Radical Madness: @ZJemptv and the Transgender War Against Women
Posted on | June 13, 2016 | 30 Comments
Sitting on my shelf, amid scores of radical feminist books I’ve gathered over the past two years, is Women’s Rites, Women’s Mysteries: Creating Ritual in the Dianic Wiccan Tradition by Ruth Barrett, a neopagan high priestess initiated by Z. Budapest, the founder of feminist witchcraft. Ruth Barrett divorced her husband and became a lesbian, so that she is the epitome of a famous anti-feminist quote by Pat Robertson.
There has been a strange battle fought within feminism in recent years between radical feminists and transgender activists, and Ruth Barrett has now become a target of the implacable hatred for which the transgender movement is rapidly becoming notorious. Barrett has announced plans to publish an anthology entitled Female Erasure: What You Need To Know About Gender Politics’ War On Women, the Female Sex and Human Rights, with an introduction by Germaine Greer. This collection of 46 essays includes a lot of anti-Christian feminism of the kind that I consider pure satanic evil (e.g., Monika Sjöö and Barbara Mor), however, neither I nor any other right-wing Christian is trying to prevent publication of this book. Guess who is? Transgender activists like Zinnia Jones.
Gallus Mag at the radical feminist site Gender Trender reports:
Less than 48 hours since the announcement of the upcoming Female Erasure anthology and the anti-women, anti-lesbian, anti-speech activists are already swarming with efforts to stop its publication. . . .
Needless to say, the individuals who are invested in forcibly imposing “gender” on women and girls wish to censor female speech about the worldwide, violent, reproductive sex-based oppression of women and girls which transcends all cultures and eras. . . .
Anti-feminist and anti-gay activists — mainly of the transgender variety — are already waging a campaign of harassment against the editor, the contributors, and the fundraising website being used to crowdfund the project.
Is there anyone who is not transgender who is “waging a campaign of harassment” against so-called “TERFs” (trans-exclusive radical feminists)? Not to my knowledge. My preferred “harassment” toward feminists is to quote them, and how am I to quote the crazy things feminists say, if they are not allowed to publish? My warnings about the consequences of feminism (see “Jacobins, Bolsheviks and Feminists”) are based on in-depth research, and I dare yet hope that some of these fools will see the errors of their folly. How can truth contend with error, however, if we are denied the freedom to speak?
America has gone insane, and the lunatics are running the asylum. https://t.co/Vd7Gt87574 pic.twitter.com/79b8wmpFwX
— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) June 10, 2016
Why do transgender activists fear the truth? Why do they try to shut down criticism of their agenda? What are they trying to hide?
Heather McNamara, “Miss Robo” and Zinnia Jones.
You may recall that Zinnia Jones is the partner of Heather McNamara, a self-described “feminist, marxist, queer theorist, lesbian” who in October 2015 deliberately humiliated her son by forcing him to write an essay about “misogyny.” That anyone could be so cruel to their own child is shocking, and we should not be surprised that Zinnia Jones is supporting the war against Ruth Barrett’s book.
Ask yourself: Why do transgender activists care so much about a book by a lesbian feminist witch that they would seek to prevent its publication? Why is it so important to Zinnia Jones to prevent feminists from criticizing the transgender agenda? Why would Zinnia Jones and other transgender activists erupt with a barrage of sexualized slurs against me when I called them out about their efforts to suppress free speech?
“Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself . . . she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”
— Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 1786
My advice to feminists is to remember the fate of Trotsky. And you should probably also read The Road to Serfdom, especially Chapter 10.
Was James Wesley Howell Planning a Terrorist Attack on L.A. Gay Pride Parade?
Posted on | June 12, 2016 | 23 Comments
In the aftermath of the massacre in Orlando, there has been widespread interest in an arrest today in Santa Monica, California:
An Indiana man armed with assault rifles and explosive chemicals told authorities in Southern California he wanted to harm a gay pride event in the area, police confirmed Sunday.
James Wesley Howell, 20, was arrested when Santa Monica police discovered three assault rifles, high capacity magazines and ammunition in his car, according to a news release from the Santa Monica Police Department. Investigators also recovered a five-gallon bucket “with chemicals capable of forming an improvised explosive device,” police said.
Authorities encountered Howell while responding to a call about “suspicious circumstances” in Santa Monica shortly before 5 a.m. Police said Howell was reportedly knocking on a resident’s door and window. Howell’s vehicle was registered in Indiana.
Santa Monica police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks tweeted that Howell told officers after he arrested that he wanted to harm the gay pride event in West Hollywood that was taking place about seven miles away later Sunday.
OK, so he’s not named “Omar,” but the part of this story I don’t understand is, why would a guy from Indiana drive all the way to California to attack gay people? Is there a shortage of homosexuals in Indiana? Or was there something in particular about this West Hollywood event that would inspire James Wesley Howell to target it? Like, maybe the celebrities? If he was planning to do the “disgruntled-loser-goes-out-in-a-blaze of glory” massacre/suicide thing, did Howell hope that killing a famous gay person would ensure his posthumous notoriety? Was there a specific gay celebrity he had in mind? Because otherwise he could have just killed gay people closer to home at the Indianapolis Pride celebration.
Trying to understand the motives of homicidal maniacs is always difficult. Did I mention Howell was known to be dangerously crazy?
Around 11:17 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15, Charlestown Police Department officers were dispatched to Winthrop Drive to investigate a report of James W. Howell, 19, pointing a gun at his neighbors, according to a police report. . . .
One of the neighbors who reportedly had the gun pointed at him told officers he, his wife and several other neighbors and friends had been sitting on the porch having beers and discussing his cat being poisoned several months ago. At that point, a woman who lives at Howell’s residence with her husband, who was on the porch, came around from the back of the house yelling that they were talking about her and calling her names. An argument ensued between the woman and the complainant, and Howell went into his residence and returned with a gun, witnesses said. . . .
“James is going to get someone hurt,” one witness said. “He needs to stop pointing guns at people.”
OK, who poisoned the neighbor’s cat? Do you think this sudden escalation might indicate a likely suspect? A local psychopath? The kind of kook who would drive all the way to L.A. looking to kill some gay people?
A former Fort Pierce police officer who once worked with 29-year-old Omar Mateen, the assailant in an Orlando nightclub shooting that left at least 50 dead, said he was “unhinged and unstable.”
Daniel Gilroy said he worked the 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift with G4S Security at the south gate at PGA Village for several months in 2014-15. Mateen took over from him for a 3 to 11 p.m. shift.
Gilroy, a former Fort Pierce police officer, said Mateen frequently made homophobic and racial comments. Gilroy said he complained to his employer several times but it did nothing because he was Muslim. Gilroy quit after he said Mateen began stalking him via multiple text messages — 20 or 30 a day. He also sent Gilroy 13 to 15 phone messages a day, he said.
“I quit because everything he said was toxic,” Gilroy said Sunday, “and the company wouldn’t do anything. This guy was unhinged and unstable. He talked of killing people.”
Gilroy said this shooting didn’t come as a surprise to him.
Said it before, I’ll say it again: Crazy people are dangerous.
As a society, we have become far too tolerant of kooks. We used to lock up kooks in the lunatic asylum. There were limits to how much craziness you could exhibit without getting hauled away to the funny farm, and so people tried to act normal. Weirdos weren’t flaking out in public all the time, so that if somebody did act out, people would notice, and say something about it. Well, now we are so concerned not to stigmatize mental illness that genuinely strange behavior is now considered normal, and kooks like James Wesley Howell and Omar Mateen run rampant.
But the big story here is that James Wesley Howell has proven that you don’t have to be a Muslim to be a dangerous kook. There’s still enough old-fashioned American psychopaths around to worry about.
Liberals now celebrating arrest of a dangerous hater not named "Omar." https://t.co/lIrsRo4W5U
— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) June 12, 2016
… and the grand prize winner for
Most Stupid Tweet of the Day. @SarahKSilverman pic.twitter.com/1CPbiOLsuJ— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) June 12, 2016
Rule 5 Sunday: Hit The Beach (Club)!
Posted on | June 12, 2016 | 3 Comments
— compiled by Wombat-socho
One of the peculiar institutions here in Las Vegas is the “Beach club”, essentially an open-air pool party targeted at young people and held at one of the local resorts. Wet Republic, Encore, Daylight, Rehab…just about every major resort has one, sometimes as an annex to their normal club venue and sometimes as a standalone feature. This week our appetizer is from Drai’s at the Cromwell, which often has “cruise nights” in addition to its usual club nights. As usual, many of the following links are to pics normally considered NSFW, and if you insist on clicking said links with a fine disregard for time and place, the management is not responsible for whatever evils your boss, wife, girlfriend or other persons inflict on you.

All hands on deck!
90 Miles from Tyranny leads off this week (appropriately enough) with Soaking Wet Cameltoe, All American Girl, and Girls with Guns; Goodstuff follows with Mariah Carey up front and Vikki Dougan bringing up the shapely rear. Animal Magnetism has Rule Five Procedure Prep Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon, The Last Tradition adds Adriana Lima and Bar Rafaeli, and First Street Journal salutes women in the military with They Left The Lipstick At Home.
EBL’s herd this week includes the very atomic Debbie Harry, D-Day, Cyd Charisse, Virginia Madsen, Hillary “fashion”, Leslie Rasmussen, and Global Warming.
A View from the Beach supplies us with Time for Another Brazilian – Anne de Paula, A Whole Lotta Clinton.com, The Ring vs The Grudge, Tennis Star Gets Two Year Vacation for Drug Use, Attention Bernie Bros, This Could Happen Here, There’s Got to Be a Morning After at Clinton.com, Wednesday Morning Wake Up, Will California Fall for Clinton.com?, Reporter Swings into Work, Gone Fishin’, Short Shrift at Clinton.com, “Under the Sun, and Clinton.com Leaves a Mark on My Hometown.
Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Jennifer Sky, his Vintage Babe is Joan Blondell, and Sex in Advertising is covered this week by Sports Illustrated. At Dustbury, it’s Lizzy Caplan and Maya Moore.
Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline to submit links to the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox for next week’s Rule 5 Sunday is midnight on Saturday, June 18; the deadline to submit links to the FMJRA is noon on the 18th. Thanks to everyone who linked last week for making Rule 5 Sunday top post!
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That Feeling Of Being On The Cusp Of The Big Breakthrough
Posted on | June 12, 2016 | 14 Comments
by Smitty
There just has to be something we can apply to the issue of Gun Free Zones!
Omar Mateen: Muslim Commits Murder Rampage at Orlando Gay Nightclub
Posted on | June 12, 2016 | 90 Comments
This morning, the TV was on the local NBC affiliate — my wife is having a yard sale and wanted to check the weather — and the report was that about 20 people had been killed when a man armed with an assault rifle attacked a gay nightclub in Orlando. However, NBC said nothing about a motive. June is “Gay Pride” month and, honestly, my first thought was, “This is going to be a redneck homophobe.” Expecting the Left would turn this into a political crusade and find some way to blame Republicans, I checked Twitter and was at first doubtful when I saw reports that radical Islam might be the motive. Then the facts started piling up:
Omar Mateen has been named as the gunman involved in the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, CBS News reports.
Police said at least 20 people were killed and about 40 more were wounded in the attack early Sunday morning.
Mateen is a U.S. citizen from Port St. Lucie, Florida, according to CBS News. . . .
Mateen died at the scene after he was shot by police. He had barricaded himself in the nightclub after opening fire. . . .
FBI Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Ron Hopper said at a press conference that there are “some suggestions” the gunman “may have leanings” toward Jihadist ideology. . . .
Well, the death toll in Orlando is now reported at 50, and liberals are unable to say anything about this without making fools of themselves.
Shorter @sallykohn: "Lutheran extremists and radical Methodists commit so much anti-#LGBT violence." #Orlando pic.twitter.com/02ORyTs30D
— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) June 12, 2016
Not all Florida Democrats are terrorists, however … pic.twitter.com/1ldZ2IDQzR
— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) June 12, 2016
Gosh, if only there were a presidential candidate committed to doing something about this problem. #Orlando pic.twitter.com/HYeNEHwlhp
— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) June 12, 2016
As unofficial spokesman
for the rest of America, I say:
"What part of FUCK YOU
do I need to explain here?" #Orlando pic.twitter.com/vfSkGXUA81— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) June 12, 2016
Omar Mateen: "Gonna commit anti-#LGBT jihad in #Orlando during #Pride2016 but first, let me take a selfie." pic.twitter.com/cYuaLF1Spx
— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) June 12, 2016
UPDATE: “Religion of peace”:
An MSNBC staff writer spoke with the father of Omar Mateen, the gunman who shot and killed at least 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday.
“We are apologizing for the whole incident. We weren’t aware of any action he is taking, we are in shock like the whole country. This had nothing to do with religion,” the gunman’s father said. However, he also claimed his son got very angry when he saw two men kissing in downtown Miami recently.
It is possible to get “very angry” about something without going on a shooting rampage — or flying jets into skyscrapers, for that matter.
UPDATE II: Nothing is easier to predict than Third Wave feminists making excuses for Muslims who commit terrorist violence:
Laurie Penny: "Muslim communities …
feeling so much fear" maybe because
MUSLIMS KEEP KILLING EVERYBODY? #Orlando pic.twitter.com/ib5Z8OYXrv— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) June 12, 2016
Laurie Penny hates America so much she will always defend anyone who shares her anti-American hatred. Muslims kill homosexuals and brutalize women, but that’s OK with Laurie Penny, because Muslims hate America.
UPDATE III: My rage against Laurie Penny’s sort of “feminism” — hate propaganda as “social justice” — tempts me to say that feminism is a greater threat to the world than Islamic terrorism, because feminists (and their “progressive” allies) seek to destroy every means by which we might defend ourselves against the menace of jihad. The ordinary citizen’s understandable concern about terrorism is condemned as “racism” by the Left, no matter how much evidence indicates the truth: Muslims hate everyone who is not a Muslim, and Islam is an evil doctrine of bloodthirsty hatred that commands its followers to kill us. However, because the Left hates Christianity even more than Muslims hate Christianity, the Left is willing to ignore the endorsement of violence that is inseparable from Islamic theology. Any manifestation of anti-Christian evil is acceptable to leftists like Laurie Penny, so that when Muslims commit mass murder, she always looks for an excuse to implicate “Islamophobia,” as if fearing people who want to kill us is irrational. Meanwhile:
Omar Mateen of Port Saint Lucie, Florida, came to the attention of federal authorities twice prior to being identified as the gunman in the Orlando nightclub mass shooting, a senior law enforcement source told The Daily Beast.
Mateen killed 53 people and shot more than 100 in total at the Pulse gay nightclub early Sunday morning, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
The senior law enforcement source reports that Mateen became a person of interest in 2013 and again in 2014. The Federal Bureau of Investigation at one point opened an investigation into Mateen but subsequently closed the case when it produced nothing that appeared to warrant further investigation.
“He’s a known quantity,” the source said. “He’s been on the radar before.”
We can’t arrest every Muslim who wants to kill us, because all Muslims want to kill us. This is what their so-called “religion of peace” teaches, and freedom of religion protects their murderous hatred.
"Religion of peace." https://t.co/IIX30KIsLk #Orlando #PulseShooting #OmarMateen pic.twitter.com/YxCvpysBSA
— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) June 12, 2016
UPDATE IV: Terrorists are everywhere, it seems:
Man with weapons and explosives arrested,
was going to L.A. gay pride parade, police say
Just another random coincidence, I’m sure.
… and the grand prize winner for
Most Stupid Tweet of the Day. @SarahKSilverman pic.twitter.com/1CPbiOLsuJ— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) June 12, 2016
FMJRA 2.0: Levelland
Posted on | June 11, 2016 | 2 Comments
— compiled by Wombat-socho
Rule 5 Sunday: D is for Debbie
Animal Magnetism
Batshit Crazy News
Proof Positive
A View from the Beach
90 Miles from Tyranny
‘Social Justice’ and the End of Fun
Batshit Crazy News
FMJRA 2.0: D-Day
The Pirate’s Cove
Batshit Crazy News
A View from the Beach
WaPo (& By Extension, Beltway) Ideas Mired In 19th Cent. Regarding Tea Party
Batshit Crazy News
‘The Personal Is Political’: Feminism and the Problem With Keeping Score
Batshit Crazy News
Is There Hope for Feminists?
Batshit Crazy News
‘The Wounded Antelope of the Herd’
Batshit Crazy News
In The Mailbox: 06.06.16
Batshit Crazy News
Proof Positive
A View from the Beach
‘Anatomy of Rage’: @mstiefvater and the Feminist Injustice Collector Phenomenon
Batshit Crazy News
In The Mailbox: 06.07.16
Batshit Crazy News
Proof Positive
A View from the Beach
‘Four Legs Good! Two Legs Bad!’
Batshit Crazy News
In The Mailbox: 06.08.16
Batshit Crazy News
Proof Positive
A View from the Beach
Feminist Fantasies
Dark Brightness
Batshit Crazy News
In The Mailbox: 06.09.16
Batshit Crazy News
Proof Positive
A View from the Beach
La Belle Dame sans Merci
Batshit Crazy News
In The Mailbox: 06.10.16
Batshit Crazy News
Proof Positive
Jacobins, Bolsheviks and Feminists
Batshit Crazy News
From Balticon to the EDC
Batshit Crazy News
Top linkers this week:
- Batshit Crazy News (18)
- (tied) A View from the Beach and Proof Positive (6)
Thanks to everyone for their linkagery!
James McMurtry – Where’d You Hide The Body
Shop Amazon – All New Fire TV Stick with Voice Remote
Matt Hickey: Anti-#GamerGate Writer Allegedly Tricked Teens in Porn Scam
Posted on | June 11, 2016 | 39 Comments
Matt Hickey is a Seattle-based writer who was once an editor for TechCrunch and Gizmodo, and has spent the past three years as a writer for Forbes where, among other things, he threw a journalistic tantrum because Microsoft hired dancers for a party at a gaming conference.
Just hours after hosting its annual “Women in Gaming” luncheon at the 2016 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Microsoft MSFT -0.27% threw a party at a local club that featured half-naked dancing girls on raised platforms. Understandably, this is problematic for the maker of the Xbox.
The games industry has been under scrutiny lately as more and more women gamers have been calling it out on blatant sexism. New research show that the majority of video game players may well be women, yet the games themselves are still seemingly targeted at teenage boys. Female characters — especially in fantasy games — are traditionally clothed in next-to-nothing attire while the male characters are generally covered completely.
That has been changing recently, which is a good thing. 2013’s Rise of the Tomb Raider features its headline character Lara Croft in a sensible jacket and khakis outfit, a far different outfit from the revealing tank-top and short-shorts she was known for.
This is the way the industry should be going, and not just for moral reasons; many women are turned off by the prevalent sexism and thus don’t game.
Oh, “women are turned off by the prevalent sexism”? This is the classic Anita Sarkeesian/Randi Lee Harper anti-#GamerGate feminist propaganda that has been fraudulently foisted on the videogame industry which (a) employs a lot of men, and (b) makes billions of dollars a year. This is all just a scam to impose “diversity” quotas on a successful industry, and also to get giant tech companies to pay protection money to clever hustlers like Sarkeesian who, in return for contributions to their non-profit groups, will vouch for the feminist bona fides of these hugely profitable corporations. The whole “Women in Gaming” hustle is a variation of the shakedown racket Jesse Jackson used to run against banks and other Wall Street companies: “Give us money, because it would be a terrible thing if somebody sued you for discrimination,” basically.
The #GamerGate “ethics in journalism” angle began with accusations that Nathan Grayson, a writer for Gawker-owned videogame review site Kotaku, provided free publicity to Zoe Quinn, with whom he was allegedly involved. Beginning with the Grayson/Quinn scandal in August 2014, #GamerGate became a wide-ranging war against the pernicious influence of so-called “social justice warriors” (SJWs) who were seen as crybaby enforcers of politically correctness in the videogame community.
Matt Hickey sided with the SJWs and in October 2014, when his fellow SJW Chris Plante proclaimed “Gamergate Is Dead” — “a hate group . . . associated with bigotry and cruelty” — Hickey rushed to praise Plante and declared: “Don’t be a part of Gamergate, people. It’s a bad gang.”
Meanwhile, an online character named “Deja Stwalley” was soliciting teenage girls in Seattle who wanted to become porn performers, arranging for them to have sexual trysts with her photographer friend:
In 2013, Deja Stwalley friended 19-year-old Allysia Bishop on Facebook. Stwalley sold Bishop the same pitch she gave Shearer, and Bishop agreed to a shoot with Matt. Bishop says that after working out the details of the audition shoot with Stwalley, she took a cab to Matt’s apartment on Capitol Hill.
“He had a little checklist of things I was comfortable doing in the future, like are you fine with bondage, are you fine with whatever,” she tells me over the phone. Bishop also remembers Matt making vodka screwdrivers. “He checked a little checklist off and said fine, all right we’ll take some pictures. All the while, I was drinking. He was just making me more drinks and more drinks.”
Bishop says she drank so much that she nearly blacked out. And that’s when she claims that Matt said they had to have sex. “He was like, ‘Well, we have to have sex, because if we don’t then how am I going to know you’re for real and you’ll actually be able to do this in the industry? So you have to prove to me you’re not going to bail out.'”
Bishop says that she never would have had sex with Matt if she didn’t think it was for the audition. She wasn’t attracted to him. Bishop left Matt’s apartment upset but didn’t quite understand why. All she knew was that she felt violated.
That same day, Bishop slit her wrists in a bathtub. . . .
According to reporter Sydney Brownstone, “Deja Stwalley” and her photographer buddy Matt were the same person, Matt Hickey, who allegedly scammed at least three young women into having sex with him under the false pretense of auditioning them as porn performers.
It turns out that there is a real Deja Stwalley who “went to middle school with Matt Hickey in Olympia,” and who said of her childhood acquaintance with Hickey: “He had a weirdo crush on me.”
Predictably, when contacted for comment, Matt Hickey made a reference to “my lawyer,” and then shut down his Twitter account. Maybe he could be in a bathtub slitting his wrists, for all we know.
Alleged porn-scammer @MattHickey, October 2014: #Gamergate "is a bad gang." https://t.co/6cufXoZpU2 pic.twitter.com/rKDVWHLpmn
— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) June 11, 2016
SJWs Always Lie (and Scam Teenage Girls into Sex, Allegedly) #GamerGate @voxday @ChristiJunior @TheRalphRetort @nero https://t.co/xcnn1k9haQ
— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) June 11, 2016
Stories like this almost make it seem as though we need a movement that will call attention to ethics in journalism, or something.
From Balticon to the EDC
Posted on | June 10, 2016 | 4 Comments
— by Wombat-socho
So over the Memorial Day weekend I packed my bags and flew to Baltimore for Balticon 50, which was celebrating its 50th anniversary by inviting back all its former Guests of Honor, headlined by some guy who’s famous for writing a lot of medieval rape scenes. Frankly, I was more interested in some of the other authors, namely Michael Flynn (still recovering from a horribly broken arm, but cheerful) and Connie Willis, who always gives good panel, even at the hideous hour of eight in the morning. Since I was mainly there to socialize with my Washington-area friends, I didn’t catch much of the panels or other programming, but I got the general impression that the move to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor from Balticon’s traditional suburban home at the Hunt Valley Inn went well, despite some unavoidable elevator problems and predictable whining from a minority of fans.
I hadn’t intended to buy any books while I was there, but nonetheless I came home with three: Drakas! edited by S.M. Stirling, which is a collection of short stories by other authors set in Stirling’s alternate history where South Africa winds up hosting refugeee Tories and Confederates and becoming the Domination of the Draka. You wouldn’t want to live there, and some of the stories are fairly horrific; others, surprisingly, are somewhat humorous, in a grim sort of way. I also picked up Michael Flynn’s Lodestar, which I thought was the first book in the series (it wasn’t) and which I’m setting aside until I get and finish Firestar, which is. Finally, I bought Breach The Hull, part of the “Defending The Future” military SF anthology series, which includes stories by James Daniel Ross, Jack Campbell, and others; the handful of stories I read while at Balticon seemed good to me.
On the way out to Balticon, I started and finished (hey, it was a four-hour flight!) Sarah Hoyt’s Through Fire, the sequel to A Few Good Men, and it’s just what it says on the label: a tale of a darkship pilot stranded on Earth who has to survive a rerun of the French Revolution and hopefully stop it in its tracks. If you liked the tales Hoyt’s been spinning in this series, you’re going to like this one, too. I also downloaded and started on A Meep In Manhattan, an autobiographical look back at New York in the 1990’s by Mary Pat Campbell, whose posts at STUMP on pensions and public finance are a frequent feature of In The Mailbox. Worth a look if you want to see how Manhattan has changed in the last two decades.
Also downloaded to the Kindle (and maybe, just maybe I’m going to find some time to read them this coming week) were Outies by Jennifer Pournelle, which is a sequel to The Mote In God’s Eye by her dad and Larry Niven, and The Praetorians by Jean Larteguy, which Penguin has finally republished after sixty years with a new foreword by General Stanley McChrystal. It’ll be interesting to see if I do manage to carve out any time for reading this week, what with the primary on Tuesday, the Electric Daisy Carnival coming to town next weekend, and the implosion of the Riviera Hotel & Casino next door forcing me to decamp for a day to the Circus Circus a couple blocks away. Fun week ahead, to be sure.