Tag: Castalia House

Mailvox: more curricula wanted

Rabbi B is interested in our future plans for more material for homeschooling and personal intellectual development:

I recently acquired the astronomy materials from Castalia House a few weeks ago, and from just a cursory review it is evident that the material is going to be rigorous, demanding, and a lot of fun.  I was wondering if you had any plans top expand this area of Castalia House in the future?

I thought it might be nice to make more material of comparable quality available.  It may be possible that more specialized subjects such as writing, rhetoric, Latin, logic, and economics would prove appealing.  In my experience, many home schoolers tend to be relatively weak in these areas, most especially writing and rhetoric.  The material wouldn’t have to be added all at once, but could be introduced gradually to assess interest and receptivity.  Perhaps there would be a way to gauge what topics would be of interest and provide material accordingly.

Even if materials couldn’t be made available, suggested reading lists for a variety of disciplines (literature, history, mathematics, sciences, philosophy, etc) and for different age groups could be posted, not unlike the reading lists on the VP site.  Obviously, you have a better grasp of what is marketable and worth your time and effort, but I for one would love to see more educational materials of comparable quality made available.

We do indeed intend to produce more material for the Castalia Homeschool line. At present, we are working on three curricula: Newtonian Physics, Military History, and Economics. The latter begins thus:

Economics is an intellectual discipline, a field of study, and a body of knowledge. It is not, however, a science, despite the best efforts of economists to establish it as one. While it has historically been called “the Dismal Science”, the truth is that economics could be more accurately described as “the Grand Illusion”.

Science is a process that requires testing, repetition, and the production of reliable, predictable, and testable results. But due to its dynamic complexity and its enormous scale, economics does not readily lend itself to either testing in a lab or repetition outside one. And because of the tremendous complications of all the human preferences and decisions necessarily involved, the predictions generated by economic models seldom prove to be even remotely reliable. Even on the rare occasions that they appear to be initially correct, economic theories often cease to hold up well over time.

Does this mean that economics is without value or that it is a waste of time to study it? Not in the least. Economics only provides us with a very limited ability to understand the chaotic complexities of human interaction, but even a faint glimmer of light is precious in a room that is otherwise pitch-black.

We actually hoped to have Physics and Economics out this fall, but events and ambitions conspired to thwart us. The problem is that Stickwick and I are both, in addition to being rather busy, more than a little iconoclastic. Which means that we’re not entirely comfortable with any of the basic textbooks available and therefore feel the need to write our own. Fortunately for me, Tom Woods has a fairly solid Austrian textbook which was released under a license that is essentially open source and will permit me to remix it to stress what I feel is important as well as to incorporate some additional elements, such as the important and groundbreaking work of Robert Prechter on social mood, Steve Keen on supply and demand, and Ian Fletcher on free trade.

Most of the homeschool curricula presently available rely upon works that were written more than fifty years ago and fail to take into account any of the lessons we have learned in recent decades about the effects of globalization, mass immigration, and credit bubbles. And the intrinsic problem of relying upon a book called Whatever Happened to Penny Candy should not be difficult to understand when even those of us who are middle-aged cannot remember a time when candy cost only one penny.

I don’t know exactly what Stickwick’s issue with the physics textbooks were, but I trust her judgment entirely in such matters and was quite happy to accept a delay in the release of the Physics curriciulum in exchange for an original textbook. It will, I am entirely certain, only improve the end result.

The Military History curriculum is being written by Dr. James Perry. A first look at the quality of his work can be seen in the forthcoming RIDING THE RED HORSE, as he has contributed a lengthy piece on Soviet strategy in Asia called “Make the Tigers Fight”. I was very impressed with the work that Dr. Perry did on the reasoning behind the strategies of WWII in the Pacific, as he pointed out some aspects that had previously eluded me despite my being a lifelong WWII enthusiast, and I am confident that his curriculum will be a solid one. Tom Kratman is an advisor on it, so I shall be very disappointed if there isn’t at least one lesson devoted to military occupations and the utility of crucifixion in pacifying defeated populations.

On the subject of Castalia House, we have a new author announcement today.

Kindle format at Castalia

It’s only Wednesday, but we’ve already had a busy week at Castalia House, as over 50 people signed up for the New Book Release mailing list, we finished getting all 4,500 pages of the nine-volume The Empire’s Corps series by Christopher G. Nuttall online, we acquired a new Associate, and we added a Kindle-compatible format, MOBI, to most of the books being sold at the Castalia Store. So, after making your purchase, you can choose between EPUB and MOBI format, which means that Kindle users now have the option to buy directly from Castalia as well as from Amazon.

We have also created an Astronomy Homeschool Bundle, which includes all four books for the Astronomy & Astrophysics course as well as the Castalia Classic novel First on the Moon, for the price of $49.99. This is not only one of the best homeschooling curricula available, it is is arguably the best homeschooling deal you will find anywhere. Unfortunately, we can’t offer a complete Selenoth or Quantum Mortis bundle yet, due to Amazon’s Kindle Select policies, but we may do so in the future.

There is still a lot to do, as we still have yet to get the various translations on the Castalia Store and figure out how to transform the Chinese translation of QM:AMD into a recognizable ebook format. (If you have any ideas about this, do share them.) As for the image above, it is by our newest artist, and as you have probably already surmised, it will be featured on one of our forthcoming 4GW-related books.

As for our new Associate, we are pleased to be able to offer Sci Phi Journal #1 for sale on the Castalia Store. Among other things, it features a new John C. Wright novelette entitled The Ideal Machine. A complete review of the new journal by Daniel Enness can be found here.

Castalia mailing list

I’ve tended to assume in the past that whatever I post here will reach all of Castalia House’s readers, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that this is no longer the case. So, it’s been suggested that we start a mailing list which will let people know whenever we have a new release out.

I was a little hesitant about the idea, because I often find myself added to mailing lists in which I have no interest, so I didn’t want to do it unless we could offer some material benefit to those on the mailing list. After some consultation with a few of our Authors and Associates, I believe we have come up with a reasonable solution of potential benefit to everyone involved.

Here is the plan. We will email the entire list when we have a new release. This may be what we consider to be a major release such as SOMEWHITHER by John C. Wright, or a minor release, such as a new Castalia Classic, a new foreign language translation, or a new set of Associate works.

In the case of a minor release, it’s just a notification. But when we have a major release, anyone from the mailing list who buys the new release within three days of the email announcement will, in addition to the book purchased, receive a second book of his choice free from the list of five books that are on offer for that particular new release. So, if you’re on the mailing list, you’ll receive two books for the price of one if you buy a new book upon release.

If you’ve purchased a book directly from the Castalia Store, then you’re already on the mailing list, which is good to go. (We will, of course, provide an unsubscribe option for those customers who don’t want to be on it.) If you haven’t bought a book directly from the Castalia Store but would like to be on the mailing list, please send me an email with LIST in the subject. We’re not going to spam anyone or sell the list, just announce new releases. Keep in mind that the Castalia Store sells books in DRM-free EPUB format, so if your primary ereader is Kindle and you don’t know how to convert ebook formats, or don’t want to bother, you should continue buying your books from Amazon. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t be on the list if you simply want to be informed whenever we have a new release out.

If you have any suggestions for improving this mailing list, please feel free to share your ideas here.

Since we’re on the subject of Castalia House, the blog now features a short interview that I did as part of a college student’s research paper, JartStar offers observations on cover design, Jeffro continues his literary spelunking into Appendix N with a book that might make for a great Castalia Classic, and Mascaro reviews the first book in THE THEOGONY by one of Castalia’s Associates.

Before the end of the year, we expect to publish at least four more books, two by William S. Lind, one by John C. Wright, and the aforementioned anthology of military science fiction.

Dark portents of things to come

I had a very interesting conversation with a retired general today. (No, not the former USMC general of whom you’re probably thinking.) We were discussing how William Lind and his 4GW seminar had seen ISIS, or some reasonable facsimile therein, coming more than ten years ago. I thought it was interesting that the general, too, had picked up on this.

As I was editing Lind’s collection of columns that we will be publishing this fall, a few passages leaped out at me. Consider:

The current phase of the war in Iraq is driven by three different elements: chaos, a war of national liberation (which is inflicting most of the casualties) and 4th Generation War. In time, the 4th Generation elements will come to predominate, as they fill the vacuum created by the destruction of the Iraqi state.

That was written back in 2003. And that is exactly what has happened, as the non-state elements have replaced the Ba’athist national elements. Here is one that indicated, very early on, the likelihood that the resistance was not an amateur operation.

More significant than the destruction of two American tanks is the fact that Iraqi guerrillas are attacking tanks. This is an indicator that the guerilla war is developing significantly more rapidly than reports in Washington suggest. With the second stage of the Iraq war just six months old, one would expect the guerillas to be attacking only weak, vulnerable targets, such as supply columns. The fact that they are going after the most difficult of all ground targets, heavy tanks, is surprising. It means they lack neither confidence nor skill.

And finally, an early observation of the transnational nature of the developing 4GW forces.

One other indicator. A friend recently noted to me that the rapidly improving techniques we see from the Iraqi guerrillas bear a striking resemblance to those used by the Chechen guerrillas against the Russians. Might it be that we are not the only ones to have a coalition in Iraq?

ON WAR is going to be a monster of around 750 pages. Spanning six years of war, it is a treasure trove of military theory being formulated and refined in real time. If you have any interest in mil-SF, military history, or understanding the shape of the 21st century, it is a book you’ll almost surely want to read.

A cover update

We had a bit more trouble getting John C. Wright’s latest masterpiece out the door than usual due to the cover artist being temporarily knocked out of commission. Since the book was already late, JartStar stepped in and colorized the low-res greyscale comp that we had, which was why the initial cover was not quite up to our usual standard. Fortunately, the artist is back up to speed and last week he sent us the final image, which has now been incorporated into the ebooks on both the Castalia store and Amazon. If you wish to update your ebook accordingly, I believe Amazon does it automatically if your Kindle is set to permit it, while if you have purchased ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM from the Castalia store, you already have the ability to download it again via the original download link provided. If, for some reason, it doesn’t work, email me from the same email you used to purchase it and I’ll send it to you.

ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM has been getting some excellent reviews, such as this one, which caused the author to note that he is the sort of reader for whom the author is writing:

Mr. Wright takes us on the most bizarre of hero’s quests: the one that takes place AFTER the quest, and that takes place in the “real world.” In so doing, he brings back a bit of the magic of Narnia and – much like Lewis’ Chronicles were a parable to point the young reader to Jesus – One Bright Star reminds us that there is hope when youth has faded, innocence lost, and the black-and-white morality of a child seems but a memory. There is hope that a man can find “childlike faith” and find again the magic and joy of belief. That restoration of faith and hope is why I marked the book 5 stars; because it took me back to my First Love and reminded me of that otherworldly joy I felt when reading Lewis’ timeless novels.

Another reviewer added:

Simply enchantingly beautiful. It is rare praise to give to a novel these days, but, Mister Wright’s One Bright Star to Guide Them deserves this praise. I would highly recommend anyone take it up and read. It is simple because everything in the story is straightforwardly told with a wealth lying behind each paragraph. It is beautiful because it is true. The character, their actions, and their reasons all strike the reader as what those character truly would do or say. One Bright Star to Guide Them is, at its heart, a story of good and evil and the consequences of accepting each.

But let’s not forget about his excellent CITY BEYOND TIME either:

John C. Wright at his mind-twisting best. Excellent. Gripping, well-told story that build slowly to a pretty cool payoff. Highly recommended.

If you haven’t kept up with our new releases, I recommend that you do so now, because the good news is that we expect to publish one more new work by the SF grandmaster before the end of the year. We are also on schedule to publish RIDING THE RED HORSE, the new MIL-SF anthology series with contributions from Eric S. Raymond, William S. Lind, Tom Kratman, Christopher G. Nuttall, Chris Kennedy, and Steve Rzasa & Vox Day, among others, in November.

Announcing Castalia Associates

You may have noticed there is a change to the left sidebar. In the place of the RECOMMENDED books, there is now a selection of books that are self-published by authors acquainted with Castalia House who have made their books available through Castalia’s online store. We are listing these books on the store under the category CASTALIA ASSOCIATES.

We’re pleased to announce the first two Castalia Associates are Chris Kennedy, the bestselling author of the mil-SF series THE THEOGONY, and Christopher G. Nuttall, the bestselling author of ARK ROYAL and the mil-SF series THE EMPIRE’S CORPS. Their books are being sold in the same DRM-free EPUB format that Castalia House books are sold. Additional Castalia Associates will be announced in the weeks to come; please do not contact us to request participation at the moment as we have our hands full with getting our forthcoming works ready for publication.

We’re also very pleased to be able to say that both Chris Kennedy and Christopher G. Nuttall are contributing short stories to the first volume of the Tom Kratman-edited mil-SF anthology series, RIDING THE RED HORSE. And while we’re on the topic of Castalia House, you surely won’t want to miss the Appendix N retrospective that many of us have been anticipating, as Jeffro addresses the Zelazny classic, NINE PRINCES IN AMBER.

Tres libros en español

Thanks to our extremely prolific Spanish translator, Emilio, the first two QUANTUM MORTIS books are now available in Spanish. There is QUANTUM MORTIS Un Hombre Disperso:

Además de un aerovar blindado armado con misiles, su confiable Esfinge CPB-18, y las políticas muy liberales de la DMIC cuando se trata de daño colateral y accidentes civiles, el Jefe Tower también está equipado con su xenofobia extrema y una inteligencia computarizada aumentada de nivel militar que cree haber encontrado a Dios. Así que cuando los restos desintegrados del heredero a la corona de una familia real alienígena son descubiertos en las calles de Trans Paradis, la pregunta no es si podrán encontrar a los asesinos en algún momento, sino quien, de entre los criminales y los investigadores contribuirá más al número total de muertes.

And if you’re interested in improving your Spanish, you may wish to note that there will be a free giveaway of QUANTUM MORTIS La Gravedad Mata later this week.

Cuando un embajador alienígena es encontrado muerto en órbita mientras
intentaba regresar a su planeta de origen, estando acompañado por la
renombrada empresa de mercenarios “Perros de Guerra Incorporados”, las
sospechas surgen de forma natural. Sin embargo, descubrir la verdad
sobre lo ocurrido no es lo más relevante para la administración
planetaria, al menos tratándose de sus intereses, y de hecho no les
molestaría en lo más mínimo limitarse a suponer que la muerte del
embajador fue un accidente. Por si fuera poco, cuando el Jefe de
Suboficiales Graven Tower llega a la escena del crimen, surge otra
pregunta: ¿En verdad son compatibles los métodos dinámicos de
investigación de la DMIC con el casco ligeramente blindado de una nave
espacial?

And last, but most certainly not least, there is John Wright’s beautiful fantasy tale, Una Estrella Brillante para Guiarlos.

Esta novela corta es brillante y agridulce, nos remonta a los más
grandes y amados clásicos de la fantasía infantil. Este hermoso cuento
de hadas escrito por John C. Wright no intenta revolucionar o imponerse a
estos clásicos, sino que es un homenaje lleno de amor y nostalgia. Nos
recuerda que el para siempre no siempre es feliz. El camino de la vida
sigue, y el mal tiene que ser enfrentado y vencido por cada nueva
generación.

Books worth reading

A new review of QUANTUM MORTIS: A MIND PROGRAMMED:

James Jesus Angleton famous described the eternal battle between
espionage and counterintelligence as “a wilderness of mirrors.” I
thought of that phrase while reading A Mind Programmed, the latest installation in the Quantum Mortis
series of science fiction stories. Few people or things are what they
seem in this story, and even when you see what they really are, you
still have questions….

I’m new to science fiction, but I enjoyed A Mind Programmed. Though a bit dialogue heavy and slow in the middle, the book spun a good yarn and kept my interest throughout. 

And there are several Amazon reviews of John C. Wright’s ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM worth reading, such as this one by Kyle Robinson:

Given my fondness of fantasy literature, it might surprise some acquaintances to learn that I never read much fantasy when I was a child. I never read Narnia, Redwall, Harry Potter, or any of the other books in the genre. (I only read CS Lewis’s Narnia books earlier this year, in fact.) This places me outside of Wright’s target audience, perhaps, and gives me something of an outsider’s perspective on his story One Bright Star To Guide Them.

Wright has consistently delivered thought-provoking and compelling stories. Awake In The Night Land was a truly spectacular accomplishment and even if The Golden Age trilogy (which is essentially progressive rock in literary form) had a steep learning curve, the sheer imagination behind the series more than earned my continued respect for Wright. City Beyond Time – though book-ended by stories I felt were less compelling than the excellent tales in between – did not disappoint either. But after reading the first Everness book, I wondered if One Bright Star would end up retreading the same kind of story Wright told in that duology. And despite the appealing premise I was concerned that my lack of context would make this story more difficult to enjoy, despite the intriguing premise

The answer is a resounding No. One Bright Star is pure magic, radiating with the virtuosity of a writer whose literary muscle and knack for inscribing heartfelt emotion work in splendid unison. The world and its characters are made so compelling that you, the reader, should not be surprised if your lap is dribbled in drool upon finishing the story, as you salivate for more. One Bright Star is more immediately enjoyable and tightly orchestrated than the comparatively ponderous Everness, and Wright knits his story with a tangible melancholy that proves he is more than capable of making statements in fantasy that rival his science fiction output….

One Bright Star has one of the best endings I’ve enjoyed in recent
memory, and the fact that he draws from the reader such emotion toward
his characters and world in such a brief time is a testament to his
skill. By the end of the story, it’s easy to forget that you have spent
only a few dozen pages in Wright’s world, rather than hundreds. And
despite the fact that I never read Wright’s inspirations as a youth, I
was thoroughly walloped by the poignancy and emotional power of the
ending, which should be all the more stirring for those who have dwelt
within the worlds of Lewis, Tolkein, and Cooper.

You know a novella is really good when the chief complaint of the more critical reviews is that it isn’t longer:

I was sure a homage to Narnia written by John C. Wright would be right up my alley. However, I found myself disappointed by this novella. There’s a great story to be told here, and flashes of it shine through, but I think the novella is just too short to really flesh it out…. I’ve seen enough of Wright’s work to know that he’s capable of brilliantly expanding on the things that I felt were rushed, but for whatever reason he chose not to. 30 more pages would’ve made this book a masterpiece. 

The ironic thing about this criticism is that the novella is already an expanded version of the short story originally published in F&SF magazine. I have no doubt that Mr. Wright could easily expand the novella to a full novel, and indeed, a full trilogy covering both the childhood events and subsequent events. And perhaps he will one day do so, but the fact is that he really said everything that needed to be said in the novella.

And finally, there is this review of QUANTUM MORTIS: A MAN DISRUPTED:

Very good sci-fi noir. There have not been many good detective sci-fi noir novels. Effinger did some good near future books, but that was about it.

The setting here is a military police detective who, due to his world’s laws on embassies, is a member of a section assigned to police crimes involving embassies and governments in exile. Personal AIs, flying cars and power suits, body enhancements, police robots. However, the world has crowded mega towers, and a dark side that is well explored. Very well written, tight scenes. Enjoyable.

Los revisores querían

If you speak Spanish and are interested in reviewing Una Estrella Brillante para Guiarlos by John C. Wright for Amazon, please shoot me an email with ESTRELLA in the subject. The translator, Emilio, explains why it made sense to use Mexican Spanish rather than theoretically more proper Spanish.

According to the royal academy of the Spanish language, the country
that speaks the most proper Spanish is Colombia. But large companies,
like Disney, use the Mexican translation for their movies or shows for
all Latin America, since it’s considered the most neutral by most Latin American countries. It’s easier to understand a translation to Mexican Spanish in Peru, Argentina, or the Dominican Republic than any of those
dialects elsewhere. So there’s an argument to be made, that if you want
it to be successful economically, it should have a Mexican translation.

Good enough for me. Emilio is also one of the guys who has expressed interest in setting up a new gaming review site, as is Caedryn, who posted the following comment yesterday:

If anyone is interested, I would really like to start a push for making and contributing to a blue gaming site. I have been putting around on making my own using blogger, but I run into a scope of just how much there is to cover in the industry for one person, and a realization of how relatively mediocre my writing ability is to carry a place on its own.

I personally have very limited experience on the blogging side of things, but I was a QA tester in college for a couple of companies and am working on a table top game independently as a hobby. So… very limited experience on that side as well past an obsessive desire to learn and dissect mechanics and writing.

I’d like a place for people who actually like games to be able to write about them without the need to feed into the industry and clickbait for revenue.

I’d personally want it to be a place for tabletop and video gaming or any other genres I may have missed that tie into such a framework. We could include gameplay/podcasts/whatever medium you’re into for providing commentary and reporting on news and events. I’d like to get a solid group of people together from the ilk to start talking about site design and structure and anyone initially interested in writing regardless of time dedication then branch out from there with requests for regular writers and so on.

If anyone is interested in writing at all or helping build the site, please send me an email at the account I’ve made for the project gammaphiedATgmail.com so I can get an email chain together to start discussion over this weekend.

This is a project that both I and Castalia House will definitely want to support. Castalia, of course, is inspired by the most famous game-related novel of all, Das Glasperlenspiel by Hermann Hesse. I don’t have time to head up the project, but would be more than pleased to help out, as I am willing contribute my old game review columns to serve as an archive of historical reviews. I’ve also been teaching a game development course at a technical institute, and I suspect some of the students might be very interested in getting involved.

In other news, one really has to respect the power of Instapundit. Last week, we put up a free novella. There were 848 downloads and it climbed to a respectable Amazon rank although I don’t recall what it was. Yesterday, Instapundit mentioned  that QUANTUM MORTIS: A MIND PROGRAMMED was a free download. It’s presently #1 in military fiction, #4 in science fiction, and #52 on Amazon.

One Bright Star To Guide Them

At long last, we are very pleased to announce the publication of ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM  by John C. Wright. It is a beautiful novella in which Mr. Wright once more proves himself to be the Master of the Final Word; in all my reading I have yet to discover an author who is more accomplished at writing elegant, perfectly-fitting endings that leave the reader in breathless awe. The novella is available in Kindle format for $2.99 at Amazon and in DRM-free EPUB format at Castalia House.

As children, long ago, Tommy Robertson and his three friends, Penny,
Sally, and Richard, passed through a secret gate in a ruined garden and
found themselves in an elfin land, where they aided a brave prince
against the evil forces of the Winter King. Decades later, successful,
stout, and settled in his ways, Tommy is long parted from his childhood
friends, and their magical adventures are but a half-buried memory.

 But on the very eve of his promotion to London, a silver key and a
coal-black cat appear from the past, and Tommy finds himself summoned to
serve as England’s champion against the invincible Knight of Ghosts and
Shadows. The terror and wonder of Faerie has broken into the Green and
Pleasant Land, and he alone has been given the eyes to see it. To
gather his companions and their relics is his quest, but age and time
have changed them too. Like Tommy, they are more worldly-wise, and more
fearful. And evil things from childhood stories grow older and darker
and more frightening with the passing of the years.


 
ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM begins where other fairy tales end.
Brilliant and bittersweet, the novella hearkens back to the greatest and
best-loved classics of childhood fantasy. John C. Wright’s beautiful
fairy tale is not a subversion of these classics, but a loving and
nostalgic homage to them, and reminds the reader that although Ever
After may not always be happy, the Road of Life goes ever on and evil
must be defeated anew by each and every generation. 

If you are a fan of John C. Wright or C.S. Lewis, this is one novella you simply will not want to miss. Nor is it the only Wright-related book news today, for as can be seen below, the hardcover version of AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND has arrived and will soon be available from Amazon.

UPDATE: Amazon, in its inimitable wisdom, has finally decided to provide pricing information and permit prospective readers of ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM to “Buy Now with 1-Click”. Please consider taking the time to post a review after you read the novella.