Freaksville is Coming Along Nicely

Hi Guys,

 

 

Just thought I'd write a short post to tell you that, no, I haven't been just simply sitting on my arse, twiddling my thumbs all this time. (Just some of it!) In fact I've been busy writing two different novels - oh the perils of being a pantster! 

The first is "A Ghost Of A Chance" which is about an astral traveler in a steampunk world who discovers all the strange troubles his talent can get him in. At the moment I'm a little bit blocked on it, which is why the second book, "Freaksville" is coming along a little faster. Freaksville is an urban fantasy set in New Zealand about an engineer trapped in a community full of nyads, dryads and - you guessed it - faeries. It also skirts the boundaries between urban fantasy and urban sci fi which means it may end up being classed as science fantasy. (Oh, it also has a six legged cat!)

But what I really wanted to talk about was a new art program I've recently discovered. And maybe I'm a little behind the times, but it is wondrous. It's called Deep Dream AI, and as the name suggests, it actually has an AI generating images for you based on how you describe the image you want. And it is stunning! It does beautiful pictures, though it has problems. Number one unfortunately is that it can't do wings, which is why I had to tinker a little with the image above. (And there's more to do yet - this is just a draft!)

What blows me away though, is that the computer generates these images all by itself based purely on a few words you give it. Now that truly is science fiction!

Anyway if you've got a few spare moments, I'd recommend hopping over to the site, and taking a look. It has a limited free offer - probably about fifteen or so images you can experiment with - but unfortunately after that you have to pay. But it's well worth just seeing the brave new world of computing arriving in front of you.

(I just hope AI's don't start writing books - or I'll be in trouble!)

Other than that, I really haven't got a lot else to report. But as usual I wish you guys all the best. And as always, be good or don't get caught!

Cheers, Greg.

Anomalies

 Hi Guys,

Thought I'd better pull finger and get out a post this year - especially now that my first book is out for 2021.

Anomalies was a struggle to write and in fact I had to rewrite it several times before it reached a stage I was satisfied with. I think that's because it was one of the books that changed along the way. Though in it's case it wasn't the plot or the characters that fought to be something else, it was that the book developed an underlying theme. 

 In essence while you can read Anomalies as a straight forwards and hopefully enjoyable urban sci fi with a few thoughts on genetic engineering etc, it has an underlying theme about identity. Who are we and who do we think we are? And perhaps the most important question of all - who do we choose to be? All the main characters are wrestling with these questions throughout the story - with varying degrees of success. And while most of their issues are related to various forms of genetic engineering carried out upon them, it's still a question that can and probably should be asked by every one of us as we grow and change.

Anyway that's the nature of the book. Here's the blurb and I hope you enjoy it.

ANOMALIES:

Clem Atkins has lived happily on Coast Road in the Coromandel for sixteen years. To his neighbors he is nothing but a beach bum with an annoyingly loud car and a terrible wardrobe. They have no idea he escaped from a genetics lab as a child.

 

His neighbors also have no idea that the drug rehabilitation facility known as the Sanctuary, just a few k's down the road, is an alien base. And they would never suspect that Callie who peddles her way up and down the road every week to sell the Sanctuary's produce, is a surgically and genetically altered woman from another world.

 

And then there's Maggie, who only knows that she was built to be a spy, and she doesn't want to do that anymore. But there is no walking away from her life for those like her. And she doesn't know how to escape.

 

But when the navy shows up one day and starts bombing the Sanctuary the time for not knowing has to pass. It's time to start asking questions – and hope that the answers don't kill them all.

 

Cheers, Greg.

 

Christchurch

Hi Guys,

So, I'd guess everyone has heard about what happened in Christchurch on Friday. Certainly everyone in New Zealand has. And I'd guess most kiwis are a little like me, shocked and horrified by such a terrible act of violence. All of us will be saying - this is New Zealand - We don't have things like this. Not in Godzone.

But it seems we do. Even if the offender has to come here from another country to murder innocent kiwis who were doing nothing more than praying. (Note that I will only refer to him as the offender. I do not want to use his name and give him a single ounce of fame.)

My heart of course, goes out to the victims and their families. To lose their loved ones in such a brutal and senseless attack must be beyond our understanding. All I can say is that you have my prayers as you do those of all kiwis. 

This is a good country filled with good people, and we apparently let in one rotten apple. We have to make sure we never do that again. And quite frankly we have to get rid of all semi-automatic weapons. That will be my submission when the enquiry is put out for public comment as it surely will be. Let the gun makers cry into their empty bank accounts!

But I want to take a moment here to talk about the revolting ideology commonly called white supremacy. And to express my rejection of it speaking as a white half Aryan man.

Now I'm sure the neo-nasties will try to defend what they believe in. Just as I know that their entire belief structure is a lie. And I'm not just talking about the long since discredited doctrines of racialism and Nordicism. I'm talking about the lies all neo-nasties tell themselves.

It's not just the lie that one race is somehow inherently better than another. It's the lie they cling to in their beds at nights. In their hopes and dreams. That the white race (as if there were such a thing!) is somehow great - and so by extension, are they.

This is patently false. One race is not better than another. And even if one were, these individuals would be the exceptions.

Consider the concept of greatness. The one as espoused by Nietzsche (who only got it half right) and completely misunderstood by the Nazis. Ask yourself, what is a great man - or woman? What defines him or her?

Well one of the things is self awareness. Self knowledge. The very things the neo-nasties clearly don't have. You see a great man or woman looks inside him or herself, especially when things go wrong. He fails a test, doesn't get a job, doesn't earn a high salary or gets hounded by the police. Whatever it is, whatever failure has beset him or her, a great man looks first for the source of failure in him or herself. And when he finds it, he fixes it. He gives up drinking, works harder, stops breaking the law - whatever is needed. In so doing he becomes greater.

But a neo-nasty like the offender and his cohort? They don't do that. They look outside. They blame other people. They didn't get a job? It must be because the system is rigged to favour those brown people. It never occurs to them that the person who did get the job worked harder, studied harder, didn't do drugs or alcohol and didn't get a criminal conviction. And so it goes on. Always, for every failure in their lives, it must be someone elses fault. It could never be theirs!

Another of the things that defines a great man or woman is courage. And courage doesn't mean that they don't know fear. It means that they don't give in to it.

But the neo-nasty gives into fear without hesitation. Just listen to the snippets of the manifesto that the latest offender published. Why did he do what he did? Because there was an "invasion" of people who were different to him. He was terrified that he would be left alone and unemployed, inadequate in a world where people better than him succeeded. That's not courage. That's cowardice.

And then there's weapons - a form of power. The great man or woman doesn't need weapons. He doesn't need to use force to exert his or her will on the world. S/he knows s/he is right and carries with him / her an inviolable authority. Why would he need to use force? He doesn't. The great man knows his thoughts and beliefs are right and that others will see that and accept it.

The neo-nasty on the other hand, craves weapons. S/he craves anything that will make him or her stronger. And the reason for that? Because he or she knows deep down inside, that he or she is weak, even if they can't admit it.

This is the nature of the white supremacist. And of the offender who killed all those innocent, unarmed men and women and children in Christchurch. As well as so many others.

And the reason I wanted to say this? Because while this atrocity was carried out by one man, he was aided and egged on by so many others. All those who supported him. All those who took his feeds and distributed them.

I don't know if it's possible to track you down and expose you to the world. Since you so bravely decided to name yourselves as anonymous! But I do know that if you hold the same views as the offender, then you are the same as him. And if you encouraged him to do this, then you are as guilty as he is.

Don't come to New Zealand. You're not welcome here.

Greg.

How to Script an Election

Hi Guys,

Well the big news this week from New Zealand is that we had our general elections on the weekend, and the National Party romped home while almost every other party lost ground. This despite the fact that the National Party has been in power for six years and this would be its third term - and the normal cycle is that parties in their third term lose support. In fact this surprising turn of events we are told by the people who take note of these sorts of things, has happened only once in the last century.

 

So how did this happen?

 

Well my take as an author is probably a little bit different to that of the media, who are busy portraying the left as having run a dismal election campaign - and I should at this point declare myself as a Green voter - which places me squarely on the left of the political spectrum. And to be fair I do think the campaign from Labour - the main opposition party - was on the boring side. Maybe they didn't have enough money to produce slick advertising, or maybe originality deserted them, but there is no doubt that their campaign was flat.

 

But there was far more at work here then just that in my view. This was an election that was completely overshadowed by a popularity contest. The Prime Minister versus a German Millionaire who doesn't want to be extradited to the US for trial. (I won't mention his name since he ran a website where people could pirate and post artistic creations and thus is far from my favourite person as an author.) And reading from the Castle playbook of crime solving (I love that show!) I looked for an answer by asking the question - what would make a good story?

 

Now so far what I've laid out is I think fairly uncontroversial. But it occurs to me that one way to boost your popularity if you're desperate to gain a third term and the numbers aren't looking so good, is to reframe the debate. Housing prices going through the roof? The gap between rich and poor growing greater? Don't have enough money to offer tax cuts as the right always seems to want to? Then don't run a debate on the issues. Your numbers will be hurt.

 

But instead when you have a popular Prime Minister - and I can take nothing away from John Key in terms of being a popular political figure - make it a battle for credibility. So bring an enemy (sort of) from out of left field. Let him build a political party and campaign out of a single political agenda - to get rid of John Key. Let him just before the election take a huge personal swing at the Prime Minister through a dubious email which he can't seem to back up. And then let him miss. Miss so horribly that it looks to the entire country as though he never had anything at all. Just hatred.

 

And there you have an election won and lost in my view.

 

The voters on the centre and right side of the electorate are incensed. Their hero / everyman has been maligned for all to see. So he and by extension his party gets a massive protest vote. Not because of a massive swing to the right - though that's effectively what it looks like. But because John Key has been made out to be an innocent under unfair attack. So he has to be supported. The left are tarred with the failure and perceived malicious attacks on the person of John Key, while at the same time their campaigns on the issues have been completely overshadowed by personal politics. So many of them stay home instead of voting for what they believe in and the left vote collapses.

 

Is this what happened? More or less in my view. But the real question is, was it planned? I personally don't know. I'm not privy to the secrets of the various political machines. But it feels right. Horribly right. It feels as though we - by which I mean the New Zealand voting public - have been played.

 

And as I sit here with the taste of bile in my mouth - yes I freely admit it -  I look to some of the other things that happened that shaped this election and wonder. For example another right leaning political party, the Conservatives, who were trending towards the five percent threshold and had they crossed it would have been in parliament and would have prevented National from being able to govern alone, had a melt down two days before the election. The leader's press secretary resigned declaring that the leader was manipulative. And immediately the Conservatives who National would not have wanted in parliament, lost votes. Instead of five percent and maybe six or seven seats, they got four point one percent of the vote, and no seats. Coincidence? Again I don't know. But from the Castle school of investigation it looks damned convenient.

 

So how do we find out? I don't know. I'd guess we could look at the futures of the two players who seem to have delivered an election between them to National. Do things coincidentally come up rosy for them? And maybe someone will investigate - it won't be me. I'll just sit in my home and write my books and feel as though I've been played like everyone else.

 

But maybe Nicky Hager you have your next book waiting for you here. Dirty Politics Two. A book of which even Machiavelli would be proud. At least one author seems to have done well out of this campaign.

 

Cheers, Greg.