My Travel Year: A Look Back and a Look Forward

This past year has been pretty good for travel with me. I went to Egypt twice, spending a total of six weeks there to start my Masked Man of Cairo neo-pulp detective series. I made some great friends, explored Cairo more thoroughly than I did when I was first there way back in 1991, and got to see the pyramids again. Always a plus! I also had an all-too-brief trip to Tangier. I've been to that city a dozen times now and it still relaxes me. It's a quick and cheap getaway from Madrid, being only an hour's flight away, and I always seem to get a lot of writing done. You see, I hardly ever go on a real vacation. All my trips are work trips but enjoyable anyway. As usual, my family and I spent Easter and the summer in Oxford as we do every year. I get lots of research done at the university library.

So what's in store for 2018? More Egypt, certainly, and perhaps a trip to Fez, a fascinating Moroccan city I still haven't explored. For Egypt I intend to go to the western oases, which I have never seen, and perhaps up the river again to revisit the sites around Luxor and Aswan. There will be the usual trips to England and around Spain, and perhaps a few other short trips. One trip I and my family would like to do is a visit to Paris. A good friend lives there and my son is taking French in school, so he can be our translator. And who knows what else 2018 will throw at me? We shall see.

Military History Photo Friday: World War One Medals and Mementoes

Hello from Oxford! I'm here for my usual research trip, and as a matter of fact this is my tenth year. It's been a rainy summer so I haven't gotten to explore much of the countryside like I usually do. Luckily last weekend the clouds cleared and my family and I went on a hike to visit Minster Lovell, a fine old ruin of a medieval manor. Follow the link for an article I did on it.

We set out from the small town of Whitney, which has a fine little local history museum. Here are a couple of shots from the World War One section. I've always enjoyed small-town museums since the collection comes from old neighbors instead of some rich patron. I wonder who donated these?

Leaving for Oxford

It's time for our biannual research trip to Oxford! We're there every Easter and summer. As usual I'll be researching in the Bodleian Library, one of the greatest libraries in the world, and doing a variety of freelance projects as well as my own stuff. I'm planning a few trips to London and the countryside, so there should be some nice pics coming up here and on my Instagram account.

And just a reminder, my post-apocalyptic novel Radio Hope is still just 99 cents through July 19 on all the Amazons!

The Battle of Bannockburn: A Victory for Scottish Independence

On the first day of battle, Scottish leader Robert the Bruce engaged in single combat with the English knight Henry de Bohun and knocked his brains out with an axe. This led to a surge in Scottish morale and a charge that broke the English lines. Robert the Bruce later complained that this blow broke his favorite axe.

In the light of current events, I thought I'd mention that it's the 702nd anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, when on 23-24 June 1314, a Scottish force destroyed an invading English army, securing Scottish independence.

The First War for Scottish Independence was already well underway. Stirling Castle in Scotland was held by the English but under siege by a Scottish force. The defenders had already agreed to surrender if they weren't relieved by mid-summer. The castle was vital to the war effort of both sides since it dominated the route into the Highlands.

King Edward II of England personally led an army of an estimated 2,000 heavy cavalry and 15,000 infantry, most of them longbowmen, to relieve the castle. Facing him was an army under the Scottish king Robert the Bruce numbering no more than 10,000, only about 500 of whom were mounted.

Stirling Castle

Repeated English cavalry charges failed to break the Scottish formations and after two days of bloody fighting, the English withdrew, having suffered heavy losses. They would suffer more. As they made their way south, they were harassed by a Scottish pursuing force and isolated English soldiers were set upon by local peasants. King Edward got away, but 700 men-at-arms were killed, another 500 captured for ransom, and up to 11,000 English infantry never made it home. The Scottish lost at most 4,000 men, although some historians put their casualties much lower. Stirling Castle surrendered and Scottish independence was secure for a time.

Scotland did, of course, end up in the United Kingdom eventually, but will it remain so? With every single Scottish county voting against leaving the European Union, some by huge margins, there is almost certainly going to be another vote in Scotland regarding the independence issue. Hopefully no one will get their heads caved in with an axe this time.

Images courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

The earliest depiction of the battle comes from the Scotichronicon (c.1440), a book of Scottish history written by Walter Bower

Travel Tuesday: National Poo Museum Opens in England

Yes, this is exactly what it looks like. It's a fox turd preserved in a resin sphere. I'm not a big fan of fox poo. It's sticky and smelly and is all over my son's skate park every morning. You see, the older kids who skate there at night leave food wrappers all over the place and the foxes nibble at whatever is left inside. Then the foxes dump right where they found the food, often pinning the wrapper to the pavement.

Perhaps this odd behavior will be explored in the new National Poo Museum at the Isle of Wight Zoo in England. This museum is a work in progress. Right now it's a "Poo at the Zoo" exhibition that will go on national tour in the fall. The focus is on crap, both human and animal, encapsulated in resin spheres in order to make them more visitor friendly. There's human poo, a tawny owl pellet containing the bones and teeth of its prey, 140 million year old fossil poo (called a coprolite by paleontologists) and a child’s shoe with a cat poo inside it.

The exhibition is lined with retro toilets. Visitors can lift the lids to discover amazing poo facts such as:

Probiotic foods are produced using healthy bacteria originally isolated from human feces.
If you take a dump on a train in Britain, there’s a 25% chance it will drop directly onto the tracks, because many carriages have never been fitted with sewage holding tanks.
Wombats are the only animal known to produce cubic poos, probably to prevent their territory-marking poos from rolling off the rocks where they are deposited.

There's also some more serious information about the need for proper waste treatment in developing countries. Poor sanitation leads to disease and is a major killer in some regions.

To read more about my personal experiences crapping around the world, see my guide to squat toilets post I did for blogger buddy Alex Cavanaugh a while back. And go visit the National Poo Museum!

Photo courtesy National Poo Museum.

Travel Tuesday: Disturbing Artifacts in the Royal College of Physicians, London

Good for what ails you. Also a tasty snack!

I just got back from a research trip to England and managed to get a day in London to see friends and pop into a couple of museums. I made a point of going to the Royal College of Physicians, which has an excellent exhibition on the famous scientist and occultist John Dee. I'll be writing that up for Black Gate tomorrow for my usual Wednesday post. Today, though, I'd like to share some of the medical artifacts they have in their regular collection. If you like to complain about the level of your health care, just be glad you weren't born a couple of hundred years ago!

A surgeon's kit from 1653. Many of the original instruments are still in it.

 

"Hold still, this won't hurt a bit." Contrary to popular belief, surgeon's sometimes did use painkillers before the invention of general anesthesia. Opium was common, as was alcohol.

A preserved baby's caul from the 19th century.

 

Gold "touch piece" coins c. 1660-1685. These were used in public healing ceremonies by British monarchs from the 15th century onwards, although the belief that a monarch could heal by touch dates to far earlier. It was believed that God granted the monarch the ability to cure scrofula ("the King's illness") a form of tuberculosis. Charles I cured some 100,000 of his subjects by placing one of these around their neck. They were worn at the end of a ribbon like a pendant and were called "angels" after the image of the Archangel Michael that decorates them. George I ended this practice in the 18th century, thinking it was all silly superstition. With the modern rise of new strains of TB, perhaps Queen Elizabeth will renew the practice?

Travel Tuesday: My Travel Year, A Look Back And A Look Forward

Yours truly in Mzoura, a prehistoric stone circle and burial mound in Morocco, which I wrote about here.

So here we are in another year. As usual at the beginning of a new year, I like to look back on the past year's travel an see what's ahead. This post is a little late because I was, well, traveling!

Last year saw me go to Morocco three times. Mostly I was based in Tangier, working on my current novel, The Last Hotel Room, which is set there. I was even fortunate enough to spend a whole month living in Tangier's medina. My family came down too and I got to introduce my son to North Africa. It's important that he grows up familiar with something beyond Western Europe. We also had our usual Easter and summer stays in England, plus a couple of bonus trips up there!

Besides that, I'm afraid, I didn't travel anywhere. My travel has dropped off drastically since the demise of the late, great Gadling travel blog, which sent me to all sorts of fun places like Somaliland, Ethiopia, and Iraq. The bottom has really fallen out of the online travel writing market and the focus of my career has shifted to fiction and history writing.

Will 2016 be better? It's too early to tell. We'll be back in England at least for the summer, and I'm planning at least one trip to Morocco that will probably turn into two or three trips. It's just so cheap and convenient from Madrid! I'm also pitching editors for various stories on Ghent, Belgium. Other than that, who knows?

Military History Photo Friday: Frontier Forts of the Emperor Hadrian

Photo courtesy Jean-Pierre Neri via Wikimedia Commons.

This is an aerial photo of Lambaesis, a Roman fort in what is now Algeria. It was built during the reign of Emperor Hadrian (117–138 AD). This was a permanent camp for the III Augusta legion complete with fortification walls, baths, an amphitheater, and temples.

Meanwhile, at the empire's northern frontier at the edge of Scotland, Hadrian was building the wall that would bear his name. The below photo is an aerial view of Housesteads fort, situated on the wall and the base for the II Augusta legion. While it's smaller than the contemporary fort in Algeria, you can see that its based on a very similar plan. The Romans standardized many of their buildings, only varying them because of special needs or terrain. Thus if a legionnaire decided to switch from the III to the II legion, and moved from the heat of Algeria to the damp of Scotland, he'd be able to make his way around the fort without any problem.

A few years ago I did a series about hiking Hadrian's Wall on the now-defunct travel blog Gadling. The photo galleries are gone but all my text is still up.

The photo of Housesteads is courtesy the Tynedale U3A. Hadrian's Wall Group, which is doing great work educating the public about Hadrian's Wall.

Travel Tuesday: A Rare Sunny Autumn Day in Oxford

Last week my wife and I were up in Oxford. She had to give a colloquium at the university and I did some research at the Bodleian Library. It being November, of course it was cloudy and rainy almost every day. For the first few hours of our first day, however, the sun shone and the city was beautiful. We took the opportunity to walk through Christchurch Meadows, a stretch of land owned by one of the historic colleges on the river. Along this part of the river the various colleges keep their boat houses and rowing teams practice in the water. The photos are all hers. Enjoy!

Photos copyright Almudena Alonso-Herrero.

Travel Tuesday: Researching at the Bodleian Library, Oxford

I just finished my usual summer research trip to Oxford. Most days I'm in the Bodleian Library. This library dates back to the Middle Ages and is a copyright library, meaning it tries to have a copy of every book published in the UK. Needless to say, it's a good source for research!

The above photo shows the Duke Humfrey's Library. It's the oldest reading room in the library and was completed in 1487, although most of the decoration is from the early 17th century. Most of the shelves contain rare books, many in Latin, that I don't need. I do sit here to work sometimes, though, because, well, just look at it!

This is the Divinity School, completed in 1488 and originally used for theology classes. Now it's rarely used except for some formal functions. Pity, they should fill it with books and let me work in there!

On normal days I'm in the Upper Reading room, usually at this very corner. It's got more normal surroundings, which are less distracting. That strip of painting on the top dates from the 16th century, though, and the views out the window of Oxford's "dreaming spires" occasionally draws my eyes away from my books. 

Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons, because I never got around to bringing my camera to work!

Travel Tuesday: Protodynastic Egyptian Bracelet in the Petrie Museum

Can you tell I like the Petrie Museum? I blogged about this place for earlier posts on Midlist Writer about slings and other ancient Egyptian artifacts. I also did a post with lots of photos for Black Gate.

This is a bracelet from the Protodynatic Period, also called Naqada III, a time from c. 3200-3000 BC when states were beginning to form but the country had not yet been unified. The first hieroglyphs also date from this time, as do some rich cemeteries.

Someone should start making replicas of this bracelet, because my wife would love one. I think the original is out of my price range!

Enjoying an Oxford Summer

I'm nearing the end of my usual summer of research/writing/relaxing in Oxford. Weather-wise, this has been a nonsummer in the UK, with cool temperatures and way too many clouds. Like the English, we take advantage of any good weather we get and immediately head outdoors. This shot of the River Isis (the local name for the Thames) was taken on a walk to the medieval church of St. Margaret’s and its holy well. I also celebrated turning halfway to 92 with a medieval birthday cake. Click the links for the posts I wrote about this for Black Gate.

In writing news, I'm doing the final edits on We Had Flags, the third novel in my post-apocalyptic Toxic World series. It will come out in September. I'm also moving along in No Man's Land, the third in my Trench Raiders series.With all this bad weather, I've been doing more than my usual hiding in the Oxford University library researching and writing!

How has everyone else's summer been?

Travel Tuesday: Egyptian Treasures in the Petrie Museum, London

A painted stele showing a man named Ihefy adoring the god Horus and offering him a lotus, Dynasty XXII-XXV (1991-1550 BC)

I'm back in Oxford, so as usual one of the first things I did was head down to London to see friends and museums! Last week I visited the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at University College London. I'll be writing about it in more detail over at the Black Gate blog tomorrow, so tune in there for more info and pictures.

There isn't much information on the label, but the Paser mentioned here may have been the Viceroy of Kush (now Sudan) during the reign of the Pharaoh Ay (c.1323–1319 BC) and perhaps one or two later rulers.

I've always been drawn to simple objects from the past, such as this ancient spoon. Whose was it? What was their favorite meal?

All photos copyright Sean McLachlan.

Military History Photo Friday: Armor at the Wallace Collection, London

This open helmet is called a barbute and dates to 15th century Italy. It would have been worn by a regular infantryman of the upper rank. I've also seen period paintings showing nobility wearing them. The more elegant helmet below is called a bascinet. It's from northern Italy from around 1380-1410. As you can see, it doesn't offer any flat surfaces for a weapon to get a direct hit on. This would have been for a more wealthy warrior. The mail aventail protects the neck and shoulders, but of course there would have been plate armor for those areas too.

Both of these helmets are from the Wallace Collection in London. For more arms and armor from the Wallace Collection, check out my post over at Black Gate.

Photos copyright Sean McLachlan.

Back from Eastercon!

I've been a bit silent of late, and that's because I was up in Oxford for my usual research/relaxation trip over Easter. In addition to seeing friends and burying myself in the Bodleian Library like I always do, I also attended Eastercon.

This is an annual science fiction convention in the UK. There were heaps of events and signings, plus lots of panels. I was on a panel about asymmetric warfare that was well attended, although not as well attended as the Real Ale bar! You can read my con report here.

Anyway, I'm back and excited to be finishing up We Had Flags, book three of my Toxic World series. There will be more posts up here too.

My Travel Year: A Look Back And A Look Forward

As my regular readers know, I'm an avid traveler. Living in Madrid makes it easier, but various things have kept me from doing much travel this year. I have three main threads in my writing career--travel, history, and fiction. For the past ten years all three have had their ups and downs, and in 2014 travel writing was definitely in a down.

The year started well with trips to Tangier and Belgium. Then the travel assignments dried up and besides our usual family trips to Oxford, there wasn't much of anything. I did manage to slip in two more trips to Tangier, but that's it. This is the first year that I can remember where I didn't go to a new country. I'll have to remedy that in 2015. Call it a New Year's resolution.

So where could I go? I recently discovered there's regular flights from Madrid to Algiers, so that's a possibility if I could drum up some freelance. Hungary and Egypt are also possibilities. I'm sure my career will throw me some curveballs as usual, so who knows where I might end up?!

Dinosaurs and weird cures at the Oxfordshire Museum

"Physicians agree" this steam bath cabinet is absolutely safe and good for the health!

I may be back in Spain, but I still have plenty of photos from England to share with you! In our last week in England we went to Woodstock, Oxfordshire, to visit the newly opened Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum. I'm pitching that story to a magazine, so I'll keep those photos for a while Instead here are some shots of the Oxfordshire Museum, a local history museum next door.
Jump the cut for more photos!

Back in Madrid with a new writing challenge

Hugo Award from the 2007 Worldcon in Yokohama. They had a whole collection of old Hugos on display at this year's Worldcon in London.

Another summer in Oxford is over. The leaves were beginning to turn in England when I left two days ago, and here in Madrid it's sweltering.

I had a productive time in Oxford, researching my next book for Osprey in the Bodleian Library and making lots of new fannish friends at Worldcon. Now that I'm back in Madrid I have to get down to business. I have a ton of writing projects to finish by the end of the year, including the next installments in the Toxic World and Trench Raiders series, as well as Christmas stories for each! I also want to do a few short stories. Blogging will get more attention too.

I'm also making a commitment to myself. From now on I'm writing 2,000 words a day of fiction. I often exceed this amount, but there are days where I don't write at all. Now I'm going to discipline myself to keeping my bum in the chair and getting it done. This idea comes from the late, great Frederik Pohl, who had a similar level of commitment.

OK now, I'm off to write!

Free Post-Apocalyptic Ebook and Kindle Countdown Deal!

Hello from Worldcon! I'm in London at the world's largest, and oldest science fiction convention. I'll be turning 45 here on Saturday, surrounded by science fiction fans. There are worse places to to grow old.

In honor of Worldcon and my oncoming decrepitude, I'm running a special promotion for two of my Toxic World titles of post-apocalyptic books. Radio Hope is on a Kindle Countdown deal. It's usually $3.99 but for August 14-15 it will be 99 cents. On August 16-17 it will be $1.99. On August 18-19 it will be $2.99.

Also, my short story The Scavenger will be free August 14-18.

Grab these titles while they're cheap, and tune in next week for a full convention report and plenty of photos!

Looking forward to Worldcon, plus an upcoming giveaway!

On Thursday I'm heading down to London for the World Science Fiction Convention, otherwise known as Worldcon, this year hosted by Loncon. It's five days of panels, movies, special events, making new friends, and of course a giant dealer's room!

I'm doing a panel on Thursday, plus a signing on Saturday, the same day yours truly turns 45. Yipe!

I'll be writing up a full con report next week for Black Gate and will post the link here.

In honor of Worldcon and my oncoming old age, I'll be running a special promotion for two of my Toxic World titles of post-apocalyptic books. Radio Hope will be on a Kindle Countdown deal. It's usually $3.99 but for August 13-14 it will be 99 cents. On August 15-16 it will be $1.99. On August 17-19 it will be $2.99.

Also, my short story The Scavenger will be free August 14-18.