John C. Wright's Journal

I need help. I have two neighbors who have been kicked out of their house. They have no place to stay, no income, no nothing. They have a certain amount of money from the government for housing called Section Eight. If anyone reading these words in the Northern Virginia area, or DC, or Maryland knows [...]

Well, I admit a felt a moment of angst when my arch-libertarian book THE GOLDEN AGE lost the gold coin of the arch-libertarian Prometheus Award to the arch-monarchist THE LORD OF THE RINGS. And a twinge, perhaps, of melancholy that I did not win the Nebula Award for ORPHANS OF CHAOS, but instead that honor [...]

Those of you who believe that republican government can exist on Earth without the prop and lantern of Christian faith, have a faith in mankind which neither history nor reason confirms, nor any authority worthy of our ears. The non-Christian democracies of the world have long since become bureaucratic welfare-states, nanny-states, and to watch their [...]

Today’s post discusses endings, why Casablanca is a classic, and how we’d rather not read a story that ended “An uncomfortable silence ensued.”: http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/209525.html Excerpt: An ending is like a punch line. It is a thing that pulls the story together in such a way as to make the experience satisfying. Usually, an ending is [...]

From the Mickey Mouse HOUSE OF MOUSE show, an episode where the Disney Villains combine against the forces of Mouseness.

Wright’s Writing Corner includes a post on chapters and what makes them what they are. For three weeks now, I’ve been on the last two chapters of my novel. Not because I haven’t written much in the last three weeks, quite the contrary-I’ve been writing with every free moment, putting other things, like feeding the [...]

I was looking up books by Hilaire Belloc on the web, and by chance came across this Wikipedia entry. This paragraph is from a section subtitled ‘On Islam’. The quote is from Mr. Belloc, and the italicized lines are from the anonymous editor. Belloc’s 1937 book The Crusades: the World’s Debate made no pretence at [...]

To arms, citizens. INDIANAPOLIS | Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes. In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to [...]

A reader wryly commented on the cover art of my forthcoming book: “…this must be the first time in the history of publishing that they actually gave the cover artist an accurate description of the contents to be illustrated.” I reply: Untrue. The art department at Tor books is under the hand of one Irene [...]

The 2011 Nebula Award Winners are: Winning Novel: Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis (Spectra) Also Nominated: The Native Star by M.K. Hobson (Spectra) The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit UK; Orbit US) Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor) Echo by Jack McDevitt (Ace) Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor [...]

Back by popular demand! This article is a reprint from 2008, for those readers new to the Wright World, needing to be convinced of the sobriety of my scholarly attainments. Now that I am a world-famous international science fiction author (my sister lives in Australia, and I forced her to buy one of my books, [...]

The basic rule of any philosophy is that, if it leads one to absurd and impossible conclusion, something in the premise must be wrong, or an error made in the line of reasoning. It seems some anti-homosexual posters were found in Shoreditch, Stoke Newington and broader East London, and the local LGBTQ activists wanted to [...]

I was told when I was young by my father that, if you want to have a good vocabulary (1) look up any word you do not know in a dictionary and (2) if you use it correctly at least three times, the word is yours. Because I followed this advice, I have always had [...]

Part of an ongoing conversation. Italic text is Rolf Andreassen, whose comment is here. Orotund text is mine. The argument concerned this: I say it is abnormal to react with contempt or embarrassment at the sight of Marvel Girl doing household chores. We call feminine those qualities by which females distinguish themselves from males, and [...]

Only posting a link and a mess of quotes! A follow up to a previous post, Superversive and his commenters have an intelligent discussion of the issue of postmodern nihilism in fantasy: http://superversive.livejournal.com/94056.html

Found this elegant visual explanation of projection while asking the Internet to correct my spelling for Moebius. Looking at this, I am glad I do not live in one of those non-Euclidean universes governed by Cthulhu (you know the ones, where parallel lines diverge, and no plane figures are congruent with any others of differing [...]

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. [...] A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that [...]

I have always been a little puzzled by overpopulation scares. They were a staple of science fiction in the 1950′s and 1960′s — one of Robert Heinlein’s personal bugbears, for example, showing up in TUNNEL IN THE SKY and FARMER IN THE SKY and it can be seen in Isaac Asimov’s CAVES OF STEEL and [...]

The esteemed Mike Allen is the editor of the CLOCKWORK PHOENIX anthology series, where my work has been honored to appear more than once. Of all editors I’ve worked with, he is the one most adroit at keeping his writers informed of the various stages of the project, of distribution and good reviews and so [...]

An article from the LA Times. I reprint the whole thing without comment. Draw your own conclusions as to what this means about the mind-body relationship, or the ability of humans to get well merely by mental means, or, dare I say it, spiritual? (Or, if you are cynical, draw your own conclusions about the [...]

A reader asks a fascinating question. He speaks of a recent history of science fiction he’d read, and says the editors “laid the blame of ghetto-izing science fiction at John W. Campbell’s feet. I wonder if you have any thoughts on the matter.” If the editors made the claim that science fiction was popular and [...]

One advantage of having no sense of taste at all, is that I can enjoy highbrow stuff like Shakespeare and Milton and Homer, but also I can enjoy simple pleasures with undiminished affection. After all, highbrow stuff is just lowbrow stuff with more good stuff in it, by which I mean, in the case of [...]

A reader asks: “Mr Wright – when you were an atheist, did you write Morlock fiction? Why or why not?” I most certainly did not write Morlock fiction during my atheist days. (Ironically, the one short story I penned that was clearly nihilist in theme and tone, “Silence in the Night”, was one I wrote [...]

By mere coincidence, my eye fell upon two news stories yesterday, on All Saint’s Day. First, a Syriac Church was attacked by Jihadists. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/01/baghdad-church-siege-survivors-speak Fifty-eight people, most of them worshippers from the Chaldean Catholic community, are confirmed to have been killed in the massacre, which was carried out by al-Qaida [...] Ghassan Salah, 17, had [...]

As a public service to my brothers and sisters in Christ, let me here list the Five Non-Negotiable points that must guide all Catholic voters and which should guide all Protestant and Orthodox, Nestorian, Coptic, and Monophysite Christians. The basic rule is that you cannot call yourself a Catholic and vote for a politician who [...]