Archive for January, 2014

Restless Heart of Darkness — Part Three

Posted January 31, 2014 By John C Wright

I am engaged in the difficult task of explaining an insight it required my dull brain several decades of experience and one moment of epiphany to see.

Again, in all fairness, this is something which I assume nearly everyone but me has seen for years: but to me it was an intellectual adventure, as shocking as opening a hidden door and coming across the Minotaur in the center of his bone-littered maze. Many others no doubt have trod here before, but still I feel the excitement of discovery, for I have found the heart of the labyrinth.

I have been puzzled for years how it is that so many otherwise wise and educated people can be Leftists; why so many otherwise compassionate people simply overlook the bloodthirsty enormities routinely perpetrated, applauded, excused, and rationalized by the Left, from prenatal infanticide to lauding Che and Castro and other butchers of men; why otherwise honest men approve of the Orwellian lies of Political Correctness, which corrupts both speech and thought; why so many otherwise good and faithful Christians routinely ignore Christian teaching and cling to the shibboleths of Political Correctness on any point where the two worldviews differ; why so many good people so routinely support, applaud, and encourage so blatantly vile an evil.

It is too obvious for the blindness to be anything but willful, and yet it does not seem to be willful, for who can will the destruction of themselves and all they hold dear? How is it possible for so many children of the most blessed, most powerful, most successful, most wealthy, most free, and most benevolent nation history has ever known to hate it? Why are the heirs of Western Civilization the enemies of Western Civilization?

The epiphany visited me in the space of a single hour, along the course of three conversations with honest men I happen to respect, despite our deep differences of opinion.

It was as if I suddenly could see clinging to the countenances of these otherwise honest and able men, the Facehugger from ALIEN which had been invisible up until that point, whose long proboscis entered their skulls though mouth and palate and shot poison into their brains. I wondered why they did not tear the Facehugger away, and breathe free.

Not to spoil the surprise ending, but the reason the exploded into my awareness like a bolt was this: they have nothing else. They leave the alien thing lodged in their brain, eating away their happiness, ruining their lives, spoiling friendships and darkening the light of heaven for the simple, tragic reason that without the alien thing, they would be lonely.

I mentioned the first discussion and one of many, many nondiscussions which clicked the first two tumblers into place in the process of unlocking this moment of insight. Here is the next.
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Restless Heart of Darkness — Part Two

Posted January 29, 2014 By John C Wright

This is the second part of an essay in which I try to explain, in a few zillion words or so, an insight that took me less than a second. As I said before, it is no doubt something which many people have noticed erenow, but to me it allowed many disconnected facts to leap into place.

I said before that the insight was based on three discussions I recently encountered, but, to be precise, one non-discussion must be added. This is one of the sets of facts that fitted itself suddenly into place with a click like a tumbler falling.

The one non-discussion must serve in the place of an endless number of non-discussions. A non-discussion is that particular act of craven intellectual treachery whereby a man flees from confronting any honest inquiry into his arguments by decreeing imperiously that no discussion is profitable or possible: the matter was settled long ago, and to dissent is a sign of mental incapacity and moral depravity and treason and blasphemy and worse.

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If you aren’t offended by it, you aren’t paying attention.

Posted January 29, 2014 By John C Wright

Finally, at least one small token gesture of respect for our Constitution. A Congressman actually had the guts and the sense of honor needed to walk out of Obama’s State of the Union address, where the President announced, in effect, that he was scorning the separation of powers in the government, and arrogating an absolute monarchy to himself.

From The Hill

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) said Tuesday night that he left President Obama’s State of the Union speech early after “hearing how the president is further abusing his Constitutional powers.”

“I could not bear to watch as he continued to cross the clearly-defined boundaries of the Constitutional separation of powers,” Stockman said in a press release shortly after Obama’s speech ended. “Needless to say, I am deeply disappointed in the tone and content of tonight’s address.”

Stockman said Obama was promising to “break his oath of office and begin enacting his own brand of law through executive decree.”

“This is a wholesale violation of his oath of office and a disqualifying offense,” the Texas congressman said.

Stockman also criticized Obama for refusing to admit “his policies have failed,” and for advancing a plan for more taxes and spending that is a “blueprint for perpetual poverty.”

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Time to Call

Posted January 28, 2014 By John C Wright

Thought I should pass this along.

The House will vote today on H.R. 7.

This critically important legislation is called the “No Taxpayer Funding of Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act.”

I need you to make a quick call right now. Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Tell your Representative to vote Yes on H.R. 7!

This legislation would do the following:

1. Write into permanent law the Hyde Amendment banning federal funding of nearly all abortions.

2. Rid Obamacare of its massive expansion of public funding for abortion in insurance plans.

3. Ensure that customers like you and me are fully informed about abortion coverage and surcharges in health care plans sold on the exchanges.

This legislation has been updated to deal with the horrible expansion of abortion that began with the implementation of Obamacare.

The House is ready to lead. If they pass this bill, the pressure will be on Senate Democrats up for election this year in red states like Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, and North Carolina.

Time to make a call: (202) 224-3121.

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Progress Report

Posted January 28, 2014 By John C Wright

In my youth, I used to wonder why authors could not write books as fast as I read them. After all (so I thought at age ten) it surely does not take that long to make things up?

I write one day on the weekend and two nights during the work week, since I have a day job. This gives me, on a good week, up to sixteen hours of writing time, which is far short of the fifty hours a week a full-time writer would enjoy. (By way of comparison, Mr Charles Stross, whom I believe entered the field at roughly the same time I did, and writes in the same subgenres, has published 25 or so books to my 10 or so.)

Yesterday was the feast of St. Angela Merici of the Third Order of St. Francis (the day the muggles call 28 of January). I stared at a blank computer screen from about 1900 hours (the hour the civilians call 7:00 in the evening) until eight bells of the first watch (the hour landsmen call midnight).

I was working on my manuscript tentatively titled THE VINDICATION OF MAN, the next book in my six-book trilogy, Count to the Eschaton. In all that time, I changed one date in my notes on my make-believe calendar, so that certain events which I had noted as happening in one year will now happen in another.

So, on the one hand, I did not accomplish much for my faithful readers yesternight. On the other hand, the calendar year of the events in Chapter One is now A.D. 71200, which is the Seventieth Millennium, the second Millennium of the Vindication of Man.

By way of comparison, Robert Heinlein’s famed Future History timeline only goes up to 2100; the most future event in the Jerry Pournelle CoDominium future history is AD 3047 (‘The Gripping Hand’); so I am more futureward than they.

On the other hand, the most future event in Larry Nivens’ Known Space future history is AD 120,000 Loeffler’s ship comes close enough to Hooker’s ship to destroy its life system (“The Ethics of Madness”); this is after the arrival in Known Space of the wavefront of the galactic core explosion which sent the Puppeteers fleeing in the fleet of worlds in AD 22500; and the Time Traveler of HG Wells landed in 802701; Ptath is reincarnated in Two Hundred Million A.D. in a book of the same name. So by that scale, I still have far to go.

 

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The Restless Heart of Darkness – Part One

Posted January 26, 2014 By John C Wright

I had an insight recently, one of those Archimedes-sloshes-the-bath moments where a great mass of otherwise disorganized observations and rules-of-thumb suddenly fell into a pattern as neat as a periodic table. It is no doubt something many thinkers have seen and discussed erenow, but this was the first time I saw it, and to me it was a new as a young man’s first infatuation, as new as spring.

The insight occurred during a three discussions with fellow writers for whom I have enormous respect, but whose ideas I condemn as misleading, deceptive, even poisonous. (If you wonder one can respect a man whose ideas you loathe, imagine being a mother whose child grows up to be a drug addict, or a sexual pervert, or demon-possessed. The greater her love for the child, the deeper her hatred of the addiction, perversion, or possession enslaving him.)

At the risk of giving away the surprise ending (which, honestly, I suppose is not a surprise to anyone but me) I realized why it is that the current mainstream modern thought, despite its illogical and pointless nature, is so persistent, nay, so desperate.

I realized why they never admit they are wrong no matter how obvious the error, nor can they compromise, nor hold a rational discussion, nor a polite one, nor can they restrain themselves. They can neither win nor surrender.

I realized why their hearts were so restless.  It is obvious once one sees it.

No doubt I should explain first why this was such a puzzle to me.

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March for Life

Posted January 22, 2014 By John C Wright

Our prayers go out to those who brave the cold and the scorn of the Prince of This World to defy the endlessly open mouth of Moloch. Today is the annual march for life, when countless thousands of young women and men march and sing and celebrate their affirmation of life and their condemnation of prenatal infanticide.

Also, four or five aging gray and wrinkled hippies, like harpies in human shape, will shamble forth from their nests lined with tiny bones of slain babies to voice a counter protest, and on them and them alone will the cameras of the news media be pointed, and on them alone the spotlight of public attention.

Here is the idol of our masters, the social Left. Here is your tax dollars at work.

Yeah, I would Freak Out, Too, if the Powerplant turned into That

The Mouth of Aborticide

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The Green Hornet

Posted January 21, 2014 By John C Wright

It was listening to a radio play series that convinced me that Marvel Comics is science fiction and DC is fantasy.

It also convinced me to become a great fan of the Green Hornet, a relatively minor character as far as the pantheon of popular superheroes go, to whom I previously never paid much heed.

Erenow, I knew only three things about the Green Hornet. The first was that the Green Hornet was that famed martial arts star Bruce Lee was introduced to American audiences in the role of Kato, the ju-jitsu using chauffeur of the masked vigilante — and that he was absurdly overqualified for the role.

The second thing I knew was that the same producer who made the 1966 – 68 BATMAN television show such a popular success, William Dozier, was put in charge of the GREEN HORNET television show, and it was a great failure as much as BATMAN was a great success. I have heard many people speculating about why the first was a success and the second was a failure over the years. Indeed, I remember it being mentioned once as a bit of realistic background detail in a novel I read in my youth, whose title and author I have since forgotten, concerning a comic book artist haunted by his memories of the Hitlerian War. But I can state that I have found an answer that satisfies me, at least.  The answer was the radio play was really quite good, and suited the kind of story the Green Hornet character was created to fit. More on this below.

The third and final thing I knew about the 2011 Green Hornet was that the movie starring Seth Rogan was an abomination. More on this below as well.

So this review has three points to cover: to describe the radio play and the origins of the character; to explain the failure of the modern television version; to condemn the postmodern ultra-failure of the movie version.

And, incidentally, to explain why, by and large, Marvel Comics characters like Spider-Man are actually Science Fiction, whereas DC characters like Superman are Fantasy.

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The Reviewer talks as if that is a BAD thing.

Posted January 19, 2014 By John C Wright

Kirkus has the following review of JUDGE OF AGES, which comes out next month:

KIRKUS REVIEW

Third part of Wright’s series (The Hermetic Millennia, 2012, etc.) in which, thanks to alien technology, Texas gunslinger Menelaus Montrose transformed himself into a supergenius—and so did his rival, Ximen “Blackie” del Azarchel.

The alien slavers who provided the technology, the Domination of Hyades, will arrive in 400 years to take ownership of the Earth. All this time, Blackie has been attempting to force the development of a suitably advanced yet compliantly slave-worthy population. The two post-humans are also rivals for Rania, Menelaus’ wife, presently heading at near light speed for a remote globular star cluster in order to confront the Hyades’ bosses’ bosses. She will, of course, arrive back at Earth thousands of years too late to prevent the Hyades’ occupation, so somehow Menelaus, waking periodically from cryogenic suspension, must thwart Blackie and prevent the slavers from exterminating humanity until she arrives. Now, Menelaus discovers that the tombs where he and his allies were preserved have been ripped open and plundered by Blackie’s Blue Men minions—a situation that precipitates a battle that lasts the best part of 200 pages, and a further 100 of post-battle analysis and wrangling, leading to yet another (indecisive) showdown between Menelaus and Blackie. With nonstop if pedestrian action, villains who chortle and strut, and Menelaus’ indestructible self-confidence, it’s a sequence worthy of A. E. van Vogt’s spirit, though, alas, lacking van Vogt’s deftness or economy of style. Weird post-humans build themselves into recognizable characters. The plot devolves into a series of revelations that make sense only to the characters or, possibly, a few readers, should any still be hanging heroically on.

Dazzling, highly impressive but readable only with enormous effort.

There is a rule one should not argue with reviewers, especially if the review, as it is here, attempts to be fair and fair-minded. I mean no disrespect to the hard-working reviewer, who, perhaps, read the book because he was assigned to do so, not because he enjoys space opera.

For all we know, he does not recall (or did not read) the first two books, which contain the clues and red herrings and foreshadowing of the several mysteries involved at the end, which the reviewer for some odd reason mistakes for post-battle analysis. Since another reviewer scoffed at my posthumans as being too flat and stereotypical to care about, it is a relief to have this reviewer scoff at the same posthumans as being too three-dimensional, complex and nuanced to care about the resolution of their turmoils.

But I will permit myself one well-meant if slightly supercilious comment:

A fight scene that goes on for 200 pages of non-stop action starring a hero with indestructible self-confidence. And he talks like this is a bad thing?

I want you to imagine me chortling and strutting while I say this. So if you want to see how an author pulls off being dazzling yet pedestrian, highly impressive yet lacking in deftness, by all means, pick up a copy.

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THE LOST FLEET: DAUNTLESS by Jack Campbell – Chapter Two

Posted January 17, 2014 By John C Wright

In chapter two, DAUNTLESS by John Hemry turns into the ANABASIS of Xenophon. Way cool!

No, I am not actually going to review each chapter separately. I just wanted the world to know that I really liked this book, and reading it was long, long overdue. Had I been a better friend to Mr Hemry, I would have bought it the day it came out, in hardback.

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Raphael Ordonez on Genre and Subgenre

Posted January 17, 2014 By John C Wright

Here is a gentleman, kind enough occasionally to leave comments here, with an interesting meditation on the definitions of genre and subgenre. http://raphordo.blogspot.tw/2013/11/genre-and-subgenre.html

Here is a sample:

Everyone’s heard the canard about how advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic to primitive peoples. What this ignores is that magic is technology. There’s no difference. Let me repeat. There is no difference between magic and technology, except in the eyes of conceited modern observers. Just because I’ve rejected some hypothesis in my systematic attempts to control my environment doesn’t somehow render the  hypothesis a member of a different category from the ones I accept. A savage practicing homeopathic magic or whatever it is they do nowadays is merely exhibiting a certain belief regarding cause-and-effect. A medical professional does the same. The latter presumably has better results. But this is a difference of degree, not of kind. A belief in a supernatural world subject to testable and consistent rules and limitations is no less “scientific” than phlogiston theory or M-theory, whatever we may think of the truth of the thesis.

So, when people go on about how a fantasy needs to have a well-defined magic system that’s adhered to consistently, they’re not talking about fantasy at all. They’re talking about science fiction, or, at any rate, technology fiction. Galadriel the queen of Lothlórien gently mocks Samwise for wanting to see “elf magic,” confessing that she isn’t entirely certain what is meant by the word. Thus does she smile at dragon dice, Magic cards, and other systems. Did Merlinus Ambrosius adhere to a magic system? No. He simply went places, and things happened. Do you get the feeling that the plot is contrived or arbitrary because of that? No. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Thomas Malory, et al., knew what it was to write a romance. It’s these systems that allow for contrived, unreal plots. In the end it’s no different from Scotty saving the day by rerouting the secondary reactor drive through the main power converters. You know. Just difficult enough to add the right amount of tension.

[…] Speaking broadly, we might say that fantasy has an ecological, holistic outlook. It integrates. Science fiction is about doing; fantasy is about being.

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Please Read the Matt Walsh Blog

Posted January 17, 2014 By John C Wright

http://themattwalshblog.com/

And read it every day. The man is pure brilliance. For example:

The Argument for Obama’s $10.10 Minimum Wage Hike, Explained in Dialogue Form:

Worker: “Hi, I’d like to work for you.”

Employer: “Sorry, the government says we have to pay everyone at least 10.10 an hour. We don’t have any money in our budget to hire more workers at that rate.”

Worker: “Well, I still need a job. I’ll gladly work for 6 dollars an hour. Deal?”

Government: “Hold on! You can’t do that. You’re not allowed to sell your services for less than 10.10 an hour!”

Worker: “But… I’d rather make under 10.10 than be unemployed. Why can’t I enter into a private employment contract with this establishment if we both feel that the arrangement benefits us? We are both consenting parties, aren’t we?”

Government: “Because that isn’t fair.”

Employer: ”Excuse me, but I’d like to have a say in this conversa-”

Government: “Enough out of you, business owner! This is between me and the worker.”

Employer: ”Actually, I really think you have nothing to do with-”

Government: “FAIRNESS! We are decreeing a minimum amount that all people must be paid, regardless of the financial realities of an individual business, and regardless of the actual measurable worth a particular worker represents. If a worker wants to work for less rather than not work at all, we won’t allow it. We are doing this because of fairness and freedom. WHAT DON’T YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND ABOUT THIS?”

Worker: ”Well, if I can’t work than I guess I’ll have to start selling my stuff. Anybody want to buy my TV for 100 dollars?”

Buyer: “Awesome! I’ll take it!”

Government: “WAIT! You aren’t selling that thing for less than 200 dollars. This is for your sake. You deserve 200 dollars for that TV.”

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THE LOST FLEET: DAUNTLESS by Jack Campbell – Chapter One

Posted January 16, 2014 By John C Wright

I finally got around to reading by John Hemry (writing as Jack Campbell). Normally anyone reviewing the book would wait until he actually, you know, read the book before commenting on it. Not I.

I’ve just got done with the first chapter, and it is great, simply great. I could wait and read the rest, and form a proper, balanced, and objective judgment, but I am too enthused.

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Conan: Red Nails

Posted January 11, 2014 By John C Wright

This is a somewhat overdue review, only seventy-eight years after the fact.

‘Red Nails’ is a novella first serialized in 1936 in the July through October issues of Weird Tales, and the last of the tales of Conan the Barbarian penned by Robert E Howard, as well as one of the best. Thanks to the magic of the internet, it is available free of charge to any who care to read it: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32759 or listen to it: https://librivox.org/red-nails-by-robert-e-howard/

Some of the appeal of this yarn may be lost on any modern reader who has encountered Howard’s many imitators, because this story contains all the elements of the quintessential Conan adventure: from a feisty yet desirable swordswoman, to prehistoric monsters raised by eldritch powers, to lost races (at least two) swimming in their own sadistic corruption and occultism, adepts of black magic (at least three), murder, torture, betrayal, death, and at least one mystic wand issuing a death-ray.

As with all Howard stories, the characters are defined with broad and simple yet bold brush strokes, nor prompted by any complexity of motives to their acts, nor given overmuch to introspection; the action is fast, death is swift, and the mood is one of oppressive eldritch darkness closing in.

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Saving Science Fiction from Strong Female Characters — Complete

Posted January 5, 2014 By John C Wright

I wrote an essay, long even by my unwieldily prolix standards, to the point that the use of any characters in a story, male or female, should serve the purpose of entertaining and edifying the reader rather than serving the propaganda purposes of amateur social engineers convinced that the unintentional implications hidden in science fiction yarns, of all things, influences the virtues and standards of society.

  1. www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-1
  2. http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/an-added-comment/
  3. http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-2/
  4. http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/testing-the-bechdel-test/
  5. http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-3/
  6. http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-4/
  7. http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-5/
  8. http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/12/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-an-observation/
  9. http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/12/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-6/
  10. http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/12/strong-female-characters-of-oz/

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