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.

Authors I Am Thankful For

Thanksgiving and Black Friday are over. Everyone, welcome back.

This is probably something that should have been posted on Thursday, but everyone was probably busy this weekend.

In my life, few authors have affected me in any way, shape or form. Most of it affected me in a professional manner. From Joseph Garber's Verticle Run, I learned how to start a thriller that didn't stop from start to finish, and while he was recently trumped by Matthew Reilly and James Rollins, Garber is where to start.

Few authors have ever actually had an impact on my life in general. And by few, I mean three. And, technically, I wasn't even the one who really felt the impact for two of the authors … it's a long story.


Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Once upon a time, I had considered getting a friend of mine a gift for his birthday. The novel was Good Omens, which was essentially Murphy's law as applied to the apocalypse— losing the antichrist, for example. It was fun. Strange as all hell, but fun. Neil Gaiman still insists that he wrote some of the funny parts. I thought my friend would like it.

Meanwhile, in another part of the internet, a woman was trying to remember the title of a novel she had read once upon a time. She signed into her dating website of choice, and came across the novel in my friend's profile. The book was Good Omens.

That relationship culminated in the marriage from two months ago.....

J. Michael Straczynski.

Way back in the 1990s, there was a television show called Babylon 5. It was a science fiction program that was less about special effects, latex masks and tight body suits, and more an epic about character. It was essentially a filmed novel. Like War and Peace, with one-tenth the cast. It was interesting enough that I would spend time with my family pondering what would happen next.

Along the way, when I was sixteen, I started writing what is unfortunately known as fan fiction. I had written stories based off of throwaway one-liners in the series. And while I touched nothing of the actual series storyline, I had a few concepts that the show didn't expand on, and spun that off into little corners of the universe, and aside from the first two books, it basically became its own series. I started rewriting what was a fan fiction quartet of over two thousand pages, and I'm now on book 6 of a possible 13 that I've outlined...

One of the artifacts I had picked up because of Babylon 5 is a leather bomber jacket. It had a great big gold embroidered 5 on the back, in the style of the show, and the show logo on the front. I have worn it every winter when the temperature dropped below forty, and there was no precipitation. This includes my days in college, when it was just too cold to wear a suit jacket.

One day, in 2001, I walked out of a class called the History of Terrorism, and one classmate had noticed the jacket. We walked and talked across the university's great lawn, past the library, an administrative building, and to the other side of the campus, until my ride literally started the car, pulled up behind me, and flashed his brights at us.

A month ago, I was a groomsman at his wedding.

A few years afterward, during my abortive attempt at a PhD in history, I drove down to a social in Manhattan, wearing the same jacket. Someone behind me said, “Cool jacket, I know that show.” He hasn't stopped talking to me since. Two months ago, I was the best man at his wedding... the one made possible by Terry Pratchett

I've heard people tell me that reading is an anti-social activity. Obviously, they've been reading the wrong books.

Dear Politicians, Please Shut Up Already.

There have been some people who have doubted my political neutrality. When I told people that the view on my politics change depending on where the jury is sitting, I don't think anyone quite believed me.

This is, hopefully, the last political blog I will ever have to do...

I have also made it known in the past that I dislike politicians and politics. When I suggested to a friend that nuking D.C. (Washington DC, not the comic books) wouldn't be a bad idea, she objected, since she knew people in the area.

When I suggested VX nerve gas during a state of the union address, she thought that was more reasonable.

When I said I hate politics, I meant it.

There are a lot of things I didn't like about George W. Bush. Okay, I wanted more of his tax cuts, and the people he invaded were people I wanted invaded under Clinton. And his faith-based stuff was interesting, but lost in the abyss of terrorist white noise. But aside from that, I disliked a lot of what he let happen in the Congress, a lot of the stuff he passed, all of the stuff he let pass unaddressed. It pissed me off.

But there was one thing I liked about “W.” without question.

He stayed off the air. He didn't do press conferences. He rarely did interviews. He rarely stuck his head out of the gopher hole of the oval office and said anything that made the nightly news. It might have been because of his gaffs … As a public speaker, I share his problems—I'm better at off-the-cuff comments; if you give me a prepared speech, I turn into a blithering idiot.

But no matter what the reasons were for W. to shut the hell up, he gave us weeks of blissful silence.

So, had anyone listened to me in Washington, I would have given them one message: SHUT THE HELL UP.

I hear soundbites from President Obama every, damn, day. I don't even object to what he says … do you know why I don't object to what he says? Because I stopped listening over a year ago. In 2009, he was on every day. For all of 2010, he's on the airwaves at least three times a day. I now object to the sound of his voice.

And, Mr. President, the Republicans are now (11/1/10), and have been since January, 2009, politically irrelevant to your agenda. You had a super majority when you came in—you need 51 votes in the Senate. You had 60 upon arrival. It feels like the old joke about the college president who had three envelops on his desk from his predecessor in times of problems: First envelope says “Blame me, I'm not here anymore, I won't object,” Second says “Take the blame, you're entitled to a screwup,” and the Third envelope says “Prepare three envelopes.”

I'm perfectly impartial. It's not just President Obama. It's everybody in Washington. It's candidates I hate and candidates I agree with, and candidates who aren't even in town. I'm tired of listening to Christine O'Donnell telling me she's not a witch. I don't have a vote in the Linda MacMahon vs. Blumenthal race, so why are you people running ads in New York? Mr. Christie, I'm glad you're stopping all spending in New Jersey, I'm happy for you, but I'm sick of looking at you on the news. I'm tired of looking at the Halloween mask of Nancy Pelosi, the Skeletor face of Harry Reid, and the women of The View and their feud with Bill O'Reilly and Sharon Angle (at current rate of speed, I'd rather Joy Behar talk to Kurt Angle).

In my state, it's Andrew “I want to be a kneebreaker” Cuomo vs. Carl “straight-jacket” Pallidino; the latter is a multimillionaire from upstate New York, but apparently blew all of his money on getting the nomination, so I hear nothing but Cuomo's thuggish tones over the airwaves. And my vote won't matter either way, since this is New York, your vote doesn't actually count, because the Cuomo will win, as will Schumer and Hillary redux.

Right now, I'm at the point with politicians that I am with the Church around the “annual appeal.” In the case of the church, I want to say “I'll write you a check if I don't have to listen to you for another year.” In the case of politicians, “I'll vote for you if you keep out of the airways from now until a month before reelection.”

But overall, you politicos should just shut up. This is serious political advice. Why?

Look at it as advice from Machiavelli: in his advice for dictators, he suggested that a brutal dictator should commit all of his atrocities immediately upon taking power. After, this dictator should not perform another harmful thing ever again, not one, single, thing. The principle is that, over time, people will forget why they were ever annoyed with him.

Politicians, take this advice: throw all your BS around at the start of a political season, then shut the hell up and leave us alone. I'm tired of listening to all of you.

Unfortunately, I suspect that this will end with the start of a new political season. That's right, as of 11/03/10, we start the race for the Presidential Election 2012!

Somebody wake me when it's 2013. Or when we muzzle the politicians. All of them.

The Politics of A Pius Man.

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).

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.



In New York I'm a right-wing, blood-thirsty maniac because ... I think a blanket gay marriage license is a bad idea. Mainly because, in the first wave issued in the Northeast, there were a large segment that took the newly issued licenses, and went to their local church and demanded to be married –whether or not the church in question allowed gay marriage.

In the South, I'm a blood-thirsty left wing psychotic because … I think “marriage” is a religious term. Atheists go to a justice of the peace and enter into civil unions, NOT marriages. A civil union is a state function. Issue licenses for civil unions to BOTH atheists and gays, then the latter group can take it to a church that allows gay marriage, and they can all live happily every after and leave my church the hell alone. I'm not interested in burning gays at the stake, and I don't care if one is gay, straight or “flaming,” have a nice day.



In New York, I'm an evil righty because … I supported G.W. Bush going into Iraq and Afghanistan, and the war on terror in general.

In REALLY red states I'm an evil Leftist because … I would have supported Clinton going into Iraq. And I wanted someone to go into the Sudan before Darfur became a buzz word. And I hated almost everything else President Bush ever did.



In New York, I am conservative because … I think abortion and contraceptives are generally a Bad Idea.

In Pat Robertson's district, I am a bleeding heart Liberal …. because I'm not going to say “You had an abortion, therefore you are immediately going to Hell! MUAHAHAHA”


In New York, I am a psychotic Conservative … because I think the government should get the hell outta my life. Just protect my stuff, my neighbor's stuff, and leave me the hell alone.

In the more bleeding red states, I am an evil Liberal … because I'd want a Republican government to get the hell outta my life. Just protect my stuff, my neighbor's stuff, and leave me the hell alone.



My politics boils down to, “There are things I don't like, wouldn't recommend, but I'm not issuing automatic condemnations.”  Politically, I'm somewhere in the middle. Which, in politics, means I'm in the middle of the crossfire.

So, what does this mean about A Pius Man? Don't be mistaken, I do take a side. I believe my conclusions are obvious basic on the facts I have researched. However, the political portions of the book are discussions, not rants. And the politics are driven more by the characters than by me.

And the politics of the characters in A Pius Man?



Sean A.P. Ryan. Mercenary. Believes in the free market system, heavy weaponry, and grew up in Hollywood. When queried on his political affiliations, he would say, “I believe people should be able to own marijuana and machine guns. I will laugh at the marijuana crowd, but if I have my guns, I'm happy.”

Scott “Mossad” Murphy. He works for Israel, usually among Palestinians. Moved from America to join the Mossad after 9-11. His politics: “I believe in the power of waterboarding. But I'd sooner talk terrorists to death. It's more painful in the long run. When you can talk them into revealing everything they know, kill them, move up the chain of command. Repeat until they're willing to be peaceful, or they are peacefully dead.”

Giovanni Figlia. His father was blown up by a Red Army faction in the 1980s, so he has a grudge against extreme, gun-toting Leftists. Aside from that, his politics are: “I have to protect the most powerful religious leader on the planet, and he insists on pissing off nearly one-third of the world's population. Leave me alone and let me do my job.”

Pope Pius XIII (Born: Joshua Kutjok): Hard right-wing. Has all but declared war on the Sudan. Thoroughly dislikes tyrannies, which means North Korea and China dislike him right back. “I am against abortion, gays being married in my church, and contraceptives are against the religion. Then again, you should only have sex with the person you marry, so abortion and contraceptives shouldn't be needed. However, my homeland of Sudan is going through thirty years of religious and ethnic warfare, I have better things to do than deal with whining hedonists!”

Father Francis Williams, S.J.: “I'm a Jesuit who is trying to transfer into the Opus Dei. I speak six languages and I can kill people with my rosary beads … what was your question?”

Maureen McGrail. Interpol. “I'm too busy being shot at to have a political opinion. Leave me alone.”

Secret Service Agent Wilhelmina Goldberg: As a special adviser to anyone who wants the Secret Service to audit their security, she has been all over, and her political opinion is simple. “At the end of the day, America looks good by comparison.”

Hashim Abasi: Oxford Educated in global politics. Egyptian police officer. His name translates into “Stern Crusher of Evil.” His father died while tinkering with a vest for a suicide bomber. He mentions having a wife, but it sounds like she was stoned to death. No one asks what his politics are.



The above characters have more influence over how the political discussions go than I do. So, the topics will be... interesting.