Closed June event, member’s only. Invites will go out tomorrow morning. 7 PM Eastern Wednesday night, July 5th.
Three book reviews
First, a new fan of Summa Elvetica and Selenoth with an literarily eminent heritage reviews the precursor to Arts of Dark and Light.
As fantasy within the noble ranks of the great JRR Tolkien, you’re being overly modest if you fail to see that SUMMA ELVETICA is more than a worthy sucessor. No doubt Tolkien himself would have been greatly pleased at how you have been able to successfully and seamlessly synthesize many of the beings and creatures of Middle Earth with Earth’s ancient and modern history as we know it, thus making both all the more relevant in the process.
The Elvish soul question then functions more for me as a thematic jump-off point from which springs a very satisfying adventure tale, both grounded and uplifted by the problematic duality and contradictions inherent in Church doctrine. In other words, I’m glad, as you state in the “Author’s Note,” that you decided to pursue a more narrational rather than philosophical structure to the book. For me the tale and detailed descriptionn of its inhabitants – be they Elves, Men, Dwarves, Orcs, Trolls, Goblins or Ulin — is the meat, and the philosophy is the spice; not the other way around.
Not that you need hear it from me, but your prose is as poetic as it is precise, and your storytelling gripping. Makes for a very satisfying read in the finest Tolkien tradition. Naturally I gleaned much intelligence from your terrific podcasts and interviews, but it didn’t prepare me for the power and command you exhibit in your fiction.
Something I find fascinating — and it may not necessarily be how you intended it to be viewed when you wrote it — is that the realm of SUMMA ELVETICA can be seen as either prequel, sequel or a parallel realm to that of LORD OF THE RINGS. When the Elves depart from Middle Earth at the end of the trilogy, it’s said that it’s now the “Age of Men.” Marcus Valerius appears to be a worthy if not exactly a heroic successor to the great King Aragorn (who married an Elf Princess), but overall, if Amorr is a successor to Gondor, it is — although not unexpectedly when viewed from the perspective of this world we inhabit — comparatively fallen, debased and considerably less heroic, and that’s reason for sadness.
It’s a very kind review, but I don’t think “poetic” is a phrase one is often likely to hear used to describe my prose. I am pretty sure that “workmanlike” is a more accurate description. That being said, I am very pleased to hear that people are enjoying Selenoth to the point that they regard it as a worthy successor to Middle Earth rather than, say, Westeros or Malazan. And, of course, there are a few songs in A Sea of Skulls….
Second, a less-than-flattering review of SJWAL:
Excretable Nonsense
What twaddle. Now I know why no one takes you seriously. I didn’t think my eyes could even roll that high.
And another one of Crisis & Conceit:
WASTE OF TIME
Don’t waste your time.
I’m always rather curious what these obvious fake reviewers think they are accomplishing, if anything. I used to think they were simply trying to drive the average rating down, but over time, I’ve come to conclude that they are actually trying to relieve the pressure on their amygdala caused by the very existence of the book and/or the author. Regardless, it seems a very strange way to attempt to effect change.
Body slam!
The God-Emperor tweets himself bodyslamming Fake News CNN.
He added insult to injury by tweeting it under the hashtag #FraudNewsCNN #FNN. Needless to say, the media has gone absolutely apeshit, unable to believe that a sitting president would hammer them back rather than simply enduring the abuse in dignified silence.
As it happens, I’ve been reading Jomini recently, which tends to make it pretty clear what the God-Emperor is doing here.
The general should do every thing to electrify his own soldiers, and to empart to them the same enthusiasm which he endeavors to repress in his adversaries.
If Twitter provides us with any sound basis for judgment, Trump’s supporters are electrified and his detractors are horrified. Mission accomplished.
Of NR and NPR
Today’s Fun With Twitter stars the estimable J. Goldberg:
TWTIsCancer @twt_cancer
Here is better advice. Put an end to funding anything related to NPR, that will help President Trump win even more.
Jonah Goldberg @JonahNRO
I think this person thinks National Review = NPR.
Supreme Dark Lord @voxday
In fairness, you guys have been moving that way for decades now. It’s getting harder to tell the difference.
Jonah Goldberg @JonahNRO
Uh huh. You’re trying too hard, Vox.
Supreme Dark Lord @voxday
Not at all. Look at everything from gay marriage to opposing the GOP candidate. If NPR hadn’t moved further left, NR would have caught up.
They will NEVER be Americans
And when pressed to choose, they will even admit it.
Dear Mexican: I’ve read that 75% of Americans are against giving illegal immigrants citizenship. I’m for full amnesty and citizenship for the current 12 million that are here, but I have two absolute conditions. First, the border is locked up by both the U.S. and Mexico, and illegal entries are reduced by 90% even if that takes the military of both countries. Second, that citizenship would require pledging allegiance to America and denouncing their Mexican citizenship. My question is: Do you think that the Mexican portion of the 12 million would agree to this? And do you think the Mexican government would agree to helping to close the border if full amnesty was given to those that are now here?
Dear Gabacho: You heard about how Donald Trump wants to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and equip it with solar panels? Your idea is stupider. Primeramente, locking up the border accomplishes nada. There’s less Mexicans coming into los Estados Unidos right now not because of Trump’s pendejadas but because the United States is turning into Mexico—so why not just stay in Mexico? And putting both the American and Mexican military on la frontera is a waste of resources and firepower better used against the Saudis. Segundamente, any Mexican who would become legal has to pledge allegiance to the U.S.—it’s call the “naturalization oath of allegiance,” pendejo. And who cares if they have dual citizenship? Mexicans only get that so they can own land down there instead of having to give it up to the government—unless you’d rather Mexicans give that up and bring up their 91-year-old Tía Goya to live in el Norte? Gabachos like you need to get it into your mind that Mexicans (and other immigrants, for that matter) can simultaneously be American yet have another country on their mind, and not be disloyal to the Stars and Stripes. Why do conservatives get all pissy about that, yet cheer on losers who still love the Confederacy? Oh, yeah—because gabacho.
Now, why would an immigrant from Mexico who is here to work hard and seek a better life and truly loves America be unwilling to give up his Mexican citizenship? Oh, they only keep it so they can own land down in Mexico, right.
And why would Americans be any more upset about Tía Goya coming to live off US welfare than they are about her children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews doing so?
A man cannot serve two masters. Nor can a man belong to two nations.
Transfer is not a dirty word
Richard Spencer justifies the ethnic cleansing of America in a truly shocking article:
Raise your hand if you were shocked at the breakdown of the so-called Civil Rights Movement. If you are raising your hand, give yourself a nice, hard slap across the chops. Maybe that will wake you up from your reverie of self-delusion.
The Civil Rights Movement was doomed from the start. The Black enmity for Whites and the United States of America allows for neither justice nor peace.
Here is the bottom line: If you believe that a white ethnostate has a right to exist, then you must allow America to transfer the Blacks and the Hispanics from the 50 States proper. It’s an ugly solution, but it is the only solution. And it is far less ugly than the prospect of bloody conflict ad infinitum. When two populations are constantly enmeshed in conflict, it is insane to suggest that somehow deep-seated ideological change will miraculously occur, allowing the two sides to live together.
Unfortunately, this insanity is generally accepted as “the only way forward.” President Trump accepts it because it is politically palatable. The Blacks and Hispanics accept it because for them, it is a Trojan horse. The whites accept it because they are afraid that if they expel the Blacks and Hispanics, they will be called racists.
For anyone who is white, being called a racist is unspeakably terrible. That is the secret weapon of the Blacks. Any time the whites get wise and threaten to address the problem, the Blacks pull out their big stick, equating white self-interest with racism. Their cartoons draw nooses and white hoods and cry Holocaust. Their newspapers call the God-Emperor another Adolf Hitler. Their spokespeople cry “Genocide!” And whites cower in fear that they could be equated with their racist grandparents.
White Americans don’t realize that expelling a hostile population is a commonly used and generally effective way of preventing violent entanglements. There are no gas chambers here. It’s not genocide; it’s transfer. It’s not Hitler; it’s Churchill.
After World War II, Poland was recreated by the Allied Powers. In doing so, the Allies sliced off a chunk of Germany and extended Poland west to the Oder-Neisse line. Anywhere from 3.5 million to 9 million Germans were forcibly expelled from the new Polish territory and relocated in Germany.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was pleased with the result. In 1944, he had explained to the House of Commons that “expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble … a clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed by the prospect of the disentanglement of populations, nor even by these large transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions than they ever were before.” Churchill was right. The Germans accepted the new border, and decades of conflict between Poles and Germans ended.
Ethnic conflict in America is exponentially more volatile than German-Polish conflict ever was. And the solution is far easier. If there was “room in Germany for the German populations of East Prussia and of the other territories,” as Churchill stated, there is certainly room in the spacious Black states of Africa for 37 million African-Americans and the roomy Spanish-speaking countries states of Central and South America for 60 million Hispanics. If Germans, who had a centuries-old connection to the newly created Polish territory, could be expelled, then surely Blacks and Hispanics, whose claim to be Americans is dubious at best, can be expelled.
It’s time to stop being squeamish. White Americans are not Nazis. Transfer is not genocide. And anything else isn’t a solution.
Oh, sorry, my mistake. It appears I was a little confused. That wasn’t Richard Spencer writing about America, advocating the expulsion of Blacks and Hispanics. That was (((Ben Shapiro))) writing about Israel, advocating the expulsion of Palestinians and Israeli-Arabs.
I can’t help but wonder: is the Littlest Chickenhawk is also willing to publicly defend the necessity and morality of transferring US Jews to Israel?
3 = 17
The Associated Press is Fake News:
In stories published April 6, June 2, June 26 and June 29, The Associated Press reported that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies have agreed that Russia tried to influence the 2016 election to benefit Donald Trump. That assessment was based on information collected by three agencies – the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency – and published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which represents all U.S. intelligence agencies. Not all 17 intelligence agencies were involved in reaching the assessment.
Well, someone ELSE said the other 14 agencies agreed, right? And the media wonders why they are held in such contempt.
ALT-HERO: the Kickstarter cometh
Some of you may recall Dynamique. In ALT-HERO Book Two, we learn that the Global Justice Initiative utilizes some rather unusual recruitment practices. We are currently in the process of preparing for the Kickstarter, which will launch in approximately 4-6 weeks. The plan is to produce four digital books, which will be collected in a single hardcover book.
The transformation of the GOP
It is shocking – absolutely shocking – to discover that a model minority named “Avik Roy” is opposed to the transformation of the Republican Party from a conservative party to a nationalist party:
Avik Roy is a Republican’s Republican. A health care wonk and editor at Forbes, he has worked for three Republican presidential hopefuls — Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Marco Rubio. Much of his adult life has been dedicated to advancing the Republican Party and conservative ideals.
But when I caught up with Roy at a bar just outside the Republican convention, he said something I’ve never heard from an establishment conservative before: The Grand Old Party is going to die.
“I don’t think the Republican Party and the conservative movement are capable of reforming themselves in an incremental and gradual way,” he said. “There’s going to be a disruption.”
Roy isn’t happy about this: He believes it means the Democrats will dominate national American politics for some time. But he also believes the Republican Party has lost its right to govern, because it is driven by white nationalism rather than a true commitment to equality for all Americans.
“Until the conservative movement can stand up and live by that principle, it will not have the moral authority to lead the country,” he told me.
This is a standard assessment among liberals, but it is frankly shocking to hear from a prominent conservative thinker. Our conversation had the air of a confessional: of Roy admitting that he and his intellectual comrades had gone wrong, had failed, had sinned.
But this is not why the Republican Party will die, it is why the conservative movement has lost control of the Republican Party, and why the conservative movement will die. Since when was the primary objective of the Republican Party, the USA, or the Constitution “a true commitment to equality for all Americans”, particularly in a world where “Americans” can be born anywhere? And it is nonsense to claim a political party should be driven by a commitment to something that does not exist; Roy might as reasonably decry the failure of the Republican commitment to unicorns.
The irony, as usual, is that Roy is practicing the very identity politics he decries. He’s opposed to American nationalism because he isn’t an American, he’s just a paperwork facsimile. And he’s wrong, of course, because the Democrats are not going to dominate American politics, because the more the demographics shift against white Americans, the more strongly they are going to be forced to band together in their own self-interest and defense.
The reality is that Roy is going to become a Democrat, just like all the other so-called conservatives whose identity is non-white. Because people like him have been practicing identity politics all along, they’ve just been doing so under cover of equalitarian ideology.
FORBIDDEN THOUGHTS in audiobook
You are not supposed to read this book. You are not supposed to think about reading this book. In fact, just plain thinking at all is unacceptable. You have been warned…
From hilarious to horrifying to dangerously insightful, a selection of stories that must not be told, for they slaughter the sacred cows of our age. Do you dare read them?
Stories by Nick Cole, John C. Wright, Sarah A. Hoyt, Brad R. Torgersen, Vox Day and more, with non-fiction articles by Tom Kratman and Larry Correia, with a foreword by Milo Yiannopoulos.
10 hours and 18 minutes. Narrated by Jon Mollison.
Excerpt from “The Amazon Gambit” by Vox Day from FORBIDDEN THOUGHTS.
Lieutenant Colonel Max Kruger stood at attention and saluted as General Markham, SUBCONCOM, debarked from the flyer with the ease of a man four decades younger and strode across the landing pad towards him.
“At ease, Colonel,” the general ordered. “Good to see you. Now, come with me, we’ve got a lot to discuss before the press conference.”
The general had four centims on him and was walking quickly, so Kruger had to lengthen his stride in order to keep up with the taller man.
“The Grkese signed the contract?”
“They did indeed,” the general confirmed. “And the Duke himself selected you as the contract CO, Max.”
“Honored,” Kruger murmured, as expected. And it was true, he did feel honored, although he wasn’t exactly surprised. Of the various officers in the Rhysalani Armed Forces qualified to command low-tech forces, he not only possessed the best record with regards to successfully completed contracts, but he had beaten Col. Thompson, his closest rival, rather soundly at the Duke’s Command Challenge last year. “I presume it will be 3rd Battalion?”
The 3rd Battalion of the Ducal Marines specialized in low-tech combat, particularly combat below TL10. Kruger had served with them on two previous deployments, both of which had taken place on Dom Sevru. The men of 3rd Battalion were trained to be able to fight with everything from swords and shields to plasma cannon and sub-atomic armor.
“No,” the general replied, to his surprise, as they entered the elevator that would bring them down to the heart of the airbase command center. “The Lord General suggested that this would be the ideal opportunity to show the subsector what the 11th Special Battalion can do. And the Duke concurred.”
Kruger couldn’t hide his astonishment. Or his dismay. He looked at his superior in disbelief, and while he saw everything from amusement to sympathy in the older man’s eyes, he detected no sign at all that his leg was being pulled.
“Dear God, you’re not joking!”
“Afraid not, Max. The Duke has spent a fortune training and equipping those women for the last five years, and he’s decided that it’s about time to see a return on that investment.”
Kruger didn’t trust himself to speak. The first five or six responses that sprang to mind would have earned him at least a reprimand, if not a court-martial. The next three, if uttered openly by an officer of the Armed Forces, technically amounted to lèse-nobilité and would theoretically merit a firing squad. So he said nothing.
The general grinned nonchalantly and raised an eyebrow. He knew damn well what Kruger was thinking. “He’s not wrong, Max. Their negotiators were so impressed that they paid triple our usual rate. Half up front.”
“They did? Why the hell would they do that?”
“Well, as I understand the sales pitch, our highly trained female soldiers have proven to be much better communicators than their male counterparts, and as a result they are considerably less inclined to needlessly break things and kill people. In this particular case, the estimated savings in infrastructure damage when taking and occupying the primary objective alone is expected to more than make up for the increased cost of the contract.”
“Assuming we can complete it. What’s the tech level again?”
“Seven.”
This time, Kruger couldn’t restrain an oath. The general raised an eyebrow, then slapped Kruger on his oak-leafed shoulders as they approached a door with a pair of Ducal Marines on either side.
“Try to keep it clean for the cameras, Max. If you don’t know what to say, just smile and declare that you’ve got every confidence in the troops. Do your best to sell it. God knows we’ve all had to tell a few humdingers in our day. Your record speaks for itself, so let it do the talking. Now, you’ve got an hour to review the contract and meet with the battalion’s officers before the press conference, so I suggest you hop to it.”
“Yessir,” Kruger said morosely. “Any chance I can get out of this, General?”
“None at all, Max. None at all.”