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Writer’s Forum?

Posted June 21, 2016 By John C Wright

I fellow writer just wrote me and asked if I knew of any writers’ forums (fora?) where he could get useful feedback on “Blue SF with frequent Catholic themes.”

I had no answer, being an emotionless Houyhnhnm, I’ve never thought of asking for advice, but I know such things are useful to people who can more easily pass for human than I.

Do any readers out there know of use a forum who could look over stories? If so, leave a comment in the comments box below.

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Abolishing St John’s

Posted June 6, 2016 By John C Wright

My Alma Mater is a week away from being obliterated by Social Justice. I thought St. John’s College was the one place, the last place, on Earth that would cave in.

If there are any alumns out among my readership, please write to the college and demand these changes not take place. Like all Social Justice machinations, it is being done secretively, illegally, and quickly.

Here is the contact information for alumni and interested parties:

https://www.sjc.edu/about/leadership/board-visitors-governors/proposed-board-amendments-change-polity

The Communications Office is compiling all the comments and sending them to the presidents, college leadership, and board. Read the remainder of this entry »

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Starving Artist to Paypal

Posted January 16, 2016 By John C Wright

So far in my career, six to eight readers, perhaps ten, have arranged to give me a tip or emolument at regular, repeating intervals, such as fifteen dollars a month.

In each case, the payments have not gone through. Paypal won’t send the money, but will sent a note telling me they won’t.

We’ve contracted Paypal, and they say nothing in wrong on our side, but Paypal will not clear the amounts for any repeated, autopilot payments.

My wife and I could really use the money, even small amounts, and it is exasperating that little tips and kindnesses from readers are being plucked away by some bureaucratic or electronic glitch.

If you are such a reader, who has tried to set up a recurring, automatic payment, please note: your money is not reaching us. Please contact Paypal.

 

 

 

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Filed in Announcement, Blogbegging

Prayer Request

Posted July 4, 2015 By John C Wright

A reader asks for your prayerful help, dear readers:

I just found out a couple of days ago that my son, my only child is most likely somewhere on the autism spectrum. With my (admittedly slight) understanding of it, he’s probably not a bad case, but I really have no idea what this means. A part of me is scared that he’s going to be a child his entire life. . . . I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s that bad. But I don’t really know, and I am so terrified, and so broken up. This is the worst news I have had in my entire life, and I’m more confused and frightened than I can explain. I could really use a few people before God’s throne on my behalf.

You owe me nothing. If you don’t, I won’t be upset at all. But if you could post this request, just saying that I’m a regular reader and occasional commenter, I’d appreciate it.

We can pray both for his comfort and his cure.

The fear that one will not love a crippled child or a retarded one was a fear that bedeviled me back in my youth, when I was an atheist and had only my own mental resources on which to draw. These evils do happen, but God gives the soul the power to love abundantly and to put fear aside easily. God grants peace. Love is self sacrifice, not self regard, and to care for a child maimed in mind or body is not only possible, but rich and strange in ways that cannot be put in words.

And miracles happen, and some sufferings are joined with the sufferings of Christ and work to aid the redemption of the world.

And miracles happen, and some sufferings are taken away as if they had never been.

22 Comments so far. Join the Conversation
  • MamaofMany posted on July 8, 2015
    I'm praying for your reader. I've heard that diagnosis or something like it three times. I have eight children, and…
  • ecreegan posted on July 7, 2015
    I ran into this http://www.seraphicpress.com/the-idfs-secret-weapon-autistic-intelligence-analysts/ story about the IDF's satellite imagery program and the unit of elite analysts entirely composed…
  • simplemind posted on July 6, 2015
    So autism a extremely variable condition. Likely you won't meet another autistic child that is exactly like your child. Which…
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I Am A Real Person

Posted June 15, 2015 By John C Wright

Dear Readers,

I have received more messages, publicly and privately, from fans who enjoy and buy my works but who, deeply offended at at least four, perhaps more, of the ranking officers of my publisher, have told me they can no longer buy my works.

This is unprecedented, or, I should say, at least I have never heard of readers disavowing books based not on the content or author, but the publisher.

Some have likewise written to Tor books to express their displeasure at this high handed and unprofessional treatment.

However, the latest slander issued from the enemy is that these readers do not exist.

They are trying to blank you out of their minds. You are unpersons. The claim is that the emails and letters sent to Tor expressing the displeasure of the customer are said to be faked, counterfeit, written by robots.

If you are a reader of mine, and now or in times to come write to my publisher to express your preferences on how we are supposed to serve you and offer you goods for purchase, in order to prevent this slander from squelching your voice, please do the following:

Send to each of these three people one email apiece:

tom.doherty@tor.com
andrew.weber@macmillan.com
rhonda.brown@macmillan.com

Let the messages be curt, plain, and polite. Please put I AM A REAL PERSON in the subject line.

  • State that you are a real person, a customer, and not a robot.
  • If you have not been well served by the public statements of any senior persons at Tor Books, politely express your disapproval.
  • Request a confirmation that your email has been opened and read.

Remember Tor Books, and your truly, are in the business of providing you with entertainment. Tom Doherty has officially and publicly stated that we are in the business of finding great stories and promoting literature and are not about promoting a political agenda.

Of course he speaks for me and for all loyal authors and employees honored to be published or employed by him. I do not publish my humble works to promote a political agenda.

I can speak with authority for the other Sad Puppies. We explicitly and openly said and meant from the outset to promote the opposite of a political agenda with our slate:

We promoted for your consideration, dear readers, works thought good because they were entertaining, well crafted and imaginative; not bad works thought useful because they served political correctness, starred or were written by some favored mascot or supported some cause of the Left, and had no science fiction in them at all. The only color we care about is the black of the ink and the green of the pay. The hue of the hand that wields the pen does not somehow magically make the story more well written.

For this we were libeled, slandered, and insulted in every possible way in every venue the enemy could reach, with a fervor and a blinding soul-destroying hatred even now impossible to credit.

Who in his right mind calls his own authors and readers, on whom his livelihood depends, neo-nazi racist psycho bigots on the ground that they prefer this year’s offering by Cixin Liu to that of John Chu?

Those who make libelous, false, and outrageous statements about the authors and readers and fans of Tor’s many fine publications have no honest reason to remain at their posts at a company whom they despise and undermine, serving readers they hate.

Let them take their political divisions and unprofessional venom-tongued hysteria elsewhere, and leave the professionals alone to craft and sell our product, and entertain readers we adore and serve.

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Filed in Announcement, Blogbegging

Fire Gates

Posted May 24, 2015 By John C Wright

Please write to your local chapter of the Boy Scouts (whose contact information can be found here: http://www.scouting.org/LocalCouncilLocator.aspx) and ask for the public rebuke, repudiation and immediate discharge from service of the current BSA President, Mr Robert Gates.

The Catholic Church in America, in the 1960s and 1970s, welcomed homosexuals into their ranks, and, enamored by then current psychological theories about the origins of the sin, thought that to comfort and hide the offender was the most charitable policy. Consequently, once the homosexual lobby made entry into the Church and rose in the ranks, over the next decades they diligently sought out and welcomed each other to join seminaries and holy vocations, covered up each others crimes and abominations, and so on. Hence there was a plethora of homosexual activity with young men, some of them underage under the authority of gays in the priesthood and other positions of authority.

The resulting scandal humiliated the Church and continued to be flung in the face of the priesthood and laity as a curse to this day.  (It is ironic to note that the proportion of such scandals is far less than found among schoolteachers.) Why homosexual diddling with young and fair-faced boys is a horror and a scandal in the Church, but welcomed and cheered in society at large, and considered a constitutional right it is bigotry to oppose, I leave for someone more able to unwind the labyrinthine convulsions of modern non-binary logic than I to explain.

But if the Boy Scouts were wise they would learn the lesson from the error of the Catholic Church, and not allow into their leadership men who demonstrate a disdain for the very moral uprightness the Boy Scouts teach.

I assure you: the scandals will be thrown in your face for the next century, long ago the Boy Scouts have been sued and boycotted Janet-Reno’d out of existence as a nest of pederasts.

Since, at the moment, special rules are in place so that no adult is allowed to be alone with a child, but, like highborn Spanish maidens of the last century, a boy can go nowhere without an escort or duenna, lest he be the subject of unlawful sexual affection, it is mere insolent madness to welcome those who spread, laud, encourage, and are tempted by unlawful sexual affections toward the male, particularly youthful males, into the position of those escorts.

If the public outcry is long and fierce and loud enough, Mr Gates will either repudiate his remarks, or be forced from office.

If Gamergate and Sad Puppies serve any purpose in the culture war, it is to show that you, yes, you, my dear reader, can silence the shrill, evil, and tiny group of antichristian activists currently and rapidly dismantling our civilization.

Write your local Scout leadership. Write today, please. Express your contempt for this insolent treason coming from the sleeper agent and social justice warrior called Gates.

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Filed in Blogbegging, Musings

Letter to the Editor

Posted April 19, 2015 By John C Wright

I was not the only person libeled. This is from the pen of Theodore Beale of Castalia books, my publisher, who goes by the pen name of Vox Day. I join him in asking you, my readers  — for you were also defamed — to write:

Dear Editor,

I am writing to demand a retraction and apology for the libelous article posted Apr 17th, 2015 at 3:00pm by Mike VanHelder. Mr. VanHelder wrote:

“Big winner Vox Day is an outspoken white supremacist and campaigner against women’s education and suffrage, who is on the record as supporting the Taliban’s attempt to assassinate Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousifazi, finding it “scientifically justifiable.””

  1. I am not a white supremacist. This is flat-out false. Also, I am a Native American with Mexican heritage.
  2. I am not a campaigner against women’s education. I am not an activist. I have never campaigned against it.
  3. I am not a campaigner against suffrage. I am not an activist. I have never campaigned against it.
  4. I am not against women’s suffrage. I support direct democracy for all, including women.
  5. I am not on the record supporting the Taliban’s attempt to assassinate Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousifazi. This is an absolutely outrageous accusation and utterly false.

All of these statements are false, provably and demonstrably false, and appear to be malicious. Therefore, I am requesting an immediate retraction of this error-ridden article as well as a published apology to me. Some of these additional errors include:

  1. Gamergate is not anti-feminist.
  2. Neither Sad Puppies nor Rabid Puppies courted any assistance from GamerGate.
  3. The extent of the collaboration between the THREE groups, (not two, as in the article) is not difficult to quantify. There are precisely two GamerGaters who are also Rabid Puppies, myself and Daddy Warpig.
  4. It is false to claim “No nominated author has ever before withdrawn their work after making it onto the Hugo ballot.” It is actually not uncommon for an author to withdraw one of his works after getting more than one nominated in a category. To give a few examples, Harlan Ellison withdrew his Hugo nomination in 1968. Jack Gaughan withdrew his nomination in 1968. Fritz Leiber withdrew his nomination in 1971, as did Robert Silverberg in 1972.
  5. Therefore, the action of withdrawing a nomination is not “unprecedented”.

I will appreciate your prompt attention to this matter.

NB: If you would like to add your voice to this call for a retraction and apology, this is the editor’s email: letters@popsci.com

***

Commenter Nate adds:

Below too is a contact form for Bonnier Corporation, the parent company that owns PopSci.

http://www.bonniercorp.com/contact/

They would love to hear from you. It says so right there.

And, more to the point, Commenter Zen0 adds:

Jim C. Hines Blog

DETCON1 AND DIVERSITY

Detcon1 has gotten a lot of things right on that front. They established a Diversity Advisory Board, consisting of Muhammad A Ahmad, Anne Gray, Mark Oshiro, Kat Tanaka Okopnik, Mike VanHelder, Pablo Vazquez, and Sal Palland. They chose to honor a range of guests that acknowledges the broader scope of the genre. They established the FANtastic Detroit Fund to help provide free memberships to fans who might otherwise be unable to attend.

 

 

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Filed in Blogbegging, Only Posting a Link, Puppy Sadness Syndrome

Prayer Request

Posted March 31, 2015 By John C Wright

A prayer request to anyone willing: A friend of mine from my hometown just had her third pregnancy end in her third miscarriage. If you want to pray for her healing, emotional and physical, her name is Courtney. I wish I weren’t 1,500 miles away so I could go cry with her. I look at my three year old son and thank God for him again today. I am certain that I deserve him no more than she deserved her child, and without him, my life would much bleaker, easier, and less messy, admittedly, but bleaker.

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.

My soul is deprived of peace, I have forgotten what happiness is; I tell myself my future is lost, all that I hoped for from the LORD. The thought of my homeless poverty is wormwood and gall; Remembering it over and over leaves my soul downcast within me. But I will call this to mind, as my reason to have hope: The favors of the LORD are not exhausted, his mercies are not spent; They are renewed each morning, so great is his faithfulness. My portion is the LORD, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him. Good is the LORD to one who waits for him, to the soul that seeks him; It is good to hope in silence for the saving help of the LORD.

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Brainstorming and Blogbegging

Posted March 2, 2015 By John C Wright

I’ve taken on the task of doing a series of columns for EveryJoe called ‘Help for the Historically Impaired’.

The conceit of the column is that every new idea is a bad idea in a new coat of paint, and that those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it. I plan to start each column with some popular bad idea of the present day, to point to the misunderstanding of history on which the bad idea is based, and give the true account to set things in their proper light.

An example might be to point out that Truman’s decision to drop the atom bomb on Japan was not based on racism, as is commonly asserted by the ignorant, but was a decision made in the light of the ferocity and dishonorable barbarism of the Japanese resistance on Okinawa.

Other examples: The Church’s opposition to abortion or human experimentation is not based on her enmity to science, and the examples so often bruited about, as Galileo, Hypatia, or Bruno, are not examples of Christian hatred of science, but examples of jealousy among scientists, of the tumultuous nature of politics in Alexandria, of the Church’s hatred of witchcraft and heresy. (This kind of column has already been done, and done better, by Mike Flynn, but since he is a friend of mine, I hope to steal all his ideas and examples.)

Of the Middle Ages in general and the Crusades in particular, the popular errors are so rife that such columns practically write themselves. The idea that the founding fathers of the United States, or, indeed, any other them aside from Thomas Paine, were Deists or Pagans is another popular error begging for refutation.

If any of my dear readers would like to volunteers an idea or an example, it would help me flesh out my list.

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Not Every Wright at Every Joe

Posted November 19, 2014 By John C Wright

 It occurs to me that I have been remiss in not urging my loyal reader (Hi, Mom!) to go over to the girly-site EveryJoe and read and comment on some of my columns there.

I mean no disrespect to my loyal reader (Hi, Mom!) but I have fallen into the habit of posting any thoughts on more sober topics there, where I can get paid for it, rather than here. I will not cease posting columns here, but my time is limited, so you may not get all the John C Wrightarian goodness you crave if you only read my content here.

Not every column I write is here, some are there.

Unfortunately, the only commenter who regularly comments multiple times on each column is a lying-ass heckler with whom I have, alas, in an unmanful fashion, lost all patience. A man can be told that he is a genocidal hate-filled hater only so many times before he either turns to prayer or turns to anger, and I did not turn to prayer.

So, as a courtesy to me, if anything I have ever written pleased you, kind reader, click through the links and leave a comment.

Here are my more recent columns: Read the remainder of this entry »

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Filed in Blogbegging, Musings, Only Posting a Link

Building a Library

Posted November 12, 2014 By John C Wright

An expectant father has paid me the high honor of trusting my judgement and asking me what books he should buy and stock in his nursery for this children. And he hopes to have many (may God hear him!)

I will recommend some books, but I’d like to hear your recommendations as well, dear reader.

But first I will recommend that no matter what you read to your kids, dear fathers and fathers-to-be, that you just READ TO YOU KIDS!

I am in the habit of reading to my children every night, weekdays and weekends, except on days set aside for novel writing, when the wife reads to the kids. I have done it regularly as sunset every night since their infancy, and also told stories orally, the most successful of which is my version of Jack and the Beanstalk. (In my version, Jack owns a pressure suit, and so can endure the drop in pressure and temperature as he climbs to the stratosphere).

The upshot of it is, that my kids heard  all my favorites from when I was a child, including science fiction books and fantasies, that otherwise they never would have heard or read, and to this day I spend an hour each Sunday reading to them from the Bible, or from CS Lewis, or from GK Chesterton, or from Peter Kreeft. They are teenagers, but are bright teenagers, and none of this material is over their heads (except that the allusions and references of Chesterton I need to stop and explain. And the stopping and explaining usually turns into digressions, lectures, jokes and side material. Chesterton’s THE EVERLASTING MAN is being read so slowly, since I stop for a digression every paragraph, perhaps every line, so that we now call it THE EVERLASTING BOOK.

Making it an unbreakable habit to read is much more important than what you read.

That said, let me frame my recommendations in terms of what morals they teach.  For as ‘Wright’s Ninth Rule of Writing’ states, every story teaches a moral, whether intended by the author or not. Whatever the winning behavior is, whatever behavior in the tale leads to success, achieves the stated goal, that is the moral being taught and the example being presented.

Read the remainder of this entry »

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Filed in Blogbegging, Personal, Reviews

Solitudines Vastae Celeste

Posted October 16, 2014 By John C Wright

I am begging for more help with my Latin from my kind and helpful readers. I am trying to name a starship ‘Wastlands of Heaven’ in Latin. I know from studying old maps that the poetical term for an empty area on the map filled with dragons is Solitudines Vastae (3 1 NOM P F). But I cannot figure out the proper declension for the adjective ‘celestial’. Would it be Solitudines Vastae Celeste ? or Solitudines Vastae Celestissimus ?

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Filed in Blogbegging

Publications

Posted October 16, 2014 By John C Wright

I was updating my list of publications, both current and forthcoming, but I am haunted by the thought that there is one or two I forgot. So, as a service to any reader who wishes a complete list of wrightabilia, and a service to me from any editor or reader who bought or read something of mine not on this list, I thought it was fitting to draw your kind attention to it.

If you see anything missing from the list, please tell me.

Publications by John C. Wright:

Short Fiction:

  • Farthest Man from Earth, (novella) Asimov’s Science Fiction Vol. 19 # 4 & 5, No.229-230, April 1995.
  • Guest Law, (novella) Asimov’s Science Fiction Vol. 21 # 6, No.258, June 1997;

–reprinted in Year’s Best SF 3, ed. David G. Hartwell, HarperPrism, 1998.

  • Not Born a Man, (short story) Aberrations #24, October 1994.

– reprinted in No Longer Dreams, ed. Danielle McPhail, Lite Circle, 2005.

  • Forgotten Causes, (short story) Absolute Magnitude #16, Summer 2001.

–reprinted in Breech the Hull, ed. Mike McPhail, Marietta Publishing (October, 2007)

  • Awake in the Night (novella) appearing in William Hope Hodgson’s Night Lands: Eternal Love, edited by Andy W. Robertson, Wildside Press (December 2003).

–reprinted in: The Year’s Best Science Fiction 21st Annual Collection, ed. Gardner Dozois,

–and Best Short Novels 2003 (Science Fiction Book Club), ed. Jonathan Strahan

–and published separately as Awake in the Night Castalia House (May, 2014)

  • Last of All Suns (novella) appearing in William Hope Hodgson’s Night Lands II: Nightmares of the Fall, edited by Andy W. Robertson, Three Legged Fox Books (2006).
  • Silence of the Night (short story) Readercon 18 Souvenir Book, 2007 Readercon, Inc.

– reprinted in electronic publication, Andy W. Robertson, ed. His website http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightsilenceofthenight.html

  • Cry of the Night Hound (novella) appearing in William Hope Hodgson’s Night Lands II: Nightmares of the Fall, edited by Andy W. Robertson, Three Legged Fox Books (2006).
  • Father’s Monument, (short story) No Longer Dreams, ed. Danielle McPhail, Lite Circle (2005)
  • The Kindred, (short story) No Longer Dreams, ed. Danielle McPhail, Lite Circle (2005)
  • Peter Power Armor, (short story) Breach the Hull, ed. Mike McPhail Marietta Publishing (2007)
  • Guyal the Curator (short story) Songs of the Dying Earth, ed. Gardner Dozois, Subterranean (2008)
  • The Far End of History (short story) New Space Opera II, ed. Gardner Dozois, Eos (2009)
  • One Bright Star to Guide Them (short story) The Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction, ed. Gordon van Gelder, April-May 2009 issue.
  • Last Report on Unit Twenty-Two (short story) So It Begins, ed. Mike McPhail, Dark Quest book
  • Choosers of the Slain (short story) Clockwork Phoenix, ed. Mike Allen, Norilana Books (July 1, 2008)
  • Twilight of the Gods (novella) Federations, ed, John Joseph Adams, Prime Books (April, 2009)

—Reprinted in Years Best Science Fiction 27th Annual Collection ed. Gardner Dozois

  • On the People’s Business (short story) Dappled Things, ed. Katy Carl, Mary Queen of Angels 2009 issue (web publication)
  • Murder in Metachronopolis (novella) Clockwork Phoenix, ed. Mike Allen, Norilana Books (July, 2010)
  • Judgment Eve (novella) Engineering Infinity, ed. Jonathan Strahan, Solaris Books, London (2011)
  • A Random World of Delta Capricorni Aa, Also Called Scheddi (short story) electronic publication Flash Fiction Online, ed. Jake Freivald, May 2010 issue.
  • The Lunar Sacrament of Confession (novella) Altered Perceptions, ed. Brandon Sanderson (2011)
  • The Ideal Machine (short story) Sci Phi Journal: Issue #1, October 2014.

The Golden Oecumene Trilogy:

THE GOLDEN AGE (novel) Tor Books (April 2002)

THE PHOENIX EXULTANT (novel) Tor Books (April 2003)

THE GOLDEN TRANSCENDENCE (novel) Tor Books (November 2003)

The Books of Everness

LAST GUARDIANS OF EVERNESS (novel) Tor Books (August 2004)

MISTS OF EVERNESS (novel) Tor Books (March 2005)

The Chronicles of Chaos

ORPHANS OF CHAOS (novel) Tor Books (November 2005)—Nominated for a Nebula

FUGITIVES OF CHAOS (novel) Tor Books (November 2006)

TITANS OF CHAOS (novel) Tor Books (April 2007)

A.E. van Vogt’s Null-A

NULL-A CONTINUUM (novel) Tor Books (May, 2008)

The Count to the Eschaton Sequence

COUNT TO A TRILLION (novel) Tor Books (December, 2011)

THE HERMETIC MILLENNIA (novel) Tor Books (December, 2012)

JUDGE OF AGES (novel) Tor Books (February 2014)

ARCHITECT OF AEONS (novel) Tor Books (April, 2015)

VINDICATION OF MAN (novel) Tor Books (forthcoming)

COUNT TO INFINITY (novel) Tor Books ( forthcoming)

A Tale of the Unwithering Realm

SOMEWHITHER (novel) Castalia House (forthcoming)

NOWHITHER (novel) Castalia House (forthcoming)

Anthologies

AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND (anthology) Castalia House (April, 2014)

  • Introduction: On the Lure of the Night Land (essay)
  • Awake in the Night
  • Cry of the Night Hound
  • Silence of the Night (revised for this volume)
  • Last of All Suns

CITY BEYOND TIME Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis (anthology) Castalia House (June, 2014)

  • Murder In Metachronopolis
  • Choosers of the Slain
  • Bride of the Time Warden
  • Father’s Monument
  • Slayer of Souls (original to this volume)
  • The Plural of Helen of Troy (original to this volume)

THE BOOK OF SEASONS Tales Inspired by Feasts and Fasts (anthology) Castalia House (forthcoming)

  • Pale Realms of Shade (original)
  • A Random World of Delta Capricorni, Called Scheddi
  • Nativity (original)
  • Sheathed Paw of the Lion (original)
  • On the People’s Business
  • The Meaning of Life as Told Me by an Inebriated Science Fiction Writer in New Jersey (original)
  • The Parliament of Beasts and Birds (original)
  • Eve of All Saints Day (original)
  • Yes Virginia There is a Santa Claus (original)

Awake in the Night (Novella) Castalia House (May, 2014)

One Bright Star to Guide Them (novella) Castalia House (September, 2014) — expanded and revised from a previous short story for this publication.

Nonfiction Collection:

TRANSHUMAN AND SUBHUMAN Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth (collected essays) Castalia House (May 2014)

  • Introduction: The Wright Stuff (by Mike Flynn)
  • Transhuman and Subhuman
  • The Hobbit, or, The Desolation of Tolkien
  • Whistle While You Work
  • Science Fiction: What is it good for?
  • John C. Wright’s Patented One Session Lesson in the Mechanics of Fiction
  • Swordplay in Space
  • The Glory Game, or, The Bitterness of Broken Ideals
  • Gene Wolfe, Genre Work, and Literary Duty
  • Storytelling Is the Absence of Lying
  • The Golden Compass Points in No Direction
  • Faith in the Fictional War between Science Fiction and Faith
  • The Big Three of Science Fiction
  • The Fourth of the Big Three of Science Fiction
  • Childhood’s End and Gnosticism
  • Saving Science Fiction from Strong Female Characters
  • Restless Heart of Darkness

Nonfiction Articles:

  • May The Midichlorians Be With You; The absence of religion and ethics in Star Wars, (essay) Star Wars on Trial, ed. David Brin, Benbella Books (June, 2006).
  • Twas Beauty Killed The Beast; King Kong and the American Character, (essay) King Kong is Back, ed. David Brin, Benbella Books (November 2005).
  • Just Throw Him In The Engine; Or The Role of Chivalry in FIREFLY, (essay) Finding Serenity, ed. Glen Yeffeth, Benbella Books (April 1, 2005).
  • Heroes Of Darkness And Light; Or, Why My Girl Goes For Batman over Superman (essay) Batman Unauthorized, ed. Glen Yeffeth, Benbella Books (March 1, 2008).
  • Faith And Scientific Imagination (Published as Aliens Need Christ’s Redemption, Too) (essay) Catholic Herald (June 2008)
  • C.S. Lewis Was The Joshua Flattening The Walls Of My Disbelief (testimonial) Mere Christians—Inspiring Stories of Encounters with C. S. Lewis, ed. Andrew Lazo and Mary Anne Phemister, Baker Books (February, 2009)
  • Heinlein, Hugos, and Hogwash (essay) Intercollegiate Review May 7, 2014 (web publication)
  • Faith and Works in a Science Fictional Universe (essay) One Peter Five, ed. Steve Skojec, August 2014 (web publication)
  • Prophetic & Apotropaic Science Fiction (essay) Sci Phi Journal: Issue # 2 (forthcoming)
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Filed in Blogbegging, Crowing, Fancies

Dog Latin

Posted October 8, 2014 By John C Wright

Okay, true believers, here is the scene as its stands.

Any Latin scholars out there, please correct any grammatical errors, except the one deliberate one.

The wolf speaking is actually a she-wolf, but the narrator, Ilya Muromets, does not yet know that.  So she should use the proper gender for any words referring to herself, but he should not. (NOTE: this is the only time you will hear this world ‘gender’ used correctly this year.)

A word of background: Ilya and Abby (a thin native girl in a monkey-faced breathing mask who rescued him) are traveling down the vertical highway system at the axis of the Tower of Babel. They are in a parallel timeline where construction was completed on the Tower, and it actually reaches to heaven, or, at least, geosynchronous orbit.  Astrology actually works in this universe, and correctly predicts the future. This scene takes place right after a melee fought clinging to the sheer vertical sides of freight-train sized elevator cars.

Since in Abby’s timeline the Tower builders were never scattered by the Confusion of tongues, she has the superpower of polyglossia, like Cypher of the X Men, and speaks and understands all languages.

Ilya is from Oregon on our version of Earth, but he has Wolverine power of regeneration, taken to the level of the Headless Horseman. He was dunked in the Ocean of Uncreation outside timespace,  and absorbed some of the unnatural pre-creation substance, ylem, into his cells. The chaos in his bloodstream reacts to his state of mind, and when he prays, he heals.

The dog-headed baboonish wolf-things (who can cling like Spiderman to sheer surfaces) are nigh invulnerable, like the Tick. (You can see where, as a serious and high-class writer, where I get my themes and ideas.) They are from a timeline where Romulus and Remus actually were suckled by a she-wolf, and fathered a werewolf race in Latium. (And, as a comic book fan, I also throw in these classical references, which people who, you know, read the dreary stuff assigned them in school rather than SANDMAN or THOR or Frank Miller’s 700 funnybooks will not catch.)

I could see above and behind me the glint of his nocturnal eyes like two coppery mirrors, or two burning matches, approaching.

He slid smoothly down the golden hullsurface toward me. I had some half-baked notion of grabbing the crossbow from him if he got closer, but he halted.

Twenty yards away. Fifteen. Ten. I tried to urge him within arm’s reach by radiating hypnotic waves from my brain, but that was not one of the superpowers I was given.

He stopped.

Does swearing count as blasphemy if you do it silently in your heart? I decided to ask Father Flannery next time I went to confession. If I were so lucky.

I sat there, playing possum and watched him hang head-downward and cock another bolt with three hands.

Cripes, but I wished I had something to throw at him during the moment when there was only one leg holding him to the surface.

This time, I heard the string go thwang before the bolt entered my back. He struck some major vein. I could see the blood pumping from my back. Even with my childhood acting skills of pretending to be a bear, I could not convincingly impersonate a man whose heart had stopped beating.

Lon Chaney spoke in a sonorous, delicate language, in the lofty accents of an aristocrat. I swear he sounded like a guy who would introduce Masterpiece Theatre on public TV.

“Immortalis videtur.” He said, with a slight lilt of laughter to his voice. “Rationalis creatura sum: noli te versari in me fallendo. Si lubet.”

Latin. It was one of the languages I had studied. I could translate it … that is, while sitting with my Lewis & Short Lexicon open at my elbow, or Harden’s Vulgate, a pencil with a good eraser for erasing plenty of mistakes, a bright lamp, a clean desk, and loads of time: hanging sideways over a sickening abyss while bloodied in combat while panicking about underfed little girls dressed in monkey-masks was a different matter. But I knew some of the words.

Deathless, you seem. I am a rational creature: do not busy yourself in deceiving me. If you please.
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Any Latin scholars out there?

Posted October 7, 2014 By John C Wright

I have several phrases in my current manuscript that are written in Greek, spoken by a werewolf. Originally, my idea was that werewolves are the Kallikanzaro of Greek legend, the critters busily chopping down the world tree every Christmas eve. But I changed my mind, and decided to make them Roman, sons of Romulus and Remus, and to speak Dog Latin.

I am fair hand at Greek, which I’ve studied, but not Latin, which I have not. Can any of my learned readers help me? Here are the phrases I need in Latin, and medieval or Ciceronian Latin is better, the older the better:

  • Immortal, you seem. I am a rational creature: be not occupied in deceiving me. Please.
  • speech without reason
  • if you please
  • Carrion-eater

Here is the surrounding text in the scene, along with the machine translation that I do not trust:

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