Dan Jones (1) (1981–)

Let Slip the Dogs of Winter
Review of the Head of Zeus eBook edition (October 12, 2023) released simultaneously with the hardcover/audiobook.

Loveday and his band of the surviving Essex Dogs are back in book #2 of the trilogy. This is about the Siege of Calais (4 September 1346 – 3 August 1347) in the winter of 1346/47, so there is not as much actual combat as in book #1 Essex Dogs (2022) which culminated in an English victory at the Battle of Crécy on August 26, 1346.

With the French in retreat, Edward III decides to take the port city of Calais as a future foothold in France. The siege ends up taking a further 11 months before the city surrenders, an event which is immortalized in a famous sculpture by Rodin.

See photograph at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/Statue_bourgeois_calai...
The Burghers of Calais surrender to Edward III as depicted by the sculptor Rodin. Image sourced from Wikipedia by Romainberth - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link.

Historian Dan Jones keeps the same gritty tone of the medieval soldier boots-on-the-ground experience as he did in book #1. The coarse interactions between the foot soldiers and the knights commanders continue. Though a book about a siege might otherwise be stagnant and rather stationary, Jones keeps the intrigues up with Loveday and his squad interacting with pirates who are ferrying supplies to the city while playing off both sides in the conflict. The old leader of the Dogs, known as The Captain is discovered to be a resident of Calais where he is war-profiteering amongst the populace. The young Frenchwoman who had been left homeless and without a family in book #1 returns with her own one-person guerilla campaign where she is picking off English knights where and when she can.

See photograph at https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EC7oSabXsAMk1Hf?format=jpg&name=small
This is just an excuse to post a trail cam photo of an Estonian wolf 🐺, the source of my current avatar picture 😊.

There is the odd curiosity of the young Essex Dog called Romford who was rather addicted to seeking out "white powder" (presumably an early variant of opium/heroin) in the French apothecary shops that were looted in book #1. In book #2 he seems to have discovered an early version of "magic mushrooms" which causes him to hallucinate people from his past. That is another way that Jones uses to create rather insane scenarios, by introducing what you would think would be a rather modern substance abuse subplot.

The other modern-tinged subplot is the early medieval version of the "deep state" or the "military industrial complex" which is behind the scenes throughout. Edward III is in constant debt to the merchants and nobility who have funded his campaign. He has to keep the booty flowing and ensure future profitability from captured towns such as Calais.

I continue to be impressed by this series and look forward to the final chapter. I'm also thinking that I will read some of Dan Jones non-fiction medieval histories in the future.

Soundtrack
It is completely anachronistic, but I couldn't help but think of the Los Lobos song Will the Wolf Survive? which you can watch and listen to on YouTube here or just listen to on Spotify here.

Trivia and Links
There is a short book trailer for Wolves of Winter which you can watch on YouTube here and author Dan Jones introduces the novel with a short video here.

The Essex Dogs trilogy will conclude with book #3 Lion Hearts which is expected to be published on July 31, 2025.… (more)

A Snowball's Chance
A review of the Head of Zeus hardcover (October 14, 2021) adapted from the early Latin language manuscript (c. 1400).

This was a chance discovery after reading historian Dan Jones' first historical fiction Essex Dogs (2022) and then looking around for what else he had written. I then saw that GR friend SportyRod had reviewed rel="nofollow" _target="_top">The Tale of the Tailor... and it became a fast hold and quick pickup at my local Toronto library.

See photograph at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/BylandAbbey-7Je11-2410...
The ruins of Byland Abbey. Image sourced from Wikipedia.

The background to this was even more fascinating than the actual story. The set of 12 Medieval Ghost Stories were written on various blank manuscript pages by an anonymous monk at the Byland Abbey around the year 1400. They were later discovered in the British Library by scholar and ghost story writer M.R. James who wrote about the background to the discovery and provided his transcriptions from the Latin in 1922.

Author Dan Jones writes an adaptation of the story no. 2 which tells the tale of "Snawball" the tailor who encounters various revenants on his way home from a tailoring job. One of these is the ghost of an executed criminal who demands that Snowball find a priest who will absolve him of his sins so that he can go to an eternal rest. After dealing with that issue, the ghosts of the three dead kings also appear. The revenants are shown to be shapeshifters who can take various animal and bird forms for the purposes of their hauntings.

See photograph at https://scontent-ord5-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/471129787_28948457838086293_4...
The opening page of the original Latin manuscript for the "Tale of the Tailor". Image sourced from British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog: Byland Abbey Ghost Stories.

While the original story and Jones' adaptation are not all that scary by modern day horror standards, the background information provided by Jones was fascinating and I was intrigued enough to research it further as you will see from the links below. Reading this now was also in keeping with the M.R. James tradition of a Ghost Story at Christmas.

Trivia and Links
Although Dan Jones provides a link to a URL which supposedly has the original story texts, the page found at Byland Ghosts is completely blank as far as I can see.

You can read M.R. James' transcription of the original Latin manuscript along with an English language translation at Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories. The Tale of the Tailor is Story No. 2.

There is at least one other modern day adaptation of this story which is The Tailor and the Undead: A Medieval Ghost Story Retold (2024) by J.P. Reedman.… (more)