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| The editors of The Last Redoubt recommend only the finest books to their readers. | |
 
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| Guns, Germs and Steel seeks to explain the broad sweep of human history, primarily on the basis of environmental factors. It is hard to overstate the value of reading this breathtaking and illuminating book. | |
Taking its name from the mighty pyramid in a 1912 fantasy/horror novel by William Hope Hodgson, The Last Redoubt aims to give its readers refuge from doctrinal foolishness, partisan savagery, intellectual decadence, and general banality.
A brief introduction to the site
The Last Redoubt is to be a refuge for readers who enjoy a certain kind of essay. It may be hard for us to describe the breed, as even now were are off in the kennels picking the first studs. It is fair to say that we aspire to appeal principally to people who reason themselves to conclusions, rather than from them. We want to keep the site pristine of the mindless political partisanism that prevails. We do not want to waste the reader's time on things we find trivial and banal. We will in fact do our level best to try to find solutions to significant problems facing human civilization. We have no special power to implement most of these suggestions. Perhaps you do.Why did we call it The Last Redoubt?
"I stood in one of the embrasures of the Last Redoubt -- that great Pyramid of grey metal which held the last millions of this world from the Powers of the Slayers." - The Night Land, William Hope Hodson.
In the classic horror novel The Night Land, all the millions that remain of humanity are confined within the protective walls of a mountain-dwarfing metal pyramid. The metal walls of the pyramid and the blazing light of its energy shield are all that stands between human civilization and the monstrous denizens of an all-consuming, soul destroying night outside. The sun, along with all the stars, have long since burned out. Hence, there is no longer anything like a 'natural' environment. Instead, inside the walls of the Redoubt, and below it, are vast and ancient artificial environments engineered over literally millions of years. Outside the walls, in the dark, there is nothing you would want to run into in the dark.
If anything can make 2009 look like a good year, it is the world of the Night Land.
To tell you the truth, Hodgson's novel goes badly off the rails about midway, and spends at least a hundred pages clumsily relating an unbelievably infantile love story. But the setting of the story, and indeed the first part of the novel, is brilliant fantasy, especially considering it was published in 1912. I would recommend it with the caveat that fully half of it should have been left on the cutting-room floor. It is Living proof that kwashiorkor of the novel is not a new disease.
In any case, we liked the name 'The Last Redoubt'. Dictionary.com defines a 'redoubt' as "an isolated work forming a complete enclosure of any form, used to defend a prominent point." Aside from the charmingly quixotic suggestion of a last fortified bastion set against an onslaught, there are some other little wordplays in the name. To 're-doubt' is to doubt something again, and a 'readout' is a tract of text that comes out of a machine. Another big plus: no one had squatted on the domain name.
So, welcome!
We hope you find what we have to say either enjoyable or provocative. If you are so consituted as to derive no pleasure from such stuff as we here provide, the world outside the Redoubt is large, and you are encouraged to explore it. Lucretius and Didymus will stand here on the battlement, under the implacable gaze of Watchers, awaiting your return.| Copyright ©2009 The Last Redoubt |