Elizabeth Bear: January 2015 Archives

Yes. I've seen the Lars Andersen archery video*. Everybody can stop sending me links to it now.

Speaking as a mediocre archer in my own right, and as somebody who's written three novels with a Mongol archer as a protagonist and done a fair amount of research on the subject of worldwide bow techniques...

That guy's a really good marketer.

But he's not actually doing anything we didn't already know about, he's not shooting in a manner that would be at all effective in combat or for the historically more common purpose of feeding his family, and his quiver-handling skills are worthy of the "before" segment of an infomercial.

I'd like to see him cut a sandwich with a regular knife! It might result in an explosion.

Here's the thing. He's basically misrepresenting a bunch of well-known techniques in non-Western-European archery as his own invention or "rediscovery" (bonus cultural appropriation!), and into the bargain, he's not actually putting any strength into that bow of his.

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This page is an archive of recent entries written by Elizabeth Bear in January 2015.

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