Tag: books

Baseless Con

Castalia doesn’t support any con that treats people this way, particularly not one of our authors:

For the last five years, Libertarian author Robert Kroese has been running an alternative convention to the mainstream industry-run cons such as WorldCon, with the intention of making it an alternative. Unfortunately, the convention has turned into much the same liberal gatekeeping as those conventions, as the convention banned me after Kroese could not handle my calling modern woke D&D “Satanic” (rightfully in my opinion), and proceeded to cancel me over my journalism calling out problems in the gaming industry.

There’s much more to the reason robkroese went full-cancel that has to do with his personal ego with the convention rather than anything I’ve done, which is why his continued actions have been beyond absurd, and it’s been a debate of whether Fandom Pulse should address this matter at all.

I’m chosing to for two reasons: 1. Fandom Pulse provides the best comprehensive coverage of conventions with bad behaviors, and this is no different despite my being the focus of the story, 2. because at the convention, Kroese is taking the stage dedicating an entire panel to personally attacking me, which I’ve never heard of a convention doing in the history of cons, making this an incredibly exceptional situation. Despite saying there’s no panel, what is giving a 20-minute talk from a stage of a convention if not a panel?

Below is the history of what transpired and why this is simply a mockery of the name “BasedCon.”

The cucks and cons who act as if they’re any sort of alternative to the SJWs in genre fiction, while attempting to police ideas, politics, and tone in exactly the same manner as those to whom they purport to be an alternative, are as useless and ultimately ephemeral as the Bush Republicans.

They’re just another form of gatekeeper, and they are always opposed to anything that isn’t more of the status quo, only with a conservative varnish. But they’ll cancel people over insufficient enthusiasm for the Gazacaust as readily as the SJWs will cancel someone for insufficient enthusiasm for transgender children.

Anyhow, this is why we don’t support BasedCon, although since we’re not into the business of socially policing anyone, we don’t have any problem with those who choose to attend it, or WorldCon, or ComicCon, or any of the various other events that we ignore as we continue to build infrastructure that will not only last generations, but hopefully, centuries.

Before the end of October, we’ll have the ability to produce mainstream-sized print runs, but in leather. It’s taken a very long time for all of the pieces to come together, but we’re finally getting to where we knew we needed to be. And there will very likely be some developments well beyond what anyone is imagining is possible in the next few years, as our strategic plan for the next stage will take most people by surprise.

Which is why I’m making it clear now that we will work with anyone who simply wishes to do business in a professional manner, regardless of whatever their past antics may have been. We are focused on producing the best and most beautiful books in the world, and while there is certain content we will not publish, we don’t concern ourselves with policing the opinions of our current or prospective partners.

DISCUSS ON SG

Most Authors Will Get Nothing

A lot of authors are very excited about the announcement of the Anthropic settlement that promises to pay out about $3,000 per work to the authors whose work was pirated.

There’s just one problem: the settlement excludes 92.8 percent of the pirated works, including pretty much all foreign authors, foreign publishers – including Castalia House – and self-published authors. Even worse, there is absolutely no path to legal redress for them in the US courts.

AI Central explains why.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Last Day

Today is the last day for the first three Signed First Editions from Castalia Library:

  • GUNS OF MARS
  • OUT OF SHADOWS
  • DEATH AND THE DEVIL

The interest in the first three Signed First Editions and the support for the bindery that has been provided through them has been exceptional and very much appreciated. The level of support we’ve been given means that we can not only pay for the new machine that has been ordered and is being tested with an entire print run this week, but also for the tool sets for all of the hub sizes that we’re doing to need from Promethean to Plutarch.

However, we have to stop selling the books before we can start making them, so both Arkhaven and NDM Express are going to stop selling all three at midnight tonight. Until then, you can order from either store.

Thanks to the stronger-than-expected level of interest, we’ve also arranged to provide original chapter-heading artwork for all three books by MIDNIGHT’S WAR illustrator Ademir Leal. I’ve also added a thirteenth story to DEATH AND THE DEVIL, called “Death and War,” which should increase the size of the book to around 175 pages.

On a related note, if you are a Libraria subscriber, PLEASE EMAIL US and tell us which of the three books you would like. About half of you have responded to my initial email, and I will send another one now to bring it to the top of your inboxes.

DISCUSS ON SG

OUT OF THE SHADOWS

An excerpt from my forthcoming novel, now available as a Signed First Edition from Castalia Library. For more details, visit the substack:

The Wall Street Journal

BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY

In an exclusive interview, CEO Elliott Grahame reveals that his biotech startup plans to extend human lifespan by up to 25 years—and how 20,000 people will receive the treatment within the next 12 months

By David Porter

SAN FRANCISCO—The conference room on the top floor of HemaTech’s gleaming South San Francisco headquarters offers a panoramic view of the Bay Area’s biotech corridor, a fitting backdrop for what is almost certainly the most significant medical announcement of the 21st century. Elliott Grahame, the 38-year-old founder and CEO of HemaTech, sits across from me, looking remarkably composed for someone about to reveal that his company has cracked one of humanity’s oldest challenges: extending the human lifespan.

“We’re not talking about marginal improvements,” Grahame says, his voice carrying the careful precision of someone who understands the weight of his words. “We’re talking about adding 20 to 25 healthy, productive years to the average human life.”

It’s a claim that would sound like pure science fiction if it weren’t backed by years of rigorous research, a panoply of successful human and animal trials, and the backing of some of Europe’s most prestigious investment firms. HemaTech, which just six months ago withdrew from a highly anticipated IPO, has been operating in relative secrecy while perfecting what Grahame calls “the most significant advancement in human biology since the discovery of antibiotics.”

The Science of Longevity

The technology behind HemaTech’s breakthrough centers on what the company terms “Selective Cellular Regeneration Therapy” or SCRT. Without diving too deeply into the proprietary details, Grahame explains that the treatment involves a combination of modified mRNA sequences that reprogram certain cells to maintain their younger characteristics for extended periods of time.

“Think of it like this,” Grahame explains, leaning forward with the infectious enthusiasm that has characterized his career since his days at Stanford’s bioengineering program. “Every cell in your body has a built-in timer—telomeres that shorten with each division, accumulated damage from oxidative stress, genetic mutations that build up over time. Our therapy doesn’t just slow these processes; it reverses some of them and prevents others from occurring in the first place.”

The science builds on decades of longevity research, from the discovery of telomerase to recent breakthroughs in cellular reprogramming. But where others have achieved incremental success in laboratory settings, HemaTech claims to have developed a scalable, safe, and effective treatment suitable for human application.

Dr. Elodie Mitchell, a leading geneticist at Johns Hopkins who is not affiliated with HemaTech but has reviewed their published data, calls the achievement “paradigm-shifting.” She notes, “If their clinical data holds up under broader application, we’re looking at the biggest revolution in human health since the discovery of penicillin. The implications are staggering.”

A Grandiose Vision

As our interview concludes, I ask Grahame about HemaTech’s ultimate vision. Where does this all lead?

“In the immediate term, we’re focused on our 20,000-patient rollout and gathering the necessary data to support our campaign for broader regulatory approval,” he says. “Medium-term, we want to drive costs down and access up—our goal is to make this affordable and available to anyone who wants it within 30 years.”

“And long-term?” I press.

Grahame looks out at the Bay Area sprawl, seeming to see something beyond the immediate landscape. “Long-term, we’re talking about a fundamental redefinition of human existence. When death becomes a choice rather than an inevitability, everything changes—our relationships, our ambitions, our entire social structure. We’re not just extending life; we’re transforming what it means to be human.”

It’s a grandiose vision, but sitting in HemaTech’s offices, surrounded by the evidence of their achievement, it doesn’t seem impossible. The company has already done what many thought couldn’t be done—developed a practical, effective means of significantly extending human life. The question now isn’t whether life extension is possible, but how quickly it will reshape our world.

David Porter is a senior technology and business correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. He has covered the biotech industry for fifteen years. HemaTech expects to begin its expanded treatment program in January. For more information about their technology and treatment protocols, visit www.hematech.com.

OUT OF THE SHADOWS can be purchased in the two usual locations.

Also, if you’re a Libraria subscriber, please check your email and respond.

DISCUSS ON SG

Churchianity

Jon Del Arroz’s new book, Churchianity: How Modern American Churches Corrupted Generations of Christians, is out today. The Foreword was written by a certain dark lord of your acquaintance. It’s a pretty long one, as these things go, so I’ve broken it into two parts, the second of which will run tomorrow.

Churchianity: The Great Apostasy

The modern Church in the West stands at a crossroads, though many of its congregants appear blissfully unaware that they have already chosen a wide and easy path to Hell. What passes for Christianity in the twenty-first century would be unrecognizable to the Church Fathers, incomprehensible to the medieval scholastics, and abhorrent to the Reformers. We are witnessing nothing less than the attempted replacement of Christianity with its heretical doppelganger: Churchianity.

Churchianity is the systematic subordination of Christian doctrine to the prevailing ideology of social justice. It is the elevation of worldly concerns above spiritual ones, the replacement of timeless Biblical authority with the dynamic mainstream Narrative, and the transformation of the Church from a beacon of eternal truth into an echo chamber for Earthly politics. Most damning of all, it represents the complete inversion of Christianity’s fundamental premise: instead of being in the world but not of it, Churchianity insists on being entirely of the world while maintaining an increasingly unconvincing veneer of theological legitimacy.

Churchianity is not just another in the long line of traditional doctrinal disputes. This is apostasy wearing a clerical collar, heresy draped in liturgical vestments, and blasphemy proclaimed from ten thousand pulpits every Sunday morning. The tragedy is not that wolves have entered the sheepfold—Jesus Christ himself warned us they would come. The tragedy is that the sheep now bleat in self-righteous pride as they are led astray by those who seek to destroy them.

At its core, Churchianity represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of both God and man. Whereas Christianity proclaims the fallen nature of humanity and the absolute necessity of divine redemption, Churchianity preaches the perfectibility of man through political correctness. Whereas Christianity promises the Kingdom of Heaven, Churchianity prioritizes earthly justice. And whereas Christianity demands repentance from sin, Churchianity demands repentance for a whole host of invented man-made sins, including failure to adequately genuflect before whatever victim class currently sits atop the intersectional hierarchy.

The mechanism of this theological perversion is breathtakingly simple: take any Biblical command, strip it of its soteriological context, and reinterpret it through the lens of contemporary social justice politics. “Love thy neighbor” ceases to be about individual charity and becomes a mandate for open borders and mass immigration. “Care for the poor” transforms from personal almsgiving into advocacy for higher taxes, foreign wars, and welfare states. “Welcome the stranger” transforms from basic hospitality into a divine command to facilitate the demographic replacement of the nation.

This hermeneutical vandalism not only does violence to individual verses, but to the entire Biblical narrative. The God who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, who commanded the Israelites to maintain their distinctiveness among the nations, who confused the languages at Babel to create the nations—this God is reimagined as a cosmic social worker whose primary concern is ensuring equal outcomes across all demographic categories. The savior who said “My kingdom is not of this world” is recast as a proto-hippie community organizer whose death was not intended to atone for personal sins, but for 17th-century colonization.

No Christian Church has shown itself to be completely immune to this subversive contagion. The Roman Catholic Church, which for centuries stood as a bulwark against heresy, now finds itself led by clerics who are more concerned about climate change than for the salvation of men’s souls. The current occupant of Peter’s throne speaks more passionately about carbon emissions than abortion, more forcefully about income inequality than sexual morality, and far more frequently about migrants than martyrs. The Church that once launched the Crusades to defend Christendom now declares it a moral imperative to welcome to the West those who would see every cross destroyed and every cathedral burned to the ground.

The Anglican Communion, already weakened by its centuries of compromise with secular authority, has completed its transformation into the Conservative Party at prayer—if the Conservative Party were still conservative and one could find a Tory who was not Hindu, Muslim, or Jewish. Canterbury’s pronouncements are all-but-indistinguishable from Guardian editorials, complete with the requisite hand-wringing about colonialism, slavery, and the urgent need to make monetary reparations for crimes committed by people long dead to people who were never wronged.

The mainline Protestant denominations have fared even worse. The Lutherans who once thundered “Here I stand” now whimper “Here I kneel”—before every fashionable cause and politically correct crusade. The Methodists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians compete to see who can more thoroughly repudiate their theological heritage in favor of sexual perversion, rainbow flags and moral relativism. These churches have hemorrhaged members in recent decades, not because Christianity is dying, but because Churchianity offers nothing that cannot be found in a political party or a gay disco.

Even the evangelical churches, which initially resisted this insidious corruption, have begun to succumb. Megachurch pastors discover that sermon series on “social justice” fill more seats than expositions of Romans. Youth pastors find that endorsing movements like Black Lives Matter provides them with more social cachet than leading Bible studies. Entire denominations that once prioritized evangelism now prioritize “racial reconciliation,” which in practice means white self-flagellation and endless apologies for nonexistent sins neither committed nor inherited.

CHURCHIANITY by Jon Del Arroz is now available in ebook and paperback from Amazon from Rislandia Press.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Fictional Western

Morgan posted an interesting history of the fictional Western at Arkhaven:

The American fictional western arrived at the beginning of the twentieth century with the publication of Owen Wister’s The Virginian in 1902. The novel created the archetype of the cowboy as hero. The western story quickly became the mythic literature of the recently closed American frontier. A popular genre in the hands of Zane Gray, Eugene Manlove Rhodes, and Frederick Faust (“Max Brand”) to name a few in the legion of western fictioneers in the form of novels, pulp magazines, and later mass-market paperback books. If J. R. R. Tolkien attempted to create a mythology for England, the western writers created a mythology for the United States of America. Many stories had a setting vaguely late 19th Century time and place. Frederick Faust best known as “Max Brand” often set his stories in an undefined “mountain desert.” He used myths and epics as the plot basis for many of his westerns. Faust’s Hired Guns adapted the Iliad for example.

The western genre was a large part of the pulp magazine market from 1920 to the 1950s, possibly having the majority share. Some pulp fiction writers could be described as generalists, they wrote in various genres. Will F. Jenkins as “Murray Leinster” could be found in the pages of Cowboy Stories, Astounding Stories, Clues Detective, and “Swords and Mongols” in Golden Fleece. Frederick Faust wrote historical adventure under the “George Challis” for Argosy magazine in the 1930s. Faust had the Tizzo series set in the time of Renaissance Italy during the time of Cesare Borgia. He also had the pirate novel “The Naked Blade” in Argosy. Those swashbucklers would later be reprinted in paperback form decades later. At the same time, he was writing spy stories as “Frederick Frost.”

The fictional western story underwent the transformation during and after World War II that had earlier taken place with the detective story as written by Dashiell Hammett. The writing became leaner and more historically accurate. The protagonists were morally ambiguous men (and women) who had lived hard lives. Les Savage Jr. was a pioneer with a hard-boiled presentation coupled with a setting of 1820 to the1850s. The indistinct time and place of the mythic western gave way to the historical western.

Read the whole thing there. I will say that while I’m not a huge Louis L’Amour fan, I very much liked FAIR BLOWS THE WIND. Which, of course, isn’t a Western, but does set the stage for a series of them.

DISCUSS ON SG

GUNS OF MARS

I’m very pleased to be able to say that like Easton Press and Franklin Library before them, Castalia Library is finally in the Signed First Edition business. Over the next month, we are offering no less than THREE Signed First Editions, beginning with GUNS OF MARS by Chuck Dixon.

GUNS OF MARS: A Thrilling Return to the Red Planet

Chuck Dixon delivers a masterful homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s classic Barsoom series with “Guns of Mars,” a tale that captures all the adventure and wonder of the original while bringing fresh energy to the dying world of Mars.

Like Burroughs’ timeless stories, Dixon transports readers to a harsh but magnificent Barsoom where water is more precious than gold and survival depends on strength, cunning, and an unbreakable will. The novel follows the unlikely partnership between a mysterious human bounty hunter and Kal Keddaq, a fierce Warhoon thark fleeing the consequences of his own choices.

Dixon expertly recreates Burroughs’ signature blend of high adventure and exotic world-building. The Martian landscape comes alive with all its deadly beauty – from the vast canal systems of a forgotten civilization to the savage creatures that prowl the wastes. What sets GUNS OF MARS apart is Dixon’s grittier, more realistic approach to survival on the red planet. While maintaining the romantic adventure spirit of the original series, he grounds the action in believable consequences and genuine peril. The central quest drives a plot that builds to a spectacular confrontation between man, thark, and the monstrous guardians of Mars’ greatest treasure.

Dixon, known for his work on BATMAN and THE PUNISHER, brings his talent for character-driven action to create protagonists who are both heroic and deeply flawed. The evolving relationship between the bounty hunter and the exiled thark forms the emotional core of a story that honors Burroughs’ legacy while standing as a thrilling adventure in its own right.

For fans of the original Barsoom novels and newcomers alike, GUNS OF MARS offers everything that made Burroughs’s Mars irresistible: exotic locales, deadly creatures, ancient mysteries, and the kind of two-fisted adventure that belongs among the classics of planetary romance.

For more details about GUNS OF MARS, including an excerpt and information on where to buy it, visit the Castalia Library substack.

DISCUSS ON SG

Not Martin, Not Sanderson

I think we have to face it. I’m the best candidate to finish A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE:

Over the last year and a half the excuses for A Song of Ice And Fire being incomplete and George R.R. Martin’s inability to finish The Winds of Winter have become more than absurd. The author has gone from blaming toxic fandom, to talking about Trump and fascism in 2024, to a 2025 where he made it clear he’s definitely not even working on the project.

This year alone he’s started a bar in Santa Fe New Mexico and taken on a new project for an animated Hercules movie, leaving fans who started in A Game Of Thrones with the obvious fact that he’s not going to be finishing the series before he dies. In fact, he’s already given interviews stating he’s probably not going to finish it in his lifetime.

It’s become beyond a joke to fans at this juncture, as most people just want him to be honest about the situation, which for whatever reason, Martin refuses to do.

At Worldcon, one fan was bold enough to ask George R.R. Martin the question, one that now has been condemned as “rude” or “inappropriate” despite it being anything but in the context of a panel on the future of epic fantasy.

A bold female fan asked in a hostile room, “George, you’re not gonna be around for much longer. And this is a tough question. This is more directed at Brandon. I was wondering, like, how would you feel about someone else taking over and finishing the books?”

The crowd immediately starts booing as if the question didn’t make any sense, though it is a poignant one especially since Brandon Sanderson was brought in to take over A Wheel Of Time from Robert Jordan upon his passing.

Sanderson can be heard saying “not me,” during the uproar, confirming he wouldn’t be the one to do the job.

George R.R. Martin is so panicked about the question that he immediately gets up to leave the panel.

That’s not quite as crazy as it sounds. I’m one of the very few authors who has successfully written epic fantasy, as I’ll be finishing A GRAVE OF GODS in the next two years. ARTS OF DARK AND LIGHT is one of the few that generally receives better reviews than A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE and furthermore, they look pretty great in leather.

The only problem is that I am almost certainly the very last person on the planet whom George R.R. Martin would select to finish the series. Would I do it if I was asked? Certainly. I already have a pretty good idea how I would fix the structural problem that prevented Martin from finishing it and provide a much better end to the series than Martin and the HBO producers did.

But I have enough to do in making sure that I bring my own series to an end with a satisfying conclusion. Considering how few epic fantasy authors manage to do that, I think it’s a sufficiently difficult challenge that I need not lament the fact that Martin’s is unlikely to end well. Anyhow, my theory is that it’s actually been completed, but Martin prefers to have it published postmortem since he’s still feeling abused by the public reaction to the HBO series and he doesn’t want to risk going through all that again.

Speaking of books, I should mention that tomorrow is the last day to acquire the backer editions of THE ILIAD and THE ODYSSEY. I further note that later this week, we’ll announce the three Signed First Editions that will be produced in very limited runs and will be available for just one month starting later this week. The related and very good news is that we’ve worked out a deal with multiple parties to a) acquire the new machines and b) sell the old ones for the price we paid for them, so assuming that we sell a few of the special editions we’ll be announcing, everything should work out at least as well as we’d planned.

DISCUSS ON SG

Backing the Bindery

Now that THE ILIAD and THE ODYSSEY are ready to go to print, we’re giving everyone two weeks to become a retro-backer of the bindery before we place the order for the interiors. For more details and interior images of the two books, including the title pages, please visit the Castalia Library substack. We’re also looking into the possibility of making them signed and numbered editions, if that’s of interest. Although Homer is obviously unavailable, we could arrange for them to be signed by either a) the bookbinder or b) me, depending upon which would make these very special editions even more desirable.

DISCUSS ON SG