High Couch of Silistra by Janet Morris

Guest Post by Jim Morris

High Couch is a classic. It is also, so far as I know, sui generis. In a long life of writing and editing in which I have written nine books, edited more than two hundred and read thousands I do not know of another book like it, not even remotely. On one level it is an exciting sci-fi adventure. On another it is a sword and sorcery epic, and on yet a third it answers Freud’s famous question, “What do women want?”

A brilliant woman has decided to give the game away, and guess what? Feminists have attacked her for it.

The writing style is heroic, but readable and fun. The characters are recognizable, the plot is satisfying, and the world it creates is like nothing you have seen before, but is still believable. It also contains what I consider the most erotic single sentence in all the thousands of books I have read:

“Flesh toy, come here!”

If that doesn’t set up a scene in your mind then you have no business reading fiction.

I’m not going to give the plot away. I’m just going to recommend it. Highly.

Janet Morris began writing in 1976 and has since published more than 30 novels, many co-authored with her husband Chris or others. She has contributed short fiction to the shared universe fantasy series Thieves World, in which she created the Sacred Band of Stepsons, a mythical unit of ancient fighters modeled on the Sacred Band of Thebes. She created, orchestrated, and edited the fantasy series Heroes in Hell, writing stories for the series as well as co-writing the related novel, The Little Helliad, with Chris Morris. She wrote the bestselling Silistra Quartet in the 1970s, including High Couch of Silistra, The Golden Sword, Wind from the Abyss, and The Carnelian Throne.

This quartet had more than four million copies in Bantam print alone, and was translated into German, French, Italian, Russian and other languages.

In the 1980s, Baen Books released a second edition. The third edition is the Author’s Cut edition, newly revised by the author for Perseid Press.

Ruining American Women

Don’t get me wrong; some of my best friends are betas and white knights, but…

…In the socio-sexual spectrum, betas and white knights are the useful idiot minions for the perverse cultural Marxist social engineers.

A telling anecdote about the state of America’s girls and women:

In 15 years as a BSA leader I never heard dads speak so proudly as when saying that their daughters were tomboys.

(BSA=Boy Scouts of America?)

Truth be told, I’ve even heard ostensible alpha males bragging about their macho daughters. (No, I am not referring to John Scalzi admitting his daughter can beat him arm-wrestling, just in case I confused you.)

…Another reason for this glorification of grrlpower and imputation of male sex roles onto daughters by beta dads is, it must be said, a subconscious kowtowing to the reigning feminist shrikegeist. The culture is so steeped in feminist idiocy and the attendant ugly woman project of training girls to grow up into ballbusting men (and of shaming men to become supplicating nancyboys) that it seems perfectly reasonable and normal for the regular dad on the suburban street to crow about reshaping his daughter into an androgynous weirdo with a penchant for throwing balls…

Well, yeah. But I’ve noticed this attitude in white knights even when the female in question is no relation to them. They take some kind of pride in it–most of them even have the same facial expression when they sing the praises of some butch broad who comes to their attention. Maybe part of this is the American worship of underdogs; or the equally pathological hatred of favorites.  Maybe this speaks to a subconscious obsession with gender-bending that has spread from the elites into the commoners.

I am frequently annoyed at how superficial the manosphere and “Alt Right” work so hard to be. But on the other hand, I must admit that we aren’t just being threatened politically, economically and militarily–we are under attack on even more basic levels:

  • Genetically–we are being herded toward a race war.
  • Anatomically–we are seeing the tip of the iceberg in regards to self-mutilation. The more “transgenderism” is normalized, the more psychologically damaged people will volunteer for it. And it won’t stop with mere gender-bending.
  • Pharmacutically–As if we need more psychologically damaged people, more of the population is being medicated with powerful, mind-altering drugs for excuses that are suspect. And children are getting hooked young–usually with the consent of parents.
  • Even for biologically sound individuals who don’t want a sex change, the male population is increasingly effeminate while women become more and more butch–all encouraged by pop culture and the Public Education Cartel. This engineered gender confusion is destroying what is left of the family–the fundamental underpinning of humanity.

Our enemies won’t stop at destroying the USA. You can see they’re already positioning themselves to fundamentally transform humanity itself.

 

Ethnos Will Rise Against Ethnos

I don’t usually agree with Vox Day concerning race. And since he seems to believe that the solution to every single problem or issue known to man is separatism…we don’t agree on a whole lot of anything I guess.

But then he said this:

Everywhere you go, from San Jose to Melbourne, the race war will find you. Vibrants don’t give a damn that you are a good anti-racist. They could not care less that you deplore racism with every bone in your body. They are totally indifferent to the guilt and shame you feel over the actions of your ancestors. They understand, as you do not, that there is no such thing as racial equality, there is no such thing as a “proposition nation”, and there is no such thing as a Brotherhood of Man.

They hate you for the very simple reason that you are not them. And they will attack you, unprovoked, every chance they get.

Like it or not (and I don’t), he is absolutely correct in his statements here. My personal experience has taught me this, as defeatist as it may sound.

Where I disagree with Vox and his ilk (pun intended) is how inevitable this was. They insist that genetic differences demand set patterns of cognitive conformity, and imply that race alone has brought us to the brink of ruin. But we didn’t have to let the divide-and-conquer strategy work. (Plus, the traitors who pushed America onto the slippery slope were lilly-white–and no dark-skinned boogeyman held a spear to their heads.)

Nevertheless, here we are. Self-fulfilling prophecies have manifested; perverted revisions of history are clung to as gospel; and speaking the truth accomplishes little besides identifying yourself as a target to those who haven’t already targeted you.

You may pride yourself on being colorblind (as I once did). But the “vibrants” are not. They won’t become colorblind, and have no intentions to do so. How much suffering you experience will depend on how stubborn you are about accepting this reality.

"Stick to your own kind."
“One of your own kind… Stick to your own kind.”

You will be judged according to your “skin uniform” and little else in days ahead. If you are white, the “vibrants” hate you already. That hatred is just below the surface and ready to turn violent at the drop of the next catalyst.

I won’t even address Islam here. Anyone with a functioning brain is aware of how dangerous Muslims are–whatever their racial makeup.

islamRight now, as offensive as this concept is, if you encounter somebody of African descent, there is a 94-98% chance they will gleefully destroy your life, liberty and property, and that of your posterity, when opportunity presents itself. Opportunity at the ballot box today or in the bullet box tomorrow. Their education (from all and whatever sources) has taken advantage of mankind’s fallen nature to program them in the direction they desire to go, anyway, and they are absolutely convinced that they are entitled to anything they can get, by whatever means is most convenient for them.

Most Hispanics are the same or similar. And frankly, the rising undercurrent of white tribalists will eventually be no different. (The redneck parasite class already has the entitlement mentality.) Maybe you’re white, but you’re not white enough. Or not the right flavor of white, see? Comment threads around the web are already demonstrating these trends.

"Vox is gonna have his Day tonight..." Sorry--couldn't resist.
“Vox is gonna have his Day tonight…” Sorry–couldn’t resist.

When the cold civil war turns hot, and you encounter somebody of a different color, are you willing to risk your life, your family’s life, and the life of your proven allies, on the 2-6% chance that the individual is the exception and not the rule? Or will you put them in the dirt with 94-98% certainty you did the right thing? Or will you pause to weigh all the possibilities, assuming the other guy will give you a minute to sort it out? Maybe you’re uncomfortable even considering this scenario. Does your discomfort now guarantee you’ll never have to make such a choice?

Vox has been blogging frequently against the “proposition nation.” That’s the “America is an idea” sentiment that I myself have expressed, because Americans are ruled by law, not by men–whatever color the men in question happen to be.

To be honest, Vox is using the accurate definition of “nation.” God established the nations, and the distinction was/is purely genetic. So a polyglot like the USA is not, technically, a nation.

The USA is a country–a country founded on this conviction:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The country built on that foundation (that fundamental, you might say) is what I once volunteered to put my life on the line for.  I am an American. I have not consented to change my citizenship to a regime that is destructive of these ends. No such fundamental transformation of my country to such a regime  is legal. Everyone in Congress, the Supreme Court and the White House took an oath to preserve my country and its law. Just because they are lying traitors does not obligate me to surrender my unalienable rights protected by that law.

You may insist that such a country doesn’t exist anymore. Judging by what’s going on, you’d appear to be right. In fact, I have suffered certain infringements myself. But that doesn’t mean I’ve surrendered. It also doesn’t mean I will always suffer, while evils are sufferable. It only means I pick my battles and won’t piss away what I do still have in order to make some martyr statement that two-legged sheep won’t heed or even appreciate.

You can choose to forfeit your own rights. Most North America-dwellers are choosing that, will, or have already. That does not obligate me to do likewise.

I’m an American. I don’t care what you think that means to you. What matters is what it means to me. If you are against the foundational truths summarized in the excerpt above, you are my enemy, whether you look like me or not, and whoever your ancestor was. That’s where my line is drawn. That means one side will call me a cuck; and the other side will call me a racist. Both sides will be shooting at me one day, probably. It doesn’t inspire a warm fuzzy, but I can live with that.

Where is your line drawn? If you think matching skin tones is more important than matters of life, liberty, property, and what god you will serve, sin loi. If you don’t, then please examine the alliances you’re making.

 

Muhammed Ali’s Greatest Contribution

In the past I’ve usually posted something about D-Day when June Six rolls around. This year, however, the death of an iconic heavyweight is all the buzz–and much less likely to confuse and engage the apathy of the historically challenged.

I don’t have a copy of The Great Heavyweights on the computer I’m using right now, so I can’t excerpt from it, so let me sum up Cassius Clay/Muhammed Ali first:

  • The man could take an extraordinary amount of punishment–especially to the body.
  • He was also extremely difficult to hit–probably the most elusive heavyweight there’s ever been, partially thanks to his very unorthodox defensive style.
  • His hand speed was also impressive for a heavyweight–though not quite in the league of Floyd Patterson’s.
  • His lateral movement was the quickest of any heavyweight in his time.
  • However, he did not have a great punch. He wore his opponents down with attrition and head games. He was a master at psychological warfare.
  • Judges and referees consistently let him get away with illegal tactics that no other boxer gets away with on a regular basis. He was also awarded decision victories against fighters who kicked his ass.
  • Despite his claim to be “the Greatest” (regurgitated by every black person on the planet, and plenty of non-blacks as well) he was not the greatest boxer; and not even the greatest heavyweight.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at one way he changed sports in the USA.

Watch the little fight promo segment starting around 5:44.

Can you imagine a jock talking about himself and an opponent this way today? And most jocks in any sport spoke this way once upon a time.

I wish I could locate some interview clips of the Rock I’ve seen in the past. Once a reporter repeated some trash talk from a scheduled opponent, then stuck the microphone in Rocky’s face for his reaction. With no change in demeanor or tone, he said “That’s for him to prove on the (date of the fight).”

Keep in mind: this guy was a cruiserweight according to the scales, fighting pros who were 10-20 pounds heavier, all his career. He had very little in the way of skills, and was matched against some extremely tough men–the worst of them were friggin’ tanks. I don’t know if there’s a dude alive today who could take a punch like those guys could. And they were mostly complete fighters–not obsessed with headhunting like those who followed. Yet Marciano fought 49 bouts with 43 knockouts (most of them in the first round) and never lost a professional fight.

What am I getting at, you ask? It’s not just what he said, but what he didn’t say. If anybody ever had excuse for an ego trip, talking trash about how bad he was and how he was going to make a grown man scream like a woman, the Rock was it.

Watch the beginning of this clip. (“Sugar” Ray Robinson is possibly the best pound-for-pound boxer who ever lived. And yes: Ray Leonard and Shane Mosely were called “Sugar” because it was hoped they would be as good as him.)

Now look at this class act, here:

It’s far from just this individual–pretty much all of them are this way (with rare exceptions, like Evander Holyfield). And it’s not even just boxing–jocks in every sport are full of themselves and ready to talk smack whether asked to or not. They don’t even have to be good; they’ll do it anyway. In fact, it’s not even just jocks. Hang out in the inner city (of any city) and you can’t help but notice overbloated egos on display–and you’ll see it in all races and ethnicities.

What happened between the first two clips and the third?

Ali happened.

Egomaniacal jocks weren’t just accepted after Ali; they were preferred. Pride became a virtue and humility ugly.

Of course there were men with huge egos before–but they had to dial it down in public lest the average Joe see how ugly and petty they actually were. But, in general, even gifted men didn’t indulge in delusions of invincibility; and alpha dogs spoke louder with actions than with words.

Ali elevated smack-talking into its own sport.

Nowadays the male (and far too many females) of the species become experts at self-aggrandizement first, then worry about actually developing skills second…if ever.

Selling Books is Like Alchemy

…Which is to say, I may never figure it out.

But, sometimes advertising in the right way can give you a bump. For months Shadow Hand Blues has been buried on about page # umpteen zillion or so at Amazon. Nobody bought it, because nobody knew it existed.

Virtual Pulp took advantage of an advertising special on Kindle Nation Daily. (It’s unlikely we’ll ever use Book Bub unless their prices get a whole lot less ridiculous.)

Then on May 29 SHB reached #60 in Mysteries>Private Investigators; #76 in Suspense>Political; # 68 in Historical/Suspense; and # 8,755 paid in the Kindle Store. (The rankings were actually a little better than that before I thought to take a screenshot.) Not bestseller status, of course, but it at least moved the book up out of the enormous slush pile for a hot second where browsing readers might actually find it.

And a few did. Sales spiked for one day. What’s nice is, since the promotion ended, it hasn’t slipped completely back into obscurity. Some E-Book sales are still trickling in, and it’s accumulating some KENP (Kindle Edition Normalized Pages) read, along with its prequel, Fast Cars and Rock & Roll, which is targeted at a much narrower niche audience. Maybe one or both will pick up some reviews, as well.

 

The IX by Andrew P. Weston

Guest Post by Jim Morris

The IX is the most inventive science fiction novel I have read since Stranger In a Strange Land. That’s saying a lot. The plot is highly complicated, and yet so clearly and gracefully written that it is easy to follow.

In the far future in a galaxy far far away the Arden are besieged by the Horde and though it will take a long time it is clear that their defenses will eventually crumble and they will be destroyed … unless.

The Ardenese, in an act of creative self-immolation sacrifice their lives to save their DNA, in hopes that someone will eventually reseed the planet with its original inhabitants. Their lead computer, The Architect, also recruits defenders through time and space, specially selected for qualities that are not apparent to the Ardenese, from a far off planet called Earth. They snatch great fighters from different eras just before they were about to die anyway. So they’re thrown into a probable suicide mission with their bonus time.

There are problems integrating fighters who were snatched in the act of trying to kill each other, and from far different times, the IX Legion of Rome and Scottish tribesmen, the US Cavalry and Indian tribes, and 22d Century Royal Marine Commandos and terrorists, all welded into an integrated force.

The ending is to wildly inventive and too brilliant to give away here. Suffice it to say I ended the book with tears in my eyes.

Andrew P. Weston is a Royal Marine and Police veteran from the UK who now lives on thel Greek island of Kos. An astronomy and law graduate, he is the creator of the bestsellers The IX, and Hell Bound, (a novel forming part of Janet Morris’ critically acclaimed Heroes in Hell universe). Weston is also a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the British Fantasy Society, and the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers.

When not working he devotes spare time to assisting NASA with two of their remote research projects, and writes educational articles for Astronaut.com and Amazing Stories. He has also been known to do favors for friends, using his Royal Marine Commando skills.

Equal Opportunity NASCAR

While watching the Cup races this season, it occurs to me that NASCAR is, in some ways, a perfect microcosm of American culture. In particular right now, I’m thinking of Danica Patrick.

Saturday’s All-Star race was wild and wacky from start to finish. The drivers, crew chiefs…even the announcers were confused by the complex format and rules. Tony Stewart, with his usual diplomatic finesse (ahem!) said something to the effect of: “This is the worst job of officiating I’ve ever seen. I’m glad this is my last one.”

But the Danica Patrick Factor is easy to understand, because it is symbolic of the Womyn Factor in our feminized society as a whole. She remained the backmarker consistently all through the race, only moving up from the back of the field when another driver was penalized, wrecked, etc., and sent behind her.

danica

This was the All-Star race. In an “all-star” anything, you’d expect only the cream of the crop to participate, and at one point in history that was the case.

Danica is not one of the elite drivers. She did not belong in the All-Star race. Why was she even there?

Because she’s a fan favorite. Fans voted her in.

Much like real life, the best women can’t compete with the best men in most physical contests, despite what the pop culture svengalis would have you believe. And average women can’t compete with average men. But there are more than enough white knights out there to give them opportunities they didn’t earn and don’t deserve, all while regurgitating The Narrative (which says that celebrity womyn like Danica are oppressed victims who rise to prominence DESPITE discrimination AGAINST them; which means they had to be even better than the men, blah blah blah.)

One easy example to point out from the culture is our social-engineered military. The latest fiasco is putting females in the Rangers. They can’t meet the standards men have to meet, so standards were changed to let them in anyway.

Because vagina.

Even in normal cup races, Danica always shakes out around the middle of the field–behind all the drivers who have support and resources commensurate with hers, but ahead of most of the independent, low-budget one-driver teams without the support and resources.

Organizations like the NFL are already fully SJW-converged. They’re not yet stupid enough to start forcing teams to add female players to their rosters, but the league is a zealous enforcer of the LGBT agenda. They already coerced the governor of Georgia to overturn the will of the people–it’s frightening to imagine what kind of muscle they must use to crush dissent within their own organization on behalf of the advancement of sexual deviancy.

This madness won’t stop until the cancer spreads to every once-great institution and destroys it. Keep in mind that even NASCAR is pushing for more “diversity” now. It’s only going to get worse.

A New Publisher in Town

I met author Jim Morris a few years ago, and we’ve been in sporadic contact ever since. It’s just come to my attention that some of his books are being picked up by a new publisher.

I contacted Chris and Janet Morris (no relation to Jim) of  Perseid Press, and they agreed to answer a few of my questions.

VP: What is your story–how did you become authors?

PP: We met when we were 19, actually through the music business.  Each of us had written songs, lyrics and music, independently. Both had begun playing instruments at an early age. Janet had created a school newspaper in the sixth grade and won prizes for poetry even earlier; Chris had worked in bookstores, and started playing guitar when he was 12.  Both families were highly literate, so music and musicals, as well as fiction and nonfiction, were always part of our lives.
Janet could read and write and tell time before entering the first grade; Chris’ influences took a more political path, since his father was a famous photojournalist, and picture editor for the Washington Post and the New York Times. We met in New York City’s Greenwich Village, where we first lived together; and those were heady, sometimes dangerous, times for all involved with the arts and politics.

We began writing songs together, joining bands, and put several bands together, two of which had production interest.  Janet started her first novel at 25, High Couch of Silistra, about the same time Chris started The Christopher Morris Band, and both projects got different agents the same week, and signed unrelated book publishing and record deals the same month.  Chris’ album on MCA and Janet’s first Silistra book, published by Bantam, were each released in 1977.  This led to a redistribution of effort:  Janet wrote three more novels in the Silistra series, later to be called the Silistra Quartet; Chris focused on his band and song writing.  We wrote together, edited and assisted one another.  And still do. In the late 1980s, we each became research directors for a Washington think tank, where we were the architects of the US Joint Nonlethal Weapons program,  and assisted select western nations in starting their own programs; we also led the first defense technical evaluation team to the then-Soviet Union to assess Russian military technology, and supported the US Army and the USMC in various areas, including what was at the time called the Marine Expeditionary Rifle Squad (or MERS).  For a score of years we raised and showed American Morgan Horses, the remnants of the U.S. Government’s only horse-breeding program, and had several World Champions.

VP: Both of you’ve been writing SF/F for a while, now. What would you say makes your “brand” unique?

PP: Our books are not for the faint of heart, or the politically correct, nor are they dumbed down. They are challenging and meant to be so. We explore the human condition, and what relationship and responsibility an individual has to self, society, and planet.  Just as our deep experience with horses informs our books about ancient cavalry fighters, so do our futuristic books have a basis in technology areas that will shape our future. But most of all, the books we write are the books we want to read.  By pleasing ourselves and writing honestly, we bring a directness to the topic areas we explore, whether those are nuclear war, time travel, genetics and behavior, or questions about government itself, good and bad.  And we hope always to meet our own standard.

VP: Are there recurring themes you deal with in all or most of your books?

PP: We examine the heroic model, the importance of individual struggle in service to an ideal. In Greek mythology, philosophy and ancient history, we find lessons that can help people today, whether those lessons are presented allegorically or directly. We are particularly interested right now in hero-cults and how humans deal with crises, as well as considerations of metaphysics, mortality and morality.

VP: What motivated you to become a publisher?

PP: We stopped writing fiction when we began writing in the national and international security area.  This meant walking away from burgeoning careers as novelists, but we thought it important to serve as we did.  When, in 2009, we felt the need to write a new novel, which became The Sacred Band, we talked to our agent about sending it to the usual suspects, but we wanted to keep our e-publishing rights.  Under those conditions, a 21st century publishing deal of substance would be difficult, and this was the final deciding factor:  Rather than give up our e-publishing rights, we started Perseid Press, where we can control the covers, print size, book length, and production values as we had never been able to do when published by New York behemoths.

VP: Was it difficult establishing a publishing house; or with your contacts/network, was it just a matter of making a few calls?


PP: Anything worth doing is difficult. Perseid Press evolved, rather than being established.  We provided some backlist titles, our agent facilitated some e-publishing for us under Perseid’s name to begin with.  We revived our Heroes in Hell series so that we could help showcase emerging talents.  We conceived our “Authors’ Cut” editions so that we could go back and revise and expand books we felt deserve digital immortality. Writers came to us, people we knew and people we didn’t know.  So we have become a very small press, publishing what we like from writers who “write dangerously,” which is, in a nutshell, what we ourselves do.  Often the books we buy and write don’t fall into existing marketing categories.  And that doesn’t scare us.

VP: (Just a personal note, here: As a young GI (“cherry” in the unit-specific dialect) I quickly learned an axiom popular at my first duty-station–that there were probably 80 males for every female for a 50-mile radius around Fort Bragg, NC. It might have been an exaggeration, but it was true enough for practical purposes. Whenever time off was granted (but not enough to drive beyond that 50-mile radius), I got away from the barracks as fast as possible, even if I didn’t have a plan for what to do. Two of my favorite haunts were Ed McKay’s Used Books off Yadkin Road, or the news stand/bookstore in the Cross Creek Mall. At the latter, I remember seeing a few of your Heroes in Hell books. I almost bought one a couple times, but reading about anyone in Hell wasn’t quite the escape I was looking for. I was worried I might be on the road there, myself.)

What are your ambitions for Perseid Press?

PP: Our main goal for Perseid is that we not lose quality as we grow.  Perseid wants to be bigger than we had intended, and we are keeping a very tight rein on it, but new opportunities are hard to resist.  We have a website that functions as a bookstore of sorts, and a network of people who believe in what we’re trying to do.  In one sense we are a couple of fingers in the leaky dike holding back the flood of illiteracy; in another sense, we are curators selecting books we think should survive. In yet one more sense Perseid is a literary triage effort, for a society which has lost its cultural compass and lies close to intellectual death. This is an uphill battle, perhaps, but as Tempus said in The Sacred Band:  “We make the world better one battle at a time.”

VP: I hear you on the illiteracy deal. It’s been the bane of my existence for a few years. Do you plan to remain focused on SF/F?


PP: We love sf in the true sense:  speculative fiction with a moral component, but not a moralizing component.  We will always look at well-thought sf, if the adventurous literary quality is there.  We already have published a rigorous historical by Janet, I, the Sun, about the greatest king of the Hittite empire, and that character has much to say that applies to life today. We are publishing a magical realism/literary book called Truck Stop Earth by award-winning author and journalist Michael A. Armstrong, whose novel Bridge Over Hell we have already published; we have published a memoir about an ex-patriot in Peru, Reckless Traveler, by Walter Rhein. We are publishing Andrew P. Weston, the author of The IX, Exordium of Tears, and Hell Bound, in both fantasy and science fiction; Andy is a former Royal Marine and is still active in the security area.  A new addition to our roster is Jim (James Franklin) Morris, author of the bestselling War Story; we are honored and excited to be publishing Jim’s alternate history/magical realism novels, beginning with Tahlequah, and republishing at least three of his nonfiction books, including War Story.  And we’re readying our first entry in the paranormal-suspense area, Schade, by  J.P. Wilder, also a special forces graduate.  And of course, we continue the Heroes in Hell series, and have begun a new shared concept series with Heroika 1: Dragon Eaters, to be followed by…  you guessed it…  Heroika 2: Shieldless.

The Perseid Press website is: http://www.theperseidpress.com/

VP: Somewhat involved in the book biz myself, I’m impressed with what an increasingly tough racket it is. The pool of potential readers seems to be shrinking all the time, while the number of published authors grows rapidly. POD publishing and ebooks have revolutionized the industry, which is a double-edged sword: It’s easy to break into the business now, but it’s harder than ever for readers to find an author’s books (at least when that author is an indie, and doesn’t have some sort of platform to exploit). Frankly, so much of the indie fiction out there is poorly written, that the stigma indie authors are saddled with is understandable. Yet the Big  Five are in such trouble financially these days, there is speculation that indies and micropublishers will be the only game in town one day. As professionals in the industry, I’d love to hear any insights or opinions you have on the state of things, the future of publishing, etc.

PP: As far as insights into publishing as it changes: along with the rest of humanity, we are trying to deal with the information overload of the internet, which in its turn is reducing literacy and attention span. We see audio books as a possible mitigating factor, but no such factor will make up for the simple lack of education that is so pervasive, coupled with the pernicious assurance that the uninformed opinion is as important as the informed opinion.  We go forward based on our own goals, prejudices, and perspectives, hoping to attract a growing readership of like mind.  When we edited books or anthologies for the big NY publishers, we learned that you, as an editor, are looking as hard for a writer to excite you as that writer is looking for a simpatico editor.  When the two meet, sometimes magic happens, but not often enough.  We’re concerned by the “dumb like me” attitude we see growing, by poor-quality books proliferating — but then one remembers Henry James, who coined the term “trash triumphant” to describe publishing at the end of the 19th century. Literature survived those days; it will survive these days. There always will be bad writing, self-indulgent readers, and those who only want to hear ideas with which they already concur, literature that ratifies their pre-existing tastes.  We simply have more people today.  The ones who choose video games rather than books are not our readership.  We’re not serving the reader with a five-hundred word vocabulary, but we have no quarrel with those publishers or authors who are doing so, now that the slush piles of former days are all available free of charge.

VP: Please explain the “dumb like me” expression–I haven’t heard it before.

PP: “Dumb like me” is a phrase describing the attitude of those who consider reasoning a chore, a stressful exercise threatening to revisit dearly held notions of reality, worse, to overturn them with a priori observation, undermining ‘blissful’ ignorance. We won’t use it again in any way implying that we harbor such a view.

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” -Isaac Asimov

VP: Sounds a lot like what I routinely encountered in school, and on Facebook.

As I’ve found out first hand since throwing my hat into publishing, there are hundreds of reasons an author might fail to gather a following, and many of them seem to be completely random wrong time/wrong place kind of reasons. I have my own short list of authors to whom I am grateful because of the books they’ve written; but for whatever reasons they have not enjoyed the success I believe their writing deserves. Two such authors from the tradpub era are Len Levinson and Jim Morris.

Jim Morris has been slept-on for long enough. Now his latest book, Talequah/Battle of Sorcerors and some of his classic non-fiction (including The Devil’s Secret Name) have found a home where they’ll be getting new covers and some adept marketing. Virtual Pulp wishes him phenomenal sales, and thanks Perseid Press for taking the time to respond.

I can’t say exactly when, but we’ll be reviewing some Perseid Press books here in the future.

Captain America: Civil War is More Than a Slugfest

In the Silver Age of comics, when Marvel became a serious competitor for DC, there was a distinct contrast in the storytelling styles of the two publishers, especially in the team titles (DC’s Justice League of America and Marvel’s Avengers, primarily). While DC spent most of its comic panels on plotting, Marvel’s approach was something more like: “Forget this silly script treatment–let’s have somebody fight!”

The “Marvel Misunderstanding” subplot became an inside joke with comic book readers–when there were no supervillains handy, excuses were dreamed up to have Marvel’s heroes duke it out with each other.

CAIM

The difference between Marvel’s characters on the silver screen and in comic book pages is almost as drastic as the spy novels of Ian Fleming compared to the cinematic James Bond in the Roger Moore days. Still, we got a little “Marvel Misunderstanding” throwback in the first Avengers flick.

As the title of this movie (“Civil War”) suggests, most of the screen time is dedicated to fraternal conflict among Marvel’s big screen pantheon. But not due to a misunderstanding–because of a fundamental disagreement about “oversight.”

Collateral damage caused in the previous Marvel movies has caused various globalist interests to call for “hero control” (my term, thank-you).

Iron Man, at one point a free market capitalist hero, is now more of a corporatist bleeding heart who believes the answer is for the Avengers to be leashed by the United Nations. Now there is a brilliant quantum leap in logic: collateral damage caused by saving the planet from despotic monsters must be curbed by putting the good guys under the direct control of an organization with a horrific track record, run exclusively by unelected bureaucrats who don’t believe in representative government and are not accountable to any people anywhere in any way.

Introducing, in the red, white & blue corner: the Title Character! With him are Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Falcon and Ant Man,
Introducing, in the red, white & blue corner: the Title Character! With him are Scarlet Witch, Bucky (AKA the Winter Soldier), Hawkeye, Falcon and Ant Man,

On the other side is Captain America. He doesn’t spell it out like I did, but amazingly, he senses the danger in such an arrangement, that would make the problem they’re trying to solve even worse (which is pretty much the de facto purpose of the United Nations).

Interesting analyses can be drawn from this scenario. It can be a metaphor for the whole “gun control” struggle or, more broadly, the march toward police statehood, and the belated reaction to it by Americans who prefer to be free men, partly represented in the Trumpening. Again, it’s amazing how accurately Tony Stark and Steve Rogers represent their respective sides, considering Hollywood’s blatant myopic axe-grinding in every other movie touching on the subject.

Marvel’s done a great job with characterization and humor in their movies, and that continues here, even though this might be their most somber one yet. Suddenly there is a whole subplot regarding Stark’s parents which affects his frame of mind in this movie. Robert Downey Jr. pulls it off with his usual panache.

...And, in this corner...the Invincible Shellhead, with a record of one knockout, one not-so-bad sequel, and one idiotic swan song! Backing him up is Black Widow, Black Panther, the Vision...
…And, in this corner…the Invincible Iron Man, with a record of one knockout, one not-so-bad sequel, and one idiotic swan song! Backing him up is Black Widow, Black Panther, the Vision, and War Machine.

There’s a lot of character tweaking I found annoying, as a one-time comic afficionado. Of course, I quit reading comics as they became 100% SJW converged, so a lot has probably changed since then. Black Widow is about 20X more badass than in the comics I read, but she has been that way in all the movies, because vagina. It was cool to see Black Panther on the big screen, but he punches way above his weight here, too. But the most annoying is Spiderman.

Apparently the webslinger is getting yet another reboot. This time Peter Parker has a younger, attractive Aunt May, and is given his costume by Tony Stark who, somehow, has discovered his secret identity without ever having met him. Normally Spiderman would be the heavy hitter of all the heroes in this story (when the character was introduced by Stan Lee originally, only Thor, the Thing and the Hulk were stronger), but he is reduced mostly to comedy relief. The way he was brought in, and dismissed, makes him seem like just an afterthought in the script. Too bad, because the actor played him better than any other has, IMO.

spidermanshield
…With special guest cameo by Spiderman 3.1! Or is it Spiderman XP? Spiderman Vista?

Physical prowess is treated inconsistently in every superhero adaptation for big and small screen. Of course part of this is necessary to conform to the feminist aspect of The Narrative. Much of it is no doubt contrived to make scenes more dramatic. Then there is the star clout of Downey Jr., who frankly got more attention in this film than the title character did. Spiderman and Captain America are not played by actors worshipped to the degree he is; therefore the characters must be depicted as inferior to his, one way or the other.

In any case, most moviegoers don’t know much about the source material anyway, so this should be a fun diversion for a couple hours.

A Counter-Narrative Hits the Big Screen

…On May 13 in select cities.

Not since John Milius filmed Red Dawn (the original) has Hollywood been slapped in the face like this. And while that cold war kiddie flick has aged poorly, and dealt with only the most superficial threat to America, this one digs much deeper.

Imagine this: In the not-so-distant future, a large-scale electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the U.S. energy grid wipes out all power in the country. Electronic devices cease to function. No more phones. No Internet. No TV. Credit cards become useless as the entire banking system grinds to a halt. Food, water and mere survival become every person’s primary concerns.

Amerigeddon” depicts a dystopia in which the American government reacts to a debilitating EMP strike by declaring martial law and stripping Americans of their constitutional rights and their guns. And by the way, it was the U.S. government, in conjunction with the United Nations, that staged the EMP attack in the first place.

It was a plot that none of the studios wanted to touch, so Norris and Heavin independently produced and financed the movie. In an interview with WND, Norris called it “a film of passion” that he and Heavin very much wanted to share with the world.

“We just decided we’re going to do it ourselves,” said Norris, the son of legendary actor and WND exclusive columnist Chuck Norris. “We said we’ll go take it to the theaters in areas that we think people would gravitate toward a film like this, and [hopefully] it’s something that resonates with people that believe in the First Amendment, the Second Amendment; people that believe in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights – this is a movie that was created just for them.”

 

Amerigeddoninterrogation

No kidding the studios didn’t want to touch a story like this. Their mission is to condition movie-going audiences to irrationally fear “right-wing extremists,” not seriously consider some of their concerns.

I don’t know for sure yet what kind of quality we’re looking at, here, in screenwriting, acting, etc., but it does seem to comprise some themes that need to be explored…all of it related to the fate of our country and the world, and how it will affect each of us–our lives, liberty, and property.

Those themes have been explored in indie fiction–including some published here at Virtual Pulp. But for people who haven’t opened a book since high school and never intend to, this movie could get them thinking. At least, I hope so.

Kudos to Norris and Heavin for the guts and commitment it took to put this on the big screen. Here is a list of theaters that will be showing it.

Red-Blooded American Men Examine Pop-Culture and the World