C Gockel Writes

Featured Fantasy: The Once and Future King by T. H. White

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Recommended! One of my favorite fantasy books of all time!
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T. H. White’s masterful retelling of the saga of King Arthur is a fantasy classic as legendary as Excalibur and Camelot, and a poignant story of adventure, romance, and magic that has enchanted readers for generations.

Once upon a time, a young boy called “Wart” was tutored by a magician named Merlyn in preparation for a future he couldn’t possibly imagine. A future in which he would ally himself with the greatest knights, love a legendary queen and unite a country dedicated to chivalrous values. A future that would see him crowned and known for all time as Arthur, King of the Britons.

During Arthur’s reign, the kingdom of Camelot was founded to cast enlightenment on the Dark Ages, while the knights of the Round Table embarked on many a noble quest. But Merlyn foresaw the treachery that awaited his liege: the forbidden love between Queen Guenever and Lancelot, the wicked plots of Arthur’s half-sister Morgause and the hatred she fostered in Mordred that would bring an end to the king’s dreams for Britain—and to the king himself.

“[The Once and Future King] mingles wisdom, wonderful, laugh-out-loud humor and deep sorrow—while telling one of the great tales of the Western world.”—Guy Gavriel Kay

Book Review: The Hanover Square Affair by Ashley Gardner & Jennifer Ashley

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Book Review: The Hanover Square Affair by Ashley Gardner & Jennifer Ashley

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If you really love flawed heroes and deep feels, the Hanover Square Affair is for you. Captain Lacey is a living on half-pay after leaving the British Cavalry after the Peninsular Wars. His exit from the military wasn’t completely by choice. Plagued by a war injury, melancholia, and boredom, blessed and cursed with a very strict moral code, when he stumbles into a riot led by a grieving father looking for his abducted daughter, he cannot let the matter rest. His quest to find the missing girl takes him from the gutter to the highest echelons of British society, and everywhere in between.

It’s not “light” reading I guess; but for some reason, when times are hard, I want to see people surviving hard times in my literature. Also, I want the characters to be believable. Every character in this book was well drawn with virtues and weaknesses. It is *not* a romance, but there is romance, and those relationships feel true. Everything physical is strictly fade to black.

I loved the picture of the times and society this book painted. The mystery and the conclusion were satisfying to me; though I have to admit, I am not generally a mystery reader. I do have a pre-med background from a long ago career as a medical illustrator, and I didn’t see any injuries or ailments that would be impossible to survive, something that has turned me off mysteries and thrillers in the past. I know, I know, how can a sci-fi and fantasy author not suspend their disbelief? But that is the thing, when my robots, cyborgs, or demigods get a bullet wounds that would kill a mortal they can survive with tech and magic. It’s logical!

As soon as I was done with this one, I bought the second, and then had to stash my Kindle somewhere far from my bed so I wouldn’t be tempted to stay up reading.

I got this book free, but I have no idea how long that price will last. Check for the price at :

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Book Review: Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare by Giles Milton

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Book Review: Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare by Giles Milton

I don’t know what I expected when I picked up Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. I know I didn’t expect how laugh out loud funny it would be. I definitely didn’t expect it to be as thought provoking as it was, and how it made me question what I know about the U.S.’s military presence in the world, or how I could come to see gorilla warfare as more humane.

The thing about Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare was that in the end, it was far more gentler than the “gentlemanly” kind. Compared to aerial bombing the acts of sabotage in this book killed fewer civilians–even when there were Nazi reprisals–and destroyed less infrastructure, meaning the civilians who survived had better lives.

But if you’re not looking for philosophy, this book is for you, too! Every single chapter of this book could be made into a feature length film–and some have! Still many have not. I’d like to know more about the man who was clever enough to think “Hmmm…instead of bombing the German tanks I’ll switch out the engine oil of the tank transports” and hear about how all the saboteurs did it. This little maneuver was hugely responsible for the allies success at Normandy.

As mentioned, this book is laugh out loud funny, it’s got tons of action, and you’ll learn about covert antics you may have missed, and about the men and women who pulled them off.

This book is traditionally published, and it’s expensive new. However, at least in the US the second hand paperback version is reasonably priced on Amazon. Also, it’s available at the moment from Scribd in Audiobook and eBook.

Available in eBook format at Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

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Remember, it’s traditionally published–so look for it in your public library!

Book Review: The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuinn

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The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuinn

$1.99 as of December 20, 2021

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The setup: A bleak moon settled by utopian anarchists, Anarres has long been isolated from other worlds, including its mother planet, Urras—a civilization of warring nations, great poverty, and immense wealth. Now Shevek, a brilliant physicist, is determined to reunite the two planets, which have been divided by centuries of distrust. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have kept them apart.

To visit Urras—to learn, to teach, to share—will require great sacrifice and risks, which Shevek willingly accepts. But the ambitious scientist’s gift is soon seen as a threat, and in the profound conflict that ensues, he must reexamine his beliefs even as he ignites the fires of change.

My take: “There was a wall.” That is the first sentence of this book. I have not read it in years, but I still remember the opening line because the book is so wonderful. This was the first book I read in the loosely interconnected Hainish Cycle and it propelled me on to read all the others. Highly recommend. I’d love someone to talk about this book with. Hint, hint.

“One of the greats….Not just a science fiction writer; a literary icon.” – Stephen King

From the brilliant and award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin comes a classic tale of two planets torn apart by conflict and mistrust — and the man who risks everything to reunite them.

Book Reviews: The Lotus Palace Mysteries by Jeannie Lin

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These are not my normal genre–and I think they should be called “mystery romances,” all the books have “steam”– but I love Chinese history, and these are set in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD.) The Tang period is long before foot binding, so that is in no way part of these books. It was interesting see into the Tang justice system, the culture, and see the power struggles of the time period. I’m really drawn to characterization in fiction, and the characters, particularly in the The Jade Temptress (the book I started with, and my favorite), really jumped off the page. The first book was written for a traditional publisher, and it is good, but it is more in the style of a traditional romance–the girl gets her lord. The next books were self-published, and the heroes were not lords, and the endings did not have the heroines being ensconsed in mansions, but they had more freedom.

If you’re looking for something a little different, I recommend them.

They are available at Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

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Book Review: The Daevebad Trilogy

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The Daevebad Trilogy was the best fantasy series I have read in ages. I devoured this. I loved everything from the characters, the setting, the ancient Arabian mythology. The Djinn are rather like Elves in many ways, and I wondered about how the cultures of the Norse Germanic peoples and the people of the Middle East interacted. I know at one point the Middle Easterners sent a representative north and he found the Norse to be incredibly savage … and the Romans had the same impression, but it seems like there was more interaction. It would be nice if the similarities are based on early trading and not the extensive slave trade of the people of the Barbary Coast and the Turks who hunted for “goods” as far away as Iceland, and terrorized the coasts of continental Europe and the British Isles for a long time. The trade was only finally ended in the 1800s. 😛

On that cheerful note … yes, I really liked these books. The books start in Cairo, where our protagonist, orphan Nahri scrapes out a living making divinations and picking pockets. Her divinations have a disturbing accuracy that gets her customers and trouble of the human kind. When she inadvertently summons trouble of the supernatural kind, the story really kicks off. It seems she is the half-human descendent of a lost tribe of djinn … and there are forces that want the tribe to stay “lost.” However, there are also djinn that want her found, and one of them Dara, comes to her rescue.

The world building is magnificent, multi-layered, and complex, so I’m not really going to describe it here. I can’t do it justice. But let’s just say, Nahri winds herself plucked from the frying pan right into the fire. Highly recommended. Definitely start with the first book, The City of Brass. This series must be read in order.

Start the series on Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia, GooglePlay