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

Versailles

, , ,

Versailles 1919 by Mark Herman and Geoff Engelstein

, , ,
Versailles 1919 by Mark Herman and Geoff Engelstein

If you need someone for a high-pressure negotiation, you probably shouldn’t send me. I’m not a good negotiator. I don’t give in easily, I won’t give up something for nothing, but I’m not good at making deals. I struggle to know exactly what something is worth to me vs. what it could be worth to someone else – usually I can spot the former but calculating the latter into the overall decision eludes me. For this reason, I don’t play that many negotiation games, especially not pure negotiation games. However, a game with sufficient stature and/or on an interesting topic will drag me to the table to flop around like a fish at a mermaid war council. In 2024, I played Cole Wehrle’s John Company because of this (and ultimately didn’t enjoy it, few games are less for me than John Company), and more recently I played Mark Herman and Geoff Engelstein’s Versailles 1919.