December 11, 2024 Warrior Wednesday Review Post
The history of the world, is a history of warfare. It used to be that British schoolchildren were required to learn the dates of a whole series of battles. (I’m not sure that British schoolchildren are required to learn anything, nowadays.) This was not (or at least not merely) because British schoolteachers and children were enamoured of blood and killing; but because battles, and the wars they were fought in, tended to represent clashes of civilisations and civilisational ideas.
My goal for these posts is to create a place where authors, if they wish, can have their works showcased. I make no claim to having read them, reviewed them, etc… although that is something I might end up doing here.
NOTE: I have been out of town, and sick, so this post is not all it could be :)
Warrior Wednesday
Warrior Wednesday (or WW for those feeling lazy) is a group of Substack authors who tag each other every Wednesday (or some Wednesdays, or a few Wednesdays a few months ago) in order to promote their ‘Warrior’ stories. Fiction is a hard go on Substack, and we need all the help we can get.
I would encourage anyone who likes ‘warrior’ stories to send me their tag address (which is not an easy thing on Substack!) and I will add them to my list. This can be because you like to write Warrior stories, read Warrior stories or, hopefully, both :)
If your ‘Sword Saturday’ fits in this class I will try to also list it… but probably on Wednesday or, occasionally when I get busy, Thursday.
I have pasted (a very awkward affair) my ‘tag list’ at the bottom of this post. If you wish to be added or taken off this list, please DM me or comment below. If you wish me to add a little blurb about who you are and what you write, DM me.
The Library
“The Library” is a great place to go to find Substack stories to read. “The Writings” also has a list of Christian authors and editors. I’m willing to paste more and more specific links if someone wishes to DM them to me.
Current Stories
For the purposes of this ‘review’ post, I am compiling the Warrior stories that have been sent to me. These do NOT need to be recent. I will obviously not post a dozen selections from any one author, but if you wish, this week, to promote the first chapter in your story you wrote ten years ago, go for it. Send it to me.
I have NOT read through all of these. Or even most of them. Some weeks maybe even none of them! So no endorsement should be assumed. Nor should the listing of someone’s story here imply that they approve of me or my work.
I’m going to try to separate these words into various categories. So far I have: Essay (talking about warrior stories), hist-fict, sci-fi, and fantasy. Let me know if there are more types, or if I have misfiled you.
Warning: Usually Substack lets me post the rectangle box with the little summary. Sometimes it will only let me post a link. I have no idea why. No, I wasn’t paid more by the people with the rectangle summaries.
I don’t tend to write ‘Warrior’ fiction… in that there isn’t much space in my books for actual combat. However my goal in all of my fiction is that it be about warriors… about people who fight, sometimes against themselves, and sometimes against others… sometimes in armed conflict and sometimes in political struggle… for truth and righteousness, for family and faith. Some of them are even in the military! And kill aliens or dragons!
Article 17
“This month at our book club we will be studying Martin Chillia’s famous book ‘Leader Tomirosh’. This book was written three years after Hero Tomirosh’s death and is a highly fictionalised account of his early career, at least as concerns his personal life and personality, of which very little is known. We are reading this book for, among other reasons, gaining an understanding of the early dictatorship years.
Ld. Tomirosh was not the only hero of those years but he was among the most famous and certainly one of the most colourful. When you read this account, you need to keep in mind that Ld. Tomirosh’s contemporaries knew, at the beginning of his career, almost nothing of who he actually was…"
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She was pretty, popular, snobby, and a planetary governor’s daughter. He was the son of shopkeepers, a social misfit, and a decorated hero. She thought she was there to dance. He had other ideas.
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Article 17 is a military science fiction story with aliens and romance. It is set in a future reminiscent of Napoleon era Britain. The war was going very poorly until the military installed a dictator. This story follows one of the dictator’s great men: Cladin Tomirosh, Leader, and thrice decorated hero.
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Island People
Island People is a series of stories about a young prince who is kidnapped, gets free and wins a war, then decides to launch a settlement project on the nearby mainland. To do it he will need men and families from all of the various races that occupy his island: Farmers, Dwarves, Horsemen, Fishermen, Elves, Trolls, and Marshmen. Luckily they can all transform into each other.
The current story in the series is ‘Dwarves and Dragons’. Five years after Seth and his crew started settling ‘The Day’, colonists are still coming and still settling the new land. One of these colonists is young Dwarf Heinrich, who seems to spend most of his time sitting at the front of the ship wondering what the new land will be like, and whether Dwarves would ever be allowed to swim.
Dragon Corps
Imagine World War I… with dragons. Not magic dragons, not fire-breathing dragons… just… dragons. Fly around on them, scout out the enemy, drop an occasional bomb… that kind of dragon.
This chapter is kind of from the middle. A little action!
September 29, 1914
Flare Patrol
North of Liege, Belgium
I loved this little dragon. I mean, I loved all the dragons I had worked with, but I really loved this one. Flying him was intimate, like he and I were one being. And flying at tree top level was totally awesome.
But all that didn’t mean much as all of my energy was taken up frantically searching for my target. I knew where it had to be: in a small clearing, so it could shoot, and in the woods, so it could hide. Or near some buildings, because there were so few woods in this part of Belgium.
But probably in these woods. That is where the day dragons had spotted it. They figured it had moved as soon as it was dark to prevent our counter battery fire, but probably not too far.
I saw something off to my right and I banked the dragon that way. It was a small clearing with something in it but, as I got closer, I saw it was a dummy gun… all made of logs and things, not even covered with a concealment tarp.
I turned away, not eager to get shot at. although it was kind of hit and miss with these dummies, the Marshall had said: they were eager to kill our dragons, so that would mean putting defenders there; but they were trying to attract artillery fire, to draw it away from the real guns, so that would mean that they wouldn’t.
We flew along another couple of miles, and I saw a farm to my right, outside of the woods. At first I gave it only a quick glance, but then I looked back. It was a big farm, with three large buildings, a house, a barn, and I guess another barn, all forming a ‘U’ shape. But my first glance had shown me that, just above the rooftop of the house, was a kind of vague form, as of something sitting in the middle between the buildings.
I curled us around and stared, managing to see between the ends of the buildings. Sure enough there, in the courtyard between the three buildings, was a huge cannon. No doubt the horses and ammunition and all was stored in the barns and the crew were sleeping in the buildings.
Someone must have seen me as well, because there was a shout and people started coming out of the buildings.
I grabbed the dragon defender that I had rigged with flares and darted in toward the buildings. As I got closer I saw a man leading a horse… they were going to move the gun!
I pointed the dragon defender, don’t ask me what I was thinking of, I still don’t know, and let loose. It held six shots, and I fired all six. The first one hit the horse… and that was a terrible sound that it made, and I could barely see the flare. The second one hit a pile of hay and buried itself inside it and I couldn’t see that one either. But my next four did better… they hit the ground around the buildings and the gun and went spinning wildly about, causing everyone in the courtyard to kind of dance as they got out of the way. The flares were a bright, bright blue… fantastically bright and almost blinding me.
I got out of the way, too, flapping off to the right chased by the fire of the soldiers, who were probably almost as blind as I was.
I know they had told me that it was going to take a long time go get the guns to fire, but it seemed like forever as we flapped around a mile or two away. But then there was this screaming sound and a whole section of forest, between me and the farmhouse, just lifted into the air and settled back, the ground completely flat… if you can call a couple of acres of downed trees ‘flat’.
And then, a few seconds later, there was another huge explosion and eruptions of dirt, but this time from a field on the other side of the farm. I fumbled in my pack and reloaded, again with flares. This my second set, by arrangement, was set to a bright yellow. That way if the Germans set off blue flares, our dragons would know it wasn’t me.
The air rocked with yet a third set of shells. I was now almost deaf as well as blind. But I could see well enough to see the track out of the farm and, just beyond it, a canal. I swung the dragon over to it and signaled for him to land.
Which he did, but he settled lower in the water than seemed good so, holding my gun up, I unstrapped and swam next to him, laying the gun on the dragon’s back. Three more volleys came down before I heard the creaking of wheels and saw the top of the gun, which I could just barely see over the edge of the canal. I heard the drivers urging the horses on.
Well, I guess now was my time to die. I led the dragon over to the edge of the canal and tethered him loosely, then crawled up to the top of the bank. There, ranging in front of me, were twenty horses, plodding along in front of an enormous gun. And drivers.
Just then, from my left, I heard a tremendous racket open up, and looked to see a pom pom gun, about two hundred yards along the track, shooting their bursting shells up. I couldn’t see whatever dragons they were trying to shoot, but I figured this made a good distraction and, turning back to the horses, let fly with my flares, this time deliberately aiming at the horses.
I shot all six of my rounds as fast as I could pump them out, not even paying attention to whether or not they hit, and then slid back down the bank and clambered on the dragon, kicking him in the ‘emergency lift’ pattern.
I loved this dragon. His smaller frame and smaller wings meant he could act faster, and within seconds were were airborne… unfortunately heading right toward the pom pom guns.
I grabbed my second dragon defender and blazed away, and then turned him over the forest to my right. I thought at the time we got away unscathed, despite the huge number of bullets the ground crew sent at me, but I soon noticed the dragon flagging.
I turned back toward our lines, and signaled him to go up, but it was a real struggle. Three miles later we barely had a thousand feet, and then he started to go down. Or, at least, no longer up.
I looked around. There was no way we were going to make it back to our landing field north east of Antwerp. But where else could we go? I didn’t really want to ditch in some Flemish field.
And, then, suddenly, I thought of my old camp, of red and green, and of Top… and of the pond.
“Come on, Boy, you can make it,” I said, leaning over my dragons shoulder.
Caveats etc.
Last of all he said, "Lucy, Eve's Daughter," and Lucy came forward. He gave her a little bottle of what looked like glass (but people said afterwards that it was made of diamond) and a small dagger. "In this bottle," he said, "there is a cordial made of the juice of one of the fire-flowers that grow on the mountains of the sun. If you or any of your friends is hurt, a few drops of this will restore them. And the dagger is to defend yourself at great need. For you also are not to be in the battle."
"Why, sir?" said Lucy. "I think- I don't know- but I think I could be brave enough."
"That is not the point," he said. "But battles are ugly when women fight.”
CS Lewis
I reserve the right to refuse to post any work that I find objectionable, for any reason, at any time. And vice versa… if you don’t want your work featured here, by all means tell me!
Beta Reading
I love beta reading. I won’t read just anything, but I am a very harsh critic. So if that’s what you’re looking for, feel free to DM me, or comment below, and maybe we can arrange something.
Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!
Being ‘restacked’ and mentioned in ‘notes’ is very important for lesser-known stacks so… feel free! I’m semi-retired and write as a ministry (and for fun) so you don’t need to feel guilty you aren’t paying for anything, but if you enjoy my writing (even if you dramatically disagree with it), then restack, please! Or mention me in one of your own posts.
If I don’t write you back it is almost certain that I didn’t see it, so please feel free to comment and link to your post. Or if you just think I would be interested in your post!
If you get lost, check out my ‘Table of Contents’ which I try to keep up to date.
Von also writes as ‘Arthur Yeomans’. Under that name he writes children’s, YA, and adult fiction from a Christian perspective. His books include:
The Bobtails meet the Preacher’s Kid
and
Arthur also has a substack, and a website.
Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von
Tag List
Here is my current list:
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Thanks for the mention!