The Chronicles of Theophanes

The Chronicle of Theophanes: Anni Mundi 6095-6305 by Theophanes the Confessor

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is not a history book. It is instead a contemporary document, a history of the Roman Empire between the years 602-813 written by a monk named Theophanes who died a few years after writing the final entry. It is almost a diary in style; some years get long involved explanations of events, while others get only the briefest mentions.

The entries are presented almost without explanation beyond footnotes clarifying the chronology or mistakes made by Theophanes. There is an introduction that does a great job of setting the scene for the Chronicles, but you really need to have at least a basic grasp of the Byzantine Empire to really appreciate this work.



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Our Space Opera goes rolling along!

Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


If Robert Heinlein had been a grunt, he would have written this book. Very much in the style of the Grand Master, we follow out hero from his life in a dangerous public-housing warren, through Basic and onwards into his career. Much like in Starship Troopers, the recruiters are there to warn people off, and Basic training culls prospects vigorously.

During training, the hero falls in love with a fellow trainee and is crushed when she is assigned to the Navy, whereas he gets the Territorial Army, assigned to break shit right here on Earth. After a few rough deployments, he manages to get a transfer to the Navy. Which is when things get interesting . . .

I breezed through this book. It's mostly what I read Starship Troopers for when I was eight: cool Army life and battles. Don't expect long soliloquies on the morality of war or the duties of a soldier. This is Space Opera from the eyes of a grunt. I took a star off because Kloos never takes the time to show the banality of military life, cleaning a latrine, or, later in the book, manning a station where nothing happens for long hours. At one point our hero is assigned to a post that normally takes two people under the supervision of an NCO, yet there's never an "oh, I'm fucked" moment.

A lot of fun, and well worth reading. I just wish Kloos had taken a few pages to make his military less sterile.



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