by TCW | Oct 29, 2021 | Book review
Palmerston is supposed to have said of the Schleswig-Holstein question that only three people understood it and by then one was dead, one had gone mad and he was the third and had “forgotten all about it”. I vaguely remember touching on it in school history lessons where it seemed specially designed to give school-kids headaches. So when Antoine Vanner makes the second Schleswig-Holstein war the background to Britannia’s Innocent in his Dawlish Chronicles series, he is taking something of a risk.
In fact, he explains the basis of the dispute really clearly, mainly by sketching out the key points (for example, he ignores the first Schleswig-Holstein war completely) and skipping irrelevant detail. His main point about the war (and, not being Palmerston, I’m going to take his word for it) is that it was almost entirely pointless. This allows full-rein for an extended essay on the futility and horror of much of modern warfare.
Our hero, Nicholas Dawlish, is still a young midshipman, waiting for his first posting as a Navy officer when the father of a friend of his offers him the chance to advance his career by serving on a ship that is being sent by British supporters of the Danes who are now at war against the Prussians and the Austrians. That’s a long and complicated sentence but that’s a fair reflection of this part of the plot with mysterious visitors and secret allies. The Odin is an ironclad with twin guns in a turret. She represents a break with the centuries of traditional warfare between wooden ships firing broadsides.
Vanner uses the book to illustrate different aspects of late 19th century warfare. Many of the strategic approaches developed then are still used today. The book starts with Odin engagedin commerce raiding – destroying civilian vessels sailing under Prussian or Austrian flags. Dawlish watches miserably as his captain destroys the livelihood of civilian ships’ masters, some of whom did not even know that their countries were at war, news of hostilities not having reached them before they started sailing for home.
The Odin is then ordered to Denmark where its guns should provide protection to Danish forces in a defensive position on the coast. There is much detail of the position of the force, supported by maps. Most of this passed me by but the book will appeal to the sort of people who enjoy re-fighting ancient battles and the detail provided will fascinate them. If you are not among them, it’s easily enough skipped over.
[I don’t think that the description here gives anything unexpected away, but people who are very sensitive about spoilers might prefer to read my edited review on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R23UDPWPRZ7IBI.]
Dawlish is in charge of the guns as the Odin finally sails against the Austrians, opening fire on their siege works and doing some real damage. An Austrian shell, though, lands on the superstructure of the Odin which, unlike her armoured hull, is vulnerable. (Vanner is an expert on ships of this era and you certainly learn a lot about the practicalities of the naval warfare of the time.) As a result of the damage to the vessel it is unable to sail against the Austrians again until a vital part is sent from Britain.
The pause in the Odin’s operations allows Vanner to move Dawlish into the land battle. The strategy here reflects the move towards modern trench warfare. New technology, like the Prussians’ breech-loading rifles, is increasing the killing power of the soldier in the field. The sheer bloody awfulness of life in the trenches – the cold, the lice, the constant dampness, the fatigue – is well painted. Then comes the assault by the Austrians. A prolonged bombardment is followed by a mass attack of infantry. First there is shelling, then there is rifle fire, and finally the two sides are fighting hand to hand with bayonets. It is not heroic or glamorous.
The single ray of light in the darkness is the newly formed Red Cross which is kept busy treating Austrians and Danes alike. With a dreadful inevitability (given the sort of book it is) the Red Cross hospital is shelled and Red Cross doctors and nurses are amongst the dead.
After the brutal interlude of the land battle, the Odin is repaired and when the Austrians (now reinforced by Prussians) launch another assault she shells them from the sea, inflicting massive casualties. Dawlish sees it as a massacre.
“He knew already that he would regret it until the end of his life.”
There is more to come: an account of the battle of Heligoland, a real battle which the fictional Odin observes from a distance, a sub-plot involving an American Union vessel, but by now the story had run its natural course. It’s enough that Dawlish gets safely back to England and tries to put the horrors of his experiences behind him.
It’s not an easy read, though Vanner writes well. It’s the subject matter, not the prose, that wears you down. There is an awful lot in this book (the summary here has skipped over much of it) and most of it depressing. It’s true, though, that war really is hell and books that are honest about this are a valuable antidote to a lot of the romanticised versions of war that you read in so many novels. The book also shines a brilliant spotlight on the changes that were coming with the move from the warfare of the long 18th century (wooden ships, wind-power, solid shot, muskets) to the world of the US Civil War and World War I (ironclads, steam-power, explosive shells, breech-loading rifles). New tactics were developing around the new technologies. (The Battle of Heligoland was probably the last naval battle fought by ships firing in line broadside to broadside.) Vanner’s books are often built around the changes in (particularly naval) technology in this period and Britannia’s Innocent explores this theme. It’s a must-read for fans of naval history in the early years of steam.
by TCW | Oct 22, 2021 | Writing life
I haven’t done a post about the writing life for a while and I know some people like that sort of thing. (Hey, I don’t judge: I just go with things that people respond to.)
So, for any would-be writers wondering how to meet other writers (or even if they want to bother) here are some thoughts.
Writers’ groups online or in real life
Even before I was published I was a member of the writers’ forum – Absolute Write. Absolute Write allows you to share your work and other writers in your genre will critique it. When I was active in it, the Historical writers were a lively bunch. Their critiques were often brutal but I learned a lot. Find a group like that and they will be a really valuable resource.
I know people who have joined ‘real life’ writing groups but listening to their experiences I’m not impressed. There seems a danger that groups can attract people who write occasionally as a hobby and the group can just become a place to pass a pleasantly social hour or two while telling each other how great your work is. If that’s what you want, then fine. On the other hand, if you want to improve your writing, the occasional brutality of the Internet can be your friend – it’s easier to tell somebody that their precious words aren’t really very good if you don’t have to look at them over tea and cake while you do it. And, of course, it’s easier to slip away and digest criticism in private. Real-life writing groups work for some people but I would look seriously at online support.
Online support for writers
Online support for writers goes well beyond critique groups. There are groups on Facebook for people writing in particular genres or for the more commercially minded who want to chat about cover design or marketing strategies. (See, for example SPF Community or 20booksTo50K.)
Twitter fans might be more comfortable limited to 240 characters. There are thousands (I guess) of writers on Twitter and one advantage is that it’s very democratic. You could find yourself talking to Joanne Harris (@Joannechocolat), me (@TomCW99) or someone whose first novel is still an exciting gleam in their eye.
Twitter is a peculiar place and there are, indeed, many deeply unpleasant people on it but you really don’t have to see them. There is a ‘block’ function to remove horrible folk (you can use it to block horrible subjects too) and what’s left can be fun. If you’re like me it will be anonymous and pointless fun for a while and then gradually you will make friends there. I’ve even met one or two in real life. Stick at it. As when you first arrived at a new school, don’t expect to make great friends overnight.
Real-life genre specific groups
There are also real-life groups for various genres of writing. These will usually have an on-line presence as well, but once you feel you know them, you might want to venture out of your writing room/shepherd’s hut/cave and see them in the flesh. As I mainly write historical fiction I’m a member of the Historical Writers’ Association and I’ve found them amazingly friendly and supportive. The same is probably true of other genre-specific groups.
But what do I know?
It’s important to remember that all these thousands of writers will have hundreds of different opinions on how to write (and how to sell your books once you’ve written them). Inevitably (do the maths) most of them will be wrong – or, more accurately, wrong for you. Find other writers: use them for support; use them for critiques; use them to get you home when you’ve drunk yourself to a stupor. But don’t, whatever you do, let them tell you how to write. That one’s down to you.
by TCW | Oct 15, 2021 | Uncategorized
The trouble with being known for one series of books is that it can be tricky to take people with you when you publish something slightly different. In my case, I have a following – unspectacular but much appreciated – for my James Burke books, but that following is not transferring to the John Williamson Papers, which I think is sad. Obviously it’s sad from my point of view, because I’d like more people to read the books, but I think it’s sad from the reader’s point of view because they are missing out on a good read because it doesn’t fit conveniently into the ‘books by Tom Williams’ space in their reading habits.
Apples and oranges
Graham Greene divided his work into ‘entertainments’ and ‘novels’. Some people find this an unsatisfactory split. All fiction, they say, should entertain. Suggesting that some have a higher purpose and are ‘novels’ and not mere ‘entertainment’ is presumptuous and unhelpful.
I think the separation can be useful. If we sit down to read a book by John Grisham, we have different expectations from if we are tackling John Updike. It helps to know what we might have coming. At the end of a long day, more people will want to turn to Wilbur Smith than Salman Rushdie. The problem comes when the same author writes two different kinds of books. Some use a pseudonym to separate the two sides of their output but, as J.K. Rowling has discovered, that doesn’t always work.
I’ve obviously got a personal interest, having just republished the first two of the John Williamson Papers following the success of my books about James Burke. There is a distinct grinding of gears as readers who enjoy the adventures of my Napoleonic era spy try to adjust to the darker mid-19th-century Williamson stories.
I wish I could warn people not to expect John Williamson to be anything like James Burke. That, in fact, is what I’m trying to do here.
The White Rajah was the first book I wrote. Like all first novels, it has its flaws but, like, I suspect, many first novels, it was trying very hard to be a serious book. It’s based on the life of James Brooke, the first White Rajah of Sarawak and the model for Conrad’s Lord Jim. Like Conrad’s protagonist, Brooke was a flawed hero. I’ve tried to use him and his personal relationships to say something about British colonial rule. Nowadays, we generally like heroes to be basically good people and we think colonialism was essentially bad. What I try to do in The White Rajah is to suggest that life is a bit more complicated than that. The result is a book that I hope people will find reasonably exciting (there’s battles and pirates and evil plots) but which is, I have to admit, hardly a bundle of laughs. I hope it’s entertaining but I don’t think of it as primarily an entertainment. Graham Greene might not have thought it a particularly good novel, but I think he would accept that a novel is what it set out to be.
Most of you reading this blog have probably at least looked at one of the Burke books by now, so you can judge for yourself how far they succeed in their primary intention, which was simply to entertain. James Burke (an unfortunately similar name to the Rajah’s) was also a real person, but his adventures are just that: intrigue and derring-do set in exciting places with wicked foes and beautiful women. I hope that the story is not without some more serious content, but my main aim was to send you away entertained. There is, I hope, room for both kinds of book in the world. Indeed, I fervently hope that there’s room for both on your bookshelves (or, more likely, your Kindle). Please buy both, read them and, I hope, enjoy them. Just don’t expect them to be the same.
Available on Amazon
The White Rajah and Cawnpore are both available now in paperback or on Kindle. The White Rajah is also available in hardback.
Back Home will be republished soon.
by TCW | Oct 8, 2021 | James Brooke
I’ve just had a lovely review of The White Rajahthat said “There are echoes of Conrad’s Lord Jim in this wonderful book.”
There’s a reason for that. The White Rajah is based (quite closely) on the life of James Brooke, the first White Rajah of Sarawak in Borneo. It’s an amazing tale. A friend said it must have been an easy book to write because Brooke’s biography read like a novel. Unsurprisingly, James Brooke has appeared in a lot of fiction.
The latest imaginative retelling his life was a film which came out this summer: Edge of the World. Given that it’s a Hollywood movie, it’s much more historically accurate than I would have expected.
Edge of the World says that it is “the true story that inspired The Man Who Would Be King,” a novel by Rudyard Kipling. Although the European characters in the novel make a couple of references to Brooke, I wouldn’t say that they are based on him other than that they become monarchs of a small Far Eastern kingdom. The novel that is usually quoted as being strongly influenced by Brooke’s life is Lord Jim by Conrad. In that book, the hero becomes the leader of a local tribe on an island in the South China Seas. He is atoning for failures in his earlier life and devotes himself to the people there, who call him Tuan Jim – “Lord Jim”. It’s not a subtle reference to Tuan Brooke, as James Brooke was often called.
More recently Brooke features in McDonald Fraser’s Flashman’s Lady. As with many of McDonald Fraser’s books, the character is lightly sketched, but he’s recognisably the James Brooke I know and the history is sound.
Before I wrote The White Rajah, Nicholas Monsarrat wrote a well-known novel with the same title. I did try to come up with an alternative, but it’s difficult to think of anything that tells people what they are getting better than ‘The White Rajah’. I did think of ‘Sons of Thunder’ but I suspect most people will miss the reference. (A free e-copy of The White Rajah to the first person to spot it.)
C. S. Godshalk called his version Kalimantaan. That’s a reference to Kalimantan, which is the Indonesian part of Borneo (which, obviously, does not include Sarawak). You see what I mean about it being difficult to come up with a clear title that doesn’t mention White Rajahs.
There are others, including Warren Blake’s A Long Way from Home, which is classified as “adult” although the synopsis looks like quite a serious take on the Brooke story.
James Brooke’s life provides enough drama for a dozen novels. Several of them have already been written, but I’m sure there’s room for more.
by TCW | Oct 1, 2021 | Book review
It will be a few months (probably) before the next James Burke book. Given that you’ve read all five (yes, really!) out already, you might be looking for an alternative. A series about another dashing military spy whose activities start in the late 18th century, Somebody like C C Humphreys’ Jack Absolute.
It was a really strange feeling for me, reading Jack Absolute. Absolute could be Burke’s older brother. Both are tall, slim, useful with sword and pistol, and have an eye for the ladies. Both are deeply cynical about the wars they have to fight but, in the end, are driven by patriotism to do their duty even when their duty stops them from pursuing their own pecuniary interests as much as they would like.
Burke, of course, is based on a real person whereas Absolute is based on another fictional character – the Jack Absolute of Sheridan’s The Rivals. Burke has William Brown to save him when he has got himself into a pit from which a single bound is not quite enough to free him. Absolute has Até, a Mohican Indian with a penchant for Hamlet.
Like Burke, Absolute is first and foremost a spy but he does find himself putting on a uniform and getting dragged into meticulously researched battles. While Burke is fighting the French in (mostly) Europe, Absolute’s battles are happening about 30 years earlier. He is fighting American rebels (backed by the French, of course, though they don’t actually feature in this book) during the War of Independence. There’s a lot of detail of the battle at Saratoga and Absolute spends a lot of time with General Burgoyne, so we learn plenty about the strategy of the campaign as well as the conduct of individual engagements.
Burgoyne isn’t the only historical figure to feature. Sheridan is there as well as soldiers like Benedict Arnold and the Mohawk leader Joseph Brant. There is a mass of less well-known people too, but you never get the impression that characters are being pushed into the book just so that Humphreys can show off. In fact, he wears what seems to me his considerable historical knowledge very lightly.
There is a satisfyingly evil villain (German, just to ring the changes) and a beautiful romantic interest. Humphreys writes well and I found the story bowled along fast enough for me to overlook some of the implausible coincidences. Até is kept busy arriving in the nick of time as our hero blunders into yet another disaster. I did find myself raising a critical eyebrow, but William Brown explained that that sort of thing happens in the best of novels and it is certainly a well-established trope for this genre.
There are various surprise revelations that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise if you have been paying attention, but this does have the advantage of allowing the reader to feel rather smug. And I suppose it’s reassuring to know that even a man with a brain so sharp he can look at a line of code and read it straight into English with minimal effort can fail to spot the secret agent under his nose. And, as Lee Child has observed, every hero should have one – and only one – flaw. Given Absolute’s martial skill, courage, strength, charm, and cunning, an inability to play Agatha Christie and work out whodunnit is only fair.
I found myself reading long into the night. It’s a little before my period and I know practically nothing about the American War of Independence, so it may be riddled with errors, but if it is I certainly never noticed. I was happily immersed in the 1770s and the life of a hero even more unlikely than James Burke. If you enjoy Burke, I’m confident you will enjoy Absolute. And, if you’re reading this because you have enjoyed Absolute but have never read Burke, might I suggest you will probably like him if you give the books a go?
