Beyond good and bad

The Bloggerblaster reviews AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND:

Moments ago I finished Awake in the Night Land by John C. Wright.

As I sit to give you my thoughts on it…  the first thing that comes to
mind is a question.   How does one review… or critique…  something
like this?  I am unfit.

One does not critique the great works of literature.  One appreciates
them.  You define good and bad by them.  Good and bad do not apply to
them….

I would offer some advice to the reader.  Read with patience.  Each
story builds upon the last.  You will have questions and frustrations as
you go.  Keep going. The struggle of the climb improves the view from
the top. 

One theme that keeps reoccurring in reviews is how the book forces them think about it afterwards. To me, that is one of the hallmarks of greatness in literature; one of Maupassant’s haunting stories, his best, in my opinion, once left me staring at the ceiling for nearly an hour.

It may strike you that this isn’t how we usually talk about one of my books, or one of Tom’s books, or one of Larry’s books. It’s not how we talk about the books we publish. It’s not how we talk about the award-winning stuff, be the awards merited or unmerited. This is one of those rare occasions when one discovers, much to one’s surprise, that one has stumbled upon genuine and timeless greatness concerning the observation of the human condition.

The book’s one four-star reviewer declared he only gives out five stars to Shakespeare… then thought about it and gave the book five stars anyway. If you’ve read my book reviews, you know I tend to grade on the severe side, I rarely give out anything above an 8/10, and yet, I don’t hesitate to tell you that this book rates 10/10. If you believe me, then read it. And if you don’t believe me, then read it and afterwards tell us precisely where and how you believe it somehow falls short.


On the cover

Jartstar shares his thoughts about how he went about creating the cover for AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND:

Awake in the Night Land is one of the finest stories I have ever read, and when I was given the opportunity to design a cover for it I was elated. After presenting a series of thumbnails to Mr. Wright with series of different styles and ideas, he chose a straight forward image with the focal point being The Last Redoubt.

The challenge was representing a towering, ancient, rusting structure surrounded by a dead and sunless sky encircled by ruins and a wasteland. If the lighting was accurate to the real world and the story it would consist of a silhouetted triangular shape with a dim red glowing horizon and a few bright spots of magma here and there. This would make for a thoroughly uninteresting image which certainly would not work for a book cover. Using some artistic license I brightened up the concept and made a dramatic, disconcerting red sky with the light of the Redoubt fighting against the creeping black around it. 

I certainly hope my version of the Redoubt has done justice to it as described in the story, but more importantly, it should reflect the power of Wright’s superb work. This question of my success can only be answered by the wayfarers who are willing to enter into the dark of the Night Lands and find their way out again.

On John C. Wright’s Journal, Pinlighter asked about the shape of the pyramid:

It’s certainly an effective cover, – I’ll go beyond that, a beautiful
cover – but the Redoubt is clearly described in THE NIGHT LAND as being a
Pyramid without terraces or steps like that, but looking more like the
traditional (Egyptian) pyramid, smoothly tapering to a point. I am
curious as to your motives for not showing it like that. 

VD replies: The change to a more Mayan-style pyramid was my call. As you can see in the thumbs, the original plan was to go by the book. But the simple geometric shape just looked too plain and boring, especially for a central element that was featured so prominently on the cover. So, chalk it down to artistic liberty, in much the same way that the Watcher’s heads are fully exposed rather than on their sides with their faces half-buried as in the text. It’s certainly desirable to get the details right, but not at the expense of making a cover visually tedious. I think Jartstar did a very good job of conveying the ominous spirit of the Night Lands while also expressing its core message of human hope in a visually arresting image; to see it in more detail, just click on the cover.


Larry Corriea drops the bomb

On behalf of Mr. John C. Wright and encourages his vast horde of heavily armed readers to divert a little of their ammo money towards a copy of AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND:

Many of you already know John for being an awesome sci-fi writer. Personally, I found him because of his blog. Like me, John is an out of the closet conservative. Only where I am
blunt and sometimes crude, John is eloquent and intellectual. I’m a
tetsubo. John is a rapier. I’ve got a lot of respect for his writing,
and I don’t say this lightly but I really do believe he is our modern
C.S. Lewis….

Right now it is sitting at: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,504 Paid in Kindle Store

I want to bump that up higher because I think
John is a great writer and a voice of reason in the wilderness. So
please tell your friends, repost this on your FB or Twitter or whatever
you are in to.

Read the rest at Monster Hunter Nation.


A review of AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND

As part of Night Land Day, I asked Andy Robertson, who founded The Night Land site and first published the novellas there, to share his thoughts on the new book. He went one better and explained both how the site developed as well as his initial reaction to John C. Wright’s forays into the Night Lands, now collected in AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND:

The dark, looming, images of the Land had made
such an impact on me.  When I started to
write stories set in that world, it was as if I
remembered a life I had lived in that society,
with its prim manners overlaying iron values and
its dauntless courage.   I didn’t need
to make anything up. I just watched it happen.

Brett Davidson sent me a story from New
Zealand with a background that
complemented  and extended my own, and I
found the person who would be my principle
creative partner.   For years we’ve
batted ideas back and forth by email late at
night.   Other writers joined us and
mostly took their lead from Brett and
I. We were building a shared world
but one so rich and vivid felt as if we were
were discovering something that already
existed.  I don’t think I’ve ever had such
fun ((while vertical)) in my life.  

And then I got a new submission, from John C
Wright, which was quite apart from all the other
Night Land tales.

I’d written a fusion of  Hodgson’s vision
with cutting-edge science, and tried to evoke a
credible Redoubt culture, a culture that might
really last ten million years.  
Therefore my Redoubt was a society of strict
moral codes, an actual functional and enforced
marriage contract, strong kinship bonds, and
sharply differentiated complementary behavior of
men and women. ((It strikes me only now that
this is mistaken by some readers for archaism.
But of course  it isn’t.  It’s
futurism.  Or just realism. No society
without these values or something like them can
survive more than a couple of
generations.))  And I’d written of a
society rich in technical and scientific
knowledge, including as unremarked givens such
familiar SF tropes as nanotechnology,
cyborgisation, and Artificial
Intelligence.   I had some fun
integrating these into Hodgson’s “scientific”
formulation of reincarnation and psychic
predation.

I had done my best to reinterpret the Night Land as science fiction, and other writers
had followed me.   But  John’s
story followed his own dreams.

His character names were derived from classical
Greek, not generic IndoEuropean sememes. The
manners of the society were likewise closely
modeled on the ancient pagans. Dozois has called
this an air of distanced antiquity, and it works
well, but I repeat it’s distinctly different
from my own, which is not antique at all. His
was not a technically sophisticated society and
seemed not to have a scientific attitude to the
alien Land that surrounded it. It ran off rote
technology and was ignorant of the workings of
much of the machinery it depended on. It was
doomed and dwindling and dark and candle-lit, a
tumbledown place with a hint of Ghormenghast to
it. (I know John will hate that comparison, and
I apologize). The story was one of childhood
friendship, rivalry, disaster and rescue. The
writing style was, incidentally, brilliant.

I bought it and published it in our first
hardcopy anthology, ENDLESS LOVE. It got into
Dozois’ BEST SF and several other yearly
anthlogies and created a minor sensation. There
are still places where the first taste of
Hodgson’s work a casual reader will get is the
translation of “Awake in the Night” in that
year’s Dozois, and the story is an entry drug
not only for THE NIGHT LAND but for Hodgson
himself and all his work. This was a story which
Hodgson might have written if he had been a more
gifted weaver of words. John remarked to me at
one point that he was surprised at the story’s
popularity. I think we both understood that
despite its author’s talent, the real power
resided in the way it had stayed faithful to
Hodgson’s own visions, without elaborating them
too much. The whole world could now see and
share Hodgson’s original Night Land. They were
seeing it through John’s eyes, not mine, but
that didn’t matter to me.   This was
what I had set the NightLand website up for.

*****
 
I expected a whole series of tales from John
set in his version of The Night Land, but his
next story was a radical departure from anything
that he or any of the rest of us had ever done.
It surpassed not only Hodgson’s talents but,
damn it, Lovecraft’s.

When I read “Awake in the
Night” I felt some envy, but when the ms for
“The Last of All Suns” crossed my inbox I felt
something like awe. It’s almost impossible to describe this
story without employing spoilers, because there
is nothing else like it to compare it to or to
hint that it is like.

Read the whole thing at The Night Land.


AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND

As you can imagine, we are proud, pleased, delighted, and deeply honored to announce Castalia House’s publication of AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND by John C. Wright. It is, quite simply, one of the best books I have ever had the privilege of reading. If you peruse the Reading Lists on the right sidebar, you can see that I have read a considerable number of SF/F works considered to be of high quality in the last five years alone. So, you can be confident that I know whereof I speak, and I am not exaggerating in the slightest, when I tell you that AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND will be one of the best books you read this year if you have the courage to enter one of the most daunting realms in literature.

It is not an easy book to categorize. Part anthology, part novel, AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND consists of four novellas that are tied together in one vast story spanning five million years. It is a masterful combination of three literary subgenres, SF, Fantasy, and Horror. It is set in the world first created in an obscure novel published in 1912 and yet it is far more original than the vast majority of SF/F published in the last fifty years. It is remorselessly grim story set in a more inhumanly horrific environment than anything you are likely to imagine, and yet it is an uplifting tribute to the unquenchable human spirit.

It is monstrous and glorious and ghastly and magnificent.

Consider the reactions of the early reviewers:

  • “The Last of All Suns” may be the best SF novella I have ever read. I am not kidding.
  • Every now and then someone comes along who not only can say things
    nicely, but can say _important_ things nicely. That somebody, in the
    modern age, is John C. Wright. 
  • He projects an atmosphere of hope amid the vast emptiness of a dead world.
  • Set millions of years in the future the story and
    setting can really only be compared to the worst nightmares of
    Lovecraft. I cannot stress enough, read this book! If you like
    Lovecraft, the darkest visions of Stephen King, or the visions of H.R.
    Giger you will love this book. If you like science fiction especially
    the ‘Dying Earth’ genre of Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Michael Moorcock,
    you will love this book. If you’ve never heard of those authors or those books, read this book.

I have written a number of books. Never once have I said to you, my readers, “you must read this book”. That is because I have never written a book like this one. There are a very small number of books of which I would say “you must read this book”: The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. Watership Down by Richard Adams.

There were also others that came close, books that I enjoyed very much indeed, but did not quite justify the assertion. Embassytown by China Mieville. Cryptonomicon and Anathem by Neal Stephenson. A Game of Thrones by George Martin. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett. Dune by Frank Herbert.

I will tell you now that if you appreciate excellent books, then you must read this one. I cannot imagine you will regret it.

As a child, I was much struck by the quote of the reviewer for The Times in his review of Watership Down: “I announce with trembling pleasure the appearance of a great story.” But I am not so much trembling with pleasure as shaking my head in awe as I announce the appearance of a story that may sit on the shelves in the mighty company of the aforementioned books without feeling shame.

In addition to the Amazon links provided above, Awake in the Night Land is also available in epub format at Smashwords.


Inchoatus reviews The Golden Age

This is a review of John C. Wright’s The Golden Age from an excellent, but sadly defunct SF/F review site called Inchoatus which has been resurrected and posted here courtesy of the Wayback Machine. I think it is relevant to the forthcoming publication of Mr. Wright’s AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND because much of what the reviewers say about the earlier novel is directly applicable to the current book, which is a fascinating blend of novel and anthology.


“This dazzling first novel is just half of a two-volume saga, so it’s too
soon to tell if it will deliver on its audacious promise. It’s already clear,
however, that Wright may be this fledgling century’s most important new SF
talent… To write honestly about the far future is a similarly heroic deed.
Too often, SF paints it as nothing more than the Roman Empire writ large.”
–Publisher’s Weekly
It is a very, very rare thing for PW to attach the word
“important” to an author. It’s an adjective that rings in our ears here at
Inchoatus
because that’s exactly what we’re trying to do: make speculative
fiction important. Here, we agree completely: the themes that Wright brings up and
handles are as deftly done as anything else we’ve seen. “Audacious” is another
good word to use. There are plenty of writers who write about a “golden age”
of technological achievement but it is almost always undercut by corruption,
or portrayed through the eyes of the indigent and plain, painted with the
brush of the chronically cynical or pessimistic, or perceived from the
ashes following some apocalypse. But Wright doesn’t surrender an inch: he gives us
humanity at the absolute pinnacle of its achievement and seen through the main
character who is the most powerful man in solar system. Very, very few people, that we
know of anyway, have dared this. 

What We Say

There is plenty of “New Wave” science fiction going on and authors keep taking shots at being the definitive voice of this sub-genre. We’ve reviewed several applicants for the position on this site: most notably M. John Harrison’s Light and Dan Simmons’ Ilium while most lamentably John Clute’s Appleseed and Alastair Reynolds’ later offerings of Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap. While we’re not yet ready to crown Wright, this book makes a considered and strategic effort at absorbing all similar works that came before and influencing all subsequent writing in the genre: our very  definition of a great book. So while Wright’s The Golden Age doesn’t assume this mantle all by itself if the conclusion of the series lives up to its promise, then he could be making a the most serious bid we’ve seen yet.

The Golden Age is a very special book. It’s one of those breathtaking efforts where the author (and it almost has to be a debut effort for the author because only those initiates have the naiveté to think they can pull off stuff like this) unflinchingly announces: “I want to write about this.” And sometimes, that “this” turns out to be have the scope and the daring that would cause the vast majority of sane and experienced writers to give it up after a few trials as hopelessly complex or large.

But then, those special authors wrap their arms around that scary and impossibly large idea and squeeze. And out pops a genuinely moving story.

The Golden Age is huge in its scope. It takes on nothing less than a humanity that has achieved a kind of pinnacle of technological prowess: immortality is achieved, artificial intelligence is not only achieved but has reached a level of sophistication and service to mankind that genius and perfection are almost routine, engineering efforts of almost irrational scope (such as, for example, living up to 2010: A Space Odyssey’s vision of creating a second sun out of Jupiter) take place, people live in almost perfect freedom–free to pursue any aims that they can imagine so long as they don’t hurt others. Wright takes this universe, reifies it, and makes it unbelievably plausible (“unbelievably plausible” being a hyperbolic paradox we couldn’t resist). Wright hollows out the framework for this future and then pours in all the accoutrements in astonishing detail. No aspect is overlooked. Where Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time world seems a bit strained and predictable, Wright gives us a soaring, wild place of unfettered imagination. Where Goodkind’s world comes off as contrived and serving the whim of its author, Wright gives us a solar system that creates the characters and drives the plot to some inevitabilities and some other shocking developments. For sheer world-building, only Stephen R. Donaldson’s The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and perhaps George RR Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice can match Wright. The only author who stands above him in this regard is Tolkien.

Even better, and more praiseworthy, are the characters. Helion and Phaethon–and even the sophotechs–are not the kind of protagonists that we’re used to reading about. They’re not the youths destined for greatness learning at the foot of a wise old wizard learning the ways of the Force. They’re not bitter and taciturn men-of-action disguising a hidden pain underneath their martial prowess and brought reluctantly in to the affairs of government like a random weather event. They’re not police, soldiers, or tyrants. They are geniuses capable of daring great things. So many authors don’t want to write about genius precisely because it is hard to write about genius. Yet Wright doesn’t flinch. Helion and Phaethon are the greatest and most ambitious luminaries of their world and Wright opens them up to use and dares us to match their dreams with ours.

The only similar books where we have similar works of genius character come from Michael Flynn’s Firestar and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

For those of you who yearn for a similar hero of the individual, you will find it in Phaethon. We open this book at a time when this perfected society is preparing for a tremendous, millennial celebration. Art–and art that can only be visualized and dreamt of in this sort of paradisiacal setting–is reaching a kind of peak where all the libertine sensibilities of the vast consciousnesses of the solar system come together and literally change the way beauty will be perceived and lives led for the next thousand years. Phaethon is here, participating, but faintly bored and troubled. It will soon become apparent that large sections of his memory are missing and that he himself has been complicit in their removal for reasons he cannot understand.

For this first novel of the trilogy, The Golden Age is a voyage of self-discovery for Phaethon and a reconstruction of his relationship with his father, Helion. It’s an extremely interesting and compelling journey to watch the transformation of Phaethon the elitist, privileged tourist in to what is his true nature: the dominant, arrogant, supremely competent and individualistic hero. While not explicit, Phaethon follows a path of pride, rebellion, and romanticism that is thematically related to the fall of Satan in Paradise Lost whom Milton could not resist from imbuing with entrancing ideals and tempting power.

But in most ways, The Golden Age follows in the model of Atlas Shrugged in that we have a protagonist who is stubbornly and arrogantly announcing and casting his vision into the teeth of the “will of the majority.” It’s one of the glories of American political thought that we countenance the individual and regard him as a hero in cases such as these and it is this notion that drives the popularity of books like Atlas Shrugged as well as treatises (despite opposing politics) of works like Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (and, we might add, in direct thematic opposition to some “old country” works like Crime and Punishment and The Idylls of the King). It is also the more literary and famous “carlylian hero” (named for Thomas Carlyle) whose rebel hero rails against the inimical and ineluctable forces of nature refusing to capitulate despite certainty of defeat (Moby Dick’s Captain Ahab being one of the most famous of these).

But unlike Atlas Shrugged, the world around Phaethon is not one of oppressive and encroaching government but a more sinister event of free-thinking peoples within a completely libertarian society literally choosing to ostracize him. Unlike Captain Ahab, it is not the forces of nature that oppose Phaethon but the free-acting citizenry of humanity acting almost with the omnipresence and deterministic features of a force of nature. There is an undercurrent of determinism and human coercion that surfaces in this golden age where mankind has reached its zenith of power and freedom: the claw of Marx still reaches out and grasps the flight of freedom just as Tashtego grasped the sky-hawk as the Pequod sank beneath the Pacific.

This is an exciting book where deeply detailed future technology is merged with an overwhelming sensibility of the societal and political problems inherent in that kind of a culture that have a peculiar relevance to where we are today. There are only two reasons that we withhold nomination for a seven (at least at this point): First, the work is unfinished and it is not clear yet if Wright can really pull this thing off; second, is the single-mindedness of the plot. Ultimately, works of this nature have to be compared to Tolkien (as unfair as that may be). One of the great achievements of The Lord of the Rings is that so much of the world existed on its own basis and for its own sake. The politics of Rohan, of Gondor, of Mirkwood, of the White Council, of The Lonely Mountain, of Lothlorien, of Fangorn, and even of the Shire existed with a perfectly rational set of individual goals, objectives, and expectations. As they are swept in to the War of the Ring, so are the various agenda brought in and mutated to that singular event. The mythological history of Arda itself shapes the plot. The Golden Age, at least as we perceive the first book, exists differently: all political thought and events seem focused on the deeds of Phaethon and do not seem to have individualized agenda of their own. Are Phaethon and Helion truly the only people of daring in the solar system? Are there not competing interests even among the sophotechs themselves? At some point, it seems as if there should be a world out there which should–at this point–be largely untouched and unconcerned by these events within the Hortatory Council or at least positioned as equal importance. Where are they?

Finally, we most note, that while the writing is intellectually compelling and the ideas bursting in their intrigue, Wright’s talents lack a certain poetry that Melville and Milton have (perhaps hardly fair to compare Wright to these authors) but also that more contemporary authors Wolfe, Tolkien, and Chiang possess. This criticism of so good a book is perhaps grossly unfair but it should be considered praise that we even think to compare Wright with these other authors.

And greater success may yet come. This is an awe-inspiring work of speculative fiction and we hope for great things from the succeeding volumes.

Place in Genre

Future technologies have been investigated by many different authors attempting many different things. Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, Alastair Reynold’s Revelation Space, and M. John Harrison’s Light are three notable examples of authors attempting to wrestle with the results of future technologies. It is very interesting that both Stephenson and Wright chose Victorian ideals as their principle settings for a future people attempting to deal with their technological wonders. (Let us not forget less notable examples such as Clade by Budz and Altered Carbon by Morgan.) Wright is attempting to eclipse these excellent efforts and he may yet do it. In order to do so, he will have to create his world as a compelling force that sears itself in to the minds of his readers in ways that make it inevitable in our minds that things could turn out any other way. He may succeed! He hasn’t yet with this first novel but he may succeed by the end. If he can, Wright could very literally change the genre itself.

Why You Should Read This

Those readers who are compelled by future world-building of the higher order–that is, fans of those aforementioned authors Stephenson, Reynolds, and Harrison will find themselves eagerly devouring The Golden Age. Additionally, politically minded fans of Ayn Rand, Robert Heinlein, Michael Flynn, and perhaps even authors from the other side of the political spectrum such as Kim Stanley Robinson will find a lot of very interesting moments in this book where such problems as freedom versus the collective and aesthetics versus judgments are treated fairly and completely. Certainly those stubborn adherents of Terry Goodkind–a man who can seem to only echo endlessly and shallowly the arguments of Ayn Rand’s objectivism–should come to Wright’s work and see the subject treated with depth, vigor, and the breaking of new ground.

Why You Should Pass

We can’t make any recommendations here. It is one of the best works of science fiction available on the market. The only market to whom there may not be an appeal are to those people who are wholly uninitiated in science fiction to begin with. Some authors, like the aforementioned Robinson, can draw events of colonizing the stars in near-future terms that are capable of appealing to broad audiences. But because of Wright’s completely unflinching manner in approaching his worlds, people unused to dealing with artificial intelligence, consciousnesses existing independently of bodies and stored in mechanisms, and an easy acceptance of changing the world and worlds to fit the needs of a striving humanity, may quickly become lost and drown in the onslaught of new ideas. In short, a certain amount of training may be required to fully appreciate Wright and meet him on the terms that he sets for his readers. This problem–if it is a problem–may ultimately restrict The Golden Age from finding the kind of large-scale audience it might otherwise deserve.


Castalia House bloggers

I’m toying with the idea of turning the Castalia House blog into a group one focused on SF/F. Reviews, thoughts on writing, thoughts on the industry, essentially something similar to Black Gate, but from an explicitly Blue SF/F perspective. So, I’m interested in learning if there are sufficient potential contributors capable of writing either a book review or a post once a week. The group blog idea didn’t go so well in the past; Alpha Game turned into a single-focus blog to which I am the sole contributor, but SF/F is a broad subject and there are many writers and readers here.

If you’re interested, let me know in the comments what sort of subjects you’d be interested in discussing once per week. My goal would be to find seven contributors, everyone responsible for posting once per week. Obviously, any existing Castalia House authors would have first priority.

In any event, let me know what you think of the idea. As is now abundantly clear, my responsibilities as CH’s lead editor prevents me from managing a third daily blog.


Wenn Sie wollen

In case you’re interested in brushing up on your German, QUANTUM MORTIS Der programmierte Verstand is a free download on Amazon today. Dr. G did a great job translating it, and it’s considerably more accessible than the Goethe and Hesse I was assigned to read in my high school German class.

In other Castalia House news, we are days away from releasing John C. Wright’s AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND and weeks away from releasing Stickwick’s ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS curriculum, which is receiving rave reviews from the early reviewers. The latter will be available in PDF through Smashwords since EPUB/Kindle simply isn’t a viable format in this particular case.

UPDATE: Like David Hasselhoff, we are ein Bombenerfolg in Germany:

    #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Foreign Language Fiction > German
    #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Foreign Languages > German > Fantasy, Horror & Science Fiction

 Amazon Bestseller-Rang: #16 Kostenfrei in Kindle-Shop
   Nr. 1 in Kindle-Shop > eBooks > Fantasy & Science Fiction > Science Fiction


Kratman auf Deutsch

Große Jungs weinen nicht ist eine Novelle des Militär-Sci-Fi-Autors
Tom Kratman, der für „A Desert Called Peace“ und seine „Carrera“-Serie
bekannt ist. Die Novelle folgt dem Leben eines Rathas, ein
empfindungsfähiger Superpanzer der Zukunft, der pflichtbewusst die
Schlachten der Menschen auf fremden Welten austrägt. Doch wird die
Kreatur seinen Erschaffern noch immer dankbar sein, wenn sie ihr eigenes
Gewissen entdeckt? Und wie lange gibt sich eine intelligente
Kriegsmaschine, die mit Leichtigkeit eine Stadt dem Erdboden gleich
machen kann, damit zufrieden, dem Menschen ein unterwürfiger Sklave zu
sein?

Has there ever been a better marriage of Author Name and Translation Language than Tom Kratman and die Muttersprache? Ilona Meier has done a fine job translating Big Boys Don’t Cry into German and it was a pleasure to work with her. In a few hours, we’ll also be able to announce the availability of QUANTUM MORTIS Der programmierte Verstand, which was translated into German by the fortuitously named Dr. G, (seriously), who will also be translating John C. Wright’s forthcoming AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND.

Plötzlich findet sich die Größere Terranische Herrschaft in einer historischen Krise, als der Raumkreuzer der Shiva-Klasse ATSV Rigel während einer Routinepatrouille durch den Kantillon-Sektor verlorengeht. Zum Glück für das große sternenumfassende Terranische Imperium ist die Topgeheimdienstagentin des Herrschaftlichen Geheimdienst-Direktorats, Daniela York, mit von der Partie. Wird sie jedoch in der Lage sein, die tödliche Verschwörung, die von den gewissenlosen Attentätern des Hauses Dai Zhans eingefädelt wurde, im Schatten des drohenden galaktischen Krieges zu durchdringen, ganz besonders, nachdem das Direktorat herausfand, dass wahrscheinlich auch noch die Cyborgs der Integration Mensch-Maschine beteiligt sind? 

In other Castalia House-related news, the well-known Pulp Writer, Jonathan Moeller, has reviewed my recently published story collection, THE ALTAR OF HATE. He writes in his review:

There are some weaker stories in the collection, and oddly enough they are mostly in the front half, like the banquet master of Cana serving the poorer vintages before the choice wines. That said, there were some excellent and interesting stories in the collection, which we’ll examine now:

-“The Lesser Evil” is an interesting combination of historical fiction and time-traveling sorcery. An evil wizard travels back in time to use the dark power released by one of the great slaughters of history (specifically, Genghis Khan’s conquests) to fuel his power, and an organization of good wizards travels back to stop him. The interaction of the wizards with the historical figures was interesting, as was the eventual resolution and twist at the end….

-“The Logfile” was the standout story of the collection, charting an
artificial intelligence’s slow descent into madness. The AI wants to be
helpful and efficient, and starts testing new ways to become even more
helpful and efficient. Then it flies off the rails. Bad things ensue, as
the AI logically and meticulously reasons itself out of morality
entirely.

Read the whole review there, and if you’re a writer, don’t forget to click on the link to his Iron Laws of Storytelling. Or, if you are the sort of individual who finds either a) statistical probability or b) Candy Crush to be amusing, you could simply entertain yourself by playing Kratman Bingo, and seeing how often the covers for all three Kratman editions appear simultaneously on the blog.

UPDATE: Der programmierte Verstand is now live on Amazon.


THE ALTAR OF HATE

Today Castalia House published my collection of short stories entitled THE ALTAR OF HATE. It consists of one novella, one poem, and eight short stories. Some of the stories will be familiar to longtime Dread Ilk, having been originally available on my old Eternal Warriors web site back in the day or published in Stupefying Stories. As the collection is dedicated to Bane, who would have enjoyed its dark and occasionally sinister bent, it contains the poem that is here on this site, “Bane Walks On”. And there is a new story, one with which I am particularly pleased, that involves the application of a particular Maupassant mechanism to the futuristic world of Quantum Mortis.

The cover illustration was created by our newest artist, Jeremiah, who did an excellent job working under the direction of JartStar. The title story was inspired by a visit to Venice some years ago; I very much doubt any writer can visit that eerie, decaying city without feeling the proddings of a brooding, water-logged muse. I very much like the cover art, as in addition to the Venetian theme it reminds me a little of the paperback edition of Mona Lisa Overdrive, an image that Psykosonik once used as the cover of our demo tape.

From the initial reviews:

“Each story has its appeal across multiple genres, although to me the
story from which the title is derived was particularly moving.”

“From an eldritch tale blended with computer insider humor, an ode to a
fallen friend, to science fiction with a twist, this is a good
collection of Vox’s shorter writings to date.”

“The stories move along, but one feels the uneasy eyes of the abyss
staring back as you progress, as it were, through a darkened ancient
forest. Only an author of the first rank could achieve this.”

In other Castalia news, fans of Tom’s Rathaverse will be pleased to note this comment to a reviewer hoping for a sequel: “Look for The Court-Martial of Ratha Flower Wood, maybe before Christmas.”