Category Archives: Reviews

Crime, Reviews

Oathkeeper by Troy Grice

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As the USA is fundamentally transformed into a third world police state, it’s hard not to notice that the police (local, state and federal) have been transforming before our eyes even faster. Depending on where you live, you might know a “good” cop or two. More often than not, though, police officers have been conditioned to be tools to carry out all sorts of missions except to serve and protect. My concern with this issue is what led me to slip this novel to the front of the line in my To Be Read queue.

Monte Turcott is a veteran recently returned to his home in Calumet County. He becomes a local hero when he stops a pointless shooting spree by killing the shooter. But the star of this novel is Sheriff Bear Ellis.

The irony in the behavior of government employees (from the White House down) is that they all are required to swear an oath to abide by the Constitution. Then they immediately set about violating every article and clause in it. Bear is a rarity in that he remembers his oath, and is convicted to keep it. But even though a county sheriff is theoretically accountable to the people of his county, and beholden to no higher official, Bear is under tremendous pressure from the jackbooted federal Gestapo (represented by the DEA in this case) to be a team player in the encroaching police state.

When the DEA raids the wrong house, killing Turcott’s wife, Bear finds himself caught in the middle of the struggle between the rule of law (to include due process) and the aspirations of the  alphabet soup Gestapo agencies. The situation is further complicated when the agent who killed the innocent woman is himself bumped off. There is no evidence against Turcott but the judge/jury/executioner Feds want to pin it on him anyway, and exact revenge.

If this sounds like a farfetched scenario, then you haven’t been paying attention. Yes, “law enforcement” is upside-down from what it was in the 1950s and earlier.

Grice did a good job getting inside the mind of a cop. Even the dying breed of “good” ones have been poisoned by relativistic rationale that puts loyalty to fellow LEOs above actually keeping their oaths. It must be severely difficult not to develop an “us vs. them” attitude regarding the people they are paid to serve and protect.

A very well-written novel, examining one little microcosm of what is happening/has happened to our republic.

P.S: None of the characters of this book belong to the official Oathkeepers organization.

Action, Military, Reviews

13 Hours–Provoking Questions That Should Be Asked

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Only the gullible put their faith in Hollywood anymore. When you go into the theater, expect to be lied to if the film is “based on a true story,” or for the leftist agenda and their cultural Marxist tropes to get in the way of telling a decent story if it’s not.

Keep your guard up…and once in a while you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

What Hollywood would like to do is have everyone forget about Benghazi. Failing that, they would prefer to feed it through the leftward-cranking revisionist machine in which incompetent traitors like Hillary and Hussein are the heroes, and “right-wing extremists” are somehow the villains.

For whatever reasons, Michael Bay didn’t make that movie. Of course he doesn’t put a spotlight on the culpability of the US State Department, or tackle the unasked questions of why Ambassador Stevens was there in the first place, what he was doing, and by whose orders…but c’mon. That’s kinda like not being stung by the scorpion, then, on top of that, expecting him to pay you for taking him across the river. Count your blessings.

Here’s my list of pros and cons about the movie:

PRO: Very solid acting, from pretty much everybody. The CIA station chief stood out, in particular.

CON: It’s rough keeping track of all the characters, especially at first. They are introduced rapidly and you really don’t know much about their respective personalities until deep in the film.

PRO: The action is intense, and believable.

CON: As with the characters, there are several different entities involved in the Benghazi debacle, and there is no exposition to introduce you. If the viewer hasn’t studied Benghazi beforehand, he might feel a bit overwhelmed and out of the loop. There’s GRS; the QRF in Tripoli; plus security details for the consulate and the CIA Annex; and Feb 17. The interrelations are never politely explained.

PRO: If the movie is accurate, then what I initially heard about Glen Doherty’s role was not. Makes me want to dig a little to see what else I had faulty info on.

CON: There are the usual little nits to pick about scenes and shots in the firefight(s). These are usually due to either the director’s ignorance about tactics, or his sacrifice of accuracy for cinematic purposes.

UNDECIDED: Speaking of accuracy vs. dramatic license, the plot doesn’t perfectly progress after the pattern the audience is used to, and the simple explanation for that is because real life doesn’t, either. I know first-hand that it’s very difficult telling a true story that is dramatic/exciting; and probably impossible to tell a story that is both 100% accurate and 100% captivating. Considering that, the writers and director did an admirable job finding a balance.

PRO: While there is enough ambiguity to avoid revealing the smoking gun in Hillary’s hand (and the Obamanible Hussein’s, for that matter), this movie does cause thinking men to ask important questions.

Questions that should have been relentlessly asked since 2012, by the bulk of the American population.

Action, Adventure, Reviews, Superhero

Daredevil on Netflix

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So far, there is only one season’s worth of episodes on Netflix. I watched them all to the end without puking. I do admit to some groans and eye-rolls, but grading on the curve, that’s an A+ for a superhero (or, frankly, any) TV show these days.

First of all, in a genre with more reboots than a week’s worth of using Microsux Winblows, the series was fairly faithful to the source material. Remember, Daredevil hit the crimefighting stage in the 1960s. So first of all, everything had to be transposed to this millennium.

I’ll get the eye-rolls out of the way first.

SpidermanKingpin

(BTW, I remember the Kingpin being one of Spiderman’s enemies. Maybe Frank Miller switched him over?)

In today’s obsession with gray areas, flawed heroes and sympathetic villains, I guess it was just too tempting for the writers not to try to show the Kingpin’s humanity.

Sometimes these apologetics work. In this instance it was really unnecessary.

Some villains are just crooked, okay? The darker side of human nature is to lust after wealth/ power, and to build one’s own twisted version of morality in order to justify those lusts. The scumbags of the world either see themselves as heroes or victims (often both), and always have an excuse handy for what they do. You don’t need to help them make excuses.

Scheming crime lord, or misunderstood idealistic recluse?
Scheming crime lord, or misunderstood idealistic recluse?

I’ll only mention one more annoyance: the creative team behind Daredevil obviously felt obliged to lament the revolution in media every chance they got. In fact, the reporter character (Ben Urich) really serves no better purpose in the series.

He’s an icon–a symbol of journalistic integrity that the left-wing propagandist tools of the mainstream media would have you believe motivates them. The great tragedy is that since the flow of information has been democratized via the Internet, people have options and are turning away from the Lapdog Press; perusing alternative sources looking for the truth.

The truth that the mainstream media routinely attempts to suppress (and before the Internet, they were consistently successful).

The Daredevil writers (via their Ben Urich character) whine about the demise of Marxist (“mainstream”) newspapers, and complain that inferior proletarian slobs “blogging in their underwear” are responsible. They also seem to believe that those unwashed bloggers are getting filthy rich from doing it.

There was one similar rant in Arrow that I remember, but in this series, once was evidently not enough.

The series is just sloppin' over with eye candy. And the cinematography/effects ain't bad, either.
The series is just sloppin’ over with eye candy. And the cinematography/effects ain’t bad, either.

If you can ignore elements like those two eye-rolls summarized above (and I’m sure 99% of folks do), then this is actually a decent series so far. Matt Murdock, Foggy Nelson, Karen Page, Claire Temple and the other supporting characters are likeable. The action is mixed in well. The fight scenes are not bad for TV.

SInce the dark days of the 70s, Marvel’s efforts at live-action adaptation has undergone a tremendous overhaul. The Daredevil series certainly meets current Marvel Studios standards, and is an immense improvement over the big-screen effort of a few years ago.

Of the three different superhero-inspired series I’ve critiqued this month, this is the only one I intend to continue following.

Crime, Reviews, Superhero

Gotham on Netflix

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Continuing with my superhero miniseries, I now turn to the latest reboot of the Batman mythos.

First off, as I pointed out in Superheroes and The Narrative:

…Frankly, you have to hand it to the pop culture svengalis because it takes talent to sell an aspect of The Narrative as oxymoronic as feminism (that women are superior to heterosexual men in every way, yet simultaneously oppressed victims of them).

That’s not the only difficult task they’ve cut out for themselves.–they’ve taken the Batman and turned him into a blatant oxymoron which gets swallowed whole by millions.

Let’s not forget that the Batman is A VIGILANTE. He’s a wealthy, Batman Destroys the Monkproperty-owning individual who recognizes that the so-called criminal justice system is hopelessly broken. He dedicates his life to disciplined training for a one-man war against the criminal class. Using his own capital, he arms and equips himself for the war. Once he reaches his physical prime, he circumvents the authority of the state and deals out justice personally, concealing his identity from both the criminal underworld and the corrupt system. In the beginning he wasn’t afraid to terminate scumbags with extreme prejudice, and at least once used firearms to do so.

You can’t get much more right-wing than that.

And yet, after Robin was first introduced in the early 1940s, Gotham City took a turn for the bizarre. Batman became a de facto officer in the Gotham PD, working so closely with Commissioner Gordon that one wonders why he bothered to keep his identity secret. You can see the transformation visually in the appearance of his costume, BTW.

The Batman assumed his disguise to strike fear into the hearts of criminals--"a superstitious, cowardly lot."
The Batman assumed his disguise to strike fear into the hearts of criminals–“a superstitious, cowardly lot.”
A kinder, gentler vigilante.
A kinder, gentler vigilante.

So…he’s a vigilante, but he works with the system. Oh, he’s gone through phases in which he is hunted by the cops, but it never lasts long and it’s usually as a result of him being framed by an enemy. He’s also become quite the anti-gun activist.

antigunBatmanSince at least the 1980s, the writers at DC have become more bold about inserting their leftist worldview into the comics. (The latest movie trilogy was a pleasant surprise, except for the last one, depending on perspective. If you’re a “law and order” cuckservative/Rino/NeoCon you probably thought the underlying message in Dark Knight Rises was just great.)

So what you have is an anarchist character who is written to be an agent of the state, and most passionate about collectivist causes (gun control, the dangers of privacy, etc.). He’s also a capitalist operating with nigh-autonomy, in a fantasy world where the free market is the problem, and autonomy should be exclusive to leftist politicians.

It takes some talented snake oil salesmen to peddle this stuff; and it takes some gullible chumps to swallow it without question.

Having said that, on to the TV series. I’ll list pros and cons.

PRO: This series has the best performances I’ve seen by a child actor playing the young Bruce Wayne.

ThePenguin_01
The classic Penguin–that paragon of perfidy with a parasol…that bumbershoot bandit with a belly…

CON: In this show Oswald Cobblepot (AKA the Penguin) has more in common with the horrible Tim Burton character revamp than with the Penguin of the comics (at least the first half-century of the comics). In fact, this characterization might be worse: Cobblepot is petulant, impulsive, and sometimes downright stupid. Hardly the stuff supervillains are made of. His segments get tiresome to watch after a few episodes. And was the creepy mother fixation really necessary?

Tim Burton's Penguin--basically a disgusting zombie raised by real-life penguins.
Tim Burton’s Penguin–basically a disgusting zombie raised by real-life penguins.

PRO: Young detective Gordon is played very well, though the actor’s voice gets increasingly raspy–like he’s auditioning to play the part of Batman.

CON: Bruce Wayne doesn’t become Batman until he reaches adulthood, right? In this series he’s still a child…and yet the writers seem determined to have every single character in the Batman universe cross paths when Bruce Wayne is pre-pubescent. This is becoming a typical plotting fetish when these superhero franchises are rebooted, and it wasn’t all that clever the first few times. Plus it just isn’t credible. Only so much disbelief can be suspended for the more intelligent viewers, so save your improbable points for stuff like, you know, an unarmed dude with no superpowers attacking gangs of armed criminals, dodging all their bullets and vanquishing them with his bare hands.

PRO: The exception to the foolishness of the fetish summarized above is the early development of Edward Nygma (AKA the Riddler). Making the pre-Riddler E. Nygma a forensic technician for the Gotham Police may just have been a stroke of genius. Some might even find him likeable, in a nerd/loser way. The writers/directors have built for themselves an opportunity here to mold a very solid, credible villain via a patient character arc.

CON: Alfred is now a British SpecOps vet. Really? Facepalm. He’s a butler, okay?

Ooh, scary! Another Hollywod badass.
Ooh, scary! Another Hollywod badass.

CON: Selena Kyle (AKA Catwoman) is a child, who personally meets and befriends the child Bruce Wayne many years before they grow up to have a kinky love/hate cat/mouse (flying mouse, that is) relationship in masks and tights. Holy overused plot gimmick, Batman. And of course at 12 years old (or whatever) “Cat” is a badass streetwise thug-with-a-heart-of-gold who pulls little Brucie’s fat out of the fire any time the writers can dream up an excuse to contrive it. Oh yeah, both of them also know the young girl who will grow up to become Poison Ivy. Holy ho-hum.

Now here's a villainess to wrap your arms around.
Now here’s a villainess to wrap your arms around.

CON: Maybe you’ve noticed we’re missing something. Where are all the sympathetic sodomites? Are the cultural svengalis slipping? Ah, never fear: no less than James Gordon’s future wife (and future mother of Batgirl) is now AC/DC. Her erstwhile rug-munching buddy is one of only two honest cops on the Gotham PD when Jim Gordon joins the force. Hmm. I’m not sure they went far enough–maybe she should be a war hero, too. There’s all sorts of potential checkboxes to choose from in the Perversion Peddling Playbook.

The cultural svengalis are in lock step and their Narrative is as predictable, ultimately, as how any given post-season will end for the Minnesota Vikings. They may lull you into complacency with some good writing, good acting, good whatever for a while, but only so they can sucker-punch you once your guard is down..

Action, Adventure, Reviews, Superhero

The Flash on Netflix

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Smallville paved the way for Arrow, and The Flash spun off from that. If you noticed that Smallville became increasingly ridiculous and unimaginative after Season One, you might suspect that the same writers are churning out episode teleplays for the spinoffs.

The Flash TV series is not without its assets, on display here.
The Flash TV series is not without its assets, on display here.

The Flash does have something going for it–namely special effects and an 8+ babe in the regular cast.

Unfortunately the directing does not raise the bar for superhero adaptations. So many times the Flash is shown moving at super-speed, but repeatedly the actor is instructed to stand around and wait to get punched or shot or zapped when the script calls for a reversal or increase in dramatic tension. This is much harder to forgive in live-action than it is in the panels of a comic book.

Also, Barry Allen, as depicted, couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag.

The first few episodes suffered from overacting and desperately over-dramatic writing. The actors and writers settled down a little after a while, but it became painfully obvious soon thereafter that this is just another example of a comic book stalwart being hijacked by SJWs and transformed into just another chapter of The Narrative.

Here are two factors that were final nails in the coffin for me:

The Obligatory Sympathetic Homosexual Character

This time they made him a police captain. The creative team are simply/dutifully following Step 1 and 4 of “The Overhauling of Straight America.” (The other steps have been followed so religiously that the cultural svengalis can just maintain The Narrative now–it’s already been programmed into Millenials, Gen X, Gen Y and most Baby Boomers.)

The Obligatory Amazon Superninja

One of the villains (I can’t recall his moniker) could turn his entire body into iron or something. He was a very similar character to comic book villains like the Sandman, Clayface, the Molten Man, etc. In this series the Flash is a lousy fighter and gets his butt handed to flashgreenarrowhim by nearly every opponent (except Green Arrow–Barry Allen suddenly and mysteriously knows how to fight using his super-speed when a feud between him and Oliver Queen is contrived). The Iron Baddie is no exception–always able to transform into iron faster than the Flash can move.

The diversity-by-the-numbers team at Star Labs (Hispanic scientist; female scientist; ostensibly handicapped evil genius white male scientist) tap their keyboards a few times and decide that the way to take out Iron Baddie is for Flash to deliver a punch while running faster than he’s ever run before.

So our hero gets a running start and tops out at like 800 MPH before

This is Hollywood's vision of a badass ultimate fighter.
This is Hollywood’s vision of a badass ultimate fighter.

nailing Iron Baddie right on the button. Iron Baddie recovers and comes right back at the Crimson Chump the Scarlet Speedster. Ah, but never fear: the aforementioned 8+ babe (Iris West) steps in and knocks him out with one punch. She has no superpowers (unless you count hypergamy) but is obviously superior to ANY man, even the superpowered ones. Because vagina.

Need I waste more verbiage on this series?

Non-Fiction/Documentary, Politics/Current Events, Reviews

Review: SJWs Always Lie/Taking Down the Thought Police

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I’m pretty sure I’m echoing the sentiments of others by saying this, but I wish I’d had this handbook many years ago. Much of what SJWs Always Lie reveals, I had learned on my own the hard way. Plus, I’ve been following Vox Populi for a couple years now so this wasn’t the first time I’ve encountered most of the author’s revelations.

Still, even though I had learned some dos and dont’s on my own, I hadn’t learned all of them. Nor had I discovered exactly WHY one should follow the dos and don’ts I’d learned.

One nice bonus in this book is a chapter-long summary of the whole #Gamergate saga. I’d put bits and pieces together from reading blog posts related to it; but it was nice to digest the entire history of it in one sitting. I suspect other readers would equally appreciate Day’s summary of the Hugo Awards/Puppies conflict. What both incidents teach us is that, even though entrenched throughout pop culture (and everywhere else), the SJWs can be pushed back if a few good men can only summon the courage and motivation to take off the kid gloves and fight.

Despite what I’ve learned from this book and personal experience, Day has helped me understand that I need to become more fluent in the form of communication Aristotle called the rhetorical (not exactly what we currently label rhetoric). Why? Because Aristotle and Day are absolutely correct: there are certain people whose minds you will never change by giving them information. I’ve run into them a lot, and was usually baffled by how futile my communication had been (speaking dialectic to those who couldn’t understand it).

This book is chock-full of insights and practical advice on what to do when you encounter an SJW.

Vox Day lays out the 8 stages of an SJW attack. In Stage One, he lists three subcomponents:

  1. self-appointed public defense;
  2. virtual victimhood, and
  3. creative offense-taking.

Even though I think I can think of examples of all three, it would have been nice had the author provided them himself.

Little stuff like that is really the only flaws I can point to in this book. And of course, whether or not they are truly flaws is subjective.

A pleasant side-effect of this book’s release is the number of parodies and counter-parodies now enjoying  some exposure on Amazon.

Adventure, Crime, Reviews

Praise For the Harboiled Gearhead Rock&Roller Detective

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Deke Jones is an unapolagetic alpha male (sigma according to Vox Day’s breakdown of the socio-sexual hierarchy) but also an irreverent loner, whose passion is cars and music, and just happens to make a living as a private detective.

I haven’t marketed my books much, and it shows in the anemic sales and Amazon reviews. But then, these are niche novels, focused at an audience that is apparently even smaller than I guessed. Until today (I’m writing this on Saturday 10/10/15) the latest Deke Jones romp, Shadow Hand Blues, didn’t have even a single review.

Well, that threshold is finally crossed, and here is the review:

I loved Fast Cars and Rock&Roll so,naturally,I was excited to see another Deke Jones Romp. After a few paragraphs,I thought that this book was not going to live up to it’s predecessor. Boy was I WRONG! I soon realized that this story was more about Deke Jones the private detective/musician and not about Deke Jones the race car driver. I’m a car guy through and through,that’s what attracted me to the first book,but I also like a well written story. That is exactly what I got here. The characters are complex, the plot is riveting and the book moves like a roller coaster! Maybe it’s just me,but when I read this story,I felt like I was there. I was in the courtroom when Deke was reading the transcripts. I could picture the expressions on Fuller’s face. I witnessed his encounters with the local police. I felt Deke’s rage at the injustice of it all. Very intense. There was also,indeed, enough automobile related content to satisfy the gear head in me. Some drag racing, high speed driving and vintage auto repair,in detail.

I’m not very good at expressing how much I enjoyed this book. My review is crudely written and lacking details. Writing is not my forte. However it is Michael Kayser’s forte, and thank goodness for that. I will be anxiously waiting for the next “Romp”.

Well, I beg to differ. Not only was this review thoughtful and detailed, it was also well-written. I’ve read plenty of Amazon reviews and appreciate this one all the more.

 

Politics/Current Events, Reviews

Thought Police Clamping Down at Amazon (Review of Coyote by Allan Steele)

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For the first time ever, Amazon refused to post a review from me.

I’ve been reviewing there for a few years but only occasionaly do it now.

Here’s what they said in their rejection email:

 

Your review could not be posted.

Thanks for submitting a customer review on Amazon. Your review could not be posted to the website in its current form. While we appreciate your time and comments, reviews must adhere to the following guidelines:
…

We encourage you to revise your review and submit it again. A few common issues to keep in mind:

  • Your review should focus on specific features of the product and your experience with it. Feedback on the seller or your shipment experience should be provided at www.amazon.com/feedback.

  • We do not allow profane or obscene content. This applies to adult products too.

  • Advertisements, promotional material or repeated posts that make the same point excessively are considered spam.

  • Please do not include URLs external to Amazon or personally identifiable content in your review.

 

Got that? So below is the review. See if you find anything profane/obscene, any advertisements or URLs:

Typical Leftist Bias Torpedoes Story Potential

Evidently some other reviewers (on Audible) noticed the subtle (and not-so subtle) left-wing bias of the author. One reviewer basically said that’s a silly accusation because the captain of the ship is named after Robert E. Lee…therefore it has pro-freedom underpinnings.

Right. About that…

Classic case of leftists projecting and twisting facts/redefining words. I’m sure Lenin and Trotsky convinced people they were pro-freedom, too, when necessary to gather support.

Leftists are fine with individual liberty…as long as you think, speak, act and believe as they do. When you exercise your freedom as protected in the Bill of Rights but disagree with them on a significant subject, their inner Gestapo shines right through. They have long had a field day projecting their own tyrannical mindset (and other “liberal” virtues) on right-wing characters to demonize their opposition.

Just when the novel takes the plot in a direction where you get relief from the political undertones, the gender-bending cultural Marxism of the author kicks in.

I see this way too often, too, where the author is either female or a gamma male (aspiring to beta male) who wounds suspension of disbelief by building characters to breathe life into their own fantasies and fetishes. Macho women are the level-headed, iron-willed saviors in survival situations. The author takes revenge on the playground bullies who haunt his psyche by writing the alleged alpha males as cowards and sissies deep down inside. The quiet, artistic (how the author no doubt sees himself) passive, uncompetitive beta males are the only men who are not reprehensible in one way or another.

While this book is far from the most blatant example, I just wanted to escape this programming entirely for the length of a novel.

Oh yeah, Dr. Osaka is really inconsistent, too. The colony’s physician, her decision to tag along on the canoe trip was both unrealistic and monumentally stupid. Yet she is sage-like wise when the plot calls for it. In one scene she submits to Carlos’ authority (when it is foolish to do so) but in surrounding scenes she steadfastly asserts her dominance over all the males.

Gil Reese was a touch skitzo too, as written.

Planet colonization has huge story potential. This book didn’t live up to it, IMO.

 

Free expression of non-conformist ideas is probably now considered “hate speech” at Amazon. It’s a shame, because there’s a lot to like about that company. Nevertheless, here we are.

I’d also like to add something that wasn’t in my already-lengthy review:

Steele also dedicates a little time denouncing (through the narrative) the “social collectivists” who are basically communists. Through the Captain Lee character he also accurately opines that there is little difference in the oppression from a fascist regime than from a communist regime. His delusion is headquartered in the midst of the conflation of fascists with true right-wingers.

It’s a very common delusion.

The perspective of this narrative is classic NeoCon. NeoCons are socialists who focus on lower taxes and more military spending than their “liberal” colleagues. The first NeoCons, during the Cold war, were originally Democrats and other Marxists who thought Stalin and Mao went just a tad too far. They still were inspired to seek Marx-esque Utopia…but without all the embarrassing human rights abuses in the USSR and Red China.

They were called “conservative” because compared to the rabid Marxists in the news media who get to label people, they were still to the right. This is part of the reason why the term “conservative” is so confused as to be useless in political debate.

Eventually these Communist Lite advocates took over the GOP establishment, and now their control is ironclad–which is why we never get a true choice in our rigged elections.

The way Steele projects oppressive behavior onto the right reminds me of the Hugos and the Puppies.

  • Scalzi and Co. rant about how unethical Hugo Award voting slates are after he himself has been the author and beneficiary of voting slates.
  • The SJWs accuse the puppies of oppressing women, then with no sense of irony, No-Awarded Toni Weisskoph (and Patrick Nielsen-Hayden threw a tantrum directed at the wife of John C. Wright).
  • They accuse the puppies of opposing diversity in science fiction, while No-Awarding the only nominated editor of Latino and Native American descent (Vox Day) as part of their decade-long hate campaign against him.
  • Interesting that SJWs scream “the science is settled” to end debate about their dubious global warming assertions while the anti-puppies (SJWs in science fiction/fantasy) repeatedly insist DNA testing must be unscientific if it proves Vox Day’s minority credentials. After all, no REAL Native American is allowed to disagree with them.
  • Anti-puppies play Twitter Tough Guy, issuing death threats against the puppies, then never fail to claim that it’s the other way around and THEY are receiving death threats FROM the puppies.
  • SJWs accuse puppies and sympathizers of trying to deny free speech to others…while the SJWs try to deny free speech to the puppies.

You get the idea. And authors like Steele reliably engage in this kind of projection when depicting  characters/organizations they see as “right wing.”

 

Reviews, Socio-Sexual Studies

Liar, Liar–a Textbook Red Pill Movie

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While my footprint shrinks I’m making a point to spend more quality time with family. I left the selection up to them for movie night last weekend and they chose this old Jim Carey vehicle.

I laughed a lot despite myself, and also couldn’t help noticing how it nailed a boatload of major manosphere themes. The only thing missing is a false rape accusation, to make it the ultimate neomasculist flick with every box checked.

For the duration of the film, the title character (a lawyer) is involved in a court case. It is a divorce-rape of the highest magnitude, depriving a good father of his children and awarding half of all he has worked for to a gold-digging slut who has been habitually unfaithful.

liarliar2Meanwhile, the lawyer’s own life is a perfect demonstration of game, and the female rationalization hamster at work.

He is a remorseless BS artist who thinks nothing of manipulating and using people to get what he wants. And this attracts people all the more.

Just during the length of the movie you lose track of how many times he flakes out or blows off his ex-wife and their son. But no matter how many times he does it, she’s always ready to give him another chance. Meanwhile, her supplicating beta boyfriend orbits (even proposing marriage), doing everything “right,” but just can’t generate the tingles in her like the reprobate main character does.

At one point, when under a spell forcing him to tell the truth, the liar admits to his ex that he blew off their son’s birthday to have sex with his cougar boss in order to make partner in his firm. She is angry, initially, but goes right back to her old ways of giving him undeserved chance after chance.

By the end, the beta chump is dumped (despite being and doing everything women say makes the “perfect” man) and it’s obvious that, when the sun goes down after the last scene we are shown, the ex is going to invite the liar back into her bed.

A sad commentary, of course, but no less true because of it.

Adventure, Reviews

A Knight Without Armor in a Savage Land

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Grant Cogar is a reporter.

An old-school reporter–the kind you see characterized on movies and TV but hasn’t dominated actual journalism probably since WWII: he reports the facts regardless of how they relate to whatever political worldview he subscribes to (which he also keeps to himself). And yet he is decent and passionate about humanity.

That passion collides with Cogar’s objectivity and, in this novel, we find him waist-deep in the chaos that is present-day Syria.

…A knight without armor in a savage land…

That line from the theme to Have Gun, Will Travel fits Cogar’s Crusade pretty well. But it’s worse than that–Sir Cogar has no weapons, either. Oh, they’re available; he just won’t use them in anything but the most desperate of circumstances. Of course desperation is a relative concept when you’re already wading through a civil war. Hint: risk of his own life and limb is not sufficient desperation.

I was here, they were here, and since we weren’t shooting at each other, we must be on the same side. Today.

Cogar is a strange character to find in any generation of men’s adventure. He’d be more at home in a drama that takes place down the street from your urban or suburban reality. Looking at my own characters, pretty much all of them are comfortable with both feeding and cheating death. Cogar may have a remarkable reserve of courage, but his squeamishness at the prospect of dealing out deadly force is more commensurate with yours, your neighbor’s…pretty much any civilian you would classify as “decent folk.”

Granzow’s prose is savvy, ascending to the poetic in places.

…There is no limit to the depth of human depravity, and wars in this part of the world don’t come with expiration dates. The Middle East is an island buoyed by corpses, rocking unsteadily atop a bottomless lake of blood–a lake that Sherman only briefly canoed over during his stint as general. Here, every drop of red spilled in the sand fuels the strife like gasoline on flame…

I prefer the devil-may-care adventurer in most genre fiction of the civilian persuasion, but what Cogar has seen forces him to care. It might force readers to care as well, by proxy.