The Fight Against Vox Day: A Report From The Front

To the front they come. From the fields of literary spec-fic, from the factory floors of popular genre and the shop fronts of self-publishing. All of them united in their resolve to crush Vox Day and his online Jackboot-Johnnies.

Valiant fighters of The SFF Chronicles Forums Volunteers, 14th Division

"No, Mr Day," they say, these comrades in laptop and pen, "your machinations to become dictator of science fiction and fantasy shall not go unchecked. We draw a line here in the touchscreen sand."


This reporter can tell you that determination and solidarity are the watchwords here in the Twitter trenches. A profound sense of purpose imbues each man and woman as they prepare for the offensive (especially women, for 'Pox Day' would have them voiceless and churning out wereseal novels, such is his lily-livered and putrid 'Alpha Game').


Vox Day mistook us for 'Rabbit People', sending his running dog fifth columnist trolls into our innocent forums and comment rolls, but a brilliant counter-punch--masterminded by Field Marshall Elect Jonathan Scalzi--has left his lie-spewing mouth listing and silent.

Not for 'John' Scalzi to laze in a mansion sipping cognac whilst cajoling fascist troops unto LOL-soaked death! I can vouch that, only yesterday, I saw him come to the front with General James C. Hines.


There, to much cheering, the 'Old Man Warrior' saluted our efforts, handing out cigarettes, churitos and a cat with bacon taped to its flank. Before anyone knew, Scalzi had rolled up his sleeves to help muck out the cyber-latrines. All are equal here; can Mr Day's servile bullies say as much for their 'Great Leader'?


In this atmosphere of unquestioned siblinghood, it is surely inevitable the forces of decency and fair play shall win. But every person is needed, from Hugo award winner to humble SF/F fan. Will YOU stand idly by whilst the dogma of racist sexist dipshittery threatens our very freedoms?


REMEMBER:  IF YOU TOLERATE THIS THEN YOUR BLOG ROLL WILL BE NEXT!     

Boston Tea Party Museum- The Empire strikes back!

The Boston Tea Party Museum stands on the site of the Boston Tea Party, known as 'The stone cold tea massacre' to all British schoolkids. My target is acquired.

Inside, visitors encounter guides impersonating characters from the event. Here, charismatic sociopath Samuel Adams implores us to engage in colonial thuggery.

The heartless tea-bashing continues aboard deck, with children encouraged to throw replica crates into the harbor. Damned un-English!

But not so fast! While the Manson family-style horror continues, I clandestinely drop a perforated tiny bag from old Blighty upon the deck. That's right- I'm putting that tea BACK on the ship!

Down below decks I do the same, right on top of a crate of salty biscuits or weevils or some shit. Sons of Washington, sons of Lincoln and Happy Day's Tom Boswell: who's laughing now? Who's laughing? Whu-ha-ha-haaa!

My mission complete and escape made (despite a minor shoot-out with Ron Paul in the gift shop), I settle down to drink Virgil's root beer. Please note America- I am not pouring this much-loved beverage of yours into sea water and turds. I'm pouring it down my bloody throat. Anyhoo, honor satisfied, I think. Your move, Mel Gibson!

Midnight Thoughts

Imagine standing in the street and seeing a Slugtide rush toward you. I mean like a tide made of slugs, yeah? Man, that'd be screwed up... 

I mean, you'd know it was a big wave, but you wouldn't know what it was comprised of until it was 10 ft away. Then you'd be like:

 

 

'SLUGS!' 

 

It would crush entire houses and leave the ruins covered in slime. Sheesh... 

I don't wanna ever see a slugtide... 

 

I don't care who knows that...

Christ...

Another 75 word story

EIGHTH 

            Only seven deadly sins existed, he reckoned, because humanity lacked imagination. He was tired of all seven. He would create an eighth.
            He retreated to his cliff top villa in solitude, and wondered, and dreamed.
After twenty years he realized he'd discovered not some eighth sin, but the Eleventh commandment; the implicit commandment, without which the other ten can never truly be obeyed.
            Thou shalt remain alone.
            He wept awhile, then to his seven returned.

This has to MEAN something...

Michael

+ Kenneth Williams

= Michael Kenneth Williams!

Guest Post!!! Dan Gilbert: The Yes Men cometh in my inbox

 Until I visited the US, I'd never heard of The Bank of America. Then I did. Then they treated me like a dick. So, imagine how overjoyed I was to receive this post from gad-about-Leicester (and Mievillacrum#2), Dan Gilbert, detailing how hoaxers had shown that, no, Bank of America are the dicks! Ha! As I suspected...

If there's one thing my inbox can be relied upon to do, it's attract massive fibbers. I've got Russian girls looking for me (sounds more like a threat than a promise), an African Prince hoping to borrow fifty quid in order to access his millions, a copy of my CV; that kind of stuff. I actually quite like my inbox this way- if it was even half as relentlessly grounded in reality as the filth the electric company shove through my letterbox, I'd never sign in again.

I got one the other day that stands out more than the 12” todger some Doctor in the Philippines reckons he can endow me with. The email claimed to originate from The Bank Of America, entitled 'Bank of America Announces Partnership with Taxpayers to Revamp U.S. Banking‏.' which you can read here...

http://yeslab.org/yourbofa-announce

My finely-tuned brain spotted this as nonsense straight away; partly because of the content, but mostly because I couldn't get my head around the idea of a US bank seeking the opinions of some Limey shit-muncher who isn't above recycling cigarettes from the ashtray. Sure enough, the originating website was promptly exposed as a fake by the actual Bank Of America, denouncing it as the phishing scam it wasn't: a self-serving half-truth far more in line with the kind of stuff I expect from bankers and pointless middle-men in general.

A further example of their infuriatingly unconscious arrogance dropped into my inbox shortly after, entitled 'Bank of America Denounces Hoax, Will Not Need Bailout, Warns Public Not To Be Confused By “YourBofA.com” Fraud-

http://yeslab.org/yourbofa-retort

Now there's the greedy whoremongers lefty teens get so annoyingly earnest about! I sent off a sarky comment, went back to shooting podgy adolescents in the face on Battlefield Heroes, and thought no more about it.

The plot, it turns out, was to thicken like the tinned stodge that passes for my diet these days. A third email showed up (accompanied by one from my internet provider suggesting I pay them money or forget all about receiving a fourth)-

http://yeslab.org/yourbofa

A bit of a shock, I don't mind telling you. As a long-standing trader in utter bullshit, I was a little irked some had managed to get past me- even if it was on the second attempt- and from such illustrious bullshit artists as the Yes Men.  Apparently they decided to release a hoax denouncing their hoax to ensure no journalists were fooled for very long. I reckon they were worried they'd cause a financial meltdown, not unrealistic when you look at what their Bhopal jape on the BBC did to Dow Chemical's share prices.

You can piece together all the details from their website, but the long and short of it is they wanted to get people talking about what kind of banking system they'd like to have, which is definitely a step up from the usual 'tear it all down and replace it with, er, something better' line you often get. 

It's also a great way to get people that would otherwise write it off as wishful thinking involved; a bit like getting a kid to cry by giving it sweeties then taking them away (much fun in it's own right, of course).   

Anyone interested in getting involved in this kind of japery can do so by reading more on the YesLab website- you might change the world, but more importantly, you'll get to wind up some humourless suits with more money and less practical use than you.

Guest Post: China Mieville

Spool Pidgin has the immense honour of award-winning, critically acclaimed and just-darn-awesome novelist China Mieville frequenting it's shore. I can't begin to emphasize how mindbogglingly great and, yes, just darn-awesome this is for me. Don't fret; I'll soon be out of the way, but first an explanation...

Some of you may recall China recently stuck a groundbreaking piece of photo-reportage on the web, London's Overthrow, a psychogeographical investigation of the night-streets of the capital he loves. Spool Pidgin asked if he'd do the same for its own midlands home town, Leicester...




Leicester's Overdone

by China Mieville




Leicester! Here the Midland's Babylon, its gum-daubed Carthage, where Showaddywaddy meets Baudrillard in torrid distain.

The ooze of Lineker permeates these fox-hours, interlaced through kebabhouse dreams and hyper-copulating brick. What this? This! This Narborough road-- a Prospero's isle off the A50 inbound, with Maryland Chicken its syphilitic caliban.





And how should one face this evening-intruculent? Perhaps with a new prose? A fresh-born lingua pretentio oddly reminiscent of those Calvin Klein perfume ads one used to see at christmas. Ah, the smell of it.





Back streets: Each terrace door is a scarab beetle tapdancing 'pon junkmail and regret. Each with a question 'pon its gloss-emulsion mandibles: 'What people lay behind me, Mieville? What breathing, farting tupperware?'





These faux-scrofulous imaginings congeal to action. I, ever the Odysseine flaneur, am psychogeography's doxy afterall. My lust-hungry Amex and Visa cards seek forbidden consolence twixt the thighs of the door's yale lock. Acquiesence is granted.





I had expected some avatar within, some tulpoid suggestion of Leicester's poundshop essence (one, I suspect, that would be called 'Herr Plimsole' and have a rooster for a chest), but my wits are confounded.

'Who are you?' One face of the triune nativegestalt asks. 'How'd you get in me f**kin' house?'

They look like me! Each of them a miell-mesis, a Mievillacrum! Having looked for Leicester I encounter only, but and singularly(x3) myself!





'We are reflection,' I yell in joyance to them, 'you the chissit modulae and I Leicester-as-observed. I am the Englebert-hermeneutic, the grand phallogocentric-made-Humberdink!'

'You're a c*nt, mate,' Mievillacrum#3 says, and he permits me to psychogeographise the word 'Converse' on the sole of his shoe (now reversed 'pon my forehead).




'Ere,' I discern Mievillacrum#1 say before the darkness proffers me its endless and fervid Oreo, 'isn't he that New Weird author?'

'Nah,' says Mievillacrum#2, 'You're thinking of that c*nt Van DerMeer.'

Mikhail's Divas

AK-47s are perfect. They never jam, never break.

They also think- it's an accident, an unexpected feature in an otherwise straightforward design.

Unknown to us, AKs sing to one another; auto-arias over cut-price battlefields, love songs in the dusty night.

AK-AK-AK, goes one.

POP-POP, replies another.

When an AK's user dies, another picks it up. AKs never wait long for this. They understand that sooner or later, the songs resume.

AK-47's are innocent. They do not know we breath, think, live. They wish only to sing.

Lady Gaga a Vampire?

If you've spent any time recently pretending to work but actually doggy-paddling the Net, then you'll have seen these images proving Nicholas Cage and John Travolta are immortal Vampires. Or possibly time travellers. Or Highlanders.

Well, the plot thickens- here's a picture from 1981 of Lady Gaga amid the cast of Are You Being Served? She's the one with her arms around the visibly shocked Mr Humphries. In nineteen eighty one- when the most she could have shown us was her zygote face.

Animals are notoriously psychic, of course, and at the time the hair on Mrs Slocombe's pussy reportedly stood on end.*





(*God, British comedy was/is mainly shit, isn't it?)