So A Funny Thing Happened ... !

Hi Guys,

 

 

Yes, you guessed it - the Barton Villa bug grabbed me again! This is the problem with being a pantster - I never know what I'm going to write next.

But I'm really happy with this book. I'd missed that crazy island and it's characters, even after I had so successfully ended the previous trilogy by sending everyone off to Mars to live happily ever after. It's a little like that old sweat shirt you put away in the closet which you think you'll never wear again because it's a bit faded and maybe it's got a loose thread here and there. And then one day you find youself thinking about it and pulling it out because you really liked it.

So that's what happened to me. But as I swung into it again, I decided that I had to make a few changes. For a start I didn't want to bring Moncrief Jones out of retirement - I mean the man's been shot, beaten up, in a car crash and suffered numerous other horrid injuries. It's getting old. So I thought I should let him be. At least for now. (But who knows, there could be another good beating in his future!)

I also wanted it to be a harder, edgier sort of book. More a Sam Watson type story - and you know she's always ready with her gun - and it's trained on the bad guy's nuts!!!

The other thing I did was to go back to the racism theme I explored in book three. I don't know why exactly but something about all the Black Lives Matter protests and the police killing of George Floyd etc, has really got under my skin a little. You can't watch that horrible event and not think to yourself, just what the hell is he doing? It just goes on and on. Also the John Griffin story - Black Like Me - has stayed with me for a long time. Not just the experience of a white reporter medically altering himself to appear black and experience life as such, but the reaction he got after what he'd done was revealed. It really is a thought provoking story. So I returned to that and made the bad guys the white supremacists who had united into a world wide movement. (Something about that feels horribly close to the bone lately.)

The other thing I should mention is that us sci fi writers are supposed to pose questions about the future etc and of course various technological advances coming. The genetic manipulation needed to change a person's skin colour from white to black or any other colour of the rainbow, is probably only five to ten years away. The ethics involved in doing so however are light years beyond us!

So just think - what are you going to do when your son or your daughter comes to you one day and says - I want to be black / or white / or yellow? Makes you think, doesn't it!

Anyway that's where the book comes from, and I hope people enjoy it.

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.