Erik Amundsen's Blog, page 34

Get me 'nother body bag the body bag's full...

Oh shit, I restarted a fucking novel.  
Good news is, I know what it's about: The Worst Government-Enforced Teen Pregnancy Pact Ever.

Or

Inverted Neon Genesis Evangelion meets the contrapositive of Ender's Game with a little bit of Shade's Children.

Or

Bleach's shinigami + generation ships gone Horribly, Horribly Fucking Wrong.

cucumberseed @ 2012-08-21T00:33:00

Okay, I am up late reading these two articles.  I suspect they may be related...

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a ShooterSpec Ops: The Line and why we play violent shooter games

And

Masculinity and Mass Violence The ‘Intimate Enemy’ We Refuse to Name

I'm thinking there is a connection, but not the causal one of moral panic.  I have thinky thoughts to think, but I may have more to say, soon.

Another Day in which Satire Dies

So today is the day in which women's bodies can prevent rape from causing them to become pregnant and self-published racist novels are bravely antiracist.  What a fascinating fucking modern world we inhabit.

The fact that both these things, ridiculous on their face, made it through someone's mind, through all the filters, all the checks and balances, and came out into the world at all upsets me.  Someone thought, in each case, they could get away with it.  Someone thinks, in at least one case, that they were still getting away with it.  

It also upsets me how much the non-apology has become the artform of the 21st century (I have seen the Weird Tales retraction and apology.  I am not impressed.  I am glad they are not printing the excerpt, but that's as much credit as I am willing to give them).  In both cases, there is the sense that the sorrow is in being caught in the act, not for the act itself.  Acts which, in at least one case, will cost lives and in both serve to damage the intelligence of a nation.

Oh my feels.  Except that one day, something this ridiculous is going to make it through without comment.  And then another and another, and what is ridiculous on its face controls the destinies of real people who really live and breathe in this world of ours.  How many of my countrymen believe the earth is 6000 years old, again.  Don't tell me.  I need to go to work tomorrow and accomplish things while I am there.

I don't think that the two statements scale.  Akin's words have the real and imminent chance to change laws so to end and ruin lives, where Kaye's promotion of Hoyt's book - well, there is always a chance her book will hurt  above and beyond being another god damned aggression in the parade of god damned aggressions that marginalized folks get every god damned day, but I don't *think* it's as likely to cost someone their life.  

I could be wrong.  I could always be wrong.

Anyway, such is another day.

Weird Tales.

I have spent most of the day wrestling with the internet and my own words about the whole Weird Tales and Save the Pearls thing, but N. K. Jemisin pretty much nails it for me:

All my pleasure and pride at having been published in WT is gone. Goes without saying that I won't be submitting there again, ever, but at this point I'm ashamed to have my name associated with the magazine at all. And that pisses me off especially, because something I really cared about has been destroyed. I was willing to give WT's new owners the benefit of the doubt after the regime change; sometimes change can be a good thing, after all. But this editorial, and this decision to publish such poor-quality fiction on misplaced principle, makes it clear that WT's reputation is now meaningless. By this gesture Marvin Kaye hasn't just slapped me in the face, he's slapped every author the magazine ever published, every hopeful author who's submitted during and since VanderMeer's tenure, every artist whose illustrations ever graced its pages, and every fan who voted for WT to win that Hugo.

My Opinions, Short Form

1) Paul Ryan - *hysterical laughter*  
Smirking motherfucker is the shape of the inevitable future, those fucking ears and all.  Of course, there is a chance that the money follks really are in up to their necks and if this doesn't pay off the whole thing is going to come undone.  My vote is pretty much riding on that outside bet.  If I had a time machine, I'd be willing to risk all of causality to end Ayn Rand.  Actually, I've felt that way since I read "The Fountainheadm,"  so Ryan doesn't really change that.

2) Voter Suppression.  We're not getting a country back until blood runs in the streets.  Even then, we're not getting a country back. 

3) Julian Assange.  I repeat myself: I look forward to the day when all allegations of sexual assault are prosecuted with such vigor and interest.  Except that's not really being prosecuted anymore, is it?  It certainly doesn't seem like it.

4) Pussy Riot.  Fuck you, Putin.  I know you're reading this, because it's LJ.  Fuck you with a garden weasel.  I mean, eventually, we're going to get a Putin of our own, though we may never know his name or what his face looks like.

This is why I have been off LJ for a while.  I see no good coming; indeed, I'm starting to think that human extinction due to environmental degredation as a net positive.  Not as fast as a space rock or Yellowstone blowing, but it'll serve.

Or ice.  That would suffice.

cucumberseed @ 2012-08-16T21:46:00

Finally feeling up to reading LJ.  Might even post things again, soon.

Give them all a Beautiful Parade Instead

Clockwork Phoenix Kickstarter: FULLY FUNDED

That said, there's a little less than an hour, if you want to head over and pitch a little money their way.  This means NEW VENUE.  And that's as many as four tens.  In reverse.  And that's cool.

cucumberseed @ 2012-08-08T22:41:00

Right, so strong recurrence of depression with no real external triggers.  Okay, a few writing related defeats, one kind of stinging; a lot of friends in bad ways for reasons and limited things I can do about it to help - I would stumble, I would wobble, I would not usually just flop and not want to get up ever again.  This too shall pass.

Non-Flop 1 is not ready yet.

2) stsisyphus  has read Dan Simmons' 500 page Glenn Beck impression "Flashback" so you don't have to.

I have been a shitty friend to everyone in their various times of need, and I promise I will try to make it up to everyone when I can.

Clockwork Phoenix Kickstarter: final rewards recap

Originally posted by shadesong at Clockwork Phoenix Kickstarter: final rewards recapI would love to see the webzine happen! Please back this project if you haven't already!

Originally posted by time_shark at Clockwork Phoenix Kickstarter: final rewards recap Hello, folks! Please feel free to repost this.

As of this posting there's less than 48 hours to go in the Clockwork Phoenix Kickstarter. It's not at all clear to me whether we're going to make our final stretch goal that lets us found a companion webzine for Clockwork Phoenix and Mythic Delirium; I guess that will come down to the wire. Regardless, I want to emphasize that whether we make this last goal or not, the book will still happen, we will pay pro rates, and every little bit we get still helps with assembling, printing and marketing this anthology.

I want to do one more quick rundown of the rewards we're offering, too, because if any of them look tempting, you only have until Thursday morning to make them yours.

Of utmost importance, most all of the rewards involve a pre-order of the new book once it's made, in e-book or trade paperback form.

A very popular new reward combines the pre-order of Clockwork Phoenix 4 with a special limited edition signed chapbook edition of Cherie Priest's short story "The Immigrant," which I originally published in an anthology series called MYTHIC, the precursor to the Clockwork Phoenix books. This chapbook will only ever be offered through this Kickstarter.

Another popular reward: Anita's Clockwork Phoenix pins. The photo to the left depicts two of them in progress.

And there's a whole palette of other things to choose from: some have been nibbled at, some are untapped.

Short story critiques:

Tote bags full of books;

Custom hats;

Poems to order and story Tuckerizations;

Your stories or novels formatted as e-books;

Books hollowed out and decorated to create e-reader cases;

The last remaining 10th anniversary issues of Mythic Delirium,featuring Neil Gaiman;

And lots more. I hope you'll give them all at least one more look before we're done.

And lastly, in case you missed it; during the course of the Kickstarter I promised to do something special if the campaign paused at $6,666. It did, and I did indeed do something off the wall. Here I am reciting my devilish poem from the pages of my collection The Journey to Kailash, titled "lis pendens":