ONLY AUTHORS SHOULD BE AUTHORITARIANS

 

DICTATORS OF THEIR OWN WORLDS

 

There is a lot of talk, buzz, worry, concern, hand-wringing, and general if, for the moment, gentle panic about the ugly heads of authoritarians rearing up everywhere. 

Gentle panic? 

I just wrote it, and I’m not sure I know what it means. Maybe it’s the kind of panic where you are not yet screaming and running out the door, but you are holding your breath and hoping to hell you will be able to breathe easy sometime sooner than not. 

This is a worldwide condition. Or at least in those countries governed by some form of democracy. But even in democracies, some would seem to prefer a strong, unbound hand at the tiller of state. As I said in my Old Curmudgeon’s Book of Questions video on YouTube fourteen years ago, 

“If we all agree that democracy is the best form of government then why is it people are so quick to support a dictator—if they agree with him?”

 

In thinking about this recently, I realized that my concerns about authoritarian dictators running things (usually into the ground) have found their way into many of my novels. That’s certainly true of my latest release from Magpie Press, IMP: A Political Fantasia. 

"Steven Paul Leiva is a very bad man. His version of U.S. politics Trumps anything the real world has to offer. Hell, you thought the orange one was the only homunculus America had to worry about? You thought wrong. There's always the nuclear option." — Steven Savile, New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author. 

It’s the story of an accidental president of the United States who suffers from wanting everyone to toe the restricted line of his personal view of what constitutes true virtue and proper morals. My model for this short novel was Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, wherein a stubborn miser is shown the error of his ways via visitations from some fantastic entities. Several ghosts, in Dickens’ case. 

In my case, one annoying little imp who often dresses just like the president. 

The imp crawls out of the president’s ear and begins to wax, if not elegantly, then quite surreally. Both stories are infused with the comfort of hope for redemption, as unlikely as that may be in reality. But then, this is why both books are fantasies. 

 

Two of my early novels, The Fixxer Adventures, Blood is Pretty, and Hollywood is an All-Volunteer Army, are ostensibly thrillers and satires of Hollywood, where I spent an inordinate amount of time in my innocent youth. But their antagonists are men and women who wish to have power over people, possibly for profit, possibly for ego, or possibly just for the thrill. 

"Steven Leiva not only promises but delivers.

Beautifully written. Bravo!" — Ray Bradbury.

In Blood Is Pretty, the bad guy that my hero, The Fixxer, must thwart is a film executive, Andy Rand, who chases after a virtual reality program more powerful and effective than the ones we have today. Veritas is its name, and it can quite literally control minds and give them whatever “truth” the controller wishes to give them.  That film executives enjoy having power over people’s lives in Hollywood is not, I think, a surprising idea. So why wouldn’t they want power or people outside of Hollywood if they could grab it? Is it a personality type? Or a drug hard to kick—until they are kicked out. 

"Leiva's immense gifts for mystery and suspense
are matched only by his wry, biting wit in skewering
the Hollywood he clearly knows so well."
— Paul Provenza, author of ¡Satiristas!, director of The Aristocrats,

 

In Hollywood is an All-Volunteer Army, The Fixxer must deal with a cabal of up-and-coming Hollywood executives under the sway of the mysterious ex-gunrunner Maxwellton James and prominent film executive Sara Hutton, the child of a famous clown. Max and Sara are plotting to develop an “army” of film executives. They will be groomed to launch through the media that they will eventually control a propaganda campaign to beat back the coming wave of Have-Nots from the Southern Hemisphere, who are coming up to pollute the Northern Hemisphere, the natural abode of the Haves. They must be stopped! Sound familiar? I wrote Hollywood is an All-Volunteer Army in the late 1990s, but it was obvious to me that some people worldwide would love to “build a wall” at their southern borders to keep themselves “pure.” It is, of course, an unrealistic task. But that doesn’t stop them from trying or giving power over to the worst people who promise to fulfill their dreams.

 

My science fiction satire Traveling in Space is a first-contact novel written from the aliens' point of view. 

"Traveling in Space's humor and refreshing
perspective is thoroughly enjoyable"
— Diane Ackerman, New York Times bestselling author of
 The Zookeeper's Wife and A Natural History of the Senses.

One day, these alien explorers and scientists stumble across the earth. As they had always believed that they were the only life in the universe, they are understandably surprised. And some of them are not a little annoyed. Some vote to move on and try to forget this mote of dust, crawling with primitive creatures. They neither want the Earth’s water nor its women nor do they want to uplift the denizens of Earth to some angel-like state of wonderfulness. Let them do that on their own if they can. But being explorers and scientists, most of the aliens feel compelled to look closely at our planet and us, the odd characters that populate it. Authoritarianism becomes an issue when the aliens' leader—known quite logically as “Our Leader”— colludes with the president of the United States in a truly awful endeavor, but one that they believe will turn Earth into a true paradise and a lovely planet to have authority over. Do they succeed? You will find out when you get to the end of the novel. 
 
My recent novel, The Definition of Luck or The Post-Modern Prometheus, is a contrarian science fiction novel that takes a skeptical look at the potential of mind or consciousness uploading to a non-biological platform. 

"I thoroughly enjoyed The Definition of Luck."
— Stephen Webb, Physicist, Author of
New Light Through Old Windows: Exploring Contemporary Science
Through 12 Classic Science Fiction Tales.

Whereas much of science fiction takes a non-skeptical, even giddy, assumption that it’s just around the corner. A true shuffling off our mortal coils, releasing our newly immortal minds to dance among the digital ONES and ZEROS. Which, of course, has nothing to do with authoritarianism. However, an issue in the novel revolves around the political situation in Kenya of the near future, which has had a problematic relationship with democracy. But the father of one of my protagonists is a staunch democrat and fights for democracy, even while realizing that it is not always a perfect system. He tells his son, “The greatest asset of democracy is the demos. But then, the greatest liability of democracy is the demos. That son, is the paradox of democracy.”

 

In Journey to Where, which I call a Contemporary Scientific Romance, having been inspired by the novels by H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, authoritarianism is plainly in view. 

"A deftly crafted, inherently interesting, and thoroughly

entertaining read from cover to cover…

unreservedly recommended,”

— Midwest Book Review

Due to a sabotaged experiment into a sought-after element of time, a group of scientists finds themselves on an Earth where sixty-six million years ago, a meteor did not strike the planet, leading to the extinction of the dinosaurs and the rise of mammals. So, two dinosaur species evolved after millions of years into bipedal, intelligent creatures rather than mammals doing so. Our scientists find themselves in a world that was once far advanced from our own—these dinos had a hell of a head start. But now that world has fallen into a dark age ruled by a big fist, which hoards not only the land’s riches, controlling a class system of Haves and Have-Nots, but any knowledge his struggling scholars manage to discover. Including these strange scaleless and downy-less creatures that have wandered into the land of Anaraquan. Which translates as Where the Great Quan Rules. The scientists' dilemma is whether to, as they say, go along to get along or fight against the Quan, who rules them all.

 

Creature Feature: A Horrid Comedy was built on the question, where do the creatures of horror books and films come from? 

"CREATURE FEATURE is a weird, funny, twisty romp through
the creepier parts of the American landscape.
Highly entertaining and highly recommended."
— Jonathan Maberry, NY Times Bestselling
Author of ROT & RUIN and V-WARS

Why do ordinary and sensible people create such characters as cobbled-together monsters, wolfmen, vampires, giant gorillas, giant two-legged lizards, gelatinous blobs, and zombies who most definitely do not exist in the real world and, unlike creatures of ancient mythologies, are not trying to explain natural phenomena?  I figured I could get some humor from that, and many readers have told me I succeeded. But, of course, I couldn’t leave well enough alone and had to make the novel a political satire as well. For the creatures that feature in my book, led by a demon of a decidedly authoritarian bent, decide not to stomp and tramp and tear down and fire-breath our world—but to form a political party!

 

I have always felt that if there were justice in the world, the only true authoritarians that should exist are me and my kind—authors. We create worlds and characters and can do with them as we wish. It’s quite god-like and usually hurts no one, nor prevent other people from being happy. Unless they don’t like your work, but that’s hardly life-threatening. But such god-like powers in the hands of one or a few flesh-and-blood humans over a mass of other flesh-and-blood humans have rarely led to good times for all. Even if you think you agree with a dictator, there is always the chance that he or she won’t agree with you. Then—watch out!

-----------------------

You can check out all of my books on the MY BOOKS page on this blog. Or you can go directly to my Author's Page on Amazon.

Cheers, Everyone!

The Grand and Exalted Leiva.
 Dictator Over His Imaginary Worlds.

 

 

 

 

 

SIX PIPERS DANCING

 

Yes, I know, it’s supposed to be eleven pipers piping. But I’m not talking about Christmas here. Except that reading one of Jean Rabe’s Piper Blackwell Mysteries always feels like Christmas. You know, the good ones, when you get exactly what you want plus a few delightful surprises. But essentially, I’m saying that Rabe’s Piper novels dance to the rhythm of her prodigious talent to choreograph the plot, to glide in descriptions of places, atmosphere, things, and people, and to perform the core of her characters, all moving the music of her prose.

So far, there have been six Piper Blackwell Mysteries from The Dead of Winter 

to The Dead of Sled Run.

They cover the first year of Piper’s service as sheriff of an ordinarily peaceful county in Indiana. Piper is only twenty-three when she takes office on January 1. Fifty-eight minutes into that day, she is faced with her first murder. And a rather weird, grizzly, ironic one at that. Why ironic? You can find that out for yourself when you read the book, which I highly recommend.

 

Then, of course, you will want to read the second, then the third, and onward until you finish The Dead of Sled Run, by which time I hope, for your sake, Rabe has released the seventh Piper novel! 

 

The Dead of Sled Run begins with a terrifyingly described (in Rabe’s beautifully controlled prose) house fire that grievously harms Piper’s chief deputy as he remains in danger to save his four cats. A veteran of the force who ran against Piper for the sheriff’s position has, for the past year, maintained a certain bitterness over his loss. Be that as it may, this highly experienced officer of the law, despite having to take orders from a 23-year-old “girl” of only military police service, has never done less than excellent work as her chief deputy. Their relationship is understandably strained, but they have made some progress toward mutual respect in the last year, although there is still tension between them. But the fire, the result of apparent arson, is an attack on one of the department’s own, and Piper is determined to find and arrest whoever did it. And why?

 

Was it an anti-Semitic attack? Her chief deputy is Oren Rosenberg, a Jew. A six-pointed star has been painted onto his garage by the arsonist. Oren lives in a gated community in the town of Santa Claus (I kid you not, but you’ll learn about Santa Claus in the first Piper mystery). All the streets have cute Christmassy names, and, as the novel takes place during December, almost all the houses are decked out in bright-colored festive lights, except for Oren’s. However, as a long-time resident, his neighbors know him well and all like him. They have no negative feelings about him or his religion. So, how did someone get into the community to commit the crime?

 

Then the garage of Piper’s father, the former sheriff (yes, this may have been why she won the election), and now the chief of police in Santa Claus, is set ablaze, destroying it and the apartment above it, where Oren’s granddaughter, a deputy sheriff (it’s a small county) lives. Neither was hurt in the fire.

 

Then, Piper’s chief detective, Basil, stops the arsonist from burning down his house in the middle of the night and breaks his ankle, chasing the culprit. Basil is not Jewish. But he is black. Racism? Antisemitism? Or is it just broad hate for anyone not “white”?

 

Or is it something else just as vicious and very close to home?

 

You can find all the Piper Blackwell Mysteries on Amazon HERE. 

 

You can learn more about Rabe and her work on her blog HERE. 

JEAN RABE

 

 

 

 

 

 

MARCHING IN…AN EBOOK SALE, A BOOK SHOW, A COVER REVEAL

 Hello, Everybody!

 

There’s a lot going on this March with me and Mr. Manfred Magpie, publisher of Magpie Press.

First, the eBook edition of one of my Love, Sex, and Pursuit of Happiness Novels, By the Sea: A Comic Novel, goes on sale for 99 minuscule cents on March 11.

 

A modern comic adult fairy tale with an ensemble cast of Cinderellas.

 

Instead of a kingdom by the sea, our story takes place in and around a residential hotel by the sea. The architecturally eclectic Briers Hotel is situated on Leech Beach, a not particularly inviting beach, being often fog-bound and always scruffy. But it's the perfect setting for our Cinderellas, male and female, who put up with the scruffiness of life while striving to make it through their various personal seaside fogs. Theater; art; antiques; old movies; sex; more sex; death; fast and slow cars, chicken shit and cow poop; military bearing and erotic emissions—not to mention the wicked witch, the sea serpent by the seashore, the village ogre, the village idiot, and several Prince Charmings—all figure into this merry tale with a multitude of happy endings.

 

SOME REVIEWS

 

“Steven Paul Leiva has written an engaging, thoughtful, and kind book…And what a satisfying book it is! Leiva has built his small world perfectly, and each character is so complete and well thought out that what at first seems disparate pieces fit together perfectly by the end. It’s a hat trick in perfect proportions!”—Jo Graham, author of Black Ships, Hand of Isis, and Stealing Fire.

 

“Leiva writes the story with a great deal of depth and perception as he explores the lives, thoughts, and ambitions of each main character...the book’s ending plays upon the they-all-lived-happily-ever-after angle in a quite satisfying but not wholly exaggerated manner.”—Stuart Nulman, Montreal Times.

 

“By the Sea is a delightfully engaging story about an eccentric community that resides in the foggy environs of Leech Beach...Leiva deftly interweaves the characters’ past and present to create a vibrant ensemble that is immediately engaging...By the Sea is a light-hearted, clever read.”— Literary Fiction Book Review.

 

 

 March 17^th sees the 44^th annual return of the Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Collectors Show. 

For the third year, Manfred Magpie and I will have a table to sell our paperbacks of my books. 

They're not vintage, of course, but this show has become so much more than its name suggests. Check it out at https://www.facebook.com/lavintagepaperbackshow.

 

And this year, the first ten buyers of at least one of my books will receive a copy of my book of essays, Searching for Ray Bradbury: Writings About the Writer and the Man at no additional cost!

 “Leiva’s personal and deeply moving tribute to his friend shines a loving light upon some little-known aspects of this intricate and deeply passionate man.” — David Brin in his Foreword.

 

“Ray Bradbury will be remembered as one of the literary giants of the 20th Century. Leiva’s book is a perfect tribute to the life and works of this great artist.”— Joe Mantegna, actor.

 

“Leiva helps us negotiate Ray Bradbury’s transition from a vibrant life to an enduring legacy. His trenchant observations effectively summarize the profound range of Bradbury’s voice.”— Professor Jonathan R. Eller, author of Becoming Ray Bradbury.

 

“Searching for Ray Bradbury is a delightful book — Gary Dalkin, Amazing Stories Magazine.

 

“A brisk read, partly because it is a slim volume, but also because of Leiva’s essay writing skill. … Leiva finds the true Bradbury by connecting anew with Bradbury's text.” — Phil Nichols, BradburyMedia blog.

 

 

AND NOW…A COVER REVEAL!

 

I am finishing up a re-proofing and polishing of my novel, IMP: A Political Fantasia, for release soon. This will be its first time in paperback, as its previous publisher Crossroad Press only put it out as an eBook. The new cover came in this weekend, based on the original cover but re-designed by the fabulous Juan José Padrón!

 

 

 

 

Politics as Unusual!

 

Thomas P. Powell's ascension in politics was both unusual and yet very American. From traffic cop to Vice President of the United States, his climb up the ladder of public service was often due to the push of random acts and not-so-happy accidents—although Thomas held the opinion that it was due solely to his singular innate moral authority. What matters is what's within; that's the Powell political philosophy. Then, on the cusp of his grasping the last rung on the American political ladder, something truly within suddenly appears. A horrible homunculus, an impetuous imp, climbs out of Thomas's right ear to bedevil his nights, confuse his days, and take him on a crazy, wild, nauseating, and nuclear journey. 

 

It’s The West Wing done as an episode of The Twilight Zone.

 

“Steven Paul Leiva is a very bad man. His version of U.S. politics Trumps anything the real world has to offer. Hell, you thought the orange one was the only homunculus America had to worry about? You thought wrong. There's always the nuclear option.”—Steven Savile, New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author.

 

“Leiva is a master wordsmith able to take on any genre or blend them, as in the case of IMP: A Political Fantasia. Once started, I couldn't stop reading. The tale was just long enough yet had me longing to read more of Leiva’s prose. Zoommmmbizzt! I highly recommend this novel. — Jean Rabe, USA Today Bestselling author.

 

“The book is a mix of genres, comedy, supernatural, suspense, and drama, with a U.S. presidential setting. Comedy is the overarching content, however, and I was left chuckling along at the behavior and attitude of the main protagonist. It’s a strong story and a very entertaining read. Well done, Mr. Leiva. — 5-Star Amazon review by PsychicSnail.

 

 

Cheers to All!