As I was about to say yesterday, before I was interrupted…
(1) THE SOUND OF MONEY. Kristine Kathryn Rusch pointed her readers to bestselling writer Michael J. Sullivan’s a post on Reddit titled “Why Del Rey and I Will Be Parting Ways” and gave a complimentary analysis on the way Sullivan handled his audiobook rights.
Here, I want to applaud Michael and his wife Robin for their negotiating skills and for their attitude.
To summarize the highlights of the blog about Del Rey, for those of you who haven’t jumped over to read it, Michael and Robin learned from their first major contract with a traditional publisher to retain audio rights. Michael and Robin didn’t do so on that first big contract, and then the audio rights sold for $400,000, of which Michael and Robin saw only $200,000 (subsidiary rights in a standard publishing contract are split 50/50 with a publisher).
So — and here’s a nice bit of brilliance — Michael and Robin didn’t want to lose audio rights again. When the time to negotiate a new Del Rey contract came around, Michael and Robin had already sold audio rights to those books, taking those rights off the table entirely.
They thought through what they wanted, and rather than argue over the rights, or get the print publisher to bump an advance, or go through all of the little tricks that people on the other side of the table do when negotiating, Michael and Robin were proactive. They made sure they got what they wanted with audio first.
And there’s a lot more good information in Rusch’s post.
(2) THE FLUID PAST. Guy Gavriel Kay tweeted a link to this article, one in which he is cited and discussed. “‘Facts are not truth’: Hilary Mantel goes on the record about historical fiction”.
In Mantel’s view, the past is not something we passively consume, either, but that which we actively “create” in each act of remembrance. That’s not to say, of course, that Mantel is arguing that there are no historical “facts” or that the past didn’t happen. Rather, she reminds us that the evidence we use to give narrative shape to the past is “always partial” , and often “incomplete” . “Facts are not truth” , Mantel argues, but “the record of what’s left on the record.” It is up to the living to interpret, or, indeed, misinterpret, those accounts.
In this respect the writer of historical fiction is not working in direct opposition to the professional historian: both must think creatively about what remains, deploying — especially when faced with gaps and silences in the archive — “selection, elision, artful arrangement” , literary manoeuvres more closely associated with novelist Philippa Gregory than with [John] Guy the historian. However, exceptional examples from both fields should, claims Mantel, be “self-questioning” and always willing to undermine their own claims to authenticity.
(3) WEBCOMICS AT LOC. The Library of Congress now has a webcomics archive, collecting 39 strips including the multi-Hugo winning Girl Genius.
This collection focuses on comics created specifically for the web and supplements the Library of Congress’ extensive holdings in both comic books, graphic novels, and original comic art. Webcomics are an increasingly popular format utilized by contemporary creators in the field and often includes material by artists not available elsewhere. Webcomics selected for this collection include award-winning comics (Eisner Awards, Harvey Awards, Eagle Awards, and Shuster Awards) as well as webcomics that have significance in the field due to longevity, reputation, and subject matter. This collection includes work by artists and subjects not traditionally represented in mainstream comics, including women artists and characters, artists and characters of color, LGBTQ+ artists and characters, as well as subjects such as politics, health and human sexuality, and autobiography. The content of these websites is captured as it was originally produced and may include content that is not suitable for all ages.
(4) EARLY DAYS. Kalimac reminisces about “ Dark Carnival” bookstore.
But I remember Dark Carnival from its earliest days. It was the first sf specialty store in the Bay Area, long before Borderlands or Future Fantasy and even a bit before The Other Change of Hobbit or Fantasy Etc. (Of these, only Borderlands is still with us, and it had a scare not long ago.) I found it down on the south stretch of Telegraph, the first of its three locations, when I returned to UC in the fall of 1976. It was very small then, mostly a large semicircle of paperbacks, but there wasn’t a lot to stock in those days. Jack Rems, owner ever since, was usually there, as was his first clerk, a young woman named Lisa Goldstein, who’d occasionally mention she was working on a novel. It was published several years later and led her on the path to becoming the renowned fantasy author she is today, but then she was a bookstore clerk. D. and I would hang out down there and indulge in a lot of chatter with Jack and Lisa, but we’d also buy books.
(5) LA’S SHINING WEST TRIBUTE. NOTE: WE MISSED THIS ONE. On Thursday Los Angeles city officials will turn on the Bat-SIgnal.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti will light the Bat-Signal over Los Angeles in a special ceremony honoring the late Adam West, who starred in the 60s Batman TV series as the Caped Crusader himself.
The ceremony will be conducted on Thursday, June 15 at 7:30 p.m. PST at Los Angeles City Hall. Garcetti will be joined by unnamed special guests for the tribute, along with Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck.
Once lit, the Bat-Signal will be projected on Los Angeles City Hall for an undisclosed period of time.
(6) TRACING BATMAN’S BAT BUCKS. In “How Does Batman make All His Money?” on looper.com, Chris Sims looks at the roots of the Wayne fortune, including how Bruce Wayne’s wealth began with Revolutionary War hero “Mad Anthony” Wayne and how Thomas Wayne’s marriage to Martha Kane united a financial empire with one based on chemicals.
All of this still leaves the question of where Batman gets his fortune in the world of Gotham City, but if you’ve read enough comics, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Bruce Wayne’s infinite pile of money has an origin story just like everything else. The short version? The Waynes have always been rich.
As it turns out, they’re about as old as Old Money gets in America, with a merchant fortune that came over from Europe in colonial times, growing as Gotham City expanded to form the cornerstone of an industrial empire. In 2011’s Batman: Gates of Gotham, Scott Snyder, Kyle Higgins, and Trevor McCarthy put the spotlight on Alan Wayne, a turn-of-the-century ancestor for Batman who helped to shape the city itself by funding the design and construction of bridges, tunnels, and key buildings — including Wayne Tower.
(7) ALT REVIEWING. Jon Mollison reviewed Sarah A. Hoyt’s story “Freeman’s Stand” in Rocket’s Red Glare for the Castalia House blog. He has a particular view of immigrants, as reflected in this excerpt —
I didn’t recognize the tonally inconsistent version of America presented. Perhaps the good old USA had fallen so long ago that the Sons of Liberty had cobbled together an approximation through scraps of history and lost lore. If so, this was never presented, and so instead of enjoying the action, I found myself wondering where this weird America came from.
Normally, I’d be loathe to resort to the petty tactic of mentioning the “About The Author” section of a collection, but in this case it provides an important clue towards understanding why Freeman’s Stand feels like such an alien version of America. The very first thing mentioned in Hoyt’s bio is that she was born and raised in Portugal. That’s the lead-off. It’s important that you know Hoyt is Portuguese before all else. And it’s only now, after the story is concluded, that the pieces fall into place. This is a story of “Nation of Immigrants” America written by an author with a very different perspective of America than one held by a reader born and bred within her borders. That is the source of the disconnect, and I found myself wishing that I’d known from the outset that Molly’s story was that an American outsider fighting for an outsider’s vision of America. It would have resolved a number of discordant passages within the tale.
This prompted Greg Hullender to observe, “Although Sarah Hoyt imagines herself to be a fellow-traveler, given her involvement with the Sad Puppies, it’s pretty clear from this post on the Castalia House Blog that, as an immigrant from Portugal, she can never be a “real American.” Not in any sense the alt-right recognizes, anyway.”
(8) WALKING DEAD. Carl Slaughter would like to tell you about it:
The Walking Dead is a tale of sheriff Rick Grimes and his small band of survivors as they’re transformed from coddled complainers into battle tested, zombie murdering badasses. The zombie subgenre has a rich history of social commentary. Whether they be the slow walking, brain craving type or of the fast running, shrieking persuasion, the figure of the zombie has been a metaphor for all sorts of things that keep us up at night. Zombies have represented everything from mindless consumers under Capitalism in Dawn of the Dead, to fears about public health crisis in 28 Days Later, immigration in World War Z, or mega corporations in Resident Evil. And then there’s the fact that zombies originated in Haiti, where many argue it was a metaphor for slavery. Zombies are projections of our own societal fears. The Walking Dead isn’t quite any of these. Instead, The Walking Dead explores a multitude of issues, like politics, psychology, and our relationship to death. Also, the joys of cosplay. The Walking Dead is, above all else, a show about philosophical bounderies. And three in particular: (1) What constitutes life (2) What constitutes living (3) What constitutes being human.
For homework, Carl recommends The Philosophy of The Walking Dead — Wisecrack Edition.
[Thanks to JJ, Martin Morse Wooster, Stephen Burridge, Tom Galloway, John King Tarpinian, Gregory N. Hullender, and Dann for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day rcade.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
Welcome back Mike! You have been missed.
(7) ALT REVIEWING.
Well, Hoyt’s going to be spitting tacks over that review. I can’t wait to see her rebuttal.
Nice to have you back.
Hey Soon Lee, check your wine e-mail box.
*breath out in relief* File770 is back online, the world is back in order.
Welcome back, Mike! Glad to see that everything still seems to be in one piece. Hope the whole experience (whatever it was) wasn’t too exciting!
@JJ
Well, it’s pretty much what VD said about her last year, so maybe she won’t be surprised that his pet website is saying the same stuff.
(1) THE SOUND OF MONEY
This was interesting (and read the comments on the reddit thread, there’s some good comments from other authors in there as well).
I’m not 100% sold on KKR calling this “brilliance” though, or rather the bit she’s applying it to isn’t actually what was so clever.
Essentially he pre-sold the audio rights elsewhere, with the intention of forcing his US publisher to make a deal that didn’t include them, but not having the audio rights was a red line for his US publisher, so he ended up with no deal. He’s obviously not too cut up about this given that he does very well in audio, still has his non-US publisher, and is established enough to just self-pub in the US instead.
However, there’s a difference between being prepared to walk away from a bad deal, and tying yourself into a situation where you have to walk away no matter what. Here, Sullivan was obviously confident that he could look after himself if this tactic lost him the deal, and so it was a good play for him, but if you’re not an established name with solid sales elsewhere to fall back on then playing irreversible hardball might not be the best plan.
So I think the subtly different lesson is – evaluate if your position is strong enough to play hardball and have a genuine backup plan for when – as in this case – it doesn’t actually work. That is what Sullivan did well here.
(1) Why is he announcing this on Reddit? Doesn’t he have a blog or a Facebook or something more respectable? And I have little sympathy for him “only” making $200K from audio. This is not good advice for new authors.
(6) This… is not a surprise, is it? The Waynes are always portrayed as long-time rich and influential Gothamites with a stonking huge corporation that gets ever-bigger.
(7) And the Sads thought they could control or at least cooperate with the Rabids. We tried to tell them it wasn’t going to work, but they didn’t believe us.
You’d think they’d like her for her paranoia about Marxists everywhere and her nostalgia for the good old days of fascism…
Pretty funny about Teddy’s constant whining about immigrants when he’s one himself, though. Have his kids ever lived in the US? Does he practice proper rugged individualism of paying full retail for all health care at US prices? Swagger around with guns even where they’re illegal? Not real ‘Murcan, then! Sad.
Mark-kitteh: there’s a difference between being prepared to walk away from a bad deal, and tying yourself into a situation where you have to walk away no matter what. Here, Sullivan was obviously confident that he could look after himself if this tactic lost him the deal, and so it was a good play for him, but if you’re not an established name with solid sales elsewhere to fall back on then playing irreversible hardball might not be the best plan.
lurkertype: This is not good advice for new authors.
I really recommend reading Rusch’s post. She talks about these issues, and more of the implications for established vs. new authors.
(1) Interesting read (though I only skimmed KKR’s article). It got me thinking about the 50/50 split for audio rights, the role of agents, and the changes in publishing.
Mid-80’s, there was really one publishing channel: paper books through book stores and book clubs. Here it made sense that the publishers took responsibility of marketing other markets, since 90% of the revenue was in “their” turf. E-books was the first big change. Some of the traditional publishers managed to adapt rather easily to e-books, some had a harder time, but I believe most major publishers can handle it reasonably now.
But most traditional publishers have been lousy at selling translation rights, and the 50/50 split for translations or audio rights is just too large if all they do is act as an agent.
(For translation: one reason why Nordic crime stories have been very successful abroad over the last decade was the rise of independent agents specialised in translations up here, and who effectively marketed successful crime story writers in the rest of the European book markets.)
So instead of thinking as Sullivan losing his publisher, think of it as Del Rey losing a successful writer due to their hardline stance on audio rights.
@JJ
Well, I had, and to be fair to KKR she does say later “I wouldn’t have made that gamble without other alternatives” but I felt that was a bit buried compared to her enthusiasm for taking an irrevocable redline position.
Essentially I 99% agree with her, but I don’t think she looks enough at how solid a red line that was. She says that pre-selling audio rights kept Sullivan away from “the opportunity to negotiate against your own interest” which is fair enough but it also closed down an avenue to a possible deal. Even if Sullivan’s publisher came back with “look, we want to cross-promote audio with the rest [or whatever a good reason from a publisher might be], we see you have X on the table for audio elsewhere, we’ll beat it” he couldn’t take that improved offer. That’s a position with substantial risk attached – of the deal collapsing – and I think the analysis of that risk needed a smidge more nuance.
(Of course, the publisher did something very similar. Both parties now have some sort of worthwhile result – they’ve demonstrated for future dealings that they stick to red lines)
We need a designated backup spot where–in the instance of a site downage–we can gather to speculate wildly, exchange conspiracy theories, and generally panic.
@Mark I don’t think she looks enough at how solid a red line that was…Of course, the publisher did something very similar
I think it helps to read the article as criticism directed at the publisher and not primarily advice to authors.
I really missed Fille 770, glad to see it back.
7) I think they just hate her because, among the pups, she’s unusual for being able to write better-than-competent fiction.
On a slightly different tack, what do people prefer* for a comfort read?
*I initially typed “recommend” but I expect that everyone’s got slightly different criteria. Spouse is currently in hospital & I been re-reading choice volumes of the Vorkosigan saga, but next up is Roger Zelazny & Jane Lindskold’s “Lord Demon”. After that I’ll probably go the Connie Willis “To Say Nothing of the Dog”.
@Soon Lee: My two reliable comfort reads are John M Ford’s Growing Up Weightless and Michael Wood’s In Search of the Trojan War. I also find Seth’s “sketchbook comics” (Wimbledon Green and The GNB Double C) valuable when I just need a few pages of comfort reading.
But the important question is — if Sullivan will no longer be working with Del Rey on the audio, will he still have access to Tim Gerard Reynolds as his narrator? Stick to the important questions, people!
😉
@Soon Lee —
Vorkosigan. I very recently re-listened-to the first few volumes in prep for Hugo voting, and it was difficult to stop without completing the series!
@Soon Lee
Comfort reading? pTerry Pratchett.
@Soon Lee
My comfort reads are an odd mix now I think about it: James Schmitz, Leigh Brackett, certain Cherryh novels (Pride of Chanur, Hellburner, Cuckoo’s Egg), The Risen Empire… I guess the common factor is minimum angst, enough tension to keep me engaged, and a happy ending.
(I also know someone who reads early David Drake novels when things get really bad, despite not otherwise liking MilSF, because however bad it is Drake’s characters have it worse and carry on coping.)
Good to see File 770 back.
1) Sullivan also posted the same post at KBoards, an indie author forum, which is where I first saw it.
7) This again shows that no matter how much immigrants assimilate to their new country, for some people it will never be enough.
Stepping away from the rabids vs. sads thing for a moment, I’ve seen it quite a few times that books (and also films and TV shows) from Europe get reviews that boil down to “This work is too foreign for me and does not meet my American expectations”. Ditto for works from Australia and New Zealand. In reverse, there are some common tropes in US fiction, films and TV shows, which seem quaint and/or eyeroll inducing to Europeans. Even though all of these countries are part of “the West”, cultures and sensibilities are still different.
In other news, the mailman (and it really is a man) finally brought me Raven Strategem today.
@Soon Lee
My comfort reads are the Vorkosigan books, Simon R. Green’s Deathstalker and Hawk and Fisher books, Rachel Bach’s Paradox trilogy, Shanna Swendson’s Enchanted Inc. series. If all else fails, there’s always Georgette Heyer.
@Cora If all else fails, there’s always Georgette Heyer.
I’d forgotten Heyer. The Grand Sophie is definitely one of my comfort reads. Also (in the non-SF line) Dorothy Sayers. And Saki’s short stories are good when I’m too tired for sustained concentration.
@OGH: so have they figured out why your ISP hired the bloke whose carelessness took down British Airways? That’s the only reason I can figure for you being down so long….
@1: I wonder how well an audio book will do without the buzz generated by a hard/e-book with a major publisher behind it. Anybody have access to a paratime traveler? (As suggested by other comments, Sullivan may be a far-side-of-the-curve test case, as he’s apparently got a wide following for his self-pub’d work.)
@Soon Lee: I have this bad habit of taking happy endings for comfort reading instead of rereading a whole book; there are few-page chunks of A Civil Campaign, for instance, that I’ve read a huge number of times. And sometimes knowing that ending makes for comfort reading; two of my ~frequent rereads are Ford’s “Casting Fortune” and Cherryh’s Merchanter’s Luck. (“~frequent” because I do relatively little re-reading, especially now that my reading speed is decreasing while my TBR pile is expanding.)
@Matthew Johnson: I should also have flagged Weightless — it’s relatively friendly for Ford — and his How Much for Just the Planet (don’t know how well it does for people not well-acquainted with original Star Trek).
@Ghostbird: you’re the only person I know to use “Cherryh” and “minimum angst” in the same sentence; I’m a huge fan of her work but warn everyone I push it on that none of it is an easy read.
@Cora: such reviewers are depressing but unsurprising — not just from US xenophobia (or egotism: ~”We are large, we contain multitudes, we don’t need the rest of the world.”) but also because a reviewer (as opposed to a critic) is telling its segment of the market whether they will like the work.
[godstalk]
I don’t necessarily have comfort reads in the sense of books that I’ll pick up in times of trouble; but for the most part, the stuff that comforts me when I do read it is favorites from when I was young — Tolkien, obviously, Barsoom, Cherryh, M.A.R. Barker’s Man of Gold & Flamesong … Oh, and I now have a stack of the Fantagraphics reprints of Carl Barks’ Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comics.
Comfort read: A Town Like Alice.
I’ll note that the novel accurately portrays (as far as I can tell), racial attitudes of early 1950s British and Australians, so brace yourself if you are at all sensitive. Given that, why is it a comfort read? It has a very happy ending. Both protagonists are brave, decent, careful, reasonable people. A large part of the plot revolves around working hard to make the world better.
Sarah Hoyt, consider herself a “fellow traveller” with the Alt Right? 🤣 🤣 🤣
Yes, it is good to see File 770 back and in usual form.
Comfort reads:
A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay
Carve the Sky by Alexander Jablokov
Burning Bright by Melissa Scott
Servant of the Empire by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts
A Song for the Basilisk by Patricia McKillip
Alice in Wonderland is my go-to comfort read. I can see myself maybe returning to the Craft sequence occasionally for similar purposes too, but mainly my comfort thing is music and poetry. I really like a poem by Kingsley Amis, which begins “Things tell less and less”, then I usually go to Hughes, Armitage or the Romantic poets from there. Sometimes Yeats. (A lot of my music and poetry choices are quite depressing overall though)
@Chip Hitchcock you’re the only person I know to use “Cherryh” and “minimum angst” in the same sentence…
A fair point. I think I’m trying to distinguish “people under stress trying to figure out what’s going on and what they should do” from “people dwelling on their mistakes and wondering if they’re good enough”, if that makes sense? Plenty of both in Cherryh’s novels, but it’s the former I find comforting.
@Soon Lee
I’d suggest “The Goblin Emperor” and “Penric’s Demon.”
@J. C. Salomon
Torgersen described the sad vs. rabid puppies as two cars on the same road headed in the same direction but with different ultimate goals. So, yes, fellow travellers.
JJ
Recent discussions of some stuff she said had me read her blog posts and it appears she’s trying to avoid stress that aggravates a health condition, so while I certainly don’t agree with things she’s said, I also hope she doesn’t let this get to her. That level of ignorance isn’t worth additional stress over aside from the amount of effort a cat uses to kick some sand over poop in a litter box.
This.
Also the first couple of The Gunslinger books and the Lord of the Rings. Or Christopher Moore books.
@Greg Hullender:
From https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/we-are-not-rabid/:
Taking an analogy to the effect of “there are some similarity between SP and RP, but the essential differences are more important”, and deciding that RP and Alt Right not only have personalities in common but are in fact the same thing, you come to the conclusion that Sarah Hoyt is not merely a de facto a fellow traveller of the Alt Right, but also considers herself to be such.
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
(8) It’s worth pointing out that there’s some speculation as to whether the title of The Walking Dead is intended to refer to the survivors as well as the we-don’t-call-’em-zombies. The thrust of that theory is that the general theme of the series is the survivors’ struggle against not only their external enemies, but the erosion of their own humanity and civilization. Every new enemy seems to require that they carve off a little more of their souls (becoming more dead inside) to come out on top, and the question of how far they can go before winning a battle means losing the war has been raised several times.
It’s not an original theme, but I think it’s being done well on both shows.
(2) THE FLUID PAST
I tiptoed around the edges of a fb discussion of a similar discussion by Mantel about the types of power assigned to women in historical fiction. I.e., not simply assigning them the types of power currently valued — see my rants against the “kick-ass” model — but recognizing and valuing other forms of power, rooted within their historic settings. The fb group in question was a lesbian fiction site, hence my tiptoeing around my support for the position that we need to honor the differences in the lives of historic women — even those we desperately want to identify with — while still acknowledging the function of the author in creating new historic understandings within those facts.
I suspect some people hear, “You can’t just make things up in historic fiction” and interpret as “the default biased and flawed historic myths must not be challenged.” There’s a middle ground, but it takes more work than either swallowing received history or entirely inventing the history you want to have happened.
A fairly high fraction of notable Canadian SF authors are either immigrants or dual citizens. There are a few possible contributing factors: firstly, about 20% of Canadians were born outside Canada (compared to about 13% in immigrant-loathing America). Obviously, kids of immigrants have a fair chance of being dual citizens. Secondly, writing is one of the occupations anyone can do in Canada, regardless of immigration status.
For the record, not only were my parents immigrants to Canada, both of them continued speaking their birth tongue until they died, and my mother refused to become a citizen (since my dad died almost immediately after naturalizing, perhaps she had a point. It was mostly because she was even better at holding a grudge than I am.).
Thirding on Heyer, particularly Cotillion and Friday’s Child as comfort reads.
Also Nina Kiriki Hoffman, especially A Fistful of Sky
Seconding on Feist/Wurts though I reread the entire trilogy
Daughter of Time by Tey
Civil Campaign
Agnes and the Hitman and Wild Ride by Jennifet Crusie and others
Rev. Bob
I don’t know about the shows but in the comics that’s not just speculation it’s flat out said.
Which was great but then it doesn’t really build on that theme and doesn’t seem to explore it much either. Maybe it does later I got to about trade 22 and felt that I’d seen all there was to in that universe.
Terry Pratchett is my comfort read. I don’t know how many times I’ve read the end of Reaper Man but it’s just so satisfying the way everything wraps up.
edit: And hey, the edit timer’s back!
Comfort reads: PTerry. Diana Wynne Jones: Archer’s Goon is a clever one. Howl’s Moving Castle too, with the caveat that it is nothing like the otherwise excellent movie.
Robin McKinley. Patricia C. Wrede’s better books. Some Bujold. Heyer, which also involves caveats as to variable quality. Jennifer Crusie. Susan Cooper, though usually Seaward not the Dark is Rising series. I have not yet reread the Goblin Emperor but I can see how it would likely fit. Martha Wells’ Île-Rien books. Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher.
Finished Raven Strategem–great book, and I did not think it would go where it did at the end.
Comfort read… most likely the first issues of Hellblazer. Add Sandman and Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing.
Comfort reads: any pTerry with Sam Vimes or Granny Weatherwax, Cherryh’s Foreigner books, The Light Princess, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short stories, Mansfield Park or Persuasion – recently added Goblin Emperor and Becky Chambers.
Their performance over time has shown that the main difference between Sad and Rabid Puppies is whether they’re willing to do more than talk about vandalizing other people’s work, like the Hugo Awards.
When people were prosecuted after the bank meltdown of the late Eighties, one of them tried to justify a lighter sentence by saying that, with his expertise, he could have done so many other, worse things. The judge told him that he wasn’t impressed because that defense meant nothing more than that the guy had done all the crimes he wasn’t afraid to try.
Torgersen wants credit for only applauding the vandalism done by others.
Matthew Johnson
That was a good one – I keep proposing it for my book club, because I’d love to have a discussion of it.
You may want to look up the term ‘fellow traveller’ and its antecedents. Trotsky’s term was ‘poputchik’ – which I’m told means ‘a person on the same path’. Trotsky’s analogy and Brad T’s analogy are very similar.
https://www.britannica.com/art/fellow-traveler
I’d disagree with Greg H that Sarah Hoyty sees *herself* that way but that is a minor quibble to the broader point.
Comfort reads: in genre, David Eddings’s “The Belgariad” (nothing is so comforting as the certainty that there will be no surprises); outside it, John Gardner’s Nickel Mountain, one of the most curiously life-affirming books I know. (That’s John Champlin Gardner, of course, not the thriller-writing John Gardner.)
@Camestros Felapton
I refer you back to the comment as quoted in Mr Glyer’s post. Without the (risible) assumption that Sarah Hoyt identifies in some way connected to the Alt Right and would therefore feel some betrayal at the (orthodox Alt Rightist) Castalia House blog review, Mr Hullender’s comment adds exactly nothing to the bare fact of the review’s existence.