For a few years now, I’ve wanted to read Arturo Perez-Reverte‘s Captain Alatriste series. I’m a sucker for swashbuckling Renaissance adventure. This week I got hold of a copy of the eponymous first book. (Amazon? Well would you look at that! Right under my nose the whole time…) And you’d think I’d be happily drowning Perez-Reverte’s tale of the Spanish Golden Age. But because I am also a sucker for werewolves and conspiracy theories, another book has usurped my attention…Lycandoids, SuperSoldiers and the Freedom War: The Saga of the Post-Apocalyptic Freedom Wars.
I’m not making this up, I swear…
(see, told you I wasn’t making this up…)
The advent of the internet and invention of the e-reader has democratized the publishing industry. With just a tiny bit of start-up money, anyone can start a desktop, direct to the consumer publishing business. I’ve certainly benefited from this with Eschatology. And anyone with a story on their fingertips can circumvent both the traditional and new-media publishing process, uploading their work to Amazon or Barnes and Noble. The problem is that these days anyone can publish a book. Amazon (and I assume Barnes and Noble, but being a Kindle Fire owner, have not checked) is glutted with “independent” (spade-a-spade: self-published) works containing poor editing, poor story construction, poor writing and myriad other problems. These indie writers have managed to prove that yes, you can judge a book by its cover. For all its real and popularly-imagined evils, there is some value to the traditional publishing process.
Now, this isn’t to say that all independent books aren’t worth the ones-and-zeroes they are printed on, or that all indie writers are guilty of the above sins (or that traditional publishers only put out literary masterpieces). Scott Nicholson is a great example of an independent writer who thrives and produces quality work in the e-reading world. There are plenty of examples of indie-writers and publishers doing the same.
Lycandoids, SuperSoldiers and the Freedom War: The Saga of the Post-Apocalyptic Freedom Wars is not one of these examples. While the copy-editing is competent (mind-boggling I would even have to write such a phrase; it’s something all-too-frequently missing in self-published books), the word-crafting and storytelling are sub par. The perspective shifts from first-person to third-person omniscient, usually between chapters, which isn’t too great of a sin, but sometimes between paragraphs; the first-person narrator will describe, omniscient, events he is not witness to. Tense suffers shifts as well, between chapters, between paragraphs. The characters are so uninteresting it would be a stretch to call them two-dimensional. Dialogue is so leaden I am worried my Kindle will soon collapse in upon itself, the resulting singularity consuming the greater part of the 502 area code.
(Okay…so from the above it should be obvious I am not a professional book reviewer nor have anything resembling a formal education in English. Often, for me the difference between a good book and a bad one is much like how Justice Potter Stewart saw the difference between art and pornography. That I could articulate the above criticisms is as significant as Caesar saying “NO!” What this says about me as a writer I will let you, dear reader, decide.)
(A candid photo of me writing…)
From the description on Amazon, I could tell this book would be problematic. So why am I reading it? A few reasons. One, it is free, discounted from $5.99.
Second, the plot is absolute batshit insanity. And again, please keep in mind that I am not making any of this up.
Sometime in the very near future, a coalition consisting of the Occupy movement, Anonymous and fundamentalist Christian militia-groups team up (because why the fuck wouldn’t those groups align?) to overthrow the New World Order. For those of you not in the know, according to conspiracy-theorists, the New World Order is a plot by the ruling-elite of the world to…be the ruling elite of the world. Yes, I know this makes no sense. The tide of the war (called the Freedom War, an Orwellian term if there was ever one; shows what the conspiracy-theorists would consider “freedom,” as you will see) is turned when Anonymous releases a virus that destroys every machine run by a microchip on the planet (“freeing” us from the tyranny of heat in the winter, hot meals, clean water and access to medicine. Thanks, assholes), except for, of course, those computers and machines owned by the freedom-fighters. This coalition even managed to defeat the legions of foreign troops, hidden for years in Mexico, that invaded America. Now the ruling-elite, consisting of “international banksters” and the Illuminati and the Fourth Reich scientists who secretly controlled America (and you know, kudos to them for keeping for their genocidal tendencies in check for the past 70 years…) are in hiding, either in the underground base in Dulce, New Mexico shared with demonic-aliens or in their secret fleets around Mars. On the run and losing the war, the New World Order unleashes their secret-weapon, the Lycandroids, biomechanical, genetically-engineered-with-the-help-of-aliens, super-soldiers resembling the werewolves of modern films. Seven-feet tall, all fur, teeth, claws and rage.
(I’m sure the Jews were cut out of later drafts…)
It is like the authors shuffled a deck from the Illuminati card-game and based the plot off the first twenty cards dealt.
An aside…what was it that the New World Order was doing that was so evil? According to the narrator (and all conspiracy theorists) they were engaged in a gradual, decades-long program involving MK-ULTRA, HAARP, flouride in the water, chemtrails and endless regional wars to dumb-down and depopulate the planet. Of course, this is the same end achieved when the freedom-fighters disabled all electronics. But that’s okay. See, if you do not subscribe to the conspiracy-theorists beliefs, you are “sheeple,” “zombies” of the ruling elite, little more than their slave and not worthy of living. Just listen to the disdain and hatred this dickhole spews, not for the elite, but for the average person. Even worse are those skeptics who combat these irrational and often-time hate-filled beliefs; we are government shills, paid disinfo-agents and the first on the list to face the firing squad when the revolution comes.
Another aside…the conspiracy-theorists have a sick obsession with revolution. They claim a desire to overthrow the tyrannical socio-fascist United States government and restore our freedoms. That’s complete bullshit. What they really want is an excuse to kill their fellow Americans (because, remember, if you are not a believer, you are not worthy of living). As the narrator of Lycandroids says in the opening paragraphs of the book, “Some say the Freedom War…may never end. Maybe that is a good thing.” These people have the mentality and maturity of a spoiled child. Not only do they have no idea what real tyranny looks like, but raised on a diet of the detached-violence of video-games and the sanitized-violence of action movies, they have no idea what modern wars look like either.
Here’s the kicker and the third, most important reason I am reading the book…
The authors believe the Lycandroids are real.
I first heard about the book when the authors were interviewed on the Church of Mabus podcast (sucker for conspiracy theories, remember?). They base this off a variety of sources, from Linda Godfrey’s Michigan Dog-Man, American Indian myths, to the Beast of Land Between the Lakes, KY tall-tale (sadly, the story has disappeared from the internet, other than references to. In short, the park is the hunting-grounds of a werewolf, which occasionally makes a meal of families. The state and federal government cover up the murders. Or something. Whatever). How else would you explain the (misleading) statistic that 90,000 people go missing every year in the United States (correction: the 90,000 figure is popular mythology; the book uses the 30,000 figure)? Obviously the answer is genetically engineered werewolves. Obviously.
And aliens.
And probably Jews.
See, Lycandroids is a warning to all those who would enjoy the outdoors. The public needs to be made aware of these terrible, ferocious beasts. Anyone who hunts, hikes or has more than two trees in a four-kilometer radius of their home is at risk. As the dedication at the beginning of Lycandroids states, “This book is dedicated to the brave researchers and survivors who have gathered the vital information regarding the Lycandroid…which will, hopefully, save the lives of the innocent who love to venture into the forests to hike, camp, fish and hunt.”
I know what you’re thinking. “But wait Mister Reverend Bruce, if these monsters are murdering tens-of-thousands every year, how come we have never heard about them!?”
Don’t worry your pretty little heads, dear readers. Special-pleading gives us all the answers we need! The reason we’ve never heard about these creatures is because, of course, the government covers up their existence.
And no good conspiracy-theory relying on special-pleading would be complete without its twin circular reasoning. The fact there is no evidence supporting the authors claims is proof the creatures exist and of the cover-up!
Look, I know you have a head-ache by now. I won’t keep you from the much needed aspirin much longer.
If you love werewolves, love conspiracy theories and possess the ability to suspend disbelief at superhuman levels and ignore bad writing, by all means, pick up this book. It’s the literary equivalent of a SyFy original creature-feature and will cost you as much.
Otherwise, stay away.
And for god’s sake, stay out of the woods.
Over at Binnall of America, there is a new edition of the Paranormal Apostate. This time around, I take a look at the Betty Hill Star Map. Or at least, one popular interpretation of it.
