Sad news today about the murder of four US Marines in Chatanooga, TN by a jihadist Kuwaiti immigrant.  It’s still early, but the most likely scenario is another impressionable Muslim youth radicalized by ISIS propaganda.

This is, unfortunately, what happens when there’s a war being fought but only one side is actually fighting it.

I originally intended to avoid political commentary on this blog, but I am getting pissed off regarding the editorializing about the attempted terrorist attack in Garland, TX.

The party line seems to be that it’s the fault of the people who put on the Mohammed cartoon contest…”dangerous extremists” in the words of one editorializing moron in the USA Today.  They were being “deliberately provocative” and inviting violence.

Leaving aside the obvious comparisons to accusations that scantily clad women “invite rape,” which is equally idiotic, why are we holding Muslims to such a lower standard?  When Robert Maplethorpe created his “artwork” “Piss Christ,” which was the incredibly inventive and thoughtful dunking of a crucifix in a jar of urine, no Christians shot up the studio where it was displayed.  When Chris Ofili displayed his “Holy Virgin” painting, which depicts Mary basically covered in feces, no Christians bombed the place it was displayed.  And neither man was told they were inviting violence and putting innocent people in danger because no one seriously believed that Christians would kill random strangers over the insults.

So why do we assume that Muslims will?  Why do we insult the vast majority of Muslims by assuming that any insult to their religion will result in violence?  How is that a “progressive” position?

Have not heard back from the gentleman who was working on my audio book in a few weeks now.  Either he has decided it’s not worth it and not bothered to notify me or he’s run into trouble of some kind and is unable to get in touch.

Either way, it’s looking more doubtful that this audio book is going to come to pass any time soon and the only thing I am grateful for is that I didn’t sink more than a couple hundred bucks into it as a downpayment.

The audio version of Duty, Honor, Planet is more than half complete.  I’m hoping it won’t be but a few more weeks.

Just spent some time going over pronunciations and such with the narrator for the audio version of Duty, Honor, Planet. He should be knocking it out very soon!

I saw Interstellar, Chris Nolan’s new film, last night with my teenage son and we both really enjoyed it.  It was one of the finest examples I’ve seen of literary SF—classic literary SF–translated to film.  It was very well done and if you want to see more intelligent, thoughtful SF movies, you should go support this one.

Wow, the promotion was much more successful this time than last:  nearly 5000 downloads in the five days as opposed to about 2700 last time!

Okay, I am having another five-day promotion for free download of Duty, Honor, Planet November 1-5.  Tell your friends, tell your family, tell the world!

I’ve decided to make a foray into the realm of audio books.  I was contacted by a gentleman who offered to record an audio book of Duty Honor Planet at a reasonable price and I decided to give it a go.

This is a pretty big departure for me, as I have very strenuously resisted spending money on my writing.  I view the writing itself as a very personal work, meant to create stories that I want to read rather than a commercial effort.  The publication of these stories for sale, by contrast, is a purely commercial effort and one into which I was hesitant to sink much money, given the fickle nature of the market.

However, the price is reasonable and I thought it was a good experiment.  I likely won’t make my money back from it, but I am going to give it a shot.

Hope some of you guys like audio books.