The Rat Killer and other Weird War Tales out now!

My latest short story collection, The Rat Killer and other Weird War Tales, is out now on Amazon and Smashwords. It's going through the Smashwords system of Premium distribution and will soon be available in all major online retailers. The cover is, as usual, done by my talented brother-in-law Andrés. It looks a bit different form his regular stuff and I think it works well. The book retails for $2.99. A blurb is below.

A rat hunter on the Western Front suspects his prey are plotting against him…
A routine trip through the trenches leads to an unexpected insight…
A soldier discovers the most dangerous enemy can't be killed…
A bereaved woman performs a forbidden ritual to avenge her father’s murder…
A doomed militia is offered a path to victory that leads to damnation…

Here are five tales of war from the pen of military historian and novelist Sean McLachlan. From the bushwhackers of the American Civil War to the trenches of WWI, these stories walk the line from the strange and paranormal to the frighteningly real.

Get my ebooks for 50% off!

Over at Smashwords I'm participating in their great summer/winter sale. Whether you're sweltering in the summer of the Northern Hemisphere, or chilling out somewhere south of the Equator, it's always a good time to read an ebook. Through July 31, all my ebooks at Smashwords are 50% off. You can see an entire list on my Smashwords page.

The books include my Trench Raiders World War One action series, each now $1.50; older works such as the short story collection The Night the Nazis came to Dinner and the historical fantasy The Quintessence of Absence, both $1.50; and my Civil War horror novels A Fine Likeness and The River of Desperation.

Use the coupon code SSW50 at checkout to save 50%!

My new WWI novel now available for preorder!

My latest World War One action novel, Digging In, is coming out December 5 and is available for preorder. The story takes up where Trench Raiders left off and continues the adventures of Crawford, Willoughby, and Thompson, while introducing some interesting new characters. Here's the blurb.

October 1914: The British line is about to break.
 
After two months of hard fighting, the British Expeditionary Force is short of men, ammunition, and ideas. With their line stretched to the breaking point, aerial reconnaissance spots German reinforcements massing for the big push. As their trenches are hammered by a German artillery battery, the men of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry come up with a desperate plan--a daring raid behind enemy lines to destroy the enemy guns, and give the British a chance to stop the German army from breaking through.
 
Digging In is the second in a new series of World War One action novels that will follow the brave men of the BEF through the major battles of the First World War a hundred years after they happened. The Battle of Ypres was the first of many great slaughters on the Western Front, and it was there that both sides learned the true horror of the world's first global conflict.

It's now available on Amazon, Amazon UK, and all the other Amazons. It's also available on Smashwords and will soon be at all other major ebook outlets.

(By the way, if you're still following this blog, head on over to Midlist Writer, that's far more active)

Trench Raiders now available!

Just in time for the WWI centenary, I've come out with Trench Raiders, the first in a series of World War one action novels. Here's the blurb:

September 1914: The British Expeditionary Force has the Germans on the run, or so they think.
After a month of bitter fighting, the British are battered, exhausted, and down to half their strength, yet they’ve helped save Paris and are pushing toward Berlin. Then the retreating Germans decide to make a stand. Holding a steep slope beside the River Aisne, the entrenched Germans mow down the advancing British with machine gun fire. Soon the British dig in too, and it looks like the war might grind down into deadly stalemate.
Searching through No-Man’s Land in the darkness, Private Timothy Crawford of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry finds a chink in the German armor. But can this lowly private, who spends as much time in the battalion guardhouse as he does on the parade ground, convince his commanding officer to risk everything for a chance to break through?
Trench Raiders is the first in a new series of World War One action novels that will follow the brave men of the British Expeditionary Force through the major battles of the First World War a hundred years after they happened. The Battle of the Aisne was the start of trench warfare on the Western Front, and it was there that the British and Germans first honed their skills at a new, vicious brand of fighting.

Trench Raiders is available at Amazon, Smashwords, and within a few days will be available at all other online outlets.

Military History Photo Friday: Senegalese Troops in World War One

Hello from Tangier! Actually I'm writing this several days early and scheduling it ahead of time because I'm happily without Internet for a few days so my better half and I can enjoy our 14th anniversary in the Casbah.

To keep with the African theme, here's a photo of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais in World War One. What is now Senegal was a French colony during the war and like many other colonies they sent troops. Senegalese fought with distinction throughout the war on both the Western Front and the Dardanelles.

Recruits also came from Morocco, Indochina, and other colonies. More than 72,000 colonial soldiers died during the war.

Below is a closeup of the middle two guys with their flag commemorating some of the battles they fought in. You can see they've earned some medals too.

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Book Review: The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918

The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918 by Holger H. Herwig
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The popular academic study of World War One in English has long suffered a deficit in the number of publications that use German sources. Herwig's hefty tome comes as a welcome change to this. At 450 dense pages, only serious history buffs need apply.
Those willing to make the effort, however, will find their understanding of the war enriched and changed. While we are long accustomed to hearing criticisms of the Entente's General staff, the commanders of the Central Powers are shown to have made many key blunders and to be grossly out of touch with the reality on the ground.
Herwig goes through each year and campaign in detail, backed up with a wealth of primary sources. I could have used some more personal accounts--the ones he gives are gripping--but that's not really the focus here. He shows how the high command was influenced by politics, posturing, and unrealistic expectations. The incapacity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to wage war is well drawn, and Herwig knows just when to bring out a telling detail. For example, rubber was in such shortage that in 1917 the Hapsburg government requisitioned the pockets from all billiard tables!
Herwig takes us step by step through the evolving political, strategic, and tactical situations. A glossary of terms and key figures and some more detailed maps would have been helpful, but I can't bring myself to give this book fewer than five stars. It's essential reading for anyone who wants to truly understand the Great War in detail.

View all my reviews

Military History Photo Friday: Beating Shells Into Drinking Cups

Why beat swords into plowshares when you can turn an artillery shell into a drinking cup? That's what one soldier did in World War One. Actually it was a fairly common practice and was part of a larger movement called Trench Art. When they weren't busy killing each other, stringing barbed wire, or hunting rats, soldiers took time out to express themselves. The detritus of war such as shell casings often provided the material.

These were done by a French soldier and bear the names Tahure and Hurlus, two villages near the Marne that were destroyed in the war and never rebuilt. You might also be interested in a German photo album from World War One that's just been published. Click the link for some gripping images.

Oh, and I'm over at Sioux's Page today talking about Writing About Women When You're a Man. Drop on by!

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Military History Photo Friday: Romania Defeated in World War One

This is an Austro-Hungarian propaganda poster from 1916 celebrating the defeat of Romania. That year Romania joined the allies fighting Germany and Austro-Hungary on the promise of territorial gains. Their army was woefully out-of-date, however, and a quick offensive by the Central Powers crushed them.

Here a German and Autro-Hungarian soldier are celebrating a round as the prisoners come racing in. In reality both armies had supply shortages by this time. The Austro-Hungarian soldier would have been dressed in tattered clothing and neither would have been drinking beer unless they had plundered it from some Romanian village.

The defeated army is interesting too. Not only does it show Romanian soldiers (who surrendered in droves, often not having fired a shot) and their Russian allies but also British and even a Colonial Sikh soldier. Well, there's nothing like a good bit of propaganda!

An interesting footnote to this campaign is that a young German Lieutenant named Erwin Rommel distinguished himself during the fighting. He wrote an excellent analysis of the campaign. I've read it, but I can't seem to find it online. Any university library should have it, though. It's considered a classic.


Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Movie Review: The Red Baron (mild spoilers)

I don't usually post movie reviews on this blog, but since I'm on a World War One kick as I'm preparing to start my Trench Raiders series, I've been doing a lot of reading and watching some WWI films.

The Red Baron came out in 2008 and I've been wanting to see it ever since. This week I finally got my chance and I have to say I was disappointed. Matthias Schweighöfer played Manfred von Richthofen and did a flat and uncharismatic performance. The supporting actors were equally unimpressive.

I could have forgiven this if the script were better, but this is where the film really falls down. Despite being two hours long, the movie is jumpy and episodic, often becoming a bit confusing. It was like a real movie stuck on fast forward with some of the scenes missing.

And the missing scenes were the most important, like the dog fight where the Red Baron suffered his head injury and also the final dogfight that ended in his death. They also skipped the epic dogfight between Lt. Werner Voss and eight British aircraft. Instead they added a fictitious love interest between Richthofen and a nurse that came out insipid and smacking of daytime television.

It's a real shame that they cut down on the action scenes because the two aerial battles they do show are brilliantly done, some of best action sequences on film. Why, in a film about a flying ace, are there so few of them?

Then there are the historical inaccuracies, like Richthofen and Canadian pilot Capt. Roy Brown meeting for a friendly drink in No Man's Land, the love interest, heaps of anachronisms, and Richthofen developing pacifistic ideals and the hint that he let himself get shot down in order to hasten the end of the war. Um, no.

This movie gets two out of five stars. Hopefully some better director with a better script will step forward and give us a Red Baron movie worthy of the name.