Podcasts about years war

Determine firsthand if British Soldiers had served as permanent fixtures in the American Colonies before 7 Years War ended. Go behind the scenes and learn how previous conflicts paved the way for French & Indian War. Learn how British Officers & Soldiers eventually came to view both Colonial Militia Forces & Indians. Discover how many Indian People's truly felt about the British following Royal Proclamation of 1763. Get an in depth analysis behind why Pontiac's Rebellion took place. Uncover a shocking story that occurred during Pontiac's Rebellion come late June 1763 including its ramifications. Learn what other legislation Parliament enacted in 1765 being same year that Stamp Act went into law including the British Officer who ardently supported the measure. Go behind the scenes and explore which exact element played crucial to both sides achieving success involving gun powder raids. Learn what the British could and couldn't control. Agree if it's fair to say that both sides engaged in full time competition involving intelligence gathering. Learn about companionship and the uncertainties it posed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Agree if it's fair to say that conflict amongst people of two or more parties has been a permanent fixture since ancient civilization times. Go behind the scenes and discover how conflict onto itself proved inevitable after 7 Years War ended in 1763. Understand how emerging victoriously in time of war can either unite or divide an imperial nation's people even if they reside miles away. Get a glimpse into what life would be like for Britain's subjects across the ocean in a Post 7 Years War Era regarding direct representation and consent. Learn how one common grievance has often stood out above all others involving colonists direct opposition towards Parliament. Go behind the scenes and learn how one particular Parliamentary legislative measure enacted in 1764 had adverse impacts on her subjects most notably within the New England Region. Decide if it's fair to agree that Boston, Massachusetts has often been labeled as the cradle of American Independence. Get acquainted with Magazine Houses aka Armories and understand their importance. Discover how far back Gunpowder itself dates back including the three vital components behind making substance. Learn how Loyalists & Patriots went about defining gunpowder from a possession standpoint. Learn before us that the story we'll be embarking upon involving gunpowder doesn't take place in Boston, but instead just north of the state capital. Get an understanding behind what unfolded between September-December 1774 involving gunpowder raids per both sides. Get an in depth analysis behind what unraveled in Salem, Massachusetts, February 26, 1775, including what's required to better understand this forgotten story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Just what it says. Part 3 of The 50 Years War Series.

Another bonus episode. This one is about the Six Days War.

This is the audio from a fantastic documentary by PBS called The 50 Years War.

3 Years War In Ukraine; Painful, Shameful - Pope Francis Says From Sick Bedhttps://osazuwaakonedo.news/3-years-war-in-ukraine-painful-shameful-pope-francis-says-from-sick-bed/23/02/2025/#Issues #Francis #Pope #Putin #Russia #Ukraine #Zelenskyy ©February 23rd, 2025 ®February 23, 2025 4:43 pmDespite the medical condition that he's under the high flow of oxygen in the Hospital over double pneumonia, Pope Francis on Sunday, on the eve of the third year anniversary of the war in Ukraine launched by President Vladimir Putin led Russia Government, called on everyone in the world to remember victims of the war in Ukraine, describing the war which started on February 24, 2022 as painful, shameful for all humanity. #OsazuwaAkonedo

The Isles of Scilly were part of one of the longest wars in human history, but the main reason for the length of the very mild conflict was lagging paperwork. Research: “335-year-old War Ends for Scilly Isles.” Star Tribune. April 18, 1986. https://www.newspapers.com/image/188704902/?match=1 “The breakdown of 1641-2.” UK Parliament. https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/parliamentaryauthority/civilwar/overview/the-breakdown/ Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Isles of Scilly". Encyclopedia Britannica, 7 Dec. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/place/Isles-of-Scilly-islands-England-United-Kingdom Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Bishops’ Wars". Encyclopedia Britannica, 23 Jun. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/event/Bishops-Wars Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Long Parliament". Encyclopedia Britannica, 23 Jun. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Long-Parliament Daniel Lysons, Samuel Lysons, 'The Scilly Islands', in Magna Britannia: Volume 3, Cornwall( London, 1814), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/magna-britannia/vol3/pp330-337 Davids, R.L. and A.D.K. Hawkyard. “SEYMOUR, Sir Thomas II.” The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-155. 1982. Accessed online: https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/seymour-sir-thomas-ii-1509-49 “Dutch Proclaim End of War Against Britain's Scilly Isles.” New York Times. April 18, 1986. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/18/world/dutch-proclaim-end-of-war-against-britain-s-scilly-isles.html “The Execution of Charles I.” Historic Royal Places. https://www.hrp.org.uk/banqueting-house/history-and-stories/the-execution-of-charles-i/ “History of the Duchy.” Duchy of Cornwall. https://duchyofcornwall.org/history-of-the-duchy.html “The History of the Islands.” The Islands’ Partnership. https://www.visitislesofscilly.com/experience/things-to-do/history-and-heritage/the-history-of-the-islands “Holidays in the Isles of Scilly.” Manchester Evening News. Jan. 24, 1984. https://www.newspapers.com/image/927198725/?match=1&terms=isles%20of%20scilly “Isles of Scilly.” Duchy of Cornwall. https://duchyofcornwall.org/newton-park-estate.html#:~:text=A%20group%20of%20over%20200,residential%20buildings%20on%20the%20islands. Johnson, Ben. “The 335 Year War – The Isles of Scilly vs the Netherlands.” Historic UK. March 11, 2015. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-335-Year-War-the-Longest-War-in-History/ Ohlmeyer, Jane H.. "English Civil Wars". Encyclopedia Britannica, 6 Dec. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/event/English-Civil-Wars “Roy Duncan 1948 – 2014.” Council of the Isles of Scilly. Aug. 25, 2014. “Prehistoric communities off the coast of Britain embraced rising seas- what this means for today's island nations.” Bangor University. November 5, 2020. https://www.bangor.ac.uk/news/archive/prehistoric-communities-off-the-coast-of-britain-embraced-rising-seas-what-this-means-for-today-s-island-nations-44529#:~:text=By%2012%2C000%20years%20ago%2C%20the,smaller%2C%20engulfed%20by%20rising%20seas. Lysons, Daniel and Samuel Lysons, 'The Scilly Islands', in Magna Britannia: Volume 3, Cornwall( London, 1814), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/magna-britannia/vol3/pp330-337 Penhallurick, R.D. “Ancient and Early Medieval Coins from Cornwall & Scilly.” ROYAL NUMISMATIC SOCIETY SPECIAL PUBLICATION NO. 45. London. 2010. https://www.academia.edu/355282/Ancient_and_Early_Medieval_Coins_from_Cornwall_and_Scilly Sawyer, Katherine, PhD. “Scilly’s Hidden History.” Isles of Scilly. https://www.visitislesofscilly.com/home/blog/scillys-hidden-history#:~:text=Scilly%20was%20first%20visited%20by,as%20a%20lack%20of%20predators. Young-Brown, Fiona. “The World’s Longest War Only Ended in 1986.” Atlas Obscura. Jan. 19, 2016. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-worlds-longest-war-only-ended-in-1985 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Erik Torenberg and Noah Smith discuss wide range of topics, including Trump's executive orders and their effects on U.S. politics, international tariffs, Michael Pettis's views on China's economy, the Middle East's potential with solar energy, and Europe's socio-political shifts, all through the lens of economics. --

This week Scott and Patrick are joined by author and friend of the show Domenic Scarcella to discuss the theological implications of the 15th century historical figure Jeanne D'Arc best known worldwide as Joan of Arc. She was a simple peasant girl in Eastern France during the course of the 100 Years War, who stepped into the shoes of a local legend of a maiden who would save France. A fascinating look into the past of the Catholic Church as well as into a totally different time socially speaking, this was an incredibly fascinating discussion that touches on politics, religion and sacrifice. Subscribe to Dom on Substack goodneighborbadcitizen.substack.com and follow him on twitter @goodneighbadcit and buy his book on amazon, lulu or barnes and noble get Patrick's stuff at www.cantgetfooledagain.com Don't forget to join our Telegram channel at T.me/historyhomos and to join our group chat at T.me/historyhomoschat For programming updates and news follow us across social media @historyhomospod and follow Scott @Scottlizardabrams and Patrick @cantgetfooledagainradio OR subscribe to our telegram channel t.me/historyhomos The video version of the show is available on Substack, Rokfin, bitchute, odysee and Rumble For weekly premium episodes or to contribute to the show subscribe to our channel at www.historyhomospod.substack.com You can donate to the show directly at paypal.me/historyhomos To order a History Homos T shirt (and recieve a free sticker) please send your shirt size and address to Historyhomos@gmail.com and please address all questions, comments and concerns there as well. Later homos

The Rhine River flows through the heartland of western Germany, through a gorge passing an average of one castle per mile.  Reisling vineyards, charming villages, and castle after castle after castle surround you as you drift along the river.  But almost 400 years ago, this idyllic valley was caught up in the most devestating war in pre-20th century European history. In this episode, we'll cover the first two stages of the Thirty Years War, focusing not on the battles, but on the people who made the decisions that caused this calamity to unfold.  In particular, we'll focus on Frederick II, Elector of the Palatinate, and his questionable, if heartfelt, choice to take the crown of Bohemia.  We'll also visit with Ferdinand II of Austria and Christian IV of Denmark, and many others! And of course, we'll enjoy sauerbraten, while I tell the sad tale of my 1998 trip to Germany. Das was nicht sehr gut!

Who else in literature today could be more interesting to interview than Brandon Taylor, the author of Real Life, Filthy Animals, and The Late Americans, as well as the author of popular reviews and the sweater weather Substack? We talked about so much, including: Chopin and who plays him best; why there isn't more tennis in fiction; writing fiction on a lab bench; being a scientific critic; what he has learned working as a publisher; negative reviews; boring novels; Jane Austen. You'll also get Brandon's quick takes on Iris Murdoch, Jonathan Franzen, Lionel Trilling, György Lukács, and a few others; the modern critics he likes reading; and the dead critics he likes reading.Brandon also talked about how his new novel is going to be different from his previous novels. He told me:I no longer really want to be starting my books, quote unquote, in media res. I want my books to feel like books. I don't want my books to feel like movies. And I don't want them to feel like treatments for film. And so I want to sort of bring back all of what a novel can do in terms of its structure and in terms of its form and stuff like that. And so it means starting books, you know, with this sort of Dickensian voice of God speaking from on high, sort of summing up an era. And I think also sort of allowing the narrators in my work to dare to sum up, allowing characters in my work to have ideologies and to argue about those ideologies. I feel like that is a thing that was sort of denuded from the American novel for a lot of millennials and just sort of like trying to put back some of that old fashioned machinery that was like stripped out of the novel. And seeing what of it can still function, seeing, trying to figure out if there's any juice left in these modes of representation.I have enjoyed Brandon's fiction (several people I recommend him to have loved Real Life) and I think he's one of the best critics working today. I was delighted to interview him.Oh, and he's a Dickens fan!Transcript (AI produced, lightly formatted by me)Henry: Today I am talking to Brandon Taylor, the author of Real Life, Filthy Animals, and The Late Americans. Brandon is also a notable book reviewer and of course he writes a sub stack called Sweater Weather. Brandon, welcome.Brandon: Yeah, thanks for having me.Henry: What did you think of the newly discovered Chopin waltz?Brandon: Um, I thought, I mean, I remember very vividly waking up that day and there being a new waltz, but it was played by Lang Lang, which I did not. I don't know that, like, he's my go-to Chopin interpreter. But I don't know, I was, I was excited by it. Um, I don't know, it was in a world sort of dominated by this ethos of like nothing new under the sun. It felt wonderfully novel. I don't know that it's like one of Chopin's like major, I don't know that it's like major. Um, it's sort of definitively like middle of the road, middle tier Chopin, I think. But I enjoyed it. I played it like 20 times in a row.Henry: I like those moments because I like, I like it when people get surprised into realizing that like, it's not fixed what we know about the world and you can even actually get new Chopin, right?Brandon: I mean, it felt a little bit like when Beyonce did her first big surprise drop. It was like new Chopin just dropped. Oh my God. All my sort of classical music nerd group texts were buzzing. It felt like a real moment, actually.Henry: And I think it gives people a sense of what art was like in the past. You can go, oh my God, new Chopin. Like, yes, those feelings are not just about modern culture, right? That used to happen with like, oh my God, a new Jane Austen book is here.Brandon: Oh, I know. Well, I mean, I was like reading a lot of Emile Zola up until I guess late last year. And at some point I discovered that he was like an avid amateur photographer. And in like the French Ministry of Culture is like digitized a lot of his glass plate negatives. And one of them is like a picture that Zola has taken of Manet's portrait of him. And it's just like on a floor somewhere. Like he's like sort of taken this like very rickety early camera machinery to this place where this portrait is and like taken a picture of it. It's like, wow. Like you can imagine that like Manet's like, here's this painting I did of you. And Zola's like, ah, yes, I'm going to take a picture to commemorate it. And so I sort of love that.Henry: What other of his photos do you like?Brandon: Well, there's one of him on a bike riding toward the camera. That's really delightful to me because it like that impulse is so recognizable to me. There are all these photos that he took of his mistress that were also just like, you can like, there are also photographs of his children and of his family. And again, those feel so like recognizable to me. He's not even like a very good photographer. It's just that he was taking pictures of his like daily life, except for his kind of stunt photos where he's riding the bike. And it's like, ah, yes, Zola, he would have been great with an iPhone camera.Henry: Which pianists do you like for Chopin?Brandon: Which pianists do I love for Chopin? I like Pollini a lot. Pollini is amazing. Pollini the elder, not Pollini the younger. The younger is not my favorite. And he died recently, Maurizio Pollini. He died very recently. Maybe he's my favorite. I love, I love Horowitz. Horowitz is wonderful at Chopin. But it's obviously it's like not his, you know, you don't sort of go to Horowitz for Chopin, I guess. But I love his Chopin. And sometimes Trifonov. Trifonov has a couple Chopin recordings that I really, really like. I tend not to love Trifonov as much.Henry: Really?Brandon: I know it's controversial. It's very controversial. I know. Tell me why. I, I don't know. He's just a bit of a banger to me. Like, like he's sort of, I don't know, his playing is so flashy. And he feels a bit like a, like a, like a keyboard basher to me sometimes.Henry: But like, do you like his Bach?Brandon: You know, I haven't done a deep dive. Maybe I should do a sort of more rigorous engagement with Trifonov. But yeah, I don't, he's just not, he doesn't make my heart sing. I think he's very good at Bach.Henry: What about a Martha Argerich?Brandon: Oh, I mean, she's incredible. She's incredible. I bought that sort of big orange box out of like all of her, her sort of like masterwork recordings. And she's incredible. She has such feel for Chopin. But she doesn't, I think sometimes people can make Chopin feel a little like, like treacly, like, like a little too sweet. And she has this perfect understanding of his like rhythm and his like inner nuances and like the crispness in his compositions. Like she really pulls all of that out. And I love her. She has such, obviously great dexterity, but like a real sort of exquisite sensitivity to the rhythmic structures of Chopin.Henry: You listen on CD?Brandon: No, I listen on vinyl and I listen on streaming, but mostly vinyl. Mostly vinyl? Yeah, mostly vinyl. I know it's very annoying. No, no, no, no, no.Henry: Which, what are the good speakers?Brandon: I forget where I bought these speakers from, but I sort of did some Googling during the pandemic of like best speakers to use. I have a U-Turn Audio, U-Turn Orbital record player. And so I was just looking for good speakers that were compatible and like wouldn't take up a ton of space in my apartment because I was moving to New York and had a very tiny, tiny apartment. So they're just from sort of standard, I forget the brand, but they've served me well these past few years.Henry: And do you like Ólafsson? He's done some Chopin.Brandon: Who?Henry: Víkingur Ólafsson. He did the Goldbergs this year, but he's done some Chopin before. I think he's quite good.Brandon: Oh, that Icelandic guy?Henry: Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the glasses? That's right. And the very neat hair.Brandon: Yes. Oh, he's so chic. He's so chic. I don't know his Chopin. I know his, there's another series that he did somewhat recently that I'm more familiar with. But he is really good. He has good Beethoven, Víkingur.Henry: Yeah.Brandon: And normally I don't love Beethoven, but like—Henry: Really? Why? Why? What's wrong with Beethoven? All these controversial opinions about music.Brandon: I'm not trying to have controversial opinions. I think I'm, well, I'm such a, I'm such, I mean, I'm just like a dumb person. And so like, I don't, I don't have a really, I feel like I don't have the robust understanding to like fully appreciate Beethoven and all of his sort of like majesty. And so maybe I've just not heard good Beethoven and I need to sort of go back and sort of get a real understanding of it. But I just tend not to like it. It feels like, I don't know, like grandma's living room music to me sometimes.Henry: What other composers do you enjoy?Brandon: Oh, of course.Henry: Or other music generally, right?Brandon: Rachmaninoff is so amazing to me. There was, of course, Bach. Brahms. Oh, I love Brahms, but like specifically the intermezzi. I love the intermezzi. I recently fell in love with, oh, his name is escaping me now, but he, I went to a concert and they sort of did a Brahms intermezzi. And they also played this, I think he was an Austrian composer. And his music was like, it wasn't experimental, but it was like quite, I had a lot of dissonance in it. And I found it like really interesting and like really moving actually. And so I did a sort of listening to that constantly. Oh, I forget his name. But Brahms, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, love Rachmaninoff. I have a friend who says that Rachmaninoff writes Negro spirituals. And I love that theory that Rachmaninoff's music is like the music of the slaves. It just, I don't know. I really, that really resonates with me spiritually. Which pieces, which Rachmaninoff symphonies, concertos? Yeah, the concertos. But like specifically, like I have a friend who said that Rach II sounded to her like the sort of spiritual cry of like the slaves. And we were at like a hangout with like mostly Black people. And she like stopped playing like Juvenile, like the rapper. And she put on Rach II. And we just like sat there and listened. And it did feel like something powerful had entered the room. Yeah, but he's my guy. I secretly really, really love him. I like Liszt, but like it really depends on the day and the time for him. He makes good folk music, Liszt. I love his folky, his folk era.Henry: What is it that you enjoy about tennis?Brandon: What do I enjoy about tennis? I love the, I love not thinking. I love being able to hit the ball for hours on end and like not think. And like, it's the one part of my life. It's the one time in my life where my experience is like totally unstructured. And so like this morning, I went to a 7am drill and play class where you do drills for an hour. Then you play doubles for an hour. And during that first hour of drills, I was just like hitting the ball. I was at the mercy of the guy feeding us the ball. And I didn't have a single thought about books or literature or like the status of my soul or like the nature of American democracy. It was just like, did I hit that ball? Well, did I hit it kind of off center? Were there tingles in my wrist? Yes or no. Like it was just very, very grounding in the moment. And I think that is what I love about it. Do you like to watch tennis? Oh, yeah, constantly. Sometimes when I'm in a work meeting, the Zoom is here and the tennis is like playing in the background. Love tennis, love to watch, love to play, love to think about, to ponder. Who are the best players for you? Oh, well, the best players, my favorite players are Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Stanislas Wawrinka, love Wawrinka. And I was a really big Davydenko head back in the day. Nikolai Davydenko was this Russian player who had, he was like a metronome. He just like would not miss. Yeah, those are my favorites. Right now, the guy I'm sort of rooting for who's still active is Kasper Rud, who's this Norwegian guy. And I love him because he just looks like some guy. Like he just looks like he should be in a seminary somewhere. I love it. I love, I love his normalness. He just looks like an NPC. And I'm drawn to that in a tennis player.Henry: It's hard to think of tennis in novels. Why is that?Brandon: Well, I think a lot of people don't, well, I think part of it is a lot of novelists. Part of it is a lot of novelists don't play sports. I think that they, at least Americans, I can't speak for other parts of the world, but in America, a lot of novelists are not doing sports. So that's one. And I think two, like, you know, like with anything, I think that tennis has not been subjected to the same schemes of narrativization that like other things are. And so like it's, a lot of novelists just like don't see a sort of readily dramatizable thing in tennis. Even though if you like watch tennis and like listen to tennis commentary, they are always erecting narratives. They're like, oh yeah, she's been on a 19 match losing streak. Is this where she turns it around? And to me, tennis is like a very literary sport because tennis is one of those sports where it's all about the matchup. It's like your forehand to my backhand, like no matter how well I play against everyone else, like it's you and me locked in the struggle. And like that to me feels incredibly literary. And it is so tied to your individual psychology as well. Like, I don't know, I endlessly am fascinated by it. And indeed, I got an idea for a tennis novel the other day that I'm hopefully going to write in three to five years. We'll see.Henry: Very good. How did working in a lab influence your writing?Brandon: Well, somewhat directly and materially in the case of my first book, because I wrote it while I was working in the lab and it gave me weirdly like time and structure to do that work where I would be pipetting. And then while I was waiting for an assay or a experiment to run or finish, I would have 30 minutes to sit down and write.Henry: So you were writing like at the lab bench?Brandon: Oh, yeah, absolutely. One thousand percent. I would like put on Philip Glass's score for the hours and then just like type while my while the centrifuge was running or whatever. And and so like there's that impression sort of baked into the first couple books. And then I think more, I guess, like spiritually or broadly, it influenced my work because it taught me how to think and how to organize time and how to organize thoughts and how to sort of pursue long term, open ended projects whose results may or may not, you know, fail because of something that you did or maybe you didn't do. And that's just the nature of things. Who knows? But yeah, I think also just like discipline, the discipline to sort of clock in every day. And to sort of go to the coalface and do the work. And that's not a thing that is, you know. That you just get by working in a lab, but it's certainly something that I acquired working in a lab.Henry: Do you think it's affected your interest in criticism? Because there's there are certain types of critic who seem to come from a scientific background like Helen Vendler. And there's something something about the sort of the precision and, you know, that certain critics will refuse to use critical waffle, like the human condition. And they won't make these big, vague gestures to like how this can change the way we view society. They're like, give me real details. Give me real like empirical criticism. Do you think this is — are you one of these people?Brandon: Yeah, yeah, I think I'm, you know, I'm all about what's on the page. I'm all about the I'm not gonna go rooting in your biography for not gonna go. I'm not I'm not doing that. It's like what you brought to me on the page is what you've brought to me. And that is what I will be sort of coming over. I mean, I think so. I mean, very often when critics write about my work, or when people respond to my work, they sort of describe it as being put under a microscope. And I do think like, that is how I approach literature. It's how I approach life. If there's ever a problem or a question put to me, I just sort of dissect it and try to get down to its core bits and its core parts. And and so yeah, I mean, if that is a scientific way of doing things, that's certainly how I but also I don't know any other way to think like that's sort of that's sort of how I was trained to think about stuff. You've been to London. I have. What did you think of it? The first time I didn't love it. The second and third times I had a good time, but I felt like London didn't love me back. London is the only place on earth I've ever been where people have had a hard time understanding me like I like it's the only place where I've like attempted to order food or a drink or something in a store or a cafe or a restaurant. And the waiters like turned to my like British hosts and asked them to translate. And that is an entirely foreign experience for me. And so London and I have like a very contentious relationship, I would say.Henry: Now, you've just published four classic novels.Brandon: Yes.Henry: George Gissing, Edith Wharton, Victor Hugo and Sarah Orne Jewett. Why did you choose those four writers, those four titles?Brandon: Oh, well, once we decided that we were going to do a classics imprint, you know, then it's like, well, what are we going to do? And I'm a big Edith Wharton fan. And there are all of these Edith Wharton novels that Americans don't really know about. They know Edith Wharton for The Age of Innocence. And if they are an English major, they maybe know her for The House of Mirth. Or like maybe they know her for The Custom of the Country if they're like really into reading. But then they sort of think of her as a novelist of the 19th century. And she's writing all of these books set in the 1920s and about the 1920s. And so it felt important to show people like, oh, this is a writer who died a lot later than you think that she did. And whose creative output was, you know, pretty, who was like a contemporary of F. Scott Fitzgerald in a lot of ways. Like, these books are being published around the same time as The Great Gatsby. And to sort of, you know, bring attention to a part of her over that, like, people don't know about. And like, that's really exciting to me. And Sarah Orne Jewett, I mean, I just really love The Country of the Pointed Furs. I love that book. And I found it in like in a 10 cents bin at a flea market one time. And it's a book that people have tried to bring back. And there have been editions of it. But it just felt like if we could get two people who are really cool to talk about why they love that book, we could sort of have like a real moment. And Sarah Orne Jewett was like a pretty big American writer. Like she was a pretty significant writer. And she was like really plugged in and she's not really read or thought about now. And so that felt like a cool opportunity as well to sort of create a very handsome edition of this book and to sort of talk about a bit why she matters. And the guessing of it all is we were going to do New Grub Street. And then my co-editor thought, well, The Odd Women, I think, is perhaps more relevant to our current moment than New Grub Street necessarily. And it would sort of differentiate us from the people, from the presses that are doing reissues of New Grub Street, because there's just been a new edition of that book. And nobody in America really knows The Odd Women. And it's a really wonderful novel. It's both funny and also like really biting in its satire and commentary. So we thought, oh, it'll be fun to bring this writer to Americans who they've never heard of in a way that will speak to them in a lot of ways. And the Victor Hugo, I mean, you know, there are Hugos that people know all about. And then there are Hugos that no one knows about. And Toilers of the Sea was a passion project for my co-editor. She'd read it in Guernsey. That's where she first discovered that book. And it really meant a lot to her. And I read it and really loved it. I mean, it was like Hugo at his most Hugo. Like, it's a very, it's a very, like, it's a very abundant book. And it's so wild and strange and changeful. And so I was like, oh, that seems cool. Let's do it. Let's put out Toilers of the Sea. So that's a bit of why we picked each one.Henry: And what have you learned from being on the other side of things now that you're the publisher?Brandon: So much. I've learned so much. And indeed, I just, I was just asked by my editor to do the author questionnaire for the novel that I have coming out next. And I thought, yes, I will do this. And I will do it immediately. Because now I know, I know how important these are. And I know how early and how far in advance these things need to be locked in to make everyone's life easier. I think I've learned a bit about the sometimes panicked scramble that happens to get a book published. I've learned about how hard it is to wrangle blurbs. And so I think I'm a little more forgiving of my publishers. But they've always been really great to me. But now I'm like, oh, my gosh, what can I do for you? How can I help you make this publication more of a success?Henry: Do you think that among literary people generally, there's a lack of appreciation of what business really involves in some of the senses you're talking about? I feel like I see a lot of either indifferent or hostile attitudes towards business or commerce or capitalism, late stage capitalism or whatever. And I sometimes look at it and I'm like, I don't think you guys really know what it takes to just like get stuff done. You know what I mean? Like, it's a lot of grind. I don't think it's a big nasty thing. It's just a lot of hard work, right?Brandon: Yeah, I mean, 1000%. Or if it's not a sort of misunderstanding, but a sort of like disinterest in like, right, like a sort of high minded, like, oh, that's just the sort of petty grimy commerce of it all. I care about the beauty and the art. And it's just like, friend, we need booksellers to like, sell this. I mean, to me, the part of it that is most to me, like the most illustrative example of this in my own life is that when I first heard how my editor was going to be describing my book, I was like, that's disgusting. That's horrible. Why are you talking about my race? Why are you talking about like my sexuality? Like, this is horrible. Why can't you just like talk about the plot of the book? Like, what is the matter with you? And then I had, you know, I acquired and edited this book called Henry Henry, which is a queer contemporary retelling of the Henry ad. And it's a wonderful novel. It's so delightful. And I had to go into our sales conference where we are talking to the people whose job it is to sell that book into bookstores to get bookstores to take that book up. And I had to write this incredibly craven description of this novel. And as I was writing it, I was like, I hope Alan, the author, I hope Alan never sees this. He never needs to hear how I'm talking about this book. And as I was doing it, I was like, I will never hold it against my editor again for writing this like, cheesy, cringy copy. Because it's like you, like, you so believe in the art of that book, so much that you want it to give it every fighting chance in the marketplace. And you need to arm your sales team with every weapon of commerce they need to get that book to succeed so that when readers pick it up, they can appreciate all of the beautiful and glorious art of it. And I do think that people, you know, like, people don't really kind of, people don't really understand that. And I do think that part of that is publishing's fault, because they are, they've been rather quick to elide the distinctions between art and commerce. And so like publishing has done a not great job of sort of giving people a lot of faith in its understanding that there's a difference between art and commerce. But yeah, I think, I think there's a lot of misapprehension out there about like, what goes into getting bookstores to acquire that book.Henry: What are the virtues of negative book reviews?Brandon: I was just on a panel about this. I mean, I mean, hopefully a negative book review, like a positive review, or like any review, will allow a reader or the audience to understand the book in a new way, or to create a desire in the reader to pick up the book and see if they agree or disagree or that they, that they have something to argue with or push against as they're reading. You know, when I'm writing a negative review, when I'm writing a review that I feel is trending toward negative, I should say, I always try to like, I don't know, I try to always remember that like, this is just me presenting my experience of the book and my take of the book. And hopefully that will be productive or useful for whoever reads the review. And hopefully that my review won't be the only thing that they read and that they will in fact, go pick up the book and see if they agree or disagree. It's hopefully it creates interesting and potentially divergent dialogues or discourses around the text. And fundamentally, I think not every critic feels this way. Not every piece of criticism is like this. But the criticism I write, I'm trying to create the conditions that will refer the reader always back to the text, be it through quotation, be it through, they're so incensed by my argument that they're going to go read the book themselves and then like, yell at me. Like, I think that that's wonderful, but like, always keeping the book at the center. But I think a negative review can, you know, it can start a conversation. It can get people talking about books, which in this culture, this phase of history feels like a win. And hopefully it can sort of be a corrective sometimes to less genuine or perceived less genuine discourses that are existing around the book.Henry: I think even whether or not it's a question of genuine, it's for me, it's just a question of if you tell people this book is good and they give up their time and money and they discover that it's trash, you've done a really bad thing to that person. And like, there might be dozens of them compared to this one author who you've been impolite to or whatever. And it's just a question of don't lie in book, right?Brandon: Well, yeah. I mean, hopefully people are honest, but I do feel sometimes that there is, there's like a lack of honesty. And look, I think that being like, well, I mean, maybe you'll love this. I don't love it, you know, but at least present your opinion in that way. At least be like, you know, there are many interpretations of this thing. Here's my interpretation. Maybe you'll feel differently or something like that. But I do think that people feel that there have been a great number of dishonest book reviews. Maybe there have been, maybe there have not been. I certainly have read some reviews I felt were dishonest about books that I have read. And I think that the negative book review does feel a bit like a corrective in a lot of ways, both, you know, justified or unjustified. People are like, finally, someone's being honest about this thing. But yeah, I think it's interesting. I think it's all really, I think it's all fascinating. I do think that there are some reviews though, that are negative and that are trying to be about the book, but are really about the author. There are some reviews that I have read that have been ostensibly about reviewing a text, but which have really been about, you don't like that person and you have decided to sort of like take an axe to them. And that to me feels not super productive. I wouldn't do it, but other people find it useful.Henry: As in, you can tell that from the review or you know that from background information?Brandon: I mean, this is all projection, of course, but like there have been some reviews where I've read, like, for example, some of the Lauren Oyler reviews, I think some of the Lauren Oyler reviews were negative and were exclusively about the text. And they sort of took the text apart and sort of dissected it and came to conclusions, some of which I agreed with, some of which I didn't agree with, but they were fundamentally about the text. And like all the criticisms referred back to the text. And then there were some that were like projecting attitudes onto the author that were more about creating this sort of vaporous shape of Lauren Oyler and then sort of poking holes in her literary celebrity or her stature as a critic or what have you. And that to me felt less productive as like a book review.Henry: Yes. Who are your favorite reviewers?Brandon: Ooh, my favorite reviewers. I really love Christian Lawrence. And he does my, of the critics who try to do the sort of like mini historiography of like a thing. He's my favorite because he teaches me a lot. He sort of is so good at summing up an era or summing up a phase of literary production without being like so cringe or so socialist about it. I really love, I love it when he sort of distills and dissects an era. I really like Hermione Hobie. I think she's really interesting. And she writes about books with a lot of feeling and a lot of energy. And I really love her mind. And of course, like Patricia Lockwood, of course, everyone, perhaps not everyone, but I enjoy Patricia Lockwood's criticism. You don't?Henry: Not really.Brandon: Oh, is it because it's too chatty? Is it too, is it too selfie?Henry: A little bit. I think, I think that kind of criticism can work really well. But I think, I think it's too much. I think basically she's very, she's a very stylized writer and a lot of her judgments get, it gets to the point where it's like, this is the logical conclusion of what you're trying to do stylistically. And there are some zingers in here and some great lines and whatever, but we're no longer, this is no longer really a book review.Brandon: Yeah.Henry: Like by the, by the end of the paragraph, this, like, we didn't want to let the style go. We didn't want to lose the opportunity to cap that off. And it leads her into, I think, glibness a lot of the time.Brandon: Yeah. I could see that. I mean, I mean, I enjoy reading her pieces, but do I understand like what's important to her at a sort of literary level? I don't know. I don't, and in that sense, like, are they, is it criticism or is it closer to like personal essay, humorous essay? I don't know. Maybe that's true. I enjoy reading them, but I get why people are like, this is a very, very strong flavor for sure.Henry: Now you've been reading a lot of literary criticism.Brandon: Oh yeah.Henry: Not of the LRB variety, but of the, the old books in libraries variety. Yes. How did that start? How did, how did you come to this?Brandon: Somewhat like ham-fistedly. I, in 2021, I had a really bad case of writer's block and I thought maybe part of the reason I had writer's block was that I didn't know anything about writing or I didn't know anything about like literature or like writing. I'd been writing, I'd published a novel. I was working on another novel. I'd published a book of stories, but like, I just like truly didn't know anything about literature really. And I thought I need some big boy ideas. I need, I need to find out what adults think about literature. And so I went to my buddy, Christian Lorenzen, and I was like, you write criticism. What is it? And what should I read? And he gave me a sort of starter list of criticism. And it was like the liberal imagination by Lionel Trilling and Guy Davenport and Alfred Kazin who wrote On Native Grounds, which is this great book on the American literary tradition and Leslie Fiedler's Love and Death in the American Novel. And I, and then Edmund Wilson's Axel's Castle. And I read all of those. And then as each one would sort of refer to a different text or person, I sort of like followed the footnotes down into this rabbit hole of like literary criticism. And now it's been a sort of ongoing project of the last few years of like reading. I always try to have a book of criticism on the go. And then earlier this year, I read Jameson's The Antimonies of Realism. And he kept talking about this Georg Lukács guy. And I was like, I guess I should go read Lukács. And so then I started reading Lukács so that I could get back to Jameson. And I've been reading Lukács ever since. I am like deep down the Lukács rabbit hole. But I'm not reading any of the socialism stuff. I told myself that I wouldn't read any of the socialism stuff and I would only read the literary criticism stuff, which makes me very different from a lot of the socialist literary critics I really enjoy because they're like Lukács, don't read in that literary criticism stuff, just read his socialism stuff. So I'm reading all the wrong stuff from Lukács, but I really, I really love it. But yeah, it sort of started because I thought I needed grown up ideas about literature. And it's been, I don't know, I've really enjoyed it. I really, really enjoy it. It's given me perhaps terrible ideas about what novels should be or do. But, you know, that's one of the side effects to reading.Henry: Has it made, like, what specific ways has it changed how you've written since you've acquired a set of critical principles or ideas?Brandon: Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is, part of it has to do with Lukács' idea of the totality. And, you know, I think that the sort of most direct way that it shows up in a sort of really practical way in my novel writing is that I no longer really want to be starting my books, quote unquote, in media res. Like, I don't want, I want my books to feel like books. I don't want my books to feel like movies. And I don't want them to feel like treatments for film. And so I want to sort of bring back all of what a novel can do in terms of its structure and in terms of its form and stuff like that. And so it means starting books, you know, with this sort of Dickensian voice of God speaking from on high, sort of summing up an era. And I think also sort of allowing the narrators in my work to dare to sum up, allowing characters in my work to have ideologies and to argue about those ideologies. I feel like that is a thing that was sort of denuded from the American novel for a lot of millennials and just sort of like trying to put back some of that old fashioned machinery that was like stripped out of the novel. And seeing what of it can still function, seeing, trying to figure out if there's any juice left in these modes of representation and stuff like that. And so like that, that's sort of, that's sort of abstract, but like in a concrete way, like what I'm kind of trying to resolve in my novel writing these days.Henry: You mentioned Dickens.Brandon: Oh, yes.Henry: Which Dickens novels do you like?Brandon: Now I'm afraid I'm going to say something else controversial. We love controversial. Which Dickens? I love Bleak House. I love Bleak House. I love Tale of Two Cities. It is one of the best openings ever, ever, ever, ever in the sweep of that book at once personal and universal anyway. Bleak House, Tale of Two Cities. And I also, I read Great Expectations as like a high school student and didn't like it, hated it. It was so boring. But now coming back to it, I think it, honestly, it might be the novel of our time. I think it might accidentally be a novel. I mean, it's a novel of scammers, a novel of like, interpersonal beef taken to the level of like, spiritual conflict, like it's about thieves and class, like it just feels like like that novel could have been written today about people today, like that book just feels so alive to today's concerns, which perhaps, I don't know, says something really evil about this cultural stagnation under capitalism, perhaps, but I don't know, love, love Great Expectations now.Henry: Why are so many modern novels boring?Brandon: Well, depends on what you mean by boring, Henry, what do you mean? Why?Henry: I mean, you said this.Brandon: Oh.Henry: I mean, I happen to agree, but this is, I'm quoting you.Brandon: Oh, yes. I remember that. I remember that review.Henry: I mean, I can tell you why I think they're boring.Brandon: Oh, yes, please.Henry: So I think, I think what you said before is true. They all read like movies. And I think I very often I go in, I pick up six or seven books on the new book table. And I'm like, these openings are all just the same. You're all thinking you can all see Netflix in your head. This is not really a novel. And so the dialogue is really boring, because you kind of you can hear some actor or actress saying it. But I can't hear that because I'm the idiot stuck in the bookshop reading your Netflix script. Whereas, you know, I think you're right that a lot of those traditional forms of storytelling, they like pull you in to the to the novel. And they and they like by the end of the first few pages, you sort of feel like I'm in this funny place now. And to do in media res, like, someone needs to get shot, or something, something weird needs to be said, like, you can't just do another, another standard opening. So I think that's a big, that's a big point.Brandon: Well, as Lukasz tells us, bourgeois realism has a, an unholy fondness for the, the average, the merely average, as opposed to the typical. And I think, yeah, a lot of it, a lot of why I think it's boring echoes you, I think that for me, what I find boring, and a lot of them is that it feels like novelists have abandoned any desire to, to have their characters or the novels themselves integrate the sort of disparate experiences within the novel into any kind of meaningful hole. And so there isn't this like sense of like things advancing toward a grander understanding. And I think a lot of it is because they've, they are writing under the assumption that like the question of why can never be answered. There can never be like a why, there can never be a sort of significance to anything. And so everything is sort of like evacuated of significance or meaning. And so you have what I've taken to calling like reality TV fiction, where the characters are just like going places and doing things, and there are no thoughts, there are no thoughts about their lives, or no thoughts about the things that they are doing, there are no thoughts about their experiences. And it's just a lot of like, like lowercase e events in their lives, but like no attempt to organize those events into any sort of meaningful hole. And I think also just like, what leads to a lot of dead writing is writers who are deeply aware that they're writing about themes, they're writing about themes instead of people. And they're working from generalities instead of particularities and specificities. And they have no understanding of the relationship between the universal and the particular. And so like, everything is just like, like beans in a can that they're shaking around. And I think that that's really boring. I think it's really tedious. Like, like, sure, we can we can find something really profound in the mundane, but like, you have to be really smart to do that. So like the average novelist is like better off like, starting with a gunshot or something like do something big.Henry: If you're not Virginia Woolf, it is in fact just mundane.Brandon: Indeed. Yeah.Henry: Is there too much emphasis on craft? In the way, in the way, in like what's valued among writers, in the way writers are taught, I feel like everything I see is about craft. And I'm like, craft is good, but that can just be like how you make a table rather than like how you make a house. Craft is not the guarantor of anything. And I see a lot of books where I think this person knows some craft. But as you say, they don't really have an application for it. And they don't. No one actually said to them, all style has a moral purpose, whether you're aware of it or not. And so they default to this like pointless use of the craft. And someone should say to them, like, you need to know history. You need to know tennis. You need to know business. You need to know like whatever, you know. And I feel like the novels I don't like are reflections of the discourse bubble that the novelist lives in. And I feel like it's often the continuation of Twitter by other means. So in the Rachel Kong novel that I think it came out this year, there's a character, a billionaire character who comes in near the end. And everything that he says or that is said about him is literally just meme. It's online billionaire meme because billionaires are bad because of all the things we all know from being on Twitter. And I was like, so you just we literally have him a character as meme. And this is the most representative thing to me, because that's maybe there's craft in that. Right. But what you've chosen to craft is like 28 tweets. That's pointless.Brandon: 28 tweets be a great title for a book, though, you have to admit, I would buy that book off the new book table. 28 tweets. I would. I would buy that. Yeah, I do think. Well, I think it goes both ways. I think it goes both ways. I somewhat famously said this about Sally Rooney that like she her books have no craft. The craft is bad. And I do think like there are writers who only have craft, who are able to sort of create these wonderfully structured books and to sort of deploy these beautiful techniques. And those books are absolutely dead. There's just like nothing in them because they have nothing to say. There's just like nothing to be said about any of that. And on the other hand, you have these books that are full of feelings that like would be better had someone taught that person about structure or form or had they sort of had like a rigorous thing. And I would say that like both of those are probably bad, like depending on who you are, you find one more like, like easier to deal with than the other. I do think that like part of why there's such an emphasis on craft is because not to sort of bring capitalism back in but you can monetize craft, you know what I mean? Like, craft is one of those things that is like readily monetizable. Like, if I'm a writer, and I would like to make money, and I can't sell a novel, I can tell people like, oh, how to craft a perfect opening, how to create a novel opening that will make agents pick it up and that will make editors say yes, but like what the sort of promise of craft is that you can finish a thing, but not that it is good, as you say, there's no guarantor. Whereas you know, like it's harder to monetize someone's soul, or like, it's harder to monetize like the sort of random happenstance of just like a writer's voice sort of emerging from from whatever, like you can't turn that into profit. But you can turn into profit, let me help you craft your voice. So it's very grind set, I think craft has a tendency to sort of skew toward the grind set and toward people trying to make money from, from writing when they can't sell a book, you know. Henry: Let's play a game. Brandon: Oh dear.Henry: I say the name of a writer. You give us like the 30 second Brandon Taylor opinion of that writer.Brandon: Okay. Yeah.Henry: Jonathan Franzen.Brandon: Thomas Mann, but like, slightly more boring, I think.Henry: Iris Murdoch.Brandon: A friend of mine calls her a modern calls her the sort of pre Sally Rooney, Sally Rooney. And I agree with that.Henry: When I'm at parties, I try and sell her to people where I say she's post-war Sally Rooney.Brandon: Yes, yes. And like, and like all that that entails, and so many delightful, I read all these like incredible sort of mid century reviews of her novels, and like the men, the male critics, like the Bernard Breganzis of the world being like, why is there so much sex in this book? It's amazing. Please go look up those like mid-century reviews of Iris Murdoch. They were losing their minds. Henry: Chekhov.Brandon: Perfect, iconic, baby girl, angel, legend. Can't get enough. 10 out of 10.Henry: Evelyn Waugh.Brandon: So Catholic, real Catholic vibes. But like, scabrously funny. And like, perhaps the last writer to write about life as though it had meaning. Hot take, but I'll, I stand by it.Henry: Yeah, well, him and Murdoch. But yeah, no, I think I think there's a lot in that. C.V. Wedgwood.Brandon: Oh, my gosh. The best, a titan, a master of history. Like, oh, my God. I would not be the same without Wedgwood.Henry: Tell us which one we should read.Brandon: Oh, the 30 Years War. What are you talking about?Henry: Well, I think her books on the English Civil War… I'm a parochial Brit.Brandon: Oh, see, I don't, not that I don't, I will go read those. But her book on the 30 Years War is so incredible. It's, it's amazing. It's second to like, Froissart's Chronicles for like, sort of history, history books for me.Henry: Northrop Frye.Brandon: My father. I, Northrop Frye taught me so much about how to see and how to think. Just amazing, a true thinker in a mind. Henry: Which book? Brandon: Oh, Anatomy of Criticism is fantastic. But Fearful Symmetry is just, it will blow your head off. Just amazing. But if you're looking for like, to have your, your mind gently remapped, then Anatomy of Criticism.Henry: Emma Cline.Brandon: A throwback. I think she's, I think she's Anne Beattie meets John Cheever for a new era. And I think she's amazing. She's perfect. Don't love her first novel. I think her stories are better. She's a short story writer. And she should stay that way.Henry: Okay, now I want you to rank Jane Austen's novels.Brandon: Wait, okay. So like, by my preference, or by like, what I think is the best?Henry: You can do both.Brandon: Okay. So in terms, my favorite, Persuasion. Then Mansfield Park. Sense and Sensibility. Pride and Prejudice. And then Emma, then Northanger Abbey. Okay.Henry: Now, how about for which ones are the best?Brandon: Persuasion. Pride and Prejudice. Mansfield Park. Emma,.Sense and Sensibility. Northanger Abbey.Henry: Why do people not like Fanny Price? And what is wrong with them?Brandon: Fanny Price is perfect. Fanny Price, I was just talking to someone about this last night at dinner. Fanny Price, she's perfect. First of all, she is, I don't know why people don't like her. She's like a chronically ill girl who's hot for her cousin and like, has deep thoughts. It seems like she would be the icon of literary Twitter for like a certain kind of person, you know? And I don't know why they don't like her. I think I'm, I am becoming the loudest Mansfield Park apologist on the internet. I think that people don't like Fanny because she's less vivacious than Mary Crawford. And I think that people are afraid to see themselves in Fanny because she seems like she's unfun or whatever. But what they don't realize is that like Fanny Price, Fanny Price has like a moral intelligence and like a moral consciousness. And like Fanny Price is one of the few Austen characters who actually argues directly and literally about the way the world is. Like with multiple people, like the whole, the whole novel is her sort of arguing about, well, cities are this and the country is this. And like, we need Parsons as much as we need party boys. Like, like she's arguing not just about, not just about these things like through the lens of like marriage or like the sort of marriage economy, but like in literal terms, I mean, she is so, she's like a moral philosopher. I love Fanny Price and she's so smart and so sensitive and so, and I guess like maybe it's just that people don't like a character who's kind of at the mercy of others and they view her as passive. When in fact, like a young woman arguing about the way the world should be, like Mary Crawford's, Mary Crawford's like kind of doing the above, not really, not like Fanny. But yeah, I love her. She's amazing. I love Fanny Price. And I also think that people love Margaret Hale from North and South. And I think that when people are saying they hate Fanny Price, what they're picturing is actually how Margaret Hale is. Margaret Hale is one of the worst heroines of a novel. She's so insufferable. She's so rude. She's so condescending. And like, she does get her comeuppance and like Gaskell does sort of bring about a transformation where she's actually able to sort of like see poor people as people first and not like subjects of sympathy. But Margaret is what people imagine Fanny is, I think. And we should, we should start a Fanny Price, like booster club. Henry, should we? Let's do it. It begins here. I just feel so strongly about her. I feel, I love, I love Fanny.Henry: She's my favorite of Austen's characters. And I think she is the most representative Austen character. She's the most Austen of all of them, right?Brandon: Yeah, I mean, that makes great deal of sense to me. She's just so wonderful. Like she's so funny and so observant. And she's like this quiet little girl who's like kind of sickly and people don't really like her. And she's kind of maybe I'm just like, maybe I just like see myself in her. And I don't mind being a sort of annoying little person who's going around the world.Henry: What are some good principles for naming literary characters?Brandon: Ooh, I have a lot of strong feelings about this. I think that names should be memorable. They should have like, like an aura of sort of literariness about them. I don't mean, I mean, taken to like hilarious extremes. It's like Henry James. Catherine Goodwood, Isabelle Archer, Ralph Touchett, like, you know, Henry had a stack pole. So like, not like that. But I mean, that could be fun in a modern way. But I think there's like an aura of like, it's a name that you might hear in real life, but it sort of add or remove, it's sort of charged and elevated, sort of like with dialogue. And that it's like a memorable thing that sort of like, you know, it's like, you know, memorable thing that sort of sticks in the reader's mind. It is both a name, a literary, a good literary name is both a part of this world and not of this world, I think. And, yeah, and I love that. I think like, don't give your character a name like you hear all the time. Like, Tyler is a terrible literary name. Like, no novel has ever, no good novel has ever had a really important character named Tyler in it. It just hasn't. Ryan? What makes a good sentence? Well, my sort of like, live and let live answer is that a good sentence is a sentence that is perfectly suited to the purpose it has. But I don't know, I like a clear sentence, regardless of length or lyric intensity, but just like a clear sentence that articulates something. I like a sentence with motion, a sense of rhythm, a sense of feel without any bad words in it. And I don't mean like curse words, I mean like words that shouldn't be in literature. Like, there's some words that just like don't belong in novels.Henry: Like what?Brandon: Squelch. Like, I don't think the word squelch should be in a novel. That's a gross word and it doesn't sound literary to me. I don't want to see it.Henry: I wouldn't be surprised if it was in Ulysses.Brandon: Well, yes.Henry: I have no idea, but I'm sure, I'm sure.Brandon: But so few of us are James Joyce. And that novel is like a thousand bodily functions per page. But don't love it. Don't love it.Henry: You don't love Ulysses?Brandon: No, I don't… Listen, I don't have a strong opinion, but you're not going to get me cancelled about Ulysses. I'm not Virginia Woolf.Henry: We're happy to have opinions of that nature here. That's fine.Brandon: You know, I don't have a strong feeling about it, actually. Some parts of it that I've read are really wonderful. And some parts of it that I have read are really dense and confusing to me. I haven't sort of given it the time it needs or deserves. What did you learn from reading Toni Morris? What did I learn? I think I learned a lot about the moral force of melodrama. I think that she shows us a lot about the uses of melodrama and how it isn't just like a lesion of realism, that it isn't just a sort of malfunctioning realism, but that there are certain experiences and certain lives and certain things that require and necessitate melodrama. And when deployed, it's not tacky or distasteful that it actually is like deeply necessary. And also just like the joy of access and language, like the sort of... Her language is so towering. I don't know, whenever I'm being really shy about a sentence being too vivid or too much, I'm like, well, Toni Morrison would just go for it. And I am not Toni Morrison, but she has given me the courage to try.Henry: What did you like about the Annette Benning film of The Seagull?Brandon: The moment when Annette Benning sings Dark Eyes is so good. It's so good. I think about it all the time. And indeed, I stole that moment for a short story that I wrote. And I liked that part of it. I liked the set design. I think also Saoirse Ronan, when she gives that speech as Nina, where she's like, you know, where the guy's like, what do you want from, you know, what do you want? Why do you want to be an actress? And she's like, I want fame. You know, like, I want to be totally adored. And I'm just like, yeah, that's so real. That's so, that is so real. Like Chekhov has understood something so deep, so deep about the nature of commerce and art there. And I think Saoirse is really wonderful in that movie. It's a not, it's not a good movie. It's maybe not even a good adaptation of The Seagull. But I really enjoyed it. I saw it like five times in a theater in Iowa City.Henry: I don't know if it's a bad adaptation of The Seagull, because it's one of the, it's one of the Chekhov's I've seen that actually understands that, like, the tragic and the and the comic are not meant to be easily distinguishable in his work. And it does have all this lightheartedness. And it is quite funny. And I was like, well, at least someone's doing that because I'm so sick of, like, gloomy Chekhov. You know what I mean? Like, oh, the clouds and the misery. Like, no, he wants you, he wants you to laugh and then be like, I shouldn't laugh because it's kind of tragic, but it's also just funny.Brandon: Yeah. Yes, I mean, all the moments were like, like Annette Bening's characters, like endless stories, like she's just like constantly unfurling a story and a story and a story and a story. Every scene kind of was like, she's in the middle of telling another interminable anecdote. And of course, the sort of big tragic turn at the end is like, where like, Kostya kills himself. And she's like, in the middle of like, another really long anecdote while they're in the other room playing cards. Like, it's so, it's so good. So I love that. I enjoy watching that movie. I still think it's maybe not. It's a little wooden, like as a movie, like it's a little, it's a little rickety.Henry: Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure. But for someone looking to like, get a handle on Chekhov, it's actually a good place to go. What is the best make of Fountain Pen?Brandon: That's a really good, that's a really, really, really good question. Like, what's your Desert Island Fountain Pen? My Desert Island Fountain Pen. Right now, it's an Esterbrook Estee with a needlepoint nib. It's like, so, I can use that pen for hours and hours and hours and hours. I think my favorite Fountain Pen, though, is probably the Pilot Custom 743. It's a really good pen, not too big, not too small. It can hold a ton of ink, really wonderful. I use, I think, like a Soft Fine nib, incredible nib, so smooth. Like, I, you could cap it and then uncap it a month later, and it just like starts immediately. It's amazing. And it's not too expensive.Henry: Brandon Taylor, thank you very much.Brandon: Thanks for having me. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk/subscribe

Freddy G joins us to yap about the news and finish out our series on Rashid Khalidi's 100 Years War on Palestine. FREDDY G @OrangeFreddyG MERCH poddamnamerica.bigcartel.com PATREON patreon.com/poddamnamerica

Jewish Voice For Peace brings you an evening with renowned historian and author Rashid Khalidi in conversation with Katie Halper. Dr. Khalidi will discuss current events in Palestine, his seminal, best-seller book "The 100 Years War on Palestine," student protests and his decision to retire from Columbia University. Rashid Khalidi is Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies Emeritus at Columbia University. He received a B.A. from Yale University and a D. Phil. from Oxford University, and has previously taught at the Lebanese University, the American University of Beirut, and the University of Chicago. He was editor and later co-editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies, and has served as President of the Middle East Studies Association. He is the author of eight books, including The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017, and of over 100 scholarly articles and book chapters, and has co-edited three books. ***Please support The Katie Halper Show *** For bonus content, exclusive interviews, to support independent media & to help make this program possible, please join us on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/thekatiehalpershow Get your Katie Halper Show Merch here! https://katiehalper.myspreadshop.com/all Follow Katie on Twitter: @kthalps

So after chapters focused on London, its time to cast our gaze outwards for an episode… as Edward III, the young, dynamic and energetic King of England, finds himself dragged into a war with Scotland, which in turn leads to a war with France… and how this, mixed with complicated French dynastic politics, to produce the conditions that led to the start of the 100 Years War.Covering how the country slid into this war, the seemingly constant set backs and occasional brilliant victory at sea, and Edward virtually bankrupting the nation, ‘Thunderbolt' sets up the situation in London, with the king turning up in the Tower and trying to purge his entire government for backsliding. Wild times abound.

Welcome back! We cover the side content of the war as the Spanish and Dutch create a peace that would bring an end to their over half a century war. France gets the rough side of this, and the last distractions fall away as the war gears up for one more campaign. Thank you for listening and I'll see you next time!Support the show Email: 3decot@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/3DecadesoftragedyWebsite: https://threedecadesoftragedy.com

This conversation with Lisa was recorded in June just a week after the bombing of Rafah – a refugee camp – a place that was supposed to provide safety from the war. In this conversation, Lisa Sharon Harper covers some incredibly important and challenging topics. We hear Lisa speak passionately about the need for humility - recognizing that we are not God, but rather are created in God's image and called to be stewards of the earth. She then dove deep into the current crisis in Israel and Palestine, expressing grave concerns about the potential for genocide and the urgent need for the international community to intervene. What really struck me was Lisa's call for the church to be a prophetic voice, speaking out against injustice even when it means challenging the actions of powerful nations. She challenges the simplistic theological views that have given Israel a "blank check," and instead urges us to apply biblical principles of justice, compassion, and care for all people. Ultimately, Lisa reminds us of the importance of dreaming and imagining a better future, rather than being deadened by the realities of authoritarianism and oppression. This is the kind of hopeful, prophetic witness that the world so desperately needs right now. Join us as we reckon with injustice and find ways to be peacemakers in our own contexts in conflicts around the world. Lisa Sharon Harper is the founder and president of Freedom Road, a groundbreaking consulting group that crafts experiences that bring common understanding and common commitments that lead to common action toward a more just world. Lisa is a public theologian whose writing, speaking, activism and training has sparked and fed the fires of re-formation in the church from Ferguson and Charlottesville to South Africa, Brazil, Australia and Ireland. Lisa's book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family And The World--And How To Repair It All was named one of the “Best Books of 2022” and The Very Good Gospel was named 2016 “Book of the Year” by Englewood Review of Books. Lisa is a board member of The Justice Revival—the leading organization of the #Faith4ERA campaign. An Auburn Senior Fellow, Lisa is also proud to join the inaugural cohort of the Aspen Institute Racial Justice and Religion Collective. The Huffington Post identified Lisa as one of 50 Women Religious Leaders to Celebrate on International Women's Day. Lisa is host of the Freedom Road Podcast, cohost of The FOUR Podcast and author of her weekly column, “The Truth Is…”, on Freedom Road Substack.Lisa's Books:FortuneThe Very Good GospelLisa's Recommendation:100 Years War on PalestineJoin Our Patreon for Early Access and More: PatreonConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate.Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Threads at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/https://twitter.com/shiftingcultur2https://www.threads.net/@shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.youtube.com/@shiftingculturepodcastConsider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the worRegister for the Further Together and Identity Exchange events at allnations.us Support the Show.

Dr. Owen Strachan explores the topic of Christian nationalism and its historical context, focusing on the 30 Years War in Europe from 1618 to 1648. It highlights the dangers of merging church and state and the negative consequences that can arise from such alliances. The conversation emphasizes the importance of religious liberty and the American experiment as a response to the religious conflicts of the past. It concludes by affirming that Jesus' kingdom is not of this world and that the advancement of the gospel does not come through the sword.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Unrestricted Warfare Ep. 132 | "NATO Nazis 75 Years War" with Rich Germeau Links: https://www.thebestimmunesupport.com/ Discount Code: Pro2024 for 10% off Pro Immune *Buy Master Peace Solution here to detox* - Purge the graphene oxide out of you https://masterpeacebyhcs.com/?ref=11350 Decentralized Media Coming 2024 Support James by Subscribing Early at www.decentralized.media Mushrooms https://redpills.tv/mushroom PTG Gold and Silver www.getgoldtoday.com www.redpills.tv/mypillow My Patriot Supply Be Prepared When Disaster Strikes redpills.tv/patriot The Redpill Project.. Find Us and Subscribe! Web https://redpills.tv Telegram http://t.me/RedpillsTV Rumble https://rumble.com/c/RedpillProject CloutHub https://clouthub.com/redpills GETTR https://gettr.com/user/redpill TikTok https://tiktok.com/@realjoshreid Foxhole App: https://pilled.net/#/profile/127862 Facebook: https://www.facebook.co

Hey, so do any of you remember the 100 Years War? The one in France? That occurred over 3 DISTINCT PERIODS? We do!  And we're back, except this time we meet up with a different Jeanne (familiar?)  who is at the beginning of the war this time! Jeanne de Clisson (another Jeanne!) doesn't hear angels calling to her but she does wind up a wealthy widow! In Part 1 we chart Jeanne's rise to the rich widow status and how she got there. And we learn how she got caught up in the beginning of an epic-ly long death match between England and France!  Image link: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Jeanne+de+Clisson&title=Special:MediaSearch&type=image

In this week's episode, I take a look back at my SILENT ORDER science fiction series, and answer twelve of the most common questions from readers about the books. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 205 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is June the 14th, 2024 and today we are doing a question and answer session on my Silent Order science fiction series. Before we get to that, we will have an update on my current writing progress and then Question of the Week. My main project right now is Shield of Darkness, a sequel to Shield of Storms and the second book in the Shield War series. Progress has not been as quick as I would like, but there still has been progress and as of this recording, I am about 84,000 words into the rough draft. It really helped that I had a 10,000 word day on June 12th. That really propelled things forward. I'm not entirely sure how long the rough draft is going to be. I think it's probably going to end up around 120,000 words, maybe 115,000 words. We'll see when get there. But I'm still hoping to have it out in July, sometime after the 4th of July. After that is done, my next project will be Half-Orc Paladin, the third book in the Rivah series, and I'm currently 24,000 words into that and I think that one will be around 75,000 words (give or take) once it's done. I'm also 9,000 words into Ghost in the Tombs, but that will come out later in the year. In audiobook news, I'm pleased to report that the collection Tales of the Shield Knight, which contains sixteen stories from the Sevenfold Sword and the Dragontiarna series, is now out in audiobook, as excellently narrated by Brad Wills. You can get that at Audible, Amazon, and Apple Books at the moment, and should gradually be making its way onto the other audiobook stores as it gets through processing. Be sure to subscribe to my new release newsletter because sometimes I will give away individual audio short stories for free from that collection in my newsletter. 00:01:50 Question of the Week Now let's move on to Question of the Week. Our Question of the Week segment is designed to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week's question: if you read mystery novels, what was the first mystery novel you ever read? No, wrong answers obviously, and as you'd expect, we had quite a few different responses. Justin says: A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I was 12. I had chicken pox and was confined to my room. I begged my father for something to read, and he handed me a massive book, The Complete Sherlock Holmes. Two days later, I asked for other books by him. I'm still not a fan of mysteries, but Doyle was a great author. Our next comment is from Ray, who says: Hardy Boys, also Sherlock Holmes for school. As an adult, the first I recall by choice were the Father Blackie Mysteries by Andrew Greeley. Our next comment is from Jake who says: can't remember. It had to be back in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s. But I agree with you, it's great to diversify in reading. Someone gifted me a copy of Water for Elephants. I would never have read that by choice, but I'm glad I did. Our next comment is from Jeff, who says: Tom Swift books and Hound of the Baskervilles. Tom Swift was even science fiction-ish with their far-out inventions. Our next comment is from Jonathan (not me), who says: the Hardy Boys Hunting for Hidden Gold. The reprinted Flashlight edition was my first mystery read for me by my mom when I was about 8. This would have also been my first mystery that I read independently. When I was 10 through 11, I read the original Hardy Boys While the Clock Ticked. I was too young to know about the different editions of novels until much later, but I was always dissatisfied with the Flashlight version because it lacked the ending that I remembered. It was years later that I discovered the history of the series, which led to me finding and purchasing all or most of the original novels. Our next comment is from Becca, who says: Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys in early grade school. No idea which one, but I had quite a few of them. First adult mystery series was probably middle school and was The Alphabet Series by Sue Grafton and the Joe Grey series by Murphy. My mom really encouraged me to read pretty much anything and everything. Wish you would write more mystery books. They're so great. Thanks, Becca. I am glad you liked the mystery books, so I don't think too many other people did, which is why I have not written more of them. Our next comment is from Justin who says: first mystery novel was The Hardy Boys in grade school. Michael says: not my first, but I really like the Pendergast series by Lincoln and Child. Worth the read if folks haven't tried. John says: The Three Investigators series by Alfred Hitchcock. I don't know where I got the first one. My mom probably got it at a yard sale or something, but I was hooked. Was able to check out the others in the series for my school's library. I was probably in 3rd or 4th grade. Juana says: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Our next comment is from Ann-Marie, who says: Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and The Boxcar Children. Jeremiah says: Sherlock Holmes. Andrew says: As a young'un in grade school, I read The Mystery of the Green Ghost. It has stuck with me all these years. As a little more mature reader, I got a hold of The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Quite entertaining indeed. My own answer to this was I think it was Tell No One by Harlan Coben. This was way back in 2001 and I had a long car ride coming up. At the time I didn't read anything except fantasy and science fiction, but I got Tell No One as a present and I didn't have anything else to read while in the car. So I started reading Tell No One during the ride. The book is about an ER physician whose wife was murdered eight years ago. Then one day out of the blue, the physician gets a message that could only have come from her. Suddenly people show up to kill the physician and he finds himself on the run from the agents of a sinister billionaire. I was definitely hooked, and I've read mysteries and thrillers on and off since. I think this was good for me long term since I ended up a writer and it's good for writers to read widely in different genres. You always tell what a science fiction novel, for example, was written by someone who has never heard anything but science fiction. Additionally, when I wrote out the Question of the Week, I did not have Hardy Boys in mind because I was thinking of them as you know, books for children and I was thinking about adult books, but I did indeed read a bunch of The Hardy Boys books when I was a kid, but it was that was long enough going out that I can't clearly recall the plots of any of them, I'm afraid. 00:06:04 Main Topic: Silent Order Question and Answer Time (Note: Some Spoilers for the series in this section) Now on to our main topic of the week, Silent Order question and answer time. Why talk about this now, about a year after I finished the Silent Order science fiction series? Well, the reason for that is Silent Order Omnibus One had a very successful Bookbub feature deal at the end of May. Silent Order Omnibus One was briefly the number 2 free ebook on Amazon US and the number 1 free ebook on Amazon UK. So thanks for that, everyone. As you can imagine, this resulted in a lot of new eyes on the series, which inspired many reader questions, which is funny because I've been getting most of the same questions about the series and its particular idiosyncrasies for about seven years now. So let's have some answers below. First, some basic facts about the series. I published the first five books in September and October of 2017. It ended up at about 14 books, and I published the 14th and final book in September of 2023. All books are available on all ebook platforms. I've dabbled with Kindle Unlimited for it in the past, but not anymore. It's available wide and will remain so. There are also six tie-in short stories to the series that I've given away for free to my newsletter subscribers at various times. Now, with the basic facts out of the way, let's proceed to the most common questions from the last seven years of Silent Order. Question #1: Why do the characters still use kinetic, chemically propelled firearms 100,000 years in the future? By this question, people are usually wondering why at times the characters in the Silent Order are using, you know, traditional guns that fire metal bullets as opposed to like blasters or lasers or plasma cannons or whatever. And the answer is, not to be flippant, but why wouldn't they? People forget that firearms technology has been used for military applications, at least in the West, for at least nearly 700 years. Cannons were used in the 100 Years War and the 100 Years War started in 1337. Firearms technology has been refined and improved considerably since then, and no doubt it will continue to receive refinements and improvements in the future. Additionally, chemically propelled firearms offer many advantages over more advanced weaponry like lasers, rail guns, blasters, or particle weapons, especially for handheld levels of weaponry. A chemically propelled firearm doesn't require electricity or a power source and can't be disabled by an EMP. It's also more durable and rugged than a more advanced weapon, which would almost certainly require delicate electronic components. In fact, some models of firearm can famously be exposed to harsh conditions and continue to function. There's just no way you could do the same thing with a laser. Some devices, some machines are just the apex of their technological niche. Despite all the advanced weaponry available in the 21st century, soldiers still carry combat knives because in a situation where you need a knife, it is the best tool for the job. I suspect chemically propelled firearms dominate their niche in the same way. Question #2: Why isn't the technology in Silent Order as advanced as I think it should be? Well, they do have faster than light travel, artificial gravity, inertial absorption, anti-gravity lifts, shields, plasma weaponry, and ion thrusters. You can't exactly order any of that stuff off Amazon today. Medical technology is rather more advanced as well. The average human lifespan in Calaskar and other “developed” worlds at this time period is about 160 years due to advances in genetic engineering and better understanding of mitochondrial DNA. Cloned replacement limbs and organs are common medical procedures. When a replacement limb can't be cloned, installing a cybernetic one is typically a one day medical procedure. In the back story of the series, there are five very large Terran empires that rose and collapsed before the start of the series, which is about, as I've said, 100,000 years into the future. Those Terran empires each tended to have more advanced technology in certain areas than is common at the start of the series. One was a lot better at genetic engineering, another built super advanced sentient AI (more on that later) and so forth. When the particular empire fell or disintegrated into smaller successor states, there was some technological backsliding, and some of the more super advanced technology was lost. Question #3: The protagonist Jack March has the same initials as the author, Jonathan Moeller. Was that deliberate? Oh no, it wasn't. One of the original inspirations for the series were the James Bond books, so I chose a name that was the opposite of James Bond. After all, March is kind of the opposite of Bond in the sense of movement versus stasis and stagnation. In the original books, James Bond was always a sort of self-destructive alcoholic who gets somewhat worse as the series goes along and he doesn't have much in the way of character development. By contrast, I wanted March to have much more character change and growth. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that gave Jack March the same initials as me until three or four years into writing the series. The obvious is only obvious in hindsight, alas. Occasionally people say March is an authorial self-insert, but I guarantee you that he is not. If he were, he'd be a cranky middle aged former IT worker who doesn't like to go out very much. Question #4: Why doesn't March sleep with any of the beautiful women he meets in the first four books? Because he didn't want to. Like I said, he's sort of the opposite of James Bond and doesn't like unprofessionalism like that on the job. Also, by the time the series starts, he's old enough that casual flings no longer interest him and ultimately, he would really rather be on his own. It isn't until he meets a woman who truly understands him that this starts to change and the woman understands him because she hates the Final Consciousness just as much as he does. Question #5: Why do the characters still use phones? Well, they're not “cellular telephones” in the way that we think of them. They're more like personal handheld telecommunication and computing devices that are significantly more powerful than anything available today. That said, words sometimes long outlast the original purpose. The word mile originally came from the Latin language and described the distance a Roman soldier could cover with 1,000 steps. There is no longer a Roman Empire or Roman legionaries, but the term remains in use. There's a good chance that the word phone will outlast our current civilization and continue to refer to a telecommunications device just as miles still refers to a unit of distance, even though it doesn't have anything to do with marching soldiers or the Roman Empire. Additionally, phone was the simplest word available and using a sci-fi ish term like a mobile data pad or personal communicator or handheld computer just seemed a bit try hard. I used the metric system for distance in the series because the majority of Earth's population uses it today, so I assume it will eventually win out over time by pure weight of numbers. Question #6: Why does March work for repressive government like Calaskar? Whether or not Caesar is repressive depends on one's perspective. I expect someone from the 1850s or even the 1950s United States would find the Calaskaran government rather liberal and shockingly egalitarian. But many people from 2024 America would probably find it repressive. That said, I think Calaskar is better described as conformist. If you don't criticize the king or the official doctrines of the Royal Calaskaran church, you can say pretty much anything you want, and Calaskar doesn't have anything like the social problems of the 21st century United States, though that is partly because dissidents are eventually encouraged to leave and seek their fortunes elsewhere. Some of Calaskar's neighbors like Rustaril and the Falcon Republic were originally Calaskaran worlds that split off due to ideological differences. Rustaril opted for a form of socialism that led to its stagnation and ongoing decline, while the Falcon Republic is more hyper-capitalistic and libertarian and therefore very unstable, albeit with a cloned army that steps in and takes over when things get out of hand. Calaskar claims that its government combines the best aspects of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, though opinions differ among the characters in the books whether or not this is actually true. However, the series is mostly written from the perspective of Jack March, and he doesn't much care about everything we just discussed in the previous paragraph. He primarily works for the Silent Order, which is a Calaskaran intelligence agency that answers only to its own leaders and the King. The ultimate mission of the Silent Order is to monitor the elite and upper classes of Calaskaran society, whether political, business, or entertainment elites. If they start acting in a destructive way that will harm Calaskar and civilization, the Silent Order either discredits them, sabotages their careers, or arranges an accident (depending on how severe the particular elite's brand of corruption is). Obviously, many people would have severe moral qualms about arranging the fatal extrajudicial accident of a corrupt government or judicial official. Since March's own home world of Calixtus was betrayed to the Final Consciousness by its elite classes, he has no problem doing this kind of work. For March's perspective, Calaskar opposes the Final Consciousness and has been the primary rival to the Final Consciousness for some time, which is good enough for him. The fact that life on Calaskar is vastly better than anywhere ruled by the Final Consciousness just reinforces his decision. Question #7: Was this series inspired by the computer game Starfield? I have to admit I LOLed at this question. I started writing Silent Order on New Year's Eve in 2016 and the final book in the series came out in early September 2023. In fact, if I remember it, Starfield came out like two or three days after I published the final Silent Order book. So I can confidently say that the series wasn't inspired by Starfield in any way. That said, I would say that the video games which did help shape my thinking about the books were Wing Commander: Privateer, TIE Fighter, and Master of Orion 1 and 2. All those games were from the 1990s, of course, so I suppose I'm dating myself. Question #8: What actually did inspire the Silent Order series? The video games I mentioned above, for one. Also, the original James Bond books. When I started thinking about writing a science fiction series, I decided that I wanted to do a spy thriller, but in space. The Final Consciousness was sort of the idea of cybernetic space totalitarians. James Bond originally went up against SMERSH and then SPECTRE in the books, but March would go up against the covert agents of the sinister cybernetic Final Consciousness. There are also Lovecraftian themes in the books, as is gradually revealed throughout the series, that the Final Consciousness is in fact controlled by cosmic horrors from another universe. Believe it or not, the various malfunctions of ChatGPT also helped inspire some of the later books. I had established way back in Silent Order: Iron Hand that a true AI always goes homicidally insane. So when I actually did have to run an AI supercomputer character from one of the later books, I based its behavior on some ChatGPT and Bing Chat's more hilarious public meltdowns, though if I had waited a little longer and based it on Google's AI, the AI supercomputer character could have suggested that the protagonist add glue to their pizza cheese or perhaps eats are real small rocks a day for minerals. The day I wrote this paragraph (which was June 10th, 2024), Apple announced they're adding a bunch of AI stuff to both the iPad and iPhone, and no doubt more AI will soon reach meme status on the Internet. Needless to say, my opinion of generative AI in general is quite low. Question #9: Have the covers for the series changed? They look different on Goodreads. Not only have the covers changed over the last seven years, they have changed a lot. The covers went through five different iterations. At first I did them myself in GIMP and then I tried a couple different variations. During COVID I took a Photoshop class which I admit leveled up my cover design skills significantly, so I tried some character-based covers but they never had the results I was hoping to see in terms of sales. Then in 2022, I saw a Penny Arcade comic that made a joke about how science fiction readers want to see book covers that show spaceships and planets in close proximity. And while this was a joke, I realized it was nonetheless true, so I redid the covers to the current look that features spaceships in close proximity to planets, and the series has sold the best overall with the new set of covers. Science fiction writers take heed: the readers want to see planets and spaceships in close proximity on their covers. Question #10: Why aren't there audiobooks for the series? In all honesty, it would just be too expensive. At a rough back of the envelope calculation, I think it would take about $30,000 U.S. dollars to bring the entire series into audio, and it would take years to see that money back. Plus, I think the series would end up at about 85 hours long, give or take, and that's like 2 full work weeks just to listen to the audiobook for proofing. So to sum up, it would cost too much and I don't want to take on another project of that magnitude at this time. Question #11: What is your favorite book in the series? Silent Order: Eclipse Hand, for reasons unrelated to the plot. I read an article in 2017 saying that the iPad was a better productivity computer than a Linux desktop, and I thought that was just nonsense for a variety of reasons. So I wrote, edited, and did the entire cover on a Ubuntu Linux desktop for Silent Order: Eclipse Hand just to prove a point. I work less with Linux now than I did back in 2017, though given how bad Windows 11 has gotten with all the AI integration, I might go back to writing on a Linux desktop at some point. Even though it's my favorite book for reasons other than plot, I do quite like the plot of Eclipse Hand as well. The basic idea was something that's been knocking around inside my head for a while, so I was glad I was finally able to get to write it down. And now our 12th and final question: Weren't they originally only supposed to be nine books in the series? Why are there fourteen? Yes, I had planned to stop at nine because the Silent Order books never sold quite as well as I had hoped. However, there were enough dangling plot threads, specifically the mystery around the Pulse weapon of the Final Consciousness, that I was persuaded to continue and bring the series to a more epic ending than it had in book nine. I started working on book 10 in late 2019, but then COVID happened and derailed things for a while. At the end of 2021, I was able to pick it up again and in 2023 I decided would be my “summer of finishing things” and I pushed on to the final book in the Silent Order series. Hopefully it was a suitably epic ending. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who read through to the end of the series, encouraging me to continue with it. The years 2020 through 2023 were frustrating ones for a variety of reasons (and I'm sure everyone listened to this had their own frustrations in those years as well) and one of the ways I tried to reduce those frustrations was to put Silent Order on the side for a while, but I'm glad I persevered and continued on with the series, even if it took me a while. Now that it is finished, I can look back on it with a sense of pride for all the hard work that went into it. But mostly what I feel when I look back at it is gratitude for all the readers who read the books and enjoyed them. So that's it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A remind you that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com, often with transcripts (note: transcripts are for Episodes 140 to the present episode). If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

This episode is final installment with Prof. Mikaberidze. He discusses the nature of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) and how the Napoleonic Wars, at least politically, marked Medieval Times giving way to Modern Age in Central Europe.  Before 1805, was no Germany but the HRE, a commonwealth of over 300 subdivisions of mostly German-speaking states. This included kingdoms, free states, duchies, and bishoprics.  The Emperor was elected by nine rulers of the more influential states. From the 16th Century onward, each Emperor came from the Habsburg family, which resulted in Habsburgs running Austria and overseeing the Empire.  Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, Baden, Württemberg and Hanover where among the more influential states.    The relationships of the panoply of states was impacted by competition and alliances in accord with tastes of the times.  Each state was generally self-sufficient. If the Emperor requested, troops could be sent for a common cause for a delineated term.  Importantly, there was not a Germanic army loyal to the Emperor. This was their “separation of powers." Other large powers exploited this -- as French Kings did during the 30 Years War and Napoleon did as well.The HRE existed for about 1000 years, if you measure it from Pope Leo crowning Charlemagne in 800 A.D.,  or 850 years from Pope John XII crowning Otto in 962.  In any event, it all ends in1805, in the wake of the Battle of Austerlitz. Through victory, Napoleon restructures the old institution into something new, namely the Confederation of the Rhine, which had 39 states.We also discuss the “Glorious Retreat,” a term the professor uses in an ironic sense. This phrase was born in 19th century Russia and heavily promoted in Soviet times, where Kutuzov was extolled as a genius.  Granted, what is depicted in Part II of Book I was a wise retreat where Kutuzov never allowed his forces to get out-worked and surrounded like General Mack at Ulm. However, the events of 1805 were a significant loss for the Russian Empire with minimal “glory” A re-characterization was the method to find a silver lining. The Russians promoted their continued escape and placed the blame on “treacherous” Austrians.  They cherry-picked certain efforts, like in Krems, and celebrated Bagration.  The Professor also touches on how formal military rules were flouted, and officers, at times, would travel with their wives, and come up with creative excuses for the breach.  Prof. Mikaberidze later gives an overview of some of the various Cossacks to populate the Russian Empire in the early 19th Century.  He also references whether Napoleon missed an opportunity of allying with the population of territories taken by Russia during the partitions of Poland (the final one formalized in 1797), which was within memory of much of the population Napoleon encountered when he march East. For example, when reached Vilnius in 1812, he was met with widespread acclaim.   He also marched through (what is today) Belarus and northern Ukraine. As some of these areas were acquired forcefully 20 years before, Napoleon may have been able to recruit more of the local population with skillful outreach.  It is also an interesting question as to whether masses of Ukrainian and Lithuanian peasantry would have assisted him.We close by discussing the transcendent nature of War & Peace.

If you love art and food, you probably know Libby Haines' work. Her juicy textural still life paintings sell out in seconds on Instagram.Libby is an artist who knows the magic of those really good meals that stay with you for years. For her, painting and cooking are deeply intertwined – both are expressions of creativity, nourishment, and self-expression. Going back, Libby's childhood memories are saturated with the vibrant colours and textures of her grandparent's vegetable garden and the comforting chaos of the family kitchen. These early experiences laid the foundation for a lifelong journey of artistic expression, culinary exploration, and a deep appreciation for the beauty and intensity found in everyday life.You can find Libby's Pumpkin Ricotta Sage Orichette recipe on our website!Find us @whatartistseat on Instagram and our website www.whatartistseat.com.auSupport What Artists Eat on Patreon!Links to Libby's work and anything else we chatted about:www.libbyhaines.com@libbyhainesartThe 100 Years War on Palestine- Rashid KhalidiJustice for Some by Noura ErakatDoppleganger Naomi KleinMe and White Supremacy Layla SaadArtist Marion AbrahamOndo Korean restaurant Melbourne CBDBooks Libby's loving: The Neapolitan series by Elena FerranteFree printable download from Libby's website to print and share widely Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Start your FREE scan for data brokers that are hoarding your personal info:https://www.optery.com/protect-your-p... Bibliography: Atrocities by Matthew White Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder A History of China by John Keay The First World War by John Keegan A History of the Second World War by Liddell Hart Plagues and Peoples by McNeil Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant A History of China by Wolfram Eberhard Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom by Steven R. Platt The Cambridge Illustrated History of China War, Peace and War by Peter Turchin the Later Roman Empire by Bury A Guide to Late Antiquity by Peter Brown History's Greatest Wars by Cummins Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quiggley A History of Russia, Mongolia and Central Asia by David Christian War in Human Civilization by Azar Gat The 30 Years War by Peter Wilson The Military Revolution by Geoffrey Parker The General Crisis by Geoffrey Parker Africa by John Reader African History by Basil Davidson Inglorious Empire by Sashi Tharoor Europe: A History by Norman Davies The Soul of India by Amaury de Riencourt Destiny Disrupted by Tamim Ansary Secular Cycles by Peter Turchin Generations of Captivity by Berlin The Story of the Americas by Leland Dewitt Baldwin

Link to common ground-   / @commonground-qg5oj   Bibliography The Global Crisis by Geoffrey Parker The Military Revolution by Geoffrey Parker The 30 Years War by Peter Wilson The Little Ice Age by Brian Fagan Europe by Norman Davies Atrocities by Matthew White The Culture Map by Erin Meyer The Great Wave by David Hackett Fischer Secular Cycles by Peter Turchin Disunited Nations by Peter Zeihan The End of the World is Just the Beginning by Peter Zeihan Millennium by Ian Mortimer Protestants by Alec Ryrie The Next 100 Years by George Friedman The Great Leveler by Walter Scheidel 1632 by Eric Flint Tecniques and Technology by Lewis Mumford

The guys mix up the "first Cuban cocktail," created by guerrilla fighters during the 10 Years War of Cuban independence.2oz/60ml CUBAN AGUARDIENTE .5oz/ 15ml LIME JUICE.5oz/15ml RAW HONEY1.7oz/50ml WATERMix honey with water and lime juice and spread the mixture on the bottom and sides of the glass.Add cracked ice, then the rum. End by energetically stirring from bottom to top. Garnish with lime wedge.Recipe via the International Bartenders Association I www.iba-world.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Austin Knuppe has a Ph.D. in political science from The Ohio State University and currently serves asan assistant professor of political science at Utah State University. Prior to Utah State, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College. His research interests include civilian survival during wartime, Middle East politics, and the role of religion in international politics. His first book, Surviving the Islamic State: Contention, Cooperation, and Neutrality in Wartime Iraq explores how ordinary Iraqis survived Islamic State control of their communities between 2014 and 2018.  In this conversation, we begin talking about understanding terrorism and politics in the Middle-East, the rise of ISIS in particular, U.S. intervention in Middle-Eastern affairs, and then we spend the bulk of our time understanding the history and current events surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict, including the current war between Israel and Hamas.  Here are some links to sources mentioned during our conversation: South Africa's 84 page report indicting Israel of genocide: https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2024/01/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdfn Quotes from Israeli leaders that reflect genocidal rhetoric: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/fighting-amalek-in-gaza-what-israelis Evidence of Israel indiscriminate bombing of (and targeting) civilians and civilian structures: https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/ And https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6058/Euro-Med-Monitor-sends-UN-rapporteurs,- ICC-Prosecutor-primary-report-documenting-dozens-of-field-execution-cases-in-Gaza Evidence that the IDF killed (and was directed to kill) at least some Israelis: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israeli-hq-ordered-troops-shoot-israeli- captives-7-october And https://electronicintifada.net/content/evidence-israel-killed-its-own- citizens-7-october/41156 Evidence that the Netanyahu and his administration supported or helped create, on some level, Hamas:  https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/ And https://www.upi.com/Archives/2001/02/24/Israel-gave-major-to-aid-to- Hamas/6023982990800/ And https://original.antiwar.com/scott/2023/10/27/netanyahus- support-for-hamas-backfired-2/ Some books mentioned at the end of the podcast: Khalidi, The 100 Years War on Palestine  https://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Years-War- Palestine-Colonialism/dp/1250787653 Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine https://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine- Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553 Morris, Righteous Victims  https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Victims-Zionist-Arab-Conflict- 1881-2001/dp/0679744754/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2LLCMUSIM520Y&keywords=benny+morris&qid=17067 40859&s=books&sprefix=benny+morri%2Cstripbooks%2C182&sr=1-2 See also the 6-part (30 hour) series “Fear and Loathing” and “War all the time” at the martyrmade podcast with Darryl Cooper.

“Everywhere in southern Anhui they are eating people.” — Zeng Guofan“Infants but recently born were torn from their mother's breasts, and disemboweled before their faces. Young strong men were disemboweled, mutilated, and the parts cut off thrust into their own mouths…” — A British testimony on the Qing treatment of POWsIf I were to ask you which is the deadliest conflict in history, you'd probably answer WW II. But if I were to ask you, which is the second deadliest conflict ever—at least according to most historians—I'd bet the number of raised hands would shrink quickly. And I'd also bet that a good percentage of those taking their chances with an answer would probably be wrong. So, welcome to the wildest, weirdest, biggest conflict in history that few people have heard about (that is…unless you are quite knowledgeable about Chinese history). Millions of troops took part in this war. Something in the neighborhood of 600 cities changed hands over decade and half of fighting. Conservative estimates place the dead around 20-30 millions (some estimates go as high as 100 millions.) For frame of references, this is deadlier than the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Spanish American War, the American Civil War and the American Revolution put together. We can also throw in the 7 Years War, all three Punic wars and all of the Crusades for good measure. In light of this, it may begin to make sense why several historians believe this is the bloodiest civil war of all time. It all began with a Chinese man who, in the mid-1800s, dreamed of becoming a scholar and receive a government job. Seems like an innocent start, right? Well, our wannabe intellectual, a certain Hong Xiuquan, experienced a major crisis when he realized that no matter how much he studied, he would not succeed at passing the imperial exams, that were the prerequisite to getting the career he dreamed of. The fact that he failed was more than a personal tragedy for Hong. Rather, this failure would trigger a sequence of events leading to the death of millions. This was easily the most costly F in the history of education. Broken to the core, he had a mental breakdown, and began to experience visions. These visions revealed to him that he was God's son, and Jesus' younger brother, and he was tasked by his heavenly relatives to clean China off any demonic influences in order to create the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace. His efforts to create this Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace heralded a bloody civil war with a body count that would make most video gamers blush.In this episode, we run into Christian missionaries floating on a river of death, Hong's descent into further layers of madness, the Second Opium War, Zeng Guofan's comical pessimism, the wavering French-British policy, the Empress Dowager Cixi being a gangster, the battle for Shanghai, the Ever Victorious Army, a cholera outbreak, the asexual crusader Charles Gordon, the death of a Christian kingdom in China, and much more. If you feel generous and enjoy History on Fire, please consider joining my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/historyonfire to access plenty of bonus content. All the links to History on Fire social media can be found at https://linktr.ee/danielebolelli Including the HOF YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFCiqHbWJO26nFzUP-Eu55Q Substack: https://substack.com/@danielebolelliInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyonfire/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@historyonfirepodcast Throughout history, people have used mushrooms (such as Lion's Mane, Turkey Tail, Cordyceps, Reishi and Chaga) for their medicinal properties. My friends started https://purestmushrooms.com/ where they offer some of the best quality mushrooms you can find on the market at affordable prices. Use code historyonfire at checkout for a discount.Bison is some of the healthiest meat you could possibly eat. Get yours at https://dakotapurebison.com/ History on Fire listeners get a discount by using the code HOF10 at checkout. A big thank you to the sponsor for today's episode, Factor, America's #1 Ready-To-Eat Meal Delivery Service. Head to FACTOR MEALS dot com slash historyonfire50 and use code historyonfire50 to get 50% off. https://factormeals.com/historyonfire50 Millions of people struggle with premature hair thinning and hair loss. If you are among them, you may want to address this by getting 10% off at https://proviahair.com/HOF

Peter Evans returns to The Arts Salon to talk about his artistic practice, the cultish nature of "new music," the 30 Years War, Bach, John Coltrane, American education, music education, and how Peter is convinced the internet is just a fad (lol not really). If you are unfamiliar with Peter, you can listen to episode 8 of the podcast to get acquainted with his work. Later this month we release part 2 of my talk about Greek Mythology with Susana Castellanos where we discuss the second generation of Olympian Gods (for part 1 listen to Episode 46). We will close out January with another Arts Salon "Off-Topic" featuring economist Tyler Cowen, leader of Marginal Revolution and host of Conversations With Tyler. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/artssalon/support

This conversation is a rerun of a 2021 episode with Professor Rashid Khalidi author of "The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017".  We are rerunning this episode since our team is on a break until after the second week of January and the episode is filled with lots of great information.  Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies in the department of History at Columbia University. He received his B.A. from Yale in 1970, and his D.Phil. from Oxford in 1974. He is co-editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies, and was President of the Middle East Studies Association, and an advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid and Washington Arab-Israeli peace negotiations from October 1991 until June 1993. He is author of: Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. has Undermined Peace in the Middle East (2013); Sowing Crisis: American Dominance and the Cold War in the Middle East (2009); The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (2006); Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East (2004); Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (1996); Under Siege: PLO Decision-Making During the 1982 War (1986); British Policy Towards Syria and Palestine, 1906-1914 (1980); and co-editor of Palestine and the Gulf (1982), The Origins of Arab Nationalism (1991), and The Other Jerusalem: Rethinking the History of the Sacred City (2020).  ****** ABOUT AFIKRA ******‎ afikra | عفكرة is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region – past, present, and future – through conversations driven by curiosity.

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 1043, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: They Own It 1: Everything from Charmin to Duracell:This company named for 2 guys. Procter and Gamble. 2: Uncle Ben's, MandM's and, fittingly, Orbit gum. Mars. 3: Cheerios and Wheaties:This "military" corporation. General Mills. 4: Dasani and Sprite:This soft drink concern. Coca-Cola. 5: Xanax and Lipitor (don't get them mixed up):This pharmaceutical giant. Pfizer. Round 2. Category: The World At War 1: The Chinese Communist First Front Army staged the 6,000-mile retreat known as the Long March under this leader. Mao Tse-tung. 2: St. Louis, Missouri was named for King Louis IX of France, who led the Seventh and Eighth of these military debacles. the Crusades. 3: In 1619 Rene Descartes went to join the army of the Duke of Bavaria during this decades-long war. the 30 Years War. 4: Unprepared for this man leading an army force over the Andes in 1817, the Spanish Empire lost Chile and Argentina. José de San Martín. 5: The first British recipient of the Victoria Cross, a sailor, received it for actions in the Baltic Sea during this war. the Crimean War. Round 3. Category: In Life 1: In regard to benefits, ssa.gov says this period of your life begins at age 62. retirement. 2: In common law, the age of this, signaling adulthood, is presumed to be 14 in boys and 12 in girls. puberty. 3: In the Holmes-Rahe life stress inventory, the death of a spouse is tops, while this similar outcome is second. divorce. 4: In Catholicism this sacrament, administered on baptized persons at least age 7, allows you to take communion. confirmation. 5: "When age chills the blood", waxed Byron, "our sweetest memorial" will be the "first" this "of love". kiss. Round 4. Category: Happy 50Th Nasa 1: NASA took up JFK's 1961 challenge to do this by decade's end and met it with 5 months to spare. put a man on the Moon. 2: NASA took up W's 2004 challenge to do this as the first of "the next steps of space exploration". put a man on Mars. 3: NASA radar checks out ECAs, Earth-orbit crossing these, in case one is about to wipe out civilization. an asteroid. 4: Named for this rocketry pioneer, NASA's first space flight center was set up when NASA was 1. (Robert) Goddard. 5: The 50th anniversary logo shows a grand design galaxy in which these anatomical features curl pleasingly inward. the arms of the galaxy. Round 5. Category: You'Re NutS!. With Nut in quotes 1: These handy items are named for their shape, not for being used on airplanes. wing nuts. 2: It evolved from "Li'l Folks", a 1940s feature in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Peanuts. 3: The "English" type of this tree makes fine furniture and gunstocks. walnut. 4: Beatrix Potter wrote and illustrated the tale of this character. Squirrel Nutkin. 5: Tasty term for the weighted ring used by hitters to warm up. doughnut. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/ AI Voices used

It was very hard to come up with a title for this episode because it spans two very related but also difficult to explain topics. One centers on a look at Franz Mehring's essay "The German Reformation and its Consequences"and the other being the life and times of one Louis De Geer. John offers Mehring's explanation of the Reformation as a different framework for looking at the 30 Years War and its context, to be paired and contrasted with those offered by Wedgewood and Wilson in their more political/military histories of the time period. This context, the changing nature of economic conditions and conflict between classes and states, drives the career of Louis De Geer from humble Calvinist "refugee" in the Netherlands to the father of both Swedish industry and Swedish involvement in the slave trade. Suprisingly, there is less information available regarding the latter than the former. Come, as John purges his demons so he can finish the rest of the dang war already.  Rage Against the Machine- Ashes in the Fall Horse the Band- Octopus on Fire Ensiferum- Slayer of Light Tears for Fears- The Prisoner

“Is not this insurgent movement truly wonderful? These rebels keep Sabbath as we do, they pray to God daily, they read the Scriptures, they break the idols, and they long for the time when, instead of those heathen temples, they shall have Christian chapels, and worship together with us… is it not a remarkable era in China?” — A Christian missionary wife about the Taiping Rebellion “Jesus our Elder Brother showed us the treacherous heart of this demon follower.” — Sign hanging around the neck of a man executed by the Taiping “Those who believe not in the true doctrine of God and Jesus, though they be old acquaintances, are still no friends of mine, but they are demons.” — Hong Xiuquan If I were to ask you which is the deadliest conflict in history, you'd probably answer WW II. But if I were to ask you which is the second deadliest conflict ever—at least according to most historians—I'd bet the number of raised hands would shrink quickly. And I'd also bet that a good percentage of those taking their chances with an answer would probably be wrong. So, welcome to the wildest, weirdest, biggest conflict in history that few people have heard about (that is…unless you are quite knowledgeable about Chinese history). Millions of troops took part in this war. Something in the neighborhood of 600 cities changed hands over decade and half of fighting. Conservative estimates place the dead around 20-30 millions (some estimates go as high as 100 millions.) For frame of references, this is deadlier than the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Spanish American War, the American Civil War and the American Revolution put together. We can also throw in the 7 Years War, all three Punic wars and all of the Crusades for good measure. In light of this, it may begin to make sense why several historians believe this is the bloodiest civil war of all time. It all began with a Chinese man who, in the mid-1800s, dreamed of becoming a scholar and receive a government job. Seems like an innocent start, right? Well, our wannabe intellectual, a certain Hong Xiuquan, experienced a major crisis when he realized that no matter how much he studied, he would not succeed at passing the imperial exams, that were the prerequisite to getting the career he dreamed of. The fact that he failed was more than a personal tragedy for Hong. Rather, this failure would trigger a sequence of events leading to the death of millions. This was easily the most costly F in the history of education. Broken to the core, he had a mental breakdown, and began to experience visions. These visions revealed to him that he was God's son, and Jesus' younger brother, and he was tasked by his heavenly relatives to clean China off any demonic influences in order to create the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace. His efforts to create this Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace heralded a bloody civil war with a body count that would make most video gamers blush.In this episode, we follow Hong Xiuquan as he graduates from religious intolerance to armed insurrection against the government. We also run into angels torturing Confucius, ‘God' & ‘Jesus' & ‘Jesus' younger brother' leading an army to topple the Qing Dynasty, a massive army of sexually frustrated people, the capture of Nanjing, Quentin Tarantino's Biblical tales, the Taiping turning into The Sopranos, ‘Jesus' younger brother' placing a hit on ‘God's Voice', and much more. If you feel generous and enjoy History on Fire, please consider joining my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/historyonfire to access plenty of bonus content. All the links to History on Fire social media can be found at https://linktr.ee/danielebolelli Including the HOF YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFCiqHbWJO26nFzUP-Eu55Q Substack: https://substack.com/@danielebolelliInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyonfire/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@historyonfirepodcast Bison is some of the healthiest meat you could possibly eat. Get yours at https://dakotapurebison.com/ History on Fire listeners get a discount by using the code HOF10 at checkout. If you'd like to go to Japan for a historical tour with yours truly as a guide, please check out https://geeknationtours.com/tours/signature-battlefield-series-classic-samurai-from-the-gempei-war-to-the-mongol-invasions-2023/And a big thank you to the sponsor for today's episode, Factor, America's #1 Ready-To-Eat Meal Delivery Service. Head to FACTOR MEALS dot com slash historyonfire50 and use code historyonfire50 to get 50% off. That's code historyonfire50 at FACTOR MEALS dot com slash historyonfire50 to get 50% off!Also, thank you to St. John's College for sponsoring this episode. Please, check out https://www.sjc.edu/podcast

“The entire story of the Taiping Rebellion might be told, from one perspective, as the rage of a failed exam candidate writ large.” — Stephen Platt“They may not intend to harm others on purpose, but the fact remains that they are so obsessed with material gain that they have no concern whatever for the harm they can cause to others.” — Lin Zexu about British opium traders “Heaven is furious with anger, and all the gods are moaning with pain!... A murderer of one person is subject to the death sentence; just imagine how many people opium has killed! This is the rationale behind the new law which says that any foreigner who brings opium to China will be sentenced to death by hanging or beheading.” — Lin Zexu“… soothing, quieting and delightful beyond measure.” — Queen Victoria about opium If I were to ask you which is the deadliest conflict in history, you'd probably answer WW II. But if I were to ask you which is the second deadliest conflict ever—at least according to most historians—I'd bet the number of raised hands would shrink quickly. And I'd also bet that a good percentage of those taking their chances with an answer would probably be wrong. So, welcome to the wildest, weirdest, biggest conflict in history that few people have heard about (that is…unless you are quite knowledgeable about Chinese history). Millions of troops took part in this war. Something in the neighborhood of 600 cities changed hands over decade and half of fighting. Conservative estimates place the dead around 20-30 millions (some estimates go as high as 100 millions.) For frame of references, this is deadlier than the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Spanish American War, the American Civil War and the American Revolution put together. We can also throw in the 7 Years War, all three Punic wars and all of the Crusades for good measure. In light of this, it may begin to make sense why several historians believe this is the bloodiest civil war of all time. It all began with a Chinese man who, in the mid-1800s, dreamed of becoming a scholar and receive a government job. Seems like an innocent start, right? Well, our wannabe intellectual, a certain Hong Xiuquan, experienced a major crisis when he realized that no matter how much he studied, he would not succeed at passing the imperial exams, that were the prerequisite to getting the career he dreamed of. The fact that he failed was more than a personal tragedy for Hong. Rather, this failure would trigger a sequence of events leading to the death of millions. This was easily the most costly F in the history of education. Broken to the core, he had a mental breakdown, and began to experience visions. These visions revealed to him that he was God's son, and Jesus' younger brother, and he was tasked by his heavenly relatives to clean China off any demonic influences in order to create the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace. His efforts to create this Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace heralded a bloody civil war with a body count that would make most video gamers blush.In this episode, we tackle ethnic conflicts in China, Christian missionaries in Canton, uber-difficult Imperial exams, the Pablo Escobar of the 1800s having the British navy on her side, foot binding, Great Britain solving a trade deficit by flooding China with drugs, the First Opium War, and much more. If you feel generous and enjoy History on Fire, please consider joining my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/historyonfire to access plenty of bonus content. All the links to History on Fire social media can be found at https://linktr.ee/danielebolelli Including the HOF YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFCiqHbWJO26nFzUP-Eu55Q Substack: https://substack.com/@danielebolelliInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyonfire/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@historyonfirepodcast Bison is some of the healthiest meat you could possibly eat. Get yours at https://dakotapurebison.com/ History on Fire listeners get a discount by using the code HOF10 at checkout. If you'd like to go to Japan for a historical tour with yours truly as a guide, please check out https://geeknationtours.com/tours/signature-battlefield-series-classic-samurai-from-the-gempei-war-to-the-mongol-invasions-2023/And a big thank you to the sponsor for today's episode, Factor, America's #1 Ready-To-Eat Meal Delivery Service. Head to FACTOR MEALS dot com slash historyonfire50 and use code historyonfire50 to get 50% off. That's code historyonfire50 at FACTOR MEALS dot com slash historyonfire50 to get 50% off!

Owen Blackhurst, Seb White, James Bird, and Tommy Stewart catch up this week to chat about evergreen episodes, busking, Dr. Dre, The Chronic, Gianfranco Zola, NOT voting Conservative, Diego Maradona, Glenn Hoddle, Henri Camara at Wolves, sweatbands, Patrick Bamford, Diego Forlán, Hassan Kachloul, sucking the ball into the net, 3–0 down, 4–3 up, Fernado Torres, Senegal at the 2002 World Cup, Rio Ferdinand, 50 Cent, flicking the Vs, bowling at cricket, too much ecstasy, Phil Babb, John O'Shea, Gary Neville, the windmill, Allan Saint-Maximin, the Molineux Conductor, 1967: When LA Wolves Conquered the USA, V for Victory, The 100 Years War, Rotherham, grey squirrel, red squirrel, Tony Harrison, We Support These Now returns, Movember, COPA Football shirts, Rivellino, Artur Jorge, tattoos, Graeme Souness, Roy Keane, Vicente del Bosque, Kylian Mbappé, Fawlty Towers, José Mourinho, expensive bread and somehow so much more.CLICK HERE TO BUY THE NEW ISSUE OF MUNDIAL Sign up for the Newsletter - https://mundialmag.co/newsletterFollow MUNDIAL on Twitter - @mundialmagFollow MUNDIAL on Instagram - @mundialmag Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/how-to-fight-like-sir-gawain-with-dr-przemyslaw-grabowski-gorniak/ To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy Dr. Przemysław Grabowski-Górniak is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of English Studies at the University of Warsaw. His research focuses on the chivalric tradition of the late Middle Ages, be it chivalric romances or medieval manuscripts and treatises on the art of war, with a special focus on the English literary portrayals of Sir Gawain in the period of the 100 Years War and the Wars of the Roses. His admiration for the Middle Ages goes beyond academia, as he is also a historical reenactor and a Harnischfechten instructor, combining his knowledge of the period as well as his experience in working with medieval manuscripts with a practical approach, in order to reconstruct martial techniques of the 14th and 15th centuries. We talk about all of this in our conversation, plus Przemysław details his extensive training routine that includes sprints wearing a helmet, and wearing weighted straps on his arms. All excellent practice for fighting in armour. Przemysław explains the book he is working on, which is a fascinating look at how Middle English romances can serve as a record of English martial arts. He believes they could have been used as a vehicle to translate certain lessons that might otherwise have been found in fight books, which people rarely owned at the time. Some of the romances have very accurate fight descriptions, which can be read as teachings on how to fight as well as Sir Gawain. Click here for the armour of Frederick the Victorious Przemysław mentions: https://swordschool.com/podcast/how-to-fight-like-sir-gawain-with-dr-przemyslaw-grabowski-gorniak/ Links to other podcast episodes featuring people mentioned in this episode: Dayna Berghan-Whyman (Buhurt) https://swordschool.com/podcast/historical-medieval-battle-nz-episode36/ Beth Hammer (Battle of Nations) https://swordschool.com/podcast/battle-of-nations-episode34/ Toby Capwell (armour) https://swordschool.com/podcast/armour-of-the-english-knight-episode76/ Daniel Jacquet (armour) https://swordschool.com/podcast/is-there-anything-daniel-jaquet-cant-do-in-armour/ Ariella Elema (The Last Duel) https://swordschool.com/podcast/the-last-duel-or-was-it-with-ariella-elema/

Did Joan of Arc turn the tide of the 100 Years War as the result of a brain disorder? Would you appreciate Taylor Swift if you only had an internal camera to watch her vocal chords? What do almost all drugs of abuse have in common? How can the tiny molecules of rabies virus control your behavior? Join Eagleman on a two-part deep dive into the fundamental question of how biological insights can shed light on the ancient question of who we are.

Listen to the full episode on the WikiSleep app by visiting WikiSleep.comAn illiterate farm girl who claimed the voice of God instructed her to take charge of her country's army and lead it to victory, Joan of Arc was able to convince the as-yet crowned Charles VII to let her do just that. What's more astounding is that once in charge, her swift victories led to a brief truce in the 100 Years War and to the consecration of King Charles. Her actions brought her family into nobility, but her meteoric rise was cut short as swiftly as it began......#WikiSleep #SleepStories #France #JoanOfArc #Meditation #SleepDiversion #MentalHealth #Sleep #Podcast #Stories #FrenchHistory #100YearsWar By becoming a WikiSleep member, you're investing in your own ad-free sleep health—and sleep health is mental health. Thank you for being a supporter. https://plus.acast.com/s/wikisleep. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

They're back! Paul Lay and Miranda Malins return with a second season of the podcast that captures the drama and complexity of a pivotal age in British, European and global history.  The 17th century is often overshadowed in popular culture by the Tudor period that came before it. Yet this was an age whose constitutional crises, identity politics and propaganda resonate with us today unlike any other. And it was a century of great upheavals and memorable characters - providing Miranda and Paul with a rich supply of stories that entertain and enlighten.  Among their stories in Season 2, they will explore the Levellers' legacy, try to make sense of the 30 Years War and give us fresh perspectives from Ireland, Europe and the wider world.  Episode 1, recalling the extravagant reign of King James VI and I, is available from 3 October.  '1666 and All That' is presented by Paul Lay and Miranda Malins. The producer is Hugh Costello. Original music by George Taylor. The episode is mixed by Sam Gunn. All episodes from Season 1 and Season 2 are available on our website: www.podpage.com/1666-and-all-that. Listeners can use X (formerly known as Twitter) to contact @_paullay or @MirandaMalins

In this week's episode, I celebrate finishing the 14th and final book of the SILENT ORDER series by looking back at the writing of the series over the last six years. This week's coupon is for the audiobook of GHOST IN THE STORM, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook of GHOST IN THE STORM for 75% off at my Payhip store with this coupon code: GHOSTSTORM The coupon code is valid through September 29th, 2023, so if you find yourself needing entertainment as we proceed deeper into the school year, perhaps it's time to get a new audiobook! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Coupon of the Week Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 167 of the Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is September the 8th, 2023, and today we're taking a look back at writing the Silent Order series and a retrospective of the last six years. First, let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon is for the audiobook of Ghost in the Storm as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook of Ghosts in the Storm for 75% off at my Payhip store with this coupon code GHOSTSTORM. That's GHOSTSTORM and you can find the link and the coupon code in the show notes. This coupon code will be valid through September the 29th, 2023. So if you find yourself needing entertainment as you proceed deeper into the school year, perhaps it's time to get a new audiobook. 00:00:50 Writing Updates What have I been working on? Brand new-wise, as you can probably tell from the title of this episode, Silent Order: Pulse Hand is done and it is published and you can get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip. So the series is complete and the last book is now available and it's selling briskly. And thank you all for that. Now that that is done and my Summer of Finishing Things is finally finished with Dragon Skull and Silent Order being finished, I have started on the Ghost Armor series and the first book will be Ghost in the Serpent. And I am 10,000 words into it as this recording. And if all goes well, I'm hoping that will be out sometime in October and the audiobook of it before the end of the year. Starting a new series like this involves a fair bit of world building, and there's one good trick to know if you've picked a good name for a fantasy character. You Google it and you get 0 results. I do always Google character names before I commit to them. Sometimes you accidentally pick the name of someone who's been some sort of notorious criminal or controversial political figure, so it's best to avoid that, which I have to admit is less of a problem with fantasy names. However, when inventing fantasy names, you do occasionally stumble on a name that means another language, something like “very impolite term for women who sells carnal favors to the lowest echelons of society.” And you definitely don't want your character named after that, so it is always wise to Google. In audiobook news, the recording is underway for Dragonskull: Fury of the Barbarians. I expect we will start proofing chapters soon and I am looking forward to sharing that with all of you once it's done. We have one reader question this week from Wilson, who says: When are you coming back to the Third Soul series? Also Sevenfold Sword Online is calling you, lol. In answer to that… How to phrase this? I'm not saying no to doing more than Third Soul, but I don't have anything planned at the moment. I wrote The Third Soul, what would become The Third Soul now, 14 years ago, back in 2009? And so if I was to do it today, I would want to do many things differently. So if I did do something in The Third Soul, it'll probably be a slightly improved version of the setting with new characters, which, as I said, I'm not saying no to, but I don't have any current plans to do so. I am working on the Sevenfold Sword Online book. I'm on Chapter 2 of…actually, I don't know how many chapters it will be, but probably in the upper teens. But I am about 5,000 words into it. And I think that will probably be the either last book I published in 2023 or the first book I published in 2024, we'll see how the rest of this year goes. 00:03:40 Silent Order Retrospective Now, on to this week's main topic, a retrospective back on the Silent Order series, which seems suitable because as I said earlier, my Summer of Finishing Things has finished. The Silent Order of science fiction series is finally complete after 14 books, 769,000 words and six years. In fact, September 2023 marks the six year anniversary of when I published the first five books in the series. Like I did with Dragonskull, the other series I finished in summer 2023, I thought I would take a look back at the end of The Silent Order series in the Internet's favorite favored format, a numbered article and or podcast episode. Minor spoilers follow for The Silent Order series, but no major ones. 00:04:22 #1 The Protagonist When I started thinking about The Silent Order way back in 2016, I had just read the original James Bond books by Ian Fleming for the first time. I decided that I wanted to write about a spy, but in space. I also wanted to write a character who is essentially the opposite of James Bond, so the name was a play on that from James Bond to Jack March. The inspiration was that bond stays in place, but march is moving forward. Unfortunately though, I didn't realize it until the books were published and people started pointing it out to me, this meant that Jack March had the same initials as I do, which led to occasional accusations of him being an author avatar. This was definitely not what I had in mind. If anything, the closest match to my personality in any of my books would be The Sculptor from Frostborn: The Dwarven Prince, a curmudgeonly technician prone to occasional ranting. I did make March a contrast from James Bond, at least the literary version. Bond is gregarious, charming, drinks way too much, and has a different girl of the week. Well, every weekend, sometimes every day. March is grim, taciturn, very professional, and gets annoyed at the thought of a girl of the week. His fight against The Final Consciousness is personal in a way that various nemeses in the books rarely were. I believe Ian Fleming originally intended to make the Soviets the overarching big bad of the Bond books, but after tensions eased marginally between the West and the Soviets in the 60s, he switched to different villains and eventually settled on Specter and Blofeld. 00:05:56  #2 The Setting Specifically, Calaskar. March works for The Silent Order, part of the intelligence agency of the Interstellar Kingdom of Calaskar, which has seven core systems and several hundred minor colonies of varying sizes around the solar systems it claims. Calaskar is more culturally conservative than its neighbors, especially Rustaril and Raetia. But not terribly repressive. An American from the 1950s would find it rather relaxed, while an American from 2023 would probably find it stifling and conformist. It was a thought experiment on my part. How would a technologically advanced, yet relatively stable society look in the distant future? Of course, Calaskar isn't always stable. Where Rustaril and Raetia used to be part of the Kingdom but broke away and went in very different directions. It helped that March was born inside the empire of The Final Consciousness and so able to look at Calaskaran in society with a critical eye. He does think it tends toward the conformist and the parochial, but it doesn't have the brutality of the labor camps of The Final Consciousness, the social decay of Rustaril, or the vast gap between rich and poor of Raetia and the Falcon Republic. 00:07:08 #3 The Final Consciousness The Final Consciousness, also known half mockingly as The Machinists, is the overarching villain of the series. They're basically space communists combined with some of the crazier transhumanist ideas. The initial inspiration was the first few original James Bond books, where the Soviets and SMERSH were the chief adversaries. Further inspiration for the final consciousness came from college professors and crazy tech million. Years, sometimes college professors and academics will propose the most appalling things, like we need to reduce the Earth's population to 1 billion people, or everyone should be housed in giant cities and not allowed to leave, or children should be taken from their parents at birth to be raised in impartial institutions. The academics are always super unclear about how to do that and glide over little details like, how exactly the population will be reduced from 9 billion to one or how will they be encouraged to move into giant cities. These various tech billionaires also provided additional inspiration for The Final Consciousness. If you will forgive something of a generalization, it seems that if you become a billionaire in America, there's a non trivial chance you're going to turn into a transhumanist weirdo, like you'll want to put computer chips in people's brains, or you'll spend all your time worrying about the singularity and artificial intelligence. Or you'll spend 18 hours a day exercising and taking experimental treatments and claim to have the body of a teenager when you're 43, when to the unprejudiced eye, you actually look like a very fit 42 year old. The Final Consciousness is what you would get if all these people had unlimited resources to put their very bad ideas into practice. What they ended up with was a tyrannical hive mind ruling over an essentially enslaved population. The hive mind, believing itself to be the final stage of human consciousness and evolution, was driven to expand and destroy all the obsolete societies around it. That did not match the self perceived perfection of The Final Consciousness. Since Machinists tried and failed to militarily conquer Calaskar they turned instead to infiltration and subversion, which touches off the plot of The Silent Order series. Of course, the hive mind was built on the technology of the Great Elder Ones, an extinct alien race, who turned out to be not so extinct after all. 00:09:16 #4 The Great Elder Ones In a lot of science fiction, you have sort of elements of Lovecraftian cosmic horror working their way in, and that's where The Great Elder Ones came from. I had the original idea of The Great Elder Ones way back in the late 2000s, long before I discovered self-publishing. I was thinking about a fantasy series in a world that had an early modern level of technology. The study would have a communist revolution which would create the inevitable dictatorship and secret police state that always seems to follow communist revolutions, but the twist would be that the secret police organization was actually a cult worshipping a dark power, and they plan to use the mass loss of life associated with revolution to fuel a summoning spell to bring their dark power back to the world. I abandoned that ideas as unworkable and unlikely to sell, but I returned in the relationship between The Great Elder Ones and The Final Consciousness. Of course, Silent Order is science fiction, not fantasy, so it was cast in science fiction terms. The Final Consciousness used the surviving technology of The Great Elder Ones to build their hive mind, but that made them vulnerable to manipulation and control from The Great Elder Ones. The Great Elder Ones have been locked outside this universe by their ancient enemies, but plan to use The Final Consciousness is pawns to allow them to return and destroy the universe like they originally intended. 00:10:32 #5. The First Five Books I originally started writing Silent Order: Iron Hand on New Year's Eve in 2016. My original plan was to actually write the first four books, and once they were done, release them once a week until they were all out. I ended up writing a fifth book because of a news article I read. Originally I planned to go straight from Silent Order: Axiom End to Silent Order: Fire Hand. However, I read an article in mid 2016 arguing that an iPad made for better productivity tool than a Linux desktop. I found this implausible. In the seven years since then, the iPad has become better as a productivity tool, and since you can get a keyboard case and cast it to a bigger screen, but it's still really expensive and it's a lot easier to hook up an ergonomic keyboard and a big ‘ol monitor to a Linux System than to an iPad. It's substantially cheaper too. So to make a point, I wrote, edited and published Silent Order: Eclipse Hand entirely on Ubuntu Linux. Back then I still wrote about technology and Linux on a regular basis, so it fit neatly into my workflow. I also designed the cover entirely on GIMP on Ubuntu. More on that soon. All five books were ready to go in September 2017, and then I published the first one at the end of September, and the rest in October of that year. The initial plan was to put them in Kindle Unlimited since science fiction was very popular in Kindle Unlimited at that point. However, this disappointed enough people that I abandoned the initial plan and switched to wide distribution, which means books were on in addition to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, and Smashwords. This series had a good start and I thought that it would be an open-ended series with a new adventure of the week with every boo. More soon or why this didn't quite work out. However, moving the books out of KU proved a wise decision. For all of 2023, as of this recording, only 49.1% of Silent Order's total revenue came from Amazon, the rest came from the other retailers. If that was a parliamentary democracy, they could make a coalition against Amazon if they wanted. There's no way KU page reads could have made-up that difference, especially since the Kindle Unlimited payment rate per page is quite a bit lower than it was in 2017. 012:55 #6: History I set the Silent Order books a long, long way into the future. Like roughly 100,000 years from now. I did this for a couple of reasons. First, it's always a little painful when you read older science fiction, you come across a sentence like mankind had its first hyperspace flight in 1996, or the protagonists have a problem but need to conserve computer power because they only have so many data space/data tapes. The phenomenon of one's futuristic science fiction becoming dated is called zeerust, and something I wanted to avoid if possible in Silent Order. Second, having the series take place 100,000 years into the future left a lot of wiggle room in the setting's back story. It meant that things could be lost, forgotten, or distorted for most of the series. No one is entirely sure exactly where Earth was, because the information has been lost after 100,000 years of human expansion into space. Obviously that kind of thing can be useful for plotting. In the Silent Order back story, there were five United Terran Empires that ruled over mankind for thousands of years at a time, but they all collapsed for various reasons. It also meant there could be lost technology plots as all the Terran empires had technological expertise that was lost when they collapsed… genetic engineering and high level AI and so forth. Third, it let me disconnect Silent Order from a lot of contemporary disputes here in the early 21st century. One of the tricky parts of writing near future science fiction is that it's easy to have the books take a stance on the immediate crises of the day, which can annoy a lot of readers. Having the books set so far into the future means that from the perspective of characters, years the various concerns of the 2020s seen as academic and as dusty as, for example, the Investiture Controversy or the dispute between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines seems to us today. So to someone in Jack March's time, the 2020 election and all its upheaval, or the coronavirus pandemic would be as distant and academic as the Investiture Controversy is to us today. 00:14:55 #7 Technology One complaint about the books was that Jack March regularly used a gun, a chemically propelled kinetic firearm, or that he often used a handheld computer he called the phone. Like, why didn't he always use a laser pistol or a particle gun, or have some sort of hyper advanced neural implant that functioned as a phone? Isn't this science fiction, for heaven's sake? Of course, that's a bit like asking why in 2023 you're still using a knife to cut your bread when instead you can use a high end laser cutter. The answer, of course, is that the knife is cheap and reliable and fulfills this technological niche so perfectly that even though there are more advanced alternatives available, it would be costly and pointless to use them. I think chemically propelled firearms fulfill that niche as well. People forget this, but firearms have been around for over 800 years. King Edward the Third used cannons in the opening battles of the 100 Years War, which started in 1337 A.D., quite a long time ago. Obviously firearms have been refined and improved considerably since that time, but the basic principle remains the same: metal tube, metal projectile, chemical propellant. Even in Jack March's time, a chemically propelled firearm offers many advantages. It doesn't require electricity and can be built without computer parts, meaning the weapon is immune to an EMP effect. Additionally, it is much less fragile than a more advanced weapon. The AK47 could famously still fire even after being dragged through a stream or left in the dirt for a while. Granted, it may not be terribly accurate, but it could still fire. With 100,000 years' worth of small improvements in material science, You couldn't 3D print a working firearm in your basement. It wouldn't even be made of metal and therefore much harder to detect. When March uses a phone obviously it would be more advanced than anything available today, but the word phone is a convenient shorthand to refer to personal data, mobile computing and communication device, and I settled on that instead of using a more science fiction-esque word like data pad or personal terminal. I didn't want to call it a communicator because that brings Star Trek to mind. Besides, one the cardinal rules of writing is to never use a long word when a shorter one will suffice. 00:17:02 #8 The Covers If I remember right, I ended up redoing the covers for the Silent Order series five times in total. The first set used a combination of a stock photo spaceship and a stock photo planet along with the custom font I paid for. After a while I had stock photos of people holding weapons against space background, but that really didn't work, so I switched down for a new set of stock photos of spaceships and planets. I was bumping up against the limits of what I could do with stock photos and GIMP. The difficulty of stock photos is their limitations. What you see is what you get. Ask anyone who's done any design work of any kind, and you'll probably get stories of searches for stock photos that turned up many pictures that almost good enough, but not quite. Then the COVID hysteria came around and I used some of the free time that generated to take a Photoshop course. I managed to produce a fourth set of covers, ones that used human figures and looked quite a bit better than the previous set of covers. However, shortly after that I saw Penny Arcade cartoon that has solidified my opinion on science fiction cover. They needed planets and they needed spaceships, and they needed to be in proximity. I redid the covers one more time. Suddenly, on five years after the final look of the series, which featured a spaceship, a planet, and in close proximity planets and spaceships was indeed the way to go. The series has had its best sales with the final set of covers. 00:18:29 #9 False Ending Despite my best efforts, Silent Order never sold as well as my fantasy books, and after eight books I wanted to do something else. Originally, as I mentioned, I planned for the series to be open-ended and ongoing. However, in the years since I've learned that in fantasy and science fiction, especially indie fantasy and science fiction, that really doesn't work. Like if you're John Sanford or Jeffrey Deaver, Jonathan Kellerman, JD Robb, or CJ Box, you can write books where your protagonists essentially has an adventure of the week or year, given traditional publishing schedules, without an overarching plot to the series. However, that's a different genre than fantasy and science fiction. And in traditional publishing, it's basically a different business model. I think because of certain well-known authors in fantasy literature who haven't finished their series, readers in the indie fantasy and science fiction space expect completed series with an overarching plot that gets resolved and quite a few of them refused to read an unfinished series at all. So I decided to wrap things up with Book Nine, which was Silent Order: Ark Hand in 2018 and give the series an ending with Jack March settling down on Calaskar. I intended to stop there and did stop there for three years. But people kept asking when I was going to write more in the series and I did feel I left too much unfinished with the Pulse and the Great Elder Ones. So in 2021, I decided to pick it up again, thinking it would take one or two more books to wrap up the series with a further ending. It turned out to be 5 more books for 14 total. I thought it was going to be 15. But after I finished #13, I thought 14 and 15 would be better combined as a single book, which is how we got Pulse Hand. 00:20:00 #10. Thanks, Chat GPT It only took six years to write the series, which isn't all that long, but technology has changed quite a bit during that six years and insane AI was a feature of the books dating all the way back to Silent Order: Wraith Hand, which I wrote back in 2017. I first introduced the character of Thunderbolt, another insane AI when I wrote Silent Order: Royal Hand in 2021. Though she wouldn't appear in the books until Thunder Hand in 2023, between the writing of Royal Hand and Thunder Hand, ChatGPT, Mid Journey, Bing Chat, and all the other generative AI tools entered the mainstream. This was a tremendous boon to me. Not because I used them for the writing. My overall opinion of generative AI remains that it's bad. And if it's not meaning the strict legal definition of plagiarism, then it's at least sitting on the same couch as plagiarism, but because of all the tales of AI meltdowns that made it into the mainstream press, like when Microsoft rolled out Bing Chat AI and it famously would go on unhinged rants, threatening people, dissolve into incoherent logical loops, and insist that factually incorrect information was the truth and threatened anyone who doubted it, and otherwise have all kinds of glitches that range from hilarious to deeply disturbing. I read those articles with great amusement and delight and based Thunderbolt's personality off them. Of course, Thunderbolt has rail guns and their own automated fleet of space warships, so when she has breakdowns, it's a little more concerning. So nearly seven years after I had first had the idea, the Silent Order series has come to its conclusion, its proper conclusion this time. I do hope that you found the ending satisfying. 00:21:26 Conclusion I'd also like to thank Silent Order readers for the enthusiasm for the series in ‘22 and 2023. After I settled on the final cover design, it sold better than it ever has, but still doesn't sell nearly as well as my various fantasy books. That was one of the reasons I was going to stop after Book 9, but the sheer enthusiasm people had for the books and the nagging sense that it wasn't quite finished led me to write 5 more. So thank you all for reading and for coming along with Jack March on this long, long journey. And if you've never heard of Silent Order or if you're one of those people who only reads completed series, the first book is free on all the ebook platforms, so why not check it out? You get Silent Order: Iron Hand for free at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Kobo, Apple Book, Scribd, and Smashwords. So that is it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

Today we have Eric Hansen the designer of Blood & Crowns, a new game about the 100-Years War from Firelock Games. We talk about the game and the work involved in the design process. Support the Kickstarter here Great videos on the 100 Years War

Episode 90 of Inside Quotes! This week Jeremy picked the 2003 film “Timeline”.   Conversation includes: Meet the Deedles, Michael Chrichton books and films, School field trips in Florida, Medieval Times dinner show, the 100 Years War, Trebuchets vs. Catapults, and the disregard for life in Medieval times.   Show Notes: Inside Quotes Merch Store Linktree: @insidequotescast Artwork by Bryce Bridgeman: @Groovybridge

This week the painter and curator Kristin Calabrese. Kristin was born in 1968 in Mountain View, a suburb of San Jose, CA and spent her childhood moving back and forth between Massachusetts and Arizona. Her father, Bill, was an engineer and her mother, Karen, a housewife. Kristin has a younger brother Greg and they grew up in the 70s in a middle-class white American suburb with an abundance of children in the neighborhood. However, Kristin's childhood was not easy; her father was an authoritarian and she was bullied by children in school. She says her family environment was very sexist and she vowed to live a very different life to her mother's. In 1995, Kristin graduated with a Bachelor in Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute and Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1998. She found her way as an artist after exploring a variety of mediums in college, venturing into graphic design and creating websites before eventually concentrating on oils. She says: “My paintings speak plainly, make jokes, and are irreverent. I paint to make my thoughts, feelings, and experience into monuments that mark my small and large, personal existence.” The focus of Kristin's work includes psychology, humor, politics and formal issues of composition and representation, primarily through painting. Since the mid 90's, Kristin has held numerous shows in the US and Europe. Solo exhibitions include Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles, Brennan & Griffin in New York, and Michael Jansen in Cologne. She has also curated many group exhibitions, including at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions and Honor Fraser Gallery. Her work is featured in numerous collections, including Saatchi and The Armand Hammer Museum. Together with her husband, artist Joshua Aster, they have a small business for art supplies, such as canvases and framing, and then they spend the evenings painting. Kristin says that she is now in a happy place as an artist and curator at home in Los Angeles.Women artists whose work Kristin admires:Mary WeatherfordSusanna CoffeyMichelle GrabnerAnne HarrisDeb SokoloLucy BullLauren QuinKristin's Playlist“I don't listen to music in the studio. I listen to podcasts and books on tape. Once I recognize a song, I find it annoying and distracting, so I listen to podcasts and books on tape. I'm pretty interested in history right now, stuff I never learned in school like the 30 Years War, The Reformation, even more current American history, like J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. I play podcasts all day long, need it to sort of distract myself from being antsy, they help me focus on the painting.Kristin's Podcasts:American PrestigeBackground BriefingKnow Your EnemyThe MajorityReport ChapoTrap HouseThe Tom Hartman ShowLeft ReckoningLetters and PoliticsAndI've adopted a couple astrology podcasts:Chani Nicholas Astrology of the Week AheadAnne Ortelee weekly weatherAlso some comedy podcasts, here's one: Thought Spiral".Kristin's website: https://kristincalabrese.com/Instagram: @only_future_thingHost: Chris StaffordFollow @theaartpodcast on InstagramEmail: hollowellstudios@gmail.comThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4769409/advertisement

This week the painter and curator Kristin Calabrese. Kristin was born in 1968 in Mountain View, a suburb of San Jose, CA and spent her childhood moving back and forth between Massachusetts and Arizona. Her father, Bill, was an engineer and her mother, Karen, a housewife. Kristin has a younger brother Greg and they grew up in the 70s in a middle-class white American suburb with an abundance of children in the neighborhood. However, Kristin's childhood was not easy; her father was an authoritarian and she was bullied by children in school. She says her family environment was very sexist and she vowed to live a very different life to her mother's. In 1995, Kristin graduated with a Bachelor in Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute and Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1998. She found her way as an artist after exploring a variety of mediums in college, venturing into graphic design and creating websites before eventually concentrating on oils. She says: “My paintings speak plainly, make jokes, and are irreverent. I paint to make my thoughts, feelings, and experience into monuments that mark my small and large, personal existence.” The focus of Kristin's work includes psychology, humor, politics and formal issues of composition and representation, primarily through painting. Since the mid 90's, Kristin has held numerous shows in the US and Europe. Solo exhibitions include Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles, Brennan & Griffin in New York, and Michael Jansen in Cologne. She has also curated many group exhibitions, including at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions and Honor Fraser Gallery. Her work is featured in numerous collections, including Saatchi and The Armand Hammer Museum. Together with her husband, artist Joshua Aster, they have a small business for art supplies, such as canvases and framing, and then they spend the evenings painting. Kristin says that she is now in a happy place as an artist and curator at home in Los Angeles. Women artists whose work Kristin admires: Mary WeatherfordSusanna CoffeyMichelle GrabnerAnne HarrisDeb SokoloLucy BullLauren Quin Kristin's Playlist “I don't listen to music in the studio. I listen to podcasts and books on tape. Once I recognize a song, I find it annoying and distracting, so I listen to podcasts and books on tape. I'm pretty interested in history right now, stuff I never learned in school like the 30 Years War, The Reformation, even more current American history, like J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. I play podcasts all day long, need it to sort of distract myself from being antsy, they help me focus on the painting.Here are some or my current podcast faves: American PrestigeBackground BriefingKnow Your EnemyThe MajorityReport ChapoTrap HouseThe Tom Hartman ShowLeft ReckoningLetters and Politics AndI've adopted a couple astrology podcasts:Chani Nicholas Astrology of the Week AheadAnne Ortelee weekly weather Also some comedy podcasts, here's one: Thought Spiral".Kristin's website: https://kristincalabrese.com/ Instagram: @only_future_thingHost: Chris StaffordProduced by Hollowell StudiosFollow @theaartpodcast on InstagramEmail: hollowellstudios@gmail.com

Justin got the chance to GM the lovely cast of Roll to Meddle, a Brindlewood Bay Actual Play, through the Air and Wind One Shot in Wan Shi Tong's Adventure Guide. Here's part one. A family making by after the 100 Years War gets roped into a leaving their home on an adventure to return a lost air bending artifact to the only person who may be able to get it to Avatar Aang, Toph Beifong. ----more---- Roll to Meddle Come follow us on Twitch! If you want to help the show directly, support us on Patreon!  For the quenchiest merch, check out our store. We'd love to meet you. Come hang out with us on Discord. Instagram: @flyingbisonpodcast Facebook: @flyingbisonpodcast Twitter: @flyingbisoncast The Flying Bison Podcast is a weekly Avatar Legends Actual Play podcast set within the beloved Avatar the Last Airbender Universe. Come journey across the Four Nations with us as we tell stories full of humor and heart. Intro music is Dizu by Senbei Outro music is Tokyo Funk by LATG Music Logo and Art by Cate and Matthew Mahnke, find more of their work at pomekin.com Special thanks to our amazing supporters: Adam W., Caleb M./Lord Immortal, Alyssa, Klagada, ikoroki, Derek O., Topknots Hairpin, Chris, Rachel, Ben K., Bento Box, Merrai, Jesper, Niko M., Paul C, vaeVictus, Kaychbee

Matt Christman goes off live on http://www.twitch.tv/chapotraphouse Topics: 7 Years War, French Revolution, Napoleon, Spanish Civil War, Parliamentary America

The Black Prince has gained lands in Aquitaine and Gascony through his brutal and thorough attacks. But faced with financial difficulties, sickness, and a notable family death, can he retain his territories? Listen to Tom and Dominic as they conclude this epic four-part series on The 100 Years War.*The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*:Tom and Dominic are going on an international tour in 2023 and performing in London, Edinburgh, Salford, Dublin, Washington D.C. and New York! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.comTwitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The lads wrap up their "Gettin' Medieval" March theme as they dive into the film, The Last Duel. Ridley Scott helms a triple-penned screenplay from Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Nicole Holofcener. The historical backdrop is the 100 Years War (circa 1370) between France and England, but the story focuses on three people: Jean de Carrouges, Jacques Le Gris, and Marguerite de Thibouville, and a serious crime that leads to the titular Last Duel... Shout-Out/Source: Medievalists (YouTube) and their interview with Eric Jager. Subscription LinksSubscribe to The Lost Drive-In Podcast: https://ldi.captivate.fm/listenSubscribe to Kirking Off: Star Trek Podcast: https://kirkingoff.captivate.fm/listenSubscribe to Mind Killer: A Dune Podcast: https://mindkiller.captivate.fm/listen Memberships & MerchandiseAcolyte Membership: https://lsgmedia.net/product/acolyteEmissary Membership: https://lsgmedia.net/product/emissaryImperator Membership: https://lsgmedia.net/product/imperatorT-Shirts: https://lsgmedia.net/product-category/merchSocial Media LinksLDI on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/lsgmediafansKO on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/kirkingoffCome watch movies and catch live recordings on Discord: https://discord.gg/8FmrT9Drvu Dean's Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/lsgdeanShout-OutsFloyd Frye (Intro/Outro Voice): https://www.tiktok.com/@floydfrye?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pcGeorge C Music (LDI Music): https://www.youtube.com/@GeorgeCMusicScofflaws (KO Music): https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057415033039

How is the 30 Years War remembered in Germany? Is the Kipper- und Wipperzeit why the trains keep breaking down? Why does the Catalonian anthem go so hard? To talk to us about central Europe's 17th century blood bath we had Matt Christman of Chapo Trap House on. Make sure to catch Matt's new mini series he made with Chris Wade, "Hell on Earth" FIND OUR GUEST HERE: https://twitter.com/cushbomb https://twitter.com/CHAPOTRAPHOUSE https://hellonearth.chapotraphouse.com/ HOW TO SUPPORT US: https://www.patreon.com/cornerspaeti HOW TO REACH US: Corner Späti https://twitter.com/cornerspaeti Julia https://twitter.com/KMarxiana Rob https://twitter.com/leninkraft Nick https://twitter.com/sternburgpapi Uma https://twitter.com/umawrnkl Ciarán https://twitter.com/CiaranDold

No British General of the Revolutionary War has been written about more than John Burgoyne. That's because of his surrender of his army at Saratoga, New York in 1777, widely seen as the turning point in the Revolutionary War. He is considered a reckless lout, and there's plenty in his life story to support this characterization. He gambled heavily and possibly had to flee England as a young man to escape his debtors. His father-in-law eventually paid Burgoyne's debts and got him another commission in the army, just in time for the 7 Years War. There he served admirably and became a war hero. But 300 years after his birth, the many lives of Burgyone -- dashing cavalry colonel of the Seven Years War, satirical London playwright, reformer Member of Parliament, gambler in the clubs on St James's Street – have been forgotten.Today's guest is Norman Poser, author of From the Battlefield to the Stage: The Many Lives of General John Burgyone. We look not only at the Saratoga campaign, but also elements of Burgoyne's eventful life that have never been adequately explored. He was a socialite, welcome in London's fashionable drawing rooms, a high-stakes gambler in its elite clubs, and a playwright whose social comedies were successfully performed on the London stage. Moreover, as a member of Parliament for thirty years, Burgoyne supported the rule of law, fought the corruption of the East India Company – he was a sworn enemy of Clive of India whom he denounced with all his might – and advocated religious tolerance.

In part 1 of our series on British explorer James Cook, we look at the man's younger years, plus his life in the Royal Navy - focusing on his time in the Seven Years' War, and several years surveying the coast of Newfoundland. We'll finish with Cook being appointed to command the HMS Endeavour - which will be the beginnings of one of the most famous voyages of exploration in history. The Explorers Podcast is part of the Airwave Media Network: www.airwavemedia.com Interested in advertising on the Explorers Podcast? Email us at sales@advertisecast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices