Tag: Castalia House

The New Yorker on Mike Cernovich

Andrew Marantz wrote a surprisingly balanced article about Castalia author Mike Cernovich for The New Yorker:

Walter Cronkite was once the most trusted man in America; in 2013, according to a Reader’s Digest survey, the most trusted person was Tom Hanks. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Walter Cronkite lied about everything,” Cernovich said. “Before Twitter, how would you have known? Look, I read postmodernist theory in college. If everything is a narrative, then we need alternatives to the dominant narrative.” He smiled. “I don’t seem like a guy who reads Lacan, do I?”

I’ll admit it, I laughed. Milo is obviously brilliant. Stefan is obviously brilliant. I can obviously hold my own. And Mike… Mike is considerably smarter than he allows people to assume him to be. We don’t consider him a peer because he has a sizeable following; Kim Kardashian has a following.

Around 3:30 p.m., he announced that he was done for the day. “I’ll go to the gym, relax for a bit,” he said. Before closing his laptop, he checked his direct messages on Twitter, and found a tip alleging that, in 2014, a Reddit user had asked for help removing a “VERY VIP” e-mail address “from a bunch of archived e-mail.” The tipster claimed that the Reddit user was Paul Combetta, one of Hillary Clinton’s I.T. staffers. Cernovich clicked the link to the Reddit thread and noticed that it had been deleted. “Son of a bitch!” he said. “This might actually be true.”

He returned to muckraking mode. “We’re going to make a whole new news cycle about her fucking e-mails again!” he said. “This poor fucking woman.” He started a new Periscope video. “What do you guys want to do for a hashtag?” he said. He decided on #HillarysHacker. It was trending before he finished the video. That day, more than forty-two thousand tweets were posted with the hashtag.

I returned to Cernovich’s house the next morning. By then, the Reddit story had been covered by Vice and New York, and a congressman had asked prosecutors in Washington, D.C., to look into it.

Few things make more of an impression than a called home run. This was a particularly effective demonstration of generating a media cycle because the reporter had the chance to see Mike’s process at work. He knew it was no mere coincidence that the media cycle had magically taken shape.

Shauna, of course, comes off as charming and delightful as ever. It’s a pity, though, that Marantz didn’t know that the bestselling MAGA Mindset beat Hillary Clinton’s own book in its own category of Political Leadership.

Because that wasn’t an accident either.

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.

A skull for the SDL!

A reader on Gab successfully applies the lessons of SJWs Always Lie:

A SJW just resigned in embarrassment after unsuccessfully attacking me at work! Thanks to “SJWs Always Lie” by @voxday, I was able to preempt her by predicting her plan/goals to my colleagues. Her coup attempt was strongly rebuffed by them; after realizing she had no support she left in disgrace.

These days, no one is safe from SJWs. They are a plague upon Western Civilization and one can neither reason with nor negotiate with them. If you haven’t read the book yet, it really is in your best interests to do so. It can observably make the difference between you losing your job in disgrace and your SJW attacker doing so.

Anyhow, I love to see AARs of anti-SJW defenses, particularly the successful ones. But even the unsuccessful ones are informative.

A tale of three reviews

Bestselling SF author Christopher Nuttall reviews MAGA MINDSET: Making YOU and America Great Again:

MAGA Mindset is not specifically about Trump, although – as you might have guessed – it discusses Trump and his appeal in some detail. Instead, it is a background study of the present-day cultural conflict – I would really call it a civil war – within America and, in at least some aspects, the rest of the West. Such an assessment is long overdue, yet often lacking. Politics, as always, cast a long shadow over any such assessment….

One can only be defeated if one accepts defeat. Trump’s success comes from two factors – the willingness to dream big and the willingness to keep going, even after setbacks. He is correct in many ways – but Big Government works hard to make it difficult. Fighting them can be immensely demoralising. But we have to carry on regardless.

This is a historic election. And this book goes quite some way towards explaining why.

Even if you don’t like Trump, even if you recoil in horror at the thought of President Trump taking office next year, you need to read this book.

Speaking of politics, It’s always cute when fake reviewers try to guess what the book is about, and guess wrong:

Used to be a long time reader of Mike and his blog; this book lacked any real evidence as to why Trump and his policies are and actually will be effective if he were to win the 2016. This book completely ignores the discussion of policy and instead focuses on “mindset” techniques that have been rehashed from Gorilla Mindset and his previous blog postings. If Donald Trump loses, this entire book and Mike will lose credibility, proving that Mike has become nothing more than a sheep for the alt-right movement / manosphere.

Notice a theme with these one-star “reviewers”?

I’m a long time reader of Cernovich’s excellent blog, and I’ve purchased and enjoyed his previous books. It saddens me the way the entire “manosphere” has latched onto the odious Donald Trump, swallowing his garbage hook line and sinker. Cernovich claims to be “journalist” now, but in reality he is nothing but a Trump cheerleader, repeating the usual Trump conspiracy theories (Clinton has Parkinsons, election is rigged, etc). If you like Trump, you will probably like this book. Honestly, even if I did like Trump this would be a pretty pathetic effort.

I’m always sorry to see one of our writers disappoint a long time reader[sic] in this way.

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)

CLIO & ME: An Intellectual Autobiography

“Martin van Creveld ranks high among military historians, and given the changes in technology since Napoleonic Times, his work is a necessary supplement to Clausewitz.” 
– Jerry Pournelle

Dr. Martin van Creveld is a significant contributor to the literature of war. A Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Dr. van Creveld is one of the world’s leading writers on military history and strategy, with a special interest in the future of war. He is fluent in Hebrew, German, Dutch, and English, and has authored more than twenty books, including the influential Technology and War: 2000 BC to the Present (1988), The Transformation of War (1991), and The Culture of War (2010). He is known for his development of the concept of “nontrinitarian” warfare as well as contributing two books to the 4GW canon, and he is deeply respected by military officers and professional strategists around the world.

CLIO & ME: An Intellectual Biography is Dr. van Creveld’s most personal book, an honest, heartfelt account of his lifelong love affair with the Muse of History. It is an autobiography, not of the life, but of the mind, and as such, will be of great interest to historians and students of history alike. This “intellectual autobiography” reveals one of the great historical minds of the 21st Century to be eternally curious, endlessly inquisitive, and, unexpectedly, possessed of more than a little charm. CLIO & ME: An Intellectual Biography is 288 pages, DRM-Free, and retails for $4.99 on Amazon.

I have to say that has been a real pleasure for me to work with Martin, who is very warm and friendly in person, in stark contrast to the vast and coldly calculating mind that one occasionally glimpses in his work. He is certainly the only Castalia author with whom I am on hugging terms. But it is not at all surprising to learn that some of his professors later confessed themselves to have been intimidated by him in his youth. This is a rare opportunity to see inside the head of a genuine genius, with the historian’s lens reversed and turned on himself for a change.

Anyone who admires the military historian must read this work, of course, but it will also be of interest to those who enjoy reading biographies.

Mindset or Metal?

It’s coming soon. From Mike Cernovich and Castalia House. Now, you have to keep in mind, I’m probably the only person who has read the book before seeing the cover. When I saw it, my first reaction was to laugh. And my second reaction was to say, “oh, yes, that’s perfect”. The only way a non-fiction book could be more metal is if it was an actual encyclopedia of heavy metal. You can almost hear the guitars crunching.



“Readers are tired of basic bitch content. They want edge. They want pop. They want swagger. My readers are ferocious and want to stand out. Let the content serfs serve up the same undifferentiated slop. I only want savages and madmen and madwomen reading me.”


Until MAGA Mindset is released, readers will have to contend with Gorilla Mindset, “which is more complete than MAGA Mindset,” Cernovich said. “However, my editor Vox Day told me the writing in MAGA Mindset is the best I’ve done. I’ve always said the only person who can best me is me. Once MAGA Mindset is released, readers will be able to decide for themselves!”


It is good. It is really good. There were entire sections I wanted to underline and read to my kids. I won’t be even a little surprised if it outsells Gorilla Mindset, and Gorilla Mindset has sold astonishingly well.

Mike is a madman. He’s also one of the very few people I seek out for advice, because he’s one of the few people whose advice has been of material benefit to me. Some longtime Dread Ilk have commented that VP seems to have gotten more intense over the last year, and to the extent that is true, it is a direct result of my relationship with Mike.

For the ladies

Cryptofashion is now offering women’s v-necks as well. They have Castalia House REVOLUTION IN SCIENCE FICTION in black and various shades of blue.

And PLANETARY KNOWLEDGE CORE shirts are available too, but only in black. If you are a female Original Galaxian, don’t forget to use your code if you want an ORIGINAL GALAXIAN version instead. If you send us pictures of you in your v-neck, or tweet them, we’ll RT/Tweet them from the appropriate Gab/Twitter account.

Another category bestseller

While I’m very pleased to be informed that THE NINE LAWS, Castalia’s new mindset book by Ivan Throne, has hit #1 in the Consciousness and Thought category, I am more than a little amused to see that two of the top three Gender Studies books are a) The Nine Laws and b) Gorilla Mindset.

Who would could have possibly imagined something like this happening back in the days when the chief adversary of the blog was Amanda Marcotte and the Pandagonian feminists? And now there are not one, but TWO Castalia House authors dominating the Gender Studies bestsellers.

From the reviews of THE NINE LAWS:

  • Ivan provides a counterpunch to the weakness permeating our culture.
  • This isn’t a book written by some nobody who’s lived an easy life and speaks only about theory. Rather, his struggles and endeavors have taught him firsthand how brutal the world can be and what you must do to survive and thrive.
  • “If you love Game of Thrones, this is the self-help book for you! P.S. You’re gonna die.” His pain is your gain.
  • This book is NOT for everybody. It reads like a gathering storm, and deals in hard truths.

On a tangential note, the first Castalia House “Revolution in Science Fiction” t-shirts are now available from Dark Lord Designs. I’d be interested in knowing what other Castalia-related designs might be of interest to the Ilk. Anything is possible, from There Will Be War covers to red Van Creveld Che shirts. I’d like a half-hex 4GW-logo baseball cap myself.