The Week Between Cons

I’m currently trying to do all of the house upkeep in between con weekends. Normally there is a little more off time between appearances, but this month (and next) different. We had a great time at Halfway to Halloween last Saturday, although the wind did make things a bit challenging at times (see above). Tomorrow I will go help set up the GLAHW booth at Motor City Comic Con. If you are in the area, swing on by the Suburban Showcase Expo Center of Novi or whatever the hell it is called now.

I know that it can be a little difficult to keep track of all of the shady shit that is going on in DC, what with the scattershot way everything is dumped on us all at once, but there are a couple of things which I haven’t seen get much coverage. One is the attempt to include wording that would prevent states from regulating AI for ten years which has been slipped into the spending bill. This was released late Sunday so you know that there has to be some shady shit in there. Not only is AI learning based on theft of intellectual property (see previous rants), but it is also a giant drain on the power system and an ecological nightmare. You would think that the party that stands for State rights would be FOR the states being able to regulate AI usage within their borders, but that was the old party.

The second concern regards the attempt to redefine pornography in broader terms under the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act. This would eliminate the previous method of defining pornography established under Miller v California and would remove the use of community standards as a portion of the definition. Under the IODA the government would be free to define anything which it disagrees with as pornographic including LGBTQ+ material, sex education, medical texts, etc. It is a dangerous attempt to eliminate the free speech guarantees of the Constitution.

For more on how dangerous this is, please read how similar government acts in other countries have been used.

In totally unrelated news — we’ve still got bubbles in the airlock but they are starting to slow down. I check the mead’s specific gravity in a few days and see how close we are to racking it.

Listening To: Polybius by Collin Armstrong. As someone who is old enough to have actually spent (way too much) time in arcades growing up, the Polybius urban legend has always intrigued me.

Currently Reading: After finishing Let’s Go Play At The Adams this morning (see below), I needed a bit of a mental palate cleanser. So I spent a little time with Worst Fears: An Illustrated Guide to Things That Give You the Willies by Don Moyer. This pocket book covers phobia inducing material from Aliens to Zombie Poodles. Each gets a short description and illustration. If you have seen Calamityware, you know this man’s work.

Current Obsession: I watched Fréwaka for this week’s Dead On Thursdays podcast. It is the story of a young woman who is assigned as a caregiver to an older woman who may be suffering from dementia and paranoia. Some of the dialogue is in Irish, so be ready to read some subtitles, but this movie is definitely worth it. I don’t want to give too much away before the broadcast, but know that somewhere between the 2/3 and 3/4 point I stopped taking notes, stopped folding the laundry, and just stared at the screen. The only note after that point was the word DAMN! This is how horror should be made. Currently available on Shudder and elsewhere.

The next convention that DRP will be showing at will be Curious at the Crossroads in June, but this weekend the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers and DRP author Peggy Christie will both have tables at Motor City Comic Con in Novi. As mentioned last week, plan your route ahead of time, as 696 construction will limit access.

We have just about finished up work on Some People I Have Killed by Ken MacGregor which will be available for preorder soon.

Contracts have gone out for the authors of Nightmerica. Keep an eye open for the Kickstarter launch.

We have started working on Here There Be Horrors a new collection of short fiction by Peggy Christie, available later this year.

This Week’s Rambling: This is a Disturbing Book

Spoilers ahead.

Let’s Go Play At the Adams’ by Mendal W. Johnson is a bit of a rough read. This is not because it is poorly written, quite the opposite. The story, however, is one that will stay with you long after you finish it.

It takes place in the 70s (when it was written) and deals with a group of children who take their babysitter hostage and do all of the things that children free of supervision might do. Content warnings include torture and rape. Horror afficianadoes may naturally draw comparisons to Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door (which I always describe as the best book the I can’t recommend) due to its similar themes and situations. Ketchum’s novel draws readers in to the point where they feel complicit in the atrocities. I remember feeling guilty for reading it because part of me kept saying that if I stopped turning the pages, all of the bad stuff would stop happening.

Adams’ does not elicit that same visceral response, but it is disturbing in its own way. Johnson delves deep into the psyches of each of the characters — both the captors and the captive. We feel Barbara’s descent as she gradually comes to accept what is being done to her and even begins to blame herself in some ways. We begin to, if not understand, at least acknowledge the children’s viewpoint that once the acts have started they will continue to their inevitable end.

What Johnson does do extremely well is present the almost sociopathic nature of the children, some of whom may disagree with what happens, but are unable to stop it due to their inclusion in the group. The reader sees how easy it is for them to stop viewing Barbara as a person and come to see her as a plaything, a toy that they will eventually tire of — unless they continue to change how the game is played.

The really disturbing theme is the “us v them” mentality which permeates the book (and which is so prevalent even now half a century later), the acknowledgement that this is how things are and nothing would change, even if the shoe was on the other foot (or more fitting the ropes on the other limbs). There is a sadness, a sense of despair and malaise which permeates the novel and which will stay with the reader long after the final page.

Let’s Go Play At The Adams’ is definitely not for everyone, but it is well written and thought provoking — a perfect title for a very specific kind of book club.