JacketFlap connects you to the work of more than 200,000 authors, illustrators, publishers and other creators of books for Children and Young Adults. The site is updated daily with information about every book, author, illustrator, and publisher in the children's / young adult book industry. Members include published authors and illustrators, librarians, agents, editors, publicists, booksellers, publishers and fans. Join now (it's free).
Login or Register for free to create your own customized page of blog posts from your favorite blogs. You can also add blogs by clicking the "Add to MyJacketFlap" links next to the blog name in each post.
Blog Posts by Tag
In the past 7 days
Blog Posts by Date
Click days in this calendar to see posts by day or month
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: battle, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 13 of 13
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: battle in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
I consider myself a war buff. I love reading historic accounts of combat. I don’t discriminate between time period or conflict. Because of the volume of material, I have probably spent more time delving into World War 2 than any other. When I was in the Army, I drove a beat up WW 2 era Deuce-and-a-half and always wondered about its history.
Historians argue about which battle is the greatest – Waterloo, Stalingrad, Hastings, Yorktown, Thermopylae, Guadalcanal, The Battle of the Bulge, the list goes on. Like everything else in life, no one can seem to agree. When compiling such a list, the qualifiers become important. Things such as lives lost, duration, strategies, and conditions all come into play when deciding which is supreme.
It’s not that I don’t have an opinion, I’ve got plenty of those. I just don’t like to argue in general. I get distracted or flustered and lose my place like when I drop my book and reread the same pages over and over again before I figure out where I left off. Only an argument is live, verbal combat. When I lose my place, I sit there open-mouthed wondering if I look as stupid as I feel. So like everyone else on the losing side, I hone in on one point and try to drive it home even if I am totally wrong and know it.
The Baltic Sea is in New Mexico. It isn’t? I will repeat that thirty-seven times, forcing you to get out your phone and Google it, which allows me time to escape the fracas unscathed. I’m gone, therefore I win.
This leads to my opinion of the greatest battle which I believe is a conflict going on today – right now! RIGHT NOW!
You might think I am waxing philosophically about a moral or ethical conflict for the hearts and minds of people. Think again, I’m nowhere near deep enough for that. No, I am talking about the Battle of the Christmas Tree going on in my den as I type.
This battle has two combatants: The cats vs. the presents. The cats investigated the tree the minute it arrived. They united their forces and conquered it quickly. It is now their territory and they are very protective of it. The two of them alternate on watch and have made a formidable occupation force. Their confidence never waned… until the presents arrived.
As presents do, they marched in slowly but steadily. They landed through the front door and also surprised the occupiers from the garage entrance. Strange men in brown uniforms delivered them, but some were brought in by the woman-thing who seems to be working for both sides. She pets and feeds the cats, yet adds to the stack of presents assaulting from every flank. She is a crafty sort. Worse yet, she puts little ribbons on top to lull the cats from their strategic high ground. They can’t avoid the ribbons, which are almost as alluring as the ornaments with bells.
I have no idea who will win this battle. Epic is too small a word for it. The cats seem to rule the night while the presents hold the day (sounds like a Billy Joel song). It is a seesaw affair likely only resolved by the Take the Tree to the Chipper Treaty.
That landmark agreement is coming soon. Until then, may peace reign in your home unlike mine – where it appears to be an elusive dream.
Time passes quickly. As we track the progression of events hundred years ago on the Western Front, the dramas flash by. In the time it takes to answer an e-mail the anniversary of another battle has come and gone.
We have celebrated the fumbling British skirmishes at Mons and Le Cateau in late August, but largely forgotten the French triumph at the Battle of the Marne which first stemmed and threw back the German wheeling attack through Belgium into Northern France under the Schlieffen Plan. We have already bypassed the spirited Franco-British attempts at the Battle of the Aisne in September to take the Chemin des Dames. The Race to the Sea was under way: the British and German Armies desperately trying to turn their enemy’s northern flank.
Throughout, the performance of the British Expeditionary Force has often been exaggerated. Imaginative accounts of Germans advancing in massed columns and being blown away by rapid rifle fire are common. A rather more realistic assessment is that the British infantry were steadfast enough in defence, but unable to function properly in coordination with their artillery or machine guns. The Germans seemed to have a far better grip of the manifold disciplines of modern warfare.
Yet everything changed in October. The Germans were scraping the barrel for manpower and decided to throw new reserve formations into the battle. Young men with the minimum of training, incapable of sophisticated battle tactics. They were marched forward in a last gambler’s throw of the dice to try and break through to the Channel Ports. To do that they needed first to capture the small Belgian city of Ypres.
One might have thought that Ypres was some fabled city, fought over to secure untold wealth or a commanding tactical position. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ypres was just an ordinary town, lying in the centre of the fertile Western Flanders plain. Yet the low ridges to the east represented one of the last feasible lines of defence. The British also saw the town, not as an end in itself, but as a stepping stone to more strategically important locations pushing eastwards, such as the rail centre at Roulers or the ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge. For both sides Ypres was on the road to somewhere.
The battle began in mid-October and soon began to boil up. Time and time the Germans hurled themselves forward, the grey-green hordes pressing forwards and being shot down in their hundreds. The British had learnt many lessons and this was where they finally proved themselves worthy adversaries for the German Army. On the evening of 23 October young Captain Harry Dillon was fighting for his life:
A great grey mass of humanity was charging, running for all God would let them, straight on to us not 50 yards off. Everybody’s nerves were pretty well on edge as I had warned them what to expect, and as I fired my rifle the rest all went off almost simultaneously. One saw the great mass of Germans quiver. In reality some fell, some fell over them, and others came on. I have never shot so much in such a short time, could not have been more than a few seconds and they were down. Suddenly one man – I expect an officer – jumped up and came on. I fired and missed, seized the next rifle and dropped him a few yards off. Then the whole lot came on again and it was the most critical moment of my life. Twenty yards more and they would have been over us in thousands, but our fire must have been fearful, and at the very last moment they did the most foolish thing they possibly could have done. Some of the leading people turned to the left for some reason, and they all followed like a great flock of sheep. We did not lose much time, I can give you my oath. My right hand is one huge bruise from banging the bolt up and down. I don’t think one could have missed at the distance and just for one short minute or two we poured the ammunition into them in boxfuls. My rifles were red hot at the finish. The firing died down and out of the darkness a great moan came. People with their arms and legs off trying to crawl away; others who could not move gasping out their last moments with the cold night wind biting into their broken bodies and the lurid red glare of a farm house showing up clumps of grey devils killed by the men on my left further down. A weird awful scene; some of them would raise themselves on one arm or crawl a little distance, silhouetted as black as ink against the red glow of the fire. [p. 287-288, Fire & Movement, by Peter Hart]
Some of the Germans had got within 25 yards of Dillon’s line. It had been a close run thing and after they had been relieved by the French later that night the French reported that some 740 German corpses littered the ground in front of his trenches. This was the real war: not a skirmishes like the earlier battles, this was the real thing.
Ypres at the close of World War I. In the center is the cathedral tower. At the right, the Cloth Hall. Source: Collier’s New Encyclopedia, v. 10, 1921, between pp. 468 and 469 (3rd plate). British Official Photo, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The German attacks continued, followed as day follows night, by French and British counter-attacks to restore the situation. The Germans nibbled at the Allied line but were unable to achieve anything of importance. Yet for all the sound and fury, over the next few days the front line stayed relatively static. The German troops were flagging in their efforts. After one last effort on 11 November the Germans threw in the towel. They would not break through the Allied lines in 1914. The British and French lines had held. Battered, bruised, but unbroken. The First Battle of Ypres had confirmed the strategic victory gained by the French at the Marne. The German advance in the west had been blocked, if they sought victory in 1915 they would have to look to the east and attack Russia.
The 1914 campaign would prove decisive to the war. The utter failure of the Schlieffen Plan, designed to secure the rapid defeat of France, meant that Germany would be condemned to ruinous hostilities on two fronts. This was the great turning-point of the whole war. The pre-war predictions from the German strategists that they could not prevail in a long-drawn out war against the combined forces of France and Russia proved accurate, especially when the British Empire and United States joined the fight. The German Army fought with a sustained skill and endurance, but after 1914, the odds really were stacked against them.
I have to admit, I'm pretty proud of the set-up of my last blog and now this one. The blogger 'compose' template has been giving me trouble and I've had to use html to fix it. Now, I'm no html genius, so being able to fix the spacing, italics, and even setting up the picture properly was pretty darn amazin' for me! Yay!
Anyway, I searched around for an image to write about and came across the one below. I'm gonna try something a little different and write a fight scene. Let's see if I can do it!
She breathed short controlled breaths. Her heart pounded hard against her ribcage. Her muscles, coiled and ready. Her weapons, positioned at her sides.
The air crackled with energy, and all creatures fell silent as if they knew...
Knew what she knew...that today she would die...
She was not afraid.
Dawn had come and she knew this was the day of days. She knew they would come for her. The wind tossled her hair wildly around her face and her eyes burned with malice she would not allow herself to deny. She would hate, and it would consume her, and she would use it.
She placed one foot in front of the other and headed towards him, her blades heavy in her hands, making her muscles burn. She ignored their weight, conscious only of them being an extension of her arms. She rotated one wrist, arcing the weapon in a circle, then repeated the move with the other.
He watched her, his lips curled in a sardonic, malicious grin.
How she hated that smile.
Close enough now to smell the stink of him, she dropped into a fighting stance. Her blades at the ready.
His smile grew larger, showing a row of broken, ragged, rotting teeth. He raised his large, menacing b
0 Comments on Write proud of myself as of 1/1/1900
Michael Chabon (pictured, via) and Ayelet Waldman will collaborate on an HBO drama called Hobgoblin.
Here’s more from Variety: “[It is] an offbeat drama project at HBO that revolves around a motley group of conmen and magicians who use their skills at deception to battle Hitler and his forces during WWII.”
The married couple will write the script and act as executive producers together. This endeavor marks the first time the two have worked together as professionals.
When we last left this matchup, we were deadlocked at 1 to 1 as the moderator cited the need for “further tests… to determine the range, power, and accuracy of Unicorn horn lightning bolts.”
After painstaking research, the matchup resumes thanks to this rare and telling photograph.
It seems that it is rainbows and not lightning bolts that unicorns shoot out of their horns. From this photo, we can also determine that the trajectory of the beam is straight and true (if one assumes that Robocop’s computer-guided targeting is accurate and, of course, we do).
As for the effects of this beam, the photo does not give evidence. However, we may infer that the unicorn’s position beside Robocop indicates a partnership between the two (note that the Unicorn, or UniCop, is protecting Robocop’s exposed backside from counter attack). Robocop’s acceptance of this arrangement suggests that Robocop values the unicorn’s effectiveness in battle: no small endorsement coming from such a decorated police officer.
The lions have charged that the photo tells another story: that the unicorn’s rainbow is a passive rather than aggressive spell, and the unicorn is protecting the object(s) of Robocop’s unwavering justice from harm and/or healing their wounds.
Both interpretations could be possible where it not for further evidence of the Robocop/Unicop partnership, captured by an amateur wildlife photographer equipped with a Nikon Watercolor2000 with a 15x zoom lens.
The moderator therefore declares that the category “One on One Battle” go to the Unicorns, making the final score: Unicorns 2, Lions 1.
Congratulations, Unicorns, you move on to Round 2… just as soon as we break the tie between Dinosaurs and Princesses.
My father told me a version of this strange tale when I was a child.
Many centuries ago, a green and fertile land became the scene of a conflict between two rulers - the White Count and the Black Count. Eventually the two counts lined up their opposing forces and fought a brief and bloody war from which the Black Count’s troops emerged victorious!
Safe in his tall, black tower, replete with the latest in crenellated wall features and dungeon accessories, the Black Count relished the war report from his trusty General.
“We overran the evil White Count’s forces my Lord, and they scattered in fear. The land is yours!” The General bowed low enough for the feathers in his iron helmet to sweep the ground at his master’s feet.
“Excellent.” The Black Count smiled with satisfaction, leaned back in his throne and pressed his hands together. Then, looking over the tips of his fingers, he regarded the General with narrowed eyes. “But what of the White Count, and all of his treasure? I do not see his head on a spike. I do not see bearers bringing chests of jewels and gold. What of these things?”
The General cleared his throat, glancing around the throne room with nervous eyes. Once more he bowed very low to the ground.
“My Lord, the White Count retreated to his white castle and remains there. His treasures are hidden and nobody knows the secret of their whereabouts.”
The Black Count leaped to his feet with barely suppressed fury. Gesturing wildly, he bellowed commands at his general, his servants and anyone else within earshot. One by one his soldiers and courtiers hurried to their appointed tasks.
I will not bore you with the story of how the Black Count’s army marched to the fortress of the White Castle, nor how they laid seige to it and gave battle until at last the White Count was captured in disgrace. Suffice it to say that before much time had passed, the White Count found himself on his knees at the Black Castle with an executioner’s tool at his neck and the Black Count standing over him in victory.
“Tell me the secret. Tell me where your gold and jewels are hidden,” demanded the Black Count, “or you will feel the axe at your neck.”
“I will never tell,” replied the White Count proudly.
Three more times the Black Count asked his question, and three more times he received the same answer. At last, frustrated, he gave up all hope of uncovering the whereabouts of the White Count’s riches and ordered the executioner to swing his axe and separate his adversary’s head from his body.
The watching crowd held its collective breath as the black-hooded executioner raised his axe high up into the air.
Suddenly, the White Count let out a cry.
“Wait! I’ll tell you. It’s . . . “
But it was too late. The axe fell with a thud and the White Count’s head rolled across the ground, landing at the feet of his enemy. He took the secret of his hidden treasure to the grave.
And the moral of the story is: you should never hatchet your Counts before they chicken.
My father told me a version of this strange tale when I was a child.
Many centuries ago, a green and fertile land became the scene of a conflict between two rulers - the White Count and the Black Count. Eventually the two counts lined up their opposing forces and fought a brief and bloody war from which the Black Count’s troops emerged victorious!
Safe in his tall, black tower, replete with the latest in crenellated wall features and dungeon accessories, the Black Count relished the war report from his trusty General.
“We overran the evil White Count’s forces my Lord, and they scattered in fear. The land is yours!” The General bowed low enough for the feathers in his iron helmet to sweep the ground at his master’s feet.
“Excellent.” The Black Count smiled with satisfaction, leaned back in his throne and pressed his hands together. Then, looking over the tips of his fingers, he regarded the General with narrowed eyes. “But what of the White Count, and all of his treasure? I do not see his head on a spike. I do not see bearers bringing chests of jewels and gold. What of these things?”
The General cleared his throat, glancing around the throne room with nervous eyes. Once more he bowed very low to the ground.
“My Lord, the White Count retreated to his white castle and remains there. His treasures are hidden and nobody knows the secret of their whereabouts.”
The Black Count leaped to his feet with barely suppressed fury. Gesturing wildly, he bellowed commands at his general, his servants and anyone else within earshot. One by one his soldiers and courtiers hurried to their appointed tasks.
I will not bore you with the story of how the Black Count’s army marched to the fortress of the White Castle, nor how they laid seige to it and gave battle until at last the White Count was captured in disgrace. Suffice it to say that before much time had passed, the White Count found himself on his knees at the Black Castle with an executioner’s tool at his neck and the Black Count standing over him in victory.
“Tell me the secret. Tell me where your gold and jewels are hidden,” demanded the Black Count, “or you will feel the axe at your neck.”
“I will never tell,” replied the White Count proudly.
Three more times the Black Count asked his question, and three more times he received the same answer. At last, frustrated, he gave up all hope of uncovering the whereabouts of the White Count’s riches and ordered the executioner to swing his axe and separate his adversary’s head from his body.
The watching crowd held its collective breath as the black-hooded executioner raised his axe high up into the air.
Suddenly, the White Count let out a cry.
“Wait! I’ll tell you. It’s . . . “
But it was too late. The axe fell with a thud and the White Count’s head rolled across the ground, landing at the feet of his enemy. He took the secret of his hidden treasure to the grave.
And the moral of the story is: you should never hatchet your Counts before they chicken.
My recent book, 'Feasting The Wolf' was set against the background of the Great Danish Army's invasion of England in the 9th Century. I'd hardly finished it before a publisher who shall be nameless (until the contract's signed) asked if I'd write for them 'a book for boys, set in the Dark Ages, full of adventure and violence.'
I need the money, so at once set about constructing a book. Colleagues have blogged recently about the joys of beginning a new book. By contrast, this is about the graft of working up a commissioned book to a brief.
'The Dark Ages' could mean anything from the 6th Century and King Arthur to the 8th and the Vikings, but it was always going to be Vikings, because I already know a lot about them.
I needed an idea, so I dredged up the plot of a book I'd written years ago and which had never been published. And I used my partner as a sounding board because he was once a boy, and so might have a better idea than me about what boys enjoy. How about, I suggested, a Viking trying to win enough gold to persuade the father of his sweetheart to let him marry her?
Yuck! Anything to do with weddings or kissing or girls was not on!
Okay, so how about our hero sees a beautiful sword for sale, but the swordsmith won't sell it, so he steals it, and -
"That makes him a thief!" said my partner, shocked.
Yes, and? Vikings were known, occasionally, to take without permission.
But no, no, no, I didn't understand. Heroes of boys' adventures cannot be thieves. They must be honourable and clean-living and right-thinking. This hero sounded less like a Viking every second. I wasn't getting anywhere.
In the end it was my brother (also once a boy) who said during one of our pub conversations, "Base it around the Battle of Stamford Bridge."
Well, that battle was right at the end of the Viking Age - literally, as the Viking Age can be defined as 'from early 8th Century to 1066'. Also, I usually avoid pinning any of my historicals to a definite date as arguing with historians can be so tiresome, I find. And Stamford Bridge, like the Battle of Hastings, has 'the one memorable date in English history'.
Still, I thought it was worth looking into, and started researching the battle. Before long I was fascinated and committed. Stamford Bridge it was going to be.
It was the battle fought in Yorkshire about twenty days before the Battle of Hastings, and for a story-teller, it has lots to offer. An invading Viking army numbering thousands. Impossible, heroic forced marches. Five thousand Vikings fighting to the death under the hot Yorkshire sun (really) without armour. Hardship, courage, heartache. Thank you, bro.
I invented and named my heroes, sketched out the story, and e-mailed it to my agent, so she could flog it. Instead, she flung it back. Too much history, she said, and not enough story. And expunge all mention of the Saxon hero wanting to be a monk! Christianity was the biggest turn-off! And there was I, thinking I was reflecting the way of that age, when Christianity was still fresh and vital.
But the main thing, with a commissioned book, is to sell it - so back to the laptop. History and Christianity out, story in. And my agent was, as usual, right. The story is coming to life as I get closer to the characters and ruthlessly cut the history. Can't wait to get to those five thousand hot, sweaty, doomed Vikings...
Read the rest of this post
4 Comments on Susan Price: A Boy's Adventure Story..., last added: 8/15/2008
Away with the Vikings is better than away with the fairies, which is where I've been for the last few weeks (literally--am writing a commissioned Field Guide to the little people). I love being asked to do stuff (a novel? I wish!) as I find it triggers off all sorts of new pathways to wander down in my brain. And I find it comforting when publishers actually want to commission me. Ah, the fragility of the writer's ego!
And that is a good summary as to why most modern children's historical fiction is utter tripe.
Your book sounds brilliant, would have sold loads and would have had reviewers everywhere crying into their beer saying "But we *know* children dont like didactic fiction!"
I'd really like to see the book you wanted to write. The book that such "failures" as Geoffrey Trease, Ronald Welch, Henry Treese and Rosemary Sutcliff would have written.
If I know Sue, it will be a bloody good historical book anyway, as good as anything by Rosemary Sutcliff or Henry Treece or Geoffrey Trease. (All of whom I loved and admire.) Thank goodness we still have classic writers, and Sue is one of them!
This novella is more like the Card I know and love. His last few books have left something to be desired, but this makes you realize he can still write. It is a short story about Zeck, a boy in Ender’s toon, that is nonviolent and does not want to go to Battle School. A confrontation happens when he actually gets there that causes religious feelings to escalate. This is a great sideline story to the overarching tale of Ender. I loved reading about the characters we know and love in a new and different setting. Obviously a novel cannot encompass ever detail that happens during a time frame (imagine how long they’d be!) but there are certain books where reading stories such as this help enrich the stories previously told. I loved this short read and hope there will be more like it in the future. But I still have to ask, “Whatever happened to his last Women of Genesis book?”
0 Comments on A War of Gifts: An Ender Story by Orson Scott Card as of 1/1/1990
Good stuff and nice idea. My favorite is the last image... I like the simple one color lineart look, plus how the background is textured and has variatons. Sweet.
By: Patrick Girouard,
on 10/25/2016
By: Hannah Paget,
on 11/6/2014
By: KC Oliver,
on 4/10/2011
By: Maryann Yin,
on 3/9/2011
By: Sevensheaven.nl,
on 5/1/2010
By: jeff,
on 8/27/2009
Add a Comment
Add a Comment
.jpg?picon=1806)
By: Susan Price,
on 8/7/2008
By: Kate Hall,
on 10/31/2007
Historians argue about which battle is the greatest – Waterloo, Stalingrad, Hastings, Yorktown, Thermopylae, Guadalcanal, The Battle of the Bulge, the list goes on. Like everything else in life, no one can seem to agree. When compiling such a list, the qualifiers become important. Things such as lives lost, duration, strategies, and conditions all come into play when deciding which is supreme.
Michael Chabon (pictured, via) and Ayelet Waldman will collaborate on an HBO drama called Hobgoblin.
I'm away with the Vikings again...
Lol. Merry Christmas Mark. Hopefully the battle will soon be over. God bless you and your family.
I am dug in for the long haul. Merry Christmas, Levi.
Merry Christmas, Mark. My vote is on the cats.
I think you are right! Merry Christmas. God bless, Onisha.
ah, yes. that cat troop is a very formidable group of adversaries.