Snippet from A Small Medium at Large by Stephanie Osborn

Snippet from A Small Medium at Large by Stephanie Osborn, available for pre-order at Amazon now, e-book delivery on April 11, trade paper on April 25.

 

When Ke’ri Gla’d’s caught a cab at her hotel to head for the Machpelah Cemetery late on Halloween, she was unaware that a certain black Lexus, some distance behind, was following her to that same destination.

“Not too near, not too far,” Romeo said to India, as he drove down the street, following the yellow taxi, several cars in front.

“Here’s hoping she doesn’t catch on, and that she doesn’t make too many detours,” India agreed.

“Well, I wouldn’t mind a drive-thru, which she might do, given how much she been eatin’,” Romeo decided.

“You’ve got no room to talk, honey!” India exclaimed with a laugh. “I swear, both your legs are hollow. I don’t know where you put it all!”

“An’ there she goes, into th’ coffee shop drive-thru,” Romeo said in satisfaction. “I’mma get me a big ol’ café breve, like Meg likes, an’ a Danish. You want an espresso, or one ‘a them frozen, blended things?”

“Get me a frozen mocha, I think,” India said. “But nothing else for me.”

In moments Alpha Two were in and out, slurping drinks and sharing the Danish, while never losing sight of their target.

* * *

In short order, the Lexus drove past as the taxi let out an older woman, short and slightly stocky, dressed in a form-fitting black jumpsuit, almost a catsuit, with a black-and-scarlet drape cardigan over that. Tall black boots with silver trim shod her feet; long white hair cascaded down her back.

“That’s her,” India said. “It matches the description of her disguise we had from Alpha Four.”

“Good,” Romeo said. “Then we’ll park on the side street, head in, an’ mingle with th’ professional magicians.”

“On it.”

* * *

By the time Alpha One arrived at the cemetery at last, full night had fallen. Street lights illumined the sidewalk along the street, but within the cemetery itself lay mostly darkness, only broken by a few flashlights carried by the few foresighted individuals in attendance.

There was a large crowd already there, numbering several hundred; in fact, the crowd was so large that it spilled out of the small, cramped graveyard and into the surrounding streets. Some were in costume, some in formal dress, but most were in street clothes. They milled about, watching; some were anxious, but most were bored or amused. Several people, two of whom were in tuxedos, three of whom were in more…esoteric…clothing, took turns attempting to raise the spirit of Harry Houdini. As Alpha One insinuated themselves into the crowd, Ke’ri Gla’d’s, in what was apparently another human disguise—a short, red-headed, middle-aged female in silken caftan and robes—eased into this smaller group.

“Watch, Meg,” Echo murmured, lips barely moving. “You can tell who’s who by how they’re dressed, and how they conduct their séance. The guys in tuxes will be really formal and kind of rote, and they’ll have a real stage presence. Those are the professional magicians, and they’re just here to honor Houdini’s memory; they don’t believe his spirit will return. But the ones who are wearing the robes and buckskins and shit are the spiritualists who really believe the stuff. And they’re halfway expecting something to really happen.”

“I have the feeling they’re the ones who will be right, tonight,” Omega replied in kind. “But I sorta don’t expect any of ‘em are necessarily gonna be happy about it.”

“And I expect you’re right,” Echo agreed. “Aha. Look, across on the other side of the family plot.”

“Alpha Two,” Omega murmured. “But not sticking close together. Good. Oh, and there’s Alpha Six, and Four. Is Five still extracting from the hotel?”

“Actually, Five wasn’t scheduled to get here until after us,” Echo told her. “They were working with the hotel’s offworld management, and extracted as soon as she set foot in the taxi. They should be…glance casually over your right shoulder.”

“Aha. Got ‘em.”

“Yeah. And we blend in rather nicely with the magicians’ societies here, too.”

“Yup, I noticed that.”

“Heads up,” Echo warned. “She’s decided to take her turn. Wow. Classic Glu’gu’ik quantum spirit contact ritual.”

“Ooo,” Omega hummed, intent on the scene.

* * *

Ke’ri Gla’d’s stepped forward, threw her head back, and raised both hands toward the night sky.

“Spirit of the great Hou’d’ni, hear me; for I am Carrie Gladys Hardin! I beseech you, I who am your kindred, of your blood and kind, come to me now,” Gla’d’s invoked. “Pa Da’ko ta Gra’ko On’de, de b’oo!” She paused.

“‘In the Name of the First Creator, it is time,’” Echo whispered the translation in his partner’s ear. Just then, Gla’d’s flung her arms wide.

“Ari Ho’d’ni, ne ko’ko’be, la’la’da ge nu!” she cried.

“‘Harry Houdini, I command you, come to me!’” Echo translated again.

“Well, it’s dramatic enough,” Omega decided, sotto voce. “And the language makes it sound like a magical incantation.”

“Shush—something’s happening,” Echo hissed.

* * *

Before the alien medium, faint colors began to swirl in the darkness. Within moments the colors thickened, darkened, as the very fabric of spacetime itself seemed to distort. A bipedal, humanoid form began to take shape, hovering several feet off the ground. It was a man, some five and a half feet tall, with curly black hair, a high forehead over vivid blue eyes, and handsome, chiseled features. The crowd sucked in a collective breath of shocked excitement.

But as the ‘apparition’ of Houdini materialized, its appearance changed from the traditional aspect known from photographs, into the classic short-bodied, egg-headed look of a typical Zeta Reticulan Gray, complete with bulbous head, flattened nose, huge black eyes, and lipless mouth. The crowd surrounding the ‘medium’ shrieked in fear and drew back as far as they could. Many of those farthest from the gravesite found themselves pressed against the fence surrounding the cemetery.

* * *

Echo and Omega exchanged meaningful, mildly disturbed glances, then looked across the crowd, where Alpha Two was embedded. Omega rubbed her chin, glanced at her watch, then shook her head. It’s cool. Wait. Don’t take her yet.

Got it. Romeo nodded slightly. He made a subtle hand gesture, and he and India both sent the hand signals that forwarded the order to the other Alpha Line teams.

Meanwhile, Echo reached into his pocket, palming his cell phone. His thumb tapped several places along its screen and cover, activating the audio recording app.

‘Carrie Gladys Hardin’ held up a staying hand to the unnerved crowd.

“Hold!” she cried in English. “The spirits of the dead do not always appear as we would. Harry Houdini, I address you.”

“I…hear…” came a quavering, eerie voice, sounding almost like a distant echo.

“You know who I am.”

“I…do…”

“You know what I seek.”

“Yesss…”

“Where is it?”

Houdini’s alien shade was silent.

“I adjure you, Harry Houdini, answer me! Where is it?”

What came from the extraterrestrial spirit’s lips next was in no wise English.

“On’de, oo de n ko’te a tw’a, n do’ok a ko’a’du’ne ba’wa’ne. Tor’ko kl’ee, bo kwa’ta’do! To’de, n do’ok la on’wa ne la’la’du wo’of. D’an, der klo’vi’t do’n. K’oi’du de we. Nda’da’be. Tra’de, ba on’de, n do’ok la on’de ne k’ap wi’if’de’z, n fes’nus pe’dun ge’da n nu’ke’ke. Ka’de, n do’ok la ne du ka’ka’du b’an dan kre. Gun’gun oi’ko’s’un, wo ga lo om, qu’a’du bre. Kin’de, n do’ok k’en’ti’do, der ne wo ku. Wo’pe’wo’be p’op n b’oo! Bu’ke n dwa’z, der or’k lu’ke n kwa’z!”

And with that, the ghostly apparition faded into nothingness.

The frightened crowd bolted.

 

For what happens next see:

 

Years ago, I attended a workshop in which the well known, award winning editor told us his job was to filter the submissions and choose the best for his readers.

So far so good.  We have people here, including me, who have read slush, and of course, no magazine no publishing house, no newspaper or even newsletter could survive long if you just took whatever came in over the transom and put it out for people.

[And no, before you say anything, no, most of these things AREN’T going straight to Indie.  Most of the “fails” I am seeing on indie aren’t even real fails.  They’re just things I don’t like, or things that offend my sense of how well something should be researched.  They are not actually bad stories.  Most of them.  The majority of fails that “fail” across the board are actually what Kris Rusch called “Recital Pieces” i.e. stuff the author has written, polished, cleaned up and sent out to “editors” who are no such thing (or at least not good ones)) until the poor manuscript is dead, dead, dead.  This is made worse by people-who-think-they’re-editors insisting on perfectly grammatical English when writing anything creative, emotive or persuasive.  (Rolls eyes.) In other words, the worst of slush never made it to Indie.

Why not? you ask.  I have a theory.  The absolutely bottom of the barrel you got in slush was someone looking for affirmation, confirmation and pats on the back.  Those are probably still submitting to book publishers and magazines in hopes of being published by “real” editors.  Okay, maybe those aren’t the bottom, but the patients in mental hospitals and people writing on wrapping paper with chicken blood (you wish I were joking) aren’t even organized enough to put it up.]

But later in the same talk, the words “to educate the public” came out.  In fact, you couldn’t spend much time around editors without hearing this.  Stuff like “It is our duty to educate the public” was bad enough, but then there were things like “We need to broaden minds” or the one I think should be justification to send someone to the South Seas without a boat “to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.”

The thing I’m here to tell you is that they HONESTLY believed that.  These people who, by and large, had mediocre degrees from excellent schools — ie had studied English because they already knew it and it wouldn’t be much work — and imbibed the Marxist indoctrination from their teachers without so much as quibbling at the fact that Marx never understood distribution, or that his theory of value meant if I spend a lot of time polishing a turd it should be worth the same as gold polished the same time, thought they needed to “educate” the vast majority of people who have jobs, raise families, create things, do things, and, yes, read things.

One does not know whether to admire them for the lack of understanding of economics or the hubris.

In fact, they’d either become persuaded that what their professors preached was “smart” because, well, their professors preached it and acted like they were smart or — for the slightly brighter — realized that if their dim-bulb professors could have a career from spouting the “right” (left) nonsense, it MUST mean that the power in society was with the left and that saying these things would get them those rewards.

As far as that went, they were right.  We are surrounded by jumped up mediocrities, in writing, in editing, in academia, and even in science: people who got handed huge rewards by saying what the lefties in power wanted to hear, and joining the crusade to “educate” people.

Their hubris might never have done much, mind, without the changes in retail that allowed them to do all push in marketing.  (I.e. the large bookstores where what was actually put on the shelves was pre-selected by the publishing houses “confidence” [how much they told the stores to stock.]) Or, of course, by a corrupt press that did things like report “bestsellers” based on laydown, before a single copy sold.  (Years ago there was an article on how a supposed bestseller had sold two copies.  An unusual case, but not that out of the ordinary, when a lot of “bestsellers” got there on laydown (i.e. one week and out.))

However, the changes in the market place and the completion of the long march in the press and academia, gave the left a lock on these fields.  And unfortunately none of them had ever run a lemonade stand, or understood that while unsweetened lemonade might be “good” for people, for a definition of good, people just won’t buy it.

In other words, when you’re selling something to people, you have to give a damn what people want to buy.

I know that’s a strange concept to many people.  And yet, it is the truth.

And the problem for the left is this: they try to solve things like “people just don’t want to buy this” with more “education”, more control, more attempts at making people buy what the left thinks it’s good for them.

It doesn’t work.  The end result of the “push” model is the magnificent inefficiency of communist countries, where the few things for sale no one wants.  (The left senses this too.  Notice the mandate to buy health insurance, because if it wasn’t mandated you might not choose to buy.  Or you might buy a policy that doesn’t cover abortion and sex change operations, just because everyone in your household is happy with what they got at birth, and is not/is no longer able to conceive.  They know what’s good for you, Hater.)

The only reason people didn’t starve behind the curtain is that you can’t quite stop free trade.  You can just make it illegal.  But, well, that never stopped anything.  (The illusion it does is another leftist thing I don’t get.  Laws aren’t magical.)

When I was a kid in Portugal, while the “smart” people tinkered with the economy, people would make a living from the weirdest things, including but not limited to, learning to make bread during bakers’ strikes and sellin— I mean, letting your neighbors have a loaf and it’s it great they gave you a gift of money?

You can’t stop free trade.  You can distort it, hide it, or make it take unexpected turns.  But you can’t stop it.  Now that they no longer think we’re the only animal who uses tools, maybe they’ll come up with a new definition for humans “the ape who trades.”

The problem is when what you’ve been trading is your “correct” opinions for all the coddling that the establishment can provide.  Because see, the market isn’t there to support it.  It just isn’t.  No matter how loud you shout, you’re competing for a diminishing ability to reward your shouting.

Yes, we’ve seen Marvel admit that gosh darn it, the dogs just don’t like the food.  But my guess is they’ll double down.  Because the real market is not selling comics to people.  It hasn’t been that for years.  The real market is the executives selling themselves to the progressive establishment.

And the problem is the progressive establishment.  It achieved control of a society it despised, and it went right on despising it, and trying to “improve” it and “educate” it.

The problem is that if people had complied, society would have stopped working, because these people produce nothing but theories and screeds.

And people couldn’t comply with that.  So free trade continued to flourish.

The progressive establishment in those institutions it has taken over, killed, and now wears as an Edgar Suit, has tons of excuses as to why the dogs don’t like the food.  One of them is that we’re all “haters” and “oppose diversity.”  (In principle?  It’s more that I don’t give a damn about their type of diversity.  I don’t really care what’s between your legs, who you sleep with, or what shade of tan your skin is.  I care mostly about the contents of your character, and in writing, whether you can write.) Another is that we’re just too darn stupid.

For years, I heard the decline in book buying blamed on everything, from TV to games, to people being illiterate and these stories being just so gosh darned complicated they don’t understand them.

Yeah.

Look, can people (as a multitude) be stupid?  Sure.  I mean all you have to do is drive in any major city to find yourself screaming things like “What do you think your turn signal is for” or “Get off the d*mn cell phone” or even “Driving baked seems like a good idea, because?”

But people, as they are, are the market.  Or at least the people who read for fun are your market, if you work in any aspect of getting fiction to market.

Do people want to read Regencies that are basically modern characters in regency outfits?  Sure.  At least judging by sales ranks.  So if you want to make money, is it worth it spending the time I do going “ARGH, that’s just wrong?”  Probably not.  It might be worth it TO YOU if you’re me that is, to walk the line and get as close as you can to what the public wants while keeping things semi-historically accurate, though.

But in the end, what matters if you are making a living, providing the public with a product, is that you …. provide the public with the product it’s telling you it wants to buy.

Can you make a living without doing what the public wants?  What if your genius demands that you do something much better than what they want?

Ah.  Would your genius be counting on government grants, rich friends, or a working spouse?

The market is the market.  If you want to make a living in the market you adapt to it; you don’t demand it adapt to you.  As for your “genius” the chances of it being appreciated in the future, if it won’t sell now, are vanishingly small.  Shakespeare wrote for the groundlings, after all.

I don’t know how much longer we’ll have government grants.  We’re running out of other people’s money.  At any rate it’s immoral for you to receive money stolen from other people (or did you dress that up in prettier words) to support “art” that won’t sell. Patreon, go fund me (wealthy friends) and wealthy spouses might last longer.  At least there the money is given willingly.  But it’s not a big market, or a thriving one.

In the end the market is the market.  And not just for humans.  In biology books (yes, I read a lot of those,) I keep coming across things like “this small insect makes a living by seeking out and eating the sap of the blah blah tree.”

Making a living.  It’s a law of nature.

And no one ever really made a living by “educating” the public into ideas the public was NOT interested in.  The Edgar-suit wearing institutions and companies just masked that for a while and rewarded appropriate noises, not money-making work.

But that’s a good way to go bankrupt. It’s also a good way to create competition, which WILL appear to serve the market you’re leaving un-served.  Like you know, indie publishing, and news blogs, and…  Enough things that all those people the elites have been trying to educate realized they were neither alone nor powerless.

And now the times …. they are achanging.

It’s almost funny watching all these people making louder and louder noises, of what used to be the approved kind, fighting for the one or two spots that can still be rewarded by the establishment.  Almost.  Except it’s sad too.

And it’s funny watching them positing conspiracy theories and “hatey hate mc haters” as to why things are changing, when the answer is “you refuse to serve the market.  The market found those who would.”  Or, IOW, the dogs don’t like the food, so they found a way into the kitchen and are eating the elites’ filet mignon.

And now they’d better learn to swim, or they’ll sink like a stone.  For the times, they are achanging.

 

We went to Ohio for 2 days to take care of some family matters.

I meant to post last night and again this morning, but I didn’t, and we just now got back home.

I’m going to go in search of coffee, so I can write.

No matter who you voted for, the government got back in.

I think you need to be from a really old country to fully appreciate this.  Kings come in, kings go out.  Factions are taken out violently, and all their prominent followers killed to the mewling infant.  And yet, year after year, administration after administration, even when you ditch kings and bring in representative government, yes, even then, or even when you bring in socialists, then throw the socialists out, the same bureaucrats, functionaries, clerks get back in.  the same bean counters with the same agenda which amounts to something like “more power for me, my family and allies” and beyond all that, a devotion to the “proper way things are done.”

Trust me on this.  I was born and raised in a really old country.  Same names, generation after generation.  Same devotion to the way things are done.

It probably started way back in the middle ages, when the barbarian kings who had just taken down Rome sat there and scratched their heads (well, most of them HAD lice) and wondered what in heck to do with it all.  And the clerks (a word that comes from cleric) sidled up and said “I know how to read and write, and I can show you the records of the people, and who owns who, and what tribute is owed to you.”  And the king said “Ooooh, someone else can do the boring work for me, and I can strut around with a pretty crown, and fight battles, and do kingly things.  I only wish we had turkeys so I could eat turkey legs in style.  Deer will have to do.”

Then there was the modern state, for which I’ll blame Louis XIV, that right (possibly literally.  Has anyone looked at portraits of Buckingham?) bastard, who — advisedly to an extent– looked at the big noblemen who had plagued his ancestors and decided to make an alliance with the rising bourgeoisie to increase the power of the “modern state” (records and taxation by the numbers please) and reduce the power of the old nobility (mostly the brute force of arms, of if you prefer, quaffing, hunting, warring and wenching.)

In a way it was inevitable, so it’s probably pique on my part to blame it on Louis XIV (a man I detest, having read his biography,) whose descendants eventually got swallowed and spit out by the same bourgeoisie he encouraged, the same clerk-sy.  Whether he would have minded or not, that’s something else.  I think mostly he cared about maintaining his position in a turbulent time.

It was probably inevitable, because population grew, and as population grows, you really can’t have a king who is a glorified family leader, and knows every person in his employ personally, and once beat each of their grandfathers with staves or whatever.  The personal leadership thing can be appalling of course, when the leader is bad, but it’s at least personal.  However, as population/country/army/territory grow, you need bureaucracy to rule it.  You need layers and layers of clerks.

I will at least in the US deny the need for a federal department of education.  State level should be more than enough, and if you as me (yes, I know no one sane would) I’d be fine with city level.  People get together and hire teachers, and keep a close eye on them to.

But even if you go with the enumerated powers of our constitution, providing for the common defense of a very wealthy country which spans continental-wide territories is not same as calling your friends together and giving them some guns.

As much as I approve of the militia involving every able bodied man and woman, because that makes the invasion of the country impossible, and as much as — raised in Europe — I was taught to despise standing armies, the truth is when you’re the envy of the world, you’re going to need a professional army who does nothing else but the common defense.  Si vis Pacem para Bellum and all that.  (Always wanted to have a cat called Para Bellum.  Just like I always wanted to have a dog called Droit du Seigneur.)

And even if that’s the major function of government, you’re going to need a lot of bureaucracy to handle it, let alone needing a lot of bureaucracy to handle foreign relations with pissant countries the size of overextended parking lots, who expect us to speak with one unified voice and not as fifty squabbling states.

Which means bureaucracy and census and IRS (is there a reason we can’t run the government on a giant-sized national lottery?) and the machinery of … clerk-sy.

Which develops its own culture, its own fiefdom and its own idea of “how things are done” TM.

Which makes the Us same as all human societies since… er.

No matter who you vote for, the government gets in.  And that means if you voted for change — real change, not socialist bullshit — it’s going to be resisted every step along the way.  Ironically the socialist bullshit ISN’T resisted, because it’s more power for the bureaucrats.

This is why post-communist Russia has a much stronger flavor of Soviet Russia than Soviet Russia had of tzarist Russia.  Because the inclination of bureaucracy is to accumulate power.  It is a human tendency reinforced by the need for security, the need to keep your children as secure and employed as you are yourself, etc, world without end.

I once, when I was young and stupid, voted for a man who promised to reduce federal employment to 15 people.

It wouldn’t have worked.  It couldn’t have worked.  The machinery calls for cogs, and there’s the way things have always been done.  And if it had succeeded, it would have thrown everything into disarray and probably have made the pissant countries think they could take us.  they might even have been able to.

So, is this the fate of the world?  The mechanics of humanity?  Do people just get choked out by the state, more and more, till all men work for the state, and all their bread comes from it?

Oh, hell no.  I’m not one of those fatalists going on about the boot the and the human face.  No, I’m not.  There is a limit to how much these things can grow before they become a complete mess, so in the end it self-defeats.  (See “The lives of others”) but also, just like the apparatus of the early modern state was enabled by the ability to keep records and all sorts of techniques just coming into being with the industrial state, there are techniques and technology now which enable us to loosely correlate a lot of small groups, to administer a vast territory loosely without descending into chaos.

It might be possible — we’re yet at the dawning of that age — to not have the layers and layers of clerks and bureaucrats and defeat some of that “government” that goes on regardless of leadership.

But it’s not going to be tomorrow.  And it’s not a matter of “voting the right man in”.  There is no such thing as a hero on a white horse who comes in and vanquishes bureaucracy.  Dragons, sure.  Ravening hordes, sure.  But your average bureaucracy takes your white knight sans peur et sans reproche, swallows him whole and spits out the sad, bewildered remains.

No.  The only way we scale back the growth of government is the long march; Irish democracy; and a dose of never say die.  If we apply ourselves to it, our grandkids might see some palpable shrinking in bureaucracy and the way it tries to put out tentacles to every aspect of life.

Keep your powder dry.  Keep your spirits up.  Never give up, never surrender.

The fight might not be to the strong nor the race to the swift (though that’s the way to bet) but the fight against encroachment on individual freedom goes to the patient.

Be patient, be calm, and fight on.

 

 

 

 

 

There was a time — listen to me, children — when the left had the power to utterly destroy anyone they chose to.

They would descend in a swarm, find some little thing you had said, take it out of context, then pound you with it until you no longer had a job, a marriage, any friends willing to admit to knowing you.

Actually it wasn’t even required that they take something you said and take it out of context.  They controlled all the gate keeping positions and a whisper campaign could go out — the equivalent of having your papers stamped PU for Politically Unreliable — and depending on how much money they could make off you, you’d either be turned out without references (so to put it) or, in my field, be kept in midlist durance vile.  (In other fields there are equivalents, where you do all the work, but never get anywhere with money, let alone power.)

This is partly how they GOT all the gatekeeping positions, and kept them, or in other words, how they gutted all the important institutions of our culture and then wore the institutions’ skin, demanding respect.

The farce either worked for a while, or people like us saw through it, but there wasn’t a heck of a lot we COULD DO about it, so we shut up and pretended.

The difference was immaterial, really, since the result was the same.  The left had the power to destroy.

I would say the apex of their power was that amazing weaponizing of Mitt Romney’s innocent reference to “women in binders” (which meant women’s resumes in binders, and which meant he was bragging of AGGRESSIVELY seeking women for positions of power.)  Women in binders didn’t even mean anything bad, and couldn’t even mean anything bad.  But by repeating the words, and wearing  binders (!) to his events, the left projected the image that he wanted to do something unspeakable to women.

Note that their attempt at a much more grounded hit on Trump for using the word Pussy in a bit of locker room talk, netted them… nothing, except the usual academics and high middle class women wearing the usual vajazzled costumes while demanding respect.

Part of what’s adorable about this is that the left thinks they STILL have this power.  Well, their branding you sure destroys you in THEIR circles.  They just don’t GET that in a lot of fields and professions, their circles have become utterly irrelevant.

So it’s entertaining as all get out to watch them threaten me and my fellow rebels with the ruins of our careers.  Uh… we never had careers in the halls of the left.  Our careers are entirely outside their institution — sort of a parallel track — and we’re doing just fine, thank you.  In fact in terms of money we’re doing way better than the darlings of the left, by and large.  (Well, okay, my getting very ill and not having a new book for two years is an issue, but it would be an issue anywhere.)

They keep pulling the levers of the outrage machine and our public yawns, or points and laughs… at them.  This increases the outrage, just as the Pussy Hatters keep redoubling their impotent fury at the results of free and ethical elections.  It’d be funny if it weren’t so weird.

So, do they still retain the power to destroy, the way you know who is in charge of a society?

Sure they do.  Well, sort of.

If your career and your power comes from having penetrated their institutions they can at the very least still take you down a peg.  They can cancel your big book contract, or they can have you fired from the halls of academia.

Weirdly these days they need the RIGHT to cooperate in this kind of attack.  Their attack on Milo was the new new model for this.  “Find someone who also annoys people on the right.  Look for a sin the right would agree is a sin.  No matter how unsubstantiated the charge, the right will break a left piling on.”

Mind you, they can cost you a book contract or a job.  But they can’t prevent you from creating another job, or publishing your book indie.  They have the power to hurt — even with the right cooperating — but not the right to destroy anymore.

And the thing I don’t think the left understands, is that this level of outrage can be ginned up only a limited number of times.  And sooner or later even the right stops cooperating, because well, Lucy keeps moving the football.  (Granted they don’t catch on as soon as I’d hoped, but well, I have years of experience with socialist maneuvering that most of you are lacking.)

Every time the left pulls that lever for the outrage machine, they’re spending capital.  Every time they start a witch hunt, the skin suit slips a little and the respect we owed the gutted institution is lost.

It won’t be long till our only reaction to outrageous accusations is what it already is in Science Fiction outside their circles: point and make duck noises.

Anything we can do to accelerate that, from providing alternate paths to success, to refusing to join the outrage machine, only speeds up the time no one falls for their tricks.

They no longer have a monopoly of opinion-making sources.  And to sell their pov, they need a monopoly.

Go forth and have no fear.  For the times, they are achanging.

 

 

Why You Just Can’t Win

By Tom Knighton

 

Everywhere you go on the internet, it seems, you’ll come across an article decrying something for some kind of -ism.  Ghost in the Shell is problematic because Scarlett Johansson is playing a supposedly Asian character…despite the fact that the character looks white as hell in the original anime, for example, but it’s racist to take issue with Idris Elba playing a Norse god.

A better example, however, is the outrage over Netflix’s Iron Fist.  The character, Danny Rand, has always been a white dude.  He’s been portrayed on comic page and cartoon as a white dude.  So why is the live action character being a white dude a problem?  Oh, because it was a golden opportunity to make the character Asian, the social justice crusaders argue.

Now, keep in mind that Iron Fist is a martial artist and that’s essentially the key component of his power.  Why should you keep it in mind?  Because if they had made him Asian, there would be articles all around about how they were feeding a stereotype.  “Why must all Asians be martial artists?  Why did Marvel decide to perpetuate this stereotype when the original character was white?”

This is simple.  Social justice warriors will do everything they can to set the conditions so you can’t win.

The social justice bullies only have power if people feel guilty.  They don’t really have anything that we, the masses, don’t give them.  People have to feel guilty, because guilty feelings lead to people doing what the social justice crowd wants them to do to alleviate their guilt.

The man or woman who feels no guilt, however, simply points and laughs at their outrage.

It’s not that we necessarily think gay rights are unworthy, or that transgendered people are abominations, or that women should be in the kitchens all barefoot and pregnant.  Sure, there are some that do, but most of us aren’t like that at all.

The problem is that we refuse to see everything as outrage worthy.

Unfortunately, SJWs are trying to create a world where that is simply unacceptable.  Failing to see everything as dire, failing to see Western civilization as all that is wrong with the world despite its many victories and the higher standard of living not only in the western world, but that it has exported to the rest of the world, is proof that we are evil.

Again, this is nothing more than an attempt to make people feel guilty.

Ayn Rand once said:

“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for me to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed or enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt”

Rand has a point, but she failed to understand that it wasn’t just governments that could do this.  Society as a whole can and will do this, as we currently see.

We know that diversity isn’t the real goal, because if it were, Sarah’s A Few Good Men and pretty much any of Larry Correia’s stuff would be touted as great examples of diversity in science fiction.

After all, look at Owen’s team in the Monster Hunter Series.  Two women, two white males, a half-Samoan guy, and a black dude (who was NOT the first to die!).  One of their key support guys is the librarian who is also an Asian explosives expert.

Yet both Sarah and Larry are touted as bigots by the social justice crowd in science fiction.  Why is that?

Well, neither did so with the intention of being “diverse.”  They just wanted to tell a good story.

Larry once told me that he wasn’t trying to create diverse stories, he just wanted to create cool, interesting characters, and the diversity of his world happened naturally.  It makes sense.  Trip, from MHI, is a great example.  A black man who played football sounds stereotypical, but that’s also only mentioned rarely in the series.  Instead, Trip is portrayed as loving fantasy fiction and playing Dungeons and Dragons while also having been a science teacher before his coming to work at MHI.

Yet where is the love for Trip?  Why isn’t any of the social justice crowd in science fiction celebrating that diversity?

Because they can’t actually use it.  Larry doesn’t care what they think, so they can’t celebrate anything he does.  That won’t make him feel guilty.

Instead, they attack him as hateful, misogynistic (the guy who created Faye, Holly, and Julie is misogynistic?) and try to use that to make him feel guilty.  Failing that, they want to make enough people around him—not just fans, but family and friends if possible—to feel guilty too.  They want to create a sea of guilt around him so they can try and force his hand.

To do what, I have no idea.  After all, he’s already creating diverse characters.

Our lovely hostess is in the same boat.  She creates a gay protagonist, and when the whole Sad Puppies thing got ugly, she was part of the same crowd labeled homophobic.  They completely ignored her work, work that portrays people of different types in a positive light—and has plenty of white folks in a negative light—because she as a person refused to feel guilt.

Both Sarah and Larry have, in a way, given the SJWs exactly what they said they wanted.  The wrote books with diverse characters and yet they’re still reviled as evil “ists.”

You can’t win with a social justice warrior unless you prostrate yourself before the altar of social justice, confess all your sin then ask for any you missed and confess those when pointed out, and beg for forgiveness.  You can only win with them by becoming one yourself.

The only way to win with a social justice bully is to lose.

Recently one of the people on the other side of the divide — no, not the one who thought we were being paid by the Russians (Geesh, did he listen to my accent, somehow) — was flapping jaws about how I and my friends will be crawling back and trying to make nice to the establishment of science fiction, because we’ll need to rebuild our careers.

(Does sinal salute with thumb and index pinching nose bridge and head inclined.)  Where to start?

First, at least for now — everything flip in a minute these days in publishing — I’m doing fine career wise.  I have three books hard-due at Baen and two more that will probably be bought, and which I intend to deliver this year (they’re sequels to DST and shifters.)  That is more than any other year I’ve worked for Baen (though part of this is my wretched health,)

But let’s suppose that all those tank big (unlikely since three are collaborations with bestsellers) and I’m given my marching papers.

So, what is my next move? Crawl back to the conventions and the power elites and beg for entry again?

Snort, giggle.

You know, I keep hearing this whenever someone speaks up in the arts, or media, or academia, or any other field that is heavily left. It’s like a lefty fantasy.  “These apostates will come crawling back and admit we’re right.”

Ah…   What sense would that make?

It would be like crawling back to the ex who tried to kill you BEFORE you ran away.

Look, there is no way, unless I became the most extreme of the SJWs (if I get hit on the head that hard, I’ll be on life support) that they’d even let me be published by the houses-other-than-Baen again.  Any house that accepted me (and how, since no agent would represent me?) would be subjected to boycotts and demonstrations and accused of being “right wing” until they dropped me.

Even if — let’s assume I was hit on the head, and somehow still survived — I became the most extreme of the SJWs they’d never TRUST me, so the closest I’d get is the place I was when I was in the political closet.  “Not trusted.”  So I would get to be in midlist hell forever.

Except that…. except that as publishing turns upside down and sideways most of the other publishers are shedding midlist.  So my chances of being able to continue having a job with any of them, even if I self-abased and lied to myself to that extent, would be zero.

Only a crazy person would trust the tender mercies of the left.  They don’t have any.  So I’m afraid their beautiful dream will never come true.

IF I lose my spot with Baen, I’m going indie.  (Heck, having seen what I got for my first indie book, Witchfinder, I’m going indie part time anyway now that I’m healthier (although not healthy, as is obvious. Ah, well, we’re trying to figure it out.)  Because I like big bucks and I can not lie.)

See, part of the issue with the left is that they see writing as “prestige.”  They see it that way, because most of them aren’t being paid much.  Years ago, when I mined the literary vines (that should be “literary”) I got told the maximum (MAXIMUM) advance I could aspire to was 12k.  I have seen no reason to suspect most of them get even that. Though a few darlings and bestsellers get around $40k and a particular one allegedly gets much more.  (To understand the allegedly you’d need to understand publishing contracts, in which each stage of payment is conditional on this or that and some of them are conditional on “pigs will fly through the air in merry chirping flocks.” The bit money is mostly an advertising gimmick.  I’d want to see that contract, before I remove the “allegedly”.)

So the left views writing as a way of bolstering their academic resume.  That’s why awards are SO important to them, because that means tenure or other boosts to their career.  And that’s fine.  It’s a model.

It’s just not the model I aspire to.  I have said before I’m not an author, I’m a writer, I work for a living.

My aspiration for writing was never the awards or the prestige.  It was to write a lot, have a lot of people love it, make a living from it.

I don’t object (on the contrary) to things like fan squeeing because it means my worlds came alive in other heads. Which is part of the goal.  The other part is that place where I can pay off my kids’ student loans.  Pay for our health care as we get older.  Pay for the CATS healthcare as we get older.  Pay for my bad habit of a roof over our heads and three meals a day.  (Obviously not wholly.  Dan makes most of the money around here.  BUT his job has dry spells, just as mine does.  Better with two.)  That is the real object of this and “why I write.”

So I’m going to go at least partly indie.  I’ve seen what my friends make.  I’ve seen what I made from the one book.  It will allow me to support my family.  That’s fine.

And I work for Baen, which I’m assured is completely declasse.  (I wouldn’t hang out with them otherwise.)

This, I’m told, is why I need to “rebuild my career.”

Whenever I listen to one of these people — no, not the one who thinks we’re Russian plants.  That one is just funny.  Also, he should pull up his socks or, as we say around the conference table at good ol’ Puppy Central Podnimite svoi noski —  I feel like I’m listening to “Write like it’s 1999.”

To them there’s only one way to get published, one way to have a fanbase, and yes, even though it generally sucks for their endeavours, one way to make money: the old establishment they control.

No wonder they rub their hands with glee to fantasies of us trying to “crawl back” into their good graces.

What they’re missing is that their world is restricted, small, old and dying.

They keep closing that door, like it means anything.

And we keep turning around from the little decaying house, and seeing a wildly beautiful and, yes, diverse world to run rampant in.

Does it have prestige?  Oh, not with the old establishment.  The old news-industrial complex will never call on ME for an opinion on anything SF/f.

So what?

Their audience is shrinking as fast as their stalwarts.

Out there, in the wide world, there’s millions of people willing to read what we write and pay for it.

And you know what, as Heinlein said, we write for people’s beer money.  There’s no more sincere flattery than people foregoing other, similarly priced pleasures for one of my books.  H*ll some of you passed up on a chicken to read my books.  That’s the most beautiful thing anyone has ever done for my work.  Thank you.

There’s no going back.  We — or at least I — knew that full well when we came out of political closet.

Sure, we’re now shuttered out of the old structures forever.

But we’re free in the world, and we’re emergent.

In the end we win, they lose.

Be not afraid.  Go and make your own success, on your own terms.

*This week is going to be a little weird.  Dan and I will be flying to Ohio on family business. However this is just because I didn’t get it on time.  Considering I don’t pay the mollusc, I’m just grateful he gets them to me, whenever.- SAH*

Vignettes by Luke, ‘Nother Mike and Mary Catelli

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it!  For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is:

dance

Sunday Promo for Monday by Freerange Oyster

Allene R. Lowrey

Advent of Ruin

The Qaehl Cycle Book 1

An Age ends in blood and darkness…

For untold generations, the peoples of the Qaehl have prospered—trading and warring as they expanded across the great desert. Mighty city-states rise unassailable above the sands, centers of commerce in a great web of humanity. Messengers and nomads, tradesmen and bandits, cross the burning wastes with each rising of the sun.

A change is coming. Strange creatures have been sighted in the deep desert. Rumors whisper of horrors begotten out of legend. But there is yet hope: a brave courier, an innocent young dancer, a compassionate warrior – each holding a fragment of the truth, each seeking the future. Each adrift in the desert, trying to survive the advent of ruin.

C.J. Carella

In Dread Silence

Warp Marine Corps Book 4

(WARNING: Contains violence, strong language and adult content)

A mission to a forgotten planet. A disgraced admiral facing an implacable foe. And on the forefront of battle, the dreaded Warp Marines.

As the greatest power in the galaxy launches a major offensive into human space, a small expedition ventures into the unknown, searching for a weapon that may turn the tide for the beleaguered United Stars of America. But will digging around the lost ruins of an ancient – and evil – civilization provide the answers the US needs, or bring destruction to the entire galaxy?

Laura Montgomery

Far Flung

In the very near future a seastead offers consumers a choice in governing systems. Navy Capt. Adam Tenney’s daughter takes that offer, but what can he do for her when pirates threaten the seastead, the U.S. refuses to recognize it, and he is trapped in a desk job on land?

Peter Grant

Rocky Mountain Retribution

In the post-Civil War West, the railroads are expanding, the big money men are moving in, and the politicians they are buying make it difficult for a man to stand alone on his own. So, Walt Ames moves his wife, his home and his business from Denver to Pueblo. The railroads are bringing new opportunities to Colorado Territory, and he’s going to take full advantage of them.

Ambushed on their way south, Walt and his men uncover a web of corruption and crime to rival anything in the big city. And rough justice, Western-style, sparks a private war between Walt and some of the most dangerous killers he’s ever encountered, a deadly war in which neither friends nor family are spared.

Across the mountains and valleys of the southern Rocky Mountains, Walt and his men hunt for the ruthless man at the center of the web. Retribution won’t be long delayed… and it cannot be denied.

Amie Gibbons

Psycho (and Psychic) Games

The SDF Paranormal Mysteries Book 2

And they thought catching the serial killer was difficult…

Psychic Ariana Ryder just completed her probationary year and is now a full agent in the FBI’s Special Division Force, a semi-secret branch that investigates paranormal crimes.

The director, in a bid to score political points, puts Ariana on interrogating famous serial killer, JB Truck, aka The Puzzle Master. Truck’s been in prison two years and the authorities still can’t figure out who all his victims were or where his vast resources came from.

Ariana’s mission is simple, get visions off the psycho until they get the information they need.

But nothing’s ever simple when there’s magic afoot. The vampire queen’s gunning for Ariana, there’s a new shifter in town who needs a psychic’s help, and Truck’s got a few tricks of his own.

And he didn’t end up in Nashville by accident.

Sorry, was waiting for the promo post, which is delayed, and might be tomorrow, and though I could swear I got sent a vignette post, my whole hotmail is in a state of implosion, so it’s possible it got eaten.

There is a motivational post (not bad) for writers going around by someone who is not ah… a friend of my blog or my friends.

And it occurred to me there are skills to making it as a freelance writer that apply to other endeavors and people as well, and it occurred to me that, willing or not, a lot of us are going to be going it on our own in the next year, either as a main pursuit or as a way to supplement income from jobs that haven’t had a real raise in a decade.  Apparently summer of recovery isn’t yet this year, and as the big enterprises shed, we must sink or swim on our own.  Fortunately one way or another we’re a resourceful lot.  I have writing, of course, but some of the things you guys get up to are truly creative.  And some are just getting by, like, say, driving Uber.

Some of this has a built in stimulus and deadline.  I mean, even the indie writers I know have deadlines they give themselves, and this bad habit of a roof over head and eating every day should be stimulus enough.

It SHOULD be.

But particularly in creative endeavors, I often find when I need it most is when less gets done, because I close up in panic.

So–

Sometimes you need words and maxims to get you through, and these are mine.  Change them to make sense for your own endeavors, when those are not writing.

1- Writers write.  Dan first launched me in my writing career with this one “simple rule”.  “Writers write everyday.”  I’ve failed on this more times than I can tell, but the fact I TRY is what has kept my career going, even when all hope is gone.  It usually takes being sick, tired, and dealing with a crisis to not “bank” at least 500 words a day.  Writers write.  Try to find at least an hour and write on the current work, or a vignette or a post.  Even if it does nothing else, it’s practice.

2- You don’t know what sucks.  No, seriously.  Half the time what I think sucks will read brilliant two months or two years later.  You can’t judge your own work. You’re too far inside it.  And if you have any mood disorder (hi, I’m Sarah Hoyt, and I’m a depressive), you will be even less able to judge your work.  Right now I’m in a place where everything I write reads like boiled cabbage.  Reaction from other people indicates this is not true.  So shut up and write.  You don’t know if it sucks.  So, edit three times, for coherency typos, and whatever else makes you happy.  Then let it go.  It sucks?  Says you.  Others might love it.

3- You don’t know what will sell.  Always true, but particularly with indie.  EVERY TIME I talk to a person who made it in indie I get back the same “I have no idea why that book hit.” Or “that book was a toss off.  I have no idea why it sold big” or…  You get the point.  Write it.  do the best you can with it, and put it out.  You never know what will sell.  If it embarrasses you mortally, put it out under a pen name. Beware of names like Iman I Diot.  Miss Diot could be a bestseller, and do you want to answer to that the rest of your life.  Part of this is stop editing.  Chances are you can’t make it better, and you might be making it worse.

4- Don’t get stuck in one mode of doing business.  Things are shifting faster than you can imagine.  Keep your mind open and your eyes ditto.  Try new ways of doing business as they come along, they might be your livelihood in a few years.

5- Don’t be afraid to try new things.  I was for years.  I was afraid I simply was not GOOD enough.  Ask yourself “Good enough for what?”  Who determines, other than the writers?  Most of the historical books I read from KU have HUNDREDS of great reviews and MAJOR errors (not even little ones.  I mean, things like assuming ancient Rome worked like Victorian England.  Or confusing Elizabethan England and the Regency.)  Do the best you can, but dare try new things.  Like above, don’t be afraid of new ways of doing business, writing new things, trying new genres.  Just keep going.  if you want to do it? Try it.  Failing is guaranteed if you never try.  Or as the poster over my desk says “If you must walk on thin ice, you might as well dance.”

6- Don’t let failure daunt you.  In the rapidly shifting business/technology/political climate we face the next several years, failure is guaranteed.  BUT failure is never failure till it’s final.  Until the referee counts ten over your prone body, without your getting up and trying again, you haven’t failed.  It’s merely a temporary setback.  Yes, it’s easy to lose heart, and I do, which is why I have to remind myself that it’s not over till the fat lady sings, and frankly my singing has been banned by the Geneva convention as a crime against humanity, so I ain’t singing.  Everyone who achieved anything failed a lot more than everyone who didn’t.  Which brings me to the other Maxim over my computer “Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom”- George S. Patton.  You hit bottom?  Great, let me congratulate you.  You’re about to BOUNCE!