Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 21

Let Them Eat Memes

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The Masquerade is over by Charlie Martin

The Masquerade is Over by Charlie Martin 

I’ve wanted to revive the term “yellow journalism” for a while. It originally came from the “newspaper wars” between Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal, and was named for the comic strip The Yellow Kid, which eventually ran in both papers. Both papers were known for outrageous and inflammatory headlines and a certain respect for facts, although the story of Hearst’s promise to Frederic Remington — “...

The City At World’s End by Edmond Hamilton

You guys really must tell me if my trips back into the memory lane of science fiction bore you to death. I’ll continue making them, and probably keep notes — because I’m old and have hit my head a bunch of times — but not inflict them on you.

For those who are not aware of what I’m doing, this is the initial post.

The short version is that I was introduced to science fiction via a friend of my much older brother’s. His friend had a real library and all the books of the only dedicated ...

Man-Hours

Yes, I’m still doing the reading myself back through old science fiction, but post probably tomorrow. I’m JUST starting to function so things will be a little off schedule.

And speaking of old science fiction, I keep remembering an old-science fiction where the unit the dollar was based on was the “man-hour”, ie. how much work a man could do in an hour.

This tied in in my brain — forgive me, I’ve been feverish for the last few days — with the fact that every year I seem to get busier. ...

STORM-DRAGON by Dave Freer

STORM-DRAGON by Dave Freer

Writers… do shape future, as well as reflect the present. Often those reflecting the present will tell you they’re affecting the future. That’s usually because they LIKE the present or certain trends in it. It’s why the Left were so determined to capture the institutions and publishing and the media. They saw them not education or entertainment, but as tools, first to start things down their course, and then to keep it going that way.

I’m afraid, certainly as...

A Choice of Evils

Let it be established that taxation is theft. If I were all three branches of government (Puts puppet heads on every finger and toe) I’d finance the government through a naitonal weekly lottery.

Sure, it’s a tax on stupidity, but at least it’s a volunteer-paid tax. And it’s not just stupidity. Yes, I know odds, but I do sometimes buy a lottery ticket. Because I’m buying something real. No, not the chance of winning, or not exactly.

In the most depressed, hopeless times in my life, w...

Semper Memes, Toujours Memes

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A snippet from 9 AD: The Crossing of the Rhine by Tom Kratman

A snippet from 9 AD: The Crossing of the Rhine by Tom Kratman

9 A.D.: The Crossing of the Rhine, Copyright © 2025, Thomas Kratman

Dedication: For my friend, General Claudio Graziano, of Turin Italy, and, further, of Italy’s fine Alpine Troops.  22 November, 1953-17 June 2024

Chapter One

[W]ho would relinquish Asia, or Africa, or Italy, to repair to Germany, a region hideous and rude, under a rigorous climate, dismal to behold or to manure [to cultivate] unless the same were his n...

On Being An Example

Lately and for various reasons I’ve been thinking a lot about Europe.

I’m not here to rag on Europe — mostly because I’ve been told that’s just plain mean — but rather to reflect how very fundamentally different they are from us. Mostly because they are. And the differences infuriate them and worry their “leadership” while we mostly aren’t aware there are any differences, take everything Europe says at face value and sometimes think there’s a lot we should learn from them.

Or believe...

The Green Man of Greypec — reading the future of the past

And in my reading myself back through my own origins in science fiction, we now come to number two in the Coleccao Argonauta that formed my childhood reading: The Green Man of Greypec.

Before I go any further let me point out that the next book up is City At World’s End by Edmond Hamilton. Tuesday or Wednesday next week, depending on the state of revision, snot, etc.

So, now we’re to the Green Man. When i revised it in 2016 I was profoundly upset by a bit in the book about eugenics a...