Monthly Archives: February 2024

Adventure, Fantasy, Reviews

The Devil out the Wych Elm by Robert Victor Mills – a Review

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Part 3 of a 6-part review series by THE INFAMOUS REVIEWER

 

In the third tale of Man of Swords, we find our hero crucified to a tree and barely alive, before being rescued and restored back to health by a family of fauns. How did Rhoye ever get in this predicament? And why would this local family want to aid a total stranger?

Well you’ll have to read to find out, but my job here really is to analyze the writing from a PCP (prose/characters/plot) standpoint. Objectively and fairly.

The ‘highlight reel’ definitely belongs to the Faun family: father Olnbirch, mother Khirra, and young daughter Zairre. What distinguishes them is their altruism and devotion to live a quiet and peaceful life, never to compromise their beliefs and code of ethics. Zairre particularly has some very special moments. With her innocence, she can melt the most hardened of hearts ( well, almost any). The way these three characters are written is so delightful that we can’t help but feel emotionally invested in their whereabouts.

Trouble starts when a group of greedy miners start harassing our beloved family in order to take their land which supposedly is rich in gold. The family is not willing to leave their land and that’s when things get ‘complicated’ since Rhoye is by now back in almost full health and strength.

This reminded me of a Spaghetti Western film adaptation in a sense. Only that instead of taking place in the Wild West it takes place in the Wandered Lands. It is gripping, exciting…But it could have been executed even better in my opinion and here is why:

Pace: from the time the miners give the family their ultimatum to leave the farm there is a long chunk of time when not much really happens. It’s just Rhoye living with the Faun family and helping them around the farm. This, I felt, was too drawn out: they work the fields, go visit other faun neighbors, go dance at some local harvest festival…

Dialogue: some of the dialogues were redundant and unnecessary. If we witness a particular action scene take place first hand, we don’t need one of the characters to give a thorough account of those events in the first person later, because we already know all about it. This creates unnecessary bloating. 

Overall, The Devil out of Wych Elm remains a solid tale worth reading. Again, the Faun family, their reaction to adversities, their meekness, their willingness to not live by the ‘eye for an eye’ rule, all of that is what makes this so special.

Not the best we’ve seen from Mills, yet highly recommended!

Pet Peeves, Superhero

Superpowers and What They Reveal

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If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

I’m guessing that’s a question that’s been asked in interviews at Marvel and DC for decades, now. Not completely unrelated: in what decade did the last noteworthy superhero debut? I’m thinking the ’60s, but maybe it was the ’70s.

We’ve all seen the creative implosion in mainstream entertainment. That industry has always been crawling with commies and perverts, but back in the day they at least had talent and could create art that decent people enjoyed.

Sometime between when they persistently but subtly slipped their cultural Marxist messaging into movies/literature/music that  otherwise  had merit, and ramming blatant Globohomo narratives down the audience’s collective throat at every opportunity, the vehicles they deployed to deliver their mind control also lost their entertainment value. They lost any modicum of originality, too.

Unable to come up with a single compelling story idea, Homowood can now only recycle what’s already been done several times before, or mine other IP from old TV shows, cartoons, toys, and comic books.

Comic “creators” (what an ironic phrase, when applied to Marvel and DC employees) can’t come up with a single interesting idea of their own. They simply take legacy characters still beloved, and pervert, race-or-gender-swap them to peddle more cultural Marxist narratives that drive fans away from the medium.

Let’s look at some of the efforts of comic writers to develop new, original characters, in the postmodern era, with a specific focus.

The bread-and-butter of Marvel and DC was the superhero.  Characters have personalities (well, once upon a time they did) of course, but what makes a hero super is their superpowers. What sort of superpowers have postmodern comic artists/writers given their characters? (By “postmodern,” I include Boomers, Millennials, and whatever Gen Xers managed to slip in between them.)

There’s a character by the name of Jazz–an aspiring rapper by day who moonlights as a crimefighting (?) mutant. His superpower: he can turn himself blue.

But Color Kid is even more powerful. He can not only turn himself blue–he can turn other stuff other colors, too. Evildoers best beware!

These are far from the only characters with gay-ass abilities, but I want to highlight some more characters with powers that are far less interesting than what they reveal about their creators. Let’s roll the clock all the way back to the beginning of the postmodern era for the first one.

Matter-Eater Lad:

This dude can (and does) eat anything–food, dishes, utensils, wood, metal, glass, whatever. I suspect this superpower was inspired by some real people in the comic company bullpens (and later, typical proprietors and customers at comic shops) who ate a lot more than they exercised. And eating disorders are a nice transition to…

Blob:

His superpower is, he’s morbidly obese. Bet you didn’t know that is a good thing, huh? Well, now you know that our country in the 21st century is overrun with superheroes. Blob is a hero that millions today can relate to.

Seriously, I don’t want to get off on a fat-shaming tangent, but it says a lot about the delusions of our cultural influencers that they would spin obesity as a heroic asset.

Domino:

Her superpower is good luck. I can’t disparage this one too much because, in real life, whatever invisible force is often dismissed as “luck” is more of a determinant of success than talent, expertise, discipline, effort and planning, in many situations. Most of the “creatives” in today’s entertainment achieved and maintain their positions by “luck” (plus checking the correct diversity boxes, and the integrity of a whore). If you don’t have “luck,” then it rarely matters how good you are or how hard you try–you’ll never get as far as the lazy, spineless, amoral, untalented hacks who have it.

Echo:

This one is a Freudian slip, personified. The superpower is the ability to copy somebody else. A comic book glorification of what woketards in the entertainment industry do: rip off the intellectual property of actual creators, and twist it to their own nefarious purposes.

Tattooed Man:

His tattoos come to life. That’s his superpower. Are you starting to see how most of these superpowers are just exaggerations of the real-world attitudes embraced by certain demographics?

In real life, there are NPCs who truly believe they can make themselves more attractive by covering themselves with ink and piercings. In their fantasies, I suppose, such modifications not only make them more attractive and interesting, but also more powerful.

Skunk:

This one’s superpower is, basically, body odor. Along with obesity, another common characteristic in evidence at comic book shops (and in the bullpens, probably) is an aversion to personal hygiene. Little did you lesser mortals know, but this is an inspiring crimefighting tool.

Rainbow Girl:

Her superpower is bipolar mood swings. Are you starting to see that these characters are simply grandiose self-inserts by the narcissists who work at the Big Two? What sane people see as a handicap, flaw, or disorder is ack-shully part of what makes the visionaries in mainstream comics so superior to you.

There’s a character introduced within the last few years whose superpower was the ability to force others to like her. I kid you not. So remarkable and inspiring was this character that I can’t remember her name. Neither, apparently, can the World Wide Web.

Examine the Cultural Gatekeepers:

You’ve got an industry run by fat, unbathed, mentally unstable basement-dwellers (who believe themselves to be secret kings and queens far superior to us, with the knowledge of how to fix the world’s problems), incapable of developing characters that anybody finds interesting–much less heroic.

When you think about it, the “creatives” in the industry today almost perfectly match the personality profile of the fictional mad scientist villains from the Golden Age. (“The fools! They’re threatened by my  superior intellect! But one day they’ll bow before me and be forced to admit I am the ultimate genius!”) Except the mad scientists actually knew enough about real science to build giant robots, resurrect dinosaurs, and genetically engineer monsters. Their real-life counterparts still can’t grasp rudimentary concepts like two genders, herd immunity, and the size of virus particles.

How was it different when our country was healthy?

Go back to the Golden Age, and most of the Silver Age. Characters created back then had superpowers like super strength, invulnerability, flight, X-ray vision, super speed, invisibility, growth, shrinking, stretching, fire, and breathing underwater. As farfetched as they were, those abilities were practical. It was easy to conceptualize how those superpowers could be utilized to protect the innocent, make society better, and counter threats to peace and order.

In the “silly” cultural phenomenon of comic books, we find a bellweather for the state of our civilization. Far from the only bellweather, of course. Just one more corroborating all the other evidence that our civilization is circling the drain.

I was inspired to study this subject by a comment AC (Anonymous Conservative) made on his website some time ago. He has done some groundbreaking work on r and K selection, what that looks like in human societies, and how pop culture reflects it. It’s no wonder that he made this observation.

(I recommend his book on r and K selection: The Evolutionary Psychology Behind Politics, and might review it here one day.)

As I understand it: from the colonial days, up until the end of WWII, America was mostly K-selected. We built stuff, could fix stuff. We protected women and children. We worked, saved, prepared for the future. We were trustworthy neighbors, loyal friends, good Samaritans to strangers, but vigilant about protecting/preserving our own families, property, neighborhood, etc. We didn’t tolerate obvious thieves, perverts, traitors, murderers or rapists. We certainly didn’t allow them to force their amoral attitudes on the rest of society. Superheroes with practical superpowers made sense in that civilization.

Long story short, America shifted toward r-selection in the Postwar era. They abandoned the values and attitudes that helped make us once great. They became , basically, a bunch of indulged brats who threw a party, trashed their parents’ house, then refused to clean up afterwards. In fact, their every effort concentrates on destroying what is left of the house. Every effort that isn’t focused on their own personal gratification, that is. This is exemplified by the forgettable superheroes this r-selected culture has introduced. And by how the iconic superheroes of yesteryear are being corrupted and destroyed.

What do you think?

Adventure, Fantasy, Reviews

The Sword and the Sunflower by Mark Bradford – a Review

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Review by INFAMOUS 🦀

I truly wanted to like this story, and the author is a standout human being, but unfortunately I have to be objective and report that I could find very little to praise about here.

The story suffers from several issues; from character development, to pacing, to some prosaic choices, and even too frequent and unnecessary line breaks.

Basically the story is about two individuals, Stojan and Anastazja, who (after losing their beloved ones, respectively) find one another and build a father/daughter relationship, while traveling across a dystopian world somewhere in a post-apocalyptic future.

On the surface, the premises sound good and intriguing. However a further look will reveal several weaknesses in how this was executed.

We meet Stojan, a former captain turned assassin who lost his will to live since the death of his daughter 3 years prior. When he takes on a ‘job’ by a so-called Bishop to assassinate a particular individual whom the prophecy has indicated to be a future threat to the Bishop himself, Stojan embarks on a journey that takes a strange turn: he falls in love with Anastazja and can no longer fulfill his task.

Now, I get that Stojan has lost his daughter and he’s still mourning, but every time we introduce a character that has the power and influence of healing the pain of a loss, the new relationship has to feel organic and it has to build up in steps, gradually, to feel believable. This doesn’t happen here. From the moment Stojan sets his eyes on Ana he’s already fallen in love with her as a father with a daughter. It all feels rushed and kind of weird in a way.

Another weird plot choice is the way Ana’s biological father dies in the story. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I encourage you to read that particular scene for yourself.

The other problem I found was the pace: after the two main characters come together and embark on their trip across these lands, everything feels very slow and tedious. They cross the ocean from a region called Poliska (Poland? Europe?) to another region called Amira (America?), and the most exciting thing that happens is ending up in a Native American colony where they spend a whole year just enjoying the lifestyle of their host. Nothing significant happens, except for perhaps having two of the Indian tribal chiefs arguing over what new tribal name to assign to Ana (I’m totally serious).

When the two protagonists decide to leave the Indian community there’s more hiking, more riding horses across vast lands, and more NOTHING….

Some of the prosaic choices I also found not ideal given this world: in this futuristic world most people are illiterate or barely know how to read, yet their spoken language is very articulate and even more sophisticated than ours is today. It’s almost as if these people somehow went back to speaking Shakespearean English though not even having any books around anymore.

To conclude, it is with sadness that I must admit that the only true highlight of this book and most uplifting moment was when I finally turned to the last page.

If you think I must be exaggerating or being too harsh, by all means buy a copy and read it for yourself. I would love your comments.

 

INFAMOUS 🦀

Action, Military

Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson

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In the Web circles in which I cyber-travel, there is much discussion of Western civilization and legacy of Western culture. Also lamentations that it’s being lost.

My focus here is on one artifact of that disappearing legacy/culture.

American kids used to be exposed to Tennyson’s famous poem. You find references to it in hundreds or thousands of other creative work. It was through one such reference that I first learned of the existence of this poem.

Almost nobody in today’s government schools is introducing kids to this poem. In fact, there are certainly millions of adults in America who have never learned about it, or understand what references to it are still made.

(I in this clip, at about 0:24, the REMF* interpreter paraphrases part of “Charge of the Light Brigade.” Just as myself and probably millions of other veterans have.)

To put the narrative of this poem in context, we must know a little about the circumstances of a battle during the Crimean War:

25 October, 1854; the siege of Sevastopol. Lord Raglan is the  C.O. (commanding officer). The Russians are conducting a counterattack outside Balaclava, and capture British cannons. Raglan spots them running off with his artillery and wants to prevent this loss.

Raglan decides to send his Light Brigade after the Ruskies and get his field guns back. The Light Brigade is so-named because it is about a 600-man unit of light cavalry, which at this point in history meant the horses bore no armor (in contrast to the Heavy Brigade). The troopers carried sabers and light lances that were more like spears. Such units were quick and agile.

So far, so good. This is a sound, reasonable allocation of military resources to rebound from a setback. Raglan composes a message to his cavalry commander that says, basically, “Send the Light Brigade after those Ruskies stealing our cannons, and bring the guns back!”

Within his order was a careless neglect of specific detail that would make this a tragic day. From where  Raglan surveyed the battle space, it was obvious which Ruskies he was referring to. But the cavalry commander didn’t see what Raglan saw, from his position.

The message filtered down to Brigadier General Brudinell (the Earl of Cardigan or, simply, “Cardigan”), Commander of the Light Brigade. What Ruskies does Lord Raglan have in mind, he asks. The messenger waved toward the east. Attack, now, sez he.

Not that the cavalry knew, but the enemy was carrying off British field guns to the south, hidden by the terrain from their position. What lay to the east was something else entirely.

I’m sure Cardigan lost all color in his face.

“Those cannons???” he must have wanted to ask.

In the direction the dispatch rider waved was an enormous Russian formation dug in on the high ground behind numerous artillery batteries on three sides. The valley they commanded was covered by a triangular crossfire. If any British, French, or Turkish unit was foolish enough to enter that valley, they would find themselves, in modern military parlance, inside a “kill box.”

The valley was a deathtrap. This was a suicide mission.

The Valley of Death.

The officers and men were obligated to take the orders at face value. They didn’t know the orders were based on a “blunder” of omission. I guarantee you, every cavalryman, from the C.O. down to the lowest enlisted man, was severely “dismayed” by the insane orders.

What followed was an age-old conundrum for a soldier.

A soldier has to obey the orders of the officers over him. Even when the orders make no sense. Even when the orders are crazy, idiotic, or suicidal. The officers have maps, and good vantage points, and knowledge that the common soldier doesn’t. Most of the time, orders that don’t make sense to a soldier at the time will make sense later, from a  strategic perspective, and prove necessary for accomplishing a mission. Some orders are, indeed, insane, and result in needless slaughter. But the common soldier usually doesn’t know which order is which. He must trust in his chain-of-command, and follow orders regardless.

It would be difficult-to-impossible to win wars without soldiers who will follow orders like those British cavalry troopers did.

Theirs was not to make reply. (Sir, this is suicidal! You’re sending us to our doom for no good reason!”)

Theirs was not to reason why. (“Why the bloody cack are we riding right into the mouth of hell, into the jaws of death? What purpose could this possibly serve? If we are to capture those cannons, send us in from behind, in the dark of night. And even then, with the advantage of surprise, it would be a forlorn hope!”)

Theirs was but to do and die. (Their job was to carry out their orders, even when it guaranteed their death.)

Boldly they rode, and well, while under murderous fire from the front and both flanks. As they grew closer to the enemy line, Russian gunners switched out the artillery shells for “shot.” That’s short for “grapeshot.” By this time grapeshot was more sophisticated, and starting to be called “cannister.” In effect, the smoothbore cannons were firing something like shotgun blasts into both “horse and hero,” with pellets the size of musket balls.

But once the survivors had broken through the line, Cossacks rode upon them. The troopers had to fall back through the Valley of Death, with the Russian artillery shredding them from both flanks and the rear. It was a bloodbath.

There’s a lot that can be said about that engagement. Tennyson concentrated on the honor of the steadfast troopers who rode knowingly into the Mouth of Hell. It was courageous, glorious, as he saw it. A cynic might be tempted to dismiss it as a foolish catastrophe. Were they fools for following orders that day? Not for me to judge. But nobody can question  their loyalty, their commitment to their duty, or their mettle.

One more thought: to preserve the stamina of their horses, the cavalry could not maintain a charge at a full gallop over long distances. They advanced at a walk, while already under fire. After half a league (a league is about 3 1/2 miles) they adjusted the pace to a trot. Later they accelerated to a lope or canter. Finally, a sprint. When read the right way, this poem’s cadence approximates the changing pace of the brigade riding into the Jaws of Death.

I’ll let Tennyson take it from here:

I
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.
II
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
   Someone had blundered.
   Theirs not to make reply,
   Theirs not to reason why,
   Theirs but to do and die.
   Into the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.
III
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
   Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
   Rode the six hundred.
(At 0:20 is a brief-but-spectacular shot of a cavalryman breaking through the line and sabering a gunner while his horse is in mid air hurdling the barricade.)
IV
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
   All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
   Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
   Not the six hundred.
V
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
   Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
   Left of six hundred.
VI
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
   All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
   Noble six hundred!

This is my way of honoring the noble 600 and the charge they made, Alfred.

* “Rear Echelon Mo-Fo,” AKA “clerks & jerks.” The corporal is literally a clerk-typist, assigned to a squad of Rangers for the mission that this movie is about.

Non-Fiction/Documentary, Superhero

Comics, Manga, Literacy and a Possible Renaissance

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How do you hide something from a Millennial?

Put it in a book

Yeah, I know: harsh generalization. But I bet the statistics would back it up. I would also bet there’s a strong correlation (if not causation) between recreational reading and independent/critical thinking.

When Did the Slide Begin?

Some sources suggest America’s decline in literacy began in the 1920s. I consider it more likely that significant decline can be traced to 1947, when television began to proliferate in middle class homes across America. But whatever.

Two boys reading reading comics at a news stand, USA, circa 1955. (Photo by FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

What we do know is that  the popularity of comic books exploded in 1938 and lasted into the 1950s (the superhero craze lasted from 1938 until about 1945). Comic books have never been as popular as they were during the Golden Age. And the comic-reading demographic during that time was mostly boys. A lot of teenagers read them, some old enough to serve in uniform overseas, but the scale tipped significantly to pre-teen boys. Specifically, these were late-cohort GI Generation, Silent Generation, and early-cohort Boomers.

Changing of the Guard

Many from the latter generation would continue reading comics into adulthood. Some from that generation would take over the industry, and shift their sights to an audience of their own peers, turning their backs on the following generations.

Fast-forward to today. With some exceptions, the Millennials and Homelanders* are functionally illiterate and incapable of independent/critical thought. Lots of factors have converged to handicap them this way. One factor is there have effectively no comic books that excited them as boys and led them to a transition to “more serious” prose books.

I listened to one of Chuck Dixon’s podcasts recently, He mentioned that Manga has attracted the young audience that comics lost over the course of the Pozzed Age.**

What Manga Proves

If Manga can win back that young demographic, then why couldn’t American comics, too? After all, American comics are the original gangsta that first won that audience, anyway.

Here is a windmill worth tipping at. I have begun some research, starting with Demon Slayer, which a librarian says is one of the more popular titles with teenagers. So far as drawing and writing style, it is more refined than most of the Golden Age comics. But I don’t see the story quality as an improvement. I’m sure there is better Manga out there (and hopefully I’ll find some), but take note, my fellow creators: we can do better than this stuff!

We don’t have the equivalent of Anime to market comics to kids, but we should think of something. The Boomers will begin dying off, soon, and American comics will die with them as a medium, unless we crack the code for finding a young audience.

Share your thoughts in the comments.

 

* I use Generational Theory, as codified by William Strauss & Neil Howe, not the MPAI terms like “Gen Y,” “Gen Z,” “Zoomers,” etc.

** IMO this age began in the 1990s and is still in effect, at least when it comes to mainstream entertainment. Some of us are hard at work trying to usher in an Iron Age…history will determine if we’re successful.

Historical, Reviews

Codex Babylon by Robert Kroese – a Review

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How could I pass up a novel with time travel, demonic conspiracies, the Knights Templar and their modern day descendent (an organization called GRAIL–see what they did, there?)?

GRAIL has a time machine. They’ve been monitoring demonic activity in the present day and believe the world is at the breaking point because of it. But if they are able to recover a Medieval text on demonology (the eponymous Codex Babylon), they might just be able to turn the spiritual tide against the unseen enemy.

Martin Raines is a unicorn honest attorney who has just won a case that could open big doors in his career. But he is choosing early retirement instead. He doesn’t just want to leave the rat race of law, but the Current Year dystopian madhouse altogether. Neither he, nor the narrator, bother to articulate just what all is wrong with modern society, but he knows things are getting increasingly ugly. He is relocating his family to rural Idaho, where he hopes to protect them from the worst of whatever insanity is yet to come.

The ambiguity of the demonic outbreak was no problem for a reader like me. Whatever the author means by “demonic activity,” it was easy for me to assume he was referring to the Cold Civil War, the culture war, and the spiritual conflict behind them. A normie reader would just chalk it up to a fictional aspect of the world the author built, and read on, giving it no more thought than the existence of monsters in a Larry Correa novel.

GRAIL finds Martin and informs him that his instinctive revulsion to current events and trends isn’t ultimately due to woketardery (or whatever), but instead is a result of a drastic upsurge in an age-old demonic force.  It will soon achieve such power that Martin’s family won’t be safe, even in Idaho. To have a chance at checking the demonic power, GRAIL needs the Codex Babylon. And Martin is their best candidate to send back to get it.

After the obligatory hero’s resistance, Martin finally agrees and is transported back to the Middle East in between crusades.

The Knights Templar, like so many institutions, started out with good intentions, but eventually transformed into something antithetical to their original purpose. Kroese has his main character go back to the point in history when the Templars’ apostacy arguably began.

That, too, was one battle in the demons’ war against the good, beautiful, and true.

What we know about Martin Raines is:

  • He loves his family.
  • He’s fairly well-studied in history.
  • He’s better-than-average at learning languages.
  • When he dreams, he can communicate with GRAIL’s empath (?) back in the 21st Century.

Martin’s quest is a frustrating tour of Medieval Europe and the Middle East, chasing the spoor of anybody who might know where to find the demonology book. There were times when I felt like yelling at some of the characters. (“Go look at the papers on Benedict’s desk, you dolts!” “Don’t trust her, you moron!”) However, if you can accept time travel as a plot device, everything that happens in the story is believable.

Codex Babylon is Book One of The Cross-Time Crusade Series. It does arguably stand alone. But the link (cliffhanger) to the next book in the series does seem rather tacked-on. This is a common issue with series fiction. Authors employ different literary tactics to make episodic novels both stand alone and work as an integrated narrative. Sometimes they work better than others.

Another common issue with series fiction is that the first book ends after setting the stage, but often before the story hits its stride. This might be the case here, too. There’s a lot of intriguing ingredients introduced in this book. I may have to read Book Two (paid link) to see what  kind of dish is produced from this recipe.

Steampunk

Steampunk: An Inside Look

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by INFAMOUS 🦀

 

Steampunk. What is it exactly? How do we define it as a genre?

If you ask 10 different people you’ll most likely get 10 slightly different answers. I admit, I’m no authority on the subject, but ever since its conception in the 70s/80s I always felt that this genre never reached the recognition or full creative potential in fiction literature I felt it could reach. These days we see a lot of ‘sword and sorcery’ content being written, followed to a lesser extent by science fiction and some cyberpunk. For the most part Steampunk has been a fringe, relegated to the awkward cosplay characters at cons and some mediocrely written comic books and novellas. 

There hasn’t been an author to really put Steampunk on the map. And that’s too bad, for the genre itself offers some most peculiar and exciting elements. 

The main element (for me at least) is certainly the ‘historical period’ element: Steampunk is based on a dystopian Victorian era that sees the introduction of technological advances that have influenced everything from communications, to architecture, to fashion, and beyond. 

This world is posh, austere, elegant, and intriguing. It’s in this retro style that we should find the source of great and unexplored storytelling. But do we?

Just putting goggles and top hats on some blimp-flying characters won’t make for great stories, but it seems that most of the steampunk content we have is just that: unoriginal, mediocre stories dressed up in Steampunk attire.

Virtual Pulp was able to connect with a ‘certain individual’ I firmly believe to be an authority on the topic. 

This gentleman will help me and you better understand Steampunk in relation to the current fiction literature trends, and dispel any and all misconceptions. He is also a proficient writer and thus we will also feature his first novel and first comic book, complete with a thorough review.

 

Non-Fiction/Documentary, Politics/Current Events

What’s the Missing Ingredient for Victory in the Culture War?

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(This post was originally  scheduled for a couple weeks ago, but stuff happened and it had to get shuffled around. Apologies if you were expecting it earlier.)

Why do we consistently lose, politically? (And even when we supposedly win, we still lose.)

You’ve probably already figured it out. If not, you likely will soon: the GOP always sells us out. They are controlled opposition. Or the “good cop” LARPing as our champion while the Uniparty they belong to commands them to continually betray us.

Lucy: the GOP Establishment. Charlie Brown: Republican voters.

Nobody truly committed to liberty, national sovereignty, or even sanity will ever be allowed to rise to prominence in the Uniparty Machine. Real change (change for the better, I mean) is what the MSM and Establishment gatekeepers exist to prevent.

This post applies to the Dissident Right writ large, but I intend to specifically address  the creative/artistic “community” within this faction.

There are plenty of squabbles on the Left: Should we commit infanticide only before birth, or is any time hunky-dory? Should we incessantly ram sodomy down people’s throats, or Islam? Who deserves our support more–macho chicks who think they’re as good or better than dudes, or dudes who pretend to be chicks and shatter those fantasies?

But whenever there’s a significant battle to be fought, the leftards put aside their differences, present a united front, and dogpile on anyone with the audacity to question their Big Tent Agenda.

On the Right, we are too busy backbiting each other to even entertain the idea of unity. Chances are (if you’re not a well-known influencer of some kind), you’ve been wounded more and deeper by potential allies than the enemy.

When I dusted off my Twatter account and began spending time there again, I couldn’t help but notice all the bickering about some “conservative calendar” with photos of attractive women in it. Most of the mudslinging and name-calling was between right-of-center folks. And that was just a blip compared to an ongoing feud between the respective supporters of Eric July and Ethan Van Sciver.

People supposedly on our end of the political spectrum will sabotage others’ marketing efforts, assassinate their character with flimsy or no evidence, copy stuff others have written and use it for their own purposes without giving credit…and that only scratches the surface.

A lot of you just won’t quit feeding the Beast, even when there are alternatives. You keep using Google, Wikipedia, Facebook; drinking Coke/Pepsi, eating at McDonalds/Burger King and buying Hersheys/Kellogs, etc. Same with Marvel/DC, Disney, Netflix, etc.

Unity comes natural to collectivists. They fear independent thought, so naturally fit the role of obedient drones in the Hive Mind. Their largest demographic is Millennial–one of the most cooperative and conformist generations alive today.

By our nature, liberty enthusiasts are independent thinkers. Getting us to unify for any cause is like herding cats. And the dominant demographic in the creative “community” on our side is Generation X. We don’t play well together. We are the most competitive of the living generations.

So, spoiler alert: extreme individualism and a hyper-competitive instinct don’t naturally gravitate toward unity, or even solidarity.

What is needed for us  to  build a parallel economy/culture that succeeds? I probably can’t provide a comprehensive list, but I know we’re gonna need an online bookstore. Arkhaven is already on its way to scooping up the audience that the pozzed comic sites are chasing away. We may see an online drop-shipper rise up out of the Gab Marketplace to compete with Amazon in the realm of all the other stuff they peddle, but we are gonna need a bookstore that will sell the books they ban, and design algorithms that allow readers to decide what succeeds, instead of woketard gatekeepers.

But no matter what platforms are built on our side, and how good the quality of the products, they can’t and won’t succeed if you keep using your voting dollars to enrich the businesses that hate you. Those woke, pozzed businesses have the deck stacked in their favor. While small (and non-woke) businesses have been targeted for destruction, anointed favorites like Amazon get special deals that make them immune to most of our totalitarian overlords’ poison.

This is one battlefield of many where we need solidarity to have any chance of success.

Back when I first published Hell and Gone (paid link), it got a good review. I say good because the reviewer was a combat veteran who appreciated what I had injected into the men’s fiction/action-adventure/military thriller genre(s). I spent a lot of time on a forum for Kindle authors in those days, and evidently he did, too.  He sent me a DM there identifying himself as the reviewer, and went on to say he bought/read my book to check out the competition. This was Jack Murphy, a Mack Bolan fan and former Army Ranger, who was, at the time, writing his own first novel–also a paramilitary adventure.

I don’t have any copies of our first correspondence (or even remember the name of that forum), but my response was along these lines: “Nobody is writing this kind of stuff anymore, so there’s plenty of room for competition. In fact, it could use some good solid competition.”

We became online buddies after that, helping readers discover each others’ work, commenting on each others’ blogs,  and giving signal boosts whenever possible. We gave each other crossover business, intentionally and unintentionally. He was one of the guys who convinced me to write a sequel (paid link) to what I had not myself considered more than a stand-alone novel. As it turned out, Jack made better choices than I did and had me beat on the right time/right place dynamic as well. His novels got hundreds of reviews. He was a founding member of SOFREP, became an investigative reporter, and went on to write some non-fiction, including a New York Times Bestseller.

Jack was a stand-up guy, but is not a member of the Dissident Right. He chose a different path than I did. And he is far more successful as an author than I am. But I don’t regret helping him out in those early days. I don’t resent his success. Not at all. Even if he goes back to writing men’s fiction, I still want him to succeed (continue succeeding, that is). There is room enough for both of us, and plenty more.

Like all the arts, literature is not a zero-sum game. When somebody buys Reflexive Fire or Target Deck, (paid links) odds are, they’re not going to stop reading books for the rest of their lives after reading those. Plenty of readers bought both my books and his.

I personally think it’s economically crazy for CVS to build a store at every single intersection where a Walgreens sits, as they seem to in every Florida city. Yet I’ve never seen one of them capture 100% of the customers and force the other one out of business by doing so. Both are doing fine, so far as I can tell.

I was a huge Batman fan as a boy, and bought his titles whenever I had money. But that didn’t stop me from buying Spiderman, too. Neither of them decreased in popularity just because the other was also popular.

It is not going to hurt you if somebody buys a book written by somebody else you consider competition. It is not going to hurt your blog or review site if an Internet user (or two, or 10, or 10,000) also visit a different blog. Same deal with comic buyers, social media followers, whatever. You should want them to succeed, if they are also in favor of liberty, Christianity, and the nuclear family–or even just not trying to help Globohomo destroy all of the above.

Will this turn out to become the Iron Age, or will it remain the Pozzed Age? Without a little bit of solidarity throughout the Right, and not-so-common sense, the enemy will win this battle, too.

Share your thoughts in the comments. And if you like what we’re doing at Virtual Pulp, share our posts on social media  (those convenient buttons on the right sidebar are one way to do it).

UPDATE: I’m backing up the site now, will update the PHP afterwards, then see if I can get the subscription widget working. Thanks for your patience!

Action, Fantasy, Reviews

Man of Swords: The Knight Who Would Not Kneel – a Review

2 Comments

(Part 2 of a 6-part series by the INFAMOUS REVIEWER GIO)

“King Orrefiah was downed, bleeding, while all about him brayed death. On either hand his retinue lay slain, pierced and hacked, their faces trodden to the mud.”

 

After reading Eye and the Dragon, the first of the tales in Man of Swords (paid link), we might have assumed that perhaps this whole collection was going to be less story-driven and more gearing towards the ‘abstract’ and the ‘ethereal’…WRONG.

The Knight Who Would Not Kneel once again brings back the R.V. Mills we experienced in the Isle of the Shrine of the Sick’ning Scarab. Only BETTER, if that were even possible!

Let me explain: this second tale is something that sees more action, more glorious army battles, and more fierce individual combats than we can handle…and yet, that’s not how this tale truly sets itself apart from the rest. 

After saving King Orrefiah’s life on the battlefield, young Rohye–now in his late teens–finds himself reluctantly serving as one of the king’s official knights. He distinguishes himself on the battlefield time and time again against the barbaric hordes that keep threatening the kingdom through pillaging and invasions. However, Rohye frowns upon the extreme military tactics used by the king to completely annihilate the foreign tribes.

Fast-forward a year or so to when the kingdom finally seems to be experiencing a longer lasting period of  peace, but the king, now in poor health and hunted by his conscience, asks Rohye to accompany him on a pilgrimage to a mythical tower where a source of supernatural healing lies hidden.

The synergy between Rohye and King Orrefiah is the apex of this entire story. Rohye is not sure why he’s even willing to aid the ill king, but he can sense that there is a reason that would be revealed in due time. The king in his ill state seeks healing (but truthfully, redemption from his crimes of war he has committed). Combine a rich cast of supporting characters, a superb ‘Shakespearean’ prosaic style and you have a true masterpiece! 

The Knight Who Would Not Kneel should be read by anybody and everybody; it should be adapted to plays, movies, music; and it should be the topic of discussion of every literature roundtable across the globe. 

The fact that the story has so many layers to it would make it a challenge to cover it all in just 1 review. But that’s what makes it so special, it puts the reader in a position to explore and discover over and over again.

New legends in the making. History in the making.

Thank you Mr. Mills!

Non-Fiction/Documentary, Politics/Current Events

Which Age Are We Living Through?

3 Comments

You would have to be Boss Level oblivious right now to not be aware of the struggle taking place for the fate of our country, and our culture. Sane, decent people have not put up much of a fight in the former, but they finally are making their presence known in the latter.

In both struggles, the Establishment is fully on board with the other side’s agenda.

In the culture war, the Establishment is controlled by Homowood; the New York Publishing Cartel (“tradpub”); the Big Diseased Two (in comics); similar Globohomo tools in the music business; and of course all the MSM propagandists who publicize all the fake news about all the above.

The Dissident Right has been waging a guerrilla campaign on the culture front. Now, maybe-just-maybe, the guerrillas are ready to join forces and engage the enemy in decisive battle. Force-on-force action has begun to demonstrate that (at least to some extent) Globohomo is being outfought by the Resistance, whether it be Gab in social media, Infogalactic in web research, FundMyComic or GiveSendGo in crowdfunding, or Arkhaven in webcomics. Gabpay might soon be a match for Paypal. Let’s hope so.

However, two weapons we are sorely lacking is a non-woke search engine (some come along, but never stay non-woke for long), and a non-converged online bookstore.

Comicsgate and other phenomena are evidence that our side might be capable of concentrating force on the cultural battlefield. I recently shared some of my thoughts on this topic in a group on Gab. One of the commenters opined that the cultural epoch we’ve been stuck in so far could best be titled “the Pozzed Age.”

And right there in that comment is a simple, rhetorical indicator of what we are fighting for: Will this be the Iron Age, or the Pozzed Age?

Drop a comment to let us know what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe so you won’t miss any new content.