Old Nathan, seemingly off the beaten path but still pure David Drake

I first read Old Nathan more than ten years ago. At the time, I hadn’t read Manly Wade Wellman’s John the Balladeer stories. At least not more than one or two in random anthologies. Since then, I have both them all and read that David Drake was a friend of Wellman and wrote Old Nathan as a tribute.

Now, I don’t know if there’s a lick of truth to that story but Old Nathan sure reads that way. That being said, Old Nathan is a far cry from being a pastiche of the Silver John stories. It has its own, very distinct voice and tells a very different story.

The book is a collection of five very heavily interlocking stories about a backwoods witch doctor or cunning man or hedge wizard (you get the idea) uses a bit of magic and lot of cleverness to solve crisis. It’s not five stories about the same guy but the story of that guy in five parts.

And since this is David Drake, that guy is a flawed and damaged hero who rise above his own flaws and overwhelming odds to do the right thing. John the Balledeer was a straight up hero. Old Nathan is a broken man who manages to make the world a better place.

Indeed, the last story is downright harrowing,  not just  because of the stakes but because Drake has managed to make us invested in Old Nathan. 

Without giving any spoilers away, I don’t see there ever being any more Old Nathan works. This isn’t an open-ended series. The book ends in a way that is an interesting and final ending.

Old Nathan isn’t one of David Drake’s more well known works, probably because it isn’t his usual genre. But it’s a good one.

In Ranks of Bronze, the most outlandish war is still Hell

I hadn’t planned on reading a lot of David Drake in 2019 but I’m on my way to doing that. It wasn’t intentional and its certainly not structured (I’m not planning, for example, on reading all the Hammers Slammers works) and it’s probably better than way.

And the book that sent me on this trajectory was Ranks of Bronze, which I reread on a whim. It’s the one where Roman Legionnaires fight aliens.

Lost Roman Legions is a surprisingly common theme, although, to be fair, there really are some legions (particularly the 9th) that we have no idea what happened to them. Being kidnapped by aliens to fight their wars for them isn’t even the most outlandish explanation.

The explanation that the alien trade guild requires people to fight at the technological level of the planet the fighting is going on so they need pet ‘primitive’ armies is a cute one that exists purely to justify the story. And, frankly, who cares that it’s a little silly. (Historically, colonialism does _not_ work that way) We here for Romans fighting aliens.

But Ranks of Bronze isn’t as escapist as all that might make it sound. The plot is simple and straightforward to the point where I would say there weren’t any plot twists.

The real story is the character arc of Tribune Gaius Vibulenus. He grows from a boy to a man, to a seasoned soldier and kind of psychotic. But it’s also clear that becoming kind of insane is the only rational response to never-ending war.

In short, David Drake took a wonderfully fun and silly premise that could have been nothing but schlock fun and gave it some real teeth.

David Drake hits mediocre with The Sea Hag

David Drake, the guy who gave us Hammer’s Slammers, has written some solid books. The Sea Hag wasn’t one of them. At best, I’d call it fair to middlin’. However, it is free to download from the Baen Free Library and I downloaded it for travel reading so I’m satisfied with what I got from it.

Spoilers... spoilers... spoilers...

Prince Dennis discovers that his dad’s kingship comes from a deal his dad made with an eldritch abomination who is also the name of the book and that part of the deal is that Dennis has to be handed over to the Sea Hag. So Dennis runs away with Chester, a robot octopus who is his nurse maid. And that’s just the opening.

I got to admit, I was really expecting Chester to turn out to be evil until I realized that the story structure was that of a fairy tale. Then I realized he was just Puss in Boots as a robot octopus. 

While there are some fantasy trappings, the setting is definitely science fiction with the monsters really being aliens or some kind of technological wonder. And the story structure is that of a fairy tale pounding on the rule of three so hard it’s a wonder it doesn’t break.

Oddly enough, that’s actually what made the Sea Hag work for me as well as it did. As soon as I realized what the formula was (and the Sea Hag is incredibly formulaic) and knew what I had signed in for, I was fine with the ride even while I saw every ‘twist’ coming. After all, I chose the book for light reading on a road trip and it worked very well for that.

Would I recommend the Sea Hag? Eh, not really. You have to be into fairy tales and looking for fluff reading. This is honestly some of the blandest writing I’ve read by Drake. I got what I wanted out of it and that’s the best I can say for it.