The cover for ‘Knights of Malta’:

Excuse me while I go have a manly squee.

LawDog

I’ve been getting questions as to whether Rita and I will be at LTUE in 2023.

Unfortunately the answer is “No”.

Matter-of-fact, absent a tectonic shift, neither I, nor Rita, nor Raconteur Press will be at another LTUE symposium.

First there was the silliness when they tried to ban JL Curtis — that was fixed easily enough.

Then they played silly buggers with our membership rollovers for the virtual LTUEs during the Covid bushwa — okay, they probably needed the money, and buying a couple of new memberships wasn’t a financial hardship.

When they sent an invitation to be a Guest Panelist, and then rescinded the invitation after I had been squeeing and dancing around the office — that was annoying, but volunteer college students, am I right?

The icing on the cupcake was last year when they announced an extremely restrictive mask and vaccine policy; and justified it by saying it was in line with State of Utah and County policies.

When we pointed out, “No, they aren’t. Here are the State and County policies, and they’re nowhere near being that restrictive” we were ignored. They doubled down by deleting any comments to that point in social media, while allowing snide comments, and insults directed at us from people who favoured the restrictive policies to stand undeleted.

I’m not daft.

We come to this decision after some hard thought — we have friends, and fans, and authors in the Western states, and our current convention schedule trends heavily towards the South and Southeast which puts us out of reach of those friends, fans, and authors — but LTUE is off our list.

As we ramp up, we’ll look into other cons in the West, but as of right now we don’t have anything on our radar.

Sorry guys.

LawDog

Herself penned a charming little short story regarding a cat on a spaceship, and when I told folks about it, the inevitable teasing about “Anthology #214” started.

Well, she blinked those big blue eyes, started pondering, and I am pleased as punch to announce that she will be chairing an anthology about cats in space (which I teasingly refer to as “Moggies! In! SPAAACE!!”)

If you’re interested, and have a 5k to 8k short story involving 1) Cats; and 2) Space you might hit her or Kortnee Bryant up.

I think she’ll be making the formal announcement at FenCon, but it can’t hurt to give folks a little extra writing time.

LawDog

Larry Correia is a good friend of mine, and while he probably doesn’t need any help from me, I feel strongly enough about his newest book that I’m going to suggest that people buy it.

It’s called “In Defense of the Second Amendment“, and even if you completely agree with Larry, you probably know somebody who’s kind of on the fence about the issue — and that’s really whom this book is for.

Plus, he’s absolutely stomping his way up the Amazon ratings — he’s already got the Orange Flag of Greatness, and is on the way to nailing #1 in multiple categories.

And that’s on pre-orders — the book actually releases in January.

Go. Drive the wokies at Amazon nuts by purchasing this book.

LawDog

Your Humble Scribe has learned that Paramount will be releasing a D&D movie set in the Forgotten Realms in March of 2023.

I watched the trailer, and words cannot express how giddy teenage LawDog is right now.

The trailer has a displacer beast, a gelatinous cube (a/k/a Dungeon Roomba), an actual black dragon, the Red Wizards of Thay, Waterdeep, and an owlbear.

Aw, man, this is going to ROCK.

And yes, I know that technically a druid can’t change into an owlbear. I don’t care. Yes, I know it’s against the core rules, but if you’re making that argument you DM’d a boring campaign, or never heard of House Rules.

I can’t wait.

EDIT: I just realized that Chris Pine’s character is wearing a Harper pin!

LawDog

I’m not a big fan of term limits on the folks who make laws.

On the President — who ought to be more of a figurehead than what we have made him to be these days (but that’s a rant for another time) — I don’t mind term limits so much, because the POTUS is still (for now) fairly limited on the damage he can do.

Term limits on legislators … not so much. The need to get re-elected, to appeal to as many of their electorate as possible, tends to kerb the enthusiastic excesses of most of our Congresscritters and Senatethings.

As bad as they are now, I shudder to think what would happen every cycle that a significant number of them know that whatever they do, whatever bill they pass, whatever law they promulgate can have — will have — absolutely no repercussions on their ability to get re-elected.

In other words, if we passed term limits today, there will be a legislative cycle down the road — say 8 years — in which every Congresscritter would be free to propose and vote on any bill without fear of backlash from their voters. Because they don’t have to pander for votes anymore.

That doesn’t give me the warm fuzzies, I’m here to tell you.

I am more in favour of a gradual approach. 

Write a law that says that any Congressman who has reached his/her 62nd birthday is ineligible for to stand for election; likewise for any Senator who has achieved his/her 68th birthday. Or pick any other upper age.

Hell, I’d be happy with Congresscritters being no younger than 25 and no older than 55; and Senators being no younger than 30 and no older than 60.

This would result in lawmakers lame-ducking out of office in a more piecemeal fashion, rather than a veto-proof majority — or entirety — leaving every 8 years, or twelve years, or whatever arbitrary time period is selected, and limiting the damage that will be done by lawmakers with no check on their ideological  enthusiasm.

LawDog

Kelly Grayson has a second book out in his collections of collaborative First Responder stories, and I’ve a couple in this one.

One of the stories long-time readers will remember, the other is new. Several other folks in this one are first-time authors, so I’d take it kindly if y’all would go by and show them some love.

LawDog

… my first book made it to #87 on Amazon.

It was also — very briefly — the number one book in the entire Humor category, beating out Al Franken, but I don’t think I took a screen-cap of that one.

I’m rather more proud of passing Al Franken than making it to #1, but I’m weird that way.

Wow.

LawDog

The National Suicide Prevention hotline has — rather quietly, I think — rolled out a new three-digit hotline number for quick access.

Too many folks — and I’m looking at the veterans — still take what my friend Tam refers to as the “Permanent solution to a temporary problem.”

If you’re in crisis, the new quick access number is 988. You can call or text, and someone will be there. If you have the old number, don’t worry — it’ll still work.

Pass it around, folks, it’s not getting the press I think it deserves.

LawDog

Cedar Sanderson is chairing an anthology of hunting stories — I’ve a story or two in there — and would like some input.

LawDog