Nikolas P. Robinson's Blog, page 50

The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones

For all it’s originality, dark humor, and captivating story, The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones does not flow well at all. The innovative, cinematic style the author employs in this book serves to be more distracting and jarring than I suspect he intended…but it’s different, and that makes it worthy in its own right.

It’s less experimental than House Of Leaves or other books I’ve had the pleasure of reading, but the experimental nature of the narrative doesn’t work as well as in some of those other novels. This is not to say it isn’t a good book, because it absolutely is…but it could have taken a few hours to read vs. a few days, if only it had the same natural flow and cadence I’ve seen with other writing from Jones.

Bloboids vs. Faeries by Jeff Beesler

I had the pleasure of reading this book as a beta reader, so my experience with it may be slightly different from anyone who picks up the final version of the story, though not in any major way.

Bloboids vs. Faeries is a great book for anyone who enjoys fantasy (naturally), science fiction, and even horror (yes, I said horror). When reading this book, I was struck by the realization that it was essentially a zombie apocalypse tale, set in a fantasy world where a faerie community is devastated by the arrival of the insidious, spreading Bloboid threat…it’s just that we’re dealing with Bloboids in place of zombies and faeries in place of the usual human victims. There’s tension, there’s excitement, and there’s high-stakes action.

I’m sure there are people out there who wouldn’t be at all interested in reading a book that’s ostensibly about faeries. Don’t let the title dissuade you from checking this one out. It’s not what you might expect.I won’t spoil any of this for you, but the character I sincerely hoped to see come through the ordeal unscathed definitely did not.

You Will Be Consumed

Cover art design for my novella, You Will Be Consumed, courtesy of John Baltisberger with Madness Heart Press!

Musings On Education

STEM is important, vitally important.

We absolutely need basic comprehension of math and science literacy to be more widespread here in America (and throughout the rest of the world, of course). We’ve seen precisely how dangerous ignorance of those topics can be.

Just as important, we really need accurate, unbiased, objective lessons in history and sociology to be treated as being of paramount importance for our children. The study of history and of social structures is no less imperative than the study of STEM subjects.

Additionally, it would be great if we could incorporate some low level critical thinking and logic education as early as elementary school as well. Mindfulness and self-awareness could be useful too.

Sure, these things wouldn’t lead to a perfect society…such a thing can’t likely exist…but it would make for a better society, more well-equipped to tackle the obstacles that come with both day-to-day life and more challenging times.

Writing Update

Attending virtual KillerCon Austin last August was a massive turning point in my life…in ways that are only now becoming clear to me.

Chatting with Carver Pike (and discussing his experiences with respect to self-publishing) was what led me to pull the trigger on putting my novel, Innocence Ends, out there, after designing the cover art and all that jazz.

Watching a panel with Lisa Lee Tone was what led me to perusing her numerous book reviews and deciding that it might be worthwhile to send her a copy for review purposes.

Interacting with John Baltisberger during and after the con (and seeing how hard he worked to keep everything running during the virtual con) led me to explore a good deal of the Madness Heart Press catalog…in addition to inspiring a great deal of respect for the man and how much he was willing to put into the things he cared about.

Each of these things sort of fed into one another and produced a sort of cascade effect that is making me happier and more content with my life. I owe each of those three people a massive debt of gratitude…a debt that keeps on growing.

I would not be where I am right now, with a novella to be published by MHP and more work hopefully soon to follow, were it not for the fantastic KillerCon experience.It’s just funny how something done mostly for fun can change one’s life…in my case, definitely for the better.

Financial Burdens Existing Only for the Poor

The recent hilarity and turmoil associated with certain hedge funds encountering a mob of amateurs online have certainly done a great deal to showcase the illusory nature and absurdity of our financial reality here in America. That is, assuming it wasn’t already obvious, from the massive disconnect on display with the stock market rising while millions of Americans are still jobless, homeless, or facing poverty.This seems like a good time to discuss the costs and financial burdens that exist only for people below certain levels of income.

Crimes for which the only penalty is a financial one:

For an individual making $70,000 a year, a fine of $100 amounts to only 0.14% of their income. Assuming a $15 minimum wage (which isn’t a reality yet), that same $100 fine amounts to 0.32% of the individual’s $31,200 annual pay (nevermind the fact that federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009, which is an income of only $15,080 per year). That translates into more than twice the proportional loss for the individual at this hypothetical minimum wage. If the higher-income earner in this thought experiment was making an income of $500k annually, we’d be looking at only a loss of 0.02% of their overall income with the payment of a $100 fine. For someone at the hypothetical minimum wage of $15 an hour, that percentage of their income would be only $62.40 (it would only be $30.16 for someone at the actual minimum wage of $7.25)…but in reality, no matter how much or how little the individual earns, the fine is still going to be the same $100.

Overdraft Fees:

A single overdraft fee can range from anywhere between $15 and $50, with the average being $35. These are costs that are ultimately only levied against those below certain income levels, yet these fees earn financial institutes an average of more than $30 billion a year (it’s worth noting that the Trump administration wanted to potentially make it easier for banks to penalize customers with overdraft fees only a couple of years ago).

Someone might suggest simply not having a bank account, but that’s hardly a viable option for most people these days. Increasingly, employers push for direct deposits in place of paper checks (even those direct payment cards provided by certain employers are backed by financial institutions), and payment of monthly bills is becoming more inconvenient (if not outright impossible) with cash. God forbid these same people want to save money by utilizing automatic payments for many of their bills because that isn’t an option without a debit or credit card. They had better keep a close eye on their finances because a single $60 payment for their gas or water bill can suddenly run them $95 or higher if they don’t quite have the money in their account yet. Naturally, this sort of thing can cause a cascade effect.

Late Fees:

Late payment fees for bills are something we’re unlikely to see if we’re above a certain income level as well, especially if we can comfortably utilize automatic deductions for the bills in question. Paying your monthly electric bill ten days late doesn’t cost the electric company anything, but it will cost you…either a percentage or a flat-rate late fee. Paying your rent three days late (in South Dakota) probably doesn’t cost your landlord or property management company anything, though it can come with late fees or trigger the beginning of the eviction process.

Deferred Maintenance:

Whether it’s your home, your car, or even your own body, sometimes one simply can’t afford to get something checked out promptly. A minor tooth pain that would cost less than $100 to address when only a cavity will cost upwards of $500 when it requires a root canal. A small vibration in your car may be a minor repair of only $300, but if one can’t afford that, it could end up being something that costs thousands (or takes the vehicle out of commission entirely). A crack in the living room window could be too expensive to address, but when it shatters during a blizzard and allows freezing temperatures and snow to accumulate inside of the home, the costs could be insurmountable.These are additional financial burdens that typically aren’t experienced by those above certain income levels (assuming they aren’t living ridiculously beyond their means).

More things could be tossed into this list of ways our financial system is rigged at the expense of those who have little, to the benefit of those who have plenty, such as student loan payments (whether we’re talking about college/university or trade school) and debts sent to collections…but I’d never finish typing this up. It’s worth thinking about ways these issues can be addressed and the inequity can be resolved. With the sheer absurdity of our financial institutions on display, there’s no time like the present to think about ways to fix what is clearly a broken system.

This post was originally written for my Facebook page. I hadn’t done anything with my blog for quite some time, so I figured I’d copy it over here as well.

Scars

She would cut herself so that she could feel something, so that she could feel anything at all. On the surface she was lovely, innocent, and sweet…but the incisions and scars she marked herself with, in places she knew that no one would ever see, made her feel like she looked the same on the outside as she did within.

Beneath the surface she felt only scar tissue remaining, scars layered over scars, reapplied year after painful year.

Each time she felt the fine line of the razor slicing through the skin of her chest or upper arm, she felt something other than numb, which was the only thing she’d felt for years, until she learned the trick of forcing herself to feel.

No one would ever see her wounds, because she never let anyone close enough to see her exposed.

The only men to ever see the unblemished flesh now turned to a lacerated patchwork were the horrible men her drunken father had let into her room at night to pay off his debts.

Those men were all gone now, many of them dead she knew, all erased from her life but for fragmentary recollections of their leering faces and cruel smiles embedded in her tangled psychology.

But the scars remained.

She dreamed of a day when a man might come along who she could trust enough to lay herself bare, but she knew that there was no one out there who would look at her and accept her, the broken thing she had become.

The scars on the outside served as a reminder for her, that she could never be naked or comfortable with anyone again.

But she was wrong.

One day she met a strange man who wouldn’t look away from her. It wasn’t unusual for men to stare, she knew that she was pretty and appealing to men. The prolonged gazes turning her stomach with reminders of the things that had been done to her in the past.

But there was something in this man’s gaze that drew her attention in a way that no one else ever had. He didn’t look at her with the same vacuous hunger that she saw so often.

There was hunger in his eyes, no doubt, but there was something more.

He looked sad, as he took her in, like he could see right through her and it pained him to see whatever it was that he saw. She felt like he was seeing right through the sleeved dress she was wearing, to the scars that littered her pale skin and deeper still, into the old wounds within.

She noticed him again, time after time, as he seemed to reappear wherever she happened to be.

And always that same look in his eyes.

Finally, after weeks of this, she walked over to him, angry and curious, nervous and intrigued.

Before she could get to him, he reached to the front of his shirt and peeled it open, buttons popping as he exposed a chest crisscrossed with scars that rivaled her own.

He grabbed her hand in silence and placed her palm over his chest where she could feel the textured ridges and he placed his hand over her own.

Beneath her touch his scars began to fade.

He took his other hand and placed it over her chest…where her own scars were able to be felt through the cotton of her blouse and she instinctively placed her hand over his.

She could feel an itching and burning where his hand met her flesh, only the thin layer of cloth in between.

Her own flesh was mending, and the heat of the touch was almost painful, but a different sort of pain from what she’d experienced when inflicting the damage.

A strange man with horrific scars of his own had found her and seen her for what she was…and recognized the shared pain.

He had shown her that they could heal one another. If she could heal him with her touch, then he could heal her. She could feel something changing deeper inside, beneath the mending flesh. The scars within were being erased as well.

The broken mend the broken and the scars fade.

Those on the inside as well as those on the surface.

Wolves In Sheep’s Clothing

In a small and all but forgotten town, a long way from here, there was a little girl who lived with an aunt she barely knew. Her own parents had passed away a long time before and her older brother had gone into foster care because the aunt couldn’t care for them both.

In an old house, a house with leaking pipes and creaking boards the girl grew into a young woman; no matter how old though, she was still afraid as soon as the light died down outside.

She imagined monsters of all shapes and sizes, creatures that defied description prowling around in the night’s blackness, within the house and without.

One night, her aunt failed to return home from the diner where she’d worked as a waitress and the girl worried and worried as the hours ticked by.

She sat backward on the sofa in the living room, peeking through the curtains where she pulled them apart just enough to peer outside into the gloom, scared and alone as she prayed for her aunt to return home.

A pair of headlights finally startled her from the slumber she hadn’t known she was slipping into, a car door opened and slammed shut, and feet drummed against the gravel drive and onto the porch before the door came swinging open and crashing shut behind a strange young man she faintly recognized.

His brow glistening with sweat her brother smiled at her briefly before his face returned to grim seriousness and words began spilling from his lips. He told her that he had wanted to surprise her with a visit. He’d just turned 18 the week before and had called their aunt to arrange for this.

The little girl leapt up from where she’d perched stiffly against the back of the sofa and ran to her brother, squeezing her arms around him so tightly that she might have cracked a rib and interrupting his speech.

She asked where their aunt was and he didn’t have time or presence of mind to mask the truth. Something terrible had happened to her while he’d waited in the parking lot for her to finish up her shift.

Some strange men, dressed as hunters, had come in late, near the end of her shift, and she had refused to kick them out no matter how late it was.

Those men did monsterous, horrible things, and the little girl’s brother had tried to stop them.

The men came after him and he jumped into his car and sped away for the run down old house where he knew his sister was alone.

A pair of headlights tracked him the whole way, edging closer and falling back as he raced along the back roads trying to get to the house.

As he breathlessly neared the end of the story, the sound of two doors shutting outside reverberated through the sinking hearts of the brother and sister.

There were, that night, two monsters prowling around in the darkness, and they had already hurt the girl’s family.

But they weren’t the only ones.

From the rear of the house the girl heard the scratching and shuffling that had filled her with terrified visions so many nights, accompanied by the sound of labored breathing and the almost silent thrumming of subdued growls.

And from the gloom and shadows a giant, misshapen figure began to emerge, covered in hair, mouth bristling with teeth.

Her nightmares had never painted an image so horrible as what she was actually seeing.

And behind that first abomination appeared another, followed by two more.

The monsters she had feared were in fact quite real.

Her brother turned toward those lurking creatures and smiled with recognition…and for all that it could, the monster in front smiled back.

The brother looked down to his sister, grabbed her tear-soaked cheeks in his palms , gently turned her face to his, and whispered, “Stay here. Stay inside with the monsters. They’ll keep you safe. I’ll be right back.”

Before she could utter a word of argument he was walking through the front door as the creatures from the darkness moved closer to her and circled protectively around her.

There were sounds of violence outside followed by drunken laughter as someone fell to the ground.

Loud footsteps approached the front door from the porch outside, and she knew it wasn’t her brother coming back to her.

The door burst open with a crash and through it strode the two hunters her brother had spoken of.

Alcohol on their breath and blood on their hands and sleeves, they strode confidently into the foyer before they saw the little girl and the beasts that surrounded her.

There was no chance for them to scream.

The hulking shapes lunged forward as one and the two bad men disappeared into a tangled flurry of fur and claws and gnashing teeth.

It was no more than a few minutes and the two men were gone, no trace of them remaining in the dimly lit foyer.

The monsters slipped through the door and returned with the beaten and bruised, unconscious body of the brother.

They gently laid him down on the sofa and turned to the little girl, lowering their heads to her and snuffling like she’d seen from so many dogs in the past.

She reached out nervously at first and gently patted her tiny palm on the matted fur of one after the other and they slowly slipped back into the darkness at the rear of the house.

Her brother woke up a short while later, groggy and hurting, and walked her to her bedroom where he tucked her into bed.

She fell asleep just before the police arrived to inform them that their aunt was in the hospital but that it looked like she would come through it all ok. The police had no information as to who had done the horrible things to the kind older woman, but assured the brother that they were investigating it.

The little girl fell asleep that night with no more fear, and she slept through the visit from the police.

The monsters she had feared were no longer monsters.

And there was nothing prowling in the dark that would hurt her but the monsters that pretended to be men.

Lost Little Puppy

Near the center of a big city there was a puppy.

He was a strange little puppy with mismatched eyes and shaggy fur. His breed couldn’t be determined, there were probably half a dozen mixed in there.

He lived in a gap between a dumpster and the red brick wall of an apartment building. It was the only home he’d ever known.

He’d been separated from his litter shortly after he was born. His mother and the other pups were spirited away by men from Animal Control, but he had been overlooked and left all alone.

So, there he was in the home he made for himself in that alley behind an apartment, across the way from a Greek restaurant. The only little piece of the world he knew.

It wasn’t much of a home, barely fit for even a mutt like him, but he’d never had anything to compare it to, so he was happy there.

He played with the pigeons when they settled on the alley floor to scavenge their meals, but the pigeons weren’t fond of playing with him, so they darted away as he ran after them with his tail wagging frantically.

He ate well, the leavings from the restaurant being dropped carelessly on the ground often enough that he was healthy.

One afternoon the dishwasher was dragging the garbage out to the alley and he saw this strange little puppy peeking out from behind the dumpster. He knelt down to see if the puppy would come to him.

With a little trepidation the puppy came out from the shelter of his dumpster home and bounded across the distance of a few feet to the young man.

Petted and patted, on instinct he rolled over onto his back on the dirty alley floor and exposed his belly for the dishwasher to rub it.

And rub it he did, with a huge smile on his face.

The young man reached into the garbage bag he was carrying and retrieved some of the more substantial scraps for the puppy and fed him from his hand.

The puppy whimpered as the dishwasher began to head back inside to where his work awaited, and the young man felt sad as the door closed behind him, separating him from the puppy in the alley

That was the first affection and human interaction the puppy had ever received, and he sadly returned to the space between the dumpster and the wall.

Hours later, while the puppy chased pigeons, the young man came walking into the alley from the sidewalk and the puppy immediately stopped what he was doing and ran to him.

The dishwasher scooped up the puppy and was greeted with an excited tongue lapping at his face.

The young man laughed and smiled and he carried the puppy home with him.

The puppy grew up there in the dishwasher’s tiny basement apartment, going for walks, getting baths, and eating like he never had before.

At night he would leap onto the young man’s bed and circle around until he could nestle up right next to him, and he would sleep so well that he never missed the pigeons.

He began to forget about the alley, the dumpster, and the scraps that used to be his meals.

For years he lived a life like any puppy would dream of having. He was loved and he was cared for.

He was happy.

One afternoon the dishwasher didn’t return home from work when he normally would. The puppy, now a dog whined at the door and padded away, returned again and did the same.

After a while he couldn’t help himself and he went to the bathroom on the tile kitchen floor, and for an hour or so after that he hid in shame waiting for the young man to punish him when he returned home.

For a couple of days that was how it worked for the dog. He would wait at the door until he couldn’t hold it any longer, he would go to the bathroom on the floor, and he would hide in shame for a little while before returning to the door again.

He was sleeping when the key turned in the lock and he was immediately alert and running to the door from the bedroom.

The smell was wrong. It was a stranger who walked through the door, but she smelled kind of like the young man. There were tears in the older lady’s eyes as she turned on the light, and the dog knew that she was sad.

The dog barked at her, not a threatening bark, but a question. He asked her where the dishwasher was.

Startled by the unexpected bark, the lady jumped.

She saw the mess the dog had left on the floor and she shouted at him, opening the door and ushering the dog outside.

He waited outside for a while and when the lady came back out she shut the door behind her before he could get back inside to his home.

She walked right past him without acknowledging that he was there, too distracted with the handful of items she carried.

The dog whined and followed her for a little bit before turning back to wait at the door for the young man to return.

Night came and he curled up and slept on the concrete stoop in front of the door. It wasn’t comfortable like the bed, but it was somewhere to wait for the dishwasher to return.

A few days later he had to leave the yard. He was hungry and he needed to eat.

He wandered around the neighborhood for a while, finding nothing.

He had walked for a good long while before a familiar scent drew his attention. He followed the scent until he found himself in a place that he’d all but forgotten.

He was in his old alley home and the pigeons flew away as he walked into the old, now remembered environment.

There was food there, like there always had been, but there was no dishwasher. He ate his fill and he made his way back home.

That became the dog’s routine for the next few days, returning to his old alley for food when he was hungry and waiting on the stoop for the young man the rest of the day and night. It was only a few days before a group of people showed up at home, one of them being the older lady from before.

They let themselves into the apartment and began moving things out; in the process they chased the dog away.

He had nowhere else to go, so he returned to the alley to eat and wait them out.

They were gone when the dog returned home a few hours later and he settled back in to his place on the stoop.

During the night it began to rain and he couldn’t get inside so he made his way back to the only other place he could find shelter.

The rain grew heavier as he ran toward the alley. It was a tighter fit than when he was a puppy, but the dog could still fit snugly behind the dumpster. He nestled into that space and fell asleep.

When the rain and thunder went away he returned home and continued with the same routine he had before, still waiting for the dishwasher to come home.

New people arrived only a week or so later, they shouted at him and shooed him away. He came back later, thinking it would be safe but those same people chased him away again.

He had no choice but to go back to the alley, and that alley was where he lived out the rest of his days.

He never saw the young man again, though he continued to hope that he would walk down the alley and take him back home; but he never forgot the young man and the home that he’d had.

Of Patriotism and Ignorance

I can’t believe that I am still seeing people on social media complaining about those pictures that were circulating, you know the pictures, the ones featuring people standing on the American flag.

You rabid, flag-waving assholes really just don’t seem to get it at all, and I suppose that I can’t blame you, you’re just fundamentally stupid or so blindly patriotic that you can’t wrap your head around the fact that the rest of the nation isn’t living under the sheltering blanket of straight, white, Christian, male privilege that you have spent your whole life benefitting from.

You can keep your symbol; since that is apparently the only thing about this nation you actually place value on. I’ll side with the people standing on that symbol, the people who place their value on the rights and magnificence that symbol is supposed to represent…even though it never really has, except for on paper.

We live in a divided nation in so many ways.

We live in a nation where two major political parties are at odds, sometimes rising to the point of violence between subscribers to their respective affiliations…even though neither of those parties are even half as invested in the best interests of the American people as they are focused on their own personal self-glorification and the agendas that they’re invested in.

We live in a nation where ignorant, fundamentalist Christians are setting themselves up as a ruling class in their own imaginations, pretending that they are being attacked by anyone who doesn’t agree with their worldview, while voicing clear opinions that anyone not like them should be penalized in defiance of the wishes of our Founding Fathers (don’t imagine it’s just the Separation of Church and State that spells it out, the wording of the Treaty of Tripoli that was unanimously adopted by John Adams and the Senate in 1797 makes it very clear that this was never intended to be a Christian nation).

We live in a nation where anyone who isn’t a straight, white, Christian male experiences clear bigotry on a nearly constant basis, but are ignored when they attempt to change that fact through peaceful means, where they are met with lip service and platitudes until the only way to respond is by violence and extreme measures when tension has reached a boiling point.

We live in a nation where there is a very real fight between an outdated, out-of-touch religious ideology and those who happen to love others of the same sex, and the civil rights of a minority of our population are actually treated as a battleground.

Tell me again of the importance of this symbol that you worship. Tell me again of how unpatriotic and horrible these people are who have stood on the flag. You can keep it. You can have that tainted symbol. It doesn’t stand for what you seem to think it stands for. I’d rather stand for the rights that the symbol is supposed to represent, and the actual people of this country, not just those who fall into your narrow perspective of what people should be. You can keep the symbol. You clearly don’t care about the rights, because it is one of those rights that these people can desecrate that symbol.

If you care more about the flag than your fellow American’s rights, you’re an asshole and you are a bigger part of the problem with this nation than they will ever be.