Just The Caffeine Talking

Endgames

We're all following the progress of the war in Ukraine, bouncing around between hope, fear, and utter bafflement. I'd like to take a step back and think about what the results of this conflict are likely to be. I see five paths, and only one of them is not terrible.

Russian Victory: supposing the Russians solve their logistical and command problems, unleash the full strength of their air force, call in more troops, and grind down the Ukrainians by sheer weight of force. Possibly even nuclear force. What then? Russia remains a pariah state, isolated from the global economy and global society. Ukraine will be a bloody open wound for a generation, drawing in a steady flow of Russian troops and sending home body bags, while Putin's security services revert to the worst Soviet methods on a large scale. Paranoid but protected by its nuclear arsenal, Russia would export terror and subversion to its neighbors. We get a new Cold War, as tense and vicious as the old one.

Ukraine Buys Peace: this, to me, is the most likely outcome but it's not a good one. We have a negotiated settlement which gives Russia control of a big chunk of eastern Ukraine, and possibly puts limits on Ukraine's defenses in the future. Ukraine survives but pays a heavy cost, and Vladimir Putin can claim victory and continue in power. What result? Most of the economic sanctions on Russia remain in place, though there will be more room for countries like China to find loopholes to exploit. Again, we get a reborn Cold War, and Russia continues its campaigns of corruption and subversion in Ukraine and elsewhere.

Ukraine and Putin Hold: the Ukrainians throw back the Russian invasion and Putin decides to cut his losses and accept some fig-leaf settlement. Putin proves better at murdering potential rivals than at planning foreign invasions, and remains in power despite the obvious military defeat. Again, this leads to a revived Cold War, Russia as a pariah, and more low-level meddling. The good news is that Ukraine becomes the bastion of Europe, integrated into the European Union and NATO. The bad news is that we go back to 1980s levels of military expenditure and diplomatic infighting.

Putin Falls: the Russian Duma (we hope) or some ambitious general (we fear) take direct steps to remove Putin from power and call the troops home. Everything gets blamed on the late Vlad, Russia's new leadership promise to behave, and the sanctions get relaxed in stages. Essentially a repeat of the Yeltsin years. This is probably the best possible outcome, so my sincerest best wishes to any Russian leaders reading this. Go for it, dude!

Russia Falls: whoever decides to remove Putin sets off a cascade of coups and power grabs by generals, regional governors, and organized crime bosses. This is basically the situation we all felt lucky to avoid in 1991 — a nuclear-armed superpower descending into chaos. The best result of this scenario is a nasty counter-insurgency campaign by international forces to keep order and secure the missile silos, a perpetually unstable Russian government, lots of small-time strongmen, and China quietly annexes everything east of the Urals. The worst result is terrorists and rogue states getting and using Russian nuclear weapons.

If anyone can come up with another optimistic scenario, I'd love to hear it.

 

Discover an Archipelago of Lost Worlds

I'm pleased to report that the long-awaited anthology Lost Worlds and Mythological Kingdoms is now available. It's edited by John Joseph Adams and features a pretty impressive lineup of contributors, including Theodora Goss, Cadwell Turnbull, and Becky Chambers. The seventeen stories in the book are all about visits to hidden or imaginary lands — a micro-genre which was once a mainstay of fantastic adventure fiction but which gradually faded away under the influence of decolonization and satellite mapping. My own contribution is called "Out of the Dark," and is another work in the ongoing Billion Worlds series. I'm pretty eager to get my hands on a copy myself. 

In other Billion Worlds news, I just handed in my draft of the next Billion Worlds novel, a prequel to The Godel Operation with the working title The Scarab Mission. More news as that progresses toward publication. Until then . . . 

. . . get Lost!

Victory Conditions

One of the most baffling things about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, to Westerners, is that it seems impossible to succeed. If the Russian army gets badly mauled and driven out, Putin gets forced from power and probably shot in the back of the head. If the Russians somehow manage to occupy the entire vast expanse of Ukraine, then they spend the next decade or more dealing with an insurgency that would make 1980s Afghanistan look like Disney World. And either way the economic sanctions have completely wrecked the Russian economy. 

But . . . that's looking at things from our perspective. From a Western, democratic, free-market, classical liberal perspective. Vladimir Putin is none of those things. He grew up, thrived, and prospered in the Communist Soviet Union. When he took power he tried to combine old Soviet elements with even older traditional Russian nationalist strains. He is not, and has never been a "Westernizer." 

Which means that, from his point of view, Russia as a pariah state, a hermit empire, disconnected from the global economy and isolated from world society . . . is a good thing. Far from being a deterrent to his aggression in Ukraine, it's a fringe benefit.

This is a man who grew up immersed in Soviet teachings about "capitalist decadence" as well as the older Russian suspicion of merchants and outsiders. Like another European political figure, he probably sees himself battling against "international money and finance conspirators." If he can grab Ukraine, eliminate anyone who opposes him, and sweep away three decades of "Western capitalist corruption," leaving Russia poorer, meaner — but purified and authentically Russian once more, he will call it a victory.

We'll see if other Russians agree with him. 

Orwell on Putin

Well, not Putin, actually. Another political leader noted for aggression in Eastern Europe. Orwell reviewed a book written by that leader and speculated on the reasons for his political success:

"[That guy], because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades."

I'm posting this quote because it seems to me that once again Western leaders (and everyone else) are making their characteristic mistake of assuming every other leader (and every other population) want what they want. Right now you see endless Tweets, headlines, and pundits calling Putin "mad."

Nope. He's no more mad than [That guy] was. He just doesn't share our motivations. For all our professed love of diversity and tolerance we are abysmally bad at actually understanding people who don't share our Enlightenment-era Anglosphere way of thinking. We've seen this in the Middle East, we've seen it in Asia, we've seen it in Latin America, we've seen it in Africa.

Sanctions and speeches and hashtags and Facebook banners aren't going to stop this. We need to help Ukraine with tangible, physical aid — or admit to ourselves that this is just a lot of feel-good posturing to compensate for our impotence.

Oh, and keep an eye on the Taiwan Strait . . .

Boskone is GO!

After the sad cancellation of this year's Arisia convention, I'm very pleased and excited to announce that Boskone 59 is going ahead as planned this coming weekend, at the Westin hotel in Boston's seaport district! See the Web page here for membership information.

I'll be there in person, and here's my schedule:

Friday, February 18

6:00 p.m.: Very Far Future SF — a panel discussion about writing science fiction set thousands of years in the future, if not even more remote.

Saturday, February 19

10:00 a.m.: Reading — I'll be reading my short story "Out of the Dark" from the forthcoming anthology Lost Worlds and Mythological Kingdoms.

11:00 a.m.: When Comics Characters Get Old —panel about the problems with "comics time" vs. real time, and how to deal with the sheer weight of past history some iconic characters have to carry.

2:00 p.m.: Kaffeeklatsch — fellow program participant Grant Carrington and I will hang out and drink coffee with anyone who signs up. You set the topics!

4:00 p.m.: The Mind of the Alien — a real powerhouse of a panel discussing what alien intelligence might be like and how we can (or can't) relate to them.

Sunday, February 20

11:00 a.m.: Autographing — I'll be signing anything anyone can drag into the hotel (not contracts).

12:00 noon: Dungeons & Dragons — A classic Basic D&D dungeon with traps, wandering monsters, and puzzles.

See you all at the Westin this weekend!

Which War?

At the end of this month the people of Deerfield, Massachusetts will observe the 318th anniversary of the 1704 Raid on Deerfield. This was not the first attack on the town in its early decades, nor the last, but it was definitely the most devastating.

But nowadays people are a little vague about why it happened.

Often it's attributed to the "French and Indian War." Right enemies, but wrong war. That one was in 1754-1763, part of the global Seven Years' War. The Deerfield Raid was half a century earlier, part of a different conflict waged across Europe and the colonies.

That war was known as Queen Anne's War, and lasted from 1702 to 1713. It was basically a sideshow of the War of the Spanish Succession, which started a year earlier and ended a year later.

The cause of the war was, basically, Habsburg inbreeding. The Habsburg dynasty ruled a huge chunk of the world: Austria, Hungary, northern Italy, various bits of Germany, Belgium, Spain, parts of Italy, Mexico, Peru, other parts of South America, some pieces of Africa, the Philippines — and far too many minor duchies, islands, and colonies to list. They divided it all up among different branches of the family, but the clan remained closely allied against their two primary enemies: the Bourbon dynasty of France, and the loose coalition of Protestant kingdoms in northern Europe led by the British.

To keep their vast dominions together, the Habsburgs married within the family, making heavy use of their political clout to get special dispensations from the Pope to allow unions which otherwise would be illegal.

The end result of all that was King Charles II of Spain. His parents were uncle and niece, and their parents were all first cousins. Any geneticist will tell you this is a terrible idea, and a look at the official portrait of the King bears that out. The poor man couldn't chew his food properly because his Habsburg chin was so exaggerated. He had a whole raft of other chronic health problems, and it's not really surprising that he was unable to produce an heir. Nor did he have any brothers or sisters to inherit the Spanish empire.

Actually, the problem wasn't enough heirs, it was too many. Without an immediate blood relative to inherit, the line of succession got hopelessly tangled up in a mass of claimants — Habsburgs, Bourbons (because when they weren't fighting wars they were swapping princesses to keep the peace), and various minor royalty across Europe. 

When Charles died, he left the entire Kingdom of Spain and all its dominions to Philip of Anjou, who was the grandson of Louis XIV of France. A Bourbon, and in the line of succession to the throne of France. This was of course intolerable to the other Habsburgs and the British. Spain plus France would dominate Europe. Alliances quickly reshuffled and a global brawl broke out.

The French side included France and Spain, plus their extensive colonial empires (including Canada and Louisiana). Their allies at the start of the war included Bavaria, Savoy (in northwest Italy), the Spanish-ruled Kingdom of Naples, the Spanish Netherlands (modern Belgium) — and a number of Native American groups including the Abenaki Confederacy, some Mohawk bands, the Choctaws, the Natchez, and some smaller groupings.

On the other side were England, the Austrian Empire, the Dutch Republic, the Kingdom of Prussia, Portugal, and all of their colonies and allied tribes. Including, of course, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, with Deerfield sitting all by itself at the northwestern frontier.

The war lasted 13 years, involving battles across Europe, in North America, in India and elsewhere in Asia, and lots of "privateering" at sea. And, of course, the Raid on Deerfield. Several countries switched sides during the conflict, or dropped out when the expense got too great.

When all the dust cleared in 1714, Philip of Anjou remained as Philip V of Spain. France had turned one of its most dangerous enemies into a family-run ally, though the price was that France and Spain could never have the same monarch. Spain kept her colonial empire but had to hand off all her dependencies in Europe to Habsburg Austria. France lost her colonies in Acadia and Newfoundland, and many of the French settlers there migrated to Louisiana. Britain also gained control of Gibraltar, and access to trade with Spain's colonial empire. Oh, and John Churchill got to be Duke of Marlborough for winning a lot of battles.

In short, fifty people in Deerfield got killed and a hundred taken off to Canada as prisoners because too many Habsburgs married their cousins.

Postmarked From the Stars Interview

Postmarked From the Stars is an online bookstore emphasizing fantasy and science fiction. They've also got a YouTube channel with reviews and interviews. And this week you can see an hour-long interview with me. It's quite wide-ranging, discussing my earlier works like A Darkling Sea and Corsair, as well as recent titles like The Godel Operation. Check it out!

Happy Tricolor Day!

Today is Italian Tricolor Day. To celebrate, I prepared homemade pasta with red and green pesto:

Italy and Mexico are fortunate countries, in that their national colors match their cuisine. Making an Italian dish patriotic-looking is pig-easy. Just use some tomato sauce, some greenery, and some mozzarella. In other words, make some generic Italian food. Same for Mexico. Japan's flag also lends itself to patriotic dishes: a red plum on a bed of rice, and you've got a flag lunch. Spanish cooks in a patriotic mood can lean heavily on saffron and tomato.

Sadly, all the countries with blue flags are severely handicapped. Making patriotic American or French food means you have to rely heavily on uncooked blueberries, or cheat and use food coloring. And in Libya or Saudi Arabia I guess you just shut up and eat your spinach.

Anyway, both kinds of pesto were delicious.

 

Better Late Than Never

The legendary Gordon Van Gelder sent me the link to this review of Corsair by Patrick Mahon. It's a nice writeup, and I'm pleased to see it. One can only imagine the size of his "to be read" pile. Amazon still has it available in all formats.

Kitchen Report: Pudding!

This Christmas, we had a traditional English Christmas Pudding for dessert after our dinner. What's a Christmas Pudding? It's . . . well, it's a lot more akin to a fruitcake than anything most Americans would describe as "pudding." I'll try to generate some suspense in this 'blog post by not revealing how it tasted just yet.

I got the idea because my daughter made plans to visit us for the Christmas holiday season. She's not a huge fan of turkey, so my wife and I decided to cook a goose as the centerpiece of our meal. If you're making a Christmas Goose, the temptation to go Full Dickens and have a Christmas Pudding to follow is very strong, and I gave in. Plus I'm interested in food history and wanted to try it.

My recipe was from the extremely useful historical cookbook Lobscouse & Spotted Dog, by Grossman and Thomas. It's a solidly researched and fearlessly kitchen-tested companion to Patrick O'Brian's novels about Captain Aubrey and Dr. Maturin in the Royal Navy of Nelson's era. If you want to know how to cook a rat, this is the book to consult. Since Captain Aubrey is a huge fan of English pudding in all its forms, the book has thirty-odd different pudding recipes, ranging from "Figgy-Dowdy" to "Drowned Baby" to "Floating Islands."

A useful technique when trying an unfamiliar recipe, especially a historical one, is to find as many versions as possible and compare them. This gives one a sense of which ingredients are central to the dish, which are optional, and what the core techniques are for cooking. So I did some online research and consulted some of my other old cookbooks.

The core of a Christmas Pudding (aka a Plum Pudding because it contains raisins and the English don't know how to speak their own language) is a mix of beef suet, flour, sugar, breadcrumbs and eggs; packed with dried fruit, chopped nuts, and spices. And booze. The exact fruits and spices vary somewhat from one recipe to another.

Which was good, because getting hold of all of them was quite a chore, and some proved impossible to find. I had all the spices (cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, and clove), so that part was easy enough. Suet came from Sutter Meats in Northampton. Raisins, currants, and almonds were no problem. Candied orange peel had to be ordered via Amazon, and candied citron was simply unavailable to me. The fact that we were in the middle of a global supply chain crisis may have had something to do with that.

I began accumulating the Christmas Pudding ingredients in October, and actually prepared it in early November. This may seem like a long lead time, but Grossman and Thomas recommend getting your pudding ready a whole year in advance. Other recipes tended to center around six to eight weeks prior to serving, so I went with that.

The actual cooking is simple but time-consuming. You mix everything up together, put it in a pudding-basin (I used a metal bowl), and then steam it in boiling water for five hours. Extract it from the pot — my cookbook authors went into a certain amount of technical advice about getting the pudding out of the boiling water but I simply let it cool down before removing — and then store for two to twelve months. Give it a shot of booze every few weeks.

On the big day, heat it up with a couple of hours of steaming, then turn out onto a serving dish. Heat up a few ounces of brandy just to boiling, set it on fire, and pour the flaming liquid over the pudding. Because what dessert isn't improved by flaming brandy, really? Here's what it looked like.

So, I hear you ask, how is it? It's good. I liked it a lot — but then I'm also someone who loves mince pies and old-fashioned sangria. Raisins and cloves and citrus are a flavor combination I love in just about any form.

As one can see from this close-up view, the pudding is mostly fruit. The suet-flour-egg mixture is just a matrix to hold it all together. It goes very well with red wine, less so with champagne. We accompanied ours with vanilla ice cream, a combo I recommend.

It made a nice finish to a meal built around a roast goose. I suspect it would also go well with beef or game. Probably not a good Thanksgiving dessert — too much like the stuffing and cranberries anyway, plus everybody's expecting pie.  It's kosher, so you could have it for Hanukkah. Since I've got a quarter-pound of suet left over, I may make it again. Try it yourself — you've just about got enough time for next Christmas if you get cracking.