R. Scott Bakker's Blog, page 36

Aphorism of the Day: We gaze at our navel because its closer and easier to shave than our asshole.

And the answer to the identity half of the question is:

 Oh, I don't know. Out of nearly 7 billion people, I'm fortunate to be in the top 1% in the planet with regards to health, wealth, looks, brains, athleticism, and nationality. My wife is slender, beautiful, lovable, loyal, fertile, and funny. I meet good people who seem to enjoy my company everywhere I go. That all seems pretty lucky to me, considering that my entire contribution to the situation was choosing my parents well. I am grateful and I thank God every day for the ticket He has dealt me. If I'm not a birth lottery winner, then who is? The kid in the Congo who just got his hands chopped off and is getting raped for the fourth time today? To paraphrase the immortal parental wisdom of PJ O'Rourke, anyone in my position had damn well better get down on their knees and pray that life does not become fair.

In other words, God. It has been Ordained.

And the answer to the belief half of the question is:

As for belief, I don't concern myself in the slightest with the perfect correspondence of my beliefs with What Is So or not. They either do or they don't, but regardless, the Absolute Truth of Creation doesn't depend upon what I happen to believe it to be at the moment and I don't think such correspondence is even theoretically possible. Bakker simply doesn't understand that I don't believe his opinion, my opinion, or anyone else's opinion matters in the least, except in how they happen to affect our decisions and subsequent actions. See Human Action for details.  

By way of clarification, no one asked him about the 'absolute' of anything. I'm not sure I understand, otherwise (and would welcome clarification). Is he saying he doesn't believe in the question? Or is he saying the truth or falsity doesn't matter, so long as people do what he wants them to do? Or is he actually biting the bullet, saying, 'I really don't know whether my claims are right or wrong, but I don't care one way or another, so long as people seem to believe me."

Or is he simply avoiding the question once again.

Now, if I were a follower of Theo, I would like to know what the hell he's talking about. Why should they take someone who doesn't care about the accuracy of his views of faith seriously? Or, if he does take the accuracy (as opposed to the consequences) of his claims seriously, why should they trust the claims of someone who doesn't take the likelihood they are wrong seriously.

One of the things that seems to make democracy such an effective form of governance, for instance, is its capacity for reform, for adapting to new social realities. It's ugly, it's prone to error, but the institution is designed to eventually get it right.

One of the ironies that always had me scratching my head following Theo's blog was the tension between his dogmatism and his purported libertarianism. A libertarian like Michael Shermer, for instance, is skeptical of government's ability to manage society independent of markets for much the same reason he's skeptical of an individual's ability to magically stumble upon the truth independent of (natural) science: humans are just not smart enough to master the supercomplexities involved. Centrally planned economies fail, on this account, because all things being equal, the solution to a distribution problem enacted by a 'Red Director' will be wrong, whereas the market not only generates a plurality of possible solutions, it also selects the one or ones that actually solve the problem.

This could be why democracy and capitalism at the social institutional level have so outstripped their competitors: creative flexibility in the face of supercomplexity. All I want to suggest to Theo and to any of his readers who happen to find this post is that skepticism (and it's social incarnation, science) is the cognitive analogue to democracy and capitalism.

The reason science has so outstripped its competitors boils down to creative flexibility in the face of supercomplexity. Multiple researchers with multiple hypotheses, embedded in a system that selects for accuracy. You never 'go all in' – rather, you hedge your bets, always realizing the complexity of things is such that you could very well lose. And you listen closely to those making contrary bets around you, realizing that they are at least as likely to be holding the winning hand as you. 

In the case of each, democracy, capitalism, science, the process is messy and complicated, two things that cut against our stone age psychology. We despise uncertainty. Very little is pretty close up with these institutions: the grandeur and the power only reveal themselves when you take a big step back.

So given this, the best answer to the Question, I think, would be something along the lines of: "I think I've won the Magical Belief and Identity Lottery because more and more research seems to indicate that humans are hardwired to do so, even though odds are I'm just as duped as the next guy. I'm 'programmed' to fool myself."

This answer at least possesses the virtues of remaining open to further scientific scrutiny, and explaining why the idiots who disagree with you seem to be just as convinced of their idiocy as you are of your brilliance.

Aphorism of the Day: The louder a person points, the more they become the show.

Theo's back with a wonderful thrashing of my work, character, and psychological deterioration - or straw approximations of them. I had no idea he was so relevant and well-connected. I was surprised he didn't post his college transcripts, or at least his Stanford-Binet.

He has lot's and lot's of theories about me, but for some reason, he keeps seizing on the ephemera and refuses to give an answer to the one question I keep asking over and over: What makes him think he's won the Magical Belief and Identity Lottery? His reluctance or evasion or whatever it is must be obvious to at least some of his readers by now.

[Turns to Theo]: By the terms of your own argument, I'm irrelevant, so why all the wasted e-ink? Why not write an essay answering this one simple question? I'm just saying that this list applies to you as much as anyone else, that you're just another fool with lot's of guesses like me and everyone else. But you seem to think otherwise. Why?

Post-Script: I inserted a link to some of David Dunning's work for the people popping over from Vox Day to the previous post, the stuff he received a 'noble Ig Nobel' for. (The organizers also give awards to publicize works that justify their critical and satiric mission. I'm curious how many comments will simply seize on it as confirmation of their views).

Aphorism of the Day: Les is mor.

I finally had a chance to check out the comments on the "Prince of Misogyny"  post I referenced a couple of days back. The parallels to the responses on Theo's blog are nothing short of creepy. The big difference seems to be that where everyone on Theo's board was busy calling me a low self-esteem loser, these guys are accusing me of insufferable pomposity…

I guess I am all things to all people after all!  A Nancy that needs to "grow a pair," and a Pig who can't stop showing them off. How awesome is that?

Believe it or not, I actually want to keep both of these blog war 'relationships' afloat. I know some of you hate it, and think it's just an aggravating waste of time, and you could be right, but these exchanges make me very curious. And I find it's helping me see my past my own tendencies to become defensive or morally censorious–and most importantly, to find the kinds of questions that give these 'hard believers' pause. (Does anyone know of any real research done on individuals prone to fanatical belief on facile grounds?).

As a veteran of Gabe Chouinard's old board, I've been through the real wringer with people who were every bit as perceptive as they were nasty. Matt Stover, especially, was an estimable opponent, as apt to grill your character as thoroughly as your arguments (imagine Happy Ent, only really, really pissed). These guys are strictly bush league in comparison. There's nothing anybody's said that has prickled enough to jarr me from my experimental mindset–yet.

And as far as the books go, I actually think this stuff demonstrates that my writing, for better or worse, is rich enough to support a wild, wild variety of competing interpretations. And most important of all, that it's actually reaching people who can be outraged.

Anyway, by way of UPDATES, I thought I should mention that I have included a couple new pieces in Essays, Speculations, and Stories. This last page I just added today.

As with everything, feedback is welcome! With "The New Theory" essay, I'm especially interested in where people would like me to add footnotes. It's a puppy I would actually like to publish someday… I think.

Aphorism of the Day: The Second Law of Cranks states that for every crank, there exists an opposite crank - an 'anti-crank.' Unfortunately, rather than annihilating each other on contact, they have the effect of splitting the universe in two. (The First Law of Cranks (for those of you unfamiliar with epistemological physics) states that for every Opinion, no matter how preposterous, there is at least one crank who will call it Gospel).

Now this is almost too good to be true! I ask for a liberal Theo and lo…

Should I be suspicious? I admit, I'm having a hard time deciding whether this is serious, or simply provocation for it's own sake. Either way this guy makes Theo's Straw Bakker look like the tin man. And his M.O!  Logically decisive swearing, and some of the most cogent name-calling I've ever encountered. How do you engage someone who, unlike, Theo, doesn't even pretend to be rational? 

I tell ya, the stock some people put in pure attitude. What would you call it,  the arguing ad na-na-nana-naa?

Does anyone know who this guy is? I'd be interested in drawing him out on his motivations. Just what does he think he's accomplishing with a site like this… Does he care?

The strange thing is how… I dunno, flattered I feel. I'm not so sure that I should, but getting blasted by kooks like this makes me think I gotta be doing something right. It could be they're the only one's willing to waste the energy!

Could you imagine if a sizable portion of the planet decided that the strength of a claim depended on the amount of vitriol they put behind it. It would be almost as funny as it would be tragic. Don't people realize that the only thing cheaper than belief is attitude?

Aphorism of the Day: A snob is someone who looks down on his own reflection, while congratulating his image.

Two posts in one day, I know, but that Eco thing was just too rich, and I wanted to get this out while the article in question was still relatively fresh.

Fantasy has garnered quite a bit of attention in the mainstream press lately, thanks to the success of HBO's A Game of Thrones. Roger recently sent me a link to this article by Lev Grossman in The Wall Street Journal. Rather than dwell on the piece, however, I want to consider two critical comments that were posted in response, simply because they strike me as fairly representative. (With any luck, this will be picked up on the blogosphere: if there was ever a time for a social legitimacy food-fight, now is it).

First, there's Jason Stuart:

This article has failed in every case to adequately combat the criticisms it mentions. It has, in fact, only served to reinforce any negative stereotypes associated with the genre, but, more importantly, it reinforces the lack of respect held not so much for the overall genre, but for the large mass of cult-like readers of said genre.

The obvious yet almost always ignored example of how "fantasy" can still be "literature" is Gabriel Garcia-Marquez and the rest of the Magical-Realists. But, since they aren't writing about epic multi-generational global wars (focusing only on the richest, most elite members) that threaten fictional worlds populated mostly with dragons and trolls, they are dismissed outright be the faithful.

The question is not one of adherence to the tropes of "reality" but one of RELEVANCE to reality.

So far, no argument has been made to convince me that the bulk of fantasy pulp is relevant in the least to any average man's real life.

Escapism, to be precise.

The one thing I like about this response is it's honesty: Stuart isn't afraid to acknowledge that the lack of respect for the genre translates into a lack of respect for the audience. This makes it clear that the authority gradient at issue isn't simply aesthetic but social as well. There's Respectable readers who read respectable things and there's Unrespectable readers. As I've argued ad nauseum here and elsewhere, you can't separate the genre from the readers. Impugn the one, and you impugn the other.

Gabriel Garcia-Marquez only serves to highlight the degree to which this distinction is social: the reason Magic Realists are not considered fantasy authors is simply that they don't write for fantasy readers. Instead, they write for the Genre-that-dares-not-speak-its-name, which is to say, they write for so-called 'literary readers.' The 'fantastic' can either denote a formal commitment or a social one. Since Magic Realists generally buy into the authority gradient that Stuart references, they sure as hell are going to go the formal route: to write for the Unrespectable is to risk losing the respect of the Respectable.

Now simply calling readers Unrespectable smacks of chauvinism, which is why I think Stuart feels compelled to further rationalize his distinction. The problem, he suggests, is one of 'RELEVANCE.' He has encountered no argument to convince him that fantasy is relevant to "any average man's life."

Unfortunately he fails to provide any argument to convince anyone of the contrary: that it is irrelevant. For people like me, people who think the precise opposite, that so-called literary fiction has become all but culturally irrelevant (in any positive sense), and that genre is pretty much the only socially relevant fictional form available to writers who want to make an actual difference in actual lives, an argument would be nice, because heaven knows I've looked for one! Alas, he simply asserts this is the case. But I'll get back to this issue below.

Perhaps the following commentator, Harry Schwartz, has an argument:

You summed it up perfectly: "The question is not one of adherence to the tropes of "reality" but one of RELEVANCE to reality" Hilarious to claim that Harry Potter isn't wish-fulfillment fantasy (scrawny orphan boy discovers he has incredible powers and belongs to an elite secret society, where he's a famous hero), or that fantasy's focus on pure unadulterated good-vs-evil doesn't detract from its relevance as literature (Austen and Tolstoy wrote extensively about morality, but they did so via believably complex, flawed, and relatable characters, not larger-than-life heroes and villains. That's why thinking people have been enjoying their work for over a century). Fantasy is an escapist pulp genre like thrillers or romance novels. Fantasy writers talk about "world-building", meaning shoveling in tons of detail to make the story's universe seem huge and sweeping, like a place you could actually escape to (though some people seem to struggle with the fact that they don't actually live there, as the recent Harry Potter phenomenon has shown). That this world building is often hilariously flawed (frequently depicting a world that's been stuck at a Medieval level of technology for millennia) may not make it less entertaining, but definitely makes it inferior to true literature. Shakespeare may have used ghosts and witches on occasion, but he never built any worlds. Still, that's not to say the fantasy genre can't be executed competently and entertainingly, or that a skillful author doesn't deserve respect (James Clavell wrote historical fiction pulp extremely well, and he's one of my favorite authors). But it's no more a mark of distinction to read it any more than playing video games is, in fact it's probably a good sign if an adult is hesitant to share their enthusiasm for either one. That's why they're called guilty pleasures. Just because it's more acceptable now for adults to enjoy adolescent entertainments (not a great trend, in my opinion) doesn't mean those entertainments will ever be taken seriously as artistic achievements. One hopes.

Once again, we find a number of loaded social references, which seem to boil down into the binary, Thinkers against Adolescents. Once again, though, I'm not sure I see any argument. A bunch of assertions, a whole bunch of loaded language begging the same old, we-cool-you-losers authority gradient, but nothing you can really point to in the way of rational justification.

You could say he ends with an argument: Why isn't reading fantasy not a "mark of distinction"? Because we call them "guilty pleasures." But this isn't really an argument so much as a question begging conjunction of assertions.

So we are left with: fantasy isn't literary because it's escapist, and it's escapist because it isn't relevant to life, and it isn't relevant to life because… well, we don't know.

We could be charitable, and construct an argument for them using several value-judgements they make in passing. Secondary worlds are hyperbolic. The characterization is unbelievable. The action is unrealistic.

So we could say that the argument they would make is that fantasy isn't relevant because it isn't believable or realistic. In other words, fantasy isn't relevant because it's fantastic…

But wait a tick… Hmm.

I guess they don't have an argument after all.

Let me make a suggestion: the social RELEVANCE of fantasy lies in its audience, the fact that it reaches millions upon millions of people. All you have to do is look at fandom to realize that fantasy moves people far, far more profoundly than so-called 'literary fiction' (which, as you all know, I think has devolved into a spectacular in-group exercise, like-minded authors writing for like-minded readers, pretending to challenge all those out-group 'adolescents' (who never read them) with books literally designed to alienate readers without any specialized training. Popcorn, in other words, masquerading as salad.)

Make no mistake: the difference between fiction in general and literature is moral. The latter is supposed to be good for you in a way the former isn't. This means the difference between fiction in general and literature has to do with real world consequences – whether or not it 'resembles' what counted as literature in ages gone by is pretty much meaningless once those forms cease to have real literary consequences for real readers.

These guys are simply doing what everybody does: making moral yardsticks out of their aesthetic tastes. They literally think their bookshelves make them less 'guilty.'

Apparently Theo has discovered a "fail proof method" for determining whether The Prince of Nothing is pornographic. According to Umberto Eco (an impressario famed for the development of 'fail proof methods') any time the pace of a narrative lags, the book or film or what have you is 'pornographic.'

Is it possible that Theo is serious? If this is simply his way of exacting ironic vengeance, then I think it's actually quite funny. Otherwise… Holy moly, man. Talk about "inept philosophizing"!

There is, however, a serious criticism buried in a footnote (!) to the text: the question of whether it's possible to sincerely suspend judgement. He offers what might be called a "When Push Comes to Shove" argument. I'm not sure his formulation is coherent, but the general point, I think, has actual bite. Moral action does seem to demand clarity and conviction. 

This, by the way, is another self-conscious thematic pillar of The Prince of Nothing (that he missed), the relationship between our attitudes to our beliefs and the kinds of actions they license. The fact is all our moral judgements are at best educated guesses, whether we acknowledge them as such or not. Once you acknowledge this – my argument is – you're more inclined to give the other the benefit of the doubt, to be conciliatory, or to put it in terms that Theo would understand, turn the other cheek.

One of the reasons I'm so critical of the new atheists is their tendency to see religion as the moral problem, rather than as one symptom among others. Certainty is the problem. Communists, Islamists, Anarchists: it doesn't matter. In each case you have a three pound brain murdering other three pound brains in the name of some truth that no three pound brain is capable of grasping.

I'm not sure why he thinks I'm 'post-moralist,' given that I'm a moral realist. Is it simply because I refuse to think morality is simple?

Also, why doesn't anyone make fun of me for my aphorisms. That's the way to go.

And lastly, is it my imagination, or does he seem to be modifying his rhetorical tactics? He's using more qualifications, it seems to me.

Think about it like this.

If I wrote literary fiction, this encounter would have never happened. Rather than engaging – and yes, even learning from – people with genuinely contrary views, I would have been stranded with this cartoon in my head, probably used some particularly clownish example like Sarah Palin as my anchoring token. I would have simply lampooned and dismissed their contrary views, made in-group jokes about how obviously idiotic they were. My ideas would be king in a land of strawmen…

Starting to sound familiar, yet?

As it stands, I think I've learned a couple of important lessons. First, if you're going to provoke, keep it simple. They scan everything you say, ignoring everything but what they perceive to be your rhetorically weakest point, and no matter how irrelevant, they hoist it and wave it around as though it's the only thing you said.

Second, and I have Roger to thank for this one, not only stick to second-order claims (claims about claims), but be clear about it.

And third, and perhaps most importantly, bite the bullet. When they call you an idiot, say, "Yes! That's my point!" I'm not sure why, and I would certainly welcome speculation on this point, but this seems to make them itchy. I agree with James: the comments on Theo's site are actually quite atypical. You get the feeling that they're standing on marbles over there.

Ideologues can be dangerous. Oslo is just the most recent example. My fear, which I'm sure I've mentioned far too many times, is that the internet is facilitating human communication, not communication more generally. And human communication is flawed through and through, saddled with all kinds of tendencies that may have been adaptive back in the stone age, but are now problematic in the extreme. If we do destroy ourselves, dollars to doughnuts coalition psychology will have something to do with it.

Let's call it Group Crashing: drawing out various groupthink communities, not only to prevent groupthink within your own cohort, but to jam, as much as possible, the groupthink of others.

Maybe we should form a… ah… er… group. A Group Crashing Group. We could gather together as many argumentative, contrarian assholes as possible, put together a list of targets from across the political and cultural spectrum, then provoke as much rational debate as possible, all the while working the main message: "You don't know what you're fucking talking about!"

Sounds foofy, I know… But interesting all the same.

I've already decided I'm going to try this again, only this time with someone on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum. Does anyone know of any particularly obnoxious, liberal, literary-minded site?

Aphorism of the Day: All authors feel sorry for the characters in their novels, which is what makes self-pity inevitable when they begin blogging.

I received a ping-back for a Black Gate review of The Prince of Nothing by none other than Theo, that ultra-conservative blogger I debated on the issue of nihilism in contemporary fantasy quite a few months back.

One thing you can say about my books is that they get reviewed–way out of proportion to their sales, if you ask me. I've long since abandoned any attempt to keep track, let alone archive, the new ones I invariably find when my masochism gets the best of me and I troll the web. But this one is special, partly because it's written by Theo–or Vox Day, as he is better known–and partly because it falls into a 'special' class.

I remembering wondering what Theo would make of my books back when we were debating, since it seemed that many of the things he and Leo Grin were bemoaning in 21st Century epic fantasy–heroism, moral clarity, mythic depth–were things that I happened to be self-consciously tackling. Forgive me for waxing Don Cherry, but I remember thinking that he would actually like the books, and that he would make a flag of the sexually related material as way to trash it. I shit you not.

And Bingo was his name-o…

Reading Theo's review, and you would think someone was being raped every other page (rather than every other other page)! Not only did the sex really, really, really stand out for him, but it really, really, really offended him as well, apparently enough to overpower what he did like about the books. Fair enough, I suppose, but given that the first book is called The Darkness that Comes Before (!), and given that the irrational springs of human action are a primary focus of the book, and given that sex is one of those springs (history and appetite are everywhere: if anything there's far more 'history porn' in the books than sexual porn), you would at least think that he would reference this connection…

I guess he missed it.

This brings me to what I was most curious about, back when: What would Theo make of the thematics of the trilogy. To be honest, I thought this was where he would spill the most pixilated ink. Why? Because reading his blog, I realized that in many respects I had written the trilogy for him, for people who really, really, really think they've won the Magical Belief-and-Identity Lottery.

And this, if Vox Day is to be believed, is Theo in a nutshell. The Grand Prize Winner. Reading his blog, I had the impression of drawing circles inside of circles:

Fiscal conservatives…

Social and fiscal conservatives…

White, social and fiscal conservatives…

White, male, social and fiscal conservatives…

White, male, English-descended, social and fiscal conservatives…

White, male, English-descended, Anglican, social and fiscal conservatives…

I'm sure the list goes on, but this was as far as I was able to go. What began as snobbish hilarity quickly turned into consternation and a kind of baffled, dare I say? disgust. Discussions of partitioning America along more 'rational' identity-driven lines, of the 'behavioural profile of African-Americans,' of the 'proper place of women,' of the forced resettlement of immigrants, of the 'flaws of democracy' made me realize that Theo had more than a few fascistic leanings. I'm still shaking my head.

Parochialism is part of the human floor plan: we're hardwired to continually draw 'identity circles,' to parse our social environments into myriad shades of us and them. But some of us, unfortunately, find ourselves on the extremes of this instinctual continuum. On the one hand, there are those who are utterly oblivious to social difference, and on the other hand, you have those who are obsessive about it. Where the one tends to rationalize from a "we're all in this together" standpoint, the other tends to rationalize from a "dog eats dog" perspective.

Of course, both groups claim the moral and rational high ground. Theo literally believes that he is made of better stuff ('superintelligence,' I think, is the term he uses to describe his intellect). He literally thinks his gender is the apple of the Creator's eye. He literally believes his little corner of the human gene pool is the only one that doesn't smell of pee. He literally thinks that reason is his friend and his friend alone (because lord knows it makes idiots out of everyone who disagrees with him).

And he knows he just has to be right because everywhere he turns he finds confirmation of his views, as well as affirmation of his identifications. It couldn't just be coincidence, now, could it?

Well, it's not coincidence. Humans are cognitive and identity egoists, which is why you find versions of Theo no matter what the in-group happens to be: African, Asian, Arabic, Norwegian. Our brains aren't simply primed to generate patterns out of noisy social environments, they're primed to generate happy patterns, ones that confirm preexisting views and affirm our self-identifications.

If anything dwarfs the references to history and appetite in The Prince of Nothing, it's vanity and stupidity. Despite apparently recognizing "thinly disguised references to philosophers," despite his superintelligence, despite all those readers who complain that I'm too obvious with this particular theme, Theo genuinely seems to have no clue that this is what The Prince of Nothing is about: the comic folly and the tragic consequence of thinking–like most everyone else–that you are the winner of the belief-and-identity game show–only like, for real.

Here's the quote I would like to leave him:

Moenghus.

White-skinned. Still young enough to clutch its toes. Eyes at once vacant and lucid, in the way only an infant's could be. The penetrating white-blue of the Steppe.

My son.

Cnaiür reached out two fingers, saw the scars banding the length of his forearm. The babe waved his hands, and as though by accident, caught Cnaiür's fingertip, his grip firm, like that of a father or friend in miniature. Without warning, its face flushed, became wizened with anguished wrinkles. It sputtered, began wailing.

Why, Cnaiür wondered, would the D nyain keep this child? What did he see when he looked upon it? What use was there in a child?

There was no interval between the world and an infant soul. No deception. No language. An infant's wail simply was its hunger. And it occurred to Cnaiür that if he abandoned this child, it would become an Inrithi, but if he took it, stole away and rode hard for the Steppe, it would become a Scylvendi. And his hair prickled across his scalp, for there was magic in that–even doom.

This wail would not always be one with its hunger. The interval would lengthen, and the tracks between its soul and its expression would multiply, become more and more unfathomable. This singular need would be unbraided into a thousand strands of lust and hope, bound into a thousand knots of fear and shame…And it would wince beneath the upraised hand of the father, sigh at the soft touch of the mother.

It would become what circumstance demanded. Inrithi or Scylvendi…

It did not matter.

I'm sure this comes off as peevish and thin-skinned to those of you unfamiliar with the previous debate. It's generally bad form for authors to respond to reviews. Why? Because we instinctively understand that authors are 'too close' to their work to have anything impartial to say.

But part of the reason we invest so much passion in books lies in the fact that they judge us well. Our readings can say a frightful number of things about our values, our beliefs, our abilities, our sensitivities, our education, as well as our social identifications. As far as The Prince of Nothing is concerned, Theo is at once comic and tragic, a small man–like the rest of us–convinced he is the measure of us all. He is, in a sense, the true anti-hero of the books.

In creative writing workshops I always spend time talking about 'critiquing critiques,' teaching freshman writers how to sort the wheat from the chaff when it comes to feedback. I talk about the problem of ambiguity, and how readers are prone to manufacture problems, especially when they think it's their job to find them. The ability to sort representative problems from idiosyncratic ones is as crucial to an author's overall development as it is to the success of any one book. In order to learn from your mistakes you have to be able to identify them.

I'm still trying to puzzle through the lesson of this one.

Nothing happy, I'm guessing.

See, this is the kind of shit I hate. Self-promotion sucks ass. But here I am…

The NPR is asking for votes for the 100 best fantasy and science fiction titles of all time and The Prince of Nothing is on the long list. If you think PoN deserves to be on the final list, you can cast your vote here.

Definition of the Day – Geek: someone who greases their imagination to avoid the clutches of cool.

E.D. Kain briefly mentions my work in The Atlantic.

According to common wisdom, genre fiction is culturally cyclical: It ebbs and flows in popularity as time alternately burns out various tropes and rejuvenates them. I'm just wondering if this has ever been the case with epic fantasy. It seems to me that it's cache has continued to grow in lockstep with the economic clout of all us 70′s and 80′s D&D players.

Theories, anyone?

Either way, for someone who has been living in the cult cellar for about a decade, it's nice to even be acknowledged in a mainstream publication. Once again, I find myself sipping Kool-Aid in the shadow of George!