Tag: books

Not that it matters

First, let me point out that I reserve the right to give away or sell my books at any price, reasonable or unreasonable, and to change my policy at any time.

Second, because one or two people have been whining about how I only provide a few millions of words for free here but no longer give away the eight PDF and PDB files I previously made available for free download, I will point out that due to Amazon’s policy, it is not possible to give away a free ebook and also sell it through Amazon. Nor can one give away free ebooks on Amazon, except for a five-day free program that they run for paid books. As I pointed out when I first took down the free links, because Amazon is now the center of the book world, one will find more readers if one sells books on Amazon than if one gives them away on one’s own site, even a site as well-trafficked as this one.

Third, as it happens, because those books were available on Amazon first, I should never have made them available for free download here, with the sole exception of the collection of short stories called The Altar of Hate. Fortunately, Amazon did not hold that against me, as they understood it was done in ignorance due to the fact that the Amazon contracts were originally with the publishers and I had no reason to ever review them.

Amazon is doing a great job of bringing down ebook prices and most people recognize this. However, fewer realize that in doing so, they have also essentially eliminated the free ebook, Project Gutenberg notwithstanding.

Mailvox: improving RGD

PR has a suggestion or two:

I just got done with Return of the Great Depression. Great read. Thanks for the Nook version. I thought you did a pretty good job of dumbing things down enough that I could make sense of what you were saying, but you managed to do it in a way that it didn’t seem like you were talking down to me at all. I really appreciated that dictionary since I was reading it in a location where I didn’t have web access and therefore couldn’t use any outside references to help me out.

If you care for any criticism on it, here’s my effort:

1. You made me laugh about the apocalypse scenario. But I would’ve also appreciated a little more of an explanation as to why you think it’s not likely at all. Something a little more than telling me that no serious economists take that scenario seriously. So what! I want(ed) to know why YOU think it’s unlikely.

2. I would suggest maybe even a little bit more of a dictionary at the end. I’ll show a little bit of my ignorance here and confess that I wasn’t really sure what a “sub-prime” loan was and why it was a crisis. I did figure it out. But I started off thinking that “sub-prime” meant something like “below the ‘prime’ interest rate”. That sounds like some loan that would be given to only the best risks. I am certainly more knowledgeable now that I realize it’s quite the opposite. But a quick dictionary note would’ve helped me.

Anyway, I’m not even sure you care about feedback like this. But I thought it only right that since you gave me such a bargain, that I would give you my best critique. I’m looking forward to your next economics book.

In answer to (1), my reasoning is that despite the expectations of those anticipating the Eschaton, it never arrives. Societies seldom perish in blood and fire except at the hands of an implacable and merciless enemy; the fact that it is hard to think of many such societies besides some of the Slavic ones overrun by the Mongol hordes and the Carthaginian society wiped out by Rome is an indicator that when the global economy collapses, it will reduce living standards without ending civilization.

I’ve been reading Vanished Kingdoms, by Norman Davies, and one of the things that becomes eminently clear is that for the most part, societies are absorbed and replaced by larger societies that overwhelm them, either by invasion, immigration, or political amalgamation. So, America is much more likely to either devolve into a Brazilian-style second world country or break apart into a Europe of sovereign American states than to shatter into some sort of post-apocalyptic chaos out of Robert Adams or Walter Miller. Even a hypothetical Round 2 isn’t likely to be particularly apocalyptic, although it would certainly be interesting to see the South rise again once Aztlan separatism draws the primary focus of the American Unionists.

The big thing that is missing from the scenarios drawn up by those prophesying apocalypse is the Aztlan factor. Most people are thinking in Red/Blue, urban/rural, black/white terms, but possibly the most important question is whether the Hispanics simply return to Mexico once the flow of benefits end or if they stay to carve out their own state. I would tend to assume the latter, but no one actually knows.

I digress. In response to number two, if I do an updated RGD, I will certainly consider expanding the appendix to include the various non-economic terms that may be unfamiliar to some readers. It’s a good idea that simply had never occurred to me.

I should point out that although I’m not currently planning to write the economics book that melds Keensian Post-Keynesian economics with modified Austrian theory that some suggested yesterday, I do plan to begin working on an economics-related project after I finish the current novel in October.

Book Review: Debunking Economics

Staking the Undead Economist

After nearly three decades of reading across a broad spectrum of economic thought, the two books on the subject I would most recommend are Joseph Schumpeter’s History of Economic Analysis and Murray Rothbard’s An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. But now there is a third. After finishing Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor Dethroned? I have to assert that Keen’s book is not only an absolute masterpiece, but may, in fact, represent the most important intellectual development in economics since The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was published in 1936. And if some of Keen’s more controversial assertions hold up over time, it will be the most important contribution to the literature since The Wealth of Nations.

Ends and a beginning

I found this list of bestsellers to be more than a little amusing and I wonder how many authors have had their books stuck on the bestseller lists behind both Richard Dawkins and Tim LaHaye. Anyhow, thanks to everyone who made the release of the three ebooks a successful one, as all three hit the top 25 in their category and War even hit number 11. I hope you find them enjoyable, or at the very least, occasionally thought-provoking. And, if you’ve got the time, I hope you’ll consider posting reviews once you finish them, Wrath in particular could use some since it has only two.

This was probably my favorite review, coming from Publisher’s Weekly concerning Shadow: “Some of the best (and most disturbing) writing occurs in the sections that try to imagine the inner worlds of the killers”. I’m not sure what it says about me that I am apparently better at imagining and describing the mindset of a murderous, demon-possessed psychopath than a happy and well-adjusted cheerleader, except I may be listening to too much Mushroomhead.

Best Sellers in Religious Science Fiction & Fantasy

1. Left Behind
Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins
2. Tribulation Force (Left Behind)
3. Nicolae (Left Behind, No. 3)
4. SCARS: An Amazing End-Times Prophecy Novel
Patience Prence
5. Soul Harvest (Left Behind, No. 4)
6.Assassins (Left Behind, Book 6)
7.Armageddon (Left Behind)
8. Apollyon (Left Behind, No. 5)
9. Glorious Appearing (Left Behind)
10. The Indwelling (Left Behind)
11. The War in Heaven (Eternal Warriors)
Theodore Beale

Eternal Warriors ebooks released today

I’m pleased to announce that the three Eternal Warriors ebooks are now available for purchase. The War in Heaven, The World in Shadow, and The Wrath of Angels are all priced at $2.99 for Kindle at Amazon.

If you have a Nook or Kobo, the ebooks can also be purchased in EPUB format from Barnes and Noble: War, World, and Wrath. Special thanks to Markku, who reformatted them from the original text, to JartStar, who created a new cover for Shadow and created a new typography to eliminate the dichotomy between the Rowena covers and the Pocket covers, and to the Original Cyberpunk, who actually got them out the door. Also, thanks to the eagle-eyed proofreaders, who did a much better job than Pocket’s line-editors in spotting over 100 typos across the three books. Please let me know, Jamsco, Peter, and the others who participated, if you would like copies of the final epubs. And if you can resist the temptation to send me any new discoveries for at least a week, I would appreciate that….

In which opinions are sought

Marcher Lord and I have been having some discussions about what the cover for the forthcoming first novel in the Arts of Dark and Light series should look like. On the one hand, it is a continuation of the story begun in Summa Elvetica, so there is a good reason to do it in the style of the SE cover. On the other hand, SE was a highly esoteric experimental novel with absolutely no pretensions of mass appeal whatsoever, so there is an equally good reason to go with a different approach. Below is an image with both possible cover styles shown side-by-side; click on it to see the high-res version.

Please note that all I’m looking for here is to get everyone’s opinion on which style they happen to prefer. I’m not looking for value judgments or long essays on the relative artistic merits. Obviously, the covers are not done and so it’s not at all necessary to point out that my name is misspelled or any other minor and easily corrected issues. So, please express your preference in the comments; I originally put up a poll, but some retard from 173.245.5x didn’t realize that ProProfs tracks IP addresses and kept voting repeatedly so we’ll have to do this manually. Needless to say, Anonymous votes won’t be counted.

Thanks, and in case you’re interested, I expect to have some additional book-related news early next week.

RIP Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury — author of The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and many more literary classics — died this morning in Los Angeles, at the age of 91.

Ray Bradbury was one of my consistently favorite authors since I first read The Veldt in junior high. While my memories of other favorite authors from my youth were diminished when I read them later in life, Dandelion Wine remains one of my favorite novels. He also wrote the most powerful Christian science fiction story I’ve ever read; despite never once mentioning Jesus Christ or even delving into Christian theology, he painted an indelible image of the difference between those who do not truly seek and those who find.

He was the master of the small, the personal, and the intimate. Somehow, he managed to capture the essence of childhood in his words. I know some found him too schmalzy and precious, but I think he did a better job of capturing the little joys of life than anyone. He had the gift of giving a story poignancy with just a simple twist, or a turn of phrase; even when his literary tricks had become predictable, they were still emotionally powerful. I also admired his darker side; his was the nervous walk through the warm darkness of a summer night in your hometown, not the icy primordial terror of Lovecraft, the feverish descent into insanity of Maupassant, or the cartoonish schlockfest of modern horror.

I didn’t know Ray Bradbury. I can’t honestly say I will mis him. But I am grateful for him and I am glad that he wrote the books that still have a treasured place in my library.

Speed reading

It would appear that I still read rather quickly:

“You read 1,194 words per minute. That makes you 378% faster than the national average.”

For the record, I answered all three questions correctly. If only I could write that fast.

R stands for Rape

Does Undead Press publish Wängsty?

There’s recently been a flurry of posts about Undead Press, a small publishing house that a) doesn’t pay, b) allegedly humiliates its authors by inserting gratuitous rape scenes into their stories, without asking those authors if they want those rape scenes to be there, and c) has apparently published and continues to advertise a sequel to George Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD, showing an absolute lack of respect for copyright or concern for the legal consequences.

Trick question. As anyone who has ever read R. Scott Bakker knows, there is no such thing as a gratuitous rape scene. Or rather, as anyone who has ever read R. Scott Bakker possesses justified true belief, there is no such thing as a gratuitous rape scene.

One of these days, I’ll have to go through Bakker’s books in order to create a poll on Black Gate where the legions of Bakker readers can vote on their favorite rape scene written by Rapey McRaperson. After all, it’s so hard to choose between the one in Neuropath where the woman rapes the man accompanied by some of the worst sexual dialogue outside of 1970s era pornography or the one in The Warrior Prophet where the Sranc – a demonic winged creature with an Alien-style double skull – not only rapes a man, his wife, and their child to death, but also manages to make the woman climax while raping her. (Contra Umberto Eco, I have long regarded the orgasmic rape as the definitive indicator of pornography.) But make no mistake, these rape scenes are not gratuitous! They are philosophy.

I have to admit, however, that Mr. Giangregorio’s publishing style appears to be more than a little awesome. Some might see it as a strange little man humiliating female authors, but I tend to interpret it as a sardonic commentary on the sex scenes in seventies and eighties science fiction, which always seemed to feature that one completely pointless scene in which the hot primary female character – usually red-headed – seduces the unsuspecting male protagonist without ever having given any signs of being attracted to him. I always viewed it as the fat, clueless SF author’s perspective on the Stygian mysteries of inter-sexual relations.

The cynic’s summary

A review of A Dance with Dragons posted on Amazon:

Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister sat at the head of the
council table in places of high honor. They had been sorely missed in
the previous volume and were expected to do great things now that they
had returned. Other major characters took up the rest of the seats on
either side of them, while hundreds upon hundreds of side characters
filled their own tables that crammed the great hall like fruits in a
barrel. A cacophony of sounds and colors filled the room, so much that
they could not tell one man from another. All the finery of Westeros and
the lands beyond were present with all their sigils and banners and
native tongues as they awaited the attack of the Others outside their
walls. Winter was coming too, though reports differed on exactly when.

Daenerys
stood up, her tokar billowing down like a sea of pearls on soft eastern
fabric. “Lords, ladies, random no-name filler characters who I would
soon forget in a minute or so, you know why we are all gathered here!”

They all answered in unison. “THE OTHERS! DRAGONS! WINTER! POLITICS! ENTERTAINMENT! WHOOP WHOOP!”

“Yes,
that is indeed what you came here for,” she giggled, as if it were a
secret jest. “The Others are outside our door, winter is coming,” she
winked at Jon. “I have three dragons, and soon I will retake my father’s
throne! But before we get to all that riveting stuff, and since words
are wind and hardly filling, we feast!”

Thousands of confused
whispers greeted her announcement, as if they could not imagine feasting
at a time like this. There’s never a bad time to feast! she thought.

Tyrion quipped next to her, “I would sooner have a whore feast on my-“

Servants
brought it in the dishes then: bowls of venison swimming in butter and
garlic, suckling pigs with apples in their mouths roasted to a light
brown crisp, crunchy capons flavored with garlic and cloves stuffed with
bits of bacon and vegetables, neeps fresh from the soil dabbed with
butter and sweet and sour sauce, cakes and pies and pastries of
chocolate and vanilla and fruit with icing molded to various different
shapes that pleased the eyes as well as the tongue. They tucked into
them, crumbs and sauces coating their beards and doublets. Even the
ladies could not seem to get food stains off their dresses.

A
serving man brought her barley stew with chopped carrots and greens on a
loaf of hollowed flat bread. He was a short man with even shorter hair,
parted in the middle with wisps of grey among the black. He had small,
close-set eyes and a wide, flat nose that made him resemble the suckling
pig on the table. His doublet was brown roughspun slashed with vair and
velvet and bore the sigil of the house he served: a fierce gray troll
on a field of green. The man was born Braavosi, but his mother took him
and fled to Westeros when his father died from the pox, taking a job as a
washerwoman for some minor lord. He did not like spicy foods, his
favorite color was yellow, and he liked to walk along the shoreline as
the sun descended into the sea.

They ate like this for hours,
lustily and with abandon, while the Others banged outside. How rude!
Perhaps they’re hungry, Dany thought.

When they were done Dany
wiped the grease from her chin and addressed the table. “That was an
incredible feast. Let’s have one again in a couple of pages. Jaime, what
is our situation?”

“The Others have us surrounded, your grace,”
he reached for a goblet, which tipped over and spilled when he used his
golden hand.

“I see. Ser Barristan, what do you suggest we do?” She turned to the knight.

“If
I would be so bold your grace, I would suggest you take your dragons to
battle. The Others are cold, fell creatures, and fear dragon fire.”

“That sounds like a splendid idea, Ser Barristan! But I seem to have misplaced my dragons.”

The old knight looked confused. “You…what?”

“Yes,
I don’t really know where they are,” she shrugged. “No matter, I’ll
ride my boyfriend to battle. He’s so handsome, with his forked beard and
blue hair….on second thought, I think I’ll ride him to bed. I’ll
leave the Others and retaking my father’s throne to the rest of you.”
She hiked up her skirts and ran up the stairs to her bedchambers,
singing DAARIO, OH DAARIO in a high pitched, Disney Channel voice.

The
table was silent and befuddled when Ser Barristan cleared his throat
uneasily. “I…suppose my queen and her dragons will not be joining us.
Forgive her…she’s still young…Lord Snow,” he turned to Jon for
rescue. “Will the Night’s Watch avail us? Battling the Others is your
province.”

Jon looked up solemnly from his food, flexing his sword hand. “Wildlings.”

“Excuse me?”

“Wildlings. I must deal with the wildlings.”

Ser
Barristan spoke slowly. “That sounds most…valiant, but…don’t you
think the Others are more important? They’re right outside our-“

“YOU
KNOW NOTHING, SER BARRISTAN!” Jon stood up suddenly, his face fierce.
“None of you do!” He faced each member of the table in turn. “All of you
are so concerned with your game of thrones and your dragons and this
one is backstabbing that one while marrying this one, none of you have
any inkling what’s really happening! There are…so…many…WILDLINGS!
So many! I don’t know what to do with them all! Wildlings in my room,
wildlings in my privy, wildlings in my soup, wildlings, wildlings,
WILDLINGS! You don’t think I would rather vanquish Others and wights,
but how can I when I have to wade through WILDLINGS?!” Tears ran down
his bearded face. “But do you care?! NO! It’s because I’m a BASTARD
isn’t it? WAAAAAHHHH!” He ran from the table, sobbing, his path impeded
by a sea of wildlings.

“Why, isn’t this a lively war council.” The imp laughed.

Ser
Barristan was at his wits end. Will no one do SOMETHING? “Lannister,
while I am loathe to trust you, we could all use your cunning to
navigate this impending battle.”

Tyrion grinned, a terrifying
sight without a nose. “I am flattered Ser Barristan, but I don’t give a
mummer’s fart what happens to any of you. Maybe in the next book. But
for now, all I want to do is to find where whores go. Podrick, fetch me
my armor and steed!”

His squire came out of nowhere, pulling a
pig on a leash. He donned Tyrion in mail made of cardboard painted with
crude, peeling designs, and placed a jester’s cap on his head. The
character assassination was not complete until the imp hopped onto the
sow in a graceful tumble that would not have shamed a mummer, and
galloped away as fast as those piggy legs could take him out of the
castle, and out of the story…while stopping every now and then to ask
passersby “Where do whores go?”.

Not for the first time Ser
Barristan wondered how he had ended up here. Was he the only one who
remembered what really mattered? Surely he wasn’t that old. “So, what
does that leave us?” he addressed the rather emptier table. “Our most
major characters are off dallying about like headless chickens, doing
things no one cares about, ignoring what made our series so riveting in
the first place…” He stopped, there were people missing. “Where are
Bran and Davos?”

Cersei answered him. “I see them at the edge of
my vision sometimes. They come and go so quickly that if you blink too
fast you’ll miss them. Its quite unnatural. I’d rather they stayed dea-”
She gasped when Davos appeared beside her, but was gone again just as
quick.

Barristan placed his head in his hands, never feeling so
old as he did now. “Will NO ONE do something about the Others? Or just
something INTERESTING! ANYTHING that we can do so I won’t go mad?”

“…Osmund Kettleblack and Moonboy for all I know…,” Jaime murmured.

“…Ser Meryn, Ser Ilyn, Queen Cersei…”, prattled Arya.

Stannis gritted his teeth.

Victarion did something crazy or whatever.

“Why am I even in these books?” Asha called out, but was ignored.

Bran popped out from under the table, “I’m almost a man grown!” and was gone again.

“Seven
save us,” Barristan groaned, as the Others broke down the doors and
swarmed into the castle. Barristan faced the readers. “Please, return to
us in The Winds of Winter, spring 2020, if you still care.” The old
knight plopped his head on the table and went into a much needed
sleep…

The plot slept with him.

The sad thing is, that was actually more interesting and better-written than the 959-page slog of the book itself. Let’s face it, in a more honest world, the book would have been entitled “A Literary Death March with The Very Occasional Dragon”.