Author: thewriterinblack

This is a different musical interlude.  Comedy songs because, frankly, with everything that’s going on right now, I could use a good laugh.

I think that will get me through the night.

 

Here’s a list of some books I can recommend.  I’ve read all of them and enjoyed them immensely.  All of them are the first books of series.  And all of them I’ve read everything in the series put out to date (or am working on it).

DarkShip Thieves, by Sarah A. Hoyt.

Athena Hera Sinistra never wanted to go to space. Never wanted see the eerie glow of the Powerpods. Never wanted to visit Circum Terra. Never had any interest in finding out the truth about the DarkShips. You always get what you don’t ask for. Which must have been why she woke up in the dark of shipnight, within the greater night of space in her father’s space cruiser, knowing that there was a stranger in her room. In a short time, after taking out the stranger—who turned out to be one of her father’s bodyguards up to no good, she was hurtling away from the ship in a lifeboat to get help. But what she got instead would be the adventure of a lifetime—if she managed to survive. . . .

Nocturnal Origins, by Amanda S. Green

Some things can never be forgotten, no matter how hard you try.

Detective Sergeant Mackenzie Santos knows that bitter lesson all too well. The day she died changed her life and her perception of the world forever.It doesn’t matter that everyone, even her doctors, believe a miracle occurred when she awoke in the hospital morgue. Mac knows better. It hadn’t been a miracle, at least not a holy one. As far as she’s concerned, that’s the day the dogs of Hell came for her.

Investigating one of the most horrendous murders in recent Dallas history, Mac also has to break in a new partner and deal with nosy reporters who follow her every move and who publish confidential details of the investigation without a qualm.

Complicating matters even more, Mac learns the truth about her family and herself, a truth that forces her to deal with the monster within, as well as those on the outside.But none of this matters as much as discovering the identity of the murderer before he can kill again.

Freehold by Michael Z. Williamson

Innocent of the crimes for which she is being pursued by the repressive government, Sergeant Kendra Pacelli seeks asylum in the Freehold of Grainne, the only developed system not under the control of the UNES or the Colonial Alliance, but now Earth’s government has discovered exactly where she is. Original.

Psychic Undercover by Amie Gibbons

Vampires aren’t the only things that go bump in the night…

Singers are a dime a dozen in Nashville, so despite her mama’s urging, psychic Ariana Ryder’s working her way towards a career in law enforcement at the FBI, one tray of fetched coffee at a time, instead. She’s got an extremely handsome boss, a dancing partner among the lab techs, and a solid year as the team rookie under her belt…

Right until the director gives her a big break, working undercover as a singer at a club to investigate why it’s being targeted by a serial killer. This might have worked better if the club didn’t happen to be a vampire nest.

Now, with the vampires’ investigator, Quil, on her case, the sparks are flying and the jurisdictional battle isn’t the only thing heating up as they race to solve the case before the killer strikes again!

That should do for today.  And if you want to try something of mine, may I recommend:

Life among the orcs is hard.  So difficult and ubiquitous is brutal labor among them that “Veth oruk”/”Work is” is their most common greeting.  When Elara, princess of the elves is captured and enslaved by them that is the life she must learn to live, a life of hard, unremitting labor with no hope of rescue.

Work is.

Kind of a more eclectic mix of music here.

This is a group I didn’t care much for when I first encountered them but they’re growing on me.  The female vocalist has a rather “thin” voice, but the male vocalist isn’t bad.  And I have to like incorporating the electric violin into metal.

 

Liv Kristine, formerly of Leave’s Eyes.

 

Evergreen comes to me courtesy of YouTube’s “related videos”.  Sounds interesting:

 

Theater of Tragedy is another group I’m going to have to explore some:

 

Oh, and I think we can go back to Leave’s Eyes, when Liv was still in the group.

 

Semblant is another group that is really growing on me with their new female vocalist Mizuho Lin

 

And more “related videos” goodness. Cradle of Filth:

 

And let’s end with Disturbed, because this version is just that good.

BY JOHN MCCRAE

 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

A year ago, I wrote an open letter to the President Elect.  Today, on the one year anniversary of that letter, I’ll follow up.

Dear Mr. President,

It’s been a year, a time to reflect on some of the things you have done since your election in 2016.  When you won the election, I wrote an open letter about some of the things I hoped you would do.  Let’s review some of that.

In my previous letter, I noted that you were not elected to “work with” the Democrats, nor to engage in “compromises” that gave them much, if not most of what they would want if they actually had won.    And while you have talked a lot about what you would do, there is still no wall, nor really any movement on it (this is not really important to me personally, any such wall is purely symbolic in the modern world and the actual problems with illegal immigration need to be solved elsewhere, mostly by taking away the incentive to cross our borders illegally, but it is something which you promised your supporters).  And Obamacare is still the law of the land.

I know it is difficult.  Many in Congress, including many Republicans, seem more interested in making an accommodation with the socialist policies of the Left rather than furthering the principles of Liberty.  Yet you are supposed to be such a great deal maker, and these two cornerstones of your campaign appear to lie in the dust.

Getting Goresuch to the Supreme Court was a very good thing.  He was not a perfect choice, but then I realize that I was never going to get a perfect choice.  For that matter, I’m not entirely sure what a perfect choice would look like, someone who would follow the Constitution as written, and properly amended, according to the understanding of those who wrote it and amended it.

At the time of my previous letter, I recommended to you the late Barry Goldwater’s book, “The Conscience of a Conservative” and that you could do far worse than to appoint people to your administration than to select people who adhere to the philosophies of that book.  The greatness of America came from liberty, allowing the people of the United States, more than any other land, to pursue their individual interests as they see it.

You’ve made some starts.  That Executive Order calling for repealing two regulations in order to pass one was an excellent beginning to reducing the regulatory burden that hampers so much of American freedom.

I suggested last time that, since you were then President Elect, that you pick up a copy of the Constitution and read it.  I repeat that plea.  Read it, study it.  Study the commentary by the men who wrote it.  You swore an oath to uphold it, to defend it against all enemies foreign and domestic.  You need to understand what it is that you swore to.  Some of the choices you’ve made…Well, I prefer to think that you simply do not understand rather than that you are in violation of that oath.

Take, for instance, the Fifth Amendment.  People watching courtroom dramas and police shows know about the prohibition of forcing people to self-incriminate but there’s more in the Fifth than that.  It also says “nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”

You have appointed an Attorney General who endorses and promotes the violation of that.  It’s called “Civil Asset Forfeiture”, the taking of property from someone on vague suspicion without convictions, sometimes without charges being filed, forcing them to be deprived of other money and property in an effort, often futile to get their confiscated property back.  The legal doubletalk that the property is charged with a crime, not the person, and the property doesn’t have rights to due process does not change the fact that a person is being deprived of their property without due process of law.

This is an abomination.

The excuse for this is the “war on drugs”.  That “war” is itself problematic.  It is not the government’s job to protect people from themselves.  When I served in the military we were told that self-harm that rendered us unfit for duty could be charged under the UCMJ article for “destruction of government property.” We were government property.  But we signed up for that.  It’s an all volunteer force.  The American people are not, however, the property of the US Government.  Exactly the reverse if anything.  If people want to engage in self destructive behaviors, however stupid you or I (or Mr. Sessions) might consider it.  It.  Is.  Still.  Their.  Right. via self-ownership.  Offering help, counsel, advice?  Yes.  Force (and law, government, is force pure and simple)?  No.

End the insane “war on drugs.” Present

You can’t do everything, certainly not all at once, so I present this challenge.  Each day of your Presidency, whatever else you may do on that day, select some item that the government is doing that is not explicitly called for in the Constitution and stop doing that, or at least set in motion the process of stopping doing that.  Write it out of your next budget proposal, write an executive memo or order instructing the executive branch to stop, something.  It may be a little thing, but it will be something.  Get in the habit of making government smaller.

The media will scream.  The Democrats in Congress will scream.  Let them.  They’re going to do that anyway.  Nothing you ever do will be enough to mollify them.  So ignore them.  Remember your base.  Remember the people who put you in office.  Not the loudmouthed racist types who were never more than a tiny fraction, but the quiet conservative types growing ever more frustrated by ever growing government that ever more encroached on the freedoms and liberties they, and their fathers and mothers, had previously enjoyed.

That is how you Make America Great Again, by a return to the core values of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the philosophies underpinning them in the Declaration of Independence.

You still stand at the crossroads.  You have the potential to be one of the greatest presidents in history.  You also have the potential to be yet another in a line of Presidents who led the US into serfdom.

The choice remains yours.

I still pray you make the right one.

No, not a death match between the two genres, nor even a discussion of which is “better” in some way.  I like both in different ways.  Each suits a mood for me.  No, this is rather about when something is one or the other.  This will be something of a ramble.

Some folk have given long, involved definitions about when something is Science Fiction and when it’s Fantasy.  Me?  I like one similar to Orson Scott Card’s from one of his writing books.  Science Fiction has rivets and engineers.  Fantasy has trees and elves.

The late Arthur C. Clarke in his “three laws of prognostication” gave as his third law that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”  Some folk, have inverted that: “Sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.”  Those twin statements are actually quite telling in looking at the fuzzy border between fantasy and science fiction.

A lot of it has to do with mindset, both the mindset of the writing and the mindset I fall into while reading it.  Sometimes a book can be both or either depending on how you look at it.

Take, for instance, the late Anne McCaffery’s Pern books.  They are science fiction.  A colony ship reaches Pern, an almost idyllic planet.  However, once the colonists have settled in and are essentially committed, an unexpected problem arises.  Another planet in the system, one with a highly elliptical orbit nears the sun and, for reasons that are mostly glossed over, extremely aggressive fungal spores cross the gap between this other planet and Pern.  The spores, called “thread” cause serious destruction, basically “eating” anything organic they hit, but are fortunately short lived so that they don’t completely lay waste to the planet.  Still, this is a disaster of epic proportions for the colonists.  A biologist on the planet engages in an emergency program of genetic manipulation, taking an indigenous species of flying lizard that has already demonstrated the ability to imprint on people at birth (forming an empathic bond) and not only augmenting that imprinting ability to a true telepathic as well as empathic bond and increasing their size, forming human carrying, self-replicating flamethrowers–dragons.

This is far backstory, however, for the first published Pern stories.  When we’re introduced to them, the world and its characters, due to a number of crises over the years, are essentially in a dark age and have forgotten much of their history and science.  So it’s a pre-industrial age with dragons and dragonriders.

Truth to tell, even knowing the back story, even having read the key prequel that told the story of landing and the first dragons, it still reads like fantasy to me.  My “mindset” while reading it is the one that I use when reading other fantasy.  The “fantasy elements”–the telepathic bonds, the ability of the dragons to go “between” (teleporting) are decoupled from the in-story “science” and they become the functional equivalent of magic.

On the flip side you have Rick Cook’s “Wizardry” books.  Here, Rick Cook has a clearly magical world but the main character, brought in from an analog of the “real world” takes a scientific approach to that magic, treating it like computer programming where small spells are created that function as functions, routines, and lines of code.  By bringing a scientific approach to the magic, it in many ways reads more as science fiction.

Similarly there is the late Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions.  The main character is once again taken to a fantasy world and approaches the magic of the world in an analytical way that unveils the deep thought Anderson clearly gave the magic of that world.  As one example, when the protagonist tricks a Troll into staying out past sunup and it is turned to stone, he realizes why Troll Gold is considered cursed.  The transmutation of carbon into silicon (the conversion from living flesh to stone) leaves the gold highly radioactive.  Anybody carrying it would soon sicken and die.

And so, this, too reads more like Science Fiction in many ways.

Now, consider Star Trek and Star Wars.  From the standpoint of modern physics, they are both ridiculous.  No, “reverse the tachyon flow” is no more scientific than “use the Force, Luke”.  (Someone basically just threw out the idea of “tachyons” from looking at the relativity equations.  If some particle had an imaginary rest mass and were traveling faster than light, in relativity that would give it a real momentum and a real energy.  There’s no evidence that tachyons exist.  And there’s nothing in physical theory that says they must, or even should, exist.  They’re just an idea someone tossed out in pure speculation.)

The two series’ have a lot in common.  Space travel.  Alien worlds.  Faster than light travel.  War, sometimes.  Exploration, sometimes.

However, there’s a big difference between the two series.  In Star Trek the presumption is that the fantastic elements are the result of science and engineering.  Research will (in the story world) lead us to those discoveries.  Scientists will find them.  Engineers will build them.  In Star Wars there is a lot of stuff that is built by science and engineering, but the story doesn’t center around that.  It centers instead around mysticism and, frankly, magic.  “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power.” “Your sad devotion to that ancient religion…” “‘You mean it controls your actions?’ ‘Partially, but it also obeys your commands.'”  And as the franchise developed, these mystics, these “space wizards” central even from the beginning of the series (from “Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope” to “You’ve switched off your targeting computer, what’s wrong?”–this mystical Force, this space magic and it’s users, were the key MacGuffin) grow to dominate.  It’s not the engineering and the science behind it that is central to the Star Wars universe as it is in Star Trek.  It’s the space magic.  Even the light sabers, a cool piece of technology in the beginning of the franchise, are quickly revealed (in the Expanded Universe) that one needs to use the Force to properly align the crystals at the heart of their operation.  They’re not cool tech any more.  They’re magic swords, forged by wizards.

So while both franchises have the trappings of science fiction, Star Wars, in many ways, has more of a fantasy feel.  But those trappings are enough for many people to still see it as science fiction.

And, so, in the end, it really comes down to the eye of the beholder.

The Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace overthrowing Kerensky’s provisional government (no, the Bolsheviks did not overthrow the Czar, that was Kerensky), bringing about the nascent Soviet Union that would be the lurking shadow on world politics for the next 74 years with influence still seen today.

The train set in motion that day brought us:

The Red Terror, under Lenin.  Up to 1.5 million killed.

The Holodomor under Stalin, up to 12 million killed.

The Great Purge, also under Stalin, another 200 to 600 thousand killed (almost trivial by comparison–but this included a lot of people like experienced military commanders which would come back to haunt them later).

The German-Soviet non aggression pact of 1939, giving Germany a period of peace to the East so he could focus his forces on the conquest of France to the west, thus helping encourage the start of World War II.  Yes, WWII was pretty  much inevitable by this point, but this may well have hastened the start, lengthened the war, and led to more death and destruction.

The Soviet invasion and subjugation of the Baltic States.

Millions of unnecessary deaths in World War II (those experienced commanders purged up above?  Yeah.  Those.  Throwing masses of bodies at the enemy is no substitute for competent, experienced leadership.  You might win in the end–as they admittedly did–but only at a far higher cost than otherwise.)

The subjugation and oppression of Eastern Europe under the Warsaw Pact.

The communist revolution in China, including the “Cultural Revolution” and “Great Leap Forward” (what an ironic name) that lead to the deaths of over a hundred million people.

Communist revolutions in Cuba and Central America, leading to yet more death, destruction, and oppression.

Communist revolutions in Southeast Asia, leading to the Khmer Rouge and the killing fields.

“Socialism” being imposed in Venezuela leading to widespread hunger and misery. (And at this point we’re only hitting select examples, the rot has spread so widely.)

All that, from the results of November 5 (Gregorian Calendar) 1917, making this arguably the blackest day in all of history.

Johann Schmidt has used many names over the centuries.  Currently he was going by Adrian Jaeger, a young college student.  But something strange has been going on at the university, something involving his old enemies that he only knows as shadows.

---

The big man turned and looked at us through mirrored sunglasses.

“Becki, how nice to see you.  And this is?”

“Coach,” Jeff said, “this is a friend.  Adrian Jaeger”.

“Jaeger?” The coach smiled. “That means ‘hunter’ in German, does it not?”

I shrugged.  I knew quite well what the name meant but the youth I was pretending to be likely would not.

He held out his hand. “Aleki Ata.”

I did not hesitate.  A shadow riding a human had to depart its human host to touch me.  I took the hand.

“Pleased to meet you.”

Inside, my mind was racing.  The coach, and now one of the team members, both clearly ridden by shadows.  Had they known somehow that I was coming or was it just chance that I encountered a nest doing, whatever it was they do.

I tried to release Ata’s hand but he held tight.  He jerked me close, so that his mouth was near my right ear.

“What a pleaseant surprise…Johann.”

My eyes opened wide.  I pulled back.  The lights went out.  I tugged but Ata still held my hand fast in his grip.  By the dim light spilling around the curtains I could see Ata reaching for his glasses.

I’d left the magnesium flare in my right pocket.  Stupid.  I could not reach it with my right hand secure in Ata’s mitt.

I am not a fighter.  One does not live as long as I have by getting into fights all the time.  I avoid fights.  But neither does one live as long as I have without being able to fight at need.  I lifted my left knee then stomped forward into Ata’s knee.  I then raked the edge of my shoe down his shin.  As his leg started to fold, I turned, twisting my right hand up.  I continued to pivot and drove the heel of my left palm into Ata’s wrist.  His grip, loosened in reaction to my kick, popped loose from my hand.  I drove my hand down into the pocket of my pants and dove aside, hoping to avoid the tendrils of shadow that he knew were protruding from his eye sockets.

I succeeded.  My hand wrapped around the magnesium flare, withdrew.

I struck the flare.  Light blazed forth.  Tendrils of shadow recoiled, not just from me.  Some, I saw, reached for Becki but those too recoiled.  Beck stood, her eyes wide for just a moment before her left arm rose to shield her eyes.  Her right arm hung limp at her side.  On the far side of the room Jeff stood, his mouth agape, his face cast into stark relief in the actinic light.  Daryll still lay on the bed, his arms across his eyes, his mouth open in a soundless scream.

I had to think fast.  The flare only gave me a few seconds of light.  My first instinct was to run, get away before the thing riding Ata could recover.  But the shadows kept their existence as secret as I kept mine.  That meant Jeff and Becki…

“Run!” I shouted.

Neither Jeff nor Becki moved.

I dove onto the bed, reaching across to grab the front of Jeff’s shirt.  I pulled.  It was like pulling on a tree, firmly rooted in a mountain.

“Run,” I said again.

Jeff stumbled, his arm still shielding his eyes but he started to round the bed in the general direction of the door.

I pushed myself off the bed but pulled up short.  Daryll had grabbed the edge of my sleeve.  I jerked away, harder.  Fabric tore.  The sleeve came off in Daryll’s hand.  I whirled and placed a hand on Becki’s shoulder, turning her toward the door.

“Run,” I said yet again.  I moved my hand from her shoulder to the small of her back as I chivied her toward the door.  We reached it just ahead of Jeff.

The fluorescent lights of the hallway provided what seemed a dim illumination after the brilliance of my flare.  Bright purple after images from the flare rendered me nearly blind but I could hear people shouting, see others running toward us.

I turned in the direction I remembered for the exit and pushed Jeff and Becki in that direction.  I did not have time to let my eyes recover naturally.

I pulled the vial of elixir from where it hid behind my belt.  The lesser elixir of life would serve for this purpose but even so, I dared not waste the little I had.  When I confirmed Jeff and Becki were moving, I twisted off the cap of the vial.  I tipped it to moisten a finger tip then flicked a few drops into first my left eye then my right.  My vision cleared immediately.

Hospital personnel were running for the room we had just vacated.  Strangely, nobody was paying any attention to us.  I moistened my finger with the elixir again and flicked some into Becki’s eyes, then into Jeff’s.  They both stopped as their own vision cleared.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said.

“What…what was that?” Becki said.

“Later,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

I grabbed her by the arm and pulled.  She followed me.

Jeff hung back. “But…”

“Later,” I said again. “I’ll explain everything letter.  Right now, we’ve got to get out of here.”

The light leaking past the door to Daryll’s room died as the flare within burned itself out.

“Now!” I said.

Becki came with me.  Jeff followed.

The lights in the hall went off.  Gloom filled the hallway, broken only from the light leaking from open doorways along its length.

“Scheisse!” I whispered.

Door.  Where was the door?

I’m not going to say much about this because you usually start off with confused and contradictory stories.  For the most part I’m going to invoke the 72 hour rule.

First off my prayers go out to the victims and their families.  May the Gods grant comfort to the survivors and may the fallen find rest in The Shining Lands.

What we do know is that the alleged shooter was former Air Force (and this just angers me to no end).  Apparently he was Dishonorably Discharged, which is the equivalent of a Federal felony conviction.

Again, may the victims and their families find comfort and peace.

 

Our custom in our family is that I take the family out for one major “eating out” a month, someplace that’s relatively nice while not too expensive.  Sometimes it’s one of the more elaborate buffets.  Sometimes it’s a “family style” sit down restaurant.  And sometimes it’s some form of ethnic cuisine.

This time, however, my wife wanted to go up to Chicago.  We could have a late lunch at a place she had picked out (more on that later).  We could go to the Japanese shopping center she likes.  And we could also visit the (free:  It Says Here.  Again more on that later) Lincoln Park Conservatory botanical gardens.

Okay.  I’m game.

First off, it’s about a two and a half hour drive just to get to the near side of Chicago.  But, Okay.  We get to the botanical garden.  Apparently there is free parking on the street.  I can parallel park.  Sort of.   I don’t hit anything, when I try but it generally takes several tries to get it right.  Sorry, but I’m very good at driving the car forward and have the Autocross trophies to prove it.  Backwards, not so much.

Only problem is that there were no spaces available.  I drive around trying to find a spot.  Nothing.  Oh, look, there’s a small parking lot associated with the conservatory.

Wait.  What’s that?  $26 to park there.  Well, given the level of traffic it’s either drive around hoping to pull up behind someone just as they’re pulling out (good luck with that) or park here.  Still, the Conservatory is free so it’s not that bad as a total price.  I pay and we park.  We go to the conservatory.  We go through the conservatory.  I don’t think we missed anything but in less than a half hour we’re done.

That was…not much for that $26.  As we exit I look to the left.  Oh, there’s a Lincoln Park Zoo.  Also free admission.  Since I want to get my $26 worth, I direct the family over there.  We don’t see the whole thing and a lot of the animals were in for the colder months (and so not out where we could see them) but by the time everybody is ready to go to lunch I figured I’d gotten a reasonable return on that $26–at least in terms of the time spent.

Back at the car I punch in the location of the place my wife wanted to go for lunch.

20 minutes to go three miles by car?  Yep, traffic is that bad.

Also turns out my wife wanted to stop at a beauty supply place a couple of doors down from the restaurant. (Ulterior motive?  Imagine my surprise.)

And once again parking.  I drive around and around looking for a place.  Nothing.  Finally my wife suggests maybe just letting her out so she can grab a couple of things and I can just circle around and pick her up out front when she’s done.  We can get lunch at someplace near the Japanese shopping center. (Considering that I’d probably still be circling if I’d insisted on finding parking, this was probably wise.)

Between one way streets and “through traffic prohibited” and streets that cut across at an angle rather than a rectilinear grid, getting turned around so that she wouldn’t have to cross the street when I picked her up proved a challenge.  She called to say she was ready before I’d managed it. (The traffic did not help.)

I pick her up and punch Mitsuwa Mart into the GPS.  40 minutes.  25 minute delay because of accidents.

Sigh.

Forty.  Minutes.  Later. We arrive in the vicinity of Mitsuwa Mart and we start circling looking for a place to eat.  We’re just about to give up and simply go to the store and get something at their food court (hard for me to make out there given my dietary restrictions–mostly rice and noodle based dishes) we find a Korean place.  Yay!  We can manage.  And I buy the family a very late lunch.

The place is almost next door to Mitsuwa (I started circling the wrong way to see it immediately) so from that point we just hop over to the store where my wife does her shopping (and I buy my daughter Athena a few things that strike her fancy).

From there, returning home is relatively straightforward.  No accidents.  No insane traffic.  No attempt to have to find some damn place to park or navigate streets designed by Escher.  Just some tolls and for those we have a transponder.

And so home returns the travel-weary wanderer.