Tag: Book Review

So laughing, so NOT AT ALL butthurt

One cannot help but reflect upon the truth of the Third Law of SJW when presented with this emotionally incontinent confessional that passes for a “book review” by one Jon Milne. Note that we are told this is not the first time Mr. Milne has felt the need to “review” a book by Castalia House, even though there are no other reviews listed by anyone of that name.

It’s fascinating to see that SJWs are so confident that the relevant authority will prove amenable, or at least indifferent, that they are willing to so openly admit their violations of the review guidelines as well as their intentions of attempting to manipulate Community Content.

A massive inferiority and insecurity complex dooms this book to failure from the start
By Jon Milne on March 28, 2017

Much like with my review for “SJWs Always Lie” – inexplicably not subtitled “My Inability To Somehow Not Notice Two Chapter 5s During My Awesome Editing Skills” – I am delighted to admit I did not read “The Corroding Empire”. I did not need to. It was not the cover itself that convinced me of giving it a 1 star review, but rather the attitude and motivations the publisher had in creating the cover that provides all the justification I need.

Consider an alternate scenario: Castalia House releases this book, with the real name of the author (Harry Seldon) on the cover, as well as not having the identical artwork, fonts, and positioning of the words as an other considerably higher selling book. In other words, the book by Mr Seldon would be allowed to stand on it’s own two feet and attract judgment purely for it’s literary merits, or lack thereof, and then attract those who want to read it into buying and scoring the publisher some bucks. It stands to reason that if the book was of high quality, then people would buy it, and the would not need to rely on any cheap publicity stunts based on trying to score political points.

And yet it is precisely this desperation on the part of Vox Day – a guy who seriously holds the hilariously stupid view of “White Genocide” that mixed race babies will totally cause the destruction of Earth – that leaves a permanent black mark on this book and completely strips it of whatever credibility it might have as a literary work. Because no matter what Mr Beale may insist about how totally awesome he thinks this book is, it’s quite evident that he was clearly not confident in the ability of this literary work to sell without saddling it with a spectacularly lame gimmick as part of a great big amount of bitterness he has in relation to the success of John Scalzi.

It’s truly amazing how much sour grapes old Theodore is full of that Mr Scalzi has a highly lucrative book deal worth millions of dollars, something which Beale is nowhere close to ever achieving. Other “highlights” of Beale’s obsession with Scalzi include the Hugo Awards of 2015 and 2016, wherein Beale thought-policed his mindless drones, uh, I mean, followers into voting specific works dictated by a slate onto the ballots, all for the self-entitled purpose of winning awards they somehow feel entitled to, and to stick it to the so-called “SJWs” and “CHORFs” who are totally working behind the scenes to steal the whole science fiction genre from “TrueFans(tm) like Voxy and his Dread Milk minions. I mean, they never exactly elaborate how this conspiracy actually works, but still…

This is the mindset behind the “Corroding Empire’s” publication. Not one motivated purely by a desire to please fans and for the love of writing, but by petty squabbles fuelled by inferiority and insecurity complexes on Theodore Beale’s part, as well as a ridiculous obsession with needing vindication from awards. Perhaps Beale should research some of the most highly regarded movies of all time, many of which did not ever win or even get nominated for Oscars, and do the same for music albums and TV shows and video games etc and their equivalent awards which they never won, and then he could maybe reach a much-needed epiphany about whatever “vindication” he so desperately craves.

In closing, I present a contrast of an author who used and still uses a pseudonym for her writing with far more dignity and grace, even if her real name ended up getting leaked. I talk of course of the highly successful J.K. Rowling, currently writing as Robert Galbraith for the Cormoron Strike series of crime novels, all of them highly rated and highly selling. And of course, one can’t forget that according to TheRabidPuppiesDotCom, Hugo Award Nominee and perhaps the world’s greatest author Chuck Tingle has a counter going for how each book is doing: Scalzi’s “Collapsing Empire” has an Amazon Best-seller’s Rank of #235, where as “Corroding Empire” by Harry Telson is ranked #1671. Add another notch of failure to Castalia House’s marketing strategy.

Now comes the part where I get an outraged phone call from Castalia House decrying me for my “WrongThink”. I could definitely use a laugh.

I’m sure Tor Books is ever so relieved that the first book in its big bet on John Scalzi has managed to outsell an ebook from an independent publisher. No doubt that was their metric for success. As for my supposed sour grapes, I note I signed my first million-dollar contract was when I was 27 and it was not the most recent one. I very much doubt that anyone who has read a reasonable portion of both our collected works would believe for a second that I would ever wish to trade my bibliography for his. And, quite to the contrary of SJW assumptions, I sincerely wish Scalzi’s contract had been ten times bigger in monetary terms; Tor delenda est is the point, after all, as Scalzi is little more than Patrick Nielsen Hayden’s creation. Even Scalzi’s first unprovoked attack on me in 2005 was inspired by PNH, the corrupt, beating heart of all that is wormwood and rotten in science fiction.

As for the “failure” of Corrosion, those reviewers who have, unlike Mr. Milne, troubled to actually read the novel, have almost uniformly been pleasantly surprised to discover that it is actually a solid science fiction novel in its own right. Castalia House does not publish Tor-like trash, not even when we are gleefully sowing chaos and havoc. From the latest reviews of the first book of The Corroding Empire:

  • Did not know what to expect. Was very pleasantly surprised to discover a first rate SciFy novel. An involved tale of what can go wrong when dimly understood digital algorithms developed by aware AI machine intelligences tightly control the galaxy. Until they don’t. Then, the fun starts.
  • I was reading very late at night. I finished an intense chapter detailing a farmer in a life and death fight with systemic wide algo-decay, and went to sleep.  A few hours later I was awakened by the sound of our electricity going off, I drowsily thought to myself, ‘oh, drat, more algo-decay.’ and then woke up more fully into my own world.  Kind of cool when a book does world building that well, isn’t it?
  • I read “Foundation” and it’s sequel 50+ years ago and remember them as about a 4 star duo. Enjoyed the Main character, a robot who goes through many changes. The idea of “corrosion” due to basic algorithms over centuries is good. The science ideas are fascinating,, so I enjoyed the book.
  • I remember Foundation as having a general optimistic tone, where the viewpoint characters overcome the challenges of their day guided by the all-knowing ghost of Hari Seldon. There was a sense of inevitability that was only punctured in later books. Corrosion takes an almost opposite track, illustrating a decaying galaxy where chaos reigns and even the far-sighted seer dedicated to restoration is stymied by events and very human reactions. Without going into spoilers, the world of the Corroding Empire is a darker place than the world of Foundation. Yet this darker world also makes the bright spots of the story all the more hopeful and rewarding.
  • I know this book is based on Asimov’s Foundation, which is a book I found amusing but not terribly compelling. I actually found this book to be much more interesting, not least because A) the premise was comparatively much more novel and B) it actually had characters I cared about. If you are too dim or humorless to get the obvious joke, this really says a lot more about you than the author or seller. I find it incredibly impressive that this was written essentially on a dare and turned out as well as it did.

The simple fact is that Book One of The Corroding Empire: Corrosion, by Johan Kalsi, was an absolutely smashing success in the eyes of everyone involved, as the fake review by Mr. Milne so beautifully demonstrates. It was a fantastic performance by the highly efficient Castalia House team, wonderfully supported by the ever-loyal Castalia House readers, and after a bit of confusion at the start, even our new friends at Amazon came through in the end.

Seriously, though, why do SJWs always pretend they are laughing, even when you can see they are shaking with rage?

They’re big science fiction fans too. In addition to not reading the books they review, SF-SJWs aren’t even familiar with the classic SF canon:

EDIT: My bad on the “Harry Seldon” thing. An honest mistake. I’ve never read any Asimov novels, the closest exposure I’ve had being the “I, Robot” movie released in the mid-2000s, which I remember liking. Nothing a trip to my local library can’t fix. Duly changed those references in my review anyway.

In fairness, I very much doubt John Scalzi has read very many Asimov novels either. I doubt he’s even finished the original Foundation trilogy.

Crazy SJW lies and libels

Robert L Hood, aka Rev. Bob of File 770 is now publicly libeling me on Amazon under his fake Customer Review.


“Theodore Beale, aka Vox Day, has placed himself on the record as approving of people calling one-star reviewers and falsely representing themselves as Castalia House employees under the guise of “customer service.””

This is not true and Robert L Hood, aka Rev. Bob knows it. I will certainly admit to being amused by a fake Customer expressing fake Customer dissatisfaction in a fake Customer Review being contacted by a fake Customer Service representative. It tends to strike me as fitting. But I do not approve of anyone falsely representing themselves as Castalia House employees for any purpose, I have never authorized anyone to do so, nor have I ever issued retroactive authorization to anyone who did so.

As for people calling fake reviewers, my position on fake reviews has been clear since I was a professional nationally syndicated reviewer for Chronicle Features in the early 1990s: I approve of presidential drone strikes on fake reviewers.

Now, what could explain Mr. Hood’s false and inappropriate accusations? Oh, right, he’s crazy, even by SJW standards:

As someone who’s been on brain meds for over two decades, can I speak up to say how offensive I find it when people equate “crazy, insane, psycho” with all mental illnesses?

Being depressed doesn’t make you insane.
Having a bad memory doesn’t make you crazy.
Feeling suicidal doesn’t make you a psycho.

We have contacted Amazon Customer Support and asked them to review all reviews by unverified purchasers, including Mr. Hood’s. They have confirmed that they will do so, and I expect their eventual response will be illuminating concerning what is, and what is not, considered to be in violation of their Community Guidelines.

Portrait of the Dark Lord

Now, this is the exact opposite of the fake reviews with which SJWs are littering Amazon. Daniel F. reviews The Collected Columns Vol. 1, Innocence & Intellect, 2001-2005, now available in a 764-page hardcover edition.



PORTRAIT OF THE DARK LORD AS A YOUNG MAN

Vox Day is a prolific author who, over the course of two decades, has covered an impressive range of topics and genres. He has been a video game reviewer, a syndicated columnist, a science fiction and fantasy novelist, the author of major works on religious and economic matters, and of course, a prominent blogger.

Over the past two years, he has also firmly established himself as perhaps the most important analyst, taxonomist, synthesizer and theorist of political philosophy writing today. Consider: In the span of little more than a year, Vox wrote and published:

“SJWs Always Lie”, an indispensable analysis of, and handbook for dealing with, the totalitarian thought-police who comprise the most dangerous current of Leftism today;

“Cuckservative” (co-authored with John Red Eagle), an even more valuable polemical case against modern day American conservatism that exposed Conservative Inc. as feckless enablers of progressivism; and

“The 16 Points of the Alternative Right”, a taxonomy and description of what is undoubtedly the most salient political current today, and the only movement that can resist the anti-civilizational tendencies and consequences of all mainstream political thought, left and “right”.

With all of these works, Vox was ahead of the curve, both anticipating and shaping many of the nascent trends playing out today. Vox coined, or gave greater currency to, a number of concepts and terms that are crucial for understanding and discussing contemporary politics: SJW, cuckservative, Alt Right, entryism, convergence, Magic Dirt, churchian.

With the collection under review, we are now asked to reflect upon Vox’s judgment and analysis in columns he penned a decade and a half ago. There are at least three reasons why someone would want to read this collection: (1) to understand the intellectual development and evolution of an important thinker; (2) to reflect on events starting from 9/11 and see how one writer’s contemporaneous reactions stand up over time; and (3) for the philosophical and literary value inherent in the writing itself.

(1) In one of the columns collected here, Vox described himself as “a radical pro-life Austrian-school neo-capitalist Jacksonian techno-libertarian Southern Baptist Christian”. It is against that definition that we can see how his thinking has evolved over the years. For this reader, the changes in Vox’s worldview make sense in light of events and the learning he has done. To quote one of Vox’s economic nemeses, John Maynard Keynes: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

I was struck by how _little_ Vox has needed to change his mind: he remains consistent on a number of key issues, which prefigure his thinking in SJWAL, Cuckservative and the 16 Points:

On the thought police: “The solution for successfully defeating them is not to retreat and apologize, but to confront them and turn up the heat instead.”

On mainstream politics: “An analysis of the near-identical governing practices of the two parties in our two-party system would require a book—not a column—but it would show that the two are, for all practical purposes, effectively one.”

On mainstream conservatism: “Conservative proponents of government, unfortunately, have increasingly tended to mutate into the pale echoes of their socialist (liberal) counterparts.”

On globalism: “If humanity’s past record is a reasonable guide, globalism may represent the single deadliest threat to mankind in our long, murderous history.”

On Churchians: “Once a church makes the fatal decision to befriend the world and seek its approval instead of that of the God whom it is called to serve, its fate is sealed.”

In what ways, then, has Vox’s thought developed and changed? From the laundry list description of himself quoted above, the two major points of evolution relate to Austrian / capitalist economics and libertarian politics. Those philosophies are both elegant systems that value and, theoretically, promote human flourishing, and are seductive to many an intelligent, thoughtful person. Vox’s understanding of the political spectrum in these columns was based purely upon individualism versus collectivism. “There is the collective and the individual and there is totalitarianism and libertarianism—that is the true spectrum.” There are a number of interesting columns evaluating communism and Fascism and other political philosophies on these terms that are quite persuasive. His column illustrating that Nazism was essentially Communism plus anti-Semitism is both humorous and effective as political rhetoric. There are also a number of very stimulating columns on the compatibility of libertarian politics with Christianity that merit deep consideration.

Today, Vox no longer considers himself a libertarian. He grants greater weight to “irrational” phenomena and realities such as biological and tribal identity. I would argue that Carlyle’s view of Left and Right as being distinguished by chaos, leveling and egalitarianism versus order, hierarchy and anti-egalitarianism must be taken into account in understanding the political spectrum. Even if the _ideal_ society would be a libertarian or anarchist one, it may well be that the one most conducive to human flourishing, the one that best prevents conflict and war, is in fact one that values the collective, values the group and does not view the world solely in terms of atomized individuals. As Steve Sailer has written elsewhere “Libertarianism in one country!!”

On economics, the devastating effects of “free trade” agreements and Ricardian free trade theory generally have led Vox away from purely capitalist / Austrian economics. Even in these columns, he recognized that part of the problem with “free trade” is that it was anything but free: “The irony of mutations like phone book-sized tomes such as NAFTA is that a real free-trade agreement only has to be about a sentence long: Congress shall pass no laws with regards to trade with (fill in the blank here).” This was a trenchant critique of “free trade” from a libertarian perspective, although Vox today no longer defends free trade even in the abstract.

What led Vox’s thought to evolve on these points? The facts have changed, and he has had to adjust his thinking rather than deny reality. “ Let reason be silent where experience gainsays its conclusions.” Libertarianism and pure classical liberal economics are elegant and seductive systems; but they did not stand up to the test of empirical evidence. So Vox has changed his mind. Vox has always been a critic of Plato and a disciple of Aristotle, so it is unsurprising that the changes in his thought with regards to economics and politics over the past 15 years could be summarized as less Platonic, more Aristotelian.

(2) As far as the strength of his judgments of events at the time, these columns stand up very well. To take one example, from his very earliest columns following 9/11, Vox correctly identified both the major threat and the major error in our response to 9/11: The threat was the use of war to justify encroachment upon our domestic liberties: “War corrodes a society by allowing centralist forces within government to excuse actions they would never be allowed to take in more peaceful times.” The major error was to fail to name the enemy and, thus, to ignore the Huntingtonian, civilizational conflict that was at the root of the problem. “Terror is a tactic, not an enemy, and the current phraseology only serves to obscure the fact that America has real enemies committed to her destruction.”

(3) While it may be fun to look back at old columns as an exercise in evaluating and revisiting old issues and judgments, a book should be read on its own merits. Samuel Johnson memorably described the duties of an author as being “to instruct and to entertain.” (Although Samuel Johnson is not a name I have ever seen Vox Day refer to, there are more than a few parallels and similarities between these two fascinating and important figures.) So, how does Vox’s writing itself hold up as instruction and entertainment?

I came away from this collection with a renewed respect for the man as a writer. The tone is generally that of the Happy Warrior, with a somewhat ironically elevated and detached manner appropriate to the columnist. Vox’s intelligence, good judgment and analytical ability, along with humor and wit, shine through. There is a great deal of wisdom and good sense throughout his writing. “Bon mots” abound in these columns on a myriad of topics:

On globalism: “The U.N. is not a debating society, it is an embryotic world government.”

On hypergamy: “The root of the problem is that the kind of man she wants is precisely the man who is smart enough to stay away from her.”

On parenthood: “Life is not only about happiness, it is about many things, sacrifice being one of them. And being a parent requires the greatest sacrifice of all, to live one’s life for the love of another.”

On capitalism: “Global corporations and free-market capitalism have about as much to do with one another as chipmunks and integrated circuit design.”

On Hillary (back in the early 2000s): “She proved to be as painfully inadequate in exercising power as she is ruthless in pursuing it.”

On American Empire: “I enjoyed reading Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I’m not, however, taking much pleasure in watching the sequel unfold before my eyes.”

On entryism: “The slippery slope is not a paranoid straw man, it is the primary way in which a weak, but determined minority exerts its will on a more powerful, but less disciplined majority.”

On government: “There is no criminal gang or collection of scam artists who perpetrate even a small fraction of the crimes that the federal government commits and abets.”

On atheism: “Without God, there is only the left-hand path of the philosopher. It leads invariably to Hell, by way of the guillotine, the gulag and the gas chamber. The atheist is irrational because he has no other choice—because the rational consequences of his non-belief are simply too terrible to bear.”

For those familiar only with Vox’s more recent work, there are a number of topics in these columns that will be new to you or that are expounded on at greater length. These include: morality vs. law; jury nullification; marital relations and parenting; critiques of pragmatism and utilitarianism; Christianity; straight-up economic analysis.

I will end this review with one more quote, taken from Vox’s column of October 27, 2003. The personal nature of the column was unusual for the collection as a whole. Yet I believe this excerpt provides an accurate glimpse into the heart and soul of the Dark Lord then, and the Dark Lord today:

“The shadow is an illusion. It is like the pleasure—it passes, it waxes and wanes with time. Only that which you consider to be fairytales is the reality, it is that hope that is the truth, and only through that blinding light can the shadow be entirely banished. And if you feel that you must give in, that you are no longer strong enough to stand on your own, then surrender to the light, not to the darkness.”

Here come the fake reviews!

Like clockwork…. SJWs are nothing if not predictable.

Meanwhile, in a classic SJW Narrative spiral, iO9 has picked up the fake news from File 770. This is a beautiful example of how the SJW Narrative spiral works to create fake history in line with the Narrative:

  1. File 770 publishes fake news
  2. SJWs run with the fake news and offer various false theories and rumors
  3. Larger SJW-converged media sites pick up the fake news and spread it
  4. Wikipedia cites these “reliable sources” and enshrines the fake news as false facts.

We’re already at point 3, obviously. Note that both iO9 and File 770 have conveniently omitted to mention the fact that John Scalzi was proudly involved with Alexandra Erin’s parody of my #1 Political Philosophy bestseller, SJWs Always Lie, two years ago. Scalzi narrated the audiobook. SJWs are always so mystified that people don’t respond better to them crying “no fair, he hit me back!”

UPDATE: And we’re up again. Also, Chapter One of SJWADD just wrote itself.

UPDATE: I discuss the latest Corrosion-related developments on tonight’s Darkstream.

UPDATE: Corrosion is no longer inappropriately excluded from the Amazon Associates program.

Mailvox: WAR

This is not a book review by me, but rather, by an author who prefers to remain anonymous.

WAR by Janne Teller

If you want a relationship to last, one of the most important pieces of advice I can give you is this: never use emotional blackmail.  Saying ‘if you love me, you’ll do [whatever]’ is not a sweet romantic gesture, but an attempt to use someone’s emotions as a weapon.  Used repeatedly, it convinces the victim that you only care about his emotions insofar as you can manipulate him to get what you want.  In the end, it causes pushback – the victim decides that he doesn’t care what you think or feel any longer.

On the larger scale, emotional blackmail has been replaced by ‘weaponised empathy.’  This is probably best described as an attempt to wring the public’s heartstrings to get them to support a policy that is almost certainly unwise.  (The proof it is unwise lies in the failure to put forward a coherent argument that doesn’t rely on de facto emotional blackmail.)  Those who choose to oppose the policy are blasted as heartless monsters, causing others who might agree with them to shut up in a hurry.  Again, it causes pushback – in many ways, growing resistance to weaponised empathy helped fuel the rise of Donald Trump.

War is a piece of emotional blackmail that, in the end, is an unconvincing read.

It follows the story of a British refugee who has to leave his country and take up residence in the Middle East, following the collapse of British society.  One of the minor annoyances in this book is the lack of a coherent rational for either the collapse or war with Denmark – Denmark!  Doesn’t anyone know Britain’s historical enemies are the French? So far, so good – the author does a good job of making us feel for him and his family.  But, like so many other pieces of weaponised empathy, it only works by removing nuance from the equation.  The refugees are painted in a saintly light.  Cold experience tells us that this isn’t true.

Yes, it is easy to feel sorry for people who are forced to flee their homes.  But that does not excuse bad behaviour in the host countries.  The author barely nods to this – she admits the existence of inter-refugee scrabbles, but not the epidemic of thief, assaults, rape and outright murder that has plagued Europe since the refugee crisis began.  It is easy to understand, even in the author’s limited presentation, why the local Egyptians might begin to tire of the British presence, perhaps even want them driven back to Britain.  And who could possibly blame them?

The author could, of course.  She is, like so many others of her ilk, safe and protected – to use Peggy Noonan’s term – from the realities of the world.  When they meet the ‘Other’ – if I can borrow an SJW term – they meet someone educated, someone polished in the way of the world – someone cosmopolitan in the truest possible sense.  They do not meet people with medieval ideas on women, people who believe that a woman who wears a short skirt is a whore who’s just asking for it.  Even with the best will in the world – and that is lacking – the cultural clash alone would cause far too much disruption.

The blunt truth is that sympathy has its limits.  It tends to fade – and vanish altogether – when someone feelings exploited.  Imagine, for the sake of argument, that you give your friend a loan to help him get back on his feet after a personal crisis.  How pleased are you going to be when you discover he’s wasting the money on booze, hookers and drugs?  And are you going to give him more money when he comes crawling back to you?

So-called ‘refugees’ – economic migrants would be a better term – in Europe have behaved badly, very badly.  If you happen to be dependent on someone, it is sheer insanity to alienate them.  And yet, they have managed to alienate vast numbers of the host population.   Just because someone got the short end of the stick, as SM Stirling put it, doesn’t mean they’re automatically the good guys.

If I had to flee my country – God forbid – and go to a refugee camp, desperate to avoid returning home until it was safe, I like to believe that I would find a way to be useful.  I would hate the idea of doing menial work, but I would do it because I wouldn’t have a choice.  The idea of just sitting around – or turning into a criminal – is absurd.  I have lived in a couple of very different countries to my own.  It isn’t that hard to avoid making myself unwelcome.

Why, then, should bad behaviour be tolerated?

The current problem now is that vast numbers of Europeans believe – and they might not be wrong – that a significant fraction of the migrants are moochers, looters, rapists, terrorists or generally unpleasant scumbags.  This alone would be bad enough.  But even worse, they have also become convinced that the governments are either unable or unwilling to address the crisis, when they’re not causing it.  Virtue-signaling by multi-millionaires like JK Rowling does not convince them they’re wrong.  They know that such millionaires are protected from the world.

BREXIT and Donald Trump – and the rise of nationalism across Europe – is a direct response to weaponised empathy.  No one feels sorry for refugees any longer.

In short, War is a piece of propaganda.  And a bad one.

Book of the Week: Uncertainty

The following review appeared in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons:


This book has the potential to turn the world of evidence-based medicine upside down. It boldly asserts that with regard to everything having to do with evidence, we’re doing it all wrong: probability, statistics, causality, modeling, deciding, communicating—everything. The flavor is probably best conveyed by the title of one of my favorite sections: “Die, p-Value, Die, Die, Die.”


Nobody ever remembers the definition of a p-value, William Briggs points out. “Everybody translates it to the probability, or its complement, of the hypothesis at hand.” He shows that the arguments commonly used to justify p-values are fallacies. It is far past time for the “ineradicable Cult of Point-Oh-Five” to go, he states. He does not see confidence intervals as the alternative, noting that “nobody ever gets these curious creations correct.”


Briggs is neither a frequentist nor a Bayesian. Rather, he recommends a third way of modeling: using the model to predict something. “The true and only test of model goodness is how well that model predicts data, never before seen or used in any way. That means traditional tricks like cross validation, boot strapping, hind- or back-casting and the like all ‘cheat’ and re-use what is already known as if it were unknown; they repackage the old as new.”


Some of the book’s key insights are: Probability is always conditional. Chance never causes anything. Randomness is not a thing. Random, to us and to science, means unknown cause.


One fallacy that Briggs chooses for special mention, because it is so common and so harmful, is the epidemiologist fallacy. He prefers his neologism to the more well-known “ecological fallacy” because without this fallacy, “most epidemiologists, especially those employed by the government, would be out of a job.” It is also richer than the ecological fallacy because it occurs whenever an epidemiologist says “X causes Y” but never measures X. Causality is inferred from “wee p-values.” One especially egregious example is the assertion that small particulates in the air (PM 2.5s) cause excess mortality.

Quantifying the unquantifiable, which is the basis of so much sociological research, creates a “devastation to sound argument…[that] cannot be quantified.”

I could not agree more. As I have repeatedly observed, the only theories that are worthwhile are those that serve as the basis for successful predictive models. Or, as the ancients put it, let reason be silent when experience gainsays its conclusions. All the backtesting and p-values and statistical games are irrelevant if the predictive models fail.

The return of the trilogy

Just a little clearing the plate as we gear up for some new releases, beginning with the much-anticipated Appendix N: A Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons from Jeffro Johnson. The three Eternal Warriors novels are now available again on Amazon. If you are a New Release subscriber, be sure to check your email. These were my first solo novels, and it tends to show, particularly in the first book. They don’t need to be read in order.

Mariel thought she was the guardian angel of an ordinary child — until the night an army of fallen angels takes an unholy interest in her charge. Overcome by an angel prince of awesome power, Mariel can only watch as a terrible evil descends upon the home of the boy she is guarding, then vanishes with him. 307 pages. $4.99. Available on Kindle Unlimited.
On a fallen planet, evil may be defeated, but it is never vanquished. When the evil archangel Kaym seeks vengeance, he does not aim at those who belong to his divine Enemy, but at the vulnerable souls around them. Two troubled boys are easy prey for Kaym, and as the high school prom approaches, they are willing to serve as his chosen instruments of death. 337 pages. $4.99.
Book Three: The Wrath of Angels
There is war among the Fallen. As the dread daughter of Moloch cuts a broad swath through the demon princes of Europe, the long-conquered Faery kingdom of Albion threatens to rise against its dark master. Treachery and intrigue are the order of the day as evil battles evil, and jackals lurk amidst the shadows to devour the defeated. 346 pages. $4.99.

From the past reviews.

  • As others have noted, the dialogue is the worst part of the book. Considering that this was Mr. Beale’s first novel, we immediately discover that he is not a most naturally gifted writer. While it always feels evident that he has made great efforts to craft the dialogue carefully, there are moments where it titters on being banal and cringe-worthy.
  • The story was alright, but the Christian message was not subtle, and ended up being a complete turnoff. American Protestant Evangelical Christians of a certain variety will enjoy this, though. I didn’t, and can’t recommend it at all.
  • The book has a couple of strengths that make it unique in Christian fiction. First, the author is honest about the power of evil. He does not whitewash, downplay or ignore the temptations of evil and it’s potentially consuming power. Beale represents evil as the willful choice and temptation that it is, and in doing so incorporates it’s tragic consequences effectively into the story, without diminishing the power of God’s grace and redemption.

The World in Shadow

  • Not only an amazing sequel to the first story, but dives right into the logical consequences in ‘real life’ of the universe the author described in the opening book. This second book, I must say, was even more enjoyable and immediately identifiable than the first. I literally could not put the book down once I got into the story line a few dozen pages into the book.
  • I have been most impressed by Mr. Beale as an author. His development from his first novel to his second is phenomenal. What strikes me most is his dead-on ability to catch the dialogue and culture of his characters. There are few writers who come close to his ability at this. More than that, he is writing not only page-turning stuff, but page-turning stuff with a brain.
  • This book was better than the first, without a single doubt. It brought the spiritual war to Earth, where it indeed is being fought daily.

The Wrath of Angels

  • This is the third, and in my opinion, the best, story of the War in Heaven trilogy, though this book departs considerably from the other two. While the first two are very noticeably ‘young adult’ in their writing style, this one approaches a regular novel, albeit it is rather unusual in terms of its content. All are written in the vein of C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy and Milton’s Paradise Lost, taking the perspective of a ‘fallen world’ very literally.
  • This, the third book in the Eternal Warriors Series, shows a significant jump both in Mr. Beale’s story-writing abilities and the complexity of the Eternal Warriors setting. One experiences the world of this third book as significantly more expansive, alive, and realistic than the world in the first book. Likewise, the internal worlds of these characters also loom larger. 
  • Excellent finale to this excellent trilogy. I felt a little sad when I finished as I wished the characters were around for a fourth book. I especially enjoyed the spiritual dimension – both the good and evil. Fast paced and fun read. The monsters were enticingly freakish.

Latest reviews of A SEA OF SKULLS

At Castalia House, we are intent on building gradually, on the strong foundations of well-loved series of novels rather than chasing one-off hits. Amazon has listed Arts of Dark and Light as a series now, and the reviews for the latest installment continue to be gratifyingly positive.

Epic Fantasy done right

Vox Day has a gift. He is exceptionally skilled at crafting viewpoints that are reasonable, relatable, emotionally compelling, and completely opposed to each other. This serves him well in the genre of epic fantasy, as it enables him to ensure the reader is fully invested in all the many pieces that make up the puzzle of a great fantasy epic.

Not only do his characters feel realized, his plot is suitably grand. From labyrinthine schemes, to an army that has yet to show its true terror, and a pervading presence of evil that threatens all of Selenoth, our heroes have quite the obstacles to overcome. With these first two books we’ve been shown small pieces of the disaster that is to befall Selenoth, and I for one, cannot wait for the next installment.



Simply Amazing

Head and shoulders above its predecessor, which is no mean feat! It manages to have multiple characters with completely different viewpoints without a) becoming a confusing mess or b) being disappointing when subbing in an uninteresting character for an interesting one, since all the characters were genuinely interesting. All were fully fleshed out and heroic in their own way. Amazing world-building also really made the story come alive, everything had a real sense of place. A fantastic read, and I can’t wait for the next book in the series!



The Saga of Selenoth Grows and Gains Momentum

One of my favorite, all-too-brief parts of Lord of the Rings was the brief view of things we get from an orcish perspective when Sam is temporarily bearing the ring on Frodo’s behalf; not with guilty pleasure because the orcs were bad, but because it gave us a glimpse of the world of Middle Earth and War of the Ring from such a different point of view. A Sea of Skulls, the second installment in the Arts of Dark and Light trilogy pentalogy set in the world of Selenoth–a fantasy realm where elves and dwarves, orcs and goblins, have been partially displaced by a Catholicized Roman Empire exerting powerful influence through the iron discipline of its legions–gives us that and much more.

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like for Roman infantry, with their centurions and balllistae, to stand their ground against goblin hordes, war pigs, and orcish shamans (or have now begun to wonder), the world of Selenoth is for you, and the Arts of Dark and Light trilogy pentalogy  tells a complex and engaging story of war and intrigue set in that world as the various races of Selenoth are manipulated and set against each other by powerful actors in the shadows….

This is grown-up fantasy which makes for a decent study of human (or orcish, for that matter) nature, not to mention Roman military chain of command, and entertains questions like how the seemingly inevitable decline of an advanced but decadent elven civilization could possibly be reversed, and how dwarves unexpectedly stuck in their own tunnels might feel about it. The violence depicted is quite explicit, both in the grim reality of war and especially in the opening scene of a brutal orc raid on a human village, but not exulted in, and one manages to understand the comradery-in-arms of warriors on every side of the struggle, human or otherwise.

But speaking of trilogies that are not trilogies, let’s not forget the first quarter of John C. Wright’s excellent Moth & Cobweb series. The final book of The Green Knight’s Squire have also been getting excellent reviews.

Fantastic modern, yet traditional fantasy

If you like the old tales of elves, heroes, Arthurian legends, men and monsters and great deeds, then you will enjoy this modern retelling. Highly enjoyable and recommended.



A Fine Conclusion to an Excellent Adventure Trilogy

Swan Knight’s Sword is a fitting end to the story of Gilberec Moth, an idealistic teenager out of place in the human world who gradually becomes a brave, worthy, Christian knight….The same elements present in the earlier works are apparent here. Swashbuckling adventure featuring lavish description of mystical beings and surroundings as well as full-blooded, desperate combat. A strong sense of Christian morality. Many newly revealed secrets of both Gil’s past and the elf world.

As with the second book, there are a myriad of references, both Christian and pagan, expertly blended together. I was particularly amused by the one to a character of Edgar Rice Burroughs, an author all modern adventure writers owe a debt of gratitude to. Or the use of Roland’s horn.

However, this installment also introduces several new wrinkles. There is a more varied, consistent use of humor. Much of it comes from Ruff, Gil’s trusty dog whose barks he can understand. In fact, all the interaction with Gil talking to animals is funny. John C Wright evidently discovered the same comedic truth that Ricky Gervais has; personifying animals is always funny. There is also verbal humor and some absurdist situations.

Swan Knight’s Sword features an especially strong conclusion, being the culmination of Gil’s transformation from a strange boy into a righteous, mighty man. While it satisfyingly ends this tale of Gilberec Moth, it promises more adventure for both him and the world at large.

A worthy ending, a tantalizing beginning

Swan Knight’s Sword is the best in this trilogy. A beautiful paean of adventure, courage, honor, loyalty and love. This book reminds me of the stuff I read in my youth, before the fantasy genre was a cesspool of pornography and meaningless nihilistic violence. I laughed, I cried, I wished I had a sword. But of course one does not simply walk into MordorMart and buy a sword, one must be bequeathed a sword by a father, or win one in a heroic quest. And sometimes one must hunt down and confront the magically invulnerable sasquatch that stole your father’s sword. This is one of those times…

The IQ delta and the Last Man

As I mentioned in a previous post, reading Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man helped me articulate the difference between the smart and the brilliant, or to use the terms that are less easily confused, the VHIQ and the UHIQ.

The Fukuyama text is in blockquotes, my observations are bullet-pointed.

From By Way of an Introduction:

The distant origins of the present volume lie in an article entitled “The End of History?” which I wrote for the journal The National Interest in the summer of 1989. In it, I argued that a remarkable consensus concerning the legitimacy of liberal democracy as a system of government had emerged throughout the world over the past few years, as it conquered rival ideologies like hereditary monarchy, fascism, and most recently communism. More than that, however, I argued that liberal democracy may constitute the “end point of mankind’s ideological evolution” and the “final form of human government,” and as such constituted the “end of history.” That is, while earlier forms of government were characterized by grave defects and irrationalities that led to their eventual collapse, liberal democracy was arguably free from such fundamental internal contradictions. This was not to say that today’s stable democracies, like the United States, France, or Switzerland, were not without injustice or serious social problems. But these problems were ones of incomplete implementation of the twin principles of liberty and equality on which modern democracy is founded, rather than of flaws in the principles themselves. While some present-day countries might fail to achieve stable liberal democracy, and others might lapse back into other, more primitive forms of rule like theocracy or military dictatorship, the ideal of liberal democracy could not be improved on.

  • Remarkable consensuses are reliably incorrect.
  • Liberal democracy absolutely does not constitute the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution or the final form of human government. 
  • It would not be unreasonable to use “the end of history” to describe a genuine such end point and final form, given the Hegelian-Marxian context. Fukuyama is clearly using History in the progressive intellectual sense, not the prosaic sense. It’s actually a rather clever title in that regard.
  • It’s also a ludicrous and anti-historical idea, albeit one certain to prove seductive to men of influence for precisely the same reason that Keynesian economics and Ricardian trade theory have.

After dealing with the midwit critics who have had trouble dealing with the idea of a History that is not wholly synonymous with history, he plants his flag; an act I suspect he has come to regret.

The present book is not a restatement of my original article, nor is it an effort to continue the discussion with that article’s many critics and commentators. Least of all is it an account of the end of the Cold War, or any other pressing topic in contemporary politics. While this book is informed by recent world events, its subject returns to a very old question: Whether, at the end of the twentieth century, it makes sense for us once again to speak of a coherent and directional History of mankind that will eventually lead the greater part of humanity to liberal democracy? The answer I arrive at is yes, for two separate reasons. One has to do with economics, and the other has to do with what is termed the “struggle for recognition.”

  • Fukuyama clearly declares that he believes in a specific, directional Marxian-style History which will eventually come to a predictable end. 
  • Given the context of the article, Fukuyama is definitely declaring that liberal democracy constitutes the “end point of mankind’s ideological evolution” and the “final form of human government”.
  • He’s wrong. I don’t know his economic reasoning or his “struggle for recognition” yet, but I know that he is wrong and I know that I will be able to prove it. I can even disprove the first prt to my own satisfaction: given that he is not an economist, his economic argument must be entirely based on 1990s economic orthodoxy, which is already in tatters and was insufficient to support the philosophical case in the first place.

And here is where the tendency towards binary, or at least limited, thinking on the part of the VHIQ betrays itself.

In the course of the original debate over the National Interest article, many people assumed that the possibility of the end of history revolved around the question of whether there were viable alternatives to liberal democracy visible in the world today. There was a great deal of controversy over such questions as whether communism was truly dead, whether religion or ultranationalism might make a comeback, and the like. But the deeper and more profound question concerns the goodness of liberal democracy itself, and not only whether it will succeed against its present-day rivals. Assuming that liberal democracy is, for the moment, safe from external enemies, could we assume that successful democratic societies could remain that way indefnitely? Or is liberal democracy prey to serious internal contradictions, contradictions so serious that they will eventually undermine it as a political system? There is no doubt that contemporary democracies face any number of serious problems, from drugs, homelessness, and crime to environmental damage and the frivolity of consumerism. But these problems are not obviously insoluble on the basis of liberal principles, nor so serious that they would necessarily lead to the collapse of society as a whole, as communism collapsed in the 1980s.

  • A prediction about the future obviously revolves around both currently viable alternatives as well as potentially viable alternatives that are not visible today.
  • The deeper and more profound question does not concern the goodness of liberal democracy, but rather the existence of self-destructive internal contradictions in liberal democracy. Systems fail due to their internal contradictions; communism failed because the impossibility of socialist calculation slowed economic growth vis-a-vis capitalism. SJWism always fails due to the impossibility of social justice convergence preventing the converged organization from performing its original function. Liberal democracy – or as it is more properly termed – limited democracy – fails for much the same reason that communism does; it creates perverse incentive systems.
  • No, we cannot assume that successful democratic societies could remain that way indefnitely.
  • Yes, liberal democracy is not only prey, it is prone to internal contradictions so serious that they will eventually undermine it as a political system. Forget eternity, this is already visible everywhere from California to Switzerland.
  • Yes, these problems these problems are obviously insoluble on the basis of liberal principles. Not only that, but they are so serious that they will necessarily either lead to the collapse of liberal democracy or the collapse of society as a whole.

Keep in mind that these are my initial thoughts about the book by page xxi of the introduction. The clean room, as I have termed it, is already splattered with mud. Fukuyama is an erudite, thoughtful, intelligent and educated man. And yet, his enthusiasm for his potentially significant idea blinded him to its obvious flaws? This is the distinction between the VHIQ and the UHIQ. Compare this with SJWAL or Cuckservative, both of which are considerably more modest in scope.

How many potential errors can you find in either that even begin to compare with the obvious errors in this bestselling work of vast socio-political influence, which is so riddled with flaws that the author has, apparently, felt the need to blatantly lie about his original thesis?