Deep waters

  Indie author Amos Keppler's novel ShadowWalk is, among many great things a celebration of multiculturalism.

  What makes Amos Keppler's books unique compared to all others is the uncanny vision he brings to his work. I have read about half of his works by now, and even though the novels are vastly different from each other, they share that unique quality of being different.

  The visual power he brings to his stories is unquestionable. Others have related how they are able to easily visualize what they read in his books. I agree!

  But what the stories are about more than anything is the deep waters of humanity. You haven’t experienced truly deep in books until you read this one. At least I hadn't.

  The story is about Jill, a young woman, among other youths of all colors and many cultures on a quest to find herself and get a life, about her getting it, finding everything making life worth living. It is found under a rock, right before her eyes, and she grabs it, grabs its tail with both hands and holds on to it with all the considerable might she possesses.

  It’s about the dangers seekers find out there, on the freedom road.

  It’s about the mysteries of human existence and everything under the moon, actually. I would argue that it is about everything and contains everything, but that would not be completely accurate.

  It’s one hell of a book and you will find yourself immersed in it, deep below the surface of its waters, its fire lake.

  I wouldn't claim that each paragraph is a joy to read, but it feels that way. The prose is just as unique as the story itself.

  The boys and girls described in the book are teenagers, but this is a story for truly mature readers of all ages. It is a fantasy book. It is not a fantasy book. You will find no boxed in genre story here. You will find life in all its shades.

  No less.

Summer is over

  I like all seasons. They are change and encourage change, but in today’s oppressive society summer is clearly the best.

  It isn't because of the high temperatures, even though I love those, too. The foremost reason is the most obvious: I can more than anything be human. There is not work, not school, but weeks of relaxation, of embracing everything still great in life.

  I can say fuck it to all the trappings of society and that always feels good. Most people aren't able to even imagining a completely different life, but we are.

  We swim, swim a lot, we dive deep into the forest and the night, enjoying every single second of our life, celebrating it in all forms. We know it is temporary, even as we are very aware that it shouldn't be, shouldn't be that at all.

  School is shit, both in its foundation and execution. It’s just a place where you educate robots, mold people into slaves better suited to perform in the harsh existence as an adult. I want to quit school, but I hold it out, because the alternative: being without a higher education in today’s cutthroat society is even worse.

  True learning is nothing like this, this pale imitation of it. If anyone wanted to study anything it should be because they wanted to, not because they feel brutally compelled to do so.

  So, while I seek and enjoy every radical environment I can find in this tiny Scandinavian village of mine, I keep torturing myself with the words and actions of others.

  Summer is over.

Buyers of IPhone

  A very accurate description. People line up for days to buy that shit?
  We live in an insane world with insane people. It's really an excellent illustration how the sick consumer society is kicking into even sicker overdrive.

  It isn't strange that the world is so out of whack.

The boy doll

  I don’t know how many negative articles there are about Justin Bieber out there, since I haven’t really checked. The entire subject, the very thought fills me with disgust. But I would imagine there is quite a few. There should be.

  Here is my contribution:

  He can’t sing, literally can’t sing. Not even the wonders of modern technology can fix his weak voice.

  The songs are hardly songs at all, but a tired, old repetitive, uninventive record stuck at the end of the melody. I most certainly agree with Danish newspapers calling him as real as Santa Claus.

  He is a sale pitch, really and nothing more, a celebration of banalities, of the mindless, of prostitution, of people selling themselves. When millions of hysterical girls scream his name many, way too many young boys want to be him. He is, in short a typical early twenty-first century role model, one not first and foremost selling his songs, but an idea, a scheme of submission and enslavement, one tool among many spearheading his masters’ ambitions of a world without freedom.

  One Direction and similar boy and girl bands fit the same mold.

  When he visited Norway this week there was little difference between that and him visiting any country, anywhere. We saw stupidity incarnated. We saw rich people pay for their daughters to meet him face to face, saw him being treated like royalty everywhere and while there was some reflective thought in that and other regards, reflective and critical thought was mostly absent in the public sphere.

  The music publishing industry, like the movie and book industries doesn't sell art, but a lifestyle, one without awareness and independence. They have always supported artists serving up mindless drivel the most.

  It’s very similar to general advertising. Advertising doesn't first and foremost sell a given product, but instills in almost everybody a need for being popular, to belong, of being accepted by family, friends and society. In the boy or girl doll the modern human youth projects his or her longings, an excuse to not seek true freedom, to not live an independent and radical and aware life.

  I don’t wonder why the world is filled with silly love songs. It is because those in charge have ordained it.

The stark truth

  This is so spot on, so accurate, so telling. All people, but especially those professing to be radicals (but clearly aren't) should take it to heart. I will put it to you, to you guys right now: Stop being gatekeepers, stop defending the system by ridiculing system critics and buying tyranny propaganda.

  Others about this subject:

  The absurd and ridiculous

  Watchdogs

Ever After by Kim Harrison, my thoughts

  «There's no witch in Cincinnati tougher, sexier, or more screwed up than bounty hunter Rachel Morgan». From Every which way but dead (book 3 of the Hollow series).

  Aside from having a «tendency» (pun intended) to name the books in her Hollow series of novels after Clint Eastwood films, Kim Harrison is quite the competent writer. I have to think so, right, since I've read every book in the series so far.

  I love the quote above. It more than suggests, in spite of the flaws that there is something more than the ordinary to these books, something confirmed at least to a point when you read them.

  Kim has set up a very elaborate universe of vampires, witches, demons and elves with more than one original twist. There have been ups and downs in my reading of the series, but I do come back for more. I don’t quite understand why, but I do.

  I like the fact that Rachel was revealed to be a demon and also accepted it without too much fuss. Most other writers in the genre of urban fantasy wouldn't have dared to do that, wouldn't have dared pushing even those minor boundaries.

  Ever After is the eleventh novel in the series. And even though Rachel has fucked up again and needs to fix it, she has reached a modicum of calm at her center, isn't the neurotic wreck she was in the first books. Even Rachel’s relationship with Ivy the vampire isn't that unlikely and filled with silliness anymore. As Kim has done earlier she continues building on themes introduced in previous books. There is a progression here that is kind of effective. She is fairly good at characterization, at least with some secondary characters for some reason.

  And I do want to know what comes next, even though I see, or at least initially saw Rachel, the main protagonist as a ridiculous, implausible character.

  One thing in particular is bad about this book. A very important event happens off camera, which can never be good. I could attribute this to the I-form Harrison use to tell her stories, but the event would be easy to work into even that, so it has to be a deliberate choice of the writer and one I can’t say I like very much.

  The stories remain a fashion show of sorts, a choice I don’t care for either.

  And my foremost criticism: These books are advertised as books for adults, but I think they are much more for young adults and hardly even that. The way sex and violence and general interaction is described (or not) is almost approaching that of a children fairy tale, not really for truly mature readers at all.

  I wish writers would stop being so cautious. I guess it has something to do with the fact that the books are published by established publishers. They don’t make waves and don’t want their writers to do so either, and that makes almost all their publications potentially very, very boring.

  As I said, I keep reading these books, but they don’t excite me and certainly not like they could have, if they hadn't insulted the reader’s intelligence.

  My conclusion, I guess, is that in spite of some positive elements in the stories, the negative outmatches them. The potential is far from being actualized. The setup is great, the execution isn't.

The sorry current state of mankind

  Most people clearly prefer the choice on the right, since that is by far the most common these days and has been for a long time.
  It says a lot about the sorry current state of mankind.