Tag: Castalia House

Gearing up for Vol. XI

I am very pleased to observe that Jerry Pournelle has pre-announced a new volume in his legendary There Will Be War series:

Shortly we will announce that There Will Be War, Volume XI will be published in November and is now open for submissions. It’s not the formal announcement because I don’t have the web addresses for formal submission. I don’t open attachments to emails to me (obviously with some exceptions which I’m not going to tell you) because I only read plaintext in Outlook, so sending me stories to Chaos Manor isn’t going to work; I’m sure I’ll have the web addresses very shortly.

Publisher is Castalia House. There will be an omnibus hardbound edition (with Vol. XII) and eBook editions. We buy non-exclusive anthology rights only: that means we buy previously published works, and if you send an original work – a lot of people do – understand that if it is accepted you still have first serial rights until after November, after which they no longer exist for anyone. Payment on acceptance is an advance against royalties: royalties vary in this strange age, so it’s hard to say exactly, but they are competitive, and contributors receive a pro-rata share of half what I receive.

My contribution is a volume introduction, and individual story introductions. I have been known to make editorial suggestions, particularly to original contributions. I have also been known to make other contributions, fiction and non-fiction, as I find necessary.

The series has done well, even the nearly thirty-year-old volumes. Three stories in Volume X were nominated for Hugo Awards.

We’ll get on the email addresses for submissions and whatnot this weekend. In the meantime, this means we’re going to need slush readers for it, so if you’ve got the time and you wish to volunteer to be the first line of defense, please email me with VOL XI in the title.  Last year’s readers did an excellent job, so the bar is high. Every reader should expect to read between 20 and 30 short stories in six months.

Nota Bene: If you’re thinking of submitting once the floodgates open, that’s great, but DO NOT SEND ANYTHING THAT IS NOT MILITARY SCIENCE FICTION. I cannot stress this enough. I couldn’t believe how many stories we were sent that were obviously and totally unsuitable for the anthology series. Don’t waste your time. Don’t waste our time. And keep in mind that Jerry is no respecter of persons. I’m the assistant editor, one of my stories, submitted anonymously, passed the slush readers, and Jerry didn’t hesitate to reject it anyhow. He rejected big names. He rejected very big names. He rejected unknown names. He has nothing left to prove and he has high standards, so keep that in mind before you send in anything less than your best.

And yes, we’re still doing Riding the Red Horse Vol. 2. Things have just been a little chaotic, that’s all. Tom and I need to sit down and figure out how many stories we’ve got already, and how many more we need.

A few mostly unrelated items to address while I’m at it:

  1. Can someone email me the .mobi of The Return of the Great Depression? Update: Got it, thank you.
  2. We have some exciting new authors to announce at Castalia House very soon. Three, to be precise.
  3. Is anyone interested in a three- or six-month marketing internship? As you’ve probably noticed, I’m pretty good at that sort of thing, but my bandwidth is increasingly limited and I don’t do one-tenth the marketing that I should do. That’s about all the time that would be necessary to learn everything involved. My thought is to have a revolving marketing internship, in order to maximize the number of Ilk who are up to speed on these things.
  4. Four words: Brainstorm. Steve Keen. Soon.

A question for the readers

Which would you rather have first, A Sea of Skulls or SJWs Always Double Down? I’ve been focusing on the former, given how long Selenoth fans have been waiting, but it occurs to me that it might make sense to, you know, actually ask the core market what it prefers.

On a somewhat related note, the first novel in what could reasonably, but will not be, described as a New Heinlein series, Mutiny in Space by Rod Walker, will be published soon. It’s an intentional attempt to capture the style and spirit of Robert Heinlein’s classic SF juveniles. I think you’ll find it is considerably more successful in doing so than some of the previously declared New Heinleins.

UPDATE: The readers have spoken. The current schedule will remain in place. First A Sea of Skulls, then SJWs Always Double Down.

GOD, ROBOT

It is the year 6080 AD. Detective Theseus Hollywell has at last discovered the hiding place of William Locke, a notorious fugitive from justice who has been hunted for decades after committing unspeakable crimes.


But Locke has a trick up his sleeve, one that the detective couldn’t expect: He has a story to tell.


This is the tale of the theobots, the robotic beings created to love God and Man with a perfection no mere mortal could achieve. In ten stories by eight different science fiction authors, Locke recounts the role of the theobots throughout history, from the purposes for which they were originally created to their ultimate role in deciding the fate of Man, the galaxy, and one lost and tortured soul.

GOD, ROBOT is a themed collection of intertwined stories from some of the best known names in superversive science fiction. Written in the tradition of Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics and edited by Anthony Marchetta, the book contains stories by John C. Wright, Steve Rzasa, Joshua Young, L. Jagi Lamplighter, and others.

GOD, ROBOT is 162 pages, is DRM-free, and is available on Amazon. Note: One story in the collection, “The Logfile” by Vox Day, was previously published in The Altar of Hate.

UPDATE: From the Amazon reviews:

FIVE STARS. This one pleasantly surprised me. I don’t mind
Asimov-style sci-fi and find the basic concept of the three laws of
robotics very interesting, but it’s not my favorite subgenre, and I felt
I could guess where things were going to go before I read it. It took a
few pages, but in spite of my initial reservations I was drawn in by
the multi-part sequential story which takes the well-known three laws
and posits what might happen if two more laws were added… the greatest
commandments of scripture–love God above all, and love your neighbor
as yourself–and builds an alternate future based on the
theologically-aware robot race that results and seeks its own place in
God’s creation.

Castalia site down

I heard from the technical gentlemen. It’s no big deal, just some ISP-related stuff. It should be back up on Friday, Saturday at the latest.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

On the Existence of Gods

ON THE EXISTENCE OF GODS is the response to a public challenge posed by Dr. PZ Myers, a militant atheist who claimed to have never encountered any good arguments for the existence of gods. It is a competitive discourse between a Christian and an atheist, each of whom argue for their position on the subject, after which the arguments are adjudicated by a team of three judges, a Christian, an agnostic, and an atheist, before additional arguments are presented.

The format is compelling and the results are at times surprising, as the discussion takes unexpected twists and turns, while the judges exhibit ruthless impartiality as they criticize the arguments of both sides without mercy or favor. Vox Day, the author of The Irrational Atheist, presents the Christian perspective, while Dominic Saltarelli argues for the atheist position. The debate is wide-ranging and intelligent, but remains civil throughout, even as the momentum swings in favor of one side, and then the other. It also includes an appendix that addresses the argument for a science-based morality presented by Sam Harris in The Moral Landscape.

ON THE EXISTENCE OF GODS is a compelling test of how open the reader’s mind is to the various possibilities of reality, and is a worthy addition to the long history of Man’s contemplation of his own existence in the face of the divine.

From the reviewers:

  • This is the first thing that I’ve read in a very long time that actually had new, novel, and interesting arguments – and both authors achieved this, on both sides of the debate. I find myself giving this book five stars purely for the astonishing
    achievement of presenting novel arguments. After two thousand years of
    debating the topic, that’s a remarkable achievement.
  • Watching a relentlessly logical mind like Vox Day at work is a sight to behold.
  • I enjoyed it very much, not least for the subtlety of the arguments.
    This is a really enjoyable intellectual battle between a believer and an atheist which has the very unusual distinction, in such battles, of being courteous, humorous, and on a high intellectual level.

ON THE EXISTENCE OF GODS is 105 pages, $4.99, and DRM-free.

Iron Chamber of Memory by John C. Wright

The small island of Sark in the English Channel is the last feudal government in Europe. By law, no motor vehicles run on the road, and no lights burn at night. Only the lord of the island may keep hounds.Into the strange, high house of Wrongerwood wanders Hal Landfall, penniless graduate student at Magdalen College, looking for his missing friend Manfred Hathaway, who has just inherited the lordship, the house, and the island. What he finds instead is the lovely, green-eyed Laurel, a beautiful girl from Cornwall who is Manfred’s wife-to-be. 

There is said to be a haunted chamber in the house, erected by Merlin in ancient days, where a man who enters remembers his true and forgotten self. When Hal and Laurel step in, they remember, with fear and wonder, a terrible truth they must forget again when they step outside.

From the reviews:

  • “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.”
  • “There are few authors who can maintain extremely high 5-star quality in
    every single piece of work they produce. JCW is one of the very few
    grand-masters who manages to pull this off consistently.”
  • “It was a roller coaster ride, and I mean that in a great way. Few works have affected me like this novel.  I quit reading it twice in order to think about things.”

Iron Chamber of Memory, John C. Wright’s latest novel, is now available exclusively on Amazon. It is 242 pages, retails for $4.99, and is DRM-free.

A few things

If you’re looking for a job and you’re interested in this one, email me with NC in the subject:

Senior Linux Administrator – RHEL preferred by not required. Central NC. On-site only; no remote option.

Okay, so we’re good on Iron Chamber and Existence reviewers, thank you. However, we still need another PHP volunteer or two for a few weeks on Project Big Fork.

Future and current attractions

For all that we haven’t had any new releases, Castalia House has been extremely busy. We have a number of new projects underway, a number of new authors, and the blog has continued to grow steadily under the leadership of Jeffro.

It has taken longer than expected, but we have finally finished what is certain to be regarded as a tour de force, which is to say, John C. Wright’s latest novel. It’s a standalone, and once you read it, you’ll understand what he meant when he said that it came to him in a dream. It’s not a big book like Somewhither, but it is one that you’ll almost certainly want to read more than once. Iron Chamber of Memory will be coming out this month; if you’re a New Release subscriber, keep an eye on your emails next week. And if you’re not, well, then you should probably consider subscribing.

It won’t be out quite as soon, but also en route is the debate between Dominic Saltarelli and I concerning the existence of gods. We’ve always planned to pick up the debate again one day, but after reading the intriguing debate between Umberto Eco and Cardinal Martini, I realized that a) our debate was already longer, b) it was more conclusive, and c) it was arguably even more interesting, if perhaps not quite so erudite. So, On the Existence of Gods will be released later this month, complete with the commentary from all of the judges who didn’t go off the reservation and declare themselves the winner.

Speaking of which, if the agnostic judge doesn’t send me his additional notes soon, the book will have go to out without them. And, simply because the question is bound to arise, no, I am not even close to being done with A Sea of Skulls yet. You may now proceed with the inevitable George RR Martin comparisons….

And finally, I am very pleased to be able to announce that the Compost Everything audiobook, written and narrated by David the Good, is now available on Amazon and Audible. It is three hours of gardening genius that contains everything you need to get rid of your enemies forever.

Compost Everything: the movie

The 2016 Home Grown Food Summit is coming up in just a few days. It features a bunch of presentations by expert gardeners, farmers, herbalists and homesteaders, including Castalia author David the Good, who decided to use the opportunity as a chance to directly demonstrate some of the crazy composting methods in Compost Everything by creating Compost Everything: The Movie.

No word on whether he actually demonstrates the use of human corpses to feed his zucchini or not. But if you want to find out, sign up and see the all the presentations for free.

There Will Be War Volume IX

In many ways, the first nine volumes of There Will Be War were a chronicle of the Cold War; reading those earlier volumes published in the 1980s is a literal education in both the events and the psychologies of that time. Volume IX, which was originally subtitled After Armageddon, was published just as the Soviet Union was in the process of collapsing, a process that was much more dangerous than most of us were aware at the time, or realize today.

As with the previous eight volumes, Jerry Pournelle assembled a formidable list of contributors for There Will Be War Volume IX, including John Brunner, Edward P. Hughes, Robert Silverberg, Harry Turtledove, and Norman Spinrad, among others. A necessary word of warning to those with younger readers: the Spinrad story “Journals of the Plague Years”, while an excellent reminder of the AIDS fears of the late 1980s, is exceedingly dark, violent, and most definitely R-rated.

There Will Be War Volume IX is 433 pages, DRM-free, and retails for $4.99 on Amazon.

Note to New Release subscribers: if you don’t have an email in your inbox concerning Volume IX by noon EST 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 book. It is a pre-release version of what I believe is a new Jerry Pournelle book.