Author: VD

Mailvox: Book II and other matters

CC is concerned I am pulling a GRR Martin with regards to the sequel to A THRONE OF BONES:

With all the projects you have going on, I’m worried that you won’t finish (or advance) the story you started in Throne of Bones. I’d like to find out what happens to Marcus, and learn more about the watchers. If you are in fact working on the next volume, when (approximately) do you expect to publish it? You can answer this on your Vox blog. I’m sure others want to know as well.

It’s certainly true that other projects, particularly the unexpected birth of Castalia House, have reduced the amount of time I have to work on the second book in THE ARTS OF DARK AND LIGHT. But it’s more than a fair trade, I think; multiple books from Tom, John, Rolf, and others in exchange for a delay in the return to Selenoth. For example, I recently finished editing a new novella by John, ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM, that may be the best thing he’s ever written. It’s hard for me to place much import on my own work, or take it too seriously, when I’m so closely involved with the work of better writers. However, I am actively working on Book Two and it will be out in the first half of 2015.

Marcus and his legion are in Savondir, where they have been employed by the King to deal with the incursion of orcs on the eastern border. Marcus meets up again with the royal battlemage Theuderic de Merovech, although not necessarily in the manner one might assume. The elves find themselves facing the main body of the orcish forces, which causes the High King to turn in desperation to a certain magister who renounced magic long ago. The dwarves are facing their own problems, and in any event, they are little inclined to help either Man or Elf, and Skuli Skullbreaker embarks upon a saga worthy of the name in which he discovers the dark secret underlying the birth of the wolf-demons and their true objective.

It’s a bit more challenging in some ways than the first book, because in addition to keeping track of all the various storylines, I’m delving deeply into three cultures rather than one. And, of course, there are the other projects in the works, chief among them First Sword, about which EN inquired:

I recently read (and greatly enjoyed) A Throne of Bones, and through the wonders of internet ‘related to’ links, learned of First Sword. It sounded like something that I and a decent chunk of my friends would enjoy, so I searched for it in Google Play and the Apple App store, but so far have not been able to find it. Is First Sword live, and if not, is there a projected release date? Also, I greatly enjoy the blog – Intellectual integrity is such a rare commodity stateside these days. Compared to the usual tepid mental swamp of lukewarm ignorance dictating what ‘polite’ company is permitted to discuss, the actual heat and actual cold of both informed passion and ruthless logic is intensely refreshing. 

First Sword is not yet live, nor do we have a projected release date. We’re taking the id Software approach; it will be done when it is done. We are actively working on it and anticipate it will be out this year, although possibly only in beta. We will want several dozen volunteers to help playtest it, but don’t volunteer yet; I will post here a call for them when the time comes.

And since we’re talking about various projects here, I will go ahead and drop the first hint of a new one that will be formally announced in the next two months. I won’t say anything more about it, but will simply leave this out there for speculation. (If you’re involved, please keep your mouth shut and don’t provide any more hints.) I’m not the lead on it, but it’s something with which I’ve wanted to be involved for a while now and I think it is not only going to be entertaining in the short term, but of ongoing interest in certain circles for years to come.

Now to return to the subject of Castalia House: if you’re not making the Castalia blog a regular stop, then you are seriously missing out. Jeffro, Daniel, and Mascaro have been doing an excellent job turning it into one of the best places anyone interested in SF/F can go to read reviews of books published by independent and self-publishers and delve into retrospectives of obscure classics from the past. We’re looking for a few more contributors of a similar quality, particularly interviewers, so if you’re able to contribute on a weekly basis, let me know.

11 Tenets of Progressivism

What is it with lefties and their love for manifestos? Elizabeth Warren outlines what she defines as the core tenets of progressivism:

– “We believe that Wall Street needs stronger rules and tougher enforcement, and we’re willing to fight for it.”
– “We believe in science, and that means that we have a responsibility to protect this Earth.”
– “We believe that the Internet shouldn’t be rigged to benefit big corporations, and that means real net neutrality.”
– “We believe that no one should work full-time and still live in poverty, and that means raising the minimum wage.”
–
“We believe that fast-food workers deserve a livable wage, and that
means that when they take to the picket line, we are proud to fight
alongside them.”
– “We believe that students are entitled to get an education without being crushed by debt.”
–
“We believe that after a lifetime of work, people are entitled to
retire with dignity, and that means protecting Social Security,
Medicare, and pensions.”
– “We believe—I can’t believe I have to say this in 2014—we believe in equal pay for equal work.”
– “We believe that equal means equal, and that’s true in marriage, it’s true in the workplace, it’s true in all of America.”
– “We believe that immigration has made this country strong and vibrant, and that means reform.”
– “And we believe that corporations are not people, that women have a right to their bodies.

  1. And yet, they’re not willing to end Wall Street’s monopoly. One observes that by this definition, President Goldman Sachs is no progressive.
  2. That’s nice and all, but science does not mean we have a responsibility to protect this Earth anymore than it means that we have a reponsibility to make the hajj.
  3. Can’t argue with that. It seems I’m a progressive!
  4. Actually, I’m fine with this. Raising the minimum wage is a de facto anti-immigration measure. Two for four!
  5. Isn’t this covered in (4)?
  6. So she’ll be permitting defaults on college loan debt and getting the government out of the college loan business? I’m all for that, but I’m guessing that’s not quite what she had in mind.
  7. Good luck with that. Do the math.
  8. Great. So am I. Get rid of maternity leave and “sick” days and require equal work and equal hours for equal pay. Deal?
  9. So, progressives are against pro-female family courts? I am skeptical.
  10. Progressives are pro-vibrancy. That’s hardly news. And here we see the intrinsic incoherence of progressivism. You can’t have more immigrants and a higher minimum wage. See: Adam Smith.
  11. Good luck with that. Corporations are juridical people, as per the Supreme Court. And women obviously don’t have any right to their bodies or they could sell title in them or shoot up heroin while naked in public having sex for money.

A more straightforward version: Progressives favor corporate regulation, environmentalism, free Internet, minimum wages, unions, public education, subsidizing old people, women in the workforce, gays, immigration, and abortion.

UPDATE: As is his wont, John C. Wright not only translates the ProgSprache into plain American, but sums it up in a beautifully brutal manner.

To sum up, translating all this from bafflegab and craptalk to English, it means three things (1) the Left are parochial, and only regard the issues of the current news cycle as being principles (2) the Left hates civilization and all its institutions (3) the Left hates the Catholic Church, and will destroy itself attempting to destroy her.

Regarding this last point, allow me to say on behalf of the one, true, catholic and apostolic Church that better men than you, leftwing nutbag, far better men, such as the potent and remorseless Imperators of Rome tried that.

We are here. They are gone. Soon — as we count time — you will be gone.

Affirmative grading

Not content with making many young blacks feel retarded after being encouraged to attend universities beyond their intellectual capabilities, the academic left is now determined to ruin the academic reputation of those blacks who are capable of earning good grades on the Asian/White standard.

A remarkable article on the University of Wisconsin (Madison) appeared yesterday on the John William Pope Center site. In it, UW economics professor W. Lee Hansen writes about a comprehensive diversity plan prepared for the already diversity-obsessed campus. The report, thousands of words long,  is mostly eye-glazing diversity babble, filled with terms like “compositional diversity,” “critical mass,” “equity mindedness,” “deficit-mindedness,” “foundational differences,” “representational equity” and “excellence,” a previously normal noun that suffers the loss of all meaning when  printed within three words of any diversity term.

But Professor Hansen noticed one very important line in the report that the faculty senate must have missed when it approved this text: a call for “proportional participation of historically underrepresented racial-ethnic groups at all levels of an institution, including high-status special programs, high-demand majors, and in the distribution of grades.” So “representational equity” means quotas at all levels. And let’s put that last one in caps: GRADES WILL BE GIVEN OUT BY RACE AND ETHNICITY.

Oh, I doubt they missed it.  I very much doubt they missed it. On the other hand, there would probably be more than a few whites in math and engineering classes, and at places like UC Berkeley, who would find themselves thinking: “you know, grading by ethnicity doesn’t sound all that bad.”

You probably thought “separate but equal” was supposed to be the epitome of racism. But there is no one more deeply racist at heart than an “anti-racist”. That’s why they’re so vehement about stamping out any appearance of it. They’re like former alcoholics ranting about the unrestrained evil of drinking a glass of wine with dinner. And, as with ex-alcoholics, whenever they slip up it tends to be messy.

Hugo recommendations: 1939 retro awards

Best Novel

  1. Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis (The Bodley Head)
  2. Galactic Patrol by E. E. Smith (Astounding Stories, February 1938)
  3. The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White (Collins)
  4. The Legion of Time by Jack Williamson (Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1938)
  5. No Award

Left off ballot:  Carson of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Argosy, February 1938)


Best Novella

  1. Anthem by Ayn Rand (Cassell)
  2. “Who Goes There?” by Don A Stuart [John W. Campbell] (Astounding Science-Fiction, August 1938)
  3. No Award

Left off ballot:  “A Matter of Form” by H. L. Gold, “Sleepers of Mars” John Beynon, “The Time Trap” Henry Kuttner.

Best Novelette

  1. “Rule 18” by Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1938)
  2. “Pigeons From Hell” by Robert E. Howard (Weird Tales, May 1938)
  3. “Dead Knowledge” by Don A. Stuart [John W. Campbell] (Astounding Stories, January 1938)
  4. No Award

Left off ballot: “Hollywood on the Moon” by Henry Kuttner,  “Werewoman” C. L. Moore

Best Short Story

  1. “Hollerbochen’s Dilemma” by Ray Bradbury (Imagination!, January 1938)
  2. “How We Went to Mars” by Arthur C. Clarke (Amateur Science Stories, March 1938)
  3. “Helen O’Loy” by Lester del Rey (Astounding Science-Fiction, December 1938)
  4. “The Faithful” by Lester del Rey (Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1938)
  5. “Hyperpilosity” by L. Sprague de Camp (Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1938)

Best Editor

  1. John W. Campbell
  2. No Award

Left off ballot: Farnsworth Wright, Mort Weisinger, Raymond A. Palmer,  Walter H. Gillings

Just look at those stories compared to the stories nominated in 2014. If that’s not evidence of a catastrophic decline since 1939, I don’t know what is.

OTHER HUGO AWARD RECOMMENDATIONS

Best Novel
Best Novelette
Best Short Story
Best Editor 

18,000 and H1B

Item 1: Microsoft Chief
Executive Officer Satya Nadella kicked off one of the largest layoffs in
tech history on Thursday, hoping to reshape the aging PC industry titan
into a nimbler rival to Apple and Google, and jolt a culture at the
company that is used to protecting its existing Windows and Office
franchises.
Microsoft Corp said on Thursday
it will slash up to 18,000 jobs, or 14 percent of its workforce, over
the next 12 months as it almost halves the size of its newly acquired
Nokia phone business and tries to become a cloud-computing and
mobile-friendly software company. The
larger-than-expected cuts are the deepest in the software giant’s
39-year history and come five months into Nadella’s tenure.

Item 2: Bill Gates says the United States’ position as the global leader in innovation is at risk. The Microsoft chairman says there is a deficit of Americans with computer-science degrees, and he wants the government to make it easier for Microsoft to hire foreign-born workers. Gates testified before the House Committee on Science Technology on Wednesday about what he sees as a need to liberalize rules for H1-B visas for skilled foreign workers. Currently, Congress has set an annual limit on H1-Bs at 65,000, with an additional 20,000 earmarked for foreign students with advanced degrees from U.S. universities.

Item 3: Immigration and visa reform are necessary to boost the U.S. economy and job market, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Monday. Disputing the idea that Silicon Valley execs are simply trying to secure a higher number of H1B visas for their own companies, Zuckerberg told attendees at the event: “This is something that we believe is really important for the future of our country — and for us to do what’s right.”

It’s not terribly difficult to understand why nations experiencing economic stress are so often inclined to resort to nationalizing corporations, not when the corporate executives are so blatantly acting against the interests of the citizenry.

Passenger plane shot down in Ukraine

A Malaysian Airlines passenger plane has been shot down on the Russian-Ukraine border, killing all 295 people on board, according to a Ukrainian interior ministry official.

Flight MH17, which was carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew, was flying between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur after taking off at lunchtime today.

The Interfax news agency reported that the aircraft went missing near Donetsk, where pro-Russian rebels have been fighting Ukrainian government forces.

UPDATE: And now Israel has begun an invasion of Gaza.

IDF ground forces began to move into the Gaza Strip on Thursday evening, the prime minister’s office confirmed.

“In light of Hamas’ continuous criminal aggression, and the dangerous infiltration into Israeli territory, Israel is obligated to act in defense of its citizens,” a statement from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s office said.

Ironically, the Gaza invasion is considerably smaller than the US one. Perhaps Netanyahu should have simply sent in 60,000 Jewish children, then no one would have seen anything to complain about.

Hugo recommendations: Best Short Story

From LonCon: Voting for the Hugo Awards closes soon!  The voting page for the 2014 Hugo Awards is located at http://www.loncon3.org/hugo_vote/hugo_vote_form.php.  The voting page for the 1939 Retro Hugo Awards is located at http://loncon3.org/hugo_vote/retro_hugo_vote_form.php.  You will also find links to paper ballots which can be filled out and mailed in.  The deadline for voting is Thursday 31 July 2014, 11:59 PM PDT.  The online voting pages will close and any paper ballots mailed in will need to be received by that time.

“If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” by Rachel Swirsky. Not just bad, but laughably, risibly, embarrassingly terrible. When the history of Pink SF/F is written, this Nebula Award winner should stand as Exhibit A. The fact that it was written and published is indicative of a problem in science fiction and fantasy. The fact that it won an award, any award, is a veritable indictment.


“The Ink Readers of Doi Saket” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. Reasonably well-written, seemingly well-researched story set in Thailand. Extremely boring and I’d have to read it again to identify the point. Not interested enough to bother. Neither science fiction nor fantasy.


“Selkie Stories Are for Losers” by Sofia Samatar. The structure is piecemeal, the story is tedious, pointless, amateurish, and narcissistic. On the plus side, it is, unlike the others, identifiable as fantasy. Bad fantasy, to be sure, but fantasy.

“The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere” by John Chu. Homosexual angst story about a Chinese man afraid to come out about his white boyfriend to his family, written by a homosexual Chinese man. It would appear someone took the advice to “write what you know” a little too literally. The writing isn’t bad and it would be the best story of the lot (which isn’t saying anything at all) if it had anything to do with science fiction or fantasy. Which it doesn’t.

My vote for Best Short Story, and my suggestion to others, is No Award.

  1. No Award

I recommend leaving the ballot otherwise blank. This category is illustrative of how far the genre has fallen.

OTHER HUGO AWARD RECOMMENDATIONS

Best Novel
Best Novelette
Best Editor 

Homeschool or die, vol XLVI

Pity those poor “children” crossing the southern border:

You’re going to hear plenty of people try to explain how, if a school turns such a “student” away, it’s racism. You’ve been told thousands of times that stopping illegal immigrants at the border is “hate.”  You’ve been told that even calling this a problem means you’re some kind of right-wing nut or white supremacist.

This story–grown men and women being shipped to Massachusetts at taxpayer expense and enrolling in your kids’ schools–is the real story of amnesty. Announcing that we can have no immigration laws, that none of the rules are enforcable, etc leads directly to the “every man for himself” shakedown of taxpayers by illegal immigrants who are only looting what we’re leaving unlocked.

And so…

 Isai [the guy in the photo above] and Candelaria are enrolled in the ninth grade and are expected to arrive in class this fall, Latham confirmed to NRO. When potential age discrepancies arise, Latham says city officials visit the residences of the “minors” to attempt to verify the age of the individuals in question. On one occasion that she’s aware of, Latham says a relative at one such residence identified an illegal immigrant “child” as between the ages of 30 and 35.

And if you’ve got the facts, this story isn’t that surprising. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, tens of thousands of adults are part of the current surge from Central America.

Department of Homeland Security officials have said that between October and June the Border Patrol had apprehended 39,000 adults traveling with an unspecified number of children. The number of unaccompanied children apprehended as of mid-June was 52,000.

You’ve been told this is a tidal wave of junior high kids wandering across the border. That’s just not true.

And that’s just the count of those who have been caught and released. What’s the over/under on public school boys and girls being raped and murdered by their overage classmates in the coming school term? All so feckless Americans can feel good about their refusal to defend their own country’s borders.

Calcio is life

Every so often, David Brooks can be insightful. This sports analogy may help put things in perspective for people who often find themselves frustrated that life does not go the way they expect it to:

Most of us spend our days thinking we are playing baseball, but we are really playing soccer. We think we individually choose what career path to take, whom to socialize with, what views to hold. But, in fact, those decisions are shaped by the networks of people around us more than we dare recognize….

Once we acknowledge that, in life, we are playing soccer, not baseball, a few things become clear. First, awareness of the landscape of reality is the highest form of wisdom. It’s not raw computational power that matters most; it’s having a sensitive attunement to the widest environment, feeling where the flow of events is going. Genius is in practice perceiving more than the conscious reasoning.

Second, predictive models will be less useful. Baseball is wonderful for sabermetricians. In each at bat there is a limited range of possible outcomes. Activities like soccer are not as easily renderable statistically, because the relevant spatial structures are harder to quantify.

Everyone knows connections and networks and friends and family are more important to success than raw ability and hard work. And yet, that recognition offends most of us. It seems unfair somehow. But why? We see examples in every aspect of human endeavor. Even Michael Jordan didn’t become a champion by scoring 63 points a game, he achieved more when he scored 30 and relied on Scottie Pippen and his other teammates to help him win the game.

The coach of my Nike team once asked me how it was that I scored a goal in every game that season, regardless of whether the team we played against was good or bad, whereas my more talented strike partner would tend to score three goals against the bad teams and get regularly shut out by the good ones. I pointed out that the other striker’s goals were almost always brilliant individual efforts that involved beating two or three defenders on the dribble. Mine were almost always one- or two-touch shots that relied upon getting a well-placed pass from a midfielder, often my younger brother.

And while the other striker was a gifted player from Ireland who could dribble right past two or three lesser defenders, he wasn’t gifted enough to beat two or three good ones in succession. For me, on the other hand, it made little difference if the defenders were good or bad, because as long as the midfielder passed the ball into the open space past the last defender, I was going to run right past them. When the defense was tough, a little teamwork reliably trumped considerably superior individual talent.

The lesson of soccer is that individual effort will often suffice when things are relatively easy. But in order to surmount the more difficult challenges, you will almost always need reliable teammates of one sort or another.

Immifada: the body count begins

In addition to doing the jobs Americans won’t do, immigrants are committing the crimes Americans won’t commit. This woman’s blood is on the hands of the Obama administration and the advocates of immigration:

An illegal immigrant who was released by U.S. authorities with a Notice to Appear has been arrested for the alleged murder of a woman and kidnapping of children on U.S. soil. The alleged crimes occurred after the man was released.

The man, Pedro Alberto Monterroso-Navas, entered the U.S. illegally with children and turned himself in to U.S. Border Patrol agents. He was processed and released, as are all illegal immigrants who come as unaccompanied minors or incomplete family units from Central America. The alien is from Honduras.

The arrest was first reported by the Associated Press (AP), but Breitbart Texas has exclusively confirmed that the man was part of the Obama Administration’s catch and release policy for family groups from Central America.

It cannot be denied that if the man had simply been repatriated immediately, he would not have been able to kill anyone in Louisiana. Anti-immigrationists need to talk up the danger of immigrants; playing upon real fear for the safety of America’s citizens and childrens is one effective way to supersede the appeal to Ellis Island.