Archive for December, 2011

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More Glory!

Posted December 14, 2011 By John C Wright

Another feather in my cap: the fine fellows over at SfSignal (the only science fiction blog I read every day, practically the only one I read) have asked a number of authors what SFF we read or watched during 2011 AD. Not only did I not answer the question asked, but I wrote a longish essay about it, and the kindhearted editor let the piece stand without cutting.

Here is the link http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/12/mind-meld-favorite-sff-media-consumed-in-2011-part-ii-of-ii/

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The Paramount of Glory is Mine!!

Posted December 14, 2011 By John C Wright

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 went to Joe Haldeman: the SWFA rules in their charter I believe contain an oft-overlooked provision that when Mr Haldeman writes a book with the word FOREVER in the title, he is automatically the winner for that year.

But this is not to say my career as a sciencefictioneer is not without glory. I got write the authorized sequel to my favorite science fiction book by my favorite author, and to speak to his kindly widow; I got to sit at the same table with the guy who wrote my favorite episode of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA; I went to Mass with Gene Wolfe, who explained to me all the secrets and ambiguities in his New Sun series; and when Harlan Ellison thought it funny to insult the whole room he was addressing, by calling us all pussies for being unwilling to stand up and walk out on him, I got a bigger laugh by standing up and walking out on him.

(Okay, I am kidding. Wolfe did not explain beans about his series to me. We talked about GK Chesterton, whom we both admire. But I did outsmartaleck Harlan Ellison.)

But, I say thee, all this is naught! Awards from prestigious organizations, moments of shared mutual faith with prestigious authors, or moments of shared mutual smartaleckery with prehensile authors, this is not what authors crave!

We crave cash!

Er, aside from that, we crave just one thing: cosplayers dressing up as our characters, and ‘shippers discussing our characters’ love lives!

(I realize, that, technically, that counts as two things,  but if two cosplayers dressed up as characters and discussed their relationship in a role playing game or something, it would be one thing! Sort of.)

Well, it has happened to me! A kindly reader has sent me a photo of himself dressed up as Quentin Nemo from my ORPHANS OF CHAOS. Behold!
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You’ve Got Open Mail

Posted December 13, 2011 By John C Wright

Matthew Surridge who writes at Black Gate address yours truly in an open letter, concerning a piece I wrote here, where I argued, among other things, that High Fantasy revolves around nostalgia for virtues and beauties now lost from the world, and for shining truths now called hateful.

http://www.blackgate.com/2011/12/13/the-enjoyment-of-fantasy-open-letters-to-adam-gopnik-mur-lafferty-and-john-c-wright/

I admit to being mildly surprised that my comments would inspire any controversy at all.  I would have written a more serious and thoughtful piece had I realized I would be called upon to give a line-by-line defense. It is a call time does not permit me to answer.

I will instead made a general denial. Mr Surridge is misreading or misinterpreting what I wrote. There are misreadings and disconnects in several places: but his main argument is against the position that one must agree with the author’s political views to enjoy his works, or arguing against the position that one must agree with my views to enjoy High Fantasy.

This, I assume he is aware, is a straw man, as nothing I said even remotely implies either position.

At least one other critic of this article attempted a similar straw man argument, but upon inquiring, I found out that he was not aware and could not be made aware.  As you can imagine, this somewhat limited my options for reply.

No doubt the fault is mine for not being more clear.

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Transhumanism and Subhumanism

Posted December 10, 2011 By John C Wright

I am intensely skeptical of Transhumanist ambitions. Much as I admire the intermediate goals of increasing human lifespan or human comfort through medical technology, the long term goals cause me reservations, or even revulsion. Allow me to explain using the most indirect means possible: by discussing fantasy stories.

Anyone who does not sense or suspect that modernity is missing something, something important that once we had and now is lost, has no heart for High Fantasy and no taste for it.

I don’t regard the statement as controversial. To me it seems not worth discussing that the present age differs from the past. The only question worth discussing is the nature of the differences. And, by extension, the nature of the future the present trends will tend to create.

What is wrong with the world? Where are we heading?

Are we heading toward the higher peak of the superhuman, or to a subhuman abyss? If I may be permitted a drollery, let me phrase it this way: shall our children be the Slans of A.E. van Vogt or the Morlocks of H.G. Wells?

A philosophical discussion would use different terminology and would bore to tears readers not philosophically inclined. So instead of discussing the nature and extent of the influence of Locke and Marx and Shaw and Nietzsche, let me discuss instead more popular manifestations more fun to read, that is, the science fiction writings, and discuss the nature of the influence of JRR Tolkien, and Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, of Robert Heinlein, Ayn Rand, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Peter Watts.

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Being Asked to Add Material

Posted December 9, 2011 By John C Wright

CPE Gaebler writes and asks when is the first time I was asked by an editor to add material to a story.

Let me explain the basis for his curiosity: I am almost never asked that, not once, but several times, I have gone over the word count limit editors have asked for. For example, my short story ‘Awake in the Night’ was more than double the acceptable limit posted by Andy Robertson in his NIGHT LANDS website. I wrote a short story for the Jack Vance tribute anthology called SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH where I also flagrantly, and to my discredit, went over the upper limit, and I asked the great Garden Dozois to send me the manuscript back. He replies in words akin to those of an NRA member — ‘you will get this manuscript out of my cold, dead hands’ — so apparently he found the manuscript acceptable despite that I was a scofflaw.

Unless I am misremembering, and it was the great George RR Martin who said that. The co-edited the work, and collected what must be the greatest names in the fantasy field, from Silverberg to Gaiman in the anchor position, peppered with names like Tanith Lee and Dan Simmons midmost.

In both cases, I am very grateful to the kindheartedness of the editors involved, and chagrined at my inability to write work to specification like a professional can do.

However, on one occasion, even I with all my orotund loquaciousness, was asked to expand rather than cut material.

I fear that if I tell you, some reader seeing the information will detect a seam or discontinuity in the work which otherwise would go unnoticed.

But, despite that risk, let me speak. Potential spoilers for an unwritten book below the cut:

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Seems Worth a Shot

Posted December 8, 2011 By John C Wright

As one of the two members of the Shea-Wright mutual admiration society, I admired this post from a reader over at Mark Shea’s blog ‘Catholic and Enjoying It.’

A reader has an interesting brainwave:

I have been thinking lately about how OWS has brought into the public realm the idea of using public space to make a point. For many years Nativity scenes have been declared unwelcome and in violation of the law, but really, aren’t they just “a demonstration of speech representing a point of view”? Maybe we could all go out this Advent and “occupy” various parks and public spaces in front of city halls with living nativity scenes. This would work especially well if the space has already been claimed in the name of free speech by OWS. The mess necessitated by the presences of animals would blend into the general OWS atmosphere, and people dressed “alternatively” would not necessarily stand out.

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Rattling the Tin Cup

Posted December 7, 2011 By John C Wright

Well, I just got a call on the phone from my wife, and we are not going to be able to take the children Christmas shopping this year, because we had promised a stranger in need, a friend of my daughter, to send her back to China; and the ticket prices hopped up between the time we borrowed money from a family friend, the time it arrived, and the time required to put it on the credit card.It just vacuumed away the entire Christmas shopping money. No toys this year.

So if anyone wants to get his favorite science fiction author a donation, here is the link to John Scalzi!

On the other hand, if you want to help me out for Christmas, please click the Tip Jar button to the right. Donations gratefully accepted.

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The Common Man and Christlike Presumption

Posted December 7, 2011 By John C Wright

In reference to my recent post on Advent, where I challenged heathens to live according to the precepts of Christian for a month, and chided my fellow Christians for failing to do so, Nostreculsus writes:

What about the opposite challenge? For one month, some nice Christian must worship the Dark Lord, cultivate the Lucifer Principle, and, in general, walk in the Shadow of the Black Sun. I realize, this isn’t very specific, but, possibly joining the Occupy Wall Street herd would serve. Or are those the sheep that are to be culled? I’m so confused.

It would make an interesting sitcom, though: Christian and Sorcerer swap places for a month. Wacky hijinks ensue.

My reply:

Thanks, but I am a convert. I used to be on the other side, not for a month, but for 35 years and more.

The hijinks consist mostly of misery created by being surrounded by a world of fools, and the only pleasure comes from the contemplation of one’s own wondrous and Promethean superiority. From time to time one meets a follow Prometheus, as lonely as oneself, alone in the cold and metallic knowledge that life is brief and meaningless, and that all the countless millions of present and past, everyone from Einstein to Aristotle, who thought there was something more, were fools and charlatans.

One develops a cool and ironic sense of bitter humor, as well as a bloated ego, and this personality characteristic is the defining trait of atheists ancient and modern. If there is a meek and humble atheist or sorcerer brimming with the milk of human kindness, I have yet to meet him.

Atheists of the Left reserve their pity for animals, atheists of the Right reserve their pity for supermen, geniuses and industrialists: both agree in being pitiless toward the common man.

***

Robert J Wizard, Objectivist, registers an objection to my characterization, not without some justice, and asks a few questions honor requires I answer in full.

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Quote for the Day: Not Hard to be Christian, Impossible

Posted December 6, 2011 By John C Wright

In his journal, Father Seraphim wrote: “Let us not, who would be Christians, expect anything else from it than to be crucified. For to be a Christian is to be crucified, in this time and in any time since Christ came for the first time. His life is the example–and warning–to us all. We must be crucified personally, mystically; for through crucifixion is the only path to resurrection. If we would rise with Christ, we must first be humbled with Him–even to the ultimate humiliation, being devoured and spit forth by the uncomprehending world.

“And we must be crucified outwardly, in the eyes of the world; for Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world, and the world cannot bear it, even in a single representation of it, even for a single moment. The world can only accept Antichrist, now or at anytime.

“No wonder, then, that it is so hard to be Christian–it is not hard it is impossible. No one can knowingly accept a way of life which, the more truly it is lived, leads more surely to one’s own destruction. And that is way we constantly rebel, try to make life easier, try to be half-Christian, try to make the best of both worlds. We must ultimately choose–our felicity lies in one world or the other, not in both.

“God give is the strength to pursue the path of crucifixion; there is no other way to be Christian.”

You might be fascinated, dear reader, by the account of this convert to Russian Orthodoxy. http://www.deathtotheworld.com/seraphimrose/index.html

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Wrights Writing Corner: On Angels

Posted December 5, 2011 By John C Wright

Oops. Forgot to post a link to my lovely and talented wife’s weekly essay on writing.

Better late than never:

http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/217683.html

Some time ago, I promised to begin a series of articles about writing about the Great Ideas. The first Great Idea listed by Mortimer Adler happens to be Angels. So, today, I thought I would write about writing about angels.

Some things are intrinsically hard to write about. Angels may be one of those things. I have almost never seen them done well in fiction. I have, however, read really stirring accounts of people who believe that they have seen real angels. While I have no way to judge the veracity of their stories, I can feel the power of the narrative. It come with a sense of awe and wonder.

 

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The Onset of Advent

Posted December 2, 2011 By John C Wright

Brought to you courtesy of the Shea-Wright Mutual Admiration Society, this is a post from Mark Shea’s blog, which I reprint here in full.

Grace is Dark Matter

The history of the Catholic Church is simply chockablock with people like Br. Rick Bunch, quietly and humbly laboring on behalf of the poorest and most defenseless people in the world. What’s amazing to me is how some people can seriously look at something like this and see nothing but evil. As Caesar begins to press harder to crush the Church here in the US, the astounding thing to me is that people don’t seem to realize that they are cutting off their noses to spite their faces when they pressure the Church out of works of mercy and try to replace it with the State. It’s like a man with an umbrella watering plants in a rainstorm. it’s a fine way for control freaks to corner the watering market, but a lousy way to water a garden. As priest friend of mine used to say, “I don’t worry that the Church will survive persecution in the US. I do doubt that the US will survive persecuting the Church.” A serious assault on the Church is a serious assault on what is, hands down, the greatest charitable organization on planet Earth. You may as well drain all the oil out of a car engine and expect it to run at 60 miles an hour as destroy the work of millions of volunteers who supply the vital lubrication that allows a society to function. Thanks be to God for the generosity of the millions of Br. Rick’s out there who do for love what Caesar and Mammon cannot do well for the sake of power or money. Like dark matter, the gracious work they do accounts for most of the mass of history, and nobody ever sees it or hears about it.

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