The weather's getting colder (in some areas), and Halloween is just around the corner, so let's cover something more fun and a bit spooky today. Instead of the usual tales of blood, gore, and chaos, lets us look into one of forgotten pasts and obscure lands. Where is Hyperborea?
A lot has changed attitude-wise since the 20th century ran out, but one of the things that has changed is our consideration for how weird history and the paranormal are actually quite entwined with normality in ways we never really considered. Dry materialism has never been a good enough explanation of the strangeness we see around us, only religion even bothers to point towards it and show that it is far more natural to the state of how things are than we have considered. When you stay in your daily routine or automatic thinking you tend to blind yourself from the possibility of any existence outside your dulled narrow scope. What lies out there? We might never know, but that does mean we shouldn't forgo curiosity.
That in fact has been one of the underlying themes of some of my recent stories like the ones in Cirsova #20 and Sidearm & Sorcery Volume 3. When things finally do go sideways, things you never imagined possible will be revealed as very much possible. And once that happens, the times can never go back to what they once were.
Then we will have to move on from this neutral state of waiting for normality to return or for it to spring out of thin air like magic. In many ways we were living in a dream world before--that is what the 20th century was meant to be, after all. We were to have a new normal, a new base, that would shield us from our natural state and nature. As it has fallen apart, we now know we've been missing too much of us to continue on the way we have. You can't go home again.
But, then, was it ever actually home in the first place? If not, then which is actually the dream world, and which is reality? Or maybe there's more to connect them than we originally thought. Maybe it is more complicated than 20th century materialism thought possible. In fact, that's a big part of the stories in Star Wanderers. Even in a future where we supposedly know more, there will always be much that is still out of our grasp. It's just the nature of things.
As the above video from the YouTube channel Midnight Broadcast shows, people have been considering this subject for a long time. It is a good reason why the writers of Weird Tales are still the most influential of the 20th century, even a century removed from the magazine's formation. They were the few still considering these questions while the pocket protector set were attempting to force convert everyone to dated Science that would rule our every waking moment. Of course, I already wrote about them in The Last Fanatics. What we are dealing with now is what they were trying to replace for their own new world order of eggheads.
So as you get closer to Halloween, consider just how much we don't know about what is waiting in the between, and how much we'll never know in this lifetime. Such a thing might seem frightening, but I consider it amazing. It gives off a sense of awe about just how wild all of this really is. We don't know anywhere near as much as we think we do, and that's great.
Have yourself a good weekend and get ready for November!
Welcome to the weekend! Hope this season has been going well for you despite the weird weather shifts. I have a few treats for you today! The first is a song. As you can tell, I've been playing around with generators.
The above is a song I generated in the newer Udio song generator I was introduced to by TheQuQu. Yes, it's a skabilly song (Ska + Rockabilly) because it's a sound I like and a sound no band seems to want to play anymore, so I decided to cobble one together. Please enjoy it at your leisure. It was a fun one to put together as an experiment, and it's not like you're going to hear it anywhere else. Perhaps these generators have more purpose than you might think.
Regardless, it exists now!
Do whatever you'd like with the track, too. The whole point was to make a fun song to do fun things with that just doesn't exist anywhere else. Not like you're going to hear a new Skabilly band anytime soon since this sound is abnormally unpopular. I also slapped together two remixes of it on the side, one acoustic and one alternative rock, so give those a shot on the site if you're so inclined. Hey, someone's gotta do something with all these abandoned genres. If this bother you, then knock me down a peg by writing some skabilly and making me happy.
But of course, this is not why I'm writing this post today. There's more to discuss. You probably want to know about writing!
Spring 2025 Flight From Reckoning (Part 1), by Michael Tierney The American Dream, by Rodica Bretin Salt Roses, by Jim Breyfogle Waegnwyrhta, by William Suboski The Siege of Verisa, by Richard Rubin Void Railway, by JD Cowan The Demacron, by Gary K Shepherd Machine Dreams for Wired People, by Jaime Faye Torkelson Cracking the Cyber Ziggurat, by Kevan Larson In the Last Days, by James Hutchings Paying the Doctor’s Due, by William Drell
Summer 2025 Flight From Reckoning (Part 2), by Michael Tierney Tigers Dream in Color, by Rodica Bretin Black Sand, by Jim Breyfogle Heart of the Goddess, by Harold R. Thompson Melkart and the Rich One, by Mark Mellon ‘Twas Bato Did It, by David Skinner Threnody Bacchant for Ruins Demoniac, by Matthew Pungitore While the Islands Slept, by J. L. Royce Double or Nothing, by Michael Ray True Destiny, by Paul Lucas
Fall 2025 Drown Melancholy, by Stanley Wheeler Labyrinth, by C. P. Webster Ghosts in the Green, by Mike Robinson Rossoya, by Bob Johnston She Who Was the Sea, by J. Thomas Howard The Whole Wide World, by Tais Teng Ghost in the Garden, by Jim Breyfogle Troll Fen, by Ken Lizzi What’s He Building In There? by N. R. LaPoint Satisfaction, by Vincent Valkier The Merchants of Maaaw, by Mark Pellegrini Do You Wear a Bulletproof Vest, Lieutenant?, by Rodica Bretin Flight From Reckoning (Part 3), by Michael Tierney
Winter 2025 Flight From Reckoning (Part 4), by Michael Tierney A Serial Killer’s Diary, by Rodica Bretin They Always Come Back, by Frank Sawielijew Reborn From the Blackened Bayou, by Jacob Calta Master of the Hounds, by Misha Burnett The Gallowsport Resurrections, Daniel J. Minucci Pact of the Ruin Witch, by J. E. Tabor Dreams of an Eden, by Jed Jalico Del Rosario The Fang of Yog-Bora, by Blake Carpenter Cool Beans, by Teel James Glenn An Elegant Adventure, by Jim Breyfogle
That's quite a lineup, but you might not have noticed one of the stories in the Spring issue is by yours truly. That's right, I made it into Cirsova for the third time!
But what is Void Railway about? You'll just have to wait and see! It won't actually be a very long wait for this one. Suffice to say, those who enjoyed Star Wanderers (please leave a review!) will definitely be excited. It is time once again to see what our old friend Ronan Renfield is up to. I assume more chaos!
Also, in case you missed it, I also have a story in the most recent issue of Cirsova! It is called "Mirage Carousal" and is a story of a man on a motorcycle with an Uzi and a mission to complete. Things get quite hairy and intense in this one. It's also a surprisingly explicit story from me, though you'll see why that is when you read it. The end of the world is a messy place.
And if you want more, the follow-up to "Mirage Carousal" is in Sidearm & Sorcery Volume Three. It's called "What's It Like in There?" and gets even more nuts. It's one of the longest short stories I've ever written. The end of the world goes sideways--or is there more to it than you think? Read on and find out!
At this point, it's safe to assume if you read a story by me, it's going to be crazy. I like to go all out after all. All these stories are also related in ways that are not always obvious on the surface level. Though these two are probably more obvious examples.
I also have another story that is very close to release, but the publisher is waiting on the cover to come in first before the announcement becomes official. When it does, I can go into further detail. Suffice to say, there is more to come from ,e. The year's not quite over just yet!
That's all for this weekend. I hope you're having a good one, and I will see you next time. Have a good spooky season!
Hey all, I've been kind of down in the last few weeks, by both life and health. If you've got some prayers, I could use them. Regardless, there isn't a lot to mention. I'm still working behind the scenes between recovery periods.
So today I wanted to share this video about a strange internet figure who didn't turn out to be some kind of creep. In fact, he only got more eccentric as the years went by.
All this is just to say that things don't always get worse. Sometimes you won't even know how much has changed until you wake up one day and see just how much has changed. You never know just what's going to happen.
Anyway, that's all for now! I hope you're having yourself a good October and I will hopefully see you sooner than later. Have a good weekend!
Welcome to the weekend! It's time to head back to the past for a bit.
Today I wanted to share this clip from the Paperback Warrior podcast (their site is pretty good, too) which talks about the Paperbacks From Hell line of Horror Books. It's not a long piece, but it's one of the few I've seen that properly highlights just what this project is.
For those unaware, "Paperbacks From Hell" is named after a book written by Grady Hendrix which aimed to cover that period of the late 20th century where horror books were given striking and evocative covers to match the wild stories within. Sometimes you'd get unhinged madness that outdid even the cover, sometimes you'd get a mismatched pairing between the two, and yet others the cover would be the most exciting part, and yet it was always a treat to dig for them and search for a true gem. You never knew quite what you were going to get! I reviewed it here.
It goes without saying that the book did really well, highlighting a period in the industry that was both successful and fruitful, to the point that publisher Valancourt Books got an idea in their head: why not republish those old books again, but also in their original pocket paperback dimensions as well as the original art? And so they have, and to this date just over 20 old school horror books from that period have been rescued from obscurity and given a second chance at life.
You can find their full listing on their site here, and you can also find them on Amazon itself proper.
I've personally read both Nightblood and The Spirit (which actually got a new cover that is better than the original) from their line and even reviewed them both. You can read my review for Nightbloodhere and The Spirithere. The former is like a better and more satisfying version of 'Salem's Lot and the latter is a sasquatch story about madness and obsession. Both are very much worth reading. I also recently got my hands on a copy of Let's Go Play at the Adams' which I will hopefully be able to cover in time for Halloween. We shall see. Nonetheless, there is no shortage of books to look over for yourself and see what hits.
It's a shame that we've lost so much on out journey through the later half of the 20th century in our quest to speed-run "Progress" that we've forgotten and tripped over everything on our way to get to the end of a road that has no end. Going faster and faster hasn't lead to any changes, just overblown heightened expectations and burned out creators. Not only are they rarely even on the same page anymore but nobody can even agree on what what to steer the ship. It's one big mess of no one being satisfied anymore.
Regardless, there's a always a chance things could change in the future, and one of the ways it could is in revisiting what we might have missed and learning lessons we might have forgotten or never even got to have. Check out Paperbacks From Hell (the line and the book), and see how things used to be. You might be surprised at how much we've forgotten along the way.
That's all for this week! I hope you have a good weekend. Remember that the Phantom Mission serial finished with Chapter 15 this week, Star Wanderers could use some reviews, and the newest issue of Cirsova is out with a story by yours truly in it! It's been a busy time!
I'll see you next time as we head into Autumn! What surprises await us there? I guess we'll just have to wait and see!
Here we are at the tail-end of summer with another new release! Hope you've been surviving the annoying weather shifts. This time we're going to cover the newest issue of Cirsova, featuring some great writers and talent of the like you might have missed out on. In particular, we're going to talk about issue #20.
And I'm also in this one! It's been a while since I was in an issue of Cirsova, but I can tell you that it was worth the wait!
My story in this issue is called "Mirage Carousal" a tale as odd as its title. This one is of a man named Nick who appears to be riding his motorcycle alone in the middle of the end of the world. Guns, mist monsters, and witchery follows. If you've read "What's It Like in There?" in Sidearm & Sorcery Volume 3 that name might be familiar to you. That is because the two stories are very much related. (I do recommend reading this one first, however!)
But this release, of course is not even close to just about me! There are many other writers with stories to consider in this issue.
Here is the full listing of stories:
The Superior Griefs (Part 3) By MICHAEL TIERNEY The Gravedigger 2 is on its way to Earth with not one but two packs of Griefs! The fate of the galaxy will be decided, with Earth in the balance, as a secret Artomique base prepares to play host to their meeting with Isshla Superior, Earth’s Superior Grief!
The Short Unhappy Immortality of Owen McKinty By BILL WILLINGHAM An ancient vampire has plotted his long revenge against the family that has warred with him and hunted his kind for years and found a new ally in a small-time thug!
Beneath the Samite Shroud of the Grave Sphinx By MATTHEW PUNGITORE An artist is shaken by the death of his patron who hosted the pleasure-seeking New England demimonde! His latest painting is haunted by visions of a mythic creature!
In the Thrall of Tessa Nyx By MICHAEL GALLAGHER Psychic? Clairvoyant? Soothsayer? Whether she is a fraud or the genuine article, Tessa Nyx is in town giving live readings at a large event and needs protection!
The Ragged Red Masque at Carter’s Hall By CAROLINE FURLONG Love blooms between a girl and a young man held captive by a stepmother who wants his fortune—only a troupe of Irish rovers can help the forlorn couple escape!
Necromancing the Stone By TEEL JAMES GLENN ‘Just deliver the box.’ When a job is this easy, Jack Silence, PI and Parafey elimina-tor, knows it’s trouble! But who could say no to a gorgeous Elf offering five grand?!
Qarinah By MOHSIN She is beautiful beyond words, a sprite of the desert! None may possess her, though those who share her embrace will never know joy or happiness again!
Mirage Carousal By JD COWAN When a coven of witches all but ushers in the end of the world, Nick seeks the one dissenter in an illusory wasteland of violence and degeneracy, offering redemption!
In the Garden of Madness By DECLAN FINN Thomas Nolan, “Saint” Tommy, has been called in on a strange murder: a teenage girl has been murdered and seemingly dragged under the earth… by plants!
Melkart on the Isle of the Damned By MARK MELLON Melkart’s business partner is drugged and kidnapped and their goods taken with-out payment! The Brotherhood intends a human sacrifice to summon an evil god!
A Vested Interest By MICHAEL REYES Clock, the mystic warden of Coney Island, is on the trail of two killers... who have been recently brought back to life by the dark powers they serve: the Isaloge!
Dancing with the Indians By RODICA BRETIN Psychic agent Lorena has fallen captive to French and Indian raiders… As the orgy of violence begins, she realizes her powers of suggestion have failed her!
My Name is John Carter [Part 19] By JAMES HUTCHINGS
Otis Stein by MATTHEW D. VEALEY, Art by CARLOS F. RODRIGUEZ
Check it out for some good fun adventure! There's more coming, including from yours truly, but it's not yet time to reveal what those are. Instead, please check out Star Wanderers (and leave a review) as well as Phantom Mission on the Patreon. It's been a busy year with quite a lot going on, so be sure to catch up if you're still behind. Because there's even more on the way!
Thank you for all your support, and I will see you next time!
Welcome to the weekend, I hope it's been a good week for you. Here is a last minute change of plans! I was not expecting this, but a perusal of my spam folder (if you sent me something and I didn't answer you, this might be the reason!) showed me a message from the creator of today's project. Stick around, because this is a good one!
Today we're covering a brand new fandub of the classic anime Zillion, a series that I covered on Wasteland & Sky ages ago. However, I believe the edition I covered is out of print now that Funimation has been absorbed by Sony. If you haven't seen the series, the first two episodes of the new fandub are up right now and as good a time as any to get into it. You can find the channel currently hosting the project here!
For those who need a refresher, Zillion was one of the original modern multimedia projects back in the day, being a light gun game by Sega on the Master system as well as one of the first anime produced by Production IG (in cooperation with Tatsunoko Productions) and is a great old time. Though a late '80s production, it has a sort of warmth and excitement to it that ran through anime in the '70s into the '90s before dying out in the new millennium. The series also holds up very well today despite not being very modern. That just helps it stand out all the more.
So what's Zillion about? One word: Adventure!
It's the future and humanity is expanding out into the galaxy. An unstoppable alien force has emerged out of nowhere, threatening our very way of lige, and now humanity's hope rests in the skills and quick trigger-fingers of a group of good-natured teenagers with attitude. With their super guns, ATVs that turn into mecha suits, and episodic adventures featuring exciting and inventive action set pieces every week, join our main trio as the get closer and closer to saving humanity and get better and better at doing just that.
They don't make 'em like that anymore, and, to be honest, they were already starting to turn away from making them like that even when Zillion was around and doing well. Regardless, this series is an easy recommend, especially for kids, and has a vibe that anyone can get into. The series is just unbridled joy and fun to watch with a surprisingly high production value and animation quality for a show that only ran slightly longer than a typical anime season of its time. Perhaps its multimedia origins helped it stand out, but it also helped it age very well.
Give the series a chance. It's still a great watch today.
The second episode of the brand new fandub is below. If you sub you can even watch more as they come out in the future! Unfortunately the original series is not available for streaming, and with Funimation gone the physical release is certainly out of print and not being released again anytime soon, so who knows if there will be another way to watch it in the near future. As well all know, streaming is not a good way to preserve anything as it is, so options are dwindling for a lot of things that should be much more easily preserved. Anyway, I digress.
That's all for this week! As a writing update, I just received an acceptable from two different magazines and will talk about those when I can. At the same time, there is one chapter of Phantom Mission left for next week, so get on the Patreon and catch up!
At the same time, I just put the cap on another short story that will release in the future. It's been a productive time. I've got a few more I want to finish off for the end of the year, so send some prayers out that I'll be able to do it. We all know as we get into Autumn that things start to get trickier both weather-wise and in other things.
Lastly, I just put out a new episode of the podcast for backers, as well. This one is on Y Signal and '90s Nostalgia. I talk quite a bit about how they mix in the episode here. If you ever wanted to know more about the behind the scenes on that weird tale, this is the place to hear it!
Thanks again for your support, especially in this tenth anniversary of Wasteland & Sky! I never thought we would be around this long back when I started, so it's very humbling to see that not only are we still around, but still thriving at the same time.
There's also a lot more to come, so stick around, and just wait! You're going to love it. We've only just begun.
This week we're going to take a look at the newest big book sale created in time for Based Con! There are a handful of these sales a year, and few that I'm involved in, so I thought I would point them out for those who might not have noticed. There are plenty of works on sale for this week and it is hard to go through and pick some of them out.
But I'm going to try and do just that!
Firstly, My book in the sale this time is Grey Cat Blues, one of my earliest (and in fact my second released), and was the one that fundamentally changed how I saw writing. For those who missed it, I recommend now as the jumping on point.
"Siege on the Shadow Planet!
"Ex-punk Two Tone is left for dead and his friend is taken. His assailants: men of mud from some place darker than Hell!
"The inscrutable Sarpedon has slithered from the depths to rule a planet that has long abandoned hope for a better tomorrow. With no one to stop his spree of violence, it is only a matter of time before Two Tone’s world is overrun.
"Old friends and a mysterious beauty gather by his side, but are they enough? Is it too late for this dying world? If all cats are grey in the dark, will anyone see the panther stalking its prey? Two Tone will find the answers the best way he knows how—through his fists!
"Grey Cat Blues tells the tale of a distant planet at humanity’s end. In this place, a man must choose between love and hate. And where his choice leads him might not be where he expects . . ."
This one is pretty fast and action packed. I'm still amazed at how much I packed into that one. Be sure to give it a go if you haven't, and leave a review! Let others know what you thought of this strange book of mudmen on the rain planet.
But enough about me. Let us now go through the above list and pick out a few titles you might have missed out on. There's just so many to parse through I'm going to pick ones I have not covered in previous sales and in posts like this, so please be sure to keep an eye out if something strikes your fancy.
Also, some of the ones I mentioned in previous sale posts like this are on here once again, so if you missed out on those in other sale periods, I highly recommend picking them up this time. You never know what gem might slip under your radar. There's just so many to go through in the wild world of NewPub!
First let us start with a new school take on a classic adventure premise that was popularized by the king himself, Edgar Rice Burroughs! You can probably tell from the cover, but this one isn't exactly a typical premise these days. For this book, you have to set your mind to the classics. It's time to go to another world, or in this case, a brand new timeline!
I hope you like time travel, dinosaurs, and stone age madness, because that's exactly what you're getting in this one!
"Former soldier Andrea Herrera isn’t happy with where her life’s taken her. Specifically, Hell Creek, Montana, 65 million years before the present. As far as careers go, making sure the dinosaurs don’t eat her paleontologist clients comes in a pretty dismal second choice to serving her country. But when their time machine malfunctions, Andrea and her team are trapped in a timeline that shouldn’t exist with something a hell of a lot more dangerous than terrible lizards: other humans.
"Kidnapped by the stone-age descendants of a lost time colony, Andrea finds herself stripped of her technological advantages and forced into a war against the implacable armies of the Slaver Empire. Even worse, the Slavers have captured the time machine and the mission's one surviving paleontologist, using his futuristic weapons for their own ends.
"Andrea's only hope lies with the ferociously intelligent and violently insane tribal war-leader, Trals Scarback. Armed with his mystic sword, his trained velociraptor, and his herd of war-triceratops, this former slave has the resources and motivation to take on the empire. But can Andrea persuade him to see her as a partner rather than a tool for his ambitions? Only if she beats the barbarian at his own game and becomes the Tyrannosaur Queen."
You can find Groom of the Tyrannosaur Queen by Daniel M. Bensen here!
As an example of exactly the kind of breath of fresh air that NewPub can give you, I would like to point out this work by author M. D. Boncher, which is hard to describe without just pointing to the official description. Would you consider this typical boxed up siffy as we know it from OldPub? I can't say that you could.
Check it out below:
Enter a world with no stars… no sun… no moon… no Earth. Only “the Dream”…
“An imaginative, action-packed tale that reads like a vision. If you like a bit of cyberthriller in your sci-fi... you’ll enjoy this one.”
- Kerry Nietz. Award winning author of “The Dark Trench Saga” & “Amish Vampires From Outer Space”
Winston Harper is a sky trucker down on his luck. Years of numbing his past trauma has whittled away his reputation. Blacklisted and back to the wall, Winston’s only hope of survival is a no-questions-asked contract offering pay high enough to make him forget his own name. What could possibly go wrong? When the client changes the deal and imperial security crashes the party, he’s on the run caught between the empire and a rebellion. Hauling ten containers of contraband cargo, and guided by a mysterious femme fatale who holds all the cards, death may be the better way out…
Set in a post-apocalyptic future where the lines between technology and biology have become blurred, humanity survives on the remains of the solar system scattered about in a sky of endless twilight, ruled by an alien entity. Follow Winston Harper as he becomes entangled in the struggle against the cosmic empire and potentially, the secrets of humanity's lost past… and perhaps its future?
"Dreams Within Dreams" is the first novel in a rollicking retro-futuristic Sci-Fi serial merging cyberpunk and old school pulp adventure with a touch of neo-noir intrigue. It's "Flash Gordon" meets "Smokey and the Bandit" meets "The Matrix" meets "Talespin".
You can find Dreams Within Dreams by M. D. Boncher here!
For those who wonder just how much influence old school anime has had on some NewPub writers, I would point out the premise to Mech Bunny. Not that it is a bad thing, one of the reasons the medium caught on on this side of the world was how fresh it was compared to the stale atmosphere of OldPub at the time.
All you really have to do is check out the below and you'll understand why this sort of thing resonates with so many.
"Humans won the war against the Blues, thanks in large part to the neural link they stole from the aliens. Few people can use it properly, though, and anyone with the right kind of brain gets conscripted immediately -- even ordinary high school kids.
"All Sophie wanted to do was be a dancer. She definitely hadn't planned on piloting a sixty-foot ANGEL mech with only a cranky rabbit mechanic to talk to, or fighting the genetically engineered foxes and wolves that had turned on the humans once the aliens were gone.
"She’s lost count of the battlefields she’s seen, but this next one is the worst yet. Ordered to defend a crucial forward operating base on a volcanic planet, forces are stretched thin, so she’ll have only infantry and artillery support, no other ANGELs. One girl, one rabbit, and one giant robot up against creatures designed to be relentless soldiers.
"Creatures who have mechs of their own.
"Great."
You can find Mech Bunny by J. M. Anjewierden here!
Formerly a serialization, Rattan gets straight to the point, as all of Marquis' works do. Are you interested in high action in a far off place far from the mundane? Then this is exactly what you've been looking for.
Rattan is certainly no exception!
"Rattan was born to build.
"She’s even bolted together her own custom robot.
"There’s nothing she’d rather spend her days on…
"But she’s happy to to report to academy for her nation’s military draft of all second-born children.
"After all, isn’t a model citizen eager to serve her elites?
"She dives into the harsh tutelage of Master Koscha, willing to give her all to comrades and country.
"But when her best friend is murdered, Rattan is set on a path that she may not return from.
"Rattan is a science fantasy survival story for teens and up, with a melancholy vibe but no shortage of heart.
For a bit of a different selection, let us try some essays. And not just any essays, but those by the unparalleled John C. Wright! If one has spent any time reading his blog over the years then you know you're in for a treat with a work like this.
This book in particular covers wonder stories, so you know it's perfect for NewPub, never mind just this sale.
"Peek into the heart of Science Fiction!
"From John Carter’s Mars to that of C. S. Lewis, Science Fiction astounds us with wonder.
"Science Fiction Grandmaster John C Wright here presents essays on topics both deep and trivial surrounding the strange and wonderful worlds of science fiction and fantasy. Thoughtful, humorous, deep, or absurd, Wright travels the width of the cosmos and plumbs the deeps of eternity through the lens of simple space adventure stories to say what these flights of fancy say about life on earth, and the secrets hidden in the human heart."
You can find From Barsoom to Malacandra by John C. Wright here!
On top of the above, there is a new feature this time--a sidebar! Click on the sidebar and you can scroll through just the titles and click on them to be brought to their summary on the page and check the title out for yourself. It's a handy feature to help parse through the unbelievable selections on offer. Give it a shot and see for yourself! You might be surprised just how many gems there are, especially compared to the shriveling up scene of OldPub.
That's all for this post, otherwise it would go on forever, but I do highly recommend spending a bit of time perusing the sale for yourself. There's so much great work out there by so many talented writers that really do deserve the support. Judge for yourself by looking over the exciting covers and descriptions for yourself.
In the distant future, Earth is trapped in ruin from excessive decadence. The only thing that can break it out is discovering a truth long buried and forgotten. What are the Phantoms, and what do they really want? What is the secret to this state of decay?
What you are looking at is the trailer for my current serialized story, Phantom Mission. The music was composed by one Jacob Calta of 365 Infantry fame, who did a killer job. I wanted to get the vibe of the story off in a small minute and a half preview, and this is what came out. The full version of the track is available to backers on the Patreon, so if you want more you get it here. Trust me, the whole thing is a banger.
We are rounding the bend on the conclusion of the first part of what is looking to be three in the overall serialized Phantom War story. If you want to back to read Phantom Mission, which is the opening act, you can join the Patreon right now and have access not only to that, but also exclusive updates and podcast episodes you can't get anywhere else. While I'll still be posting here, backers will get more on top of what is usually released to the public.
If you want to read this ongoing epic before anyone else (because it will be a long time before I can get it out to the public), then be sure to back the Patreon today! It'll really help me in getting more material out faster for everyone involved.
In other news, as recently revealed to backers, I just passed 30 written short stories. That's a crazy number to reach, and I've still got more on the way.
As for any new news on that front, my story "Mirage Carousal" will be in the next issue of Cirsova coming out in September!
Mirage Carousal By JD COWAN When a coven of witches all but ushers in the end of the world, Nick seeks the one dissenter in an illusory wasteland of violence and degeneracy, offering redemption!
If you read my piece in Sidearm & Sorcery Volume 3 then you might recognize the name of the main character here! There is a good reason for that. If you have not read either I would recommend starting with Mirage Carousal first then moving onto What's it Like in There? in S&S3. The reason for that will become clearer once you read them both.
Related to new stories, I've also got a few more completed and submitted to different markets, but have no idea of their current status, so I will keep you posted when I am able to. At the same time, I'm also working my way through other pieces, as well as the sequel to Phantom Mission. There's quite a bit on the way.
And I've got even more on the way.
I guess it was little more than a small update today, but I think it's a solid one worth sharing. The year's not done yet, so keep an eye out! You're bound to see a few more surprises before it's up.
Welcome to the weekend! Hope it's been a good week for you. I've been tinkering with a lot of stuff behind the scenes for various projects, so there isn't much to report on this week.
In case you missed it, Star Wanderers is out for everyone post-campaign! It's 8 stories of adventures between a galactic cop and a mysterious space knight. For those who read it, yes there will be more. In fact, I have some more in the can (one of which was released in Anvil #2, if you missed it!) and some yet to be announced. Aside from that, I do have other stories I'm working on, including a set I'm trying to get done ASAP for later submission periods. In fact, after this post is done I will most likely get back to them (unless something goes sideways, anyway).
On top of all that, Phantom Mission is still ongoing! We just passed an important reveal regarding the underground city and what the not-do-good doctor's plans might be for the future of this fallen place. Is the world really ending, or is there more to it all than we think? Catch up on this serialization by checking out the Patreon today! For those curious, I've also already finished up the first draft of the follow-up to this story (it's looking like it will all come out to be a total of 3 parts), so if you want to be the first to read it, sign up today!
That aside, for this weekend I wanted to cover a nearly forgotten time in internet history--early YouTube. It might be hard to imagine it now, but the first days of the site contained a very different world than the one we live in now. Said site was also tremendously more functional and less prone to backbiting and sabotage.
But I digress.
Before the western world became a series of shanty towns for subcultures spun out of control into cults and separated from the greater whole, the online world was once a window into what late 20th century life was rapidly turning into. Back then we were still mostly united and had very similar every day to day lives and experiences, and it shows when you watch early YouTube today. It might feel foreign to a kid today, but that's part of the point. That stuff succeeded back then because everyone could relate--not a hyper-specific minority of loud people.
It's hard to imagine now, but one of the earliest successes on the platform back then was the Angry Video Game Nerd (Originally "the Angry Nintendo Nerd") who mastered the early format of YouTube by keeping his videos short, concise, and relatable to the Gen Y teenagers and young adults hooking themselves up to the platform for the first time. He was THE star of early YouTube. His comedy videos focused on what it was like to grow up in the late 80s and early 90s, a world that was very rapidly disappearing, and filtered it through shared experiences in his work. His videos were very popular and more or less defined the early history of the site, even when doing battle with the diabolical copyright strike system of early YouTube who clearly had no idea what they were doing. When people say the early internet was the Wild West, this is the sort of thing they mean. It wasn't always as tightly controlled (though that is rapidly falling away) and formulaic as it is today.
This creator of the AVGN , James Rolfe, would eventually come to define what YouTube would eventually be used for, both good and bad, in the decade that followed. In essence, he was a pioneer of this new landscape and was the first to show others how it could be done.
Naturally, of course, this meant he would have many imitators and followers that would both ape what he did or go in their own direction using his example as a base. The most obvious example is Doug Walker, the Nostalgia Critic, who would instead focus on movies and TV shows from the past and rib them in a way similar to James.
However, there is a bit of difference to how it began Vs what it turned into. If you paid attention to a lot of early videos back them from either James or Doug, or their imitators, they would frequently discuss what it was like for "us" growing up and how "we" felt at the time these things were made. In a sense, they were speaking to their generation and communicating both tongue in cheek observations and stray thoughts their cohort had growing up at the time. It was never meant to be taken seriously, but to the generation who were ironically raised on their videos, it was deadly serious. They just didn't understand at the time how it would come to define them.
Before nostalgia became a weapon to either fire up subversives or traditionalists, it was entertainment itself. The above video focuses on just how many people at the time there were on the early days of YouTube trying to connect and express this discovery. At the same time, others were simply trying to get a piece of the pie for themselves. What "pie" that is, however, is not clear, since there was no monetization on early YouTube. There wasn't anything to gain except video views and attention. I personally believe a lot of this early fanfare was just an excitement that you could actually connect with others across the world on your shared interests--something you could not do before YouTube came into existence or the internet became more ubiquitous in everyday life. YouTube, much like the then-burgeoning social media, would change how the internet worked in the years to come. It would do this to the point that the world before it has almost entirely been erased.
I can't say whether that part of it was intentional, but there is a bit of bitterness in these spaces today that wasn't really there at the time. Getting drunk video responses arguing about how the original NES TMNT game was actually flawless from college kids showed just what sort of environment was. When that disappeared, much of the intent was lost. Instead of communication device, it became its own ecosystem.
It's a big goof now for the Millennials raised on the internet to lampoon or goof on the early days of what we have now, but it was taken surprisingly seriously at the time by the Gen Y teens and young adults who were trying to take advantage of this early landscape to communicate with their cohort. And despite how it would later turn out, it wasn't to share their love of the pop cult or let everyone know who world changing or terrible entertainment was--it was a desire to find your fellow wanderers through life and connect with them as the world was so rapidly changing post-9/11. It's hard to describe, or really get across today, but the site was very different before money and worldwide fame became a real factor.
That doesn't mean there weren't still coattail riders, though! Check out the above video and you'll see what I mean. Amidst the genuine angry reviewer wave of people like Armake21 (RIP) there were just as many who simply wanted to be James Rolfe with no idea of what made his material work. There is a reason few of them lasted beyond the early days of YouTube, though the fate of some is surely an interesting story in itself.
What is funny is that you can track the change and how fast it morphed by the time of the Blip.TV days with sites like That Guy With The Glasses to being an attempt at an industry that thrives off not only milking nostalgia, but tearing down the past. By the time the 2010s hit, that early vibe and optimism was lost to the growing cynicism and greed that would come to define many of the "Content Creators" to come. Different world, different priorities.
Related to that, the same user as the above video also made one that features an in depth look at how the Nostalgia Critic came to be, showing the change from the mood of early YouTube into what it would become in the process. He also gives some perspective as a younger viewer at the time and how he processed a lot of this Gen Y attitude that comes across as strange to many young people today who take it for granted.
I recommend this one as well, though it is much longer:
You can see a lot of DNA here in what would soon become the madness of 2010s YouTube from political wankery to the ever-prevalent "Us Vs Them" narratives that more or less run the site now. Do whatever you can for those extra dollars, just like what wiped out journalists in the mainstream media. Eventually even the "Content Creators" will suffer the same fate. It didn't start that way, though, and it's fairly obvious when watching early footage from when it began that it was never meant to be anything other than a lark.
And yet, here we are today.
Regardless, that old world is gone now. Though James and Doug still exist and are still successful on the platform, as we barrel towards their 20th anniversary as video creators (yes, we're that close), it seems clear that where we are now is not where we imagined we'd be back then. What exactly we imagined is still anyone's guess, but with how unstable formerly stable things have gotten, how the internet went from being a sure thing to being ready to fall apart at a moment's notice practically over night, it's strange watching a lot of this early material and remembering just how different it was back then--especially when you consider what happened to a lot of these people over the years and where we ourselves have gone.
When was the last time we could use the term "we" and feel like it could actually apply to a cohort? It feels like it's been ages.
Of course, none of that is ever coming back, but this current present also isn't forever either. No one really knows what's coming next, though I don't think we've ever been quite so uncertain about it before. This makes looking at a lot of this past work so fascinating from the perspective of the unstable '20s. We never saw any of this coming. Would things have changed if we had? Maybe. There is no way to ever know.
We were born before the internet was even a factor in anything. What will it be like when we return to that state? What will we have have learned and applied from this experiment that just didn't work out? I don't rightly know, but it is interesting to think about. Today isn't eternity.
That's all for this week. I hope you're keeping cool as we head into the final stretch of August. Summer is almost done, but we're not. There's still plenty to look forward to.
As you might have been able to see by last week's post, Star Wanderers is out mass market and available for all! At the same time as that, if you missed out on the soundtrack by the very talented Jacob Calta (who currently has a crowdfund of his own going on!) then you can find that right here. Personally, I think he did a fantastic job nailing the strange feel of the stories and making tunes that will stick in your head long after they've ended.
One last thing, I put out a new podcast episode, but this one is available for free. The reason for it is that the subject is very general to the point I think it would benefit anyone. The subject is about becoming a writer and just getting started. The idea was to create a free alternative to the plentiful How-to book industry that tends to throw out confusing and contradictory advice which waylays a lot of aspiring and beginning writers from starting proper. Be sure to give that a listen here. Again, this one is free, even though it's on the Patreon.
We also just past Chapter 10 in Phantom Mission and have passed the two third mark. It's just only starting to get wild, though, so be sure to join the Patreon and catch up! This is one the oddest stories I've ever written.
On topic, today's subject is a fun one. This is a video detailing the rise of the ninja archetype in film, starting from its beginnings in early Japanese cinema to its utter explosion and dominance of action films in the 1980s. It's a long video that goes over 150+(!) movies, so get your notepad handy. You're going to want to jot some of this down.
I can't really say what is it specifically about the ninja that attracts so much attention. Is it their mysterious nature? Is it how invincible they seem? Is it how they can be anywhere and seemingly do anything? Who knows. But they did make smorgasbord of movies about them over the decades and it doesn't seem like they're ready to stop anytime soon. Even the fall of action movies hasn't stop ninja flicks from coming out. They are truly immortal.
Anyway, it's a long video, so I recommend grabbing a snack, sitting back and lounging, and putting aside some spare time. You might be blown away by what you see.
August is only halfway over, and there's still a month of summer yet to go, but we've got some fun surprises coming up even still. I know I've got more than a few irons still in the fire (and yet others I need to get to after this post is out) so I will leave you here for today. As always, thanks for coming by! I really do appreciate it.
Have yourself a good week and I will see you next time!
In case you missed the Kickstarter campaign, Star Wanderers is now available wide! You can find it on Amazon right now. You can find it here!
This is a collection of eight stories featuring two protagonists wandering the far future where the cracks in reality are far more pronounced. What actually lies out there in the dark? Find out in Star Wanderers today!
The description:
Detective Ronan Renfield is a Galactic Enforcer sworn to protect the innocent and bring evil-doers to justice to maintain order throughout the stars.
The Agent is a nameless knight errant tasked with hunting the most brazenly wicked and blasphemous who threaten order and nature across the cosmos.
Alone, they face strange and diabolical horrors on backwater worlds and the corrupt and dangerous criminals who threaten civilization.
Together, they are the Star Wanderers!
This collection features eight thrilling tales of raygun adventure, swashbuckling sword fights, and cyberpunk mystery, including four never-before published adventures!
The Star Wanderers soundtrack by Jacob Calta is also available if you missed it! Find that here! Check it out. He did a fantastic job.
In other writing news, I've already writing some new Ronan Renfield stories since Star Wanderers was published, so you can expect a sequel in the future. I've also got a few others in the can which officially means I've passed 30 total short stories completed. I know, I'm a bit stunned myself.
In regards to the next book, Phantom Mission is currently serializing on the Patreon and we're about 2/3 of the way there. Join and get yourself first in line to read new chapters! Chapter 10 released yesterday and the next one will be out next week.
As an aside, I've also recorded a new podcast episode, and this one will also be for free members as well. It's a good chance to see if the podcast is for you, because we talk about subjects like this quite often.
Anyway, that's a short update on what's been going on.
In related news, Cirsova, who helped put out Star Wanderers is in the final stretch of their Wild Stars Kickstarter to both put out the next installment in the series as well as help fund for next year's stories. So jump in on that if you have yet to. There's not really much time left and they're about $300 away from the last stretch goal. You can find that here!
That's all for today! I'll see you this weekend for the usual. Until then, thank you for all your support and have a good rest of your week!
It's been quite a week. Here's hoping the weather stabilizes soon because it's been pretty rough in my neck of the woods. I hope it's been better where you are. If only I could pick one temperature and weather pattern and be able to keep it for a week straight that would be great. It's been a real pain to adjust to.
Before we start, I wanted to remind readers that both the next chapter of Phantom Mission is up for patrons and the next podcast episode is also out. Phantom Mission is on Chapter 9 and we're heading towards the climax at breakneck speed. In the podcast episode I talk about The Pulp Mindset for over an hour. It's close to the fourth anniversary of the book (Wow, it's already been that long) so I wanted to go into it a bit. You can find it all at the Patreon here.
For those who are curious about the podcast specifically, there will be another free episode of it in the near future to give you a better idea of what it's about for those who are still debating on joining. Regardless, if you enjoy talking and hearing about the world of art and entertainment it's a fun project to engage in.
That's all for that. Now, let us get into today's topic!
Part 1
We talk a lot about the art and entertainment of the late 80s and early 90s as sort of a transformative period, an era of uncertainty but hopefulness and experimentation before it melted into generic muck by the time the latter decade ended. For those of us who were born before the end, we experienced firsthand as we were growing this period that was almost instantly erased and paved over once the new millennium hit. However, it only stands to reason that as Gen Y, the last group that connected to that era, got older, we would also begin to forget as we aged ourselves.
And that's why blogs like this exist. We need to keep context, we need to remember what it was like, and we need to not be steamrolled by those who wish to throw out all that came before for the next trend. The only way to make good new art is to build on those who came before, and we can't do that if no one properly remembers what actually did come before.
So let us go all the way back to a period simultaneously the most cherished and most hated, the 1980s, as we begin this story. It's about that maverick generation, the one that faded away from the mainstream without a peep as the 2000s came along. Perhaps you remember them; perhaps you are one of them yourself. Today's subject is the lost Gen X.
You probably generally know who they are, but what you might not know, or remember, is their true legacy as artists. That image has been almost lost to time. Much of that disappearance has been a victim of intentional revisionism and self-mythicization from the cohort, but there is more to it all than you might expect.
The truth is that as Gen X kids were coming of age in the 1980s they were entering the art world and putting their stamp on it. They were going to outdo their Baby Boomer parents and take on the world, leaving their mark on it as they did so. However, that aforementioned stamp is not quite what the mainstream narrative sells it as these days. It wouldn't be as profitable to be honest about what Gen X was or what happened to them.
The video series we are discussing covers today's topic in its own story. The series is called "Gen X Hate Revisited" by a YouTube channel called Cartoon Aesthetics. This series is a three part exploration of that transitional time where Gen X kids, the last fully analog generation, came of age, put their stamp on the world of art, and then slowly faded away into the crowd almost overnight. Specifically, this series covers one artist as he rose to fame with his own creation during this very period and shows just how it all sort of fell away as time passed and the market shifted. In fact, his story contains the perfect encapsulation of that generation's story.
As someone born and labeled as a member of Gen Y (someone who falls in the crack between the fully analog Gen X and the fully digital Millennials), and was the first cohort who grew up on this of sort of material back in the day before witnessing it fading as the 1990s wore on to be replaced by bland corpo slop, I've always been fascinated with what exactly that group of young adults were trying to do. It wasn't as if you could ask them--Gen X were mysterious and cool, and prone to be embellish or talk around their own motives. If anything they truly are the unreliable narrator generation. Though unlike the Boomers, it's definitely a voluntary attitude they grew up with and put out of their own accord. They were the older brother generation.
Gen X weren't their parents, but, despite what the memes might say, they didn't full reject them, either. They weren't staunch traditionalists, but they also did not hate the idea of new approaches to old mediums. What they were doing back in the day had a lot of nuance that has been lost over time. What has been traditionally labeled as "cynical" in regards to this generation of so-called "slackers" might not have been anything like that at all.
At least, it didn't start there.
In the first part of this series linked above you can see the shift in comics, music, and, eventually, animation, as a younger generation filled with vigor and spirit to travel new trails took charge of industries that weren't yet subverted and locked up by washed up cliques. Truly, if you engage in Gen X art up until the early '90s you notice a distinct identity, an originality, that sticks out and puts its own unique stamp on the art world.
Then the growing swamp of pop culture noticed their existence.
The video series does a very good job tracing the changes of that transitional period as well as the attitudes of a lot of the people around at the time before self-awareness and ego took the wheel and sent everything down a path that would culminate in the dead-end known as Cultural Ground Zero. Of course, the series being discussed doesn't go into that mess, it's out of the scope of the subject, but it is fascinating to see some of the mentalities that would eventually lead their industries into the ditch before the 21st century hit.
A comic that perfectly encapsulate the uncertain Gen X era in question is the comic called Hate starring underground favorite character Buddy Bradley. This is a series about the young Gen-Xer in question as he moves away from home to Seattle in the early 1990s in the same period it all exploded to mass appeal. You might imagine how that goes. Though the writer was part of the cohort known as "Gen Jones" (a label rarely used today), it made his observations come from a slightly different perspective than you might think as he wrote his younger character living through the time period they all were living through at the time. It's a time capsule of an era few seem to discuss much anymore. Though perhaps there is a reason for that.
The second part of the series covers Hate itself more in-depth here:
Part 2
I recommend watching the videos for yourself, as it is a great look at a time period long gone and currently being sold as something it's not in order to both sell to Zoomers who have no context for it or for crusty Gen-Xers (and Ys) who have bought into the revisionism so they can consume more product and feel more important doing so.
The truth is actually not in the plentiful "Gen X is tough and younger generations are all weak" memes floating around like old Boomer jokes on Facebook, but in how they dealt with how rapidly the world was both changing through technology and, even though no one really noticed at the time, how it was breaking down socially. Things were "weird" and insane because the old ways were being forgotten and tradition and ambition was starting to fall through the cracks. It turns out it wasn't really a new era being born, but the beginning of the end of the old one. This is partially why it's been a subject of scorn and deliberate burial over the years since the '90s ended.
This is the trickiest part a lot of formerly Authentic (capital "A" like they would have wanted) Gen X era artists have when creating art today. They built themselves back in the day on Authenticity as the highest good and key to being Real, but so many have since bought their own hype and locked themselves into preset personality patterns that they forgot who they once were, where they started from, or why they did any of this in the first place, all to keep up with the Joneses of modern trends and attitudes. Their distinct identity is long gone and lost with the passage of time. I could name countless examples but I'm sure you can think of them yourself. There is no shortage of Gen X artists that have lost their edge for Safetyism and modern mainstream acceptability.
What the "Gen X Hate Revisited" video series does is present a good case with Peter Bagge's Hate just what that Authenticity would grow to be without the influence by artificial pop culture hype and untethered to nostalgic expectations of those who want this cohort to be a certain way in Current Year. Bagge remained authentic to his original vision and, as a result, managed to create a piece that works both well as both a time capsule and a series removed from it to stand on its own feet. You get to see that generation in a way you never really get to anymore and he does it by never forgetting where he came from in the first place.
This is mostly because, for all intents and purposes, as I hinted at before, that Gen X cohort doesn't actually exist anymore. Those people are all gone, the party's over, everyone got in line and marched in file out of town, into corpo world as the 1990s drew to a close. They deliberately made themselves irrelevant the very moment they could, almost like a final jest on their old image. Where they went, nobody knows, but the people left who still use that label are hardly who they used to be, and what they tend to be is unrecognizable to what the cohort once was.
So much Gen X art as a whole has simply vanished over the years and has since been absorbed into the safe muck of the ever-creaking corporate mainstream (See: Tim Burton. There, I gave an example) that it's hard to wonder if that Authenticity ever really existed in the first place or maybe it just needed a few bucks to be guided in the Right Direction. The question still remains: where did everyone go since the millennium pulled them all into a vortex of bland? Whatever happened to that distinctive identity? What did it become? Where are they now, and where are they going?
You might get some examples in the third part meant to wrap the Gen X Hate Revisited series up. You can watch it below:
Part 3
I'm not going to comment on the third part and will instead recommend watching it for yourself and coming to your own conclusions. There is little point making judgement on a generation that is still around and still young enough to really do anything or go anywhere. The point is more to see where they are now and where they might go while they still have the chance to do it. Baby Boomers might be locked in to their current path due to their age and inability to change. For Gen X, however, the road is still very much open.
I will say one thing before we wrap it up here, and that it is strange that the Authenticity displayed here, one that was so common with Gen X back at their peak, today feels even more like a relic of a generation that once refused to stay dead. They definitely aren't dead, but sometimes it feels like they were always meant to be, and clinging to the mainstream was the one way to avoid that fate. Does that make sense? I'm rambling at this point, just trying to figure it out. Regardless, they aren't dead, and they aren't done yet. No one really is. There's always a chance to change.
I don't want any of this to sound like I'm throwing stones here. Gen Y has done just about everything I talked about. Our "authenticity" was "objectivity" and leading the charge for materialism acceptance through long-dead trash like New Atheism. In pursuit of relevance and acceptable corporate trends to base our identities around we allowed ourselves to turn to bland inoffensive goo--our legacy is melting down in the 2000s to allow the current state of product worship to be the baseline in appreciating art and entertainment. We basically helped create the current monster of corpo slop worship. Anything negative I can say about Gen X can be applied just as harshly to me and mine. We have not been the preservationists we once saw ourselves as.
The generation that were the excited younger brothers of Gen X back in the '90s turned into wannabe Millennials, hipsters, and consoomers, over the last quarter century, clinging to dead childhood brands that are the last thing around to remember our existence from when we mattered. And all we want is to be left alone to die in the corner with as much cheap plastic crap as we can. What a glorious legacy that will be!
If anything, my generation is worse at all this. Gen X might have faded away, but we threw ourselves off the train before we even got to the stop we were being dropped off at. They still have much to offer, even today, that we could have passed on ourselves if we weren't too busy hoarding corporate products and useless baubles instead.
All that aside, it was an interesting look into generational trends of modernity. Nothing has really changed, it's just gone faster and faster beyond the speed of stability since the back half of the 20th century. Sooner or later (certainly sooner) the wheels will come off and the whole thing is going to derail and fly off a cliff. It's not sustainable, and everyone knows it.
Generations of people can't live separated from each other only to be disposed of when the next trend in line comes around to be cashed in on, rinse and repeat. There is more to us than what we can offer for some corporate monolith that doesn't care either way what happens to us. Whatever the future holds, it won't be in that. It can't be--the 20th century is over and that train is long out of steam. It won't always be this way, whether we want it to be or not.
But that doesn't mean there isn't plenty to learn from the past to help us carry forth to tomorrow. Even if the world ends, we can't stop. Art doesn't stop. We don't, either. We have to keep the torch alive and burning and continue passing it on. That is every generation's duty to the next. It will never change, no matter how different we see ourselves as.
Perhaps that's the question to ask in all of this. Can we keep that torch alive and burning, or are we destined to finally be the ones to fumble it into the ground and leave the future generations in the dark? Is there still time to adjust and recalibrate our aim?
