My Horror Novel Recommendations...

My friend Robby posted on Facebook earlier today asking for some horror novel recommendations. I spam-posted a bunch of them on his status, which may have been a smidge annoying, so I figured I'd just create this blog post. I'll include the ones I recommended for him as well as some new ones and tag him (and another friend who loves horror literature) as well.

So here goes...

I've only read a few Dean Koontz novels, but my holy trinity of his works are Watchers, Phantoms, and Twilight Eyes. Phantoms and Watchers have some of the most interesting monsters/antagonists I've read in fiction and Twilight Eyes is pretty darn cool too. Reading Dean Koontz in general taught me how to spread out description of a scene through action--i.e. something like "gripping the huge Desert Eagle pistol in his even bigger tattooed hand, he put a .50 caliber bullet through the rectangular mahogany panes making up the wall" as opposed to a much wordier description that overall slows the story down.

From author James Byron Huggins are Leviathan and Hunter. Although the former might be too Christian for some people it's got some interesting concepts, while Hunter is generally a fun read that'd make a great movie (and at one point was being developed into one).

F. Paul Wilson has this huge cycle of novels beginning in the WWII era and culminating in the apocalyptic tale Nightworld. I've read a bunch of them, but I haven't read them all. If you want to get started, read the very first book in the series The Keep--which has some really disturbing moments--and The Tomb,which begins the tale of secondary protagonist Repairman Jack, whose story ultimately merges with the main cycle.

The prehistoric uber-shark Carcharadon megaladon is best known for appearing in Steve Alten's MEG series, but a better outing featuring this critter is Charles Wilson's Extinct. A pity it went out of print rather than spawning sequels and even potential movie development, but at least you can get it on Kindle. And for more undersea horrors (this time with Nazis), there's Peter Benchley's Creatureand Robert McCammon's The Night Boat.

If you're looking for some good short stories, Irish writer John Connolly has a collection entitled Nocturnes. One of the stories, "The New Daughter," was even made into a direct-to-video horror movie starring Kevin Costner (okay, maybe that's not really that great of an endorsement even if it got decent reviews). Another story, "The Erlking," is particularly memorable.

If you want to go a bit old-school, in the 1980s Whitley Strieber (this is before he went off into UFO la-la land), wrote a novel called The Wolfen.It was adapted into a movie that, as you may expect, totally changed everything in a bad way. However, it's a fun book even if it is rather hard to find these days. I don't know if Stephen King's The Stand counts as horror per se, but it's got some disturbing moments and is generally well-done. If post-apocalyptic counts, Strieber also had a novel called Warday that has some very vivid descriptions of events during and after a (very) limited 1980s nuclear exchange between the US and USSR. It shows just how terrible the situation would be, even for the "winners."

And for the younger set, Paul Zindel, most well-known for The Pigman, also wrote some young-adult horror I read and enjoyed in middle school. The first one I read was Loch and the second--and better--one is The Doom Stone. There were others, but I'd only read one of them and didn't like it as much. I'd love to see them adapted into films.

Better Things for Mayor Bloomberg to Spend His Money On...

Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, has announced his intention to spend $50 million to fund a "grassroots" effort to fight the National Rifle Association on the issue of expanding background checks for gun ownership.

Now, I'm a strong proponent of gun rights, but I do support universal background checks. I read a forum post someone wrote about how he went to a gun show and one of the sellers there did a background check using a laptop or some other kind of personal Internet connection, which shows it wouldn't be that much of an imposition. And rights do have responsibilities, like putting in the effort to make sure you're not selling to some gang-banger or toolbag with a history of domestic violence.

That being said, the article describes how previous efforts by Bloomberg to jump-start anti-gun movements with his money have failed before. Furthermore, Bloomberg is a polarizing figure who would give the NRA and other gun rights supporters a convenient boogeyman to scare the base with. To paraphrase George H.W. Bush (or his SNL parody), that might not be prudent at this juncture.

So here's an idea:

Bloomberg should instead dedicate some of that money to patronizing aspiring writers and artists, a category that would include me. There's a long traditional of well-off people supporting the arts with their money, including the Roman politician Gaius Maecenas who supported Virgil and Horace and various people listed here. Patronizing one hundred or one thousand such people would require much less money than this political project and would help ensure Mayor Bloomberg is remembered as something more than a politician.

In fact, here's something I can do with whatever money Mayor Bloomberg deigns to give me. Buy the book rights for the (New York-based I might add) band/comedy group The Lonely Island's song "I Run New York" and write a novel depicting him as this paladin fighting various evil forces emerging from holes in the space-time continuum in New York's subways and sewers. Given how he has recently been replaced, maybe it's about how he has to train the skeptical new mayor about how it's his sacred duty as the mayor of NYC to fight the horrors coming from underground...

For those of you not familiar with the song, here's a YouTube video:



Does Mayor Bloomberg like the idea of a novel (or series thereof) basically depicting him as Batman? If so, he or his people should get in touch with me.

A "Battlestar Galactica" Film Series?

I found this article online a day or two ago stating that there's a Battlestar Galactica movie in the works. Rather than being tied in with either the original series continuity or the "reimagined" series continuity, it would be a complete reboot.

I posted the article on Facebook with the caveat that the storyline is simply too big for a single film. The 2003 miniseries, which depicted the Galactica surviving the Cylon destruction of the Twelve Colonies (most of which was implied or discussed rather than actually shown), was three hours long and only covered the initial escape of the Galactica and the civilian survivors. The complete saga was four television seasons. Even if they discarded the controversial settlement of New Caprica story arc and kept them searching for Earth continuously, that'd be three.

Fortunately my friend Matt Schafer came up with a good idea. Make it multiple films. Star Wars, after all, took three films to cover the initial Rebel campaign against the Empire (the "first victory" preceding the events of A New Hope to the death of the Emperor in Return of the Jedi) and three films to cover the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker. A trilogy would be a really good way to tell a BSG story.

Here's how I would do it:

First Movie-The destruction of the Twelve Colonies by the Cylons, the flight of the Galactica and the civilians it's protecting, and the beginning of the search for Earth. In terms of the material it covers, it would be very similar to the miniseries or Saga of a Star World, the theatrical adaptation of the early episodes of the original series.

Second Movie-Here there's a choice to be made. Continue the search for Earth, or something else? In both the original series and the new series there was the story arc centered around the thought-lost battlestar Pegasus, whose commander wanted to continue the war against the Cylons. This would be the chance for some awesome space battles, but the disadvantage is that it's been done twice. Some new version of the New Caprica settlement story would also be doable. Either way, this doesn't work and the bloodied Colonial survivors continue their search for Earth. Possibly some major clue to the location of Earth is found as a result of the events of the second film, setting the stage for the third and last film.

Third Movie-The Colonial Fleet is on the way to Earth, but the Cylon fleet hunting them won't give up without a fight. One last big space battle (or campaign) to allow the refugee fleet to permanently break contact with their pursuers. You could also touch on the possibility the Colonials are bringing Earth's doom with them--if the Colonials are coming to modern-day Earth and the Cylons follow them here, we're screwed.

A complete reboot could allow for the saga to be told in another, more interesting way. In an earlier blog post, I'd suggested a way to (relatively) realistically combine the world as we know it with an advanced human civilization elsewhere is to have Kobol (the original world of the Colonials) settled from Earth by a long-dead advanced civilization thousands of years ago. Some conspiracy theory types claim there was a nuclear war in ancient India, which might provide such an explanation. Alternatively, this could be set in the future--Kobol is a lost colony of an advanced Earth.

The Lion of the North: Another ASOIAF Fan-Fic

Some of you might have seen the older blog post I wrote to promote "A Different Song," an A Song of Ice and Fire fan-fic depicting Ned Stark and the Northern cavalry interrupting the Sack of King's Landing. They discover Jaime Lannister has already killed Aerys the Mad King and together Ned and Jaime rescue Princess Elia Martell and her daughter Rhaenys from the vile Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch respectively. It's a pretty entertaining story so far, but the author is rather slow in updating.

Well, the same alternate-history forum that spawned "A Different Song" spawned an unofficial sequel/spinoff, "The Lion of the North." The author would rather not post it on fanfiction.net, so you can read it on Space Battles or (without reader comments) An Archive of Our Own. And he certainly keeps the updates flowing. The gist of it is that King Robert Baratheon and Tywin Lannister connive to kill Elia and her children (I think in this continuity Aegon survived, which he didn't in "A Different Song"), leading to a permanent breach between the Lannisters father and son. After Jaime is too argumentative, Tywin disinherits him and prevails on Robert to expel him from the Kingsguard. He leaves for the North with Ned and things go from there...

Although I really don't like some of the stuff that goes on in King's Landing (it involves bringing in Melisandre a generation early and giving her magical powers that canon does not indicate she has, making the whole situation needlessly complicated), the stuff following Jaime, Ned, Catelyn, and even the young Tyrion is really well-done. The most recent update is even pretty funny--kids (in this case Robb and Jon) say the darnedst things upon meeting dwarfs.

So check it out!

"Illegal Alien" Might Just Be Relevant Again...

I wrote my short story "Illegal Alien", which features undocumented immigrants from Mexico encountering extraterrestrials (yes, it's a bad pun) in 2004. This was back when illegal immigration was a much bigger political issue. By the time I gave up submitting to the declining number of paying markets and self-published it on Amazon, things had changed--the recession apparently caused (or helped caused) a net reduction of the number of illegal immigrants from Mexico in the United States. After all, they were here for the jobs and if there aren't as many jobs, why stay here? Consequently, "Illegal Alien" has not been that great of a seller even though it has a beautiful cover.

Well, I follow al-Jazeera America on Facebook and found they're running a series entitled "Borderland" about people who've died trying to immigrate to America by illegally crossing the southern border. If illegal immigration from Mexico is becoming an issue again, maybe there'll be more interest in the topic and I'll make more sales.

(This is not to be flippant about the deaths of border-crossers, which is tragic.)

I've considered writing a blog post about how Kindle Direct (or other self-publishing platforms, like Smashwords) are best for stuff that's timely, since publishing takes awhile. I guess now's the time. :)

I've sold a few short stories and it was months before they were published. George Scithers, the late editor of Weird Tales, told me that publication lead time makes it hard to cash in on timely things--in that case, I had a Lovecraftian King Arthur story that I was trying to pitch when the Clive Owen King Arthur movie was in theaters. Meanwhile, Roger Corman once shot a movie in a few weeks to cash in on the Sputnik launch. He was the publisher as well as the writer, so he could do that.

So if you've got a story you wrote to cash in on a current event and especially if you've got one trying to cash in on a movie that's out, you're better off self-publishing it. Your window of opportunity to make money won't last long.

Hmm...I had an idea for a story set in the future where Japan, having shut down its nuclear plants, invades Indonesia again in order to secure the fossil fuels it needs to sustain its economy. Since people are going to forget about the tsunami, how Japan went (hopefully temporarily) nuclear-free, etc. pretty fast, that's something I'd Kindle if I intended to actually write it.

(I probably won't, so if you want to write it, go ahead. Pro-nuclear speculative fiction for the win!)

March Writing Contest Results

My monthly writing contest with some of my writer friends (with lunch out as the prize) continues apace. I've managed to produce 7,225 words on my various personal writing projects.

Here's the breakdown:

Leading the pack is a new space-opera entitled The War of 2512 that I've written 2,504 words for. My friend Chris Nuttall is one of the top military SF sellers with his independently-published Empire's Corps space operas, ahead of professionally-published authors like John Scalzi in terms of Amazon rankings at the moment. And the fact Scalzi's Old Man's War series is doing so well right now means there's a good market for space opera among presses big and small. Not going to go into a lot of detail at the moment, but I'd describe the milieu as a cross between Star Trek and Warhammer 40,000. And it could possibly turn into a generational saga in the vein of James Michener.

Next is The Atlanta Incursion, the sequel to The Thing in the Woods, with 2,352 words. A lot of it was spent developing two particular characters, one of whom will have surprisingly political views for one of the Men in Black. I've already got one spinoff story planned for that character and since he was in the know far longer than the protagonist, he could be main character for any prequels.

For the collection I'm working on with my friend James R. Tuck, 1,201 words. These are all preexisting stories, so the actual content written consists mostly of introductions to each tale. I might have to edit the actual stories--I realized one of the original stories (and it was professionally published no less!) contains very little physical description of the cast--but that won't be too terribly much in terms of numbers. The collection is tentatively titled Flashing Steel, Flashing Fire and my plan is to have ten stories. It'll be through Kindle (e-book) and CreateSpace (print books). I imagine I'll bust out the latter primarily for book signings for future "real" books.

I've been editing Battle for the Wastelands, trying to cut it down as much as possible based on the recommendation of an agent who said she'd take a second look if I "tightened it some." It turns out she wasn't talking about straight-up word count, but about some "interchangeable" characters and "dead" scenes. I'll need to work on that too, but I did find a lot of fat in the manuscript that needed to be cut. In the process of cutting, I've added 1,087 words even though I've cut a net 2,500 thus far. I got a bit hyper about editing a couple times so this number might be a bit off. To err on the side of not potentially cheating anybody I'd gladly lop a few words off this one. About 1/3 of the manuscript left to edit. The plan is to send this one off to the agent again and then focus on the final graduate school paper for the rest of the semester.

I'm going to be busy with my final paper for the next month, but it looks like I got a good bit accomplished this one.

Redividing Eastern Europe, Or My Crimea Post...

According to the latest news, Russian forces are pulling back from the Ukrainian border. It looks like this particular crisis might be winding down. That being said, diplomatic negotiations are still ongoing and the troops might not be withdrawing all that many or all that much.

Here's an idea I had that might permanently deal with Ukraine (and Eastern Europe) as a flashpoint between Russia and the West. A grand bargain, if you will:

*Allow Russian annexation of Crimea, southern and eastern Ukraine, and Transnistria. Those areas are Russian-speaking and (generally) fonder of Russia than their Ukrainian kindred further west.

*Immediately allow western Ukraine (henceforth to be called Ukraine) into NATO and the European Union. The same with Moldova, with or without annexing Moldova into NATO/EU member Romania.

*Not sure what to do about Belarus. It seems to be a puppet of Russia anyway so if Putin leaves it be or decides to bring law into alignment with fact and annex it too, oh well. It's not a NATO country.

I imagine a lot of people will scream that this is appeasement, but Europe--whose primary problem this is--seems rather ambivalent about the Crimean situation rather than freaking out about the Russian armies being on the march. Furthermore, the US is poorly-placed to intervene.

As long as NATO exists and stands strong in defense of its member states, a cold-blooded calculating crocodile like Putin is not going to do anything too obvious. Though Russia is a powerful state, it is vastly weaker economically than the U.S., let alone the combined West. Russia is dependent on selling oil and gas to sustain its power, which is not a good thing in the long run even if it does give them leverage with the European countries that buy its gas.

Look at the Cold War. The USSR stomped on states in its own sphere, but despite its vast military power extending much further west than today, NATO kept Western Europe safe. The West is even stronger vis-a-vis Russia today than it was during the days of the Cold War. This formalizing of the spheres of influence of "the West" and Russia in Eastern Europe will give everybody something they want, let Putin save face, and eliminate the East-West tug-of-war over individual countries as a potential cause for instability and even war.

So let the Russians have some of their old sphere. Let them think they're standing strong against the homosexual drug-dealing fascists or whatever of the decadent West. My proposal, if implemented, leaves Russia "reigning in hell" so to speak, in the long run doomed to stagnation apart from Europe proper and contained by the NATO alliance without any non-NATO countries (in Europe at least) to easily bully.

News Article Round-Up...

It's been awhile since I've done a "new article round-up" blog post, but given how little blogging I've done this month, this is a quick and easy way to get new content up.

California Farmers Short of Labor, and Patience

The gist of this one is that California farmers are short of workers due to prior immigrants getting too old to do the heavy work, native-born Americans not wanting the jobs, and increased border security keeping out new illegal/undocumented immigrants who ordinarily do this kind of work. It's getting to the point that these fiscally-conservative sorts are considering voting Democratic due to the Republicans lack of interest in immigration reform.

Now, one could say that these farmers should increase their wages and that'll attract native-born workers, but many farmers, especially the smaller ones, won't be able to afford that and will go out of business. This would lead to a further concentration of agribusiness that might not be desirable.

A solution to this particular problem might be a revival of the old bracero program, which ran from the 1940s until the 1960s. Obviously the old program had some issues, but the point of studying history is that we learn from it.

This'll horrify some of my fellow conservatives, but I've given some thought about how an overly-strict concern about illegal immigration has actually infringed on the rights of the native-born. There's no natural right to have cheap labor, but how I need to produce documents in order to have a (non-contractor) job is annoying. "Your papers, please" is something one generally associates with Communist countries. And lest anyone think this is something that's been in place too longer to change, the I-9 form and what-not have only been requirements since the 1980s. That's after I was born.

Heck, if I wanted to be really radical, I'd start advocating open borders. After all, before WWI, international travel without a passport was pretty easy and passports were viewed by many as an unpleasant government imposition. Of course, in an age of international terrorism, that'd be pretty reckless, but on the other hand, the 19th Century had in the Anarchist movement its own version of al-Qaeda.

25 Drug Companies Agree to Limit Antibiotic Use on Farms

This is excellent news. Although people in the medical field complain about patients demanding antibiotics for viral infections and the like, if anything's contributing to a coming antibiotic-resistant super-plague, it's going to be stuff like this. The SCALE is just so much larger than stupid patients. I've got a doctor friend who straight-up advocates banning antibiotic use in agriculture.

Voluntary steps are good first steps, but if this doesn't drastically reduce the reckless use of livestock, it might be time to get more regulatory. I'm generally a fan of less government regulation, but risking the end of the antibiotic era and a return to the time one could die from a scraped knee is a pretty scary thing. My great-grandfather and my infant great-aunt died of pneumonia that could've been treated by antibiotics, just to make it personal. And one of the big killers of childbirth is actually puerperal fever, not more immediate problems like bleeding. For Westerners, death in childbirth is typically something one reads about in books and that's something that shouldn't change.

What Makes the Muslim Ms. Marvel Awesome

Those of you who know me know that I'm a conservative, but on the issue of increasing minority representation in media, particularly the field of speculative fiction, I've lined up (some) with the obnoxious Internet Social Justice mob. I'm not going to act like portraying Muslims as terrorists on TV is worse than the existence of al-Qaeda, but let's be frank. If I were an Arab or a Muslim, I'd get sick of one of the the dominant media portrayals of my demographic being bomb-throwers pretty quick even if on an intellectual level I might recognize it as having a valid basis.

Besides, this makes good business sense. The United States is a lot less white and a lot less Christian than it was in the 1930s through the 1960s, when most of the major superheroes were created. If media creators ignore this growing market, they do so at their peril. I've made some money thanks to Arab fantasy writer Saladin Ahmed tweeting "The Beast of the Bosporus" to his thousands of followers, many of whom I imagine are Muslims/Arabs/Middle Easterners who'd like to see characters like them.

Furthermore, I've complained in the past about filmmakers' reluctance to have non-Western villains, with the rather Aryan "Mandarin" of Iron Man III and the British Khan Noonien Singh of Star Trek Into Darkness being particular targets of my ire. This isn't solely due to Hollywood PC-ism (although it's certainly there)--foreign markets are increasingly important and one doesn't want to offend audiences (or governments which will keep them from audiences--even democratic India banned Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). It'd be easier to have historically non-Western villains like the Mandarin or Khan (or some kind of superpowered jihadist) if there are more non-Western characters on the side of good.

One suggestion I remember to avoid the political problems of an Asian Mandarin would be to have a particular character (who I think was a female employee of Stark Industries of Chinese background, but I can't find her online) filling in for that kid in Tennessee. If they'd made the Mandarin primarily Asia-based, Tony could travel over there to fight him and after a gratuitous beat-down, Stark Industries' Asian staff could help him get ready for the second round. There's also the Red Ronin, who could team up with Tony on an equal basis rather than just being a helper.

(Since it's been revealed there's a real Mandarin with a cult-like army out there who isn't pleased with being impersonated by a British crackhead, maybe we'll meet him someday. Since the Ten Rings is portrayed as being similar to al-Qaeda, I'm wondering if the Iraq-based Desert Sword superhero team can make an appearance. Perhaps in the Marvel Cinematic Universe they can be an Iraqi spinoff of SHIELD established after the fall of Saddam.)

Hmm...the Muslim Ms. Marvel's brother is depicted as a fundamentalist. Maybe he becomes some kind of super-jihadist and they fight each other in their superhero forms not knowing who the other is? That could get real tragic real fast.

Sparta, Athens, 300, and Problems

Sanjay's recent guest post on 300: Rise of an Empire pointed out how rather than give the Athenians their due, the movie pumped up the Spartans yet again got me thinking. I'm going to take a page from David Brin or, God forbid, the obnoxious Internet Social Justice mob, and point out how "problematic" that is.

Before I begin, I'll admit the Athenians had their flaws. They were sexist even by the pretty bad standards of ancient Greece and in that respect the Spartans were superior. Spartan women could own property, testify in courts, and walk around naked in public just like Spartan men could. Athenian women were basically confined to the house in a manner more akin to Saudi Arabia than anything one might imagine in Europe.

But there's a reason Spartan (ruling-class women) at least had so much more personal freedom, and it's a bad one. Spartan society was very hierarchical--the Spartan men who were such fierce warriors ruled over a vastly larger class of slaves (the helots, who were indigenous to the area and conquered by the Spartans long ago) and the "dwellers-about" (conquered people who weren't enslaved). To dominate them the Spartan men had to specialize in war and thus had to rely on their women to a much greater degree. Restricting talent by virtue of gender was a luxury they could not afford.

Although only around 20 percent of the Athenian population could participate in government, it was a lot more open in terms of social class. Its citizen body dwarfed that of any other Greek city-state. That's a lot better than having a tiny ruling class kept in power by pure terror, including a secret police force. The democratic traditions of the modern West (and those non-Western societies that have adopted them) are based on those of Athens. In contrast, the Nazis aspired to make themselves into a new Spartan class ruling over Russian slaves. General Sherman's comments on the Confederate cavalry--in particular how they were men who did not work but were highly-skilled at war--echoes this. Like the Spartans or feudal knights, they could only spend so much time learning the skills of war because they relied on a vast number of subordinate laborers for everything else. The apotheosis of the Spartan ideal is S.M. Stirling's Domination of the Draka--a ruling class sustained by the labor of slaves outnumbering them ten to one who casually rape enslaved women, impale rebels, and constantly plot war to destroy any alternative to their social system. In contrast, the apotheosis of the Athenian ideal is modern-day liberal democracy.

The original 300 glossed over this massive flaw in Sparta's political system, but since it was told from the perspective of a Spartan loyalist, that makes sense. Rise of an Empire, though it certainly gives the Athenians credit for the great victory at Marathon, depicts the Battle of Artemesium as an outright defeat of the "amateurs" derided by the Spartans in the first film. This is straight-up inaccurate, and not in the harmless way the uber-ab-toned Spartans or the bejeweled circus freak Xerxes are--it was a strategic withdrawal due to the Persians' defeat of the Greeks on land at Thermopylae. And even at Athens' great victory at Salamis, the Athenians are losing despite Persian admiral Artemisia's arrogant blundering until the Spartan fleet (which numbered less than 20 ships at Salamis) and ships from some other barely-named Greek cities show up.

As Sanjay pointed out, here's a chance for the citizen-soldiers to show their worth, but yet they're rescued from defeat by the Spartans whose real-life contribution was pretty poor. Not only is that historically inaccurate, but it has its ideological problems. Democratic states with citizen armies tend to do better than despotisms with warrior classes when all is said and done. Compare the Confederacy (dominated by what Marx called "an oligarchy of 300,000 slaveowners" with the pro-Confederate whites outnumbered slightly by the white unionists and black slaves) with the Union, especially after the early run of bad Union generals.

Guest Post: The Man From Singapore Reviews "300: Rise of an Empire"

Long ago, I posted some awesome short-short fiction written by a member of my alternate-history forum from Singapore who I met in person when I studied abroad in Britain in 2006. Well, he wrote an awesome review of 300: Rise of an Empireon Facebook today and he's given me permission to post it here.

So take it away Sanjay...

300: Rise of a Missed Opportunity (A Movie Review and a History Lesson)

I'm going to say this first- all in all, I liked 300: Rise of an Empire. Action scenes were actiony (though not as actiony as in 300), the non action bits were well done (unlike the boring meanwhile-in-Sparta subplot in 300) and Eva Green is awesome. Where did I think this film went wrong? In totally dumping the actual historical storyline, unlike 300.

"Now, wait just a cotton picking minute," a lot of you are going to say- "300 played fast and loose with history. It had weird orc-barbarian Persians, hoplites running around in leather underwear instead of massive bronze armour and a WAR RHINO." Metal as fuck, yes, but not exactly historical.

That's not what I mean when I talk about the historical storyline.

Lets look at the actual historical events leading up to Thermopylae:

Xerxes, King of Kings of Persia invades Greece, the Greek city states collectively go into conniptions. A number of them submit to the King of Kings. The two most notable among the holdouts are Athens and Sparta. Leonidas I of Sparta is elected to lead the Greek war effort. For various reasons, including the fact that it was the time of the Olympic Games (when Greek cities were technically not supposed to fight) and the Spartan festival of the Carneia the bulk of the Spartan forces could not be committed to direct action. They also consulted the Oracle at Delphi which prophesied that Sparta would either be destroyed or would sacrifice a king.

Modern scholars also indicate that there might also have been internal dissension in Sparta but that's besides the point. Leonidas leads a personal bodyguard of 300 Spartiates (a Spartiate was a Spartan male citizen who had passed the Spartan training programme) plus their attendants and auxiliary troops north, linking up with contingents from other Greek cities. He decides to make a stand at the Hot Gates. The allied Greek force holds off the Persians for four days before being outflanked. Leonidas orders most of the army to fall back and with the 300 Spartiates (plus their attendants and auxiliaries and a bunch of Thespians) makes a heroic last stand to buy time for the retreating army. Everyone dies gloriously.

Now 300 actually follows that story pretty much to a tee. It leaves out the fact that there weren't just 300 Spartiates holding the Hot Gates on the last day but frankly so do most sources. The 300 Spartans make for a much better story if they're holding back the might of the King of Kings all by themselves. And as for the portrayal of the Persians as snarling Orc-men with strange magic and elephants and a rhino (!) that the brave Spartans kick the collective asses of? Look at the framing narrative. We're being told this story on the eve of Plataea by Dilios (the one eyed guy who Leonidas ordered to tell their sotry). Leonidas specifically chooses Dilios because he has the gift of the gab. Dilios is essentially telling a massive tall story, stretching the details of what happened as a morale booster. He's also left out the consulting of the Oracle at Delphi but we can see from how he describes the Ephors that he doesn't much like religious figures- he probably couldn't be bothered to talk about a non-Spartan oracle. The flow of events pretty much conforms to the historical narrative- it's the details that are fudged and they're done so because Dilios wants to tell an awesome story. He's an unreliable narrator and we're subject to his prejudices.

What about 300: Rise of an Empire?

Note, first of all- no framing narrative from Dilios. Gorgo provides the framing narrative and she's a helluva lot more blunt. But as a side effect, we see the Persians as they actually are - normal human beings not strange grotesque monsters. Also, note we lose a lot of the stylised effects of 300 which makes sense since Gorgo isn't embellishing as much as Dilios would.

But let's look at the actual historical narrative leading up to Salamis.

While Leonidas is leading the Greek land forces to Thermopylae, Themistocles is in charge of the naval side of things. The allied Greek fleet is said to have consisted of 3-400 ships, over half of which were Athenian. Why did Athens have so many ships? In the decade after the Battle of Marathon (where the first Persian invasion of Greece under Darius, King of Kings had been defeated) a new seam of silver had been struck by Athenian miners. It was initially proposed that the silver be distributed equally among the citizens but Themistocles debated the matter and managed to secure the citizens vote to instead use it to finance the construction of over 100 warships. They initially voted to build a smaller number but when news arrived that Xerxes, King of Kings was planning a new invasion of Greece the Athenians consulted the Oracle at Delphi.

The Oracle said that: "Now your statues are standing and pouring sweat. They shiver with dread. The black blood drips from the highest rooftops. They have seen the necessity of evil. Get out, get out of my sanctum and drown your spirits in woe...a wall of wood alone shall be uncaptured, a boon to you and your children...Await not in quiet the coming of the horses, the marching feet, the armed host upon the land. Slip away. Turn your back. You will meet in battle anyway. O holy Salamis, you will be the death of many a woman's son between the seedtime and the harvest of the grain."

Themistocles successfully argued that "wooden walls" referred to ships, so even more ships were built. Thus, he led by far the largest naval contingent at Greece to Artemisium. Artemisium happened in parallel to Thermopylae and was an inconclusive stalemate (not the crushing defeat it's portrayed as in the film). Once news arrived that Leonidas was dead, the Hot Gates had been breached and the Allied army was falling back there was no point in carrying on the fight at Artemisium. Themistocles and his navy fell back towards Athens.

There was nothing between the army of the King of Kings and Athens so it was at this point that the Athenians put their cunning plan into action. They evacuated the city on Themistocles ships and were landed on the island of Salamis. Athens was burned but whereas the film portrays this as an unfortunate defeat it was in reality a hard strategic decision. The Persian navy, much larger than the Greeks, stormed into the straits of Salamis and were defeated in detail by the Greek ships. Queen Artemisia (who was a real historical character, in command of one naval contingent, not the entire Persian navy) did not die at Salamis but had the good tactical sense to fight clear of the battle and withdraw most of her force intact where other Persian naval commanders failed.

With his navy bloodied, Xerxes didn't have the logistical train to supply such a large force. He and much of his army went back to Asia Minor and the force he left behind was defeated the next year at Plataea.

OK. History lesson over. What's the narrative lesson? 300: Rise of an Empire twisted history, unlike 300, and ended up with a much weaker story.

Think about it- they had the opportunity to draw clear parallels and contrasts between Athens and Sparta. The Spartans seek a "beautiful death", they deride the other cities for fielding armies of "potters, sculptors, farmers" and Themistocles deliberately references this early on in the film. However, nothing ever comes of it. Artemisium sees the Athenian fleet overwhelmed by brute force, fleeing to Salamis while Athens is sacked, not as part of a cunning strategic plan but simply because. There's no evacuation, no sense of a brilliant strategic plan and Themistocles final plan is to charge the entire Persian fleet with five ships before the "Spartan navy" (historically, about 16 ships to Athens 180) comes charging in to save the day (again at the head of a bunch of other Greeks who are briefly glimpsed).

It throws away everything that could have been done with the Athenians. Think about the parallels- the Spartans in 300 go to see the Ephors and find themselves bound by corrupt pronouncements. The Athenians consult the Oracle of Delphi and cleverly Themistocles managed to turn the message of doom into the basis for a positive strategy. We don't get to see that in the film.

Artemisium had a bit of the cat and mouse games we should have seen more of (Themistocles luring the Persians into the fog etc) but that was the only part of the film where that wiliness, that cleverness we should expect from a romanticised portrayal of the Athenians really showed through. In the end the story we got really did show that the Athenians were amateurs- plucky, but amateurs, who needed the REAL BADASS SPARTANS to come and save the day for them.

When I watched the original 300 in a theatre here in Singapore, during the scene where the Arcadians reply- to Spartan derision- that they are "potters...sculptors...farmers". Someone in the theatre quipped "Reservists" and everyone around him laughed because that's something every Singaporean man can identify with.

This was the movie where we could have seen the reservists kick ass using cunning and wit and stubbornness. The historical narrative was perfect for it.

But instead we got a decent action flick with a mediocre plot. Go see it- I liked it but it could have been so much better. 300: Rise of a Missed  Opportunity.