Music Blog: Celebration edition

Fierce readers, I'd like to thank everyone for making the first thirteen months of this blog an enjoyable work. Yes, it is work. But it's been good, and the numbers I'm seeing are reflective of that. So, I'd like to announce my new monthly pageview high, hit in December: 9008.

This calls for a little celebration:

What's that, fierce reader? Yes, you're right I did just get the numbers for January(silly blogger day). Let's see...





Ah, yes. Here we go. Well, that didn't last long. January yielded a slight increase. Yep. January had a total of 11, 204 pageviews. Guess we have to turn up the music a notch.

Ok. Time for one more, then I gotta kick you all out. I got work in the morning.

Thanks again for a great first 13 months.

When you play Social Justice, the world loses.

Injustice Quick Reviews 2.1

Cower not, fierce reader! Yes, I'm going to version these by year. We have another fine selection of books for you to be engulfed in. Let us peruse the collection before us.


Maxwell Saga, books 2-5, by Peter Grant- Yes, I'm lumping them all together. The quality is consistent, and the story keeps flowing throughout, with gaps in time that let us see the next moments of import in Steve Maxwell's journey. Major crime: It's a military story with an awareness of national and racial prejudice and insularity, showing its good and bad points. 8 of 10 fell deeds

The Cinder Witch by Morgon Newquist- Morgon continues her magic school stories, and tells us a nice twist on the Cinderella story. The protagonists both grow through this story, and the relationship continues to build. Major crime: Healing involves facing and moving beyond the past. 7 of 10 fell deeds

  Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs- I read the John Carter books over a decade ago, and still I miss the local used bookstore that had old pulp galore. I had not, however read any of this series. I am completely amazed. Yes, even after reading Tarzan, John Carter, and some others of his, ERB still blows me away. Waiting for the movie, now. Major crime: It's by a dead white guy, who loved masculinity and femininity. 10 of 10 fell deeds. Yeah, I think it's that good.

Til Death: Second Impressions by Jason Anspach- Another mixture of semi-hard boiled detective and ghosts and spies. Solid storytelling that helps confirm why Nick Cole is working with him.  Major crime: More commie punching fun. 7 of 10 fell deeds.
 
A Place Outside the Wild by Daniel Humphreys- Mr. Humphreys provided me with a copy of this, and I'm glad he did. Most zombie stories I've encountered do try to do something unique with it's zombies, and while this has an interesting and frightening take, that's not the best part of the book. This book purposely has what other zombie books I've encountered lack: a sense of existential hope. That is, a communal hope, rather than a purposeful individual hope, or  worse, lack of hope. Religion plays a welcome role in this story, if incomplete due to the perspective characters' parts in the community and story.  Currently, Mr. Humphreys is in a clear shot at my Dragon Award postapocalyptic nomination. Sorry, Nick Cole, you've got your work cut out for you. 9 of 10 fell deeds

When you play Social Justice, the world loses.

The Chicago Question

As a resident of the most corrupt state in the union, I feel the urge to rant a bit concerning that place.  The rates of shootings and homicides have skyrocketed for over a year, to the point where a weekend with 34 deaths is considered SLOW, and will rarely gain mention within non-local news.

The mayor and the ACLU have shackled the police with enough paperwork that even a routine traffic stop generates hours of work. There are neighborhoods where the police are reluctant to go without backup.

In addition to this, Chicago regularly exports its criminal element to the rest of the state, creating problem areas in small cities throughout. Not to mention the drain of the state coffers the city is and remains. For some reason, many people seem to think that Chicago is amazing, and nothing happens anywhere else.

The President has found it appropriate to give an ultimatum to the mayor of Chicago within his first week: get the homicides taken care of, or I'll send in the National Guard. I personally wouldn't waste the Guard on Chicongo. In addition to its impressive murder rates, for nearly a century Chicago has been home to rampant voter fraud. The joke is so common and old that it isn't even up for debate. With the influx of refugees and illegal immigrants, Chicago has become even worse in all these aspects.

Illinois needs a drastic solution. Every now and then, lawmakers propose making a second state along some lines, usually an arc around Chicago, with creative one extending up to and around Milwaukee, ridding two states of parasitical gorilla cities that drain the resources of the rest of the populace. I personally think these measures don't go far enough.

We need to stop Chicago from polluting the rest of the state with its poisonous brand of identity politics, and exporting the proponents thereof. Certainly, the universities within the state also pollute the state, as do the public schools. But Chicago remains the largest source of poison to the state.

We need a wall. Yeah, a big wall with guard towers. Perhaps some sea mines to prevent maritime escape. Shut down the highways and airports. How do we fund this? By making it a reality show, preferably produced by John Carpenter and hosted by Kurt Russell. I here and now ask for President Trump to start taking steps to making Escape from Chicago a reality. The ratings would be YUGE.

 When you play Social Justice, the world loses.




Yes, I'm somewhat joking. But not entirely.

Some Musings and News

This is going to be a fairly short post, and I hope to have a book review up later this week. But, I will try to cover a few things here that may have passed below folks' radar.

First, I recently started listening to my friend JimFear138's podcast. He's a part of the Appendix N crowd, and likewise, has very strong opinions. I have found his podcasts to be entertaining thus far, as well as having good talking points. I will say he does curse on occasion, but it's his house, his rules. He is also breaking into audiobooks, and recently landed a fairly large project, so congratulations are in order.

Second, earlier today, Vox Day stated his suspicion that a major player is going to be coming into ebooks soon to challenge Amazon on their own level. Also, Macmillan launched something called Pronoun for ebook distribution; everyone that's looked at this thinks the business model is going to lose them more money. They could just expand Tor if they wanted to do that.  This in addition to looking at the collapse that is happening at Barnes and Noble.

However, Vox's most interesting piece doled out was this:

Yeah. those are pages in the works of a graphic novel of Quantum Mortis. This is EXCELLENT news. First, it shows that Vox is willing to work with a format that personally doesn't interest him (He's stated his lack of care about the Graphic Story Hugo category in the past.). Second, if this does well, this will open up the possibility for some other CH works to be adapted.  While I wouldn't want all of the catalog done so, Mr. Wright's Moth and Cobweb would be ideal, and The Missionaries and Brings the Lightning would also work(Don't believe in Western Comics?). This also would potentially open a possibility for working with Mr. Chuck Dixon, which I would welcome with no reservation.

Lastly, L. Jagi Lamplighter is trying to put together a list of Superversive SF. If you have any suggestions, or want some of what to read, go over and check it out. Of course, my reviews should keep most of those that stop by pretty busy, but I'm also mostly focused on newer material.

Speaking of, I'll be shifting that within my Quick Reviews this year slightly. I'm going to try to have one Appendix N or similar book in each of those. More of trying to balance my reading  than anything else. OK, I really wanted to read more Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard. Still better stuff than most of the current tradpub schedule.

Well, I thought it was going to be shorter.

When you play Social Justice, the world loses.

Thoughts regarding YA fiction

Declan Finn tagged me online yesterday, wanting to start a more serious discussion of what is YA (young adult) fiction. Now, I can see his concern, as he originally wrote Honor at Stake for that age/audience. Like Mr. Finn, I can't really say I like that type of labeling much, as it is largely an excuse to legitimize marketing departments at publishers and bookstores, as well as confer authority on librarians that may or may not know the content of the books therein.

Largely what happened in the facebook discussion was personal anecdotes of personal reading habits. There were also some mentions of books getting recategorized, such as the Pern novels, and YA novels now include such things as sex, prolific cursing, rape, and of course, SJW brainwashing.

I find I must once again weep for how far we have as a nation fallen is such a short time.

In my opinion, the only reason for including sex and rape in books intended for teens is the normalization of pedophilia. I've seen from some writers who do not employ such wretched content that their fan letters are largely from adult men. To push such content within the "genre" amounts to the equivalent of  pedophile erotica, at least in part.

Like Declan, I would prefer if the age categories involved reflected the vocabulary level of the books. Of course, this is too much to expect when we have college students engaging in remedial English courses and finding the vocabulary of a modern Bible translation(NAB, I believe) too complex for them. As we are granting diplomas from both high school and college to the functionally illiterate, if not the actually illiterate, I have little hope for a proper standard in that regard.

Looking at science fiction, the high point historically for what is now termed "young adult" would likely be the juveniles of Robert Heinlein. In modern sff we have some options of quality including Rod Walker(Mutiny in Space, Alien Game) and John C. Wright(Moth and Cobweb), to name two luminaries in the field. These do have in common a protagonist of similar or slightly older age to the intended audience, a lack of sex(while not ignoring romance), and plenty of action.

As to the question of Declan's Love at First Bite series being YA, I honestly don't know or care. Had I a child of 13 or so, I certainly wouldn't mind them reading these novels. The characters and story would open up plenty of possibilities to discuss theology, guilt, proper self image(morally), and the complicated nature of love and affection.

The best response I would give to a parent is read before they do. The best answer I have to Declan is, I don't see why not. In response to current publishers' marketing, I'd like to remove their workplace from existence, so they have to encounter reality.

When you play Social Justice, the world loses.

Injustice Anthology Review: Freedom's Light

Cower not, fierce reader! This day we have another anthology. Marina Fontaine sent me a copy of this AFTER I reviewed Forbidden Thoughts, so she knew what was possible. Happily, we don't have the hard duty today. I'm not going to go through every story this time. Instead, I'll continue in broad strokes about the anthology, with a few specific references.

This is not a science fiction or fantasy anthology. This is, instead, a FREEDOM anthology. There's historical fiction, science fiction, and what might be literary fiction.  One thing that I thought was interesting was the inclusion of Story Synopses at the beginning.  It was irrelevant to my reading, so I skipped it, but I could see it being useful for someone wanting a particular feel of story.

The historical fiction is honestly great. We open with one of those, and it's got some history I was unfamiliar with. The others are all fine, and each stands out on its own.

The science fiction is more along the dystopian future settings, but each one is different. The number and stylings of these may tire some, but I think  there's plenty of variety myself. Marina Fontaine gave us another glimpse into the world of Chasing Freedom, which is welcome. 

Brad Torgersen sent in a tale that may be from someone he knows, or patched together like a Solzenitsyn novel, where the details all happened, but not altogether, and in several places. Nick Cole also gives us a bit of military fiction, albeit more of a over the top, and feels a bit like a military Monty Python skit.

I am truly pleased that we have an anthology that doesn't have a disappointing story. While some felt less strong to me, none of these displeased. I am happy to give a solid recommendation for this anthology. 8 of 10 fell deeds

Hugo Musings, and the Dragon

First, let's talk about the Dragon Award. I'm not putting anything up soon, as the nomination period ENDS on 7/24, with the eligibility period ending on 6/30. It is therefore, WAY TOO SOON to discuss the works for the award this year. I wish to be sure of my nominations, and not regret the choices I make. Yes, I have some favorites right now, but those are EARLY favorites. So, let's wait on the Dragon a bit.

Now, as far as my personal Hugo recommendations, I'm going to make some serious suggestions about one category: GRAPHIC STORY. The Sad and Rabid Puppy campaigns have all but ignored it.

I understand, not everyone likes the media of comic book/webcomic, but there are those that see it as more versatile than almost any other. It has the possibilities for narrative strength that text only stories do, and is actually MORE flexible than movies, through the ability to play with panels in unexpected ways, well past the splash page.

So, without further delay:

James Bond- Vargr by Warren Ellis (writer), Jason Masters and Dom Reardon (Artists),  Dynamite Entertainment.This is the best Bond movie you've never seen. And considerably better than some you have.

Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers by Joe Casey(writer) and Nathan Fox(artist), Dynamite Entertainment. Wonderfully mishmashed sff adventure that very much has an appendix N feel. Characters created by Jack Kirby.

Clinton Cash by Chuck Dixon(writer) and Brett R. Smith(artist), Regnery Publishing. Adaptation of Peter Schwiezer's book. Heads asplodey.

Twilight Children by Gilbert Hernandez(writer) and Darwin Cooke(artist), Vertigo comics. Great bit of paranomal and paranoia. This makes me wish David Lynch wrote comics.

Invisible Republic vol 2 by Gabriel Hardman and Corinna Bechko, Image Comics. Still a great SF story of political fallout after a regime fall. Secret histories and conspiracies abound.

Now to another category to discuss. Last year we saw the rise of the Castalia House Blog, and Jeffro Johnson, Morgon, and others as fan writers. This year, that field has opened up more with the additions of Jon Mollison, Hooc Ott, Nathan Housley, and more, including myself. I will recuse myself from making any recommendations on this category, and there's a DEEP field to choose from.

When you play Social Justice, the world loses.