Tag: books

What would you rather read?

Castalia author Peter Grant, of Brings the Lightning fame, is polling people about his next open project slot:

The book for the second quarter of 2017 is where I’m looking for your input.  I have the following possibilities, all of which are partially written or plotted out already.

  • A heroic fantasy novel.  Sword and sorcery in the classic tradition, with good triumphing over evil (of course!).  The first draft of this novel is about 45% complete.
  • Another fantasy novel, less in the ‘heroic’ tradition, but including sword and sorcery in a more formal military setting.  Think late Middle Ages or early Renaissance in a European-style country.  First draft is about 30% complete.
  • A space detective novel, set in the Maxwell universe and tying in with the Maxwell Saga from time to time (i.e. characters from both series will get together).  First draft is about 30% complete.
  • A mil-sci-fi novel set in the Maxwell universe, but with completely new characters.  The idea would be to establish a backstory from which the character might meet and/or work with Steve Maxwell in future books.  Plotted out, but not yet begun.

If you care to weigh in, you can do so at his blog.

SWAN KNIGHT’S SWORD by John C. Wright

Christmas has come early for John C. Wright fans, with the publication of the third and final book in THE GREEN KNIGHT’S SQUIRE trilogy, SWAN KNIGHT’S SWORD.


Gilberic Parzival Moth is a strange and lonely boy who has grown up without a father, raised by a single mother who moves from town to town in fear of something she will not name. His only friends are animals, with whom he has always been able to speak. And after surviving his bewildering encounter with the two kings of Elfland and their many strange and wonderful and terrible subjects, as chronicled in FEAST OF THE ELFS, Gilberic finds himself honor-bound to travel to a house of living death called the Green Chapel.

Accompanied only by his faithful dog and following the directions of a talking horse, Gilberic must go against his beloved mother’s wishes and go in search of the Green Knight, the mysterious giant who is said to dwell in the chapel, and whom he had previously beheaded. SWAN KNIGHT’S SWORD is the third and final book of THE GREEN KNIGHT’S SQUIRE, the first volume of MOTH & COBWEB, an astonishing new series about magical worlds of Day, Night, and Twilight by John C. Wright. 

John C. Wright is one of the living grandmasters of science fiction and the author of THE GOLDEN AGE, AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND, and IRON CHAMBER OF MEMORY, to name just three of his exceptional books. He has been nominated for the Nebula Award, for the Hugo Award, and his novel SOMEWHITHER won the 2016 Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel at Dragoncon.

SWAN KNIGHT’S SWORD is now available on Amazon for $4.99. It is 180 pages and DRM-free. It is old-school fantasy of the very best kind, more in the mode of Lord Dunsany, C.S. Lewis, and Lloyd Alexander than JRR Tolkien and GRR Martin.

THE GREEN KNIGHT’S SQUIRE trilogy is now complete.

The next trilogy will begin with the first book in the DARK AVENGER’S SIDEKICK, the fourth in the Moth & Cobweb series, DAUGHTER OF DANGER. THE GREEN KNIGHT’S SQUIRE will be available in omnibus paperback, hardcover, and audio editions next year.

$10 off print books on Amazon

If you’re kicking yourself for missing out on the Black Friday deal, don’t, because Amazon has another nice offer on the table:

▪ To use this promotion, you must enter “HOLIDAYBOOK” at checkout under the “Gift cards & promotional codes” section to receive $10 off any books purchase of $25 or more.

▪ This offer is valid on print books only. Excludes eBooks and Audiobooks, Book Rentals and Amazon Gift Cards.

▪ The promotion is valid for a limited time, on orders placed between November 24, 2016 at 12:01am EST and November 28, 2016 at 02:59am EST. Amazon reserves the right to modify or cancel this offer at any time.

▪ Offer only applies to products sold and shipped by Amazon.com.

▪ Limit one promotional code per customer and account.

▪ Each code may be used only once and may not be combined with other offers.

▪ The maximum benefit you may receive from this offer is $10.



ELIGIBLE CASTALIA HOUSE EDITIONS:

Happy Birthday, Mike

Want to get Mike Cernovich a birthday present and thank him for the yeoman’s work he put in to ensure the Ascension of the God-Emperor Trump to the Cherry Blossom Throne?

  1. Buy a copy of his bestselling MAGA MINDSET in hardcover or in paperback.
  2. Give it to a friend or family member or teacher or professor to read. Tell them: this is why Donald Trump won the election.
  3. Tweet their reaction to @cernovich on Twitter or Gab.
It’s a gift that keeps on giving. In the meantime, Mike is gearing up to be the target of another hit piece. This is to be celebrated; the media only writes hit pieces about people who alarm them in some way.

An Equation of Almost Infinite Complexity


Today, Castalia House is pleased to announce a debut novel by J. Mulrooney, AN EQUATION OF ALMOST INFINITE COMPLEXITY.

When the devil moves in next door to Cooper Smith Cooper’s house, Cooper doesn’t know what to make of him at first. But when the unexpectedly neighborly Scratch helps the unemployed actuary find a job at a local insurance company with the help of some inside information into the activities of Death, Cooper decides the old devil might not be so bad after all. 


 The only problem, Cooper thinks, is how to conceal from his fellow actuaries his newfound ability to perfectly predict the time and place of people’s deaths. And then, there is also the small matter of the screams of his recently deceased neighbor coming from Scratch’s basement furnace to consider. 


 AN EQUATION OF ALMOST INFINITE COMPLEXITY is a sardonically funny debut novel from J. Mulrooney.

This was one of the first novels I signed to Castalia House, and it has been nearly two years in the making. The genre is a little hard to describe, as it has fantasy elements, satirical elements, and literary elements. I would put it somewhere between The Missionaries and Loki’s Child; it’s not quite as funny as the former, not anywhere nearly as pedal-to-the-metal insane as the latter. It is intelligent, witty, and has a peculiar sensibility all its own; there is, perhaps, just a little John Irving maple syrup flavor to it.

Our production editor loved this one and says it is his favorite of all the novels we’ve published to date. Regardless, it certainly has one of the best first lines since Larry Correia’s first Monster Hunter novel.

When the devil moved in next door, Cooper Smith Cooper had the same question everyone else did: how would it affect the property values?

SJWs Always lie in audiobook

It took a few false starts, but the third time proved to be the charm and we finally managed to get it done. I’m happy to be able to announce that SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police is now available in audiobook format.

The audiobook is narrated by Bob Allen, who did his customary bang-up job, and is 6 hours and 49 minutes long. You can listen to a sample there. If you’ve only read the Kindle version, you might be interested in picking up the paperback version, which is available too.

SJWAL has been Castalia’s bestseller for most of the last year, but that appears likely to change, as MAGA Mindset, by Mike Cernovich, is doing very well. Mike recently reported that the paperback contained an error, but just to be clear, that was only in the CreateSpace version that was out briefly before we managed to get our version into distribution. The kindle version, the paperbacks from us, and the new hardcover which is still in the process of being listed by Amazon, all contain the fixed version of the text.

Regardless, Mike is tearing it up again. He’d probably have #1, #2, and #3 in the category if the audiobook was available from Audible yet. Note that the Kindle price shown below is misleading; it is actually $7.99.

Recommended

Speaking of promoting Mike Cernovich, the Indy King, Vaughn Heppner, who with BV Larson and soon-to-be Castalia author David VanDyke is one of the three big dogs of military science fiction, recommends Mike Cernovich’s GORILLA MINDSET as one of his three picks for Amazon’s Powered by INDIE:

“GORILLA MINDSET is an awesome read for those who want to learn how to control their thoughts and thereby their actions. Mike Cernovich is a straight shooter who tells it like it is. In today’s world, that is a welcome relief.”

If you liked GORILLA MINDSET, I can guarantee that you’re going to like MAGA MINDSET: Making YOU and America Great Again. Now in paperback from Castalia House.

Also, I recommend Vaughn Heppner’s books, particularly if you happen to be inclined towards men with large quantities of futuristic weaponry at their disposal completely failing to abide by Gene Roddenberry’s ideal of non-violent interaction and achieving one’s objectives through diplomacy, communication, and mutual understanding.

Here be Dragon-winners

It has taken us rather longer than we would have liked to get our print process running smoothly, but Castalia House is pleased to announce that two books published earlier this year by our two Dragon Award-winning authors, Mr. John C. Wright and Mr. Nick Cole, are now available in hardcover.


IRON CHAMBER OF MEMORY is a deeply complicated tale of romance, mystery, and myth that has proven extremely popular with our readers, as its average 4.8-star rating tends to demonstrate.

The top review, from Richard Green, calls it “a wonderfully creepy, profound, sad and yet uplifting story.”

Wright’s latest is another fantastic and inventive piece from an author whose imaginative faculties boggle the mind. This book is a bit different from his universe-spanning COUNT TO A TRILLION series, and less baroque than SOMEWHITHER. I would compare it more to AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND and even A PARLIAMENT OF BEASTS & BIRDS; it is more intimate, following only three characters over a somewhat limited span of time, but it manages to encompass past, present, and future regardless.


IRON CHAMBER OF MEMORY retails for $24.99 and is available from Amazon or can be ordered through your local bookstore.

The new hardcover from Nick Cole, our other Dragon Award-winning novelist, THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNEW IT, is a war story, a post-apocalyptic zombie tale, and a deeply romantic tale of true love conquering all. It features an ending that is so flawless that, in my opinion, only John C. Wright and Jeff Sutton have ever done it better.

From the top review by J.R. Weaver:


Nearly every page is a gut-punch, whether it’s from the descriptions of a brutal war against the undead that makes World War Z look like a Sunday picnic, or the unvarnished look into the heart of a guy who’s lost everything. The characters are raw and brutal and real. The story is dark and uplifting at the same time. Mr. Cole is a romantic and wears it on his sleeve unashamedly.


THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNEW IT retails for $24.99 and is available from Amazon or can be ordered through your local bookstore.

Both books will also be available in trade paperback later this week. But most serious fans of Castalia’s two Dragons will want to own these case-bound hardcovers. Also, please note that we are aware that the cover images have not yet percolated through Amazon’s system yet, which can take up to 48 hours. And yes, the vagaries of Amazon’s algos have, for reasons completely unbeknownst to us, bestowed a PhD on Mr. Wright. Or, perhaps we should say, Dr. Wright.

MAGA Mindset reviews

First, thanks to everyone who made MAGA Mindset Castalia’s second-most-successful book launch after Cuckservative. That was great; Mike noted that it was even more successful than his Gorilla Mindset launch. And more than a day after its launch, it is still in the Amazon top 250.

A couple of people have posted reviews I thought worth highlighting here, first of all, Caleb Q. Washington:

If I had to describe the book in just a sentence, it is SJWs Always Lie meets Gorilla Mindset condensed to their core, with a unifying theme of Donald Trump.

The book is divided into three sections on culture, media and mindset. The first lays out, in brutal terms, the cultural landscape of modern America and how it paved the way for Trump’s rise. Cernovich does it in such a way that he won’t sound like a conspiracy theorist to uninitiated readers, which is really hard to do given the gulf between reality and the media created dreamworld most of America lives in. The first section is as good of a redpill as any I’ve seen. It will convert people to Alt-Right….

For people like me, who read Cernovich & Vox Day blogs and books, who know the state of cultural rot in America, who already see the media as adversarial to the American nation, this book is going to feel like it’s preaching to the choir and telling you things you already agree with. This book was written to create more allies for us. You should read it, enjoy a well done work pushing your worldview and pass it on to people who it will impact greatly.

He’s right. MAGA Mindset is a great starting point for young men and women who sense that there is something wrong with America, but would be overwhelmed by the likes of SJWAL and Cuckservative. It’s short, it’s succinct, and it’s straight to the point.

The notorious Charles C. Johnson took a break from his various nefarious plans to wreak havoc throughout the world to write a review as well:

You may ask: are you really telling me Donald Trump fought the world and won just thanks to his mindset?

Yes. And Mike Cernovich makes that compelling case in MAGA Mindset, using Donald Trump’s boyhood pastor, who was also a best-selling author of “positive thinking” books, as evidence.

And it looks like he’s right. Trump never backs down, never stops fighting, and always wins in the end.

But it all begins in his head.

I am genuinely alarmed. Chuck Johnson is a serious dark lord, and the idea of him applying even some of the lessons taught in MAGA Mindset is not only frightening, it is almost beyond imagining. He is the Dr. Evil of the Alt-Right. In other news, Mike Glyer of File 770 was amused by the press release Castalia’s PR team sent out to the media concerning Mike’s latest book:

Mike Cernovich’s new book, MAGA MINDSET: Making YOU and America Great Again, is the #1 bestseller in Amazon’s Politics & Social Sciences>Leadership category. That’s not surprising, as his prevous book, Gorilla Mindset, self-published in 2015, was also a bestseller

What is surprising, however, is that languishing behind the Donald Trump-supporting author’s latest bestseller is Stronger Together, a book published only last month, written by Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine. The Clinton-Kaine book, signed by Simon & Schuster to $14 million advance, currently sits at 5th place in the category…..

The new Cernovich bestseller, signed to an advance that was, according to Day, “pretty close to $14 million less than Clinton and Kaine got,”….

As always, the perspicacious commenters at File 770 didn’t hesitate to demonstrate their astuteness and keen powers of observation in all matters even tangentially related to the Supreme Dark Lord.

“Teddy doesn’t mention it’s number one in that tiny subcategory because it was FREE, and listed prominently on ebook freebie sites. I follow a couple so I don’t remember which.”


One almost has to admire their determination to stick to the Narrative no matter what the actual, readily confirmable facts are. As it happens:

  • The book is $7.99 for ebook, $9.99 for paperback.
  • The book ranked #226 on all of Amazon and #22 in Nonfiction.
  • The #2 book in the Media Studies category has 831 reviews and is ranked #3,425 on Amazon.
  • The #2 book in the Leadership category has 971 reviews and is ranked #803 on Amazon.

MAGA MINDSET by Mike Cernovich

Castalia House and Mike Cernovich are happy to announce their first collaborative effort, MAGA MINDSET: Making YOU and America Great Again.


MAGA MINDSET: How to Make YOU and America Great Again is not a traditional political analysis of Donald Trump or the success of his political campaign, which would be boring and useless to the reader. MAGA Mindset is an overview of the cultural forces that have propelled Trump forward while using the example of his candidacy as a case study for the reader’s own life.


MAGA MINDSET will give you a deeper understanding of America, the challenges it is facing, and how those challenges created the conditions for Donald Trump’s inevitable rise. You will understand how Mike Cernovich was able to successfully predict Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee when all the professional political pundits considered his campaign to be a joke, and why, win or lose, the Trump revolution will continue beyond the 2016 election.


In MAGA MINDSET you will learn:


* The cultural forces behind Trump’s rise
* How Trump and other masters of social media are able to drive the news cycle
* The mindset techniques and strategies YOU need to succeed at life, even when it seems hopeless


Mike Cernovich is the bestselling author of Gorilla Mindset. He is a lawyer, a journalist who has broken several news stories of international interest, and the producer of the film documentary Silenced.


MAGA MINDSET: Making YOU and America Great Again retails for $7.99 and is available exclusively at Amazon. It is 101 pages and DRM-free.

Now, you may well wonder what is the point of releasing a book about Donald Trump only a few weeks before an election that the media, and almost everyone else, assume that he is going to lose, and lose badly. You may also wonder how it is possible that a book of barely 100 pages could possibly be worth the asking price.

But, as Mike points out in the Introduction, this isn’t a book about who will or won’t be the next President. This isn’t a book about how to run for office, much less a history of an American political campaign. This is a book about the challenges faced by both America and you in the years ahead. Whether Donald Trump wins or loses on November 8th, neither he nor the cultural forces that caused his rise are going to disappear. If anything, they are going to grow stronger and make the lessons contained in this book that much more important for the reader.

And those lessons are important. Because, in a society riven by cultural war, one of the most vital is the ability to affect the culture. Mike Cernovich not only explains how Donald Trump has been able to do that, he explains how you can learn from his example and achieve your own vision. This isn’t think-and-grow-rich snake oil or the Prosperity Gospel, it is a practical analysis from an author who has been practicing exactly what he is preaching that picks up where Gorilla Mindset left off.

From Amazon:
#1 in Books > Social Sciences > Communication & Media Studies
#1 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Leadership

What is particularly amusing about the latter category? Twelve spots behind, at #13, is Stronger Together: A Blueprint for America’s Future, by Hillary Rodham Clinton (Author), Tim Kaine (Author)