A book I need to read

I know the author online. I’ve participated in many email chains with him, Sarah, Mike, and Tom. I’ve got a copy, but I’ve not had a chance to read it yet. I wanted to read the reveiw copy, but I’ve got a deadline and I’ve been slammed. I’ve heard good things about it though.

http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=monshuntnati-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=B00H0338RC

Normally I don’t post about books if I’ve not read them yet, but I’m posting about it here on the blog today for two reasons. First, the author had to let me know I’ve been one upped on gun usage. 🙂
From the Baen Bar, a retired master sergeant: “I read it and enjoyed it greatly. Baen might want to talk to the authors because they would fit right in. These guys like guns and prefer big guns. Guns that leave big body counts and lots of wreckage. They like hand-carried particle beams, lasers, slug throwers and vehicle-mounted missiles, cannons and chain guns. MCID would fit  right in with Monster Hunters International only with better weapons. But the attitude is there. The simple arrest in the park  is an all-time classic. I’ll buy the sequels.”

Second, I posted because it was written by Vox Day, the only man to ever get himself kicked out of SFWA for totally pissing off the PC police. Since they’re a trade organization that hasn’t done anything actually useful in years (hey, there’s all sorts of allegations that major publishers are lying on their royalty statements and ripping off authors? SFWA used to audit that sort of thing, but they’re awful busy right now contemplating the dangers of cismale gendernormative facism!)  but don’t worry, they had the time to put together a novella sized complaint against him, which mostly boiled down to he said something on their forum that could mayble, possibly, perhaps, sort of be construed as racism, if you squint really hard.

The next 30 pages was SFWA quoting rude posters on his blog (yes, apparently as an author, according to SFWA I’m responsible for all of you guy’s beliefs too, soooo that must be why the left wing authors all “massage” their blog comments by editing out everyone who disagrees with them), then showing that he was a bully by displaying his many terrible insults (leaving out the posts he was responding to, which were usually someone personally insulting him for his political beliefs, because you know if you don’t immediately roll over when a liberal calls you racist that is bullying) and finally trying to draw vague comparisons between WORDS used on his blog which could maybe possibly be tenuously similiar to things posted by random strangers on Stormfront, the Nazi cesspool. I kid you not.

So they kicked him out. Because heaven forbid somebody in an organization dedicated to SPECULATIVE fiction hold ideas and opinions which differ from the accepted group think. (what do you mean, Obama isn’t Jesus? How DARE you?) I’ve found the author is opinionated, pushy, and doesn’t back down from his beliefs. Good. You know, in the olden days that was sort of considered a sci-fi author’s thing.

For the record, I don’t even agree with Vox that often and we’ve argued on the internet about different topics a few times. He can be passionate and rude. Awesome. The difference is, I’m not a sissy looking for victim status. I enjoy people bringing divisive ideas to the table to debate. I like that people disagree with me, because how else can you keep your own arguments sharp?

Keep in mind of course, that it is my side which is always called “anti-intellectual”. Go figure. But then again, I never bothered to join SFWA.

I offend people on the internet for being an unabashed right winger. Vox sends them into hyperbolic rage spirals. He is their devil. They hate him more than Scott Card or George Bush, so that is saying something. Anybody who has caused that many panty twists is deserving of royalties just for the entertainment value of watching the literati have come aparts. 🙂

The Drowning Empire, Episode 39: A New Kind of Currency
CMTJRP: CyberMonday Tip Jar Reminder Post 🙂

200 thoughts on “A book I need to read”

    1. I don’t ever plan on reading beyond the free preview but I am curious as to what was Steve’s and what was Vox’s.

  1. He’s also a fairly decent writer. I haven’t read this book yet, but I have read a few others by him and they’ve all been at least decent. And it is fun watching people freak out at him.

      1. Actually it was the first book of his I did read. First solo book I should say as I read Rebel Moon first but he co-authored that with Bruce Bethke. It was a little awkward in spots, but good. And certainly not boring.

      2. Very well then. Perhaps you need better taste in books, or you need to read some books that actually range from fairly decent to excellent to put things into perspective.

      3. Actually my taste is excellent and I’ve read thousands of books. Books which have ranged in quality from some of the best ever written, to some of the worst.

        But don’t worry, I’ll give your unsolicited and unwanted advice all of the consideration it deserves.

      4. Alauda: Perhaps you should stop being such a smug shitlord and assuming that anyone who disagrees with your analysis of a book is an unread mongoloid with poor taste. Just to put things into perspective.

      5. A Throne of Bones is a great read for someone intelligent enough to be sick of predictable plots. I absolutely loved it, there’s some slow parts (huge book), but it all leads somewhere and the good parts are just great. Vox has a real knack for crafting a world that you have trouble predicting what’s going to happen, but nevertheless feels consistent and rational. Not common these days.

      6. The only thing memorable in A Throne of Bones was some terribad humor in a gladiator scene and an elf’s riposte to evolution.

      7. Oh, your writing is memorable too, much like the movies shown on MST 3k are memorable. Just not in the way intended.

  2. *GASP*

    You insulted the SFWA and leftists. I’m calling my commisar! I’m gonna tell him you support racist, rightist, gun-toting ideals and that you kick puppies and hate babies! Or better yet, that you HATE puppies and KICK babies! You eat meat to don’t you? You’re gonna be in SOOOOO much trouble! Get ready for re-education! The pain is a-comin’!

    And what about my right of free speech? You said something I disagree with, therefore you’re oppressing MY rights. Just ask the SFWA. They’ll tell you how wrong you are!

    Sorry, my smart ass side got hold of me today. Good post Larry.

    1. The best way to judge a person is by his enemies.

      Alauda, could you tell me some other people of whom you disapprove? I need to make more friends.

    2. You seem to be a snotty little shit who used to go tattle to teacher in grade school. You still getting wedgies when you’re around real men?

  3. The idea that an organization of writers could complain that a writer wasn’t nice…

    The mind boggles.

    History – are they familiar with it?

  4. I purchased the 2 books in the series, simply on your recommendation – I will let you know later if I will follow up with his other works.

  5. It’s a trifecta! I can read a new book, contribute to Larry’s retirement by going thru his link, and piss off the SFWA by supporting someone they hate. What could be more better?

    1. Reading something of quality, or in other words, something by a writer who’s claim to fame isn’t being a blathering misogynist, is.

      1. When you can write something better, feel free to criticize whichever writers you want. Until then, you’re just an anonymous poster with no visible accomplishments, who hasn’t put her name on the line through the grueling process of having a book published.

        Do you realize how hard it is not to offend ANYONE when you write a book? Somebody’s not going to like what you write, and if every chip-on-their-shoulder, agenda-obsessed reader were to launch a campaign against an author just because they were offensive, we’d be living in Farenheit 451 times. And authors often can’t conceal their identity, and can be assaulted in their personal lives by these loser busybodies who have literally nothing better to do with their lives.

        So complain against these authors all you want. In a hundred years, their books shall be read from the rooftops when you’re just a rotting box of bones in the ground that no one remembers.

          1. Here is his attempt at writing action!

            A young woman with close-cropped hair, dark at the roots and bleached almost white at their tips, held with a band and a gold disk pendant amongst silver chains, dressed in black clothes under a white wool cardigan and midnight blue coat stood in the doorway. “Spies?” she said, momentarily puzzled and starry-eyed, pushing the door shut. Snow fell in flurries, the flakes were melting on our hair. “No matter,” she said, unsheathing a blade. “You don’t have your patron Cleisourarch to help you. He’s dead by Red hands, impaled with a stake and paraded naked and flayed open through the streets of Mediolanum and dumped in the river. You face me, the greatest duellist in all of Carantania.” She swung at me and I blocked with a length of pipe.

            Wow. I’m thrilled!

            Now for some dialog!

            “How very fortunate you are. You won’t be fed nonsense about us backing democracy, egalitarianism, and socialism, which they say like it’s a bad thing, in order to weaken their host culture. Nine heavens help you, you could be dealing with a Kahanist. Might be hard to sleep through their ravings on the Croatii. It’s not like anyone alive’s had a problem with Croatii as a whole, it was just something long ago, so long ago that continents have been rent apart and merged together, stars have winked in and out of the sky, constellations have shifted from spears to cookware and from lions to radio telescopes. And when they did, it’s not like the Croatii collaborated any more than every other Seliniafied ethnic group, but they’ll just reject your reality, I guess so they can ward off accusations that they don’t have a real goal, they just hate anyone with darker skin and anyone who’s Muslim. I’m telling you, you make better friends. You aren’t like ‘You have to disperse throughout the world to bring about the apocalypse! No, wait, you have to be clustered in your own state. Here, have this insignificant tract of desert on the ass end of nowhere and now you can fight and die in all our proxy wars, and fuck you, we’re just using you to grab resources’ and all that rubbish. And then they do the same thing in Adiabene after forcing two thirds the population into Bharuka because the idea of dividing the region based on religion somehow makes sense to them and the Kahanists move in and take control.”

      2. Wait… Wait a second…

        CLAMPS!? Is that you? 😀

        Holy shit! The smug condescension. The self proclaimed expertise (which was especially hilarious once we found a sample of his writing and it was like high school Freshman English bad). The judging of writers based on personal feelings (he pronounced I was a bad writer before ever reading any of my stuff). The dismissal of writers who are so obviously inferior (he had a huge hate-on for Kratman). Hey everybody, I think Clamps is back!

        This is the guy who started the whole “not a *real* writer thing!” Yay!

        Clamps is also one of the only people I’ve ever banned on this blog because he was soooooo incredibly boring. I think he’s got like some sort of deep emotional problems and mental issues. His writing is so incredibly shitty and pretentious that I almost feel bad for mocking him, or I would, if he wasn’t such a douchebag. 😀

      3. If being a better writer than Vox is so easy, please post a link to some of your writing, here on Larry’s blog. Hold yourself up to the same scrutiny that you hold others to, and we’ll see how long you last.

        Post a link, or admit you’re wrong.

      4. Reading something of quality, or in other words, something by a writer who’s claim to fame isn’t being a blathering misogynist, is.

        Aw, look! We got us a Special Snowflake.

        Dear Snowflake, the criteria by which to judge a piece of written work is the contents of the work, not your assessment of the character of the author.

        Glad to have cleared that up for you.

          1. I just totally sound the same and say the same things!

            You know what is especially ironic, so ironic that I hope Andrew Marston reads this and chokes on it. I had no idea who Vox Day was until Clamps showed up trolling my blog and calling him a right wing racist rapist, so then I ended up getting to know Vox, and today I plugged his new book. So we’ve come full circle. And of course, Clamps shows up. HA! It is the circle of life!

      5. Those prose samples would be great submissions for the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest. I’ve got a writing degree (and had to read a lot of the pretentious nonsense that passes for literature these days, so I like to think I have some immunity to it), and reading that makes my eyes bleed. (metaphorically, of course)

        1. Yeah, WordPress sure is a piece of crap the way I’ve got it set to require moderation whenever somebody posts a comment with a couple dozen links in it, because that isn’t suspicious or nothing.

      6. If you want to read something I put actual effort on (and made sure to purge any and all pesky editing mistakes) rather than something I barely edited and posted just to prove anything I write is better than Eternal Warriors

        put fav.me/ then
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        d1oydhs
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        d1qmpeh

        1. So you’re a computer programmer and an amazing writer while you’re not busy being an anoymous internet troll? I’m surprised you can get all that done while taking all that Zoloft.

      7. Let me wrap my head around this: You are saying that you learned about Vox Day because I said something about him in an entry in which you linked to a post by Vox Day about the politics of sf/f.
        WHAT IN THE SHITTING FUCK?

        1. Yep. 🙂

          I’d read his article because somebody had linked it on Facebook. I thought it was interesting enough to repost. Then you showed up. The first time I ever actually conversed with Vox was as a result of meeting him here. Heh… And by my plugging him today, that alone sold more books than you ever will in your entire life.

          But hey, you can probably get a lot of writing done in jail. I hear they just love little cowards that like to stalk Asian women.

      8. This is “broadside” dialogue. It reads as if the words were a barrage of missiles being launched by a ship in an attempt to saturate the other ship’s anti-missile defenses. It is even funnier when thrown into the middle of an action scene.

  6. Yep, I heard about Vox only because that article was linked here. And have been reading his blog on and off ever since. And will be buying his new book. Probably not what our special person had hoped for.

  7. I’m the retired Master Sergeant that was quoted and I guess the only person here that has actually read the book. I really liked this book. I was pretty surprised when the author replied and said he was channeling Larry. Who knew I was insightful?

    This was my Amazon review.
    “I read it and enjoyed it greatly. What the other guys are saying about world building and character development with touches of what AI is going to be like are all true. So what I’ll say is this…
    These MCID are manly men who like guns and like bigger guns more. Guns that leave big body counts and lots of wreckage. They like hand carried particle beams, lasers, slug throwers and vehicle mounted missiles, cannons and chain guns and sometimes a knife is useful. MCID would fit right in with Monster Hunters International only with better weapons. But the attitude is there. The simple arrest in the park is an all time classic. I’ll buy the sequels this was fun.”

  8. It appears this “Aulada” person has dropped off the map. I guess it turns out he was this “Clamps” person that Larry mentioned, and has fled after Larry revealed his true identity.

    Funny thing, how the loss of anonymity causes internet trolls to lose their gusto.

    After reading samples of Clamps’s writing, I have to say that I do not see how it could be considered better than anything written by Vox Day. However, I’m not going to sling mud at it. Instead, I will say that the book Nocturne has at least an interesting setting, and if Clamps wants to turn it into something publishable, he should consider carving away the bulk of the flowery description and expositional dialogue to give himself a leaner, cleaner text that is easier to absorb.

    Keep writing, by all means. Make your own success, instead of trying to mock the success of others. Give it another try. Speak with appreciation for those whose opinions contradict your own. Do this, and you may see just how nice the commenters on this blog can be. Larry knows a lot about publishing books, and if you take his suggestions to heart, they may even help you get published one day.

    Now, I don’t really believe I can change the mind of an internet troll just by being nice. But I do believe that anyone can change. Even if you can never like Vox Day’s books, don’t compare them to your own. Don’t try to make enemies. Every great person has enemies, of course, but none of the great ones intentionally seek to be hated. It’s always better to have friends, if you can get them.

    1. Alan, you can try being nice, but I’d suggest you go read the comments of that other thread I linked. I tried being nice at first and it just fell apart, so then I beat him like a tether ball. Andrew Marston is a pathetic little man with delusions of competence. I suspect he’s got some mental issues and his trolling cycles are related to his medications.

      1. You’re right, of course. I just have a hard time being mean. I dared this person to show me a sample of his writing, and once I saw a sample (even though it was linked by you and not by him) I felt like I was obligated to give an honest critique, rather than laugh in his face.

        I like to be kind to jerks because I know I was once one of them, and I managed to change, so I don’t like to think that they can’t. And the one thing that changed me was when I realized that the whole world wasn’t trying to be mean to me, and I didn’t have to stand up and contradict everyone as a means of defending myself. Amazingly, it turns out most people don’t hate you until they have a reason to hate you, and there’s little need to be defensive all the time.

        For me, it’s like Frodo looking at Gollum and saying “I HAVE to believe he can be saved”. (And yes, I am aware that Frodo was wrong in the end of that particular story, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be that way with everyone else.)

        I dream of being a full-time author one day, so I know I have no right to say to someone else that they can never be a successful writer. Even when an aspiring author is uncharismatic or bitter or just plain intolerable, I kind of want to root for their success, hoping that someone else will root for mine, even when I’m the one being intolerable.

        And, of course, I’m always rooting for you, Larry.

        But it looks as though I needn’t have bothered, since this person fled your blog the moment you ripped off his mask. It’s nice to know there is at least one way of fighting trolls. So yeah, you know this guy better than I do. You’re probably right on all accounts. I just can’t help but feel bad for the little Slinker.

      2. “I suspect he’s got some mental issues and his trolling cycles are related to his medications.”

        You know…. that would be an interesting topic for research…

    2. W.A. Mozart once made a hundred enemies at a single banquet. Where are they now? All dead!

      It matters not that I made an enemy of Vox. Vox is little more than a boil on the ass of science fiction. Nobody’s going to read A Man Disrupted in ten years, let alone two hundred.

      1. And it must really suck for you that somebody like that gets more readership than you ever will, that the most attention you ever get is when people like Larry, Tom, or, yes, Vox Day, mock you.

      2. People don’t read Vox’s fiction because they’ve heard good things about it, they read it because Vox is a well-known blogger who used to write for World Net Daily.

          1. I banned his IP the last time I tired of him. I’ll do the same as soon as he bores me again.

        1. And George Martin picked up a million new readers when HBO put Game of Thrones on. Does that make him a bad writer? Smart writers call that publicity and high five each other when we get some. Envious little anonymous internet pussies whine about it.

        1. Seriously, you just claimed that Vox Day is able to encourage literally thousands of people to fellate him, and to do so purely with the words he writes.

          That’s not the mark of a bad writer, but of an extremely accomplished one.

          1. Wait. Wait. Wait… Somebody is so good at blogging that tens of thousands of complete strangers are willing to give him blow jobs? Wow… I’ve totally been doing this blogging thing wrong.

      3. Fact: Nobody outside of Vox Popoli or Monster Hunter Nation or the Mad Genius Club are ever going to read Quantum Mortis.

        1. Luckily, that’s an audience large enough to provide me with sufficient royalties to buy a gigantic house next to a ski resort, anonymous internet nobody! 😀

        1. Um, the tens of thousands of readers in Analog, the somewhat smaller readership of the late Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine. The thousands who read the Sword & Sorceress series of anthologies. The admittedly somewhat smaller readership of the Heroes in Hell series, just to name a few.

          Not all that much, so stipulated, but I’m not claiming that folk who are repeatedly and consistently successful are incompetent hacks, now am I? I’m not criticizing Larry, or Tom, or Vox’s ability as a writer (or even Stephanie Meyers, for that matter–however much I might loathe the very concept of Pedobear Sparklefangs she’s obviously struck a chord with a great many people, something not easy to accomplish).

          You, however, chose to do so and to do so using self-contradictory arguments.

        2. “Who’s reading your work? Whoever the hell you are.” says the gutless, anonymous internet wannabe.

          I wonder if it actually causes physical pain to go through life that oblivious.

      4. So you say. Doesn’t ring a bell.

        I’m not an anthology/magazine reader. It’s hard being late to the party when it comes to magazines. Might as well not show up.

        1. 300+ million people in the country. Most of them will never have read it. This is true for even the most “successful” authors.

          But how many people have read my stuff is irrelevant. I’m not the one calling out other writers as being incompetent hacks, while at the same time claiming that their writing is able to inspire thousands of people to fellate them.

          You are your own worst enemy.

          1. Statistically, most people have never read Tom Clancy, John Grisham, or Stephen King either. Yeah. I’d sure hate to end up like those losers! (sleeping on a giant pile of money)

        2. So, David gets paid actual real money to provide content to the leading science fiction magazine in the world, while it was being edited by one of the most famous, pivotal, and historically significant editors in the history of science fiction, and this magazine has launched the careers of hundreds of science fiction writers dating back to the 1930s and the birth of the genre… And this is the same magazine which was edited by the guy who was so important to sci-fi that they named our biggest award after him (remember from last time, Clamps is all about the awards defining what is good, up until I win one). And this same magazine influenced the careers of Heinlein, Asimov, Hadelman, Bear, Zahn, Turtledove, Smith, Sturgeon, Ellison, van Vogt, Del Rey, and even H.P. Friggin’ Lovecraft… But that’s a magazine sale so it totally doesn’t count and David isn’t a *real* writer.

          Holy shit. You heard it here first, aspiring writers. It’s just a magazine. You might as well not even bother.

      5. It’s not about actual writing, it’s about ideology. Vox hates the same people they hate, you know how it goes.

        Even what I read of Quantum Mortis is clunky and dull. 15 years of writing and these are the results?

        1. Even if that were true, for any given “hate” one can find lot’s of people who “hate the same things one hates.” Going from that to getting thousands of those people to buy ones books is a different matter entirely.

          That “different matter”, even if we stipulate that the blog is why, is called “facility with persuasive writing.”

          So your argument boils down to “he doesn’t sell books because of his writing ability, but rather because of his writing ability.”

          Which, as can be seen, is a contradiction. Thus, we find that your premise is flawed or, in other words, you contain within yourself an overabundance of fecal matter.

        2. It’s totally all about ideology. So now Clamps just needs to figure out how to find 40,000 other anonymous, depressed, drug addled, pretentious wannabe writers who hate me, Vox, and Tom. Step 3. Profit!

        1. Reading comprehension issues again. You really must work on that.

          Even if we stipulate that they agree with him politically and philosophically (your repeated assertions of same does not make it so), that is not the same thing as getting them to buy books. Lots of people I agree with on some matter or other. That doesn’t mean I’m going to go out and buy a book from them. They have to persuade me that the book is worth my time.

          That you don’t know this shows how very little you understand, well, anything.

        2. Man, since it is that easy, all you need to do is start a blog and find 40,000 people who agree with you, and then they’ll all buy your books. FANTASTIC! Holy shit that’s brilliant. It is so easy I don’t know why millions of other aspiring writers never thought of that.

      6. My crystal ball is broken, so I can’t say who will be reading what ten years from now, but my Internet connection is working just fine so I can do some historical research.

        Rebel Moon is the first fiction book I can find that Vox contributed to, and The War in Heaven was his first solo work that I can find. They came out in 1996 and 2000 respectively according to Wikipedia.

        And according to Amazon they have both had Amazon Verified Purchase reviews posted in the last year and a half. In the case of The War in Heaven it was just a few months ago. Now that doesn’t guarantee people are still reading them of course, but it does seem indicative of that.

        I’ll post the links in a separate comment so this one doesn’t get held up in moderation.

        1. It doesn’t matter if your posts are in order, Clamps. You’re like a tether ball. We hit you, you spin around the pole, and then come back again. Nobody really cares what the ball thinks. It simply provides amusement by its very existence and punchable qualities. 🙂

      7. Vox has been writing for fifteen years and he hasn’t improved his craft one bit. A Throne of Bones is every bit as dull and lifeless as The War In Heaven.

        1. My first novel was self published in 2008 and released by Baen in 2009, (which isn’t a *real* publishing house according to Clamps) so I’ve only been doing this for 5 years. But since it has gone through six English printings, and is now in several foreign languages, and is one of the top selling audiobooks in the country, and is still selling really well today, I’m going to go out on a limb and say, YES, people will be reading it in 10 years, or if not, they’ll be reading one of the 9 other novels I’ve released since, or one of the 16 others that I have under contract.

          Yet a decade from now I’m predicting the most widely read thing that Clamps will have ever created will be his posts trolling my blog. 🙂

        1. Evangelical Christians also look down on creepy perverts who threaten women and then get arrested for stalking. Word.

      8. W.A. Mozart once made a hundred enemies at a single banquet. Where are they now? All dead!

        Well, technically speaking so is Mozart. One thing you’re right about though is that it doesn’t matter that you’ve made an enemy of Vox, (if indeed you have, I doubt you rate as high as enemy, but that’s immaterial at the moment) what matters is that you seem to think your personal opinion of his writing is in some way important beyond your own decisions in what you choose to read.

        Though for a guy who claims to hate his stuff, you seem to read a lot of it. Limiting it to fiction just in this thread you say you read all or part of three different works. The War in Heaven, A Throne of Bones and the free sample of Quantum Mortis. If you despise it as much as you say, why do you keep coming back for more?

        Do you wish you could quit him?

        But however you actually feel about his writing, no one else is required to respect your opinion or agree with those feelings..

      9. I read War In Heaven so I could write a snarky recap. I thought of doing the same for A Throne of Bones but it was far too interminable and lifeless. I read the sample of Quantum Mortis to see if Steve Rzasa was any better than Vox (he isn’t)

      10. Mozart is dead as well. Though his music lives on. And of course his musical skill logically says nothing about whether or not his enemies were justified in disliking him.

        Some creative people can be very nice. Some creative people can be real pricks. And there are some, who are real pricks, and who sadly are not the slightest bit creative.

      11. Well, I mostly write little nothing short-short stories, some nice essays, some longer fanfics and the like, but I do get people reading them. And not primarly to mock my style, as far as I can tell.

        Maybe someday I’ll be a real writer like Correia or Kratman. Maybe I won’t. But at least I don’t leap onto other people’s blogs to tell them that they suck at writing because they have committed the crime of Disagreeing With Me.

      12. Chlamydia, may I call you Chlamydia? Well, it doesn’t really matter if you want me to or not, because I am. Chlamydia, your writing is terrible. It reads like some angsty, teenage emo-tastic kid, sitting in his room staring at some sad picture of Robert Smith on his wall and writing the most asinine drivel that he can put on paper because he is trying to impress the hot goth chick that sits in front of him in class.

        I’m not a published author…yet. I have no doubt in my mind that I will be eventually. I know that I do have some skill at writing and putting the words on paper and writing what people want to read, but I have work to do and a ways to go yet. My first attempt at a sale worthy piece is years ahead of the drivel that you have written. The only way you will ever get published writing that crap is if you have a friend who has a literary magazine that sells three copies on some college campus to other shut-ins like yourself. Something that you all contribute to and read and masturbate to while praising each others skills as supposed wordsmiths.

        I would put my work against yours any day and come out the winner, but I’m not some pretentious loser writing drivel that only other pretentious losers will read. I actually write what I love to read myself and what I know others will want to read. I write what I hope will be entertaining, with characters that I hope are entertaining and I don’t drown my work unnecessary descriptive words.

  9. Speaking of Andrew Marston aka Yama aka Alauda aka Arachnothera aka Will le Fey aka Clamps aka Yamamama, fans of his epic prose style should take a close look at chapter 10 of A Man Disrupted….

    We owe him so much.

  10. speaking of lefty sci-fi authors sanitizing their blog comments… and the SFWA… for those not keeping score the best example of that is the former head of the SFWA.

  11. It’s like he cuts and pastes the anti-Vox babbling.

    To be fair, he also hates Larry, Tom, and Dan Simmons. He will seldom let a trolling go by without mentioning at least one of those four names.

    He also really, really likes animals and has a tough time with women. If he wasn’t such an unmitigated asshole, one would find it hard not to feel sorry for him.

      1. I, for one, feel entirely honored to be numbered in their midst. I’ve read at least some of all three men’s work and very much like the Hyperion Cantos, Grimnoire, and A Desert Called Peace.

    1. It is funny. In that last thread we even got him to admit how he had never read any of my books and he already knew I wasn’t a good writer. He even promised a review which would “rip MHI a new asshole”, but sadly that never materialized, because every time I get some liberal doofus posting a ranting tirade about my politics in that book we have to make another print run. 🙂

      1. Well, Clamps, what the tarnation are you doing here then? Go on, git out and start reading all those books on that long list of yers. Move, it, times a wastin’.

        1. I bet it would blow Clamp’s fucking mind to discover that Robert Silverberg has enjoyed the work of some of the very writers Clamps is condemning in the same sentence? And that grandmaster of SF Silverberg (who is a super nice guy and a real gentleman in person) has also written stories for the same magazine that Clamps was dismissing earlier, and also that Silverberg was considered pulp and looked down upon for not being a *real* writer by elitist literati pricks back when he first started out too?

      2. You aren’t half as intelligent as you think you are.

        The reason I don’t read fiction magazines is because it’s prohibitively difficult to find back issues.

        1. Why? Do they not carry back issues of Analog in the Marshfield jail’s library?

          Oh… Well look at this… It turns out that the guy who loves to accuse conservative authors of misogyny has been arrested for stalking, and likes to threaten and harrass women. This is my surpised face! Well, it is simply marvelous what you can find on the internet now.

        1. I have to search them out on Amazon or something. Fuck that.

          Did you just dismiss making a search on Amazon, the exact same thing one does to buy anything on Amazon, as being too much trouble?

          Almighty Kolordny, I knew you were dumb, but this?

        1. I don’t know if you have been, but holy shit, you should be, weirdo stalker. You’d probably be a rapist if you weren’t such a pussy. I imagine you suck at that as much as you suck at writing.

          And I’m getting some other stuff offline from sources. You’re a real piece of work with a long history of threatening women. You are despicable piece of shit. We’ve now moved from you amusing me because you’re such a fucking halfwit into my previous career field, which was teaching people how to protect themselves from criminal scumbags, and I took special delight in arming and teaching women how to protect themselves from vile little pieces of shit like you.

          Looking on the bright side, thousands more people now know who and what you are.

          Banned. Again.

    1. Well, since I don’t “prune” or “massage” my comments, apparently I de facto approve of everything posted in my thousands of blog comments. By SFWA standards I suppose that means I even think Clamps is a great writer, because he’s sure posted that a lot! 😀

      1. If Mr. Kratman’s assertion is correct (and it must be, since you’ve allowed it in your comments) then you must be agnostic (which is my own theological stance) as well as Catholic and Mormon. I’ve heard of cognitive dissonance before, but that takes the cake.

        How do you handle it?

    2. Does Larry like MST3K because I do? Damn, as long as he doesn’t erase our blog posts we could put some awfully bad things in his mouth. So to speak.

      1. Clamps freaked out last time when he discovered that I don’t allow editing of comments. I prefer for the evidence of troll’s stupidity to stay forever. 🙂

  12. So, Alauda, Clamps, or whatever, I actually read the first few chapters you linked up there. I wish I could have a higher opinion of them. I could hardly have a lower opinion of them. The descriptions pull me out of the narrative, a forgivable flaw made much worse by the jerky flow of the narative itself, and after four readings – more times than it earned – I still don’t know what is even supposed to be going on in the passages. I could continue, but I don’t wish to be unkind.

    So you wrote some crap, thats okay, we all have to write a lot of bad prose before we get anything worth keeping. I do suggest you stop trying to put it forth as better than anything published in pretty much any book though. Twilight comes out ahead in the comparison. Twilight, for all its flaws, is an engaging story that is understandable to its target audience and tells its story well.

    I do find it amusing that you were directly responsible for several people, including myself, becoming aware of Vox Day’s writing. I’ll think of you when I’m reading it.

        1. He’s too dumb… Meanwhile I’m still trying to wrap my brain around that whole ten thousand blow jobs thing…

      1. I never said *I* liked Twilight, merely that it was better than what you offered up as ‘superior.’ The only reason I appreciate Twilight is because it serves as the literary gateway drug for a substantial number of young people, particularly girls. They read Twilight, like it, and then look for more books like it, leading to better authors like Tolkien. Probably not too many go from Twilight to Correia, more’s the pity, but that’s mostly due to target audience than anything else. Personally I’m much more fond of Dickens, but that’s just me.

        I wonder though, if people like Vox infuriate you so much, why spread that vitriol all over the place and accomplish nothing but give them free publicity?

      2. Whether or not I liked Twilight is about the least important aspect of what is being said here.

        Let me explain.

        No, there is too much, let me sum up.

        Your proof of superiority – your 16 chapter ~250 page manifesto – that you put forth, voluntarily, is an unholy mess. It was written in 2008, and has had something like 90 views on DeviantArt – 30 of which (for the first chapter) are from today, so almost certainly only because of this blog post.

        Even if it was a masterpiece it doesn’t matter if no one has seen it. Books have to be read for them to be anything more than bits of code on a website or ink on a page.

        Now, obviously I didn’t read more than the first chapter, simply from time constraints, and because I’m not a sadist, but even if it were published I still wouldn’t have read any more, because the first chapter fails completely to draw me in as a reader.

        Compare

        “So this is dying. Doesn’t seem so bad, actually, in retrospect.”
        “No, you’re not.” A man’s voice, slight warbling noise and feedback, and that’s it.

        and

        On one otherwise normal Tuesday evening I had the chance to live the American dream. I was able to throw my incompetent jackass of a boss from a fourteenth-story window.

        So… yeah. You suck and we hate you.

  13. ….Wow, clamps, you sure suck at this. You’re growing either more pathetic, or our right wing-ed-ness is slowly seeping into your brain, forcing you to reevaluate yourself and beliefs from all the repeated exposure to the clue bat.

    Though I have my doubts. I’m quite sure you’re just getting more pathetic.

  14. Oh, by the way, Clamps, I heard you like to harass women. I take it you’re projecting your own deficiencies and faults on those who make you feel bad about your sad pathetic little self?

  15. And Clamps/Alauda, Andrew P. Marston of Marshfield Mass, has been banned again. It was one thing to mess with him when I just thought he was a frustrated author, not a frustrated rapist.

    I have no patience for stalkers. I taught far too many women’s CCW classes with far too many horror stories about vile little pieces of mentally imbalanced bullshit. Fuck him.

    1. Yeah and he lives in MA, where no one without ‘connections’ has a CCW permit… i bet he makes a habit of stalking women in other may-issue states, too

      1. That’s actually not true. The larger cities, Boston, of course, but also Springfield, New Bedford and Fall River, plus some upper end suburbs, tend to be hard to get CCWs in without connections. But most towns in Massachusetts are actually fairly easy. See: http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/8703-Guide-to-gun-rights-in-your-Massachusetts-town?highlight=easton. It is NOT a liberal state. It is a fairly conservative state that was stolen by liberals under the twin impacts of dropping the voting age to 18 – thus letting half a million college students vote straight Marxist-Leninist ticket under the guidance of their profs – and the Supreme Court declaring its lengthy residency requirements were unconstitutional.

    2. Up until the creepy stalker revelation, I was reading through all this and thinking “boy, if I ever write a novel, I hope that Clamps hates it as much as he hates what all these successful writers have written. Then I’ll know I’ve made it.” Now, though, I just hope he never sees my name in print anywhere. Last thing I want is a creepy stalker.

    3. Well, you were right. I regret being nice to him now. I thought he was just a regular troll, not a criminal one.

      It seems you were also right about the mental illness part. This guy sounds like he could be really dangerous to be around in real life, but I doubt he’s in a secure institution right now. The state of mental health care in this country is a joke.

      Thanks for blocking him.

    4. hmmm..is it wrong of me to hope he becomes a darwin award winner forthwith by trying something fatally stupid with either a former graduate of one of your classes or someone else with a similar lack of tolerance for the human cockroaches of the world? Thereby becoming the next Darwin Award winner?

    5. awww. And it was so entertaining to watch y’all kick him around.
      Oh well, there will be others. It’s not like idiots and trolls are endangered species or anything.

    1. I’ve had some doozies over the years. This is the first one who turned out to be a wannabe rapist though. Holy shit.

  16. Alright, I ran out of patience to wade through all the comments.

    1) Given the quality of book that Larry churns out, even when it’s a series that doesn’t particularly draw me in, if Larry says it’s good – I’ll give it a shot.

    2) From all I’ve heard of the modern SFWA, Heinlien would have given them the heeby jeebies – and John Campbell would have driven them to snivelling in corner crying for their assorted mommies. Any one they hurl forth for, essentially, political incorrectness…at least gets a glance. This may be a hint that SFWA is evolving into the Col. Klink of the literary world (or not – I’m not a SF writer, merely a reader). I am not yet entirely convinced that anyone they honor is equally unworthy of my dollar.

    3) That Larry reccomends Vox Day’s book and not only SFWA but Alauda find Day distasteful … persuaded me to buy the book.

    I will suggest that if the SFWA is failing so miserably in their core mission as Larry suggests that it *might* be a worthwhile endeavor to found a group that actually performs the mission of defending writers rights and royalties – but again, who am I, a mere reader, to make such radical suggestions.

    1. You really should read the rest of the comments, or at least get to the part where we find out he’s a stalker who has harrassed dozen of women. 🙂

      1. I’d pay money to watch that at rollout. If for nothing else but to watch the Krataclysms(tm) of Scalzi et al. . .

        . . .and ESPECIALLY if Scalzi is still wearing that green ball-gown. . . (evil grin)

      2. Here’s my problem; how do you create an organization that will not turn pinkofascisti in a couple of decades, while still leaving it open to the more reasonable liberal types, of which there are a few. Communists? Meh. People like Eric Flint aren’t a problem, you see, communist or no; he detests liberalism as least as much as I do. But there are a few reasonable and thoughtful liberals who are not, deep down, fascists. And then there’s the disinformative types, who will hide what they are until they’re in. I’ve been batting it around in my head for some time now, and I don’t see a solution.

      3. “I’d pay money to watch that at rollout. If for nothing else but to watch the Krataclysms(tm) of Scalzi et al. . .

        . . .and ESPECIALLY if Scalzi is still wearing that green ball-gown. . . (evil grin)”

        Wait, Scalzi is a cross dresser? why am I always the last to find out these interesting things? 😛

      4. Tom, maybe steal the Mason’s membership and operating mechanisms (at this point very nearly everyone else has stolen one or the other, so…)?

        Make it a selective membership organization, set objective standards for disciplinary issues, define the mission carefully in both charter & bylaws -and if you’re feeling frisky – inject a “loser pays” membership agreement re lawsuits…

        Beyond that? Get a good core group of founders. 🙂 If it takes a majority vote for someone to join, and you’ve got good founders, you have a built-in screening device.

  17. Criminy, for someone going on about how misogynistic others are he sure is a creep. Ah well, its best I not get in the habit of Troll baiting anyway.

  18. I’ve never been arrested—never been in jail—so I lack the empathy this Clamps obviously has developed. (I also lack anal leakage, which I’m going to put in the “plus” column.) But just thinking outside of my own experience, I would have thought there might be some kind of prison store or commissary at the State Stalker’s Penitentiary where one might purchase a clue.

  19. Figures he’s a creepy-crazy-stalker guy. Normal, not creepy-crazy-stalker people don’t follow authors around and try to get people to not buy their books.
    Kind of a “Fatal Attraction” thing there for Vox, me thinks…

  20. Did anyone actually make their way through his whole list of links without their brain exploding?

    Holy shit, I’ve scooped better writing out of the litterbox after one of the cats got into the Alpha-Bits. 😕

    1. I skimmed all of it while while I was dumping the whole thing into a word doc. I was curious to see how long it was – short answer, less than I wrote last month for Nanowrimo. To be fair I was glancing at a paragraph here or there out of context, but to be brutally honest I don’t think context would have helped any. Bad doesn’t begin to cover it.

  21. Awesome linkage here. Bought my first three Kratman books, first three Hoyt books, first three Day books, and first three Simmons books. (Hey, Simmons, what’s up with the Kurtz series being available on Kindle in Spanish but not in English?!?) Never let a good trolling go to waste. Pretty sure Gore or Kerry said that.

  22. You know, Larry. I only started reading your books this past year. Become a real fan in a very short amount of time. Finished off the Monster Hunter series and have just started Hard Magic.

    I did not think it was possible for me to like you any more than I already did. Your troll-handling is fantastic. You make some very despicable critics, which I think makes you cool by default.

  23. Alauda, does it bother you that everyone cares more about their morning shit session then they do about your opinions?

  24. hehehe……I wasn’t planning on reading any of Vox’s stuff, but since clamps dislikes it so much, it must be work reading. I’m going to go buy some of it right now. Of course I’ll be using Larry’s links so he also gets some love 🙂

  25. Alauda, if that is an example of your “writing,” it badly needs improvement. Back in the 70’s I edited a Fanzine, and that would have come back with about two pages of comments on rewrite (at least), per page of material. Starting with “I read the first para (about 5-7 lines) and had no desire to read the rest.”
    There was absolutely NO REASON to want to read any more than that. OTOH, let me quote from “Scarlet: the Lunar Chronicles.” “Scarlet was descending toward the alley behind the Rieux tavern when her portscreen chimed from the passenger seat. Followed by an automated voice. ‘Comm received for Mademoiselle Scarlet Benoit from Toulouse Law Enforcement Department of Missing Persons.'”
    This was “written,” by Marissa Meyer, allegedly an NYT nest seller, and very poorly (if at all) edited. It’s full of barely one dimensional, and two dimensional main characters. And *it’s still better than what you wrote.*

  26. I’m not one of the “I disagree with the author and therefore his writing is terrible” types, but it’s a bit disingenuous to describe Day’s beliefs as something that could “maybe, possibly, perhaps, sort of be construed as racism, if you squint really hard.” This is how he defines “defending traditional American society”: “If Americans can find the courage to consciously reject the myth of the melting pot and expel the Mexicans from the American Southwest, the Arabs from Detroit and the Somalis from Minneapolis, they can reclaim their traditional white Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture.” (http://www.wnd.com/2010/05/151689/#41oRDoQx5CV1r6ij.99).

    Calling for the expulsion of racial and ethnic minorities in order to reclaim WASP culture is pretty damned racist. Now, he’s entitled to his opinions, and if his work is good then his opinions are irrelevant (see also: Orson Scott Card). But it’s also not really honest to characterize anyone who considers Vox Day a racist as a member of the “PC police.”

    1. Traditional American Society always included the concept of the “melting pot”. When immigrants come here, and do not, and in fact, REFUSE to assimilate into the greater culture, that’s a problem.

      Heck, a century ago, someone from an Irish neighborhood wouldn’t spit on someone from an Italian neighborhood if they were on fire, but today, the only difference, for those that still exist, is that one tends to have better beer, and the other better food.

      1. Traditional American Society always included the concept of the “melting pot”.

        No, it certainly did not. The “melting pot” was a term invented and popularized by a Jew named Israel Zangwill who emigrated from Russia to Britain in his 1905 play “The Melting Pot”.

        One reason the earlier wave of immigrants were able to successfully integrate was that the size of it was smaller and there was a 40-year period of very little immigration that permitted the nation to digest it.

        “In 1924 and 1926, partly in response to pressure from labor unions, Congress put in place the first comprehensive quota systems to limit immigration into the U.S. For the next 40 years, from 1925 to 1965, the United States had a relatively restrictive immigration policy, which allowed 200,000 people into the country annually, on average. Demographers sometimes call this period “the Great Pause,” although at the time, most Americans thought of it as permanent.”

      2. I should probably mention that as a long-time immigrant myself, I have a different perspective than most. It’s a little ironic that many of those who disagree with me on this subject still consider me an American, while simultaneously insisting that immigrants who have been in the USA for far less than 15 years should be considered Americans as well.

  27. Calling for the expulsion of racial and ethnic minorities in order to reclaim WASP culture is pretty damned racist.

    If a German had warned some Jews what was going to happen to them in 1940, or if a black African had warned Rhodesian whites what was going to happen when Mugabe took over, would you consider that racist too?

    WASP culture isn’t magic. It can no more survive the replacement of white Europeans by different races and ethnicities than Cherokee and Sioux culture could. If you don’t defend it, you will lose it. That’s not “racist”, that is both logic and historical reality.

    And if you think that knowing history and correctly grasping logic makes me a white supremacist, well, that’s an interesting trick. You see, I’m no more white than Barack Obama.

  28. It’s ironic that the same internet that trolls hide behind is the same internet that can expose them for what they are. They operate under the delusion that they can hide behind a screen name and an avatar. Or multiple screen names or avatars. With a few key strokes and mouse clicks the mask is ripped away.

    Reading the exchange between Larry and this asshat and others was hilarious. It was funny, like watching him being swatted back an forth like a wiffell-ball. Which is fitting, because like a wiffell-ball his arguments just like his head are hollow and full of holes.

  29. I find Rapey McStalker Creeper Creep’s intent of writing a snarky recap of Vox’s writings to be rather amusing. Looking at his comments here, and it is clear that his attemtps at writing snark would be far less successful than his blind stabs at producing fiction.

    Hell, he had a great opportunity to bring some serious, ‘A’ game snark and insults, such to make Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker weep that they did not create such masterpieces.

    Instead, we get the trite nonsense and purile babbles Clamps the Wonder Stalker wrote above. Lame, lame, lame.

  30. Yes, people like that seem to think they can’t be found and that we can’t get every little bit of information on them. There are a lot of databases out there that pretty much allow you to discover whatever you want on someone. Anonymous calls it doxing. I think this troll needs to be doxed in full.

  31. If this guy spent half the time he appears to spend stalking, harassing, getting around bans, and attacking profitable writers (since apparently creators of prose who engender ”keep writing and take my money ” in readers are not real writers in his world) in actually learning to write, he might achieve profitability someday. At the very least, reduce his troll footprint.

  32. @Tom Krautman 27:2:3

    I don’t think it is possible to make a group takeover proof, but you shouldn’t let that stop you from creating one. Just keep the balance in the organisational treasury low enough that if there is a takeover, the good guys can bail out and start over without loosing too much money.

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