Half a War (Shattered Sea # 3) (2015) brings the trilogy to a glorious conclusion. As with book 2, Yarvi, now Father Yarvi, is the central figure although often the viewpoint is that of Young Princess Skara or Koll or Raith, who is now an old legend. Ultimately, a book and a series about warriors and battles (and there are plenty of them here) becomes a book about chess-playing or strategy or we wonder by the end who is the best chess player and who is thinking moves ahead.
This final book is the story of the alliance forged by Yarvi against the High King and Grandmother Wexen and how Gettland and Throvenland (at times a kingdom of no more than 2 or 3 people) and Vansterland stand against the vastly overwhelming numbers led by the High King and his undefeated general Bright Yilling. It is a story of constantly changing alliances and trickery and treachery and the battle is fought as much with words as it is with swords or secret elf-weapons that Yarvi procures.
Half the World (2015) takes our hero, Yarvi, across half the world to find allies to help Gettland survive. Although Yarvi remains the central figure across the trilogy, but two new figures offer their points of view through this second book, Thorn Bathu and Brand, both of whom, like Yarvi are outcasts. Thorn is trained as a warrior, but kills one of her training partners and is thrown out of the program, now facing death by being crushed with stones, yet so is Brand, a physical giant among men, but who has a gentle soul. These two, the ferocious woman Thorn and the he-giant Brand eventually have a teenage crush/romance going.
Yarvi cuts quite a different figure here than he does in the first boo, Half a King. He may be just a little older, but he is now a Minister and has confidence and wisdom far beyond his years. “They said he was cunning as Father Moon, a man rarely to be trusted and never to be crossed.” And, as the story goes on, often through the young voices of Thorn and Brand, we learn just who Yarvi has become and just how much of a chessmaster he is now. But what a journey he leads them on across the Shattered Sea and carrying their boat across land, facing off against hordes of horse people, and to far off cities, barely winning any allies, but laying some seeds for the future.
And, again, the story is laid out through the eyes of Thorn as she trains and becomes the mightiest of warriors who legends were weaved about and that of Brand.
The battle here is between the armies of Vansterland and Gettland with Vansterland led by the Breaker of Swords, who has been told since birth that he would not die by any man’s hand.
And, at the end, we get a glimpse of where things are going with Book Three as the fortunes of Throvenland wane and King Fynn is forced to give passage to the High King’s troops, eager to bring Kings Uthil of Gettland and Grom-gil-Grom to heel as Throvenland feels the weight of the High King’s champion, Bright Yilling, who worshiped no god but death.
Half a King (2014) is the first of three books in Abercrombie’s Shattered Sea trilogy, a fantasy set in a Viking-type world of warriors and sailing ships. The other two books in the series are Half the World and Half a War. The trilogy is designed to be more accessible to young adults than Abercrombie’s First Law series.
As many readers have noted, the map of this world can easily be juxtaposed on modern-day Sweden and Denmark with far-flung cities on the eastern Baltic corresponding to Riga and Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and mighty rivers such as the Denied and the Divine leading across the Russian Steppes to the City of Cities corresponding to Istanbul. The technology is basically swords and axes and shields and horsemanship and archery with some exceptions. There is also a ministry of advisors led by one high “grandmother” and references to Mother War and Father Peace.
The attitude of the warriors is stoic. Death, we are told, comes to everyone. Ultimately, we learn that, for many, there are not too many differences between one ruler and the next. That life for most is nasty, brutish, and short. And, that half the battle is fought with swords, but the other half with words.
That is where Yarvi comes in. In an age of warriors, Yarvi is born with a crippled hand. He has not a warrior’s mentality and can barely duel. This story is his rise from that of a slight boy who everyone snickered at to someone who topples kingdoms. No one ever expected Yarvi to become involved in governing. He was expected to heal with plants. But, treachery reared its head and the young weakling boy is the only one left to ascend to the throne. As he ascends to the black chair and prepares to marry the woman who would have been his brother’s wife (had he survived), he pities himself and wonders if she will be okay marrying half a man, because that is how he thinks of himself. “He had always been weak, but he never felt truly powerless until they made him a king.” He would have made a fine jester, his uncle quipped.
Although this fantasy story is slow and predictable to start, it is a legend where Yarvi survives troubles and grows into a leader of men. We are told that the wise wait for their moment, but never let it pass. Somewhere in the trackless ice as Yarvi makes his way with a ragtag band of escaped slaves, he finds his will and life is breathed into him.
The story has a simple arc to it, but there are some twists and turns along the way.
“Son of Hamas” (March 2010) is a biographical sketch by Yousef, son of one of the seven founders of Hamas -Sheikh Hassan Yousef of a village near Ramallah, who later became a double agent for the Israeli secret service, Shin Bet, to thwart terror, converted to Christianity, and eventually self-exiled to the United States. Yousef was considered Israel’s most valuable source within the Hamas leadership and the information he supplied allowed Israel to successfully thwart dozens of suicide attacks. Rather than being a historical narrative, the book is primarily biographical in nature and presents events in the Middle East from Yousef’s point of view.
Indeed, he retains an Arab point of view, though not a supporter of Hamas violence, and refers to disputed territories as “occupied,” a narrative that ignores the fact that the disputed territories (referred to by some as Judea and Samaria and by others the name the Jordanian occupiers gave it- the West Bank) although such territories were never part of any independent state but Israel, Jordan has relinquished any claim to it, and the vast majority of such disputed territories were offered as part of numerous peace deals, deals which Arab leadership refused repeatedly.
Yousef explains that the ideological differences between the PLO and Hamas were in the beginning based on ideology of power versus religious fervor. And, Hamas, including Yousef’s father, was against the Oslo Accords because the organization could not survive in a peaceful atmosphere. As a teenager, Yousef was proud of Hamas and saw everything in stark black and white. Hamas saw things as a religious problem and that there was no political solution because any land ever occupied by Islam belonged to Allah. ”Period. End of discussion.” (Under that idea, Spain and Portugal are ripe for reconquest?) Because of this religious idea, no policy discussion was sufficient and no peace could be made.
It was only in prison after seeing Hamas leaders torture men to confess to anything that Yousef became disenchanted. Yousef found that the Muslims who did this torture were judging people as though they thought they were greater than Allah himself. ”They were bigots and hypocrites, torturing those who get too many red points - though only the weakest, most vulnerable people seemed to accumulate these points.” It was seeing this bullying and meeting Israelis in Shin Bet on a one-on-one basis that changed Yousef’s mind. He also saw PLO leaders like Arafat grow fat and rich like a reverse Robin Hood who plundered his own people.
That – and his introduction to the teachings of Christianity- where he came to understand that “we all share the same common enemies: greed, pride, and all the bad ideas and the darkness of the devil that live inside us.” (Yousef at 122.)
Yousef became an agent for the Shin Bet, code named the Green Prince. For instance, he helped reveal that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades were none other than Arafat’s own bodyguards. At the same time, Yousef’s father became the public face of the Second Intifada (a wave of terror attacks against civilians on buses, in restaurants, etc.). Yousef, though, read the Bible and learned about loving and forgiving one’s enemies to stop the bloodshed. Capturing Hamed and exposing the real leaders of Hamas was Yousef’s most important operation and his final one. Yousef became frustrated with seemingly endless line of terrorists who had to be taken out or put down and he wanted a normal life.
All in all, a fascinating story and an insider’s look at the terror organizations in the Middle East. Given the monumental horrors of October 7th, which was to many in the Western world, their first introduction to Hamas, the book feels a bit out of date now. Understand that the book offers Yousef’s perspective and not that of anyone else.
Popoff loves rock n roll and his biography states that he has written more record reviews than any one else ever (over 7900) and has published 85 books on hard rock, heavy metal, classic rock and record collecting. Here, he lends his expertise to the subject of the mighty Van Halen fifty years after they burst on the scene like a mega-tornado blowing everything down in their path. Complete with lots and lots of full-color photographs, it is divided into fifty mini-chapters, offering a taste of Van Halen across the last fifty years with analysis of the recordings and information about the tours and the various incarnations of the band. In short, it is everything the casual fan wants to know and more and lots of things the serious fan knows but wants to revisit. For many of us, it is simply a trip down memory lane.
The book begins with a quick tour of the early lives of Lee Roth and the Van Halen brothers and their discovery at Gazzari’s by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley (Kiss). Although the demo did not lead to anything, their next flirtation with the record industry did, although it gave a glimpse into future issues with David Lee Roth and his eventual replacement in the band. Chapter three offers us their debut album, which was nothing short of groundbreaking, including Eddie’s warm-up exercise that became Eruption, Ain’t Talkin About Love, Jamie’s Cryin, and You Really Got Me, all of which are classics today. The book details how this debut album along with II catapaulted Van Halen to the forefront of the massive hard rock resurgence. The book charts the band’s musical touring rather than just the havoc wrought on hotels and busses on their tours.
There are also chapters discussing Eddie’s musical techniques, particularly tapping, noting that he was not the first to tap, but that his tapping in terms of quantity and quality overwhelmed everyone else. Eddie himself has apparently stated he was inspired by Page’s work on Heartbreaker in 1971 at the Forum.
The book discusses changes to the band’s composition, notably Sammy Hagar replacing David Lee Roth, and Eddie’s marriage to Valerie as well as Eddie’s cancer, his bouts with drugs and alcohol, and then shockingly early death. Nevertheless, it is not a biographical book so much as a musical tour through the history of the band’s albums and tours.
Stolen Youth (2023) is a timely warning shot by Bethany Mandel and Karol Markowicz about the pernicious impact of radical Left “woke” indoctrination on America’s children. Through examples, we learn how radical Left Marxist theory has remade education, sex education, and even pediatrics, and how many of these radical policies are purposefully kept secret from parents. Often, the Leftist indoctrination is taught instead of rigorous English, Math, and Science. A number of pernicious teachings only came to light when kids were home through the COVID era. Most shocking of the radical teachings is the emphasis on sexualizjng children and urging them to modify their bodies even before puberty. The inmates are now running the asylum.
Sands of Dune collects four unrelated novellas by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson from the Dune Universe. One offers the backstory of Fremen Shadout Mapes, who had a brief role when the Atriedes first came to Arrakis. One offers a backstory of one of the Sardauker who disguised as a Harkonnen when the Atriedes were betrayed. One offers a story of Gurney Halleck working with the smugglers after the Atriedes were defeated. The final novella gives a sense of the Atriedes-Harkonnen feud going back thousands of years. This publication is designed more for those familiar with the Dune universe.
In The War on the West (published April 26, 2022), Murray, a British conservative commentator, illustrates how Western Civilization has been under assault for the past two decades from the ivory towers of academia and how that assault on Western values (Judeo-Christian values) is being used by foreign actors such as China and Radical Islam to the disadvantage of those values we have grown up in. “The War on the West,” he explains, “is a book about what happens when one side in a cold war – the side of democracy, reason, rights, and universal principles – prematurely surrenders. Two key ideas are explored. First, the celebration of non-Western cultures allows such cultures to get away with contemporary crimes as monstrous as anything that has happened in the Western past. Second, it leads to a form of parochial internationalism where Westerners mistakenly assume that aspects of Western values are common aspirations across the rest of the globe and the truth is that such values are not.
All aspects of Western civilization, Murray explains, are under attack and the Judeo-Christian tradition that is the cornerstone of Western tradition is under particular assault and so is the Enlightenment. Thus, the newest generation “does not appear,” he says, “to understand even the most basic principles of free thought and free expression.” And, the result is that we are in the process of killing the goose that laid some very golden eggs.
Primary among such assaults on Western tradition, he explains, is racial consciousness and the failure to take people into account as individuals leads to the horrors of the mid-Twentieth Century. The message of Dr. King to treat people as individuals and reject those who would reduce them to merely group membership by accident of birth is getting lost, particularly with the prevalence of Critical Race Theory (CRT), which questions the foundations of liberal order, including equality and legal reasoning. CRT, Murray explains, has an absolute obsession with race as the primary means to understand the world and injustice and argues that racism is so deeply interwoven into White-majority society that no proof of racism is needed. These academics are consumed and obsessed with power in the theory of Michel Foucalt and attributes power on the basis of skin color. In effect, as Sowell observed, racism is now being kept alive by politicians and other race hustlers.
Murray’s book then goes on to take on Kendi’s circular theories of racism and anti-racism which seems ultimately to boil down things Kendi likes and things he doesn’t like. “Rather than taking face out of a discussion (the very concept of which Kendi also describes as racist), this worldview goes out of its way to impose race into every discussion.” Thus, Murray explains, at the exact time that racism has never been more discredited, it is portrayed as being omnipresent. The practical consequences, though, of projecting racism everywhere has permeated education and corporations.
In comparison, China, the major challenger to Western civilization, has without much protest from the masses in the West, put over a million Uighurs in concentration camps and regularly imposes on all Chinese subjects forced abortions at nine months when a woman dares to have a second child. The result is now a culture where people do not respect human life anymore. But rather than focus on its own problems, the CCP weaponizes Westerm weaknesses such as the discussion on racism.
After discussing modern CRT, Murray turns to the new attempts to rewrite history such as the 1619 project, which is being used to smear American history and capitalism. Slavery, he points out, was ended in a Civil War in the United States and by the British Empire. But it is not a unique sin to America as the numbers of African slaves put into the Arab slave trade was far larger than the other direction across the Atlantic. Also, the Barbary pirates and the Ottomans sold millions of Europeans into slavery for centuries. “If it is agreed that everybody did bad things in the past, then it is possible to move on and even to move past it.” And, the discussion of privilege, he argues, ignores that most white Europeans were not living in any type of priveleged paradise. As to reparations, the book argues that it comes down to “people who look like the people to whom a wrong was done in history receiving money from people who look like the people who may have done the wrong.”
The next topic of the book is the attacks on historical figures, taking footnotes out of their history, and ignoring their accomplishments in order to refashion history such as the attacks on Churchill. And not only are historical figures under attack, but the very philosophical and religious pillars of western civilization. These attacks are done, Murray explains, by using omissions and double standards.
At its ultimate, the attacks include an attack on mathematics and truth and the idea that 2 plus 2 equals 4.
We have a few options, Murray explains, the first being to fight and defend our own history.
This is a fascinating book, both for the examples it cites, but also for setting out in logical formation how ridiculous some of the arguments and attacks on Western civilization truly are.
Those Crazy Books 