Charles > Recent Status Updates

The first 20-years of the 7th Century were a bad time for the Romans. The established Emperor Maurice was deposed, and the Sassanian king of kings Khusru II took advantage of the ensuing civil wars. Whole provinces of the Empire in the east were seized and even threaten Constantinople. The winner of the civil war Hereclius ceded territory for time to rebuild Roman armies.

At the close of the 6th Century two stable Empires existed side-by-side, each strong and neither dominating. Temporary advantage seesawed between them without altering the balance of power.

The fifth century was relatively peaceful, until its end, which was marked by the Anastasian War. The King of Kings Kavagh I being financially strapped due to Hunish incursions in the North and West, struck the Romans. The frontier having been quiet for so long provided enough booty, to sustain a long war into the sixth century, before an expensive peace was paid for by the Romans.

In the Fifth Century, the Western empire fell, but the Eastern remained intact with some of the richest provinces of the Empire.

The Sassanians and the Eastern emperors maintained the status quo with only brief skirmishes. Both empires were preoccupied with civil wars, and pressure from barbarians from the north and the east.

The quick rise and fall of Roman emperors in the late 3rd and 4th Centuries coincided with Sasanian succession rivalries. To legitimize their position, both the Emperor and the King of Kings du jour used military victories. Expeditions from both sides crossed the borders and sieges of the hardened Roman eastern frontier was the state of relations between the two empires.

An assertive Sasanian empire facing a weak Roman empire took the opportunity for successful wars. The Roman empire was divided by two, at times three 'emperors' and pressured by Germans on the Rhine and Danube frontiers. Barbarians penetrated into Italy and Greece. Most Roman cities in most provinces raised and strengthened their walls in the 3rd century.

The Sassanian Empire under Shapir I reorganized the army similar to Roman lines. Engineers for sieges, heavy cavalry, and heavy infantry appeared. Sassanian armies were able to penetrate the Roman Empire, take cities and face Legionary armies in the field head-to-head. The Roman Empire under pressure from barbarians in the north, and a succession of emperors struggled to cope with Sapir's incursions.

200-240 CE, Rome entered another period of civil war, where the army and murder created a rapid succession of emperors. Civil wars left Rome weaker at the same time as a Parthian civil war that created the Sasanian dynasty. The new dynasty, went to war with Rome to legitimize, establish, and enrich itself.

Two centuries starting with Trajan and ending with Septimius Severus where Rome muscularly treats Parthia, invading several times, but not being able to maintain a physical presence to far east of the old frontier.

Rome and Parthia had different cultures, political systems, and traditions. They were rivals for power in the lands of the former Seleucid Empire. Neither society was closed to the other. The rivalry was cautious in the 1st Century CE, but not in the 2nd.

The battle of Carrhae was not a good first start. Two dissimilar Military doctrines on the Parthians home geography, the result was predictable.

Working through early Republic history. Gradually in the Eastern Med the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire edged toward each other over the fractured remains of the Hellenistic, Caspian, legacy Persian satrapies and the Jewish kingdom established there.

NPR: AI artist makes debut on Billboard radio chat
Billboard says Xania Monet is "the first known AI artist to earn enough radio airplay to debut on a Billboard radio chart."

AI already owns Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), so why not?

Herron is using a more sophisticated multi-POV structure than I remember from past books.

If I were a less sober individual, I might have admitted to have squeed just a little bit, when I started this book.

Anytime a book is described as being "cozy"-- its really Middle Grade (MG).

Not impressed. I have little patience for cutesy robots, and authors contorting their worldbuilding to make their rickety plot work. The author has a hint about astrodynamics, but not a firm grasp of them.

AVClub: Primer: The highbrow genre fiction of Michael Chabon
The Pulitzer winner has made a career of balancing literature and pulp across a surprising number of venues.

Chabon is a fave writer of mine. This piece fills in on between his published works.

Went up to London. Went & saw the Denmark St. office, the Freemason Temple (Closed), & had a pint with Corm and Shanker at the Flying Horse.

Guardian: The best and worst of times: American advertisements of the 1930s – in pictures
Taschen’s latest look at American ads from a certain era.

All-American Ads of the 30s

Guardian: ‘Deeply concerning’: reading for fun in the US has fallen by 40%, new study says
Over the last 20 years, the number of Americans who read daily for pleasure has seen a considerable decline

Shorter wait-times for the library reserve lists?

NYT: Why Magic, Dragons and Explicit Sex Are in Bookstores Everywhere

What kind of magic do young wizards and gypsy witches do now-a -days when the lights go out? 🧐

Sooo good.

NYT:How a Dungeons & Dragons Joke Led to a Best-Selling Romance Novel
In 2018, the cast of a web series joked about an imaginary (and very saucy) book. Now, it’s a real best seller. Just embrace the tusks.

Fantasy fiction is stranger than reality?

I feel like an amphetamine-addled beaver gnawing away at this log of a book.

NYT: He Read (at Least) 3,599 Books in His Lifetime. Now Anyone Can See His List.
After Dan Pelzer died this month at 92, his children uploaded the handwritten reading list to what-dan-read.com, hoping to inspire readers everywhere.

This is becoming a slog.

Guardian: Is it OK to read Infinite Jest in public? Why the internet hates ‘performative reading’
Posts mocking strangers for cracking open classics have become popular. So where are we supposed to read them?

NYT: Why Did the Novel-Reading Man Disappear?
Men are leaving fiction reading behind. Some people want to change that.

A sad commentary on modern masculinity.

Guardian: ‘Five years from now, these readers will be soldiers’: The Russian literature encouraging teens to enlist
Master-race stories of heroic characters battling against zombie Nazis and western spies to recover imperial grandeur are a bleak new spin on an old propaganda tradition