Fisking the Six Foot Blivet

So, Brian Niemeier found a new pinata and beat it around with a baseball bat.

Then Al grabbed the bat and beat it around some more.

[Cracks fingers]

My turn.

The blog is "Attack of the Six-Foot Tranny."

Yeah. This is going to be one of those days...

The title is

Horror Puppies Redux: Is Souldancer Really Horror Fandom’s New Favourite Novel?

Yes, as you can tell from the spelling, yes, this is a British Tranny who goes by the name "Doris."

Well, DragonCon has over 60,000 attendees. Voting was open to everybody. So unless you have a better sampling or method of statistical analysis, "Dori," I'm going to have to say yes.

A while back I made a post about how the Sad and Rabid Puppies campaigns have treated horror fiction.

Sigh. Of course you did.

I follow the bouncing link, and I get this.

Honor at Stake is very much what Stephen Jones would call “horror-lite”. It starts out as a vampire romance in the vein of Stephanie Meyer and Charlaine Harris, evolves into a humorous action-driven narrative in the tradition of Joss Whedon and Larry Correia, and ends up with hordes of vampires being dispatched with a consecrated fire hydrant. For all its jokes at the expense of sparkly vampires, the book remains far closer to Twilight than to, say, Salem’s Lot.

So if you follow the bouncing ball for a moment, Honor at Stake evolves into being like Joss and Larry, but is closer to Twilight than to Stephen King....

Just for the record, did anyone else notice that it just demeaned Larry Correia and Joss Whedon as being on par with Twilight?

I'm going to suggest that there are a few million Buffy fans out there who now want your head on a stick, "Doris." In fact, I hope you've transitioned already, otherwise there will be Whedon fans -- not fans of Larry, Whedon -- who will happily help you transition without anesthetic. And no, I'm not one of them. I'm just laughing at the image of the hordes of Joss fans carrying torches and pitchfolks.

The next comment about me is to cite a tweet.

Declan Finn replies that Brian Niemeier is his only competition in the category.

All of this strikes me as rather rude conduct. They hail the Dragon Awards as the true voice of fandom, and then dismiss four of the six horror nominees as undeserving of consideration. What could I infer from this behaviour, except that these people feel contempt for horror fans?

Hey, "Doris," you stupid git, maybe you should have read the blog post I made TWO WEEKS BEFORE THAT (and nearly THREE weeks before the hir statements) where I said that I DIDN'T KNOW ANY OF THE OTHER AUTHORS.  I didn't even know that they existed. 

Kinda hard for me to respect people who I don't even know exist, git. Perhaps you should do something strange, "Doris," and instead of stopping when you get your evidence for the narrative, you stop when there's nothing else to research. The way actual researchers do.

I'd thank "Doris" for reading my book, but I suspect I know which review s/he wrote.

Anyway, back to the original stupidity that started this mess.

I pointed out that when the pro-Puppy authors write something within the horror spectrum, they generally end up with the kind of work that editor and horror expert Stephen Jones associates with the term “horror-lite”

S/he goes on to diss urban fantasy....

Today we are living in a world that is ‘horror-lite’. This appalling appellation was coined by publishers to describe the type of fiction that is currently enjoying massive success under such genre categories as ‘paranormal romance’, ‘urban fantasy’, ‘literary mash-up’ or even ‘steampunk’. 

Okay, congrats, "Doris," you now have dissed urban fantasy.

You now have Jim Butcher's fans on your ass, and in a way that you will not enjoy, unless you like the idea of being beaten with hockey sticks and carved wizard's staffs. I suspect that's a fetish not even the internet likes that much.

For the record, you buggered swine, I was shooting for fantasy or paranormal. I hadn't really thought of my work as horror. In fact, again, HAD YOU DONE YOUR RESEARCH, you would have noted that I suggested Honor at Stake for military, YA, and best fantasy, with a question mark around horror.

But, no, "Doris," your transition must be transitioning from a male to the IQ of mayo.

...Am I being insulting? Well, hey, s/he said I'm insulting. S/he wants me to be insulting. I can do insulting.

S/he then goes on to cite, once again, a twitter conversation as PROOF that I'm insulting and dismissive of the horror genre.

Again, I was shooting for urban fantasy. My readers disagreed. Get over it, Boris.

Since then, Souldancer succeeded in winning the Dragon Award for horror, and the Puppysphere seems to be making a concerted effort to present Brian Niemeier as being the contemporary horror author

That's .... news to me. Boring here doesn't put any links in to cite as evidence, but right now, s/he can link to a list of websites, and I wouldn't trust it until I went through each link to see if they were even Puppy related.

(with honourable mention sometimes being given to Declan Finn).

How nice. Also news to me. Also without links or any other supporting evidence to back it up.

Around Halloween, the Castalia House blog ran a post called “SUPERVERSIVE and Horror Stories” in which Josh Young argues for the superiority of horror films with clear-cut heroes (such as Alien and The Evil Dead) over those which focus on college students being chopped up (such as Friday the 13th).

And somehow, Boris doesn't have anything to bitch about in that concept ... yet, anyway, I'm fisking as I go along.

Towards the end, he makes an abrupt change of subject from heroic horror films to heroic horror literature:

Abrupt? You realize that it's a Publisher blog, right? That they publish books? How did you NOT expect it to go to books?

but does he mention Robert E. Howard, whose sword-and-sorcery protagonists regularly faced Lovecraftian abominations? Does he acknowledge the writers who have shaped the occult detective genre, from H. and E. Heron through to Jim Butcher?

I find it interesting that Boring forgot in the previous blog that he's dismissed and disparaged urban fantasy, and he wants to kowtow to Butcher? Too late.

Does he namecheck anyone from the legion of authors, from Bram Stoker onwards, who have thrilled readers with tales of cross-wielding vampire hunters?

Nope, nope, and nope. It is Brian Niemeier who has the distinction of being the only writer mentioned in Young’s survey of horror.

No, of course he doesn't. You know why? Because if Boris here had read THE TITLE OF THE PIECE (which s/he did, it's cited three excerpts ago) it was "SUPERVERSIVE and Horror Stories." The term Superversive is not exactly in widespread use. Come to think of it, Brian is the only horror novelist I know who uses the term -- as evidenced by hanging out in the Superversive roundtable radio show.  Not even Butcher uses it.

I use it, but that's only if you count me as a horror novelist. Which I don't, but I'll take nominations in whatever genre I can get.

Now, the Dragon Awards claim to honour “the works that are genuinely most beloved by the core audience”, and this is a description that the Puppies have taken as gospel truth. 

And I'm sure that you believe that the Hugos really are the most prestigious SFF award, right, Boring?

But the obscure, self-published Souldancer is not beloved amongst horror fans. Evidence of this can be gleaned simply by registering at the horror forum of your choice and asking the members if they have ever heard of Brian Niemeier. Indeed, a search through Google (or Amazon, or Goodreads, or Twitter, or Reddit) will indicate that Souldancer has made almost no impact outside of Puppy circles.

That's it? That's the best shot at Souldancer? That he can't find it on Google. You know, even Ann Coulter uses Lexus/Nexus, and says what search terms she uses.

And internet Forums? Funny, I always heard that internet forums were a wretched hive of scum and villainy. That this creature relies on them only makes me feel more certain.

When I google Souldancer, the first thing I get is Brian's Amazon page. Then a bunch of companies that used the phrase. Next time I see Brian, I get the Goodreads page for Souldancer, with a 4.1 rating.

What happens when I Google "Doris V Sutherland" ... okay, fine. The Twitter page. File 770 (I'm shocked), the blog I'm fisking....the about page of the blog....

"A Troubled Dark Soul. A Tale of Doris V. Sutherland."

Oh... Oh Dear.

"Doris," I don't think you want to go to "What people can find on the Internet" for your argument. I really don't think you want to do that.

This is a point I made when I reported on the Dragon Awards at WWAC:

Yes, we have a link ... to something that Boris has written. Because citing evidence just boils down to footnoting your own opinion.

And WWAC is "Women Writing About Comics." Uh huh.

The link only boiled down to Dormamu here bitching that Souldancer only had 8 reviews at the time it won the Dragon.

Brian actually replied.

Boris characterized Brian's reply as

Niemeier then went on to claim that Souldancer outsold N. K. Jemisin’s  The Fifth Season, which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel earlier this year:

Um ..... read it again. He MOVED MORE COPIES. This is in case this twit has trouble reading.

In fact, this twit has trouble reading A PHOTO S/HE HIGHLIGHTED

"Doris" thrashes around on the false premise for a while...false premise ... .. blah blah ... false premise ... false premise .... dares Brian to get more reviews ... Brian gets more reviews.... "Doris" dismisses reviews....

Okay, moving out of "reviews uber alles."

Nevertheless, the Puppies – or, more specifically, Niemeier and his immediate circle of friends – kept up the charade that the little-known Souldancer was the most popular horror novel published within the Dragons’ twelve-month eligibility period.

It got more votes at a Convention that boasts 60,000 members a year....

With voting open to everyone....

Free of charge ....

So, I gotta ask, how many friends do you think Brian has?

Niemeier’s blog post received replies comparing me variously to a spoilt child, a high school mean girl and a wiggling worm for venturing to suggest otherwise.

 If the size-15 shoe fits...

My personal favourite comment came from Niemeier himself; apparently channelling his inner Benjanun Sriduangkaew,

Benja-whatnow?

he felt it appropriate to threaten me with physical violence

And you somehow feel threatened, Lurch?

It’s not the easily excitable guys whose anger you should worry about. It’s the patient, reserved guys quietly sipping their drinks and reading Heinlein novels until they decide they’ve had enough of the loudmouths making a scene, take you out in the parking lot, and bust out your teeth.

Pardon me while I head desk for a bit.

Ahem...

"Doris." Bubbie. My extra-large jellyfish, my special snow flake, and other invertebrates .... it's a metaphor.

You know what a metaphor is, right?

Hell, this was an observation made by Isaac Asimov in the very first Black Widowers short story. Perhaps you heard it as "beware the wraith of a patient man"? No? Learn to read. 

One of Niemeier’s friends, a blogger named Alfred Genesson, made a post of his own attacking me. Here is his reply to my comment about Souldancer‘s lack of reviews online:

Oh, come on, now you're going after Al? Really? Dora the Tora cites an Injustice Gamer post.

Maybe some of us realize how active your type is at disemployment. Maybe we were busy reading books. At any rate, it’s not your crappy pastiche of urban fantasy, faerie tales, and WoD fanfic that you love.

And that's an attack?

Genesson starts his three-pronged rebuttal by suggesting, bizarrely, that people who give positive reviews to Souldancer are in danger of losing their jobs. He seems to expect us to believe that the legions of Souldancer fans have gathered into some kind of Fight Club-like underground subculture that dare not speak its name.

Bizarre?

The Wrights were uninvited from Cons they've gone to for years. 

Lou Antonelli had one of his short stories un-approved after he was told it was going to be published.

Alfred has other examples in his own dissection.

I await the part where this becomes "bizarre."

He then suggests that fans are too busy reading books to leave reviews, 

Alfred makes an effort to get reviews in, and sometimes the best he can do is a mini-review. I read more than 50 books a year, and I've only reviewed 57 books on Amazon in 6 years (2011-2016). And many of those are to books I either really, really loved, or books I desperately hated.

an argument which ignores the basic fact that fandom is built upon discussing media as well as consuming it:

Yes. Because we all know that all readers are obsessive fanboys who must do nothing but jabber about what they're reading online. There are no readers who are introverts, or people who would rather read than chat ....

Oh wait, what sounds like the very definition of a bookworm.

Seriously, what dungeon does this troll reside in?

a work that is not being discussed clearly has no fandom.

I haven't seen one discussion online about Honor at Stake, which has 53 reviews as of this moment. Is that a discussion because I have reviews, or do I not have a fan base because I have never been discussed on an internet forum, to my knowledge?

If you want to go by reviews, than Honor at Stake is better than Souldancer, five of Vox Day's books, six of John C Wright's books, and over 7 Timothy Zahn novels.

If you wish to make that assertion, please do so in front of their fans. I would love to see that reply. I'll view it from a safe distance.

But most interesting of all is his third assertion: that I prefer “crappy pastiche of urban fantasy, faerie tales, and World of Darkness fanfic”.

I don't even know what World of Darkness is, so, next.

This irrelevant ad hominem 

An ad hominem is a personal attack. It means "against the man."

.... And that joke is so easy in this case, "Doris," that I'm going to just let someone else fill in that particular blank.

(I was talking about whether a book is popular, rather than whether I personally like it)

Again, go argue with the 60,000 DragonCon attendees, and tell them how what they vote on isn't popular. Go ahead. Me and every statistician ever will sit back and laugh at you.

seems to be a response to my earlier comment that the Sad Puppies have shown little interest in horror fiction.

Alfred is a Rabid Puppy. Learn the difference between Puppies before you decide to kick them.

I would be a Rabid Puppy, but that would require that I care about the Hugos. At best, I'm just a troublemaking Puppy who will sit back and laugh as you make unforced errors throughout the process.

Genesson is trying to give the impression that he and the other Puppy supporters are actually hardened fans of the horror genre; 

I'm not.

Alfred isn't.

I'm trying to figure out if "Doris" is genuinely confused, or just a lying blivet.

but as he has no evidence to back up this claim,

He doesn't make this claim. In fact, he says exactly the opposite. I know you're British, but American English isn't that incomprehensible, is it?

he settles for simply impugning my own tastes.

 Puppies have been impugning the tastes of Puppy Kickers for years. This is new?

He has no idea where my tastes lie, of course, and so makes a wild stab-in-the-dark involving urban fantasy pastiche and World of Darkness fanfics

Stab-in-the-dark .... Is it really that hard? Might they include, I don't know ... something dark and depressing, where everyone dies?

You know, like George Martin?

(a description that, amusingly enough, is not too far from Declan Finn’s Puppy-approved Honor at Stake).

World of Darkness?  I say again ... what's that?

Alfred gives me a hint.

I don't recall a hate for Christianity being anywhere in his novels, nor an annoying and stupid clan warfare bit with drug and sex addled lower classes.  His vampires follow theological rules and are individuals, subject to a singular council, not part of WoD clan structures. Again, try harder.  

Wow.  WoD is anti-Christian, vampire clan warfare, drug abuse, sex addled, and class warfare?

"Doris"? If Alfred is even slightly accurate, you are apparently illiterate. In fact, I'd have to guess that you've dictated the entire blog post to someone who can tolerate listening to you.

Behind all of the bluster, Genesson’s post marks an attempt to frame the Puppies as the true custodians of horror fiction

Yes, yes, we know you want that job, "Doris."

I know that Doofus here likes to consider horror hir genre, hence the harping, but not only has Alfred said he's not the expert on all things horror, s/he/it has apparently not noticed that Puppies don't want to be custodians. We don't want to tell people what to read. All Puppies want people to read what they enjoy, and that's it, thank you.

The Puppy Kickers want to be the custodians. They are, after all, the "TruFans," the "Real Fans." They're pure fans. A master fandom, if you will.

with Brian Niemeier and (presumably) Declan Finn being the toasts of horror fandom. 

BWAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHA

Yeah. Sure.

As for those horror fans who do not read Niemeier or Finn, well, they are merely consumers of urban fantasy and other forms of horror-lite. As I have already shown, this is a complete reversal of the truth.

Actually, "Doris," you lying blivet, you're the only person who have used the phrase "horror-lite."

Niemeier himself has stated that his book won its Dragon Award due to voters who wanted to show their contempt for the Hugos.

Rabid Puppies voted as well. Vox Day voted for Brian Niemeier, and said "Sorry Declan." I presume a lot of Vox's fans followed.

If so, this is further evidence of a lack of votes from horror fans, who in my experience do not generally keep up with the Hugo Awards.

Because there is no overlap with scifi readers and horror writers? Horror writers are monomaniacs who cannot read anything else?

Again, "Doris," links. Stats. Proof. Evidence. Not whatever gets whispered in the echoes of your mind.

A number of my friends are indie horror writers,

And I'm sure that some of your best friends are conservatives, right?

and they pay little attention to the Hugos:

Well, Stephen King paid enough attention to the Hugos to declare that he didn't want to play with them. Are your indie writers less attentive and aware than King? Really?

they seem to view the award as being purely for science fiction,

Then why would King ever look at it in the first place?

Because, you know, his fans asked him.

I guess "Doris" isn't a real fan of horror, wouldn't s/he be aware of that? Come on, even I know that, and I'm not that big a fan of horror. Maybe "Doris" should get hir horror credentials renewed. Heh.

and consequently not their territory as writers or readers (by the same token, I’d imagine that the SF community generally does not look at the Bram Stoker Awards too closely).

I don't see why not. I mean, the Stoker awards have nominated or gone to mysteries like A Boy's Life, thrillers like Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, a fantasy like American Gods (which, oh, by the way, WON A HUGO).

... So maybe you should at least do a quick Wiki search? Like I just did?

Though, come to think of it, "attack of the 6 foot Tranny" does describe Buffalo Bill....

And if you are not paying attention to the Hugos, then you are unlikely to be aware of the Sad Puppies. I have sometimes mentioned the campaign to my friends in horror fandom, and none of them had heard of it.

You know, when Richard Nixon swept the election, nearly getting all 50 states, a New York Times reporter was confused, because, after all, no one she knew voted for him.

And no one "Doris" knows is aware of Puppies.

I guess no one "Doris" the Doofus knows has ever read Entertainment Weekly. Or Wired. Or File 770. Or NPR. Or the Atlantic. The Boston Globe. National Review. And this is just the first two pages of results upon googling Sad Puppies.

The notion that legions of horror fans (who care little about the Hugos) have suddenly become card-carrying supporters of the Puppy campaigns (which care little about horror) is simply not something that I can swallow.

..... Words cannot begin to describe how much I don't want to know what you will swallow, "Doris."

If you want to argue that Souldancer is a good novel, then go ahead. 

Funny, I thought that was part of winning the Dragon Award. The novel was so good, Brian's fans actually showed up and voted for it. You didn't vote. Therefore, you don't count in the Dragon Award.

If you want to argue that it deserves to be popular, and may someday be popular, then go ahead.

It already is. It was fans who got him a Dragon Award. At a convention with 60,000 con goers, minimum.

But you cannot argue, with any kind of intellectual honesty, that it is currently a popular novel amongst fans of the genre.

Actually, I can. It's popular enough to win a Dragon Award. I'll see my 60,000 con goers against your poor attempts at Googling any day of the week.

And you haven't proved otherwise, Doofus.

This claim will never escape Niemeier’s echo chamber: go around saying that Souldancer is horror fandom’s new favourite novel, and the first people to call you out will be horror fans.

Actually, the only one who seems to be calling him out is this bugger.

Incidentally, when I first reported on the Dragon Awards at WWAC, I received a reply from one of the non-Puppy nominees where she mentioned her “obscure indie published military sci fi book”. She has the right idea. She sees that there is no shame in being a little-league writer who does what they enjoy, who picks up a few fans along the way, and who may someday go on to bigger things.

There isn't...

...What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?

Brian Niemeier does not seem to realise this. For him, it is clearly not enough to have a small but loyal readership that has pushed him to the top of an online poll. He has to present himself as being fandom’s favourite horror writer – the “Dragon of Horror”, as he styles himself – even though he knows full well that this is simply not the truth.

It's called marketing. Only instead of "attack of the 6 ft tranny," he's marketing as the first guy to win the Dragon.

It's called a brand. It's how the free market works.

Perhaps you should look into that sometime.

"Doris" ends with a quote.

But if you’re an asshat, you will not be tolerated. Don’t be a dick. Because if you are, you’re going to get called out real quick.

Yeah. Sure. Except obviously, no one has called you out, douchy stalker boy. Now go take your size 20 stilleto heels, and go walk on a grate....

Watch as "Doris" takes that as a threat, too.

If the “Dragon of Horror” keeps things up, then this is a lesson he will soon learn the hard way.

Oh, look, stalkerish threats. Thankfully, s/he/it is far across the see, and is too cheap to pay for air fare. Though if this creature would like to stalk me ... well, I live near a police station, my neighborhood has clear lines of sight, and I'm relatively certain I can see this one coming.

And now, if you haven't already, you might want to try one of the nominated Best Horror novels for the Dragon last year, Honor at Stake, it's sequel Murphy's Law of Vampires, or perhaps one of the other books.

And if you've read them, a review would be nice.

 

REVIEWS ARE IN FOR HONOR AT STAKE!!!!

So, being slightly over prepared, I sent out a few advanced copies of Honor at Stake.

Most of these were either for the sake of blurbs, or for reviews. So some I can link to, some I can't, since they were sent to me directly.

This one -- not official, was a personal contact, but dang it was fun -- was

"OM... you did NOT do that! You did NOT just leave it at that! I think I hate you! Gaaaaahhhh!!! I still can't believe you did that!! *thud* I was just sitting here, into the home stretch, telling my husband, "You know, I don't like vampire stories much, but this one is so different... the action, the theology even, and the romance is so... so... NOOOOOO!!!!" Can't wait for the sequel and I'm highly recommending it when it's released!"

I honestly think that's one of my favorite reviews this far. I believe I now know how Jim Butcher feels when he wants to make the audience suffer. MUAHAHAHAHAH

Anyway...

Other review, from Karina Fabian, who I think is getting back at me for something...okay, she's not, she sort of does puns on a reflex.

"When Vampires try to take a bite out of the Big Apple, they'd better watch out. From street gangs to the Mafia to Vatican ninjas, the best and the worst of humanity bond together to save their city. Finn is a master of the fight scene and nonstop action - Honor at Stake will leave you feeling sucked dry."

A good review that hurts at the same time. That takes skill. :D

From Lori, one of my cobloggers at The Catholic Geek.  As of this minute, the full review is on Amazon.

"Honor At Stake is what happens when a monster-killing action flick meets a solid romance and a compelling character study in a world where "good vampires" actually make sense.  It is thoroughly enjoyable, and I can't wait for another installment."

It's strange when people actually tell me they WANT another book. Huh.

Remember Dawn Witzke? The Guest Puppy?

She did a whole review.   But, some highlights?

• Declan uses a good mix of show and tell to create a unique voice and awesome story.
• He does an impeccable job of balancing the action, suspense and romance. Usually, you get one with a side of the others, but not in this book. All three are served up in equal shares.
• The “rules” for vampires are consistent. Declan does stray from the original vampire lore, but not so much that it’s not believable, unlike a book with sparkley vampires.
• There are Vatican ninjas involved and they have cool toys.
• The romantic scenes are very well done. Declan has a rare gift to be able to write romance scenes that women actually want to read. Men usually fall short in that area.
• There are hooks throughout that force you to keep reading because you just have to know what happens next.
• Did I mention there are ninjas? Oh, and fencing and krav maga and explosions and loads of other fun stuff.

And finally, there is a review from Margot St. Aubin, who read several versions of the book before I submitted it anywhere.

"The closest thing you could describe me as in high school was a Goth .... 

then there was Twilight. Sure, an enthused friend handed them to me. She did a fine job of convincing me they were awesome.

They weren't. Then Declan Finn comes out with Honor at Stake. Dammit, I thought I was over this. I'm even hauling out my Rasputina and Black Tape for a Blue Girl thanks to his guy. He already knows he's responsible for all the Cruxshadows appearing in my playlist. And, he's not sorry at all. That's a good thing. It will be all his fault if I start wearing black lipstick again, I swear. Okay, I'm joking about that last part. No, seriously, this guy writes about... ahem, real vampires, not the sparkly fucked up Jar Jar Binks of the vampire world. They are deadly hunters, with vestiges of humanity that make them more frightening.""

I love my job.

Building Catholic Vampire Lore (Honor At Stake)

Yesterday, I mentioned how I made Honor At Stake a book out of Buffy-inspired fan fiction. But how does one do that?

In the beginning ... get the vampire lore down.  How does it work?

Step one: I want my Dracula back.

And I mean the original Bram Stoker Dracula. Something that made sense.

In the Buffy verse, those who turn into vampires (while they MIGHT have the personality and characteristics of the people they were when they were alive), are basically possessed by a carbon copy of a demon.  This is one way to make the original Dracula story make sense, especially with Lucy being pure and virtuous when alive, and a killing machine when she develops fangs.

Heck, someone in the comments section of one of my last posts insists that's exactly what Bram Stoker had written.

But do I want to do that? Seriously, that seems very quick and easy, doesn't it? Instant killing machine? I don't want to use something that could be a cheap knockoff.

Though on the other hand, I want crucifixes and holy water to work on these creatures of the night.  Why? Because I am sick and tired of these secularized vampires in my vampire fiction. Even Fred Saberhagen, whose Dracula novels I loved, ejected religion almost entirely.

I want that back. Yes, I had no problem with Saberhagen doing that, but he was the first in my experience to do that ... about twenty or thirty years ago.

Another reason I wanted  religious artifacts to work on vampires?  Logically, if left unchecked, the forces of darkness would easily overrun everybody if they so desired. And if there are demons from Hell, there is going to be a God in Heaven. And He will do something to cover our asses. Thank you. Period. The end.

... In which case, then what?  No, seriously, if I'm not going for instant killing machine, just drink blood, how do I make vampires affected by holy items?

Because here's the most important question: How am I going to circumvent free will?

Oh, well, duh, that's the easy part: I incorporate free will.

One of the things people may not be aware of with me is that I play video games.  Yes, I've blogged about it before, but it's been a while.

One of the more important parts of many role-playing video games is Aristotle's ethics: character is shaped by one's actions, motivations, and even words and thoughts.  What we do is who we are. We're formed by actions.

And what if it's the same for vampires?  The more evil or virtuous they are, the more powerful they become.  Day to day people, who just want to get home and take a nap after a long day at work, will probably be generally unaffected by holy artifacts, but they won't be very powerful either.  The vicious have problems being within line of sight of a church.  The virtuous have no problems.

.... How does that work though?

If you look through the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, he created an outline of the abilities of a post-resurrection body. This would include the ability to rearrange the atoms of one's body to slip between the spaces of the atoms in a wall -- because a post-resurrection body would be something the owner would have complete control over, because the soul would be so bound up with the body.

Well, if that's the case, why can't we expand this list into a this hypothetical extension that includes shape-shifting? Like into a bat or something?

In this case, that would make vampirism an imperfect resurrection -- or an imperfect death. If it was perfect, they wouldn't need blood.  Heh.  And the actions that form the vampire would join the body and soul tighter together, and thus increase the vampire's control over their own body, and then can do dang near ANYTHING. BWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH

Ahem...

So, this might be the start of something big. I'd be able to keep crucifixes vs. vampires. I could have good vampires, evil vampires, and all of the Dracula-esque superpowers.

Hmm... does that mean my vampires are walking corpses with fangs and a personality? Or are they alive?  Answer: perfect control means they don't need to breathe or eat, but they can if they want to. And let's face it, if they keep their body processes going, they create blood by eating regular food.

We won't even go into blood from the chalice. Heh heh heh.

The next step, of course, is to add vampires to our history.

Were vampires part of the French revolution as part of the nobles being beheaded, or were they part of the peasant rushing forward to catch blood with their bread?

Do I have Nazi vampires? Commie vampires?

Why not both? After all, why else would they have death camps?

Of course, this would require some vampire spies, right?

Ooh, a Cold War with vampires, isn't that fun?

Obviously, this can go on for a very, very, very long time.

And I'm a historian by training, so guess what? I have more background than I have wanted for creating vampire biographies.

This was all so much fun. Enjoy Honor at Stake.

Developing novels: Honor at Stake origins

I've mentioned once or twice that fan fiction is more or less how I started writing. It was of a space opera tv show called Babylon 5, and simply put, it spiraled out of my control into something so totally different, I didn't need to rewrite a whole hell of a lot to make it a different universe.

However, I started doing that in 1998, before I really knew what the hell Fan Fiction was.

Then my sister decided that she was going to do something for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She based a character on me a little. He was named Marco, a bit player.

By that point, it was 3 years later, 2001. I had been writing with every spare moment, I had pumped out thousands of pages of book by then, so I took one look at her fan fiction and muttered "Come on, move over, we can do this better."

Because, really, you don't get to be a writer unless you're wrapped a little too tight ... or just a little too strange.

Before I knew it, I had written three additional stories in that little bit of business, and some of them nearly at hundred pages.

Because, again, writers: we're wired weirdly.

And, because I decided that I shouldn't let anything I've worked on ever go to waste, I later retooled it into a massive 460 page novel.

Of course, I had to retool the vampire legend a little ... okay, I mostly had to retool it so that it was coherent. Let's face it, after Bram Stoker, it gets a little strange. And when you hit the 90s, vampire lore becomes a befuddled mess (Rice, Blade, Hamilton, Whedon). It's sad when Joss Whedon probably gets it better than most. Seriously, the atheist Whedon gets it better than Marvel comics?  Geez.

Part of MY vampire killing kits.

And when I did UN-Dead (because I'm subtle that way), it opened with a government spy from my other books, Merle Kraft....

Merle Kraft is one of those characters who will simply not go away.  He's a deleted character from the Pius Trilogy -- yes, I had even more characters than in the final cut -- who first appeared in a thriller Dances with Werewolves. Merle deals in "strange" cases for the government. He started out as a spy who mysteriously, just sort of opened locks without any tools whatsoever.  Any lock.

Merle Kraft is one of three half-brothers (that they know of)-- Merle, Tal, and Dalf. One's a spy, one is a stage magician, and one seems to deal with a darker power. BUAHAHAHAHAH.

And, of course, these names are short for Merlin, Taliesin, and Gandalf.

In the one-volume edition, I opened with Merle Kraft being dropped head first into a world of vampires. Because, hey, when in doubt, use the Alice in Wonderland effect.

Then Merle started to complete disappear from the story entirely.  Marco and his sidekick, Amanda, had taken over the entire novel.

Gahhh.  Sometimes, these people never want to play well with others.

All right, fine, if they wanted to play that way -- and it wasn't like anyone else wanted to publish the bloody book -- I'd retool the novel.  Let's do it from the ground up, where the two of them met. They had to figure out how to bring each other into their worlds without killing each other.

And keep in mind, this all started in 2001, before there was anything called Twilight.

Frankly, I still think I did it better.

From History to Vampires: Why Honor at Stake?

A question I haven't gotten, and that I had expected, would have been, well, how the bloody blue Hell does one go from The Pius Trilogy to vampires?  Like with Honor At Stake, coming out on Sept 1?

Step one: Once upon a time, I did some fan fiction.  Actually, no, I didn't. My sister did a fan fiction once. I took it, made it far more interesting, and rewrote it as an independent book.  I then decided that the book was a little too ... compact. The first sixty pages of the book? I expanded all of it into Honor At Stake.

As I started expanding it ... well, everyone say it with me: It just spiraled.

The novels were basically "Catholic vampires," where I kicked the mythos into compliance with standard theology, and then did a little rewrite of history since 1789, and....Anyway...

Step two:  one of my Facebook groups wanted something "Dark." A fellow member, Erin Lale was an acquisitions editor at Eternal Press / Damnation books, and she had nothing in her email.  So, I sent in my book, and well...Nothing happened. At all.  No word, no nothing. I got a reply at 1pm the next day saying that it was received.

That evening, I was cleaning out my spam folder.  There was a 6pm response, that very day. Five hours after the confirmation email.

That was when Erin told me they wanted Honor At Stake.

Short version ... I wrote it when I felt like it, I wasn't entirely certain that anyone else would be interested, and now, surprise, they do.

When Puppies Attack

This isn't about Sad Puppies again....

Okay, I have a Sad Puppy Primer up at Liberty Island -- you can see this train wreck from the beginning. It's not nearly as snarky as my last two piece on the topic, but it does link for a few of my own blog posts. Because I can use the hits. :)

However, a fun piece of Sad Puppy news from Brad Torgersen's FB page.

First, a post by Brad himself.

You know, once upon a time, I really did like to just goof around on Facebook. Share funny stuff, enthuse about this or that passtime, occasionally be risque, often have a laugh with friends (on every "side" of any given thing) and *always* with the intent to have a good time.
That was before I embarked upon my political career as Skeletor.
Well, Skeletor is getting tired.
The skull mask is gonna slowly go back into the toy chest over the next few weeks.

To which someone answered: "If you are Skeletor does that make Larry Cobra Commander? Is Sarah Hoyt the Baroness?"
"John C. Wright must be Megatron then."

I love nerds.

In other news.

My vampire novel, Honor At Stake, is up and running.  The editor has gotten back to me. We're getting along like a house a fire. Sort of.

And she let me keep the line "Would you rather vampire sparkle?"  "Do you want to live?"

Oh yes, we're going to get along so very well.

I'm also on the final rounds of edits before the typesetter gets their hands on the book.  Yes.  I might get proof copies in short order. Isn't that something else?

Let me see, I'm actually going to be paid money for several projects. Yes. Money. Strange, isn't it? Someone wanted my opinion on their book, and boy, are they going to get it -- MUAHAHAHAHA-- and the Sad Puppy piece might actually bring in some sales.  Who knew, huh?  Cash.  I'm shocked, shocked I say.

But as I write this, it's almost 2:30 in the morning, so I'm going to turn in.

Why are sexist books best sellers?



Women in novels:
How I see them.

Yes, I've injected some gross hyperbole into that title.  I don't like throwing around terms like "sexism," since I think the term's been overused to the point where it's almost meaningless (like the term "fascist" just means anyone who doesn't agree with you online).

However, these are some books that hit it really fricking big in the last few years, and that still confound friends of mine with their popularity, and even with their very existence.  This might count as a rant, but, damn it, some of these things are stupid. And wrong.

Now, keep in mind, I haven't read any of these books, but I've been told about them, researched them a little, and every stupid little thing I've seen has amounted to one great big question: Who the Hell is reading these books and why?

If you remember the "Strong Female Character" blog, you can see this as a bit of a sequel.  We've gone from fully fleshed out, well-developed, kick-ass women .... to this.  Books that treat women like crap, and they're made into bestsellers.... by women!

Twilight .... Where do you start with Twilight? Maybe over at RM Hendershot's blog, where she discusses how the main characters have little to no personality, and there's almost no plot at all.

Maybe with my friend Annie (wife of my co-author from Codename: Winterborn) noting that "Vampires are going crazy over blood from a paper cut. why aren't they going insane every time the heroine has her period? Have we forgotten that teenage girls have periods?"  Or, another of her sayings, "Vampires don't sparkle! They immolate!"

Another quarter is an online fellow named "The Nostalgia Critic" on YouTube, who sums up Bella Swan like this .... (WARNING: R-rated language ahead.)



I think Twilight was summed up for me in a matter of minutes when I tripped over the movie played on cable. Two characters were in a diner, and the vampire explained to our hapless nimrod (named "Bella") that he could read the mind of every person in the diner except for her.

Bella: "What's wrong with me?"
Vampire: "I tell you I can read minds, and you ask what's wrong with you."

That's it. Twilight, summed up by its own content.

A friend of mine on Facebook once asked how the last book/movie ended for Twilight.  I had been told through another acquaintance, so I informed her.  My friend replied: "Stop making fun of me."  I kid you not. She didn't know I was being deadly serious.

After decades of women's equality (I'm Irish, our women have been ass-kickers even in our mythology), going from Equal Pay for Equal Work, to Rosie the Codebreaker (the codebreakers from World War II who would staff the NSA) to every strong female character on television, to .... Bella Swan?  And teenage girls are even allowed to read this garbage?  And adult women buy these books in droves?

When did we fall off the merry-go-round? [Answer below the break]

Osama. Death. Events. Superman... a Strange week.

Yup, the title's a little odd, but then again, so have been my last few days.

So....

First things first:  Osama bin Laden is sort of dead ... So, to the soldiers of the US military: Thank you for blowing him straight to Hell.  Expect "Osama tapes" to keep being broadcast on al-Jazeera for a few more weeks, at least.  I suspect that, like Stephen J. Cannell, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Parker, bin Laden still has a postmortem career ahead of him.

However, I talked about Osama yesterday. Let's move on.

The rest of post will be short.  There's a death in the family.  Please, no condolences; I have a strange reaction to death: there's either Heaven, Hell, or Nothing.  If Heaven is the option, the dead have it better than we do.  If there's Nothing, then, well, the cancer is over.  If the other option ... well, then, there's nothing to be done about it, is there?

Moving on ....

I had partially considered starting my "Evil Religions" series, which I had mentioned before Lent first started.  However, after the whole Snarky Theology series, I think I'm going to take a break from posting non-fiction.  You'd be surprised at how work intensive it can get.... also, my first "Evil Religion" post is ten pages long, and that's after constant editing and revision.

I had considered the latest Disaster to Marvel At ... and it's not a Marvel disaster.  For once.  No, it seems that Quesada disease has infected DC.  In an attempt to be relevant, they are having Superman renounce his American citizenship to join the United Nations.  Because "truth, justice, and the American way just isn't enough anymore" ...

Funny, "the American way" didn't work very well for Osama, when it landed on him in the form of a SEAL team.

I have plenty to say on the Super-idiocy, much of it utilizing words that are inappropriate for a PG-rated blog.

And I wanted to discuss that Pope John Paul II is on his way to becoming a Saint, and that his day will be ... May Day.  Funny, that a guy who fought the Soviet Union until it's dying day now gets to take over their feast day.  How's that for a souvenir of war? But, non-fiction is rather work intensive. Maybe next year.

So, that leaves me free to mention a few upcoming items.

1) This upcoming Saturday is Free Comic Book Day.  I will be posting an online short story called "One Way to Stay Out of Jail."  The star of this story is one Sean Ryan, who appears in A Pius Man and has already had a few short stories all his own: The Pirate King, the surprisingly popular Boys of the Old Brigade, and God Hates .... Superman?.  He's one of my more colorful characters.  Unlike Scott "Mossad" Murphy, who likes to go unnoticed, Sean has a tendency to leave behind evidence of his presence.  One can usually follow him if one just runs towards the screaming.... Oh, wait, wrong blog.

And, for the record, the complete list of stories is here.

2)  Now, a while ago, I had mentioned that I try to keep busy.  I do this mainly by writing other novels.  And since I've written a whole trilogy around A Pius Man, there's only so much I can do since the first book may or may not survive its first form.

Right now, it's starting to look like vampires might be a good idea.  How many people would like to see a novel of vampires where: A) It all makes sense? B) Vampires all follow the rules laid down in Dracula? And C) THEY DON'T SPARKLE?

I'm going to talk with my agent about it, obviously, but I would like to know: if I write this, will you, kind reader, want to come and play?  I can promise you that I will make fun of certain cliches running rampant right now. I can promise that I will include philosophy, history, theology, and enough action to make the Blade movies seem slow and ponderous. And I try to make fighting vampires practical in a modern age.....  I just really wanted to use the Throwing Stars of David and Vatican Ninjas. 

So, what do you think?  Please comment below.... and keep it clean.

Catholic Conspiracies II: Revenge of the Vatican Ninjas.

Last week, I mentioned that the vast, massive conspiracy theories about the Catholic Church amuse me. I discussed some specific issues and theories, but I find them all funny, almost no matter the details. Why?
Dear God in Heaven, where do I start?

The theories are so ludicrous, I hardly know where to begin.

SECRET SOCIETIES

One running theme of most of the conspiracy theories is that there is a “conspiracy of silence” running around within the Vatican, the hierarchy, an order, pick one or all. This pops up in almost any fiction where a Catholic priest appears.

Given the news of the last decade, anyone should see an immediate problem. Not only does the Church of Rome write everything down, they never throw anything out. This is a bureaucracy that has held onto the divorce petition from Henry VIII of England, written in the early 16th century.  We've held onto it for nearly five hundred years, and we haven't thrown it out yet.

If there were a conspiracy in the church, there will likely be paperwork to document it, and they'd hold onto it with their dying breath. Bad habit for a conspiracy.

But, the way I look at it, the Vatican is essentially the world's biggest marble office building, complete with Dilberts and the occasional pointy-haired boss … or pointy-hatted boss.

In the current day and age, any bureaucracy can keep a secret for a few years. But two thousand? Really?

Disasters to Marvel At: A Comic Discussion.

While I generally leave anything referring to comic books or superheroes to others, I am now stepping in.  The disaster known as Marvel Comics has become a wasteland of jibberish for years now.  Finally, there is a solution at hand.

Dear Disney, you own Marvel now. Have Joe Quesada walk the plank off the roof of 666 5th avenue. You can have Johnny Depp hold the sword that nudges him off, if you like.

Why do I say that? About five years ago, DC Comics started their epic of the week. Marvel, in perfect monkey-see-monkey-do fashion, has tried to keep up. In this effort, the result has been … nothing I can adequately describe using PG-13 language.

Let's see if we can all follow this round of abject stupidity.