The Kingfisher-Hawk showdown and academic literature

Portal Admin

June 18, 2025

[SCICOMM]

Marine disputes and legal complexities have long plagued the world’s peace and stability. Most serious academic discourses concerning marine security issues and legal disputes prepare the readers for the hard-to-swallow piece of writing with a rather “intimidating” tone.

Nonetheless, the book review of Maritime Security Law in Hybrid Warfare [1] to appear in The International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law by Dr HKT Nguyen [2] is unlike the majority of other serious discussions as far as lingual presentation is concerned. The first page of the article is shown below.

Reading this paper, we do not have to swallow fearsome messages or descriptions/predictions that send chills down our spines. The author uses the metaphoric showdown between Kingfisher and Hawk, quoting Wild Wise Weird [3], to set the tone for the whole discussion that follows.



Photo: The first page of the review article [2] with a quote at the beginning.


It is fair to say that this very beginning makes the article appear more readable, and might even prompt a passerby to dive into the content that may have been omitted otherwise.

To our community, this particular article also helps render the fiction [3-4] a whole lot more “quotable”.

References

[1] Lott A. (Ed.). (2024). Maritime Security Law in Hybrid Warfare. https://books.google.com/books?&id=a0kaEQAAQBAJ

[2] Nguyen HKT. (2025). Maritime Security Law in Hybrid Warfare, edited by Alexander Lott. The International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law. https://doi.org/10.1163/15718085-bja10240

[3] Vuong QH. (2025). Wild Wise Weird. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BG2NNHY6

[4] Tran TT. (2025). Flying Beyond Didacticism: The Creative Environmental Vision of ‘Wild Wise Weird’. https://youngvoicesofscience.org/?p=1963