Category: Uncategorized

An update on George RR Martin’s next book

John C. Wright has the EXCLUSIVE details:

Before I left SWFA, the last sight I saw of the SWFA Mansion in New Jersey was the sight of Mr Martin diligently at work, his eyes red with lack of sleep, his typewriter smoking, steaming, and emitting sparks, nine ashtrays filled with cigarette and cigar butts and broken hoohaks heaped about it, bags of Frito chips not only empty but ripped open and the chip-dust licked dry, drained bottles of cheap claret smashed in the hearth in a glittering pile, dead elfs on the doorstep, wounded muses with threadbare wings struggling to escape the chimney, and meanwhile a horde of medical technicians from the ninth planet of Etamin inserting a needle into the major veins of his arm so that much needed nutriment and saline could reach his brain, since in his fury he had forgotten all mortal food or perhaps foresworn it.

I saw a lonely and hooded traveler on the road walking away from the SFWA Mansion (at first I took this to be someone disgusted by news that the writers guild now protected with their silence the filth and perversions of pederasts, but who, unlike me, could make no public denunciation), and, running after the silent, looming shape, asked in wonder if George RR Martin was hard at work writing the next book in his much-loved series.

Let the fans rejoice! At last!

Expose or damage control?

The Guardian relies heavily upon certain left-wing SF/F authors while reporting on the Bradley revelations:

The world of science fiction and fantasy is in shock, following news that the daughter of the bestselling late fantasy author Marion Zimmer Bradley has accused her mother of abusing her as a child.

Authors such as John Scalzi, G Willow Wilson and Jim Hines have reacted to the allegations against a woman who had been regarded a pillar of the SFF community with horror. The writer Janni Lee Simner has announced she will be donating her earnings from a story set in a fictional world created by Bradley to an anti-abuse charity.

One wonders how John Scalzi’s one-word commentary via Twitter, Jim “Celebrate the Legacy of MZB” Hines’s belated attempt to cover his past as an MZB cheerleader, and a female convert to Islam who published her first novel in 2012 are deemed a reasonable representation of “the world of science fiction and fantasy”.  Scalzi, who spent more words denying that Ed Kramer was still on the SFWA membership list than he did discussing Bradley, is mentioned twice in the article, while Deirdre Saoirse Moen, who along with Moira Greyland is actually responsible for the revelations, is only mentioned once in passing.

Stephen Goldin, the longtime SFWA member and former editor of the SFWA Bulletin, whose posting of the MZB depositions on SFF.net substantiated Greyland’s accusations, isn’t mentioned at all. Neither is the original MZB tribute on Tor.com that prompted Mrs. Greyland’s original email to Miss Moen.

While it is good that coverage of the problem of child abusers in science fiction is spreading, this is yet another example of why you can never trust the mainstream media to do more than scratch the surface. That being said, this part of the article is poignant and illustrates the importance of exposing the monsters regardless of the cost to their reputations:

Greyland, writing to the Guardian via email, said that she had not spoken out before “because I thought that my mother’s fans would be angry with me for saying anything against someone who had championed women’s rights and made so many of them feel differently about themselves and their lives.  I didn’t want to hurt anyone she had helped, so I just kept my mouth shut”.

Greyland, a harpist, singer and opera director, said it was now clear to her that “one reason I never said anything is that I regarded her life as being more important than mine: her fame more important, and assuredly the comfort of her fans as more important.  Those who knew me, knew the truth about her, but beyond that, it did not matter what she had done to me, as long as her work and her reputation continued.”

It will be interesting to see if this is a genuine effort to dig into the larger problem of child abuse in science fiction or if it is an exercise in damage control. Meanwhile, Larry Correia’s #1 fan actually has a reasonable take on the Bradley revelations, comparing it to the Jimmy Savile scandal, and considering it in light of how people react to the moral failures of their cultural icons:

How far can we separate any cultural figure from the values they represent? And in rejecting the figure, do we risk rejecting values that should transcend the actions of any single individual? The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series made Marion Zimmer Bradley a leader of the emerging feminist movement in science fiction, alongside writers including Ursula Le Guin, Joanna Russ and Margaret Atwood. In critical terms Bradley was rarely considered seriously comparable to those writers, but as a writer of popular, mythic fiction she reached an audience those more acclaimed figures of feminism SF did not.

Readers will ultimately choose whether the works of Marion Zimmer Bradley are remembered and continue to be read. Many readers, myself included, will agree with Redditor CJGibson that “to read/support these authors in spite of their positions or actions sends a tacit message that what they’re doing is OK”.

I don’t have any problem with people separating the work from the artist and continuing to enjoy it. The work and the artist are not the same and the work doesn’t NECESSARILY reflect the evils of the artist. I still listen to Lostprophets despite the appalling crimes of the band’s lead singer. (MZB’s work is no dilemma for me despite the observable overlap between her crimes and her fiction as I never thought much of her work in the first place.) I don’t believe in the whitewashing of history.

Where I have a problem, and where I believe a line must be drawn, is when the artist is still celebrated, honored, and lionized on the basis of his work while his known moral failings are ignored or even denied.

Immigration and sexual exploitation

The sexual exploitation of children is on the rise in America according to the FBI:

Six child victims and three pimps were discovered by law enforcement officers during the last several days in Texas. The apprehensions were made as the result of Operation Cross Country, an effort to curb commercial sex trafficking in the United States. Michelle Lee, a San Antonio-based FBI spokeswoman, told Breitbart Texas that the sexual exploitation of children is “increasing exponentially.” The victims and pimps found during the most recent sting were located in Austin and San Antonio, according to a press release from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The recovered children were victims of child prostitution….

The number of child victims, as well as the number of arrests, related
to child exploitation increases every year. Lee said, “It’s not just
because we’re getting better at understanding the threat. … The threat
is also getting worse. At least here in San Antonio, our observation is
that children are being victimized in increasing numbers when it comes
to sexual exploitation and trafficking. It’s increasing exponentially.”

It is ludicrous to attempt to blame the increase on “social media”. The real reason is immigration. There are four reasons why immigration is the primary cause of the increase in sexual exploitation:

  1. The stepfather effect: Men are far more likely to sexually exploit and abuse children of different races than children of their own race. The protective instinct all men is feel towards children is reduced due to the lack of visible genetic connection to the children.
  2. The color effect: In America, blacks, and particularly Hispanics, are much more likely to molest children than whites. Blacks are 1.85x more likely to molest children, and Hispanics are 2.35x more likely to do so. So, the more People of Color there are in a society, the more sexual exploitation of children there will be.
  3. The broken family effect: Immigration usually separates a nuclear family from an extended family, and often separates an individual from his nuclear family for extended periods of time. If they are children without the protection of a family, these individuals are more readily victimized. If they are adults, these individuals without the civilizing influence of a family more readily behave in a predatory manner, including a sexually exploitative one. 
  4. The cultural effect: Many immigrants come from cultures where it is acceptable to marry young girls as young as eight. The fact that they have changed their geographical location does not magically change their cultural values. They simply view underage girls as viable sexual objects in a way that no normal American does.

Since mass immigration, especially the immigration of unaccompanied children, has been on the rise, we can safely expect the sexual exploitation of children to continue to exponentially increase until the mass repatriations finally begin. The problem isn’t limited to America either; in the UK, there are many networks of “Asians” (mostly Pakistanis) who have been systematically preying upon British girls for years, luring them in with presents and handsome young boyfriends, then gang-raping them and turning them into prostitutes.

Now that the economy is in depression, both observably and statistically, one cannot even argue for the economic benefits of immigration. Mass immigration is a societally destructive force, and the only civilized long-term solution is the mass repatriation of the various immigrants to their native lands.

18 match ban for biting

That seems about right to me. Suarez is out of all football for the next four months, which means he’ll miss nine Premiership matches with Liverpool as well as nine international matches with Uruguay, including the remainder of the current World Cup. He was also fined about $110,000.

Luis Suarez has been banned from all football for four months and an additional nine Fifa international matches after biting an Italian defender. Fifa made the ruling after footage emerged of Uruguay striker Suarez biting down on the shoulder of Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini in the 80th minute of their World Cup clash.

The ban will mean Suarez misses the rest of the international tournament, including Uruguay’s last 16 match against Colombia on Saturday, and the start of the Premier League next season.

I don’t see how anyone can complain that FIFA was soft on this one. A fast and fair decision.

USA v Germany

I truly don’t see how the USA is going to be able to hold off Germany. It would have been better if Germany had not tied Ghana, because there would have been less incentive for Germany to win the game outright. We should know very early on if Germany decides to bring the noise or not; if Germany is sitting back and playing the possession game then the USA might have a shot at a draw with some judicious counterattacking.

The France v Ecuador game demonstrated how a team that doesn’t need to win often doesn’t concern itself with doing so. If the Germans decide to push forward, and I suspect they will, I just don’t think the US defense, which has been shaky at times, is going to be capable of withstanding the pressure. The USA has already acquitted itself very well, and with four points, has done better than expected. I thought three points was reasonable, although there were many who expected only one point from a draw with Ghana.

And even with a loss, a draw between Ghana and Portugal is far from impossible. Regardless, I hope Klinsman elects to come out with guns blazing, as clearly sitting back and defending is not a style with which the US team is comfortable.

FIRST HALF: Good start by the USA. Jones is being a bit of a drama queen and Bradley is still losing the ball more than he should, but the Germans have pressed several times and the defense has been up to the task. Only one particularly dangerous chance, and Howard stopped Otzil’s shot. Jones barely missed a beautiful shot from outside the box; other than that the USA doesn’t look like scoring but they don’t look particularly vulnerable either. And with Portugal up 1-0, this would be exactly the result they’re looking for.

FINAL: 1-0 Germany. A great result for the USA. One seldom sees a losing coach look happier than Jurgen Klinsman. No one expected the USA to make it to the Knockout Stage, but now they’re in, and against one of the weaker group winners too.

Q1 GDP crash

Zerohedge pretends to take the BEA numbers seriously:

Remember when in January 2014, Q1 GDP was expected to rise 2.6%? Well, here comes the final Q1 GDP revision and it’s a doozy: at -2.9%, far below the -1.8% expected and well below the -1.0% second revision, it is an absolute disaster, and is the worst print since Q1 2009. And while a bad GDP print was largely expected, the driver wasn’t: personal consumption expenditures somehow crashed from 3.1% to just 1.0%, far below the 2.4% expected, meaning that all hope of a consumer recovery is dead. Finally, as a reminder, US GDP has never fallen more than 1.5% except during or just before an NBER-defined recession since quarterly GDP records began in 1947.

When I wrote The Return of the Great Depression in 2009, I noted that the average GDP revisions were larger than the delta that distinguished growth from recession. Now the revisions are nearly THREE TIMES larger.

This is the realm of pure fiction. One reason I don’t write as much about economics these days is that there is simply nothing of substance to write about. Taking these increasingly fictitious numbers seriously is akin to attempting to foresee future events by counting the numbers of fairies in your backyard.

All this tells us is that their attempt to maintain “the recovery narrative” is failing. But we knew that already.

Circling the wagons, poisoning the well

Colleen Doran points out one of the hidden costs of an abusive community:

I
have heard from many people in the last couple of days (men and women)
who had to deal with multiple incidents from multiple perps themselves,
and most said they got out of fandom because of it. Fans may think Bradley was a mighty fine writer, or that comic book
was a mighty fine comic, but consider all of the art we’ll never see and
books we’ll never read because the young people who might have wanted
to make them someday ran screaming from this community.

These people poisoned the well for generations of fans, and future
writers and artists. And the poison not only came from the perps, but
from the people who covered up for them, claiming if the outside world
knew what really goes on, “it might make fandom look bad.”

No folks, YOU did that. You did.

S. Andrew Swann adds:

What’s disheartening is that the general reaction of SF Fandom
to things like this echoes the reaction I’ve seen from just about any
organized group to this kind of thing, esp. when someone of some weight
and power in the community is involved in the abuse. Be it Jerry
Sandusky at Penn State, Jimmy Savile at the BBC, or the Catholic Church
to their own abusive priests. It’s like everyone has this script that
tells them they must continue to enable abuse to protect their own
little community.

After SFWA quickly leaped to wipe Ed Kramer from their online membership list on 24 June 2014 following my post of a screen capture proving Kramer’s SFWA membership yesterday, some of its fans and members began to pretend that Kramer’s apparent failure to pay his dues sometime between 2011 and 2013 somehow exculpates SFWA’s complete failure to do anything but publicly defend the child molester while he was “an active member of the Science Fiction Writer’s Association (SFWA) for more than two decades, and a past Nebula Awards host”. This is how they continue “to protect their own
little community”:

  • Vox attempting to defame with phony “screenshot” showing Ed Kramer still a member. – Thomas Wagner
  • Why should we keep talking about Kramer? Oh, right, because VD made up
    some fake bullshit to stir controversy. Not surprising at all. – Shaun Duke
  • The Naive Idiocy of Not Checking Your Facts Before Making Accusations Online – John Scalzi
  • Yeah. So Kramer isn’t actually a member of SFWA. (Though it looks like he was an associate member…four years ago.)
    #FactChecking  – Jim C Hines
  • Font in the link on his screenshot doesn’t look right to me, size difference. – JabberwockySR
  • I’m not a member, and when I do a search at the site Jim linked, I get 0 results found. Searched just “kramer.” – The Barbarienne
  • Nah, can’t be. Ed Kramer’s not currently a SFWA member. I mean, it’s not like the troll would *lie* about that. Or not have their facts in order before spouting off.” – Jazzfish
  • VD says the SFWA removed Kramer’s entry right after he posted, but I
    think he’s lying and the screen grab is a fake – Agent Mimi 
  • What a troll. Never could understand such petty BS. How small his soul must be to run a campaign of destruction of others. – Walter L. Fisher

If there are others, let me know. These people must be put on the record for their attempts to whitewash the problematic past. The screen capture is not a fake. Multiple readers here have testified that they saw Kramer on the list and SFWA has not denied the fact that Edward E. Kramer was on the SFWA.ORG membership list as of 5:04 AM EST, 24 June 2014. The fact is that Kramer was listed in the SFWA print directory in 2010 and I am still waiting to hear from someone who has the 2011 and 2012 directories. The fact is that Kramer himself said he was an SFWA member “for more than two decades”. And the fact is that numerous members of the science fiction community are attacking me and deceitfully claiming that I forged a screen capture rather than believe the well-documented truth: SFWA has harbored, defended, and celebrated child molesters for more than 50 years and is still doing so today.

Furthermore, even if Ed Kramer stopped paying his dues at some point between 2011 and 2014, how is that to SFWA’s credit? They did not criticize him. They did not investigate him. They did not expel him. They did not cut ties to him. They did not do any of these things even though Dragoncon began attempting to cut ties with the man 14 years ago! Instead, as I pointed out, SFWA defended him, and now its defenders are attempting to deny the undeniable evidence literally in front of their eyes rather than admit that SFWA has a real and ongoing problem with child molesters in its midst.

And, if Ed Kramer paid his dues tomorrow, he would again be an Active member in good standing. As he was for more than 20 years.

Consider how many SFWA people are doing exactly as their predecessors who defended Ed Kramer did in 2004 and 2006, only now they are pointing out that there isn’t any hard evidence that their new Grand Master ever put his words into action. Keeping in mind that the SFWA Board produced an 80-page investigative report on the basis of a single tweet last year, when did SFWA ever do a similar investigation of the author of Hogg: A Novel on the basis of his public support for NAMBLA or even this review of his book by Publisher’s Weekly?

Hugo-and Nebula Award-winner Delany – whose early books were fascinating but whose recent efforts have grown increasingly obtuse – has been trying to get this pornographic novel published since 1973. The main narrator here is an 11-year-old boy who joins up with a raping, murdering pederast named Hogg. Coprophiliac Hogg violates women for pay. He enlists the help of other pedophiliac murdering rapists – Nigg, Dago and Denny – and the group sets off to perform acts of hideous violence. After the attacks, a biker friend of Hogg’s sells the boy into sexual slavery to dockyard slum resident Big Sambo, who keeps his 12-year-old daughter for prostitution and his own perversions. The traumatized little girl is gang-raped by Hogg’s crew as well. Meanwhile, teenaged Denny goes on an insane mutilating and mass-murder spree, eludes the police and finally returns to Hogg and the hopelessly confused narrator, who has been “rescued” after Hogg murders Big Sambo. Gang-rape attacks and criminal sex orgies are detailed at excruciating length, with photographic realism.

That monstrosity is precisely what SFWA chose to celebrate in May 2014. SFWA President Steven Gould, who was personally responsible for the decision to select Delany,  was “delighted” to select the author of Hogg instead of Frank Herbert, Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven, or other, much more deserving SF authors:

One of the perks of being SFWA president is the option of
selecting the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s next
Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master. One of the tragedies is we only get
to select one a year. That said, from the grains of sand in my pocket, I
am delighted to pull this star. Samuel R. Delany is one of science fiction’s most influential
authors, critics, and teachers and it is my great honor to announce his
selection. When discussing him as this year’s choice with the board,
past-presidents, and members, the most frequent response I received was,
“He’s not already?” Well he is now.

If Delany was truly “one of science fiction’s most influential
authors”, then science fiction would be in dire straits indeed. Fortunately, aside from a fairly small number of Pink SF/F freakshows like Gould, Delany isn’t even remotely influential. Virtually no one actually reads his perverted sewage: Dhalgren is #523,915 on Kindle, Nova is #381,524, and Hogg is #873,530. Unfortunately, there are those who unwittingly read the writers influenced by him. Writers like this one:

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has named Samuel R. Delany its newest Grand Master…. I will say this: This is an award both well chosen and well deserved.
 – John Scalzi, 4 December 2013

In light of what we have learned about the way in which the crimes of Walter Breen and Marion Zimmer Bradley were directly tied to the dark themes of their literary work, is it truly justifiable to give another award-winning author the benefit of the doubt and simply assume his innocence without asking any questions at all? Or will it eventually come out that the SF community is again doing what it has repeatedly done over the last 50 years and circled its wagons in defense of yet another celebrated child molester? I have invented nothing here. This is what they are.

To paraphrase Miss Doran: “Even when abuse is right in their faces, they will cover up and deny.”

Honduras v Switzerland

None of the matches today are particularly interesting, although I am curious to see if the Swiss can pull themselves together after the shellacking they received at the hands of France. As good as the Dutch have looked, no team has impressed me as much as Les Bleus. I’d be very surprised if Ecuador can stay within two goals of them… which, given the accuracy of my expectations this tournament, probably indicates a 0-0 draw.

Although I was skeptical of Spain’s chances of repeating and I did not, like many before the tournament, count out the Dutch. But let’s face it, absolutely no one in the entire world expected Spain to go out in the group stage or Costa Rica to win its group. But apparently someone did genuinely expect Luis Suarez to bite someone; I heard that a man won a 175-1 bet courtesy of his toothy attack on Chiellini.

One thing that has always confused me about those who don’t follow the Beautiful Game is the way they ludicrously insist it is a non-contact sport for wusses. There have been a few less games than one sees in three weeks of the NFL season, and yet there have been more horrific injuries in this “non-contact” World Cup than in the opening three weeks of last year’s NFL. Between the fractured eye sockets, broken legs, and KOs, it’s simply ludicrous to claim that the player are not physically tough when they are taking that kind of abuse while running up to 15k per game.

Even on the amateur level, the season can be a bit of a death march. I’ve mentioned before the season when my old team went from 33 to 10 healthy players over the course of the season. My current team lost its second captain in successive years to a blown-out knee, and as for the rest of the club, the first team lost a midfielder to a broken leg, a midfielder on Ender’s team broke his collarbone and the starting goalie broke his arm. I did full-contact martial arts for six years, and while we got considerably more banged up and bruised on a regular basis, the serious injury rate was fairly similar.

In six years of martial arts, I was KO’d once and broke a few bones, but I was never temporarily blinded or had my kneecap ripped open, both of which happened during the same season a few years ago.

Vancian magic and the veil of Time

One of our new Castalia House bloggers has really been raising the standard there. What Jeff describes as a review of The Dying Earth by Jack Vance is really an intelligent, respectful contemplation of the true depths of Vance’s magical system, pale shadows of which provided the structure of the D&D and many subsequent magical systems:

Of similar significance is the commonly overlooked fact that mathematics is the key to discerning the nature “real” Vancian magic. In many games, the designers come up with some sort generic “magicky” type skill or else have it powered by an arbitrary “mana” force. Other people, hankering for a sense of authenticity, work out systems based on pacts with demons and so forth. In contrast, Jack Vance is explicit about his magic’s being susceptible to discoverable laws: 

Within this instrument resides the Universe. Passive in itself and not of sorcery, it elucidates every problem, each phase of existence, all the secrets of time and space. Your spells and runes are built upon its power and codified according to a great underlying mosaic of magic. The design of this mosaic we cannot surmise; our knowledge is didactic, empirical, arbitrary. Phandaal glimpsed the pattern and so was able to formulate many of the spells that bear his name.

But in the Dying Earth setting, a general knowledge of how mathematics applies to magic is almost completely lost. The consequences of a scenario that culminates into a science fantasy analog to Lord of the Flies go far deeper than what a casual reading would indicate: 

In all my youth this ache has driven me, and I have journeyed from the old manse at Sfere to learn from the Curator… I am dissatisfied with the mindless accomplishments of the magicians, who have all their lore by rote

 The wizards, then, are nearly all charlatans. They’re like jazz musicians that can only learn a set number of songs, can’t improvise on a set of chord changes, and forget what little they do know at the end of a set. They’re like engineers that can only solve a few well known problems and who can only actually tackle a fraction of what was previously solvable. They are like the most typical math student of today who has knowledge of only a handful of tricks, is barely able to recognize when to apply them, and who is essentially innumerate when separated from his calculator. Despite their trappings of learning and lore, these wizards amount to little more than barbarian looters of a fallen empire.

Simply great stuff. And speaking of fallen empires, here is a reminder of why you simply must read John C. Wright’s newest book, CITY BEYOND TIME: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis, if you are a science fiction aficionado.

A double row of oaks lined the drive leading to the main doors of Ophion House. Lelantos gently pushed Catherine into hiding behind a tree, and pressed close behind her, his arms to either side of her, supporting her. She was nearly fainting, and stood grasping the tree for support, staring at the house.

She saw that his Roadster stood idling in the circle before the doors, festooned with ribbons and flowers, with long strands tied to the rear bumper trailing shoes and cans. On the stairs of the portico, a noisy, cheerful crowd stood facing the doors, men dressed in handsome black tuxedos, women garbed in silks and satins, with flowers woven in their hair.

“It is now a year later,” he breathed in her ear. “I wanted you to see our wedding day.”

A great cheer went up from the house, and the women threw rice into the air as the bride and groom appeared at the door.

Catherine clutched the bark to the oak, and her breath caught in her throat. “That’s me!”

“That’s you. Run forward now, and you might catch the bouquet.”

But Catherine did not move. “Oh,” she sighed, “Oh my… I look so happy. Look at how I’m laughing! Look at my dress! It’s gorgeous! I want a dress just like that for my wedding!”

Her face flushed with joy, standing on tip-toes, the bride smiled and waved toward the oak trees as if she knew they were there, as a lacey white veil, sheer as smoke, floated around her flower-crowned head. The bridegroom winked in their direction. Then the crowd swirled in around the newly-married pair, shouting with good cheer.

The couple fled the pelting rice, laughing, and leapt into the waiting Roadster. With a humming roar, the machine whirled down the lane between the trees, a cloud of dust speeding away behind it.

The noise of the crowd faded away like the sound of an old newsreel. Lelantos walked toward the house, drawing an amazed Catherine drifting, eyes wide, behind him. By the time they reached the lowest step, it was dusk, and the crowd had vanished. When they reached the door, the stars were gleaming cold in the dark above, and the hall clock was whirring and ringing midnight.

“How can this be possible?” Catherine breathed softly.

“All men can reach with their minds into the past and future, with memory and imagination. My family was forced to learn how to bring ourselves along as well.”

“Forced?”

“We come from a future of fire. The smoke of the burning has blotted out the sun, moon, and stars. It is a time of darkness; the streams and seas are turned to blood. Earthquakes swallow islands into the ocean and throw down mountains. Mankind has died in plague and poison, or burnt, or choked, or starved, or drowned or been buried alive. The first father and mother of my family, Lif and Lifrasir, the last of all mankind, escaped death by fleeing down the corridors of Time. We don’t know why. Perhaps the moment when there was no future left at all allowed the past to open up her gates. The pair fled to the farthest future, after time itself had ceased, exhausted, and discovered the empty towers of Metachronopolis, the golden City Beyond Time. New names were given them, Chronos and Rhea, when they mounted the diamond thrones and donned the robes of pallid mist. They opened the mirrored gates of splendor into the creation reborn.”

She looked around at the summer night, at the rustling trees and the silent statues in the moonlight. “I thought things would blur and flicker when we time-traveled.”

The story is first-rate. The scene is magical. And for me, that last line is what demonstrates the difference between John C. Wright and everyone else writing science fiction today. It is almost Woodhousean in its light-hearted, but pitch-perfect portrayal of the two characters involved in the dialogue.

Back to Iraq

Here we go again. The neocons never learn. We have a major invasion of the southern border, so naturally Washington has concerned itself with attempting to further delay the inevitable collapse of Iraq into Sunni, Shi’ite, and Kurd states.

Nearly half of the roughly 300 U.S. military advisers and special operations forces expected to go to Iraq are now in Baghdad and have begun to assess Iraqi forces in the fight against Sunni militants, the Defense Department said Tuesday as the U.S. ramped up aid to the besieged country.

On Capitol Hill, senators who left a closed briefing with senior Obama administration officials expressed hope Iraq could soon form a new government, perhaps in the next week, facilitating greater U.S. military action against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who attended that meeting, backed what he described as an advancing American strategy.

At the Pentagon, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters the troops in Baghdad included two teams of special forces and about 90 advisers, intelligence analysts, commandos and some other support personnel needed to set up a joint operations center in the Iraqi capital. Another four teams of special forces would arrive in the next few days, Kirby said.

Those troops, added to the approximately 360 other U.S. forces that are in and around the embassy in Baghdad to perform security, would bring the total U.S military presence in Iraq to about 560. Kirby also said the U.S. was conducting up to 35 surveillance missions over Iraq daily to provide intelligence on the situation on the ground as Iraqi troops battle the aggressive and fast-moving insurgency.

These are truly the Crazy Years. I said back in 2004 that the Iraqi Occupation would inevitably fail. It did. It was obvious to everyone with even a modicum of knowledge of military history that it would. Which is why these efforts will prove futile as well. These are the last, trivial gasps of the American Empire.