Conquer Or Die! by Ben Hughes

A screen adaptation of Conquer Or Die! would rival or surpass movies like Saving Private Ryan. The absolute, frequent executions, constant death, disease, deception, and resulting madness is its own profound drama. 

Author Ben Hughes put himself into this effort: reading, traveling, visiting sites and sources to produce this book from an obscure and unique piece of American and European history. But it remains grossly overlooked thanks to the events of a quickening world after the 13-year war ended in 1821. Too many people zip past these events for more overplayed events following a few years after. 

The U.S. Civil War stole much of the show in that century along with westward expansion. Other events like the Greek uprising against the Ottoman Turks, the Crimean War, Franco-Prussian War, and the Spanish-American War in 1898 took more headlines and attention.

One passage, in particular, caught my attention, capturing the scope and depth of this long struggle for a final break from Spain. It notes a distinction, separating, and uniting this conflict from and with the too many others.

"...the Liberator, a 16-gun brig-of-war crewed by 100 sailors of all colours and all nations."

The rebel cause also had a navy, another overlooked aspect even in some good works about Simon Bolivar and the war for independence. The rebels, including the volunteers from Britain and Ireland, were seldom paid. They got some of their pay looting royalist sympathizers' households.

Bolivar's most decisive victory at Boyaca prompted royalist leaders to flee Bogota de Santa Fe without taking all of their money, too. Portuguese royals, while moving their capital temporarily to Brazil ahead of Napoleon, lost a ship full of luxurious goods to the rebel navy.

Spain's commanding General Pablo Morillo was slowed considerably when run through by a lance wound. Spain's war efforts were run through from behind by deadly revolt at home and in the army there.

Some 500 of the British Legion eventually settled in South America, mostly in Bogota and Caracas. Several of their headstones are still visible.   

Was Gabo An Irishman?

 Too many people overlook interior design in the making of a very good book. Was Gabo An Irishman? had that accompanying a consistent stream of fast-moving stories from writers with varying sorts of English. I couldn't find any visible errors in that always vulnerable, and challenging, literary battle. 

The quote, story, and author bio, format worked very well to make you sad that the book ended. I found that depressing that there wasn't more. 

Some years ago friend and colleague Eddie Miranda loaned me his copy of One Hundred Years Of Solitude, and it left me thinking deeply about Gabo's home turf, and the many Colombians in Houston I went to high school with. A crush on one inspired me to jump from a C to an A in Conversational Spanish. And, like in Gabo's content, it was unrequited love. She was from Cartagena. 

Charis McGowan's "A Costeno Conversation," brilliantly, and quickly, dissected Colombian Spanish, and that was a personal high point for me here. It's very tough, singling out any standout stories. They all shined. The design and content worked together very nicely.

If there was an error of some kind it slipped away too quickly to note. I counted possibly five word choice questions in which a more common word could've been better, but that's all the downside I could find. Hey, there were a handful of PhDs who contributed, so some of that can be expected. Fortunately, this anthology didn't read like a sometimes bulky academic work in its swift flight from beginning to end.

I noted that Papen Press, of Las Vegas, Nevada did the printing, and they did very well.

Colombia climbs back high into my bucket list, and I hope some magic realism can help me get there.     

Pacific Sail by Roger Morris

 

Numerous words express what I feel I experienced lifting this coffee table book. I'm glad I finished it, but feel I learned from it, and I plan to keep it around for reference. My second WIP is historic fiction set largely in the Pacific. Roger Morris's Pacific Sail could be very useful. 

Parts of it read like good escape material, and some was entirely too deep in sailing jargon for me to follow -- especially with only one afternoon under my sailing belt many, many years ago in Morro Bay, California. Some readers might love the book, and mentally marry it, and others probably might never finish it. It also was written in much more first-person than most readers might accept, but Morris is, or was, a professional sailor, and artist. He did the artwork himself.

Any lasting decisions on Pacific Sail will likely take me a while longer to consider, but I'm happy to have read it, despite some rough reading waves scattered around. So, would I read it again? Sure. Parts of it. Most of the content read very well. For me, it was well worth the time and few dollars spent.