http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2011-08-14/mass-market-paperback/list.html

 So there it is officially. Monster Hunter Alpha is #23 on the New York Times bestseller list, and it is because you guys are just that cool. Thank you. Seriously, I love my fan base. I know a lot of other writers that are in about the same point of their careers as I am, and they stand in awe of the sheer awesomeness of the Monster Hunter Nation. I asked for people to either preorder or buy opening week, and you certainly did. You bought the heck out of it.

MHA debuted 4 spots higher than MHV, and that was with some bumps in the road. A couple thousand copies were shipped early, so they didn’t count towards release week, and my single biggest individual dealer, Uncle Hugos, received several hundred of theirs late. (so if you are just getting your UH autographed bookplate MHAs now, that is why). Between those things we probably could have been several spots higher on the list. Luckily, B&N was awesome and didn’t report any sales until release day, and nationwide they put me on the New Paperback Tower.

Getting on the list is always a challenge. Just because you got on it last time is no promise of being on there again. It is kind of like the NFL playoffs. You might have made it last year, but that doesn’t mean you can rest on your laurels next season, because the other teams might be having a really good year. (and there was a new John Grisham novel going against the reigning champ George Martin novel that has an HBO show with Sean Bean in it, so you know who’s going to the Super Bowl).

Even if you are relatively successful, it all depends on who you are going up against. There were 30 new novels out this month in just my one genre alone, and urban fantasy is tiny compared to thrillers or romances. Then you’ve got your power players, like for example there are 4 George R.R. Martin books ahead of me. (which I do think are awesome by the way, and combined with the Beer Drinking-Stab Ignoring Power of Sean Bean, make for an unstoppable marketing combo). Only 2 James Patterson novels on there, which means he was having a slow week. And I got beat by Stieg Larsson last time, and I got beat by Stieg Larsson this time. I fully expect twenty years from now to still be posthumously beaten by Stieg Larsson. You’ve got John Grisham, Dave Baldacci, Debbie Macomber, and a whole bunch of other badass, very established, very successful authors on that list.

Anytime you make the list, it is a win. But we did, because you guys rock. As my mom says, as a writer, I just get paid to lie and make crap up. The Monster Hunter Nation are who give me my success, and I believe me, I know it.

To celebrate, start thinking about the designs for your new MHI patches. (don’t send them yet though, because I’m not ready!) I’ll be kicking off a new Patch Contest soon, and the winning team will show up in Monster Hunter Legion (the next Owen book, which will probably be out in September 2012) and become an official part of the universe.

So going forward, my new goals are: 1. Get one of my non-Monster Hunter novels on the list. (Dead Six would be a good one since it is a thriller). 2. Get the next MH novel into the top 20. 3. Absolute world domination. 4. Learn to bake cookies.

Thanks, Monster Hunter Nation.

So I get a call this morning from my neighbor Brent. “What’re you doing?” “Working on Monster Hunter Legion. Why?”  “Because I’ve got a porcupine on my deck and it won’t leave.”

Okay, that I had to see.

This guy just didn’t want to get off the porch. And man, he could chuck quills way far. When Brent poked him with a shovel handle, he embedded a quill into the wood. It was like holy crap in there too. Moral of this story, don’t cuddle a porcupine. 

I wasn’t sure if you were allowed to shoot porcupines, so we called and asked DNR. Yes. You can. Okay, good to know if he then went into a berserker quill flinging rampage of death.  So just in case I brought a suppressed .223, because won’t somebody think of the safety of the children! (and their hearing!)

But luckily, we squirted him with a hose for awhile and he finally got tired and scurried away to live under Brent’s basketball hoop. There was no quill flinging death rampage. They’re funny looking when they run with all their quills stuck up. I wish I would’ve got an action shot on my phone, but I had my left hand on the hose and my right on my .45. (Quill flinging death rampage possibilites, remember?)

I hear the new iPhone is going to have a single button for photos now instead of booting up a menu. I’m going to have to get one for future Yard Moose and Porchupine action shots.

Okay, now back to work! These novels don’t write themselves.

Found this today posted on the Dixonverse. Brilliant.

Anybody remember how when a paranoid delusional Marx reading nutbag shot Gabby Giffords and immediately the news said it was the Tea Party’s fault for our culture of hate? Or it was Sarah Palin’s fault because she had a map of elections to win with targets on them? Or more recently, when a psycho collectivist, environmental extremist, racist nutbag in Norway murdered a bunch of innocent people, and for the first week all the of news was about he was a Conservative Christian spurred on by our culture of hate? The fact that he wasn’t Christian in any sense of the word, and mainly used Christian as a term for western civillization, and wasn’t conservative (extreme environmentalism coupled with a centralized command economy?) didn’t slow the narrative.

Truth doesn’t matter. It is all about the narrative. And the new narrative is that if people that think the government spends too damn much money are evil terrorists.

Yup.

And now, the stock market taking another dive is somehow the Tea Party’s fault… Okay… Let’s see. Senate wouldn’t even talk about Republican’s plans. Democrats come up with nothing. Republicans fight amongst themselves. Mainstream Republicans cave. Tea Party didn’t get anything they wanted. Debt gets downgraded in places because there aren’t any real spending cuts whatsoever in the bill. Then we rack up something like an additional 290 billion in defecit spending in a single day after the bill passes.

To say that this is because we failed to raise taxes is stupid. Think of it this way. The government is like a bucket with a leaky hole in it. Throwing extra water in the bucket doesn’t fix the problem. You need to plug the hole.

If we throw more money in it, the government will just spend it all on more stupid crap, then we’ll be having this discussion again, only now there will be even less money for them to take.

We didn’t plug the hole. Now we will pay for it.  Do you think that the credit agencies are stupid? Do you think that they don’t get that?

And because these Tea Party reps are doing exactly what their voters sent them to Washington to do (cut spending, don’t raise taxes) they are exactly the same as people who blow up schools and saw people’s heads off… Gotcha.

Truth doesn’t matter. I’ve been a finance guy most of my life. I watch what is happening, and I understand the money/math aspects pretty well. Then I see the news, and the way it is spun has nothing to do with reality. Then I go on Facebook and see the posts from people who have zero understanding of the fiscal realities going on about how the Tea Party wants to starve all the old people to death, because that’s what the news told them.  

I keep getting told some variation of “Why are you complaining about taxes! Taxes are historically low!” That’s another one of those idiotic narratives. First off, you cherry pick one part of taxes, the income tax. And you disregard all of the other ones that have been added since then.  Those of us that are productive get to pay federal income taxes, social security taxes, medicare taxes, state taxes, licenses, fees, sales tax, use taxes, so on and so forth, until the government takes about HALF of what we make.

HALF.

So when I spend hundreds and hundreds of hours writing a book, the first 300 pages of it were written for the government. Yay.

Then, because we no longer live under the disgusting blight on American history that was FDR’s ridiculous tax rates, we’re supposed to be happy?  Yes, because everything is going to be historically low compared to that bullshit.

Oh, and guess what rich folks do when you try to stick them with a 90% tax rate? They simply move their money around. They don’t invest, (which creates jobs) because why bother? They don’t use it for business (which creates jobs), because why bother? Instead they sit on it and live off of their savings. Friggin’ dur. They are rich. They can do that. Guess who gets screwed? You.  

But because people like me get angry about this, we’re the bad guys. We’re the same as Hamas. We’re the same as Al Queda. We’re school shooters. We’re mass murderers. We’re Hitler.

In the meantime, Republicans and Democrats are taking us down a fast road to hell. The only ones in Washington with the fortitude to stand up against the way things have been done for generations are villified. “I don’t think we should raise taxes.” RACIST. “I think the government spends too much money.” TERRORIST.

Man, if only…  If we really were terrorists, then Barack Obama would probably come and apologize to us.

I am the champion. My friends! Dum duh duh duh! And I’ll keep on fighting ’till the end! Dum duh duh duh! I am the CHAMPION! I AM THE CHAMPION!! NO TIME FOR LOSERS BECAUSE I AM THE CHAMPION!!!!!! and #23 on the New York Times Bestseller list coming out August 14th OF THE WORLD!!!!

The Early Electronic Advanced Reader Copy of DEAD SIX is out now: http://www.webscription.net/p-1484-dead-six-arc.aspx  I hope you like it, because we had a ton of fun writing it. The paperback releases September 27th. http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Six-Larry-Correia/dp/1451637586/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1312387293&sr=8-6

As many of you know, my co-author Mike Kupari is currently serving in Afghanistan.  He is an Air Force EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) Tech, but is attached to an Army unit. For those of you that don’t know what EOD is, think of the movie Hurt Locker, only without all of the glaring technical errors, psychological issues, and homoerotic wrestling matches.  

Mike will still be in Afghanistan when Dead Six releases.

He has sporadic web access, and can’t really see the reviews that are coming in for the ARC. Some pages work fine for him (like WTA but he can’t get to Facebook or my blog for example), though his e-mail works.

So here is the special request part. Since Mike’s first book just came out, and all new authors are dying to get feedback on their first book, I want to compile a bunch of reviews and then send him a big list of them.  So if you’ve read the eARC, please post a review on the Baen Webscriptions page or post it below in the comments.  Details are great. It goes without saying that the comments section of this post has a major SPOILER ALERT.

Go ahead and be honest in your review, even if you didn’t like the book. I’ll be honest too… I’m totally going to cut and paste the good ones but I’m going to edit out all the negative comments before I e-mail it to him.  The dude has got enough stuff to worry about. 🙂