[Crackpot comments in brackets.]

Hello James,

I finally got a moment to write which I'd been planning to do for a while.  I received your contact info from your editor who is a mutual follower on Twitter.  I know you maintain a lively correspondence and I wanted to write to you while you are still engaged.

My first encounter was with the Harm City material circa 2015 when the unrest began.

[25% of my readers came in 2015 checking on the Baltimore Riots.]

 For a long while, I mainly followed the Harm City and Combat topical material.  However, I will credit the occasional mentions of Robert E. Howard for getting me to return to the pulp fiction genre.

[Howard—to write well enough to ape him—was the reason I started writing nonfiction, just practice constructing thoughts in a language I do not understand. I know zero about how to structure a story, write a novel; or how and when to use a semicolon;]

It was not until last year that I first began reading your fictional works.  I'm really glad I did!  The collections Darkly and Night City are the best short fantasy works I've seen since the high pulp era.  In particular, Hoodrat Halloween, Little Feet Going Nowhere, and Organa were top-notch.  Love the atmospheric horror in those tales.

[Thanks so much. These books have sold less than 5 copies each over a half dozen years. I am simply thrilled to have a handful of fiction readers and appreciate your support.]

This Design Is Called Paisley got me interested in the Sunset Saga.  So, I read your blog and you said only a handful of people have read it, well you can count one more.  I have only got so far as Beyond the Ember Star, so I did NOT read the spoiler and I thank you for noting it so I could avoid it.  But I must ask since you have spoiled it:  Do you plan to finish it?

[I address this at the bottom. I do multiple ending for some books, like Beyond the Pale, and will do three endings for The Sunset Saga, one of which I spoiled, which was the main mystery behind the time hunter operation.]

Personally I don't share your pessimism about your work, the idea that it could not sell.  Claiming it has no appeal is not quite right: It has a surrealist flair to it and that can be popular.  Just look at the career of David Lynch.  It has an original plot and the characters are memorable.  There is potential here.

[Oh, thanks. Now, I do know that I wrote interesting characters that readers enjoy and that surrealism has some appeal. It is simply that taking a liberal progressive premise and executing the story according to a stark real politic arc, well, that just loses most fiction readers.]

The main problem seems to be that, for some reason, major platforms have gone out of their way to censor you.  I'm not really sure why.  The only thing I can come up with is that your idea of fractional autonomy and strategic thinking is more threatening to the powers that be than the ideas of alleged dissidents with an ideological axe to grind.

[The System identifies actual original thinking, no matter how minor, such as mine, as a threat, because it has potential to undermine the false polarity we live under. Consider the defund the police and back the blue camps. Both camps revolve around the same lies but take different sides and take turns, across generations, being the insiders and the outsiders. The thing about fractional autonomy is that you are content to be an outsider and do not support the insiders by trying to find acceptance. Less than 5% of Americans are cognitively or morally capable of agreeing that cops and blacks are feuding food soldiers for the system, that they both serve it, and that any yeti who defends himself against a black is going to be attacked by the PIGs. One of things I liked about writing The Sunset Saga was the scenes were the Bracken brothers slaughter cops! I might even write a cop snuff novel for kicks, How about ‘Whack the Blue?’]

Anyway, I just wanted to note that there are people who actually buy and enjoy your work.  I have bought many titles over the years. Hopefully you got at least some of the money from those transactions.  Hopefully your prosperity increases with the passing years, even if you only spend the money on Latina strippers and booze (would that really be a waste?).

[Sir, I am making about $7,000 dollars a year, which is three times as much as I ever thought I’d make writing. With readers putting me up and not charging me rent, if I save my money, I might be able to buy a retired Latina stripper from some Old Testament flesh monger and have her carry my rucksack for me! I surrendered to God almost four years ago and decided I would drift on his iniquitous wind and abide whatever fate he cast before me. I truly regard myself as blessed—if oddly so—and would be disappointed if my work became popular. Almost every body on this planet is a retarded oxygen thief. Why would I want their approval. They either thing that the policeman is your friend or Tyrone is a genetic saint. I simply don’t have the stomach to seek approval among such folk and don not care enough about them to try and help them. I’m a live and let die kind of guy.]

Maybe we chat some more with time.

[Sure.]

Best,

Behetnasch (the bright star in the tail of the Great Bear, that was rising when I was born)

…

Behetnasch, thank you

Much appreciation for your support.

I plan on concluding The Sunset Saga in 2022 if I live that long but hope to die under a Latina stripper before then. Seven Moons Deep has been done for three years and should be published this year.

The final volume will be titled WhiteSkyCanoe. If I linger long enough to write that volume, I might be tempted to do a sequel of a sort. But I doubt it. As my eyes get worse, it is hard for me to complete old works and to write sequels of them, which requires me rereading the old text, and, in the case of concluding The Sunset Saga, one reason why that may not get done, is that I would have to reread 1 million words that I wrote mostly over a decade ago in order to keep the final volume consistent. As I think about this, I shy away. For instance, I might never finish Wonderfall, which is now 10 years in the works, for this reason.

As I think on it, I will probably write WhiteSkyCanoe as a short novel without reading for consistency, something I could do in a week.

I don't know who David Lynch is. I recall Andy Edwards, author of King of Dogs citing him in a podcast as a genius writer. However, I have not read any of his books.