Larry Correia fisks a minor author who appears to be hell-bent on convincing herself that mainstream publishing is the only way to go despite having sold fewer books than every single Castalia House author:
I realized that Laurie wasn’t providing writing advice for people who actually want to make a decent living as writers. She is providing advice to people who want to be aloof artistes at dinner parties, before they go back to their day job at Starbucks.
As for what Laurie says about gatekeepers, it is all horse shit. She has no flipping idea what she’s talking about.
Publishers are the “gatekeepers”. If they like you, you’re in, and if they don’t like you, you’re out. Problem is, at best they only have so many publishing slots to fill every year, so they cater to some markets, and leave others to languish. And at worst, they are biased human beings, who often have their heads inserted into their own rectums.
Agents represent the author. Their job is to find stuff they think they can sell to a publisher, and then they keep 15%. So “good” is secondary to “Can I sell this to the gatekeepers?” And then we’re back to slots and rectums.
Editors try to make the author’s stuff better. Period. They aren’t gate keepers, because it is their job to make the stuff that got through the gate suck less (seriously, the HuffPo should hire one). Only self-published authors can hire editors too. Andy Weir hired Bryan Thomas Schmidt to edit the original self-published The Martian. Last I heard that book did okay.
“National and international reviewers” are on the wrong side of the gate, and I’m baffled why she included them. Reviewers come along after the fact, some are useful, but most aren’t. Even though I was ignored or despised by most of the big review places for most of my career, they haven’t made a lick of difference to my sales.
These gatekeepers are assessing whether or not your work is any good.
The problem is that “good” is subjective. What you personally think is “good” is irrelevant when there are a million consumers who disagree. I wouldn’t buy a copy of Twilight, but the author lives in a house made out of solid gold bars. “Good” is arbitrary. The real question is whether your product is sellable. (and yes, it is just a product, get over yourself)
Readers expect books to have passed through all the gates, to be vetted by professionals. This system doesn’t always work out perfectly, but it’s the best system we have.
It was the only system we had before technology came along and upset their apple cart.
When only the gatekeepers could vet what was “good”, sometimes they were right, but since often the “professionals” were 20 something lit majors just out of college, or some clueless weasel who had spent his whole existence in the echo chamber of Manhattan publishing, often the system fed its own tastes and ignored vast swaths of the market.
And when you neglect a market, it will spend its entertainment dollars elsewhere. So in this case, competition is good. Because the real competition isn’t between traditional and indy publishing, it is between reading and movies and video games and streaming. Ultimately the market decides who wins, not some self-appointed gatekeeper.
As Larry correctly observes, her atttitude is that of an author who is more interested in personal validation than professional status. The viability of independent publishing doesn’t mean there isn’t some advantage to publishing with the Big Five, especially if your name happens to begin with MILO. But, as in so many other things, what works for Milo is very unlikely to work for you. He’s a genuine star. Regardless, even very successful independent writers who sell millions of copies don’t hit #1 on Amazon months before release.
Nor is print anywhere close to dead. It’s not really fair to compare our print sales to our digital sales, since less than one-third of our books are in print yet and we have even fewer audio books out, but the breakdown of Castalia’s 2016 book sales is as follows:
67.8% ebook
20.5% print edition
07.5% Kindle Unlimited
04.2% audiobook
That’s unexpected, since we originally assumed Castalia would be an ebook-only publisher. But the real game changer, where the mainstream publishers are concerned, is KU. They don’t play there and they can’t afford to play there. And since publishing is a negative sum game, every $12 million paid out per month by Amazon probably represents at least another $48 million in revenue lost to the major publishers plus around $10 million lost to the authors published by them. It’s my suspicion that Amazon tries to set the KU compensation so that an author will make roughly the same amount from a KU sale-equivalent that he’ll make from conventional publishing sale, rather than the same amount he’ll make from an ebook sale.
KU isn’t great for independent publishers even though some of our big books pay out more per book equivalent than we make per sale. For reference, the average KU payout per page was $0.004848 in 2016. But at least we can afford to be there.
At Castalia House, we are intent on building gradually, on the strong foundations of well-loved series of novels rather than chasing one-off hits. Amazon has listed Arts of Dark and Light as a series now, and the reviews for the latest installment continue to be gratifyingly positive.
Vox Day has a gift. He is exceptionally skilled at crafting viewpoints that are reasonable, relatable, emotionally compelling, and completely opposed to each other. This serves him well in the genre of epic fantasy, as it enables him to ensure the reader is fully invested in all the many pieces that make up the puzzle of a great fantasy epic.
Not only do his characters feel realized, his plot is suitably grand. From labyrinthine schemes, to an army that has yet to show its true terror, and a pervading presence of evil that threatens all of Selenoth, our heroes have quite the obstacles to overcome. With these first two books we’ve been shown small pieces of the disaster that is to befall Selenoth, and I for one, cannot wait for the next installment.
Head and shoulders above its predecessor, which is no mean feat! It manages to have multiple characters with completely different viewpoints without a) becoming a confusing mess or b) being disappointing when subbing in an uninteresting character for an interesting one, since all the characters were genuinely interesting. All were fully fleshed out and heroic in their own way. Amazing world-building also really made the story come alive, everything had a real sense of place. A fantastic read, and I can’t wait for the next book in the series!
One of my favorite, all-too-brief parts of Lord of the Rings was the brief view of things we get from an orcish perspective when Sam is temporarily bearing the ring on Frodo’s behalf; not with guilty pleasure because the orcs were bad, but because it gave us a glimpse of the world of Middle Earth and War of the Ring from such a different point of view. A Sea of Skulls, the second installment in the Arts of Dark and Lighttrilogy pentalogy set in the world of Selenoth–a fantasy realm where elves and dwarves, orcs and goblins, have been partially displaced by a Catholicized Roman Empire exerting powerful influence through the iron discipline of its legions–gives us that and much more.
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like for Roman infantry, with their centurions and balllistae, to stand their ground against goblin hordes, war pigs, and orcish shamans (or have now begun to wonder), the world of Selenoth is for you, and the Arts of Dark and Lighttrilogy pentalogy tells a complex and engaging story of war and intrigue set in that world as the various races of Selenoth are manipulated and set against each other by powerful actors in the shadows….
This is grown-up fantasy which makes for a decent study of human (or orcish, for that matter) nature, not to mention Roman military chain of command, and entertains questions like how the seemingly inevitable decline of an advanced but decadent elven civilization could possibly be reversed, and how dwarves unexpectedly stuck in their own tunnels might feel about it. The violence depicted is quite explicit, both in the grim reality of war and especially in the opening scene of a brutal orc raid on a human village, but not exulted in, and one manages to understand the comradery-in-arms of warriors on every side of the struggle, human or otherwise.
But speaking of trilogies that are not trilogies, let’s not forget the first quarter of John C. Wright’s excellent Moth & Cobweb series. The final book of The Green Knight’s Squire have also been getting excellent reviews.
If you like the old tales of elves, heroes, Arthurian legends, men and monsters and great deeds, then you will enjoy this modern retelling. Highly enjoyable and recommended.
Swan Knight’s Sword is a fitting end to the story of Gilberec Moth, an idealistic teenager out of place in the human world who gradually becomes a brave, worthy, Christian knight….The same elements present in the earlier works are apparent here. Swashbuckling adventure featuring lavish description of mystical beings and surroundings as well as full-blooded, desperate combat. A strong sense of Christian morality. Many newly revealed secrets of both Gil’s past and the elf world.
As with the second book, there are a myriad of references, both Christian and pagan, expertly blended together. I was particularly amused by the one to a character of Edgar Rice Burroughs, an author all modern adventure writers owe a debt of gratitude to. Or the use of Roland’s horn.
However, this installment also introduces several new wrinkles. There is a more varied, consistent use of humor. Much of it comes from Ruff, Gil’s trusty dog whose barks he can understand. In fact, all the interaction with Gil talking to animals is funny. John C Wright evidently discovered the same comedic truth that Ricky Gervais has; personifying animals is always funny. There is also verbal humor and some absurdist situations.
Swan Knight’s Sword features an especially strong conclusion, being the culmination of Gil’s transformation from a strange boy into a righteous, mighty man. While it satisfyingly ends this tale of Gilberec Moth, it promises more adventure for both him and the world at large.
Swan Knight’s Sword is the best in this trilogy. A beautiful paean of adventure, courage, honor, loyalty and love. This book reminds me of the stuff I read in my youth, before the fantasy genre was a cesspool of pornography and meaningless nihilistic violence. I laughed, I cried, I wished I had a sword. But of course one does not simply walk into MordorMart and buy a sword, one must be bequeathed a sword by a father, or win one in a heroic quest. And sometimes one must hunt down and confront the magically invulnerable sasquatch that stole your father’s sword. This is one of those times…
On one side of the argument is a collection of godless academics with doctorates from the finest universities in England, France, and the United States. On the other is THE IRRATIONAL ATHEIST author Vox Day, armed with nothing more than historical and statistical facts. Day strips away the pseudo-scientific pretentions of New Atheism with his intelligent application of logic, history, military science, political economy, and well-documented research. The arguments of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Michel Onfray are all methodically exposed and discredited as Day provides extensive evidence proving, among other things, that:
More than 93 percent of all the wars in human history had no relation to religion
The Spanish Inquisition had no jurisdiction over professing Jews, Muslims, or atheists, and executed fewer people on an annual basis than the state of Texas
Atheists are almost four times more likely to be imprisoned than Christians
“Red” state crime is primarily in “blue” counties
Sexually abused girls are 55 times more likely to commit suicide than girls raised Catholic
In the twentieth century, atheistic regimes killed three times more people in peacetime than those killed in all the wars and individual crimes combined. THE IRRATIONAL ATHEIST provides the rational thinker with empirical proof that atheism’s claims against religion are unfounded in logic, fact, and science.
Now in audio from Castalia House, TIA clocks in at just under 10 hours and is narrated by Jon Mollison. You can listen to a sample from the audiobook at Audible. You may also wish to note that ON THE EXISTENCE OF GODS is also available in audiobook format.
Also, in case you might be interested in more Selenoth, THE LAST WITCHKING is free on Amazon today.
Perhaps you will be after reading the reviews of the recently released A SEA OF SKULLS, Book Two in the Arts of Light and Dark epic fantasy series. If you haven’t started the series yet, you will probably want to start with Book One, A THRONE OF BONES, which is available in Kindle Unlimited.
Worthy successor series to LOTR “A Sea of Skulls” picks up and accelerates the pace from “A Throne of Bones”. We see some well-developed characters killed off, but encounter other interesting characters of multiple Selenoth races. Amorr and its former allies and provinces gird for war, while a Lost Legion allies with X to defend against a major orc invasion. The elves and dwarves gather their forces to defend against orcs, and also to keep a sharp eye on Man. At several places, you feel a cold chill as you realize one of the minor characters might well be one of the first race, hiding in shadows, biding its time and waiting to seize power for their own ends (enslaving or destroying the younger races). The action and lead characters are spread across the continent, where military action or political intrigue in one realm affects three or four others. The story line is woven more deftly than the first book, and increases the pull of action and intrigue.
Each race has its backstory and cultural values; gruesome as some may be, the cultures, assumptions, and lifestyles are internally consistent. Vox Day also describes each race’s military merit well, showing a consistent triad of strategy, tactics, and logistics that fits with the race’s culture. There are no all-powerful and ever-victorious species in Selenoth; the trick is in understanding your own strengths and then using you enemy’s weakness to best effect. Coalition forces work or don’t work, based on how well the commanders enhance strength and mitigate weaknesses. Political and social life are well written and reasonable for each race. Some of the best moments in the character views are watching how one observer looks in amazement or bemusement at how another race or culture lives – the fish out of water scenario. The set of viewpoint characters is finite and severely bounded, so it’s possible to keep several scattered event tracks in mind with minimal searching for a reminder.
There is a comparison to be made with A Song of Ice and Fire. By comparison, the Arts of Dark and Light is written much richer, more coherently, with a better span of scope, and with a definite conclusion in mind.
A Genre Revisited From the moment you pick up, and/or scroll through your epub device, you will not be able to put this book down until you have finished it…. If ASOS were an MMA fight, you will be punched in the face in the first thirty seconds, and continually pummeled until the end. There is no respite, no pauses in the action…you will experience Ali fighting Frazier from the moment you begin until the instant you reluctantly put the book down. Each POV character introduced is both interesting and endearing. The characters are so expertly written, that you find yourself wondering who you are rooting for. You will not need to continually consult the appendix to figure out who is speaking…the characters are immediately apparent and recognizable.
I slogged through Jordan’s Wheel of Time series years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed, and struggled through, Martin’s endless introduction of characters in his later books. Regarding both great authors, I must admit that there were times where I scrolled quickly through the flotsam to get to the action. ASOS requires no such recklessness. For those who disregard Vox Day as a Christian seeking to further his evangelistic agenda, have no fear. There is none of that. The prelude itself will avail you of any attempt to evangelize the Christian agenda…. Vox Day has successfully taken a genre and, as no author has done in the past decade, rewritten the rules for fantasy and violence.
Great novel: Better than the first As others have noted, this sequel is better than the original. The writing is better. The characters get better. The dialog gets better. Everything is better. And the first was great.
There is a love that Vox has for his characters. It shows in the richness of vision that describes them, and the way he holds them true to themselves and the culture that created them. It is easy to suspend disbelief in Selenoth and to get caught up in the narrative, carried along by the vivid “lifefullness” of his creations. Even the antagonists in the story, fighting for the “wrong” side, are delivered with an empathy to allow the reader to ride alongside them: Thinking what and how they think, feeling what and why they feel.
Wrap those characters around a exceptionally good story line and you come out with the absolute best novel of the year. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.
Fantastic Epic Fantasy I have hours poring through this monster…. and I can say it is superior in every way to its predecessor. Be forewarned… if you haven’t read A Throne of Bones recently it may be worth your while to refresh your memory a bit. This book doesn’t hold your hand. There is no backtracking to catch you up on important details you may not remember. And if you haven’t read A Throne of Bones then you absolutely cannot start with this one.
The writing is more taut. The different races… orcs… elves… dwarves… are treated much better than the standard fantasy offering and genuinely feel like distinct cultures. Some of the best chapters of the book are actually written from an orc invader’s perspective. The book is courageously written. It doesn’t play nice with your modern sensibilities… and it does not shrink from the brutal realities of invasion, warfare, and barbarism
The early reviews are in, and I’m pleased to see that the general verdict is that A SEA OF SKULLS is an improvement on A THRONE OF BONES. Success, for a writer of epic fantasy, is when one aims at George RR Martin, only to discover that with Book Two, reviewers are beginning to compare the work to that of Tolkien rather than Martin.
Even better than the first. The perspectives were well written and differed entirely on the concepts of civilization and what it means for each to make war. Whether it is from an orc captain or an elven wing of flying calvary, a stranded Legion, a feudal kingdom of knights and let us not forget the Vikings. All unique with a current of practical realism in how strategy and tactics play out in total war including the inner turmoil of personal ideology of each main character. What is the right choice? What pieces make up the foundation of how to even begin to inform one of which choice is wisdom and which folly.
Epic on the level of Tolkien, but written in a totally different way, for a different generation of audience. Tolkien addressed good and evil of his generations struggle, while Day is focused on the heart of his own generation. Good and evil are timeless, but the battlefield shifts with the times and Day nails it.
When I began writing Arts of Dark and Light, I believed that I could do better than Martin did in A Dance With Dragons, which I found extremely disappointing given the earlier books in the series. I was naively optimistic that the decline in quality I perceived in the fifth book of ASOIAF was more the result of a foolish decision on Martin’s part to fill in the blanks rather than skipping ahead to when the dragons were grown, as I understand was his original plan.
After all, even though A Storm of Swords was not quite as good as its two predecessors, the introduction of the Ironborn and their religion was a spectacular scene, and it was entirely possible that its deficiencies were more related to middle-book syndrome than any incapacity or lack of imagination on Martin’s part. And the problem with A Feast for Crows was obviously mere fat fantasy bloat, a problem easily resolved by stripping things down. But A Dance With Dragons was simply bad, with false characterizations and even the dread river journey; the surefire sign of an author who lacks for better ideas. Even given the signs that the decline was structural in nature, it never once occurred to me that I could write anything equal to the rest of the series.
However, as I struggled with the challenges of deciding how to proceed with all the various options presented by the perspective characters, and prospective new perspective characters in the second book, I began to realize how thoroughly Martin had ruined A Song of Ice and Fire when he expanded it from the original concept of a trilogy. What I realized was that as the story expanded, and as the characters separated, even more discipline and focus was required, not less. In other words, fewer perspective characters, but deeper engagement with their personal story, and therefore letting significant elements of the larger story go without more than tangential attention or description.
This is why it has taken me so much longer to write the second book. It was less about simply cranking out the story, and more about making good decisions about what not to write and what avenues to leave unexplored. Even a well-written and interesting scene is a problem if it requires going down a path that will ultimately prove an unnecessary distraction.
Martin’s error, as I see it, is that he tried to describe too much of the larger story while failing to understand which of his characters are necessary to the larger story. His books increasingly read as if Tolkien had decided to devote as much of The Return of the King to Elrond in Rivendell, and to introducing the travails of a new female character from Bree, as he does to Aragorn and Frodo. Martin’s error is compounded by his apparent compulsion to keep trying to shock the reader; the impact of the Red Wedding was considerably less than that of Ned’s execution despite the greater quantity of blood shed, because the sophisticated reader can’t help but see it coming. Moreover, Martin increasingly relies upon cheating the reader, engaging in increasingly transparent sleight-of-hand, and sabotaging his characters in order to try to achieve the effect he is foolishly seeking.
The idea that the Young Wolf, who has proven to be a brilliant strategist and tactician, is going to throw everything away for love in the middle of a war to avenge his father is so profoundly stupid, and so false to his character as established, that it actually made me angry at the time. And all so that Martin could have an excuse to “shock” the reader. That was the moment that I realized Martin was not necessarily the first-rate writer one might have believed on the basis of the first book, although I wrongly assumed at the time that it was a singular mistake.
I won’t give away any details, nor will I claim to be a better or more accomplished writer than Martin across the board, but I will note that in ATOB, I was capable of pulling off something that Martin proved unable to do without cheating, despite multiple attempts on his part to do so. What is intriguing about the recent reviews of A SEA OF SKULLS is that, unlike when I started writing Arts of Light and Dark, I now believe that the end result of what will be a five-book series has the potential to be considered by impartial readers of the future to be a better epic fantasy in the end than A Song of Ice and Fire.
I’m not saying that it will be, only that I now think it may be possible. There is still a long and arduous road ahead. It is possible that my writing has peaked, it is possible that Martin will somehow manage to pull a rabbit out of a hat and reverse his apparent decline. Only time will tell. But what I can say is that it is no longer my object to write an epic that will be seen as being worthy of comparison to Martin’s, but rather, one to which his series compares unfavorably. That may sound arrogant or it may sound insane. Nevertheless, that is my objective.
The good news, for those who are just reading the first book now, is that the second one is now available. And, of course, for those who have read both, there is Summa Elvetica and the collection of short stories set in Selenoth, which will be available in hardcover and paperback editions next month.
A fabulous read, very entertaining. I was very sad to reach the end. Dammit, I want to know what happens next! The sequel cannot come quickly enough. Mr Day is a great new voice in fantasy. The story moves at a brisk pace, and is just a whole lot of fun. The world of Selenoth is imaginatively realised, and both more logical and intriguing than Westeros from Game of thrones. I was particularly impressed by the scenes featuring the Legions, which featured some incredible battles. Very well realised. Highly recommended for anybody who likes fantasy. Great characters. Shocking twists. And a story that continues to suprise right up to the end. Try it, and see for yourself just how quickly you go through its hundreds of pages.
I recently finished The Nine Laws by Ivan Throne of DarkTriadMan.com, the new Castalia House release. The book is basically like A Book of Five Rings, or perhaps more so, the Art of War, a little more organized and spread broadly to cover the way of approaching life in its entirety. It is also infused with Ninjutsu lessons in mindset, philosophy, and strategy which the author has acquired in his study of that art. That is all overlaid on an analysis of the Dark Triad Traits, and the specific advantages which aspects of those traits can contribute to success in endeavors, if used properly. In short, I think it is among the best mindset/strategy books out there, and I expect that there will be a lot of copies of Art of War and Five Rings throughout the world finding a bold new title sharing their space on the bookshelves of the world….
To be clear, the book is not advocating for the dark triads traits broadly. As an example, it encourages the aspects of narcissism which lead to success – the belief in self, the grand visions it produces, the fearlessly plunging into endeavors as if failure is impossible. Those are all traits of the narcissist which explain why you see so many narcissists attain high positions in life. They expect success, and plunge into ridiculous endeavors as if it is to be expected.
But not all narcissists succeed, and those who fail due to their malady fail badly. He examines why this is, and concludes correctly, in my opinion, that the reason is delusion. Narcissists, just as their malady drives them forward relentlessly, and fearlessly, also suffer from a detachment from reality which leads them to misjudge their abilities and expect success to just happen. He encourages you to develop the former traits of plunging forward fearlessly into grand visions, while maintaining a grasp of reality and an ability to see where failure may arise so you may enjoy the benefits of the narcissist’s grandiose vision, without the detriments of being unable to effectively plot courses.
Similarly, sociopaths enjoy freedom from the moral rules which constrain others. But their ignorance of them is reflex, and uncontrolled. That leads them to stumble as often as they ascend. He encourages a recognition of the fact that there are no rules, but tempers it with a recognition that ignorance of the rules may have consequences, and thus you must always be on the lookout for them.
Because the book is so deep, I cannot say how it will change your life. I’d need to post that review in a few years. But I can say there is a ton of wisdom in the book, and it is solid.
This is an important review, because AC is the foremost observer of narcissism, sociopathy, and deranged minds in general on the Internet. The Nine Laws has been a surprisingly good seller for Castalia, and should easily break the 10,000-lifetime sales mark that serves as the unofficial “successful book” line in the mainstream publishing world now that the average U.S. nonfiction book is now selling less than 250 copies per year.
It may sound counterproductive to look to deranged minds for success strategies, but the fact of the matter is that those strategies are so effective that they allow even the delusional and the brain-damaged to succeed despite themselves. Therefore, it makes sense that a healthy mind utilizing the positive aspects of those strategies while rejecting the negative ones should be able to generate even more success for itself.
It was interesting and informative to watch a countdown show of the top 20 moments in Star Wars cinematic history. All of the top moments were from the first two movies, and the so-called “top moments” from the new movies – none of which I have seen – were almost uniformly lame. I had a hard time not laughing at the setup for the death of Han Solo, as all I could hear in my mind was Gandalf shouting “you shall not pass!”
Filmmakers really shouldn’t try to rip off great moments from other films. Sure, the visual is great, but it kicks the viewer out of the movie as surely as a poorly-timed product placement.
The only really good one was the fight between Darth Maul, the young Obi-wan, and Liam Neeson. Some of them, like Girl Luke and her Man Friday accidentally boarding the Millennium Falcon and recreating earlier flight combat scenes, were simply embarrassing.
Wait a minute, after thirty-nine years, it turns out that Star Wars is about race?
Sort of. You may not notice at first (I didn’t, until the second half of the movie), but in Rogue One there isn’t a single non-Hispanic white male among the large cast of heroes. The rebel band seeking to steal the plans for the Death Star from the Empire is led by a white woman (Felicity Jones), a Latino man (Diego Luna) and three ethnic Asians (Riz Ahmed, Donnie Yen, Wen Jiang), with advice from a black man (Forest Whitaker) and a droid (voice of Alan Tudyk). Among the rebels, non-Hispanic white dudes (for convenience, I’ll just call them white from now on) are relegated to the background, while the Empire is represented by brigades of sinister white men, led by Ben Mendelsohn and (the digital reincarnation of) Peter Cushing as Imperial officers. It’s as if the cast was meant to echo a Hillary Clinton speech in which she described her coalition as everybody but white males.
The casting was not accidental. The Empire is (now) a “white supremacist (human) organization,” Rogue One co-writer Chris Weitz Tweeted the Friday after Clinton was defeated in the election. Another writer for the film, Gary Whitta, replied with his own Tweet, “Opposed by a multi-cultural group led by brave women”—then deleted it.
Needless to say, this aggression will not stand, man. Look for a literary response to the nonsense from Castalia in 2017.
It’s also unsurprising to learn that SJW-converged Wired is up to its usual tricks. The reporter is evidently confused about the difference between “reporting” and “debating”, as can be seen in her impromptu debate with Mike Cernovich:
Hi Mike—WIRED is reporting on #DumpStarWars, which I see you’ve participated in. Any chance you’d like to chat about why you’re boycotting?
Star Wars writers hate Trump voters. Why give them money?
From what I’ve seen, what they really hate are white supremacists. You don’t see throwing alt-right/lite/west support behind the boycott as reinforcing the idea that trump supporters=white supremacists?
Buddy my wife is Persian, we have a daughter, the white supremacist stuff is stupid as hell.
To be clear, I wasn’t saying you were a white supremacist. But much of the backlash has focused on the idea that Rogue One is racist against white men. Are you saying that white supremacist sentiment isn’t a factor in the protest?
Nah that’s not it at all. I don’t see why this is hard to understand. Trump supporters are attacked. Giving money to people who attack them is pathetic. I am going to organize more boycotts.
I’m struggling to find evidence that Rogue One’s writers have been explicitly against anything but white supremacy. Could you point out an example?
What’s the matter, Mike? Why come you won’t make the argument I keep trying to stuff in your mouth instead of saying what you actually think?
Lobotomized and depersonalized, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” the latest entry in the film franchise, is a pure and perfect product that makes last year’s flavor, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” feel like an exemplar of hands-on humanistic warmth and dramatic intimacy…. “Rogue One” offers an international cast that, along with Jones, Whitaker, and Mikkelsen, features Diego Luna (as the rebel captain Cassian Andor, who is Jyn’s main cohort), Riz Ahmed (as the band’s intrepid pilot), and Donnie Yen (as a blind martial-arts spiritualist). But it seems as if the condition for assembling this diverse group is not letting them say or do anything of note, anything of any individual distinction, anything of any free-floating or idiosyncratic implication.
The Black Friday 1+1 sale was so successful that we’ve decided to do it again, only this time there is no limit on the number of ebooks you can get. If you buy 20 Castalia print editions, we’ll send you the 20 different ebooks you want. The only caveats are:
The print sales have to be from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Both hardcovers and paperbacks are eligible.
A SEA OF SKULLS is not an eligible ebook selection UNLESS you buy a print edition of A THRONE OF BONES. The extended edition of ASOS will not be provided to those acquiring ASOS as a bonus copy.
The bonus copy version of THE NINE LAWS will not include the chapter-heading images.
All ebooks sent out will be DRM-free epub. If you prefer Kindle or some other format, just download Calibre and convert it. It takes five seconds.
Kindle Select ebooks are not eligible due to Amazon’s restrictions on non-Amazon distribution. A list of the eligible non-KDP Select ebooks is below.
It’s pretty simple. Order one or more print books from Amazon or B&N today, December 14th. Email a copy of the invoice dated 12/14/2016 with 1+1 in the subject. Specify the non-Kindle Select ebooks you want. Give the print books as gifts and keep the ebooks for yourself.
A text sample from the newly released Book Two in Arts of Dark and Light, A SEA OF SKULLS, featuring one of the new perspective characters, Lugbol, the captain of a warband of orcs called the Black Fist. If you are new to the fictional world of Selenoth, pick up both Books One and Two, but start with A THRONE OF BONES for a combined 1,303 pages of truly epic military fantasy.
“I have tasted Manflesh! I have raped she-men! I have burned Man cities!”
Lugbol rolled his eyes. Who hadn’t? He was almost embarrassed for the big mountain orc, who was boasting of his accomplishments while stalking back and forth in a large circle of about fifty warband leaders listening to their warleader’s customary evening rant. As for the burned cities, most of them had held populations smaller than Lugbol’s own kai hari gungiyar. If they were the terrible Man cities of which Lugbol had been told frightening stories since he was a small orcling, then he was a one-armed goblin.
“Man-Zarki’agh shaking in their tents! Man-Kings on their thrones pissing themselves when they hear the name Zlatagh! Zlatagh Life-taker! Zlatagh Piss-maker! Zlatagh Man-eater!”
That was their cue. “Maneater! Maneater!” the shugaba’ugh obediently chanted, Lugbol among them. He knew that Zlatagh secretly hungered after the praise-name Mansbane, but even the giant warleader knew better than to risk stepping on the clawed toes of the Great Orc Azzakhar, whose claim to the title would certainly trump Zlatagh’s.
And Lugbol rather doubted any Man-King had ever heard the name Zlatagh, let alone pissed himself for fear of it.
Zlatagh was an imposing brute, though, even for a mountain orc. He stood nearly a head taller than most of the shugaba’ugh gathered around him, with a thick chest and heavy muscles that belied his violent speed. A pair of captured iron Man plates covered each powerful shoulder; two cow’s horns had somehow been driven through the center of both breastplates, curving upward like two spare pairs of tusks. Zlatagh’s own tusks were nearly as large; they were thick, yellowed with maturity, and reached nearly to the tip of his nose. Almost unique among the orcs present, Zlatagh’s tusks were unsharpened and unadorned with any bone, paint, or metal.
But that didn’t mean they weren’t fearsome weapons. Lugbol had seen with his own eyes how the big orc once used them to disembowel a goblin. The goblin had been wearing leather armor too, which made the feat all the more impressive. After Azzakhar commanded Zlatagh to invade the Man lands two moons past, the Maneater had found himself facing three challenges to his leadership, two of them on the very first day. Zlatagh beheaded one with the monstrous cleaver he called Headchopper, blinded the second with his bare hands, and ripped the arm off the third before using it to bash in the skull of the overmatched orc. At this point, only a truly thick-skulled shugaba would dare to cross the giant orc, let alone challenge him.
Nor, beyond personal ambition, was there any reason for anyone to do so. Zlatagh was a good warleader, and the warbands over which he’d been given command had enjoyed an unbroken string of victories under his leadership. More than one hundred Man villages had been pillaged and burned, and the orc encampment was littered with the broken remnants of trophies taken throughout the spring campaign. None could complain that he had not passed the ultimate test of leadership; providing his followers with more food than they could eat and more booty than they could carry. Not a single orc’s belly didn’t bulge with fat of the last two moons’ devourings, and even the most cowardly goblin wolfrider wore decorative trophies of one sort or another by now.
That didn’t mean Lugbol was entirely confident in the big mountain orc. Smashing sparsely guarded hamlets and carrying off helpless herds and captives was one thing, defeating a large and well-armed army of the sort that waited for them at the northwestern edge of the Korokhurmagh was another. Zlatagh could boast that the Man chieftains were pissing themselves and afraid to take the field against him all he liked, but it hadn’t escaped Lugbol’s notice that it was their forces who avoided meeting the mounted patrols that chased them throughout the woods, and that Zlatagh hadn’t moved their encampment one step closer to the Man army ever since its presence had been reported by wolfriders fleeing from the metal-clad Mandokki warriors and the huge, fierce, four-legged beasts they rode.
“Who marches today! Who takes the fight to Man!”
“Lugbol!” Lugbol raised his fist and cried half-heartedly, quite happy to be outshouted by other shugaba’ugh more eager to demonstrate their enthusiasm to the big orc. “Lugbol!”
In truth, he was hoping to spend the next day or three in the camp, sleeping, squagging, and allowing four of his wounded warriors to recover from their injuries. One of his trophies was a large keg of yellow liquid that looked like piss, tasted like honey, and hit the skull harder than ale, wine, or club. He didn’t know what it was called, but he fully intended to drain it with the help of a few select companions this evening. It was a pity no females had been permitted; a few abokhi’agh would just about make for a perfect way to spend a lazy afternoon. There were a few she-men in the prisoner corral, but Lugbol was more in the mood for some relaxed and drunken squagging than having his ears assaulted by the piercing shrieks of a raped man. Rape was a fine thing when the dead enemy was strewn about, smoke was in one’s nostrils, and one’s blood was up, but for now it struck him as being more akin to work than pleasure. Especially considering how he only had one good arm at his disposal at the moment.
He watched the Maneater nod with satisfaction as the big orc looked over the shouting captains vying for his attention. Zlatagh laughed, a deep guttural sound, as he basked in the raw power of the moment. Two months of slaughter and victory had given him absolute control over the shugaba’ugh, and it was clear that he knew it.
“The auguries!” Zlatagh cried suddenly. “Bring forward the augurs! What say Gor-Gor?”
As the shouting dissolved into a general cheering, Lugbol saw a pair of heavily tattooed orcs with sharpened silver tusk-caps push into the center of the circle. They accompanied someone; at first Lugbol thought it might be a juvenile Man, but then he caught a sight of yellow-green skin and realized it was a goblin. Nearly half their troops were goblins; they had started out with ten thousand but thanks to the inevitable costs of the campaign, there were about fifteen hundred fewer of them now. The doomed creature looked wild with terror; he seemed to have a fair notion of his imminent fate. But he was silent and he did not struggle; there was literally nothing that a single goblin could do to save itself, not when surrounded by howling, blood-hungry orcs with arms twice the thickness of his legs.
The augury looked to be the usual entrail-reading. For some reason Lugbol had never quite grasped, Gor-Gor preferred to speak to his priests through the intestines of his lesser worshippers. Goblins were the preferred method of communication, though orcs, Men, and even large rats would do in a pinch. He noticed Gor-Gor never seemed to speak through either wolves or warboars, two martial commodities that were always in great demand.
The goblin broke his silence when one shaman kneeled down before him, then ripped open his stomach with both silver-tipped tusks. As the other shaman held the victim, chanting all the while, the killer began calling out the haruspictic ritual and reached into the goblin with both hands. Then he began walking backwards, pulling the dying goblin’s innards out. After taking seven steps, he gave three firm tugs, then finally released the bloody, stinking offal and let it fall with a wet thud. The other shaman followed his example, stepping back and finally allowing the moaning goblin to collapse, dying, to the ground.
Lugbol saw the shaman raise his bloody hands and call out to Gor-Gor. The shaman’s eyes suddenly rolled back into his head and he swayed back and forth, as if drunk, while looking over the entrails spread out upon the ground. He took a step forward, then another, holding his palms toward the ground with his fingers spread wide. It was as if he was feeling his way through something rising up from the spilled innards. Several of the shaman’s tattoos flared into life; a rune on his shoulder blazed red and began to smoke as it burned away his skin, but the shaman didn’t seem to feel or notice anything was wrong. With nothing but the whites of his eyes showing, he began to grunt and growl. Gradually, the guttural noises became discernible as words.
“Fire,” he rumbled. “Fire burns. Demon wings of fire, burning, burning. Demons, iron demons, and death.”
The shugaba’ugh looked at each other, confused. This was not how the ritual usually proceeded. Zlatagh’s eyes narrowed and he made as if to step forward, then the big orc stopped himself. Even a warleader would not dare to lay claws upon a shaman in the holy grip of Gor-Gor.
“Death come, death come, on fire and iron, death come to all!” The shaman’s voice rose into a shriek and he thrust his bloody hands skyward. Then, he began to shake and shiver, as if Gor-Gor was attempting to rid himself of his puppet. Finally, the shaman collapsed face-first on the ground, where he lay motionless except for his labored breathing. Smoke, stinking of burned flesh, rose from three or four blackened tattoos on his back and shoulders.
“The Hell he say? What does that mean?” a furious Zlatagh demanded of the other shaman. One might have almost thought that he was alarmed. “What was the damn augury?” Lugbol looked around at his fellow shugaba’ugh. They were agitated and alarmed, with one significant exception. Snaghak, alone among the warband captains, wore an expression that was full of fury. He no longer looked triumphant, he looked downright vengeful. And, for once, Lugbol thought, Snaghak’s hatred didn’t appear to be directed at him. He stifled a dismissive snort and returned his attention to Zlatagh, who had grabbed the smaller shaman by his tattooed shoulders and was shaking him while shouting in his face.
“I don’t know!” the smaller orc pleaded. “I swear, I swear by Gor-Gor’s tail, I don’t know what happened!”
Zlatagh snarled in disgust and shoved the tattooed orc away from him. Then a groan from the fallen shaman caught the big orc’s attention and he whirled around to see the shaman, his skin still smoking slightly, trying to push himself up from the ground. The injured shaman failed the first time with a barely muted cry, then his muscles bulged with effort as he succeeded in rising to his knees on his second attempt. He didn’t seem to have known what happened to him earlier, because he suddenly winced and looked down at the burns on his shoulders with an expression of pained surprise.
“You!” Zlatagh said, reaching out and pulling the shaman to his feet. “What did you do? What thing did you see in the guts there? What secrets did Gor-Gor tell you?”
The shaman rolled his eyes and slumped in the warleader’s grasp. His initial reply was a drawn-out groan, but when the warleader violently shook him, it seemed to pull him out of his swoon. “I saw death. Everywhere, death.”
“Whose death! The Man cities?”
“No,” the stricken shaman said. He stared intensely into Zlatagh’s face. “Ours. Everywhere, all throughout the woods, I saw orcs dead on the ground, murdered, all of them, by demons of fire and iron!”
“You lie!” Zlatagh shouted instinctively, before driving an oversized fist into the shaman’s tattooed face. There was a loud crunch and the shaman crumpled as if he’d been cloven through the head with a dwarven axe. Whether the shaman was dead or not, Lugbol couldn’t tell, but he wouldn’t be surprised either way.
Zlatagh pointed at the other shaman, who was cringing behind the corpse of the goblin. “You, read the bloody guts! And tell me the truth or I’ll rip your balls out of your sack and feed them to you!”
In Selenoth, the war drums are beating throughout the land. The savage orcs of Hagahorn and Zoth Ommog are on the move, imperiling Man, Dwarf, and Elf alike. The Houses Martial of Amorr have gone to war with each other, pitting legion against legion, and family against family as civil war wracks the disintegrating Empire. In the north, inhuman wolf-demons besiege the last redoubt of Man in the White Sea, while in Savondir, the royal house of de Mirid desperately prepares to defend the kingdom against an invading army that is larger than any it has ever faced before. And in the underground realm of the King of Iron Mountain, a strange new enemy has begun attacking dwarf villages throughout the Underdeep.
Beneath the widespread violence that has seized all Selenoth in its grasp, a select few are beginning to recognize the appearance of a historic pattern of almost unimaginable proportions. Are all these conflicts involving Orc, Elf, Man, and Dwarf the natural result of inevitable rivalries, or are they little more than battlegrounds in an ancient war that began long before the dawn of time?
Epic fantasy at its deepest and most intense. A SEA OF SKULLS is Book II in the ARTS OF DARK AND LIGHT series that began with A THRONE OF BONES.
A SEA OF SKULLS is 449 pages, DRM-free, and retails for $5.99 on Amazon and at Castalia House. This is the early edition of the book; those who purchase it now will receive a free copy of the 850-page final edition in ebook format if they a) buy the book on Amazon and send a copy of the Kindle receipt to voxday-at-gmail-dot-com right away or b) buy the book from the Castalia House store.
UPDATE: just to be perfectly clear, New Release subscribers are free to download the bonus book from John Van Stry regardless of where they purchase A Sea of Skulls.
Every author faces a few decisions when he writes a book, particularly when writing a sequel. Be driven by the market or be driven by the vision. Write more of the same that has proven popular or go where the story takes you. These are not binary decisions, but a series of gradients, and while the consequences of those decisions vary, there are no right or wrong decisions per se, only more effective and less effective decisions which depend entirely upon the perspective.
I made two choices in writing the second book of Arts of Dark and Light, and I have no idea if my decisions will prove to be popular or not. The first decision was that it had to be better from my perspective and more true to my original vision than its predecessor was. That’s why it has taken longer to write. Before, I was only dealing in existing human cultures. Now, I had to work in 3+ inhuman cultures as well, which proved considerably more difficult. The second decision was to increase the contrast. A moral dilemma where there is neither potential loss to the character nor moral consequence is no true dilemma. A choice that is obvious to everyone but an idiot is no true choice. Good people do bad things, and bad people do good things, but the character of a man is seldom defined by a single act. And, I decided, even the most minor character deserves to be taken seriously, presented fairly, and speak with his own voice. Or her own voice. As an example of what I mean by that, here is a sample of the text at Castalia House.
In other words, this is a “damn the torpedoes” book. It should be interesting to learn who likes it better than A THRONE OF BONES and who likes it less. But I hope you will enjoy it, and I hope those of you who read it will be as diligent about posting serious and substantive reviews as you were with its predecessor.
As a side note, I find it incredible to observe that, according to Amazon’s page count, there is now more Selenoth, with 1837 pages of Summa Elvetica + A Throne of Bones + A Sea of Skulls, than there is Middle Earth proper, with 1531 for Lord of the Rings + The Hobbit. It’s not as good, of course – how could it possibly be – but it is worthy of the title “epic”. I should mention that there will be print editions in April-May and they will be the final edition.
Thanks very much to Matthew, Robert, and Kirk for all their hard work in getting this out before the end of the year.
