Ace: aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 11-02-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]
Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (make sure you are inoculated!). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...
So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, put down that Butterfinger, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?
A week or so ago, I went up to the University of Missouri-St. Louis to attend an educational conference. Had a great time. While there, I stopped by the Mercantile Library in the basement of the TJ Library on campus. It's just a neat place. This time they had just opened up an art exhibit featuring works by St. Louis artist Frederick Oakes Sylvester. The picture above is of a display of books that's hard to describe. It's a semicircular cabinet with some books showing a cover here and there. Among the books featured above is Mark Twain's Sketches New and Old, a collection of his short stories. This appears to be a first edition copy.
ON THE DESTRUCTION OF FANTASY LITERATURE
This is one of those videos that leaves me scratching my head because I just don't understand the point she's trying to make here. According to the video, Hilary Layne's thesis is as follows:
We will never, ever see an epic fantasy novel that's as high quality as J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings because Lester del Rey, senior editor of fantasy at Ballantine Books, wanted to milk Tolkienesque fantasy to satiate his own greed.
Seriously. That's her thesis. She attempts to bolster her premise by pointing out that del Rey collaborated with Terry Brooks on Brooks' inaugural epic fantasy novel, The Sword of Shannara (which is pronounced "SHAN-ah-rah" and not "Shan-AR-ah" according to Brooks himself). Lester convinced Brooks to write an epic fantasy novel that was largely derivative of Lord of the Rings and was able to get it published. The book was an instant bestseller, selling over 125,000 copies during its first year and featuring prominently on the New York Times Bestseller list. Based on this success, Lester went on to develop a "formula" for epic fantasy to continue churning out more product and thus making more money. This formulaic writing corrupted fantasy literature forever.
What Hilary overlooks in her thesis are many other factors that were at play at the same time. Ballantine (Lester's employer) already owned the publication rights to Lord of the Rings and were selling more than a million copies a year by the mid-1970s, dwarfing the success of The Sword of Shannara by at least an order of magnitude. Sure, they wanted to sell more books, but Lord of the Rings was a pretty big cash cow all on its own. Lester's genius was in capitalizing on the success of Tolkien by encouraging other writers to tap into the "formula" he had developed. The job of senior editor at a major publisher is, in fact, to sell more books. Working with writers to improve their craft is important, but at the end of the day what matters is what the publisher can sell to their audience. Lester understood his audience and understood marketing far better than Hilary here.
What we actually see in epic fantasy is that for the more successful writers like Terry Brooks (Del Rey), Raymond E. Feist (Bantam Spectra), and Robert Jordan (Tor), is that the first book in their series conforms to Tolkienesque worldbuilding, but then subsequent books diverge tremendously after each author experienced initial success. Each of these authors crafted a world that is as rich, diverse, and interesting as Middle Earth through decades of worldbuilding on their own.
Of course, Tolkien himself was writing his story according to an ancient and time-honored formula: the Hero's Journey, as popularized by Joseph Campbell in Man of a Thousand Faces. Also known as the "Monomyth," the Hero's Journey is an archetypical story framework found in many epic sagas across time and space, as it shows up everywhere when you know what to look for. Modern epic fantasy authors rely on the Hero's Journey in their own stories because that's what sells and is what their audience expects.
As for writing formulaic stories, here's a newsflash. People LIKE formulaic writing, particularly in genre fiction. We like mysteries, westerns, romances, science fiction, and yes, even fantasy, BECAUSE we know what to expect (more or less) as each genre is defined by traditions and tropes that appeal to our tastes. Even literary fiction is constrained by conventions and formulas, as Dave Wolverton explains in his essay, "On Writing as a Fantasist."
Hilary's video is bizarre because it doesn't sound like she's read ANY epic fantasy fiction since Lord of the Rings. Certainly none of the contemporary fantasy literature of the 1970s. A lot of it is pretty good, even if no author ever approaches Tolkien's skill at writing. But then, seriously, who could? He brought an entire lifetime of knowledge, skills, and experiences that most writers will never, ever have to his storytelling. He dived deep into mythology, folklore, and languages to craft his world meticulously one word at a time. And he wasn't successful at first. It took time before he became the fantasy juggernaut we know and love (or loathe) today. He was unique, a paragon of his field. Might as well as why we don't have more Albert Einsteins lurking around.
Another point she overlooks is that readers who enjoyed The Sword of Shannara or similar works might be inspired to go and read the source material from which these books sprang. Thus, Lord of the Rings, which many people might have avoided because they thought it was too hard, now becomes desirable because of it's impact on other works. I'm doing that right now, as a matter of fact, if you look at the books I'm currently reading.
I read through many of the comments on this video to see how her viewers reacted. Most of them roasted her over the coals (metaphorically). Very few tried to defend her viewpoint and when they did, they tended to be roasted themselves. I've watched a few of her other videos where she seems to know something of the writing craft, but she flew very wide of the mark here, displaying a shocking lack of knowledge of fantasy literature in general.
Such a strange video....
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BOOKS BY MORON-ADJACENT AUTHORS
I'm filing this under "Moron-Adjacent Authors" because Buck Throckmorton asked me if I'd post something about the book below by Scott McKay, Senior Editor at The American Spectator. According to Buck, Scott is a fan of AoSHQ.
In a world where Hollywood's woke agenda threatens to drown out truth, one man - armed with some very well-heeled friends - dares to fight back.
Blockbusters follows Mike Holman, a retired journalist turned cultural crusader, as he partners with billionaire Pierce Polk to dismantle the Big Five media giants. With a billion-dollar budget and a vision to revive traditional values, Mike launches Blockbusters Media, sparking a media revolution that crashes Wall Street and captivates the nation.
From a near-miss of personal destruction to a series of Wall Street hostile takeover fights to a billion-dollar Christian epic, film, the stakes soar--personally and politically--as Mike balances love, family, and a pregnant wife against ruthless enemies and a shifting cultural landscape.
Set against the backdrop of a new anti-woke presidency, this fast-paced thriller blends action, satire, and heart, exploring the power of stories to shape society. Perfect for fans of political intrigue and cultural commentary, Blockbusters delivers a bold, unapologetic narrative that's as entertaining as it is thought-provoking.
If, as one of the morons recommended, you do read Around the World in Eighty Days, I suggest you chase it with The Other Log of Phileas Fogg by Philip Jose Farmer. It is a steampunkish science fiction novel written around the concept that the Jules Verne novel is a recounting of actual events...but it is a cover story meant to conceal what truly happened (a conflict of epic proportions with the fate of the world hanging in the balance). The Other Log of Phileas Fogg is presented as the true story that happened behind and between the scenes of the Verne novel. It's a rip snorting adventure and I loved it when it was published in 1973.
Posted by: Danfan at October 26, 2025 09:33 AM (jEQcb)
Comment: Interesting premise. I might have to check that out. I like the idea of stories-behind-the-story in fiction. It turns out this book is part of a larger universe that connects Sherlock Holmes, Flash Gordon, James Bond, and Jack the Ripper--the Wold Newton 'verse.
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Finished The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry.
It is not just about the Influenza, but about the medical efforts to stop it, how cities and towns in America almost crumbled under the large number of deaths, and bad governance. President Wilson and his total indifference to the epidemic is highlighted.
I liked the biochemistry asides and the attitude of the leading medical establishment of the time.
We are survivors of the COVID-19 Wuhan epidemic. IMHO, the recent results were made worse by so called experts of today, misleading the lessons from the past.
The one measure that worked was total isolation.
This is an illuminating cautionary tale. I recommend it.
Posted by: NaCly Dog at October 26, 2025 09:37 AM (u82oZ)
Comment: So much can be learned from the lessons of the past. It's a shame that people--particularly those with power and influence--choose to ignore those lessons in favor of their own greed and ambition for more power.
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In traditional novel-reading, I'm cruising through the old Dragonlance novel Dragons of Winter Night. I'm enjoying it, though there is a story tic or two that I find annoying. Namely, the book has a habit of picking up a narrative after time-skipping over a quest.
The book is a sequel (book 2 of 3) and the story picks up in the aftermath of a major quest...but not the quest that ended book 1. I had to stop reading and make sure I was reading the series in the proper order. But, I was, there was just a quest that happened off-screen. Pity, I might have wanted to read that.... Then within the book itself, the cast gets split in half, and we follow one half for a while. Eventually we jump back to the other set of characters, as they are dealing with the aftermath of another major quest that we didn't get to see!
Not something that makes me put down the book, but enough to make me grunt in exasperation while reading.
Posted by: Castle Guy at October 26, 2025 10:21 AM (Lhaco)
Comment: The time skips in Dragons of Winter Night were off-putting to me the first time I read them as well. The book starts with the characters celebrating the return of an ancient dwarven hammer, but we never see that quest. We have to wait until Dragons of the Dwarven Depths - The Lost Chronicles Volume 1 before we see how that quest plays out. The time skip in the middle of the novel is equally confusing. We don't see the events of that quest until Mary Kirchoff's short story "Finding the Faith" in Dragonlance Tales Volume 1 - The Magic of Krynn. Although the story still progresses, the reader does feel like they've missed out on key events when they are left out of the main narrative.
Last week I tried something new, attempting to drag this blog kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. A few of you seemed to like it, so let's keep doing it!
Huh. Drop downs. I never saw that on this bunker-oil fueled website before. Neat.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at October 26, 2025 09:31 AM (BI5O2)
A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny
Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October has been recommended several times around here. Thanks to popular demand, it's been reprinted, so it's now affordable. It's a nice little Halloween story. The narrator is a guard dog named Snuff, an animal companion to "Jack" (implied to be Jack the Ripper). The two of them are cursed with being "closers" at a dark ritual that takes place when the moon is full on Halloween night. They collaborate with other closers and work against "openers." However, the players in the Game change from time to time, so allegiances are fluid. It's quite a fun ride to see the world through Snuff's eyes and nose as he navigates the perilous Game in which he and his fellow animal companions are trapped. Weirdly, I kept having flashbacks to the movie Cabin in the Woods as there is a similar vibe to the story.
Hell House by Richard Matheson
This is the first Richard Matheson books I've read, though I'm familiar with a few of his other works such as I Am Legend and A Stir of Echoes (both of which were made into movies). Hell House is a troperiffic haunted house novel. It has everything you want in this type of story: skeptical paranormal investigators, psychic sensitives, and a reclusive wealthy financier backing the investigation into the mysteries of a house that has claimed the lives and sanity of so many. Good stuff if you enjoy that sort of thing. Certainly inspired its share of imitators even as it draws upon ghost stories from the past.
Dracula and Other Horror Stories by Bram Stoker
Why didn't you guys tell me Dracula was so good? Oh, wait a minute...you did...repeatedly...as recently as last week...moving on.
It's an odd experience reading this book because even though I've never read it before, I feel like I have. That's because I've seen so many adaptations and retellings in books and films and television that it's been dissected and turned inside out countless times. I do gain an appreciation for the original story, as I can see its cultural impact *everywhere.* Great stuff. Highly recommended.
In a world where Hollywood's woke agenda threatens to drown out truth, one man - armed with some very well-heeled friends - dares to fight back.
