Movie Night: Sherlock Holmes In Washington

Enjoy.

And, honestly, if you haven't voted for the Dragon Award nominees yet, why not? Clear here to nominate, or click here for my suggested nominees.

Music blog: She Moved Through The Fair (Moira Greyland )

In my defense, I have not posted this one before because it is incredibly difficult to make this something to listen to. This version works.

And, honestly, if you haven't voted for the Dragon Award nominees yet, why not? Clear here to nominate, or click here for my suggested nominees.

Review: Tom Stranger: Interdimensional Insurance Agent

It occurred to me that I could do a post that I didn't need to put that much brain power into. A LibertyCon AAR would require more brain power and recall than I have right now.

So, let me go into Larry Correia's audio book, The Adventures of Tom Stranger: Interdimensional Insurance Agent, narrated by Adam Baldwin.

Yes. Really. I'm not making this one up.

Have you ever seen a planet invaded by rampaging space mutants from another dimension or Nazi dinosaurs from the future?

Don't let this happen to you!

Rifts happen, so you should be ready when universes collide. A policy with Stranger & Stranger can cover all of your interdimensional insurance needs. Rated "Number One in Customer Satisfaction" for three years running, no claim is too big or too weird for Tom Stranger to handle.

But now Tom faces his greatest challenge yet. Despite being assigned the wrong - and woefully inadequate - intern, Tom must still provide quality customer service to multiple alternate Earths, all while battling tentacle monsters, legions of the damned, an evil call center in Nebraska, and his archnemesis, Jeff Conundrum. Armed with his Combat Wombat and a sense of fair play, can Tom survive? And will Jimmy the Intern ever discover his inner insurance agent?

It's time to kick ass and adjust claims.

Adam Baldwin (Firefly, Chuck) performs Larry Correia's madcap interdimensional tale of underwriting and space travel, where the only thing scarier than tentacle monsters is a high deductible.

My first response? "Oh good God, what the sweet hell is this?"

But it's by Larry, and it was free, and I am both a fan of Correia's as well as a cheap bastard (I am partially Scottish), so why not?

I will say this: I didn't crash the car.

Chapter 1: Tom's 9am meeting, takes place in a dimension in which the star of the five-season libertarian space cowboy show (and three blockbuster movies) has become president ... yes, Adam Baldwin.  His secretary of defense is  R. Lee Ermey. They are being invaded by the attack of the flying purple people eaters on meth, steroids and rocket fuel.

Adam Baldwin does a great Ermey impersonation.

Chapter 2: The Mediation.

The mediator is Chuck Norris. The awesome is hilarious, as is Baldwin's impersonation thereof. Just bask in the awesome.

Chapter 3: Hell Comes to Nebraska.

Best bit of the book. Not only because it blows up a science fiction convention, but because it stars Larry Correia in multiple formats, and Wendell the Manatee as CFO of CorreiaTech, creator of the Combat Wombat. There are also legions of Hell invading Nebraska, and then there's the Balrog.

Chapter 4: The book gets a plot!

Just when you thought that this was just a string of vignettes from a day in the life of Tom Stranger, surprise, we have a plot. And we make fun of Kung Fu Panda.

I won't continue with the chapter breakdown, because I can give spoilers at that point, but the short version is that this is off the walls insane and hilarious. Granted, a lot of the humor is of the WTF variety, and it makes Set to Kill look staid, but it was hilarious.

However, if you dislike having your sacred cows made into hamburger, you might have some problems. Here, Larry takes shots at Obama (did I mention that Adam Baldwin does a terrifyingly good Obama?), Joe Biden (alcoholic clown, heh), Kung Fu Panda, call centers, squishy degrees, and even nerds to some degree, because Larry's been to conventions.

But, yeah, this was a wonderful ball of strange from the get go ... no pun intended.  Much.

Anyway, while you're here, you might want to check out my own novel, Honor at Stake. You might like it.

A Flight of Dragon Awards

I finally went there. You know I had to.

Deadline to nominate in the Dragon awards is on July 25.

To nominate, you click here. 

To nominate me, you click.... the exact same place.

Ahem. Anyway....

Larry Correia has finally had more than enough of the mother-loving SJW / 770 crowd screwing around with his mother-loving DragonCon.

According to Larry

This weekend I was at LibertyCon, and I ran into one of the organizers of the Dragon Awards. He said that he was kind of surprised that he hadn’t seen me talk about them online much. I told him that was because of Sad Puppies, I’m a controversial figure, there are just too many bitter harpies and poo flingers from fandom’s inbred pustulent under-choad who automatically flip out about anything I do, so I didn’t want to rock the boat for them.

But his response? Screw that. This award is for ALL FANS. And you have fans. So GO BUG THEM! We want so many people voting in this thing that no little clique or faction can sway it. The more fans involved, the better.

(an attitude that demonstrates why DragonCon is awesome)

There is no *gasp that outsider author dared to talk to his enthusiastic fans rather than suck up to our cliques discreetly* nonsense. Come to the Dragon Award and fly your wrongfan flag proud.

My first thought is "Good for you, Larry! Screw those bastards!"

My second thought, "Oh darn, he's in fantasy. I'm in fantasy. He's unleashed the hordes of his fans. I am so, so screwed."

Though, technically, Honor At Stake can be in other places.

Best Science Fiction Novel (yes, really. There is science in there. It goes metaphysical, not physical, but it's there.)
Best Fantasy / Paranormal Novel (Obviously. Because Vampires)
Best Young Adult/Middle Grade Novel (I originally meant it for a YA audience. Shows what I know, eh?)
Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel (Maybe .... I do have a paramilitary strike force in the Vatican ninja, and an engagement of forces at the end, but this is a stretch.)
Best Horror Novel -- I've actually gotten one vote in that category already.

Yeah. I'm going to guess that Best Horror is going to be my bet. But I'm not laying any money on it one way or the other.

Hell, for all I know, DragonCon is going to have a moment of "This Finn joker is in five categories. We should probably let him be nominated in something."

Yeah, no idea. I'm just spitballing here.

Things are going to get strange. Well, stranger.

Speaking of stranger, tune in tomorrow.

NOMINATE FOR the DRAGON HERE.

Hi. I'm a little dead

For those of you who might have noticed on my Facebook page, I have not exactly fared through Chattanooga, Tennessee, and LibertyCon unscathed. For the record, I will live. The exact term for what I have is called shingles. Which I suppose means I can now do roofing tiles with my face.

For the record, I also have photos of my condition. However I do not see any need to post pictures online and make that bear any resemblance to either the Phantom of the Opera, The Elephant Man, or Two-Face from Batman. The after-action report on LibertyCon will be obviously quite delayed up until the point that I am sufficiently recovered to put together a full, competent and hopefully coherent report. I do appreciate your understanding in this matter.

For those of you who are wondering about my medication routine, it is something called antivirals. They seem to be kicking my butt more than even the virus did. I have been told that I should mainline chicken soup and morphine. Now while narcotics seem to have no effect on me as evidenced by a run-in I had with Vicodin some years ago, in retrospect I probably would have stuck with the chicken soup.

The Catholic Geek: Emergency Substitution Edition!

The Catholic Geek: Emergency Substitution Edition! 07/10 by We Built That Network | Culture Podcasts:

Hello, sports fans! This week's guest host will be Matthew Bowman, SF&F editor and founder of The Catholic Geeks. With Declan offline for the weekend, it's time for a tag-team swtich-hit in the ninth inning while only ten yards from the goal line! We'll be talking about everything from space news to Church news, Lego building to worldbuilding, the new Catholic Geek Library, and why this particular geek should never be allowed to attempt sports metaphors. We'll be taking your calls and chat room comments as they come in, too. And if you like us, subscribe! We occasionally produce stuff worth looking at. If you really like us, consider joining our new Patreon campaign, and help our friendly neighborhood admin pay Declan and the others in a higher class of peanuts.

Movie night: Pearl of Death

Yes, another Ratherbone as Sherlock Holmes, in Pearl of Death (1944).  If you're familiar with the original story, you might get some amusement from this.

At LibertyCon, still. Will be there a while. This should be interesting.

And if you haven't done the Dragon Awards yet, why haven't you? Clear here to nominate, or click here for my suggested nominees.

Music Blog: Within Temptation~ The Cross

Right now, I'm in Chattanooga, at Liberty Con, where I will be lugging around 70 pounds of books, hopefully, selling them all.

Wish me luck.

Meanwhile, have you voted for the Dragon Awards yet? Clear here to nominate, or click here for my suggested nominees.

LibertyCon Ahoy, Castalia House Updates, Dragons

So, I'm off to LibertyCon. By the time this posts, I will either be on the plane, or getting on the plane, or something like that. Depends on whether or not the airplane decides to screw around with me or not.

While I'm away, please remember to vote in the Dragon Awards. By the time I get back, there will only be two weeks remaining. Clear here to nominate, or click here for my suggested nominees. I will be banging the drum on this from now until the 25th. If you're not there yet, get your bloody act together.

Also, according to Vox Day's blog, Castalia House now has a three month turnaround policy. I submitted Set to Kill in May, so expect word on it by the end of July. Perhaps the start of August.

Right now, I'm armed with 70 pounds of books, and a suitcase to carry them all around in.  Right now, my deepest desire is to break even on all of this.

Be well, all. With luck, the plane won't crash.

And if it does ... well, you'll figure it out soon enough.

Why Superversive fiction?

CS Lewis' demon, Screwtape, once had to advise his nephew Wormwood about a moment when the junior demon could not influence his targeted human. Screwtape patiently explained that Wormwood made the mistake of allowing the targeted human to read a good book. Any demon worth his sulfur should know that they must make certain that the humans they tempt must only be made to read important books. When people read good books that warm the soul, it cloaks them in a fog that a demon can't penetrate.

“Important” books like that have been why the term “literature” has always had a bad rap – especially 19ths and 20th century literature. Because, you will notice, that Lord of the Rings is rarely put in the literature section of a bookstore – if ever. I know of no English Literature program that will include Lord of the Rings as part of the curriculum. No. For “literature,” people are subjected to Steinbeck, or Lord of the Flies, or half of Russian literature, which makes you want to slit your wrists by the time you're done. To heck with being subversive, I would submit that much of the drivel labeled as “literature” is in fact corrosive to the human spirit, if not the human soul.

Much of the science fiction during the Cold War has the same problem. Ellison's I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream, may indeed be great literature, or even brilliant, but I do come away from it wondering why I cared, or why I read it. It's a good example of Cold War science fiction, filled with the despair for the future. Heck, one of the reasons Star Trek worked so well is that it was perhaps the first Cold War sci-fi that showed a world after World War 3 that didn't look like a variation on Mad Max or The Terminator.

So, that's why Superversive fiction has always been a mystery to me – not because I didn't understand the concept, but because I didn't see the need for the term. Growing up, I always understood the difference between fiction that edifies and fiction that doesn't. Which was my original problem with the concept of Superversive fiction. Shouldn't all fiction be Superversive?

Obviously, the deeper one looks at some of the fiction being shoved into the face of the general population, the more it becomes apparent that we need a Superversive movement, mostly because of all the works being labeled “important” and then thrust into the face of the general reading public, insisting that we should read it. Too much fiction tries to be “important” fiction, and in being “important,” goes for “reality” … only their reality is grim, dismal, and amazingly Unreal. If you're trying for literature, and making it a matter of despair, you're doing it wrong. Because, sorry, I've met people whose lives have been misery, and hope is quite abundant in them. To be Jean Paul Sartre about life is to invite suicide.

J. Michael Straczynski, in his comic The Book of Lost Souls, has one tale of a street artist who recently lost her boyfriend to drug abuse. Soon after, the mural she made of him has come alive, and is talking to her … and telling her to come and join him, offering her a needle. And it is not the voice of a demon, or a monster, but, as our hero explains,

“It is the voice of reason and resentment .… The voice of madness is the voice that Believes, despite all of the evidence to the contrary … that sustains us when logic demands that we surrender to the louder voice – the voice of reason, and resentment. And it always comes in the guise of those who love us most, who want only the best for us …. Someimes their motives are pure, wishing only to save us from pain. And sometimes the pain they wish to spare is their own, because if you can be convinced to set aside your own dreams, they can remain comfortable with their decision to do the same. The Voice of reason is the voice that tells us that our dreams are foolish ….[it sometimes becomes] a genius loci, the spirit of the place. And the spirit of this place is despair.”

And that's the problem with those “literary” souls who want to sacrifice their characters, and their audience, on an alter of “reality.” Sometimes, just because something is “rational,” doesn't necessarily make it true.

This concept of “the real” is as unreal as Tolstoy's lie, that "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," an idea that probably requires being Russian to believe. Is there any more Russian concept than to believe that being happy is bland and uniform, but being miserable is unique? It is a lie, but perhaps Tolstoy didn't know that at the time. If those of the self proclaimed literati truly see the world as miserable as they write it, it does make me wonder why the authors in question just don't do away with themselves and leave the rest of us alone.

I would argue that most true literature is written by those who aren't trying. There is more truth in the hope of John Ringo's Black Tide series, than in the shallow materialism of Wagner's Ring cycle (his Twilight of the Gods has the hero die, the villain die, the king die and his sister die, the girl die, and her horse die, and the mermaids of the Rhine get their ring back and they live happily ever after … and why did we care?). Then you have the epic scope of John C. Wright's Iron Chamber of Memory and the magic around us, and the wonder and majesty of the world and the universe.

And if you doubt me that there's wonder and majesty in the universe, go Google some Hubble photos.

If you're writing a novel, and no one in it laughs, or has a reason to hope, or live … or writing sci-fi and fantasy without a sense of wonder … or you write about space without the terrifying beauty of what's in the dark … you might just be doing it wrong.

Just consider, for a moment, that Captain is about a psychically perfect human – not ubermench, not a superman, or a supernatural man, but essentially more preternatural – and that says and suggests more about the dignity and ability of the human person than anything in that Thomas Hobbes knockoff, Lord of the Flies. (Yes, I have problems with a whole book based upon one line by a philosopher who has no real concept about how human beings or society works).

To write well is to write Superversive. To write fun, entertaining books is superversive. Because to entertain well is to edify, to build up the reader. I would put more faith in Die Hard than in Lord of the Flies. I would put more faith in John Ringo, Larry Correia and Wright than all of the art films in the world. I'd rather read CS Forester and David Weber than Heart of Darkness or Lord Jim. Hell, I'd read any Ringo novel with a 90% casualty rate than anything by Stephen King.

At the end of the day, Superversive fiction – any fiction worth its salt – could be summed up by GK Chesterton: “Fairy tales are more than true, not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

Which makes them a thousand times more real than anything most recent “literature” has to offer.

Why Superversive fiction? Because it might not be "real," but it's true.