All right, all right; I used a clickbaity title. This is Rome, I did the thing. So sue me. All of those things are problems. All of them. But I want to take them all as pieces of the puzzle, as symptoms of a much more fundamental issue that our societies are having. I’m proposing…
Assorted Ramblings (blog)
Quality and the Market
Is the new Ghostbusters movie any good? I have no idea. I haven’t seen it. Given the relatively decent review score (not stellar, but pretty good) over at Rotten Tomatoes, I’m thinking it’s probably a decent watch. I’ve been busy as hell, but this falls into the category of movies-I-wouldn’t-mind-watching. I read Brad Torgerson’s analysis of it, though, and…
Third Parties and How to Build Them, or, Joshua Harris for Mayor of Baltimore
I’m not sure if you’ve been paying attention, but we’ve got a couple candidates running for President who seem to irritate even their own parties. This has led to another rash of third-party candidates poking their heads up like mushrooms from bullshit. On the left, we have Jill Stein, who is almost on the ballot in half…
Our Experience with Sky Warrior Books
You may have noticed that the publisher of our novels, and many of the anthologies in which we appear, is a single publisher: Now, that’s beginning to not be the case. We’ve got some stuff with Knotted Road press, and a story coming out with WordFire, but the vast majority of what we’ve…
On Doing Something
I know all about the hating and the sneering. I’m a member of the why-bother generation myself. But why did I bother to come out here tonight? And why did you? I mean, it’s time. It begins with us. Not with politicians, the experts, or the teachers, but with us. With you, and with me….
This is how come we lose so GD always.
You know why people don’t like liberals? Cause they lose. If liberals are so fucking smart how come they lose so God-Damned Always? – Will McAvoy, The Newsroom By now, anyone who is internet savvy enough to read this blog has already seen the opening scene of The Newsroom. You’ve watched with glee as Aaron…
The Pain of Reentry
I’m not going to do a con report for Miscon. Miscon was easily the greatest con experience Esther and I have had yet. This wasn’t because of the con staff (who were still great), or the hotel staff (who weren’t). Miscon is the con where, for lack of a better term, the fact of our…
An Indie Author Deliberately Tries To Skew Amazon With The Help Of His Friends.
Marketing. It’s the doom of all of us. Oh, there’s a hundred and one books out there about how to use social media to market your books. Facebook’s crap for it. Twitter doesn’t lead to sales, because it’s too short a form. And Goodreads groups have taken to creating spaces for authors to dump their promotional…
Haters gonna hate
Rant time. Jesus fuck, people. Just relax for a second. We’re all going to be OK. It’s true. There are some haters out there who have gotten on the internet and said bad things about The Force Awakens. Since 99.9% of the world shares my opinion that this movie is (a) awesome, and (b) a…
A Muslim Refugee Might Kill Me, and That’s OK.
Let’s start with this: every religion has had followers who believe that God demands the murder of anyone who does not follow their particular overzealous brand of that religion. Christianity not only included, but especially. There’s a good millenium of history where the most murderous fanatics around were, in fact, Christian. Doesn’t mean all Christians are…