In a previous post I outlined some things progressives need to work on. How do we do that? Many Dems are still in denial about the 2017 presidential election—pointing the finger of blame at the wrong persons for the most part—but the losses two years after Mr. Obama became president, the Gingrich Revolution, have become insignificant compared to 2017. Hundreds of Dem legislative positions were lost to the GOP at all levels—national, state, and local. The presidency, two houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court are now controlled by the Republicans. Either true progressives have to take over the Democratic Party, or they’ll have to establish a viable third party. Either one will take time, motivation, and considerable energy. Now that the ABC’s of the new American Reich (“Adolph” Trump, Stephen Bannon, and Kellyanne Conway) have shown their true fascist proclivities in Il Duce’s first weeks in office, this progressive imperative has become all the more important.

Faux-liberals have to and will be denounced—their numbers are legion in national, state, and local governments (some current Dem members of Congress should be shaking in their boots). These are people who cozy up to the rich, make false promises to get elected, and become sycophants of the elites. We don’t need more politicians who are beholding to Wall Street and multinationals. We need politicians who truly care about ordinary people and work hard for them. Becoming part of the national oligarchy should never be the goal of the true progressive. All goals can be summarized in one statement: make things better for all citizens, not just the privileged few.

To follow that one mantra, progressives need to elect progressives—true progressives. More grassroots efforts like those that characterized the Sanders campaign are needed. These will be difficult because progressive voters are discouraged, and rightly so. They have had to do battle with conservatives, Trumpers, faux-liberals, and the rich elites. It’s hard to run the marathon corresponding to years and years of political activism, but that staying power is required now to turn things around. I challenge all true progressives to do what they can. Do-nothing attitudes and non-productive actions will only make things worse, especially if the latter are just non-productive whining and wringing hands about losing the 2017 election.

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We will not close our minds. We will open our hearts.—Canadian PM Trudeau

***

The Midas Bomb (2^nd ed). If you are waiting to get started on the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” this first book in the series about the crime-fighting duo’s first case is on sale at Smashwords until March 1 for $0.99, a 67% discount from the original price—in all ebook formats, including .mobi (Kindle): use the Smashwords coupon code PV57D. Of course, it’s also available on Amazon as a .mobi ebook or print book (the ebook isn’t for sale there, though). All books in this series are complete and independent stories, and you can read them in any order. #7, Gaia and the Goliaths, will be out soon.

In libris libertas!

Death in Holy Orders. P. D. James, author (2001). We can call this “finding hidden treasure.” The ebook was on sale, so I decided I wanted the ebook version. (I did the same with Heinlein’s Podkayne recently.) I took a look and became pleasantly surprised when I realized that this was one book in the Adam Dalgliesh series (#11) that I missed. I read so many books that they become fuzzy if cherished memories in my mind, especially in a series where you have a strong main character like Commander Dalgliesh.

The book is in James’s verbose and very English style (that was a turnoff for me in the much shorter sci-fi story Children of Men). It’s filled with excess narrative (like Christie, she hides the clues among the verbose weeds), but I’m always a sucker for British mystery, the DS, DCI, and, in this case, Commander-ranked agents and detectives in London’s Metropolitan Police AKA Scotland Yard. Christie’s detectives Miss Marple v. Poirot were different; they were both private citizens, one a meddling spinster and the other a PI. The crime is still murder, though—in the case of this novel, multiple ones. We peer back a little bit into Dalgliesh’s past and into the pasts of many of the suspects’, as well as the victims’, dark pasts in some cases.

The setting is a struggling divinity school. For a while I couldn’t figure out whether it was Roman Catholic or Anglican, but no matter (I still don’t know, but it seems like it’s Anglican in the RC tradition, whatever that means). The characters are complex and interesting and woven with skill into the complex plot and seaside scenes of the story. James has Dalgliesh performing his usual methodical sleuthing. It’s an interesting read albeit a bit too long and verbose.

This novel generated a bit of nostalgia. I was reminded how P. D. James and other English mystery writers, Christie included, influenced my own writing in the upcoming Rembrandt’s Angel, which can be partly considered an homage to these great English writers who have entertained me.  Of course, I minimized the verbiage a wee bit, following my minimalist writing tendencies, but Esther Brookstone, a Scotland Yard inspector, and Bastiann van Coevorden, an Interpol agent, stubbornly plow into a case like Miss Marple and Poirot…or Dalgliesh. I hope you have as much fun reading about their adventures as I did (and you will) reading this one.

***

Coming soon! Gaia and the Goliaths has environmental issues as a theme, but Chen and Castilblanco still have to solve a crime. #7 in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” starts out with the murder of an environmental activist on a street in Manhattan. As the detectives pursue the investigation, they discover that the activist’s boyfriend is also a target. His activity overseas leads to the conclusion that there is a conspiracy involving an American energy company, a Putin surrogate, and an old nemesis. This new novel will be available in all ebook formats.

In libris libertas!

Some readers think I’m too “political” in my fiction. This often needs a translation. What many of them mean is that I treat uncomfortable themes. Whether mystery, thriller, sci-fi, or some combination, there’s usually one or two themes, from spousal abuse to sexual perversion (child porn, etc), from corporate excesses to the ravages produced by inadequate medical coverage. I’ll go out on a limb here and state this is why subgenres like cozy mysteries, bodice rippers, historical fiction, and fantasy are so popular. Readers can read about good v. evil without really confronting the evil in their everyday lives while extolling cardboard Dudley Dorights (hmm, that really dates me) who surpass all odds and save the day.

In other words, some readers want zero-content fiction—murders committed with no rhyme or reason by murderers who are simply bad, neo-Victorian visions of sexual relationships, twisted and romantic versions of past history, and princes and princesses jousting with their enemies with swords or blasters. A good time is had by all, as they say. Some authors, realizing this is the market they’re faced with, pamper and addict such readers to this fluff.

I’m not saying there isn’t strife in the fluff. I’m saying that the reader can distance herself from it because it seems far from her everyday reality. (I’m not implying that these readers are necessarily female, by the way. There’s no gender-neutral version of herself and himself in English, so I use the former to avoid repetition.)

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2035

Copyright 2017, Steven M. Moore

Regional Governor Ricardo Sandoval kept one eye on the protests in the NADA capital of Atlanta as he answered his videophone, the red one he generally kept under lock and key. It needed a thumbprint and voiced password.

His counterpart, Regional Governor Desmonda Bailey, appeared on the screen.

“Yeah, I’m watching. NADA’s propaganda machine is whipping them into a frenzy. I’m more worried about the massing of troops on our borders. Our only recourse might be the battlefield nukes.”

“A last recourse, but I agree,” said Bailey. “Our small forces would be run over by those fanatics.”

“At least NADA’s generals have two fronts to divide their forces, but you’re at a geographical disadvantage, Desmonda. They can roll across the Adirondack chain a lot easier than the Sierras and our other western mountains. Maybe the sanctions weren’t such a good idea.”

“Nonsense. Their Great Leader started paying attention when we voted them in. They were a logical first step for trying to make him come to his senses. I don’t know what our next steps should be, but I’m not about to let him and his hordes overrun our Region.”

“I’m with you on that. But my security team warns that they might take out our satcom. We have to be prepared to act unilaterally unless we can agree on something now.”

“Let’s define some plans, old friend. My people warn me this could escalate fast.”

***

The two leaders worked for an hour and a half, coming up with plans that both the Eastern and Western legislatures would pass given the emergency. They worked from scenarios already prepared and studied, originating in the collaborative defense departments.

When they finished, Sandoval told his aid to call for his limo. The trip to the capital was walkable, but the limo was used to keep his security detail happy.

During the trip, which took more time loading and unloading of security personnel on each end than travel time, he went through some historical antecedents he might include in his speech.

Things had gone to hell fast beginning in 2017. That contentious election for president had unleashed pent-up hatreds that had smoldered for years, even decades. Perhaps inevitable, he thought. Reasoned discourse went the way of the dinosaurs.

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In my forthcoming novel, Gaia and the Goliaths, #7 in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” Detective Castilblanco considers some of the pros and cons about nuclear power. The novel’s main theme involves climate and environmental issues, pro-environmental activism, and attacks on the environment waged by corporations and their political sycophants.  Russia, known for its lack of concern about the environment and the Chernobyl disaster, plays an important role too. These issues are current ones now, considering the new U.S. administration that will invade Washington D.C.

Mr. Trump and his cabinet choices will probably set back any progress we’ve made on environmental issues, except for states like California that are far more progressive than Washington, and there are plenty of willing accomplices for Trump’s team in the GOP-dominated Congress. The new president thinks global warming is a hoax and climate control isn’t necessary. But questionable actions have been taken by Dems too. There is a general consensus among politicians that nuclear power is bad, so let’s get rid of it.

For example, Governor Cuomo of New York has championed the closing of the Indian Head power plant on the Hudson, mentioned in my novel, without having any viable alternative for replacing the power the plant generates. Many European countries depend on nuclear power, as does Japan. Is it dirty energy? Are nuclear power plants accidents waiting to happen? Have politicians created a Frankenstein monster in order to win votes from environmental activists?

First, let’s state for the record what affects global warming and is bad for the climate, namely fossil fuels. Presumably Cuomo, who has no technical background and is apparently channeling Van Helsing in his pursuit of nuclear energy as an evil vampire, will replace Indian Head’s power output with coal-burning or natural gas power plants. Those are worse for the environment. We need to reduce the carbon footprint, not augment it. Any environmental campaign must be anti-fossil fuels because there is no way to use them that won’t damage the environment. Period.

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“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free…and I’ll detain them, persecute them, and send them back to die.”–Lady Liberty’s new slogan.

The Pope of Physics. Gino Segre and Bettina Hoerlin, authors (Henry Holt/Macmillan 2016). Nobel Prize winner Enrico Fermi not only brought Italian physics out of the Dark Ages, he was a national and international icon who was the last great physicist to excel in both theory and experiment. He was also a great teacher to many students. He had a cameo role in my novel Sing a Samba Galactica for asking one day at Los Alamos, “Where are they?” He was referring to extraterrestrials. That statement is now called the Fermi Paradox: if ETs are abundant in the Universe, why haven’t they come to visit? It probably inspired Freeman Dyson to come up with his famous estimate for the number of ET civilizations.

Fermi’s less rhetorical accomplishments, while noteworthy, aren’t described in great detail in this biography. The book is more a tribute to the man. The person who first explained beta decay, designed the first atomic reactor (then called a nuclear pile) at the University of Chicago, and helped bring World War Two to a swift close with the development of a fission bomb, was a complex person who tried to isolate politics from science—for him the bomb was an experiment in nuclear science. He’s been criticized for that attitude, but the criticism is unjust—one can read between the lines here that scientists were used by the politicians. They still are.

Perhaps more important in this story is how Fermi, who wasn’t Jewish, still suffered from anti-Semitism. His wife was Jewish, so they had to flee Mussolini’s Italy. His wife’s father died in a concentration camp. Friends and their relatives were persecuted and murdered. Fermi’s flight from Italy was immensely beneficial to the U.S., though, as it was the case for many refugees from the hatred and bigotry ravaging Europe.

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All good ones avoid the spoiler-alert phenomenon when the reader already knows the real-world facts about what went on. That they are non-fiction doesn’t matter—they still have to be an interesting story to maintain my attention. Pages and pages of droll facts cause me to skip just as much as excess world-building in a sci-fi novel or excess narrative in a mystery (those are often the same thing). And I really don’t want a freak show like famous person X having a two-headed cousin who married an orangutan.

As a fiction writer, you might think I just read fiction in the genres I write—mystery, thriller, and sci-fi, and their combinations. Or, you might think I just read any genere fiction. You’d be wrong. For example, because I once was a scientist, I can read technical books—I still peek inside them occasionally. They’re often filled with history too. I once owned a three-volume work on spread spectrum techniques (advanced communications theory). As a reference, I’d skip around in it—funny how technical writers think they’re organized when they’re not. But I thoroughly enjoyed the introductory part that considered the history where I was reminded that the idea first appeared in a Theodore Sturgeon sci-fi short story (yes, the same guy who coined Sturgeon’s Law) and that Hedy Lamarr, the actress, did research on it during the war.

OK, I don’t read technical books for fun per se, and never did, although I’m quick to say some are more fun than others. But I’ll read a good biography, history, and memoir for fun…and maybe never finish it if it isn’t entertaining in some way. A good biography gets into a person’s mind and ferrets out the reasons for her or his actions. That’s especially true of an autobiography. I avoid Hollywood and other celebs’ like a plague, though. Most don’t say anything of interest compared to Churchill and Eisenhower (two bios I read last year) or propose anything that will better people’s lives (like Bernie Sander’s Our Revolution). Scientists are particularly bad at autobiographies—your best bet is to read their biographies (I just finished one about Fermi).

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The Interview

Copyright 2017, Steven M. Moore

                From his screened-in porch, Adam Hart heard the grinding gears. Someone wasn’t skilled in driving stick, but the driver was coming along the windy, gravel road leading to his cabin. He went inside, unlocked his gun case, and took the shotgun back to the porch and propped it up by the chair he had been sitting in. Nothing like disturbing my peace and quiet!

He’d been enjoying the bird calls, the sound of a woodpecker off in the distance, and an intimate dialogue with the rushing waters from a nearby brook. His sanctuary from the Upper West Side had allowed him to produce thirty-two books, most featuring his irascible detective Leo Goretti and his cop partner, Emily Durnin. Adam’s laptop sat beside him on the table, open and ready for action. It wasn’t connected to wi-fi—there was no internet service within miles. He liked it that way.

He soon saw the jeep was a rental with New York plates. The muddy entrance road had done its job of making the vehicle’s color indeterminate. A woman was driving. She stopped in front of the porch and stepped down, a tall, angular figure, and a younger version of his agent who had spent many years badgering him about publishing deadlines. He never met them. Never intended to do so.

Nowadays he’d prefer a comfortable small press or going indie where he’d represent more than substantial paychecks for editorial support staff and his agent. The big traditional publishers milked their big names all they could. He could still make money writing, but he knew a lot of new or less established writers couldn’t hope for that. When he used to give lectures to newbies, he’d always recommend never to leave their day-jobs until they won the lottery of having a bestseller.

“Adam Hart?” said the woman.

“Wrong cabin,” said Hart. “The roads are confusing in these parts. Bet you were using GPS. They regrade the road differently after every winter because the spring runoff does a number on them.”

The woman eyed the shotgun. “I just want to talk. Can I come up on the porch?”

“I’m telling you you’re wasting your time, but come on up. Door’s on the side there. Clean the mud off your boots and watch your step.”

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