Seasonal Blues and How to Solve Them!

Welcome back to the wasteland!

With the end of August there's usually a lot of nonsense one needs to fight through to get back to stability again. I'm not sure why exactly this is the case, but it 100% always seems to be how it is. It oddly isn't just a thing for children and teenagers having to readjust to school again after losing their precious summer vacation. Even as an adult the seasonal change still is in effect, regardless of your occupation. There is a sort of lingering panic affecting everything from coworkers to higherups, forcing a mood that doesn't quite settle until the weather itself does.

We're all waiting for fall, essentially.

This also leads us to point to a strange feeling in the modern world, especially with the internet, in how the seasons all seem to last longer than they used to, even though time passes faster the older you get. A lot of people wonder just how that seems to be the case. Is it just fighting the passing of time, or is there something else there?

Well, the main reason we do this is that we're trying to subconsciously competing with a world that wants us to be faster than we can actually be. Seasons become longer because we're simply not allowed to enjoy them as they are anymore. Whether it is due to loss of local community and family or a culture that continually presses for more materialism and less meditation, the end result is that it is always over before we even realize it began and we're on to the next thing already.

This is the real reason Christmas music plays in November, people begin outwardly yearning for Spring at the start of February, and why a lot of people begin preparing for Halloween around Labor Day. They want to get into a mindset longer than they're socially allowed to have it, and in a society of alienation there is really no reason not to do it. Not to mention that if they don't, they barely get to celebrate it before it's over and we're on to the next thing.

The fact of the matter is that the world moves too fast now. It's been moving faster and faster with less and less care for how it effects the populace for quite some time now. We already don't have enough connection with each other as we used to and there is little means for us to fix it with how we currently operate. The way things are isn't enough to satiate us as social animals, so we look to solutions to this endless issue.

If you want a real solution it is to have more holidays in the year that mean something. I don't mean obviously cynical ones like Valentine's Day or even a one day event like St Patrick's Day. Without a monoculture, the few holidays we have are the few times we feel like we belong to a greater whole anymore. If we want to savor that feeling, well, all we can really do is extend the biggest ones we already have with us. We'll never agree on a new one with the current fractured state of things. This is why Halloween and Christmas in particular are the holidays that last the longest. They're feasibly the only ones we can stretch out longer beyond the day everyone accepts socially.

And, to be honest, I don't really understand the complaints about it. It isn't like you're doing anything else in the meantime except living through another generic day that seems to blur from one to the next. What does having a longer season to celebrate really take away from that? Nothing, really. It's just a residue of the anti-social instinct we've had implanted in us as acceptable for literal decades at this point.

Having the autumn season be a build up to spooky season gives it more for us to do amidst the doldrums of returning to school for kids or getting over the jarring completion from the hot summer season to the mild one adults go through. Halloween is so tightly tied with the autumn season and falling of the leaves that it makes sense that people would get in the mood for it ahead of time, much like Christmas is so tied with winter. We need more to look forward to beyond just another day doing what we already do.

However, I would agree with the idea that hopping from holiday to holiday is exhausting. Christmas not beginning immediately after October 31st is a good thing, we do need space to anticipate it, but the holiday also isn't supposed to end on December 25th, either. And yet for as long as I've been alive, it has not extended into the worst month of the year (January) like it is supposed to and where it would add a lot to an otherwise nothing month where literally nothing happens except cold and everyone being miserable and sick. Would Christmas being properly celebrated not help make that lousy month better from all the cold, snow, dreary feelings, and nothing happening in it? Would it also not help to have a proper holiday to anticipate after it to look forward to? It isn't as if there are many holidays to actually build up to in the first half of the year before Lent, either. Perhaps that should also be addressed. Three months of cold and nothing else isn't exactly healthy for anyone.

As the above video states, there is probably some crass commercialism involved here, but it's almost irrelevant to the discussion. The stores stock every season much too early but most people don't pay them any mind except to complain about it. The only ones that regularly get the complaints are Halloween and Christmas, as it's usually due to people not wanting to be part of the social fabric including those anymore, as if that isn't a key problem with the way things are and why they're being pushed more and more as a consequence. September and October leading to Halloween, and Christmas centered on December through January (it should be the start of February, traditionally, but no one wants to have that conversation yet) is about a quarter of the year where we could potentially act like a society that appreciates and shares the same general experience, and deep down that is what the majority actually wants, but we make no moves to do it.

That is what we had long ago, and what everyone still craves. We might not have celebrated those holidays as much back then, but that is also because we were tied together more tightly for the rest of the year. We don't have that bond anymore, and it is why the masters in charge downplay both holidays every year while the rest of us have been ramping them up more and more these days in the opposite direction. In a sense they are a few of the things we still have left and losing them, or choosing to opt out these days, in a sense is saying you're done with the social contract. If that is what you want then don't be surprised when things don't improve when they're finally gone. Because they most definitely will not, nor will anything pop up in their place.

Of course there are also those that take every season and make it about themselves. You've seen it yourself. The decorations, the costumes, the events, all made to make the person organizing them the winner in some competition in their mind, to put them above everyone else, something only exacerbated by social media. Those who engage in this tend to cheapen the experience and make folks more cynical about the season and what it's for, but the key isn't to abandon the season: it's to make said people know this isn't how things are supposed to be done, and how to make it better. You don't abandon stolen ground, you reclaim it instead. We've spent too much time just ceding everything instead of fighting for any of it.

We still need that connection. It isn't going to go away, no matter how much we downplay it or think we're above it. In fact, that desire for belonging has only increased in recent years. Deep down, we know what we want.

Memories matter, but so do shared cultural memories that the wider populace is able to have together. We're having less and less of those the further we get into the 21st century, and we need to do something to fight against it, even if it's working with what we already have fumbled. We need to do something drastic before we lose it all, because that is the only alternative future ahead of us besides reclaiming what we lost. There is no better alternative coming.

It's either preserve and build, or lose it all. That's it. This starts locally and personally, as all change does. Create what you want to see and promote it as wide as you can. Support others, don't sabotage, and push the most obvious and simple changes you can. That's the only feasible solution to combatting decay and atomization. We need to create what we want to see.

So let's create! That's what we're here for, after all.

That's all for August, ladies and gentlemen! We'll soon be leaving summer behind for more colorful skies to come.

Until September, have yourself a good end of the month!

Check out Cirsova's new Kickstarter for Wild Stars! The long running epic is rounding on its conclusion. Help get it there!

Weekend Lounge ~ Relax!

Welcome to the weekend!

A very short and slow one this week. I just wanted to point you to this episode of a bunch of older YouTube guys from the old internet relaxing and messing around while talking about nothing important at all. That's right, today it's just something fun and breezy with nothing special going on. Enjoy yourselves!

The reason for this is mainly because so much nonsense has been going on recently, some of it way too heavy for this place, that I figured it would be better to take it easy just for today. Not everything has to be serious and intense all the time. Sometimes you can jut not think about anything at all. This is one of those times.

Besides, next week's post is going to be a lot more explosive, so I wanted to build up to it a little. In that one we're going to really dive into a subject that will ruffle a lot of feathers. Until then, let us actually use a weekend lounge for what it is for: lounging.

I'm not kidding about next week either. It's going to be kind of a big one, covering an issue that a lot of people might not be comfortable about. To give you a hint, it's about an old mouse that has seen better days, and will not be seeing better ones anytime soon.

And that's and all I'll say!

In other news, there is currently another Based Booksale this week, and I have once more put up the entire Gemini Man series for cheap. I chose it again because last time I heard reports that not everyone could get them all, so here is your chance to rectify that weird glitch in Amazon's system. You can find the sale here.

And that's all for this one. Very short piece this week, but again I think it's good to have lighter ones every once in a while. Just kick back as September finally rolls in to hopefully finally take this endless summer away.

Have yourself a good week!

See you next time for a big one.

Get the entire Gemini Man series for less than a cup of coffee here! Two guys get in over the head across worlds, on the open road, and the end of the world. Hurry up before time runs out!

Weekend Lounge ~ Boomer Blues

Welcome to the weekend!

I hope you've been having a good one. The weather is finally turning around, at least where I am. But enough about that. Let us get to today's topic.

This week I wanted to talk a bit more about the inevitable death of the 20th century and the legacy of the Baby Boomers. Instead of going over the usual points, I wanted to focus on what exactly is being left behind as they pass on. Turns out it won't be much.

It's no secret that as time passes, those of us who are a bit older, the ones who remember the Greatest Generation, as they were called, have noticed a clear difference between them and their children in regards to how they have aged. It's unavoidable, an elephant in the room that they are vastly different creatures, at the end of the day. In fact, it is almost night and day seeing how different the two are. Did they come from different planets?

Yes, obviously, but we already knew that.

When the Greats died, they did so confident in the fact that they did what they could in life (good or bad) and rightfully understood that their time was up and it was their children's turn for being in control and picking up the slack they were leaving behind. So how it always is, and has been through all of human history before this point. They grew old, accepted their time was near, and went into the deep night like we all eventually will, making sure to pass on their work when they were still cognoscente and used their final years to reflect and stand on the sidelines.

The Baby Boomers, however, are a very different story. As a generation, they have done none of this. Almost all political protests are attended by grey hair boomers. Almost all remaining watchers of TV (and news channels especially) are all Baby Boomers. The ones out in public proclaiming the death of all that is good and decent unless we repent of our 20th century sacrilege in ignoring said failed century, are all old people. They still think it's their goal to revolutionize the world. What this is all saying is that the boomers are not acting their age, and they are terrified of doing so. They are not capable of making that last move of acceptance. It's still the Me Generation, to the bitter end.

And boy howdy, what an end it has been! Politicians defecating themselves on stage, Alzheimer's patients being shuffled around to give speeches as if this were serious business, and crusty entertainers posing and pouting like they're still a fresh-faced twentysomething rebel. For something really embarrassing, look up videos of Madonna's recent performances. If that isn't the most embarrassing thing you've ever seen I would be surprised.

What all this is saying, is that it's over, and none of them want to accept it. They don't want to accept it because they have no mind for anything else. All they can do is play pretend at being their version of you. "80 is the new 30" is, unfortunately, not a slogan getting much use. Those old movies and TV shows of grandpa trying to be hip and relevant have nothing on what those "hip" kids from back then have aged into. It's just sad at this point.

But this is all they have. They never strove for anything else.

As the most materialistic generation of all time (and there is some steady competition!) they do not believe in legacy, hope, grace, or anything that isn't cold hard cash or property. They never grew out of the world as a toybox stage the TV taught them way back when it was still relevant. As a consequence, the thing they are most terrified of is not being the one dying with the most toys. They are running out the clock by tightening their geriatric grip on the control levers they were gifted nearly half a century ago, to prevent the 20th century from ending. They do this because they know as soon as they do let go (regardless of the age demo, religious beliefs, or political affiliation of the ones under them) everything they fought so hard to do will be undone overnight. Everyone knows it, and it is their worst nightmare to be forgotten.

Baby Boomers can't bear being alive to see that inevitability. Therefore they will hold fast to the failed ideas and structures of the previous failed century and force it in place, even as their dying corpses are dragged into the clockwork to jam it up to prevent anyone from even attempting to fix it. They'll be dead by then, their toys securely with them (or so they seem tot think) and damn whatever comes next. That is their highest aspiration as a generation.

The above video is a good example of that mentality. the other younger generations might blame each other for stuck culture and the inability to create something new, but the problem is how deliberately jammed all the machinery is right now, and things won't change until it is fixed. We're all still dealing with ghosts of a past that some of us alive today weren't even alive to see. It goes without saying, they will be gone sooner than later. No one will be around to do otherwise. That's just how the passage of time works.

The good and bad news, is that it won't be that way forever, and we are destined to move on in as little as a couple of decades from now. This is unavoidable. The question is--will we be prepared when this shift finally happens? And when it does occur, how will we be able to move on from the dead era that is long since passed? What vision of the future will we have untied from the failure of the previous century? We're going to have to ask ourselves hard questions and accept some truths we were told to avoid. It will not be easy. Prepare accordingly!

That's all for this week, folks. I hope you've picked up the Rock and Roll Mercenaries anthology, and if you didn't know, I also recently finished the Psycho Mission serial on the Patreon. I also put out another episode of the podcast, this one on endings. There is no shortage of fun to be had over there, if you want it! There's still more to come after this, so hold on tight.

Summer's almost here! It's gonna be great.

Check out Rock and Roll Mercenaries here!

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!

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 ~ The Third Place

Welcome back!

The weekend's here, so lets have a bit of fun.

There's been much discussion recently of reclaiming smaller things we've forgotten over the years, perhaps even subtle things we hadn't even considered before. One of the recent discussions has centered around "slop" and what we've allowed our entertainment and art to fall into. We've essentially given up trying or aiming for anything higher, our priorities on other things.

Another related and yet less talked about topic, is the loss of the Third Place. One might argue the loss is at the crux of everything we've been going through since Cultural Ground Zero put a wrecking ball to everything so long ago.

If you've been interested in the decay we've been going through for any amount of time by now then you've almost certainly heard of Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, a book that came out a quarter of a century ago which saw all the patterns that had already formed and the cracks that led to pale artificial replacements like "Geek Culture" to consume an entire cohort of youth into a New Religion and way of life. The problem became centered on the "Normie" and the solution was to relate to those who consumed the same product you did instead. There was nothing else to it. You were a Victim and everyone was out to get you.

And, obviously, that mentality didn't work out too well.

One of the expressions no one had really brought up over this quarter century was the idea of the "Third Place" in life, something Bowling Alone described as its main thesis, and something which has faded away into irrelevance in the war on everything that is modern life. All this despite the fact that we clearly desire connection while fighting hard against finding it at the same time. It's a giant mess, but we're used to it by now. We don't want to accept it's not normal or healthy, for whatever reason. And we're paying for it.

The video above gives a good description of the topic. The Third Place is, as described, the third important place in life. The first being Home and the second being Work. Home is where we can relax and recharge on our own and with those closest to us. Work is where we show another side of ourselves, using effort to achieve something separate from Home and our relationships there. You know how you always felt awkward as a kid when your parents talked to your teachers? There's a reason for that. Instinctively, you knew those two places should be separate. Mashing those together hasn't been all too great a change either, but that's not the topic today.

The Third Place is a neutral public space between the other two where we can connect with other people away from the others. In fact, part of the three places that makes them important is that it disconnects us from the other two and gives us a break and a way to discover new sides of ourselves. All three are important.

The third can be as simple as a restaurant, a bar, or a club, a place where you are detached somewhat from the other two places, throwing in some unpredictability and odd comfort into your day to day routine. And it no longer exists in the modern world.

The issue is that all three places have been heavily damaged in recent years. Home has turned into a bunker from the world, a place where Work is not only brought into but made the place where it is frequently done the most. Work has no stability and therefore contains no trust or growth of basic work relationships beyond tentative trust for as long as your inevitably short employment exists for. The Third Place, however, is completely gone and destroyed from modern life, taken out back and shot. And we're feeling its effects today.

There is no public neutral place to go, and they are rapidly dying out. In the process, we are losing community connections and turning into a block of strangers who sometimes see each other when we dare go out to... well, to do what? Going out is now seen as an annoyance, taking you away from your bunker. It's a nuisance, not a break. Eventually, the way things are going. we won't even need to go out to get groceries anymore. Then what happens?

All of this is killing community worse than Putnam ever imagined it would. Remember, his book was written before social media, lockdown world, and door dash. We've fought hard to kill off connection since Bowling Alone first released, and we're not quite turning it around yet. Local life is dying everywhere as we anticipate plugging into the cloud instead.

I know where I am the streets are fairly deserted and even the weekend makes no difference anymore. It is a ghost town of door dash drivers and empty buildings and sidewalks. There are no clubs, no hobby groups, not even church gatherings, anymore. It's just a large concentrated block of people who do everything they can to avoid each other. That's all it is and all it has become.

What is being built up by this attitude? What is the purpose of burrowing away into ourselves at the expense of both our own health and everyone else around us? We all know the answer to that, and we're well aware of where we're going is not anywhere good.

On the plus side, this topic is being brought up again more and more in discourse, because now there is no one who doesn't know, and doesn't pretend, that any of this is leading to a healthier society. We know it's not. We just have yet to figure out a solution beyond fancy words and promises. We need more than that. The answer involves bringing back the Third Place, and until we do, we'll be trapped circling the drain.

That's all for this week! Have yourself a good rest and get ready for March! We're almost there and out of the endless winter.

I can't wait until we finally are.

Check out Cirsova #20! My story of a man on a motorcycle with a mission against witches is inside! I hope you like bullets, because you'll get them!

Weekend Lounge ~ Times Change

Welcome to the weekend! We're a mere ten days away from Christmas!

As we get ready to head towards the halfway point of the '20s, and as the internet begins closing in and breaking down, now is probably the time to take a good look at just how wild it was back then. Remind yourself on just how different it was. What better way to do that than with this look back at the figure who probably best represents the way it was in the old days, the ever-controversial, and very Gen Y, Mister Metokur AKA The Internet Aristocrat AKA . . . a lot of names!

This might be harder for younger folks to understand in an age where the internet is overrun by insane schoolmarms with loopy rules and puritans for the lame status quo of Current Year, but as infamous as the man called Jim might be for those who know him, he was actually a pretty common personality for those who grew up Gen Y and spent their late teens and early adulthood engaged in the early days of mass internet adoption. That was back when the internet was still a wild frontier yet to be conquered by the most boring people imaginable.

How was it different? In many ways.

Basically, everyone knew the internet was not real. It still isn't real, but we used to know that more deeply. You went on to blow off steam, find some cool corner of the internet that showed you things you didn't know, hang out with other like minded fellows, then you disconnected. It wasn't your life, it was more like a hobby to engage in when going out or calling friends just wasn't feasible. This was in fact how it was throughout the '00s. Gen Y, still under the yolk of the soon too be fractured Geek Culture, got together and shared their favorite products and events, and even messed with each other like guys used to do once upon a time. Things are different now, though, unfortunately, not in a better way.

What you should see in the above video of Mister Metokur's rise and . . . well, not fall--he's still around and still popular in certain circles, is someone who sees the digital world for what it is. It's a playground with endless possibilities where you can find anything. You might not disagree with how he spends his time on it, but it's clear that his approach was one we once understood long ago before we started following Influencers with Platforms, thought leaders on social media, and nauseating artificiality like that. Back before buzzword culture, we were just having fun.

And now the internet is on the way out. It probably won't even have proper recordings of how things really were before it went off the rails, so be sure to remember for yourself. It's only through building on what worked that we can build something better. And we're going to be building a lot in the years to come. We're going to have to.

Also, if you can, please send prayers his way. Jim has a sickness that has sidelined him heavily over the past few years, putting him on his deathbed more than a few times, though it's miraculously dulled none of his humor. That is a trait we would do well to imitate. Gen Y might be having a rough go at it, but I believe we are just now hitting our prime years on this Earth. Pray that we might all not only make it, but thrive and show the world just what we are capable of.

There is no limit to what we can do, a lesson that early internet should have taught us before we fell in line with those wanting to destroy it for clout and a couple of bucks. Let's finally go anywhere and do what we need to do. We've still got a decade to salvage.

That's all this week, and I'll see you next time!

My story, Mirage Carousal, is in the Fall issue of Cirsova! Bullets, hidden casinos, motorcycles, mist-covered towns, and monsters! Check it out today!

Weekend Lounge ~ Someone I Don't Know

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!

Don't forget, Cirsova #20 is out today and I've got a story in it! Pick it up for someone season Halloween spooks!

Weekend Lounge ~ Paperbacks From Hell, Revisited!

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 Nightblood here and The Spirit here. 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!

Cirsova #20 is out with a story by me called "Mirage Carousal," a gaggle of talented writers, and a Bill Willingham cover! What more could you ask for?

Weekend Lounge ~ Zillion, Revisited!

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.

Here is episode two:

Once again, the channel is available here.

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.

The underground city reveals its true form! Can our heroes stop the madness and reach the surface again? It's time for the final encounter! One Chapter left until the finale!

Weekend Lounge ~ Ninja Insanity

Welcome back! I hope you've had a great week.

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!

Check out the 365 Infantry crowdfund for ongoing stories of action, adventure, and motorcycling wolves! It doesn't get more wild than that!

Weekend Lounge ~ The Death of Movies

Welcome to the weekend! We're back again with a nice relaxing post.

I hope you've been having a great summer. The weather around here has ping-ponged quite a lot, but it's currently very pleasant out so I want to use the opportunity to talk about something fun. Well, something that can be fun.

Everyone is well aware that movies are not quite what they once were. Newer movies suffer from production bloat, terrible casting, broken sound design, muddy visuals, poor costuming and dress, confused and mumbled acting, and writing that can do little but repeat the same tired tropes of the last two decades. No one really argues with this knowledge, but there is disagreement about where the industry should go next from here.

No one wants to see movies anymore. How do we get out of this rut?

If you want a really detailed account about how bad things have gotten, I recommend the above video from Red Letter Media. The fact of the matter is that the movie theater, once the hub of human activity in the West, is on its last legs and no one has any answers on how to fix it. If the audience doesn't care what you're selling, no manner of price cuts or killer deals are going to lead them back in again. The obvious truth is that mainstream audiences have no interest in movies anymore and they haven't for a very long time.

Yes, part of the problem is streaming explosion from the 2010s that culminated in lockdown world, but that's only part of it. What we've come to realize is that before streaming even became feasible, most people were only really going to movies out of habit and little else. Aside from the big tentpole releases like Pixar and Marvel (before they became the tired punchlines they are today), one would be hard-pressed to think of any movie from the last 20 years that made any sort of impact on the wider cultural sphere. The industry just wasn't what it used to be.

This also goes in well with the fact that when boutique movie labels advertise the decades of the films they release on Blu-ray and 4K UHD, there is a hard cutoff around 2000 when the number of movie re-releases drop off a cliff before outright disappearing by 2010. People get excited when a movie from the 1980s gets put on a 4K UHD--no one cares when a 2011 movie does. The obvious conclusion is that this problem isn't recent, and film has been bad off for quite some time. No one just cared to really take stock in it until the issue became blatantly obvious. The fumes in the tank have just finally run dry. We can admit it now.

At the same time, CG no longer wows, studios have been indulging in AI to the point that people only realized it when they become bored enough to look closer, and star power and charisma is completely lacking in the newer generation of actors brought in either through nepotism or taking the ticket. In other words, everything now is objectively worse than it used to be. Entropy is the undefeated king of modernity, now and always. There is no reason to be excited for new things that aren't as good as similar old things.

So then, what do we do? How do we bring back the film medium in a way that makes it matter, that makes it vital again? The answer is simple, but it's not easy. You already know what the solution is, we just need to say it louder. The way forward, is backwards. It's looking back and reclaiming what works while ejecting what doesn't.

For an example of what I mean, I suggest the below video from GoodBadFlicks talking about the "remake" of the 1950s movie called The Blob. I put remake in quotes because aside from the idea of the monster, nothing else about the movie is the same. It's a completely original movie otherwise. This is, in fact, how one creates a remake--not just to cash-in on something old. It's also why modern remakes are such trash.

But I digress: you can watch the video here:

It's a great video, showing exactly what film once was and can be again.

Now, did you take stock of how much effort was put into the above film? From writing, to casting, to stunts, to special effects, to even the setting, all of it had tremendous thought and ambition in regards to everything involved.

Computers were minimally used to enhance what already existed. Both sets and real locations contributed to create the world of the movie. The monster itself had a detailed process in order to be brought to life that clearly had much thought put in. There was no committee or chart involved in telling everyone what arbitrary lines they were or weren't allowed to cross. Everything about the movie exists the way it does because it was made before the focus-testing corporate culture Hollywood began constructing in the 1990s.

No movies are made like this anymore. It just doesn't happen anymore. If you want movie made like this again, you will simply have to throw away everything the industry has done since movies like Mannequin were made through strict focus-testing demographics, movies like 3 Ninjas were edited down to reach a G rating that it should have already had in the first place, and Marvel products were slapped together through formula guidelines. In order to reverse all the problems of today, all of the above has to go away again.

Do you want to compete with AI, with the fact that eventually everyone will be able to use it to make their own Hollywood slop in the near future? The only way to compete with this unavoidable future is to do what a computer simply can not--to do what cannot be automated or processed through computer software.

This means stunts, practical effects, real locations, built sets, creativity, real scripts based on personal anecdotes and ideas, and casting with a vision beyond greased palms. It means going back and starting from zero again before moving in a new direction, away from this dead end mutation we've let ourselves fall into.

If you want art to feel real again then it has to be real. It has to be made with purpose for the reason of communicating with the audience, to reach and grow. There must be more to it than finding and monetizing formulas and tweaking them to get slightly fatter wallets. Art doesn't exist to make the line go up--it exists to help people go up.

This is the case with every art form. In order to move forward, you need to be continuing on from something, on a path already laid out before you by those who came before. When you stumble off the trail and get lost, the only way back on is to go back and retrace your steps. That requires a level of humility we're going to have admit going forward-- we have to first admit we even went off in the wrong direction to begin with.

Don't worry too much about art forms, they never really die, but they can be lost or warped beyond recognition by those who have lost their way. As long as we're here we can always bring it back around again.

And that's because, to quote an old chestnut, nothing ever really dies. It just goes away until the right moment to be brought back again. And this is the right moment! All we have to do is finally knuckle down to do it. That's what these new alternative industries are all about, after all. The energy is with us now.

Hop on in and start digging with the rest of us. We're going to strike oil eventually. But you can't do it if you never start in the first place.

Have yourself a good week and I will see you next time.

Chapters 4 and 5 of Phantom Mission are up on the Patreon! Join to read them today!

Weekend Lounge ~ Knights of Legend

Welcome to the weekend! It's been a while since the last one of these, and I've been dying to put out another.

As you can tell, I've been busy with building the Patreon recently, including put up new chapters of the Phantom Mission serial as well as a new episode of the podcast talking about that exact subject. Sign up now and get many exclusives you will not get anywhere else!

We're up to chapter 3 in the story where our heroes have landed on the island and are ready to explore, and things are already starting to heat up. At the same time, the first Patreon exclusive episode, as mentioned above, goes into the early parts of the story as well as the influences behind what started in the first place. It's a long one!

For those who might have missed the last update, Phantom Mission will be updated twice a week for July, so if you join now you will not only be getting the podcast but also a large chunk of the story right off the bat. As I mentioned on the podcast, it gets wild!

The most recent chapters:

Next week we really go into it with the next two chapters!

So for today's weekend post, here is a fun little video I found on YouTube talking about King Arthur and some of the best and most unique adaptions of the legend you can find out there. Considering there are fifteen or so adaptions to sort through in this video, there's going to be something that strikes your fancy. There's also a chance you might have missed a few or others you might otherwise not have considered.

You might notice a couple that aren't even really brought up much these days. Watch the full video and see for yourself. It's a good watch.

I hope the summer has been treating you well. I know the heat around here has been relatively annoying. Be sure to keep cool and sane and we'll get through it soon enough. There's still plenty ahead to be excited for, and much more fun to be had.

Sorry for the short one this week, I'm still trying to get back into the swing of things while also dealing with some IRL events at the same time. Hopefully we'll be back to business as usual soon enough. Regardless, there's still more coming. Yes, even on top of the recent release of Sidearm & Sorcery Volume Three. You'll just have to wait at a bit longer to see what it is!

Check out the Patreon for an exclusive serialization and podcast you won't get elsewhere!

Revenge of the Big Summer Book Sale!

It's that time of the year once again for readers to be inundated with an avalanche of books to choose from! Welcome back to the summer sale! Curated by author Hans G Shantz here, You have no shortage of selections. In fact, you might be overwhelmed with choice.

Therefore, I'm going to try to highlight some here! There are some you might have breezed past when going over the list. It's simply just going to happen with so many options.

To get the obvious out of the way, I have two books in the sale that you might have missed the first go around. The first is Someone is Aiming for You & Other Adventures, a short story collection of interlocking tales about a magic infested city and the heroes looking to clean it out. The second is Gemini Warrior, the first book in the four volume Gemini Man saga about twin heroes bouncing between a world of powers and a world of magic! Also, as always, Two Adventures Across Eternity is permanently at $0.99 so check that out as well and, if you can, leaving a review would always be appreciated to let other potential readers know your thoughts.

One last thing before we get started, I also wanted to put in a reminder for three crowdfunds currently ongoing. These ones are very close to finished.

David Skinner's Stellar Stories Kickstarter is looking to reach the $600 stretch goal in order to offer every backer a FREE novella co-written with weird author superstar Misha Burnett! So not only can you get up to 25 short stories, you can also get everyone including yourself a whole new story on top of it. Make sure to check that one out here! The goal is very close!

The second crowdfund is William Hastings' The Other Fellow campaign for a retro spy novel. This one is hoping to reach its $1500 stretch goal in order to offer a bonus short story for backers! There's less than two weeks on the campaign, enough to put it over the top and potentially reach even more stretch goals. You can find that one here!

Lastly, the Ursula of Ulm Kickstarter has less than 24 hours left and is funded, so this is the final call. Now is the chance to hop on the hype train! You can find it here!

In related Star Wanderers news, my proofs were finally released from customs on the 18th of June, which hopefully means I will get them in this week, God willing. As soon as I get them I will give them the look through they need and inform Cirsova of anything that needs tweaking. We should be good to go very, very soon. Thank you for your patience!

Now, let us get to the books!

The Electric Anthology: Volume One by Jacob Calta

You might have heard Jacob Calta's name all over the NewPub space recently, and for good reason. He is a one man wrecking crew of a designer, a musician (he also composed the three tracks for Star Wanderers!), and a writer, an everyman that wants to do everything. And that isn't even all he does.

He has four books in the sale, and I recommend them all, but I'm going to put The Electric Anthology on the list for two reasons. The first is that I am apparently responsible for helping its creation, and the second is that it's a perfect summer read.

These are short little nuggets of tales, some horror, some adventure, some just day to day tomfoolery, all taking place in the author's world of 365 Infantry. If you are feeling daunted with the possibility of diving into his quickly expanding body of work then I can recommend starting here. With 38 different bit-sized stories you'll have plenty to dig into.

Here is the description:

Looking to get lost in the age of sprawling dystopias and wild wolven frontiers? Then this is the book for YOU!

365 Infantry: The Electric Anthology is an annual collection of every pint-sized tale released between issues of the quarterly sci-fi Substack magazine, from weekly flash-fiction series Red Light Bytes to special collections to the monthly madhouse of Solar Joint Stories.

Volume I contains 38 UNIQUE TALES from series writer Jacob Calta, providing a special window into Haven and Wasteland life thru a wide array of eyes, from familiar stars of the magazine’s ongoing adventures to average hounds experiencing the small joys, great pains, and madcap escapades the future has in store!

Highlights include the working-wolf comedy “We Are the Road Crew,” the father-and-son adventure of “Pop Was a Rock-Climber,” the solemn soul-baring of “Confessions of a White Coat,” the bizarre gin-joint ramblings like “The Tale of the Blood-Red Biker,” and the special Independence Day collection 4th in the 25th alongside scores more!

From the depths of the wolven mind to the edge of its dangerous world, The Electric Anthology Vol. I delivers all the thrills, chills, and surreal entertainment of the trail-blazing series in bite-sized chunks of pulp excitement, madcap humor, and thoughtful speculative fiction. For fans wanting more, this is your ticket to ride the cutting edge!

Once again, you can find The Electric Anthology: Volume One here!

A Greater Duty (Galaxy Ascendant Book One) by Yakov Merkin

Yakov Merkin is another name in NewPub you've probably come across more times than you'd think. He's done a lot from light novels to a manga series he's currently creating, but his first big project was this space opera series. On sale is the first book, A Greater Duty!

I don't think I have to go in too big a detail of what being a space opera entails, though you can probably figure it out for yourself just  by the cover. It's an example of what you see is what you get, in the best way possible.

Here is the descrption:

The Galactic Alliance was not ready for war. When it is suddenly invaded by the cold and relentless Tyrannodon Armada, under the command of emotionless, amoral Executor Darkclaw, it is immediately sent reeling.

The invasion was a godsend for some, however, such as Grand Admiral Nayasar Khariah, who had wanted nothing more than revenge on the Alliance following an attack on her homeworld. The arrival of the Tyrannodons presents her with an opportunity, one that she seizes gleefully.

However, Executor Darkclaw, who has been prosecuting the invasion on orders of his master, the all-powerful energy being known only as the High Lord, has started having second thoughts once he unexpectedly starts feeling emotions he does not understand. Suddenly, he finds himself heretically questioning the only purpose he has ever known—irrevocably altering his view of the ongoing war.

Meanwhile, within the Galactic Alliance, Second Scion Dalcon Oresh, member of an order dedicated to preserving the it, struggles to stop the Alliance’s bleeding, the source of which may not be entirely external.

Darkclaw’s newfound friendship with Nayasar will be pushed to its breaking point, Nayasar’s relationships with her closest friends and loved ones will be strained as her quest for vengeance becomes more and more a personal obsession, and Dalcon must determine who he can truly trust.

All the while, the imminent existential threat of the High Lord looms over everything, and the key to stopping him, and saving not just the Alliance, but the entire galaxy, may only be found in the remains of a ancient, powerful race, and the creations they left behind…

Once again, you can find A Greater Duty here!

Death Planet (Dinosaur Warfare Book One) by N. R. LaPoint

I was very impressed by the absolute madcap energy and chaotic spirit of N. R. LaPoint's Gun Magus that I would be hard pressed to not recommend his intergalactic dinosaur shooter series of books now that the first is on sale. With a title like Death Planet, how can you not?

That said, LaPoint is the sort of author that Don Pendleton would have sought out back in the day to write Mack Bolan. If you've been hankering for a story where action is plentiful, the good guys are good, and righteousness wins out, then he is your author. And again, the book is called Death Planet and has a dinosaur on the cover. What else do you need?

Here is the description:

The Vidarian scourge has swept through many star systems, killing and enslaving in an endless invasion.

When his home world is targeted, Ambrose Weaver flees with a crew of exiles. Hunted down and forced to crash land on the mysterious planet Typhon, they soon find their escape from sure death has only led them to new troubles and prehistoric dangers.

The dinosaurs are only the beginning.

Can Ambrose and his crew brave primeval jungles and survive a planet filled with horror?

Once again, you can find Death Planet here!

Pirates of the Electromagnetic Woods (Yankee Republic Book 1) by Fenton Wood

Fenton Wood is a difficult writer to pin down, and a great example of the spirit of NewPub. Unbridled imagination, and a sheer love of possibility, even his story premises read like something you've never seen before.

This time his first book, Pirates of the Electromagnetic Woods is in the sale, and still remains a bit of joint with what you might expect from narrow genre labels. You'll see elements of every old label from alt-history to hard sf, but none of them accurately contain the adventure in these pages. Check this one out if you haven't. You won't see anything like it anywhere else.

The description is here:

A young radio engineer travels across an alt-history America, encountering primeval gods, mythical beasts, and tall tales come to life, in a quest to build a radio transmitter that can reach the stars.

It all starts in the mountain town of Porterville.

Twelve-year-old Philo starts a pirate radio station with his friends, and learns that the world is a stranger place than he ever imagined.

The Ancient Marauder, the Bright and Terrible Birds, the Mishipeshu, and other creatures of myth and legend populate this enchanting mixture of science and fantasy.

YANKEE REPUBLIC is an old-school adventure series with traditional values and down-to-earth heroes. Escape from the pessimism and propaganda of modern fiction, and take a journey through a mythic America that might have been.

Once again, you can find Pirates of the Electromagnetic Woods here!

Swan Knight's Son (Moths & Cobwebs Book 1) by John C. Wright

I don't think John C. Wright needs any introduction here, and you might even question why I'd need to highlight him, but I will because Swan Knight's Son is a book unlike any other. To many, this is still considered his best work.

Part coming of age and part living mythology come to life, this isn't the usual YA fare that has been cluttering OldPub shelves for decades. Because when you dig into a Wright book you tend to fall deeper into something you never thought possible. This book is a perfect example of that.

Here is the description:

Gilberic Parzival Moth is a strange and lonely boy who has grown up without a father, raised by a single mother who moves from town to town in fear of something she will not name. His only friends are animals, with whom he has always been able to speak. But when he awakens one night at the Thirteenth Hour, and sees for the first time the cruel reality of the secret rule of Elf over Man, he begins to learn about his true heritage, the heritage of Twilight.

And when his mother finally tells him the terrible truth of her past, he must choose whether to continue running with her in fear, or learning how to fight against ancient powers that are ageless, soulless, and ultimately damned. SWAN KNIGHT'S SON is the first book of THE GREEN KNIGHT'S SQUIRE, the first volume of MOTH & COBWEB, an astonishing new series about magical worlds of Day, Night, and Twilight by John C. Wright.

John C. Wright is one of the living grandmasters of science fiction and the author of THE GOLDEN AGE, AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND, and IRON CHAMBER OF MEMORY, to name just three of his exceptional books. He has been nominated for the Nebula Award, for the Hugo Award, and his novel SOMEWHITHER won the 2016 Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel at Dragoncon.

Once again, you can find Swan Knight's Son here!

And that's all from me for today.

There are plenty of other authors worth checking into in the sale, so be sure to skin it for yourself here! There's no shortage of great stuff to look out for. And the summer is just getting started.

So check out all the cool books on sale, make sure to escape the heat, and I will see you next time. We've got some interesting news ahead, trust me!

Seven tales of danger in city that sleeps in shadows! On sale for $0.99!