After a 25-year hiatus, Jerry Pournelle and Castalia House are pleased to announce that the famous military science fiction anthology series, There Will Be War, has been revived with There Will Be War Volume X. This has been a long time in the making, with more than a few challenges and detours along the way, but as a fan of the series from the 1980s, I am absolutely delighted to see it come alive again, although I regret the fact that there is, once more, a genuine need for it in light of current world events.
In many ways, the first nine volumes of There Will Be War have proved to be a chronicle of the Cold War; reading those earlier volumes published in the ’80s is a literal education in both the events and the psychologies of that time. We will be fortunate indeed if the challenges described in There Will Be War Volume X, in both fiction and non-fiction terms, prove to be similarly ephemeral, and disappear from history as speedily and as bloodlessly. Unfortunately, some of the contributors to the new volume would appear to be less than entirely optimistic in that regard.
There Will Be War Volume X is 401 pages, DRM-free, and retails for $4.99 on Amazon. The editor, who arguably did his finest job in selecting stories and essays since Volume II, shared some thoughts on the revival of his classic series at Chaos Manor today. Highlights:
There Will Be War Volume X will be on Amazon Monday. We will see where it goes from there. There is already a campaign to boycott the book on the grounds that the publisher is a scoundrel. This is apparently something to do with fan politics and awards. I can only say that it has been a pleasant experience to work with them. I have all the editorial decisions, of course, including story choices…. I find them very competent and helpful.
We also have some good stuff from new authors, who apparently prefer to be in this book rather than in the traditional magazines; I’m a bit flattered. Anyway it’s done. If you like war stories you will like this book
Note to New Release subscribers: if you don’t have an email in your inbox tomorrow and you’ve been having trouble receiving the emails despite being sure that you’re a subscriber, get in touch and I’ll send you the link to the bonus books. You won’t want to miss them!
And one more thing: fans of the series will no doubt be glad to hear that the hardcover omnibus of Vols I and II is very nearly done and will be published in January.
UPDATE: Mr. Pournelle notes that one of the contributors, CDR Phillip Pournelle, USN, was just awarded the Surface Navy Association Literary Award for “The Deadly Future of Littoral Sea Control”, which is one of the non-fiction pieces that appears in Volume X.
You may have thought that Castalia House was done for 2015 following the release of its most recent Political Philosophy bestseller earlier this week, but nothing could be further from the truth. Not only are we hard at work getting several audiobooks out before the end of the year, but we are less than two weeks away from reviving a series that has lain dormant for 26 years since the end of the Cold War.
That’s right, for the first time in nearly three decades, Jerry Pournelle’s legendary There Will Be War anthology series of military science fiction and military fact, which served as the inspiration for Castalia’s Riding the Red Horse series, is back! Dr. Pournelle has been hard at work putting together a collection of the best of the new breed mil-SF writers with the best of the old guard, and the result is one of the most formidable collections of talent since the second in the series, the epic There Will Be War Volume II, which featured Poul Anderson’s “Time Lag”, Joel Rosenberg’s “Cincinnatus”, William F. Wu’s “In the Shadow of a Phosphor Screen”, and Eric Vinicoff’s “‘Caster”.
Only time will tell if Volume X will prove to be similarly memorable, but the lineup of contributors would be hard to beat. In addition to an introduction by Jerry Pournelle, the new volume features:
Gregory Benford
Charles W. Shao
William S. Lind and LtCol Gregory A. Thiele, USMC
Ben Bova
Allen M. Steele
Michael Flynn
Martin van Creveld
Matthew Joseph Harrington
Cheah Kai Wai
Col Douglas Beason, USAF, ret.
John DeChancie
CDR Phillip E. Pournelle, USN
Russell Newquist
Brian Noggle
David VanDyke
Lt Col Guy R. Hooper, USAF, ret. and Michael L. McDaniel
Poul Anderson
Larry Niven
The much-ballyhooed End of History and the permanent triumph of democratic liberalism has proven to be a mirage. As Dr. Pournelle has repeatedly warned us, There Will Be War.
If you still haven’t signed up for the New Release mailing list, you’re definitely going to want to do so for this one, as the bonus book offer is even better than the one we offered earlier this week. The book will initially be out in ebook, in audiobook early next year, then in a hardcover omnibus edition with Volume IX sometime in Spring 2016.
We are happy to announce that David the Good has followed up his #1 bestselling gardening book, Compost Everything, with the second book in the Good Guide series from Castalia House.
Grow or Die: The Good Guide to Survival Gardening is different than most books for preppers and other survivalists, because it’s not concerned with surviving the first few months of a post-apocalypse, but the next few years. It contains a wealth of data on what sort of things you will need to provide food for your family, instructions on how to use them, and a small encyclopedia of vegetables with instructions on how to grow them as well as a summary of their characteristics… although if you’re a fan of zucchini, it appears you will be out of luck should the world go the way of Fallout 4. There will be no zucchini in the post-apocalypse.
The good news is that between this book and the aforementioned game, you will surely be able to put yourself in the “survival mindset” that our military experts informed us is so vital at the Brainstorm event this weekend. The book is written in the same easy, amusing style as its predecessor, and even those who have no interest in gardening and believe Paul Krugman’s assertion that the federal government will be able to avert all ills by further inflating the currency will find it both informative and enjoyable.
The book has apparently struck a nerve of some sort, as even prior to this announcement, it had already hit #1 bestseller in Gardening, marking Castalia House’s third straight #1 category bestseller.
So, congratulations to David the Good for his second category bestseller; with three of the top 30 books, he practically owns the Gardening & Horticulture Vegetables category. I’d also like to thank Brian Niemeier, who graciously offered his science fiction novel, Nethereal (Soul Cycle Book 1), as a bonus offer to the Castalia New Release subscribers who bought Grow or Die. Have a look at it, particularly if you’re a John C. Wright fan.
As always, we are absolutely fine with whatever retail option you happen to prefer. Whether you buy Castalia books from Amazon, from the CH store, or get them “free” via Kindle Unlimited, we are just happy that you have decided to support Castalia House and we hope you find our books to be good values.
Yesterday Mike Cernovich announced that he would be publishing his next book, Last Man Standing, with Castalia House. He also announced that he had accepted a position as Editor-at-Large with Castalia House. What he did not mention, at my request, is that he is also working with Castalia House on a third project. I asked him not to mention it because I wanted to tell you myself.
As dark lords go, I am, as most of you know, unusually civil. Having asked one of my GGinParis co-hosts to write a foreword for one of my books, I thought it would be a grievous breach of etiquette to fail to request the same of the other. So, I am pleased to announce that the aforementioned Editor-at-Large has already written the foreword for my next book, which I have written with a fellow American Indian (albeit one from a different tribe). It is expected to be released before the end of year. It is a hard-hitting book in the vein of SJWAL, but addresses an even more important and controversial subject: the politics of American immigration.
The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America contains an extremely important phrase that is almost always ignored by those who appeal to it, or to the men who wrote it, in defense of immigration. It states: We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. The key phrase is this: “to ourselves and our posterity.” The blessings of liberty are not to be secured to all the nations of the world, to the tired and huddled masses, or to the wretched refuse of the teeming shores of other lands. They are to be secured to our children, and their children, and their children’s children. To sacrifice their interests to the interests of children in other lands is to betray both past and future America. It is to permit an alien posterity, like the newly hatched cuckoo in another bird’s nest, to eliminate our own, and in doing so, defeat the purpose of the Constitution. It is, like the cuckolded husband, to raise the children of another man instead of one’s sons and daughters. It is, in a word, cuckservative.
Cuckservative: How “Conservatives” Betrayed America will be published in December by Castalia House.
The New York Times missed the real story when it wrote about a nonexistent decline in ebook sales. Unsurprisingly, Fortune manages to do rather better in observing that the decline is limited to the traditional publishers, who are losing out to their smaller rivals:
A recent piece in the New York Times about a decline in e-book sales had more than a whiff of anti-digital Schadenfreude about it. The story, which was based on sales figures from the Association of American Publishers, implied that much of the hype around e-books had evaporated — with sales falling by 10% in the first half of this year — while good old printed books were doing better than everyone expected.
This was celebrated by many as evidence that e-books aren’t all they are cracked up to be, and that consumers are swinging back to printed books. But is that an accurate reflection of what’s actually taking place in the book-publishing or book-buying market? Not really, as it turns out.
When I first saw the story, I thought it raised two important questions, neither of which was really answered conclusively in the piece (although the second was hinted at). Namely: 1) Are e-book sales as a whole dropping, or just the sales of the publishers who are members of the AAP? And 2) Isn’t a drop in sales just a natural outcome of the publishers’ move to keep e-book prices high?
Data from the site Author Earnings, which tracks a broad spectrum of information related to digital publishing, suggests that both of those things are true. In other words, a decline in market share on the part of established publishers is being taken as evidence of a drop in e-book sales overall, and at least some of the falloff in market share that publishers have seen is likely the result of high e-book prices.
What’s really happening is that overall sales are remaining close to flat, but the mainstream publishers are rapidly losing out to small and independent publishers. I jazzed up Hugh Howey’s Author Earnings report to make it more obvious what has been happening over the last 15 months, which just happens to coincide with the birth of Castalia House.
In other words, the share of ebook sales that belong to the major publishers have plunged from 39 percent down 26 percent due to the rise in ebooks published by Independents and Amazon itself. This is due to several factors, ranging from increasingly mediocre authors being signed by the editorial staffs to foolish pricing decisions by the business people.
I suspect the decline in the self-published category was initially due to Amazon skimming off the best of them, followed by the change in Kindle Unlimited rules that deter the publication of very short ebooks. The KU change probably also explains why Indie growth has leveled off since May.
To put it into more personal terms, and to explain why Tor will continue to have John Scalzi running himself ragged on non-stop book tours until his contract is eventually canceled prior to its completion, consider the following comparison between several recently published books. All the numbers were current as of 6:30 AM EST.
END OF ALL THINGS 190 reviews Publisher: Tor (August 13, 2015) Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #342,147 Paid in Kindle Store
Paperback Publisher: Tor Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #218,704 in Books
Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Tor Books; 1st Ed edition (August 11, 2015) Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,935 in Books
LOCK IN 497 reviews Publisher: Tor Books (August 26, 2014) Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,214 Paid in Kindle Store
Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages Publisher: Tor Science Fiction (August 4, 2015) Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,372 in Books
Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Tor Books; 1 edition (August 26, 2014) Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #61,079 in Books
SJWS ALWAYS LIE 301 reviews Publisher: Castalia House (August 25, 2015) Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,359 Paid in Kindle Store
Paperback: 236 pages Publisher: Castalia House Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,250 in Books
GORILLA MINDSET 181 reviews Publication Date: June 27, 2015 Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,674 Paid in Kindle Store
Paperback: 212 pages Publisher: CreateSpace (June 28, 2015) Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,792 in Books
This is interesting because what it tells us is that the only people interested in reading Scalzi’s latest are his longtime fans who are completing the series. They’re buying the hardcover to round out their collections, but the casual readers aren’t even bothering to read it. Lock In, on the other hand has shown more appeal to casual readers, but it’s not particularly popular, especially for one of Tor’s top authors. Scalzi is far from a failure; he’s #54 in Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction by virtue of all his books selling reasonably well. I am merely #329.
But then look at how well other indie authors (and RTRH contributors) such as B.V. Larson (#13 in SF), Christopher Nuttall (#25 in SF), and David van Dyke (#99 in SF) are doing without the support of the largest publisher in science fiction.
This is a serious problem for the major publishers because ebook sales are a literally less-than-zero-sum game at this point in time. Regardless, it’s not so much the direct competition that threatens to do the big publishers in as it is the new X-factor in ebook sales, which is Kindle Unlimited. Notice which two types of publishers have been doing well since the KU change: Amazon and Small to Medium Publishers.
For an explanation, consider this book, which competes directly with Scalzi’s “military science fiction”, Back From the Dead by Rolf Nelson.
Publisher: Castalia House (September 22, 2015) Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,794 Paid in Kindle Store
What is astonishing about the moderate success of the Nelson book is that it has “sold” 4x more books via Kindle Unlimited than it has through conventional book sales. Keep in mind these aren’t just “paid” sales, they are books that have been downloaded and read.
KU works very well for longer, inexpensive indie books; with his book’s KNPC, Rolf makes more money from a KU read than he does from an Amazon sale at $4.99. (NB: This isn’t confidential information, it’s all right there on Amazon for those who comprehend the system.) But more importantly, most of those KU readers are not Castalia fans, they are mostly new to Rolf’s work.
(By way of testing this hypothesis, I’ve added a page to Back From the Dead letting readers know about other Castalia books available on KU. If I’m correct, this should have the result of increasing the average Kpages read for the other books listed.)
KU is Amazon’s real challenge to the mainstream publishers. It was bad enough for them competing on a level playing field with ebooks that cost one-half to one-fourth the price of their own ebooks. But how can they possibly compete with all-you-can read for $10, especially when Amazon is going out of its way to promote those books? For the price of one-third of a new Tor ebook, you can read literally dozens of KU books such as Riding the Red Horse, A Throne of Bones, On War, and Back From the Dead, many of which are objectively better than the Tor books, at least as far as the Amazon ratings and reviews are concerned. And the problem for the major publishers is only going to get worse as the KU readers discover new favorite authors, and new publishers, and begin to read their way through their non-mainstream catalogs.
Ebooks were disruptive, but KU is going to cause several of the major publishers to go out of business. The Big Five will be the Big Three inside three years.
That being said, there is observably a distinct type of KU reader. They clearly prefer lighter, faster-reading fiction fare; while SJWAL has sold 5x more copies so far this month than Back From the Dead, the latter has 3.7x more KU pages read.
Vox hosts a monthly webinar called Brainstorm. Over dinner in Barcelona he invited me to be a guest. As he’s a friend of mine, I thought it’d be fun.
I did not expect to sell hundreds of copies of books.
Yet that is exactly what happened.
Before appearing on Vox’s Brainstorm, Gorilla Mindset had been selling 35-50 copies a day. A good day on Kindle was 30 copies. (I still sell 10-20 audio and paperback books a day, respectively.)
As you can see on the chart below, Vox’s review of Gorilla Mindset in addition to the scheduled Brainstorm created quite the spike in sales. Doing the virtual book tour with Vox sold at least 100 copies, and likely 200 copies or more.
Send a screen cap of your pre-order to Shauna.Danger@gmail.com We’ll host a webinar exclusive for those who pre-order. You only have until October 30th.
Speaking of Brainstorm, the October event for Annual members will be tomorrow night. Invites will go out later today. We have a LOT to discuss, very little of which I am inclined to mention in public.
It’s fascinating to see how useful Brainstorm has become in further weaponizing the VP community. We had a very successful Wargame Task Force meeting two evenings ago, which will be of absolutely no interest to anyone to whom the words “Avalon Hill” and “GDW” mean nothing, but it allowed us to quickly and efficiently make decisions, assign responsibilities, and start making progress on our current project, the first glimpse of which can be seen later today over at Castalia House.
I have no doubt that it will be equally useful for other projects, both more and less esoteric.And for that, we all have to thank the Annual members. They are the individuals who are making this all possible.
In case you happen to be interested, or if you want to help arm a friend or family member against a potential SJW attack, SJW’s Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police is now available in paperback from Amazon. It’s $11.99 for 256 pages of powerful conceptual ammunition. Described as “The Art of War for the Digital Media Generation” by Prof. Nick Flor and “well worth the money” by Hugo-nominated author Mike Williamson, it’s something anyone who expects to encounter SJWs on campus, in the office, or online needs to read. Ebooks are one of the greatest inventions since the printing press, but there are some books you want to be able to hold in your hands… if for no other reason than to beat SJWs over the head with it.
A few more comments by reviewers:
“an instructional classic, a counterweight to Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.”
“This book provides good practical advice on how to deal with dishonest and twisted thinkers.”
“This book should be required reading in any freedom based society.”
“the *content* is more valuable than I can say”
“This book is a necessary buy for anyone who finds themselves under attack for their politics.”
UPDATE: In only 10 hours, SJWAL is the #1 New Release in Censorship and Politics
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,462 in Books
#3 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Censorship #4 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Political #28 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Commentary & Opinion
Interestingly enough, the ebook edition is right behind it at #5.
The Goy Luck Club is reading SJWs Always Lie and has invited VP members to take part in the discussions if anyone is interested:
Vox Day, The Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil, has been is a science fiction writer for Castalia House, and was purged by the Science Fiction Writers of America by SJW’s for having naughty thoughts (sound familiar?). Since then, he has devoted part of his blogging to fighting back against the SJW’s in the Hugo Awards and in the Culture War. By organizing some of his readership, which he calls the Evil Legion of Evil, he is successfully getting SJW’s to burn down the Hugo Awards, a group that has been infested with SJW’s for 20+ years. He has accomplished this by getting them to vote for “No Award” for the various book awards, so the books he and his supporters nominate (The Sad Puppies slate) will not win the awards.
The book we will be reading is called SJW’s Always Lie.
For the first reading starting today (10/16/15) and ending next Friday (10/23/15), we will be reading chapters 1-5.
I will also be doing a closed Brainstorm event after the reading for those who take part and will be taking questions from readers about the book. And yes, speaking of a reading group, I do need to finish up the quizzes for A History of Strategy. And speaking of SJWs Always Lie, this review from M-Zed is both characteristic and extremely complimentary, considering:
Even Despite Our Differences, A Strong Book By Michael Z. Williamson on October 15, 2015
I review this as an ardent anti-Voxxer, who has argued with him many times. The man is a troll, a self-aggrandizing narcissist, and woefully ignorant of science.
However, in the field of philosophy and debate, there are few better in this market. He understands clearly the tactical use of dialectic and rhetoric, and that arguing facts against someone who refuses to accept them is pointless.
The key to arguing with such people is to recognize, evade, and turn their own tactics upon themselves, so they are forced into their own corners. And, may I suggest, it’s very useful for dealing with annoying exes who attempt to obfuscate at every opportunity.
It is well worth the money to learn how to debate with the unreasonable.
It’s wonderful to have fans and supporters, but there are few compliments more sincere or satisfying than one from a dedicated foe. Obviously M-Zed and I have our differences, a considerable quantity of differences, but what I like about him is that he’s not afraid to speak his mind, for better or for worse.
I’ve seen a couple of recommendations of Vox Day’s “SJWs Always Lie — Taking Down the Though Police” (incl. from @ProfessorF, whose highlights are here, but also on Reddit and in other places). So I had a look at it and — yep, I like it as well…. So, while I am still on the fence whether SJWs are just over-caring (care as sole moral foundation, and totally helicopter-caring in overdrive), have mental problems (Borderline? Narcissistic? Psychopath?), or are Machiavellian players in today’s society, this book is likely going to be helpful in fighting back.
I’ve never had a book hit that many Amazon reviews before, so to see it happen in a month is rather pleasant. It’s also good to see that interest has remained high enough to keep SJWs Always Lie at #1 in the Political Philosophy category for the whole month since it was first published.
And speaking of reviews, Jan Weir of American Renaissance reviewed SJWs Always Lie. It’s a pretty favorable review, although the reviewer is subject to what I think of as Clemens Disease; I’m considerably less famous than Bono, after all, but I don’t often see articles about U2 that say “The pseudonymous singer, Bono (real name: Paul Hewitt Hewson). Anyhow, to the review:
While SJWs Always Lie is a highly entertaining read, I don’t want to leave the impression that it’s just a witty romp through the SJW jungle. It’s deadly serious about the damage SJWs can do to you and me as we try to get through our workday. One of their favorite venues for mischief-making is the Human Resources department, particularly in large companies that like to remind you from time to time that they have something called a Code of Conduct. This code is invariably vague, with lots of soothing phrases about commitment to equality, a “safe” workplace, and of course “diversity.” This is an open-ended invitation to all sorts of SJW mischief, which often takes the form of a whispering campaign against you, in which both accusation and accuser remain concealed from view. This has happened to the author, who eloquently describes the pit-of-the-stomach anxiety and confusion of being attacked by unseen assailants.
How to respond? Probably the most valuable part of the book is about what to do and not do if you’re attacked. Don’t apologize. Don’t resign. Fight back.
Target the enemy at every opportunity. Hit them wherever they show themselves vulnerable. Play as dirty as your conscience will permit. Undermine them, sabotage them, and discredit them. Be ruthless and show them absolutely no mercy. This is not the time for Christian forgiveness because these are people who have not repented, these are people who are trying to destroy you and are quite willing to harm your family and your children in the process. Take them down and take them out without hesitation. If you have any SJWs working under you, fire them . . . .
Mr. Beale also proposes a long-term plan for SJW-proofing our society. I found this the most intriguing part of the book. It displays a level of sociological insight and gravitas that is quite different from the light, snarky tone found in other parts of the book and promoted on the book’s cartoonish cover. The author analyzes the deep rot that the SJWs have caused our institutions, explains how we have made ourselves vulnerable to their control, and tells what we can do to end this vulnerability. His suggestions are too extensive to summarize here, but inter alia, we are enjoined to: Build alternative institutions (e.g., home school your children, create alternatives to SJW-infested Wikipedia); defund and destroy their propaganda centers (e.g., ignore their entertainment media); deny them employment; keep them out of your organizations.
It’s a bracing call-to-arms, based on an honest concept of justice.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention that, like it or not, I am an American Indian (one brother is out on the rez this week, as it happens), and my great-grandfather did ride with Villa. Damn near got killed with him too. In fact, I was talking to one of my brothers today and he told me a funny story about how he was out raking his lawn recently and someone from his wealthy neighborhood driving by stopped his car and tried to hire him to mow his lawn. My brother wasn’t at all offended; when the guy tried to apologize, he said, “why would I be upset that you think I look Mexican? I am Mexican.”
I told him that he should have burst out crying and started a Patreon account; apparently that is the correct SJW-approved response to microaggressions these days.
Despite his height, that brother looks the most Mexican in the family; his equally tall doppleganger works at a Mexican supply store at which I bought a tortilla press last year. Ender actually thought it was his uncle for a moment and was extremely confused about what he was doing there. I look the most Anglo, obviously, whereas another brother looks sufficiently Indian that he was invited to join the American Indian group at his college by strangers.
Having written a book about speech and thought police, perhaps I’ll have to write a book about race police one of these days.
, in both fiction and non-fiction terms, prove to be similarly ephemeral, and disappear from history as speedily and as bloodlessly. Unfortunately, some of the contributors to the new volume would appear to be less than entirely optimistic in that regard.will be on Amazon Monday. We will see where it goes from there. There is already a campaign to boycott the book on the grounds that the publisher is a scoundrel. This is apparently something to do with fan politics and awards. I can only say that it has been a pleasant experience to work with them. I have all the editorial decisions, of course, including story choices…. I find them very competent and helpful.
