"The Sword in Two Hands by Brian Price" review wan

Vitus von Atzinger · Post by **Vitus von Atzinger** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 5:06 pm

In a phone conversation Brian once described himself as a Classical Liberalist. What this actually means is that he is part of the new breed of Objectivists, who believe in brutal Social Darwinism.

However, if you practice these ideas on them they usually call the cops or just go find another group of people to crap on.

I was once talking to a hipster girl in a coffee shop and she was telling me about how she was a gifted person in the Randian tradition blah-blah and that she was totally self-reliant and didn't need anyone's help.

I said "I can take your purse right now and there isn't a goddamn thing YOU could do about it." You would have to call for the guys with the clubs and guns to protect you. Therefore, you are not special."

That shut her up quick.

DukeAvery · Post by **DukeAvery** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 5:22 pm

Of the manifold roads that lead to hellish conditions, many begin with the objectification of sentient beings.

The best line I heard at Estrella (said after I had made some telling point) was, "Damn you Avery and your hippie philosophies!"

Regards

Avery

"Easy is the path to wisdom for those not blinded by themselves" - http://www.starwars.com/theclonewars/gu ... de003.html

Glaukos the Athenian · Wed Mar 16, 2011 6:07 pm

Rey wrote:This is the Thread that never Ends,

Leo Medii · Post by **Leo Medii** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 6:09 pm

Glaukos the Athenian wrote:
Rey wrote:This is the Thread that never Ends,

So the authors and others got eaten by the "nothing"?

Astaroth · Post by **Astaroth** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 6:30 pm

Vitus von Atzinger wrote:In a phone conversation Brian once described himself as a Classical Liberalist. What this actually means is that he is part of the new breed of Objectivists, who believe in brutal Social Darwinism.

However, if you practice these ideas on them they usually call the cops or just go find another group of people to crap on.

I was once talking to a hipster girl in a coffee shop and she was telling me about how she was a gifted person in the Randian tradition blah-blah and that she was totally self-reliant and didn't need anyone's help.

I said "I can take your purse right now and there isn't a goddamn thing YOU could do about it." You would have to call for the guys with the clubs and guns to protect you. Therefore, you are not special."

That shut her up quick.

I don't think you Brian or that girl understood Objectivism very well.

Jeff J · Post by **Jeff J** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 8:18 pm

Vitus von Atzinger wrote:In a phone conversation Brian once described himself as a Classical Liberalist. What this actually means is that he is part of the new breed of Objectivists, who believe in brutal Social Darwinism.

I think the term is actually "Sociopath".

Talbot · Post by **Talbot** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 10:59 pm

Now you can buy the books by some of the wronged authors without any guilt.

Check out our Guilt Free Book Page
http://talbotsfineaccessories.com/books/guiltfree.html

These are the books that were sent to me in payment of the debt referenced earlier in this thread. The money will be divided equally betweene the authors, the seller, and the Wounded Warrior's Project.

Grab your books today without any guilt!

Galleron · Post by **Galleron** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 7:03 am

Talbot wrote:Now you can buy the books by some of the wronged authors without any guilt.

Check out our Guilt Free Book Page
http://talbotsfineaccessories.com/books/guiltfree.html

These are the books that were sent to me in payment of the debt referenced earlier in this thread. The money will be divided equally betweene the authors, the seller, and the Wounded Warrior's Project.

Grab your books today without any guilt!

Well done! What's the numbering sequence on the boxes of Kal you got?

Talbot · Post by **Talbot** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 9:02 am

I have several boxes of Kal. Most are in the mid 600s but I have one box in the 380s. I went looking for number 666 but it was not there. Brian seems to have kept that one.

Galleron · Post by **Galleron** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 9:26 am

Talbot wrote:I have several boxes of Kal. Most are in the mid 600s but I have one box in the 380s. I went looking for number 666 but it was not there. Brian seems to have kept that one.

That confirms that Brian has been selling them out of order, since I've got one in the mid-400s purchased some years back.

Is that accepted practice for numbered limited editions?

Ed Toton · Post by **Ed Toton** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 9:37 am

Galleron wrote: That confirms that Brian has been selling them out of order, since I've got one in the mid-400s purchased some years back.

Is that accepted practice for numbered limited editions?

Mine is also in the mid 400's from several years back. My impression is that it's common practice to sell them in order, but there's no real expectation or requirement to do so. I could be wrong though.

Christian H. Tobler · Thu Mar 17, 2011 10:31 am

Folks,

I think it highly unlikely that "In Service of the Duke" has been sold sequentially, so tallying sales based on the numbering is unreliable.

As I recall, even the books I received early on were from somewhat different parts of the run.

Cheers,

Christian

Lady Charlotte · Post by **Lady Charlotte** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 10:42 am

Hello, Aerimus13,

Aerimus13 wrote:
Talbot wrote:
Roland Ansbacher wrote: I would heartily recommend that attendees of Gulf Wars make their displeasure known, in a clear and gentlemanly manner as possible. No vitriol, no hate, no hurtful or angry words. Just send a simple message, give the authors their due. Make good to those you have wronged.
Should people do this, I urge you to pay heed to Sir Roland's words. In all likelihood Brian himself will not go to Gulf Wars to face this level of public displeasure. It is far more likely that he will send his wife Ann and it will be her rather than him who will be there running the booth. As far as I know there is no reason to be discourteous to Ann no matter how strong your feelings about Brian may be.
Well if he sends his wife to the wolves then he is a coward and a cad and not worthy of the white belt.

A friend of friends who are attending Gulf Wars reports that multiple perusals of/visits to the Revival Enterprises/Chivalry Bookshelf booth have so far yielded no sign of Mr. Price, only of that recently energetic correspondent, his wife, Ann.

I suppose that means we'll have to patiently await his acceptance of Cuan's challenge till another SCA event.

Alas.

Lady Charlotte

Galleron · Post by **Galleron** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 10:54 am

The Brian R. Price Wikipedia page has been updated, and no, it wasn't me.

Keegan Ingrassia · Post by **Keegan Ingrassia** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 11:10 am

Galleron wrote:The Brian R. Price Wikipedia page has been updated, and no, it wasn't me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_R_Price

DukeAvery · Post by **DukeAvery** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 11:12 am

If you prick us, do we not bleed?

Greg Mele · Post by **Greg Mele** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 11:35 am

All,

Stephen Hand, yet another CB author, asked if I would please post this on his behalf. The rest of this email are his words, not mine.

Best,

Greg

________________________-

Dear Greg and Christian,

I have noted the comments made on Armour Archive about Brian Price and Chivalry Bookshelf, including some about myself and my books, Medieval Sword and Shield, Spada, Spada II and English Swordsmanship. As I no longer post on message boards, could one of you fine chaps post this message to AA for me?

In the thread Brian wrote,

"we returned to Mr. Hand the second volume of English Swordsmanship, releasing the rights back to him, which made him angry."

This is incorrect. At no time has Brian said anything to me that would suggest that he was not going ahead with the publication of English Swordsmanship Volume II. In fact like many others Brian has said almost nothing to me in the last four years, despite repeated attempts by me to communicate with him. The last communication I sent Brian was an e-mail on the 20th of January 2010 in which I wrote,

"Dear Brian,

It is now two years since I sent you the final edits of English Swordsmanship Volume II. Unless you can give me a good reason not to, I am going to publish it through another publisher.

Stephen"

I sent this e-mail to an address that Brian gave me himself when I cornered him on a mailing list, but received no response. I am now looking at updating ESII, reshooting the photos and publishing it through Freelancer Academy Press. At no time did I express any anger towards Brian regarding his failure to publish ESII.

I have actually received royalties on 37 copies of ES. I presume that they sold a few more copies than this. I have not received any royalties for any books since late 2006 when I received a statement for the first half of 2006.

Best Wishes
Stephen Hand"

Saritor · Post by **Saritor** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 11:39 am

Hopefully, Mr. Hand will be able to publish Volume 2 elsewhere in the not-too-distant future!

Talbot · Post by **Talbot** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 12:29 pm

Kristi Charron, wife of author Bob Charron asked me to post this because she does not have an AA account.

"Did you know that many folks pre-paid for Bob's translation [of Fiore], even though we had never had an agreed on date of publishing, and that Brian got the book put on Amazon for preorder (and if you search for Bob's name, you will see it is still there!)...Bob was accosted by folks wanting to know when his book was coming out, and that is how we found out that people had prepaid Brian! Yikes."

http://www.amazon.com/Italian-Medieval- ... 693&sr=8-1

Leo Medii · Post by **Leo Medii** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 1:20 pm

Talbot wrote:Kristi Charron, wife of author Bob Charron asked me to post this because she does not have an AA account.

"Did you know that many folks pre-paid for Bob's translation [of Fiore], even though we had never had an agreed on date of publishing, and that Brian got the book put on Amazon for preorder (and if you search for Bob's name, you will see it is still there!)...Bob was accosted by folks wanting to know when his book was coming out, and that is how we found out that people had prepaid Brian! Yikes."

http://www.amazon.com/Italian-Medieval- ... 693&sr=8-1

Wow! I was going to pre-order this at one time, and decided I'd wait to see if I ever was presented something about my order that was outstanding. Glad I didn't.

BdeB · Post by **BdeB** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 2:03 pm

Isn't that the same deal as the book about Duke Paul that never materialized?

http://www.amazon.com/Masters-SCA-Comba ... 663&sr=8-1

paulb · Post by **paulb** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 3:32 pm

BdeB said:

Isn't that the same deal as the book about Duke Paul that never materialized?

I was surprized when I saw the book about me for advance sale on Amazon.

The last I had heard from Brian was when he sent the first three chapters to me for review. I gave them a pretty poor grade, and I expected further discussion on them, that never happened.

Since I didn't really care if the book was published, and I certainly didn't want it published if what I had seen didn't improve, I didn't follow up.

I have no idea whether he was getting paid for the advance orders. I wonder if I should pursue this with Amazon. I have no monetary interest in this, but they might be concerned.

Regards,

Leo Medii · Post by **Leo Medii** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 7:03 pm

Thank you Talbot. Order forthcoming for some books.

Talbot · Post by **Talbot** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 8:59 pm

Leo Medii wrote:Thank you Talbot. Order forthcoming for some books.

You are welcome!

Lady Charlotte · Post by **Lady Charlotte** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 10:58 am

Hello, Galleron,

Galleron wrote:The Brian R. Price Wikipedia page has been updated, and no, it wasn't me.

It appears to have been done by someone in the Kingdom of Caid.

Lady Charlotte

Galleron · Post by **Galleron** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 12:44 pm

Lady Charlotte wrote:Hello, Aerimus13,
Aerimus13 wrote:
Talbot wrote:
Roland Ansbacher wrote: I would heartily recommend that attendees of Gulf Wars make their displeasure known, in a clear and gentlemanly manner as possible. No vitriol, no hate, no hurtful or angry words. Just send a simple message, give the authors their due. Make good to those you have wronged.
Should people do this, I urge you to pay heed to Sir Roland's words. In all likelihood Brian himself will not go to Gulf Wars to face this level of public displeasure. It is far more likely that he will send his wife Ann and it will be her rather than him who will be there running the booth. As far as I know there is no reason to be discourteous to Ann no matter how strong your feelings about Brian may be.
Well if he sends his wife to the wolves then he is a coward and a cad and not worthy of the white belt.
A friend of friends who are attending Gulf Wars reports that multiple perusals of/visits to the Revival Enterprises/Chivalry Bookshelf booth have so far yielded no sign of Mr. Price, only of that recently energetic correspondent, his wife, Ann.

I suppose that means we'll have to patiently await his acceptance of Cuan's challenge till another SCA event.

Alas.

Lady Charlotte

They seek him here, they seek him there,
The authors seek him everywhere.
Is he feeding his fish, is he rolling his dice?
That damned elusive Brian Price.

Therion · Post by **Therion** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 1:08 pm

Galleron wrote: They seek him here, they seek him there,
The authors seek him everywhere.
Is he feeding his fish, is he rolling his dice?
That damned elusive Brian Price.

*snort*

I realized I've been spending too much time on Facebook when I immediately went to click "Like" on this post.

jswanger · Post by **jswanger** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 1:15 pm

Greetings all—

This is my first time posting here. Allow me to introduce myself—the name is Jherek Swanger (that’s ”mka”). In case anyone cares, I was a member of the SCA (OWS, OL) for about 20 years, but as I’m nearly completely inactive in that regard these days I’m going to eschew the persona name, especially given the topic at hand. You can think of me as the author of the Chivalry Bookshelf book that was going to be, never was, and now apparently never will.

I hope you will have the patience to read the historical background to my relation with Brian Price, which pertains to this thread:

In October 2004 I approached Brian at the Known World Academy of the Rapier, to propose Chivalry Bookshelf publishing my translation of Camillo Agrippa’s fencing text of 1553. I had had no previous interaction with Brian before then, nor knew of him other than as the head of Chivalry Bookshelf. After looking at my translation in progress there, he agreed to send me a publishing contract. I mailed him back the signed copy in March 2005.

By February 2008 the process of editing my translation and associated analysis, etc., was done and I sent to him what, at the time, was meant to be the final version of my book. Brian had started advertising it under the title “Geometry of the Sword”, as I learned from occasional emails beginning in November 2007 from people who wanted to buy it; I was also told that an ad for it appeared in a Revival.us catalog in 2008.

While waiting for Brian to get back to me with layout (which turned out to be a very long wait, as will be seen) I dinked around with the text a wee bit, making minor corrections and additions, and in February 2009 sent him some updated files for the final version. Brian told me to expect to receive layout of the book to review before Pennsic 38 (i.e. late July 2009). I’ll reiterate that I’d been waiting for him to lay out my manuscript since February of the preceding year. His promised Pennsic deadline came and went with nothing arriving, followed by months in which I unsuccessfully attempted to reach him by phone or email.

In September 2009, Ken Mondschein (now PhD) announced that his own independent translation and analysis of the same treatise was available for order. This was in no way a surprise, as Ken had done me the courtesy of informing me sometime in late 2005 that he was going to produce this as part of his dissertation, and in fact he and I would touch bases occasionally on some point related to our respective research. I occasionally reminded Brian that there was competition in the wings, by way of trying to inject some urgency in the publishing timeline, but Brian was perpetually unconcerned. I however regarded Ken’s announcement of publication as effectively a commercial death knell for my own translation. In late October and early November 2009 I emailed Brian suggesting that we give up on publication as no longer commercially viable, and proposing that we dissolve our contract. I got no response to these emails. When I finally succeeded in reaching him by phone, in early December 2009, he claimed to have never read them.

In that same conversation, to my great surprise, he claimed to have emailed me the layout of my book to proof at some point. I had received nothing of the sort. Whether or not he had actually tried to is something I can’t answer, since if he had tried to email me a 54 Mb attachment it would have bounced. At any rate, he promised to mail me a CD of the files in question, which finally arrived about three weeks later, at the very end of December 2009. He instructed me to proofread them as soon as possible, as he had a position in the queue of a printer in Hong Kong.

And that should have, at long last, led to me being a published author with Chivalry Bookshelf, for good or ill. However, upon proofreading the files Brian sent me, I immediately noticed that something was very wrong. He had in fact laid out a version of the translation that I had sent him back in 2006, i.e. the pre-editing version that I sent out to him and other reviewers for initial comments and suggestions. Or, if you like, the rough draft. We exchanged a flurry of email on this topic on December 29th and 30th of 2009 (via his same email address of which he claimed on this thread: “the brian@chivalrybookshelf.com email has not worked since 2008”). At that time I re-sent him the correct final versions of the files of my book that he should have laid out and apparently misplaced. That was the last I ever heard from Brian, in any medium, ever, to this very day.

Which brings us to the present day. I saw a crossposting to this thread, where I read Brian’s statement “there will be no further Bookshelf titles except for my own”. This is not surprising per se, but it is news to me. To be explicit, I don’t know when Brian decided that he wasn’t going to publish my book, but he hasn’t bothered to inform me of this. Insofar as I’m concerned, this displays all the tact and courage of letting your spouse find out you’re seeking a divorce solely by announcing it on Facebook.

Accordingly, I decided to take him up on his offer: “If authors want the rights to their books, as we have already returned to David Lindholm, then they should contact me directly for a negotiation.” On February 26th, 2011 I sent a registered letter to Brian, return receipt requested, suggesting once again the dissolution of our contract. I have yet to receive a receipt indicating that he has accepted the letter. I emailed him at his allegedly non-working chivalrybookshelf.com address on March 14th, 2011, and then at his chronique_editor address on March 17th, 2011 to inform him of the same. I have tried calling him several times during this period (since “Our phone numbers have not changed in 10 years. Email is *not* a reliable channel for critical messaging”) but no one has picked up the phone. It is consequently difficult for me to regard his offer as sincere, given that Brian seems to be making it nearly impossible for me to contact him for a negotiation.

So there we have it. I am not a party to the lawsuit proceeding against him, as he has not deprived me of any funds. There are no royalties to be paid to me, since there has been no publication of my work, despite years of good faith efforts and patience on my part. What I have lost is countless hours of work (as have my reviewers to a lesser extent), as well as suffered years of frustration, and witnessed the likely diminution if not complete loss of a viable market for this project, in consequence of his editorial incompetence. I have no delusions about the financial rewards to be reaped by taking this project to a different publisher at this point. Nonetheless I had hoped to hear from him directly that there would be formal closure to this protracted and fruitless charade.

I have given Brian far more than adequate opportunities and time to either bring my book to press or admit to me that he won’t. He apparently cannot bring himself to do either, nor muster the courage even to respond to the very attempt(s) to contact him that he himself solicited. Yet he has pulled his head out of the sand long enough to admit to the general public in this forum that he is done with publishing others’ works. For my part, I have chosen to respond by adding to the multitude of voices cautioning against the consequences of trying to do business with Brian Price.

Jherek Swanger

Blaine de Navarre · Post by **Blaine de Navarre** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 2:04 pm

Welcome to the Archive, Jherek! Bummer it had to be under such unpleasant circumstances, but good to have you here anyway.

I've been perusing some of your translations online. Thanks for all tha hard work, and for making so much available online.

jswanger · Post by **jswanger** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 2:21 pm

Thanks-- I'm glad that the things I put online got read, at least... the readability varies with the vintage, but at least the earlier stuff I translated managed to reach some interested parties.

Hey, I just autogoogled. My book is listed (as "not available") with Barnes & Noble: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Geomet ... 1891448485
with a February 2010 publication date. Ha. It's listed as 298 pages. That doesn't sound unreasonable. I did mention that there was a bit of effort put into it.

Pace,

Jherek

Vitus von Atzinger · Post by **Vitus von Atzinger** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 2:22 pm

I just can't believe that this hole just keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper. WTF is WRONG WITH THIS GUY?

jswanger · Post by **jswanger** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 2:27 pm

Blimey. At closer glance, that title listed on B&N is in error. "Tratto" is an Italian word, but it's not the right Italian word. I assure you that I did not translate the "Stroke of the Science of Weapons". Good one, Brian.

Jherek

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 2:56 pm

jswanger wrote:Blimey. At closer glance, that title listed on B&N is in error. "Tratto" is an Italian word, but it's not the right Italian word. I assure you that I did not translate the "Stroke of the Science of Weapons". Good one, Brian.

Jherek

tratto
1. past participle vedere trarre
2. masculine di spazio, tempo stretch; di penna stroke; (linea) line; a un tratto all of a sudden; tratti plural (lineamenti) features; a tratti at intervals

In retrospect it's not really all that funny, just sad.

Lady Charlotte · Post by **Lady Charlotte** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 11:47 am

Hello, All,

As recently as yesterday morning I'd thought that after 22+ pages and then-nearly 800 posts made to this thread nothing more could possibly be revealed about "The Continuing Misadventures of Brian R. Price" that could send my lower jaw crashing into my keyboard -- yet again -- but, silly me, I was wrong, wrong wrong!

I looked in at this thread over lunch yesterday and bruised my chin once more as I read Talbot's post quoting Kristi Charron:

Talbot wrote:Kristi Charron, wife of author Bob Charron asked me to post this because she does not have an AA account.

"Did you know that many folks pre-paid for Bob's translation [of Fiore], even though we had never had an agreed on date of publishing, and that Brian got the book put on Amazon for preorder (and if you search for Bob's name, you will see it is still there!)...Bob was accosted by folks wanting to know when his book was coming out, and that is how we found out that people had prepaid Brian! Yikes."

http://www.amazon.com/Italian-Medieval- ... 693&sr=8-1

Taking deposits from customers to "pre-order" a book and then never publishing it?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

"Yikes," indeed!

The current version of the Amazon page claims that the book is "Out of Print," so I took another trip down memory lane with the Wayback Machine, which showed both Italian Medieval Swordsmanship Vols I & II listed on the Chivalry Bookshelf "Forthcoming Titles" page as of July 28, 2003, although neither was offered, as yet, for "pre-order." However, a book entitled Chivalrous Conqueror: Chandos Heralds Biography of the Black Prince was offered for "pre-order" at $24.95, $3.00 less than the "List price" of $27.05, and the never-published Masters of SCA Combat Vol. 1 - Paul Porter, AKA Paul of Bellatrix is offered for $15.95.

The Wayback Machine doesn't seem to have taken another snapshot of the "Forthcoming Titles" page till February 24, 2007, by which time both volumes of Italian Medieval Swordsmanship seem to have disappeared, but nearly four years later, "Chivalrous Conqueror: Chandos Heralds Biography of the Black Prince is still being offered for "pre-order" at $24.95, still $3.00 below the "List price" of $27.05, and the Masters of SCA Combat Vol. 1 - Paul Porter, AKA Paul of Bellatrix was still being offered for $15.95, but now with "Free shipping."

The most recent snapshot of the Forthcoming Titles page currently available on the Wayback Machine was taken on December 25, 2008 and shows Masters of SCA Combat Vol 1 still available for $15.95 with "free shipping" and "Chivalrous Conqueror: Chandos Heralds Biography of the Black Prince still being offered for "pre-order" at $24.95. Books in Print indicates that neither was ever published.

As I viewed these snapshots of the Chivalry Bookshelf "Forthcoming Titles" page, three words scrolled repeatedly through my tiny little mind in a continuous foot-high, neon-flashing banner: internet consumer fraud!?!?!?!?!?! Did anything like that happen to anyone else here?

What happened to the "pre-payments" customers made for these never-published "pre-ordered" books? Does anyone know? If Mrs. Charron is still reading this thread, can she let folks know what happened with the pre-payments of the people who'd accosted her husband about his book?

This latest development -- as well as what happened to Jherek -- utterly boggles my mind.

Jherek, I'm so sorry about what happened to you, too!

Lady Charlotte, off to glance at the Federal Trade Commission's consumer protection guidance pages...

Galleron · Post by **Galleron** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 2:55 pm

The following was just posted as a comment to my blog:

FYI - Chiv. Bookshelf and Brian no longer hold any right to sell copies of John Michael Greers translation of Thibault. All rights have been returned to Mr. Greer and business relations have been terminated.

Jeff Richardson - on behalf of John Michael Greer

"The Sword in Two Hands by Brian Price" review wan

From Stephen Hand