TV Review: Lucifer

The premise behind Lucifer is simple enough: it's Origen.

Oh, wait, sorry, you have no idea what I'm talking about? Okay, let's back up.

Once upon a time, Lucifer got bored with Hell and took a vacation running a nightclub in Los Angeles.

Then, one of his pet humans was gunned down right in front of him, Lucifer, following his instincts, wants to hunt down and hurt people in response.

Surprisingly enough, this is a fun little series....

And that's about it. All of the screaming mimis who want to talk about how it's glorifying evil ... it's not. Sure, the actor playing Lucifer is charming -- to a point -- the series doesn't exactly make him look remotely "good," because most of the time, we see him through the eyes of a homicide cop who sees him as a schmuck.

Though, sadly, Lucifer is less evil than Dr. Gregory house ever was.

All in all, it's a fun little show, mostly a murder mystery with some supernatural elements in it, but that's about it. Don't think too hard on the Angelology, or if Lucifer can be redeemed (which, last time I checked, has been bandied about, but is still considered a heresy).

Yes, I was going to do a full review, but I'm too damn tired to care right this moment. The humor is sly, the soundtrack is hilarious, and I'm surprised they've held off on using Sympathy for the Devil. But they'll get there, I'm sure.

Superversive Fiction

So, last week, we discussed evil books, and I even had a lot of feedback.

Now riddle me this, Batman, what makes good fiction? Or at least not-evil books?

Let's use a negative example in this case. The most recent David Baldacci book, Guilty, started almost as a John Grisham novel. Our hero, government assassin Will Robie, goes home to rural Mississippi after hearing that his father is arrested for murder. The conclusion of the book is, SPOILER, it turns out that Will Robie's high school sweetheart had been repeatedly raped and molested by her own father, had a kid as a result, and spent decades for revenge on Robie for not personally rescuing her (though he himself had no knowledge of the abuse at the time).

Fun, huh?

No, not really.

I think this is a good example of something that is not edifying.

Seriously, it's right up there with how rape is not entertainment.

You want even halfway decent fiction? You need something that at least adds to you as a person, as opposed to crap in evil books, which at least makes you want to take a shower, if not just bash your head against a wall.  Good fiction should at least be uplifting in some degree.

That's the nice thing about the Sad Puppies list, as opposed to the usual crap that's been nominated over the years for the Hugo. It's edifying. Seriously, look at this list: Neal Stephenson, John C Wright, John Ringo, good solid fiction.

Technically, edifying, or superversive, fiction, isn't new. It's very old fashioned, beginning /middle /end, good guys bad guys fiction. Let's take a look at a classic film where the good guys and bad guys aren't exactly traditional: for example, The Sting. The protagonists there aren't necessarily "good" in the usual sense; after all, they're all con artists. But there's the difference between the more standard rogue versus the film's antagonist, Doyle Lonagan (played by the impeccable Robert Shaw, who could do whatever the bloody heck he liked, really). Our antagonists are murderous pricks, and our protagonists are simple thieves. In the hierarchy of sins, most people will go for the thief over the killer.

I won't say that The Sting is perfect or anything, but as far as con movies go, it was one of the first. Though I think White Collar and Leverage have done better since then. (Best car chase of all time: The Rock ... or The Dead Pool.  Bullitt was just okay in comparison, though I will acknowledge).

But at the end of the day, The Sting is just plane fun. It's about pulling one over on a truly bad guy.

That's one of my problems with Twilight -- is anything uplifting? The best interpretation I've seen was by John C. Wright, wherein he suggested that Twilight was about a man being uplifted and improved by a woman. Sadly, I look at it and see a self-involved, petulant little girl who manipulates everyone around her in her quest to become a super-powered monster, as opposed to the plain old blood-thirsty creature she already was. Perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Wright are more perceptive than I am, though I have trouble seeing beyond, well, The Nostalgia Critic version.

Let's look at The Prisoner -- as bizarre and as trippy as it was -- which it was one man versus society, or the system, and resisting all trips and traps and snares designed to make him roll over and play dead, to be just like everybody else. It's something that adds to your life.

As I said, superversive fiction is basic, almost simple storytelling in comparison to some of the crap I've seen out there that tries to be "art." It's the difference between Jackson Pollack and Alex Ross -- Pollack is splashes on a canvas that we're told is art, and Alex Ross is "merely" a comic book artist ... who happens to be hung in the Smithsonian.

At the end of the day, The Sting is better fiction than MacTeague. It's rogues versus a villain. It's Die Hard versus an art house film. One uplifts and edifies and builds you up, and most of the "art" seems to be dedicated to tearing us down, punishing optimism and believing that you're anymore than the glorified meat machines of secular humanism.

At the end of the day, there is more artistry in Die Hard than in an Dan Brown or an Ann Leckie novel -- trust me, I did a two-part blog on it.

The Catholic Geek: Valentine's Day with Ava Armstrong 02/14 by We Built That Network | Culture Podcasts

The Catholic Geek: Valentine's Day with Ava Armstrong 02/14 by We Built That Network | Culture Podcasts: Host Declan Finn will be covering the joys of Valentine's Day with romance author Ava Armstrong...whether he likes it or not. We will also be covering her latest novel.

Evil Books

I have read few books in my life that I would categorize as evil.  But I'm sure there are some people out there that are. And no, I don't mean a necronomicon. Those are easy -- those books you burn, and don't even ask questions.

No, I mean the type of books you need to take a shower over.

However, there are plenty of books I don't finish. Many I don't even start. Why? Because of some topics of subject matter that I didn't know about in the first place.

I will never read books about child rape. Never. Period. Done. We're finished. If it's mentioned, a footnote in the crimes of the perp, that's one thing, but I will not sit through reading that.

I will never read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo -- yes, I'm told that the CHAPTER LONG RAPE SCENE is "soooo well written," and I don't care. Period. If it's so important to the story that the readers need that much detail, screw that. I don't need that in my head, I'm screwed up enough. Thanks.

In case you haven't noticed, rape and particularly child rape, will earn you a spot on my personal capitol punishment list. Meaning that I had better not be aware of you within my general vicinity.

We won't even get into 50 Shades of Stupid. After all, who needs porn? Also, why did it have to be so badly written. Yes, take your pick over what offends me more, the porn or the bad writing. Though I have heard enough excerpts being read in funny little voices that I do think it's hilarious bad.

There is, of course, crap writing. George RR Martin seems to spend so much time on snow and ice and dead people that I can't bring myself to care about his work. And I tried. And I failed. Far as I'm concerned, save the world from Martin and run from it.  I expect the series to end with everybody dead.  That's not evil, that's just a one-trick pony. The only reason a lot of people seem to be reading the books is to see who the last one standing is.

And then there are books like Dan Brown. Message fiction. If you don't believe me, (SPOILERS) the last Dan Brown, Inferno, ended with a third of the world being sterilized. And instead of our heroes doing something reasonable, like trying to stop it, our heroes shrug and go "Oh well, the bad guy was right, overpopulation is a threat to everybody. Screw these people."

No, that's not exactly how they put it, but that's pretty much what I walked away with.

One book I finished in my youth was called MacTeague, something that film buffs would know of via the train wreck that was the 9-hour Eric von Strohiem film Greed. The premise was that a big dumb dentist fell in love with the girl his best friend has his eyes one. The best friend "magnanimously" allows the title doofus to marry the girl.  The girl then wins lotto (yes, really) and clings to every penny like Scrooge. It ends with the title character killing his wife for the cash, riding of into the desert, pursued by his former best friend (who's interested only in the money).

The finale is the two of them, in the desert, with no water, still arguing about the money. All the while I could hear Indiana Jones from Temple of Doom, screaming "You, are going, to DIE."

I think that was the second time in my life I wanted to fling a book across the room. Because evil and stupid people, all of whom you'd rather see die .... all die. And you wonder "Why did I just burn brain cells on all of this?" Answer: Because it was assigned reading in high school.

Sadly, most of the crap books I had to finished were due to "education." Lord of the Flies and Catcher in the Rye are two books that I'm relatively certain that have added nothing to my life. Honestly, the first one was just literary Thomas Hobbes (who I generally disagree with on a philosophical level anyway) and the other was the narration from a teenager who had a nervous breakdown because he couldn't handle becoming a grownup.

As CS Lewis once put into the mouth of a demon, Screwtape, "Of course you can't tempt your primary soul today, that field that protects him comes from reading a good book. You must stop him from doing that. You want him to read "important" books. Books that he'll hate."

So, do yourself a favor everyone. Go out, and read fun books. Books you're going to enjoy. Because life is too short because someone tells you "this book is important."

In #SadPuppies we trust

So, news flash ...

For the moment, my novel Honor at Stake is now the #1 puppy contender for Best Novel under the recommended reading list.

Compiled by Brian Niemeier, taken from his FB page

To begin with, I would like to thank everyone for their support. I'm still bowled over. I'm still wondering where the wave of Butcher fans are (though they might have looked at last year's Hugos and decided "Why bother?"), but right now, I'll take it.

To start with, I would like to thank Brian Niemeier, mostly for putting together this list in the first place -- if he hadn't pointed out how close all of this was, my fans wouldn't know to make this push. And I would like to thank all the fans who voted for me in the first place.

Now, what does this mean? Does it mean that I have a lock on a Hugo nomination? No.

1) To start with, this isn't a Sad Puppy lock right now.  With a solid surge of voters, I could be knocked off the #1 spot, so keep that in mind. This is not set in stone. If I have any more fans left out there, now would be a good time to dial in, just in case.

2) Now, is this a lock for a Hugo Nomination?  No, people still need to show up and vote for that one, too.

3) There will be ten nominees for Sad Puppies 4, and five for the final Hugo nominations. So, when this list is parsed down, there can only be 5.

This top ten list has 18 people on it.  Let's break it  down a bit.

I cannot see NK Jemisin or Ann Leckie taking a Sad Puppy nomination. I just can't see it happening.

John Ringo has made it quite clear that he will not accept a Hugo, because they never gave his editor Jim Baen a Hugo, so "screw 'em."

We're now down to 15 people for 10 spots, two of which have completely opened up.

However, assuming that everything I just predicted will happen -- and that's a lot of presuming -- that means the list will look more like it stops below JM Stirling.

Take this list from above.  Compare and contrast, eliminating Ringo, Leckie, and Jemisin, and counting the folks from the top down.  And it looks more like this list.

1. Honor at Stake, Declan Finn
2 -3. Seveneves / Somewhither
4- 6. The AeroNaut's Windlass / Uprooted / A Long Time Until Now
7 - 8.  Raising Caine  / The Just City
9. The Desert and the Blade
10 Golden Son 

If you're wondering why I'm counting Golden Son by itself, it's because Vox Day picked him, so I'm expecting his name to be crashing through this list in short order. Vox has himself a lot of minions

4) So, now what? Well, we've got a top ten list that is not necessarily written in stone. The List will be closed out either in February or early March, and then spread around the universe. So the next 20-30 days will probably be important.

Wow, this has been fun. And bizarre as heck. But let's see where this yellow brick road takes us, and hope the paving doesn't include landmines.

For the love of #SadPuppies

So, remember how I mentioned not too long ago that I was #5 in the nominations list for the Sad Puppies recommendation list?

Guess what.

List compiled by Brian Niemeier
From Data at SP4

I'm still there.

Now, obviously, the list is a little more sane. Butcher really should be on top.  Brian Niemeier's Nethereal I expect to get a bigger bump.  Why? Because Larry Correia himself tweeted about Nethereal, so I was expecting to be blown right off the list.

As I look at how close I am, I have to ponder just how strange this is. It really is odd. Last year I had barely heard of Larry Correia, and had to get caught up on Sad Puppies in a hurry just to wrap my brain around what had happened to the Hugos since the last time I page attention to them (PS: the last Hugo I cared about before SP3 was the one given to Babylon 5, so nearly 20 years ago).

And honestly? I hadn't expected to get a "Sad Puppies 4: The Embiggening" nomination in the first place for best novel.  Sad Puppies Bite Back? Sure. Absolutely. It was bizarre and brought THOUSANDS of people to the blog. But who heard of Honor at Stake? Heck, I'm not even sure who the hell nominated it in the first place.

But now that I have a shot, I think I'd like to go for it.

The Catholic Geek: Superbowl Edition

The Catholic Geek: Superbowl Edition



Host Declan Finn once against tackles a broadcast all by himself by completely ignoring the Superbowl, but does stop to make fun of Liz Bourke of Tor, Marvel's tv shows, and deliver some news about Deadpool, the Hugos, and maybe even do a reading from his work. Again.

Set To Kill, Chapter 5

Welcome to more pieces and parts of my upcoming novel Set To Kill.  I'm already on page 56, but the is was a slow week.  Sorry about that.

If you don't remember what Set To Kill is, it's the sequel to my novel It Was Only On Stun.

Thursday, the day before WyvernCon

Sean Ryan finished the SWATting of Colonel Bradley, then looked at Matthew Kovach like the man had grown three heads. “What the hell is this?” he demanded, handing the author back his iPad.

“More or less what happened,” Kovach said.

“Come on, this is so unbelievable, no one has land mines—”

Bradley cleared his throat. “I do.”

Sean's head whipped around so fast, whiplash was not out of the question. “Really? How much of this was real?”

“I don't have any bloodstained crosses,” he said casually. “And I didn't force the SWAT team to undergo training. And I certainly don't act like that around my wife.”

Bradley's phone rang and he immediately answered it. He hopped up and marched off to the side, the last words he heard from him were “Hey, honey. How are you, pumpkin?” in a voice so sweet, he sounded like someone else.

Sean blinked as though he'd been slapped. “Huh. Well, I guess there can be a lot more truth in fiction than I thought.”

“Just wait until you see my books,” Kovach said.

Sean frowned, “I'm almost afraid to ask.” He looked back to the authors. “Now, all of you people have been SWATted?”

Everybody nodded, even the two on laptops.

“Now, did anyone actually die during any of these? Obviously, none of you did, but were there casualties?”

The author on the laptop, in the kilt, laughed. “I only had a few of them bruised. My kids play rough.”

Sean blinked, opened his mouth, and he saw Declan Finn already scrolling through his iPad to find that writeup. “I don't think I want to know just now. Though I must ask, your name, sir?”

“Jessie James.”

Of course you are. “Your parents sure they wanted Jessie? Not William or Henry?”

“Like I haven't heard that one –” James stopped and looked up from his computer for a moment, still typing without looking at the screen. “Okay, I haven't actually heard that one before. They usually ask where my brother Frank is.”

“Glad I can oblige.” He looked over the others. “Anyone other casualties?”

One of the others, who looked like Freddy Mercury (only straight), with mustache and slicked-back black hair, chuckled. “Only scrapes and bruises.”

“Even I survived mine,” Kovach joked. His smile faded. “But, seriously, Sean, the SMURFs have pulled out all of the stops trying to sabotage the livelihoods of everyone here. Check out Amazon sometime, and see how many one-star reviews out and out state that it's because the author is a Puppy backer, and you'll see that this has been a concerted effort. It's a little annoying at this point.” The author smiled. “Let's just say I'm happy that I've kept my temper in check.”

Sean nodded. He'd seen a few of the bodies Kovach had left behind. “Gotcha.” He looked back to the others. “I have to ask, then – why didn't a single one of you ask WyvernCon for more security? Let's say this is all true, that none of you, and none of your fans, made even the slightest threat against the smuts –”

“SMURFs,” a chorus corrected him.

“—then why did only one side ask for help?”

Gary Castelo laughed, once more seeming like the ghost of Christmas Present. “I own a gun range. Figure it out.” He nodded to Kovach. “You read his write up of Bradley's SWATting experience. Do the math.”

The one Sean labeled as “Freddie Mercury” said, “I'm Werner Y. Jefferson. In addition to being an author, I'm a gunsmith, and I make my own swords. As Gary says, do the math.”

Jessie James didn't even look up from the laptop. “Yeah, don't even start with me. Someone else can go.”

Rachel Hartley reached under her chair and brought out a tactical umbrella, with a solid iron core. “I'm good with this.”

“But in all honesty,” Omar Gunderson said, “We don't need it. These guys are, at best, keyboard commados. Sure, sic a SWAT team on us via 9-1-1? Not a problem. But you've met the leaderships of some of our … antagonists?”

Gary chuckled. “Mild annoyances?”

Omar shrugged. “Sure. Like it or not, we're not in a place where they can come and get us. Even if they call a SWAT team on us again here, in Atlanta, there's no way that they would get past the front desk. It's hard to SWT someone in a hotel, you know?”

“And let's face it, there's no way in Hell they'd take us on one-on-one,” Kovach said. “Unless they have some psycho foot soldiers around, of course. Heh. But let's face it, what are the odds of that?”

That's when someone coming up the Hyatt's back stairs and wheeled on the patio with a gun.

Music blog: Amaranthe - Unreal

LIstening to Puppy Kickers

So, last week, Liz bourke saw my article....

Okay, I found her Twitter account and I deliberately tagged her in EVERY fisk and dissection I've done of her articles. (a whole three, brought up last time).

Her response?

Heads-up, @tordotcom mods: looks like someone has too much time on their hands. (So wee, such violent metaphor.) https://t.co/XTkj1io4DY

— Liz Bourke (@hawkwing_lb) January 28, 2016