New Release ~ Rock and Roll Mercenaries!

Find it Here!

This one has been a long time coming!

Today I'm proud to announce the official release of Rock and Roll Mercenaries anthology edited by Mistcreek Publishing, This brand new book contains fifteen exciting stories of hard rock adventures all inspired by and/or centered around the art of rock and roll music. Both a throwback and a tribute to the greatest musical style of the 20th century, and an inspiration to all the above writers, this is the kind of thing that could only come from NewPub.

You might recognize the above authors from various different projects over the years, but they all share two things in common: a love for pulp-inspired adventure stories and of the art of rock. Both of these aspects come together to form an anthology that is a celebration of two of the greatest things to come out of the 20th century as well as a look towards what might be laying in wait on the road ahead. As the world is getting gradually more and more reenchanted with has been lost by those in charge fumbling the ball, one has to wonder just how much the stories and music we lost along the way might help guide our way forward.

As the band X once said, "We knew the gutter, also the future." Despite all the sad songs, the cocky rants, the blazing fury, the overindulgent behavior, and the goofball antics, there is a truth waiting there under the surface waiting to be discovered from this nearly forgotten genre of music. If Rock 'n Roll never truly dies it will be because of that wild and carefree spirit that lies deep within its chest: a celebration of the joys of life that will never stop beating.

My stories have quite a lot of musical influence to them, some of which are even directly inspired by the music itself, and my entry into this anthology is no different. In fact, NR LaPoint of Mistcreek was kind enough to generate a song to tell you about it!

Harmonica included!

If you recognized a couple of names in there, well, there's a good reason. This tale is a new entry in my Night Rhythm stories starring the band Three Wolves. I've written three stories before, each starring a different band member. You might remember Daniel, Jordan, and Edward, three guys in a rockabilly band driving across a forgotten backwater planet in a distant future on a world time seems to have forgotten. "Spirit Rock" is a novelette starring all three, as well as their manager, who find themselves in a situation more dire than any they've seen so far. 

You see, Three Wolves are a band that exist to revive a forgotten music style in a future where such simple joys are on the edge of becoming extinct, a world where even technology has been discarded for the shadows and the shade. The band got together after rediscovering such forgotten treasures and, not seeing a future for themselves where they were, decided to wander out into the world to share it themselves. It is their life's mission and calling.

The leader and guitarist, Daniel, is the one most in touch with the intangible hidden in the gaps of the world, always distracted by things he can't explain. The bassist and rational one, Jordan, is the romantic that desperately wants to see more than he can see and tends to get caught being the band spokesman. The muscle and drummer, Edward (don't call him Eddie!), is the blunt instrument who doesn't care if the threat is man or monster, but will push through regardless. Then there's the manager who is in it to give the boys all he thinks they are owed, even at the cost of his well-being. Learn more about them all in "Spirit Rock", the grandest and best of these stories so far.

The way this story came together was rather simple. I wanted a tale that brought all these characters into the driver seat and gave a reason they would all need to act individually in a crazy situation. What better excuse than discovering a legendary town on the coast that was rumored to have up and disappeared one day? Why did it vanish? Was it even real in the first place? If so, what could possibly exist to destroy it all? What is waiting out there in the wilds of this backwoods world?

And how can a bunch of dudes that can only rock do anything about it?

Suffice to say, music is powerful. The band knows it, but its not a weapon to them: it's a way of life. That said, as Silver John taught us long ago, there is power in the audible that isn't quite understandable for those limited by their immediate physical sensations. And yes, this series of stories was very much inspired by those very stories written by Manly Wade Wellman. The difference is that I wanted to bring about the mysterious and powerful force of 20th century rock music in a place where its effects had been mostly forgotten and itself relegated to legend. Unlike the false advertising technique of selling rock as "rebellion" that's been a technique since the 1960s, I wanted to bring about rock's power to break tension and anxiety and strike through like a hammer through to the truth where emotions swirl about unchecked and entangled with hope.

Rock has been used as a weapon, an advertising technique, and an aesthetic, but I wanted these stories to cut to its essence of why it is so powerful. The depths of the blues, the warmth of the country, and the heights of the gospel, all inspiring to pick you up from the doldrums that threaten to ensnare you. Rock music consumed the music world for half a century for a good reason, and it is the same reason no other musical style can seem to replace it and never truly will. Much like how classical music has its place that can never be overthrown, so too does rock have a role no other can ever really fulfil, and I hope these stories can show how that might be.

[From L to R: Edward, Daniel, and Jordan]

I've never touched much on where the band itself comes from, but I don't think it matters as much as where they are going. The short story is they come from a small town like everyplace on this world, tucked away in a corner of the galaxy forgotten for progress among brighter stars waiting for better men, or so has been said. They are normal guys like you or me inspired to climb to greater heights than they thought they would.

Just like today we have younger generations taking inspiration from a past that was either demonized or deliberately buried. The main guys in Three Wolves find life in what was thought to be dead, finding light in what they were told was only darkness, and they have discovered adventure. In a sense, it is through the power, energy, and life, in the music, that they are able to discover more of who they are. Plus, it is eternally cool. What red-blooded male does not want to be cool?

But in "Spirit Rock" they have to face a different kind of forgotten world--one much different than the one they sought to discover. I could go a bit more into it, but I would much rather you read the tale for yourself. This is quite a fun story with a lot of moving parts (four protagonists will do that) and an ending that is the most outright cool I've penned so far. Of the four Three Wolves stories released, this one is my favorite so far. Read it and I think you will agree.

Are there more stories to come after "Spirit Rock" for the band? Yes, actually. I have one half written, another outlined, and a big finale I have yet to nail down. I like these guys and I want to see where their journey through the forgotten backwoods world takes them, and I would like to take you with me through these adventures.

Of course, Rock and Roll Mercenaries isn't just about me. It also contains 14 other stories by some top notch writers who love music and pulp-inspired adventure as much as I do. It's going to be a perfect summer read, too. Make sure you pick it up today!

Nothing can stop the rock!

Yes, the band put out an LP!

Chapter 13 of Psycho Mission just went up on the Patreon!

Weekend Lounge ~ Character Rot & Unchecked Ego

Welcome to the weekend!

It's been a bit since we did one of these, so I wanted to pick something of a bit more obscure subject to cover. This time I wanted to cover the current practice of character rot currently plaguing modern mainstream franchises and revivals. It isn't just an ignorance problem, it's an ignorance problem brought about by stubborn ego.

A lot of talk is spent about why so many properties forcibly change old things to "fix" them while a loyal cadre of people who got into it for what it originally was always complain about it. Contrary to popular belief, it isn't the customers who are wrong in these cases: it is the creators who willing ignore what they don't like or understand about the property and set about to "repair" its perceived problems. All while pop cultists who will consume anything let them uncritically demolish it because they too do not care much about the issue.

For an example of this very problem I suggest the above issue from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and franchise itself that has had one nasty identity crisis its entire existence, but only really became a problem when a certain sect of western obsessives got their foot in the door and started making demands instead of approaching the assignment with pure intentions. What you get is the mess above that completely misses the original intent of the project.

We go on a lot about how ideology is responsible for these trends, but the truth is that it all stems from an ignorant misunderstanding of a subject then, instead of correcting course, doubling down the way the ideology tells you to. In the end, it's ego. While artistic ego is real, when working with others one is meant to reign it in and collaborate to make the best of both worlds. At no point should you consider it carte blanche to run roughshod over everyone else and assume you are the final arbiter of what is right and good.

It's a strange narcissism that runs in this generation of creators that seems to be just about everywhere, even when it's completely undeserved. Whether in comics, TV, video games, and even books, there is a disturbing lack of humility to be found in it, even in something like an old stalwart property from the 1990s. Every 20th century IP is infected with this mentality now, and it appears to be completely inescapable.

However, what's not inescapable is the change in the independent spaces and NewPub. There you don't have to go through any of this decay because it's all owned by the original creators who have no aspiration to sell out to a dead industry for a quick buck. It's about building, not cashing in and going home. We have a duty to create, and we're going to do it.

In other news, there's a new podcast episode on the Patreon. This one is over an hour long and is about tertiary characters and creations and how they matter more than we might think. I also go on a bit where I think the industry is heading beyond this modern rut. It's an exciting one!

We've got quite a lot to look forward to.

Thanks again for all your support, and I'll see you next time!

15 Tales of Hard Rock Adventure! Preorder now!

Ready to Rock?

Find it Here!

I told you a bunch of news was coming!

The first thing I wanted to announce is that today marks another new free episode for the podcast on the Patreon. In this one I talk about the Post-Geek mentality we're going to have to decide on in order to move from the crumbling culture we're currently clinging to.

If you want more, join the Patreon for more episodes as well as the ongoing Psycho Mission serial and other goodies now and to come. I make sure to give you as much as I can for the support you give me. Believe me, ever little bit helps.

Next, you might have noticed the above advertisement. The next project I will be in is the Rock and Roll Mercenaries anthology out later this month! It's a book containing 15 adventures based on the music, spirit, and legends that formed out of the genre over its half-century history. The eBook version is up for preorder now, and even includes a custom soundtrack made for fun (which is also free!) based on the stories included.

For those curious as to what is the "tracklist" or the author roster for the anthology, I have included a helpful graphic below:

A lot of great writers included in this project. I'm excited to read it all for myself when I get my own hard copy. Until then, you can preorder the digital version here.

My story, "Spirit Rock", is a new Night Rhythms story, one that's been in the works for awhile. For those who don't know, I've written three stories each starring a member of the band Three Wolves before. "Black Dog Bend" from StoryHack #5, "Living Land" from Sidearm & Sorcery Volume One, and "Mad Wind" from Pulp Rock, each starred the bass player, the drummer, and the guitarist, respectively. the goal  was to show different aspects of this backwoods forgotten world where the unknown awaits around every corner. "Spirit Rock" is the sequel to all three of these, though you don't need to have read them to get it for yourself.

So what's it about?

"Spirit Rock" is a novelette that stars all three of the protagonists from those stories, as well as their manager. The titular Spirit Rock is a legendary town from when humanity touched down ages ago that was said to have disappeared into thin air. A beautiful woman arrives to tell them that it does in fact exist. But is she telling the truth, or is there more to this than she's letting on? What is the truth of Spirit Rock? You'll have to check out Rock and Roll Mercenaries to find out!

I'm proud of this one, as it's been a story I've had in my back pocket for some time without any real way of getting it out to readers, until now! If you like adventure, wonder, music, and myth, you'll definitely dig this one!

The commercial!

Whether it's the Patreon or an anthology of rock stories, or other things I can't reveal yet, there is plenty of stories of adventure to be found.

Rock n Roll might be dead as far as culture is concerned, but there is remains a power and mystique to the genre that has managed to last and influence the way we see things. As the hedonism and arrogance that had once encircled like a boa to crush the life from it fades into memory, what remains is a power and passion that cannot be replicated in the same way elsewhere. Art is immortal, reaching for something higher than the here and now, and of all the 20th century arts that have died in the transition to the 21st, it still retains that strength, remaining even as the worst of it fades away. And I think this anthology helps show that.

While times are changing there are truths that never will. Even if rock n roll wasn't destined to last, what originally drove its creation, its evolution, and its tenacity, over the half century it was a powerhouse, cannot be understated. There will never be anything else remotely like it, and that's probably a good thing.

But that also doesn't mean it's going away anytime soon. Rock n Roll, despite its irrelevance for nearly two decades now, still inspires and still exists on the fringes, which is the way it was always destined to end. It started in a garage, and that's where it should end. When a bunch of teenagers with more free time than sense decide to make some noise, they are telling us all the spirit will never die. And that's a fitting end to its legacy.

Thanks for reading! I know this post isn't the typical one we get around here, but I thought it was a necessary one. Times are changing and I still really don't know what that means yet, but I'm going to go with what I know regardless. What else can I do?

Rock on, and I'll see you next time!

The song based on my story! Be sure to read "Spirit Rock" in Rock and Roll Mercenaries, up for preorder here!

Lets Go for a Ride!

Find the project here!

Welcome back, everyone! Have I got a special post for you today.

We've been talking a lot about fresh ideas and new blood in the entertainment space. It's easy to point out defects and flaws with the way things are now, but few ever try to point out solutions to move forward. This is mostly because there isn't a one-size-fits-all answer. The fact of the matter is that we are more divided than ever, and creating art and entertainment that can link us together is a much more difficult feat than ever.

The only thing to do is to work for it. It's just a natural consequence of the state of the modern world. Without shared culture, it's more or less a free for all.

But one thing the state of things allow for is new ideas and new approaches to art in a way we never considered before. See today's example, one I wanted to highlight for myself, that being Jacob Calta's 365 Infantry project. It's quite ambitious, so I'd like to talk about it today, because I don't think anyone is really giving it the views it deserves.

I first caught attention of creator Jacob Calta floating around PulpRev and Iron Age spaces, a creative guy with a lot of love for art and entertainment and a million different ideas rolling around in his head. Not only does he also compose music (I hired him to not only create the Star Wanderers' themes, but also for the ongoing Phantom War serial on the Patreon, for a very good reason), but he is also a writer of action, adventure, the weird, and everything in between. so when I discovered his project, 365 Infantry, I was surprised with its scope and ambition.

The best place to learn about it would be on the official site here, so I will also include some choice quotes as well as the above primer video for newcomers. There is much to discuss.

"365 Infantry is multi-narrative digital magazine like no other. It concerns the many friends, foes, and dangers of the 365th Infantry, a fighting force for freedom waging war on A.C.E.S., a computer network gone mad with power in the last city on Earth. The series stars a cast of hellraising wolves and their magnificent machines as they take on all manner of dastardly villains and bizarre creations in a future of post-atomic anarchy and technological tyranny.

"Born from classic sci-fi, film noir, westerns, and more, 365 Infantry tells of paradises lost, psychological torture schemes, gruesome frontier justice, and at the heart of it all, a war with a computerized goddess, all realized through vivid prose and striking illustrations.

"The series is broken up into five “branches,” covering two serials, two episodic stories, and one anthology, with a wide cast of fun and unique characters exploring this strange anthro future through pulp thrills and thought-provoking concepts and storylines."

Welcome to 365 Infantry!

At the heart of the project is a world where the machines have won, chaos reigns, and all that remains to fight it are anthropomorphic wolves who love of guns, bikes, and being cool. there are different main strands of stories for the project, but they can be overwhelming if you are new to it all. I knew I was a bit flummoxed where to start with it.

However, there is a simple answer. You can either read the serials on the site, or you can do what I did and buy the yearly anthologies which include all the stories released that year in order and you can read it for yourself without getting lost in the weeds. The very first collection is not only available for purchase on amazon, but it's also available as an add-on for the Kickstarter.

Yes, that is the highlight of today's post. Mr. Calta is looking to grow his project and keep it going, and the easiest way to do that is to introduce new readers. Jump right in and enjoy them all, or pick the style that most suits you. Whether it be the war against the machines, urban chaos and violence, or high speed action, each strand has its own character. However, the main character is the setting and figuring out just how all of this fits together.

If you are interested in dipping your toes in for a quick read, I might recommend the one that first caught my attention called Acc Cult. It gives a good framing of the world, the threats, and the sort of thing one has to watch out for in this wild world. It's also a very quick read.

And then after that, you can check out the Kickstarter here!

It's an entire world of action and adventure to explore (there's even an audiobook radio show!) which has no shortage of stories to dig into and explore. As someone who has been following Mr. Calta's progress for a long time, I asked if I could write a post to highlight his project, and I hope I am doing it justice with everything I've showed you so far.

Truth is that the world is an exciting place with much wonder to discover, and it feels like our art used to reflect that more than it does now. With the limiting shackles of outdated genre expectations holding us down we are free to do anything, and yet we choose nothing most of the time. I for one would like to highlight a project that instead does everything.

And you do have everything. There are many different tiers available in the project's Kickstarter, all of which offer many stories for you to enjoy. Explore for yourself to choose what looks most interesting, though I personally recommend the yearly collections as the best place to begin. you will also see Mr. Calta grow as a writer along this journey with us.

Whether you prefer physical, digital, or subscription, you have your pick of format. As said, there is much to choose from!

There is something for everyone.

That's all for today! Thank you for letting me share this project with you and I hope I successfully showed a side of the NewPub sphere you might not have considered before. There is a lot out there, much to sift through, but much more than we could have imagined even a decade ago. 365 Infantry is a result of this new space.

With over three years of stories currently out and about there is no shortage of 365 stories, so take a look and see what satiates your curiosity. There's simply too much to go over, even in a post like this. All I can say is to just dive right in!

Back the 365 Infantry Kickstarter here, and have a blast. It's a good time. That's all I've got today so I'll see you on the next post!

There's a lot of cool stuff on the way! I can't wait to show you when it's time.

Check out the Psycho Mission serial on the Patreon! We've just reached Chapter 7. Join and get the first book as well as a slew of podcast episodes and extra posts!

Weekend Lounge ~ The Cost of Flops

Welcome to the weekend!

We've gone over slop enough recently, so lets talk a bit about what happens when you rely on it for so long that it destroys the very industry you operate in. The above video from Red Letter Media decides to wade into the obvious reality that Hollywood is dying. Their conclusions might be different than some, but it is still very obvious as to what is happening.

The "success" of the Minecraft movie is a very telling one, and also depressing to think about for those who enjoy the artform. It is essentially a Snakes on a Plane, but successful. In other words, it's a movie that has made money due to the death of the medium.

for those who don't remember, Snakes on a Plane was a bad movie that had no marketing budget except to try to reel in folks with how bad it was. The entire marketing campaign was a meme before memes. You didn't want to see the movie to enjoy a quality product or have a good time at the cinema. They wanted you to watch something bad and give them the privilege of handing them money for it. It was an "intentionally bad" movie before that trend got kicked off. In essence, it was ahead of its time in a lot of ways.

However, it bombed. The mainstream audience still wanted good movies. They still wanted quality and effort put behind it. It was a sign the industry still had life in it because the audience still had expectations for the industry. They no longer do.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Minecraft Movie is only popular because it's a meme that people want to laugh at. They're going to the theater to trash it, to run roughshod over the place, and to cackle ironically at the product made to entertain them. I am not even discussing the quality of the movie itself: as RLM above shows, this is who is seeing the movie and this is the reason they are going to the theater. This is a sign of a dead medium.

As we've also discussed before, there is a lot of issues internally, as well. Sound design is a mess. The masters are retiring and dying off without sharing their secrets. CG is decaying despite requiring more people than ever before (to also work even longer hours). The overreliance on ancient IP is wearing out its welcome, even though nothing new is being made that can seem to connect with audiences. All of this is a sign of an industry that has lost the plot and has no idea how to move forward. That's without going into how those inside the industry appear to have no connection of understanding of their audience at all anymore.

It's all just a giant cluster of confusion.

On top of it, as they also report, the other movies on the highest grossing films of 2025 (so far) list, are all bombs. None made their budget back, and considering how much they spent to be made, breaking even wouldn't even be enough. All of this is the clearest pattern of a dead industry on the way out. It could have been avoided, but we are past that point now.

No one is going to the theaters for "Hollywood Magic" anymore. They are either going to laugh at it, or not at all. They are attending IP farm entries less and less, and walking away at increasing rates. Not even the overseas market is interested like they once were. It is a sign of the times and another market that the 20th century is over. We aren't going back to where we once were ever again. All we have is what lies ahead. And we have no idea what that is.

And for those who keep pointing excitedly to their own TVs in the comfort of their own homes: There's still no money in streaming. No one has yet to figure out what a hit is or how to even measure it. They will continue to strike over this issue, but the bigger problem is that there isn't any feedback on the level of the box office or Nielsen ratings for streaming. Especially not in the online space where bots and paid agents clutter social media space. These are glorified ads more likely to annoy potential audiences than anything else.

All of this is also without going into the loss of shared culture. There is no reason to watch something you aren't sure if you're going to like if there's no one to talk about it with. What's the point? Water cooler talk has changed.

In fact, everything has changed. That is how the passage of time works. While the world we grew in is long gone, so is the world of even a decade ago. Old systems are falling away and will eventually leave the field clear for new ways going forward.

We're going to have to explore it ourselves, it seems. That's fine. There are plenty of excited creatives in indie spaces willing to do what they can to entertain you instead. until we figure out how to rebuild again, this is our best bet going forward.

Personally, I have the Psycho Mission serial currently ongoing at the blog (with a just-released podcast episode about it here!) as well as other projects on the way. But I'm also just one of many working as much as we can in a landscape with no real direction forward. There are plenty of others, including one below I'd like to end today's post on.

I would once again like to thank you for reading. It's been a long ride so far with no clear destination ahead. I appreciate you joining me as we figure out our path through the wasteland. Hopefully one day we'll find the way out.

Until next time!

For something new, check out the 365 Infantry project! Wolves, motorcycles, guns, robots, and the apocalypse! There's nothing quite like it!

Weekend Lounge ~ Today the Slop, Tomorrow the World

Welcome to the weekend!

It's been a bit of a weird couple of weeks, and I've spent it in a little bit of shock. This is mostly because I did not realize how much the entertainment industry has deteriorated behind the scenes in such a short time. It's actually amazing to look at, and I wanted to share some of what I've seen today. (Hat tip to Pipkin Pippa and her viewers for some of this knowledge. Their ability to discover cringe kino remains undefeated.)

We've talked a little about what slop is and why it's here, but I don't believe we discussed how it's going to be like living through the era of entertainment its going to bring forth. Long story short, it's going to be around longer than you'd prefer. It's going to change everything, while changing absolutely nothing at the same time. To explain how will take a bit.

For a good summation of how things are now check out the above video. It isn't going to stop there, either. Just as we've accepted deteriorating standards in entertainment over the years, we're eventually going to accept the very things we used to laugh at as parodies on old Mad TV and other sketch shows of the 20th century as normal. It's not just a joke anymore. Now it's real.

We wanted it, and now we've got it.

Again, the era of slop did not fall out of the sky. Audiences did not decide overnight they were fine with automated beltline production fashioned around the shallowest of tropes and clichés to be consumed and then disposed of instantly for the next. They were trained to be that way for decades by an industry that wanted walking wallets instead of patrons. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of art at the heart of it.

Do you want to see what entertainment is going to become? Watch the video below. Do not skip around, do not stop early, and do not turn down the volume: give yourself the true experience of the future and watch the entire thing. This is the exact product the industry has been striving to fashion for decades as it normalizes lowering standards in both creativity and production quality. This is the future of slop.

This isn't a joke. There's no punchline here. It isn't a parody channel or an old sketch from when comedy shows were relevant. This is a real channel with over a quarter of a million subscribers on YouTube, and this is the level of content they produce. This video is only one example of it.

The channel in question isn't alone, either. There are plenty of others, some of which make similar product based on web novels that span hundreds of chapters. Yes, authors are also responsible for the state of things as they are. We can't just excuse it with the desire to "get paid" when we are contributing to things like the above existing and being normalized. Creating is about more than just making money. There isn't any attempt at connection here, just trope lists checked off (or subverted!) to give the audience the bare minimum to swallow before moving on to the next thing on their playlist. It's deliberately designed to be forgotten.

We don't want to admit it, but this is the future of the entertainment industry. We are pushing towards this every day we accept a Borderlands movie or an Avatar sequel. Accepting the bare minimum is not making anything better, and we know this, but we don't seem to want to do anything about it. We've been trained to excuse a downhill slide as an all or nothing proposition, as if the people in charge own us lock, stock, and barrel.

This is the future we chose.

And to be honest, it might be too late to do anything about it now. The genie is fully out of the bottle. It isn't about AI: it's what lead to AI being used in the first place. No one actually cares as long as it gets them their content faster. That's a truth we have to accept, and one we've allowed become reality. It can't be escaped. It has to be faced.

This is what a growing number of audience members want to consume. This is the direction we want to go in, as an audience. It's just slapped together clichés, vague characters and ideas, and the lowest possible quality threshold. What's worse is that they even have member's content.

I'm not kidding. Here is the only comment on the above video:

This is the future of mainstream entertainment.

We all know this, even if we won't say it out loud. It's a completely avoidable future, but it requires the sort of effort we simply do not wish to engage in. That is what makes it inevitable. The slop future is just ahead. 

I wish I had a more positive end result to tell you, but we all know this is the end of this road. It doesn't go in any other direction than this one. All we can do is push for more and support those who wish to do as much. At the end of this road lies normalized slop, and it's getting closer every day. Letting Hollywood take your money is not going to fix it.

In fact, they will make it even worse. They already are.

Unfortunately, that's just the way it is now. Who knows what the future holds from this point forward, but it will only change if we push to change it ourselves. Simply waiting for the old dying industries to wake up is a losing game. We either more forward together, or this continues, and the slide down into the slop only becomes more pronounced.

The future is up to us, so lets build it together. We have to work forward to create something else: a new way forward. I believe we can do it, together.

Have yourself a fruitful Easter and I'll see you again soon!

Psycho Mission is currently running! Check out here!

Psycho Mission is Go!

Find it Here!

Finally, it's begun!

The next instalment of the Phantom War series, Psycho Mission, is now starting on the Patreon. Join now and you can catch up with part 1, as well as get the full version of the track composed by one Jacob Calta, on top of the near 20 episodes of the podcast. Quite the bang for your $5. Right now, three chapters are up, and will be coming two a week until we reach the end by May. Join up now, because it's going to be wild!

After the events of Phantom Mission, Menace Beach has only deteriorated further with the gangs now turning even more violent. A large group called the Dead Heads are now throwing their weight around, demanding loyalty from the others. They even arranged a big brawl to decide which gang gets to be king of the city!

But is that all there is to it?

Trash is a member of the 47th Street Psychos, a young man with no way out but through. With a collapsing city, a mysterious girl missing someone of her own, a detective with more guts than sense, and a creeping menace hiding in the shadows, can he fight against a world that wants to exterminate itself?

And why is the sky rumbling?

The Phantom Mission is over.

The Psycho Mission has begun.

Read it here today!

Chapter 2 is already up!

As you can tell, I haven't posted much recently because I was trying to get all of this together. After this instalment, there is one more book to go, Final Mission, which I have only begun outlining. In the meantime I am also planning for a crowdfund for a physical release of Phantom Mission. The plan for that is this summer. We'll see how it all shakes out!

In case you couldn't tell by the description, this series is my most bizarre one so far. There's a lot of action, a lot of weird, and odd turns I did not expect when I began this journey. As a consequence, the last book is probably going to end up longer than the first two. It's just unavoidable with how out of control it became.

I wanted to thank everyone here and on the Patreon for your support. It's been quite the journey over the years, and I never would have expected doing what I'm doing now without you.

At the same time, there are other surprises on the way. I have a book in the works with a publisher, a few short stories coming down the pipeline (and others still waiting for submissions to open), and of course the Phantom War serial. On top of it there is a big unannounced project I've hinted at before that is shaping up in crazy directions.

I've got a few more ideas for a serial after Phantom War is done, and there are many short stories I have to get to on top of it. you might wonder just what I could possibly do once that one finishes (Trust me, it gets nuts in ways I did not anticipate), but there is a plan. I might not always know what it is, but my muse seems to. Regardless, there's a lot of cool stuff coming up.

I hope you're having a fruitful 2025 so far. We're almost a third of the way through already. It's been a strange one, but it really does feel like we are in the midst of a shift. Who really knows what it'll be like when we come out the other side?

Anyway, have a good week and I will see you again soon enough. The next Psycho Mission chapter should also be released tomorrow, so look forward to that.

We've got a lot of surprises ahead! As OldPub crashes and burns, NewPub soars over the remains into a whole new world.

I 'm eager to see just where it ends up!

Read Psycho Mission (and more!) on the Patreon!

Weekend Lounge~ The Men Are Here

Welcome to the weekend!

Last time we questioned where the men are, so lets take a look at where they've gone. The above video continues the recent trend in the last few years of the return of adventure stories outside the mainstream. Where are the men? They're reclaiming what's been lost.

It's hard to understand if you don't know or remember what it was like back when I wrote The Last Fanatics, but at the time such things were not ever discussed. The pulps, fairy tales, penny dreadfuls, and basically anything that wasn't "approved" billion dollar corporate IP, was thought of as complete worthless trash with no value at all.

You'd have folk bragging about the "woman who wrote the original draft" of the Space Battle movie, but said people would never read a Leigh Brackett story, if they even knew what her name was. And of course Flash Gordon and the old serials are trash and valueless, because people who hate adventure stories told them they were years ago. No one ever confirmed any of this, it was just assumed to be true. The people in charge would never ever lie to you, after all. Right?

They did, though. I grew up raised on a lot of different forms of art and I never cared about age. I was as likely to watch Rocky & Bullwinkle as I was to watch the new (at the time) Spiderdude series. What mattered is if it was good. But we all know there was a push to declare "Kids wouldn't engage with old things" at the time, and it wasn't because they wouldn't. It was because those in control of said billion dollar corporate IPs didn't want competition. So they made sure they didn't have any, which ended up chasing a lot of normal people away. Though this isn't a new phenomenon.

But that kind of Big Lie doesn't last forever. As mainstream entertainment declined in the '00s before completely falling to pieces in the '10s, men still wanted to have fun and blow off steam. They wanted stories of exciting adventure and derring-do, of cool settings and strange places, and protagonists that weren't going to mop--they were going to do what needed to be done. Basically they wanted what had died when the men's adventure industry was strangled to death back in the 1990s and the Thor Power Tool Case obliterated the backlog of classic adventure stories in the 1980s. In the modern age there are really only two places to find it now.

The first is to scour used bookstores and online shops for old men's adventure books (like the above video goes into), digging for treasure that the mainstream doesn't want you to have anymore. The other is to go digging through independent and NewPub writers to find new stories in that vein that otherwise wouldn't be allowed to exist either. Regardless of which path you choose (I recommend both!) if a male wants to find an adventure tale to get his blood pumping, he is going to have to fight for it. There is simply no other choice if we wish to reclaim what was lost and build something new.

It's not going to be easy, but this is the point we have to build from in order to make a space for an audience that was more or less left behind over a quarter of a century ago. Remember that even mega-popular franchises like Goosebumps that did manage to reach males were also sabotaged and never explored by the publishers, because they just don't care. You will never find this material from any of the people in charge of OldPub. They do not want it.

And yet, it still exists. Not only as buried treasure from the past but also in the present. You only have to be willing to dig and your efforts will be rewarded. The important part is that we never give up, because only we at this point can't turn things around. No one else is going to do so, especially not in the dying industry being left behind.

So keep your chin up. The men are here, and they're staying. No matter what OldPub says or does, we're sticking around. Now to build back what was lost to show them just what they've lost out on. We can do it, because nobody else will. It's up to us.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time. Have a good weekend!

Don't forget to check out the new issue of Cirsova! Stories of cool protagonists, crazy settings, and wild action await you!

Weekend Lounge ~ Where Have the Men Gone?

Find the post in question here!

Welcome to the weekend! 

Today we're going to look into the question as to why males have been not only cast out of the book industry, but are actively ignored and looked down on as readers by those still inside. This is not a new issue. Where did all this hostility come from, and why is a growing problem?

First, I will direct you to author Kristin McTiernan's Substack and her recent interview with Louis L'Amour's son, Beau. It's quite an interesting read. If you do not know who Louis L'Amour is, well, then that is very indicative of the very problem we are facing today. Let us just say he is the top selling and most influential western writer of the 20th century (the only ones who come close are Max Brand and Zane Grey), and that he isn't as well known today is a sign of what we are talking about. There is an ambivalence, at best, to even bothering to approach half of the population as potential customers. That is not a sign of a healthy industry.

This isn't a new problem, but is one that is finally being addressed today after over a quarter of a century being blatantly ignored by the top dogs in charge of the old industry. Why don't mean read and why does an entire industry seem uninterested in learning why?

The above video attacks the most recent blow-up over the "Men's Fiction" problem and what to do about it. She isn't the first one to talk about this, not even recently, but it is a sign that more and more folks are waking up to the issue and wish to do something about it.

I recommend both the video and the interview linked above, but we all well know there is a bias against men in writing, specifically men who don't want to write for women or middle-aged urbanite women's grievance study pet projects. But this is the nature of OldPub and what it has allowed itself to become, which is a gatekeeper for letting in mediocrity at best above all else. They use their trope checklist-adled brains to check the right boxes both for the author their eyes are set upon and for the works they want to pump out to their increasingly microscopic readership.

This is who runs the industry now:

And they'll take their dying husk of an industry with them to the grave. There is no returning from this level of tone-deaf behavior. OldPub is dead and not coming back.

You might lament that it ended up this way, but that's how it was always going to be when the industry didn't select for intent, ambition, or sociability, only on those who faked it until they made it. Once said people got in, the mask dropped, the gates swung shut, and now you've been subverted. The only thing that happens now is terminal decline.

Should have kept vigilant! But they didn't, and now they are paying for it, swirling down the drain to irrelevance. It cannot be stopped now because there is no one in charge with the desire to change course. Like all cultists, the need to go down with the ship far outweighs the desire to turn before barreling into the rocks. This result is what they want.

Of course, this is all only if you're still focused on the old industry. OldPub is dead because old things die. It was always going to happen, we just didn't know how or when, and while lamenting about how it happened is natural, eventually we're going to have to accept it's gone, never to return. And at that point we will have to move onto something new and built on sturdier ground. Most of us already have: it's called NewPub.

So what is a good way forward out of this? Perhaps this response from McTiernan's interview with L'Amour's son should help clear it up:

And this is exactly the sort of thing that is going to carry NewPub forward into the future. There is no other way, if we want to both connect to the past and find a new road to travel down, then to use the last ideas that gave any sort of success as to how to reach abandoned audiences.

We have our path forward, and nothing is going to stop us. Especially, not anyone who still clings to a dead industry while pretending it is still vital.

At the end of the day, this destruction isn't anything new. We all know who is doing it and why, and they have no problem telling you themselves. Now that we know it, we can work to building something much better than what we're leaving behind.

And it's about time!

The newest issue of Cirsova is out now! My story, Void Railway, a tale of creeping terror in space and the Enforcer fighting against it, is included. Check it out to see just what NewPub has to offer!

New Release ~ Cirsova #22!

Find it Here!

It's that time of year again: the new issue of Cirsova is out! Not only is it out, I'm in this issue myself, and it's for quite a doozy of a story.

Before we get into it, lets get the issue summary out front so you can see all the talented writers and their cool stories in greater detail. for those curious, the beautiful cover is also drawn by Wistmoor. It's quite a packed issue.

Now, lets get to the stories:

Flight From Reckoning
(Part 1)
By MICHAEL TIERNEY
The Wild Stars hope to find some sign of their distant cousins beyond the Milky Way, humanoid races descended from other extragalactics! Rather than friends or allies, however, an ancient enemy lies in wait at the scene of a long-ago bloodbath!

The American Dream
By RODICA BRETIN
Kayla Blackmoon’s life is about to be turned upside down when Russell Morgan, a mysterious huckster politician, appears in her town of Dartmouth ready to promise the stars…

Salt Roses
By JIM BREYFOGLE
After her family is killed by merfolk, Aelia, a young diver, seeks out a legendary sunken treasure that is said to have the power to restore both emperor and empire!

Waegnwyrhta
By WILLIAM SUBOSKI
Ill-thought out regulatory changes catch up with the new Principal Administrator Waegnwyrhta when she finds herself stranded and at the mercy of her rescue crew!

The Siege of Verisa
By RICHARD RUBIN
The evil cult of Dewi has kidnapped Burke Fletcher’s wife Llana, forcing her to aid them against Baron Amalrik… whose Alchemist Stone Llana and Burke stole!

Void Railway
By JD COWAN
Things may not be all they seem on a routine escort gig when a mysterious woman approaches Galactic Enforcer Stone with a glowing gem and an offer of a side job!

The Demacron
By GARY K. SHEPHERD
A Peacekeeper on the Demacron, a hollowed-out planetoid that is home to a dwindling population of myriad species, must find a repairman who has gone missing!

Machine Dreams for Wired People
By JAIME FAYE TORKELSON
A family infiltration team is hired to break into a cybernetic AI factory to rescure the itinerant daughter of a wealthy benefactor before her mind can be liquified!

Cracking the Cyber Ziggurat
By KEVAN LARSON
A band of cyber pirates has been given the job of a lifetime: breaking into the central databanks of Abraham Kursk, one of the wealthiest men on or off the Web!

Paying the Doctor’s Due
By WILLIAM DRELL
Mickey Vance is due for a tune-up on his illegal military-grade wetware, but his doctor is dead! Can he and his doctor’s assistant evade a bounty hunter on his trail?

In the Last Days
By JAMES HUTCHINGS

A lot of great stuff, as usual.

For my story, you might have been able to tell, but it is another Galactic Enforcer story. This time, however, you might have noticed the main character's name is a little different. This is because this story introduces a few new characters into the mix that will be important going forward. Well, if they survive, that is.

The protagonist of "Void Railway" is Detective Brandon Stone, a giant lummox of a man who does not seem to take his job as seriously as our usual protagonist, Detective Renfield, and in fact has rumors going on about him. This is what causes him to be approached by the mysterious woman at the story's start and his personality clash against hired merc Shiro. But when the chips are down and the safety of the Railway and the passengers becomes in doubt, can he rise to the challenge, or is that Renfield guy really just full of hot air about things like this? You'll have to read it to find out!

The stories I've written in the Galactic Enforcer series so far have been more or less standalone adventures that have little relation to each other, though there is some carryover. The ones written since Star Wanderers, however, are more tightly connected, even though they can still be read standalone. Void Railway's events actually does have direct repercussions for later stories, though it might not be in obvious ways. At least, not at first. 

I also wanted to expand the world around Detective Renfield more while still keeping the encroaching darkness that exists around the corner due to the nature of his job. You might have remembered the introduction of Dana from Star Wanderers working to lighten up his life when he's outside the fray, well, there are others now dealing with what he has run into out in the abyss away from the safe roads of home, and it might be more than any of them can handle.

In other words, if you enjoyed Star Wanderers, you really should check out "Void Railway" in the new issue. It is the next step forward for the series. There will still be standalone adventures, as there always are with this series, I'm hoping to drastically expand the scope with the next batch of stories going forward. You might have seen hints of that before, but now we're really going into it going forward. It's a wild galaxy out there: how can you possibly tame what can't be tamed?

The goal of the Galactic Enforcer series has always been the quest to explore the idea of enforcing law against the Unknown, and we're about to see just how that can be done so far from home. How do we hold our ground with no firm base to stand on? The Green Hills of Earth are far away from here, after all . . . 

You can read all about it, as well as many other exciting tales of adventure and wonder, in the new issue of Cirsova! Check it out today!

It should also be mentioned that this is the tenth(!) anniversary of Cirsova. They've been in operation as a publisher for a decade now, and with no signs of stopping. I could highlight the many releases other than my own they've put out, but I would be here for ages. Suffice to say, head to their website and check them all out for yourself after picking up the new issue. There is no shortage of great stuff to dig into.

That's it for today! Thank you for checking out the blog and supporting my work. It makes all of this a lot more fun than it would be otherwise. And I've got a few more surprises up ahead! I can't wait to show you what's coming . . . but it'll have to wait for now. They aren't all just my secret to divulge, after all.

Once again, you can find the new issue of Cirsova here. I'll see you next time!

For more Galactic Enforcer tales, check out Star Wanderers! This is where they started!

Weekend Lounge ~ When Movies Don't Look Like Movies

Welcome to the weekend!

We've gone over before the idea that certain segments of the arts and entertainment don't look as good as they used to, but we've never taken a deeper look into how specifically things might have changed since. Why can't we seen to remember how to make things look their best? The above video on the decay of film might help with that.

While watching The French Connection for Cannon Cruisers (Yes, there's a spoiler of an upcoming episode for you), one of the questions that came up was why exactly films just plain don't look this good anymore. William Friedkin and his crew didn't have even a fraction of the technology available to us today and yet the movie looks, sounds, and feels, far more different than if a similar movie was made today. In fact, its quality is light years beyond what we can do with current digital technology. But why exactly is that?

Of course the easy answer is "we're losing the talent and means to make good art" but then the elephant in the room, the one that is never answered, becomes how it is being lost this fast? In our technology obsessed culture, why are we glorifying inferior technology that doesn't make art better? From cell animation to arcade design to the short story, we are losing valuable parts and origins of the arts we were raised on, and we do not seen to care even as we complain about how the modern material is not only not holding up but is also beginning to turn younger generations away from art altogether. This is a serious issue that is just plain being ignored.

I don't really have the answers for dealing with the decline except to first acknowledge it is happening in the first place and then to encourage those in said industries to preserve said techniques before they are pointlessly lost forever. Art is meant to build on the past, not to reject it for the ideologically hollow and terminally sneering mess of an industry we have today.

At the very least, unlike, say, a decade ago, everyone is very keenly aware of these problems now. I've met plenty of zoomers who love these old methods of creation and even attempt to revive it themselves. It's admirable, but they can't do it alone. The change rests in all of us working together to strive for a better field, and the younger generation can't do that alone. Gen Ys, in particular, finally need to put our selfish pride away and go in for more than nostalgia bait IPs that should have been left to rest ages ago, and expend more effort building something new.

Again, it's not about abandoning the past, but building on it. Those old IPs were built and things that came before. We need to do the same now in order to finally move forward. We cannot continue to peddle dead IPs whose time has already come and gone. We need new blood and we can't get any if we keep deliberately elbowing the new generation out so they have no space at the table. Otherwise we are headed for a dead end, just like the mainstream industry.

You can't put new wine in old wineskins, and yet that is what we insist on doing with nostalgia culture. We need fresh takes and new angles on classical archetypes and frameworks. We can't can't do that if we refuse to move on from dead IPs.

The 20th century is over, remember, so too, must we put behind the childish ways from then that led us in the gutter today.

What kind of industry is this supposed to build, exactly?

We also refuse to move on from considering the audience, our fellow man, as anything less than walking wallets to be pried into at our convenience. As if they are little more than plebeians to be lectured to, that they must Shut Up And Listen, to anything we have to say.

No, I won't go into another tirade on Fanatics, I've done that enough, but to emphasize this isn't a problem with one industry. It's all of them. The aging theater kid mentality that was chased out normal people, reviles male audiences, and obsesses over "updating" old IP for modern sensibilities at the expense of creating anything new, has reached its end. Everyone sees this now. It's unavoidable, and it is being recognized, but there is still no plan in action to correct it.

I realize I've made a lot of enemies over the years for being blunt about the way things are. The thing some of these people get is that I never went in with the intention of wanting to blow anything up. I went in with a mentality of wanting to understand the growing disdain for normal people, the anti-social celebration of destruction that is modern art, and the obsession with Kool Kid Revenge of the Nerds mentality. Essentially what I learned is what we all already know. Nothing can be created through destruction, blind hatred, and arrogance, never mind all together in a wrecking ball mislabeled as "art" that has unable to make anything sustainable.

The first step to doing all of this is to stop with childish clique-ism and shrinking the field to feed our egos. It's to find ways to build new ideas based on classical ideas in a culture trained to hate it all. We should be working together, not managing decline.

Until we do that, we're destined to keep bashing our heads against the same brick wall for at least another decade as our industries swirls further down the drain. If we don't finally act, we risk losing much important. At that point, we might not have any solid foundation left to build on, and then what can we build?

Lets hope we don't have to find that out.

The next issue of Cirsova features a new Galactic Enforcer story! Join Detective Brandon Stone as he meet what lays waiting in the abyss of space in Void Railway! I hope you action, because you're about to get plenty of it. Preorder here!