Weekend Lounge ~ Book Moralization

Welcome to the weekend! It's been a wild week. Time to unwind!

With the destruction of OldPub over the last few decades, many have wondered exactly what comes next. How do we get people to read again, and how to we change the image of the hobby being for anti-social weirdos who make the hobby their entire personality? That is a tall order, but we might be starting to have some answers for it.

The main goal to get people to read can only be accomplished if it seems inviting from the outside and is seen as a "cool" hobby to get into. Right now, reading is neither, and that is because it has turned into a clubhouse for people without personality. In essence, like everything else currently being destroyed, it is being run by fanatics that wish to be looked up at and considered purely because they engage (or are seen to engage) in the act of reading. This is because of the (false) image created by 20th century Baby Boomers mad about movies and video games who wanted Reading to be seen as Above and Beyond such low brow art forms. It didn't matter what you read (as long as it wasn't men's adventure, genre, or horror!) but the act of reading by default made you a more imaginative and smarter person than someone who doesn't.

I don't know how I can accurately explain this worldview that mutates into the clownshow you see today, except to watch any entertainment that features books from the 1970s or so to the end of the 1990s (when it abruptly ceased due to Gen X getting in control of entertainment). You will see the act of reading treated as a sacred act on par with attending Church, where as long as you read a book you will Get Smarter. It doesn't matter how, but it will happen. Therefore those who write books are not only smarter than normal people, those who read books, and a lot of them, is not only more informed and brighter--they are who who should inspire to be.

Of course we know now that this isn't true. This mentality lead to the Kid Who Reads, a midwit type of person who believe engaging in an act raises ones IQ and should be inducted in the high priest class because they Read Books. It's been a disaster for the hobby.

The above video highlights where this mentality has landed today in the modern climate. Books are seen as status symbols for Smart People, again, largely from lame Baby Boomer propaganda, and used as little more than as an aesthetic for Likes and Shares on social media. Reading has gone from a hobby based on imagination and wonder into being nothing more than another fad on social media. And it was never going to end any other way.

Check out the above video, and ignore some of the comments that miss the point, to see just how off track the hobby has gotten and how much work we have to do to bring it back. It's going to take some work, but it can be done.

What we have to make sure of is that we never allow arts and entertainment to fall to this level of shallow novelty ever again. The last thing we need is more disposable culture.

That's all for this week. I'll see you when we're deeper into November and hopefully the weather stops flip-flopping from one extreme to the other. I want my fall weather already. Enough of this in between nonsense.

Have a good one!

Have some fun this fall with the newest issue of Cirsova! I'm in this one with my story Mirage Carousal! Nick's got a motorcycle, an Uzi, and a town ran by magic ahead of him. Can he find his way out? Read on and see!

Weekend Lounge ~ Long Live Pulp

Welcome to the weekend! And welcome to November as well, I suppose. I hope you're having a fantastic All Souls Day.

This time I wanted to share a different sort of video than I normally do. I wanted to tackle the change in mainstream opinion on pulp happening in real time. 

We've spent a good chunk of the last few years going on about the importance of the pulp era while the mainstream narrative since the 1960s has been how much of a joke they were and how disposable the era was. Not only that, as per our old friend Sam Lundwall, they were poor pretenders of the past and it was their duty to correct the gross injustice of allowing readers to have their stories. They did this by cratering the genre into the ground and making their "genre" irrelevant and dead in the process. I'm not going to go through that again. If you've read The Last Fanatics, you already know all of that. If you don't, I highly recommend reading it to be informed on how we got so off track over the last century. You won't see the past of the old and dying publishing industry in the same light.

I've received quite a few arguments over the years in regards to that controversial book. From my harsh tone (actually toned down from the original article series), to repetitive arguments (fair, but then again that's what the work is addressing), to a hidden agenda to make "Science Fiction" Christian (an argument by paranoiacs who clearly have something they want to share the class), to more general and much more level-headed criticisms detached from emotionalism. However, one thing that can't be denied is that the "genre" is dead and the roots of its death go far back--back to before anyone currently alive was even born. And the problem can no longer remain unaddressed if we wish to continue. Thankfully, it's no longer how it once was. Attitudes have changed much in less than a decade, and they're poised to change even more in the rough times ahead.

It's about time we recognize this obvious sea change more outside of NewPub and even the industry itself.

And we are! It's just taken some time.

The pulp spirit lives in NewPub!

It's not 2017 anymore.

Despite all of that, my earlier book, The Pulp Mindset, was made to combat anti-pulp and anti-audience expectations in an industry that has been trying to control its readers (and failing) since the 1940s. That book remains in fashion because everything stated in it, despite coming out half a decade ago, is still very much true. The OldPub attitude is unchanged, to its fortunate detriment.

However, times have changed since I began publishing nearly a decade ago. I could talk about multiple things--the explosion of AI flooding submission boxes, the growing viability of serialized stories on the internet, and the slow death of amazon as a mega-platform mirroring the collapse of OldPub box stores, there are no shortage of changes reshaping the industry.

But one thing has definitely changed, one thing that can't be denied, and it was the one thing the Pulp Revolution was formed years ago to do. And they succeeded at doing it. Their mission was to prove to the world that the image of the pulp era was incorrect and deceptive, formed by anti-social weirdos to tar the writers and stories and ward off writers and readers away from them. This is undeniable. You can even go back and look at old articles from before 2018 on the subject and you will find they are slathered in dismissive and even insulting attitudes. This era was garbage and why would you ever read it when Fandom made the first good fiction starting in 1939 when they took over the industry? Just ignored that it inspired almost all the best things you like from the later half of the 20th century--they somehow convinced everyone that this was the way to go. All of these obnoxious attitudes were how pulp was discussed for about 70 years, and all it has lead to is declining literacy rates and leaving scores of stories out of print for weak reasons.

This isn't the case anymore, however. The above video is one by an internet video maker who more represents the common opinions of this sector of the industry. You can tell by how he describes what he likes and why he likes it. This isn't an insult, this is why it is important. Listen to how he talks about the pulps beyond What Everyone Knows (which is now accepted is incorrect) and how he becomes engrossed in a world gatekept from him from nearly three quarters of a century. He also, correctly, links it to the stale nature of OldPub and how safe, toothless, and generic, so much of what is pumped out feels today. How did they manage to make it all so different? What happened to the wild and the weird? And how can we get it back?

It's a good video because it's one that would never have been made a decade ago. I know that for a fact because we've talked about such things on Wasteland & Sky before. The vibe shift and mood change has been quite the pleasant surprise and proof that the Pulp Revolution was a success. The industry will never be the same again.

I recommend the above video. It's surprisingly good and coming from an angle you might not expect. It also shows just how much the industry has changed in such a short time. At this point, just thinking where it will be decade from this is even more exciting.

We're finally on our way. The era of the Fanatics is over.

That's all for this weekend and I will see you next time! November is finally here, and the end of the year is a stone throw away. Surprises are still on the way.

Long live pulp!

My story, "Fade Away to Anywhere", will be in the upcoming issue of Silence & Starsong! You can see the issue here!