasn’t been what one would call extensively reviewed in the SF press, but you know, I think we can live with that. This is just an excerpt from a fairly long and detailed review, so you’ll want to read the whole thing.

UPDATE: We were just informed that one of our authors has been nominated for the 2015 Prometheus Award. Go to the Castalia House blog to find out who it is!