A certain Mr Damien Walter whose books I have never read (perhaps because he has written none) makes bold to advise me how to conduct my professional career as a science fiction author. The comments are somewhere hereabouts.

“I think Correia did two things. The first was appeal for votes on the basis of a perceived liberal bias in the genre. That was the basis of his campaign, a protest vote against liberal influence. That was divisive and did a lot to spark the backlash he’s still feeling. Secondly, and this is going to be much more damaging for him longterm, he allowed himself to become very closely associated to Vox Day in the process. Ultimately people do judge others by their associations, and both Larry Correia and John C Wright have made very public declarations of support for Day, that I fear both will deeply regret in the long run. I’m quite serious about my suggestion by the way. I think if Correia wrote publicly to support the new diversity in the genre, and apologised for any perception he was campaigning against it, that might help him a lot. Remember, we won’t know who missed out on shortlist places until after the awards. At that point Correia et al could find the response to them gets much, much worse even than when the story broke.”

Of the suggestion that Mr. Correia should apologize for the perception in passersby that he was or was not campaigning against Deracination, or Divarication, or Dipsomania or whateverthehell Mr Walter is talking about, other voices than mine must speak, since I am choked to silence with contumely.

Once I was trapped in a room by a opium-addled drunk who was hallucinating about trashcans, but I see no need to apologize about what other people perceive, particularly when they damage their organs of perception either with strong spirits, opiates, or the far more addictive spirit of partisanship.

I am confident Mr Correia can speak for himself, with more energy and patience than I can muster.

But I must speak up on my own behalf. If I may say it without offending Mr. Day, when did I ever publicly express support for him, or express anything like it?

Vox Day is not a nervous schoolgirl trying to break into a highschool clique, nor is he running for public office, NOR HAS ANYONE ACTUALLY ASKED ME MY OPINION ABOUT ANYTHING VOX DAY HAS EVER SAID, ergo the deduction of this Walter creature to know my thoughts on the matter would be insulting, if he were of the stature to be worth noticing long enough to take offense.

It is now considered not just to be a public declaration of support but indeed a very public declaration of support for someone to say ‘I decline to heed or to echo malign and false accusations against a man I hardly know, as it is none of my business, and I hate falsehoods’?

Vox Day and I have a professional relationship. He is a publisher of some of my work. It is a situation we both find to our mutual benefit.

The same hour Vox Day and I signed our contact, a small, shrill, cowardly and mentally backward group of anonymous strangers and dank gargoyles wrote me incoherent and gargling notes expressing unsightly yet pathological hatred toward Vox Day for reasons that never were made clear.

(I am under the impression that he had offended their political cult dogmas by not allowing an arrogant leftwingy loudmouth named Jemisin to upbraid him in public, but manfully returned blow for blow. This is apparently an unforgivable sin, even though it picks no man’s pocket and breaks no man’s leg.)

But it is none of my business either way; I am not the father confessor of Vox Day, nor the father of N.K. Jemisin. I can neither hear his confession nor send her to her room without supper. The Morlocks knew this. The Morlocks were crowding my inbox merely to display their political credentials, that is, to pat themselves on the back for supporting Big Brother by dumping insincere ritualized hate on Emmanuel Goldstein.

I answered these uncouth Jacobin sans-culottes with the back of my hand, as any gentleman should do.

How is that a show of support for him? I just wanted the drooling and poop-flinging yahoos off my lawn.

As for my relations with Vox Day, so far it has been immensely rewarding. He has always been courteous and professional with me. My professional opinion, which I am happy to share, is that he is a hardworking and honest man of business. Any writer who wishes a sudden, sharp boost in sales, such as I have been delighted to encounter, is advised by me to seek him out.

I would say my personal opinions about him, except, as I noted above, no one has asked, and I am not the type of man who gives his personal opinions about business partners in public anyway. Maybe I secretly hate him. Maybe I secretly love him.

Maybe I have erected, at great personal expense, a ninety-one foot tall idol of radioactive black marble to his likeness in the caves of Logan County, West Virginia, where I and a coterie of degenerate hillbillies, drug-maddened Saponi and Shawnee shaman, blood-drinking devil dogs, together with an inhuman living fungi from Pluto make hideous sacrifices and perform acts of unspeakable abomination to adore our idol of Vox Day, impiously dreaming of the return of the Elder Star-gods from Hyades in Taurus.

But you will never know, dear reader, because gentlemen do not gossip about their business partners, customers, coworkers, and fellow Spawn of Shuma-Gorath. It is unprofessional.

“Unprofessional” — Does no one know what that word means? It means the undignified introduction of personal or political matters into a public and nonpartisan context in such a fashion as to hinder the smooth transaction of business among sober adults. It means mocking and upbraiding your fellow science fiction writers on account of their race or religion or their political opinions, and trying to drive their customers away.

Gentlemen do not read unsigned poisoned pen letters. If you want to accuse me, at least sign your name so that my seconds know where to go to decide on matters of time, place and choice of weapons. If you want to accuse someone else, write him.

If you want me to heed sneering gossip about some third person or join your little giggling circle who delights in repeating such gossip, I decline. If you want to upbraid me for declining to heed or repeat gossip, then to the devil with you.

I might at some point in the future express support for Vox Day if I thought he needed it, and if he said something I agreed with, if I thought it merited public comment.

I certainly feel warmly disposed toward him for his boldness in facing the drooling lunatics, capering yahoos, savage Morlocks and whimpering Eloi of the Left, and my affection and fellow-feeling grows the more the more I hear about his enemies.

It also grows each time I hear from his enemies, including the ones gossiping about me, but who have never read my books, or talked to me, or know anything about me. The Morlocks merely utter a blast of noise, senseless as the braying of a trumpet, and expect the timid Eloi to descend into the pit to be eaten.

So why bother including my name in his remarks? Why bother saying I support Vox Day and will some day, perhaps when the Son of Man is seen in the Clouds, be brought to judgment and pay a horrible price, perhaps to be flung in a lake of fire prepared by Karl Marx and his angels for Adam Smith and his angels?

You see, the drooling lunatic in this case, our Mr. Walter, cannot make his case without making believe his make-believe.

In order to make a feasible threat against us, he has to portray Mr. Day, Mr. Correia, and myself as a cabal of ‘reactionaries’. (Why did he leave out Sarah Hoyt? Is he RACISSS? Why omit Kate Paulk? Is he SEXISSS?)

(Reactionaries! There is a lovely but meaningless Marxist swear-word from the Late Victorian Era. I love how these so called Progressives are stuck protesting the social conditions of Charles Dickens’ day.)

In order to make the awkward argument that it is not in my best interest to support Vox Day, Mr Walter has to pretend I have supported Vox Day and then pretend I am or soon will be suffering some sort of fiscal or personal cost for this unwise decision.

You see the problem? Mr. Walter cannot cluck his tongue and warn me that my support for Vox Day’s opposition to whatever will cost me readers until and unless I express support for Vox Day’s opposition to whatever.

Frankly, I am not too clear on what Mr. Walter is in favor of that Mr. Day is again. Divergence? Dilettantism? Inculcation? Energy Independence? Bioethics? Toleration of multirainbow something? Anti-Mexicanism? Finn-bashing? Bimetallism? The Caledonian War?

Just what is it that Vox Day is allegedly against that Damien Walter is allegedly for?

Let me peruse his poorly-written screed for a moment, and unlimber my Newspeak-to-English translation mechanism. Ah! Here it is!

2014 has proved to be a pivotal year in liberating science fiction from its own innate political biases. For decades, science fiction’s major awards were given, year after year, to white male authors.… It is fair to say that SF is coming to terms with its historic gender [sic] and racial biases.

(By ‘gender’ Mr Walter means ‘sex’. Literate people know that gender refers to word endings in declined languages.)

My Newspeak-to-English translator reports that Mr Walter is in favor of judging science fiction stories by the melanin content of the skin of the writer who writes them, rather than the merit of the story.

In other words, Mr Walter is in favor of judging all things, including what how many readers or awards adventure novels about Space Princesses and Space Pirates should have, on the basis of his race of the writer and his race alone.

And — wait a sec — Walter is promoting open, naked racism, and he is accusing Day of racism?

(Why is the race of the writer significant? Why not the editor or publisher or cover artist? If a Pennsylvania Dutch writer with a Jewish wife, a Chinese daughter, a Portuguese Godmother, and a Black roommate who follows an Argentine Pope and worships a Jewish Carpenter has a Quarter-Mexican Editor and a Finnish Publisher, how does avoiding his books help Diversification or Diversion or Desertification or whatever it is called?)

Be all that as it may, an examination of my public statements will show I have not said anything on the topic one way or the other.

All I have said is that gossips are worse than racists, and that the accusations of racism are meaningless due to overuse and abuse.

I have said and will say again that I hate the Thought Police with a bitter, ice-cold, and unwavering hatred. Thought Police are un-American, Anti-Christian, inhuman, and disgusting. I have said that I will not, by dues or name, aid an organization, like SFWA, which officially supports policing the thoughts of its members for their political correctness and ideological purity. I am against unprofessional behavior from a professional organization.

At this point, when it comes to cries of racism, not only do I not react to the boy crying wolf, nor bestir myself by a hair’s breath to seek the source of the cry, I know by sad experience it is always dishonest, and so I hope the wolf eats the slander-mouthed boy, to silence his incessant and annoying lies forever.

However, such slanderous, false, and importune tactics that Mr Walter and his ilk use so annoy me that I will happily hereby this day declare my total and absolute support for anything, anything whatsoever, that annoys the Left or anyone claiming to speak for the Left.

I declare my total, reckless, and absolute support for Vox Day, but not the real Vox Day (which is not even his real name, only the name of his public persona, one part gadfly, one part Don Rickles, one part Harlan Elison) only the spooky bugbear invented by the Leftwing nincompoops in their hallucinations.

But that is not enough! I also hereby decree, declare, announce and enact the creation of the Evil League of Evil! A subdivision of the Technocracy! Also, I am creating a Vast Rightwing Conspiracy, and joining Opus Dei, an order of Anti-science Albino Assassins, who takes orders directly from the cyberpope in the Vatican!

Our heraldic symbol is a three headed vulture displayed propre, chief sable, lightningbolt in left claw, orb topped by cross in right claw, with the eight-pointed arrow of Chaos in the crown, on field sable and or lozengy. The motto is ‘Facias Malum, ut Inde Fiat Malum‘.

I hereby will vote Vox Day our Supreme Dark Lord, declare Larry Correia to be our International Lord of Hate, decree Sarah Hoyt to be our Beautiful but Evil Space Princess whom we all love and obey, and — let me see, all the good positions are taken — perhaps I can be the Evil Brain in a Jar just like my ancestor, Simon Wright. Perhaps Sarah Hoyt will carry me around in a handbag, as she walks the grounds of her secret base hidden in a cold volcano cone, commanding innocent and cringing minions to be flogged with electric whips, or sent screaming to the Agony Vat.

The other positions will be taken by Bad Horse, Dead Bowie, Fake Thomas Jefferson, Fury Leika, Professor Normal, Snake Bite, Tie-Die. If he commits an act of murder, then the Evil League of Evil will also admit Dr. Horrible.

It must be MURDER, for no lesser crime will equal the gut-wrenching horror, the sheer terror, the savage brutality, of the criminal act of Yelling At A Hyperventilating Thin-Skinned Leftist Boob Who Savaged Him (Vox Day’s capital crime) or Saying We Should Write to Entertain (Larry Correia’s felony), or … or … (What am I accused of again, anyway? Not wanting to pay money to a lackluster professional guild of people who are not helping my career?) or whatever my apparently horrible crime is.

Oh! I am guilty of Being Skeptical, Waiting to See Proof, and Not Joining the Mob Pelting a Witch Accused by a Lunatic Witchhunter. Yes, that is it. Already I feel the evilness of my evil rising up my spine in cold tendrils and seizing on the delicate central areas of my brain. Soooo…. evil …. EEEVIL….

That being the case, my position the Living Brain is an insufficient rank for me in the Evil League of Evil. I have consulted with the repairer of reputations, Mr. Wilde. He mentioned the establishment of the Dynasty in Carcosa, the lakes which connected Hastur, Aldebaran and the mystery of the Hyades. He spoke of Cassilda and Camilla, and sounded the cloudy depths of Demhe, and the Lake of Hali.

I have studied the ramifications of the Imperial family, to Uoht and Thale, from Naotalba and Phantom of Truth, to Aldones, through Orville and Wilbur Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright , Simon Wright the Living Brain, which leads to the wonderful story of the Last King.

The scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow must hide Yhtill forever! Soon I shall take up the Yellow Sign, which no living human being dares disregard. The city, the state, the whole land, were ready to rise and tremble before the Pallid Mask!

The time has come, the people shall know the son of Hastur, and the whole world bow to the black stars which hang in the sky over Carcosa!

Now, at this point, you may wonder by what authority I can decree the Evil League of Evil into being, and appoint its officers, and what madness leads me to claim to be the King in Yellow and Emperor of America, considering that this is a character from a make-believe horror story about a lunatic paranoid.

But pause and consider how much more interesting the lunatic paranoia of the story of Robert W Chambers is than the lunatic paranoia of the story by Damien Walter, a story into which, without consulting me, he has placed a character based on me.

And the difference is that I actually am kidding, and I know the King in Yellow is play-pretend, whereas Mr Walter is serious, or he is what passes for serious in a man of his character and limited mental and artistic accomplishments.

———————————————-

I end with a personal appeal to Mr. Walter:

Dear sir, I reject your kindly-meant advice with the wholehearted yet instinctive contempt a clean-minded bridegroom uses when throwing aside a disease-raddled whore who has leapt from the garbage pit to embrace him.

My reason is this: It is not that I think Vox Day good, Mr. Walter. I do not know much of anything about him. I think you are evil. I know enough about you to know that, you smarmy, unctuous, long-haired, dough-faced, damp-fingered, weak-minded, small-souled, craven, race-baiting, unutterable failure of a human being.

The more you talk, the stronger your opposition grows, as the science fiction readership slowly comes to understand that you and yours hold them in contempt. You regard them as lesser beings. You talk as if they are the merely passive recipients of the political opinions you and yours want to program into their unwinking and dull eyes. You speak as if they are bags of meat, whose only dignity is in their most shallow surface features, namely, their skin color.

That is your picture of the men and women I revere as my patrons and patronesses.

You think you are better than them. Your reason for thinking yourself better is that you abandoned the intellectual clarity and moral discipline, what you call ‘reaction’, which they embrace. You think you are better than them not despite but because you are worse; objectively and obviously worse; worse as a thinker, worse as a man.

Ultimately people judge a man by how often his mouth is full of manure, I fear you will deeply regret your public display of coprophagy in the future.