Washington’s Crossing by David Hackett Fischer

On New Year’s day in 1777, Robert Morris sent George Washington a letter, saying “The year 1776 is over. I am heartily glad of it and hope you nor America will ever be plagued with such another.” Today, most Americans think of 1776 as the glorious year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of America. Yet it was a dark time, particularly the fall and early winter. The Continental army under George Washington had been defeated at New York (managing a near miraculous escape) and had been pushed back into Pennsylvania. The army was shrinking as things looked worse and as enlistments ran out. The Howe brothers (Admiral Richard Howe and General William Howe), who commanded the British forces, were conducting a successful policy of amnesty, and many from New Jersey and New York signed oaths of loyalty to the king. The British and Hessians (German mercenaries) were confident; Americans were pessimistic. It appeared that the war would soon be over. Then in a period of about three months, starting on December 26, 1776, it all changed.

Fischer’s book is the second I’ve read in the last year or so on this critical period. The first was David McCullough’s 1776 That was a fine book. Washington’s Crossing is even better, going into even more depth on this critical period, focusing on the military campaigns, and really delving into why the men fought and how their ideals and ways of thinking also influenced how they fought.

Both Washington and his army grew over this period. In the battles around New York, Washington made a number of errors. But he also didn’t yet understand how to manage his army. This was a diverse army, and the Yankee fisherman were very different from the Virginia contingent who were different from the backwoodsmen who were different from the Philadelphia associations. They all were fighting for the general cause of freedom, but what it meant to each was somewhat different, and how they operated and needed to be managed were different. In mid-1776, Washington didn’t really understand this; by the end of the year, he did, and his ability to use the strengths of his various troops while allowing them some degree of freedom was an important step in the change in the war. Washington was a commander who sought the opinions of those around him and made up his mind only after vigorous discussion and some consensus building – very different from the British and German commanders.

While Washington’s Christmas night crossing of the Delaware was indeed a pivot point, Fischer makes it clear that it was part of a bigger series of events that as a whole is the true pivot point. Much of it starts with Thomas Paine’s writing of American Crisis in November. He did this at perhaps the very darkest time of the revolution, when American support for the war was wavering, when Washington’s army was disintegrating, and when the Howe’s policy of amnesty seemed to be succeeding. It became a rallying cry for Americans.

Things further went against the British and Hessians due to their often uncontrolled plunder and many instances of rape in New Jersey. This was against the policy of their commands, but the troops plundered the countryside, causing many in New Jersey who might have been more pro-British to feel like they were living in an occupied country – which they were. Reports of prisoner abuse or of surrendering prisoners being killed exacerbated the situation. The Americans began harassing the enemy, something that accelerated at December wore on.

Many Americans have heard the story of Washington’s army sneaking across the Delaware and beating the drunken Hessians. This, however, is not what really happened. The Hessians weren’t drunk. They were, however, worn down from a week or more of constant alarm as Americans shelled them and raided them. They had to stand long watches, had to sleep in their clothes, had to keep their horses saddles. Then, on Christmas night, the weather got worse, and the Hessians were at least able to let more of their men come indoors and rest a little more, since the weather was too bad for any sort of attack. But of course they were wrong. On that brutally cold night, on a river filled with ice flows, Washington led his troops across the Delaware, landing well north of Trenton, then marching them quickly south to Trenton where, attacking from two separate directions, they caught the Hessians by surprise and beat them. He then brought his troops and many Hessian prisoners back over the Delaware before the British troops in Princeton could respond.

In early January, Washington re-crossed the Delaware, held back the combined British and Hessian troops at Trenton, then, overnight, marched around them and beat the British troops at Princeton. He then retreated to Morristown before the larger British force, still encamped outside of Trenton, could respond. The end result was to convince the Continental Army and the colonies that they would win, while shaking the confidence of the British and Germans.

The final months of the winter were spent in the “Forage War.” British forces had to comb New Jersey for forage, while colonial militia would strike at them, often in guerilla war fashion, sometimes in bigger engagements. This brutal winter campaign took much of the strength out of the British army, while again invigorating American morale.

Fischer has a good concluding chapter, where he summarizes the events and what they lead to and discusses how much of the way Americans would interact with one another, conduct their government, and conduct their wars was set down here. It’s here that the principle of civilians control and oversight of a military while the military was responsible for operational detail was established. It was here also that we established the principle of fighting the war according to our principles, as Washington and the Congress assured humane treatment for prisoners as being in line with the principles they were fighting for. The war was also fought in ways that we’d emphasize in subsequent wars – encouragement of bold moves but at the same time taking care to minimize risks, valuing the lives of the soldiers. Finally, he emphasizes that an important distinction was that, while the Americans were willing to fight in a war, they considered it an interruption to their main business of life; they wanted to get it over and return home. He contrasts this with what was true in much of Europe at that time (though it’s no longer true today) of war being a profession of some members of the upper classes, who highly valued honor and for whom war was their life.

He also looks at how so much of this was due to individuals making choices – not only Washington, but those who followed him as well as the politicians. They worked out ways to work together and chose used initiative and creativity to bring together diverse groups of people in common cause.

Fischer’s conclusion is worth quoting:

The most remarkable fact about American soldiers and civilians in the New Jersey campaign is that they did all of these things at the same time. In a desperate struggle they found a way to defeat a formidable enemy, not merely once at Trenton but many times in twelve weeks of continued combat. They improvised a new way of war that grew into an American tradition. And they chose a policy of humanity that aligned the conduct of the war with the values of the Revolution.

They set a high example, an we have much to learn from them. Much recent historical writing has served us ill in that respect. In the late twentieth century, too many scholars tried to make the American past into a record of crime and folly. Too many writers have told us that were are captives of our darker selves and helpless victims of our history. It isn’t so, and never was. The story of Washington’s Crossing tells us that Americans in an earlier generation were capable of acting in a higher spirit --- and so are we.

The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow

James Morrow’s The Last Witchfinder is many things at once. It’s both a wonderfully researched and detailed historical novel and a great adventure story. It combines philosophy, theology, and science with Indian raids, shipwrecks, and pirates. It mixes extremely touching moments, some very sad moments, and moments of wit and humor. And it combines a narrative style fitting the time of the story – the late 1600s and early 1700s – with the postmodern conceit of having the book purport to be written by another book (complete with interludes of the book – Newton’s Principia – addressing the audience).

Jennet Stearne is the daughter of a witchfinder in England. Her brother wants to follow in her father’s footsteps, but she is of a more scientific bent. Under the tutelage of her aunt, she takes in an interest in all forms of natural philosophy – astronomy, physics, biology, and so on – and develops a good scientific mind. But when her aunt is accused and then condemned for witchcraft, Jennet dedicates her life to one thing: scientifically proving that the world isn’t controlled by demons but rather by natural forces.

Jennet tries to recruit Isaac Newton, only to be tricked by Robert Hooke, masquerading as Newton. She decides to pursue her studies on her own, but things change when her father is sent to America. A series of adventures follow, in which Jennet witnesses the Salem Witch Trials (strengthening her resolve), is kidnapped by Indians and becomes part of tribe, escapes, meets Ben Franklin, eventually meets Newton himself, is shipwrecked, faces pirates, and is eventually herself tried for witchcraft. At the same time, her brother ascends to the post of witchfinder general for Massachusetts and marries the most hysterical accuser from the Salem trials. It’s a remarkable sequence, combining as it does such great adventure with a serious examination of the issues involving faith, fundamentalism, and basic world views.

Morrow came to Pittsburgh a while back and read from The Last Witchfinder. When he did, he talked about how one of the things that got him thinking about the book was something he’d read (sorry, I don’t remember the author) which stated that, if you look at the Renaissance, it’s not best viewed as a time of a great explosion of reason but rather as a demon-obsessed time. Most everyone viewed the world as being strongly influenced by demons and spirits. Common natural phenomena were thought to be under the control of such invisible forces. Moreover, human beings were thought to traffic with Satan and be able to direct these demons. Someone’s milk has gone sour? Well, he can remember when, two weeks earlier, he sold somewhat bad grain to the old woman up the road. She must be a witch who was getting back at him; how else explain the bad milk.

Witch finding was rationalized. The witchfineders used logic, arguing from a few lines in the bible, to build a huge rationale for what they were doing as well as a series of tests to prove that someone was a witch. The tests seem utterly nonsensical to us, but they were taken very seriously and more so considered completely rational by those who used them. The result was carnage over parts of Europe, with possibly several hundred thousand people killed over several centuries. (It was far worse in Central and Eastern Europe than it ever got in Western Europe or England.) Morrow does a good job of working these details into the novel.

The real heart of the novel though is the character of Jennet Stearne. She’s a remarkably well drawn and interesting character (as well as the type of person many of us would like to know). She’s smart, resourceful, brave, and never dull. I’m not sure if the comparison quite holds, but she in some ways can be viewed as a Heinlein “competent man” (in which case her aunt also fits in Heinleinesqe sort of way).

While Morrow clearly takes aim at the witchfinders and those who believe the world is under the control of demons, it’s not the same sort of biting satire as in his novels like Only Begotten Daughter and Towing Jehovah. He skewers them in a much more straightforward way, simply by showing their world views and actions. At the same time, he makes it clear that it’s not religion he’s attacking – it’s fanaticism. Many of the characters we side with in the book are religious – they’re just not fanatic fundamentalists.

That’s not to say that book doesn’t have moments of humor. It has a number of quite amusing moments, ranging from Jennet’s dealing with the book left to her by her aunt (a sex manual her aunt had written) to her and Ben’s encounter with the pirates. (The head pirate, discovering them shipwrecked on an island and finding out that Ben is a printer, immediately says “I have this manuscript …”) And the scene where Jennet and Ben first make love is a classic.

As I noted earlier, Morrow structures the book as having been written by the Principia. I wasn’t sure what to make of this at first – was it an addition or an unnecessary distraction. At first, I was leaning toward the latter, but as the novel progressed, it became clear that this technique was a novel way to allow both for info dumps and for some degree of editorializing without actually injecting this into the main novel. The Principia, for example, interrupts the novel to provide a couple of pages on the history of witch finding. So, in the end, I think these interruptions mostly worked (though a few could have been trimmed back a bit).

In the end, this is a fine novel that works well on a number of levels and should be of interest to those who like historical, those interested in the birth of the scientific worldview, or even those who just want a good adventure story, since it’s all of these and more.

Year’s Best SF 11, edited by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer

The latest Best SF collection from David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer is another impressive anthology, showing once again that, though the short story market isn’t as big as it was in the 1950s, we still get a number of very good SF stories every year. This volume, containing stories from 2005, is a bit bigger than most of their previous volumes and contains quite a few more stories. The latter is due to the series of SF very short stories that have been published in the British science magazine Nature. Many of these are by some of the top writers in the field today, and Hartwell and Cramer include a number of them here. But there is also a good selection of stories from Asimov’s, Interzone, and other sources. It features stories from some of the major writers in the field today as well as several by relative newcomers.

Daryl Gregory is a relatively new writer. I wasn’t very familiar with him, but his story “Second Person, Present Tense” is one of the most effective in the book. It deals with the mechanics of how the mind works and the very nature of consciousness. In the future, a drug, called Z, is developed that detaches what a person does from their conscious awareness of it. The lower-levels of the brain process information, act on it, etc., but the consciousness is left out of it. (This ties in with studies that show that when we make a decision “reach for that cup,” the brain has already sent the message to the nerves before we, consciously, make the decision.) The problem is that, if you OD on Z, the subconscious levels never find a way back to communicating with the former consciousness and a new consciousness – a new person, if you will – takes over. Gregory’s story explores what that’s like, both for the new person herself as well as for her parents as they try to cope with this. It’s a compelling mix of though-provoking (if that’s the right term, in the context of this story) on the nature of consciousness and a detailed examination of the characters and their reactions in such a situation.

Ken McLeod’s “A Case of Consilience” wasn’t on the Hugo ballot but should have been. As the title suggests, it’s similar in concept and a dialog with James Blish’s A Case of Conscience. A devout Scots Presbyterian encounters a huge alien intelligence – a sort of giant subterranean fungus. He faces how to deal with spreading the gospel to this entity. It’s well thought out and brought to a very logical, satisfying conclusion – a worthy partner to the great Blish story.

Cory Doctorow’s “I, Robot,” is the title suggest, also refers to other SF, though it refers to more than the Asimov collection. It also makes nods at such diverse stuff as recent high-tech SF to 1984 (Oceania is at war with Eurasia). The story looks at the futility of trying to put a lid on technological development and, especially in the information age, on information flow. The main character (Arturo) works for the government, trying to keep technology under control, but his wife has fled (defected) to Eurasia, where she works on the kind of tech that was forbidden by her home country. Arturo eventually comes to understand both how useless – and wrong – his job is, as well as the real scope of what technology can do. This one is on the Hugo ballot, and deservedly so.

In Neal Asher’s “Mason’s Rats,” a farmer goes into his barn, looking for his missing cat. He sees a large rat and shoots it, then sees that the rat is wearing a tool belt. Rats, it seems, are evolving intelligence to continue to keep up with humans. An arms race of sorts develops, and the story ends with a nice twist. It’s quite amusing and memorable.

“Lakes of Light” by Stephen Baxter is part of his Xeelee series, and immense and detailed future history that spans hundreds of millions of years. The series is an ambitious and fascinating one, and includes both several major novels such as Ring as well as numerous short stories. “Lakes of Light” is set during the time when the humans are at war against the Xeelee. Scouts are searching the galaxy, looking for lost human colonies to impress them into military service. They find a star that is surrounded by essentially a Dyson sphere, one constructed by the Xeelee for some unknown reason. Humans are living on it, with their communities centered around lakes of light – small imperfections in the otherwise opaque sphere where light comes through. The main character is a missionary, whose job it is to bring these humans back into the fold – whether they want to come or not. The setting is wonderfully done, and the moral questions raised by the story are interesting ones – are the humans justified in drafting those living on the sphere. The story says no, but it does raise both sides enough to make you think about the question.

Other stories include:

• Bud Sparhawk’s “Bright Red Star,” a disturbing story of interstellar war (the introduction places it in the same category as “The Cold Equations,” which is right, but this story is even more disturbing),
• Post-singularity stories by two of the very best short fiction writers of the past decade – James Patrick Kelly and Michael Swanwick. Both are imaginatively strange, and Swanwick’s story – like several other stories he’s written in the last few years – has overtones of Cordwainer Smith.
• A hard SF story about first contact and travel between universes by Greg Benford (called “On the Brane”).
• A Christmas story by Joe Haldeman involving Islam, , a pulp SF magazine, and aliens (“Angel of Light”).

As well as memorable stories by R. Garcia Y. Robertson, Alistair Reynolds, Paul McCauley and others, as well as fine short short stories by Ted Chiang, Greg Bear, Dave Langford and several others.

This is a very good anthology, and proof that there is still a lot of good short SF being published.

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

Robert Charles Wilson has written several novels in which something large and inexplicable happen to the earth. In Darwinia, Europe vanishes and is replaced by an alien landscape. In The Chronoliths, strange monolithic structures begin appearing in various parts of the world. Now, in Spin, the earth is suddenly enclosed in a membrane that slows down time on earth, such that many hundreds of years pass in the rest of the universe for each year on earth.

Like all of Wilson’s books, the main characters of Spin are well drawn and interesting. The main character, Tyler Dupree, is doctor and the son of a woman who, when Tyler was growing up, the on-site housekeeper for E. D. Lawton, a politically savvy and influential industrialist. Tyler is close friends with Lawton’s two children: the brilliant and driven Jason (who his father views as his heir, but also seeks to control) and Diane, who is also bright, but can be flakey (and whom Tyler has been attached to since childhood). One day, while the three kids are outside, the stars go out. Jason’s reaction, strengthened over time, is curiosity and the scientific attempt to find meaning in what comes to be called the Spin. Diane becomes religious – or wants to, anyway – and becomes attached to one of the religious groups that pops up in response to the Spin. Tyler, who is also the narrator, hovers between the two.

The novel combines interesting extrapolation with a good story, as Jason and humanity in general react to the Spin – and to the fact that time is slowed down so much on earth that, if things don’t change, within the lifetimes of many now alive the sun will have swelled to the earth’s orbit (billions of years in the universes future, if only 50 or so on earth’s). Humanity tries a number of things to solve the problem – including terraforming Mars robotically and then sending humans there to live. (After all, even if terraforming takes a million years, that’s more like a year earth time [Wilson works out that times better than I’m conveying here; I just haven’t gone back to the book to look for the exact numbers], and the human civilization we seed on Mars can spend more time developing in a year earth time than humans have already spent on their civilization on earth.

It’s a good novel and comes to a more satisfying conclusion than either Darwinia or The Chronoliths (both of which I liked but both of which left me feeling a bit let down at the end). Wilson is a major novelist who has now had several books nominated for the Hugo. But he seems to be our least talked about, most hidden major novelist. He deserves more attention.

Black Powder War by Naomi Novik

Black Powder War, the third book in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, follows the return of Temeraire and his crew from China, where the traveled in Throne of Jade. (See my review of the first book in the series, His Majesty’s Dragon, for the basic premise of the series.) The ship that was to bring Temeraire and Laurence home has been damaged, so they must make the journey overland, through China and the Middle East, to Turkey, where the Sultan has agreed to sell the British a rare dragon’s egg. But the journey is perilous, and when they arrive in Turkey, they face a double cross. Finally, they end up with the Prussians, facing major defeat at the hands of Napoleon and his new chief dragon – Lien, the Chinese imperial who faced Temeraire in Throne of Jade.

These books have been a delight. They combine good historical detail (or alternate historical detail) with interesting characters (Temeraire, especially, is a wonderfully well drawn and fascinating character – intelligent, witty, brave, and opinionated.) The details of the history are well thought out, as are the details of how a dragon-based air force would work, how the dragons would be crewed, and so on. The societies are believable, and, with the changes necessary to include dragons, match the way the societies of the time really worked. (Well, except for China, where the dragons in Novik’s books are so much more a part of the society that it had to change. But this in itself was an interesting case of working out how a society with two intelligent species living together on a daily basis might work.)

Black Powder War is a fine addition to the series and follows important developments in the war in Europe and provides again an interesting picture of how the war would change given the changes in tactics involved when dragons enter the mix. Moreover, it does provide a good portrait of the dramatic difference between Napoleon and most of the leaders who opposed him. Most of the old European military leaders fell into the problem of fighting previous wars, not the current one, of being conservative with regard to new tactics. The Prussians in the current book are an example of this. Napoleon on the other hand was an innovative military thinker. Many of is great victories were results of his being able to think in new ways and to try new tactics (at least, in our real history, on land; his misunderstanding of naval matters was one reason for the collapse of the French navy). In Black Powder War, this extend to his use of dragons and helps lead to major victories for him. (Again, in real history, it’s no real surprise that the two military leaders who were able to consistently beat the French were Nelson and Wellington, who also were not tied down by traditional tactics.)

Novik will be on my Campbell ballot for best new writer next year, and one of her books may well be on my Hugo ballot. I anxiously await the next book in the series.