The Six-Gun Tarot

I was recommended The Six-Gun Tarot by an AV Club review some time ago, and I'm glad I picked it up. It's a fun Western fantasy set in a world much like ours, but not quite. (Actually, it almost feels like it is set in our world, just with Golgotha soaking up all the fantasy elements before they get to the rest of us.)

Golgotha is a very hodgepodge Western fantasy setting; there's a Chinatown, Mormons, Indian legends, other religious trappings, heads in jars, a member of an ancient order of assassins, and some sort of Lovecraftian horror. That sounds kitchen sink-y as all hell, and it's a credit to Belcher that he pulls it off.

Some criticisms: the book feels almost episodic, in an in-media-res sense -- characters will refer to a wacky or supernatural event from the past, and it'll be just brushed aside. With juggling many characters and arcs, some of them can get a little bogged down. I'm not sure how I feel about the treatment of women here; there's one character whose entire life story feels like a tragedy, and another who feels like she never quite got where the author wanted her to go.

All in all, this is a fun fantasy novel that doesn't drag too much and is worth checking out.

Legacy of Ashes

Legacy of Ashes is a pretty damning read (so damning that it merits a review/rebuttal on the CIA's official website, which I did not find particularly convincing). Weiner takes his title from Eisenhower, describing the failures of building a capable intelligence agency.

Legacy of Ashes is a bit frustrating, in that two repeating themes are that the agency can't find good analysts and/or covert operatives, and that the agency is constantly bleeding talent. Which is it? It could be turnover (employees hired, trained, then leave immediately for more lucrative work in the private sector, as Weiner documents happening during the Iraq War), or it's inconsequential, because these people don't know what they're doing, anyway. The CIA's rank-and-file, when they are mentioned, don't come off particularly well -- unable to speak foreign languages, unfamiliar with cultures, continually producing bad analysis, etc.

Legacy of Ashes reads as a litany of obfuscation, willful ignorance, and legerdemain on the part of the CIA's various directors (particularly Allen Dulles), and their attitudes towards the rest of the government, as well as other members of the CIA. There are times in the 50s (as well as the 60s, and 70s) where the right hand (analysis) didn't know what the left hand (covert action) was doing. I don't think any of the Presidents come off well, either; either asking the CIA to act against its charter, or authorizing missions with sketchy scope.

Unfortunately, it feels like Weiner starts skimming towards the end of the book. Some of this just may be due to events beyond his control, in that it's more easy to have something declassified from fifty years ago, as opposed to five-to-ten. But the agency does start to come across a little better post-Vietnam, even with the Latin American meddling and arms-for-hostages.

This is a pretty damning indictment, even if it is less than perfect; it paints a picture of an agency that has difficulty finding its ass with both hands, and given US foreign policy post-World War II, that unfortunately sounds about right. Worth reading to just shake your head.

God's Chinese Son

God's Chinese Son came highly recommended to me, and I can't quite decide if it truly measures up to those praises. On the one hand, going into this, I knew almost nothing about the Taiping Rebellion, or Hong Xiuquan, the man who led it. From that perspective, this is a success, in that I'm conversant in what happened. But I don't feel that Spence did a great job placing the rebellion in context, or revealing its scope, or the long-lasting effects; it almost feels like my copy has lacunae of several chapters. I will praise Spence strongly for his placement of one chapter, though -- just as I was wondering "what do the Westerners in China, especially the missionaries and representatives of foreign governments, think of Hong Xiuquan's pecular brand of Christianity?" Immediately after thinking this, I turned the page to a chapter devoted to answering that question.

Not that this was an easy job for Spence; the tenth chapter, "Earth War" begins as follows:

There is no precise moment at which we can say the Taiping move from tension with the Qing state to open confrontation, but clearly in 1850 their provocations mount steadily until war becomes inevitable.

This is then followed by a litany of potential military moves: Hong Xiuquan wearing imperial yellow, instructions from Jesus to fight, the assembling and arming of troops, the posting of sentries, the lighting of signal fires, et cetera, before initial armed conflict begins, and Hong Xiuquan proclaims the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

The chapters that follow trace out the rebellion (some historians prefer to use "civil war") more or less chronologically, with the occasional stopping/retracing of steps to more fully flesh out another figure (such as the "East King", Yang Xiuqing, who was alleged to speak with the voice of God). Notes are extensive, although more often than not, they just point to a source and do not elaborate on the point. Mildly unfortunate.

While I feel that this is occasionally missing something (not context, but maybe a bigger picture), this is something I would strongly recommend.