Author: VD

Mailvox: dodging the bullet

Every now and then, I think it’s salutory to provide the readers here, particularly those who have so faithfully backed Castalia over the last seven years, the occasional glimpse behind the curtain.

I used to wonder why publishers refused to deal directly with authors and always insisted on working through agents, especially when it became clear how totally useless most agents are. They often wouldn’t even look at an unagented query. Due to my game industry connections, I had a book deal before I had an agent, and I fired him as soon as the editor who signed my first novel – who is now a serious player very close to the top of the Big Three – made it clear that he much preferred dealing with me to putting up with the agent, who was admittedly more than a bit of a whiner. So, it always seemed strange to me, and a little unfair, that the publishers forced authors to jump through the hoop of signing with an agent and thereby giving up a percentage of their advances and royalties.

Now, however, I understand. I still don’t agree with the policy, but I understand it. Here is a good example of why publishers don’t like dealing directly with authors, and also, how to make sure that you never get published by one.

Dear Sir:

[Five paragraphs of flowery description of accomplishments and credentials which aren’t too bad, although I’d never heard of the guy, redacted. There wasn’t much about the book itself, but the genre was at least potentially of interest.]

With every good wish, I am

Faithfully yours,

               [REDACTED]

Given how occupied we are with simply attempting to keep up with the growth of our existing commitments to Library and Arkhaven, we’re not looking to sign any new Castalia authors at the moment, but since one always has to keep an eye out for exceptional talent, so I dashed off a quick note at about 3 AM letting the guy know I’d be willing to take a look at what he had, but alerting him to the realities of the situation.

You can send an epub when you’re finished and I’ll take a look at it. We’re not really looking to add more content lately, but you never know.

Thank you,

Vox 

What I didn’t realize, however, is that far from doing the guy a favor by carving out a little time to give him a shot, I was actually failing to sufficiently acknowledge how impressed I was with the Special Boy who had been so gracious as to deign to honor me with his supplication.

“Vox Day”,

Sorry to learn your company has sunk to the level of your manners.

[REDACTED]

Sent from my iPhone


So, if you ever wondered why I don’t bother responding to requests, submissions, queries, and so forth, now you know. Forget rejection, there are no shortage of would-be authors who don’t take consideration, or anything that falls short of gushing enthusiasm and immediate acceptance well. But don’t be mistaken and think that I regard this as a bad outcome in any way. I mean, can you imagine what actually having to work with the Special Boy would be like?

Speaking of Castalia House, however, the Kindle versions of the first three volumes of the Junior Classics 2020 Edition are now available at Amazon. The epub editions are available at the Arkhaven store. A post later today will address those backers who didn’t receive the last week’s email with the download access.

UPDATE: I’d omitted my response, but the would-be author’s reply to it was too perfectly textbook to be left off.
On further reflection, don’t bother. We will not work with you. 
And no, it wasn’t the Wall of Text. It was the other thing.
That decision had already been made and not by you.
The Secret King wins again! 

China warns Australia

 It appears China is beginning to warn off the second-tier players in what looks rather like preparation for a move on Taiwan:

Australia’s military is ‘weak,’ ‘insignificant’ and will be the ‘first hit’ in any potential conflict over Taiwan, Chinese propagandists have warned.

The chilling message in the Communist Party mouthpiece, the Global Times, comes as Australian naval forces completed war game exercises with the US, France and Japan held between May 11 and 17 in the East China Sea.

The first ever training drill between the four nations called Exercise Jeanne d’Arc 21 – or ARC21 – practiced amphibious assaults, urban warfare and anti-aircraft defence – and was met with fury by Beijing.

‘The People’s Liberation Army doesn’t even need to make pointed responses to the joint drill since it’s insignificant militarily,’ the article said. ‘Australia’s military is too weak to be a worthy opponent of China, and if it dares to interfere in a military conflict for example in the Taiwan Straits, its forces will be among the first to be hit. Australia must not think it can hide from China if it provokes. Australia is within range of China’s conventional warhead-equipped DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile.’

Over the past year China has slapped more than $20billion worth of arbitrary trade bans and tariffs on Australian exports as an apparent punishment for calling for an independent inquiry into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic – which first appeared in Wuhan in 2019.

Tensions were further strained last month when various figures including the likes of Defence Minister Peter Dutton, Former Defence Minister Christopher Pyne and Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo, all suggested the ‘drums of war’ in the region are getting louder.

Just in case the warning hasn’t been received, The Global Times has underlined the point in an interview with an Australian academic who is an expert on Sino-Australian relations:

Recently, the Morrison government has been constantly commenting on the possibility of Australian military engagement in a future US-China war over Taiwan. However, this was met with harsh criticism from former prime minister Kevin Rudd and numerous scholars. Is the Morrison government clear about the consequences of war? Why is Canberra standing close by Washington to confront China instead of striking a balance between the two like most other countries do? Global Times (GT) reporter Wang Wenwen talked to James Laurenceson (Laurenceson), director of the Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney, over these issues.

GT: How is the Morrison government’s hype of war dangerous and damaging? Do you think the hawkish officials from the Morrison government are clearly aware of the consequences of a military clash with China to Australia? Or is talking about war just an easy gesture to make for political expediency?

Laurenceson: Former prime minister Rudd’s criticism of war talk was mostly because he regarded it as being deployed by members of the current Morrison government for domestic political gain. But in the process, the chest-thumping rhetoric further damages Australia’s already dysfunctional relationship with China, nor did it inform the Australian public just how catastrophic the costs of such a war would be. 

This political tactic of hyping an external “threat” to induce a “rallying around the flag” effect occurs in other countries too, including China and the US. That said, the risk of a kinetic conflict over Taiwan has increased compared with, say, five years ago. This means it is appropriate for sober-minded analysis and planning within the Australian government’s Department of Defence, and in communicating to the public just what is at stake in terms of Australia’s national interests and values. But the priority must be avoiding a military conflict, not hyping the risk for domestic political gain, or regarding it as inevitable and now starting to treat China as a de-facto enemy. China is far more a friend to Australia than an enemy.   

GT: Most analysts would not deny that Washington can no longer expect a quick and easy victory in a war with China in the Western Pacific. Why has Australia under Morrison been boasting following the US and taking the risk?

Laurenceson: Within the Australian government, there is a significant gap between the key decision-makers and those more on the fringe. The reported hawkish comments by Minister for Defence, Peter Dutton, for example, were more qualified when you read the full transcript of what he said rather than just the version presented in the headlines…

GT: Although Australia and the US are allies, how much confidence do Australia’s political and strategic circles have toward the actual support and protection Washington will (or can) offer to Australia?

Laurenceson: I think there is a high degree of confidence within political and strategic circles that the US would support Australia in a military conflict. Of course, there are a lot of scenarios between where things are now and one where Australia is being attacked in a military conflict. And along that spectrum, my view is that Australia should be realistic and not be “doe-eyed” about what it can expect from America.

Australia would be insane to place any trust whatsoever in the increasingly incomptent US military, which at this point would be more likely to send them a transgender dance troupe to twerk defiance at the Chinese than risk the chance that an aircraft carrier group would end up on the bottom of the Western Pacific. South Korea appears to understand this, as it certainly doesn’t want any part of the Taiwan question.

Sunday PM Arktoons

 AI WARS Episode 4 Dead or Alive

CHICAGO TYPEWRITER Episode 4: The Devil’s Playground

Don’t miss the weekly Arktoons Roundup at Bounding Into Comics either.

Arkhaven Comics offers a better variety of comics than any other publisher. New superheroes, long lost classics, dark fantasy from the distant past, dark fantasy from a frightening present, intriguing speculative science fiction, thrilling conspiracy adventures, young adult drama, plus some things that must be described as “different.”  But trust me, different in this case is another word for “great.”

Below is a particularly striking panel from Chicago Typewriter. 

The science is unsettled

Interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci, May 2020

“Do you believe or is there evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was made in the lab in China or accidentally released from a lab in China?”

If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats, and what’s out there now is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated — the way the mutations have naturally evolved… a number of very qualified evolutionary biologists have said that everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that it evolved in nature and then jumped species.

If you accept the premise, which is very strongly supported by scientific evidence, that it was not deliberately mutated and deliberately changed, and you say, if it was in the wild and evolving, the likelihood it jumped species naturally, someone will say, ‘Well, maybe somebody took it from the wild, put it in the lab, and then it escaped from the lab.’ But that means it was in the wild to begin with!

Interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci, May 2021

“There’s a lot of cloudiness around the origins of COVID-19 still, so I wanted to ask, are you still confident that it developed naturally?”

“No, actually. … No, I’m not convinced about that. I think that we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we find out to the best of our ability exactly what happened. Certainly, the people who’ve investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could’ve been something else, and we need to find that out. So, you know, that’s the reason why I said I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus.”

Keep this in mind the next time someone tells you to “trust the science” or that “the science is settled”. Also, the virus is man-made. This has been obvious since Bill Gates and company were wargaming its release prior to the start of the pandemic.

The decline and fall of Minneapolis

The epicenter of the George Floyd riots were a little less than one mile down Lake Street from my high school. Now Somalis are shooting it out two blocks away from where I first met Spacebunny:

Two people were killed dead and eight more were injured in a mass shooting overnight in downtown Minneapolis, according to police.
One of the injured still was listed in critical condition as of Saturday evening, while the seven others suffered non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.
The Minneapolis Police Department said all 10 shooting victims are adults, five male and five female. The two deceased victims are males.
The names of the victims and suspects have not been publicly released.
The shooting involved a dispute between two people who both pulled out guns and started shooting at each other, according to Minneapolis Police Department PIO John Alder.
The incident took place downtown along the 300 block of North 1st Avenue.

Minnesota liberals are just about the most literally suicidal people on the planet. And having grown up among them, they deserve exactly what they are getting.

I don’t understand the Scandinavian societal death wish, but for all of their once-formidable legacy, they appear to have somehow been transformed into the dodo birds of humanity. Perhaps it is because historically, they were always the invaders and never the invaded.

Saint Breivik, pray for us.

Devil Mouse is killing the classics

The Disney copyright extension is running out:

As the year 2000 approached, Disney had a problem. Copyrights on some of the company’s earliest cartoons, including “Steamboat Willie,” were set to expire soon. As one 1998 report put it, “[w]ithout copyright term extension, the company faces the potential nightmare of seeing its greatest treasures pass from corporate possession into the public domain.” Americans would be free to reproduce Disney’s public domain works, and even make new stories derived out of that content, without worrying about getting sued for copyright infringement. With “billions of dollars in revenue” at stake the report adds, Mickey Mouse went to Washington.

The story of how the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, known within the copyright bar as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, came to be is pure Swamp. In 1998, Disney Chairman Michael Eisner descended on Trent Lott’s office to ask the Senate Majority Leader for help. “He was very much interested in seeing the copyright bill,” Lott said at the time. As Congressional Quarterly reported, “[b]efore he left the spacious offices of the majority leader at the U.S. Capitol on June 9, Eisner was assured that his company’s pet bill would get the help it needed.”

In addition to Eisner’s visit, the company donated money to key committee leaders, including Republican Congressman Howard Coble of North Carolina, who was then the chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Arts and Intellectual Property. Disney also “paid $2,700” to host House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his wife “for three days at Disney Institute, the company’s educational facility in Orlando.”

When it was all over, Mickey Mouse had his way with the Republican-controlled Congress. With unanimous consent in the Senate and a voice vote in the House, Congress enacted the extension, tacking an additional twenty years onto existing copyright terms.

Fast forward to today. The extension Disney toiled for on Capitol Hill in 1998 is about to run out. As early as 2024, key Disney cartoons will pass into the public domain. 

The irony is that public domain is how works survive over time. In fact, most of Disney’s best IP is derived from the public domain. Instead of further extending the copyright period, as the Devil Mouse will almost certainly attempt, it should be reduced to the life of the author + 20 years. That’s more than enough time for the heirs and copyright holders to sufficiently profit from a new creation in order to justify it being created in the first place.

Thomas Wictor remains confident

I am too, although for different reasons.

People will tell you that nothing can be done about the 2020 election.

Why do they say that?

Because they haven’t thought it through.

Trump knew LONG beforehand that the election would be stolen.

Why didn’t he stop it?

Because it was in his interest to let it happen.

It was a trap.

For ALL of his enemies, foreign and domestic.

Clearly Trump’s enemies know this.

Yesterday, there were people AGAIN telling us that he was going to prison.

No evidence of this offered.

And we have hysteria and chaos among Trump’s enemies.

Where’s the hubris of Obama? Remember his cockiness after he won?

Biden and Co. and almost sheepish. Everyone’s hardly bothering.

But the press is suddenly hysterical.

Tons of stuff is being revealed, and the Democrats are being sabotaged on every front.

The Trump and Pence families have virtually disappeared. They can travel when and where they want undetected.

Electronic warfare aircraft and spy planes are in constant use.

Biden has zero influence at home or abroad, except at the border.

And THAT is a massive blunder. 

Trump is saying in plain language that HE will do something before 2022.

He means legally and constitutionally.

REMEMBER:

Precedent means nothing to Trump.

Neither does difficulty.

One of the great mistakes people make is believing that something can’t happen if THEY THEMSELVES didn’t think of it.

Trump uses that to his advantage.

Trump does things in a way that makes it impossible for him to not get coverage by the mainstream media.

Therefore he’s got something HUGE planned.

He told us before he “left office” that our story was just beginning.

Then he began acting in ways that no other former president has.

I hope that he is right about Trump still being in control. I don’t know about that, as I don’t see any actual evidence of it at the moment. Nor does the 12D Chess theory align particularly well with what we saw in action during the first Trump term. What I do see, however, is plenty of evidence that Biden is not in control, Harris is not in control, and all of the foreign leaders know that the fake administration is not calling any shots.

It’s pretty obvious that the USA is presently under some form of interregnum, although whether it is legal or not from a Constitutional perspective, I have no idea. Nor am I convinced that it is the US military, in the form of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are calling the shots. I simply don’t know. And that’s fine; it’s not as if the average farmer on the Italian Peninsula had any idea who was making decisions in Rome while Caesar and the Senate were at war either.

Just remember, the one thing we absolutely know to be false is what the mainstream media declares to be true, which is in this case is that Joe Biden is the duly elected President of the United States. He obviously wasn’t elected and he clearly isn’t presiding.

But I’m certainly curious to see what comes next.