Tag: freakshow

Nocturne: a novel

Sometimes, you just know something is going to turn out a certain way, but even when it does, the fact that it turns out that way doesn’t prevent it from being every bit as deliciously and delightfully funny as you imagined.  As some of you are aware, an anklebiting troll by the name of Will aka Dan aka Dimwit Dan aka Luscinia Hâfez aka Yama the Spacefish has made a habit of denigrating my fiction at every opportunity for years, marks every positive review of my books on Amazon as “unhelpful”, and now claims “give me one minute and I can write a sentence better than anything in The War In Heaven.” 

Fortunately, we can put this hypothesis to the test thanks to the astonishing act of literatury greatness he has committed and graciously made available to the public.  And so, with not inconsiderable pleasure, I am deeply honored to present to you a selection of text from the next great American novel, Nocturne, by Will aka Dan aka Yama etc.

A young woman with close-cropped hair, dark at the roots and bleached
almost white at their tips, held with a band and a gold disk pendant
amongst silver chains, dressed in black clothes under a white wool
cardigan and midnight blue coat came out of the building. “Spies?” she
said, momentarily puzzled and starry-eyed, pushing the door shut. Snow
fell in flurries, the flakes were melting on our hair. “No matter,” she
said, unsheathing a blade. She sighed, and ran after me, stopping and
slashing. I blocked it with my pipe. “You don’t have your patron
Cleisourarch to help you. He’s dead by Red hands, impaled with a stake
and paraded naked and flayed open through the streets of Mediolanum and
dumped in the river. You face me alone. Me, the greatest swordswoman in
all of Carantania.”
“Marciana, can you support me?” Adrenaline warmed my body.
“I don’t know. I’ll try.”
“Good.”
“Stop! I know them,“ another woman cried.
“Anysia?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Uh, I’m terribly sorry,” the woman who attacked us said, her voice
languid and melodic. The gold disk on her neck was inset with a large
red stone with a carving of an eye at the center of a star and six
cabochons of varying tones of green at the points, actually
light-emitting diodes. A bead of amber with a fly, like Ava’s, hung from
the side of the headband, wrapped in fine gold chains. A sardonyx
brooch with a cameo was pinned to her coat. “I heard you walking around
up there, and I couldn’t really see you. Thought you were Selinian, or
worse, Pannonian agents. I’m Cantianilla, by the way. Cantianilla
Vasilescu, if you were wondering. Veridiana told me to wear it with
pride because it’s part of who we are, for better and worse. I’m not
sure but for what it’s worth, there’s a lot of people with that kind of
family name, Vasilescu and Gavrilescu and Stefanescu and a bunch of
other people with -escu at the end. Mine reminds me of basilisks. Do you
know what a basilisk is? There’s a folktale about a feathered lizard
that can turn a man to stone with its gaze. But maybe I’m mixing them up
with dinosaurs. Those were real, but they didn’t have a petrifying
glare or anything. I see you know Anysia. So, what are your names,
wayfarers?”
“I’m Marciana. And only Marciana.”
“I’m Nicasius
Patrescu. Ava calls me Nica. It’s nice, but a little feminine.
Marciana’s been my friend ever since we were small children. Are any of
the others here?” I asked.
“Yes, I heard you say that. It was a bit
comforting, since Pannonians think we’re idolators and don’t have names
like yours and keep their women in the home as a mandate, but who knows?
Nobody really knows who the Synod is. Rumors abound that the Synod
members wander the streets of Vindobona as vagrants, that the
Magisterium funding the Pannonian Revolutionary Front as a lure for
potential traitors to the Church and Nation. Should I believe it? It
seems more like an old story than reality, but you know what they say
about stories and half-truths. I understand that there are Saugumas, I
mean, agents of the Synod in the Pannonian Revolutionary Front, and thus
they decentralized it, and everyone can name only the members of their
cell. You must forgive me for not trusting you. Eight others are all
with us,” Cantianilla said. “Veridiana’s heartbroken. She’s with Ava
now. They’re in the basement.”
“What happened?” Marciana asked.
“Theopemptus happened,” Anysia said.
“Curse the house Daubresse until the sun goes bloated and rotten and
the stars are shaken from the heavens. Mansuetus died in an attack on
the Cleiousarch’s soldiers a day after you left. They had some kind of
warmech with them, and I don’t know where they got it, maybe a blue-gray
alliance of sorts. A mortar tore him apart. I witnessed it, oh, oh,”
Cantianilla said. She seemed less brash once she knew we were friendly.
“I’m sorry,” Marciana said. “I know all too well the pain of loss.”
“There’s nothing you could do. I mean, we won in the conflict against
the Blues, but victory has a price and many of us wondered if it was
worth it. There’s a stela on the demesne with fifty names on it. If you
could ever go back, you’d notice the number of Pannonian names on it.
They fought valiantly, and their sacrifice for a free Carantania was not
in vain.”

Great stuff.  FREEDOM!  I particularly enjoyed this line: “Me, the greatest swordswoman in
all of Carantania.” That’s QUALITY literature.  Look out, Doestoevsky!  Now, what do you think the odds are that Cantianillawafer
Vasilfawltytowerescu’s starry eyes are purple?  Five-to-one?  Ten-to-one?

This is what a McRabbit looks like

Oh hellz yes indeed!  When I wondered what sort of individual would, of its own free will, elect to sport McRapewear, this is precisely the sort of ab-gendered creature I imagined.  Notice that it is not only delighted with its XXXL purchase, into which it should just barely be able to squeeze its slugsome physique, but it also intends to share this fine apparel with its “hubby”. Zexxxy!

It was always bound to happen

In a move that will surprise absolutely no one, Amynda Marcotte finally comes out of the closet:

What’s an ambitious woman to do? Obviously, the price tag put on your
employment is just another version of the pay gap, and for some reason,
the elegant solution of professional women refusing to have children
until someone fixes this situation has been taken off the table. It’s a
major conundrum. So why not look to men for answers? Men have managed
the sticky situation of both having a job and having a home life for
decades now. Their solution is possibly even more elegant in its
simplicity than the “don’t have children” one: Marry a woman. 

I think it became fairly obvious that she wasn’t cut out for a life of heteronormative happiness when she invented the concept of “near rape”, a term that customarily translates from the femmesprache as “first date”.

Eschatonic rumblings

I don’t think Hamas is the real problem here.  Evangelicals of the Left Behind variety are the ones most likely to go berserk if Obama visits the Temple Mount:

Hamas is warning that if President Obama visits the Temple Mount it would be a “declaration of war” against the Islamic world. Israel National News reports the terror group made the threat during a protest march at the religious site following riots on Friday.

Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas spokesman, called for a third intifada if Obama visits the contested religious site in Jerusalem’s Old City between Israelis and Muslims.

Public Security Minister Yitzchak Aharonovich believes the warning will lead to violence flaring up in the region ahead of the president’s visit.

Is it just me or has the world been getting distinctly crazier and crazier over the last nine months or so?

Salon on troll-beating

Apparently McRapey is stabbing me in the eye.  Or something:

 Here’s how you beat the trolls: Turn their hatred into cash for charities they despise.

That’s what science-fiction writer John Scalzi
has done — and in the process, he’s raised more than $50,000 in pledges
for Emily’s List and the Human Rights Campaign, specially chosen to
earn the ire of a blogger Scalzi calls “my racist sexist homophobic
dipshit.”

Every time Scalzi’s online nemesis — a former WorldNetDaily columnist who writes under the name Vox Day – used his name or called someone by a derogatory nickname, Scalzi set aside $5 for charity
— and his readers pitched in, too, raising tens of thousands for
charities designed to uplift women, minorities and gays. Rape, Abuse and
Incest National Network and the NAACP also benefit; Scalzi capped his
own donation at $1,000 and his readers took over from there.

“The
whole point of this is not to intimidate him to stop speaking. You will
not get this guy to stop speaking. He sees this as a contest, as a
battle of wills,” said Scalzi, in an interview with Salon. Giving money
to charities like RAINN and the NAACP is, he says, “an extra stab in the
eye.”

I am, of course, frothing with rage at the unspeakable generosity being shown by the dastardly Rabbit People.  Oh, how the anger courses through my body, from clenched fist to clenched fist!  First Emily’s List, then RAINN?  It’s like a one-two punch!

Whatever shall I do?

Very important international news

Insightful investigative reporting on the part of The Guardian reveals that John “I am a rapist” Scalzi lied when he claimed that he was enjoying the attention of what he hitherto described as an adorable “mancrush”:

John Scalzi is the author of several books, including the Old Man’s War series and Redshirts, published in the States by Tor and the UK by Gollancz. He’s also the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Fed up of being constantly targeted on his website by one particular individual and his followers, Scalzi decided to take action, pledging US$5 every time “the Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit in question posts an entry on his site in which he uses my name (or one of his adorable nicknames for me)”.

Scalzi put a ceiling on his “troll tip jar” of US$1,000, figuring that gave his bête noir 200 opportunities to abuse him over the coming year, and said he’d give the cash to four charities: RAINN, America’s largest anti-sexual violence organization; Emily’s List, dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women to office; the Human Rights Campaign, which works for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Equal Rights; and NAACP: America’s oldest and largest civil rights organization.

A novel enough way to tackle the trolls, for sure, but what happened next was somewhat astonishing: Scalzi’s friends, Twitter followers and readers asked if they could jump in with pledges too. Many of his friends are high-profile authors and industry types – Will Wheaton, the actor who played Wesley Crusher in TV’s Star Trek: The Next Generation, and a writer in his own right, was one of many who promised to match Scalzi’s US$1,000 pledge.

By the early hours of this morning, UK time, the pledges for Scalzi’s chosen charities had grown to US$50,000.

One of the triggers for the trolling of Scalzi seems to be a satirical blogpost he wrote in October last year attacking conservative politicians for their line on abortion control. It took the form of an open letter to them, in which he adopted the persona of a rapist….

However, the Guardian doesn’t seem to have gotten the story quite right.  The reporter appears to be under the impression that Mr. Scalzi did not enjoy the attention, when we were repeatedly informed, in writing, that he did.  When was it, the inquiring mind wants to know, that “the “McRapey” comments became too much”?  And why were we never informed?

The headline is certainly interesting: “Troll’s comments prompt author to pledge charity donation for every insult.”

John Scalzi’s name is an insult?  I suppose that’s true enough in light of his antics.  But just to set a few things straight.

  1. I have never trolled or sock-puppeted Whatever.  I am not sure of the exact number, but excluding the 30 or so comments on the TIA Big Idea post, I believe I have posted fewer than 10 comments there since 2005.
  2. I have never encouraged anyone to visit Whatever, to leave comments there, or to troll there.  I have linked to various posts at Whatever; a look through the blog archives shows a grand total of 58 references since 2005.
  3. I do not wish to have what passes for John Scalzi’s stature in the science fiction field.  If I had any desire to write unoriginal and derivative takes on Heinlein, Dick, Piper, and Star Trek, I would do so.  As should be obvious from my 854-page epic fantasy novel, my sights are aimed elsewhere.
  4. Since when does “constantly targeted” mean “criticized 26 times in eight years?”  Of the 11,327 posts here on Vox Popoli, precisely 58 refer to John Scalzi in any way.  Of the 58 references, 32 of them are not even critical.
  5. It was really reprehensible of The Guardian to omit to report that in addition to raising $50,000 for the noble cause of not quoting, criticizing, or even mentioning John Scalzi, Mr. Scalzi also commissioned the painting of a dancing pink rabbit.

What can we conclude from all of this?  Sheldon Cooper was right.  McRapey isn’t the problem.  We have to fight the real enemy!  Ensign Wesley must die.die.die!  Now, to be fair to the Guardian, it is entirely possible that the reporter, David Barnett, attempted to ask me for a comment before writing his story, but was unable to reach me as I was much too busy laughing.

UPDATE: A sometime critic of mine who has challenged me to a debate with John Scalzi adds his thoughts on the increasingly hilarious matter:

As Helen Smith demonstrated, John Scalzi likes easy and ideologically safe (politically correct) targets. This rule applies on those rare occasions when he responds to criticism, as well. Scalzi realizes that the best way to smear an entire group is to cherry-pick its worst members, and then present them as the representative norm. I noted earlier how he cherry-picks anecdotal cases of aberrant male behavior to build the case that women require his advocacy against sexism. In a similar manner, Scalzi strategically chooses which critics he responds to.

He would not respond to Helen Smith, as this would place him in the difficult situation of having a woman expose his chicanery and call his bluff. Nor does he respond even to Vox Day—who swings back and forth between moderate positions and more extreme ones. But Vox Day frightens John Scalzi not because he is sometimes extreme, but because he is consistently articulate and often insightful. Scalzi does not want real dissent; he wants either sycophants, or babbling cardboard opponents whom he can casually demolish. The more likely a critic is to debunk his methods, the less likely John is to engage him or her in open debate.

That is inarguably true, but on the other hand, John does commission rabbit paintings and solicit the burning of other people’s money in lieu of debate, which is considerably more amusing than mere rational discourse.  I certainly have no complaints.  I’m simply enjoying the dancing rabbits.

UPDATE II:  This should be amusing.  I’ve already done two little interviews with publications in the USA and Canada doing stories on the affair.  Is there no end to the madness?  How is he so masterfully pulling the strings of the global media?

    Rabbit man is rabbity

    McRapey asks for more mancrushing and I am gracious enough to oblige him.  Although I must warn you, if you are reading this, we are reliably informed that risks making you one of my “merry band of racist
    sexist homophobic dipshit readers”.  Otherwise known as… THE DREAD ILK!

    On the way home from ConFusion today I received a concerned phone
    call from a good friend, who informed me that someone had just posted
    something about me online that to his eye was entirely libelous; he then
    gave me a brief rundown on the piece. It appears the racist sexist
    homophobic dipshit who has an adorable little mancrush on me has been
    spinning up his racist sexist homophobic dipshit blog readers yet again
    with a typically gibbering gout of stupidity, with my name inserted into
    it at some point.

    I told my friend not to worry about it. Aside from it being just
    another example of this particular racist sexist homophobic dipshit
    trying to work out his adorable little mancrush issues in public, it’s
    probably not libel. One of the pillars of libel is that what’s being
    written has to effect material damage on the person allegedly being
    libeled. I experience no material damage in this case, because no one
    actually gives a shit what this particular racist sexist homophobic
    dipshit has to say about anything, other than his merry band of racist
    sexist homophobic dipshit readers. And why would I care what any of
    those racist sexist homophoblic dipshits think about me? They’re racist
    sexist homophobic dipshits. The racist sexist homophobic dipshit market
    is one I’m willing to lose.

    I imagine that one day the racist sexist homophobic dipshit with the
    adorable little mancrush on me will finally figure himself out. Until
    then, I suppose his adorable little mancrush on me is cheaper than
    therapy. So mancrush on, you racist sexist homophobic dipshit. Because
    it’s adorable, and I get a giggle about just how much you can’t quit me.

    The interesting thing about gammas is that they don’t realize that what scalds their souls doesn’t bother those higher in the socio-sexual hierarchy in the slightest.  Still less those who are comfortable outside the social hierarchy.  But it’s a lovely attempt at playing “ha ha ha, see if I care cuz I don’t” through the tears.  I have to confess, it stings a little to be accused of homophobia when John keeps putting delectable, mancrushable eye candy like this on display.  Can you honestly blame me for my adorable little mancrush?  I really think he’s created a whole new category of hotness, the “doughy-sexy”!  But I’m very glad to hear that he gets “a giggle” about it, because, let’s face it, we all know that I will never quit him until his gamma antics cease to provide amusement, which should happen right around the time Heimdall blows his horn.  Mancrushes may not be legal in Ohio, but this is a committed one nevertheless.

    One should appreciate the way McRapey keeps trying to work “libel” into his responses?  Not that he would ever threaten anyone with it, because he totally believes in free speech… but he’s got to mention it, you know, just because.  This reminds me of the scrawny little seventh-grader who can’t fight his way out of a paper bag, who froths at the mouth and tells the high school bullies not to mess with him because he’s crazy.  CRAAAZY!  But I find the most interesting thing to be how he thinks that simply pointing out the attack on female-oriented urban fantasy covers is a misguided attack on female preferences amounts to “a typically gibbering gout of stupidity”.

    In that vein, this comment from a Whatever reader pretty much says it all about the Rabbit People: “I found the RSHD after Scalzi’s piece on the mind of a rapist. The RSHD decided that this post meant that Salzi himself was a rapist. The rest of his thought is on a par with this gem. I’ve been looking at his blog with a kind of horrified fascination ever since. I find him thoroughly dispiriting, rather frightening, and in the end
    just inexplicable. He presents as a well-educated, articulate,
    functioning kind of guy, and yet he traffics in vile racism, a sexism so
    absolute that women seem not to exist as real people, weird conspiracy
    theories, and general religious crackpottery. I don’t get it at all. Is
    he insane? I wonder. Are all his readers insane as well?”

    Frightening and inexplicable stupidity.  That concept summarizes the midwitted limits of this particular warren of Rabbit People.  They literally cannot imagine that their worldview is incorrect or is not in line with observable reality.  Anything that is over their heads or beyond them has to be either stupid or crazy, or perhaps both.  And, of course, scary.  They also fail to realize how their responses and accusations betray their own psychologies. John Scalzi is obviously engaging in satire, but I could not possibly be doing anything of the sort.  I must be the insecure and upset one even though it is McRapey who refuses to link to or even identify the RSHD he is nominally addressing.  He even requests that his fellow rabbits follow his lead, whereas I am content to simply shine a light on his creepy, crawly gamma antics and don’t concern myself with what anyone else does.  He deletes or “subverts” the comments of any of those favorable to me who comment on his blog while I both permit and respond to comments by those favorable to him.

     The Rabbit People think I am obsessed, and yet they rush to call his freaking phone simply because I mentioned him in a post.  And my failure to recoil in horror and flee in terror from the VERY BADDEST WORDS THEY CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE leaves them not only bewildered, but scared.

    “He didn’t react to the H word.  And I already called him stupid.  And crazy. What now?”
    “Did you try the S word?”
    “Yeah, good idea… ZOMG, that didn’t work either!”
    “Very well, he leaves us no choice.  I don’t like it, but he totally asked for it.”
    “You don’t mean….”
    “I do.  The R word.”
    “Wow.  I pity him.  I really do.  Here goes… OMFG, NOTHING HAPPENED!”
    “What?  That can’t be!  Try it again… TRY IT AGAIN!”
    “R word!  S word! H word! Stupid!  Crazy!  R WORD!  S WORD!  R WORD!  DAMMIT, IT’S NOT WORKING!”
    “AAAUUUGGH!  RUN!  SAVE YOURSELVES!  WHERE IS THE SAND?  WHERE IS THE SAND?” (thunk) (thunk)

    Later that day, sounds are heard emanating from a pair of seemingly headless bodies.

    (muffled) “Mmff.  Well, we sure showed him!”
    (muffled) “Yeah, now everyone will see he’s evil and bad, and sooner or later, the emptiness and loneliness of the social rejection that will surely follow will make him say he’s sorry and that we’re really good people who only want to help everyone.  Also, hugs.”
    (muffled) “Do you think he’ll pat us on the head too?”
    (muffled) “That would be nice.”

     I am aware there are a few who still believe I post about McRapey due to jealousy, and it is to them I direct this question: what part of Award-Winning Cruelty Artist do you not understand?  This is not an obsession.  This is a Voxiversity course.  And if you still don’t grasp that, you’re not passing it.

    A bestiary of hate

    And why it is increasingly important to provide Amazon reviews for books you really like.

    Now, some authors firmly believe you should never engage with a critic of your books.  They’ve got a sound basis for this belief, because most authors are sensitive little wallflowers who can’t bear criticism, so when they do respond to it, they tend to overdo it a little.  Or a lot.  The prime example, of course, being Laurell K. Hamilton, whose epic hissy fit was ironically more entertaining than any of the novels she inflicted upon the general public.  Her predecessor in the sexy corpse genre, Anne Rice, also provided another well-regarded classic in the annals of authorial peevishness, albeit one handicapped by the virtue of it showing at least some signs of the sanity entirely missing from Hamilton’s masterpiece.

    Given that I have been the beneficiary of the constant attentions of various anklebiters and more substantive critics for some years now, I am considerably less upset than most writers when it comes to negative readers.  They’re bound to come, particularly when an author is as free with his own opinions as I am.  But that doesn’t mean that I am any less inclined to permit reader absurdities go unchallenged, particularly when they are putting them out there in public in an attempt to influence the decisions of potential readers to give my books a shot or not.  Also, given that I am a polemicist of some notoriety, I am more conscious than most of how some purported “reviews” are nothing more than polemics by other means.

    Everyone has a right to their own opinion of every book.  Tastes and intellects differ considerably.  But no one has a right to not have their opinions mocked or criticized.  Now, most of those who have read and reviewed A THRONE OF BONES have expressed a generally favorable opinion of it; some have even written of it in a superlative manner.  Most consider it to have surpassed their expectations.  Not these three reviewers, however, who claim to have found literally nothing of merit in the novel:

    THE DELICATE CHRISTIAN FLOWER

    “I was looking forward to reading it. I was sorely disappointed to find
    profanity, and vulgarity and a few other things I found objectionable.
    If you are into Christian fiction, this is not the book for you.”

    Translation: “All books with bad words are bad.  Don’t read them.”

    My response: hey, at least her opinion is based on fact and is reasonably consistent, given that she also gives a glowing five-star review to a children’s Bible that leaves out that unimportant bit about Jesus’s death.

    THE EVERYDAY ANKLEBITER

    “This book is bad. So bad that I was moved to leave my first amazon
    review and I couldn’t just put it down and move on to the next book in
    my pile, I had to move on to something I already knew was exceptional,
    like Tolkien. Since zero stars is not an option, I can at least take
    some comfort in the fact that I had to give “A Throne of Bones” one star
    in that it pushed me into something more worthwhile.”

    Translation: “I hate the author, so I’ll just fling some imaginary crap and hope it sticks.”

    My response: Trolls are going to troll and anklebiters are going to snap at ankles wherever they can.  Keep in mind this first-time “reviewer” appears to be the same guy who was dumb enough to claim, on this blog, that the novel was a structural imitation of Gibbon – whose work covered the imperial Roman period some 200 years after the Republican era I utilized – and a literary imitation of R. Scott Bakker.  The fact that the “reviewer” is a fan of Bakker’s who is still bitter about my failure to genuflect before Bakker in the nihilism debate is, no doubt, entirely unrelated to his review….

    The strange thing about The Everyday Anklebiter is that he apparently has never stopped to think that there are thousands of readers of this blog who are perfectly able to do what he has done in purposefully tanking the ratings of authors they don’t like.  This sort of negative review isn’t merely abusive, it is dangerous to the entire review system, given its potential to start a reviews war.

    If you have an Amazon account, I would encourage you to report this as abuse. I have already done so.  Personal vendettas belong on the blogs, they have no place on public book review sites.

    THE OVER-HIS-HEAD GUY

    “The author show no imagination. He basically just copies imperial Rome
    at the time of the Roman Catholic church. Neither one of which I find
    entertaining in a fantasy setting. If I wanted to read about Roman
    Legions and the Church I’d buy a history book. I’ll get through it
    eventually and maybe it will get better but if the first 20% is this bad
    I can’t imagine how it’s going to redeem itself. Don’t waste your money
    or your time. It’s the worst book I’ve ever read and I’ve read about
    everything.”

    Translation: tl;dr

    My response: (laughs)  Imperial Rome copied at the time of the Roman Catholic Church… that pretty much says it all.  But it least it is an honest review, as clearly, if the idea of combining Rome and fantasy bores you, A THRONE OF BONES is almost surely the most boring book you could ever hope to read. 

    No book is for everyone because we all have different tastes.  Some read fiction, some don’t.  Some love history, some find it tedious in the extreme.  But these reviews should help underline the importance of reviewing the books you like, especially those books you love.  So, later today, I’ll be posting a review of a book I recently read that I really liked, and which I would recommend reading.

    The important questions

    I think they are not being sufficiently addressed by America’s foremost philosophers, by whom I of course mean the ladies of The View:

    The ladies on The View are never short of opinions and they quickly weighed in on the Chris Brown Twitter argument with comedy writer Jenny Johnson.  Elisabeth Hasselbeck went as far as to call Chris Brown’s words verbal rape as she lambasted the singer after he shut down his social network account.  Speaking on The View, Elisabeth, 35, said: ‘I think it’s disgusting, first of all. But also, it seems like verbal rape to me.’

    This is, you understand, the most vital intellectual discourse currently taking place on the American scene.  And yet, our vaunted philosophers failed to consider the most important question raised by the subject, which is whether or not abortion should be legally permitted in the event of a verbal rape resulting in pregnancy.

    Perhaps Dr. John Scalzi, our resident expert on matters of rape and abortion, would be so kind as to render his expert opinion on the subject.

    He doesn’t care and here is why

    John Scalzi proves he doesn’t care what people think about him by writing yet another post explaining his opinion
    concerning what people think about his position on the socio-sexual
    hierarchy and why he is not insulted by being identified as a “beta
    male”:

    I think they are less
    concerned about insulting me than they are reassuring themselves that
    there is no possible way they could ever be beta males, whatever their
    definition of ‘beta male’ is. By all indications their definition is
    something along the lines of “a man who sees women as something other
    than a mute dispensary of sandwiches and boobies” and/or “a man who does
    not live in fear of everyone else not continually affirming his
    internal assessment of personal status,” gussied up in language that
    allows them not to have to deal with these essential facts of their own
    nature. But inasmuch as insulting me is part of the mechanism of
    reassuring themselves, I am offered the insult.

    I’m not insulted because, a) I consider the source, b) I don’t mind
    being seen as someone who does not view women through a tangled bramble
    of fear, ignorance and desire, c) when I step into a room, I don’t
    neurotically spend my time tallying up who in the room has higher status
    than I do, and who doesn’t. I am a grown-up, for God’s sake. Paranoid
    status anxiety is tiring. 

    One has to wonder how John knows that paranoid status anxiety is so exhausting considering that he cares so little about what others think of him.  In any event, I take a more in-depth look at what his response tells us about his socio-sexual status at Alpha Game.