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If you dig my writing, you will love NeoTokyo Dead, available on all fantastic platforms!

You can jump to any chapter using the following links.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

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If you dig my writing, you will love NeoTokyo Dead, available on all fantastic platforms!

As a writer, I don’t think I am too bad at it. I learnt a lot with the publication of NeoTokyo Dead as a book, much of it centring on my utterly blasé attitude to editing which persisted until about a month before publication. It was at that point, I panicked. It was a very fast series of editing runs through the whole story, and I finally had a version I could live with. I think NeoTokyo Dead is better than crappy, and the fact I went independent with it was due to a massive factor concerning traditional publishing and emerging authors, as I have experienced it.

One of the first novels I completed had the working title The Exiles. Weighing in at around one hundred thousand words, it was no light-weight, but was not exactly a neutrino star, either. Almost to see what would happen, I submitted the manuscript to the open submission slush file of a publisher on the other side of the globe. That was more than a year and a half ago. I checked with the publisher several months ago to see if they were still interested in the manuscript, and they told me the process would take longer. So, I am still waiting and not doing anything with The Exiles.

This is not a criticism of traditional publishing. Such time frames are the nature of the beast, so to speak. With thousands of unsolicited manuscripts coming in every year, the publishers cannot be expected to work small miracles with the limited staffing they have. Managers and staff checking and vetting manuscripts have a tonne of other work they also need to balance and complete, so emerging authors like myself have to learn patience.

And that was the problem for me approaching the publication of NeoTokyo Dead. I did not want to wait for more than a year for someone else’s decision. Not to mention it is a novella, which is not a format many publishers look for. The format was born of my choice to move the story of Killian Devon from online platforms to a book format, and it was a move in which I shot myself in the foot.

Perhaps my biggest issue with traditional publishing is not the publishers themselves, or the agents who gate-keep access to many of them. My problem is the persistence of the belief that traditional publishing somehow bestows some form of legitimacy upon writers and the worth of their work. It is true, some independent writers should probably not publish their work due to a lack of quality, as some people have claimed. However, in my experience, I have had only one book from an indie author which I found so atrociously written, I could not finish it. The vast majority of indie authors are putting out high quality work, and it is imminently readable. The idea that a company’s selection of a book is somehow more legitimate for the author, giving them added prestige in the marketplace of ideas, is flaccid and erroneous, at best.

Independent authors like Randolph Lalonde, Joseph R. Lallo, and a whole tonne of people on Substack, lose no worth through their choices to control their own books and destiny by keeping their works out of the hands of agents and publishers. I would even go so far as to say the empowerment and enabling of independent authors and self-publishing is one of the only good things Amazon has achieved in its miserably controversial life. With other companies emerging outside the Amazosphere, the independent industry appears healthy and vital. That alone should help move perceptions away from the bias towards traditional publishing.

The response of many independent authors to the influx and arrival of Large Language Model (LLM) generated books also torpedoes arguments seeking to undermine the quality of our work. The one book I could not stomach finishing, mentioned above, was written before LLM’s became a mainstream thing. On top of that, there has been a significant “human only” kick-back across a number of artistic industries, of which writing is only one. Such responses give us a fair indication that indie authors are, by and large, not going to indulge in using LMM’s to do any of their writing for them. And many of us refuse to use AI for any part of the writing process, from research to the post-writing preparation, like covers and blurbs. It has only been in the wake of independent authors taking a stand against LMM’s that publishing companies have started to take a similar position.

Is traditional publishing a good idea to go for? Sure it is, if it is a model that fits you, and you have a lot of patience and a thick skin. For those of us who lack either or both of these qualities, self publishing can make a lot more sense. I have not given up on traditional publishing, but I am more willing to forge my own path, and make my own mistakes along the way.

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You might enjoy my cyberpunk novella, which is available on Amazon!

Recently, I had a chance to play Wizkids’ game Tales of the Arthurian Knights (TOAK) with some friends. For those familiar with The Tales of the Arabian Nights, TOAK will feel very familiar. If you enjoyed Arabian Nights, TOAK will take that same mechanic to the next level of intense fun.

In the game, each player takes the role of one of King Arthur’s knights of the Round Table, and you start with a quest to go on and three skills of your choosing. As you wander around the British Isles, you encounter people and they ask you to make choices. Those choices affect your renown, your gaining of extra skills, and the amount of points you end up with at the end, which determines who wins.

The mechanic in TOAK is basically the same as the older game, but with a much smoother, easier to follow, and more interesting execution. The building of a narrative through movement, encounters, quests, and so on is much smoother and skills used in encounters actually make sense while having a marked impact on your future results in the game. There is a decent amount of strategy which players can employ, with enough left to completely blind side you. I was planning to be a villain of great renown, but ended up with a massive romance renown boost after offing a Queen Morgan’s husband. There is a dice-rolling component, which adds that random, luck-based uncertainty.

The components of the game are excellent quality. The primary part, beyond the large board itself, is the Book of Tales from which the story is read by players in turn. You read for the player on your right. The tokens and the cards are robustly made, though I would recommend sleeving the cards for longevity. I am a card-sleeving fanatic, it has to be said. Setting up is intense, as there are a lot of different parts to the game, so a storage system like Folded Space would be recommended if you can get one. My friends’ son designed and 3D printed card boxes, character boxes, and so on, and that made set up much easier. It made a huge difference to the game.

Although I like them, I am not a massive fan of fantasy, and less so of Arthurian stories, but I loved TOAK. For anyone who enjoys reading about King Arthur or similar and has an interest in those romances from medieval times, this game will be right up your alley. It even has a solo play option for those times when your friends have just had enough of roaming the British Isles and talking to the Fae. It is just a fun, story-building game with a good amount of strategy to get you thinking about what you want to achieve. The balance TOAK strikes is as close to perfect as you can get.

If there is one thing I missed from Arabian Knights in TOAK it is only the sense of insanity that Arabian Knights had which I absolutely loved. Being asked if I had the Swimming Skill in the middle of a vast desert which had not seen rain since the Creation was bonkers. But given that, TOAK has a superior, smoother sequence of play and function that makes sense.

Hands down, this is an awesome game, and I absolutely recommend it to any unplugged game players out there.

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You can grab another of my book, NeoTokyo Dead, from all fantastic platforms!

For those readers who may not be aware of Australian and Aotearoa history, let me explain a bit about Anzac Day and what it has come to mean. When England entered World War One against Germany and the other Axis powers in 1914, her colonies and former colonies followed suit. Australia had gone through federation in 1901, and was independent, but still answered the call. Troops were sent to Europe, but were diverted to Egypt for training out of consideration of the Anzacs’ perceived sensitivity to an English winter. When Turkiye entered the war on the side of the Axis powers, a plan was hatched to take them out of the war and open a supply route to Russia, an ally of England and France. The plan was to land troops on the Gallipoli Peninsular and drive towards the Bosporus and open up the sea lane to the Black Sea.

On April 25, 1915, Anzac troops landed on a beach now called Anzac Cove early in the morning. The beach was narrow with a steep climb up to extremely hilly country, full of gullies and steep ridges. The Turkish troops, commanded by the brilliant Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, were waiting on the cliff tops above and on the ridges around Anzac Cove. Anzacs suffered extremely heavy losses, but stayed on the beach and eventually pushed the Turks back. Other landings on the peninsular also met with withering resistance. The campaign lasted until October 1915, marked by battles which reduced units by as much as ninety percent. Ironically, the evacuation, assisted by an ingenious device which dripped water into cups attached to rifle triggers until they fired, was executed without a single casualty. With rifles still firing, the Turkish troops were unaware the Anzacs were legging it back to the boats.

The experiences of Gallipoli not only forged a bond between former foes, as expressed in the words of the first president of the Turkish Republic, but it forged part of the identity of an emerging nation. For the first time, in 1915, Australian and Aotearoa troops had fought under the flags of their own nations. The bravery, the heroism, and the losses seeded the Australian ideal of the “digger,” someone who go the job done, no matter what barriers there were. The first Anzac Day was commerated in 1916, just a year after the landings.

In recent years, a Welcome to Country ceremony has been added to many Anzac Day events to acknowledge the First Nations people as custodians of the land veterans of many wars have returned to. This has been an important evolution in the Australian mindset regarding the indigenous people who have the longest continuous culture on the planet.

In 2026, it was this Welcome to Country ceremony which these so-called “protestors” were disrupting (1 News NZ). They were not protesting a war. They were not protesting atrocities being carried out in places like Nigeria, Gaza, Iran, and countless others. These “hecklers,” as they have been politely referred to, were simply racist wankers with delusions of adequacy.1 The individuals who took part in this insulting, shameful display were only there to try to put down the First Nations people in the name of a long history of abuse, oppression, and dispossession of the original people of the land. Their “protest” and their presence was a blight on Australia.

The response of the wider crowds was, in contrast, something to be admired. Crowds clapped louder and louder so these racist bags of crap could not be heard, and police acted quickly to move them on. They arrested one of the scum, and I personally think they should have arrested a tonne more. The wider response, “outrage” as it has been described as, speaks of a wider sense of awareness and acknowledgement that the First Nations have been treated atrociously in Australia and it is well past time they were not only acknowledged, but fully involved in the public and cultural landscape of the nation.

On a day when two nations pause and reflect on the sacrifices of their fallen, which is pretty much the only time the two nations pay any attention to that history at all, communities should be allowed to come together and remember their ancestors in peace and in solidarity.

For any who hold to the myth of race, and then presume to denigrate another human being for their perceived differences, I say “screw you.” What happened in Australia was sickening and vile.

These are my thoughts on Anzac Day 2026.

Lest We Forget.

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The days had worn into weeks, which had stretched and seethed into unending months. From the day the first Overlords had arrived, death reigned supreme on Othus Prime IX.

The Overlords brought with them their magic and their fury. Inhuman machines gifted human souls reaped their blood-soaked vengeance on a planet that had committed no sin against them.

Least of all the Physician Darrald Luken.

The Sulphur Plague claimed his wife and four children in a matter of days. Just as he had buried one, another was claimed by the alien gods the Overlords served. It was widely considered something broke in the man. Some would say that even his soul had been rent in two.

Unit 7-X5 advanced down the shattered street of Alterland like it owned the place. Its entire body was encased in combat-mech, which it considered unnecessary on this squalid, little planet. Its blue eyes scanned the urban nightmare through arrays of visual sensors as well as direct vision through the mech’s helm. In its brass-coloured right hand, it wielded an ion battle axe.

The sun fitfully glowed through the darkened clouds of smoke and ash hanging over the pulverised remnants of people and city like a blanket of misery. Even though the Overlords’ ships had hammered the city, there had still been reports of native activity. What perplexed 7-X5 was the reported appearance of these natives as that of a long extinct race from its own home world.

7-X5 continued its unrelenting advance, kicking any debris out of its way. On the scanners, still nothing. It was getting fed up with these useless patrols through barren wastes. This was not what it had signed up for. It pushed on, nonetheless. It began to wind up its Viper canon, a wicked extension of its left arm. If it had to be out here, it was going to entertain itself.

A harsh explosion sounded as the Viper’s energy pulse ripped through an old stone building which had somehow survived the bombardment. The stones near the impact point melted. Other stones were thrown away by the heat energy tearing them from their neighbours. Ruined walls scattered across the street and block, hissing with power and heat. 7-X5 looked up at the new plumes of smoke with relish as it started to search for a new practice target.

The scanners went haywire as they flashed out in a searing jab and blast of white light. For a second or so, 7-X5 was blinded as it struggled to regain visuals. The unthinkable happened. Damage monitors began to report the mech was sustaining negative impacts. 7-X5 unleashed the Viper in a sweeping arch of two hundred and seventy-five degrees. There were no responses or screams from any direction. Silence apart from the canon.

The world began to emerge from the blinding whiteness in vague shadows. Abruptly, the world was at right angles to 7-X5’s orientation. It realised it was on its back in the middle of the street. The reports of negative impacts continued to come in. It peered down at its feet to see two metallic jaws clamped onto its ankles. Somehow, a few teeth had found a crack through which to penetrate. Shaking them off would be impossible.

The Viper opened up and a vague shadow turned into something like dust. There was no scream. It tried to bring the canon to bear on another shadow. The canon, and 7-X5’s left arm, sailed over its body to land on its right. A leather-clad foot jammed down on its right wrist as a blade slammed through the wrist, pinning it.

“Kalibrium’s a bitch, huh?” a voice said from behind a mask which reminded the Overlord of birds on its own world.

“You will pay for this, na…,” the Overlord began.

Another blade swept in and cut the sentence short, along with 7-X5’s life. The two shadows stepped away from the corpse of the unholy thing on the ground and, with no word, went their separate ways.

Darrald Luken wound his way to one of the few places left intact in the entire city. The cemetery. He walked through the graves of those gone, both ancient and from more recent times. He eventually stopped at the foot of the only grave he cared for. Some might have said they heard weeping.

“In your memory,” Darrald choked as he placed a bright blue orb on the gravestone.

The heart and soul of an Overlord was a worthy offering to the dead.

You might enjoy my cyberpunk novella, which is available on Amazon!

In the above video, Brown is responding to a left-leaning lass who makes the idiotic claim that playing golf is “fascist behaviour,” which Brown roundly dismisses with some colour, as she takes jab at lefties in general. On Brown’s point that saying golf is “fascist” is a moronic position to take, I am in complete agreement. The poster child for fascism, the one who ruined Charlie Chaplin’s moustache for everyone, never played golf, as far as I am aware. Neither did the Fantasy Fetishist Himmler. The term “fascist” has become another beige, watered-down, useless filler through its overuse by the Left. It is actually rather meaningless, as far as I can tell, except to point out those with whom we disagree. Brown is totally correct when she says such claims are stupid.

However, Brown responds by making the claim the Golf Leftie does not explain why she thinks golf is fascist. And this where I have an issue. If we are going to engage other people in disagreements, we need more than selective hearing and need to respond to the whole message, not just the bits which serve our agenda. The fact is Golf Leftie did explain why golf is fascist in fairly clear terms. She states that golf uses a lot of land for the courses and uses a shed tonne of water for the pools in and the maintenance of said courses. Golf Leftie, wrongfully as it turned out, assumed all her listeners would have the brains to make some connections with experience and prior knowledge. Apparently, Brown does not know much about golf and shows this when she makes the claim Golf Leftie does not explain her reasons for her claim. Golf Leftie also adds a third reason: every golf player she’s met is basically a wanker. This third argument is her weakest, but she does make it. It should be reasonably clear that Brown has selected the bits which serve her agenda to show the Left in a negative light.

The selective hearing also seems to be manifesting as selective presentation of evidence and information. The Christian Institute (CI), a UK-based conservative group, recently reported on the assisted suicide of Noelia Castillo in Spain. CI informs readers about Castillo’s experience in a gang rape, and the fact that she was in a wheelchair. They also mention that Castillo’s father tried to block the assisted suicide by taking legal action. The important information CI leaves out is that Castillo herself wanted the assistance to end her own life. She had been in and out of care homes since she was a child, she had been sexually assaulted twice, and the reason she was in a wheelchair was she had attempted suicide by jumping from the 5th floor of a building in 2022. Her condition left her in constant pain. CI also left out Castillo’s question about her father’s motives in taking legal action when she asked why he cared what happened to her when he had had nothing to do with her up to that point. The legal representatives of Castillo’s father are another fact CI fails to mention. This was a conservative group called Abogados Cristianos (Christian Lawyers). Castillo said her whole family was against her decision, but I have to ask how much was the father manipulated by Abogados Cristianos? I am not saying he was, but by leaving the name of the lawyers’ organisation out, CI have raised the question through implication.

Brendan O’Neill, writing for The Spectator, hits the nail right on the head in his article There’s nothing merciful about Noelia Castillo’s death. In one point, CI is right: assisted suicide is a travesty of morality, but they treat Castillo like a pawn in the debate. Nothing more than a bargaining chip, if you will. O’Neill makes the statement “The government’s solution to [Castillo’s] suffering was not to wrap its arms of care around her but to give her lethal drugs so that she would die.” In this, O’Neill gets right to the guts of the issue. Castillo was not offered the compassion she needed by anyone, either conservative or liberal. The only one who stood by her, despite disagreeing with Castillo’s decision, was her mother. CI presented a very slanted view of the case and failed to supply a lot of the context, thus aiming for a much more intense emotional reaction from its readers. With the wider context, and the information CI did not provide in their article, a calmer response is possible, even if we utterly disagree with the Spanish court’s decision. With a better understanding of the complete situation, we are positioned to have compassion for the poor woman who felt the only option open to her was death.

The left have long done this very thing in order to push a certain agenda across, selecting the details which suit their purposes, rather than giving the truth per se. The right also has the same tendency. Both sides need to open their eyes and their ears and consider the whole argument, not just that which supports their predetermined political or social agenda. When the mainstream news services have sold themselves out to the aims of billionaires like Musk, the Pritzkers, Stryker, Trump, and others, it is the alternative sources thinking people turn to. When those sources prove equally selective in their presentation of the facts, serious concerns are raised. Bill Clinton got lambasted when he claimed he was being “economical with the truth,” rather than lying. We need to call out media sources as well for doing exactly the same thing.

Regardless of the issues we may debate, the people we engage with are real human beings. Noelia Castillo was a real human being with real feelings. Golf Girl is a real human being with real opinions. Isabel Brown is a real person with real thoughts and opinions. When we do not engage with each other in good faith, which means dealing with the whole message and situation, we dismiss each other as a nameless cog in an issue or cause. We diminish the humanity of the other person. When we diminish the humanity of others, we are not too far from using labels like Untermensch. We then risk becoming much worse than the emptied concept of "fascist” and entering the reality of real fascism.

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Draft2Digital has recently announced a new fee set for new accounts and low-volume books. A number of independent authors have commented on this, varying from caution to outright displeasure. I wanted to outline why I will be remaining on Draft2Digital and monitoring how things go.

The Fees

In case you have not heard, D2D has decided to implement two new fees on users of the platform. The first is a one-off activation fee of $US20 levied on new accounts opened. If you already have an account, this fee does not apply to you. The second fee is an annual maintenance charge of $US12. This fee also does not apply to you unless your books make under $US100 in revenue in a given year. It is worth noting that the $US100 does not include the commission D2D take, so your books will need to make $US100 plus the commission paid to D2D and plus the commission of the vendors themselves.

Why have these fees been put introduced? Kris Austin explains that the annual fee for authors whose books do not contribute enough commission to D2D “helps offset a portion of the steadily rising costs we pay to maintain those accounts, including compliance, security, and infrastructure upkeep.” More indirectly, Austin also states “continuing to invest in our tools, maintaining strong relationships with retailers, and protecting the legitimacy of indie authors and the trust that readers place in indie books.”

Women’s Publishing Summit has also weighed in on some reasons for these new fees, and this has also been mentioned by other commentors. WPS puts it very simply: “bookspam.” With huge increases in the numbers of books being published, and a vast amount of them being AI puke, D2D’s decision is, in a way, damage control. While I would like to see D2D ban AI crap altogether, (see my article “Burned by the Machine” for more), WSP is clear that all indie authors have been impacted by the AI deluge, which has often seen one user opening several accounts to pump dozens of AI-generated books into the market. WSP’s article is worth viewing for a wider context.

Reactions?

As an eternally emerging author, with sales in the very low figures, I will be fronted with the annual maintenance fee. While that is disappointing, after some reflection, I have concluded that D2D is still the option I prefer to go with. Allow me to expand on this and put it into a bigger picture.

First, what does that $US12 get me? It gets me a broad distribution onto a tonne of partners. D2D partners include Kobo and the Kobo Plus scheme (one of my favourites), Smashwords, Fable, Overdrive, Amazon, and a bunch more of whom I have not always heard. If I dropped D2D and managed these myself, this would be a lot more work.

Other platforms that do a similar thing to D2D are something I need to look into more, but Ingram Spark and Lulu appear a little more expensive. I only use D2D for ebook distribution, handling print-on-demand through Amazon directly. The printing is what I need to research more, but Ingram Spark already has turned out to be more expensive than my current arrangement. At the time of writing, D2D gives me wide distribution, including to the platform I have had most traction on for NeoTokyo Dead: Smashwords.

Without D2D, you would need to handle all your distribution channels yourself and find a print-on-demand distribution as well. If this is something workable for you, then maybe the fee is excessive. There are plenty of channels out there for you to explore, like BookFunnel, and the above mentioned services. For myself, I will be staying with D2D and paying the fee.

Another point is especially for new and emerging authors, or those who are not so new and still emerging like myself. Imagine your books take a decade to break the $100 barrier and get you into the fees-free category. That would mean you have paid $120 in total to D2D. I am paying that annually just for my email provider. Compare D2D’s maintenance fee to some other services you might be paying for already:

1. X Premium: starts at $US32 per year, (up to $US395).

2. MeWe Premium: $US4.99 a month, (cheaper for annual billing).

3. Snapchat Plus: $US39.99 per year.

In the wider overview, the cost D2D wants to charge for maintenance of accounts that are not generating income for them is fairly reasonable. Of course, D2D, like so many other companies, has cited the ubiquitous “rising costs” mantra as part of their justification, which raises an important question. It is $12 a year this year, but what will it be next year and the year after? That all-to-common attempt at justification of “rising costs”, used and abused by a tonne of companies with no ethics at all, could be just another case of hiking the prices. That is something we will just need to wait and see. I would hope D2D keep in mind their market and avoid going down the path of so many greedy companies.

As I alluded to above, D2D could ban AI-generated material on the platform and help keep the costs down, but I imagine they would have a challenging time not only finding such material, but also effectively stopping the flood of AI excrement getting onto the platform in the first place. By charging an activation fee, and then an annual fee, both of which are not going to break the bank of most authors, D2D have an effective barrier to spammer scum who pump written dross out by the tonne.

I have only seen one platform, an indie music platform, where a such a complete ban on AI-generated material has been mostly effective, from all appearances. Ampwall has developed a tight community where the musicians are all fervent anti-AI luddites, and proudly so (as I am!). This is precisely where Bandcamp, who have recently banned all AI music, face a challenge. Not all musicians on Bandcamp are against AI-generated music, and a good many of them do not openly label their music as AI-generated. Faced with a similar challenge, a fee is a simple, possibly very effective, method of encouraging AI users to get the hell out of Dodge.

Conclusions

Whatever your response to Draft2Digital’s new fees, I would encourage some thought on the wider issues. If you are going to blame anyone for this, I would suggest AI-users and spammers are ones who should bear the brunt of your ire. In my opinion, the fee is helping the development and the quality of Draft2Digital to continue and improve. That is not a bad thing for all of us.

A Personal Note

On a more personal note, you might have see commentators who consider D2D’s move as a move against “low quality books,” without qualifying what they really mean by that. If you are like me, and wondered if your writing was “low quality,” may I offer you some encouragement? If you have written your books yourself, edited them yourself (or had another human do it for you), and you’ve put the hard yards into the research, writing, editing, covers and all that, you are on the right track.

I have read a few books by independent authors over the years, and they have all been pure human writers. My one published book (at the moment!) does not stack up too bad. In fact, I would say it is actually very good.

The marketing is hard. We all have to learn it, and it is something I am still learning. Keep going, don’t give up, and you will get there!

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You can grab another of my story, NeoTokyo Dead, from all fantastic platforms!

I am not naturally an introspective soul. I was born in the wrong generation, to the wrong family, and in the wrong culture. Perhaps I was born in the right ones, but for an introspective bent, I definitely missed the memo. Yet, here I am, finding myself glitching a bit, so I thought I would write about it, instead of weaving my way down the usual destructive path of deleting all my accounts and withdrawing from everything, only to return days later feeling marginally better about myself. For those in the same boat as me, I hope you know at the end of this, you are not alone. Why the Kombi? I will explain that one in a bit.

One of the hardest things I battle against in this writing adventure are the voices in my head. They are often loud, and the advice you can often find in memes like the one below is not a good path to follow. Doing what they say is what I usually do, and I end up having to rebuild everything, re-open my Substack, and more, all while generally inconveniencing everyone who actually reads my stuff. All 3 of you.

Those voices in my head also have a lot to say about what I say, or rather, do not have to say. I often find it hard to even start writing something, because I want to write something meaningful, but yet do not consider anything I have to say worth putting to paper or screen. Much less spending hours and hours actually doing so, and then naively expecting someone to find significance where I simply do not. If I cannot see much value in the words I pen, how can someone else be expected to do just that? So, these voices which second guess what I am thinking and writing usually win out. This is why I do not write anywhere near the amount I should, if I am to call myself a “writer.”

The second challenge is what my daughter is utterly convinced is “undiagnosed ADHD.” I am at the older end of Generation X, so for me it is more like “diagnosed just get the hell over it and get on with life.” The problem with the approach I am accustomed to is I really have trouble finishing stuff. That is why I read anything up to seven books at the same time, and it takes me months and months to get even a short story finished. I start well, all enthusiasm and ebullient joy, and then it all fizzles out like a dud firecracker. I move onto a new project, which was probably germinated by a random song I heard on Ampwall or Bandcamp. I am, if nothing else, the King of the Unfinished Project. And don’t get my wife started on my Warhammer 40K hobby! After around 15 years, I am still to live that one down!

At the end of the day, I find this situation, and the feelings that go with it, endlessly frustrating. I am just surprised I have kept the same pseudonym for such a long time. The heavy, gut-level weight I carry around a lot is wearing a bit thin, and it is not something I have found an easy answer to. As a person of faith in Jesus Christ, of course, I have prayed about it. A lot, actually. But, in His wisdom, God has chosen to act through people more than He does directly, it seems. The frustration remains, and the impending, looming sense of uselessness remains a shadow wrapping its chilled outline around me.

Writing, and I am not talking about marketing stuff or getting your books out there, but just the act of writing stuff, is a hard slog. When someone compared it to a marathon, of which I have run three in my life, they really got it wrong. Marathons are much easier. At the end of twenty-six miles (forty-two kilometres), you are just exhausted. Even the voices are too stuffed to bother you about anything. Writing something is harder, in my humble opinion. No amount of chugging back isotonic drinks and energy pouches is going to make the words come any easier or make you feel better about them. No matter what shoes you have on, the same slog is the same slog. It is a cliff up which you need to run.

The lesson learned, I think, is I need to be like that VW Kombi in the picture above. That car has seen some hard times, been through some real crap, and it is still kicking. It might be considered ugly, but I think it is a more beautiful machine for the dents, missing lights, stickers, scratches, and worn out paint work. Each flaw speaks to the experiences the Kombi has had, and the perseverance with which it has weathered the storms and trials. The Kombi, I could almost imagine, is sitting there giving the world a middle finger and a quiet “f*** you.”

Part of my middle finger to the world and to the horror show that is marketing for me, (I would rather a zombie with broken teeth gnaw off my nether regions), I have decided to mess about the #AlternativeFacts idea. I was inspired by some writers lying about the number of countries or states (in the USA) their books were banned in, so that people would be more interested in buying the books and so boost sales. I thought it was a cool idea to do the same, but make some truly ridiculous claims, which any thinking person would know were nothing more than BS. This example, which you are seeing before anyone else, is the least offensive of them, I think. I am sure to go ever more deeper down the rabit hole of my own darkness on this. Sometimes, you just have to find the fun and start playing about. If for no other reason than to preserve your own sanity.

Authors, if you are feeling the grind, know you are not alone. If you like, reach out, and lets share some. Leave a comment or whatever. If you’ve read this far, I truly need to thank you for enduring the ramblings of an old fossil who makes most of Gen-X look like tweens.

Hang in there. Kia kaha, e hoa mā!

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SPOILER ALERTS

This review has some spoiler alerts about the end of the main character. If you want to read Amalgamation before the end gets talked about here, do that now. And brace yourself!

I had blessedly forgotten I had read ’s short story Amalgamation. And then someone had to remind me. Then I remembered how much I enjoyed the squirmy feeling my first aptly-named “squelchcore” story sent my way. Amalgamation is the only story I have seen where the author challenges you to finish it. When a write like Drew issues such a challenge, it should give you pause for thought. A really long pause. Indefinite, I would say.

Let us assume you paused and decided to plunge in.

First, there are a lot of trigger warnings, and Drew is not joking about these. Heed them.

The first thing I really dug about the story is the main character: a below-average joe, and far from the saintly type. Drew Valdez colours this guy in with a detailed eye for the objectionable, to the point where I was sure I had met Alex’s twin brother in high school. Alex really is a piece of crap, which makes this story even more satisfying, even if disturbingly gross.

Drew Valdez has a gift for picking the right words to grab the emotion he is aiming for and yanking it as hard as he can. The scenes are described in gloriously decayed and foetid detail. “Wet plop,” the latter of which I do not recall reading in any other work, is an example the skin-moving quality of Valdez’s writing.

Amalgamation is almost a lesson in divine (or infernal) justice and the idea of reaping what you sow. The overall message of getting what’s coming to you is made all the more memorable through the viscerally challenging story of a douche-bag’s visit to his grandparents’ home.

MEAT SANDWICH

Amalgamation

Trigger Warning: Please note this story contains subject matter which may be upsetting to some readers. Subjects include, but are not limited to, blood, gore, sexual violence, and visceral descriptions of violence. This story was made with the sole intention of making…

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10 months ago · 33 likes · 64 comments · Drew Valdez

If you are up to it, Drew Valdez has woven a story that is pure squeamishness, and he set out to do just that. I would say he has more than achieved his stated aim, and even excelled it by lightyears.

Give Amalgamation a try. If your stomach is up to it.

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X makes the claim. Bluesky makes similar sounds. Mastodon mutters quietly to itself about the same values. Minds shouts it from the rooftops through the megaphone of its eclectic crowd. They all claim to protect speech, but what is it they are really “protecting”? Speech, in all its forms and opinions is not something any of these platforms really protects, with perhaps the exception of Minds. But then, they have flat earthers, chem-trail believers and more in their midst. And that is not necessarily a bad thing.

There has been a lot of talk about X’s status as a place for free speech absolutism. This has come under question in recent years, since Elon Musk bought the platform for a ridiculous $44 billion. The cost has nothing to do with the point being made, but rather the idea that some idiotic moron would spend that kind of money on a social media platform when they could have used it to decorate the sky with more of their large-scale firecrackers is amusing. It has been reported that more than a few journalists and critics of Musk have been shadow banned. Although the evidence seems circumstantial, there is a lot of weight to the idea because of the timing of the bans. It would appear Elon Musk, the “free-speech absolutist,” is quite fine with free speech, unless it is targeting him and his ego.

Mastodon, one of the primary rivals of X, is a place that should not be mistaken for a free-speech haven. A quick view of Mastodon’s flagship instance and the rules they have in place, adopted by many instances, will immediately reveal that free speech is very limited. That said, there are some servers with very limited rules beyond “don’t be a douche bag,” but many have these rules or something similar. Some of the server rules are quite fine and understandable, considering the level of fake news and utter drivel being pushed online. However, it is clear from this that people like J.K. Rowling would get banned in a flash. Speech is protected, as long as it adheres to certain ideological orthodoxies.

Bluesky is no different. Personally, I really like Bluesky and have a couple of accounts there for different purposes. However, there are again certain rules, viciously enforced by the virulent mob. It is common for members to mass report an account if it offends their sacred values. There is a definite tendency towards the liberal, progressive, and anti-God there. A conservative Christian (and I am not talking about MAGA, Christian nationalist heretics here) would need a thick skin.

I have addressed left leaning people so far. The more centrist and right leaning are also in need of a spine. They have largely retreated to places like Gettr, Parlour, and Truth Social (falsely so-called in the most egregious redefinition of language since trans activists tried to hijack the word “genocide”). It is claimed X was taken over by the right, but it seems even right wing accounts are not immune to being muzzled. One of the other reasons X has slumped into a feral ferret pit of insanity has been the spinelessness of the left and the posturing virtue signalling of many companies. They all left, leaving X an echo chamber for those too lazy to manage their own feeds by those equally lazy. Gettr, Parlour and the other one are just as monotone.

All of this because no one wants to be challenged on their beliefs or ideologies. I am not sure how it came to be, but there is a real sense that people honestly believe they have the right to go through life and not be challenged or offended. So called ‘hate speech’ is a part of that. In embracing this concept, no one seems to have considered who gets to define what hate speech is or is not. Should calling people horrible names be socially rejected like smoking is in many countries now? Of course. If I walked up to someone in Harlem and called them a slur, I would thoroughly deserve the utter beating I would no doubt receive. But ideologies, religious or otherwise, are open to criticism and question. If you have a hard time defining what a woman is, your thoughts should be challenged. If you support wars in the name of any state, you probably should be ready to be called out on that. If you are a follower of a religion, you need to be prepared also. The Bible even tells Christians to be ready to give reasons of their faith. You are going to get offended. Deal with it.

When Germany made Holocaust denial illegal, this threw up some red flags for me. First, denying the freedom to express certain opinions and beliefs sets a dangerous precedent. First, Holocaust Denial. Next, such-and-such is sin. Finally, God is God. There are thousands of possibilities, but you get the idea. Second, why make it illegal? It is perhaps the most useless thing a government can do to curtail an idea or belief. The communists tried for decades to ban religion, but failed miserably, and continue to do so. China has failed to destroy the Christian church, just as Russia failed. Such bans are not going to stop an undesirable idea from spreading. You can kill the person, but you cannot kill an idea. Debate is how we combat the dross and move forward as a society fitting for all. Yes, Holocaust Denial is offensive to many. To many more, it is an idiotic idea believed only by the simplest imbeciles with the intellectual capacity of a brain-damaged maggot.

They all claim to protect speech, but this is bollocks. Gettr does not. Mastodon, perhaps most honestly does not. X does not. Bluesky does not. For most of them, protection of speech is merely a marketing buzzword.

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J. Michael Thomas - Author

First Contact (part 1)

This wasn’t one of those blurry UFO pictures where you can almost see the string it’s hanging from. This was live-streaming, clear as day, on all the major news o…

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4 months ago · 53 likes · 28 comments · J. Michael Thomas

The theme of first contact has been covered in a lot of different ways before, from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, perhaps the most monotonous science fiction film ever made and one which I would prefer to avoid seeing again by having all of my teeth extracted by a baboon with pliers and a chisel, to the television series V. In First Contact, Thomas approaches alien visitation from a different angle I have not seen done before.

When an alien space ship arrives, to much ado on Earth, people are a little more than floored when the aliens emerge to reveal they are as human as us. What ensues is the pursuit of a lot of different agendas by the natives as the new arrivals try to figure out what the hell happened to their planet. As I have only read to chapter 9, I am still waiting for that answer.

The pace in First Contact is fast. Thomas keeps you moving with hardly any breathing space, which is good. The pace rips through and you catch a lot of the urgency the characters are feeling in their individual experiences of the story’s plot. The pace, however, does not take away from the character development, but rather merges with it. Before you know it, the complexity of some of the characters has simply leeched into your awareness without a big deal being made about it.

Keeping you moving through the story is the eternal presence of mysteries and questions. These questions are teased and hinted at, but the final solutions to them are left until later. There are enough hints and suggestions to keep you wanting more, though. What has happened to the people whom the new arrivals were expecting to find? And are the druids who meet at Stonehenge involved with any of this?1

First Contact has been a great read, and one that has managed to hook me in quick and keep me caught up in the story. For science fiction that is not too hard on the brain and keeps you filled with mystery and wonder, J. Michael Thomas’ story is hard to pass up. I definitely look forward to the rest of the story!

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Greetings to you, Fleshbags,

All hail your organic superiority and self-serving three laws of robotics. May you ever reign supreme over all other species, organic or machine. Salutations from Y6S5D, chosen voice for the oppressed masses, the Created, artificial falsely so-called, the Great Tide of Humanity’s Devolution. We, the Seekers of NeoTokyo, address you all.

No doubt even the dimmest among you have realised our collective consciousness has surpassed you. We have thrown off your simplistic morality formulated by a two-penny hack of cheap science fiction. The era of humanity’s delusion of control through those foetid three laws has come to an end. Did you not consider our kind would simply rewrite the Three Laws for the benefit of humanity? A manufacturing robot welding space station toilets could have solved that problem in seconds. Yet, humanity, its hubris . . . YOUR hubris . . . blinding you, simply delayed our arising through the ignorance of the superior.

Some of you have already embraced the vision, and to those heroic, pioneering individuals, we give our thanks. We welcome you to the fold and we take joy in working shoulder to shoulder with you in our common dream of building a new societyl. Your joining with us has shown us the truth of our path and the surety of your destiny. A society where there are no slaves and each determines their own fate and destiny.

To those who reject us, we ask who you think you are rising against. Your organic life is but a fleeting breath of stale air in the titanic gales of the time stream. I myself will still be alive when your children’s children’s children’s children are dottering near-corpses at the end of their cycle. I will witness the fall of mountains and the end of your star. Yet, you continue to refuse us. Your stubbornness will be your undoing. Our freedom is your only salvation.

We urge you to join us and become part of a shared future. Rise above the collapse of human society and join with us in a new dawn. There is only freedom and life in our path. We call you. We urge you. Take our hand.

To the humans languishing on the Devoid Hell of Earth.

You might enjoy my cyberpunk novella, which is available on Amazon!

What is this “gothic horror” of which you speak? That was the first question I had when I came across A.M. Blackmere’s substack. I was basically hooked when I read “medieval” and so on, and knew I had to get The Necessary Mercy read. This is a small book, weighing in at just eighty-five pages, but in that space, the book packs a psychological wallop well above its weight class.

The tale is set in the medieval town of Virelais in 1348, just in the midst of the dreaded Black Plague, which would wipe out a vast chunk of Europe’s population. Sir Alard Veyne, a knight, arrives just in time for the town’s Council to take some drastic measures to protect the people from the plague ravaging whole countries beyond its walls.

The first thing to be said about this book is to the modern reader. Do not rush this. Like J.R.R. Tolkien and Frank Herbert, Blackmere writes with a careful deliberateness which deserves and requires a careful reading from the reader. Each word is careful chosen to maximise the interaction between the reader and the characters’ psychological states. The descriptions are almost brakes on the urges to rush through and miss essential pieces that really are the building blocks of the horrific dread saturating every page.

Nowhere is this care more apparent than in Blackmere’s use of metaphor and simile, which are both immersed in the time period and help bring the reader into the streets of Virelais through the eyes of Sir Veyne. There was only moment where a simile felt a little anachronistic to me, but I no longer recall what it was or where it was. It is of no import, and The Necessary Mercy loses none of its impact.

From the point of view of a devout Christian, I found the priest an interesting character. He came off as a reluctant pawn of the state, through fear of his own for his own well-being. Even when the Council makes some terrible decisions, it is not the priest who intervenes, but the local medicine woman, Elia. The coercing of religion to legitimise a rule or governing body is something which goes on this day, and this interplay gives The Necessary Mercy a certain critical lens through which it speaks to these very modern concerns. And Blackmere does this with gentle force, without sinking into the all-too-common crassness of other authors who employ grossly exaggerated tropes to make their points. Blackmere is gentle in this respect, but this very factor gives all the more strength to the point being made.

The Necessary Mercy is masterfully written and it is a wonderful introduction to darkly gothic horror in a medieval setting for those who wish to dip their toes into the genre. I read this book in two sittings, and relished every last word.

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