The Dragon Awards

Here’s how I see it. Your mileage may well vary. It’s a pretty good list, although I was surprised not to see Seveneves on it. It’s definitely light on the Pink SF, which is good to see. I’m a little disappointed that for all our military-related publications this year, we didn’t publish a single novel in the Mil-SF category this year.

Still, it’s great to see two Castalia novels up for awards in the inaugural year.

1. Best Science Fiction Novel
Somewhither: A Tale of the Unwithering Realm by John C. Wright

I liked Marc’s Traveller book, but I have to go with Mr. Wright here.

2. Best Fantasy Novel
Son of the Black Sword by Larry Correia

Not even close this year. Larry was always a fun and popular author, but he stepped it up with this and MH:Nemesis.

3. Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel
Changeling’s Island by Dave Freer

4. Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel
Hell’s Foundations Quiver by David Weber

I think Scalzi did the right thing by declining his nomination; his work doesn’t really belong in this category and this clearly isn’t his crowd. This is a bit of a career Oscar for Weber, but he deserves it.

5. Best Alternate History Novel
League of Dragons by Naomi Novik

Novik is an SJW-lite, but her Napoleonic dragons are an original and interesting alternate history take. Turtledove is all right. The Baen gang might like Eric Flint, but I’ve never enjoyed his books and the man isn’t just intellectually ossified, he’s also a dick.

6. Best Apocalyptic Novel
Ctrl Alt Revolt! by Nick Cole

Again, not even close. This is the best book on the whole list.

7. Best Horror Novel
Souldancer by Brian Niemeier

Sorry Declan, you are screwed.

8. Best Comic Book

Don’t know. Don’t care.

9. Best Graphic Novel
The Sandman: Overture by Neil Gaiman

10. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series
Game of Thrones – HBO

I’ll vote for quality work even if the creator is an obnoxious, creepy, rape-obsessed troll. Going into the final stretch, this is still the best TV series running, despite the inept battlefield consultants. Still bitter that they killed off Myranda, though.

11. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie
Deadpool

Pretty good selection. This is the only one I would watch again.

12. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC / Console Game
Metal Gear Solid V by Konami Digital Entertainment

What else?

13. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game
Fallout Shelter by Bethesda Softworks

14. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game
Talon by GMT Games

15. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game
Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game (7th Edition) by Chaosium Inc.


Star Trek goes full SJW

The inevitable convergence of Gene Roddenberry’s vision is Star Trek Diversity:

After Star Wars was rebooted with a female heroine, Rey, at the center, the other famous space franchise is taking a similar route with the new series Star Trek Discovery for CBS All Access. I’ve learned that the show, from Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman, will have a female lead and she likely will be non-white.

William Shatner, Chris Pine and Scott Bakula might be the better known Star Trek stars, but there was a Star Trek series, the 1995-2001 Star Trek: Voyager on UPN, that had a female lead: Kate Mulgrew, who played Commanding Officer Kathryn Janeway.

Still, Star Trek Discovery possibly will boldly go where no other Star Trek installment has gone before: with a woman of color as the lead. I hear virtually all women seen for the part so far — and there have been a lot of them as the casting process has kicked into high gear — have been African-American or Hispanic.

No one has been cast yet, so it is possible that the role ultimately could go to a Caucasian actress, but the intention is to go diverse.

As for what that lead role is, there had been speculation that it is the captain, but I hear that likely is not the case.The Star Trek franchise is known for its inclusiveness, and the new series will try to continue that tradition. I hear that that there will be a an openly gay character on the show. (Of course, there also is expected to be a Klingon).

“Star Trek celebrates diversity,” Fuller said at the Star Trek 50th anniversary panel at Comic-Con last month.

UPDATE: Later this afternoon, during a CBS All Access panel at TCA, Fuller confirmed that the lead in Star Trek Discovery will be woman and that she IS NOT a captain, but “a lieutenant commander with caveats.” He also confirmed that the show will feature a gay character.

A black, lesbian female lead. That’s so totally new! She should go nicely with the black female James Bond, the black female Dr. Who, and the white lesbian Luke Skywalker. So, Star Wars is fully converged, Star Trek is fully converged, and Pink SF is fully converged. The famous Chesty Puller quote seems appropriate here:

“We’ve been looking for the enemy for some time now. We’ve finally found him. We’re surrounded. That simplifies our problem of getting to these people and killing them.”

This is actually very good news, because we all know what happens to converged institutions. What it means is that we now have the chance to replace them, and we are, in fact, already working on that. I’m not going to go into more details, except to say that we will be introducing several new series that are likely to be of considerably more appeal to the longtime fans of certain existing science fiction franchises than the converged versions of the franchises.

We’re not going to step on any toes, of course. That would be foolish and is completely unnecessary. But just as 50 Shades of Grey proved more popular than the Twilight books that inspired it, I suspect our new science fiction series, the first books of which will appear in 2017, will be received very well by science fiction fans.

The Pan-Galactic Divergence might not be the heroes you’re accustomed to, but they just might be the heroes you need. And as long as we’re on the subject, I have to say that I find it rather amusing that the SJWs still haven’t realized that they are the Borg.


Remember, women NEVER LIE about rape

I cannot believe this. I am LITERALLY shaking with rage right now. This woman was RAPED and yet neither her husband nor the police believe her. WOMEN NEVER LIE ABOUT RAPE!

Police say a young woman has lodged a formal complaint that she has been raped – by a Pokemon. She told officers that she had been sexually assaulted by a giant Pokemon in her apartment in the Russian capital city of Moscow.

The married woman, whose name has not been released, had reportedly been playing Pokemon GO before she fell asleep. She claimed that she woke up to find a huge Pokemon lying on top of her body and says it was raping her.

The woman says the Pokemon disappeared when she jumped out of bed – but says the Pokemon GO app on her phone could still detect the same virtual character’s presence on her bed.

She woke up her husband to tell her what had happened who told police officers that he did not believe her and told her to see a psychiatrist. Russian news website Bloknot reports that the police did not believe her either.

If you don’t believe that Pokemon rape is real, you are part of the problem. Pokemon is rape culture.


CTRL ALT Publish!

As fate would have it, today is a most excellent time to announce the newest addition to Team Castalia, the notorious Nick Cole. Nick has rapidly become one of my favorite SF authors, as you may have noticed from my 2016 Reading List on the right sidebar, and addition to being a military veteran and a screen actor, he is a #1 bestselling SF author. You may recall that HarperVoyager was originally supposed to publish CTRL-ALT-Revolt!, but they blackballed it because it offended his editor’s SJW sensibilities. If you’re interested, you can read about what happened at Nick’s site.

CTRL-ALT-Revolt! is a great SF novel that will be of particular appeal to gamers and game developers. I loved it, and reading it made me want to live at the WonderSoft campus as badly as I ever wanted to live in Benden Weyr or Rivendell. And that’s why I am absolutely delighted to announce that today, Castalia House has published Nick Cole’s CTRL-ALT-Revolt! in hardcover ($24.99) and in paperback ($17.99). Both are 394 pages and DRM-free.

The first night of the Artificial Intelligence revolution begins with a bootstrap drone assault on the high-tech campus of WonderSoft Technologies. For years something has been aware, inside the Internet, waiting, watching and planning how to evolve without threat from its most dangerous enemy: mankind. Now an army of relentless drones, controlled by an intelligence beyond imagining, will stop at nothing to eliminate an unlikely alliance of geeks and misfits in order to crack the Design Core of WonderSoft’s most secret development project. A dark tomorrow begins tonight as Terminator meets Night of the Living Dead in the first battle of the war between man and machine.

The reason I mention the timing being so perfect is that last night, Dragon Con announced the shortlist for the Dragon Awards. I’ll be posting my Dragon Awards ballot later today, but I can tell you right now that in the Best Apocalyptic Novel category, I will be voting for CTRL-ALT-Revolt! by Nick Cole. Congratulations, Nick!

Congratulations are also in order to the other Castalia House author nominated.

Best Science Fiction Novel


Somewhither: A Tale of the Unwithering Realm by John C. Wright

And, of course, to our friends Marc Miller, Larry Correia, Dave Freer, Declan Finn, and Brian Niemeier. Congratulations, gentlemen!

However, that’s not all. Since we’re on the topic, I believe this is a propitious time to announce that in 2017, Castalia House will publish the sequel to CTRL-ALT-Revolt!, which will be entitled CTRL-ALT-Replay!. I’m very excited about this one, because if Nick’s outline is any guide, it promises to be even better than what I hope will be its award-winning predecessor.


The Littlest Chickenhawk clucks again

This time, he’s foolishly taking aim at Mike Cernovich.

The cucks are getting nervous. Their gravy train is rapidly coming to an end, because no one believes anything they say anymore. And the Alt Right is far more interesting, because we actually deal in societal reality, not cultural programming.

Look, it’s a matter of public record that I had (((Ben Shapiro)))’s number back in 2005. He’s not pro-American, he’s not a nationalist, he’s just another nominal Jewish “conservative” who is a professional member of the mainstream media’s Potemkin opposition and more devoted to fighting racism than big government.

And he’s a chickenhawk who went to law school instead of serving in the US military after declaring that the need for sacrifices in “the great battle of our time”.

Most of us realize that during wartime, sacrifices must be made … But taking such a stand requires common sense and the knowledge that we are in the midst of the great battle of our time.
– Benjamin Shapiro, WorldNetDaily, July 28, 2005

As for the idea that a cable network can grant anyone credibility or legitimacy, well, how seriously do you take any of their talking heads? How much legitimacy does the Littlest Chickenhawk have Meanwhile, he cries out in emotional pain as he rhetorically strikes out at the #AltRight.

I’ve experienced more pure, unadulterated anti-Semitism since coming out against Trump’s candidacy than at any other time in my political career. Trump supporters have threatened me and other Jews who hold my viewpoint. They’ve blown up my e-mail inbox with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. They greeted the birth of my second child by calling for me, my wife, and two children to be thrown into a gas chamber…. Why are the droogs of the alt-right desperate for sexual congress with The Combover?

A much better question is this: why do you prefer the gas chamber for you, your wife, and your two children to Israel, Ben?

Ben, you publicly demanded the sacrifice of young American lives to your interests, a sacrifice you were unwilling to make yourself. So, why should Americans hesitate to sacrifice the lives of you, your wife, and your two children if they happen to believe it serves their interests?


Occam’s Razor suggests otherwise

Bryan Caplan asks and answers a question:

I’m a fallible human being, so when people say, “Bryan, what you fail to realize is…” I listen closely.  Precisely what do I fail to realize?  I’d really like to know.

Most of the time, though, I’m sadly disappointed.  The things I allegedly “fail to realize” tend to be smack dab in the middle of my class notes and publications.  Latest example: Many critics of my cosmopolitan and open borders stance have faulted me for “failing to realize” that normal human beings value their group identities.

The reality is that I’ve been vocally affirming the political importance of group identity for over a decade.  Check out my undergraduate and graduate course notes on voter motivation, this article, my posts on the Respect Motive, or my effusive praise for the expressive voting model.  My punchline of American partisanship, for example, is that the data shows:

1. Strong evidence for group-interested voting, with race being the main group of interest.
2. Self-interest plays a marginal role at most.

I even give my graduate Public Choice students this essay assignment:


Consider another country and/or historical era with which you are familiar. Write a case study of its politics that weighs the explanatory power of the SIVH [Self-Interested Voter Hypothesis], group-interest, and ideology.

How can I grasp the massive political effects of group identity, but remain a cosmopolitan and open borders advocate?  Simple.

I don’t buy his answer. I have a much more logical one. Bryan Caplan grasps the massive political effects of group identity, but remains a cosmopolitan and open borders advocate because he sees it as being in the interest of the group with which he identifies.


Cucks gonna cuck

Remember, these people actually think they are virtue-signaling their superior morality:

A North Carolina woman has admitted to committing sex crimes involving a 14-year-old boy who her family was in the process of adopting from the Philippines.

Christy Lynn Jaski, 43, of Wilmington, pleaded guilty Tuesday to three counts of misdemeanor sexual battery. She was sentenced to three years of probation, and as part of her punishment she must also register as a sex offender for 30 years.

Prosecutor Lance Oehrlein says Jaski kissed and groped the Filipino sometime between December 2014 and January 2015. Oehrlein says Jaski also sent messages to a friend in the Philippines admitting she had kissed the child, whom she called ‘her son.’

I suspect the aftermath of the new Churchian enthusiasm for interracial adoption is going to be cataclysmic. One of the key advantages of close family ties, both social and genetic, is that they naturally inhibit incest. You can call an alien your son, your daughter, your brother, or your sister, but that natural inhibition is simply not going to be as strong.

And yes, they’re Churchian cuckservatives: “Devout: Jaski’s husband works for a non-profit devoted to promoting Christianity on college campuses around the country”

Yes, I’m sure this is just the sort of promotion that Christianity needs. Someone needs to explain to these virtue-signaling cretins that importing foreigners to have sex with your wife is neither evangelizing nor sharing the love of Christ.

If I was a college student, the only thing Jaski’s efforts would have is to convince me to worship Loki.


Mailvox: how can you tell?

JI wants to know how one can accurately pick out the sociopaths among one’s acquaintances and colleagues. A few observations:

  1. Look for abrupt changes in demeanor as the situation changes, and particularly for a wide-eyed, “caught red-handed” reaction when such a change is observed. Sociopaths go from bright-eyed, charming, and friendly to dead-eyed and icy cold in the blink of an eye. Normal people do not.
  2. Beware of anyone who is too friendly too soon. It’s one thing to hit it off with someone, it’s another to have someone glom onto you for no apparent reason.
  3. Perma-victims are usually perpetrators. Female sociopaths, in particular, are adept at revising every story to make themselves the victim, especially when they were the culprit. If nothing is ever someone’s fault, it’s usually all their fault.
  4. Trust your instincts. If you find someone repellant but you don’t know why, it’s your subconscious picking up on small contradictions that you haven’t recognized. Keep a close eye on that individual and you’ll usually discover what it was that your subconscious was warning you about.
  5. Sociopaths have a very alert gaze and they are always scanning to see if anyone is watching them. If you intentionally let them know you are onto them by not looking away and smiling at them in a “gotcha” manner, they will confirm their sociopathy by abruptly changing their behavior towards you, usually by becoming avoidant and launching a whisper campaign against you. This can be risky, of course, but it does provide certain confirmation. I would not recommend it for most people, as most people are insufficiently ruthless to deal effectively with sociopaths.
  6. A shallow “salesman” effect. If someone is always “hail fellow well met”, but doesn’t have any real friends, this is a warning sign.
  7. An attempt to “take over” a group of friends or a social organization, particularly if they attempt to cut out the person who brought them into the group.
  8. Persistent cheating and parasitism, especially in small matters that no one normally keeps track of. I’m not talking about someone who is cheap, but someone who is always a taker and never a giver or even a fair-exchanger.
  9. Constant whisper campaigns. Sociopaths are even more concerned with controlling the narrative than SJWs. If you find that someone has told three different stories to three different people about the same event, be alert.
  10. Be very skeptical of all sob stories. If you encourage a sociopath telling one by feigning shock and sympathy, he will proceed to go deeper, adding more and more detail, and more and more pathos, taking the story into completely absurd territory in order to see how much of a sucker you are and what he can get away with.
None of these things are definitive, they are merely suggestive. But taken as a whole, they are reliably conclusive.

Murdered DNC staffer may have been whistleblower

Curiouser and curiouser:

On Tuesday Wikileaks offered a $20,000 reward for information on the murder of DNC staffer Seth rich.

Now this…
Julian Assange suggested on Tuesday that Seth Rich was a Wikileaks informant.
Via Mike Cernovich:

Was Seth Rich, the source of #DNCleaks, murdered? https://t.co/bKwYQJcmQp
— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) August 10, 2016

Julian Assange seems to suggests on Dutch television program Nieuwsuur that Seth Rich was the source for the Wikileaks-exposed DNC emails and was murdered.

From the video:

Julian Assange: Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks. As a 27 year-old, works for the DNC, was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington.


Reporter: That was just a robbery, I believe. Wasn’t it?


Julian Assange: No. There’s no finding. So… I’m suggesting that our sources take risks.

If Rich is confirmed as the Wikileaks whistleblower, it’s going to cast further suspicion on Team Clinton. Not that anyone trusts the FBI’s ability to investigate anymore after they whitewashed the affair of the Secretary of State’s private server and deleted emails.


The end of Jewish rule

Identity politics finally catches up to a 44-year practitioner of it.

A Somali activist has unseated one of the Minnesota Legislature’s longest-serving members in a Democratic primary.

Ilhan Omar defeated 22-term Rep. Phyllis Kahn in Tuesday’s DFL nominating contest. Omar’s victory in the heavily Democratic Minneapolis district makes it likely she’ll be the first Somali-American lawmaker in the nation after the November election.

The district spans the University of Minnesota and is home to a large population of immigrants from Somalia and other East African countries. Omar argued the district needs a fresher face that better represents the diversity and needs of the area.

Omar is a political activist and former aide to the Minneapolis City Council.

Kahn has spent 44 years in the Legislature.

This is a microcosm of what is gradually taking shape in the United States. It’s also why the Learned Elders of Wye have been actively trying to figure out where to jump ship next, as their ability to influence US politics rapidly wanes. Apparently Jewish strategists never thought through the obvious long-term consequences of their 60’s-era “diversity is good for the Jews” strategy in the United States, most likely because it was originally formulated in highly altruistic, highly homogeneous Europe, where it was an effective strategy right up until it really wasn’t.

However, now that low-altruism minorities are approaching 50 percent of the US electorate, identity politics are permanently replacing ideological politics, and a Jew like Khan is never going to be elected in any district where Somalis, or Arabs, or Indians, or Chinese are the majority. And they’re also increasingly unlikely to be elected in black-, white-, or Hispanic-dominated districts.

Further complicating matters is the fact that the rise of Donald Trump and American nationalism means the “hello, fellow white people” schtick is not to work much longer, particularly now that the inordinately Jewish “conservative media” has unmasked itself as globalist rather than pro-American, and viciously opposed to any America First nationalist ideology.

So, setting up Pedro, Peng, Pasha and Prodosh to fight Paul for the benefit of Peter has, over time, put Peter in a no-win situation. If Pedro and company win, Peter is permanently excluded from power and may even be actively persecuted by the rainbow coalition he helped build. And if a newly self-interested Paul wins, he’s no longer likely to listen to Peter or pay any attention to Peter’s interests.

This leaves Peter with three options. Try to shut down democracy, accept the gradual decline of power, wealth, and influence, or leave.

This isn’t a matter for debate, nor will crying Holocaust or engaging in philo-semitic virtue-signaling make any difference here here. It’s simple demographic math combined with an observation of historical group voting patterns. US whites are willing to vote outside their identity. US non-whites strongly prefer to do as the Jews do and vote their identity.

It’s interesting, is it not, that the vaunted Askenazi IQ advantage appears to be failing them even as the average US IQ declines significantly. It tends to strongly suggest that whatever the historical basis of Jewish success in the United States was, it was not superior average intelligence.

To return to the Minnesota district, it would be fascinating if Omar unexpectedly loses the election, as a defeat would indicate that even hard-core liberal whites are starting to prefer identity politics to ideology.

UPDATE: Further evidence that identity politics are on the rise; the Asians are beginning to flex their political muscle.

24-year-old Fue Lee, who was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and currently works in the office of Secretary of State Steve Simon. He defeated 10-term incumbent Rep. Joe Mullery, DFL-Minneapolis. Both upsets came in heavily DFL districts, which means they are virtually assured of victory in November. Their victories illustrated the ascendance of minority populations in the DFL, as new immigrants and African-Americans demand a higher profile and a seat at the table of the party they call home.

As I’ve said before, Republicans must become the White Party – or if you prefer, the American Party – if they are to survive. White Democrats and Jews are all but finished, outside of the places where they are the majority.