Another Famous Writers School Success Story

miller_FWS

Not content to remain permanently in the shadow of the succès fou of Jonah’s magnum opus Liberal Fascism: From Mark Twain to Oat Bran Muffins, John J. Miller, the resident dork at America’s Shittiest Website™ and perpetrator of the 100 Most Awesome Conservative Rock Songs, has become an author (of sorts). His long-awaited masterpiece The First Assassin is hot off the presses, well, the press, well, the laser printer.

Here is Miller’s touching description of the novel’s long path to self-publication:

When I finished writing The First Assassin, I tried to sell it to a traditional publisher the old fashioned way, as I had done with my previous books of non-fiction. Yet I couldn’t find a publisher that was willing to take a chance on a first-time novelist during the worst economy of our lives. I didn’t exhaust my options in this area, but I did start to explore alternatives.

The First Assassin is available exclusively online through a new print-on-demand service: If you order a copy, they’ll print one and mail it to you. My partner is CreateSpace.com, a subsidiary of Amazon.com. During this “soft launch” phase, The First Assassin may be purchased only through CreateSpace.com (here). Soon, it will also be listed on Amazon.com. … Those will be the only ways of obtaining copies. You won’t find The First Assassin in book stores.

Since I had no problem finding recently published first novels and I have a neighbor who just published a first novel, I think the reason for Miller’s lawn-sized trash bag filled with rejection notices might just perhaps have more to do with the novel itself than the economy. It might have something to do with, for example, the blurb for the novel that mentions “Portia, a beautiful slave who holds a vital clue, hundreds of miles away.”

Another reason that the novel’s manuscript made a resounding thud into the rejection bin may have been that most readers would not be in much suspense over whether a guy named Lorenzo Smith would kill Lincoln. Well, perhaps Miller’s likely fans — many of whom believe that dinosaurs once roamed the earth with man — would stay up all night reading to discover the book’s answer to that question.

Or maybe the universal thumbs-down had something to do with this riveting description from the first chapter of Miller’s thriller:

He saw the engine’s massive oil lamp mounted on top the smoke box. It gazed forward like the unblinking eye of a mechanical cyclops. Behind it were the cab, the coal tender, and a line of cars. Flags and streamers covered them all. The whole train glistened from a recent cleaning.

Apparently Miller is under the impression that even self-published authors get paid by the word, else he wouldn’t have bothered to point out that trains generally have a line of cars behind the engine and where the oil lamp was mounted. And “mechanical Cyclops” — what an original and compelling metaphor for a train! So original and compelling that I quickly found it also used for a train in the straight-to-paperback bodice-ripper “Distant Dreams” — in the second paragraph.

To add to the hilarity, Miller is over at Big HollyButt, pleading, no, begging on his knees for someone, anyone, to pick up the film option for his book. He even wants Tom Selleck to be in the film. (I deeply apologize for mentioning that. Miller’s inadvertent revelation of his preferred wanking material really should have stayed over at Big HollyButt where it belonged and not have been shared here to the detriment of the gentle sensibilities of all SadlyNauts.)

Miller currently has three glowing reviews at Amazon. That is probably explained by this:

frequently_bought_together

You all know what to do.

 

Comments: 262

 
 
 

It gazed forward like the unblinking eye of a mechanical cyclops

That’s some fine writing there, that is.

 
 

Coincidentally, I’m about to publish my first novel on CreateSpace.

Mostly because I’d be too embarassed for a publisher to even look at it and find out my penis size isn’t what I brag it is.

 
Rusty Shackleford
 

While there is no shame in failing to sell a first novel, one simply does not brag about self-publishing.

 
 

It gazed forward like the unblinking eye of a mechanical cyclops

Veiled penis reference, that naughty little conservative.

 
Rusty Shackleford
 

Sorry actor, that wasn’t meant for you.

 
 

Veiled penis reference, that naughty little conservative. – actor212

I thought I had a dirty mind and nobody else would notice this. Beyond the old jokes about trains and tunnels, only a real wingnut could manage to turn a description of a train into gay porn, eh?

Anyway, while not quite a dangling participle, the ambiguously placed modifier “hundreds of miles away” reminds me of an old Outland cartoon wherein a dangling participle hits Milquetoast on the head.

 
 

Wowzers:

“I am John Hay, secretary to Abraham Lincoln, who at this very moment is relaxing in Washington. He passed through Baltimore early this morning, in darkness. Now back off or I will shoot!”

I would buy the movie rights to this thing just to spoof it.

 
 

He likes to keep his locomotive clean, it’s a clean machine!

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

“Smith peered over the man’s shoulders, into the rest of the car. It looked like a room in the mansion of a wealthy family. The red walls and heavy furniture bore all the dainty trappings of Victorian elegance. Blue silk covered the space between the windows. Little tassels dangled from the chairs and shined in the light of the open door. As Smith peered inside, he realized the man with the gun was actually letting him study the car’s interior. He wanted Smith to see who was aboard–and who was not.”

Mah head. It hurts.

 
 

*Sniiiiiiiiif* Don’t you love the smell of a new thread on a Friday morning? Smells like…victory!

 
 

Sorry actor, that wasn’t meant for you.

No offense taken, Rusty! I deliberately didn’t submit for publication because it’s a shite novel. It’s intended as a get-even book 😉

 
The Tragically Flip
 
Progressive Center Left Grrl Voice of Truth
 

No one has posted a fake review for me to mod up at Amazon yet. I was thinking along the lines of praising the book for being a marvel of modern Marxist propaganda, able to turn readers into unwitting socialists. These ticking time-bombs of communism will pave the way for the great soviet subversion of the USA. But maybe that’s not subtle enough?

 
 

“Smith peered over the man’s shoulders, into the rest of the car. It looked like a room in the mansion of a wealthy family. The red walls and heavy furniture bore all the dainty trappings of Victorian elegance. Blue silk covered the space between the windows. Little tassels dangled from the chairs and shined in the light of the open door. As Smith peered inside, he realized the man with the gun was actually letting him study the car’s interior. He wanted Smith to see who was aboard–and who was not.”

Y’know, when I was in Creative Writing 101 in college, one of the best pieces of advice I ever received on a failing paper was “Show, don’t tell”

In other words, don’t overdescribe and oh by the way, John? If you’re lurking?

Who the FUCK looks at the tassels on a chair when a stranger with a gun is standing there pointing it at him??????????????????

 
 

My tags at Amazon for this book:

absolute crap, overwritten, ten pounds of crap in a five pound bag

 
 

“Portia, a beautiful slave who holds a vital clue, hundreds of miles away.”

I’ve been told I have long arms, but DAMN.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

Y’know, when I was in Creative Writing 101 in college, one of the best pieces of advice I ever received on a failing paper was “Show, don’t tell”

Uh, yeah, exactly. Plus, the use of “peered” twice in fewer than four sentences, ESPECIALLY when he’s not really “peering” in the second sentence since the guys are “letting him study the car’s interior.”

 
 

It gazed forward like the unblinking eye of a mechanical cyclops

Gads! That line reads like Newt Gingrich trying to describe a metal dildo.

 
 

John Miller is taking nominations for a sequel to the Awesomest Consevative Rock Songs, Awesomest Conservative Novels, over at his personal website. Someone mentions Evelyn Waugh but it’s mostly Michael Chricton and Dean Kootz.

 
 

Screwed the link up. Here: http://www.heymiller.com/?p=837

He doesn’t at all look like the kind of dweeb who’d write a thriller about some guy who doesn’t end up doing something interesting.

 
Rusty Shackleford
 

I’m pretty sure there were assassins before 1865.

 
 

So the Going Rogue, a book that was given out for free, plus this book, which I don’t see being worth much, together cost 29.49 USD.

Is this one of those things where the sum of the parts equals more then the total? Because I don’t see this as reasonable price either way.

 
 

It was a dark and stormy night, the night I started my first novel. The dark sky stormed with flashes of light that split the night into tiny 3 second flashes of trees and that big rock down by the road.

 
Brooks Baxter, Esquire
 

An Amazon review I submitted but don’t expect to see published

I was reluctant to read The First Assassin, because I had heard rumors
about the graphic passages describing President Linconln’s
relationship with Joshua Speed. I consider myself a family oriented,
patriotic man, and I had no interest in reading anything like that.
And in all candor, the passages, particularly those near the middle of
the book that describe a rendezvous between Speed and Lincoln on a
trip back to Springfield, were even more lurid and graphic than I’d
been led to expect. But the writing style is so compelling and the
homoerotic exploits so central to the plot, that I was able to finally
just relax and enjoy myself. There were a few historical details wrong
in the narrative (it was at Chancellorsville and not Malvern Hill at
which Stonewall Jackson lost his arm, amyl nitrite poppers were not
yet available in 1864, Robert E Lee’s middle name was Edward and not
Evelyn, Jefferson Davis never as far as can be determined had himself
conveyed down to Tijuana for the purposes of fucking a dead donkey to
relieve stress and boost morale) but for the most part I heartily
endorse this book. Great work!

 
 

How exactly does this CreateSpace stuff work? Is it truly vanity publishing, where any doofus can publish anything, or does some presumably sane person have to sign off on it?

 
 

I’m pretty sure there were assassins before 1865.

Rusty for the WIN.

 
 

It looked like a room in the mansion of a wealthy family.

As opposed to the mansion of a poor family?

 
 

I offer modestly the following review. Take what ever part might be helpful.

“This book reminds me of common rat poison. Such products are anti-coagulants, they force unwanted critters to flee structures and seek sustenance and liquids away from the point of infestation, where they will eventually die. Reading this book causes the sensation that fluids from inside the body are about to spout forth unmitigated violence. The reading of only a few pages of this unintentionally hysterical work brings the feeling that blood might spout forth from one’s savagely assaulted eyes. Recently eaten food is at risk of once again seeing the light of day. Continued reading is near impossible, one is clutched with the unshakable fear that such an endeavor would cause pustules and blisters to form and burst over one’s entire physique. Like common brodifacoums used in pest control, this book drives the reader to drink, heavily, far from the initial contact with the poison, and hopefully in a fashion that will forever remove any vestiges of its presence in one’s brain stem.”

 
 

How exactly does this CreateSpace stuff work? Is it truly vanity publishing, where any doofus can publish anything, or does some presumably sane person have to sign off on it?

Vanity press. That’s what pretty much all print-on-demand is. I mean, there’s a purpose for POD; I’m not criticizing it as an industry. But becoming an established author is not the purpose of POD.

 
 

I smell a Bullwer-Lytton winner!

 
 

the unblinking eye of a mechanical cyclops

Cyclops didn’t have to blink? Or is it only robot cyclopses who donlt blick, much as all non-Bender robots don’t blink. Or is that the Gladwellian “Blink,” implying that robot cyclopses rely more on logic than intuition?

 
 

a get-even book

Veiled marriage pr0n.

 
 

Feh. “with unmitigated”

And I like BB Esq.’s better.

 
The Goddamn Batman Recommends For You BATMAN: YEAR ONE, Because Even If Frank Miller Has Turned Into A Wingnut Loon, David Mazzuchelli Still Has It
 

Mischief managed.

 
 

John Miller is taking nominations for a sequel to the Awesomest Consevative Rock Songs, Awesomest Conservative Novels, over at his personal website. Someone mentions Evelyn Waugh but it’s mostly Michael Chricton and Dean Kootz.

Five posts down and somebody’s already talking about the society depicted in Starship Troopers as if it would be a real-world ideal. Y’know, the society where you have to serve in the military to even be considered a citizen. And conservatives wonder why we claim they have fascist tendencies.

 
 

“Now I just need for someone to turn The First Assassin into a movie. The film rights are available. Does anybody know if Tom Selleck is looking for a project?”

Available? Hell, everything is available. I’m available. Any of you ladies want to pay an ugly, mean old man with a tiny penis and a premature ejaculation problem for sex? Why not? I’m available?

 
 

Any of you ladies want to pay an ugly, mean old man with a tiny penis and a premature ejaculation problem for sex?

Is that you, Strom Thurmond?

 
 

…somebody’s already talking about the society depicted in Starship Troopers as if it would be a real-world ideal. Y’know, the society where you have to serve in the military to even be considered a citizen. And conservatives wonder why we claim they have fascist tendencies.

I guess they thought the black uniforms and peaked caps in the movie were a fashion statement.

 
 

Didn’t someone take a shot at Ol’ Hickory (Andrew Jackson) when he was President? Wouldn’t that guy have been the First Assassin?

 
 

I’m looking for a different kind of bug. A smart bug.

One of the fall-down funniest lines I’ve ever heard, delivered by Dougie Howser in an SS uniform.

 
 

The First Assassin is available exclusively online through a new print-on-demand service: If you order a copy, they’ll print one and mail it to you.

That sounds like some kind of tree-hugger save the trees conspiracy to me. Why does John Miller hate America and the hard working folks at the paper plant who’s jobs he is putting at risk with this islamofascists publishing system?

 
a concerned citizen
 

s, Awesomest Conservative Novels, over at his personal website. Someone mentions Evelyn Waugh but it’s mostly Michael Chricton and Dean Kootz.

The Turner Diaries was seriously the only conservative novel I could think of.

Not surprised they’ve decided that the Lord of the Rings is actually a conservative book. Sauron is clearly a liberal (as illustrated by his environmental policies), and that Viggo Mortensen guy is clearly a conservative.

 
 

…somebody’s already talking about the society depicted in Starship TroopersEternal Dissertations as if it would be a real-world ideal. Y’know, the society where you have to serve in the military have a Doctorate in Education to even be considered a citizen.

I love the sound of wingnuts’ heads’ exploding in the morning.

Sounds like popcorn.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

I was starting to feel a teeny bit bad for him–he’s worked so hard on this and it’s so, so BAD but he’s so proud of it…it’s just depressing. But then I remembered that he said that horrible Sublime song about date rape was a “cautionary tale,” (um, yeah, to dudes that rape people, not their victims, asshole) and how “This Night Has Opened My Eyes” is tewtally conservative because it opposes infanticide.

So, yeah, fuck him. I look forward to reading your reviews.

 
 

T&U: You must harden your heart, conservative-style, until you are able to ruthlessly mock years of effort and hard-fought dreams.

I’m not even going to discuss the whole “circumcise your heart” thing require to critique religious slash fiction.

 
 

Didn’t someone take a shot at Ol’ Hickory (Andrew Jackson) when he was President? Wouldn’t that guy have been the First Assassin?

According to the account I remember, someone aimed a pistol at Jackson and pulled the trigger, but it misfired. Then he pulled out another pistol and pulled the trigger, and that misfired. The odds against that happening twice in a row were, supposedly, astronomical.

 
 

somebody’s already talking about the society depicted in Starship Troopers as if it would be a real-world ideal. Y’know, the society where you have to serve in the military to even be considered a citizen. And conservatives wonder why we claim they have fascist tendencies.

About all I remember of that movie is the part where the boy and the girl are held prisoner and the queen bug sucks the boy’s brains out for research purposes. Maybe he’s the character the wingnuts identify with, post-encephalectomy that is.

 
Rusty Shackleford
 

Damn, I didn’t save a copy of my review to post here. Not as funny as the others anyway.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

Not surprised they’ve decided that the Lord of the Rings is actually a conservative book. Sauron is clearly a liberal (as illustrated by his environmental policies), and that Viggo Mortensen guy is clearly a conservative.

Yeah, I’d prefer to listen to what Tolkein actually says himself on the subject of the novel being political: “It is neither allegorical nor topical….I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.”

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

Eep! Nerd spelling fail.

BUT BUT BUT BUT, did y’all see the dude recommending his own self-published “novel” in the comments?

“I highly recommend, ‘Vampires in the Age of Hope and Change,’ available at http://www.lulu.com/content/7318300.

A fictional city populated by ordinary, run-of-the-mill vampires is taken over by a charasmatic leader promising ‘free blood for all,’ via his Universal Blood Program. Liberal policies are implemented, power is consolidated, and the ancient vampiric capital city goes into a tailspin.

Meanwhile, a young vampire girl discovers the power of conservative ideas, and embarks on a mission to save her city from the clutch’s of facism.

Think: ‘Harry Potter’ meets ‘Wizard of Oz’… but with a wickedly-humorous conservative slant.”

Sounds like an instant classic.

 
 

but with a wickedly-humorous conservative slant.”

Sorry, this is just not possible.

 
 

Oooh, well done whoever you are

Tags Customers Associate with This Product:
wolverines …

 
 

but with a wickedly-humorous conservative slant.”

Sorry, this is just not possible.

Given that they think Ann Coulter and Mark Steyn calling Democrats faggots is the height of comedy, I’m inclined to agree with you.

 
 

wickedly-humorous conservative slant.

I do not think that word means what they think it means.

 
 

How exactly does this CreateSpace stuff work?

Pretty much a vanity press, with the added goodness of you have to format your own manuscript to fit their guidelines, or you can pay a good chunk of change for them to “edit” (read that as “run through spellcheck and then turn it into a PDF) for you.

They also do DVDs on demand, CDs on demand, will set you up for Kindle, for mp3 players and for video downloads.

All thru Amazon, of course. The only good thing about it is, you can sell your shit while still looking for an actual publisher and CreateSpace retains no right of first refusal or anything, so you can cancel your agreement once you’ve found a legitimate outlet.

Not many vanity presses will do that.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

Oooh, well done whoever you are

It was me, and I have to confess I’m pretty proud of it. But disappointed that Amazon doesn’t allow non-numerical characters–thus the lack of any exclamation points.

 
 

Aw, hell.

NO OFFENSE to those of you here who may have taken the route… but I’ve discovered “print on demand” is almost NEVER a good sign in fiction.

I’ve bought role-playing stuff from Lulu.com; it’s a great way to publish a small-press-type magazine or book, particularly for us old D&D grognardy types. Fiction, though…

Let me just point out that THE WORST SF WRITER EVER EVER who foisted a copy of his “sci-fi satire” book on me to carry at our bookstore (R.I.P.*snif*) self-published his roman d’merde. Self-published fiction is the bright coloration of the book world.

 
 

Portia, a beautiful slave who holds a vital clue?

Oh man. That steaming coil of semantic dung alone makes the entire run of Star Trek look like Crime and Punishment. If the line “Me Kundar! Me know how to grunt in six languages!” appears in his august tome, he stole it from my high-school. Or TeeVee.

Neocons & the arts go together like mongoose & cobras (cf. An American Carol) – but there always has to be the odd one that decides (or was earnestly assured throughout their youth by some well-meaning shithead) that they’re the next fucking Faulkner. If Palin’s newly-whelped magnum-dopus is even indirectly responsible for this turbid mound of festering poot, she has much to answer for.

 
 

I was wondering why Amazon had somehow listed “Gay soldiers in history” under this book.

Until I realized that was a recent search I did *blush*

 
 

I’m pretty sure there were assassins before 1865.

Either way it seems we still beat Canada.

 
 

Heavy furniture AND dainty trappings? Moar pls.

 
 

Five posts down and somebody’s already talking about the society depicted in Starship Troopers as if it would be a real-world ideal. Y’know, the society where you have to serve in the military to even be considered a citizen. And conservatives wonder why we claim they have fascist tendencies.

And it was likely posted by the guy who ducked out on Iraq and Afghanistan, or at least knows a whole passel of folks who did.

 
 

All you libruls are mean hearted anti-Americans who discriminate against people who aren’t part of the good-writing elites. Even people who are not good-writers deserve a chance to write too.

 
 

wickedly-humorous conservative slant.”

Veiled penis reference?

 
 

Even people who are not good-writers deserve a chance to write too.

I will defend to the death his right to write too!

Of course I will defend even more violently my right not to read it.

 
Rusty Shackleford
 

It is well and good to “see all tags.”

 
unbiased moderate
 

Relevant tags on Amazon.com:

wolverines
wingnuts are go

God bless the internets!

 
 

That vampire TTLY SUBTLE ALLEGORY U GUIZ book has got me thinkin’: Why would vampires need to be provided with blood? They’re fucking vampires! Are there still humans around? If not, what do they eat? Something weaker than themselves, I assume. So I guess the lesson is that Obama bin Hasan shouldn’t help people, because we’re all immortal monsters who have a helpless lowerclass to prey on whenever we need to, and helping us would only be a bother. Oh dear, is that a whiff of Rand that I smell?

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

It is well and good to “see all tags.”

Indeed. “my god i am blind” made me snarf.

 
 

How many Quarter Pounders with Cheese and pats of butter would this book be the nutritional equivalent of?

 
 

I believe it was Pratchett that said something along the lines of “The last thing a vampire wants is to attract attention. The ideal situation for a vampire is for him to be the only one and nobody believes they exist.”

 
 

How many Quarter Pounders with Cheese and pats of butter would this book be the nutritional equivalent of?

Two Q.P.w/c plus a healthy dose of belladonna and jimson weed.

 
 

Indeed. “my god i am blind” made me snarf.

*raising hand sheepishly*

I also created the “ten pounds of crap in a five pound bag” tag, but in honesty, I used that for Jonah’s book first

 
 

If the reader mentally hears a dull “clunk” after reading each sentence, then yer not ritin’ ver good prohse.

 
 

Y’know, I almost…*almost*…feel bad for John, but that pathetic whoring at BigFailywood gives me comfort.

 
 

Someone in the Conservative Novels discussion mentions Sometimes a Great Notion because it sticks it to the unions. Who looks at those characters and thinks that family is a model?

 
 

I bet you are the same sort of people who discriminate against the TV show “Red Eye” just because it’s lame and horrible.

 
 

He saw the engine’s massive oil lamp mounted on top the smoke box.

A) Isn’t there an “of” missing here?

B) I can imagine the follow up would be “The lamp and box shared a cigarette. The box told the lamp, ‘You were magnificent, you big strong manly stud.’ “

 
 

I almost…*almost*…feel bad for John

I don’t see a need to feel bad about a Konservetkulter. Kamper. Also.

 
Mechanical Cyclops
 

I think I can! I think I can!

 
Rusty Shackleford
 

One of Miller’s commenters notes that Steven Spielberg is working on a Lincoln assassination conspiracy theory movie, and suggests Miller sue Spielberg.

 
 

Right now, I’m trying to write my first novel for National Novel Writing Month. And I’m not gonna lie, there are some clunker paragraphs in my draft right now (it’s inevitable when you try to write 50,000 words in a month).

But, wingers, you want to know what liberals pray for? I pray that I don’t write anything that reads that shitty.

 
 

the Conservative Novels discussion

Oh, cripes, I’m sure that’s a scintillating meeting of the minds there, what with the requisite wanking to Ayn Rand and the “military SF” genre.

 
 

He saw the engine’s massive oil lamp mounted on top the smoke box.

A) Isn’t there an “of” missing here?

You’d think that but then you’d be missing his Cormac McCarthy-esque bid for inventive syntax.

OTOH your reaction is a pretty good barometer of the success of his stylings.

 
 

There’s surprisingly little Rand love in the early comments. Military sci-fi gets a lot of love, though, including someone who thinks it could only be a leftist plot that keeps Ender’s Game from being taught in school.

 
 

Wait, hold on…

He’s doing a book signing already?

BTW, Glenn Blecccchh was signing his tumorlike mass of paper (to call it a “book” demeans 500 years of publishing) here in Columbia last night.

I’m just SO sorry I didn’t find out about it until after. The mind boggles at the idea of what crowd could have shown up for that. My, talk about a Chataqua.

 
 

I still can’t believe he included the fucking Dead Kennedys.

 
 

Indeed. “my god i am blind” made me snarf.

Me, as well. I chucked in “stay in the boat,” “trike force must read,” and a couple of others.

 
 

One of Miller’s commenters notes that Steven Spielberg is working on a Lincoln assassination conspiracy theory movie, and suggests Miller sue Spielberg.

Nice to see their logic-fail scales to things beyond the political realm.

 
 

I am tired of being oppressed by the Qualitarians. Just because my works are not good is no reason to not prefer them to other things which may possibly not be as not good.

 
 

Just because my works are not good is no reason to not prefer them to other things which may possibly not be as not good.

This sounds suspiciously like free market apostasy.

Witch! Burn the witch!

 
 

OK, Brooks Baxter, after reading umpty gazillion times about a burst of laughter causing someone to mess up their keyboard…my laptop is now sprinkled with specks of tea and peanut butter toast.

So I’m no longer a Clean Keyboard Virgin, but am still waiting for the big ROFLMAO experience. I’m sure you can deliver.

 
 

Didn’t someone take a shot at Ol’ Hickory (Andrew Jackson) when he was President? Wouldn’t that guy have been the First Assassin?

Hell, Lincoln wasn’t even the first person assassinated at a theatrical event, that honor belongs to Caligula.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

There’s surprisingly little Rand love in the early comments. Military sci-fi gets a lot of love, though, including someone who thinks it could only be a leftist plot that keeps Ender’s Game from being taught in school.

I noticed that. Maybe because of the anti-Jesusy stuff?

Here’s the thing with Ender’s Game. I know it’s written by a Mormon who’s all into weird spontaneous hermaphroditism, but, at its heart, it’s about the moral issues surrounding war, including the exploitation of soldiers and, oh, I don’t know, fucking xenophobia? I wouldn’t call the book “liberal” (mostly because I’m secure enough in my beliefs don’t feel the compulsive need to slap a political label on everything I like even if it doesn’t align with my ideals 100%), but I wouldn’t call it “conservative,” either.

 
 

One of Miller’s commenters notes that Steven Spielberg is working on a Lincoln assassination conspiracy theory movie, and suggests Miller sue Spielberg.

OK, that’s practically orgasm-inducing.

 
 

yeah, the book’s crap. what I really want to see is a take down of his 100 top conservative rock songs for candidates to use without paying royalties while campaigning.

 
 

it’s about the moral issues surrounding war, including the exploitation of soldiers and, oh, I don’t know, fucking xenophobia?

Which is why I know teachers who have taught it in school. Maybe the teachers where the wingnut lives are just too gunshy from having crazed members of the PTA agitiating for creationism that they don’t feel they can teach things like Ender’s Game?

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

Which is why I know teachers who have taught it in school. Maybe the teachers where the wingnut lives are just too gunshy from having crazed members of the PTA agitiating for creationism that they don’t feel they can teach things like Ender’s Game?

I don’t know anybody who has taught it, but it was my city’s “One Read” a couple of years ago and nobody seemed to care, especially in light of the wingnut flip-out the year before over “Nickel and Dimed.”

 
 

I wouldn’t call the book “liberal” (mostly because I’m secure enough in my beliefs don’t feel the compulsive need to slap a political label on everything I like even if it doesn’t align with my ideals 100%), but I wouldn’t call it “conservative,” either.

Doesn’t it pin the needle on the Irony Meter that people who like to spout off about “political correctness” feel a deep need to vet everything they see and hear through their own ideological biases?

BTW, I don’t hate military SF as a whole – Starship Troopers is a bad book, but amusing, unlike, say, Moon Is A Harsh Mistress where the political wankering just totally overshadowed the plot. John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War was damn great. And I love The Forever War.

Just fucking give me some small acknowledgement that war is not a big fucking combination football game and cops & robbers game, and keep the reactionary lecturing douchebaggery to a minimum, and I’m willing to give it a shot. Pournelle u.s.w. don’t even seem to be capable of that.

 
 

I wouldn’t call the book “liberal” (mostly because I’m secure enough in my beliefs don’t feel the compulsive need to slap a political label on everything I like even if it doesn’t align with my ideals 100%), but I wouldn’t call it “conservative,” either.

It even goes so far as to suggest that maybe the complete extermination of one’s enemies might not always be the right thing to do.

It’s definitely not their kind of thing.

Then again, even Tom Clancy goes out of his way to say that not all Muslims are terrorists, that the entire religion shouldn’t be tarred with the brush of violence and that genocidal attacks on one’s enemies are usually bad. If Tom Clancy is too liberal for the modern right, there really can’t be anybody on the list, except maybe L. Neil Smith.

 
 

If Tom Clancy is too liberal for the modern right, there really can’t be anybody on the list, except maybe L. Neil Smith.

I’d just like to make one small caveat there – Her Majestie’s Bucketeers was a fun book.

And there’s also Allen Steele, who’s been compared to a modern Heinlein. His first book (I forget the name now) was a cool thing about construction workers in orbit in the near-future.

 
Progressive Center Left Grrl Voice of Truth
 

How many Quarter Pounders with Cheese and pats of butter would this book be the nutritional equivalent of?

It’s like eating a styrofoam peanut. If pulp like Harry Potter is literary junk food — tastes good, but empty ideas — and something like Pale Fire is literary whole food — takes a refined palate, but the ideas stick with you and nourish you — then this opus is something that can’t sustain life and doesn’t even taste good going down.

 
 

Smith had cleaned his revolver over and over

VPR.

OK. On the one hand I started a novel for NaNoWriMo … a while ago. Even I suspect it is crap. However, I can imagine not thinking it is crap enough to look for an agent (assuming I ever finish). So I kinda sorta would feel for this guy … if he weren’t so damn oblivious to what a crap writer he is. I mean, movie rights?

Christ.

And it was likely posted by the guy who ducked out on Iraq and Afghanistan, or at least knows a whole passel of folks who did.

Wetting your pants at the very thought of possibly being in harms way isn’t exactly “ducking out.”

 
 

Sorry folks, the comment over at Big Hollywood about Miller suing Spielberg for doing a Lincoln assassination movie was my own handiwork. Mea culpa, and all that. Glad to know that it almost induced an orgasm though, because I can only imagine what it’s doing to conservatives. I wonder if they only use their right hands?

 
 

I don’t know anybody who has taught it, but it was my city’s “One Read” a couple of years ago and nobody seemed to care, especially in light of the wingnut flip-out the year before over “Nickel and Dimed.”

Well, I was talking about college level so there’s some leeway there.

And “Nickel and Dimed” well, that’s just heresy against the magically invisible hand of the free market.

 
 

Wingnuts are revolting…

You said it! They stink on ice!

 
 

So Palin 2012 is out then?

Damn. What am I going to do with all this popcorn I ordered?

 
 

Is someone going to enter this for the annual Bulwer-Lytton Award?

 
 

Wingnuts are revolting against St. Sarah.

So she skipped town without signing some of their copies of her book. Like, what are they supposed to do with her book now? Read it?

 
 

Right wing Americans love the coup government of Honduras for throwing out the somewhat left-leaning elected President.

But the coup government has announced it will actually be confiscating all firearms, licensed or unlicensed, during the duration of the elections period.

Should I expect the NRA and all the 2nd amendment types to start denouncing their right wing coup buddies in Honduras? Or, is this, um, “different”?

 
 

Five posts down and somebody’s already talking about the society depicted in Starship Troopers as if it would be a real-world ideal.

I believe the novel really was making that argument. The satire in Verhoeven’s film was nowhere to be found in the source material, IIRC.

 
 

It even goes so far as to suggest that maybe the complete extermination of one’s enemies might not always be the right thing to do.

I think it qualifies as a conservative book because they don’t get around to suggesting that maybe the complete extermination of one’s enemies might not always be the right thing to do until after the complete extermination of thier enemies. As long as the extermination happens it’s ok to be sorry about it later or at least pretend to be.

 
 

Should I expect the NRA and all the 2nd amendment types to start denouncing their right wing coup buddies in Honduras? Or, is this, um, “different”?

of course it’s different!

It’s always Opposite Day when you’re a wingnut.

 
 

Should I expect the NRA and all the 2nd amendment types to start denouncing their right wing coup buddies in Honduras? Or, is this, um, “different”?

Don’t be silly. Brown people were never meant to be covered under the 2nd Amendment or its counterparts in other nations.

Just ask your local gun nut how he feels if certain minorities were to band together for self-protection.

 
 

I am tired of being oppressed by the Qualitarians.

I bid three hundred Quatloos on the Conservatard

 
 

Is someone going to enter this for the annual Bulwer-Lytton Award?

Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

I entered two dozen entries this year, at least three of which Scott responded and said “this should be in the finals” and if this jackass submits, NO ONE else will win!

 
 

Y’know, with the evolution of “vanity publishing” on the internets, I wonder why I bother trying to put effort and creativity into my writing anymore. I guess it goes to show that you don’t need anything like talent or a decent editor as long as you’ve got enough name recognition–or in this case, if you’re a recipient of wingnut welfare.

Also, because the “100 most conservative rock songs” wasn’t bad enough, he’s celebrating the release of this pulp by asking for a list of “conservative novels” on his blog.

Here, let me save you the trouble: If it’s anything written by Brad Thor (think of an even worse Tom Clancy), Vince Flynn (who continually shops for blurbs from Limbaugh and Beck), or the duo who wrote the Left Behind series, then you can take those. I’ll even let you have some of Orson Scott Card’s later work (after all, “Empire” is practically a conspiracy of evil liberals financed by a George Soros pastiche and led by an evil college professor trying to take over America).

Even so, I have a feeling that he’ll go ahead and try to claim authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and Hunter Thompson for the Conservative Kulturkampf. That’s the wonderful thing about dead people: they can’t say no when you desecrate their memory.

 
 

From the conservative books thread:

I would recommend a couple books by Vladimir Nabokov. Lolita, if you can get past the allegorical child molestation, is a book about controlling your own circumstances even when it feels like something much larger is looming over you. Is it applicable today? Only if you think Humbert Humbert is the government.

the mind, she’s a boggling.

 
 

“weird spontaneous hermaphroditism”

I had that once. Itchy.

 
 

…led by an evil college professor trying to take over America.

If you’re a college professor whose not trying to take over America, then frankly you don’t want tenure that badly.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

I would recommend a couple books by Vladimir Nabokov. Lolita, if you can get past the allegorical child molestation, is a book about controlling your own circumstances even when it feels like something much larger is looming over you. Is it applicable today? Only if you think Humbert Humbert is the government.

Wait. What??!?

 
 

Lolita, if you can get past the allegorical child molestation

Um….WHAT?!

 
 

Damn you T&U!!!!!!!

 
 

Is there a link to where I can nominate top conservative books? I’m thinking “My Pet Goat” should be at the top of the list.

FYWP…it’s been 42 minutes since I last posted! I can’t go much slower.

 
 

I would recommend a couple books by Vladimir Nabokov. Lolita, if you can get past the allegorical child molestation, is a book about controlling your own circumstances even when it feels like something much larger is looming over you. Is it applicable today? Only if you think Humbert Humbert is the government.

That is the biggest slice of WTF? I’ve seen in years.

 
 

Damn you two, T&U and actor!

 
 

Is anyone here “Alicia”? I’d like to tip my hat for this review:

Awe-inspiring! I don’t want to give too much away, but the leaden, awkward prose and contrived storyline ensures that this is a book which will require the assistance of powerful chemical stimulation to finish.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

Damn you T&U!!!!!!!

Ha! The “allegorical child molestation” part was what really stood out for me, too. That’s a mindblowing WTF? right there.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

That is the biggest slice of WTF? I’ve seen in years.

Damn you, Bitter Scribe!

 
 

Wingnuts are revolting against St. Sarah.

Good stuff at that link.

I don’t think I’ve waited in line for hours for anything, ever, and yet there are hundreds of people waiting that long for … an ignoramus. And are ending up disappointed, and really, who could have seen that coming.

 
 

I’m self-published, through Lulu.com. But then, I never bothered looking for a commercial publisher: I preferred to get it out there quickly, and maybe look into proper publishing later.

Lots of deserving works do get passed over by commercial authors. Something tells me, however, that Miller’s is not one of them. Especially since he tells us he’s already a published author – i.e., he had a profile and publishers had some idea of his popularity.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

I don’t think I’ve waited in line for hours for anything, ever, and yet there are hundreds of people waiting that long for … an ignoramus.

I think I waited for 5 hours in line to see Barack Obama last October. But it was a sunny, beautiful day and I got to skip out of work early. Plus, you know, it was Barack Obama.

What really gets me is these people whining about standing in line for HOURS in the cold and rain with their small children…one dude was talking about being in line for 6 hours with his ten-month-old. Awesome parenting, guys.

 
 

anything written by Brad Thor (think of an even worse Tom Clancy

Check out the back issues of my blog – I reviewed a steaming load a couple years back by someone named (I think) Mack Maroney – anti-terrorist wingnut fap-material if ever I saw it. Not that poorly written (as far as pure grammatics & spelling etc. goes) but AWFUL, AWFUL plot. Evidently part of an on-going series, which makes it all the worse.

 
 

The satire in Verhoeven’s film was nowhere to be found in the source material, IIRC.

Satire and Robert Heinlein (aka Hitler I. E. Bonner) never once met.

 
 

Especially since he tells us he’s already a published author – i.e., he had a profile and publishers had some idea of his popularity.

I see the problem with getting this novel published already.

 
 

He saw the engine’s massive oil lamp mounted on top the smoke box. It gazed forward like the unblinking eye of a mechanical cyclops. Behind it were the cab, the coal tender, and a line of cars. Flags and streamers covered them all. The whole train glistened from a recent cleaning.

As he caught it’s gaze it seemed to him that the unblinking cyclopean eye peered directly at him, penetrating into his very soul. There began a low rhythmic throbbing and the massive engine began to push it’s way forward. “My God!” he cried out. “It’s unstoppable!”

Indeed the long black glistening engine could not be stopped. Once it gets going there is no way to imped it’s will. With a mighty lurch it thrust itself forward, incessant, demanding, usurping all in it’s path. Who can stop this mighty socialist juggernaught in it’s track? Who?

Suddenly a shot rang out and Jesus Palin lept onto the tracks. “Give me all you got you black monster!” She cried. “I can take on all of you!” The glistening train charged forward like a thing alive. Alas and alack Jesus Palin was too much for it, a great cloud of steam erupted from the boiler and covered all so I could not see. When it was all over the two lay collapsed in exhaustion. The engines power now spent.

That my children is how the Jesus Palin saved America from the mighty O train. God bless us all.

 
 

The Story of O Train. Bring some tissues.

 
 

…describe a metal dildo.

humorless?

 
 

From the Palin ranting:

At the end of the day I know that you don’t care that you wasted the whole day of some 20 year old college student who lives on their own.

This guy got into college? Or is it beautician training?

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

The Story of O Train. Bring some tissues.

Why? It doesn’t sound that sad.

 
 

The Story of O Train. Bring some tissues.

We should record the sound of one hand fapping.

 
 

The Story of O Train. Bring some tissues.

Why? It doesn’t sound that sad.

uhhhhhhh…wrong fluid

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

uhhhhhhh…wrong fluid

Huh?

OHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

 
 

More from Palinpalosers:

I want to let you know I a huge supporter and have spent hours to campaign on your behalf. I want to come across in a nice and sensible tone.

Fail.

 
 

It’s okay. New Yorkers have been explaining sex to the Midwest for quite some time now.

AND FLAME ON!

 
 

The Story of O Train. Bring some tissues.

Marcy: My husband was a movie freak. Actually, he was particularly obsessed with one movie, “The Wizard of Oz.” He talked about it constantly. I thought it was cute at first. On our wedding night, I was a virgin. When we made love – you’ve seen the movie, haven’t you?
Paul Hackett: “The Wizard of Oz”? Yeah.
Marcy: Well, whenever he – you know, when he came…
Paul Hackett: Yeah.
Marcy: …he would scream out, “Surrender Dorothy!” That’s all! Just “Surrender Dorothy!”
Paul Hackett: Wow.
Marcy: Instead of saying something normal like, “Oh, God,” or something normal like that. I mean, it was pretty creepy! And I told him I thought so, but he just, he just couldn’t stop, he just, he just couldn’t stop, he just… couldn’t stop.

 
 

New Yorkers have been explaining sex to the Midwest for quite some time now.

Maybe if they stopped taking the bus to the Port Authority…

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

It’s okay. New Yorkers have been explaining sex to the Midwest for quite some time now.

Obviously, you’ve never driven I-70 between Kansas City and St. Louis, otherwise you would not be saying such silly, silly things.

 
 

He likes to keep his locomotive clean, it’s a clean machine
IIt flies out of a dream
It’s anti-septically clean
You’re gonna know where I’ve been
In my silver machine

Lincoln wasn’t even the first person assassinated at a theatrical event, that honor belongs to Caligula.

Apart from that, Milonia Caesonia, how were the gladiators?

 
 

It’s okay. New Yorkers have been explaining sex to the Midwest for quite some time now.
Obviously, you’ve never driven I-70 between Kansas City and St. Louis

That’s not sex, that’s work.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

That’s not sex, that’s work.

Which is why there are “arcades” and strip clubs every 300 feet.

 
 

That’s not sex, that’s work.
Which is why there are “arcades” and strip clubs every 300 feet.

That’s what I meant.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

That’s what I meant.

I thought you were talking about the driving. Nevertheless, it’s obviously some sort of sex to the “clients” of said establishments.

 
 

it’s obviously some sort of sex to the “clients” of said establishments.

Which is why we have to teach them about sex when they come here!

 
 

Why? It doesn’t sound that sad.

He was also chopping onions, and there’s nothing sadder than that.

uhhhhhhh…wrong fluid

If the vitreous humor is coming out, stop chopping and call your optometrist immediately.

 
 

That’s not gravy!

 
 

Isn’t that where “The Glory Hole” was located? And did anyone follow-up on “researching” that fine establishment?

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

Which is why we have to teach them about sex when they come here!

*sigh* All I’m sayin’ is, some of us know how to masturbate at the very least. And yesterday, I saw a couple who were probably 23 or 24 at the most and they had four kids, so I guess they at least figured out the basics.

 
 

Lunch Lady said,

November 20, 2009 at 22:06

That’s not gravy!

YAY! Lunch Lady served mashed potatoes!

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

Isn’t that where “The Glory Hole” was located? And did anyone follow-up on “researching” that fine establishment?

Yup. Every time I think about it, I’m at work, so I haven’t looked into it yet.

 
 

And yesterday, I saw a couple who were probably 23 or 24 at the most and they had four kids, so I guess they at least figured out the basics.

Look, even a blind squirrel can find an ACORN.

 
Non-mechanical Cyclops
 

If the vitreous humor is coming out, stop chopping and call your optometrist immediately.

Now you tell me.

 
 

Polyphemus was a vitreous-humourless non-dildo.

 
 

Non-mechanical Cyclops said,

November 20, 2009 at 22:18

If the vitreous humor is coming out, stop chopping and call your optometrist immediately.

Now you tell me.

Of course, if you keep chopping and lose that other eye you could have a promising career as an ECHL referee.

 
 

Of course, if you keep chopping and lose that other eye you could have a promising career as an ECHL a FIFA referee.

Henri’d!

 
Curious Midwesterner
 

What is this “Up On the BackStroke” technique I keep hearing about? Can someone please link to a newsletter of some sort?

Best Regards.

 
 

Jordan Harris :
I just spent 9 hours of my day, $40 of my hard earned money on two of your books, and took the whole day off work to watch you jump on a bus and throw a half-heated wave to the crowd you were avoiding.

I have never felt so disrespected. How can you claim that you are different? You aren’t. You are just as selfish as everyone else in Washington. It breaks my heart. I thought you might be the answer to the turmoil this country is under but you aren’t. You just slapped hundreds of Hoosiers in the face. The hard working type of people that you claim to represent.

You say in your book that you chose to sleep well over eating well. At the end of the day I know that you don’t care that you wasted the whole day of some 20 year old college student who lives on their own. I understand that all that matters is that I spent my money on two of your books. I’m sure your eating well. You certainly have no reason to be sleeping well.

That is fucking clinical…

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

Late to the thread as always—but wasn’t Lorenzo Smith (or “Smythe” as he insisted on pronouncing it) the hero of Heinlein’s Double Star?

 
 

actor212 said,

November 20, 2009 at 21:25

Is anyone here “Alicia”?

Actor212 – it’s me…I’m a regular lurker here (and visit your site also), but very rarely post.

 
 

What really gets me is these people whining about standing in line for HOURS…

That, and that they’re calling her a “politician” and “just like everyone else in Washington” when she neither holds nor is seeking office.

 
 

Lorenzo Smith? Not a patch on ANTONIO SMITH, FORENSIC LINGUIST.

 
 

I just spent 9 hours of my day, $40 of my hard earned money on two of your books, and took the whole day off work to watch you jump on a bus and throw a half-heated wave to the crowd you were avoiding.

Is that about what I think it is?

I predict she’ll be quitting the book tour, also. Too.

 
 

What is this “Up On the BackStroke” technique I keep hearing about? Can someone please link to a newsletter of some sort?

That’s not sex, that’s fiction.

 
 

Alicia!

A tip o the hat (but no wag of the finger) to ya for the Amazon review!

And thanks for the patronage.

 
 

Not a patch on ANTONIO SMITH, FORENSIC LINGUIST.
ANTONIO SMITH’s correlational methods are in turn no match for the cantrip of the Master Philologist.

 
A Second Non-Lester The Giant Ape
 

Yet I couldn’t find a publisher that was willing to take a chance on a first-time novelist during the worst economy of our lives.

That’s funny — For my first novel, I wrote a 560-page zombie apocalypse story, showed it to an editor at a major publishing house, he immediately bought it, and it will be released in the summer.

So I guess even with this shitty economy there are a few publishers willing to take a chance on a first-time novelist. Could it be… that John J. Miller’s first novel SUCKS?

No, it was probably just that I’m a lib. PENIS!

 
 

No, it was probably just that I’m a lib. PENIS!

Well, as you and I both know, it’s not about talent, it’s about who you blow.

 
A Second Non-Lester The Giant Ape
 

Damn you, Actor! My secret revealed! Yes, I BLEW AN EDITOR!!!!! LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!! Wolverines!

Also.

 
 

I BLEW AN EDITOR!!!!!

Rookie mistake.

You have to blow the mail room boy. He’s the one who makes sure the editor sees the book AND he also orders five hundred copies guaranteeing it bullets at Amazon.

 
 

(Q)Isn’t that where “The Glory Hole” was located? And did anyone follow-up on “researching” that fine establishment?

(A) Yup. Every time I think about it, I’m at work, so I haven’t looked into it yet.

Me too. Every time I’m at work, I think of looking into it.

 
 

HAH! Troofie replied to one of the reviewers…

 
 

That’s funny — For my first novel, I wrote a 560-page zombie apocalypse story, showed it to an editor at a major publishing house, he immediately bought it, and it will be released in the summer.

A most hearty “right on”. Though I must admit I do find it interesting that the walking dead is still such a commodity. Isn’t it about time to give them the Twilight treatment and make being the walking cannibalistic dead a creepy allegory for abstinence? Why doesn’t anyone write books about voodoo zombies? It’s a fascinating subject and that shit actually happened. You know what would be cool? Voodoo priests fighting brain-eating zombies. Or Taoist magicians like the One-Eyebrowed Priest in Mr. Vampire. That’d be bad-ass.

Anyhow, congratulations on your book. That is incredibly cool.

May I recommend to one and all a very fine little novel that the author self-published. The Translated Man by Chris Braak. It’s been described as a “Lovecrafitan police procedural” and a “grim noir” Terry Pratchett. I was stoned and read that, which completely sold me. Plot-wise alone it’s nothing special, refried Raymond Chandler and tired “one good cop” cliches, but the guy has a nice little world he’s built to play with, and who can’t enjoy the odd by-the-numbers whodunnit from time to time? Hitler, that’s who. Anyhow, the Lulu.com site. It’s not a bad way to blow eight bucks and you’d only spend that on chocolate or porn anyway.

 
 

Isn’t it about time to give them the Twilight treatment and make being the walking cannibalistic dead a creepy allegory for abstinence?

I always thought that, like vampirism, the trope was alcoholism or addiction.

of course, for zombies, it could be obesity…

 
 

Goddammit, I’m 20K words into a zombie(ish) apocolypse story!

Oh well, back to the old making-shit-up board.

Also, congrats Non-Lester!

 
 

Goddammit, I’m 20K words into a zombie(ish) apocolypse story!

Oh well, back to the old making-shit-up board.

Make it about voodoo zombies. And Taoist magic. And ninjas. No, wait,Taoist space kung-fu monks! Fighting barbarian hordes of canabalistic,seven-foot-tall cyclopean aliens bent on consuming humanity while a plucky young mambo and a disbelieving and world-weary biologist-turned-detective race against the clock to fight the machinations of a of a secret cadre composed of a breakaway sisterhood of Catholic nuns, a rogue CIA department in charge of the paranormal, and the upper echelon of the cryonics industry to make the dead walk the land again.

I’m not sure how the two connect, but I bet you could get a three-book series out of it. Five if you add in sex scenes.

 
 

Robert Heinlein (aka Hitler I. E. Bonner)

Say good-bye to this ‘cos I’m stealing it.

 
 

Make it about voodoo zombies.

There was a vogue for Haitian voodoun in SF a few years ago, what with “On Stranger Tides”, “Green Eyes”, Gibson’s use of the Loa mythos, and a few other examples that slip my mind right now.
There are two main first-hand sources — Maya Deren’s book, and Alfred Métraux’s — and you could tell which one had been plundered by which author.

 
 

Smut Clyde,
Thankyouverymuch. I will write all that down, ’cause I’m stoned and in the middle of moving to New Orleans (speaking of…) and I will forget. But thanks again. And I see On Stranger Tides involves pirates. Joy.

 
 

He saw the engine’s massive oil lamp mounted on top the smoke box. It gazed forward like the unblinking eye of a mechanical cyclops.

“It wasn’t so much like the eye of a regular cyclops, but it bore more then a passing resemblance to the new horseless cyclopses that had lately become so popular in the big cities.”

The problem with these lists of conservative dog breeds is not so much that they’re analyzing art from a political perspective; analyzing something from, say, a feminist perspective can yield interesting insights. The problem is that you can’t analyze something based on conservative principles, because there AREN’T any conservative principles. Look at this suggestion Miller got:

Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honor trilogy evokes the devastating effects of modernism on traditional society, and exposes the way socialists and communists exploited wartime crisis to further their ends.

Oh, you mean like the way white men screwed the Indians? Or do you mean the way global capitalism has destroyed so many traditional economies?

And of course there’s nothing less liberal then talking about how wartime crises are exploited by selfish, corrupt governments.

Seriously, there’s not even an attempt at forming a coherent set of ideals coming from anybody in conservative politics or punditry, so any project that attempts to analyze anything by “conservative principles” is doomed from the start.

This is why fully half of Miller’s commenters seem to be taking the piss.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Man, that’s some piss-poor writing- Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon must be getting really sloppy with the editing.

 
The Truthful Problem With Amazon Reviews
 

For those who may be visiting the site from Amazon, here’s a few little facts that you may wish to bear in mind about the poster known as “TheRealTruth”, also known here as “The Truth”, “Troofus”, and a myriad of other different user names over the years;

He’s prone to stalking, vandalism, and misogyny on a truly frightening scale: The reason he posted so quickly on the Amazon reviews, and in every comment he could find, is because he’s literally spent years trying to track down any educated liberal poster, in particular educated female posters, and abuse them, break the sites they are on or spam their comments out of existence. He’s been banned countless times, but keeps returning every day because he’s driven by an unrelenting hatred; It’s not a coincidence that within an hour or two of the post going up here, he was copy and pasting responses all over Amazon about it… even though he’s swore he’d never come back here because he hates everyone so much. He also posts exactly the same way at Salon.com as “The Truth About Liberals” (and various similar names) because he’s also been banned there numerous times too, despite also hating them so much etc. And on his YouTube page? A clip called “The Truthful Problem With Women” from the 1950s. Yes, this is a seriously unbalanced individual we are dealing with here…

He’s also an unreconstructed racist: Just hang around a little while; no matter what the topic, he’ll eventually try and drag it around to how black men are just naturally violent, and liberals are too scared to admit what animals they are, and the law lets black men rape and kill with impunity. Honestly. Just wait here and see.

When he’s not being violent or offensive he’s just plain ignorant: This is a man who on October 28th 2008 gave a famous Presidential election prediction, known as “Bookmark this, liberals”, which called every single state wrong. This is a man who on the 11th November, the day that the Daily Show caught Sean Hannity doctoring crowd reports, claimed that the Teabag protests had over a million people in Washington. This is a man who can’t even honestly make an argument at all most days, as he gets so consumed with how he wants to imagine the world is, he’ll resort to posting under different user names to back himself up, but then trip himself up because he then forgets which name is in which browser window.

This is a man so psychologically damaged and lacking in any real worth in his life at all, that he has to make a profile on Amazon.com called “TheRealTruth”, and spend all evening refreshing it, because he can’t bear the thought that someone, somewhere is having a bit of fun.

Ladies and gentlemen of the audience, we give you… “The Truth”.

 
 

The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge said,

November 20, 2009 at 22:44

Late to the thread as always—but wasn’t Lorenzo Smith (or “Smythe” as he insisted on pronouncing it) the hero of Heinlein’s Double Star?

Absolutely, yes. This Miller asshat may well have adopted it for his character because of Heinlein’s ideas about how ordinary people need the political guidance of noble leaders who work in secret. Having said that, I should add that “Double Star” is a terrific book, although most of the political ideas in it are too right-of-center for my taste.

 
 

Make it about voodoo zombies. And Taoist magic. And ninjas. No, wait,Taoist space kung-fu monks! Fighting barbarian hordes of canabalistic,seven-foot-tall cyclopean aliens bent on consuming humanity while a plucky young mambo and a disbelieving and world-weary biologist-turned-detective race against the clock to fight the machinations of a of a secret cadre composed of a breakaway sisterhood of Catholic nuns, a rogue CIA department in charge of the paranormal, and the upper echelon of the cryonics industry to make the dead walk the land again.

*tearing up first draft*

Motherfuckinggoddamnedfuckinghackers….

 
 

Someone in the Conservative Novels discussion mentions Sometimes a Great Notion because it sticks it to the unions.

Man, I’d’ve thought its being written by Ken “Merry Pranksters” Kesey would’ve raised objections.

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

#

Tehanu said,

November 21, 2009 at 3:17

The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge said,

November 20, 2009 at 22:44

Late to the thread as always—but wasn’t Lorenzo Smith (or “Smythe” as he insisted on pronouncing it) the hero of Heinlein’s Double Star?

Absolutely, yes. This Miller asshat may well have adopted it for his character because of Heinlein’s ideas about how ordinary people need the political guidance of noble leaders who work in secret. Having said that, I should add that “Double Star” is a terrific book, although most of the political ideas in it are too right-of-center for my taste.

Double Star was also one of my favorites. I won’t try fighting the majority evaluation of Heinlein, but as I’ve said before on this blog, if there’s any one influence responsible for turning me into the wild-eyed lefty I am, it’s him. YMMV.

 
 

I loved Stranger In A Strange Land when I read it long ago, at the age of fourteen. That’s the only Heinlein I’ve read. I seemed sort of hippilicious to my teenaged self, but I don’t remember much about it. I do remember being enthralled, and going around saying “I grok” a lot.

I’ve had some serious, heavy-duty laughs today, at this thread and the next. I sincerely appreciate it, even though at one point I had a scary moment when a strand of my long hair got sucked down my throat as I inhaled prior to braying laughter.

 
ACORN Flakes: a great taste America loves
 

Curiously enough, the people depicted in that 1970 advertisement seem to be real. Google confirms that Doris Stebbins was indeed a gardening columnist. She died in 2008.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

I sincerely appreciate it, even though at one point I had a scary moment when a strand of my long hair got sucked down my throat as I inhaled prior to braying laughter.

Funny, I never seem to have that problem.

 
 

Goddamnit, I have ruined my reputation with Amazon…it’s offering me more & more dreadful wingnut dreck with a bland “you might also like this piece of shit.” It’ll take years to get redeem myself.

 
 

a strand of my long short curly hair got sucked down my throat as I inhaled prior to braying laughter.

Ficquesed for BBBB.

 
 

Ugh. I’d rather read Palin. How many of you have already said this?

 
A Second Non-Lester The Giant Ape
 

A most hearty “right on”. Though I must admit I do find it interesting that the walking dead is still such a commodity. Isn’t it about time to give them the Twilight treatment and make being the walking cannibalistic dead a creepy allegory for abstinence?

The walking dead will remain in vogue as long as there are assholes out there having tea parties and voting for zombies like McCain.

Shackleford: write the damn zombie book! There’s only about 6 of em out there now.

Matt T. rocks.

All sadlynaughts, be advised I am totally using this space as a launch platform for the book. Sorry, that’s just how it is. I’ll have to give up my secret alias ONCE AGAIN but it shall be worth it. If you fuckers each buy a copy.

 
 

I was freaked out to wander into Forbidden Planet in London a few months ago and discover that the “paranormal romance” genre — all the Twilight and True Blood wanabee books — has expanded to fill an entire free-standing shelf.

In some cases I could see the appeal. The ‘zombie romance’ sub-genre makes perfect sense for teenage girls, looking for literature where the only available objects of sexual attraction are malodorous, poorly-coordinated and somewhat inarticulate in their social interaction.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

May I recommend to one and all a very fine little novel that the author self-published. The Translated Man by Chris Braak

I know this thread is dead, but I wanted to say: YAY! I haven’t read it yet, but Chris is an acquaintance of mine whose blog I should read more often.

Also, my NaNoWri Month novel was supposed to be about a zombie-ish apocalypse. Luckily, I haven’t done much work on it, so I can sneak in some crap about ghost pirates or something and feel original.

 
 

No they _didn’t_ include A WRINKLE IN TIME (“which turns 10 year olds into anti-Communists”) in this list?! The nerve…

 
 

Why do all the excerpts provided here from Miller’s tale make me think that he’s spent far too much of his life watching reruns of “The Wild, Wild West?”

 
 

Do people here really find it acceptable to smear a man’s work without reading it just because they disagree with his politics? Is the really the sort of behavior President Obama encouraged during his campaign? I’m curious, if disagreeing with one’s opinions presents a valid excuse to do another injury, exactly what harm is owed to you? Any of you with a shred of moral decency left (assuming any was ever present) should chew on the questions.

 
 

Wow, viciously trashing a guy’s first novel on Amazon without giving it more than a cursory read (if even that) because he’s a political columnist.

I think the last time I saw an example of this sort of behavior was in the dictionary under the word “pathetic.”

Miller should be happy for all the attention. If he’s drawing this level of obsessive vitriol from people whose primary interest in life seems to be bitter whinging and retribution for imagined offenses he must be doing something staggeringly right.

The rest of us will have to merely settle for guilty pleasure entertainment. It’s painful to watch people embarrass themselves in this sort of way, but at the same time, someone willing to stopp so low almost certainly needs the wake up call.

 
 

Your attempt to tie Obama to this because people found the posted excerpts pungent would be laughable if it weren’t so typical. No, I’m wrong: it’s still laughable.

 
 

And as bad as the comments are, it’s the original post which is staggeringly sad, in a creepy, almost feel sorry for the writer kind of way. Maybe someone should suggest a constructive hobby?

 
 

Do people here really find it acceptable to smear a man’s work without reading it just because they disagree with his politics?

No, but we do find it acceptable to smear a really crappy book.

 
 

Oh, and thanks for all the hits! The proprietors are looking to refinance their houses and the ad revenue will be appreciated.

 
 

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down.

 
 

RA, you could also have gone with the Isley Bros…but I guess “Shout!” would be too avant garde for these shitheads…

 
Coach Urban Meyer
 

Take a lip-smackin’ smickity SPREAD of TRUTH, loony libs! John Miller’s magnus opum is badoodle-blitzin’ awesome! Ya better believe that the conservative underground is teeming with admirers of Miller’s work, just like they’re lining up for Super Sarah, the Power Palin’s, new book! Take a bite of that, libs! Urban out.

 
 

Oh Noes, looks like Big Hollywood one IMDB listing short-bus driver John Nolte is taking umbrage at Teh Sadly.

 
 

Great conservative novels? Two words: Mack. Bolan. That covers the top 100 and then some.

 
 

this level of obsessive vitriol

Um, if you think the comments were “vitriol” I suggest you get out a little more. Pointing and laughing is not vitriol. It’s mocking. There’s a big difference.

 
 

short-bus driver John Nolte is taking umbrage at Teh Sadly.

Ah. Fun looms.

 
 

Great conservative novels? Two words: Mack. Bolan.

The dead guy from T-Rex? The mind wobbles…

 
 

I’m curious, if disagreeing with one’s opinions presents a valid excuse to do another injury

But Michael Moore is fat, right?

 
 

Do people here really find it acceptable to smear a man’s work without reading it just because they disagree with his politics? Is the really the sort of behavior President Obama encouraged during his campaign?

And how many wingnuts do you think actually read “The Audacity of Hope”?

And somehow you have SadlyNauts confused with authoritarian types who do or don’t do something because we’re “encouraged” by a politician.

Obama gets kicked around quite a bit in these parts, when he does or says something unworthy of what he campaigned on.

If there’s a “behavior” I want to see “encouraged” by what Obama campaigned on, it’s the behavior of our soldiers being greeted by their families as they home to stay, and a whole lot of Wall Street types frog-marching to prison in orange jumpsuits.

 
 

Ya better believe that the conservative underground is teeming with admirers of Miller’s work with vermin

Fixed!

 
 

Looch,

I suspect you’re the one who needs to decompress and venture out of the echo chamber that is this blog.

Pointing and laughing? Maybe point less with your middle finger folks, and maybe provide a little more worth a genuine laugh, instead of the hollow, self-convincing (and ultimately self-mocking) kind.

I’m all for cleverly amusing critical reviews of work that’s not up to par(which is impossible to tell given the cherry-picking here) regardless of the author’s political persuasion, but when so many people expend so much energy on a book which the original post goes to great pains to point out was more or less *self-published,* observers might begin to observe that the gleeful venom on display is more than a little bit the product of someone’s personal set of vendettas rather than an objective discovery in the annals of bad fiction.

 
 

ME,

So you’re saying we should take pity on the handicapped and challenged? The disadvantaged, who were unable to get a publisher to take interest in his book? The downtrodden?

How liberal of you!

 
 

For me, the first sentence in the original post gave it away. By “gave it away,” I mean in the same sense with which a Hollywood starlet often surrenders their virginity.

 
 

actor212

I refer you to the proverb regarding those who digs holes and when they should stop.

Even the barely pragmatic commenters here have probably gone back to looking up new synonyms for ” attractive hick” for use in future Sarah Palin references.

 
 

ME,

So you ARE asking, nay, begging for leniency, because Miller’s feewing are hert!

*snark*

Wow, that’s funnier than anything we’ve posted, either here or at Amazon!

Bet he takes the short bus to work, too…

 
 

Do ME a favor, ME, and ask one of your more…backboned compatriots…to come over and defend the book.

I need a laugh. It’s Monday.

 
 

actor212

Good grief you’re obtuse. I suppose I’ll just leave you to your self-amusement, as starved for human interaction as it seems to be.

 
 

@ME: I never would have riffed on the self-published bit if Miller hadn’t told the whopper that no one was publishing first novels any more. It’s not that publisher’s didn’t want to publish first novels; plenty of counterexamples can be quickly and easily found. The publishers didn’t want to publish Miller’s first novel, and the available excerpts suggest a reason why. Mechanical cyclops, indeed.

 
 

I’m all for cleverly amusing critical reviews of work that’s not up to par(which is impossible to tell given the cherry-picking here) regardless of the author’s political persuasion

Said in defense of a man known for publishing lists of ostensibly conservative works, art made ideologically acceptable by cherry-picking and reading out of context. We laughed at those, too.

 
 

ME-

I always like it when wingnuts saddle up to our bar just to bitch about how cruel and self-amused we are.

Yeah, you’re right. So?

 
 

I suppose I’ll just leave you…

Promises, promises.

I’m curious, if disagreeing with one’s opinions presents a valid excuse to do another injury

That qualm never stopped wingnuts when they were in the position to inflict injury.

 
Saint jim, Patron Saint of Bitchslapping
 

Wow, viciously trashing a guy’s first novel on Amazon without giving it more than a cursory read (if even that) because he’s a political columnist.

I think the last time I saw an example of this sort of behavior was in the dictionary under the word “pathetic.”

Your futile snivels of emo angst have been duly recorded.

Some of us see “cultural landmarks” like Waterworld or Heaven’s Gate the way a treehugger sees a culvert-pipe puking toxic effluent into a wild stream.

Some of us may even dare to publicly observe that this is so with both wit & enthusiasm when faced with yet another Dragnum Opus from some git eager to weaponize said pile of shite into a movie.

Deal with it, Mary.

 
 

I suppose I’ll just leave you to your self-amusement, as starved for human interaction as it seems to be.

You just keep peddling that tricycle, Sally, and you’ll be a shoo-in for the Little Girl X Games.

 
 


Looch,

I suspect you’re the one who needs to decompress and venture out of the echo chamber that is this blog.

Church Lady! Yay!

 
 

I refer you to the proverb regarding those who digs holes and when they should stop.

BTW, ME, I come to bury the ho, not praise him. But if you feel there’s enough dirt piled up on him…and it seems you do…then by all means, prenez la porte.

 
 

Pointing and laughing? Maybe point less with your middle finger folks, and maybe provide a little more worth a genuine laugh, instead of the hollow, self-convincing (and ultimately self-mocking) kind.

The Marketplace of Ideas, sister. It’s a rough and tumble kinda place.

 
 

You people need to get a life. You want to destroy this guys book because you disagree with his politics. A book, by the way, that none of you have read. The guy wants to write a book and you want to destroy it. So what if he self published, so what if he is a conservative, so what if you don’t like the writing. How childish to destroy the book for no reason. How do you feel good about this or sleep at night for that matter.

 
 

Why, indeed, actor, just exactly who the dickens WAS that masked saint, riding a purple-glitter-painted My Little MechaPony© & smacking himself in the face with a rubber chicken while swinging the hated & unstoppable epic sword Lulznir forward to strike single-handed?

More importantly, do they perchance have a cute sister?

 
 

Destroy? Drama-queen much?

 
 

Church Lady! Yay!

The concern troll who occasionally infects the BJ comments? She posts here too?

 
 

How childish to destroy the book for no reason. How do you feel good about this or sleep at night for that matter.

Ah, the book’s editor. Makes sense.

 
 

Good gawd treeb, find some valium.

 
 

The concern troll who occasionally infects the BJ comments? She posts here too?

Was thinking of Dana Carvey’s character.

 
Saint jim, Patron Saint of Bitchslapping
 

You people need to get a life. You want to destroy this guys book because you disagree with his politics.

You trolls need to get a good prescription. We want jack-squat to do with the alleged “book” & the inconvenient little truth that implodes your bullshit is this one: a lot of us would probably fight for his freedom to publish it, despite knowing it eats jackal cack … a perhaps non-trivial irony, that.

Context: you fail at it.

 
 

Still havn’t heard a valid reason for your actions, or a grown up one for that matter.

 
 

“The excerpts are pretty awful. We laughed.”

 
 

Still havn’t heard a valid reason for your actions, or a grown up one for that matter.

Are you in Mrs. Trampoline’s seventh grade Internet Science class, too?

 
 

I’m curious, if disagreeing with one’s opinions presents a valid excuse to do another injury

I think we’ll need to send someone out to check for granite countertops before making that decision.

 
 

The guy wants to write a book and you want to destroy it.

No, we want to destroy it because he WROTE it, and it’s a shitty book!

It doesn’t matter the politics. He ought to be bloody fucking embarassed to be talking about drapes and tassels in a scene involving a gun and a future Secretary of State…nevermind the Mechanical Cyclops shit.

My god, are you homeschooled or did you rely on Cliff Notes to get through junior high?

 
 

Are widdle Johnny’s feewing (sic) hert?

Did we hert his butt?

GOOD, motherfucker, good. He earned it.

 
 

I’m curious, if disagreeing with one’s opinions presents a valid excuse to do another injury

What injury?

 
 

<i>I refer you to the proverb regarding those who digs holes and when they should stop.</i>

BTW, ME, I come to bury the ho, not praise him. But if you feel there’s enough dirt piled up on him…and it seems you do…then by all means, prenez la porte.

 
 

(comments are closed)