The War Review, Episode 1

Two Very Different Reviews

I got two very different reviews this week.

The first one is from Steven Konkoly, the author of The Jakarta Pandemic, a near future apocalyptic thriller.

Sebastian Breit’s first novel, Wolf Hunt (The Burning Ages) absolutely took me by surprise. I can honestly say, that I have no recollection of downloading a sample of his book to my Kindle, but I found myself looking for something to read during an extended sailing vacation, and the sample was there…I burned through it in record time, and immediately downloaded the rest of the book. I knew within the first few pages that I had had stumbled upon a hidden gem.

Wolf Hunt is a brilliant modern warfare techno-thriller and political drama that seamlessly transitions into a compelling alternate history novel. Breit envisions a frighteningly believable near future, plagued by a worldwide economic crisis and pushed to the boiling point by crippling social pressures. New international alliances are formed to challenge NATO, and fleets sail toward an inevitable showdown, but one of them never arrives. NATO’s joint fleet of American, British, Dutch and German ships find themselves thrust back in time, to 1940, and are presented with a chance to alter the course of history. Two Captain’s, one German and one American, have the same goal in mind, to put a stop to the Nazi war machine, but they have radically different concepts of how to impact the war. The difference spells potential disaster for the combined fleet.

As a former surface fleet naval officer myself, I found Breit’s treatment of modern naval culture, operational procedures and capabilities is astoundingly accurate, but what truly propels his novel ahead of similar authors in this genre, is his capacity to envision breakthroughs in naval warfare and technology ten years into the future. Not so far that it appears foreign to the reader, but advanced enough to walk the line between science fiction and reality.

Breit brings in depth character development to his story, giving the reader a detailed look at character motivations and decision making. He incorporates many complex details and descriptions, but does not overwhelm the reader like Clancy. The passages of combat depict the true brutality of naval combat, where quick decisions, sensor superiority, armament numbers and chance combine to determine the difference between victory and defeat…often granting a mere Pyrrhic victory to the winner.

Beyond the action packed, fast paced thriller, Breit tackles many of the social issues confronting society today, starkly juxtaposing them onto a 1940 backdrop, with clarity and purpose.

Wolf Hunt is a first rate novel, by a sensational up and coming author who joins the ranks of indie authors rivaling todays brand name authors.

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The second one is by author, blogger and reviewer Amanda McNeil. Please check out her blog.

I first want to point out that Breit is German and wrote this in English himself; it is not a translation. I have to say that I wonder why he made that choice as the plot certainly seems to have more of a European than an American appeal, but I am impressed at his effort to write in his second language.

The summary of the book makes the plot sound fast-paced, but in fact it is actually distressingly slow-moving. It takes about 1/3 of the book for the all-important time-traveling event to happen. I spent the whole first part of the book just waiting and wondering when it was going to happen, because once the basic politics of the world and character traits were set up, it’s just a waiting game. The naval mumbo-jumbo filling up the rest of the space just wasn’t necessary. This issue carries on throughout the book with half of the sailors spending a solid amount of their time stranded on an island, for instance. Since this is marketed as a fast-paced historical thriller, perhaps somewhat like the style of The Da Vinci Code it quite simply needs to move along faster. Intense naval specifics and codes are not necessary. Fast-moving plot is.

Breit also needs to invest in a British and American editor each, as the British and American characters say and do things that are just flat-out wrong in British and American English respectively. One that really slapped me across the face is that one of the characters is from Boston, but everyone refers to him as a “Bostoner.” People from Boston are called “Bostonians.” I have never once in my life heard anyone say “Bostoner,” and I live in Boston. Another example is at one point one of the Americans reads another American’s birthdate from off an id and says it the European way “11 September 2001,” instead of the American way “September 11th, 2001.” This is one of those instances where the author needs to have his facts straight in order for the story to be believable. Nothing makes me not believe a character is American quite like having him get a bunch of American English wrong.

Additionally, as a woman and an author, the way the female characters are handled is distressing to me. Just one example is that a bunch of the stranded female sailors are attacked on the island by some of the locals in an attempt at rape. These women who had the exact same training as their male counter-parts are apparently completely incapable of saving themselves, but instead have to be rescued by their male comrades. But it gets worse. Later when the captain of the ship is relating the event to another man, he asks if the women were alright. The captain responds by saying that the doctor said they were fine. The doctor. Apparently nobody bothered to ask these women if they were raped (HINT: I’m pretty sure women can tell if they’ve been raped or not). Plus no one seems to care that these women are clearly not going to be emotionally ok after almost getting raped, and not once do any of the female characters who were attacked say anything about it with their own voices. This is just completely inexcusable. It’s a removal of women’s voices from ourselves, and it’s insulting to a female reader.

There’s the issue of European bias expressed through the American characters. For instance, one American character expresses shame at how Americans only speak one language. First of all, the rate of bilingualism in the US is actually rising, so following the arc of the future, there should be more bilingual Americans, not less. Second, I’ve never once heard an American express woe in an all-encompassing way like that by saying something like “It’s so sad Americans aren’t bilingual.” People say, “I wish I was fluent in another language,” or “I wish I was fluent in Japanese,” but they just don’t put it that way. That whole paragraph sounded like a European using an American character as a puppet to say what Europeans think of Americans. Yeesh.

I also have problems with the German characters though. A bunch of them express the desire to stop the Holocaust not to save lives but to save the German people from harboring the shame and guilt for generations to come. Um, what? That’s your concern oh time-traveling Germans? Having been to Germany myself on a student exchange and visited Dachau, etc… I can say that I have a hard time imagining any of the kids my age at the time (15ish in the early 2000′s) focusing in on that as opposed to stopping a bad thing from happening because it’s evil and wrong. I can only imagine that generations even further along would be even more focused in on stopping a genocide as opposed to saving some broad idea of German honor. It’d be like having a time-traveling modern American decide to stop the Trail of Tears to save us from shame as opposed to doing it to save innocent Cherokees. The whole thought just makes my brain hurt.

To sum up, Breit shows ability as a writer that needs to be worked on and honed. I’d recommend either getting a good editor who can handle both British and American English or switching to writing in German. He also needs to work on tightening up his plot. Normally I’d say, nice first effort keep trying, but due to the opinions and biases and presentation of women present in this first attempt, I’m afraid I can’t say that. It’s readable, but why would you want to read it anyway?

2 out of 5 stars

The Locations of TBA - Germany, 2024

Well, the feature about Berlin, Nazi Germany was supposed to be the last of the series, but I decided to add a little special here about Germany in the "The Burning Ages" universe of 2024. As already mentioned in the Portsmouth feature, what is described here is not something I wish to become reality, as it is a future where the democratic process has failed, a future dominated by ethnic strife and chaos. As such, the outlook will be suitably dystopic. In fact, it's my worst case scenario short of a nuclear war. Everything written in the following post is therefore purely descriptive.

The Locations of The Burning Ages

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Götterdämmerung 2024: Germany

To paraphrase the line I used in the post about Portsmouth, the Federal Republic in the year 2024 isn't a happy place. Truth be told, it would actually even be a stretch to still call it a "federal republic", since in reality its federalism has been strongly curbed, and as for the republican aspect, the less said the better.

Germany had been the wealthiest country of the European Union, but wealth is never limitless. Tasked with footing much of the bill for the European bailouts, first of smaller countries like Ireland and Greece, later that of large economies like Spain, the long overtasked well of German finances finally ran dry at some point. At the middle of the decade, the political class had to face a truth that should have been obvious for the past thirty years: you can't spend money you don't have. It wasn't really any single party's fault. Neither the 2009-2013 coalition of the centrist Christian Democrats and the classical liberal Free Democrats nor the leftwing coalition of Social Democrats, Left and Greens that replaced it had a grasp on the situation (and, in all truth, neither had the coalitions preceding both). And, in all fairness, by the end of 2013, after the new government ministers had taken their oaths, matters already took on a life of their own.

A common sight in every larger urban concentration
throughout Germany after 2013. Ironically, the pre-crash name
for these districts was Brennpunkte, literally meaning
"Burning Points".

In many cases, the developments that led to this decay had been in motion for decades by this point. The blame for it could be justly and squarely placed on the shoulders of all the political and social elites. Demographic change, fiscal irresponsibility, ignoring the will and the (justified) fears of the electorate, the increasingly felt effects of mass migration and the failure of the multicultural society: those were everybody's fault.
Well, it doesn't take a genius to guess what you get if the currents transfers out of the social security networks dry up in an environment where social peace is dependent on them. Once you get whole city districts of people who in their majority are unemployed, non-integrated and outright hostile to their host society, and you take away their sole source of income...?

The Locations of TBA - Berlin, Nazi Germany

Welcome to Part 5 of our little feature series about the locations of The Burning Ages: Wolf Hunt.

Today, we are looking at a key place of the narrative: Berlin, 1940. The first time a location in Berlin is featured is when the Germany military intelligence service 'Abwehr' learns of the sinking of the British heavy cruiser HMS Devonshire. The so-called Bendlerblock is a series of buildings, some of them housing the Ministry of Defence, some adjacent ones housing the Abwehr. Nowadays it's primarily known as the location where the conspirators of the Valkyrie plot were shot.

'Bendlerblock' District, Abwehr Secret Service HQ, Berlin, Nazi Germany

26 July 1940, 10:13 Hours

Colonel Hans Oster knocked on the polished oak door until a soft voice from within called him inside. He opened it, stepped through and closed it again in one smooth motion, entering the spacious personal office. Oster was a tall and slender man, exceeding 6'2", sporting still full gray hair at the age of fifty-two years which he wore smoothly combed backwards. The son of an Alsatian pastor of the French Lutheran Church was a sociable man whose open face and honest smiles made it easy for him to find new friends and get into conversations with complete strangers. This had been an important factor when he had been recalled from involuntary retirement due to a matter of indiscretion going back to 1932, and he soon had put all his energy into his new task within Germany's rapidly expanding military secret service, the Abwehr.

The "Bendlerblock" in central Berlin; among others, it was the
seat of the Abwehr, the German Military Intelligence Service.

In many regards, the man he now faced sitting behind a desk, appearing far too massive compared with its user, was his complete opposite. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris was small, bordering on tiny with his height of only 5'3”. The gray-haired man with his thick eyebrows and deep-set eyes was calm, almost introverted, and whereas Oster could - and did - easily entertain a whole soiree on his own, Canaris preferred reading to talking and found such social happenings to be at best a necessary evil. In fact, had his position not demanded a certain amount of public appearances from him he would willingly have spent that time working. For Wilhelm Canaris favored bringing his work home with him, and he spent the better part of his time on it even on holidays. Where Oster was the smiling face of the two of them, Canaris was the brain. Unlike his deputy, Canaris had been born into a wealthy family, and where the colonel had made his early career with the artillery, Canaris had in his heart always remained a Navy man, despite his intimate knowledge of and experience with the intelligence gathering profession earlier in his career. What united the two men, however, was their resistance against the Nazi regime. Both had taken active preparations to oust Hitler from power before the Munich Agreement of 1938 and had even been in contact with Britain's MI 6 secret service, but ever since then their hands had been bound by the Nazis' string of unbelievable successes.

Cover & Flags

I made a new cover for the German ebook market. Since the swastika is cut in half, I hope I can
bypass Amazon's ridiculous limitations and at least have the chance of selling the novel in Germany.

Somehow I don't seem to get around to do some serious writing lately. Well, to offset a bit of that I've been playing around with a couple of flags for the post-coup Germany that would arise after the events of Wolf Hunt in 1940.

That one's not from me. I found it on AH.com but can't seem to remember the name of the guy who created it.
So, if YOU are that person, just tell me, okay?

I have not yet fully worked out how the new government would operate, who would take which position, and what the future constitutional basis of it all would be. Directly post-"Wolf Hunt", we are looking at a military government, but its leading figures would soon be looking to expand their support base to those non-socialist circles that had been opposed to the Nazi regime.

That one is simply a reskinned version of the Swastika flag, with the color scheme of the flag of the
Weimar Republic and the Federal Republic (black, red, gold).

I don't really like it. For one, it looks kinda bland, and secondly, it's far too reminiscent of the actual Nazi flag.

This is also just a simple reskin of a flag, this time the Weimar and Federal Republic flag.

The Imperial Eagle and the Iron Cross have been added, but even though the uptimers will have some fond memories of the flag its based one, most everybody else won't.

Based on the Reichskriegsflagge, I added an eagle and replaced the Swastika with the Iron Cross,
adding the golden color as well to achieve a mix of Republican and Imperial imagery.

I do like this one and the first one best, but it'd be great if some of you guys had more suggestions for me.

All right, I'd be delighted if I got some feedback from you guys (and from the ladies as well, of course). Comments, ideas, criticism?

UPDATE: Athanasios Galanis of Mad Gods fame has provided some variations of his own. Thanks alot!

A Guaranteed Way for me NOT to Read Your Book

Once in a while when I scour the web for new food to review I come across such glaring examples of someone trying to shove his politics down my throat that actually make me stop in utterly dumbfounded bewilderment. And I say this regardless to the kind of politics that may be involved, be they liberal or conservative or whatever else they might be. As an author, the easiest and fastest way to turn me away from your work is to make it blatantly clear to me that you're just peddling a political manifesto thinly veiled in a layer of fiction.

How does that old line in "Portal" go? I made a note here: Great success! Indeed.

This is the preface of Beneath Gray Skies:

As America suffered under the rule of an extremist government from 2000 onwards, and seemed determined to turn itself into a world pariah, my thoughts turned to why a nation of such generally pleasant people could turn into something that was so alien and hateful to most of the rest of the world. My quarrel was not with Americans, who constitute many of my friends, but with the nation of America, whose ways and values continued to puzzle me as I researched the topic.

In my exploration of the subject, I discovered that many of the underlying attitudes expressed by Bush’s America were those of the 19th-century Confederacy, and indeed, much of today’s South: xenophobia, belligerence, a tendency to military violence, and a racial and religious intolerance.

Such values were close to those held by Hitler’s Nazis, of course, and this set me to wondering what would have happened if the Confederacy had survived, and made an alliance with the Nazis.

However, in writing this story, I didn’t want the Confederates to have won the Civil War. For one thing, I couldn’t imagine how they could have retained control over the Union states for long, given their relatively small armed forces. Much more likely, I felt, was the possibility that the Civil War had never been fought, and my conversation at the start between Seward and Chase is, as far as I can tell, fairly representative of various shades of opinion in the North at that time. Of course, a divided America would have had other implications on world history as we know it now, and I have tried to incorporate these ramifications into the story. For example, the First World War, here referred to as the Great European War, would probably have gone on longer without American intervention.

You preaching your politics to me - and quite vividly so - as some kind of a mission statement is an instant "no purchase"-decision for me, especially if they are clearly so lopsidedly partisan that your bias has gathered enough mass to attract a moon of its own. And, let me repeat that again, that's regardless of the slant of your politics! If you are writing fiction... write fiction! If you want to make a political point - and it damn sure looks like it - write a political, non-fiction piece.

And, by the way? Without the US intervention and economic support during your Great European War, Germany would've probably won by 1917...

Signed Editions Shipped, Mk 1

All signed editions purchased via Paypal until Monday, August 8 have been handed over to Deutsche Post and should be underway to their new owners by now. Thank you again, and have fun!

If you are interested in purchasing a signed copy of Wolf Hunt, please click here and follow the instructions. Thank you!

The Locations of TBA - Fort Stanton, USA

The Locations of The Burning Ages

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04: Fort Stanton, USA

After 03 - Trondheim, Occupied Norway only dealt with the German side of the plot of Wolf Hunt I thought it would be just fair to turn the tables around this time. The fourth installment of our little series concerns a location solely used on the American side of the plot: Fort Stanton in New Mexico.

This is the beginning of the heyday of the FBI. J.Edgar Hoover has won the Gangster Wars of the 1930s, and the organization he has created now not only deals in the persecution of federal crimes, but with the onset of World War II and the prospect of fascist and communist agitation throughout the Great Depression it also has accumulated the power to see itself as the guardian of national security. Student and political groups have been infiltrated, massive wiretappings are done to suspected agitators and spies, a national database of "enemies" and others to be either deported or interned has been created under Director Hoover's direct management. So it comes as no surprise that when his ever-increasing circle of informants - also placed in other government agencies - receives word of a whole shipment full of possible spies who pose as shipwrecked US sailors the head of the FBI sees it as a surefire way to distinguish himself and cement the idea of the Bureau being vital to the maintenance of national security.

J. Edgar Hoover (left) & Clyde Tolson (right)

Washington, D.C., FBI Headquarters
27 July 1940, late Morning

J. Edgar Hoover looked up from his papers when the door to his office opened and Clyde Tolson, his deputy director, friend and close confidante strode in with a bright smile on his youthful face. Rumors – unfounded ones - made their ways through the halls of power that he and Tolson were more than just good friends and colleagues, and Hoover spent a considerable amount of time and energy on the task of suppressing them by all possible means. That by doing so he unearthed a lot of dirt on quite a number of people which could come in handy at some point in the future was a welcome bonus. But still, with the war in Europe culminating, and the American isolationists gaining in power, he felt he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. There were so many dangerous and subversive individuals on the loose in this country that in the case the US entered the war sabotage and espionage would be uncontrollable. And the only one who seemed to care was he, John Edgar Hoover, and for that he was being met with hostility from all sides. But despite that, his files grew. When the time came, the Bureau would be ready to deal with the danger to the state, whether it came from Nazis, Japs, the communist intelligentsia or some intrepid congressmen.

What does your character's name convey?

Over at the Kindle Boards a thread popped up called What does your character's name convey?

Only one I can think of would be Major Alexander Kaufmann, and that wasn't planned. Though, given what I'm setting him up to be it really turns out to work well.

Alexander (obviously Alexander the Great; military minded, focused, utilitarian)
Kaufmann (German for: merchant; calculating, thinking ahead, thinking of alternatives and planning accordingly)

Or, going with the often cited TVTropes site: he'd be my version of the David Xanatos-archetype.

The Locations of TBA - Trondheim, Occupied Norway

Let's continue our little tour of the playgrounds of Wolf Hunt. This time we're off to the fjords of Norway!

The Locations of The Burning Ages

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03: Trondheim, Occupied Norway 1940

First, a bit of the historical background. Norway was important to Germany for two primary reasons: as a base for naval units, including U-boats, to harass Allied shipping in the North Atlantic, and to secure shipments of iron-ore from Sweden through the port of Narvik. The long northern coastline was an excellent place to launch U-boat operations into the North Atlantic in order to attack British commerce. Germany was dependent on iron ore from Sweden and was worried, with justification, that the Allies would attempt to disrupt those shipments, 90% of which originated from Narvik.

Heavy Cruiser KMS Hipper in Norwegian waters.

The new French prime minister, Paul Reynaud, took a more aggressive stance than his predecessor and wanted some form of action taken against Germany. It became a race between the Allied and German intervention forces. Churchill was a strong agitator for attacking and occupying Norway, because he wanted the battles and fighting moved away from Britain and France to avoid devastation of their territory, as in the last war. He saw the way into Germany from the north. It was agreed to utilise Churchill's naval mining plan, Operation Wilfred, designed to remove the sanctuary of the Leads and force transport ships into international waters where the Royal Navy could engage and destroy them. Accompanying this would be Plan R 4, an operation where, upon almost certain German counteraction to Operation Wilfred, the Allies would then proceed to occupy Trondheim and Bergen, and destroy the strategically important Sola Air Station near the city of Stavanger.

Get your signed paperback edition of Wolf Hunt!

All right, the day has finally come: you can get signed paperback editions of Wolf Hunt directly from me. Here's how it works. I don't want to sound harsh, but since it's about money - your money, to be specific - I'd say we're all better off by making things as clear as possible. Thank you.

I've still got books in stock. 

It's "First come, first served". The number of available books will be continually updated.

How much will it cost?

• €14.00 if you are ordering from within Germany
• €17.50 for international shipments

Why the difference? 

• International shipping costs 4 times as much as a shipment within Germany.

How do I pay you?

• The only accepted method of payment for international customers is via Paypal. If you don't have an account, create one. It's easy and doesn't take much time. I do not accept requests for using different payment channels. If you're living in Germany, you can purchase the book via direct transaction. Use the contact form so we can work out the details.
• Address your payment to: wolfmaster [at] gmx [dot] net

What else do you need?

• I need your address, your name, and the name the book shall be signed with in case it's not for you. Paypal provides a field to enter additional information.

A constructive review and some needed criticism

Pearson of Sift Book Reviews has taken a look at my novel. He seemed to have liked it, (4 Stars on Amazon), but the review was not without justified criticism. I've already contacted my editor to have another go at Wolf Hunt. Another lesson learned. Thanks, Pearson.

This novel engaged me from the first page to the last. Though the book weighs in at 175,000 words--three times as long as an ordinary novel--I never felt the work was too long. It certainly was never boring. I was impressed on every page by the author's broad and deep knowledge of both present-day and World War II era armaments and weapons systems. He integrated an enormous array of highly technical information into a story that could go toe to toe with anything by Tom Clancy--and win, hands down. As might be expected in a story drawing heavily from the techno-thriller genre, characters are mostly throw-away, one-dimensional creations. But one does not read a story of this type for the characters. Technology bristles on every page of this novel. In less capable hands, the weaponry would serve merely as a catalogue of the author's vast knowledge. Even in the capable hands of someone of the stature of Tom Clancy, stories can become bogged down in technical details that are difficult to make sense of. Mr. Breit somehow avoids both problems in this novel, creating a story that is as compelling as I have read.

I normally reserve accolades such as these for five-star novels. This novel, unfortunately, is not among the few books I have granted a perfect score. If I read a book only for plotting and integration of far-flung bits of technical savvy and historical erudition, this book would certainly earn five stars. However, this novel suffers a most noticeable deficiency in editing. Though I have to applaud Mr. Breit--a native German--for his command of the English language, the quality of his writing does not meet the standards I expect in an engaging novel... [read the rest here]

The Locations of TBA - Portsmouth, UK

And we continue. Since it'd be rather boring for both side if all I did was being a virtual tourist guide, I've included excerpts from the novel in this post (and will do so with all following posts of the series).

 

The Locations of The Burning Ages

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02: Portsmouth, UK

The setting of The Burning Ages - at least the one the protagonists come from - is not a nice one. In fact, it might be a worst case scenario coming just barely short of a full-blown nuclear war. Imagine all the problems of today - a rising China and a resurgent Russia, the problems linked to mass immigration, demographic change, a foreseeable fiscal collaps, an aggressive Iran with nuclear weapons, the global race for the control of ressources - and now close your eyes and imagine that what you fear becomes reality: that the people in charge screw it up. Welcome to The Burning Ages.

Our story starts in the southern English harbor town of Portsmouth. The year is 2024. A NATO flotilla has gathered in Portsmouth, including Danish, Dutch, German, British and American ships waiting for the order to depart to intervene in a South America in chaos. 

However, inevitably their conversation returned to the reason they had been summoned to Portsmouth. BRIC was the acronym that stood for the organization Brazil, Russia, India and the People's Republic of China had founded and turned into NATO's global rival. Brazil had always been the odd man out of that illustrious quartet. Put quite simply, it lacked the ambition of a Russia, China or India, and more damning, the necessary quality in its leadership. Vladimir Putin still was the gray eminence in the Kremlin, but the successor generations he had raised were of his cunning and ruthlessness. China's first clique of functionaries and military men to arise in the 21st Century were pushing their country closer to the USA's economic output. And India's economy had grown six percent per year - every year - for the past twenty or so. But where those three combined ruthlessness, ambition and ability into NATO's sole global competing power block, member state No. 4 had nothing to offer but its natural resources, near bankruptcy and a long line of political demagogues. Which kind of was the crux of the matter. South America's largest nation stood on the brink of civil war. [Wolf Hunt]

An old photograph of the Spinnaker Tower
during better days.

The future has not been kind to the United Kingdom, or Europe as a whole for that matter. Civil unrest has taken a toll on the nation, but it is only the symptom of the failures of the previous decade. The first sign of the situation you are treated with is what has become of the futuristic Spinnaker Tower overlooking the Portsmouth Marina.

Vanishing skywards in the downward gusts of rain, the gray, needle-like husk of the Spinnaker Tower topped the houses that lined the docks at the Portsmouth Marina. Ever since the NATO flotilla had begun to gather in the harbor in the midst of February, the blackened and burnt-out peak of the tower had throned above city and harbor like a menacing omen. Both the Spinnaker Tower and the Portsmouth Marina appeared to the inhabitants of the city like taunting monuments of former wealth and glory. [Wolf Hunt]

With oil form the Persian Gulf in short supply due to the aftereffects of the Saudi-Iranian war - where the Iranian Pasdaran blew up most wells during their retreat, and oh, did I mention seven nuclear strikes were launched? - heating oil, fuel and food are subject to a national rationing system. Winters in Europe are cold. Without enough heating fuel, and without the means to obtain a substitute energy source fast enough, they are deadly.