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Trouble

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My grandmother used to say “if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say it at all.” She was a smart lady, and she lived to be very old. Now, she’s gone, along with 99% of her generation. I knew when those wise old folks, who watched a world burn, were gone, that we would have trouble. I think I’m right. Which is why I took the longest hiatus from this website since I started it seven years ago. I didn’t have anything good to say in December, and I still don’t.

But I do have things to say. It’s up to you to judge if they are good or not.

First, I have experienced a great deal of personal turmoil lately. That’s no one’s problem but mine. The turmoil is a direct result of recent developments in the news; my more alert readers can make of that what they will. Bad news is not hard to find. This has put me off my game.

Second, I’ve always looked for solutions to difficult problems. Right now, I have a problem, and I’ve found a partial solution. I’m not going to say anything more about that. It’s my cross to bear, and if it works out, it should be a lot of fun. Broadening my scope, I’m not sure how we dig ourselves out of our current mess. Leadership matters, and we suffer from the lack thereof.

Third, as I alluded to, we are led by people who do not have anyone’s best interests in mind. I’d thought to write an article called “Hyper Intelligent Idiots,” but I decided against it. No one cares, anyway. Three hundred and sixty million people are asleep at the switch, all of us are to blame. This includes me; I am part of the problem. I will show you an image, however. Observe.

This robot, called Figure 02, is made by Figure AI. Alas, I’ve been talking about this since I started writing, and I’ve addressed this specifically in my sci-fi. “This” is the replacement of humans on a mass scale. It won’t happen tomorrow, but it will happen. There is too much money involved, invested by too many intelligent idiots.

What do I mean by an “intelligent idiot?”

A friend remarked that boardrooms are full of them. They are people who are good at exactly one thing, and they pursue that thing regardless of cost. They have zero common sense, and frequently no empathy, either.

These people, whose number includes the wealthiest among us, will bring a Terminator to the store near you. Far fetched? It isn’t. Just two weeks ago, the first robotic combined arms assault in history was launched on the Eastern Front; the Ukraine War has supercharged these bloody-minded developments. By the way, the attack was a success. I’m pretty sure from the beginnings of this website, and certainly in my first book, I’ve spoken of this.

It was a matter of time. Now, it is upon us.

So, fourth, I’ve concluded that our fates are in the hands of insanely wealthy, and possibly unstable, people who think we are all collateral damage waiting to happen; billions of loose ends that need to be tied off. What tool is better for this than the rapidly evolving progeny of Figure 02, who would be just as good on the battlefield as in an assembly plant?

An assembly plant? But what about the workers?

Laughs bitterly. Exactly. You’ve been had. There’s a reason the ultra rich have been buying islands with bigass bunkers or are looking at off world options. Think about it. There’s no reason for me to lay out every last detail of how we have succumbed to the greatest con in history, a trap laid by people who don’t even bother to lie anymore about their motivations.

In conclusion, I’ll talk about a subject endlessly tossed around in the gun mags of my youth. It was the constant rehashing of the folly of Army Ordnance in the 1950s, when they developed the M-14, and the Soviets fielded the Kalashnikov series. In short, when the rifleman’s rifle, the M-14, met the AK series in battle, the AK came out on top. Why, and what does this have to do with this piece?

The AK-47 was the direct result of Soviet battle experience in World War Two, where they discovered that the vast majority of firefights happened within a couple of hundred meters. They also found that a rifle had to work all of the time, including the worst times, and that it had to spit out a lot of lead, quickly. Accuracy and ergonomics were tertiary concerns, at best.

Strangely enough, US Army Ordnance, drawing from experience in the same war, decided that the prewar cult of the rifleman and superb accuracy and ergonomics trumped other considerations. The Army went forward with the M-14, and forced NATO to adopt the new round as standard, the 7.62 NATO, or .308 Winchester. At the time, the US Army could still dictate what NATO did, so several promising allied projects were scrapped, and the European armies adopted, grudgingly, the 7.62 as standard.

We are in the midst of another such folly. Instead of seeing the plain evidence before our eyes of failure on multiple levels, we press ahead with technologies and social patterns that assure disaster.

Some people think it’s a great thing to burn it all down. Of course, they think they personally will not be licked by the flame. I care to differ. Many think it’s a great idea to hand every last little thing over to the jet set. What? The people who run Homeowner’s Associations, and run the country club? Expect little mercy on that front. Others have the idea that having any government in our lives is poisonous. If you know your history, look up what a lack of government has been like, historically. The 17th century Scottish lowlands were a great example. That was a place where life was very, very cheap. Houses looked like forts because they had to be. Terror is a tyranny of a particularly cruel sort. It is frequently disguised as freedom. Finally, people just want to hand everything over to a strong ruler, to give up on thinking for themselves. To accept authority, legitimate or not.

This is the path to perdition, readers. I’ve been talking about this stuff for years, and now it is upon us. I won’t belabor the point.

I’ve got better things to do.

Fun In Writing

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This image is apropos of exactly nothing except a source of great amusement around here, the wonderful BirdBuddy, which sends us pictures and videos of the denizens of our bird feeder. All we have to do is to supply bird feed and sunlight, and we get a series of pretty darn funny pics.

No. Today, I’d like to talk about a new writing direction I’m thinking about, and for which I busted out a short on a grey and gloomy day.

You guys know I’ve struggled lately; it’s been a real pain. But it’s OK; that’s life. I’ve taken some steps to alleviate my funk—this has helped. Yesterday, while imagining my extracurricular project, I suddenly wanted to write. The weather outside of my window seat was ghastly. It looked like a winter sunset at 1400—gray and sodden. Not the thing to lighten up one’s mood, but we went for a long walk, anyway. Movement and exercise are important. 

Upon return, I mulled over a potential future project. I had an idea. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the Roman Empire. This is partially due to Doc Wetsman’s books and “Pax,” an excellent non-fiction by Holland. In addition, thanks to my distant bud, I’ve been mulling over possibilities in fantasy and alt-history. 

I started “Pax” because I needed a little help with antiquity. This has never been a strong part of my knowledge base. I’m OK with the broad strokes of history, but I tend to focus on certain eras. Therefore, some reading was a must. I don’t adore the Roman era or think it was some ideal part of history. Actually, the times we’re living in are MUCH better than the era around the birth of Christ. 

Even deep within the “civilized” world at the time, a party of soldiers or bandits raiding a homestead for plunder and rapine was routine enough to be utterly unnoteworthy. Anybody could be enslaved for the slightest reason. Slaves and criminals were crucified. Crowds screamed in pleasure at the sight of hundreds meeting gristly ends, along with any wild animal that could be found. Entire regions were put to the sword, and no one batted an eye.

This was Rome and the Pax Romana. The “Peace of Rome” was frequently the peace of the grave, and those who idealize it are fools. 

However, it’s fascinating. Also, I guess the Roman Empire was better than squatting in some miserable mud hut and selecting an unpopular villager for the annual sacrifice to the sun. This happened every year around what we know as Christmas (The Church was GREAT about stealing ancient holy-days; see Ostara, otherwise known as Easter. Her symbol, the fertility goddess, was the rabbit.)

Like it or not, we still see the modern world through our ancestor’s eyes. Those muddy villagers who kept pigs in their huts? Yeah, that was us. The centurion who shrugged and put the slave on a cross? Both the crucifer and the crucified, us, too. The person who crouched and knapped flint by the treacherous Great Lake? Us. The courtesan in the Eternal City? Us. The long, sun-blackened, and endless pursuer of game, who could run a gazelle into exhaustion, us as well, somewhere back there. 

These are our archetypes. They inform us today, whether we like it or not. I think this is what draws people to fantasy. Times in our deep past, when the fae were real, and owls carried the spirits of the dead. We want to touch those dark and endless forests as we recline on our nice warm couches. We want to shiver in the cold, while wrapped in fell dread. We wish to chant with our cousins (who were also our mates) while passing the horn filled with holy-day mead as the Chosen roasts on the pyre. A part of us wishes to cry havoc and unleash the dogs of war. 

Unfortunately, we still have those desires in a time when war could easily mean our extinction. This creates real problems. 

We are, for the most part, divorced from the reality of mortal, daily danger. This is why this sort of fiction is so popular. It’s an escape to a time when our ancestors scoured the woods in search of anything edible, but they wouldn’t touch a fairy ring of delicious mushrooms; for the revenge of the fae would be dreadful. 

Better to starve.

With this in mind, I created a writing sample yesterday. It was a joy to write, but I won’t publish it here. It lets too many cats from the bag; but it was great fun, my first foray into fantasy, that most popular of genres. It’s just below romance—laughs, count me out, there. Not that I don’t enjoy a good love story, I do. It’s just that I cede the field to those with more talent. See Outlander and Bridgerton, and their respective, juicy successes. 

When our current reality descends into madness, bleakness, and actual horror, it’s incumbent upon those of us in the “creative class” to provide escape. Yesterday, I provided my own.

Cheers,

J   

Launch Day

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Hey, everyone.

Today is a long-awaited event for my partner, the esteemed JB, and me. It is the day Javan War, our Cruel Stars origin novel for Lucinda Hardy, went “wide.” This is a first for me, I’m usually Kindle exclusive for some very good reasons, being a small-scale author.

However, John doesn’t have those encumbrances, so this launch is simultaneously wide or available across most platforms. Pretty cool, really.

As you may know, we’ve been working on this since 2017. Things happened, and there were delays. C’est la vie, but now it’s here. JB’s concept of a non-linear structure turned out great, but much was left on the cutting floor.

However, fear not. My paywall peeps get the cutting-floor stuff, as the book was originally written. I wanted to delay the release of this material until after the launch—well, it’s been launched!

Sooooo…more follows, soon. Plus, more ISOLATED stuff.

You can find this here, here, or anywhere—really. Even the Apple ecosystem. Just look on your iBooks app. This is the power of the Gold Hovercraft, which I was privileged to ride briefly.

Cheers,

J

The Land

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The image above is my Grandfather, born in Sibley Indian Housing, Mendota, Minnesota, in 1910.

My mom’s family had a deep relationship with horses, and I’d bet that everyone reading this’s families did, too. It’s just that ours is, in most cases, more recent than most. The very last horse in my extended family died this year, an elderly mare cared for by my aunt.

This marks a departure from a tradition going back into deep time, both with the whites and the Indians.

Actually the history with the whites goes back much further than the Indians, who got their horses, known as Sunkawakhan, or “sacred dog,” in the late 1600’s. Of course, the relationship with the horse amongst the Dakota was different than with the whites because their respective religious beliefs.

The whites, Christians, believed the horse was simply another tool, as God had given people dominion over the earth and its creatures. Animals do not possess souls or spirits. They and the land can be exploited at whim.

The Dakota believe that horses, and all other creatures, are part of us, creation, and we all have spirits and are equal. You don’t mistreat animals because they are relatives, kindred spirits. We, the animals, and the land are the same.

These are two distinct philosophies, and I’ll leave it to you to decide which you prefer.

I was raised white, mostly, but there were always “weird” things involving animals. There were other things as well, hidden remnants of our Dakota past. Now that I know the full story, warts and all, I’m not surprised, and some things that seemed strange as a kid make sense.

Some of my earliest memories involve horses. I was never a good rider, or particularly inclined to an interest in them, but I spent a lot of time around them. An obligation was their care. I can’t tell you how many times I curry combed, picked hooves, fed, etc. our horses. It was a lot. I’ve shoveled mountains of horseshit, and I’ve carried many tons of hay.

My mom told me that “Horses are your brothers, your best friends.” The church told me otherwise. Who was I to believe, my mom, or the preacher?

As a boy, I could see the souls in their eyes, and I called bullshit that they wouldn’t go to heaven—because they were things, to use up and exploit.

As a nine-year-old, I didn’t think that was right. I still don’t.

We and the land, and the creatures therein, are the same. Haven’t we had enough of laying waste to everything? Killing those who believe slightly different versions of the same thing? Casting out and abusing those who deviate from what one group or the other declares “normal?” Isn’t God supposed to be love? Because I’m not seeing much of it in today’s discourse. No. What I see is rampant hypocrisy, and elaborate justifications for the unjustifiable. I see people who want violence to punctuate their bored, seemingly pointless existences.

Me, I’ve had a belly full of fighting. Had enough misery, poverty, and want—the schools of the good soldier, to paraphrase Napoleon. I’ve had it up to here with people who want nothing but to dominate others, to force them to take their views, or die.

This is no way to live, and my ancestors of various stripes and creeds ran from this, or fought back, at times leaving their blood laying around in pools. I can’t escape the ancestors, nor do I want to. Because we are the land, and the people and animals therein are to be treated as brothers, with respect and dignity.

The ancestors also say that when your people are in danger, that whoever comes to threaten, chooses his path to the grave.

This is also the way. The land must be fed.

That’s the thing about wheels, or circles. They just keep on rollin’, and the cycle repeats. Each generation thinks they are hot shit, and their elders always clutch their pearls. The Great War folks roundly lambasted the Jazz Era generation as lazy, good-for-nothing, pleasure seeking idiots.

Huh. Pretty funny. That group of “degenerates” went on to crush the Nazis, and were later venerated as the “Greatest Generation.” Of course, the term “Greatest Generation” is kind of bullshit, because it implies that no one else will match them. I disagree. I have faith in our kids, because they are descendants of hardened survivors. They just haven’t had the right prompts, for which I am eternally grateful.

But the wheel keeps rolling, and tests, accompanied by pain, are coming.

I wish it weren’t so, but it is.

All of us, in the final analysis, return to the land. Some earlier than others, but no one escapes. It’s a question of how hard you want to deny this, or fight it; it matters not.

We are the land.

Review, “The House on Constantinople.”

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BLUF: Five flippin’ stars. Go get “The House on Constantinople” if you like time travel books with a hint of romance.

I’ve had a lot of problems reading lately, I’m not sure why. I’ve been a life-long voracious reader, and for some reason my old crutch has failed me as of late. It could be I have too many commitments, it could be the old gnawing low-grade stress, it could be the siren call of Apple News. In any case, it’s a thing, and it’s annoying.

So, when I got word of Howard Wetsman’s new time-travel book on John Birmingham’s website, I was interested and I bought it with the forlorn hope of ever getting it off my pile of shame in my Kindle.

I’ve loved time travel books since I was a kid. I remember getting a dog-eared copy of “A Wrinkle in Time” from my middle school library. If you haven’t read it, it’s a classic.

So is Mr. Wetsman’s book. It’s that good. I’m not going to put any spoilers in here, but let’s just say the book is a partial examination of a historical figure in an obscure but important piece of human history. He did a great job of research into this person, but not at the expense of ever coming across as pedantic or mired in exposition.

His characters were great—realistic, likable, and relatable. He provided just enough depth to them to move the narrative forward and see the world through their eyes. There was one section with a slightly confusing POV shift, this is an easy pitfall for a new author. However, I cut him slack over this because I know from experience how easy this is to do with a multi-arc story. Going forward, I’d recommend adding fleurons or spacing if a POV shift is intended. This is an easy visual clue for the reader. But let me emphasize that this was a minor bug, not a persistent problem. In no way did this minor flaw detract from the reader experience, which in my case was very positive.

The narrative itself was compelling, driving, and addictive. This is the first time in a very long time that I blew off my normal bedtime to blaze through to the (satisfying) end. I started after dinner and finished around midnight. It was weird—I couldn’t stop. The phrase “I couldn’t put it down” is frequently overused, but in this case applicable.

I took a few breaks to walk my dog, but that was about it.

So, there you go. Your experience may differ from mine, but Doc Wetsman’s book has earned placement in the select few books that I know I’ll re-read.

Other authors I’ve read and re-read- Haldeman, Stirling, Turtledove, Birmingham, and Scalzi.

Wetsman—in his debut novel, no less, has earned a place for me amongst the authors above.

This is impressive.

Recommend.

Latest Novel, “Light’s End.”

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Morning, all, from the pleasant late-spring weather of the Upper Ohio Valley.

2024 is shaping into an interesting year in regard to my writing adventures. First, I busted out the bridge novel in my STORYTELLER trilogy, The Storyteller’s World. Now, I’ve put the wraps on Book One of the End series—“Light’s End.” This is my take on the alien invasion trope. Because it is my take, there are no glamorous fighter pilots or a chiseled-chin President who save us.

No, none of that. My book focuses on regular people caught up in an unimaginable calamity, described in my style. It’s a mess. See below for the back-cover copy.

“An alien horde, subjects of the Queen, arrive in the Solar System without warning and launch a devastating attack on Earth, killing billions. Amid the apocalypse, a diverse group of survivors from around the globe struggles to navigate this new, hostile world. John, a father desperate to reunite with his daughter, teams up with unlikely allies. Others fight for power, seek revenge, or simply strive to survive.

In this chaotic landscape, trust is scarce and danger lurks at every turn. Meanwhile, the aliens, led by their Chief Decider, pursue a mysterious, holy mission on Earth, indifferent to human suffering. As humanity faces annihilation, the survivors must find a way to endure and perhaps, defeat and kill their extraterrestrial invaders.

Will they find safety, seek revenge, or succumb to the Queen’s deadly decree?”

The book is my longest novel to date, with about 113k words at the end-state. I think it took six months to write, and I am curious, as always, as to the reader reception.

It is available worldwide right now in two formats, ebook and audio. The paperback is done and approved, but it’s not available now. However, it should be soon for those among you who must hold dead trees (EDIT: Paperback available like ten minutes after I wrote this post).

This is just the beginning of this year. Another book, a co-authored deal that should be released next month, is waiting in the wings. This is the culmination of a seven-year effort, a book based on John Birmingham’s Cruel Stars series. I did some tinkering on this while in Australia, a very productive working trip where I capped off “Light’s End” and filled in the blanks on said co-authored novel. In addition, I came up with a premise for another alt-history series. I mean to begin in earnest on that immediately.

I have to start on that right away because I need to feed content to my crew over on my Patreon paywall page. By the way, this page is loaded with content. For three bucks a month, there’s a lot to be had. But I digress.

For now, suffice it to say that my latest has been quietly launched, and if you dig my writing, you can pick it up worldwide on the Beast.

In many ways 2024 looks to be ruinous writ large, but in terms of writing, it looks good. A paradox, I know. But at least I’ll keep you entertained while Rome burns.

Cheers,

J