Today at 1:00 PM Pacific Time, at THIS LINK, I’ll be one of three authors in the NovoPulp Volume III Launch Party Google Hangout.
I’ll read some pages from my SF story about the same topic that’s in my Psychological Suspense series, The Agents of the Nevermind — social engineering by Intelligence agents.
If you’re interested, you can watch and ask questions of any of us.
For the sake of being commercially viable and safe, much crime fiction ignores truths that are controversial, dangerous, pandering instead to a brainwashed populace. Major publishers understandably have to consider what kinds of friends and enemies in high places their book’s messages make them. But some authors do take that chance of rocking the boat, and I’d like to see more people take risks to produce authentic, culturally meaningful Thriller/Suspense/Mystery unafraid of referencing the fictionalized news in our Cover-up Culture. I, myself, like to write crime fiction that brings attention to people destroyed by, or fighting, the system brutalizes innocent people by distorting reality.
Should we ignore the real crimes against the human psyche by corrupt law professionals, the creation of patsies, COINTELPRO style undermining of the lives of activists, manipulation of citizens through disinformation in the news and CounterIntelligence-created cults? Should we turn a blind eye to the military taking over countries for a sneaky agenda, the ruthlessness of hidden interconnectedness including pest control/waste management – food/poison manufacture — evangelists/government — Theosophy/UN — and so on?
I find crime fiction that props up the corrupt paradigm to be boring, predictable, and old hat. I get excited when I read, or watch movies, that rebel against fakery. Most popular authors seem to present the police or Intelligence agents as being always the good guys, or they single out rogue members of a supposedly great agency. However, many readers are hungry for smart revelations and useful information; when narratives get them to think, and point them cautiously in the direction of true societal crime on a large scale, it’s a service instead of distracting entertainment that reinforces demeaning propaganda.
I prefer to write about crimes which are not simply personal but which are common social problems, such as the FBI creating terrorists by suggesting and funding people otherwise not inclined or capable of committing major crimes.
Substantial numbers of newscasters are paid by the CIA or bribed and backmailed to create the fiction warmongers want people to believe, such as Udo Ulfkotte bravely admits. I like fiction that doesn’t shy away from revealing the lies beneath the brainwashing of our society.
I suspect the majority of Literary readers/writers are not particularly passionate or educated about true crime topics. They would be required to question what authorities paid by CounterIntelligence present the masses for the purpose of creating divisiveness. They have other things on their minds, and that’s fine. But that’s one reason I love Genre, which has the potential to reach more readers with hard-hitting message. It’s often written by insiders, and people with extensive experience outside academia, who don’t need to avoid upsetting university superiors.
Authors who take the time to pull away layers of the deceits created by governments don’t find the same fan-base for those controversial topics in Literary Fiction as they do in Genre. There are few Literary magazines to even submit such stories to for consideration. But Political Thrillers and SF readers are more amenable to authors who take an interest in solid facts and world issues. The readers tend to be more action-based, interested in what corporations do, political intrigue, conspiracies, the direction advanced technology is taking our society, murder and mayhem, legalities, mysteries, danger. SF has the option of writing about topics that might otherwise cause the authors problems by using the future and alternate worlds as metaphors to address sensitive issues.
The real crime fiction is that created by bankers, governments, the military, and corporations, using “news” to create a false sense of reality that the majority of people are hoodwinked by. When fiction writers echo that illusion, they are — willing, or unwilling — co-conspirators in dumbing down our culture. When authors are brave enough to look beyond the naivite of the two party system, and write about what’s behind the machinations of the propaganda machine — hats off!
Some brave Thrillers:
The Deal (movie)
Lexicon by Max Barry
Dime Bomb by J. Arthur
Dark Alliance by Gary Web — movie Kill the Messenger
Some insightful SF:
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Culture by Iain M. Banks
Iron Heel by Jack London
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Minority Report by Philip K. Dick
Mind Control busting YA:
Control Group by Patrick Jones
Candor by Pam Bachorz
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Crime Fiction
The mystery of the shining children by Cale Carlson
Morning, Come Quickly by Wanda Karriker
My novel manuscript, Unside: A Book of Closed Time-like Curves, arose from years of intensive research and staying up to date on proposed DARPA technology, etc., and watching how it’s used in manipulating our society. The links I’ll be sharing here cover topics featured in my novel. If you like these kinds of topics in your fiction, subscribe to the mailing list, and in the meantime, marvel, shiver, and write.
My SF story, “Printed People Eaters,” was chosen as the narrative from the Conspiracy themed print and e-book anthology, Redacted Story, to be nominated for the Pushcart Prize. This is my 6th Pushcart Prize nomination.
The great Ashley Parker Owen‘s KY Story publishing house brings Appalachian authors to print. My mother’s family homesteaded on Sand Mountain, rural northeast Alabama, and I spent a big part of my life living there, loving the land, animals, trees, relatives, down-to-earth ways. My Great Grandparents moved there after Sherman destroyed their farm in Georgia. Some of the family stayed in Georgia (and eventually gave birth to Jimmy Carter, my third cousin.) My Grandparents both died young, leaving Mama and her siblings orphaned as children, raised by their aunts and uncles, most of which remained single all their lives. I was there a year and a half recently for the end of Papa’s life, but we lost the land due to theft by a con artist, which broke my heart. It will remain in my heart. I keep a piece of my friend– one of the old oak trees that was there when it was homesteaded — by my bed.
The anthology has a 5 star rating on Amazon. I have a second story in it as well.
KY Story’s other publications’ nominations: Appalachian Voice: John Vanderslice, “Escape to Ash,” John Sparks, “Fishing with Abraham,” Tom Sheehan, “Sixty Years Later at a Mid-Earth Pub.” Motherlode: “Oren Hammerquist,” “Desert Daddy,” Treg Isaacson, “Growing Up or Not.”
KY Story is current taking submissions about Bullying for an anthology, deadline Feb. 25th 2015.
Though the American Psychological Association reported in 2008 that the Zero-Tolerance policies set into motion in 1994 do not contribute to making schools safer, in 2013, children began being suspended and arrested for imaginary guns. Some of the offences included pointing a breaded chicken finger at a teacher, playing cops and robbers with a paper gun, throwing an imaginary grenade while pretending to be a soldier, owning a pink toy gun that blows soapy bubbles, writing about killing a dinosaur using a gun, threatening other kids with a toy gun of rolled-up paper, drawing a picture of a gun when the teacher said to look up at the clouds and draw what they saw, twirling a pencil in class, chewing a strawberry Pop Tart into the shape of a gun, molding a pastry into what a teacher decided looked like a gun, and talking about toy guns to classmates.
SF story, Origami Mafia Unfolds, as News from the Future, at The Subtopian.
The thundering sound is happening again under me, down deep in the earth, and it makes me want to save the world. I want to tell people about it before it’s too late— if I can avoid repercussions. The housemate who always has nightmares when they are blasting down there is yelling himself out of his sleep in another room.
My SF story, Breaking the Seal, at Gone Lawn.
Whenever I see lunar rays coming into my room on new moons, when I hear the catbird bark, and I feel my internal organs curling, jumbling up like chitlins and sweetmeats on a tray handed a dying man in the desert, weakening in the sun before he can reach up to take them, I suspect they are coming for me again, like they did, starting years ago, when I was transferred to command at the new Army base. Little did I know I’d be waking with scrapes on my arms, grass scattered around my pillow, spend my hours trying to understand my secret life. It wasn’t my idea. It was theirs. Whoever they are.
SF story, The Coveted General Anzel Smile, at The Strange and the Curious.
SF story, Printed People Eaters, in Redacted Story e-book, published by KY Stories.
Tantra Bensko's Genre Fiction 