Guerrilla Warfare

This book - well, closer to a textbook really - by Ernesto Che Guevara, is the book about how to do guerrilla warfare. I mean, it's in the title. And its credentials are borne out by the reputation of its author, I would hope. Unlike the last book I read about how to do war well, this one is less full of mystical apothegms and more full of profoundly practical advice - stuff along the lines of:

• How to build a windproof bivouac shield for a campfire: here's a diagram
• Ideal places to take cover in an open bushy field
• Ideal places to take cover in a wooded hillside
• Ideal places for fireteams to cover each other moving through town streets
• Make sure you're kind to the local peasants; never steal from them, always pay them back for food and shelter when you can - and obviously never sexually abuse them or we will execute you as a traitor to the revolution
• Ensure you are familiar with revolutionary dogma in simple language so you can share it with any disenchanted locals we might befriend
• Steal every single bit of ammo from every single enemy that we kill, they have more of it than us
• Don't try and fight that tank you moron
• See that dug-in bunker? This (see diagram) is the angle you need to throw a grenade
• Develop simplistic hand-signals for silent communications when on covert action
• If you're a sniper move after every shot - obviously
• A disarmed and disoriented enemy is better for us than a dead enemy if we're behind their lines
• Get used to sleeping in mad, horrible places
• Keep moving
• Keep believing
• Keep your shoes empty, there are spiders
• Etc

   All sounds rather helpful if you're a minority force trying to overthrow an incumbent government, doesn't it? I will admit I currently have no violent revolutionary intentions - I was reading this to see if I could metaphorically derive any sociocultural tactics for making my spoken-word night (which is literally called Guerrilla) more impactful and authentic. Which is probably one of the faffiest reasons for reading this book anyone's ever had. But I still enjoyed it and learned a lot, and feel a tad more prepared if I ever do need to take up arms against the Tories some day. Which, you never know. But seriously - my list above may have taken a bit of a light-hearted slant towards the end, but I can't summate all the practical wisdom contained in this book in one blogpost - even though it's a short book, Che packs a lot in. As you would expect, from someone who took over Cuba with nothing but two notepads and an AK47.

the Prehistory of the Far Side

This book by Gary Larson is a highly interesting account of how he came to be one of the most highly-respectly and widely-syndicated comic artists of the late 20th-century (see for proof, the books of respective galleries one, two, three and four - as example).

   The first third of the book is a fairly sketchy but endearing autobiography of how Gary grew up with a fascination for nature, all its oddness and darkness; while also having a fairly odd and dark sense of humour - and naturally these things came together. He includes a few scans of drawings he did as a kid, several of which are fairly horrifyingly graphic - but you can see where the roots of the comic he become famous for came from. It's illuminating to say the least.

   The second third of the book is a dryer and more methodical walkthrough of his efforts to get published, then syndicated, then bigger - and so on. This sheds a great deal of insight into what exactly late-20th-century comic publishers were expecting from their artistic contributors and what they weren't, and it does largely seem that whatever Gary Larson was, they weren't expecting and didn't really want.* It took him a while to find his feet in the industry, and even when he did, the people managing his strips for the syndicates often didn't even understand the comics he was sending them - to the point that, if he sent in a batch of comics for a weeks' worth of newspapers, sometimes they would even mix-match captions between one or the other strip without even noticing, and often with no reader complaints that they "didn't get it" either. Gary Larson's style was simply that weird that people just took it as a given if it made close to zero sense. Though the dryest part of the book, I enjoyed this bit the most. It gives a great light into the inner and outer struggles of a cartoonist trying to get recognised and then successful; and with an honesty and humour throughout, never a bitterness.

   The final third is a compilation of Gary's favourite strips from his tenure, though most of these have already been featured in the galleries linked in the first paragraph. Anyway, if you not only have decided that you like The Far Side as a comic but are interested in the artistic, personal, and economic processes by which one becomes as weird a cartoonist as he, then this is definitely worth a read.

* I'll tell you what they wanted. They wanted Marmaduke: a dog who never made a noise or a mess or a fuss, only a vaguely sardonic thought-bubble in response to a borderline completely normal situation. They wanted Garfield: a cat with a big personality comprising of a whole four jokes under his belt that could be recycled ad nauseum at the expense of his obviously manic-depressive owner Jon Arbuckle... what they DID NOT want was a completely off-the-wall unhinged rumination on anthropology or natural history or fuck-knows-what every week with a completely different joke every time that most days even the editors wouldn't understand. But still, The Far Side remains a classic. How many people do you know that own a collection of Marmaduke strips? Exactly.

the Far Side Gallery 4

This book is a collection of 'The Far Side' comic strips by Gary Larson... if you're not familiar, then I admonish you to google the name of the comic and read a few, then once you're convinced buy a big fat book of them. They are some of the strangest, funniest, most imaginative cartoons ever to have blessed the flaps of a syndicated newspaper's cartoon page. My parents had the full collection of galleries and were having a clear-out, so naturally I ended up with the lot, and have read all four in the last few days. They just are that funny.

the Far Side Gallery 3

This book is a collection of 'The Far Side' comic strips by Gary Larson... if you're not familiar, then I admonish you to google the name of the comic and read a few, then once you're convinced buy a big fat book of them. They are some of the strangest, funniest, most imaginative cartoons ever to have blessed the flaps of a syndicated newspaper's cartoon page. My parents had the full collection of galleries and were having a clear-out, so naturally I ended up with the lot, and have read all four in the last few days. They just are that funny.

the Far Side Gallery 2

This book is a collection of 'The Far Side' comic strips by Gary Larson... if you're not familiar, then I admonish you to google the name of the comic and read a few, then once you're convinced buy a big fat book of them. They are some of the strangest, funniest, most imaginative cartoons ever to have blessed the flaps of a syndicated newspaper's cartoon page. My parents had the full collection of galleries and were having a clear-out, so naturally I ended up with the lot, and have read all four in the last few days. They just are that funny.

the Far Side Gallery

This book is a collection of 'The Far Side' comic strips by Gary Larson... if you're not familiar, then I admonish you to google the name of the comic and read a few, then once you're convinced buy a big fat book of them. They are some of the strangest, funniest, most imaginative cartoons ever to have blessed the flaps of a syndicated newspaper's cartoon page. My parents had the full collection of galleries and were having a clear-out, so naturally I ended up with the lot, and have read all four in the last few days. They just are that funny.

Tramp for the Lord

This book by Corrie ten Boom is an unexpected delight. I grew up on occasional stories about Corrie ten Boom; how she and her Christian Dutch family sheltered Jewish families throughout the Holocaust for years, right up until the end where they were captured and she and her sister Betsy were taken to a concentration camp, where Betsy died, but Corrie survived just long enough to see the camp's liberation at the end of the war. They were inspiring stories, and form the backbone of her more famous work The Hiding Place - but I'd never read that myself. But somehow I found myself drawn to what she found herself doing with her life after so much trauma. And man, is it remarkable.

   The autobiographical chapters in this book span decades, recounting historical events as she grows up through and past them, all with an unshakeable faith in Christ that carries her through everything as she persists in a singular quest to share the joy and hope she has in Jesus with as many people in as many place as she can. It's truly inspiring. And not just the task of it - the bulk of these chapters is comprised of a variety of hindrances, from lost airline tickets to localised epidemics to terrorist attacks to you-name-it - but Corrie's immediate instinct is always to retreat and to pray, and to continue doing so, while blessing those around her however she can, until something rights itself. And in these chapters, it always seems to. A cynic may easily say these are the miraculous wishings of a senile woman with nothing in her head but the dregs of a meaningless faith. But I do not think a woman of her calibre could have been what she had without developing a hard shell of robustness and fortitude in telling what is mere coincidence or genuine miracle or both; and more often than not, both IS both - that's the point. Her faith and her prayer and her patience sees her through so many strange and stressful situations in this book that she not only makes her global tour appointments as a speaker to congregations more or less on time, but she touches and brightens the lives of many random folks around the world as she does so. I found this a genuinely inspiring book - if not necessarily for how I think my life could ever go, then insofar as I may have faith, patience and prayerfulness. Lord give me the strength to be the kind of tramp Corrie was.

Against the Flow

This book by John Lennox is an examination of the core themes of the biblical prophetic book of Daniel, and extrapolating ideas from this to apply to how we as God's people might continue to live faithfully in a world that is increasingly secular and idolatrous. I bought this book as a gift for my dad's birthday, so I'm actually quite late in vetting it (which usual readers will know I do for all books I intend to give people, to make sure they're up to scratch) - but I've not seen him since the actual occasion so it's probably alright.

   Anyway, sorry, the book, yes. It's okay, I guess. The scholarship is rigorous - both in biblical and historical terms; Lennox demonstrates having done a great deal of thinking into the text of Daniel and the ancient context of 1200ish BCE Babylon, which makes for a great deal of well-footnoted and illuminating insight into exactly why certain points in the text work well. He also spends a fair amount of effort explicating why and how certain themes in the original prophet's writings apply to trends in modern society - I think his heart is in the right place here, but in my opinion most of these arguments come across as a bit heavy-handedly out-of-touch with the pulse of secular culture. Almost as if this were a book written to aid people in apologetics by someone who hadn't actually needed to apologise for over a decade because everyone else he knows is a devout and well-read biblical scholar. I mean, I don't know you, John Lennox, so forgive me if that seems like a harsh reading, but that's how it came across to me. I can't really imagine any non-Christian perusing this text to have a mind-blowing revelation of "wow that's what I'm missing from God", nor any juvenile believer studying your book to pick up anything from it that makes them think "wow now I can really convert all my apostate friends". It's deep yes, but it's scholarly more than anything; and while that is far from worthless - especially with a book as prophetic and rich as Daniel - Christians, study that all you can - I don't think this would be the top of my list of recommendations for people of any or no faiths.

   At least my dad doesn't read this blog. He's still getting it (albeit late) for his birthday.

Project Öcalan

This isn't really a book, it was my Masters dissertation. But it's as long as some books! And more scholarly, if I may say so myself, than many others! And I've reread it, so it gets a post! Not a long one though as I've already done one (see previous link).

If you'd be interested in reading an examination of whether & how post-nationalist ideologies are reshaping the Kurdish question in the contemporary Middle-East, then I've left a .pdf of it open to all on my Google Docs folder. So click here. By the way, the reason it's called Project Öcalan on here is that the founder of the PKK and key thinker behind the recent ideological shifts I talk about is that very same Abdullah.

Jesus: A Biography from a Believer

This book by Christian and biographical historian Paul Johnson is an interesting little creature. I've just speed-read it because I'm giving it to my mum for her birthday and I wanted to check it was the kind of thing she'd find interesting and edifying.

   Honestly I'm not really sure who this book is for. Pretty much all of the biographical details are lifted directly from the Gospels,* which is fine and all considering it was written by a Christian, but it makes the book of little apologetic value for non-believer readers who may well doubt the veracity of the New Testament texts at face value; and for Christian readers adds nothing that was not already present in those same texts except maybe a sprinkling of vaguely-insightful commentary here and there. There are several fairly helpful passages explicating historical bits of contextual culture or politics or norms, but none of these are things the average Christian reader couldn't find in a halfway-decent study Bible, and none of it really goes far enough to be again of much apologetic value to non-Christian readers.

   All that said, it is nice to have the life of the Messiah straightened out without having to dive chapter-and-verse between four different books trying to assemble a chronology; instead Jesus's life story is organised more by thematic blocks; early life, miracles, teaching, conflict with religious leaders, crucifixion, and afterwards. I don't know who I'd recommend this book to honestly, which is a shame because Paul Johnson's biography of Socrates was incredibly illuminating. Sorry mum, I hope you like it anyway.

* He does make good mention of the fact that Jesus is included in the official non-Christian histories by both Tacitus and Josephus, but doesn't dig into this a whole lot and it's more just an off-the-cuff reference.

The Vorrh

This book by sculptor Brian Catling is hands-down the weirdest, most original fantasy novel I've ever read. It blends together biblical mythology, real people from history, critiques of colonialism, generations-long revenge dramas, black magic, experimental science, a cyclops, robot guardians, a mysterious house, quasi-magical mutant elements, and so much else.

   I'm extremely hesitant to try to give an overview of what happens in this, partly because I don't want to spoil in the slightest an incredible experience of being pulled into another world, but also frankly I'm not entirely sure what was going on. I know I'm familiar with the names and strangenesses of a couple dozen characters, not to mention the backdrop setting of Essenwald, a colonial city built within the edges of the vast prehistoric forest called the Vorrh, at the heart of which is said to lie the remains of Eden. But all the elements blend together and collide with or miss each other with such deftness of prose that upon finishing the book I am left with very little of substance that I can say for sure I know was going on. It's like a fever dream; the deepest, most pungent, most beautifully-written fever dream imaginable. And I say that wholeheartedly - this book contains some of the most ecstatic and innovative prose I have ever had the privilege of reading. I can't wait to finish the trilogy.

   I would strongly recommend this to any reader willing to be a bit uncomfortable with their reading experience, even if you don't usually go for fantasy. This is not magical realism, or any other shade of 'believable' fantasy - this is our own world viewed through a kaleidoscope that seems to have been built by a committee of angels and demons and monkeys and monks. Ask me not what the book is about, know only I will be thinking about it for months.

The Guns of Tanith

This book is the fifth instalment of Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts, and sees our beloved scouting regiment take on an aerial assault of a cloud city called Ouranberg, which doesn't sound too dangerous, right? I mean, it's not like the enemy isn't dug in with anti-air batteries or anything, or it's not like the fleet of dropships tasked with delivering the troops to the assault sites can't see where they're going through the pollution fog-banks or anything, is it? Ugh. This is one of the most sickening novels in the series so far, with an injustice at the end that will leave your screaming at the page. I think I'm going to take a break from re-reading these, and come back to the series when I feel a bit better about the phrase "expected losses".

Honour Guard

This book is the fourth Gaunt's Ghosts story by Dan Abnett. Buckle in. The Tanith First-and-Only, with their new Verghastite cohort making up the numbers after the regiment sustained heavy losses in the last book, are sent to the shrine-world of Hagia, which was home planet to Saint Beatti, who was the key player in an ancient Imperial crusade against Chaos centuries prior to this current crusade we're following the Ghosts through. Anyway, the regiment is tasked with escorting a bunch of pilgrims from the dangerous population centres to the holy sites up in the mountains, and as you'd probably expect already, this doesn't go as smoothly as any of them would've hoped. I must say though it's fun to see the culture-clashes between Tanith and Verghastite start to play out, some for better, some certainly not...

Necropolis

This book is the third Gaunt's Ghosts instalment by Dan Abnett, and it's a doozy. The Tanith First are sent to the hive-world Verghast, where what had been thought prior to be a local war between competing aristocratic heritages has metastasized into a full-blown Chaos uprising. A number of Verghastite locals are introduced - Captain Ban Daur, mine-worker Gol Kolea, hab-ganger Tona Criid, smeltery-worker Agun Soric, to name a few - gee, I wonder if any of them will join any of the Imperial Guard regiments should Vervunhive prevail in defending itself against the onslaught of cultists and woe machines? No spoilers. This is the grimmest book yet. Death wipes its arse on every page, and you find yourself genuinely thinking everyone might die. I've thought before that Abnett has a slightly-irritating habit of ending his books too quickly - they build to a massive climax about two-thirds through, then that climax sustains its intensity until there's literally only like five pages of novel left, and you're wondering "what the feth is going to happen?" and then it happens and you're like "oh." Which is probably true to war. Victory is always unforeseeable until it occurs, and once it's occurred, you've won, so there's no need for the chroniclers of war to keep the cameras rolling.

Ghostmaker

This book is the second book in Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series, and it's a little different to all the rest. Instead of a singular self-contained novel, this contains one big novella at the end (which I won't spoil as it's devastatingly fun) set on Monthax - and then seven or eight shortish stories, each focusing on a particularly interesting character from the regiment. Major Rawne, sniper Larkin, sergeant Varl, colonel Corbec, heavy-weapons operator Bragg, trooper Caffran, regimental mascot & piper Milo, scout-sergeant Mkoll... oh man, I love these feth-heads like they were people I know. Abnett as an author has a horrible habit of sketching people so realistically that you get to anticipate them, empathise wise them, and then see them die in ghastly, unpredictable ways. But more on that as the series progresses.

First and Only

This book is the first novel in Dan Abnett's ground-breaking Warhammer 40,000 series, Gaunt's Ghosts. I absolutely love this series, and much like I did with several other series last year I fully intend to reread all of them. Which means I'll be doing very short, blunt posts merely overviewing the plot and then in my post about the last one I can let myself breathe enough to give a bit more reflection.

   So, in a nutshell: the forest-world Tanith has been called to muster three regiments as a draft into the Imperial Guard, which is both an honour and something to pretty much expect of any world. Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt, hot off the back of a major victory, is given command of these regiments - but as soon as the Guard's ships arrive at Tanith, a major Chaos attack ensues. Gaunt does everything he can to save the men, and ends up escaping with only the First regiment (aye, hence the title). The Tanith, thanks to their forested home-world's habit of having trees move over time thus making navigation very tricky, have an innately acute sense of direction, and are also great stealthers thanks to their hunting lifestyle: this makes the Tanith First-and-Only a perfect scouting regiment. However, as soon as they arrive at their first major testing ground, Gaunt realises that not only do they have the ferocious Chaos foes to deal with - their main problem might simply be the snobbery and idiocy of other Guard regiments...

Embedded

This is another non-40k novel by Dan Abnett - though this one feels a lot more like his usual wheelhouse than the prior. That said, it's still sparklingly original, and doesn't feel like it's drawing on his typical IP-universe at all: the politics and culture of the future setting, the general vibes of the characters, the technologies used and how - it all seems very fresh.

   In a nutshell, veteran war correspondent Lex Falk is finding it hard to get close enough to a current war to cover it to his satisfaction. So he gets his consciousness embedded in the brain of a soldier on frontline duty. When said soldier is nearly killed in combat - it falls to Falk to steer them both, and the troops with them, back to safety. Bonkers premise, right? It is chock-full of extremely intense action, interspersed with moments of nail-biting suspense, several brilliantly clever tactical workarounds, more funny bits than you'd expect, and a completely unexpectable ending that throws an epic light back on the story as a whole.

   As with Triumff I had read this back when I was a teenager but had forgotten just how gripping of a tale it is. With Abnett being as good of a war writer he is, it's really refreshing to see him doing what he does best with complete freedom of world-building (not that he isn't still great when beholden to Games Workshop, but you know what I mean). Strongly recommended for any fans of science-fiction action thrillers.