I’m back from vacation. I forced myself not to work from Christmas to yesterday, and even managed to avoid the internet for 95% of that. It was all reading, loafing, mini painting, and video games. Not too shabby for a workaholic. My son even GMed for the first time for the annual Correia Family New Year’s RPG night. It unfolded as you could probably imagine an 11 year old boy’s Savage Worlds version of Fallout 4 would unfold. 🙂 But my daughter played the tank named Rose Beef (short for Beefany) and she was the “Brahmin Whisperer”, so it all worked out.

Today I’m playing catch up and responding to pile of messages. SOOOOOO MANY MESSAGES…

This is just a quick preview of what I’ve got cooking for 2016 and beyond.

The 3rd Dead Six novel with Mike Kupari (still undecided on the title, but it’ll be announced soon) will be out this summer. (Edit, October!)

Monster Hunter Memoirs: Grunge with John Ringo will be out this summer as well. (Edit, August)

Into the Wild, sequel to Into the Storm, from Privateer Press will be out sometime soon. I don’t remember the release date, but I think it is 2nd quarter 2016. There is a final novel planned for that trilogy titled Into the Dark, but I’ve not scheduled it yet.

The Monster Hunter International anthology won’t be released until 2017, but I’ve already received a bunch of stories. The first one I read was a 1970s British spy thriller with monsters. Today I read the pitch for a Trip visiting relatives in Jamaica and read the rough draft of another story about the Vatican’s Combat Exorcists. This anthology is going to be a lot of fun.

Baen is going to be releasing a collection of my short stories. I believe that is a 2017 release date.

Sarah Hoyt and I are currently working on Monster Hunter Guardian. I sent her the detailed outline for the rough draft right before Christmas.

I’m working on the next solo MHI novel featuring Owen. I’m not sold on my working title yet, so don’t want to say it. It and MHG should be released within a few months of each other in 2017.

I’ve got an MHI crossover story in the upcoming Urban Allies anthology. I wrote Agent Franks and Jonathan Maberry wrote Joe Ledger, titled Weaponized Hell. It will be out summer 2016 as well.

I wrote a novella as an exclusive for Audible.com that should be out in 2016, but it has a celebrity narrator, so it is dependent on his recording schedule. I can’t say much about this one until they officially announce it, but it should be a lot of fun.

House of Assassins is the sequel to Son of the Black Sword. I usually concentrate on one project at a time, so I’ll be concentrating on it after the next MHI. I average 2 books a year, so my goal is to have it wrapped up during 2016 with 2017 release date. That’ll put the Saga of the Forgotten Warrior books every other year. I’m really excited about this one, because SotBS has done extremely well. Tim Gerrard Reynold’s excellent narration helped make it one of the top fantasy books on Audible (lost only to Cinder Spires because CURSE YOU, BUTCHER) 😉 , and surprisingly, critically I’ve made a bunch of the year’s best lists at place like BuzzFeed and the LA Times. (Yeah, I know, right?)

After that I’m either working on the 1st book of the 2nd Grimnoir (1950s) trilogy, but depending on how spun up I am, and since it takes me a couple of weeks to switch between worlds, I might just write the 3rd Forgotten Warrior novel, Destroyer of Worlds, because I’ve got those outlined already.

I’ve agreed to do some short fiction for a few anthologies this year, but I’ve forced myself to say no to several projects. Short fiction is a lot of fun, and I like to do one or two between each novel to keep things interesting, but too many cut into the novel writing time, and novels are how I make my living.

I’ve got a story called Shooter Ready in the upcoming Galactic Games anthology (out June I think) I’m doing a story for Williamson’s Freehold anthology, and Maberry’s Ledger anthology. Those are easy because I’m a fan of those worlds. I’ve got another one that I’ve agreed to do a story for that I can’t announce yet, but it is for a big media tie in that I’ve been a huge dorky fan boy of since I was a kid. Other than that, this year should be fairly light on short stories.

In 2015 I think I wrote 2 1/2 novels, a novella, and about half a dozen short stories worth of paying writing, in other words, more than many of my lame ass haters have written in their entire careers. 🙂 I think I did 11 conventions and had a two week book tour. 2016 I’m shooting for fewer events and shorts, and more novels. To all those sensitive artist types who whine about how they can’t rush art, and can’t get any writing done, oh, BS. Quit your crying, put your big girl panties on, and treat it like your job. Because it is a REAL JOB. And like all real jobs, if you don’t work then you shouldn’t GET PAID. So shut up, quit screwing around, and get back to work.

Speaking of events, I’m still trying to cut down. I enjoy cons and I love meeting fans, but for writers it isn’t just the day of the events, but the travel days before and after. I know myself well enough to know that I suck at trying to produce while flying or in hotel rooms, so a weekend event actually ends up killing like four or five days. So suddenly 10 events is actually morel like 40 days where I’m not writing. I did 13 cons the year before, 11 last year, but that was still too much. With all that travelling I could have gotten another book done.

Coming up shortly I’ll be doing a book signing at the JP Enterprises booth at SHOT Show. I’ve got some more posts coming with MHI themed custom guns. They are doing some really cool rifles for me. I’m going to spend the rest of SHOT wandering around and deciding what kinds of weapons of mass destruction to spend my ill gotten filthy lucre on.

I’ll be a guest at ChattaCon in Chattanooga, TN at the end of January.

Then I’ll be a guest at LTUE in Provo, UT in February.

I’m skipping DragonCon and GenCon this year, which pains me because I love those, but again, I’m trying to up the novel production, and all those cons in a row over the summer kick my butt. Plus, I know from experience that by not going to GenCon I will save thousands and thousands of dollars I would have otherwise spent on minis. That was the toughest one to decide to skip this year. I’ll just have to give Jordo or Steve a shopping list for the exclusive stuff. 🙂

I volunteered to be one of the judges for the Baen Fantasy Short Story contest for the 3rd year in a row. Eric Flint will be the one presenting the award this year at GenCon though (lucky bastard, grumble, grumble, I’m trying to work more, grumble).

But the reason I’m trying to manage my travel time better is because this year I’ll be doing my first ever European tour. More details to come in another blog post but in April I’ll be doing events in England, France, and Germany. My foreign sales have been doing really well, so that is an excuse to take my wife on a fun trip. I’ll be over there for about two weeks.

In addition I’m working on a new business venture for CorreiaTech. It is kind of crazy, and I don’t think anyone has done anything like this before, but we’ll see what happens. I’ve started businesses before, but this time I’m more of the idea man and investor rather than accountant, manager, jack of all trades, and toilet cleaner. I can’t afford to concentrate on anything that will take much time away from my writing. I’ve found some smart people to run it, and right now I’m just doing research, so who knows? I’ll post more about it if the idea turns out to be viable.

EDIT: Forgot to talk ancillary rights stuff, because somebody is going to ask.

On the MHI TV show, “in development”. Options expired in 2015, and we renegotiated the contract. They’ve thrown some money at it and famous people are involved. Can’t say much beyond that.

As of 2016, the movie rights for my other properties are available if any production companies want to hurl large bags of money at me. Hollywood types keep coming after MHI, but I’m telling you production guys, Grimnoir would translate super well. Just think, 1930s period piece, super heroes. Boom. Done. Call me. 🙂

Foreign translations are doing well (hence the Europe trip). Just got my German copies for MHV. I’m super pumped for Chinese Grimnoir.

There is an MHI video game contract being negotiated now. I can’t say much beyond that.

 

‘tis the season, for (Noun)!

For those of you just tuning in for our 8^th annual Christmas celebration, inspired by other bestselling Christmas novels about Jars, Sweaters, Boxes, Letters, and other assorted nouns, I decided to cash in too, and thus began the biggest, loudest, bestsellingest Christmas tie in book series ever. It is tradition that every December I release excerpts from this magnificent saga.

Here are our previous years of badly written Christmas adventure:

THE CHRISTMAS NOUN 
Excerpts from my first epic Christmas novel, only with more Cthulu, zombies, and chainsaws. Young Tim overcomes his hatred of Christmas to defeat the anti-Claus in the Peppermint Thunderdome.

http://MonsterHunterNation.com/2008/12/22/the-christmas-noun/

THE CHRISTMAS NOUN 2: THE NOUNENING 
The much anticipated sequel to the greatest Christmas story featuring a noun ever. In this episode, Tim fights Stabby the Snowman and uses the Global Warming Power of Love.

http://MonsterHunterNation.com/2009/12/08/the-christmas-noun-2-the-nounening/

THE CHRISTMAS NOUN 3D: THE GRITTY REBOOT 
Christmas goes hard core as Rudolf leads the Reindeer Separatists in a jihad against Christmas.

http://MonsterHunterNation.com/2010/12/10/the-christmas-noun-3d-the-gritty-reboot/

THE CHRISTMAS NOUN 4: OCCUPY CHRISTMAS NOUN
Tim and his adult son Tim Jr. have to save Christmas from being occupied by the 99%.

https://monsterhunternation.com/2011/12/19/christmas-noun-4-occupy-christmas-noun

THE CHRISTMAS NOUN 5: FIFTY SHADES OF NOUN, CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE EDITION
Okay, that title pretty much explains this one.

https://monsterhunternation.com/2012/12/13/chirstmas-noun-5-fifty-shades-of-noun-choose-your-own-adventure-edition

THE CHRISTMAS NOUN 6: YES, WENDELL, THERE REALLY IS A CHRISTMAS NOUN 
Tim and Wendell the Manatee travel through time to save Christmas from a legion of footy pajama wearing hipster douchebags.

https://monsterhunternation.com/2013/12/23/christmas-noun-6-yes-wendell-there-really-is-a-christmas-noun

THE CHRISTMAS NOUN 7: ATTACK OF THE SOCIAL JUSTICE NOUN Tim has to protect the mall from the reality distorting powers of the nefarious Social Justice Noun.

https://monsterhunternation.com/2014/12/18/christmas-noun-7-attack-of-the-social-justice-noun

##

This year you are in for a special treat, with another behind the scenes DVD Bonus Feature: The Making of Christmas Noun 8

CorreiaTech Headquarters, Yard Moose Mountain, Utah

“It’s mid-December and I haven’t even started planning this year’s Christmas Noun,” D List Author Larry Correia told the other science fiction and fantasy authors sitting around the big table in his office. Have you ever seen Castle, where Nathan Fillion plays poker with a bunch of famous mystery and thriller authors? It was just like that, but nerdier.

“Seriously, Correia? The party is about to enter the Fortress of Despair. Can’t we just focus on the game for once?” Chuck Gannon, who was Dungeon Master, complained. “And where did Ringo go?”

“Taking a smoke break… But come on guys, I’ve been doing this for eight years now. I need ideas.”

“Just add a dog,” #1 bestselling author Jim Butcher suggested. “People love dogs.”

“Brilliant!” Larry Correia glanced over at CorreiaTech CFO, Wendell the Manatee, who was floating peacefully in his giant fish tank, eating a barrel of Cheetos. “Make a note. Add a dog. And this time, don’t have a werewolf eat it.”

“Fleeeerp.” Wendell responded. “Mehwoo?”

“Because Peter Orullian couldn’t make it, you’re filling in for him, the party needs a healer, so the new guy has to play the Cleric.”

“Foooooooooooo,” Wendell grumbled, as he glanced down at the water logged character sheet in his flippers. Wendell was more of a jock than a nerd, but he’d gotten roped into this dork fest somehow.

“Okay, so the party enters the Fortress. It is a place of gloom and oppressive darkness. Spider webs cling to your face. To the left is a massive door.”

“I check the door carefully for traps and—”

“HOOOOOOOON!”

“Damn it, Wendell! Wait for us!”

“The manatee cleric bashes in the door! On the other side there’s a hideous ogre looming over you! Roll initiative!”

“Wait… I don’t remember. Which dice do I use to roll initiative?” Brad Torgersen asked because he was the one dude at the table who could never remember how any of the rules worked. The rest of the group sighed. Even the manatee understood the rules better already, and he couldn’t even roll his dice because they were all floating at the top of his tank.

“Okay, okay, the dog is marketing gold and all, but I kind of need like a plot and stuff for this year’s Christmas Noun.” Larry said as he rolled his dice. “Eight… If I don’t harness the power of the Christmas Noun, then the spirit of Christmas, and the very fabric of space and time, will be in danger. And my fans will be pissed, and you’ve seen them. Those guys are way scary.”

“It’s always about you, isn’t it?” Chuck Gannon muttered. “I wrote Traveler you know. I do all this thankless game prep, and then you’re the one always interrupting game night asking for advice on how to help the Yard Moose Mountain Police solve crimes.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault the YMMPD needs my keen novelist’s brain to solve baffling mysteries, like the case of the missing cow, or which teenager spray painted graffiti on farmer Jenkins’ tractor.”  Okay, so maybe Castle was a little cooler.

“Let’s see. You’ve written militant reindeer, evil snowmen, Obamacare, the Social Justice Noun, and the cast of the View. You’re going to need some really powerful bad guy to up the stakes this year,” Brad suggested.  “The way I see it you need somebody super evil. Like rock the pillars of creation, mega-bad.”

“Hmmmm…” Correia stroked his magnificent murder hobo beard thoughtfully. The clever science fiction author was onto something.

“Nobody cares. Stick in some Christmas Draculas. Let’s get back to the game.” The DM looked around the table at everyone’s initiative scores. “You’re facing the terrifying ogre. It looks like Butcher is first.”

“You guys should be used to that by now… You know, because of our relative sales rankings.”

“Quit rubbing it in,” Correia said.

“Maybe if you spent more time writing and less time painting all these little metal dudes you wouldn’t have writers block,” Butcher said as he gestured toward all of the finely painted 28mm miniatures on the table between the pizza boxes serving as the Fortress of Despair. “And then Christmas wouldn’t be in danger.”

“I will not be Nerd Shamed by a LARPer, Butcher! This means war.”

“Oh yeah?  My wizard uses Tweetomancy against Correia’s dumb barbarian.”

“My barbarian attacks his wizard with my +5 Tetsubo of Fisking!” Correia pounded the table for emphasis, which spilled his Coke Zero all over Chuck Gannon’s pristine limited edition rulebooks.

“Okay, that’s it. I’m sick of you guys’ crap!” The Dungeon Master shouted. “It’s on now! Out of nowhere randomly Cthulhu shows up. That’s right! And Cthulhu is wearing power armor! Prepare to die.”

The party groaned. Now they had done it.

“’Sup, nerds,” John Ringo said as he came back into the room. He adjusted his kilt and sat down. “Sorry my fine Cuban cigar lit by hundred dollar bills break took so long, but I got spun up and wrote another bestselling novel during it. What did I miss? Hey, who ate all the Cheetos?”

“Meehwhoooooooo.”

“Cthulhu showed up because Correia pissed off the DM again.”

“I have an eighteen in charisma. I try to seduce Cthulhu!” Brad exclaimed, because every game night has that guy.

But it didn’t matter how bad the party was about to get slaughtered, because Larry Correia had been given an idea for this year’s Christmas Noun. Torgersen was right. It was time to bring in the scariest, meanest, most incomprehensibly evil villain the universe had ever seen…

###

And now excerpts from our feature presentation:

CHRISTMAS NOUN 8: TOO NOUN MOST ADJECTIVE

Written by Larry Correia. Directed by Justin Lin. Soundtrack by Wu Tang Clan.

Opening narration by Ron Perlman

This again? Man, is it December already? Let me guess, blah, blah, blah, tortured metaphors about pending darkness. Hmmm… Hang on. Wow. This intro is actually really well written. In fact, it’s mind blowing. Correia really stepped up his game this year. (clears throat)

Seven years have passed since Tim took up the mantle of Christmas Warrior. Utilizing the power of the Christmas Noun he has—

BUFFERING

Then the little crippled orphan girl found her teddy bear and—

BUFFERING

–by the global warming power of love.

Stop recording.  I’m a pro’s pro, but I’m having a hard time speaking, I’m just so choked up right now. That was beautiful. Man, that intro blurb was nuanced and heart wrenching. It punched me right in the feels. It’s like I appreciate the true meaning of Christmas again. (Ron Perlman sheds a single manly tear)

Because Christmas… Christmas never changes. 

***

From Chapter 1

Tim had taken the day off from Christmas warrioring to stand in line for the midnight showing of the new Star Wars movie.

“I’m so excited,” Sally Love-Interest told Tim. “Do you think Bilbo will be able to beat Lord Voldemort this time?”

Tim sighed. “Sure, babe. That sounds great.” Because the part of Sally is played by a super-hot young actress, she was really rocking the Princess Leia gold bikini that Tim had gotten for her.

Suddenly there was a flash of light, and several of the waiting moviegoers were knocked aside as Wendell’s fish tank teleported into the mall. Normally Tim would have been glad to see his time-travelling, dimension-hopping manatee sidekick appear, but Wendell’s sudden arrival worried him.

“Look, I told Santa months ago that I needed tonight off. I know Christmas Warrior is a salary position, but this is getting ridiculous. It’s Star Wars premier night!”

“Fleeeeerp?”

“I’m not wearing a bathrobe. This is my Jedi cosplay.”  But Wendell was obviously confused by the strange customs of this dimension—Wendell’s home reality was way more into Firefly than Star Wars, what with their five seasons of the show, a trilogy of hit movies, and the resulting Libertarian Space Cowboy Revolution that had gotten Adam Baldwin elected president instead of Barack Obama—so Tim got down to business. “So what now? More lame Christmas Draculas?”

Wendell shook his ponderous bulk in the negative. The manatee quickly info-dumped that he suspected the author was going to do what long running franchises inevitably did, and bring in even meaner and scarier bad guys. Plus, since Wendell was a Harvard MBA, he pointed out that this year’s Christmas Noun had a huge special effects budget to blow through, and they’d brought in the director from the Fast & Furious, so Tim had better be ready for anything. Laws of physics be damned.

“Got it. Thanks for the heads up, buddy.”

But then some of the Star Wars fans waiting in line noticed the giant aquatic mammal. “Nice Jabba cosplay.”

“Hoooon?”

“Easy there, Wendell. He didn’t mean anything by it. Don’t let your fiery Florida man temper get the better of you. Don’t forget that court mandated community service is how you ended up being the Ghost of Christmas Future-Past to begin with.”

“Huh? I thought that was Chris Matthews,” said another fan dressed as a Jawa.

Then Wendell lost it, went over the top of his tank, and flipper slapped the Jawa, because manatees have feelings too.

***

From Chapter 2

Still a little dejected that security had ejected him from the mall for fighting, Tim returned home to his Black Tiger Kung Fu Dojo and Mall Santa Prep Academy for Inner City Youths. He’d tried to restrain Wendell from assaulting that Jawa, but manatees were surprisingly slippery. Now Wendell was in jail, Tim was banned from the theater, and Sally was going to watch the movie without him, so he’d have to do his best to avoid inadvertent spoilers. This was shaping up to be the worst Christmas ever.

Okay, to be fair the one where he had to massacre all those Pajama Boys because of the Affordable Christmas Act was way worse. Never mind.

But Tim remembered the Retired Ghost of Christmas-Future Past’s warning about a new looming threat to Christmas, so he got on Google and searched for super evil villains so he’d know what to expect. Tim was figuring horrible monsters or terrorists or Joy Behar, but instead he discovered that the number one most nefarious villain on the internet was a mysterious being known as Straw Larry.

Someone truly that evil had to be on the Naughty List, so Tim called Santa.

“Ho Ho Hello, Tim. How was Star Wars?”

“I didn’t get to see it yet.”

“Oh, you’ll love the scene where they reveal Kylo Ren is Jar Jar—”

“SPOILERS SANTA! SPOILERS!”

“Yes, of course. How naughty of me. What can I do for you, Tim?”

“I’m doing research on a potential threat, maybe even worse than the Grinch or Stabby. What do you know about Straw Larry?”

“Straw Larry? That guy’s a dick. I heard that he once tried to kick women out of publishing.”

“How did he do that?”

“By nominating a bunch of women for some publishing award.”

“But that doesn’t even make any sense.”

“I know… They say that his evil is incomprehensible.”

“What else?”

“He hates women so much and wants them to be victimized, so he spent years teaching women how to shoot guns to defend themselves.”

“That doesn’t make sense either.”

“Incomprehensible evil, Tim.” Santa made his voice all low and spooky.  “Incomprehensible.”

Tim hung up. This could possibly be the greatest threat the Christmas Noun had ever faced.

****

From Chapter 4

“You’ll never get away with this, Straw Larry!” the real Larry shouted as he struggled ineffectively against his bonds.

Straw Larry was a hideous creature, dredged up from the fevered imagination of thousands of SJWs, given unnatural life through their salty tears of perpetual outrage and powered by their endless butthurt, he was the living embodiment of every awful, nonsensical, conflicting, mutually exclusive, asinine thing they’d ever accused Larry Correia of, made real. He got the name because he was literally a straw man. I guess it just kind of just stuck, what with all the straw and stuff.

“You made the mistake of inviting the ultimate evil into your reality and now you will pay,” Straw Larry hissed.

“Huh?”

“The suggestion from TorgersOn to up the ante on evil was all part of my evil scheme all along, to enter your world, and to destroy light, goodness, and the Christmas Noun once and for all! We tricked you into using your powers of imagination for EVIL! BWA HA HA HA HAHAAAAAA!”

“That wasn’t Evil Brad, that was regular Brad. I can tell because the evil one has a goatee. I didn’t write you into this year’s story, because I was going to phone it in and just use a two headed Christmas Dracula.”

“Oh… Never mind,” Straw Larry mumbled. He waved one straw hand dismissively. “We’ll fix the plot it in post. Anyways, I’m here now, to be incomprehensibly evil. I am the living embodiment of every bad thing you’ve been accused of on the internet. I am the mysterious hair in your soup. I am the car alarm that goes off in the middle of the night. When somebody stubs their toe, I was there.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Trigger warning. I am the patriarchy! I am neo-colonial privilege! I am cisgendernormative fascism! I am Bush-Hitler-Satan!”

“Meh.”

“Oh yeah? You know how when you’re playing World of Tanks, and the internet gets really laggy and jerky? I cause that.”

“You bastard! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

The real Larry tried to escape, but he’d been zip tied to his comfy office chair, and let’s be honest, authors don’t really get a lot of cardio, so he got winded and gave up after a minute.

(editor’s note, I’m trapped. I can only hope that as the creator of this universe, that I have sufficiently empowered Tim with the depth and strength of character needed to overcome this terrible challenge)

****

From Chapter 5

“La la la la la la la! I can’t hear you!” Tim shouted, because he had his fingers stuck in his ears.

“And then, there was like this explosion, and a space battle, and it was all like, whoosh, buuuuuur, fizz, fizz!” Sally Love-Interest did a very poor impersonation of a light saber. “And the cool mask guy was really some other guy, who I think might have been Dr. Who, but then the hairy guy and the old guy flew on a different space ship, and how do you think that adorable robot rolled around like that? Well, anyways, then the space girl had the laser shooter thingy, and she was all like buzz, buzz, boom, and—”

“NO SPOILERS!” Tim ran to the nearest window, crashed through the glass, and plummeted into the night.

(editor’s note. Okay. I’m boned)

****

From Chapter 7

His spying mission had been compromised. Tim had barely been able to escape the nanotech enhanced guard moose around the CorreiaTech Compound.  Luckily there had been several European super cars just parked there with their keys in the ignition, so he’d been able to escape in an amazing car chase that was extremely pretty to look at, but made very little sense, and violated most of Newton’s laws.

Once the Lamborghini landed safely on top of the speeding bullet train, and the parachute detached, and then exploded into a random fireball, Tim turned to the passenger seat. “Good work, Superfluous Marketing Dog™*,” Tim told his new loyal, lovable, adorable, brave yet huggable, animal companion.

“Woof,” said Superfluous Marketing Dog™, in the most adorable way imaginable.

“Awwwwwwwwwww,” went the audience.

(editor’s note… Damn. Jim Butcher is a friggin’ genius)

*Superfluous Marketing Dog™ Plush Toys coming soon to the CorreiaTech SWAG page.

***

From Chapter 9

Thanks to the extended dream sequence last chapter, Tim was able to look inside himself and once again discover the true meaning of Christmas. It wasn’t about Star Wars, but it was about love, and family, and remembering what was really important. Tim would have shed a single manly tear at this plot mandated profound realization moment, but Ron Perlman had already used up their quota of manly emotion back when he narrated the intro.

“I’ve got to hand it to you, Tim. Your franchise made it eight whole seasons before you needed to call me in to save it,” said the Rock, who was playing the all new Ghost of Christmas Present Tense, Self-Esteem, and Physical Fitness. “That’s like a record. Usually a franchise has to call in me or Bruce Willis long before it gets to this point, but you Christmas Noun guys have got heart.”

“Thanks, Dwayne. We just didn’t have the budget before, but once I learned you were a Monster Hunter fan, I figured it was worth a shot.”

“Hell’s yeah. Monster Hunter kicks ass. If Straw Larry murders real Larry, I’ll never find out what happens next. Now let’s go wreck some straw. For Christmas!” He stuck out his hand.

“For Christmas!” Tim said as he put his hand on top of Dwayne Johnson’s.

“Woof!” barked Superfluous Plot Dog™ as he put his paw on top of Tim’s hand.

“HOOOOOOOON!” bellowed Wendell, the recently bailed out of jail manatee, as he put his flipper on the dog.

“For Christmas,” Santa said with grim finality as he placed one mitten on the flipper.

“For Boxing Day!”

“Sally! You’re ruining our inspiring team building moment.”

“Oh my gosh, this is just like that part I saw in The Star Wars!” Sally exclaimed.

Everyone shushed her.

***

From Chapter 10

“I don’t know, Mr. The Rock, this convoluted heist plan to rescue Real Larry from Straw Larry, with the double back switcheroo, and the flying bank vault, with the cars jumping off the airplanes, and the rocket moose, all requiring split second timing from every member of our team, all performed during a musical montage, seems like it might not work out. I don’t think cars, guns, rockets, airplanes, or gravity work that way.”

“Take it up with the director, Tim. I’m just here to make this look good.”

***

From Chapter 11

Their convoluted heist plot almost worked, except for one little detail… Originally our soundtrack for the montage was supposed to have been supplied by Wu-Tang Clan, only that album had been purchased by billionaire industrialist Chuck McScrouge—who we hadn’t seen since he’d gotten his liver eaten clear back in the Christmas Noun 3—for his sole listening enjoyment.  Tim hurried and put on some Hootie and the Blowfish, but by then it was too late.

So now our plucky band of heroes were trapped high atop Yard Moose Mountain, surrounded and menaced by nanontech enhanced guard moose, with nothing to watch on Santa’s little sleigh TV except for the Republican Debates.

“Mehwooo?”

“Yes, Donald Trump is still leading in the polls, Wendell.”

“Moooooooooooooooooo?”

“Yes, I know he’s a rich obnoxious bloviating New Yorker, lifelong democrat, Clinton donor, who used to be in favor of an assault weapons ban, who likes eminent domain, restrictions on the internet, wanted the government to do something about violent video games, with policy positions that change by the hour, who has been proudly endorsed by Vladimir Putin, but yes, he is actually leading among republicans who self-identify as “liberal” or “moderate” so the media declared him the new face of conservatism and won’t shut up about him. If he wins the primary like the media wants him to, then he’ll go against one of two batty old socialists who don’t understand basic econ,” Tim explained patiently.

“Floooooooo.”

“What? Back in your home dimension, Labor Secretary and Fisk Master Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs, is favored to win the presidency now that Adam Baldwin’s two terms are up?” Tim asked incredulously. “Man, our universe really does suck in comparison.”

“Moo,” Wendell agreed.

“Yeah, just rub it in, why don’t you?”

“This is just like that part where the old guy with the beard revealed that he was the dad of the bad guy with the laser sword!” Sally exclaimed.

Worst. Christmas. EVER.

***

From Chapter 12

Because of the plot mandated Trial/Fail cycle our plucky band of heroes was able to rally, use the power of the Christmas Noun, make a come-back, and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (which was the opposite of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, which was more of an establishment GOP thing). The ensuing epic car chase made literally zero sense, but it blew through the rest of our special effects budget and then some.

Tim stood before the narrowly defeated Straw Larry, in the wreckage of the flaming dirigible, that he had crashed his Bugatti Veyron through. “You’re finished, Straw Larry!”

“The greatest evil that has ever existed, defeated…” the awful monster sighed. “Oh well. I’ll always have Twitter.”

“Yeah, about that, I’m not really sure how your nefarious master plan was supposed to work out. In order to destroy Christmas you opened up a charity petting zoo to benefit the Old Folks Home/Orphanage/Teddy Bear Hospital.”

“The fainting goats were too adorable,” Straw Larry said wistfully.

“I don’t get it. But that wasn’t a bad thing at all, only the internet flipped out, and even major media sites and newspapers spun it as racist and homophobic. I just don’t understand.”

“That’s because my evil is incomprehensible, Tim. Until next time…” And then Straw Larry threw himself from the flaming dirigible, to explode into a cloud of straw against the rocks far below.

Wendell put a little ranch dressing on the straw and ate it like a salad.

***

Epilog narrated by Ron Perlman

(wipes eyes) Sorry, there must just be some dust in the air. Yeah… dust. That’s it.

Christmas was saved once again.  

To thank him for stopping Straw Larry, Santa got Tim’s mall ban revoked. Tim was finally able to watch his movie in peace. Luckily, it turned out that Sally had accidentally gone to the wrong theater and had been talking about Alvin and the Chipmunks: Boys on the Hood the whole time.

Wendell was convicted of 3^rd Degree Flipper Slapping With Intent to Hoon, and sentenced to another year of community service as the Ghost of Christmas Future-Past. Wendell T. Manatee could not be reached for comment.  

Superfluous Marketing Dog™ plush toys were such a hit they even outsold the Talking Wendell stuffed manatee during the 4^th quarter. Amazon executives were pleased. The now wealthy Superfluous Marketing Dog™ used his royalties to purchase his own private Wu Tang Clan album.

Larry the author was rescued and freed from his comfy office chair. Because Larry does not have tickets for Star Wars until Saturday, he will be hiding from the internet until then. Well, except for World of Tanks, obviously. But he mutes everybody and lone wolfs it anyway.

Straw Larry returned to the fevered imaginations of blue haired Twitter land whales. To this day he spreads hatemongery and confusion across the internet.

After years in the same role playing game campaign, Brad Torgersen is still not sure which dice to roll.

No moose or fainting goats were harmed in the production of this film.  

Because Christmas. Christmas never changes.

***

Merry Christmas, Monster Hunter Nation! 😀

 

 

I love to binge stream TV shows. The latest show that I’ve been streaming on Netflix is Hell on Wheels. I’m really enjoying it. It is probably the most beautifully shot thing out there. It is just so damned cinematic that I can’t paint while I watch it, and I have to actually watch it with my eyeballs and all of my brain.

It is well written, has complex characters, and the best part about it? In a period of American history about an unforgiving place where everybody had to be an unflinching bad ass to get anything done, so everybody is an unflinching bad ass. It plays fast and loose with actual history, but I love the vibe anyway. It doesn’t shy away from otherwise good people doing things that were normal then that we would consider absolutely awful today.

My wife is ahead of me and has seen all the episodes. When I got to season 3 she warned me that we were the bad guys. For the record, we’re Mormons. My wife’s family goes back to ye olden days, of starving hand cart companies, extermination orders, and mill massacres. (for the other Mormons present, she is a descendant of Wilford Woodruff and Lorenzo Snow, so that’ll give you an idea about her family tree).

My only question to her was, do they portray us as pussies? Nope? Good to go. I can handle being the bad guy, but I can’t stand when TV screws up and portrays Mormons as some sort of pseudo-Quaker non-violent bunch of sissy victims. Mormons spent a lot of time getting our asses kicked, but we certainly weren’t babies about it.

So I just finished season 3, and my people have been portrayed as merciless, violent dicks. But then again to be fair in this show the Union, the Confederacy, white folks, black folks, rich folks, poor folks, the Irish, the Germans, the Indians, and Unitarian Congregationalist Abolitionists have also been portrayed as merciless, violent dicks. The hero has murdered a bunch of people and the absolute worst person ever is a psychotic Norwegian who might actually be the devil. So I’m like, cool, whatever. That’s kind of the theme of a show that has Hell in the title, you know?

Then MSNBC resident braniac Melissa Harris “Tampon Earings” Perry educated everybody that Star Wars was racist because Darth Vader was a black guy…

Wow. Okay then. Since it was James Earl Jones doing Scary Robot Voice for a mangled white dude, I always thought it was bigoted against cyborgs and the handicapped. And Jawas… Don’t get me started on friggin’ Jawas, man.

But these things got me to thinking about characters and how we writers make them up and portray them, and how something you do is going to offend somebody. So today I want to talk about that aspect of character creation.

Recently I got screeched at by some idiot SJW who was nitpicking his way through my books to demonstrate how I was racist (because anybody who disagrees with them must be). His straw grasping came down to how I had minority characters as antagonists. Sure, he had to hand wave away the minority characters who were heroes and the majority characters who were antagonists but as we’ll see, the perpetually offended are going to find something to whine about no matter what. But amongst that bleating was some variant of “Correia used someone from SPECIAL VICTIM GROUP X as a bad guy! How dare he? Doesn’t he realize how HURTFUL that is to members of SPECIAL VICTIM GROUP X?”

Hmmm… Let me turn on any given TV show and see how the “groups” I belong to are portrayed by most of Hollywood. Gun nuts are dumb hick Bubbas. Religious types are usually delusional lunatics. Then we’ve got greedy capitalist 1%ers crushing the poor and downtrodden. Don’t even get me started on blood thirsty military contractors and the Evil Military Industrial Complex!

So no, I have no idea how it feels for my “tribe” to be identified in a negative manner. Hang on. I just rolled my eyes so hard I may have physically injured myself.

The thing is, because none of the groups I identify with are the type to flip out and hold protests (mostly because all of them tend to vote Republican, and we have jobs) so those groups are safe for writers to portray in a negative light… And so they do. All the time. The problem with safe is that it can quickly become tired and boring.

You know what else is homogenous and approved? Oatmeal. Smart writers aren’t going to serve their fans bland, predictable oatmeal very often, because they know the fans will get bored and spend their entertainment dollars on something else that doesn’t treat them like they’re stupid.

Culture warriors are going to focus on establishing narratives. They know that politics is down the road from culture, so they’re going to insist on checklists, and only offending groups that it is acceptable to offend. Art and entertainment comes after the mission of the day.

Smart writers are going to focus on entertainment. They’re probably going to offend everybody at some point. But at least they won’t be boring while they do it.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, the unforgivable sin for writers is being boring. As a writer you can get away with damned near anything as long as you are entertaining a big enough audience.

There is a contingent of readers out there who exist only to nitpick and bitch. There aren’t that many of them, but they make up for it by being loud. Many authors are under the mistaken impression that you can make these readers happy. You can’t. At best you can appease them. Temporarily. But you will cross their invisible line sometime and they will get all sorts of outraged.

For example, no matter what you write, a Social Justice Warrior can be offended somehow. If you have a minority character as a hero. Token. Villain? Stereotype. If you don’t have a minority character? Racist. If you feature some minority characters? Cultural appropriation.

See?

This comes up a lot with angry Twitter feminists who never tire of beating the long dead Portrayal-of-Women-in-Fiction horse. Trust me. That horse is nothing but red paste now. This particular type of Perpetual Offense is a cottage industry in video games today, usually from “journalists” who’ve apparently never actually played any video games.

If you give a female character any flaws, you’ll be attacked by angry feminists. Sure, all of us actual writer types realize that flawed characters are drastically more interesting that perfect characters, but the only allowable female character is STRONG WOMYN. Hell, even ACTION GIRL can get the author in trouble for “dude with boobs” or “solving problems in a stereotypical male fashion”. And if you describe her in any way that is traditionally attractive? You and your patriarchy are doomed.

Or if you fail to put the topic of the day into your book, you’ll be railed at for that. Sure, you didn’t write a book about Global Warming, so it didn’t come up, but for them it should have. But I’m sticking with characters today, and not things like SJWs whining how a book I wrote in 2007 didn’t address the concerns of Black Lives Matter in 2015.

Now to be fair this nitpicky outrage totally goes both ways, just far more often from the Social Justice side. I’ve occasionally been accused of “pandering” because I’ve written minority heroes and white male bad guys. That’s just the same asinine nonsense, only flipped around. Well, duh. I’ve written like fifteen books now so I’ve had damn near everyone and everything as a protagonist or antagonist at some point.

So writers can either walk on egg shells to avoid potentially giving offense to the perpetually offended, or we can just not give a shit, and keep writing books that make us happy.

What most of us soon realize is that it isn’t about our work at all (don’t assume they actually read it either) but rather they only care if you’re part of their tribe. If you aren’t with them then anything you write can be offensive somehow, and if you are part of their tribe you can sound like Heinrich Himmler and still get a pass. When the game is rigged so that they always win, why would you try to play their game?

Once you realize that you’re writing for you and your fans, and not a bunch of angry assholes with checklists, it is incredibly liberating.

Authors and aspiring authors, when you’re creating a character don’t worry about what the haters will say. Just make the character whatever you need them to be to fulfill the job in the story you gave them. Make them interesting. Give them whatever traits make sense to you, or that you find fun. That’s the most important thing of all, because if you are having fun writing it, that feeling is contagious and will come through in your writing, and your readers are more likely to have fun reading it.

I’ve often mentioned “checklist” writing. That’s where authors feel like their story has to check boxes off a list in order to appease people. I get this all the time from newer and aspiring writers, some variation of “don’t I have to have X” or “I’m not allowed to have Y!” It doesn’t matter. You could go down your character list checking boxes on an EEOC form, and somebody somewhere will still be outraged that your transsexual Muslim who identifies as a dinosaur, only featured in 7.4% of the book.

That whole Bechdel Test thing? Where they ask are there two females in a scene who talk about something other than a man? Okay, first off, you shouldn’t have to “test” your story for anything beyond is it readable and entertaining enough to sell it to somebody, but second WHO CARES? (well, a legion of Twitter feminists and gender studies professors obviously) Right off the bat most of the mega-selling romance genre fails the test, and most of those books are written by female authors for a female audience (and the romance genre makes serious bank compared to the rest of us).

There isn’t some arbitrary test that if you pass you’re good, and if you fail you’re sexist. Because you see what they call me, and I wrote Grimnoir, where the single most important, pivotal, critical, essential dialog scene in the entire trilogy was two young women talking about origami on top of a blimp. Test passed, and I’m the International Lord of Hate.

The real test for every scene should be asking yourself, is this scene good? Is this entertaining? Does this advance the story? Does this scene expand the characters or the universe? But that should be every scene, not just the one with two female characters in it.

Now, back to what started this train of thought today, having somebody from Group Whatever as antagonists, and how that’s so incredibly offensive… That’s just bullshit. The bad guys can often be the most awesome part of the book. Interesting antagonists can make or break a book. Star Wars wouldn’t have been a hit without Darth Vader. Lord Vader made Star Wars cool. James Earl Jones was the voice of Vader, because he has the most bad ass voice ever. This is CNN… Wow. How awesome do you have to be to make the lameness of CNN sound important?

Antagonists are vital. If you listen to the morons, all your antagonists would be the same. Everybody in the world who has watched Star Wars laughed at Melissa Harris Perry because of how profoundly ignorant she was, but that kind of half-cocked allegation happens constantly, only it’s usually just between some poor author/creator and a Twitter mob. If the Melissa Harris Perrys of the world had their way, every bad guy would be a thinly veiled Dick Cheney. That’s oatmeal. Screw oatmeal. I’m all about equal opportunity in my villainy.

So where is the real racism? Those of us who want to create memorable characters and entertaining stories, or those of us who want to deprive minorities of playing the most interesting parts?

In any book that isn’t navel gazing literati twaddle, or man versus nature, there is probably going to need to be some form of bad guy. Books need conflict. Antagonists equal conflict, and that’s a good thing. For the writers, your bad guys need to be great. They need to be so interesting that they potentially upstage your good guys. Hans Gruber versus John McClane. I’m rooting for McClane, but Hans steals every scene with his casual, clever, villainy (best Christmas movie ever, by the way).

But apparently Die Hard is racist against Germans (played by Englishmen). Go figure.

So if antagonists are so damned important, where to these Perpetually Outraged types get off saying that certain groups of people aren’t allowed to be the bad guys? That’s not fair. If they’d had their way, nobody would be dressing up as Boba Fett now because that would have been unfair stereotyping of Mandolorians.

You want to know one of the secrets of writing good villains? If you can take the story, flip it around, start telling it from the bad guy’s perspective, and their actions and motivations make perfect sense to the reader, then that makes for good villainy. The good guy is a matter of Point of View. Okubo Tokugawa knew he was doing horrible things and he still thought he was the hero in Hard Magic. His absolute conviction was also why he was one of the most popular characters I’ve ever written. The Chairman was like Darth Vader, only effective at more than choking coworkers at staff meetings. Hell, I wrote poetry for him to recite. But he wouldn’t have existed if I listened to the Perpetually Outraged because writing an Imperial Japanese bad guy was a racist stereotype (we’ll just ignore that unpleasantness in the Pacific in the ‘40s and things like Chinese severed head mountains).

When creating characters, give them features that make sense for your universe, make them more memorable, or interesting, or compelling, or something. Don’t just bust out your Mandatory Approved Diversity Checklist and say, oh I have to have one of these, and one of these, and two of these, except for the Bad Guy, who is obviously Dick Cheney from Blackwater. It’s a story. It isn’t a shopping list. Because checklist writing is lazy writing, and it often leads to cheesy, cardboard stereotype characters. Make them believable people, with wants, and needs, goals, desires, flaws, history, likes, dislikes, and personality. And if you make it so all of that stuff makes sense, then they’re aren’t going to be offensive, they’re going to be human.

Characters are about more than what stupid arbitrary narrow box the government makes you check on an EEOC form. I’m all in favor of Idris Elba as James Bond, and it has nothing at all about it being a “triumph of diversity” but rather because he’s a British dude who plays world weary bad ass better than anyone else I can think of. Watch Luther. Plus, Craig’s movies were a franchise reboot, as we saw in Skyfall Bond was his real name, but when he retires, they’ll continue to use his name as the code name for the next agent picked as 007. That fits the universe. And unlike Craig, in real life Elba can drive a stick.

That said, I don’t like the idea of the Rock as Jack Burton. Why? I love the Rock. I love Kurt Russell, but I don’t think Big Trouble in Little China should get a reboot with a new Jack. Instead, they should just write another story in the same universe, set it twenty years later, give the Rock his own unique character, and have old Jack Burton come back to dispense wisdom and bullets. I think that better fits that universe better.

Never assume that your characters—let alone your readers and fans—share the same hang ups as some angry blue haired land whale on Twitter. Just tell your story.

This is why I can watch my people be bad guys on a TV show and not get my panties in a twist. Is Hell on Wheels accurate with its Mormon antagonists? Let’s put it this way, the children’s hymn with Mr. Gunderson didn’t exist for another hundred years, and if we’d ever shot that many people Grant would have scourged us from the face of the Earth. And one plotline involving an imposter? Wouldn’t work. Too small of an interconnected community. But I’ll check my brain at the door and look at this as entertainment.

Were the Mormons interesting antagonists with understandable human motivations? The scene with the father giving up his son to be hanged? Dark, incredibly cruel, but it made sense. An angry father transferring his own failing onto another target? Flip it around and see if it makes sense if you tell their story. Yep, flawed, but understandable. They don’t need to be perfect angels, they just need to be believable humans for the rules established by the universe.

So the characters succeed at their job. Story told. Wow, that was a lot easier that getting all outraged about the part where my kid’s ancestors shot everybody in Cheyenne Wyoming.

The writers of Hell on Wheels get that their viewers don’t want oatmeal. They want conflict between flawed people, challenges overcome, and an occasional triumph. These people also showed Indian stickball-to-the-death so I can only imagine their hate mail looks a lot like mine. (though if one particular character did in fact get eaten by a bear, I’m going to be pissed).

Inevitably I get attacked by dipsticks who haven’t read my books about the imaginary bad think that Straw Larry put into my books. Normally my fans come to my rescue listing off all of the characters that don’t fit their narrative. That’s fun for the fans, but it is ultimately a waste of time, because authors can never sway the willfully ignorant.

The Perpetually Outraged offer advice the same way an abusive husband does, and both do it because they enjoy watching people cower. You brought it on yourself when you crossed their invisible line and unknowingly used a character in an unapproved way. It’s your fault they hit you. Maybe if you’re better next time they won’t have to.

The cool thing is, once you’ve pissed these people off, and they’ve done their best to ruin you, and they’ve called you racist, sexist, whatever-phobic, you’ll learn that the Perpetually Outraged are actually rather impotent. It used to be that this would scare away customers, but the times are changing. Most people are wise to their game and nobody likes them anymore. They’ve worn out their welcome.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to work outlining this Julie Shackleford novel. Now there’s a Strong Woman who’d laugh at the cries of the Perpetually Outraged.

A fan just shared this in the comments.

http://supervikes.blogspot.com/

As a mini painter, I approve. That is pretty nifty stuff.

And he’s right. Mini sculpting is damned hard.

Here is Part 2 of that podcast I did for Baen about Son of the Black Sword http://www.baen.com/podcast/podcast.asp