It only occurred to me this week, some few days after I opened the Stories shelf with The Bestiary and The Legend of Gnat Bunker what those two pieces have in common. They are not merely "creative" but meta-creative. They're about how we create what we do, and in a deeper sense, why.
Subcreated Stack Impending
This blog has lain fallow for a while now, for the most part. Even the Jonah post I just published was waiting in Drafts for months. As it is, I am setting up a new site over at Substack, focused principally on my writing efforts, and eventually hope to post some of my short fiction… Continue reading Subcreated Stack Impending
What are truth and goodness, without beauty? Meaningless and hollow, that’s what.
This is one of the greatest problems at the heart of Western culture, Christian or otherwise. This is what the Superversive seeks to restore; this is what Subcreation's for. https://open.substack.com/pub/truemagic/p/we-cant-restore-truth-and-goodness?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=ik546 (Thanks to Tom Simon (again) and Bnonn Tennant for the linked essays above.)
The Necessary Insurgency
"As we look at all the various forms of societal incompetence and unrest that currently afflict us, whether feckless politicians or lawless rioters, we soon find that they all have one thing in common. The people who voted for Bernie, or threw a brick through an Abercrombie & Fitch window, or spewed their venomous trolleries on Twitter, or who viciously canceled any responsible attempts at dissent, are all at the tail end of that huge, slow-moving conveyor belt that we call public education."
Saint Thomas Nolan, of the NYPD
Now that the entire series is released, I present to you the complete Hugh Dunnit book reviews for Declan Finn's magnum opus°. The stories were a pleasure to read and in one case, to write as well. I am endlessly grateful to Declan Finn for letting me collaborate on a Saint Tommy story, released today… Continue reading Saint Thomas Nolan, of the NYPD
Postmodern Jonah, or Do Not Add To His Words
The following was in response to a Sunday School lesson some while back on the book of Jonah, led by "Pastor B." at our PCA church. The biography that was presented was drawn from sources like the following screenshot. The verse cited in 2 Kings 14 is the only mention of Jonah in the Old… Continue reading Postmodern Jonah, or Do Not Add To His Words
SUBMISSIONS ARE OPEN for FUTURES THAT NEVER WERE! (and a Cover Reveal!)
Let’s make this happen!
What We Want
- Sword and Planet fiction. Think John Carter (Edgar Rice Burroughs), Flash Gordon (especially the comic strip, the early serials, and the movie – not so much the attempted reboots), and Leigh Brackett (Eric John Stark). Need more examples? Check here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_and_planet.
- Word count is 5,000 to 10,000. This is for a one-off themed anthology, so no serials. Stories should be self-contained, with a readily identifiable beginning, middle, and end. Don’t send us a chapter of your novel unless it can completely stand on its own.
- Payment is $40 flat plus an electronic comp copy, regardless of word length. If we manage to secure additional funding, the first thing we’ll be doing is upping the pay rate for contributors. Payment will be made through PayPal, no exceptions.
- Submissions will open 12:01 AM EDT (GMT -4) July 1, 2022 and close…
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Signal Boost, and Open Submissions Call.
Another anthology has opened up, and I've got an idea for what to send them. I don't know why, but this link didn't populate the first time. Here it is, below. https://broadswordsandblasters.wordpress.com/2022/03/01/open-call-broadswords-and-blasters-presents-futures-that-never-were/
I can’t take credit for this one.
One of my favorite Indie writers, reviewing another of them. I'm going to have to read this one myself soon. N. R. LaPoint on the topic of Declan Finn.
If Crichton and Ludlum wrote an “End-Times” novel…. (9 stars out of 10, but we’ll round up)
magine the laboratories of Jurassic Park and State of Fear, the dangers of The Lost World and Eaters of the Dead, all of the intrigues and firepower of the Jason Bourne trilogy, rolled into one. And now add a cameo appearance by the Mother of God, come to say that the fate of all mankind is at stake.
Education History Book Review: Shield’s Making and Unmaking of a Dullard
Shields concludes that teachers need to retard the smart kids in order to save them from the all but inevitable sickness, death, or at least invalidism, that will inevitably result from letting them study what they want.
I think the hazard with letting them study what, when, and as they wish is not that they’ll succumb to invalidism, but that they’ll succumb to individualism, and especially its most hazardous symptom: autonomous critical thinking.
If Joe Moore is right in his assessments of the Prussian Model schools– and I suspect he’s not far off– as foundationally designed to train docile academic serfs for the industrial/enlightenment age, then their greatest threat is independent rational thought on the part of the laity not inducted into their priesthood. But the book-Brahmins are not wholly idiots: finding it impossible to run a Harrison Bergeron on every overachiever, they’ve taken since the ’80s or so to flattering the smart kids on their intellect, teaching them “critical thinking” that’s critical of all but the Brahmins themselves, and encouraging “Freethinking” that’s primarily free of the influence of whomever’s been elected Emmanuel Goldstein this year.
Thomas Shields (1862-1921), a priest and doctor of psychology at Catholic University of America, wrote his Making and Unmaking of a Dullard in 1909. Although written in the form of a dialogue taking place at weekly dinner parties over the course of months, it is universally considered his autobiography. As a dialogue, it is a resounding failure: no one besides the author comes off any deeper than a cardboard cutout, nor contributes much of anything except leading questions that simply interrupt the flow of Shields’s story.
This book reinforces an impression long held: the central figures in American education history are, almost without exception, unimaginative mediocrities. Horace Mann or William Torey Harris would, I imagine, bore one to tears ov er a beer, if they every did something so common; Shields comes off as precisely the sort of academic Silence Dogood or Mark Twain would have a…
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Thought of the Day
D. Breitenbeck’s lapis sapiens, 23 September.
For most of our contemporaries, ‘Science’ is only the means to impose their own views as dogma without all the difficulties, limitations, and demands of religion.
An Empty Library
Who was it that said that those who burn books rarely stop with books?
Horror Comes Home
Dusklight is a great follow-up to Chalk, LaPoint's schoolgirl-vs-abominations intro to the world and disruptive life of Raven Mistcreek, the fastest tomboy to draw a sidearm on the wall.
Get the Government out of Schools
A case against the State monopoly on education: article by Kerry McDonald, reposted from FEE.org; Whether it’s yesterday’s battles over prayer in school or today’s conflicts over critical race theory, public schooling causes people to fight. It’s a struggle between values and viewpoints that ends with one group imposing its will upon others. The curriculum… Continue reading Get the Government out of Schools
Review Overdue: Chalk, by N. R. LaPoint
When I reviewed Chalk on Amazon, I was short and to the point, without any spoilers. Or details, for that matter: This book will not cure insomnia. It will in no way help you sleep. If you are in need of full, restful nights' sleep, do not pick the book up after supper. If you… Continue reading Review Overdue: Chalk, by N. R. LaPoint
SubCreated Worlds 