Both of these are for gamers.

Ever want to make your own dungeon? 🙂 This one only has 4 hours left:  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dwarvenforge/dwarven-forges-game-tiles-revolutionary-miniature?ref=live

And everybody needs a pagoda for their magical samurai:  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1093338811/east-asian-village-for-28mm-gamers?ref=live

 

I got this posted to the comments a few days ago. My answer got really big so I turned it into another Ask Correia post on writing! 😀

Mr. Correia, like the poster above, I, too, am interested in a career in writing, but I have a bit of a different issue. Back in December, either Ace of Spades HQ or Instapundit (quite possibly both) linked to “An Opinion on Gun Control” and I duly read it. Having never heard of you or your work, I kept poking around your site and then picked up a copy of the Monster Hunters omnibus, partly because the series sounded awesome and partly because there were some vague similarities to a book idea I’ve been working on off and on for a couple years now (work and life have intervened, but I have somewhere between 20-30 pages of outlines and about the same number of pages written).

As I read first three Monster Hunter novels, I became increasingly more horrified over the number of surface level similarities (easily a dozen or so) between your books and the ideas I have on paper and in my head. The meat of what I’m working on is very different, but a good number of points are way too similar for my taste. I’m deathly afraid of accidentally ripping you off, or appearing to do so intentionally, so do you have any suggestions for what to do? I’ve already had to shelve 50 pages of rough draft a few years back when I happened to find a book at my local Barnes & Noble that was too close to that particular idea for my comfort (that book was a Da Vinci Code ripoff and mine was more of a spaghetti western set during the surge in Iraq, but both involved Alexander the Great’s mummified remains). I’m a bit at a loss for what to do, so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

#

That is a really good question. All fiction writers, aspiring or pro, are going to run into this at some point. How do you avoid unintentionally ripping somebody off?  No real novelist wants to do this. We all want to tell a story, but sometimes we learn that something we thought was new really wasn’t, so then what?

Okay. First off, don’t worry about it. Yes. Plagiarism is bad. But we’re not talking about plagiarism, we’re talking about similar ideas, not outright copying. If you are straight up copying somebody else’s work you are scum.

We are talking about ideas. You don’t want to use somebody else’s ideas. That is a noble sentiment.  There is one problem with this however. Anything you think of, no matter how original it might seem, something similar has been done before.

Think of any current book, comic, movie, or TV show that you like. Odds are that there is some element of that story which has been done before. Is this a rip off? Probably not. Far more likely is that humans have been creating stuff for a very long time, and if you have thought of it, one of the millions of creators that came before you thought of it as well.

So go ahead and write it. Just make sure you put your unique spin on it. Give it your voice. Flavor it to your taste. By the time you are done it will have turned into its own original thing.

For example, I’ve seen people post reviews of MHI, and then somebody else will say in the comments, “Well that sounds just like Hell Boy/Buffy/Men in Black/Supernatural/1000 other things where people secretly fight monsters!” Yes. And the fact that you can name a whole bunch of things that have a similar basic idea shows that idea is commercially viable. Now once you read MHI and compare it to any of those you see that it is a different take on an idea that has been around for a very long time. I’m pretty sure I’ve got the only one about libertarian gun nut contractors in Alabama who deal with trailer park elves and gangster gnomes.

Stories are more than one particular idea. They are a whole bunch of ideas and characters and situations crammed together into one book. Sometimes you will have ideas that are very similar to one particular other creation, but which are totally different in other ways. Once again, that’s fine, because it is all about the personal spin you put on it.

For example, in the Grimnoir Chronicles, I’ve got this 1930s pulp setting where people have magic. However, I set it up so that magical people only have one type of magic that dinks around with one area of the laws of physics (and if you read this fantasy, you realize that it is actually sci-fi in a very weird way). Because people have only one area then the magic system has a very super hero vibe. So when I introduce the government wanting to register these magical people and throw the unruly ones into camps, I get accused of superficially ripping of X-Men by  a couple of reviewers.

Except that wasn’t even what I was going for, since the government loves to register everything so they can control it (and Grimnoir is actually a very political series), and the idea of the government throwing 140,000 Americans into camps without due process because they are different and scary isn’t that far fetched, especially when you consider the president I was writing about was FDR… You know… The guy that actually threw 140,000 Americans into camps without due process because they were different and scary… Heck. I even used the same camps like Topaz and Minidoka and some folks still missed that.

I get some reviewers who said I stole the idea from the X-Men, when actually I stole it from history, and I’ve got a sneaky feeling that whoever created that story idea for the X-Men probably was familiar with FDR rounding up all the of the Japanese (because for the record, FDR was a jackass).

Not that me and the Marvel Universe aren’t square anyway, since the weekend Avengers came out I had 200 some odd emails asking me what I thought of the ending. I said that I really enjoyed SPOILER ALERT tossing a nuke through an interdimensional portal to cut off an invasion so much that I wrote it as the finale for a book and I liked the hero floating through space after going through an alien portal so much that I ended another novel too!

Do I think Joss Whedon copied MHI and MHV for that scene in the Avengers? Of course not. It was just too awesome not to do. I’m pretty sure that if you looked through the history of sci-fi, something similar had been done before as well, because if it is awesome, then somebody thought of it.

Another example… In Hard Magic, Jake Sullivan, who can control gravity, gets into a fight in a hotel hallway, and keeps shifting the pull of gravity’s direction against his opponent. Also in the same book, there’s another scene where he lightens gravity so that he can scale up an elevator cable quickly… So obviously when this book came out right after Inception I started getting slammed with LARRY CORREIA RIPPED OFF INCEPTION!!! WAAAAAAAH reviews. Except that the advanced reader copies of Hard Magic came out months before the movie did.

No relation. Similar ideas, but that’s it. When you actually compare the two, they really aren’t that similar at all, except that some doofus on the internet will always be counted on to whine. But these are the same people that thought Lord of the Rings like totally ripped off Harry Potter.

Agents and publishers get query letters all of the time saying “this idea of mine is so original and has never been done before!” and then they yawn as they read about a boy with a destiny who goes on a quest to defeat the dark overload by reclaiming the magic macguffin. But the good versions of that story will still sell and get published because people like to read that story.

If you think your idea is so super original, it probably isn’t, and you probably just haven’t read enough books to realize it.

There are very few works that are truly awesomely amazeballs original. And often these works suck and are incomprehensible.  Have you seen The Fountain by Darren Aronofsky? That is a truly original, visionary hour and a half of WTF? (and now Hugh Jackman is Buddha, wait… now he’s a conquistador… Only the conquistador is growing flowers out of his chest!)

Go to TV Tropes and read. These things are tropes because they work. They reappear often because human beings have been eating up stories for a very long time, and storytellers have learned tricks that work.

So don’t get too hung up on this. Write your story. No matter what you do, or how original you think you are, somebody, somewhere, is going to find some element of your story that is similar to something else that has been created before.  All that matters is that you tell the best story possible.

Okay, what if you are “inspired” by somebody else’s ideas? And you write something with ideas that are very similar? Well, that depends. I once got ripped off by a little game company, where the scenario was the freighter scene from MHI, they’d changed French to Russian, changed the characters names, and then pretty much everything else was the same… That was bad.

A good example? Yojimbo, Fistful of Dollars, and Last Man Standing aren’t just inspired by, they are the same exact story. Only the original was samurai, the next was cowboys, and the last was gangsters, and all three are drastically different movies. And the crazy part? Yojimbo was based on the novel Red Harvest by Hammett which was a gangster story. So the whole thing went full circle.

I’m excited by the previews for Pacific Rim, but I always get people saying “Well that’s just a rip off of Gundam/Robotech/various giant Robots fighting monsters stories!” Yes… But it has Giant Robots punching Godzillas while Luther gives a motivational speech! Sign me the hell up.

So tell the best story that you can, and make it your own. That’s the important thing.

The Drowning Empire is a weekly serial based on the events which occured during the  Writer Nerd Game Night monthly Legend of the Five Rings game.  It is a tale of samurai adventure set in the magical world of Rokugan.

If you would like to read all of these in one convenient place, along with a bunch of additional game related stuff, behind the scenes info, and detailed session recaps, I’ve been posting everything to one thread on the L5R forum,  http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=295&t=101206

This week’s episode is also from Brad Torgersen, and picks up right where last week’s left off. At this point of the game all of the characters had a 2 year time break. So everybody wrote fiction explaining what their characters did over that time until we got back together to continue the game. These give us some of our best pieces of fiction.

Continued from: http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/the-drowning-empire-episode-16-evening-on-the-dragonspire/

Tamori Isao fidgets before his Daimyo.  Tamori Shimura’s reputation for sourness precedes him.  The presence of Isao’s father, Tamori Kenta, is of little comfort.  Both the father and the son were made to wait over an hour in the genken of the Daimyo’s residence, before being admitted.  Whether the Daimyo is just that busy, or just that rude, is not something Isao can determine.  Shimura is getting silver-haired at the temples, with streaks of gray beginning to infuse his beard.  His eyes are heavily lidded and unhappy.  He glowers at Isao and Kenta.  Though all three men are skilled shugenja of the Tamori line, and Kenta essentially Shimura’s peer in ability, if not in station, there is little love lost between them.

“You want the boy to assay this task, instead of an experienced man?” the Daimyo says, somewhat incredulous.  Having heard the gist of Kenta’s brief on the events following the most recently concluded Topaz Championship, Shimura is visibly dubious about assigning such an important mission to someone so young and inexperienced as Isao; who keeps his tongue locked up while his father speaks.

“Shimura-sama,” Kenta says reverentially, “I believe the Fortunes have decreed it.  My son now enjoys the favor of the Heir himself.  He has proven his prowess in both simulated and actual combat, and brought honor to the Tamori while in Crane lands.”

“And what of the deep fear that makes the boy wet his futon every night?”

Isao resists the urge to retort, sensing Kenta’s mortification at the Daimyo’s unkind reference to Isao’s phobia of deep water.

“Fears can be controlled, Shimura-sama.  Conditioning can acclimate any man to anything, provided that there is proper training.  Isao has faced this new enemy and is more intimately connected to it than any of us could hope to be.  I believe my son is meant to be the one who will carry our mon against the foe.  I only ask that you give my son and I your approval; that we may begin Isao’s regimen immediately.  It will require additional participation from some of the dojos and sensei I am familiar with.  It may even require some extended travel beyond Dragon lands proper.”

“Look me in the eye, boy,” the Daimyo commands.

Isao slowly lifts his head, and stares directly into Shimura’s face.

The old man and the young man size each other up.

Tamori Shimura sighs, and turns away.

“See that he gets the best possible instruction, Kenta-san,” Shimura says.  “He bears the name and the pride of all the Tamori now.  He barely acquitted himself during the Topaz.  He’ll have to do much better than that in the future.  Or it will be both of you answering for it.  Now get out of my house.”

Isao follows his father’s lead, bowing almost to the floor, then the two of them hurry out.

               ##

            Isao struggles to push himself up onto his fists, elbows locked.  He is naked from the waist up and sweat pours in rivulets off his shoulders and back.  He has lost count of his repetitions, and merely groans in cadence with the rest of the students in the dojo.

“Down!” commands the sensei, her face passive but her voice stern.

Isao nearly collapses as he lowers himself back to the bamboo mat.

“Up!” commands the sensei, her rod of instruction ready to slap the flesh of anyone failing to maintain properly rigid form.

Isao’s abdominal muscles are quietly screaming, as are his pectorals, triceps, and biceps.

Nevertheless, he wills himself to regain the starting position.  In unison with the other students, he calls, “Hachi!”

One more repetition of the push-up, and it’s, “Kyu!”

Still another repetition, and it’s, “Jyu!”

Then back down to the mat, where the cycle begins all over again, ascending up through the numbers.  Isao wonders how endless push-ups—or jiujutsu—are going to help him fight against the gaijin shugenja the menaces his memory.  He decides he doesn’t have the energy to waste on hypotheticals as the cycle finally grinds to a stop, and the sensei commands every student to his or her feet.

The push-ups are grueling, but they are merely a formal warmup prior to katas and, eventually, the day’s throwing and sparring.

Some students are slower than others to get to the position of attention, including Isao.  He is visibly shaking from exertion.  That he is both senior to the other students in age, as well as a Topaz veteran with combat time under his belt, is immaterial to the sensei.  She slaps Isao’s shoulder with her wooden rod and barks at him to move more quickly.

Somewhere, Isao suspects he hears his father is smiling.

 ##

            The bokken clips Isao on the leg so hard, he is sure there will be a bruise in the morning.

Just one, to match all the others from that week’s instruction on mixed weaponry tactics and technique.  The padded-but-heavy wooden pole in Isao’s hands is no comfort as the junior sensei of the dojo calls for Isao to step out of the ring, bow to his opponent, then step back in—center stance, ready to attack or defend.

The oversized toy in Isao’s hands is theoretically weighted to feel like a real tetsubo.  He is familiar with the basics, though this particular dojo is not for dilettantes.  Isao’s father Kenta has had to rely heavily on Isao’s expanding reputation from the Topaz Championship to earn him a place with such experienced Heavy Weapons experts.  The woman opposing Isao is a cross-trainer from one of the Mirumoto dojos.  Her movements with the bokken are as smooth and silky as her kimono, though moisture covers her brow, along with several indelicately loosened hairs.

“You cannot defeat the katana by using the club like a katana,” says the senior sensei, an ancient-looking fellow with an impressive scar down one cheek, and a stump where his left arm formerly attached at the left shoulder.

Isao winces at the sudden memory of his friend Akodo Toranaka, and he wonders just how well the Lion Clan bushi has been getting on since their split, following the attempt on the Heir’s life?  Did their mutual friend Uso deliver Isao’s plea to their Daimyo?  Isao has to hope.

Meanwhile, Isao wishes he had Toranaka-san’s finesse with edged weaponry.  The tetsubo feels stubborn and clumsy in Isao’s fists as he tries to wield it against his Mirumoto bushi, who again makes her point with a stiff jab through Isao’s defenses, planting the bokken squarely into his sternum.

The woman bushi smiles slightly as Isao stumbles back, momentarily out of breath.

His only consolation is that he’s not alone; many other trainees are enduring similar humiliation at the hands of their bushi sparring partners.

“Now then,” says the senior sensei, “having been properly humbled, let me begin to show you how to use the tetsubo the way it’s meant to be used.”

The old man effortlessly snaps up a padded sparring weapon from the rack on the dojo wall, and leaps into position against the bushi trainee nearest him.  Within three strokes he not only smashes the trainee’s bokken to pieces, but flattens the stunned bushi to the ground.  The sensei raises his tetsubo to land a crushing blow… and settles for a tap on the cringing bushi’s stomach.

##

            “It’s been a productive three months,” Tamori Kenta says as he and Isao sit on the veranda of Kenta’s house in the Dragonspine mountains.  “I see from the exhaustion in your face that my effort on your behalf has been well worth it.  You’re being pushed beyond your limits.  Shihan-san at the dojo tells me that you’ve become one of his best students on the tetsubo.  He thinks you might even become an instructor yourself one day.”

“I like the war club better than fighting with fists and feet, arms and legs.”

“No doubt,” Kenta replies.  “As your Grandfather might have said, by the time it comes down to beating the enemy with your knuckles or the edge of a straight palm, it’s too late.”

Isao nods, watching a trio of humming birds flit around the veranda railing while in the midst of dive-bombing a cluster of potted flowers hanging from one of the veranda’s roof beams.

“Speaking of your Grandfather, there’s something I’ve been meaning to show you.”

Kenta reaches to a cloth-covered parcel that he’s tucked close to his cushion on the veranda floor.  He hands it across to Isao, who takes it.  Isao’s eyes go wide at the weight of the thing, which he slowly unwraps to reveal a particularly wicked-looking tetsubo sporting jad knobs interspersed with iron spikes.  The wood has darkened with age, and iron bands wrap the weapon’s circumference.  Having learned a thing or two from Shihan-sama, Isao guesses that the tetsubo is of the finest native Dragon manufacture.

“Where did you get it?” Isao says, running his hands along the handle.

“Your Grandfather took that with him when he journeyed to Crab country.”

“Settling a dispute?”  Isao asks.

“With the Shadowlands, perhaps,” Kenta replies.  “Your Grandfather swung this weapon while serving on The Wall.”

Isao boggles.

“Grandfather was on the Wall??”

“For three weeks, give or take, according to what your Grandmother once told me.  Grandfather didn’t like to speak of it.  I think it had something to do with a Kuni challenge to Tamori dignity.  Anyway, your Grandfather had a point to make to our Kuni friends—he survived, and brought this back home with him to prove it.  It’s been in my keeping since your Grandfather’s death a few years ago, and now I’d like to give it to you, my son.”

Isao reverently stands and tests the weapon’s formidable mass.  Part of Shihan-sama’s training includes tetsubo weight drills designed to beef up the muscles needed to wield the thing at better-than-average proficiency. Isao is pleased that he can maneuver the old weapon with ease.  It is comfortable in his hands.

“We should keep it safe,” Isao says.  “It’s too precious.”

“Nonsense,” Kenta says.  “I think Grandfather would have been proud to see you wield it, and would have demanded you take it, once he learned how well you were doing at the dojo.  I was never much good with, nor interested in, war-clubbing.  But you?  I think you’ve managed to get the knack of it.  Besides, it would cost a lot of money you don’t have to purchase an equivalent tetsubo from a skilled Dragon smith.”

Isao lowers the weapon, sits back down, and re-wraps it in its cloth.

“I shall always swing with the memory of Grandfather on The Wall in my mind,” Isao says, half-awed.  He feels a quiet thrill of energy run up his spine at the thought of his kin wielding such a formidable weapon against the denizens of Jigoku.  If Isao was stunned by the news that his Father, Kenta, had once bedded a Unicorn woman bushi, he is doubly stunned to learn that his Grandfather once stood with the Crab on the demarcation line at Rokugan’s southwestern gate.

“See that you do, my son,” Kenta says, pouring their tea.  “See that you do.”

##

To be continued next week: http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/the-drowning-empire-episode-18-naming-the-stars/

And if you want to check out Brad’s paying work, here is the story he won the Analog Reader’s Choice Award for http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=monshuntnati-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=B004ZQRCRE

I wrote this opening a couple of years ago for a story in the 3rd Crimson Pact anthology with Steve Diamond. This was my second story about Diego Santos, Retired Marine and Freelance Exorcist.

I was rereading this today because Steve and I am currently writing the final story, wrapping this tale up for Crimson Pact 5. I write Santos (who knows the exact minute and how he’ll die) and Steve writes Tombs (the FBI agent who keeps coming back from the dead).  The last story is them at the apocolypse, battling demons, along with a shaman, a sniper, and a blind girl who can see through stolen eyeballs. 🙂

I read this intro and it made me smile, so I figured I would share it here again.

If anybody wants to red the whole thing, it is in here: http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=monshuntnati-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=0984006559

And the first story is here: http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=monshuntnati-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=0984006508

Diego Santos

Los Angeles, California

 

When you know you’ve only got two years, thirty days, one hour, and five minutes left before you get ripped apart by a demon prince at the beginning of the apocalypse, you try to make the best of your remaining time.

And what better way to do that than to spend it with family?

Grandma sat on a bench, sipping a lemonade, watching me dig. I was knee deep in a hole, shoveling, finishing the last project started by my grandfather before he’d passed away. He’d gotten the hole half dug, gone to bed that night, and died peacefully in his sleep. I’d been in Afghanistan and hadn’t even been able to come to the funeral.

“Oh, Diego, thank you for doing this. Your sister’s kids will love to come over and play with the fish. I wish you would’ve told me you were going to be in town. I would’ve told everyone to come over to see you. I would’ve cooked a good supper.”

“It was a surprise trip, abuelita.” I stopped to wipe the sweat off of my face with the back of my arm. Digging holes was hot work . . . Nicer than humping a ruck and body armor on foot patrol in the mountains, but my grandfather had done this sort of work for fifty years and never once complained. “I would’ve called if I’d known.”

“We see you so little, mi nieto. Now that you won’t be a soldier anymore—”

“Marine,” I corrected as I went back to digging. Medically retired, which was a nice way of saying that they really didn’t know what to do with me after a bunch of supposedly imaginary demons fucked up Quantico. But once a Marine, always a Marine.

“Ay, Diego. Tan serio.” She said it with that smile that wrinkled her whole face. It was a face that the sun had darkened year after year. “Maybe you will be around more? Maybe you’ll stay for a bit?”

“Yeah. Si Dios quiera.” I hadn’t expected to be in my hometown at all, but sometimes you just had to follow your instincts. I’d found what I was looking for here, so now God needed me somewhere else. “But I’ve got to run down to San Diego tonight.”

“What for?”

I hated making her sad. “Some volunteer work . . . For the church.” Sort of. “Charity stuff.”

“Oh, Diego. I’m so proud of you. You always were tan religioso . . . I remember when you were little. You used to have the worst nightmares—”

I still did. Every. Single. Night. The same dream my entire life. Every time I’d slept since I was eight years old I’d seen the vision. It had terrified me at first, knowing the exact time and manner of my horribly violent death, but once I’d come to understand that the vision was a gift from God, giving me a chance to prepare, the terror had gradually subsided. That faith had made me strong. As time had gone on, the details had become increasingly clear, until now it was liberating.

“You scared so many people with your ways and your talk, but I always knew you were a good boy. Then you went away, so brave, and fought it so many wars. I tell all the ladies at the church what a hero you are.”

“Thank you, abuelita.”

She talked for a time about the interesting things in her life, friends, activities, hobbies, TV shows, all things that I would never understand. She spoke of family and people I never had, and never would, bother spending the time with to get to know. Those things were all beyond my grasp. My purpose was to hone myself into a weapon for the Lord. It didn’t leave much room for anything else. Sometimes that made me a little sad.

The sun had been down for a couple of hours by the time the hole was nice and deep. Grandma didn’t notice that it was much deeper than it needed to be for the koi pond. “It’s so late. I need to go to bed. Are you sure you don’t want any supper, Diego? There are tamales in the fridge.”

“That’s okay. You get some sleep. I’m going to finish up here before I head out.”

“Fine, fine. But you make sure you take some tamales with you. There’s more than I can eat and I don’t want to throw them out. You always loved my tamales. You take them.”

“I will, abuelita. Te prometo.” I got out of the hole, came over and gave her a hug. Grandma didn’t even reach my chest, but the hug she gave me was fierce and strong. She may not have even been five feet tall—and truth be told a bit more round than tall—and her age showed in her short, age-whitened hair, but she had a spirit made of faith and steel. She was a Santos after all. I think some of my strength must have come from her. Abuelita took her cane and went back into the house. She always fell asleep fast, but I’d give her a few minutes. Besides, I still needed to get the bags of cement and the koi pond liner out of the shed where Grandpa had left them.

The neighborhood was mostly quiet. Grandpa had put up a sturdy fence, and there were rose bushes all along the interior, so the neighbors wouldn’t be able to see or hear anything. Besides, they were all old people who went to bed early anyway. My car was already parked around back. I took my .45 out of the glove box and stuck it in the waistband of my pants. Before I opened the trunk, I took one last look at the house. Grandma’s light was out, her curtains were closed, so she was probably asleep, and if she wasn’t, she was mostly deaf, so I was probably safe. I popped the trunk.

The man was right where I’d left him, which wasn’t surprising since I’d hogtied him with paracord and put tape over his mouth. He was staring at me with wide, fearful eyes. I leaned over, grabbed him by his tie, dragged him out of the trunk, and tossed him on the ground. He whimpered, so I kicked him in the stomach. I don’t tolerate whiners. “Stand up.” His legs were probably hopelessly cramped from being in the trunk of my car for the last few hours, but I really didn’t give a damn about his comfort. I kicked him again, harder this time. “Up, asshole. I don’t got all night.” I hauled him up by his tie, which probably choked the shit out of him. It was a nice tie. Silk. Nice suit too. Beautiful watch. Big gold thing with lots of extra dials. I’d have been tempted to keep it if it hadn’t had demon stink all over it. “You raise your voice, I kill you. Got it?” I waited for him to nod in understanding, before I ripped the tape off of his mouth.

“Please, please don’t—”

I smacked him upside his head. “No whining. Tell me what I want to know.”

“You’ve made a mistake. I don’t know what you—”

I slugged him just below the sternum. He went back to his knees as all of the air was forced out of his lungs. “If there’s one thing I can’t tolerate, it’s people wasting my time.” I caught his tie and yanked until he staggered back up. Ties sure are handy for prisoner control, sort of like handles. “I know who you are, and more important, I know what you pray to.”

“You’ve got the wrong guy! Please. Pray? I’m a Presbyterian! I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please. I’ve got a wife and kid. I don’t know what this is about!”

He sounded really sincere. His lies might be enough to make a lesser man doubt, but God had led me to this man, and I could smell the demon on him. He was consorting with evil, and thus he deserved to die. “Nice try.” I dragged him over to the edge of the hole, kicked him in the back of the knees, and let him tumble in. He landed on his face, but the dirt was soft. Mostly. The gradual realization set in that he was at the bottom of a grave, and he squealed in fear. I squatted at the edge of the hole. “You can’t shake my faith. I can smell their stink all over you. You reek of it.”

The man got to his knees. He was terrified. I couldn’t understand terror myself, but I’d seen that look before. “I’ll do anything. Just let me live.”

“Here’s the thing. Your GPS was already set and I found the piece of paper in your wallet with the same address on it. I know a demon wrote that because their fingertips always leave those little scorch marks on paper. I’m going there regardless. Way I see it, if you tell me what you know, that’s a good way to confess your sins. Now’s your chance to get right with the Lord and beg for his mercy. Think of this as confession. This is your last chance to repent.”

He knew the game was up. Demon worshippers were all the same. Push hard and they roll right over. It showed a real lack of moral character. He lowered his gaze, afraid to make eye contact. “We’ve got the photo.”

“What photo?”

“Of the child of destiny . . . ”

I scowled. There was only one thing I could think of that fit that description. Lazarus Tombs’ son had been imprisoned in a photo. According to what Tombs had told me, his kid was some sort of portal, captured by the forces of the Rusted Vale. There was something special about Tombs’ bloodline, which was pretty obvious since Tombs literally couldn’t seem to die. His kid was special too somehow, and as far as we knew, should he ever be released, his body would be possessed by a powerful demon. The photo hadn’t been seen since the attack on Quantico. “The photo’s in San Diego?”

He nodded. I could see now that he was crying, fat tears rolling down his stupid face. “You’ve got to understand. They showed me paradise. It’s so beautiful. It’s everything you could ever want.”

“Uh huh,” I stood up, grasped the shovel handle, and pulled it from the ground where I’d stuck it before. I raised the shovel overhead.

“What’re you doing?” he shrieked.

“Killing you.”

“But you said I could repent! I—”

“You needed to get right with God, man, not me. I’m just the messenger.” And then I brained him with the shovel.

He collapsed, limp, into the hole. The clang had been louder than expected. I looked to the house, but the curtains were still closed. Judging from all the blood pumping out of his cracked skull I was fairly certain he’d be dead in a minute or two, and I could just cover him up, but this guy was a demon cultist . . . In the movies people like that come back from the dead all the time. Though in real life the only person I’d ever seen come back from the dead was Lazarus Tombs . . .

Five minutes after I’d first met Tombs, the dude had been eviscerated by a demon. I knew dead, and Tombs was dead as fuck, but I’d also seen him in my holy vision, so I knew it would all work out. Being a man of faith, I’d kept everyone from screwing with his body. Sure enough, he’d woken up a few hours later, fine as could be. Neat trick, that.

But since this demon worshipping asshole was going to be buried under my grandmother’s new fish pond, coming back to life as a zombie or something like that would be completely unacceptable. Better safe than sorry. Grandpa had kept it sharp, but the shovel’s edge had dulled from my night’s digging, so it took a good five or six jabs to get halfway through his neck, and after that I just stood on it and leveraged it back and forth until his head popped off and rolled away. I tried not to get blood on my boots.

Figuring that decapitation should do, I started covering him back up with dirt, but then I noticed something in the dim light interesting enough for me to go get my flashlight to examine it better. There was a strange mark on the back of his head, like an odd, circular scab. I had no idea what it was though—some weird cultist shit probably—so I went back to shoveling. I packed the dirt down hard, then put the plastic pond liner from Home Depot in place on top. It took me another hour to mix the cement, pour it, and get it nice and smooth. Every minute of my remaining time was precious, but family projects deserve your best effort, and I figured this would make up for missing the funeral.

Work done, I put the tools back in the shed, got in my car, and headed for the freeway. This time of night I could make it to San Diego fast. I’d made that trip many times back when I’d been stationed there. I’d go down, check out this address, hopefully kill some demons, and maybe get my buddy’s son back. I was on the freeway when I realized I’d made a horrible mistake.

“Fuck. I forgot the tamales.”

So I’ve been trying to put together a blog post featuring The Greatest Writer Ever: Clamps, but I’ve been slammed with work. I did a read through of Swords of Exodus this week and spent 14 hours editing on Saturday. So blogging has to take a back seat behind actual paying writing.

But I got this little gem this morning, and figured that it needed to be shared, rather than just be ignored in the comments. This if from Lynne.

I don’t like left wingers, right wingers, or moderates. I love guns, adventures, etc – and I just finished Monster Hunter Vendetta, and tho ready to order the third, I made the mistake of checking out this blog and learning about the political views of the author. And now I’m totally turned off. I’ve made this mistake with left- wing authors too, with the same result: it ruins the whole experience for me, and I never buy any of their books anymore. Ever.
I don’t give 2 hoots what your politics are – but I WAS willing to trade my money for your great stories. Before you polluted your product. Too bad for.you – lost income, total loss of respect for you as an author. Too bad for me – lost books (until I hit the bookstore again and find another author who isn’t short sighted enough to add a hundred pounds of their own b.s. for every pound of story they sell).

Well thanks for sharing, Lynne. Allow me to respond to your concerns about authors having political opinions.

Shove it up your sanctimonious ass.

Authors are people who have opinions, just like anybody else. I was politically active, informed, and involved long before I ever sold my first book, and I’d rather give up writing than my first amendment rights. Luckily you have the right to hate my guts as much as you want, and to boycott my work because I offended your tender sensibilities.

As for you being equally offended by both sides (and even the middle!), I can only assume that means you are probably a listless, aimless, dolt with no real convictions of your own. That’s really just sad. What a boring, grey, useless way to live.

You are also not very bright if you read my books, where in the ones you mentioned, a bunch of libertarian capitalists put boot to monster ass with machineguns and high explosives, all while complaining about the government meddling and incompetence, got to the About the Author, saw that I was a former firearms instructor, gun dealer, and military contractor, and then came to my blog and was shocked, SHOCKED I say, to discover that I was political? GASP.

Sure, I don’t go out of my way to shove my personal politics into my books, because I write books to entertain, and I’ve got lots of readers who disagree with my beliefs who still enjoy my writing. Heck, many of them come here and actively argue with me, and I love them for it. You must be particularly delicate since nobody is forcing you to read my political essays.

Either you are full of shit (most likely) or you really are so easily offended that you are incapable of enjoying entertainment produced by people who actually have opinions. If that is the case, then I’m assuming that you watch absolutely no movies or television shows, and you must not listen to music either. Because newsflash, lady, they’ve all got opinions too.  (and 85% of the entertainment industry is liberal, which makes me think you probably aren’t as unbiased as you are making yourself out to be)

Oh, and here let me ruin all of entertainment for you even more. If you really like somebody, but they are totally silent on politics, that usually means they are a conservative who is afraid of getting blacklisted.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are grownups capable of separating our entertainment from the people who write the words, sing the songs, or play the part. Yes. I can even watch a movie with Alec Baldwin in it, because though he is a racist and loathsome human being, he’s still pretty damn funny at times. Jamie Foxx’s politics are dumber than a bag of hammers and Tom Cruise is a kook, but Collateral is one of my favorite movies. I think Sean Penn is scum who sucks up to communist dictators, but I’ll catch that gangster movie when it comes out on Netflix because I like gangster movies. I can separate their art from them, and unlike you, I’m not a petty douchenozzle that threatens boycotts because somebody hurt my delicate feelings.

The fact that you contacted me, one of the oddball minority right wingers in the entertainment industry suggests that you are probably lying about your impartial hatred of all people with opinions. Have you left stupid comments with other authors like Mieville, Scalzi, Brin, Gerrold, Bacigalupi, Flint, Simmons, Ringo, Card, Kratman, Torgersen, Williamson, or Hoyt? Because there’s a real quick list of good, successful, genre fiction authors, and right there I think I just covered the entire political spectrum from right to left, from communists to libertarian, from control freak to anarcho-capitalist, from militant atheist to devoutly religious, and guess what, lady? I didn’t even scratch the surface. Would you like for me to name all of your other favorite authors and ruin them too?  They’ve all got opinions and they are all willing to argue them.

Because they aren’t boring, noncommittal dullards like you.

You say you love guns. Did you threaten to boycott Stephen King when he wrote his big, idiotic, piece on gun control in the wake of Sandy Hook? It was really, really stupid. I mean floundering, dumb, boring, derivative, lacking in critical thinking and logic, with no real grasp of the situation, tactics, history, or existing laws. But he’s still a talented writer and he is still going to sleep on a giant pile of money because he’s sold a lot of books.

I wrote a big piece on gun control too at the same time. The difference is that I am literally and legally a subject matter expert on this topic. Mine was read by over one million individuals in less than a month. I changed a surprising number of minds. I educated a lot of people. It got shared everywhere, reprinted in national magazines, I went on a bunch of radio shows, and even appeared on prime time national news programs. My opinion piece made a difference in a fiery national debate on a topic that I am knowledgeable and passionate about.

But I suppose I shouldn’t have said anything, because I might offend a thin-skinned dullard like you. Well shucks… That’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. I’m sure Beyonce and Jay-Z will miss you too after their trip to suck up to communists in Cuba.

On the bright side I’ve discovered that for every moron I’ve offended for daring to voice an opinion, I’ve gained two or three other readers who are sick of getting preached at in their fiction by the prevailing group think narrative. I always warn aspiring writers to be careful, and not go down this path unless they’ve got thick skins and they’re willing to stand up for what they believe in, because there are lots of bullies like you, Lynne, ready to threaten boycotts at the drop of a hat. That’s why most of the conservative authors I know keep their mouths shut, because they’ve been cowed by bullies like you.

Personally I find that boring and tiresome, and luckily for me I was already out of the closet before I got my first book deal so I never had to struggle with worrying about offending idiots.

So, Lynne, I hope that clears that matter up for you. Please, take my books and donate them to a library or burn them or something, because I fear that just seeing them on your shelf—with their big explodey covers—will damage the delicate flower that is your mind.