John C. Wright's Blog, page 133

Wright’s Writing Corner: Submit and Obey!

This week’s Wright’s Writing Corner features guest blogging editor Mason Lavin covers the dos and don’ts of submitting your work.

http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/247302.html

Excerpt:

Do NOT do the following:

Read my edits and then delete all of them, sending back a “the story was fine as it was, so I ignored all your comments and changes and deleted them. Except for a few grammar things.” This happened. The author’s contract was revoked. If you don’t want to work with an editor, do not submit for publication.

Tell me “just write whatever you want.” I have seen this in two forms. The first is when the author is lazy and doesn’t want to put in the work. This is your piece and your voice. If you want me to write it, then you want me to get all your royalties, too, and just go ahead and put my name on the cover under “author.” Your writing wasn’t done when the piece was accepted!

 

View or comment on this post at John C. Wright's Journal.

Prospero Lost did not Lose!

Or win. The words below are from the wife:

——————————————————–

Prospero Regained and Shadowfever tied for first place! We are both the Best Book of 2011!

Thanks, Everyone!

For more information and the exciting controversy that to the tie, you can read more at:

Here is the beginning:

Shadowfever or Prospero Regained. Moning or Lamplighter. Bestselling, high-seeded, well-known series or scrappy underdog dark horse competitor.

These were the questions BSC readers faced as they voted to determine the best book of 2011 in the opinion of our readership.

Like any good championship should, our book tournament's final round came down to the wire in a hotly contested battle.

We had questionable directions from the ref (yours truly). We had screams of foul play from the sidelines. We had an instant replay consultation.

View or comment on this post at John C. Wright's Journal.

Space Princess Movement Motto and Dress Code

Since our literary movement is rapidly being crushed by the ongoing juggernaut of the New Human Wave movement, another post trumpeting the New Space Princess movement is long overdue!

Without any more ado, let us do the overdue post.

First, let us see how many Space Princess questions have come flooding in the mail bag! And by flood, I mean there is exactly one letter. And it is from the other member of the movement, Mr Willet.

Edward Willet writes:

Hey, isn't it about time, o classical scholar, that you coined a Latin motto for our movement?

Aha! The answer is no. According to my records, the New Space Princess movement already has a motto, and it was written by a man named Edward Willet, aka YOU.  It reads:

Nobody Likes to Read About the Beautiful Daughters of Elected Officials!

Now, how to translate that into Latin is beyond the reach of my scholarship. I should dearly like to have a catchy Latin motto, but I do not know how to say 'Absolute Sovereign Power and Bare Midriff' in Latin.

We should be careful to note that our unstoppable literary movement only deals with young and attractive and alluring princesses, like Dejah Thoris of Barsoom or Aura of Mongo, or Leia of Alderaan, not with plainjane married middleaged space princesses name Lady Dumpy.

I don't even know if there is a word 'princess' in Latin. 'Regis Filia'? 'Regina'?

Another possible choice for our motto is this:

If Outer Space is filled with nubile, fertile and comely yet lonely royalty, able to reproduce comfortably with Earthboys, and eager to be rescued, then even a loser can get a date!

In this regard, Mary writes:

Are bare midriffs absolutely necessary? A steampunk space princess might revolt at such un-Victorian attire.

Are they indeed necessary? The topic is a delicate one, requiring a scientifically and scrupulously accurate statistical study of Space Princesses, to see how often the official court costume of the young female royalty exposes the midriff to the hard vacuum and radiation of space.

Instead of performing such a survey, which would be tedious and time-intensive, I propose instead to post a bunch of pictures of half-clad Space Princesses and merely call it a survey.

On with the survey!

First, consider Dejah Thoris of Mars. As we all know, the Red Planet has a subarctic temperature, and a thin atmosphere that sends hurricane-force winds ripping across vast desolation of rust and rust-colored sand, which would scour the flesh from the bones of any unprotected organism.

Clearly the most reasonable costume for any humanoid life on this remote, ancient world would be a pressurized parka with a face-concealing breathing helmet.

Dejah Thoris of Buxom, whoops, of Barsoom

YOWZA! Erm, I mean, can this be what Edgar Rice Burroughs originally intended for his demurely dressed royal yet egg lying aliens from a nonhuman planet called Vavoom, er, Barsoom? Let us find a more demure picture:

A more demure Dejah Thoris

This picture is more demure because, um, Dejah Thoris has four inches of bare flesh on her upper arm covered with an armband. Trying again.

A Princess of Mars -- Now Showing 30% More Princess!

Perhaps these are only the costumes worn by Martian Royalty when they are vacationing on the beaches of Brazil, or pole dancing in nightclubs. What would a princess wear to her wedding?

 

Note special peek-a-boo window for the space navel

To answer the question posed above, no, this is not what Edgar Rice Burroughs intended, because according to the text, the Martians run around as naked as jaybirds, except for their jewel-studded war-belts, baldrics and weapon harnesses. It is an R rated red planet. So these pictures are actually more in keeping with Hayes Office guidelines than the originals.

Next question:

If the Martians reproduce by laying eggs, why are the ample mammary glands of the females necessary from an evolutionary point of view?

Answer:

Because in the little known first draft of the story, Edgar Rice Burroughs attempted a more realistic or "hard SF" type novel. Immediately upon the advent of John Carter, clean-limbed fighting man of Virginia upon Mars, he started dying from the subartic cold and lack of breathable oxygen, but was rescued by a she-mollusk riding in the tripodal fighting machine. Rather than marrying him, this more truly Martian version of Dejah Thoris instead drained his blood and injected it into her own veins, causing herself to die of diseases borne by the microscopic animals that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. As this story would not have satisfied the minimum requirements of the New Human Wave (or the New Martian Wave) school of writing (see previous post) it was quietly dropped.

The results of our survey so far: not only does the Princesses of Mars have a bare midriff, she has pretty much a bare everything.

But, dear reader, no doubt you are saying: Hold your Thoat, John Wright, unclean-limbed non-fighting man of Virginia! Dejah Thoris is not the only princess in space! There are other planets in space! There are nine planets in our solar system alone!

To which I answer: aha! There you are wrong! There are only EIGHT planets! Pluto, otherwise known as Dis or Yuggoth-on-the-Rim, was destroyed by Kzanol the Thrint when he accidentally ignited the entire frozen atmosphere of the surface with his lander's exhaust, destroying not only the advanced base of the Wormfaces and colony of semifourthdimensional yet cowardly organisms from Palain VII, but exasperating the Mi-Go civilization that reared the unholy monuments facing the ghastly and impious moon Charon.

Let us therefore look at other planets, and see how they dress their space princesses. For example, is there a Princess of Pluto?

Princess Pluto

Since we not longer have Pluto as a planet, due to the treachery of evil space scientists, we have invited the planet Mongo to enter our solar system to make up for the loss. I am sure that will not go badly.

Hail Ming! Ruler of the Universe!

Space Garments of Planet Mongo

Well, the women of Mongo don't seem to be over-burdened an over-abundance of clothing, but perhaps the royal family dresses more conservatively.

... or Perhaps the Royal Family dresses like this

Bah! But this is a toon! (A really, really hawt toon.)Perhaps we can find other depictions of the Evil yet Beautiful Space Princess.

Space Princess Aura of Mongo. Note Shiny Hat.

 

Space Princess Aura of Mongo. Note Bare Midriff

Space Princess Aura of Mongo, complete with Bare Midriff & Shiny Hat

At first glance, the royal attire of Mongo, at least for the evil distaff she-devils on staff, seems to consist of a shiny hat and a bare midriff.

And a Space Rocket

… And a Space Rocket.

(Do not read too much Freudian significance into the buxom space princess posed next to a thrusting hard cigar-shape of a space rocket penetrating the moist atmosphere with sultry screams of re-entry heat! As Freud said, sometimes a space rocket is just a cigar.)

By the Death Moons of Mongo, I must be able to find at least ONE image of a Space Princess who is dressed in a sober, conservative, demure and yet utterly non-alluring garment!

Princess Aura, Demurely Dressed. For her.

Okay, maybe not. So, the Space Princess count is now two for two. Both Mars and Mongo have Bare Space Belly Buttons. There must be some space reason for it. Maybe the navel is where the space alienesses plug in their life support.

But wait! There are more famous Space Princesses out there depicted by more well respected authors! Surely one of them is fully dressed?

Gosh! Look at her bodacious ... hat

Oh, come on! There must be a picture of her not exposing her midriff on file somewhere!

Princess Ardala and her Deep Space Pulchritude

Okay, admittedly Princess Ardala is not one of the more famous Space Princesses from the more well respected authors. But she does seem to have plenty of bare space showing.

Here is Princess Irulan, from the award-winning Frank Herbert epic DUNE. Virginia Madsen played the utterly useless Voice Over at the Beginning, which all studios insist on putting into every space flick from BLADE RUNNER to DARK CITY to JOHN CARTER, trying to explain the space weirdness to the muggle audience, usually to no avail.

Irulan, Princess of the Useless Opening Voice Over

Unfortunately, this particular image does not show her midriff to confirm whether it is bared or no. But we can find another image in our stock Space Princess photo files.

Yup, that is exactly what I would wear at a royal reception, meeting with the Star Prince Darkvermin from the Death Nebula

Even more famous than DUNE, albeit considerably more lowbrow, was perhaps the most famous Space Princess of All. What about Princess Leia of Aldebaran or Aldermen or whatever her dumb planet was called?

Leia would never be happy wearing a slinky yet skanky space bikini, wearing love-chains and appealing to the lowest instincts of lonely yet prurient fanboys everywhere!

Princess Leia of Gor, the Happy Love Slave!

For purposes of size comparison, here is a picture of Leia with me in the background.

Me and Princess Leia

Okay, moving right along…

Well, if famous Princesses from highbrow classics like DUNE or lowbrow popcorn flicks like STAR WARS avail us naught, what about some simple and innocent children's funnybooks like TEEN TITANS? There must be a demurely dressed Space Princess there? What about that cute Koriand'r, princess of planet Tamaran?

Starfire shows off her Anti-gravity Powers

Well, maybe that is just her beach attire. For more formal occasions, she wears…

Princess Koriand'r in her Formal Battle-Lingerie

… she wears hocking huge jewels on her gloves, armbands, loincloth and high stiletto-healed thigh-highs, just like Dejah Thoris, the Space Dame who started this whole trope.

Checking the Space Princess Wardrobe count so far, it looks like none of them wear dresses with enough fabric to use as a hankie to flag down a taxi, but all of them wear enough jewelry to choke a space-horse.

But to return to the question which started all this, what do I suggest as a motto for the movement? Let this be our motto: ne oublie. Never forget where you come from, space fans.

You might pretend space fiction comes from HG Wells or Olaf Stabledon or Homer or Oriosto some other prestigious origin. Claim that legacy if you wish.

We in the Space Princess movement come from the place where space heroes fight space tyrants with swords to save the planet and get the girl:

Pure, Unabashed Escapist Entertainment

We come from the literary tradition of that least common of things, the Common Man. If your taste are too haughty and refined to write or enjoy a story about gorgeous redheaded Amazon of Mars or something, then go join the Mundane SF movement, you muggle, and pimp your socially conscious social message of dullsville elsewhere.

Redheaded Amazonian Ax Babe of Mars

And if you would be ashamed to write a story graced with a cover where some dude in rocket pants is making re-entry — and he is so tanj hardcore that he can withstand the re-entry heat just with the FACE and a grim yet manly grimace, all I can say is that the notes of true space opera may be too high pitched for your ears, bucko.

Robby Rocket Pants Making Re Entry with his FACE

We come from the tradition of pure, unabashed escapist entertainment. Of course we space fans are escapists. All astronauts are escapist.

We are sick and tired of what you have done with the mundane world called Earth, and we wish to depart it for the heavens, to find other worlds and brighter.

View or comment on this post at John C. Wright's Journal.

New Human Wave and Where do I Sign Up?

With the introduction into the literary world of the New Human Wave Movement, proclaimed by Sarah A. Hoyt, the New Space Princess Movement (which, due to staggering growth since 2008, still consists of myself and Canadian SF writer Edward Willet) is in danger of being eclipsed.

What is New Human Wave? Patrick Richardson of PJ Media describes it this way:

… we're sick of grey goo SF. Books where unlikeable characters with no redeeming value wander about doing nothing for 300 pages in a grey landscape without hope or joy.

We are tired of the "message books," foisted on us by the pretentious literati gits who currently control almost all of the major publishing houses.

We want to return to the sense of wonder and awe we felt when we picked up our first SF novel as children.

Sarah A Hoyt, tellingly enough, list what the New Human Wave permits and allows, and scoffs at the idea of the Wave forbidding anything except, perhaps, a gray tale and dull. The Human Wave permits heroics, wonder, action, and stories that have a point, and even (gasp) tale that have a plot, complete with happy ending. In her words:

Your writing shouldn't leave anyone feeling like they should scrub with pumice or commit suicide through swallowing stoats for the crime of being human, or like humans are a blight upon the Earth, or that the future is dark, dreary, evil and fraught with nastiness, because that's all humans can do, and woe is us.

If I did not have my own personal literary movement going, I'd join it if they'd have me.

View or comment on this post at John C. Wright's Journal.

A Happy Ending to a Vandal Story

For those of you curious about the ongoing situation at Northern Kentucky University, where, as is typical with Lefties, craven vandals have been attempting to trample both the truth and the freedom of speech of the students, we have an update that the cowards have been caught:

(Names replaced to avoid any breaches of confidentiality.) It was fairly cold out around 1 AM Friday Morning. A few hours ago I had been at a Latin Holy Thursday Mass with some friends, muddling through a wonderful Sacrament that I knew well in a language that I did not. My friend Perry and I were sitting on the inside of the giant metal modern art sculpture, hiding far back in the cleft facing the NKU University Center, keeping to the shadows and keeping quiet. Last night had been easier, as me and my two other friends, Jackson and Mark, had been blessed with more shadow to hide in. The nearly full moon had been covered by clouds then. It had also been warmer and the wind had not bitten half so harshly. Earlier Perry, Jessa, Sally and I had been hiding among roughly broken rocks underneath the UC/BEP walkway. It is entirely reasonable to ask why on earth we were hiding out like this, and why myself and other compatriots had been hiding out the previous night.

The answer is simple. We were hiding near the Northern Kentucky University Right to Life Onesie Display, to protect it from vandals. You see, a simple sign with a properly researched and cited fact on it, coupled with a few clotheslines that had baby clothes hung on them, is apparently enough to warrant the destruction of property under the cover of darkness. Did I mention that the display was approved by the University, or else it would have never been put up in the first place? Or that once used, the baby clothes, of which every fourth article had a red X in tape that was easily removable, were to be donated to babies in sore need of help? Yet, of course, because our stance is not the most popular, on Monday and Tuesday night our display was torn down, with all the onesies picked from their clothespins like charries and dropped to the dirt. We do not know what time this happened on Monday, but, Tuesday, we know it happened before 1AM, as Perry, Jackson, and I, along with several of our friends, had gone to check on it and found the onesies taken down again. We also know the deed was done after 11 PM, thanks to a passerby who remarked that she had been out smoking around then, and the display had been just fine at that time.

Being very tired of this sort of guerilla trampling of our Right to Free Speech, we called the Campus Police, and various measures were taken to ensure that if it happened again, the perpetrators would be identified and caught. However, we decided that we would do what we could ourselves, after making sure our methods were legal by checking with the proper Authorities. You see, this is not the first year this sort of thing has happened. When our club was founded, one of NKU's Professors took her class outside to tear up the crosses in our Cemetery of Innocents. She was let go and soundly chastized Each cross represents a varying number of children slain daily by abortion in the USA, depending on the space available. Year after year, semester after semester, despite constant recriminations and condemnations from the University, displays have been damaged, and flyers torn down. With the flyers at least, some of our members have caught those responsible in the act. They were almost always unrepentant and hostile.

To that end, on Wednesday and Thursday night, several of us stayed out of sight and in the cold, watching our display to make sure that this would not happen again and that the vandals would be caught. We were lucky Wednesday, nothing eventful occurred. It originally seemed to Perry and I that the same would hold true for Thursday, and up until around one we waited, wedged in a cramped, freezing, steel hideout, whispering back and forth to pass the time. Then, he motioned for me to be silent. He had heard the distinct snip of scissors when I had not. I saw one of the clothelines jerk, and it half fell. I was calling the police that instant, and Perry was readying his camera. I saw a short man steal up and cut down the remaining rope. Then, I was busy trying to whisper into the Police Operator's ear. My voice came out so hushed and garbled that they originally thought I was telling them that someone had pulled a gun. While I was sorting that out, Perry stepped from our hiding place and began snapping pictures. He saw four men rushing to stuff the clotheslines and baby clothes into the trash cans outside of the Art Building. By the time I stepped out, after I was sure I had gotten the situation through to the Operator, I saw them running hard and fast towards the Natural Science Center. Perry was already in hot pursuit. I followed, but being slower and fatter and more out of shape than my speedy friend, remained far behind. I was roaring into the phone by that point, having figured that any noise could only help our cause. My own voice and heavy breathing, combined with my pounding footsteps, drowned out Perry's yelling. Afterwards, he explained that in the rush, what he had meant to say got mixed up in his head, and he had bellowed "RUN, YOU COWAAARDS!!!!" instead. I sincerely wish I could have heard that.

A few moments later, both he and the fleeing vandals had vanished around the front end of the Science Center, and I was beginning to catch up, having finally found strength in my tightly-cramped legs. I kept talking to the Operator, and realized that it was very likely my good friend was alone with four criminals who had at least one cutting blade between them. I had no knowledge of whether they carried scissors or buck knives, and so when I caught sight of one of them doubling back, possibly to see if I was still on the chase, I was ready to charge in, fighting like a madman, in the event that they had turned back upon him. Praise God that such Evil did not take place. When I rounded the corner, I could not find the man I had seen before, and saw two of them standing by Perry and a squad car with its lights flashing in the parking lot behind the Norse Commons Cafeteria. Still relating everything to the Operator, as best as I could between breaths, I stopped running and shakily walked up to the Officer who was now questioning the two that had been stopped. The Operator left me in his capable hands. Officer Serious demanded that they call their fellows, and the man I had seen by the Science Center did not abandon them and reappeared in a few minutes. Their fourth man, I found out from Perry, had ducked into a building somewhere along the way, and could not be reached.

While they were standing there, I asked Officer Serious if I might say some polite words to them. He allowed it, and I asked them why they had done this, when none of us had ever torn down any Pro-Choice Display. Their response was unified, instantaneous, and loud. The three began leaning forward, angry and belligerent, speaking about how horribly offensive and vile our simple baby clothes had been. One barked that the information of the sign had been a lie, that the phrase "1 out of 4 babies die from Abortion" was untruthful. I explained that the Guttmacher Institute, which was where we had gotten that fact, was founded by a man who had once been the President of Planned Parenthood. I was shouted down and told that Mr. Alan Frank Guttmacher, an obstetrician and gynecologist as well as a member of the Association for Voluntary Sterilization, had no idea what it was like to be a woman. As if womanhood had anything to do with the ability to report valid medical statistics. Perry coolly remarked, "Yes, and it seems that the three of you have so much experience with knowing what it's like to be a woman." During these few sentences, which had originally begun as an innocent request for an explanation, they had moved forward several steps, and Officer Serious found in necessary to step in front of me and tell them to shut it because there would be no debating here. To be frank…I am six foot three, two-hundred and twenty pounds. The biggest one of them was probably two-thirds my size, at the greatest. One of them could not have been more than ninety pounds. If you are willing to be that aggressive to a man that much larger than you, WITH an Officer of the Law present, to the point where he has to literally move in front of you to block your path, and YOU are the one who has committed the crime, you might want to seriously reconsider your position.

They were already trying to downplay what they had just done, and had begun apologizing like children caught with their hands in the candy jar. I was more than somewhat amused when they declared that "surely, we can work something out, come to some sort of resolution", considering what had happened minutes before. Perry and I accepted their apologies personally, but I warned them that I was not the President of NRTL, and that if my Club Officers asked my opinion of the situation, I would advise them to do whatever the University Code and the Law required, without any thought for pleas for leniency. Given the history of actions like these, a strong and clear example needed to be made that this sort of behavior was intolerable. Their faces darkened then, but they remained silent, probably because they had learned overt aggression would not be looked kindly on by the Lawman present. I gave them a brief lesson on all that had taken place before that night, starting with the first destruction of our displays and going all the way to the present moment. Now, by their own admission, they were not the ones who had taken down the onesies earlier in the week. It does bother me that the vandals were not contained in one isolated group, but, we at least caught somebody. During this, two other Officers, Jogger and Comedian, pulled up and took over the parking lot situation, while Officer Serious took Perry back up to the display. Officer Comedian took over further questioing, from which we all learned several things. It turns out that they had planned to do this earlier in the day during classes, and that all three were Theater Majors at NKU. They also had been drinking beforehand, even though one of them was only 18. The other two were 21. It turned out later that the 18-year-old tried to tell my NRTL President that he was actually Pro-life and that he had been a lookout. His behavior towards me on this night proves that statement an outright lie. I saw no disapproving look in his eyes when the three of them began shouting at me in unison. They had used scissors, thankfully, so my fears of having to face knives had been unnecessary, though not entirely unfounded. They repeatedly gave their reason for vandalism as the terrible offensive nature of our display. Officer Comedian, who has my undying applause for his handling of the situation, detained them, made them wait on their knees in the cold, and then took them off under arrest to jail. While he was doing this, he kept up an impressive stream of humorous and educational banter. When the underage man remarked that he had relatives in the military, he asked him how those relatives would feel when he told them that he had violated the very Constitutional Rights they had been fighting for. His weak response was a mumbled 'Dissapointed". He also managed to sum up the stupidity of what those three had done by explaining that if he saw a sign declaring "Kill the police!" in someone's yard, he did not have the right to go tear it down, break their windows, raid their fridge, and eat their food in their easy chair.

One of the vandals complained that the pavement was really hurting his knees. I remarked that the large chunks of rock and cold wind under the walkway by the University Center had hurt while we were waiting for them earlier. They responded that that took dedication. "Well, we're tired of you tearing our sh*t down." I said.

In summation, all three planned this ahead of time, got themselves a little drunk, and came up to campus to cut this display down and throw it in the trash. They seemed unphased when I explained that the clothes were to be donated to needy children. All of their behavior was admitted to Campus Police Officers, who promptly processed them, including the fourth man, who turned himself in later that night. In addition to various alcohol related charges, they have been charged with Criminal Mischief. The University, while unable to tell us what punishment they would receive due to coonfidentiality rules, made it clear that they would handle the situation, and I have full confidence in their ability to do so.

 

View or comment on this post at John C. Wright's Journal.

Hoyt on Loss of Wonder

Sarah A Hoyt at According to Hoyt has an essay well worth reading: Bring Back That Wonder Feeling.

The author contemplates the slow decline of science fiction, debunks the common explanations "The age of wonder in SF is between 12 and 14"  or "They're living in a science fiction world " as "bullsheep" and offers a more insightful theory as to its causes.

Loyal readers will see a similarity of theme between Mrs Hoyt and Mr Wolverton, whose essay on the limits of mainstream genre I lauded and recommended in a previous article.

Here is a quote from Hoyt:

So, who killed the sense of wonder?

You'll forgive me, since I know a lot of my readers belong to this generation, but it was boomers moving into the publishing houses.

I understand WHY it happened.  I just don't have to like it.  Boomers came of age at a time when population was supposed to keep expanding indefinitely (note to the brainless bunnies who commented on my war is Hell post, no it's no longer doing that.  It might actually be contracting.  We only have highly dubious counts, from countries who get aid per capita to believe it is still expanding.  We also thought the USSR was expanding, until it collapsed.  There's lies, damn lies and statistics.)  Youth was the way of the future.  You only have to re-read the Heinlein of the sixties and seventies to get this feeling.  The older people were kowtowing because they expected to be vastly out-numbered.  So between that and a bunch of other cultural things, that one generation grew up thinking they were something special and that they should make everything different.

Also for some reason and I honestly can't think why, unless it is a combination of their parents' experiences in WWII AND Soviet Agit Prop (yeah, I know.  I blame a lot of things on it.  But they were GOOD), the boomers thought that they could create a perfect world.

Unfortunately this meant that when they moved into SF, right after Heinlein had exploded out of the ghetto of crudely colored magazines, they decided it was their mission in life to make SF accurate, respectable and, above all RELEVANT.

This is when the problems came in.  They came in because every generation's idea of "relevant" freezes at around the time they come of age.  The burning issues of the day get resolved and gotten over, but they're still the ones that formed them.  And some of those issues weren't even, really, issues by the time they came of age, but they were part of what was being struggled with while they were growing up.

When the boomers swept away the old order of SF and brought their stuff in, suddenly SF became obsessed with gender issues (mostly defined as a rather pat feminism), race issues (the burning issue of their day), and misunderstood economics (that to be honest is still relevant.  their kids fail to grasp economics in exactly the same way.)  The idea of being "cool" made them worship "literary" only since most of them wouldn't know literary if it bit them in the fleshy part of the arse, "incoherent" "hallucinatory" and "pointless" had to do the turn.

Then came my generation who, btw, are not boomers, though we often get aggregated onto the end of it.  We're also not gen xers, sorry.  Some people call us the lost generation, though we were mostly found – at work, trying to claw a space for ourselves while being told we weren't cool or "socially conscious."

[...]

I'm not saying all the boomers did was bad.  Largely I'd rather praise them than bury them.  But in SF they've been an unmitigated disaster.

My comment: amen and hear, hear.

Sarah A Hoyt in another article wins my eternal admiration by posting a manifesto and starting her own movement to overturn the literary world, called Human Wave Science Fiction. The prime directive thereof is: You are allowed to write escapist science fiction – or fantasy.  Sometimes we just need a good read.

I see a confluence of goals when it come to my own titanic and world-girdling New Space Princess movement.

View or comment on this post at John C. Wright's Journal.

VOTE NOW! It is the finals! Prospero is trailing badly!

A message from the beautiful and talented Mrs Wright:

Hey Folks,

I have made it to Round Five of the Six Rounds of the Book Tournament. This means that I actually won the bracket I was in. I was the top book out of the 16 books.

I am now up against the top book of another bracket. This book got twice as many votes last time as I received. So my chances are slim. In the hope of doing my best, I would like to ask that, not only will those of you who are willing to support me go vote…but if you might be so kind as blog, repost on Facebook, or Tweet this link and ask friends and followers to vote, I would be most grateful!

http://www.bookspotcentral.com/

View or comment on this post at John C. Wright's Journal.

Soothsayers, Revelations, Portents and other Celestial Signs

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new...

Niigata, Japan, Mar 12, 2011 / 07:17 am (CNA).- The epicenter of the earthquake that caused a deadly March 11 tsunami is located near the site of an apparition in which Mary warned about a worldwide disaster that could afflict humanity.

Japanese church officials have confirmed that the Diocese of Sendai, in the north of the country, was hit hardest by the 8.8 magnitude earthquake – the worst in Japanese history – and the resulting 23-foot waves.

Hundreds of people have already been confirmed dead in the city of Sendai, located less than 90 miles away from the apparition site of Our Lady of Akita in the town of Yuzawa.

The city of Akita, which experienced fire damage and flooding along with many parts of northern Japan, is a place of veneration for Catholics.

In 1973, the Virgin Mary was said to have predicted a number of future events – including natural disasters even more serious than Friday's earthquake and tsunami – during three appearances to a Japanese religious sister, Sr. Agnes Sasagawa.

The purported appearances of the Virgin Mary in Japan were reviewed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1988. During his time as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith prior to his election as Pope Benedict XVI, he let stand the local bishop's judgment that the apparitions and the messages were acceptable for the faithful.

The messages warned of chaos within the Church, and disasters which could afflict the world.

"If men do not repent and better themselves, God the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity," Mary reportedly told Sr. Agnes. "It will be a punishment greater than the (biblical) flood, such as never seen before."

"Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful," she said. "The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church, in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops."

"Churches and altars will be sacked. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises, and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord."

"Each day, recite the prayers of the Rosary," she told Sr. Agnes. "With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests."

Two years after the last message, the statue of the Virgin Mary in the chapel where the apparitions had occurred began to emit tears and drops of blood. The occurrence continued for more than six years.

Reports from Akita following Friday's earthquake indicate that the city received significantly less damage than other parts of northern Japan, despite its proximity to the epicenter. However, residents did report power outages, burst pipes, and fires.

Bishop Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi of Niigata, whose territory includes the Akita apparition site, is also the president of Caritas Japan, which will be working to assist victims of the earthquake and tsunami.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Akita

My comment: as a scientifically minded man, I must notice that reports of such fantastic things as monsters, ghostly visitations, miracle cures, appalling prophecies are just as common now as before the so called Age of Reason in the Eighteenth Century.

They have not been proved to be true or false, honest or fraudulent. By the very nature of such extraordinary reports, there is no proof one way or the other, aside from the testament of witnesses.

The only difference before and after the so called Age of Reason is that the public now ignores such reports rather than pays attention to them. There is a whole world to which the world pays no real attention.

There are, to be sure, frauds like Uri Geller and debunkers like the Amazing Randi, who unwittingly does the Church a service by exposing false prophets, but who unwittingly does not seem to realize that a true skeptic is as skeptical of Randi's naturalism as Randi is skeptical of our supernaturalism.

And yet, the public is perfectly willing to believe apocalyptic warnings about all fashion of pseudo-scientific frauds, from manmade Global Warming to global cooling to acid rain to holes in the ozone layer to scares about Alar and DDT, and scientists are willing to falsify data and testify before public bodies to help perpetrate the fraud — but Our Lady warning us of disasters, ah, that is merely gullible superstition, is it?

Our Lady of Akita -- I adore the slightly Oriental depiction of Our Jewish Mother

Let us hear from Nick Machiavelli, who, if any one man can claim the title, can rightly be called the father of modern skepticism at least in the political real, the very apostle of the pragmatic mind.

Here let me quote the entire of  the short chapter Machiavelli  calls The occurrence of important events in any city or country is generally preceded by signs and portents, or by men who predict them

Whence it comes I know not, but both ancient and modern instances prove that no great events ever occur in any city or country that have not been predicted by soothsayers, revelations, or by portents and other celestial signs. And not to go from home in proof of this, everybody knows how the descent into Italy of Charles VIII., king of France, was predicted by Brother Girolamo Savonarola; and how, besides this, it was said throughout Italy that at Arezzo there had been seen and heard in the air armed men fighting together. Moreover everybody remembers how, before the death of Lorenzo de' Medici the elder, the highest pinnacle of the dome of Florence was struck by a bolt from heaven, doing great damage to that building. It is also well known how, before Pietro Soderini, who had been made Gonfaloniere for life, was expelled and deprived of his rank by the people of Florence, the palace itself was struck by lightning. Many more examples might be adduced, which I leave, however, lest I should become tedious. I will relate merely what, according to Titus Livius, happened before the coming of the Gauls to Rome. One Marcius Cædicius, a plebeian, reported to the Senate that, passing through the Via Nuova at midnight, he had heard a voice louder than that of any man which commanded him to notify the Senate that the Gauls were coming to Rome.

 

To explain these things a man should have knowledge of things natural and supernatural, which I have not. It may be, however, as certain philosophers maintain, that the air is peopled with spirits, who by their superior intelligence foresee future events, and out of pity for mankind warn them by such signs, so that they may prepare against the coming evils. Be this as it may, however, the truth of the fact exists, that these portents are invariably followed by the most remarkable events.

 

My comment: We are left with a paradox: if we dismiss the credulity of Machiavelli as being a by product of that time of darkness and barbarism called the Renaissance in which he lived, his oh-so-modern political pragmatism must likewise fall under suspicion that it was a regression from the more enlightened and scientific age, that of the schoolmen who taught logic, which came before it.

View or comment on this post at John C. Wright's Journal.

The Sheathed Paw of the Lion

A short story for your mediation on this Good Friday.

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I realize another century is supposed to pass before you wake from cold sleep, but, since it is my turn to be alive, I thought I should quickly summarized the events of the mid-Twenty Fifth Century for you, and for Rogers, Graham, Davis,  Taylor, and Arthur.

I should mention that, while we were coldsleeping, psychology has apparently become an exact science, and the method of rendering human nervous systems to match their environment, both physical and political, has been precisely defined. As it turns out, the human nervous system reacts most clearly and strongly to pain signals, especially when combined with psychological disturbances such as shame and humiliation, and so the Harmonic Scientists and doctors of infliction take special care, when applying negative rewards, to use method that to us might look awkward or even cruel. But it is all based on a very carefully determined theory. It is called the Harmonic Science, since it allows all elements of society to operate together in peace and joy, especially those born to be burdened with concern for the public weal, and other positions of great responsibility.

Rogers had the watch before me. You remember those events. The National Aerospace Administration had long since lost the capacity to launch rockets into space, for obvious reasons, but the Forbidden City allowed us to retain receiving dishes, radiotelescopes, and the like, since these did not disturb the harmony of the World Kingdom.

Perhaps the Forbidden City regretted that decision when certain Search-for-Extraterrestrial-Intelligence signals were answered with a simple code spelling out the digits of pi in base two, of the square root of two in base forty, and then a simple grid drawing a recognizable diagram of the Pythagorean theorem.

At first the signals were thought to originate in Epsilon Carinae, one of the four stars making up the asterism called the False Cross, so named because of its reputation for being mistaken for the Southern Cross and leading to navigation errors.

At the command of the Son of Heaven, Peking turned the mile-wide orbital array known as the Thousand-Eyed Bodhisattva toward the signal source.

This was against the cautious advice of the Harmonic Scientists. As they predicted the lack of observation produced a disharmony. There were riots among the ruins of the major cities in North America — it was a holiday from the omniscience of the Akashic Internal Intelligence Service, so what else did one expect? — but the array caught clear pictures of what the press immediately dubbed the Big Dumb Object.

The rioters, and anyone unlucky enough to be netted in municipal purification sweeps, we executed by sawing. One of our still-loyal descendents in the waking world died that way. The Harmonic doctors hung her by the feet and sawed through her body from the crotch down. This method allowed the blood to drain into her brain during most of the slow process, to keep her alive longer.  I never learned her name.  She looked like a fourteen year old, but it is hard to tell, since the people are shorter these days, due to malnutrition.

The Object was in a hyperbolic path, more distant than the orbit of the planet Eris.

If you are surprised I called Eris a planet, I should mention something Rogers left out of his centennial digest: the Son of Heaven objected to having only eight planets in the solar system when previous generations enjoyed more. It was thought to be an affront to his dignity, and therefore a potential cause of disharmony. The Forbidden City therefore commanded the College of Panphysical Sciences to discover more. I think only our own Dr Uriens objected: luckily, the amount of disharmony created by his words was within the venal range, and so the Harmonists merely had him pitchcapped.

Pitchcapping is not pretty. Uriens had his hair and ears cropped off with a razor, and a cap filled with hot pitch bound onto his head. The doctors had removed his hands at the wrist but left he feet, so he could run around energetically during, smashing his head into onlooker to try to get the cap off and end the agony. Then a rope was attached, and the other end flung to the cheering crowd, who pulled the cap off, taking lumps of flesh and skin with it, leaving Dr Uriens alive but disfigured for life. This was run on something called the World Amusement Network, which is wired into cloth and cups and windows and basically any transparent substance.

Uriens enthusiastically supported the new definition of what constituted a "planet"—not only were Pluto and Eris granted this status, but the Son of Heaven was pleased to learn that his solar system now officially contained forty-nine planets, including Ceres, Makemake, Haumea and three dozen other Kiuper belt objects. Harmony was restored.

The Big Dumb Object was a cube 1363 miles on a side. For size comparison, draw a line from the tip of Florida to the Great Lakes, and then west to Montana and south to Mexico City. That is the footprint the thing would cover if is landed, assuming it did not crack the continental plate in half.

It was covered with some sort of ablative foil that gave it a gold hue. The press immediately dubbed it 'The Borg Cube' from one of the few television shows from North America's "pre-re-unification" days that the Net was allowed to carry. (Pre-Re-Unification is an idea from Twenty-Fifth Century history, which says that the Han are the ancestral people of the American Indians, not to mention Caucasians and Negroes, and that all conquests are therefore merely undoing the unfortunate side effects of prehistoric civil wars that divided mankind.)

I coldslept again, and woke up a decade and a half later. This is in AD 2240. The Cube was in orbit, between the Earth and Moon, and could be seen every night , rising in the east. Depending on the time of month, one or two faces was turned to the sun. When the Cube was "full" that is, in opposition, the gold light was considerably brighter than the morning star, and cast a strange yellow-red twilight across the landscape, almost bright enough to read by.  When it was in conjunction, of course, it was dark. With binoculars you could make out the ports appearing on four of the six faces: tiny round dots representing valves or airlocks large enough to swallow the Great Salt Lake.

Ten years was not long enough for the College of Panphysical Sciences to learn their language, but it was apparently enough for them to learn several of ours, maybe all of them.

The message itself was a trifle disturbing. "You call our star Zeta Geminorum or al-Mekbuda , the Sheathed Paw of the Lion. An immense psychological disturbance or interruption, propagating at the speed of light, encountered our home system 1170 earth-years ago. We came as quickly as possible, given the limitations of lightspeed travel. At considerable expense, we have brought the appropriate means and mechanisms to render aid. We encompass which should suffice to remove the wounded and unconscious, even when dispersed. Are you willing to request help? May we begin?"

The message was repeating in a number of ways and languages over a number of months. NASA, with help from the Han military, constructed a transmitter powerful enough to reply. At that point, the astronomical scientists were sent to mountain retreats to aid in their meditative practice, and Harmonic Scientists took over.

The answer was cautious, diplomatic, inquisitive.  It was several messages, over several weeks, and the process was considerably slowed by the need to have each term mathematically defined.

Basically, the Scientists wanted more information. They asked what form this help would take?

"Interconnectivity with primary consciousness, and related physical needs, such as medical aid, fermented beverage, comestibles made from grain; water to wash, oil to anoint. We have studied your physiognomy, and, except for the defects, can reproduce it precisely. Our order of behavior does not permit us to act without your affirmation and consent, since otherwise the curative properties are null. Do you understand the extreme danger present?"

The scientists asked for the danger to be defined.

"You are conscious without being self-conscious, and hence are divided. Divided consciousness errs, ceases to cohere. You are not like other organisms on your world, who possess consciousness but not self-consciousness.  Neither are you self-conscious.  You neither know what self is, nor what is to be done with it. You begin by saying the thing which is not, and end by doing the act which is not, and making other to be not."

The scientists asked for a clearer definition.

"The speech which is not is lying, defrauding, betraying, gossip, backbiting; acts which are not are sloth, inaction, indifference to the suffering of others, distraction, incoherence, diversion, self-amusement, sadism; pursuit of nonbeing is manslaughter, infanticide, fratricide, viricide, uxoricide, matricide, parricide, heriocide, regicide, mass-murder, mega-mass-murder, genocide, democide, deicide. This last act is sufficient to create the disturbance detected."

The Scientists wanted more information on this psychological disturbance. In the Third Decade of the Common Era, Terra possessed no ability to generate artificial power, or send an electromagnetic signal of any kind, much less one that would cross interstellar distances.  What interruption was meant?

"Luminous interruption. The disturbance issued from your planet but had severe additional properties or side effects, as all objects within the entanglement were influenced.  The disturbance was in your primary, which you call Sol, the Sun.  It would have been noticeable from the surface of your world to any who had eyes operating in your visual range. Any with eyes to see, could see."

Considerable study was done by the scientists, and many hypothesize put forward, none of which were found convincing. After some struggle over the budget with the military, the Harmonic Scientists were able to send out another group of messages, asking for details, such as the exact the time when this took place.

"Let us define the moment when a ray of light from the primary is tangential t the surface of the earth at a given point the first hour.  At the sixth hour, the ray is normal or vertical to the surface. Your term for this is noontide, or noon. Your sun went dark from the sixth hour until the ninth hour. If you have no record of the event, then your condition is more deleterious than our most pessimistic estimates."

This time, the Son of Heaven from the Forbidden City itself, with all his entourage, journeyed to the sending station, and typed in the message with his own hands with their long and delicate fingernails.

The message was in a special dialect only the Imperial Family is allowed to use: We now know from whom you have been sent. Please land with your highest ranking officer, with whatever he needs to save us from our condition, and he will be greeted in the fashion appropriate to maintain harmony on this, my world.

The Visitant from Zeta Geminorum made planetfall in a fashion so unexpected, I will not record it, since you will not believe me. Suffice it to say that he was found on the planet's surface, living in a slum. He was not merely remarkably like a human being, but was identical in every way.

In his first public demonstration of the techniques of his civilization, he gathered the ashes and stray molecules of someone who had been cremated and buried at sea, reconstructed her atom by atom, and revived her. Her name was Tabitha. The reconstructed body showed signs of having no genetic flaws, neither prone to aging nor disease. She could, however, be killed by machinegun fire, as we soon learned. She was quite lucky.

Scaphism is a method of execution, first designed by the ancient Persians, where the victim is stripped naked and tied between two boats with his head, hands, and feet protruding. Honey and milk is forced down his throat with a funnel, inducing diarrhea, and his extremities are smeared with honey. The boats are set to float on a stagnant pond, thick with insect swarms. His feces accumulate within the container, attracting more insects, which sting, eat and breed within his exposed flesh. The victim is fed more milk and honey so that the septic shock, dehydration or starvation which eventually kill him do not happen too quickly.

The Visitant did not die without screaming. It was not a pretty sight.

I am writing you because I think you can see what the logical result must be. I have taken steps to inter the Visitant's body into one of our hidden caves. Our long wait may be nearly at an end, but, strangely, no sign, no signal, from the immense golden city in the heavens. The golden city has not yet acted in any visible way.

I confess at times to certain doubts. Maybe they will never act. Maybe I should sleep, and let Arthur awake from his slumbers, and stand the long watch.

But at other times, the hope seems obvious.

 

View or comment on this post at John C. Wright's Journal.

Mark Steyn on THE HUNGER GAMES

Having written an essay-length review of the movie (not the book) THE HUNGER GAMES, I am chagrined to read  Mark Steyn, columnist to the world, so adroitly articulate my inarticulate misgivings about it:

What were your thoughts on the Hunger Games trilogy?

MS: It seems to me there is something empty about the Hunger Games. In the end the stakes aren't big enough for it to quite work. There's nothing primal at stake in the Hunger Games, in part because I assume the author doesn't subscribe to any particular transcendent meaning to life. I think there is a kind of absence of that in the book.

You can read the interview here: http://www.hillsdalecollegian.com/2012/03/qa-mark-steyn/

I would make the broader point that Christianity is inherently dramatic, with its unfashionable insistence on the dangers of hell and the promise of heaven, whereas paganism is inherently tragic, or, in the case of Buddhism, inherently dispassionate. Gnosticism, except for the one narrative of the plucky rebel overthrowing the evil oppressive Demiurge, inherently robs narratives of drama, by making everyone an unheroic victim or an unheroic villain, and by insisting that the actions of the drama are either not worth doing, or make no difference in the long run. (And political correctness is a modern materialist version of Gnosticism).

But something was missing from HUNGER GAMES, which in my review I groped toward by saying I did not see what philosophy Panem stood for, or what the point was. Mr Steyn, with more clarity than I possess, identified the missing element as a transcendent meaning.

I am not saying this as a Christian, but as a writer: had Katniss been the daughter of Artemis, hounded by an inescapable fate, fighting alongside Arjuna against Grendel or Hector, some of the grandeur and nobility of the doomed pagan would have been in her tale.

View or comment on this post at John C. Wright's Journal.