History, Medieval, Retrospective
Stuart Gorman
The Battle of Castillon – A Reflection

Today is the anniversary of the battle of Castillion. A year ago today I submitted the final draft of my manuscript for Castillon: The Final Battle of the Hundred Years War to my editor. Now, once again on the anniversary of the battle, my book is out and I thought it would be interesting to write something about the experience of writing it. 

If I’m honest, though, I feel kind of disconnected from the book now. I finished it over a year ago, and while I’ve re-read it in that time as part of proofreading and making the final tweaks to the text, as a project it has felt finished for a long time. In the intervening time I moved to South Korea and started a new job, and I haven’t had much time to think about what that day in 1453 might mean to me still. 

The Battle of Castillon – A Reflection

Shannon Appelcline

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This is Free Trader Beowulf by Shannon Appelcline

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This is Free Trader Beowulf by Shannon Appelcline

I’ve never played Traveller, which makes it a little weird that I decided to read a pretty lengthy history of the game. However, I have an ongoing fascination with the history of tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) and I want to expand from my knowledge from the histories of Dungeons and Dragons to other roleplaying systems. I had heard good things about This is Free Trader Beowulf, and Shannon Appelcline has an impressive reputation within the field of historians of TTRPGs, so I decided to grab a copy even if I have no personal relationship with the system (outside of an ongoing joke from university friends about how you can die in character creation, I can’t claim we were very original). Overall, I enjoyed This is Free Trader Beowulf, but I also found my lack of connection to the system held back my enjoyment and I often wished it was a slightly different book than it is. I can’t strictly criticize it for that difference – the book is what it’s author wants it to be – but I do want to explore that some here in case you, dear reader, are like me (or, if not, that you at least can learn if this book is for you).