Alexander Hellene's Blog, page 9

Signal Boost: Planetary Sol by Tuscany Bay Press

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The Planetary Anthology series is a really cool idea: A collection of short stories with each volume taking inspiration from one of the nine planets in our solar system, the moon, and the sun. The most recent volume, Planetary Sol, is out now, featuring tales inspired by our friend the sun. Check out the authors involved–it’s a who’s who of awesome independent fiction:

Sundown and Out, by David Hallquist
The Pleiades Dilemma, by James Pyle
Judgement Sun, by J.D. Cowan
Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, by Caroline Furlong
Sale at Sol, by Bokerah Brumley
God Save the King, by Josh Griffin
Under the Midnight Sun, by David Breitenback
Ziggurat of the Ghost King, by Ben Wheeler
The Coward’s Son, by Frank B. Luke
What Hides from the Sun, by Denton Salle
At Homeworld’s End, by Richard Paolinelli
Miracle Sun, by A.M. Freeman
Gravity’s at the Bottom of It, by S. Dorman

You’ll see some old friends here like J.D. Cowan, James Pyle, Caroline Furlong, David Breitenback, and Richard Paolinelli, but even those who don’t stop by this blog are excellent and worth reading. 

Cool concept, great authors, and fun stories. Snag a copy here, and check out the other volumes while you’re at it!

And new from me: Dreamers & Misfits, all about legendary rock band Rush and the fandom it inspired. There’s a huge overlap between Rush fans and fans of fantasy and sci-fi. Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and especially Neil Peart were all huge nerds, and much of this is reflected in Rush’s conceptual songs. Check it out here!

Onward

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It’s a weird time to be alive, and it’s a weird to be a creative type. Us writers and artists and so on like to think that what we do makes a difference. That we’re making a dent.

But are we?

Are we even changing the culture, whatever that means? Is politics really downstream from culture, as the aphorism goes? Is culture really what’s been leading to the widespread societal changes we’ve seen? Or has it been other factors like academia, news media, and plain-old, flat out raw power? It’s all psychological warfare, but what part does culture really have in this?

Is the dominant culture dominant for any other reason besides the massive amount of money propping it up? Sure, tons of it is garbage, but it’s garbage that never seems to make the producer face any financial repercussions. In the history of the 21st century, I can’t think of a single example where “get woke, go broke” actually happened. 

Those of us writers who are, shall we say, not in the mainstream, often said that shoehorning political messages into art leads to bad art nine-times-out-of-ten. The difference between us and the mainstream is that, if nobody reads our books, then we lose. If nobody reads mainstream books–or sees the movies, etc.–the studios don’t lose anything because they have millionaires and billionaires financing them. They’ll declare victory, write off the losses, and mode on to the next one.

Therefore, it seems to me the sanest thing to do is just what I believe movements like the PulpRev were designed to do and set out to do from day one: create art that is as good as humanly possible that appeals to as wide an audience as possible, and don’t worry about the messaging. Don’t worry about a “culture war.” Just create the kinds of things that you would have enjoyed reading, or watching, or seeing, or experiencing, share it with the world, and try to get as many people you think want to come along for the ride to join you.

That’s how you do it. There is nothing wrong with art for art’s sake. All fiction is message fiction, but not all fiction–or messages–are good. Create good fiction with good messages, even simple messages like “the good guys sometimes win.” The rest will follow.

My books are not heavy handed despite having Christian protagonists. They’re just fun.

 

New at American Spectator: Mailchimp Delenda Est

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My new piece is up at American Spectator, this about Mailchimp’s new cyber-censorship initiative . . . including canceling accounts for off-platform activities:

“He who controls the information, controls the universe!”

That might not be the dastardly Baron Harkonnen’s exact words from Frank Herbert’s landmark sci-fi novel Dune; he was speaking about spice, of course. But like the spice that allows for space travel in the Dune novels, information here in the real world is the most important resource for any would-be ruler. More than guns, more than gold, information allows those in charge, or those seeking to take power, to sway hearts and minds in ways that mere violence and bribery cannot.

In light of this, it’s no surprise that Big Tech companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere have restricted the flow of certain information since Donald Trump’s election in 2016, and have only tightened the screws leading up to last week’s election and its aftermath. You remember: to abuse another famous quote, “First they came for Alex Jones, but I said nothing because I wasn’t a conspiracy theorist.”

In any event, we all know the big names in Silicon Valley and what they’re up to: your Twitters, Apples, Facebooks, and Googles. But a little over a week ago, one of the lesser-known but still widely used technology platform quietly changed its Standard Terms of Use (STOU), Data Processing Addendum (DPA), and Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), but at least had the common courtesy to spell out to users exactly what this means.

Read the rest here. I use Mailchimp, but after this? Nope. I’m switching to another platform that doesn’t hate me. Mailchimp is a soft target. Let’s make it history.

Support my work by purchasing one of my books. I just published Dreamers & Misfits, by book about fans of the rock band Rush. Buy it here!

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Dreamers & Misfits is Out Now!

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I’m proud to announce that the eBook version of Dreamers & Misfits: The Definitive Book About Rush Fans is now live on Amazon:

There Is Nothing Average About the Average Rush Fan!

Rush, the legendary Canadian progressive rock trio, has a legion of devoted fans. But what is it about the band that inspires such a loyal and dedicated fan base? And what is it about these fans that has created this powerful bond between artist and audience?

The story of these fans has never been told . . . until now.

– Exclusive interviews, including Donna Halper, the woman who broke Rush in the United States, and Ed Stenger, proprietor of RushIsABand.com, one of the biggest Rush fan sites on the internet.

– Detailed survey results illuminating what makes hundreds of Rush fans tick

– An exploration of the interest, politics, faith, and philosophy of the millions of people across the globe who find meaning in the music and lyrics of Rush

– In-depth fan profiles, where Rush fans tell their stories about what this band means to them

– Concert memories, personal anecdotes, and fan favorite songs and albums

Dreamers & Misfits presents a celebration of Rush’s music and the fans who inspired and propelled the band to such dizzying heights.

One things is certain: there is nothing “average” about the average Rush fan.

It’s been a long process since I announced the writing of this book back in February. I sincerely hope you enjoy it, and keep an eye out for the paperback in the next week or two.

Updates from America

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You might be wondering, “Alex, why aren’t you writing about the 2020 Presidential election?”

Because I don’t care. Really, it’s that simple. Maybe it’s because I’m a cynic, but I knew two things going into this:

There would be chicanery involved; and 
The end result won’t matter because ultimately the President of the United States of America has little impact on my life, unless they start a war.

Cthulhu always swims leftward, so I’m just going to roll with it. I bend my knee to Jesus Christ anyway, so that’s where I focus my attention. I’m honestly a political observer for the laughs. I intuited it was all nonsense when I was a teenager, spent much of my 20s trying to convince myself that it wasn’t and that any of this mattered, only to realize that, guess what: it is all a joke. America is for sale to the highest bidder, and what we think of as our elected representatives actually represent the interests of the global bankers and multinational corporations who serve as their paymasters/puppeteers. 

Always has been.

This isn’t even conspiracy talk. I just refuse to keep my head buried in the sand. I laugh at anyone who believes in the purity and the sanctity of the American system, or thinks that our way of doing things is the greatest ever devised in the history of humankind. It’s not, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be. We have one party divided into a radical faction and a moderate faction. The destination is the same, it’s just that the speeds are different. I’ve basically become a one-issue voter, and that issue is abortion. I’m going to vote for whomever is against this barbaric practice, so infer from that what you wish.

Otherwise, what goes on doesn’t affect my moods, my spirits, or my physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. I’m a Christian, not a Democrat or a Republican or whatever. I think we’re all going to be all right in the end.

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There is good advice and bad advice on how to handle stressful situations like U.S. Presidential elections. In a healthy, functioning, well-ordered society, there would not be such uncertainty, such fraudulent activity, or such stress. But America has not been healthy, functioning, or well-ordered for a long time now. We operate at the type of third-world banana republic levels of corruption we’re taught in school to laugh at, yet are right here in front of us. Therefore, a thing like an election which should be just another civic duty we perform before getting on with our lives becomes THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT EVER IN THE HISTORY OF HUMAN EXISTENCE. Until the next one. Methinks it might be time for UN inspectors to come here and make sure we’re doing things above-board the way they did in Afghanistan and Iraq, but I don’t really trust the UN either. 

Anyway, put away the booze and the pills. There are better ways to calm any anxiety, fear, or general unease you may be feeling:

Control what you can. This generally means yourself. Go to the gym. Go for a walk. Hang out with your kids or loved ones. Read a book. Write a book. Learn something.
Pray. If you’re religious, this is always a good thing to do. And remember–we don’t ask God for stuff like he’s the Sky Daddy we get criticized for supposedly worshipping. You pray for greater understanding. And if you’re not religious, do whatever it is you do to clear your mind. If it helps and it’s not harmful, I’m all for it.
Build a family. This is never a bad idea. Don’t let current political events deter you from starting a family or continuing to raise the one you have. If your ancestors, who faced much worse, found the hope required to plan for the future, you can too.
Get offline. If you find that being online or paying attention to the news or whatever is making you feel bad, stop doing it. It’s that simple. All of this stuff is designed to demoralize you and keep you in a constant state of high tension, regardless of which side you support. Don’t give them that power over you.
Realize that life will go on. All the things that were supposed to kill us all–the election of 2016 (and 2012, and 2008, and 2004, and 2000, and . . .), coronavirus, murder hornets, Net Neutrality, Sam Hyde, etc.–haven’t. We survived. 

And for God’s sake, AVOID LARGE GROUPS OF PEOPLE RIOTING AND BURNING STUFF DOWN. 

I like to bury the lede just to make sure you’re still reading. Where am I with my books? Well, Dreamers & Misfits is with the formatter. I found a few minor formatting issues he is correcting, and I received a last-minute interview response that I added to one of the Appendices. Barring anything unforeseen, the eBook will be available in a week or so, with the paperback coming out a week or two later after any reader-submitted typos are brought to my attention.

The Second Sojourn needs a bit more work. I rewrote the prologue after much excellent beta reader feedback, I’m halfway through a typo check from one of the aforementioned beta readers, and then I am going to do one last read-through for content-related issues. This is taking longer than expected because life is busy, but I want to make sure this book is as excellent as the first one–and I’m not just making that up, because it has 21 reviews all of four- or five-stars. Read The Last Ancestor for yourself while you wait!

Book Review: The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn: Part One: “The Prison Industry,” Chapter Twelve, “Tyurzak”

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For the last chapter in Part One of The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn does a deep dive into the interim gray area between imprisonment and banishment to the gulag. Previous chapters had dealt with the day-to-day of prison life under Soviet rule, but tended to be pre-trial confinement, as well as the experience of a Soviet interrogation. Here, we learn about tyurzak, i.e., TYURemnoye ZAKlyucheniye: prison confinement, as well as TON, the official abbreviation for Special Purpose Prison (Tyurma Osobogo Naznacheniya). 

Solzhenitsyn begins with yet another example of how life was arguably easier under the Tsars. In prisons, he explains, the inmates were able to successfully agitate for greater privileges and more humane conditions. As political prisoners, many of them were of a socialist bent, yet still the Tsarist forces were relatively lenient and granted concessions in response to many of the prisoners’ demands, including more time outdoors, the ability to communicate with each other and organize, to write to their families and receive more aid packages, access to books (including political books), and even the ability to have small garden plots. 

One prisoner explains this phenomenon as due “to some extent by the humanitarian attitudes of the individual prison superintendents, and also by the fact that the ‘gendarmes became friendly with the prisoners,’ got used to them.” Solzhenitsyn sees merit in this, and also the prisoners’ “dignity and adroitness in conducting themselves,” but chalks it up mostly to the spirit of the times, this breeze of freedom, which was sweeping through society.”

[image error]Vera Nikolayevna Figner Filippova, a revolutionary political activist whose prison experience under the Tsars informs a part of this chapter.

One tool the pre-Soviet prisoners used quite effectively was the hunger strike. It worked quite well in the Tsarist days, mostly due to the aforementioned “humanitarian attitudes” of those running the prisons, but once the Soviets took power, and the political prisoners fought to retain their rights, the efficacy of this tactic quickly evaporated:

From our experience of the past and our literature of the past we have derived a naive faith in the power of a hunger strike. But the hunger strike is a purely moral weapon. It presupposes that the jailer has not entirely lost his conscience. Or that the jailer is afraid of public opinion. Only in such circumstances can it be effective.

After the Bolshevik triumph, the Tsarist prisons were mostly left intact. This was a good thing to the new regime, as there were plenty of political prisoners who needed to be housed somewhere. And  the new crop of prison guards, who one can imagine are similar to the secret police’s interrogators, the Bluecaps,  seemed to be immune to the voluntary starvation of their prisoners:

Decades passed and time produced its own results. The hunger strike–the first and most natural weapon of the prisoner–in the end became alien and incomprehensible to the prisoners themselves. Fewer and fewer desired to undertake them. And to prison administrations the whole thing began to seem either plain stupidity or else a malicious violation.

When, in 1960, Gennady Smelov, a nonpolitical offender, declared a lengthy hunger strike in the Leningrad prison, the prosecutor went to his cell for some reason (perhaps he was making his regular rounds) and asked him: “Why are you torturing yourself?”

And Smelov replied: “Justice is more precious to me than life.” 

This phrase so astonished the prosecutor with its irrelevance that the very next day Smelov was taken to the Leningrad Special Hospital (i.e., the insane asylum) for prisoners. And the doctor there told him:

“We suspect you may be a schizophrenic.”

So much for your faith in the humanity of your oppressors and the inalienable nature of your so-called “rights.” Like it or not, the Russians under the Soviets; you, me, all of us here in the so-called “free world” exist at the sufferance of the state, that is, the people with the guns. Pray that their baleful eye is never turned on us. 

In any event, when the Soviets decided they wanted to break the will of the prisoners, they had several ways that employed psychological as well as physical methods. These are described by Solzhenitsyn as (1) patience, (2) deception, (3), forced artificial feeding, and (4) a new view that hunger strikes were the continuation of counter-revolutionary activity and should be treated as such. But at the end of the day, the prevailing Soviet attitude regarding hunger strikes was “If you want to kick the bucket, go ahead!” 

[image error]You, a spoiled westerner: “I’m going on a hunger strike!” The State: “Good riddance.”

The prisoners’ rights were rolled back. “Muzzles” were put on the windows so prisoners could not shout. Light and air were regulated. Hour-long outdoor daily walks turned into half-our walks turned into fifteen minute walks where prisoners were mandated to keep their heads down (no looking at the sun, after all). The garden plots and any other vegetation in the prison yards were torn up and paved over. Food was reduced in quality and quantity. Communications with the outside were drastically curtailed, as were accessible books. You could write what you wanted, on tiny pieces of paper, but it would then be looked over by prison officials. And so on. 

And there were, of course, punishment cells for unruly prisoners. What would a Soviet jail be without solitary confinement?

As you can imagine, prisoners’ ability to speak and act with one voice was an important way to win battles with prison administrators. It should come as no surprise that the Soviets recognized this and did everything they could to atomize and demoralize prisoners. It didn’t help that the various factions–social revolutionaries, communists, Trotskyites, and so on–turned against each other as the screws tightened. 

And so, the largely unseen and unknown struggle of Russian prisoners for their rights and more humane conditions was squelched by the iron boot of Soviet totalitarianism. Yet these old, repurposed Tsarist prisons and retrofitted monasteries were but rest stops on the way to the gulag. 

Takeaways:

You are spoiled by your belief in your inalienable rights. The authorities do not care about your rights. The second they decide you don’t have any, your life will turn into hell.
Character matters. We see this with the stark contrast between life under the Tsarist regime and live under the Soviet regime. For all its faults, at least in Solzhenityn’s telling, life as a serf was preferable to live under the Soviets. At least the Tsars and those working for them had humanity.
You need to stick together and act as one to get anything done. Nothing can get done by an individual agitating for this or that. This is why radical individualism is celebrated by the State, any State, because it keeps large groups of unified people split apart without any need for the State to actually do so. It’s far better to brainwash the citizenry to think they should do everything on their own.
Moral weapons only work against an enemy that still has any morals. You can also extrapolate this to conclude that facts and reason only work on reasonable people. 

Never-Ending Stories

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I don’t like stories and sagas that go on and on without a definite end. And yes, I know I say this as a Wheel of Time fan. While it’s true that that series went on for 14 books, it had a clear endpoint that was evident from the first few volumes. The fun was getting there.

It’s also important to note that The Wheel of Time has no side-stories or spinoffs. Maybe this is because Robert Jordan is dead. But it could also be due to his estate respecting his legacy. Because we all know that corporate IPs get milked dry, and then milked some more.

Because fans keep paying for the stuff.

There are other series that go on for 12 or 14 or 20 books or more, and that’s fine if people are into that, but those are not for me. It’s all personal preference, but I’ll explain why I don’t like this manner of writing:

The stakes get smaller. Nothing seems to have as much of an impact because you know there are two dozen more parts to the story. What happens doesn’t hit as hard when you know things won’t be over for a long time. Or ever.
Padding. I call this TV disease. To keep a story going for a long stretch of time, stuff has to keep happening. Your character can never acquire a goal. Relationships and happiness are fleeting, because without conflict, nothing interesting happens. There are no resolutions. Plot threads get attenuated to the point of ridiculousness. More and more new characters get introduced, which makes one wonder: why not just write a new series?
Writing mill. Some of these authors are either one guy who has the name/ideas and outsources the actual writing to ghostwriters, or are composites of such teams. Or maybe factories is a better word. And I get that pretty much all fiction writing is formulaic. But there’s a difference between Lester Dent-style formulae and formulae absent style. The latter is what I tend to see a lot of. Your mileage may vary.

This also explains why I lost interest in comic books. Do I really want to read more about a 60-80 year-old character where I know nothing that happens will last I’d matter because it’ll be rebooted anyway? No.

I, personally, like beginnings, middles, and ends. You know, stories.

Anyway, I’m aware that some characters I do like are incredibly long-running. Conan stories come to mind. But here’s a distinction: those are each intended to be stand-alone tales. One does not have to start at Conan, story one in order to understand and enjoy Conan, story 17. Therein lay the genius.

Note that this post is not referring to The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. That is one of my favorite books and it does, in fact, have an ending.

My series have beginnings, middles, and ends. Check out part one of The Swordbringer before part two drops in a few weeks.

Signal Boost: Combat Frame XSeed: S by Brian Niemeir

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If you’re into mecha (i.e., giant robots beat up and blasting each other), you owe it to yourself to check out Brian’s Combat Frame XSeed series. He just launched a new one with Combat Frame XSeed: S:

An unstoppable scourge lays siege to Earth.

Can humanity survive a world-destroying force that has never known defeat?

The Ynzu Siege nears its third bloody decade. Battered to the breaking point, the United Commonwealth-Protectorate recalls its combat frame carrier fleet for a last stand at Earth.

Lt. Dex Trapper must battle for his life when the Ynzu strike his remote extrasolar colony. Cut off from the UCP, Dex and his CF tech Thatch make a desperate break for help in a century-old XSeed.

I really enjoyed the first series and I’m not even a mecha fan.

Brian’s a great writer and very imaginative, so check this out if you’re into mecha anime, military fiction, and sci-fi.

Revised Social Media Use Policy

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Social media is incredibly toxic, and while there are interesting people and thoughts to connect with, there is a whole lot of bad that goes along with the good. The stupidity, malice, and evil is unrelenting and enough to make one lose all faith in humanity.

And yet, these platforms are what you make of them. You can block, mute, and just otherwise choose not to follow accounts that make you feel bad. While getting a peek into the deepest crevices of your fellow citizens’ psyches has revealed an awful lot of ugliness, it’s a fallacy to assume this means that MOST people are bad. That is not the case. We just seem to hear the most from them.

Do we want to see more of the bad? Do we enjoy getting outraged? Is the dopamine rush that addictive? I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of the toxicity and stupidity. Therefore, here are some revised rules for usage:

No need to blast out every stray thought that comes through my head. One is not obligated to have a hot take on every single matter.
Don’t take the bait. There is never any upside to arguing with strangers over the Internet.
I will not respond to everyone. This might offend some. This is not my intent. But life is too short.
Quality over quantity. This one is self-explanatory.
Liberal use of block and mute. No need to have negativity on the timeline.
Unfollow all brag-and-boast/super-ultra MAN accounts. Anyone who cannot stop blathering about how awesome their lives are and how if you’re not just like them you’re a loser is (a) probably a loser themselves, and (b) not worth my time.
No politics. There are no winners with politics. Only losers. 
Mystery. Nobody needs to know the intimate details of my life and thoughts. 
Civility. If you wouldn’t say it in public to someone’s face, don’t say it online.

The Internet is useful for promoting my books and connecting with like-minded individuals. This can be done in a positive, friendly, and professional manner. Going forward, that’s what I’m going to try to do.

Speaking of promoting books, I’m editing/revising The Second Sojourn per beta readers’ feedback, but check out book 1, The Last Ancestor, while I work on it.

Escape Frontier

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Humankind was not meant to sit in stultifying comfort, get fat, and die of weird diseases or despair. This is why it is important to go to the moon (either for the second time, or the first time, depending on whom you ask), Mars, and even farther.

We live in a historically anomalous time where obesity is a disease of poverty, everyone will get some form of cancer due to environmental factors, people’s teeth are horrible despite advances in dental care because of all the cheap sugar in our food and the fact that so many just can’t be bothered to brush or floss, young people choose not to have sex and procreate, nobody reads despite the world’s knowledge being a few clicks away, twenty-somethings are on anti-depressants and Social Security Disability Insurance for “anxiety,” we have more college graduates than ever but people are getting dumber, our thinkers are stupid, our leaders are cowards, our comedians aren’t funny, our artists can’t create, our stuff doesn’t work anymore, and everyone is content to just veg out in front of screens for hours upon end, day after day.

Our ancestors would be disgusted by us . . . although maybe they’d have a little sympathy, because the systems we’re trapped in were created by our ancestors, before we were born, without our consent.

We have to keep pushing outward. There is no more horizontal frontier on Earth. We’ve been everywhere and no corner has been spared the plague of modern consumerism. The only ways to go are down into the ocean and up into space.

We need an escape valve. We need a frontier to escape to when the society we are in is too oppressive, too immobile, and increasingly, too preposterous for any thinking person with a shred of morality to live in anymore while keeping their soul intact.

We need to get our asses to Mars. And farther.

If interstellar homesteading becomes a thing in my lifetime, don’t be surprised if I’m writing these blog posts from some off-world location.

The impetus for this post comes from this tweet by this fat, foul-mouthed, dope-addled, soulless Hollyweird death-cultist:

Who in the fuck gives a flying fuck about putting motherfuckers on The Moon and Mars?

— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) October 23, 2020

Apparently, the “IFLS!” crowd only loves science when their preferred political candidate is talking about it.

The protagonists in The Last Ancestor had to leave the Earth to find safe haven from a genocidal global government. Read about it here.