The Mind of the Maker

When I first started discussing the plot, I mentioned a few times that the reader should trust no one while reading A Pius Man.

Obviously, there are some reactions that go somewhere along the lines of “What the hell....?  What do you mean we shouldn't trust anyone?  Who's the main character?”

Christopher Reich once noted that, in a thriller, the reader should always be prepared for anyone to “get it in the neck” at any possible moment, from any possible angle—including behind you.

I started writing in 1998, before there was a television show called 24, where the only one you trust is Jack Bauer. Back then, there was an author named Jeffery Deaver, whose writing style led you to trust everyone... and then stabs you in the back so firmly, the knife blade jams there. Sometimes the killer that Deaver shows you isn't the killer you have to be wary of; usually the shadowy looking figure who lurks in the background and mysteriously disappears turns out to be something different from what you expect (a victim, a cop, an ally that no one knew they had).

It's actually a tradition that goes back to murder mysteries. Agatha Christie has had as murderer: the detective, the narrator, the sidekick, a corpse, and everyone; in And Then There Were None, I don't even think she really had a main character. There are “police procedurals” where the murderer is someone who was never introduced in the novel, and the last page is filing a warrant for his arrest.

I didn't intend to go to either extreme when I first started—and I don't think the "trust no one" paranoia lasts TOO long. Obviously, there will be people readers can trust during the book... eventually. By page 50 or so, every reader will probably make a decision on who to focus on as “the hero(ine).” And every reader will decide when and who in the story they think is the hero.

It's easy to look at Papal Security Commander Giovanni Figlia and decide that he's a great lead: he's got a wife, two children, a long, established career. And then to look at the “security consultant” Sean Ryan and decide that this guy's nuts: a mercenary who talks about the people he kills with no sign of remorse, puts body counts on his resume, and seems to like what he does far too much. What one does with a Pope that's to the right of Attila the Hun probably depends on one's political leanings.

Funny enough, when I started writing the novel, I simply wanted it clear that trusting someone implicitly was not a good idea. The more characters who slipped their way into the book, the more paranoid it started to seem. Writing Sean Ryan from the point of view of someone who knew nothing about him made him look like a future mass murderer. Seeing a priest with SEAL-level training seems sinister. The more they showed to the reader, the more each of them looked like they could be great suspect material.

In the first draft, the whole book spiraled out of control due to that.

Yes, you read that right, my characters nearly took the book away from me.

There are some authors who have described writing as either schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder. If an author does the job well, the characters you read should feel real to you. In some cases, that's because the author has so well fleshed out the character, the character is alive, and can often make moves that surprise the author. Author Dorothy Lee Sayers wrote an entire book on the subject, using insight as a writer to look at creating worlds from the viewpoint of God—if you ever thought that writers were megalomaniacs, well...in their own little worlds, they are god.

I can only hope that any actual deity finds life far less frustrating than trying to tame characters.

In the original draft, when it was one book and not a trilogy, I had started with a plan of: dead body → conspiracy → stopping conspirators. Simple, straightforward, and very basic.

Enter characters who don't know their place.

My villain had a very well thought out plan. In fact, it was so well thought out, nearly everything the protagonists did only served as speed bumps. Unlike some villains I had used in previous manuscripts, this guy would simply not be a good little psychopath and stay down. I did everything but drop a house on this guy—and in one manuscript, I imploded a building with him in it—but he kept finding ways around it. I considered having someone kill him up close and personal, but every fight I came up with ended in a draw.

So, I let the story play out so I could see what it took to stop this guy.... 200,000 words later, I found out.

The story became: dead body → conspiracy → stopping conspirators' gunmen → fallout → conspiracy contingency plan A → stop that plan → fallout → contingency plan continues with slight modification → help, we're going to die → let's go down fighting → fallout.

So, because of one highly obnoxious character, instead of having a simple novel that was completely contained in Rome, A Pius Man becomes a world-spanning trilogy that all starts because one man found something he shouldn't have, and ends with a recreation of Thermopylae, with claymore mines.

The next time you see a line noting the paranoia in the book, you can at least understand where it comes from. It comes from the same place as an antagonist who just won't die no matter how hard I try to ram a stake through his heart. It comes from fairly strong characters who are, in some cases, slightly more crazy than the author.

So, does it look fun enough yet? Just click here, and you can preorder it from the publisher for deep discounts..

Or go to Amazon.

And, if you've done that....

The Dragon Awards are open and ready for nominations, and I have a list of suggestions you might want to take a look at. If you already  have a good idea of what you want, just click here to go and vote for them. The instructions are right there.

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Building Character: Scott "Mossad" Murphy

By the time this blog posts, I should be on the road once more, on my way to LibertyCon. But since we're still a little under a week out from the release of A Pius Man: A Holy Thriller, I thought it would be a good idea to bring this up again.


Scott "Mossad" Murphy started in 2002, when my father and I were at a family party -- they were boring people, and we didn't know anyone, and I come by my antisocial qualities honestly. We were having a discussion on a few different topics, and came up with two concepts. The first were the Kraft brothers, best known as showing up in the Love at First Bite series. They were "Merle" "Dalf" and "Tal" Kraft.

The other was Scott Murphy.

Scott, you see, was born of a news item that had waves of Evangelical Christians flooding into Israel, post-9/11. But what if someone else had decided to come to Israel, not for political reasons, but for revenge? He wanted to hunt terrorists. To hurt terrorists. And Israel, as far as he could tell, did that 24/7. If the jihadist scum could have Jon "Taliban" Walker, he could be Scott "Mossad" Murphy.

When I wrote A Pius Man originally, in 2004, Scott seemed to be a perfect fit for the role. He'd already guest starred in another book series -- one I haven't published yet, sorry, I've been busy -- and I had a good grasp on his character.

Obviously, over time, I had to shift things. The image above, for example, of Scott's Mossad file, has him being born in 1982. This would put him in his 30s. I'm thinking that's a little old, considering what happens over the course of the novels. Thus, one of the things I had to change about Scott was his age. Also, please consider that things that were high-tech at the time could now be gotten as an app on the iPhone. So, while I was updating things, might as well reboot him a little in the drafts. His origin, as time went on, went from seeing 9/11 happen while he was in college and wanting payback, to having grown up with a plan to hunt these f**kers down and killing them. He became a little darker as time went on -- then again, so did I.

To quote Isaac Asimov, beware the wrath of a patient man.

Murphy is very patient.

It helps that I essentially wrote a short biography for Scott, like I have for all of my other characters. The character becomes alive in my head, and all I need to do is drop him into a situation and let him play.


Though it wasn't until I started writing short stories for Scott that I realized how much of a stiff he really was. But, then again, I don't know too many party animals who essentially dedicate their lives to revenge, and decide that the best method is to become a weaponized accountant when they grow up.

Yes, weaponized accountant. And I mean stealing money from terrorists, not necessarily the Ben Affleck film, The Accountant (which is, much to my own surprise, a really good movie, you should check it out.

Of course, after I wrote the program for Scott -- his bio -- dropping him into the situation just went sideways. He didn't fit in anywhere in Israel, even his own office, he usually kills or arrests most of the people he spent weeks or months with. At that attrition rate, it's hard to keep a long term friendship going. And he's a goy in the middle of Mossad ... who's dating him? Who's socializing with him?

Yes, when you're a spy, you can have plenty of friends, as long as you don't talk about work. But what do you do when you're entire life revolves around methods and operations, dates and locations? There isn't a lot to talk about that isn't already classified.

And then I started considering how much the character of Scott Murphy fit with the end product in the novel.  Despite all of the new things I discovered about his character, and the more his past has developed in front of me, the puzzle pieces of his life still fit together.

I've worked on this so long
I actually made this for MySpace.
Think about that.

Of course, parts of this were me working backwards from the end result. The Scott Murphy of my novel is smart enough to never need a gun, avoid every firefight, and plan in such a way that his plans are the weapon. So why shouldn't he have skipped a year or two of school? And if you're a workaholic, who had finished college courses in high school, college is not that difficult with a full courseload during every possible session. And being a workaholic is a good survival trait—the harder he works, the faster he could get out into the real world. Why? Because Scott had never been described as “attractive” in any physical sense, so he's isolated by looks, by youth, and by intellect (I know something about two out of three of them); the real world had more options for him than school. The faster he went through school and started reality, the better.

So, making him younger fit in with the character. He was able to join Mossad after 9-11 to become the first member of the Goyim Brigade, and still stay in his twenties by the time A Pius Man happens.

By the time of A Pius Man, Scott Murphy will have been a spy for years. He is isolated from the outside world by being a spy. He's isolated from the Mossad community by being a goy. His work will be his life.

And then, one day he gets called to Rome … And then the fun starts.

Just click here, and you can porder A Pius Man: A Holy Thriller.

Or from Amazon.

And, if you've done that....

The Dragon Awards are open and ready for nominations, and I have a list of suggestions you might want to take a look at. If you already  have a good idea of what you want, just click here to go and vote for them. The instructions are right there.

Or: sign up for my mailing list in order to get free stuff.

The Love at First Bite series. 

    

Pius Writing

Over the years on this blog, I've talked a lot about how A Pius Man came about, and I've muttered about some of my research on it. I've talked about the characters, and their biographies, and their progress from being a biography to being a real person I play with in my head.

I don't think I've ever mentioned my thought process behind the evolution of the novel.

You see, once upon a time, I considered writing a murder mystery in the Vatican. I made the head of security an Irish redhead who had family with the IRA. I was going to murder a bishop or a Cardinal or something like that. I had a Hispanic Pope named Hector (I don't recall the Papal name), and a few other loose elements kicking around. I may have had a whole page of notes.

Obviously, when I started on A Pius Man, that project went the way of the dodo.

However, one thing that stuck was it was going to be a mystery. I wanted everyone to be under suspicion. I wanted everyone to look dark and sinister, and let the reader decide who to trust, and when they could be trusted. I wanted to cheat, like Agatha Christie, and make even the investigators look like they could be in on the plot.

I wanted it look, at first glance, like every other knock off of that idiot that shall not be named.

Not that anyone would know who that is.

**COUGH** **COUGH**

Basically, I wanted it to look like X. Because, hey, if it looks like X, X is a proven formula. X is harmless. X is status quo.

A Pius Man is at once both subversive and superversive. Superversive in content, but I totally intend to subvert the status quo of X stories.

Obviously, as the first 4-5 chapters are released, you're going to have to tell me how much I managed to make A Pius Man look like the stories we've all come to know and loathe, before the story kicks into high gear and becomes a knock-down drag-out thriller.

And of course, as I've mentioned before on this blog, it spiraled. Mostly because one son of a bitch just wouldn't die.

Again, what I intend may not be what you see, but then again, I'm the idiot who thought that Honor at Stake was a light, fluffy throwaway book. So I'm not the best judge of character.

But you are. Tell me what you think when you read it.

So, look interesting enough yet? Just click here, and you can preorder it directly from the publisher at deep discounts. A dollar for the e-book half off for the paperback..

And, if you've done that....

The Dragon Awards are open and ready for nominations, and I have a list of suggestions you might want to take a look at. If you already  have a good idea of what you want, just click here to go and vote for them. The instructions are right there.

Or: sign up for my mailing list in order to get free stuff.

The Love at First Bite series. 

    

The Complete Works of Declan Finn

Yes, I'm still heading for Atlanta. I still have a blog to do.

You know, it's occurred to me that I should probably so something really strange .... and have a blog post that actually collects, you know, my books.

Yes, I know, I'm slow.

I'm going to be putting these together in order, sort of. Mostly in chronological by story. Most of these books are not really that tightly interwoven. For example, It Was Only on Stun! marks the first appearance of Sean A.P. Ryan, but you don't need to read it in order to understand The Pius Trilogy. Technically, you don't even need it to understand Set To Kill when that comes out.

Granted, I want you to buy all of them, but I'm not going to force it.

It Was Only On Stun!

This one, everyone knows. Why? Because it's "murder mystery at a science fiction convention." I won't say it's typical at all, because, well, this one has terrorists, assassins, and a psychotic who thinks he's an elf.

Or is he?

A Pius Man: A Holy Thriller                                        A Pius Legacy: A Political Thriller 

A Pius Man: A Holy Thriller          

A Pius Legacy: A Political Thriller 

A Pius Stand: A Global Thriller

A Pius Stand: A Global Thriller

You've seen every Dan Brown knockoff in existence. You know, a Mozart conspiracy, or a Michelangelo Pattern, and Daniel Silva, or I don't know, someone else who decides to smash pseudo-history together with "high technology" MacGuffins. 

Granted, Dan Brown is actually a knockoff of James Rollins, who had been putting theoretical science together with mysteries of history well before Brown's train wreck of a series.

The Pius Trilogy is pretty much where I started in the general insanity of my writing career. Stun! came first, but Pius is what I was passionate about for years. It ate a decade of my life, and if you don't believe, me, I can tell you I went through two agents just getting there.

You want history? We got history.

You want a culture war? We fight it with real bullets.

You tired of seeing religion put on trial? See it mount a defense.

Hate lawyers? I think we shoot some.

War on God? God will have none of it. I'm putting the militant in "church militant."

We have an evil Cardinal, a psychotic mercenary, shady priests, a zealous Pope, and everything you think I'm going to do with them, you're wrong.

The follow up anthologies, which are really prequels, are

Pius Origins

Pius Holidays

But, you can get both of them in the complete Pius Tales.

There are some people who might suggest that this comes first before any of the other books. Technically true. All of the stories in these are the result of, well, promotion. I was trying to build up buzz for the Pius trilogy with stories about the characters.  That's how I had....

Sean Ryan vs. the IRA, on twitter .... and versus the meth dealers, on a public street...and in a mall on Black Friday
Scott Murphy, Catholic Mossad Spy, blowing up Bethlehem and Boston.
Jon Koneig, Mafia Enforcer, versus drug lords.
Father Frank Williams .... vs. terrorists on St. Patrick's Day.

Yeah. I had some fun.

Pius History

On the one hand, this is out of order. Other books have come out since then. However, this is the cherry on top of the trilogy. It's the final straw, really. It's all the footnotes, to pretty much everything I used over the course of the entire series.

Because when in doubt, through everything out there, and see what's bought.

Codename Winterborn

The year is 2093. Lt. Kevin Anderson is a spy.

Then everything he knew and loved was blown up by corrupt politicians.

This means war.

Can you tell that I like that song?

Anyway, this doesn't have any connection to the other books. But I enjoyed myself.

Honor At Stake

And, of course, the Sad Puppies and Dragon Award nominated book, Honor at Stake.

If I haven't talked up this book enough lately, I have not done my job.

For All Their Wars Are Merry

Exactly what the title says.

So that's all nine books -- and I'm not counting the pieces and parts of Tales, it's just one book, as far as I'm concerned. I have at least three more that are ready to launch within a matter of weeks. 

Don't worry, I'm not going away any time soon.

Call back blog -- The Mind of the Maker

This post was originally put up over five years ago and yet, this is all still true.

Yes, at the end of the day, characters wander all over the place from where you initially point them. They eventually come back to where you pointed them at the end of the day, but you'd be surprised where they have to ricochet off of to get where you want them to go.

Heck, when I was doing Honor At Stake, I've still got those issues. I had cops and mobsters showing up, when they were never in the book -- not that they weren't planned to take on as big a role as they did, I mean that they were never in the book in the first place.  I had a cop appear at one point because I needed someone to deliver information. He was to never darken my plot ever again.  He wasn't going to be there, period.

By book three, he's got a subplot.

Hell, there is also a mobsters known simply as Enrico, who I based off of Michael Rennie, of The Day the Earth Stood Still, and he was only there so there could be just another bump in the rode. Nope. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just a thing that happens.

Now he's becoming a major player over time. Yeesh.

The fictional people are still taking over my life.

Why I died -- #GamerGate, the Pope, Honor At Stake

So, why was yesterday's post not even a freaking music blog? Because I was dead to the world at that point. Mostly because the last seven days have been ... interesting.

If you didn't hear my radio show on Sunday, the Pope's visit brought out my inner psychosis.

Then again, I've been living in a world where up is down, black is white, and words mean whatever the talking head on television wants them to mean.

I did an article on Examiner.com about How Obama dissed Pope Francis, then expanded on it slightly over over at Catholic Geeks.

Then I talked about how the Pope smacked Obama right back.

Then I explained Vatican standard operating procedure.

Then I banged my head against a wall over how many times the media has lied about the Pope.  This went over so very well, the author John C Wright cited me on his page!  Yay!

As a cure for all of this, I made an article out of a twitter Hashtag: #MakeAMovieCatholic.

Yes, that was the CURE for the insanity. Sad, isn't it?

Anyway, as of now, my sales numbers on Honor at Stake are in flux.  Yes, they're all fluxed up.  I expect that to not get any better this week.  Why?

This guy.

Yup, Jim Butcher just came out with a new book. Enter the 800-pound gorilla.

Of course, I'm one of the people buying said book, so I can't complain too loudly.

Then again, I'm at a point where Amazon is useless for giving me sales numbers, so I have to go by sales  and author rank.  Which is the equivalent of trying to divine my sales by whatever random number Amazon gives me.

And of course on top of that, Honor At Stake isn't just on Amazon, so I might find out that everyone's buying a copy on, say, B&N or some place called Kobo. I'd never know until the check comes in. And no, the check isn't coming in for a while.

However, I have 19 reviews thus far, and I'm told that's a lot, so I must be doing something right.

It's probably not a good plan to beg people to buy the book the same week as Jim Butcher.  Buy Butcher. Because he's Butcher.

If you have any left over cash, then buy my book.

Be well all.

Pope In US, then goes home - Please don't come back

I know this sounds anti-Catholic, but the Pope's visit has been the biggest pain in my neck in I don't know how long.  Not his fault ... but still, damn it, I've had more than enough of this crap.

I mean, good God, the amount of crap people believe about Pope Francis is insane.

Gee, the Pope doesn't hate guns, he meant WMDs (as he condemned before the UN)

If you read the actual transcript from Vatican Information service, -- notice that it does not contain the word "gun" at all. 

If you read the breakdown at the Catholic Geeks, it's spelled out even more that the Pope doesn't like WMDs because he specifically said weapons of genocide.

And to top THAT off, the Pope went to the UN and specifically mentioned WMDs. How much more do people need? How many times does he have to say WMDs before people realize he meant WMDs?

Of course, "The Pope Hates Money. He's a dirty Commie."

Oh for God's sake. the original quote was: "And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called 'the dung of the devil' -- an unfettered pursuit of money." Looks like he meant greed, to me.

Oh yeah, and he talked about how the economy needs reform while he was in Latin America. Considering how many companies who invest in that part of the world plan to pull out in ten years before the government confiscates everything, And oh, look, "people come before profits." I'm shocked, shocked I say.

So, geed, the Pope doesn't hate money, he hates greed, because you know, It's a Deadly Sin.

Does the Pope seem to believe in man-made climate change, and that's annoying, but can't have everything. ...However, he DOES NOT believe in the standard nihilist bullcrap that comes with the usual crowd of fascists. Nor has he supported any of their conclusions (Earth is Gaia and Man Must DIIIIEEEEE!!!!!!)

As for the environment he keeps talking about, though, you might notice something strange. His "environment" talk includes human industry and human ecology as part of nature. Had one listened to his UN speech, his "environment" includes natural law, individual rights, the family. Because that's the only way that his talk of "war hurts the environment" that really makes sense. Toxic waste isn't part of the usual munitions.  But in his UN speech, he noted, gee, war impacts the environment by trampling on humana rights, tears apart families, which are the bedrock of the state.

Come on, human ecology and human industry as part of the environment? That's something even Ayn Rand would approve of -- or so I'm told by fans of Ayn Rand.

And then, some of my favorite right wingers are going off the rails ... though in one case that might not be his fault.

Flashback Blog: Politics of The Pius Trilogy

This came up many, MANY moons ago. Now that I find myself hip-deep in politics all the time, I figure it's time to have this conversation again.




Irony sucks.

In my life, I have written nearly two dozen novels. Science fiction. Hostage novels. Comedy thrillers. Plain old, simple, straightforward shoot-em-up thrillers. One vampire novel. Murder mysteries set at a high school summer camp (title: Summer Death Camp -- now, also coming soon from Damnation Books).

And then there's A Pius Man. It was strange for a number of reasons. It basically took every single character I ever created and threw them together in a sprawling, two-pound, eight hundred page epic. There was theology, philosophy, liberty, love, marriage, death, and a fairly large war somewhere in the middle.

It was also the most political novel I had written.

Seriously, this book was all over the place with political topics. Racism, homosexuality, globalization, secularization, warfare, a just peace, when peace is just another word for surrender, torture, the International Community, terrorism, abortion … you name it, it was in the book.

Here's the irony: I hate politics. Hate 'em to death with a fiery passion. I think it's narrow-minded, more dogmatic than the Vatican, and more hypocritical than Voltaire saying “destroy the Church” on one hand, while taking daily communion in his private chapel.

Look at the list above: racism and homosexuality are political topics? It should be simple: racism bad; who cares who you have sex with, have a nice day. But, no, they must be politicized.

Like I said, I hate politics, and what it does to normal, sane people the moment someone brings it up.

So, of course, when I finally come close to having something published, it's A Pius Man.

Like I said, irony sucks.

Unfortunately, politics are unavoidable when looking at the discussion of Pope Pius XII during the holocaust. [For those of you just tuning in, the “discussion” is summarized here]

No matter what side of the Pius discussion one finds themselves on, politics follows. While not perfectly uniform, the discussion breaks down along political lines.

Leftists take the anti-Pius side, right wingers take the pro-Pius side.

Leftists use it to bash a centralized church with a strong hierarchical structure, with a goal of making the Catholic church like, say, the Unitarians (only a slight exaggeration, depending on which Leftist one is talking about).

On the right, you have a lot of conservative folks who make a case for Pius XII's sainthood.

I know what you're thinking: if this breaks down along political lines, you can tell exactly how the book will end depending on what my personal politics are. What are my politics?

That depends on where the jury is sitting.

TONIGHT ON THE CATHOLIC GEEK: Karina Fabian and Infinite Space Infinite God!

Remember when I took a look at Karina Fabian's Infinite Space Infinite God II? It was an anthology of Catholic Science fiction. It was odd, but fun. Like every anthology I've ever read, it had some hits and misses, but it was overall fun.

Now, tonight, on the Catholic Geek, I have Karina and one of her authors from the original ISIG (and ISIG II) Colleen Drippe.

Tonight, at 7PM, EST, I will have both Colleen and Karina On my radio show.  Keep in mind this link right here will not play anything until that time.

What I will cover, to my chagrin, will be Pope Francis, his global warming encyclical, and his statements on guns. Oy.

Remember, this IS a call-in show. You CAN call in. The number is in the link.

If you are seeing this post AFTER June 28, 2015, at 7:00PM EST, this player below should work

Should being the operative word.

Check Out Culture Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with We Built That Network on BlogTalkRadio

On the Pope: Stop the Stupid

Ever since Pope Francis was elected, I've been told that he's been part of a particular sect called Liberation Theology. It's basically the equivalent of saying that no, the Pope actually isn't Catholic, and that he's going to destory the foundations of the Catholic church.

This week?  I've had that to the tenth power.

I've had to listen to a LOT of bullcrap. For months it's ben "Oh, the Pope is a Godless Commie leftist."  Every other schmuck wants to say the "Sky is Falling!" "Schism!" Death! Doom! Despair! 

And this isn't a political thing, really.  People on the right scream schism. People on the left say "The Pope will bring the downfall of all that's evil about the Catholic church."

What have I been saying?

I've been saying "READ THE ARTICLES IN CONTEXT YOU G**D**N STUPID DUMB F**KS." 

But no, no one wants to read ANYTHING the Pope says, whole and entire. They want Francis to be a dirty commie bastard and screw you if you say different.  They WANT a schism. They WANT the sky to be falling.

Oh look -- this is what the latest encyclical says.

OH MY GOD, he's linked the value of human life to conservation!  He's talking about the value of human life over other animals! Save the whales AND the baby human. There are men, there are women, and there IS NO OPTION C.  The Pope is talking about the stewardship of God's creation, the need to explore ideas and not shackle science to politics.  He's evening telling people that participation isn't Facebook activism!  Wow.

GASP. It's almost like it's in tune with the encyclicals of past popes! I was promised something DIFFERENT!!!!

I'M SHOCKED! SHOCKED I SAY! THE POPE MIGHT ACTUALLY, POSSIBLY, BE CATHOLIC! THE WORLD WILL END! THE WORLD WILL EEENNNNNDDDDDDDDD

Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Enough.

"Oh, the Pope is one of the liberation theology people! He's a Latin American Jesuit! That proves it!"

Oh? Really? Where? How? John Paul II hated Liberation Theology and promoted Francis, so how does this man manage to slip past JPII?  How?  Please, tell me that.  And do it by providing evidence. But no. They can't. They say it's so, and shut up.

I am so freaking DONE with these people, it isn't even funny.

Hell, Larry Correia made a joke about "If you're not happy with the Catholic church being against guns, we'll send some Mormons on bikes your way. We have cookies."  

I damn near leaped down his throat because I've been listening to so much utter bullcrap about Francis, I couldn't even see it as a joke.

Oh, and for the record, THE POPE ISN'T AGAINST GUNS.  Thank you. 

And if you tell me he is, for the love of God, I will stomp on you until the fecal matter that passes for brains come out your ears. 

Yes, I am tired of the stupid. The idiocy.  I am drowning in it.  I am choking on it. The "real" conservatives who know more than I do and are seeing schism everywhere. The "good liberals" who are seeing the Pope put their agenda on the map!

Taking a stand, for the last time.

Last week, I said that A Pius Stand is coming.

It's finally going to be over.

If you've been with this blog since the beginning -- or if you've read "Pius Origins" link on the sidebar -- you know that this started out as a history paper gone amuck. It was a graduate paper in which I examined the truth behind Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust.

SPOILERS FOR A PIUS MAN, but, what I learned from my research was simple. Pius XII did more than any one person to save people in Europe during World War II.  More POWs. More Jews. More refugees. Because life was precious, and if they didn't like it, they could just come and get him.

But if you read any media around Pope Pius XII, you get Hitler's Pope. And Susan Zuccotti. And John Cornwell. And Gary Wills and Michael Phayer. The Wiki page on it has become more balanced, but still incomplete. You don't even want to know what it looked like when I started writing.  All of these great big names trying to spin a story I know to be false, and I spent a whole four months looking at primary documents as a grad student in America. They were journalists and historians. They should have known better.

I don't like liars.

The Pius Trilogy started out as a devotion. One that I tried to make readable for everyone. I wanted the opening to be dark and ominous to trap anti-Catholic to reading on, until they are so hip deep in the book that by the time that the revelation is given, the trap springs shut.

END SPOILERS.

The short version is, this was a devotion.  This was to sing the praises of God and His followers. This was a devotion to the truth, and a war on lies. At the same time, I was making it readable for other people. Heck, one of my friends on Facebook became a friend of mine BECAUSE of A Pius Man, and she's Jewish, I can't make it too much more open and readable than that.

The reason my cast was so big was simple -- I wanted to make it clear that the truth was not some subjective moving target. I needed a doubter, a neutral party, two red herrings, confirmation of the mystery ... well, you'll just have to read it to perform that matching column.

But my premise was that of philosopher Peter Kreeft -- this was an ecumenical jihad, a war against one very specific force of darkness, and one that the religions in A Pius Man could get behind. Because the liars I've been fighting since the beginning all have one thing in common.  What is that thing? Read A Pius Legacy.

But then I couldn't get the Catholic Writer's Guild Seal of Approval for APM. Why? Because the book was too violent, and some poor little dear was squeamish. I know this happened because I had officers of the Guild come up to me and suggested that there needed to be changes in the was the Seal of Approval was handled. Devotion to truth? Devotion to God? Who needs it? I've got a gun-toting Catholic! Run!

Then I had one or two of those officers write positive reviews. I'll take it.

The reason I kept going was that some things needed to be said. Some things needed to be put out there and thrown at people's heads until they either take notice or are bludgeoned to death.  Because the truth is not a game, or a weapon, except against lies. Truth is what happened, and maybe we can speculate about reasons, or about the why of things, and sometimes people will leave a diary detailing what and why they did. Then we hope the poor schmuck isn't a schizophrenic or a pathological liar.

And I kept going because I had to. Because writing is all I have.

This trilogy has been my life for ten years. And now it's time for me to say goodbye.

Catholic news roundup, February, 2012: the War on God

Yes, I'm back.  And, yup, I picked an overly inflammatory title in an attempt to pander to my audience and get readers. So sue me.

Let me see.  To start with, I already covered a large part of this in my Catholic news roundup two weeks ago.  However, guess what -- I made a news roundup into a news post.  So, if you've ever heard of this stupid little thing called an HHS Mandate involving Obamacare, you can read all about it here.

If you want to be amused, and slightly terrified, after months and months of Occupy Wall Street people running roughshod over public places, you will be happy to know that there have finally been arrests of a whole protest movement.  However, they were arrested for praying in front of the white house.

Let's see.... you've probably heard of a really stupid phrase going around lately called "The war on women."  I covered it a little here.  However, I have a take on the precipitating incident you may find interesting.

And, finally, I was allowed to step AWAY from politics.  I covered Fat Tuesday, FAQs about Lent (last year's readers may remember how well that went over), and Karina Fabian has a book she wants you to look at for lent this year.

And, and interesting article inspired by recent stupidity -- Do Catholics Believe in Birth Control?  The answer is ... sort of.

I also discussed the Million-dollar ripoff of the New York archdiocese -- and you thought the priests were the problem. I then did a brief examination of Occupy wall street and the revenge of the Vatican ninjas -- just when you thought you were safe, huh? Then Proposition 8 was overturned -- my only note there is that it might be a little soon to pop the champagne.

Be well all.

The Videos of A Pius Man

Thus far, anyway.

I was wandering through the video section of the APM Facebook page, and I realized that I haven't done a video trailer for ... a while.

If you're relatively new, you've probably never seen any of the trailers.  Unless you're really diligent in spelunking through the FB page, then you've probably come across them.

This is where I've collected the ones done thus far.

This wasn't the first one, but it was a remodeled version of it. I cleaned up the typeface a little, and I think the visuals are spliced together better.

The images are obviously not done by me. Anyone who's found the Vatican Ninja images I've done will notice that.  They're from a lot of books that take one side of the Pope Pius XII argument, such as it is. And, just maybe, a Dan Brown novel.

I'm subtle like that.

And then, then there were the character trailers.
[More below the break]

Impossible Odds: From Masada to Talisman

"Whether it's the Trojan War, the Battle of Thermopylae, or the Last Stand at the Alamo, many of the famous battles in history were sieges in which small forces took on much larger armies. Unfortunately, sieges don't make good stories because the smaller force won. They make the history books because the little guys fought well, before they died." ~Michael Westen, Burn Notice. Last stand, Ep 4.18

I like thousand to one odds.  Love 'em.  Can't get enough of them. Make it an intelligent war, I'm with you all the way.

300 Spartans (with about 10,000+ other Greeks) versus one hundred thousand (or a million, depending who you ask) Persian Imperial forces?* I'm there.

Nearly seven hundred Jewish rebels vs. a Roman legion at Masada?** I'm with you ...

The Alamo ... Okay, not so much, but I'm more familiar with the players involved, and I can't say that I liked any of them, on any side.

A hundred thousand Orcs of Mordor versus Gondor? That's at least worth an Academy Award....

In my own writing, I have a tendency to give the bad guys the upper hand as much as possible.  I try not to leave it as a matter of "evil badguy gains upper hand because he's using underhandd methods, while virtuous goodguy never sinks so low." Anyone who had read even one my self defense articles knows better.  When in doubt, bite a nose off, pull at an ear, gouge the eyes, and, of course, kick 'em in the groin, whenever possible.  My characters fight like their lives depend on it, usually because it does.

No, when I give the bad guys the upper hand, it's because they either have better training, better equipment, more people, or all of the above.

That's when I whip out The Anarchist's Cookbook, and go to work.  Because when my characters are out-manned  outgunned, outmaneuvered, and when things have stopped looking grim and have moved on to "we're all going to die" ....

That's when my characters get smart, get sneaky, and become very, very dangerous.


I've done it a few times in my books.  In A Pius Legacy (book three, should book one ever be published), I've practically got the army of darkness on our heroes' doorstep, and not one of my heroes even looks like Bruce Campbell.

I've got a murder mystery series on my hard drive that involves a writer, and a nerd, who's being hunted by assassins .... however, he got very good grades in chemistry, will hit people with everything and the kitchen sink, and he knows how to kill people with a pen.

The list goes on.

Besides, if it's a fair fight, you know how things go in fiction: the protagonist wins ...

However, when you have lopsided odds, and an author who has shown s/he's quite willing to assassinate any of his/her characters at will ... well then, that's when things get interesting, now, isn't it?






*Everyone by now should have at least heard of the story of Thermopylae ... aka The Hot Gates ... aka "The Gates of Fire" (which is my personal favorite translation) ... You may have seen the ads for the film 300.


**If you've never heard of Masada, in 70 AD, you had Israelites versus the Roman Empire. Only this wasn't Mossad or the IDF, but the sicarii, or knifemen. By 73 AD, the war was lost, and the last of the sicarii were held up in an old mountain fortress called Masada.

Originally, it was a story of how 700 rebels held out against the siege of a Roman legion, until the Romans finally breached the walls, only to find everyone had committed suicide, rather than be taken hostage again.

Recent research has concluded that the tale is a little different than originally reported -- the sicarii of Masada fought to the last man, woman, and child.

To this day, the Israeli Defense Force takes an oath: "Masada Shall Not Fall Again."

***Isn't it sad that this blog needs footnotes? :)

Review: Murder in the Vatican, the Church Mysteries of Sherlock Homes.

After a guest blog from author Ann Margaret Lewis, and the interview with her, it's now time for my review of her book. 

Which you can find here


I wanted to hold off on this for the end, to make certain that there would be no influence on her one way or another.  The same ground rules will apply next week for Infinite Space, Infinite God II editor Karina Fabian, who will also submit a guest blog, and be subjected to an interview.

Now, on with the review....

When I was thirteen, I started reading through the collected stories of Sherlock Holmes. I made it about halfway through. I had been stopped dead by "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott"—the one and only time Holmes was the narrator.  I wasn't the only one who had a problem with that story. Another author of the day, G.K. Chesterton, said that the Gloria Scott showed why Watson was relevant: because Holmes was an awful storyteller.

Since then, I have been critical of anything about Sherlock Holmes written after the death of Arthur Conan Doyle. Some stories went wildly off track. Others were riddled with so many anachronisms it was painful. Of the vast quantity of Holmes-related material published, my family of readers owns only a fraction.

When Robert Downey Jr. starred in Sherlock Holmes, I crossed my fingers and hoped it didn't suck … instead, I got a checklist of what they did right.

When Doctor Who scribe and show runner Steven Moffat created a show called Sherlock, I also crossed my fingers. It was surprisingly awesome.

Then I heard about Murder in the Vatican. The Church Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes on the newsletter for the Catholic Writers Organization. It had an interesting premise: author Ann Margaret Lewis takes Watson's offhand references of Holmes working on cases for the Pope, or involving religious figures, and turns them into entire stories.

I experienced the same feeling of dread. How off would the narration be? Would someone try converting Holmes? How lost would a detective from Victorian, Anglican England be in Catholic Rome? How many different ways were there to screw this up?

I stopped worrying when I read the first sentence. And, oh my God, this book is awesome! I loved this book...

Lewis caught the voice of Dr. John Watson as though she had taken it, trapped in a bottle, and used it to refill her pen into as she wrote. I liked the voice. I liked Watson, the doctor, trying to diagnose an ailing Leo XIII (85 at the time of the events of the first story). I like the brief sketch of the political situation between the Vatican and Italy. I even enjoy Watson's discomfort at the Pope slipping into “The Royal We” when he speaks of himself as the Pope.

Even the artwork was as though it had been lifted from issues of The Strand magazine.

Someone had fun here, and it shows.

Thankfully, there is no overt attempt to convert Holmes, evangelize or proselytize him. There is only enough theology in the entire novel that explains to the casual reader exactly what the heck the Pope is doing. The closest the book comes to exposing Holmes to theology is a page-long sequence that ends with Leo saying, “Perhaps you should spend some of your inactive time pondering that conundrum [of Jesus] instead of indulging in whatever narcotic it is with which you choose to entertain yourself.”

That is the best zinger I've ever seen a character use on Holmes regarding his drug use. Even the most secular person I know can appreciate a page of theology for one of the better one-liners I've ever seen.

Also, the little things were entertaining for a nerd like me. For example, the casual mention of John Cardinal Newman, referred to as “a recent convert.” The political situation at the time is given just enough of a sketch to explain what's going on, but nothing obtrusive; history nerds like me can be satisfied, but you don't have to have a degree in it to comprehend what's going on.

There are truly parts where the novel seems to merge all the best qualities of Sherlock Holmes with those of G.K. Chesterton's Fr. Brown short stories ...

At this point, I must make a small confession. I write these reviews as I read the book. There is plenty of backtracking, to fill the blanks, and rewrite it as the book goes. I wrote the Father Brown line when I finished the first tale. In fact, the interview questions I sent to Ann Margaret Lewis were written before I even received a review copy of the book.

I then read “The Vatican Cameos,” and discover a Deacon, named Brown …

I swear I didn't see that coming

The first story in this collection is "The Death of Cardinal Tosca."

In this memorable year '95 a curious and incongruous succession of cases had engaged his attention, ranging from his famous investigation of the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca -- an inquiry which was carried out by him at the express desire of His Holiness the Pope . . . .
—Dr. John H. Watson, “The Adventure of Black Peter”

Imagine Sherlock Holmes on vacation … if you see that vacation turning out like an episode of Murder, She Wrote, with a body hitting the floor at some point, you pretty much have the setup. It has a poison pen letter, with real poison, some Masons, references to two different cases in the space of two paragraphs, and a Papal commando raid with a real pontiff. This story is so delightfully odd and over-the-top, but still preserves as much reality as any other Holmes tale. I enjoyed every moment of it. And I can't argue with any story where the pope gets most of the amusing one-liners.

Heck, even the murderer gets in a good line. When confronted, our first killer sneers. “Let me guess. You're going to explain, to the amazement of your friends, how I did the deed?” Holmes replies, “I've already told them that. It would be old news. They already know you blundered badly.”

I think the story concludes on a nice, solid note. As Holmes tells Watson, “[Leo XIII] is genuinely pious. He is also imperious, but in a most endearing way.”

Watson merely replies, “Yes, well. I'm used to that.”

Let's see Martin Freeman deliver that line with subtlety and dry wit.

"I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several interesting English cases."
—Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles

The second tale, "The Vatican Cameos," is a bit of a flashback episode to when Holmes first met the Pope. Leo XIII has sent a collection of cameos to Queen Victoria. The cameos are secured tightly in the box they're delivered in, but upon their arrival in London, the box is empty. The Queen has a simple solution: send Sherlock Holmes. Watson is busy with a medical emergency, so he wasn't around.

When Watson asks Sherlock about the incident, Holmes says, quite clearly “Watson, I am incapable of spinning a tale in the way you do. The narrative would read like a scientific treatise.”

Madam Lewis certainly read "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott," as well as the others.

So, there is only one person left who can narrate this tale … the Pope himself. This was the story that truly showed that the author did her research, assembling little details of Leo XIII's interests and hobbies and putting them together into a rich, vibrant character. He is shown here as witty, humorous, and bright.

The byplay between Leo XIII and Holmes in this story was marvelously entertaining. The Pope is shown to be about as smart as Watson … maybe a little smarter. When Holmes first meets the Pontiff, and rattles off conclusions in his usual rapid-fire manner, the Pope takes a minute, and deduces how Holmes came to most of them. Not all, but most. Making Leo this smart only serves to make Holmes as impressive as he should be—yes, everyone else may be smart, but Holmes is smarter.

Also, having Leo XIII using Thomas Aquinas to talk with Holmes of reason and science … it works for me.

And the scene with Holmes, the Pope, and the gunman was fun, too.

"You know that I am preoccupied with this case of the two Coptic Patriarchs, which should come to a head to-day."
Sherlock Holmes, “The Retired Colourman”

"The Second Coptic Patriarch": The third and final tale is from yet another throwaway line of Arthur Conan Doyle's.

In this case, a former criminal comes to Holmes to solicit his services; the priest who converted him away from his life of crime is in jail for murder. A bookstore owner has been murdered with a book (“The Rule of Oliver Cromwell--weighty subject, no doubt,” Holmes quips), and the priest will only say that the victim was dead when he arrived. It's almost Sherlock Holmes meets Alfred Hitchcock ... I didn't know someone could do I Confess like this. It's a fun little read, and possibly the most traditional of the Holmes stories -- it's a good tale. From the perspective of the overall book, it's a perfect cap to the character arc.

Now, after reading Murder in the Vatican, I think I'm going to go back and finish the Sherlock Holmes series -- and keep Murder in the Vatican handy, so I can read them all in chronological order.

Ann Lewis said that the book was "meant to be fun and lift your heart for a short time. I had a blast writing it, and I hope you have a blast reading it."

Mission accomplished.

Frankly, between Cumberbatch, RDJ, or Elementary, if you had to live with only one expansion of Holmes works, you buy Ann Lewis. Period.