kraken

The Kraken

Kairos is proud to present the debut sci fi-horror story by friend of the blog Martel. Investigator’s Note: Every electronic device in Mr. Gennaro’s apartment was thoroughly smashed with a hammer prior to his death. The Department remained unaware of his final writings until a viral tweet containing only a…
March 29, 202210 Comments
Nepatron Brandon

Neopatron Brandon

Longtime readers of this blog will know that a core theme here is charting the death of oldpub and trying to envision what comes next. I predicted oldpub's demise years ago, not that it takes a prophet to foresee that a business locked into expanding its share of a contracting…
March 28, 202210 Comments
Bravalanche

The Bravalanche

A concept introduced on this blog that's gained some traction in newpub is the neopatronage model. Though still developing, this is the proposition that societal changes will cause a shift away from the old entertainment business model. Instead of artists selling their rights to corporations in exchange for access to…
March 3, 202216 Comments
Gen Y Final Cover

Generation Why?

Announcing a special joint project by authors JD Cowan, David V. Stewart, and yours truly ... Generation Why? There is an epidemic in the modern age: a crisis of meaning. Why is it the world we were promised back in the 1980s and 1990s seems so far away now? Whatever…
February 28, 202220 Comments
Shadow&Smoke

Shadow and Smoke

Announcing the long-awaited third book in author David V. Stewart's Moonsong Trilogy! Having slipped the nooses of their pursuers in Tyrant’s Gallow, Charlotte and Rone are at last in sight of their goal as they approach Golice, but things are not as they were in the ancient city of the…
February 17, 20225 Comments
patrons

Neopatronage Revisited

In light of Amazon's latest shenanigans, this time involving Dragon Award-winning mega best seller Nick Cole, author Benjamin Cheah revisits my concept of neopatronage. During the Renaissance, the wealthy supported up-and-coming artists through a patronage system. The artist was able to earn a living and create masterworks. The wealthy in…
January 19, 20229 Comments

Why Amazon Failed

The esteemed Fr. Brendon Laroche, @padrebrendon on Twitter, documents the latest shenanigans surrounding books by Conservative authors on Amazon. Consider the case of Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed, which I've written about here.     Deneen wasn't the only Conservative author affected. Amazon did weigh in on the controversy. Their…
May 20, 2021
The Other Amazon

The Other Amazon

Original Diablo developer Mark Kern calls out Blizzard's woke revisionism in Diablo II: Resurrected.     Mark is better qualified to take Blizzard to task than most, being a pre-Ground Zero game dev from the days when developers made games for players, not for themselves. Author Adam Lane Smith sums…
April 16, 20215 Comments
eBook Zombie Memes Won’t Die

eBook Zombie Memes Won’t Die

If recent events have taught us anything, it's that we can't trust experts or establishment media. Independent journalists and internal whistleblowers caught Google manipulating search results around the 2016 election. More than one online consumer revolt disclosed that journalists maintain secret email lists to collude on disinfo ops. All of…
April 12, 202110 Comments
Pacing Lessons from Fury Road

Pacing Lessons from Fury Road

Many writers labor under a common misconception about what makes a book feel fast-paced. Slamming chapters together with no space in-between doesn't necessarily give readers a sense of speed. In fact, it can do the opposite by bringing on action fatigue. Pacing has less to do with keeping lots of…
March 10, 20216 Comments