QUANTUM MORTIS The Programmed Mind

In addition to Big Boys Don’t Cry Castalia House also announced today QUANTUM MORTIS The Programmed Mind.  The book is set centuries before Chief Warrant Officer Graven Tower joined MCID-XAR, in a time when the
Greater Terran Ascendancy found itself facing a historic crisis after the
Shiva-class cruiser ATSV Rigel went missing during a routine patrol
through the Kantillon sector. Fortunately for the
Terran empire, the Ascendancy Intelligence Directorate’s top operative,
Daniela York, is on the scene. But is she capable of penetrating the
lethal plot perpetratd by House Dai Zhan’s ruthless assassins,
especially after the Directorate discovers the cyborgs of the
Man-Machine Integration may be involved? 
QUANTUM MORTIS The Programmed Mind is a literary remix of a
true SF classic and is a tightly plotted, intense spy
thriller that lays the deep historical foundation for the futuristic
science fiction world of Quantum Mortis.

I asked a serious fan of the original work upon which QM-TPM is based, The Programmed Man by Jean and Jeff Sutton, to share his thoughts on whether he felt the book lived up to the original, which was a childhood favorite of mine. After reading it, he replied:

“The trouble with “reboots” isn’t that they shouldn’t be done. I’m not terribly sure they can
be done. After all, Tolkien could not return to Middle Earth after Lord
of the Rings. Asimov tried to return to extend his colossal Foundation,
and failed galactically. I can list a score of other examples, and if
the original author is incapable, it seems evident that earnest
successors fare no better. Dune was not improved by re-visits by later
authors, nor was the Hyborian Age, and few Lovecraft pastiches come
anywhere close to the originals.

“That general observation is precisely why you’ll never catch me describing Quantum Mortis: The Programmed Mind with the epithet “reboot.”

“The Programmed Man is among the more memorable science
fiction novels of the New Wave that you have never
heard of. Despite its distribution though young adult book clubs following publication, it was poorly suited
for longevity in the minds of young readers due to its complexity of plot and
its emphasis on intrigue rather than action. The plot is a
galaxy-spanning game of enigmas and deception in the hunt for a lone
individual who may, (or may not), hold the fate of the decline of
humankind in his genes. An extra twist is added to the narrative
in that much of the truth to the labyrinthine plot is concealed in the
words of vested and unreliable witnesses. The book is a lot of things: a
spy novel, a mystery, a nuclear war novel, and a foray into game
theory.

“In The Programmed Man, the core cloak-and-dagger game
structure is analyzed intellectually, and teased out in tantalizing
packets of conversation. The novel’s new successor, Quantum Mortis: The Programmed Mind,
is an explosive action novel that uses the core game structure as the
tinderbox for galactic conflict. It raises the body count and explores
new territory: sexual differences and artificial intelligence, as well as human
origin, awareness and identity. It also just happens to lay some
fascinating and significant historic turning points set within Day’s
Quantum Mortis universe. If The Programmed Man reads like the secret dossier transcripts of the historic event, then Quantum Mortis: The Programmed Mind is the pulse-pounding eyewitness experience.

“Whereas
the typical marriage of public domain works and modern authorship seem
most often to result in those “Jane Austen plus Monsters” semi-parodies, Quantum Mortis: The Programmed Mind breaks new
ground, presenting itself instead as a sizzling collaboration between
two powerful science fiction voices of two different eras.”

From the early reviews:

” Think Hunt For Red October if it was told from Admiral Greer’s perspective instead of Jack Ryan’s.”

 “A great addition to the Quantum Mortis series, highly recommended.”

“Tight story telling. Interesting well thought-out characters… and a fascinating futuristic spy plot.”

Cracks in the Pax

Contra the myth of shining happy progress, China and Japan appear to be heading directly into military conflict again:

Chan Kai Yee of China Daily Mail, a blog with no connection to Beijing, Feb. 22, 2014, provides the following summary translation of an article in Qianzhan.com,
a Chinese-language news site headquartered in the city of Shenzhen in
China’s southeastern Guangdong province, with offices in Beijing and
Hong Kong:

Quite a few people have said that the conflict over the Diaoyus (known as Senkakus in Japan) has passed the stage of oral confrontation and what follows may very probably be direct military conflict.

It is especially so as, relying on US support, Japan is obviously declaring war against China already. Sources say that China’s Central Military Commission has directly given Chinese military the instruction: “Fight if it is appropriate to fight.

Sources pointed out that they had received information that Xi Jinping, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, gave a relevant warning to a Japanese economic and trade delegation that recently visited China. Xi specially pointed out to the delegation when he met them, if Japan kept provoking China and thus gave rise to an unstable situation, it alone has to be responsible for all the consequences.

What we are seeing here is the pre-positioning for the collapse of the global Pax Americana. The US is intervening in the internal affairs of foreign governments ever more actively than any time since the 1950s, but it is doing so now without the benefit of a credible military threat. While the weaponry is still significantly advanced and there is still a core of excellent soldiers, it is no secret that the population has zero will-to-fight and the military has been all but broken by constant misuse and overuse as well as the incessant social meddling by its civilian overseers. Vladimir Putin recognizes this, as do the Communist oligarchs of China. So, too, do the Eurofascists of the EU.

The world’s second-rate powers can’t stand directly against the USA yet, but they know the time is rapidly approaching when they will be able to do so. Remember, it only took 22 years for Germany to go from laying prostrate and defeated before the Western Allies to defeating France. Already, the US finds itself unable to impose its will upon China. In another generation, the USA will be unable to impose its will in Asia.  It’s not unthinkable that a generation after that, its European influence will be gone and US hegemony will be largely limited to the area of the historical Monroe Doctrine.

And clearly it isn’t only the foreign governments who anticipate this:

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel plans to shrink the United States Army to its smallest force since before the World War II buildup and eliminate an entire class of Air Force attack jets in a new spending proposal that officials describe as the first Pentagon budget to aggressively push the military off the war footing adopted after the terror attacks of 2001.

The proposal, described by several Pentagon officials on the condition of anonymity in advance of its release on Monday, takes into account the fiscal reality of government austerity and the political reality of a president who pledged to end two costly and exhausting land wars. A result, the officials argue, will be a military capable of defeating any adversary, but too small for protracted foreign occupations.

The size of the military and the expenditure upon it can rapidly change, but the population from which it draws won’t. Between Bush the Elder, Clinton, Bush the Younger, and Obama, is there a single individual one could honestly recommend anyone accepting on oath as a commander-in-chief? And as for the time-hallowed notion of  “serving one’s country”, what country would one serve now? North Mexico? Israel? Melting Pottomia? Democracy?

The only people in whose interests the US government appears completely unwilling to intervene is the Revolutionary American people.

Big Boys Don’t Cry by Tom Kratman

Castalia House today announced BIG BOYS DON’T CRY. Now available from Amazon, it is a novella from military science fiction author Tom Kratman, known for
A Desert Called Peace and the Carrera series. The novella follows the
life cycle of a Ratha, a sentient future supertank that dutifully fights
Man’s battles on dozens of alien worlds. But will the massive creature
still be grateful to its creators when it discovers it has a conscience?
And how long will an intelligent war machine with enough firepower to
flatten a city be content to remain Man’s obedient slave?

I asked Tom for his thoughts on the publication of BIG BOYS DON’T CRY:

“Not many people think of it this way, but the Boloverse, as in the late Keith Laumer’s Bolos and the spin-offs, is one of the most liberal themes in science fiction.  It’s especially funny precisely because almost nobody understands that it’s liberal.  Why do I say it’s liberal?  Because it’s all about the easy, certain, and reliable programming of altruistic values in sentient beings.  Brother, sister, that’s the penultimate CORE of liberalism.  Interestingly, since the stories can move even me, it suggests to me that we ALL have some liberal in us.

“Big Boys Don’t Cry isn’t a Bolo story, either in the special military technical details or in the theme.  What it is, though, is a deconstruction of that liberal meme on the easy, certain, and reliable programming of altruism in sentient beings.

“It’s also, I think, a pretty good story.”

From the early Amazon reviews:

“Colonel Kratman, the evil, cruel, soulless, right-wing, misogynistic, war
mongering, homophobe has gone and written a tale of loss and betrayal
and honor and redemption that broke my heart….”

“This is my first time reading Kratman. His reputation suggested he was
someone who could weave clever and hard-hitting military sci-fi prose
and this novella is a testament to that.”

“I can gladly recommend it to all lovers of military science fiction.”

“This is one of the darker SF books I have ever read.”

“This book is brutal and moving and worth every penny spent, every minute reading it.”

The NFL flags hate speech

Does anyone in the league office ever actually spend time around the players or pay attention to how they talk? It should be interesting to watch NFL games with half the black players sent to the sidelines by the end of the first quarter. Or perhaps theleague can come up with a policy that permits black players to call each other “nigger” while penalizing white players. Which raises the question; will multiracial players like Russell Wilson only be penalized five yards?

The NFL may implement a new rule this offseason calling for 15-yard penalties for any players who use racial slurs on the field. John Wooten, head of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, told CBS Sports that he expects the league to make it an automatic 15-yard penalty if a player uses the N-word on the field, and an automatic ejection for a player who does it twice.

“I will be totally shocked if the competition committee does not uphold us on what we’re trying to do,” Wooten said. “We want this word to be policed from the parking lot to the equipment room to the locker room. Secretaries, PR people, whoever, we want it eliminated completely and want it policed everywhere.”

You would swear this was a parody, but perhaps the wags who predicted that the NFL would devolved to flag football with penalty flags thrown for making other players feel bad weren’t so far off after all.

And it’s fascinating to observe that they are quite willing to set themselves up as the speech police.

The virulent circle

I find it modestly amusing how the only thing that the two sides of the low-grade civil war between the SFWA Old Guard and the Insect Army can agree upon is that I am simply beyond the pale.


“That’s right! I am dangerous, Ice… man!”

Although it’s also amusing how a few of them seem to think that they should be able to discuss how terrible I am without me, you know, letting any of you know about it. Apparently they also think the MORE THAN ~50,000 DAILY READERS here are crackpots and hatey-hatey haters. Shame on all of you! From SFF.net, which I will remind you is the considerably more rational side of the two that are involved.

YOU ARE HEREBY WARNED  This is a hate site. They hate EVERYONE. Also the abode of crackpots.
– Lois Tilton (providing link to VP)

No one has to seek such things out. If we knew exactly why he was kicked out of SFWA, then we need never think of him again. But we don’t.
– Jerry Pournelle

I was pointing out that Beale is predictably taking advantage of the current flapping over the Truesdale matter to do more flapping of his own, on his own blog. 
– Lois Tilton

Vox Day is, of course, a perfect rendition of the Cory Doctorow prescription of writerly success. Welcome to the Promised Land.
– William Barton

As he will tell you.
– Lois Tilton

As far as I know, the only thing Beale has to do with the current flap is that he signed the petition at some point and his name was removed before it went public.  Beale commented on that on his blog.
– Steven Silver

I seriously doubt that. I saw an early draft of the petition and his name wasn’t there.  Dave would not be that dumb; it would have poisoned the whole effort. I wouldn’t take anything Beale says as accurate.
– Chuck Rothman

If Truesdale, a non-member, can present such a petition, Beale, a non-member, should be able to sign it. Removing someone’s name from a petition because one thinks they are an asshat is prima facie evidence that one is, onceself, an asshat. Maybe SFWA can chip in and buy an “UNCLEAN” sign for Beale to wear around his neck? SFWA’s not the fucking Pope.
– William Barton

Regarding Beale I have yet to see either charge or specification, apparently because even the mention of what he did to merit expulsion would be actionable or something of the sort.  I probably misunderstand, but apparently the Board can act as a Court of Star Chamber and doesn’t need charges and specifications.  I can’t say I find that reassuring.
– Jerry Pournelle

Well, Mr. Rothman, Dave was precisely that dumb. It was also downright hilarious to see one member pointing out that Steven Gould’s actions have proved that I was “was the only possible choice for president who might have made me write a dues check this year.”

Anyhow, I sent Mr. Pournelle a copy of the SFWA report as well as my response to it. I have no idea what he will make of it, but at least he will be left in ignorance no longer.

As Lois Tilton has surmised, I don’t mind any of this. I have the impression that running a publishing house will permit me to have considerably more impact on the field of science fiction and fantasy than serving as president of SFWA would have. About which more tomorrow. And as it happens, many of the things I would have implemented inside the organization are equally implementable from the outside. About which more anon.

That’s not funny!

Scientists are gradually beginning to discover that progressives are, as the rest of us have known for decades, essentially humorless:

While Americans choose their next president, let us consider a question more amenable to science: Which candidate’s supporters have a better sense of humor? In strict accordance with experimental protocol, we begin by asking you to rate, on a scale of 1 (not funny at all) to 9 (hilarious) the following three attempts at humor:

A) Jake is about to chip onto the green at his local golf course when a long funeral procession passes by. He stops in midswing, doffs his cap, closes his eyes and bows in prayer. His playing companion is deeply impressed. “That’s the most thoughtful and touching thing I’ve ever seen,” he says. Jake replies, “Yeah, well, we were married 35 years.”

B) I think there should be something in science called the “reindeer effect.” I don’t know what it would be, but I think it’d be good to hear someone say, “Gentlemen, what we have here is a terrifying example of the reindeer effect.”

C) If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins the most? I’d say Flippy, wouldn’t you? You’d be wrong, though. It’s Hambone.

Those were some of the jokes rated by nearly 300 people in Boston in a recent study. (You can rate some of the others at TierneyLab, nytimes.com/tierneylab.) The researchers picked out a variety of jokes — good, bad, conventional, absurdist — to look for differences in reactions between self-described liberals and conservatives.

They expected conservatives to like traditional jokes, like the one about the golfing widower, that reinforce racial and gender stereotypes. And because liberals had previously been reported to be more flexible and open to new ideas, the researchers expected them to get a bigger laugh out of unconventional humor, like Jack Handey’s “Deep Thoughts” about the reindeer effect and Hambone.

Indeed, the conservatives did rate the traditional golf and marriage jokes as significantly funnier than the liberals did. But they also gave higher ratings to the absurdist “Deep Thoughts.” In fact, they enjoyed all kinds of humor more.

Actually, it’s not quite true to say that progressives are completely humorless. They do enjoy one single joke that they repeat over and over again, in a myriad of variants.

“That X, he sure is stupid, isn’t he!”

It’s such a great joke because it works for everyone. They should have tried these three jokes on the progressives in the study:

A) George Bush is so stupid, he is really dumb!” (hilarity ensues)

B) Ronald Reagan is so stupid, he forgot he was senile! (a wave of laughter)

C) Barack Obama is so stupid, he married a Klingon! (stone cold silence)

What passes for progressive humor isn’t actually humor per se, it is merely group reinforcement behavior.  It’s how the rabbits police the bounds of what is, and what is not, currently deemed acceptable to the warren. And speaking of humor,  there are few things funnier than seeing the expression on the face of a progressive who hasn’t realized that the borders have been moved again tell a “joke” that is based on the previously defined limits, waiting expectantly for his endorphin rush of group approval, and then failing to receive it.

On the Tierney jokes, I’d rate them 7, 1, 4.

Publisher’s Weekly on the indie revolt

It’s not looking good for the traditional publishing industry:

For decades, aspiring authors were taught to bow before the altar of Big Publishing. Writers were taught that publishers alone possessed the wisdom to determine if a writer deserved passage through the pearly gates of author heaven. Writers were taught that publishers had an inalienable right to this power, and that this power was for the common good of readers. They were taught rejection made them stronger. They were taught that without a publisher’s blessing, they were a failed writer.

And it was true. Without a publisher, the writer was doomed to failure, because without a publisher the writer couldn’t reach readers. Six years ago publishers controlled the three essential legs of the professional publishing stool: the printing press, the access to retail distribution, and the knowledge of professional publishing best practices. It was a print-centric world where e-books were but an inconsequential glimmer in the eyes of a few delusional hippies, me included. A writer could self-publish in print, but without retail distribution these writers were destined to fill their garages with unsold printed books, all the while lining the pockets of vanity presses who exploited their dreams of authorship….

Today, the myth of traditional publishing is unraveling. The stigma of traditional publishing is on the rise.

The author community is growing increasingly disenchanted by Big Publishing’s hard line on 25% net e-book royalties, high e-book prices, slow payouts, and insistence on DRM copy protection. The recent news of major publishers touting record e-book-powered earnings only adds insult to authors’ perceived injury.

Authors are also disappointed by Big Publishing’s misguided foray into vanity publishing with Pearson/Penguin’s 2012 acquisition of Author Solutions, a company known for selling over-priced publishing packages to unsuspecting writers. Multiple publishers have formed sock puppet imprints powered by ASI: Simon & Schuster’s Archway, Penguin Random House’s Partridge Publishing in India, HarperCollins’ Westbow, Hay House’s Balboa Press, Writer’s Digests’ Abbott Press, and Harlequin’s Dellarte Press. These deals with the devil confirmed the worst fears held by indie authors who already questioned if publishers viewed writers as partners or as chattel.

Now, one could try to dismiss this because it is written by Mark Coker, who is betting big time on the indie publishing revolution with Smashwords. (Full disclosure, five of my books are available there.) But aside from the fact that he is in an ideal position to see what is taking place and sharp enough to have anticipated events, the significant fact is that Publisher’s Weekly obviously sees the writing on the wall.

The publication of this piece indicates that they have no intention of going down with the traditional publishing ship. Now, there is still a need for publishers; having been through all the headaches of getting set up for distribution, finding the right people with whom to work, and so forth, I would estimate that at least two-thirds of the traditionally published will have zero desire to become self-publishers if they can get a fair deal from independent publishers.

But publishers can’t continue to grab up to 93 percent of the revenue any longer. Publishers can’t live on the fat overhead they have traditionally demanded at the expense of the writers who were never presented with the choice between much smaller advances and significantly larger royalties. As Coker writes: “The solution is for publishers to realize that they are service providers to authors.”

That’s exactly what we’re doing at CH. We provide editing, superior covers, multiple foreign language editions within weeks of first publication, a boosted signal, reasonable rights-reversion terms, and the author receives an equal share of the royalties at worst. We know what authors want and need because we share their concerns and our business model is built on partnering with them, not systematically exploiting them.

“So, everybody buckled?”

Asked the Fed. “All right, then, let’s do this thing!”

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Citigroup are among the banks that have successfully completed trial runs using their own models to assess risk and capital requirements. The announcement by the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Friday gives those banks clarity on what methods they can use to calculate their capital requirements.

During the trial run, banks had to show they could comply with a more tailored approach to meeting capital requirements for four consecutive calendar quarters before they could officially rely on that method.

The Fed announced that eight bank holding companies, eight national banks, and four state member banks had satisfactory trials, ending a more than five-year limbo period for the largest US banks that had been waiting to hear the results.

In other words, they’ve been getting ready. Now they’re all just about ready. For what, one might wonder?

No house until 36

It’s hard to blame the millenials for living in their parents’ basement when they were suckered into taking out student loans on which they cannot, unlike previous generations, default. Karl Denninger spells out the math:

You mean the $500 a month student loan payment is half of a decent first-time homebuyer payment — or more?

Well, yes.  Never mind that $500 a month x 12 months = $6,000 a year saved toward a down payment, and if you put 20% down (which you should) then four years of that savings would make it possible for you to buy a $120,000 house.

Financing $96,000 @ 5% for 30 years gives you a P&I on that $120,000 house of…. $513.21, or awfully close to that student loan payment.

In other words you forego the ability to buy the house by taking the student loan debt.

And for how long do you forego it?

10 years, plus four more to build the down payment, or 14 years post-graduation.

If you graduate in four years (ha!) you’re 22, so this means you’re not buying a house until you’re 36.

The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again. The mortgage banks are complaining about the collapse in demand for mortgage debt because indebted graduates and non-graduates can’t afford to take on the debt required to buy a house.

Everything is as my modification of the Austrian Business Cycle predicted. The limits of demand are the limits of CREDIT.

Where science goes wrong

Coming Untrue helpfully provides a primer:

In case you’ve never thought it through, here’s a quick list of where the scientific method can go wrong, and these days, almost invariably does:

The hypothesis can be nonsense, wish fulfillment or fantasy.

  1. The “falsifiable prediction” or predictions may not be falsifiable. How, for instance, could one disprove the existence of God? It’s a classic case of a non-falsifiable prediction.
  2. The experimenter may stack the deck by faking results or discarding those that that don’t agree with his hypothesis.
  3. The experimenter may refuse to discard his theory no matter how much proof accrues against it, or may adopt it without legitimate evidence.
  4. At the peer review stage, the “scientist” may stack the deck by submitting only to those who already agree with his hypothesis and dismissing those who disagree as “deniers”, or refuse to show his results in full or at all in order to allow replication of his experiment.

 You may say, “Those things could never happen”. Except they do, on a regular basis.

It’s very strange that it is those who criticize the misuse and abuse of science that are most often accused of being “anti-science”. It’s like complaining that the person who calls the paramedics when they see someone is injured are “anti-patient”.