DEATH IS ETERNAL #418

3,500 words

I want to begin this DEATH IS ETERNAL slightly different than the norm. Actually, quite differently. You see, lately, I’ve been feeling down, blue, and under the weather—use any other idiom you see fit—so I want to ask your help: what is the one thing you love about the newsletter? Honestly, I’ve been thinking about stopping writing it altogether, so remembering that people are reading it and liking it would be a great way of motivating me. Unlike other DEATH IS ETERNAL, the “leave a comment’ button will be open to everyone, not only paying subscribers. So, please, please use it and tell me what you love about the newsletter. Thank you so much for your attention and participation.

Contents

1. THE IRON STALLIONS

2. Writing: niche

3. Bye!

4. Life (September 9 to 22, 2024)

5. Reviews #323, #324, #325, and #326: BATMAN: GOTHAM BY GASLIGHT by Brian Augustyn, Mike Mignola, P. Craig Russell, and others, GREEN ARROW: YEAR ONE by Andy Diggle, Jock, David Baron, Jared K. Fletcher, and others, PREZ: SETTING A DANGEROUS PRESIDENT by Mark Russell, Ben Caldwell, Mark Morales, Jeremy Lawson, and others, and DMZ by Brian Wood, Riccardi Burchielli, Jeromy Cox, and others

6. The end

1. THE IRON STALLIONS

The rumble of engines echoed across the barren landscape as the Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade, known as Brutinel’s Brigade, rolled forward in a formation as precise as a lance poised for battle. Captain James Connors sat in the lead armoured car, eyes scanning the horizon through the slit in the vehicle’s steel-plated body. The air smelled of oil, gunpowder, and the sharp tang of churned earth—the scent of war.

They were deep into France in the final year of the war. The German Spring Offensive had pushed the Allies to the brink, and every able body, machine, and ounce of grit was needed to hold the line. Connors was one of the lucky ones, if you could call it that. He was part of history, commanding one of the first fully motorized units in the world, but the novelty of riding atop an engine of death had long since worn off.

The armoured cars, which once felt like a marvel of modern warfare, now seemed more like iron coffins. Eight vehicles mounted with the powerful Vickers machine guns, designed to rain steel down on anyone foolish enough to cross their path, roared through the churned-up mud of the French countryside. Behind them, a convoy of support vehicles, ambulances, and roadsters carried the rest of Brutinel’s motley crew.

Connors’ second-in-command, Lieutenant Jack Wharton, leaned over. His face was smeared with grime, his once-bright uniform dulled by weeks of dirt and soot.

“How long do you think this war has left, Captain?” Wharton’s voice was almost drowned out by the roar of the engines and the clanking of gears.

Connors squinted, a hard line forming on his lips. “Long enough for too many good men to die.”

They had been moving for hours, rolling toward an offensive line where the Germans had set up heavy fortifications. Intelligence reported a column of German infantry advancing, and Brutinel’s Brigade had been dispatched to intercept them. This wasn’t a simple skirmish; it was an ambush in the making.

Suddenly, the sound of gunfire echoed in the distance. The Germans were closer than expected. Connors raised his hand, signalling the convoy to halt. The lead car, their Iron Stallion, sputtered to a stop, and the men leaped into action. The gun crews scrambled to their posts, checking the belts of ammunition fed into the Vickers and adjusting the elevation of their barrels. The familiar routine of preparing for battle—quick, precise, efficient.

“Form a crescent,” Connors barked, and the armoured cars moved into position. They arranged themselves like a great steel arc in the middle of a sunken road, lying in wait. Their task was to catch the advancing German column in a deadly crossfire.

Minutes passed like hours, and the men, tense, gripped their weapons as if they were extensions of themselves. Connors peered through his binoculars, eyes straining against the fog and smoke that always seemed to cling to the air in these parts. Then he saw them—figures moving through the mist. German infantry, unaware of what lay in wait.

“Hold fire,” Connors whispered to himself, the tension in his voice mirrored in the taut bodies of his men. He needed the Germans to come closer, to walk into the kill zone. There were too many of them to engage without precision.

But then, a shot rang out—whether from a nervous soldier or an overeager gunner, Connors couldn’t tell. The Germans scattered like startled birds, and the battlefield erupted into chaos.

“Fire!” Connors shouted, and the Vickers machine guns roared to life, the rapid thud-thud-thud of bullets cutting through the air like a chorus of deadly drums. The armoured cars spat out streams of tracer rounds, sweeping across the field as German soldiers dove for cover, some disappearing into the mud, others crumpling under the onslaught.

The Germans retaliated, rifle and machine gun fire pinging off the thick armour of the vehicles. One of the support trucks caught a round, and the rear exploded in a burst of flame and smoke. Men screamed, but the cars held their line.

Connors gritted his teeth as a round pinged against the side of the Iron Stallion, rattling his nerves but not penetrating the armour. They were taking hits, but this was what the brigade was built for—delivering overwhelming firepower with speed and mobility.

A courageous group of Germans tried to flank them, but B Battery was ready. Their cars pivoted, the mounted guns spitting fire as the attackers were cut down mid-sprint. The sight was both terrible and mesmerizing—the sheer destructive force of modern warfare.

The ambush had worked. Within minutes, the German advance was shattered, bodies strewn across the fields, the survivors retreating in disarray. The noise of gunfire slowly dwindled until only the rumble of engines remained. The brigade had done its job, and the German line was broken—for now.

Connors wiped the sweat from his brow and took a long, shuddering breath. He glanced at Wharton, whose face was pale beneath the grime. “Report the damage,” Connors ordered.

Wharton nodded and scrambled to the rear to assess the casualties. Connors knew there would be losses; there always were.

As he waited for the report, Connors stared out over the battlefield. It was a scene he had seen too many times, and yet it always left him hollow. The machine guns made killing seem so impersonal, so distant. A trigger pulled here, and a life ended there, without ever truly seeing the man who fell.

Wharton returned, his voice grave. “We lost three men, Captain. One of the support trucks is gone, and another’s damaged, but the guns are intact.”

Connors nodded. “We move forward. The Germans will regroup soon enough. This isn’t over.”

Wharton hesitated, his eyes locking with Connors’. “How do we keep doing this, sir?”

Connors didn’t answer immediately. He looked down at the Iron Stallion, the machine that had saved them but also delivered death. “We do it because we have to, Jack. Because someone has to.”

With that, he climbed back into the armoured car and signalled the convoy to move. The engines roared to life once more, and the Iron Stallions rumbled forward, ready to face whatever lay ahead in the fog of war.

As the brigade advanced, the thunder of their machines echoed across the ravaged land, an unspoken reminder that in this war of men and machines, it was often the iron that would outlast the flesh.

The end

2. Writing: niche

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

For the longest time, I believed that confining myself to one or two genres would stifle my creativity, narrowing the scope of what I could achieve as a writer. I feared that if I committed to a particular niche, it would make me less of a writer—if not a worse one, at least a diminished version of what I aspired to be. So, throughout my writing life, I dabbled in every genre I could, determined to avoid being pigeonholed as a “one-genre” writer. I thought this was the key to becoming well-rounded, to prove I could do it all.

Today, though, I see how wrong I was.

Now, as I find myself primarily working within a few genres—hardboiled noir, social science fiction, and, to my surprise, historical fiction—I finally understand why many writers choose to stick to their lanes. It’s not because they’re incapable of exploring other genres, nor is it a sign that they lack range or creativity. It’s because they’ve found what they love, what speaks to them. And they’ve come to understand there’s beauty in focusing on what they’re good at. In my case, it’s also an acknowledgment that no matter how much I might want to write certain types of stories—horror, for instance—I simply can’t. Whenever I attempt to craft a true horror story, it morphs into a thriller or a mystery, but never what I originally intended.

And so, I find myself wanting to ask for forgiveness for every time I judged someone for sticking to a single genre, for assuming it was a lack of ability rather than a conscious choice. I see now that it’s not about being incapable; it’s about loving the craft enough to pour everything into that one area. There are real skills in writing within the same genre time and time again, yet still making each story feel fresh, different, and engaging. That takes mastery, not limitation.

I also see how easy it is to judge from the outside, especially when we’ve never stepped into someone else’s creative shoes. We criticize because it’s easy. But now, I’ve embraced my own evolution as a writer. I’ve found what I love to write, which doesn’t make me a lesser writer. In fact, it makes me a better one. By honing in on these few genres, I’m able to refine my skills and push myself to new levels of depth and precision within them. And isn’t that the point of this whole endeavour? To keep striving to be better, to dig deeper into what we love?

So, to anyone wrestling with this idea: find what you love, and stick with it for as long as it brings you joy. There’s nothing wrong with committing to the genres that make you feel alive as a writer. In fact, it’s probably the best thing you can do.

As a side note, historical fiction was never something I set out to master. It just happened. On days when my creativity runs dry, I’ve found myself scrolling through Wikipedia’s ON THIS DAY section, searching for inspiration in history’s overlooked corners. The entries I find often spark something, allowing me to build stories around events I would have never otherwise considered. That’s why many of the recent pieces in DEATH IS ETERNAL have veered into historical fiction—because I’ve been burned out, and my well of original ideas has, at times, run dry. But even in those moments, I’m learning. Even in those moments, I’m growing.

3. Bye!

Here’s where we say our farewell to the free subscribers. If you want to read the rest of DEATH IS ETERNAL, consider becoming a paying subscriber. If you already are a paying subscriber, first of all, thank you very, very much! And second, I’ll see you on the other side of the paywall.