Christopher Keene's Blog, page 8
July 20, 2017
First in the Game Release and Interview
Dream State Saga now has a short prequel, FIRST IN THE GAME, foreshadowing the events of book three and detailing the science and technology behind how a dream-based gaming system might work.
I was also recently interviewed by the Christchurch Writers Guild which you can read over on their website if you are interested in finding out more about me, how I got published and my upcoming projects.
July 18, 2017
Chapter 1: The Last Ologist
Not many people know what it was like to give an army the order to genocide an entire race of people, especially when those people were your own. It was all a matter of perspective, to separate yourself from them and recreate yourself as something else, something grander. To make himself the new God of this world, Mason had done just that.
For a long time he had shared the title the people of this planet had given him and rest of his crew. After arriving, the local population had asked who they were and why they could do the seemingly magical things they could. They had attempted to identify themselves by their professions, as though this primitive population could understand such titles. They were geologists, meteorologists and anthropologists, but the people only picked up the common sound between them, and with a certain reverence, began calling them Ologists, a word that would spread quickly throughout the world along with the tales of their so-called “powers.”
They were, each of them, scientists and so they had experimented. Testing to see if the nearly seven millennia of separation had changed their DNA enough to make their offspring no longer viable. This turned out not to be the case, giving birth to an entirely new generation of people with their genetic advantages, but with no instinctual capacity of how to use them properly. After years of breeding with the local population and the hundreds of Ologist mix-breeds they produced, the refusal of his colleagues the cull these dangerous offspring forced him to separate himself from them and manipulate the pure blooded population to wipe them out. Soon only he would remain, the last Ologist, their God.
Standing in his new throne room, he looked down at the six burned corpses spread out before him. Archaic torches lit the stone hall, one of the many fortified shelters the inhabitants had created to weather the harsh storms the planet received regularly. The sight of the bodies displeased him, not because they were people he once would have considered his friends, but because there was one missing.
“Where is the captain?” he asked.
The king lowered his head. “Lord Mason, we did as you told and destroyed his home.”
Mason clenched his fists, feeling a the fire in their palms flicker along his skin. “Then where is his body? He might not have drank the solution!”
“The soldiers said that it was destroyed in the blast and dared not approach further until the blaze had settled down. They assumed the fire had turned him to dust just as you have shown us in the past.”
“Then the war is not over.” The fire in Mason’s fists became hot even by his fireproof skin’s standards. “But at least you have shown your limits, I have too high standards for you savages.”
“My lord?”
Mason opened his fist and turned to place his palm on the king’s head. It was a title he had given the chief to ensure his clan’s loyalty, but after bowing to him for nearly a month now, his people more as not belonged to him. As soon as his skin touched the king’s long hair it burst into flame, catching on the clothes quick enough that his skin was beginning to melt before his screams even permeated the walls.
In mere moments the king was curled in a smoking black ball on the rock floor, the stink of his sizzling flesh making Mason scrunch up his nose. There were more subtle ways to kill a man, but Mason found that there was no better way to feel like the God his people now claimed him to be.
He looked up when hearing a noise outside the room, seeing that the door to the hall had been left ajar. Running to the door, he opened it to see who it had been but only saw the fleeing back of veiled girl as she rounded the corner of the corridor.
“Seize her!” he shouted, but then remembered that he had cleared the keep of any of the kings guards in fear of what they might see during the meeting.
And for good reason.
He ground his teeth, but then smiled. “No matter.”
He turned and closed the door, looking down to the see the king’s corpse begin to flake into a pile of ash, no longer recognizable as the clan’s patriarch. He would have someone sweep the pile away on his leave, and if the girl dared speak up about what she had seen, she would suffer the same fate. Time itself would allow him to tie up any lose ends, but not if he didn’t find the captain and his brood first.
He checked his wrist, seeing the bleeping light over the map hologram that signaled the man’s location. There would be no running from him.
“I see you.”
July 16, 2017
Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne by Brian Staveley [Trilogy Review]
[image error]Also known as The Emperor’s Blade trilogy after the first book in the series, this is another great fantasy epic I plan on adding to my top fantasy list. I read book one back when it was first released in 2014, and along with the many other fantasy stories I read back then, was content with the first book, deciding Staveley’s writing was alright but that he was no Brandon Sanderson. After the third book was released last year, and having no other books to read at the time, I decided to try book two, knowing it was something I could lose myself in for a while. I’m glad I did. The second book was fantastic and the third was just as good. I quickly realized that the reason the first book was only alright was because it was setting up for the rest of the series, and if it weren’t for the delivery, would have been its downfall.
The story follows the three children of the emperor and their attempts to gain control of the empire after their father is assassinated. It’s not until the second book, however, that the readers are shown how deep the plots behind this scheme goes and the immortals that have been playing three dimensional chess in the background. What makes the plot unique is the way the three siblings are developed, one to be an elite soldier who can fight on giant birds, one to a monk who can enter a frame of mind where he feels no emotion and one to learn the politics of the court, and in so many respects, fail to make any rational decision throughout most of the series.
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The writing is dense with description and the character’s inner thoughts, like all good epic fantasy. Where the characters are unique and interesting in their own way, I also felt them all to be a little bit cold. It makes sense within the plot of the story, but I felt that if someone of the gallows humor that some of the minor characters had had leaked into the siblings, they would been a bit more likable. What redeems this is that the writing is incredibly clear and draws a detailed image of the scenes whether they be a court room or a battlefield. There is also no ambiguity with most of the characters, their thoughts and lamentations always clearly constructed and multidimensional, which is why it’s a shame there wasn’t much story away from the core plot.
[image error]A big part of the series are the philosophies of suffering and the cost of human emotions. The idea that we all would be more rational people without the shackles of emotion is held at odds with the idea that we would lose most of our meaning if we didn’t have them. What confused me was how the philosophy considered the bleed-through between emotions and physical pain, and what level of suffering is in the emotion and what is apart of the human nervous system. When these ideas are embodied in the forms of gods who can manipulate these things, this divide isn’t entirely clear and if looked into might snag on the themes the author was trying to portray.
[image error]As is the problem with all series reviews, it is difficult to be accurate enough to describe the books but vague enough not to spoil the entire plot. Would these books be in my top 10? Probably not, but it’s definitely close and would be a good recently released recommendation for anyone who has read every book in my top 10. It’s great series to lose yourself in for a couple of weeks, but as I mentioned at the start of this review, the first book has a lot of build up involved, and although a good book, don’t let it dissuade you from the rest of the series. The payoff is definitely worth it.
Rank: 8.5/10
July 9, 2017
[Music Spotlight] My Hero Academia: You Say Run & Yuki Hayashi
Yuki Hayashi is insane. Not only does the majority of his music hype you up like a good anime OP but his stuff all has it’s own upbeat but intense flavoring to it that I freaking love! You Say Run is a great example of his work, perfected from his music in Haikyuu!!
That being said I love most of his stuff so I wouldn’t be doing my job if i didn’t link a little playlist of his best stuff to listen to while browsing the net. Have fun! Seems like My Hero Academia is going to be next anime to get a category on this blog, way to revive Shonen.
July 2, 2017
June 30, 2017
Cover Art Reveal: A Cycle of Blades
Here are the 3 images that are going to be used for cover art for my Epic Fantasy trilogy!
GODS OF THE MOUNTAIN THE POISON CROWN ENDING THE CYCLE
Whadaya think?
June 29, 2017
How Identity Politics Will END Western Civilization
Do the sins of the father get passed down to the son? If not, then it shouldn’t be hard to believe that no one should be judged for who they are, but only what they’ve done. If yes, be careful there’s nothing horrible in your own ancestry, because through sheer statistical odds, there will be.
From this, it’s not hard to see how identity politics can be harmful, either for yourself or for others. Because we live in a time of broad brush generalizations where technology has allowed for mass narcissism, the target of harm will more likely be ‘the other’ through the method that’s ironically named ‘Othering’. But there’s a deeper philosophical issue at the heart this new Original Sin, and that’s that words like ‘racism’, ‘sexim’, ‘homophobia’ and ‘transphobia’ have shed their meanings to become the new ‘heretic’, ‘heathen’ and ‘sinner’ for any non-believer who thinks these terms meaningless, and those screaming the words have become the new puritans in a type of modern day witch hunt.
“The fascists of the future will be called anti-fascists” -Winston Churchil
One only need look at the methods of the believers for silencing dissenters through censorship be it forced or coerced to acknowledge their influence. Although to less of a physical and more of a social or professional extent, just like how a common type of person became the dominant victim of the witch hunts back then, the skin color and sex of the founders of western civilization have suddenly become this victim, not because of what they did, but who they are.
It’s because they were the founders and the benefactors of the environment they designed specifically to allow them to prosper that those who were brought into the fold felt at a loss. And despite living in an environment that allowed them a far greater quality of life than most other places on the planet they feel entitled to equality of outcome rather instead of equality of opportunity, which even most among their own kind also aren’t given.
“When the lion feeds there is meat left for those that follow.” – Mbejane
In a frenzied attempt to rewrite history so that they don’t get caught up in their own hubris, these identity politicians have also forgotten what it has taught us. The fall of a civilization doesn’t have to come from without but through a corruption from within, as The Asyrian Empire, The Roman Empire and several other dead empires can attest to, it is the dismissal of the values that allowed it to come to be that will lead to its decay.
Identity politics is the complete dismissal these core values of liberalism. Where once the ideas of disregarding someone’s biology was seen as a noble aspiration, now the soft bigotry of low expectations has convinced people of the false necessity of giving out hand outs and handicaps like race or sex based scholarship, job quotas and court biases. Instead of speaking for themselves, entire industries and personalities have been created out of defending or promoting homosexuals or intersex individuals, giving many individuals with a minority lifestyles attention they neither deserved nor desired in many cases.
The irony behind these corrupting influences is that the terms were spawned from the overreaching in liberal values by people who were trying to improve life for others, but these well-meaning advancements became the corrupting influence known as ‘progressivism’. From it, ideas like ‘affirmative action’ evolved to become ‘diversity’, and ‘freedom from’ movements like first wave feminism and black civil rights evolved into ‘freedom to’ movements like third wave feminism and Black Lives Matters.
“History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below.” -Voltaire
These ideals will continue to evolve in a spreading virus of harmful ideologies undermining the founding principles that these Trojan narcissists are hiding behind, like the bratty child hiding behind the shirts of it’s doting parents, unaware that it’s the very thing that’s going destroy everything they’ve worked toward. It’s not who you are, but how you think and act that will determine the outcome.
This is why progressives freak me way out more than Islam and North Korea, because not only will they justify their takeover in the name of diversity, they’ll roll out the red carpet for them in the hope that they don’t get their feelings hurt.
June 28, 2017
Chapter 2: Found Another Kid Today
I sincerely hope there’s not an afterlife, I don’t want to have to remember the shit I’ve seen. I’m not deluded. I know that most people in this world have it an entire spectrum worse off than me, but those people usually don’t travel as much as I do, they don’t have to see that spectrum, they don’t have to see every stage of a decaying corpse once a week. That must be ninety percent of my life these days. I’m a corpse tourist, corpses and ruins.
The other ten percent is why I haven’t given up yet. It’s mostly kids, hidden away in bunkers or basements, their parents’ last hope to send their genes into the future. I wonder if they still would have done it if they saw the state I find them in. Most could be easily labelled as being the first stage of a corpse already, and I always have to play the bad guy, knowing that if I give them too much food or water that they would fall into those latter stages all thanks to me being a big softy.
I caught one running today. The runners always freak me out. Who knows what or who they were eating to get enough energy to move like that, and they always come out of nowhere. Especially with this little shit. God knows how he survived out here, there wasn’t a warm body or source of foot for miles. When I finally caught up with him on Thud, the expression he showed me wasn’t starving or scared. His old-man frown made him look like the battle he was waging inside his head was more intense than anything that was going on in this endless bloody war.
What’s happening to me? I was being stared down by a fucking five-year-old. I was the Kiddy Catcher, I catch kiddies and after years of practice, and giving Thud more trust than he deserved, I managed swoop down and bag the little shit. Of course I made a loop of the field before I rode off. Ask anyone with dysentery and they’ll tell you that little shits come in groups. But if the kid had been in a group, he had been overreaching from their hideout. Either that or he was running from something.
Entry #: Found Another Kid Today
I sincerely hope there’s not an afterlife, I don’t want to have to remember the shit I’ve seen. I’m not deluded. I know that most people in this world have it an entire spectrum worse off than me, but those people usually don’t travel as much as I do, they don’t have to see that spectrum, they don’t have to see every stage of a decaying corpse once a week. That must be ninety percent of my life these days. I’m a corpse tourist, corpses and ruins.
The other ten percent is why I haven’t given up yet. It’s mostly kids, hidden away in bunkers or basements, their parents’ last hope to send their genes into the future. I wonder if they still would have done it if they saw the state I find them in. Most could be easily labelled as being the first stage of a corpse already, and I always have to play the bad guy, knowing that if I give them too much food or water that they would fall into those latter stages all thanks to me being a big softy.
I caught one running today. The runners always freak me out. Who knows what or who they were eating to get enough energy to move like that, and they always come out of nowhere. Especially with this little shit. God knows how he survived out here, there wasn’t a warm body or source of foot for miles. When I finally caught up with him on Thud, the expression he showed me wasn’t starving or scared. His old-man frown made him look like the battle he was waging inside his head was more intense than anything that was going on in this endless bloody war.
What’s happening to me? I was being stared down by a fucking five-year-old. I was the Kiddy Catcher, I catch kiddies and after years of practice, and giving Thud more trust than he deserved, I managed swoop down and bag the little shit. Of course I made a loop of the field before I rode off. Ask anyone with dysentery and they’ll tell you that little shits come in groups. But if the kid had been in a group, he had been overreaching from their hideout. Either that or he was running from something.
