frontiers of joy

[realthog]

Norilana Books has now issued its first Press Release about the acquisition of Leaving Fortusa: http://norilanabooks.livejournal.com/38421.html.

I'm so very fired up about this. My ballbuster agent sent the book out with her (genuine, she told me) comment that she felt this was the novel I'd been put here to write, as it were. I was a bit stunned by the description at first, then realized I agreed with her.

It's also a novel that's going to get a lot of people very angry. No one I personally give too much of a $Zb about, to be honest; but a lot of folk out there. I hate raising hackles, but there are times . . . Sinclair Lewis didn't write It Can't Happen Here because he wanted to offend people but because he was terrified by the anti-human horrors that well intentioned Denial might unwittingly accomplish. That's kind of where I'm coming from, too. We can no longer afford the luxury of good people refusing to face the unpleasant truths in front of them.
 

Comments

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

You go, guy. Keep offending those socio-political autocrats and the people who sustain them. I am so on the same page! Looking forward to reading Leaving Fortusa!

Did I mention to you a while back that I'm neither conservative nor liberal? Well, actually, I lean toward liberal. It's just that I play my cards close to the vest. I really do try to avoid discussing politics and religion, but recent circumstances dictate otherwise.

There are times when we simply must take a stance and fight.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"There are times when we simply must take a stance and fight."

I couldn't agree with you more.

I don't know if you're familiar with the Sinclair Lewis novel I cite above; if you are, forgive me for telling you what you already know! But . . .

It Can't Happen Here is about the election of a populist POTUS (Buzz Windrip, if memory serves), who over a period of a few years turns the country into a fascist/Nazi state. The novel's central character is a small-town newspaper editor called Doremus Jessup. He's a good man, but no crusading journalist; he just bobs along, trying to put the best face on events, etc. Well on through the book, it strikes him -- and the reader -- with the force of a thunderbolt that the person who's turned the US into a military dictatorship isn't Buzz Windrip . . . it's Doremus Jessup, and all the other Doremus Jessups who didn't do anything.

I expected the events of the past few years to spark a whole host of responsive novels from the f/sf community, but in fact there's been next to nothing. So I decided that for once in my life I'd not be a Doremus Jessup, and began putting together the pieces of Leaving Fortusa.

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

The insidiousness of apathy...what I refer to as the sin of omission. Not taking action. Believing that the fight is not ours but someone else's. Reminds me of the Kitty Genovese case in New York back in the early sixties, the one that spawned social psychology. I know you must be familiar with the case, P, but allow me to recap anyway: In the early sixties a woman was repeatedly stabbed and ultimately murdered by a male assailant in plain view of everyone who lived in the same apartment complex as she, but no one attempted to save her or call the police. When questioned later by authorities as to why no one bothered to intervene, the unanimous reply was the witnesses thought someone else would eventually call the police, further commenting they really didn't want to get involved, as they feared for their lives, or feared embarrassment and/or social ostracism.

In short, they didn't want to draw attention to themselves -- a common human sentiment.

Again: there are times when we must risk being hated or drawing unwanted attention...

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

Oh...and thanks for recommending Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here. I have not read it but will, now.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"thanks for recommending Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here. I have not read it but will, now"

If you read online, I think (I may be wrong) you can find it for free download at Project Gutenberg Australia. Yep -- here it is: http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-a-m.html#letterL (scroll down).

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"The insidiousness of apathy...what I refer to as the sin of omission."

That's part of it, yes, but I think there's also a major Denial component: people have difficulty getting their heads around the true enormity of the situation we're in, because no other US Administration has ever acted like this before. Round here there's a political grouping called the Real Republican Party, comprising Republicans who do recognize all too clearly that this ain't the same old Dem/Rep political football game any longer, but a lot of the Reps I meet (and even a few Dems, including far too many in the Senate/Congress) seem incapable of realizing it. What's needed is a bipartisan effort to pull the country back from the brink.

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

Agreed 100% to all of the above.

Denial is a destructive hedge, across the board.