Samurai Slash Fiction
Holy sweet Jebus, I’m gone for a couple of years and look what I miss: crown jewels of wingnuttery! Our old pal Adam “Shove them into human-sized microwaves” Yoshida has become an author of military science fiction or, as he likes to call it, future history. He’s already written two novels, A Land War in Asia and A Blast of War, and considering Yoshi’s previously stated desire to glennocide pretty much everyone in the world apart from American Republicans and British and Canadian Tories, I can well imagine the content of these books.
Above: Uncle Yoshi wants You to join the U.S. Wankery
Apparently he’s sold a few copies and is therefore letting his fertile imagination run wild with ideas for future volumes. One idea is a story about how genetically and politically superior humans on Mars are forced to show the likewise inferior humans (liberals) left on Earth just who’s boss when an alien presence threatens the solar system. Another story will focus on a plucky young billionaire conservative who recruits an army of mercenaries and topples dictators in Africa (I take it Yoshi is a fan of Mark Thatcher); I modestly suggest the title Heart of Fartness. As for his third idea, I’ll leave it in our favorite Japanese-Canadian fascist’s own words:
The Memoirs of a Confederate Samurai:
This is really a case where it would all be on the cover: a Japanese guy, a disgraced Samurai, finds his way to antebellum Los Angeles, where he falls in with a group of soldiers in the local US Army garrison. When the Civil War breaks out, he decides that he is morally obligated to join the, and travels with them across Arizona and New Mexico to Texas, where he joins the Confederate Army.
I don’t have the whole story down – and I’d have to do a damned lot of research to have it done right – but I want to set it in the Western Theatre, which isn’t featured in Civil War fiction as much as it ought to be. I imagine him first being a personal friend of – and being directly advanced by – Albert Sidney Johnston. Then, after Shiloh, I imagine him winning the respect of and riding with Nathan Bedford Forrest until the end of the war.
This would be the hardest to write. And I’d really want to get this one right because, as I see it, it would have the potential to be a genuine bestseller. I’d just want to make sure that we really got the cover right.
Wow, just wow. I’m guessing Yoshi is happy to believe the most awful (best, for him) stories about the Fort Pillow massacre and the novel’s set-piece will show Forrest’s samurai lieutenant at that location, gloriously eviscerating various Yankees and Negroes with, ahistorically but crucially, a few socialist journalists thrown in for good measure, who are of course righteously decapitated. Or maybe a time machine will be involved and Adam can at last utilize his ingenious fantasy technology of human-sized microwaves to logical conclusion. I suggest he set up a sequel in which, after annihilating the Yankee menace, he takes his katana and jumbo microwave to Europe and uses them to single-handedly slaughter everyone in the Paris commune, after which he retires to Germany and joins the Junker class, becomes BFF with Moltke the Elder, and convinces Bismarck to change his mind about the welfare state. Later in life the samurai marries a nice young Aryan girl and they have an artistic son named Adolf.
Also, too, from way back in the Sadly filez: en hommage to Yoshi…
Ah yes, the Ku Klux Ninja.
Sure to be a best seller.
~
Do you think Adam thought Iron Sky was a documentary?
The Memoirs of a Confederate Samurai
Starring Richard Chamberlain!
Go whole hog. Make it a 30 foot tall cyborg terminator as well. with a plucky young Japanese sidekick named …Radam Roshida or something.
Ah yes, I’m sure the notoriously racially-accepting Confederate soldiers would have been overjoyed to have a “dirty Celestial” in their midst.
“Memoirs of a Confederate Geisha” would sell better.
I thought I read somewhere that the practice of seppuku’s frequency has been exaggerated in history, but it seems there would have to have been about 4 or 5 “so, I’m reduced to this” moments, before a disgraced samurai would have ridden with and fought together with Nathan Bedford Forrest.
I am inspired by Adam’s work and will start on my own fanciful alternative natural history novel “Memoirs of a Namibian Walrus”
So, so many things to say. Let’s count them off.
1.) Those are some sexy covers on those books. You know, most self-pubs at least grab some royalty free stock art, but I guess MSPaint works too.
2.) I’m not exactly an expert on Japanese history, but I’m pretty sure that the shogunate was basically gone by the time the American Civil War had broken out. Apart from a revolt or two, there were no samurai anymore. That might be the kind of thing Yoshida could work out in his oh-so-meticulous research.
3.) Yoshida’s books have several reviews apiece, so I have to assume it’s his fans buying them, because who else would? But that just leads to another conundrum – Adam Yoshida has fans?
4.) Things like this just convince me that if I want to move my own books, I should come up with some excuse to market them as “conservative.” It would be bullshit, but it would work. Did I mention that one of my books is currently free? And that it’s available under my link? Is this degree of self-promotion unseemly?
I have a better idea for Yoshida’s next book.
It would be about a talking rectum, which pulls down big bucks for fomenting resentment against the innocent among the stupid.
The bonus is, Yoshida won’t have to do any research at all; in fact, to satisfy truth-in-advertising standards, he should probably call it a memoir.
Oh, wow. I’ve been flipping through his book and he has Mark Steyn being elected Senator of New Hampshire. If you had any doubts as to whether on not this thing had any wish fulfillment in it, there’s your answer.
– and I’d have to do a damned lot of research to have it done right –
Pfft,…why start now?
So here’s the rundown on Yoshida’s opus, or at least the part that’s freely available (because fucked if I’m going to pay for this thing). It’s his future history of the 21st century.
First, by this year (remembering it was written in 2011), all the manufacturing jobs leave China (and presumably all the other countries that make our shit, but they aren’t mentioned) and return to the United States and Canada. Actually, “jobs” is a bit of a misnomer, as they’re robot factories – a fairly standard spec-fic trope, although I’m amused he thought we’d achieve absolute industrial automation in two years. Also, there’s some more shit he swiped from Steyn, although Yoshida fell short of having the PRC invade Russia to steal its women.
After that, we’re back in the states. Obama defeats the unnamed “Republican nominee,” because our far-sighted visionary wasn’t willing to predict whom the GOP would run the next year. Yoshida is careful to point out that the nominee only lost because of a phony third-party run by a RINO. The Tea Party is very powerful in his universe, you see. He only got 37% of the vote, while Republicans handily retook both the House and Senate (wish fulfillment!).
Anyway, the economy is in shambles, which is funny because I thought we had this new super-duper industrial base, but never mind. There’s a bunch of other generic right-wing tripe about Social Security and Iran that you could probably smell from a mile off, so I’ll skip ahead.
Now we’re in Europe. After a depression in the Euro zone, German leaders cook up a plan to buy the continent, in so many words. The German people vote them out of office but because Yoshida is a great writer, the new leaders have the exact same scheme. Blah blah, random shot at France for no reason at all, everyone hates Germany, and that’s the end of the first chapter.
It’s at this point I’d like to note that Yoshida steadfastly refuses to give actual names to any individuals or groups. No, it’s all “one senior Congressman” this and “left-wing magazine” that. Oh, and the guy that wants to do a period piece combining two nations was apparently too lazy to look up the name of the Saudi Prince on Wikipedia. Really filling me with confidence, here.
Okay, Chapter Two opens with Mexico invading the United States. Yes, really. A group of special forces and/or drug cartel soldiers (Yoshida really can’t make up his mind about that one) enter Arizona and kill some dudes. This is part of some convoluted scheme to get the U.S. to attack Mexico, thereby generating some kind of anti-American backlash, and by this point I don’t even know what-the-fuck.
We then jump back to the homeland for a minute, where there are apparently mobs of pothead liberals roaming the streets terrifying people. Of course there’s a shot at the legalization movement, because Yoshida has to work in every right-wing bugaboo of the last decade.
Back in Mexico, the soldiers/drug lords/whatever are firing rockets into the United States as part of the same scheme. Of course, the President doesn’t do anything about this (it’s not like drones were made for this sort of situation or anything…), so the Texas National Guard starts running air patrols. Yeah, there’s a fucking No-Fly Zone outside of El Paso. After this, 20,000 U.S. soldiers are dispatched to Mexico after a request from that nation’s government. And that’s Chapter Two.
What do you think? Wouldn’t you love to read a hundred thousand more words just like these?
I’m guessing Yoshi is happy to believe the most awful (best, for him) stories about the Fort Pillow massacre and the novel’s set-piece will show Forrest’s samurai lieutenant at that location, gloriously eviscerating various Yankees and Negroes with, ahistorically but crucially, a few socialist journalists thrown in for good measure, who are of course righteously decapitated.
I prefer the version where the Confederate Samurai brings his “knife” to a gunfight and gets cut down by a conscript from Maine, who taunts the dying aristocrat by saying, “The peasants won this victory.”
Go whole hog. Make it a 30 foot tall cyborg terminator as well. with a plucky young Japanese sidekick named …Radam Roshida or something.
Adam Yoshida in “Kenny” style short-shorts? HELL, NO!
Oooo! I wanna be a terrifying pothead liberal in the movie!
“Flee, man! Like, flee my total liberal awesomeness, puny squares!
“CHEECH SMASH!!111!!11!11!!”
Of course, the President doesn’t do anything about this (it’s not like drones were made for this sort of situation or anything…), so the Texas National Guard starts running air patrols. Yeah, there’s a fucking No-Fly Zone outside of El Paso.
I imagine this is a ham-fisted attempt to create a heroic Vietnam era narrative for Dubya… well, he COULD have been a war hero!
The Memoirs of a Confederate Samurai
From the Continuing Adventures of Mary-Sue.
I’m pretty sure that the shogunate was basically gone by the time the American Civil War had broken out
I make no attempt to understand the downfall of the shogunate during the 1860s because it was a horribly messy affair, but lotsa disgruntled samurai were involved. The oligarchs running the Meiji Restoration regime didn’t cut the samurai class off at the knees until they were feeling a little more secure, in the 1870s.
The Memoirs of a Confederate Samurai
From the Continuing Adventures of Mary-Sue.
Haikus to Penthouse:
I never thought that it would
Happen to myself.
An idea already done, and so much better, by the legendary Clutch. Back in 1992.
Not to be outdone
Unsheathing the katana
The Divine Wind blows
My next novel is Memoirs of a Ruthless Confederate Babe about a camp follower who wins the respect of General Sherman after servicing half the rebel army.
My next novel is Memoirs of a Ruthless Confederate Babe about a camp follower who wins the respect of General Sherman after servicing half the rebel army.
That’s not so far-fetched.
Adam Yoshida
Types turgid prose one-handed
Faps with other hand.
Pizza delivered!
Nudity and breath-play. We
Hope you like fugu.
Nuke North Korea
My Japanese relatives
Want superpowers.
That’s odd that Mr. Yoshida imagines such a story, because back when I was a (heavily) pot-smoking teen in the late 70s I wrote a script for a cartoon called Chop! An All-midget Kung-Fu Heavy Metal Musical. The character names were the key, of course: Stumpy Wong, Itty-Bitty Chu, Wee Wang, etc.
It looks like you’re livin’ the dream, brother Yoshida.
“African American servant”
Although that link from B4 is self-described as a “true story,” there are interesting hints that it is, as we say, le bullshit. Most pointed is this: “As he handed the note to the elderly African American servant, he told him ‘Say to your mistress for me that she might have remained in her home in safety; that she and her property would have been protected. Hand her this when you see her.’ ”
Since we all know that the American Civil War was fought over slavery, and that all the racists live in the south, why would a terrific Union fellow like Sherman leave an “elderly African American servant” (ie SLAVE) imprisoned by his persecutor, and even claim to the fellow’s face that he was marking him as “protected property” all because Sherman had the hots for his college roommate’s sister?
I imagine this is seen as a masculine romantic gesture in the Adam Yoshida fabulist world (I know he didn’t write this, but it smells of the sample D. Johnson kindly summarized).
They live and breath a world of the strong terrorizing the weak and offering special dispensation out of whimsy, and like any fantasists they dream of this becoming “real life” for everybody, because they figure since they know the rules, they will be either on top or the butt-buddies of those on top.
Same as it ever was.
Wingnut Samurai:
“Cheeto farts are martial arts!
Call me sensei, bitch!”
It could also work as the basis for a traditional (though execrable) Western poem:
“Cheeto farts are martial arts,
So call me sensei, bitch!
Got no nunchucks, but Koch Bro bucks
Will someday make me rich!”
Then, after Shiloh, I imagine him winning the respect of and riding with Nathan Bedford Forrest until the end of the war.
Wow, that’s………that’s spectacularly bad.
Wow, that’s………that’s spectacularly bad.
You’re not down with some Nathan Bedford Forrest/Miyamoto Musashi slashfic? Of course, Musashi lived two centuries before Forrest, but what’s a simple matter of time when it comes to love?
“I’d have to do a damned lot of research to have it done right ”
Or, hire Jonah Goldberg to do the research for you. His crack cadre of ex-George F’ing Will sidekicks* should have the job done in no time flat.
*cf The Tick: all sidekicks were named “Johnny [whatever]”, and tended to be nubile young male orphans with full, pouting lips. The only choice for your dedicated “Conservative” pundit**
** except, of course, the female ones***
*** which leaves Ms. Coulter somewhat out in the cold, I suppose.
Heart of Fartness: Apocalypse Cow
finds his way to antebellum Los Angeles,
Antebellum means before the Civil War. So he’s in LA in 1859 or thereabouts, and hangs out with US Government soldiers, but travels across hostile Indian territory with them so he can fight for the Confederate army??????
but I want to set it in the Western Theatre, which isn’t featured in Civil War fiction as much as it ought to be.
But it won’t be set in the Western Theatre, because you just described your narrative as him leaving the West and going back east to fight?????
Wolverines!…are about to fade away.
Working title: A Fist Full of Throwing Stars
So he’s in LA in 1859 or thereabouts, and hangs out with US Government soldiers, but travels across hostile Indian territory with them so he can fight for the Confederate army??????
It doesn’t matter. It can still be a bestseller IF THE COVER IS JUST RIGHT!
Just a ripoff of Akira Kurosawa’s Southern Samurai.
Needs some vampires.
Hey,. Jennifer, when are you getting your domain name back?
1.) Those are some sexy covers on those books.
Why is worried about getting it right, there are tons of colors left in the world? Maybe Edo brown.
Yes, and they have names like Yoshi Adams, Mady Ashida and Mom.
who publishes these thrilling adventures? Sock-puppet press?
Now that I’m rested, I decided to take a gander at book two of the Amazing
CriswellYoshida Predicts. I’d give a breakdown, but it’s really, really boring and not much happens. Yoshida abruptly drops the “future history” concept and switches over to a narrative style where people with vaguely Asian names have conversations about nothing in particular.But here are some highlights:
-The PRC invades Russia, so apparently Yoshida really is following the Mark Steyn (sorry, Senator Mark Steyn) playbook.
-The United States is now being harassed by a revolutionary terrorist group called – and I feel dumb typing this – the Aztlan Liberation Army. The Army handles them by building a fake black site in Mexico and luring them into an ambush. Andy why not? If the Empty City Ruse worked for Kongming in the 3rd century, why the hell can’t the Green Berets of the near future give it a shot?
-Democrats continue to show up just to act like wimps. As any good writer knows, you have to depict your bad guys as ineffectual and/or corrupt 100% of the time or else your audience will forget who they’re supposed to hate.
-The PRC decides to blow up every satellite they can hit. This finally rallies the American people because – and may I quote for posterity – “It was one thing for the Chinese to invade their neighbors and to sponsor nuclear attacks. Now, however, they had knocked Facebook offline.” Biting social satire from Adam Yoshida.
-It turns out that the PRC has been arming Mexico as part of a proxy war, I guess. Not Brazil, with whom China has extensive economic and military ties, but Mexico. Presumably this is because, with the possible exception of Venezuela, South America really doesn’t factor in to any right-wing fever dreams. That’s how you know you’re reading a well-crafted thriller – the parts of the world the author doesn’t care about never even come into play.
Well, that was fun. I’m off to hype my own projects because I refuse to live in a world where a Z-list conservative Canadian blogger is more successful than me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picacho_Peak_State_Park
With all the super-duper exciting Civil War battles in the American West, a historical bestseller is just ripe for the picking. Throwing a samurai warrior in would just make it more awesomer. You won’t leave your seat during the exciting chapters in which the Confederates travel East. The vignettes of Arizona, New Mexico, and Western Texas will create breathless moments that unfortunately will not lead to unconsciousness and death. The triumphant recruitment chapter will thrill you as the Confederate officer will totally not be racist because he allows a Japanese guy be cannon fodder for the failing war effort!
What’s the Southwestern US version of “Wolverines!”?
Coatimundi!
Almost sounds like something a samurai would yell. Almost.
The climax is when we discover Abraham Lincoln is really Aku.
Thank you, D. Johnston, for getting out of a boat I won’t even leave. You deserve a medal for all that.
Is there anything so fine as a wingnut-chickenhawk blog with an un-moderated comment board? I left some suggestions, but I’m sure this crowd can do better.
There was a time (so I’m told) when they’d confine people like this for their own safety, but I think this is much more fun.
Bitter Scribe – wish I could tell you. Beth purchased the domain name originally, and has since decided it’s bad for her job to be associated online with the likes of me. She’s been talking about pulling her name and all her stuff off the site for about a year and transferring ownership over to me, but hasn’t done it. So now it’s expired, and I can’t renew it because…technically, it’s not my site.
The PRC invades Russia, so apparently Yoshida really is following the Mark Steyn (sorry, Senator Mark Steyn) playbook
Um, I think Tom Clancy actually did this already. I’m embarrassed to admit I actually read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bear_and_the_Dragon
Surely you’re not suggesting that the time is right for a certain wingnut in the prime age of soldiering eligibility go make his samurai in Afghanistan dreams come true?
“That’s odd that Mr. Yoshida imagines such a story, because back when I was a (heavily) pot-smoking teen in the late 70s I wrote a script for a cartoon called Chop! An All-midget Kung-Fu Heavy Metal Musical. The character names were the key, of course: Stumpy Wong, Itty-Bitty Chu, Wee Wang, etc.”
Don’t forget their Master, the venerable Hung Low.
Heh, heh. Uh, sorry.
My vote:
Nuke North Korea
My Japanese relatives
Want superpowers.
-BBBB
“Heart of Fartness: Apocalypse Cow”
See? I knew I’d be outclassed here.
fuckin’ show-off, mextremist…
HTML, I’d love to see a Wingnut All Star-style post for Jenghazi Rubin.
~
So.. does he actually acknowledge that this is fiction. And go into detail about how this magical and fabulous genetic engineering project will happen.
Or.. did I miss something and the politically and genetically part wasn’t the actual science fiction he was interested in at all? Or.. that it wasn’t even science fiction in the first place?
Perhaps a time-traveling Richard III (he’s in the news these days) somehow ends up leading a confederate army, along with Lee and whosis… Imagine Richard III vs. Ulysses S Grant. Ha! “My Kingdom for a slave!”
Don’t blame me; you people wrote them…
Pillow Massacre
Namibian Walrus
Convoluted Scheme
Disgruntled Samurai
Divine Wind
Fabulist World
Johnny Whatever
Tons of Colors
Empty City Ruse
Coatimundi
Oh yes, I am just imagining Nathan Forrest of the CSA gladly welcoming a Japanese guy as his No. 2 because we all know that the CSA was a group of enlightened non-racist idealists.
The ahistorical stupid, it truly burns bright in this lad.
No sweat, HTML. I’ve become a bit of an aficionado of bad self-published literature over the last few years, and right-wing thrillers are consistently among the best/worst. My personal favorite was the one where the guy created an alternate timeline where Barack Obama lost in 2008, only to have a completely different biracial, raised by a single parent in Hawaii, Democratic politician with an African name win in 2012. It was the first time I ever broke out laughing reading one of these things.
You deserve a medal for all that.
D. Johnston is awarded the coveted Quelle Frommage.
My vote too, Kordo.
Will this thread have a Poetry Slam strand? We have super haiku. Needs some limericks…
——————————-
Needs some vampires.
Also zombies.
No can do. Alas I didn’t keep up with her much when she starting polluting the internets and now it’s too late to begin a dossier. A shame. OTOH I have several hundred links each for the Pods, and in NPods case, I’ve even acquired books to plumb for awfulness.
That’s impressive wingnuttery, D. Johnston.
It’s a mistake many non-black minorities make and a classic example of post hoc ergo what the fuck? reasoning.
If they aren’t an active target of hatred at this moment in history, they must have always been accepted by the white man. Oh, and pay no attention to that little internment incident much later in U.S. history.
You know, I knew Adam Yoshida back when he was a wee ickle troll on USEnet. And he’s still cribbing plots from the net.kooks that swarmed soc.history.what-if. I expected bdtter of him, really I did….
For that is not dead which can forever lie ……..
From jim’s link: Ann Romney’s inspiring battle against multiple sclerosis and her star turn on the GOP convention stage turned her into a popular national figure, especially among women voters in Massachusetts.
White women in Mass went for Obama 63% to 37%.
Needs some vampires.
Needs moar ninjas.
There are some excellent limericks’ over at thundra’s place right now.
A useless apostrophe, found
Fake cries of “FYWP!” abound
The author, chagrined
Wishing he could rescind
Instead with verse will expound.
“One idea is a story about how genetically and politically superior humans on Mars are forced to show the likewise inferior humans (liberals) left on Earth just who’s boss when an alien presence threatens the solar system”
Umm…has he never heard of Jerry Pournelle?
He went with a samurai slash,
Totes not in it for cash.
With a cover sublime,
His sales are so fine
But his fap hand is getting a rash.
This thing still on?
I write book cover copy for a living, and have an ongoing collection of titles I am fervently grateful have never crossed my desk. Looks like five more for the list…
I don’t want to sound like I’m defending what is surely a godawful book premise, but you really can’t make fun of this guy’s grasp of history, then turn around and act like the Confederate army was all white, or that there were no samurai in the 1860s, or that “all the racists live in the south”.
Even the Hitlerjugend and the Wehrmacht were not all-white, for that matter. Just because an organization or society is racist, that does not make it all-white.
You folks never heard of this guy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_Watie
Why is it that guys like this only show up in inactive threads? I mean, it’s not like this post is a year old or anything, but couldn’t you have noticed that the last comment was three days ago before lecturing people who are no longer here? Hell, the only reason I’m here is I suddenly started getting clicks from this page.
Oh, and for the record, the samurai were already being phased out by the 1860’s. By the next decade they were gone except in name, and the last of them were stamped out by the numerically and technologically superior Meiji army a few years later. Oh, and I suspect that Cole might have been a little sarcastic. Just maybe.
ahistorically but crucially, a few socialist journalists
Maybe Yoshida’s muse could figure out a way to work Karl Marx into the story: Marx grows weary of writing about the Civil War from London and decides to go out into the field, etc.