The book about the death of the white world due to mass migration and a refugee crisis

This book is an explicitly white supremacist text, and doesn't really hold anything back. Jean Raspail, a well distinguished French author, just sat down to write this one day in the early 1970s after looking at the ocean and thinking "what if they come here". He started writing in the morning, went about his day, went to sleep, then woke up in the morning and started writing again, not knowing where the plot would go as he wrote. He was just driven by a feeling, and that feeling carried him.

A little summary of the plot. One day in Bengal, a million sexy Indian dudes just board old rusty colonel era steamers and decide to sail for the western world. Their leader, a deformed Indian baby sitting upon the "turd eater", gives an altered retelling of revelation and calls for his countrymen to go forth to the land of milk and honey. The Indians set sail, and for the next few weeks westerners all react to the departed fleet, umming and ahing about what to. A lack of willpower to stop the fleet means it lands, and triggers a global exodus of the third world into the first world. A few chuds and one self hating indian go the beach with rifles to stop the refugees, but the French government turns on them and bombs them . The French government was unwilling to stop invaders but would happily bomb its own people. Global mass migrations occur and new immigrant majority governments are formed .

This book is racist, especially against Indians. It's on the level of a "poo in loo" shitpost found on 4chan. The Indian flotilla is like a secondary character, if that, it's like a force of nature. Some inhuman brown blob on the horizon slowly creeping towards its destination, or some tempest the characters all know is coming and are preparing for. The Indians roast their own feces in open fire to cook their rice, they're described as being pathetic and sickly, and there's some hilarious moments where people get close to the ship and can't handle the braps . I don't really think it should be taken at face value, it's more an allegorical exaggeration. The Flotilla is a personification of pestilence and death, its clearly demonic and the book references dozens of times at how it's a miracle it made it (the fleet sinks the second upon making land). The orgy the Indians have on the ship half way with "rivers of sperm flowing between bodies" isn't really meant to be taken literally, it's all symbolic of the global south, and the third world in general. They're poor, they're weak, but they're fecund, healthy and numerous. Contrast that with the way the text describes the pristine first world with large houses, full cabinets of food and pristine white sheets, and you get the allegory of two totally different worlds meeting.

But despite all that racism, most of the book is turned inward, and is focused mainly on the reaction of mayos. How do white people react? What is their reaction?

That's where this book becomes shockingly accurate, and the 2014 refugee crisis proved this novel 100% true in regards to this point. The media all at once started pouring out honeyed words, saying how its the humanitarian duty of France to let in these poor desperate refugees from the Ganges, one journ*list, Dio Clemont, wrote "Considering all the wonders that the Ganges had bestowed on us already—sacred music, theater, dance, yoga, mysticism, arts and crafts, jewelry, new style in dress—the burning question, by the end of the issue, was how we could manage to do without these folk any longer!". The French government knows the crisis that's coming, but is too scared of being called racist, too afraid of the backlash, to do anything about it, all the while the media and the catholic church is throwing wood on the fire and feeding the narrative that it's the west's duty to let these people in. Charities, clergymen and celebrities all depart to meet the fleet half way, hippies sing songs promoting global unity outside of embassies. The French people, for their part, are divided. Some have apprehensions about what is coming but don't know how to express it in a way that's polite or politically correct.

There's some bittersweet moments where the progressive hippies and well meaning Christians, who are acting in what they feel are good intentions, are ruthlessly killed by the Indian refugees. The Christian priests and charity workers in Bengal are trampled to death by the horde. A catholic priest who was part of the Vatican III gets strangled and thrown overboard, other hippies and priest try to give supplies and provisions to the fleet, but the Indians lash out at them. Even when the Catholics are burying their own dead, they think it's some misunderstanding. But at the moment of death many realize their mistake, and suddenly feel remorseful for committing a sin against their own people they can never atone for.

What the book does clearly say is that numbers matter, and that demographics is everything. The crux of the issue is third world overpopulation. You could really just say this book is the chud version of Soylent Green. The metaphor of "ants" is used to describe non-whites repetitively through the text, "like an anthill sliced open" is used to describe the Indians pouring off the ship across the beach.

>; all the teeming ants toiling for the white man's comfort; all the swill men and sweepers, the troglodytes, the stinking drudges, the swivel-hipped menials, the womanless wretches, the lung-spewing hackers; all the numberless, nameless, tortured, tormented, indispensable mass … They don't say much. But they know their strength, and they'll never forget it. If they have an objection, they simply growl, and it soon becomes clear that their growls run the show. After all, five billion growling human beings, rising over the length and breadth of the earth, can make a lot of noise!

The world has become overpopulated and too small and is too small for everyone.

>the Third World had started to overflow its banks, and the West was its sewer.

The book is racist, but also meta about racism. That one word is staggering in that it shatters the conversation and silences all opposition. As much of the book is back and forth public debates and press conferences about the coming flotilla, its true in this book as it is in reality. The book directly references the 1972 anti-racism law France passed, suggesting that anti-racism and hate speech has prevented the French people from standing up in their own interest.

>racism comes in two forms: that practiced by whites— heinous and inexcusable, whatever its motives—and that practiced by blacks—quite justified, whatever its excesses, since it's merely the expression of a righteous revenge, and it's up to the whites to be patient and understanding.

Even though it's effectively a race war, the lines are somewhat blurred. The leftists, church and hippies are on the side of the global south, but there's that one who stands with the chudsquad of whites, one of twenty standing up for the west. He even says as he's trying to join

being white isn't really a question of color. it's a whole mental outlook.Every white supremacist cause—no matter where or when—has had blacks on its side. And they didn't mind fighting for the enemy, either. Today, with so many whites turning black, why can't a few ‘darkies' decide to be white?

So the question on everyone's mind the entire novel is why are they coming? Well, the novel actually does have the Indians land, and it does, at the end, showcase their reaction. They literally think of themselves as conquerors, coming into a virgin pristine land, and the book explores in detail about how they see this vast empty land with rolling hills and free land to settle. Their pathetic barely floating flotilla is compared to Cortes's fleet that conquered the America's, and a few curious Indians venture further inland to discover how deep this continent really goes.

The most hilarious thing is there isn't really much animosity for the whites. Some get killed as the transition takes place by the non-whites already in France, but they're mostly described as becoming an abject caste, and the Indians literally walk past them and settle as if they weren't even there. It's not even blind hatred, it's not even contempt, it's like they're not even a force to be reckoned with. This feeds into the theme that the west is already spiritually dead, and was sickly from the start, and just waiting to be conquered. You see this already in our society where the arts have blurred into modernist and post modernist navelgazing, and there's a feeling there's no more stories to tell. The fact that the journ*lists early on in the novel were already looking outward to the ganges for the west's salvation shows that it's already over. The refugees are literally, yes, settling in an already dead and empty land, the people living there just don't realize it yet.

I think it's worthy of a read. A lot of it has aged pretty poorly, like there's no chance of the Chinese pouring into Siberia as desperate refugees anytime soon, but still it gets a lot of things right in regards to how s react. The meat of the text is how journ*lists and liberal christians are total cute twinks, not that anyone needs reminding, but it's good to see a chud text actually tackle the journ*list menace for once.

!bookworms

To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks and papers.

I didn't read Atomised this week and instead started Confessions of a Mask, which is basically Mishima's autobiography as a closeted teenager during the Shōwa Era Japan, plus weird sadomasochistic tendencies like getting an erection and masturbating to St. Sebastian's painting. I'll finish Houellebecq's “magnus opus” eventually.

!bookworms !classics

I am not a linguist, nor is English my first language, but it is clear to me that usage of pronouns allows for the continuous reaffirmation of the subject of the conversation, a powerful clue that transmits valuable information to maintain its flow.

By using "he" we eliminate half of the planet from the possible subjects of the conversation, I never have to wonder if we are talking about a "she" if the person I am talking to keeps using "he", sometimes the pronoun can eliminate ambiguity by clarifying the s*x in cases where it might not otherwise be obvious. (There is a surprisingly large amount of notable men named "Mary") Not that this matters much most of the time, as a conversation usually starts by announcing the subject ("Have you heard about X", "X has been looking for you", "You shouldn't do X" etc) but in fiction it is notably different.

As of our current year, "they" has acquired no less than 3 different meanings, most of the time we use it to refer to a plurality of people, other times we use it to account of lack knowledge about the person (or people) we are taking about (the so called singular "they") and now some people try to force the usage of "they/them" as personal pronouns. "They/them" having multiple possible meanings creates sooo much fricking ambiguity.

I am sure that in an ordinary conversation this is not a big deal, but when reading/watching fiction it often becomes near impossible to follow the conversation if there is some goofy genderspecial character.

Last anime season there was a character in "Mashle: Magic and Muscles" that was localized to "they/them", during one of the fight scenes the view point changed from one character to another, this mook was evidently trying to hype up his "they/them" boss, but the dialog could have just as easily been about the group they were part of. (notice how it is weird and difficult to tell if I am talking about the mook and "them" or just "them"?).

I am clearly not the only one that realizes how awkward this is, as in fiction where I can actually follow the conversation without having to skip back and try again the writer clearly tries to account for the ambiguity by writing some incredibly stilted and almost robotic dialog.

Basically: if you consider yourself a "they/them", keep yourself safe. You have actually made the world worse by just being "yourself". Neopronouns are less bad, for at least they have only one meaning. Though the only information I can gleam from such thing is that the person I am talking to is some kind of mental midget. Ranting done. Back to reading the new chapters of the webnovel that triggered all this, then back to exam prep.

I had it open in a tab but now it gives me a 403 not welcome message.

https://rdrama.net/h/lit/post/269135/foid-marseytrad-writes-a-meme-book

Jesus Christ, lady, I hope your book has paragraphs!

Let's chop this up a bit.

...it's in a fantasy setting, it also has a coming of age aspect to it and takes place over about 6 years, and they age from 12-18. im thinking hard about how to write them right in their early ages, like 12-14, and i feel like i'm doing it wrong. i'm putting more focus on their character and specific personalities but i'm wondering if, as a girl, maybe i'm accidentally making them too “girly” and “soft.”

i like to make them enjoy the simple things in life, like exploring and enjoying nature, and they also like to talk about their feelings and their hurts. but is that a thing boys do? im trying to make them realistic but sometimes i forget that i was never a boy and i'll never know what it is like to be a boy. and to top it all off, it's a gay romance (it takes awhile though, so they're just friends in the beginning). it just happened to be that way, i wanted a romance that wasn't straight and i felt my story didn't fit two girls (again, there's a difference but idk what it is!)

... i just want these characters to feel real and not how i “think” they're supposed to be. i can't decide if gender is just a construct and it doesn't matter if they're a boy or a girl, or if their outlook on life IS different and they should be written differently. both? what mistakes should i avoid in writing male leads when i'm not a male?

"Have you tried adding reason and accountability?"

Nah, it's a good question. Writing any type of romance you haven't been in is obviously challenging. Writing the opposite s*x requires observation skills, reading and engaging with their work (a bitter pill for moids), and a healthy imagination. You also have to be able to set aside your preconceptions about how people should work, and your desire to fix them. For example, in this case it's not just that men usually don't talk about our feelings, or that we feel uncomfortable doing so. Often, we don't want to. How do these sorts of things affect a developing gay relationship?

But as usual, /r/writing offers reassurance instead of seriously engaging with an OP who wants real answers. Many also get bogged down making very important points about gender.

It being a fantasy setting changes the answer. Boys/girls/men/women tend to be different but a lot of that is a result of the cultural environment in which they were raised. The jury is still out in exactly what elements are genetic vs environmental. But that largely doesn't matter because environment shapes how behavioural genetics do or do not manifest anyway.

Since this is your setting, gender roles and attitudes can realistically be whatever you want. If you even wanted to aim for realism in the first place. If you want boys to be soft in your setting then they are.

It's MY SETTING, and I get to pick the gender roles!!

If you were writing about two average adolescent boys growing up in Anywhere, USA, I'd say it's pretty unlikely they'd talk deeply about their feelings. Many of us aren't even taught to be aware of our feelings. There are exceptions, of course. But typically, they'd probably mull things over in the privacy of their own heads while doing some other shared activity, like dropping bigger and bigger rocks into a lake, throwing dirt clods at a hornet's nest, or building the coolest tree fort ever.

But this is learned behavior, and gender totally is a social construct. You get to decide what being "male" means in your fantasy world, and whether or not you want to make it analogous to modern western, Judeo-Christian culture.

Actual good advice to tell a story about boys erased in real time by genderslop.

Depends on what your fictional society expects of them and if your fictional society has gender roles they are expected to conform to.

In my fictional society, sexy women with big tits are expected to throw themselves at members of !bookworms and !writecel

Of course you can write a world with different social "rules." But the farther it diverges, the less it has to say about real people in our own world, and the more it has to say about the author's own desires and hangups. Might as well say some coomer's monster girl erotica is commentary about female gender roles.

Given your inspiration, I recommend you research homosexuality and pedecrasty in Sparta and Thebes. I'd also suggest looking at Afghan's Bacha Posh to explore the notion of gender vs construct.

This isn't actually out of nowhere because the full OP mentioned "The Song of Achilles," but lmao

... When writing either gender, it's easy to make characters unbelievably confident or strong in their emotions, knowledge, or physical abilities. Making a teen male emotionally literate stops you having a weakness to their character that would otherwise ring true.

Differentiate your characters from each other. Give them flaws. Let their differences and flaws produce tension. Two guys who are just soft and sensitive and slowly start touching peepees isn't a story. Even a hack writer would make one of them the emotional one and the other the moody, silent one or whatever.

A couple more people actually gave decent advice, like here, but of course low effort "You're perfect just the way you are!" advice is upmarseyd while interesting stuff is near the bottom.

As a straight man, I'll never understand this trend. If the men in your gay romance act like women, why make them men at all? Reading gay erotica should be a form of escapism where you can imagine loving relationships without having to deal with women. At least, that's why I read it.

!bookworms I decided to post the thread for once as @pbj has been busy hopefully touching grass

What are your thoughts?

What's the worst book you've ever read, discounting self published crap?

I bought my mom Jo Watson's Among Others half a decade ago for mother's day.

I didn't know much about the industry so I thought that it winning the Hugo meant it had to be at least of decent quality. It was so bad that she said it had to read it too

300 pages of the most pretentious precious child crap

>1984

!macacos

!writecel !bookworms IN IN IN!!!!

Introduction

The early 2000's. Occasionally, a piece of fantasy fiction would break out of the nerd ghetto and hit it big--the crossover appeal of Harry Potter, or the hit film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings. But aside from these occasional breaches, the body of fantasy fandom remained siloed into web forums or in-person conventions that were often invisible to outsiders. Genre aficionados passionately discussed and debated authors who were household names to them, yet who most normies had never even heard of--people like George R. R. Martin, Robert Jordan... or Robert Stanek.

Who?

Well, it was a different time. Could one novelist toiling in semi-obscurity develop a rabid fandom without attracting the notice of the broader SF/F community? It was almost believable.

Almost.

Writing

Stanek's magnum opus, the Ruin Mist Chronicles, is about three heroes--a spoiled princess, a boy mage, and an elf warrior--who go on adventures or something idk. Even people who've read them don't seem too sure. Perhaps a look at Stanek's prose can tell you why.

With the corporeal form the soul was offered a place of refuge from torment and within this form there remained bits and pieces of what had once been individual discernment, and this caused them to both fear and greet the return to darkness with an unsettling expectancy that chilled Amir

This is how I write during NaNoWriMo tbh.

A sphere of brilliant blue-white light enshrouded a body, radiating, pulsating, when the power grew to its strongest in a dazzling array that when sent racing towards his foe turned night into day as opposing forces met in full fury.

When I want an effect like this I just tell the reader to throw the book and yell "BOOM!"

Ywentir with its protective maze had succumbed by a different means than its ill-fated sister though it too had eventually fallen; yet as Noman well knew, for he had been there, Tsitadel' had never fallen, though its survival had been by the barest of margins and through means perhaps darker than even the dark forces would have levied against it

"Slop" would be too kind a descriptor, this is more "sludge."

While there's no place to neatly fit this in, it bears mentioning that Stanek wrote ~4 of these things and has been rereleasing them with different names and covers for the past 20 years.

If people like this post I'll buy one of these shitters and do an actual review. Stanek's given me enough entertainment over the years that he almost deserves it. The snippets I'm quoting were gathered by Rorschach, the universe's #1 Stanek expert (see acknowledgments).

The Stanek Army

Robert Stanek's success certainly has put the indie book scene on the map. Before him there was no indie book scene like there is with music and movies. Now there is... and his success has been the driving force behind it without doubt. His success also makes him a target of big publishers (and some authors) who don't want indie books to succeed

These days, it's too easy to pretend to be famous. You can buy followers, pay Indians to comment on your Facebook posts, and even rig chatbots to do your bidding. But when the internet was young, this was hard work!

Ansible Magazine, May 2002:

“Amazon Mystery. Authors of fantasies on sale at Amazon.com have noticed a rash of oddly similar customer reviews that rubbish their work and instead recommend, say, George R.R. Martin, Robert Jordan, and Robert Stanek. The number of Big Name commendations varies, but not the plug for self-published author Robert Stanek. Who could possibly be posting these reviews (many since removed by Amazon) under a variety of names? It is a mystery, but Ansible is reminded of how Lionel Fanthorpe's pseudonymous sf would often mention those great classic masters of the genre, Verne, Wells and Fanthorpe.”

Most early internet lolcows had only a few sockpuppets, often with their own unique characters and backstories. Traditional sockpuppets created the impression of depth of support, but not necessarily breadth. Stanek, on the other hand, went for pure quantity. But sheer quantity can become quality in itself. He was doing the work of entire Indian click farms or a horde of GPT bots all by himself.

Amazon deleted most of his fake reviews around 2012, but you can spot some of them on the Wayback Machine. Unfortunately, a lot of his best activity is missing completely--his sockpuppets would beef with people on the Amazon forums, and most of that was never archived.

Stanekian socks were also prolific Wikipedia editors. Most infamously, one inserted the following language into Wikipedia's "literacy" article:

...Illiteracy is one of many themes in The Kingdoms and the Elvesof the Reaches books by Robert Stanek. In the books, many do not know how to read because there are no books for people to read. The only book most people have access to is the Great Book, which discusses the history of the realms and the laws of the land.

Stanek also created a circle of better-developed author "friends" (without pictures, of course) whose blogs were entirely dedicated to peepeeriding him and trashing the dang dirty trolls.

One of those writers Robert Stanek helped was me. After being laid off from my job as a teacher, with a newborn at home and alone after my husband abandoned us, my baby and I were a few unemployment checks away from homelessness.

True quality.

Stanek's pseudonyms even included """Emily Asimov,""" who Stanek would really like you to believe is Isaac Asimov's granddaughter.

Emily shows great promise and skill in her rendering a complex storyline that matches the foundation series. Extremely impressed with reading so far.

Stanekian Web Design

There's really nothing else to say here. I encourage you to check both these out and just drink them in, because that little screenshot does not even remotely do it justice:

• Stanek's Website (must-click)

• Stanek's Website but there's a hyphen in the address and they're different, stg

• Note: If the link does not work, manually delete the "s" from "https" and reload the page. Just do not submit your credit card information to Robert Stanek.

The Stanek Forum

Stanek is definetly better than Jordan, Goodkind and Martin and slightly superior for me even to Brooks and recent Eddings. If you take note of the fact that I'm Eddings-biased, the result will be that Stanek is the best current author of fantasy.

A few months back, @HeyMoon speculated that thanks to AI, it is now plausible to create an entire online community with few/no real users. But back in my day, you had to do it yourself!

Enter the Ruin Mist forum. Back before Reddit smooshed everything, it was pretty common for popular authors to have their own fan forums. And Robert Stanek was no exception.

I'm interested in something. Is Robert Stanek the most successful fantasy author, published by small press?

I hope so. He's a wonderful amazing author

No other indie published fantasy author I know of is as popular as RS. I don't even think there are any indie published authors as popular in any genre.

Robert Stanek's success certainly has put the indie book scene on the map. Before him there was no indie book scene like there is with music and movies. Now there is... and his success has been the driving force behind it without doubt. His success also makes him a target of big publishers (and some authors) who don't want indie books to succeed. Sad considering I read an article a few weeks back saying how 5 US publishers control 83% of the US book market. The world needs more great authors like RS!

Mr. Stanek is certainly alone against myriad of vile enemies - the big publishers, the rival smal press publishers and the vanity press authors. They are all jealous of Mr. Stanek success, despite that this success if good for all of them. But I believe that Mr. Stanek's talent and devotion will prevail. :-/

None of the characters on this forum talk in any depth, including about the Ruin Mist books, and all of them sound alarmingly similar.

tolkien's characters and stanek's which ones you like and why?

Stanek's characters. I can feel them as friends and real people, unlike JRRT'ones, who are... heroes from a book and nothing more.

Stanek's characters are have flaws and personalities and like hopes and desires. I like how Emel and Adrina have a past together and it makes like there current relation more interesting. Same for Myrial and Adrina, Valam and Adrina. Xith has secrets it makes him interesting so does Vilmos.

Tolkien's characters reimnd me of robots wh oare prgrammed to dop things rather than have their own thuogghts.

i dont know i liked both. i do hear you about robots ;D adrina and vilmos seem flesh and blood. not so sure about aragorn and legalos and gimli

According to the ASOIAF forumgoers, Stanek does have one real fan: "Sparhawk," the owner of a small a Bulgarian fantasy magazine. I guess there's someone out there for everyone.

The Museum of Stanekian Art

I don't actually think his line art is terrible, but he really never learned how to shade or color. It's got this distinctive smudgy look and is just impossible to read from any sort of distance.

Of course, Stanek knows he's so good at art that he took the liberty of creating graphic novel adaptations.

Care to buy a print for $200?

Lolcow meltdowns

If you defeat enough of Stanek's thralls, you might just get a shot at the Dark Lord himself.

The people at the sites are likely the same ones who thought it was funny to stalk and harass readers of my books who voiced opinions online. They knew most of my readers are children, and also knew most of the readers they stalked and harassed online were children. They did not care. They did it because they think they can do or say anything online without repercussions. Well, someone someday will give them what they deserve, I'm certain. In prison, people like them usually get shanked.

Despite these indictments Amazon is and remains the most corrupt marketplace on Earth, and this corruption goes from the bottom to the very top of the company, as evidenced by what has happened to my books for the past twenty years whenever I filed official complaints.

They deleted your reviews, huh?

"David Langford did willfully and with malice of forethought cause material and economic harm to Robert Stanek through his online column."

Robert Stanek, Ace Attorney

The individuals who are trying to ruin my reputation have been spreading malicious, untrue rumors about me for the past five years. For the last few years, they've been doing the same to my publisher. As someone who has given all his life to his country and his community, I simply do not understand this continued and prolonged harassment of me personally. Not liking a book is one thing, reaching into every corner of cyberspace to spread malicious, untrue rumors is something else entirely.

I am asking members of the book community to help stop these activities, which appear to be hate crimes against a person who has never professed his politics, religious beliefs, or war stance. There is enough intolerance in the world; there does not need to be such intolerance in the book community. For those who have been a part of these activities, if I've misunderstood your intent, write to me and let me know so. I am not afraid to make a correction to statements that I've determined to be false. I would ask the same of you as well.

Stanek discovers AI

Sadly, nothing gold can stay.

I'd always thought Stanek deep down enjoyed writing his books. Otherwise, why would he have spent 20 years trying to prop them up despite their lack of sales? But unfortunately, the siren song of le AI revolution has ensnared another one. Stanek decided to shit out a 200 page self-help book slathered in AI stank. Fortunately, at least this means we can finally get a conclusion to the Ruin Mist saga.

• "Embrace Chaos, Find Purpose" stands as a bold departure from the conventional narratives often found in personal growth literature, such as those presented in "The Secret" and "The Purpose Driven Life." While these books have their unique strengths and have positively impacted many, our book carves out a distinct path in the realm of self-improvement and personal development. Here's how:

• Rebellious and Unfiltered Approach: Unlike "The Secret," which focuses on the Law of Attraction and positive thinking, "Embrace Chaos, Find Purpose" adopts a more irreverent and unfiltered tone. It challenges readers to confront life's messiness head-on, embracing chaos as a catalyst for growth rather than seeking to control or simply manifest a different reality.

• Active Engagement with Life's Complexities: In contrast to the faith-based and somewhat prescriptive approach of "The Purpose Driven Life," our book emphasizes active engagement with life's complexities. It encourages readers to carve their paths through the chaos of life, fostering a sense of purpose that is deeply personal and evolving.

• Celebration of Individuality and Authenticity: "Embrace Chaos, Find Purpose" places a strong emphasis on individuality and authenticity. It diverges from the more general guidelines of "The Purpose Driven Life" and the universal principles of "The Secret" by encouraging readers to find their unique voice and path, even if it means going against societal norms or expectations.

In the future, if someone ever starts spouting a bullet pointed list at you, start shooting. It's either an AI or a LinkedIn influencer.

Speaking of which, I won't directly link his LinkedIn here due to its well-known glowie properties, this is part of yet another failed Stanek grift.

In 2020, William transitioned into AI research and development, leveraging his expertise to drive strategic innovation and provide visionary insights through his whitepapers and talks. Beyond his technical acumen, he brings a unique blend of creativity as a writer and artist, underscoring his commitment to ethical leadership in the realm of AI.

In the mid 90's, online businesses following William Stanek's original concepts and technological innovations, helped to create the foundations of the commercial Internet. His seminal, early works for Macmillan were the first of their kind and provided the framework for early e-commerce and e-publishing. These same works introduced the concepts and developed frameworks for intranets, extranets, e-books, online magazines, and daily news websites—all concepts years ahead of their time and first published about and developed by William.

While his claims here are obviously full of shit, Stanek does know at least something about technology--his "real job" involves writing manuals for Microsoft products. The rest of his output is just an extremely expensive hobby.

Selected Episodes

Stanek pretends to be friends with Brian Jacques

This one is the Last Supper of Stanek lore. He posted this picture of himself with fantasy novelist Brian Jacques and insinuated that this was a joint book signing. Later, he'd claim the two were besties. Online, everyone accused him of photoshopping himself in. While Stanek did attend the other author's event, he manipulated the image to make himself appear as a cohost rather than a random fan. To this day, his legs have never been found.

The Stanek kids book series

There isn't really much to say about these other than the fact that he shat out like a hundred of them and they're fricking hideous.

Stanek fakes his own death and then just never mentions it again

Goodnight Robert, Goodnight Moon, Goodnight Stars, Air & Noises Everywhere

8/6/2020

After hearing about Robert, I broke down in tears, fits and sobs really, the kind reserved for family because Robert Stanek was like a father to some of us in the writing community, a favorite uncle, Uncle Robert, to others, and a valued mentor to a great, great many. So many writers, hundreds really, owe their start in writing and careers to this guy, and the same is true of thousands who work in Big Tech, on web-based platforms or in web-based businesses. This guy taught them all how to set up those very businesses. This guy who was larger than life. This guy who was so down to earth. This guy who was so humble. This guy who so loved life. This guy who so loved family. This guy who took care of everyone else. This guy who gave and gave and gave over so many decades to so many and never asked for anything in return.

The sneaky obituary never actually claimed he was dead, so maybe Stanek would have us believe this was a fake retirement? But anyway he forgot about it after a couple days and is back to his usual shenanigans. Welcome back, Lord Stanek!

Conclusion

So, why does he do it? After studying Stanek for many years, I don't know. Perhaps originally he just wanted to entertain people. Or perhaps he thought being a fantasy novelist was easy money. But in either case, when that didn't work, he began constructing an elaborate set of lies--far too many to recount in a single post. While a lot of what Stanek does online is fake, the rage seems real. Stanek knows he deserves fame and riches. What happens when he doesn't don't get it?

Something truly special.

Thanks to the advances of technology, it's now pretty easy to fake a vast following. But Robert Stanek did it himself, the hard way, paving the way for a multitude. Right now there are probably hundreds of Stanek-likes out there, but they miss the pure passion it requires to do it all yourself. I know that Robert Stanek is not really a world-famous bestselling author. But he's famous to me.

Acknowledgements

1. The ultimate keeper of Stanek lore is Rorschach, who runs a literary snark site called Conjugal Felicity. The site springs from the "sporking" community (Web 1.0 litcrit for insecure teenage writoids, and how I got into writing). CF has been updated very sporadically in recent years, but Rorschach recently renewed the domain. With his return, it's a perfect time to get into the wonderful world of Stanek. CF has a detailed 9-part article about Stanek's pre-2012 shenanigans, as well as sporkings of several Ruin Mist books. As of press time the site is down yet again, but most of it is viewable on the Wayback Machine.

• Conjugal Felicity

• Rorschach's Stanek articles and sporks

2. The Web 1.0 SFF fandom deserves a major shoutout. Traditional forums and blogs are disappearing and everything has been replaced by Reddit, Groomercord, or nothing. History becomes legend. Legend becomes myth. Already, so much of Stanek lore is forgotten, with original sources lost or deleted. As I dug through the graveyard of the internet to create this post, I felt a sense of profound loss. Love to all the people who hung out with their internet buddies and snarked about books before everything turned to shit.

• The Wertzone

• Ansible

• Westeros

• Trufen

3. Despite the work of my forerunners, it is still impossible to create a definitive Robert Stanek post because the man has been doing this stuff for over 20 years. While some of his shenanigans are lost to the sands of time, there's a veritable trove of unexplored idiocy--books no one's read, blogs no one's seen, angry replies that got deleted. So the ultimate credit goes to Robert Stanek, creator of Ruin Mist!

https://x.com/zadokq244514/status/1789091241097138321

To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks and papers.

!bookworms !classics I'm reading Houellebecq Atomised as part of the bookclub

I also got my copy of Confessions of a Mask this week

@neoconshill

!male feminists

please give kudos and share and comment fort he next part

Watching.

Driving.

My two favorite things in the world, they're all I do most days. Driving down the suburbs, slowly and finding a curb to park. Then watching the residents leaving their homes as they head off to work, thinking little of the intruding Lincoln Continental hiding like a chameleon in the dark of the morning. Watching until the rock gets lifted up and the sun starts showing the bug that hid in the dark. When it's time to scurry it when I get to do my second favorite thing. Sometimes it'll be off to nowhere just riding the roads with no destination in mind. Other times I'll tail one of the last cars pulling out. Straight, left, right, continue for a mile, onramp to the freeway. Just slow down a bit, stay a couple cars behind and they won't notice. They never notice. I lied though, there's a third thing that's my favorite in the whole world. Ford street. My favorite neighborhood. Little quaint houses with nice paint and kept yards. From one end to the other, teal, burgundy, burgundy, lighter brown like a tan, teal, baby blue, forest green, you get the picture. No real color coordination but each one still looks nice on its own. Now it ain't just the homes that I like, nah, they're nice. Wouldn't mind having one of those yards, the nice grass and some bush with a tree shading the roof. But it's a person. Lives there, 6504, that's the address. He's the third favorite.

Funny thing, he knows who I am. I go by every other day. Drive-thru, order a diet pepsi and a power bowl, light sour cream, extra chick and lettuce, add nacho cheese. The voice, oh, as he asks “What will you be ordering?”, the little smile he has as I pull through to the window and the hurried movements and speech as he does a second car while handing me change, his shoulder length white hair catching in his eyes. His plate, 5G4EE7. Had a guy I know run it. I watched tucked away in the corner until the angel went into his parked Outback. A little angel on this planet, I couldn't believe when I read he was 20. I watched all the time. Look at him every time every little crease when he'd smile and the slightly darker spots under the eyes. Every time I'd go I'd be nice, look but not too much but I felt like staring at him all day, never driving after and just parking there for hours. Every Time at that taco bell I'd be hungry, insatiable but a hundred power bowls couldn't sate me. Him. Only him.

I've seen him without the jacket. He gets cold, he told me, without it he gets real cold. I know, those nipples are very perky. A flat chest yet puffy nipples when you're a little frosty, but not muscular not close. I like it that way, you focusing on your squats at the gym. Was a little funny, watching you try to curl a 35 but failing and looking side to side like a scared dog before you shuffled back to the squat rack. 135, very nice. Good for your size, you were shorter than some of those girls. Kind of funny. I know they judged you. I know they had a dislike towards you, the short little guy trying to make muscle, that's what they thought. I'd hold you in my arms. Embrace you, care for you in a way those girls could never relate to. I'm not interested in them. One tried talking to me, tried making small talk. Becky Erwit. She didn't like you taking your time on the rack. She didn't LIKE how you didn't go deep enough. She didn't see how cute it looked as you struggled all your might to control it slightly down and slightly up. She didn't see the tiredness in your eyes and the pride of accomplishment deep in you, the smile you made as you flexed lightly in the mirror.

She's not an issue anymore. She's all fine, just somehow some ex of her's came back to her life. One of the crazy ones though, sending mail to her and breaking her front door lock with superglue, putting chips in the tank. Had to move back in with her parents, darn shame.

You live with them too. I'd have loved to meet them. I don't think I can come back to your life. You always stay inside now. Don't even go back to the taco bell. Your last day, you didn't look me in the eyes. Didn't really speak much. Started breathing heavily like you were having an asthma attack. Just from seeing me. Just from hearing me.

I just finished reading this book and towards the end the "man vs. bear" meme blew up. After reading this novel, I feel like I know a lot more about bears.

Bears are wild animals that operate on instinct, driven by their need for survival and protection of their territory. This is covered heavily in Iron Master, where shifters (people who turn into bears and vice versa) must contend their human desires with their bear forms' natural inclinations. While bears irl can be dangerous, their behavior--governed by these natural inclinations--is relatively predictable. If I were to encounter a bear in the woods, I would know to stay calm, avoid eye contact, and slowly back away to give it space. Bears are not motivated by malice or a desire to harm humans; they are simply reacting to their environment and perceived threats.

On the other hand, humans, especially those with a history of violence or predatory behavior, are unpredictable and pose a much greater threat to my safety. The "Iron Master" series highlights the darker aspects of human nature, where individuals can be driven by a desire for power, control, and exploitation. In the woods, a man could pose a significant risk as he is unpredictable and may kill or r*pe me (or both). The "Iron Master" series also makes note of the consequences of trauma and the cyclical nature of violence, where individuals who have experienced abuse or exploitation may go on to perpetuate similar harm. This underscores the unpredictability of human behavior, as even men who appear harmless on the surface may be hiding darker tendencies.

!bookworms !kino

https://lithub.com/how-did-reactionary-french-novelist-michel-houellebecq-end-up-in-a-dutch-arthouse-porn/

>“His wife spent a month arranging the prostitutes in advance”

>“Who will lay with the famous writer out of curiosity”

Some screen caps, is cuckshit @BWC @houellebecq @manysuchcases

Still working my way through the series for the first time and tried looking up book rankings to verify my own bias. Responses are all over the place. I started getting a theory but i need more data.

Unfortunately it's hard to ask on Reddit because a) tedious and b) too many trains. I know my n here will be too low, but I'm curious.

Amongst the Dark Tower books, not amongst his complete library, where do you rank Wizards and Glass / Song of Susannah, and what is your gender?

--

Poll moved to pinned comments

At this point I'm just skimming to finish the damn series. King was leaning a little too much into the King thing, even by his standards. That nonsense of one person, but three different realities occurring simultaneously (CHARACTER THOUGHTS IN PARENTHESIS) with random words that don't (RANDOM WORDS RANDOM WORDS) make any sense in any context he loved to do while on cocaine.

People pretend his writing style is super deep. It's not, he's just schizo when on coke. The long tall helicopter who stepped out of the taxicab wore what Callahan.... N-word, did you really just use the word helicopter to describe someone? This wasn't some clever wordplay like helicopter parenting, you straight up called him a helicopter.

He also likes to use quaint 1970s New England terms, even though most people won't get them and he often uses them wrong anyway. Stuff like referring to a gas station as a Jenny station.

First off, nothing is gained by using that name.

Second off, it's Jenney station.

Third off, Jenney stations were in Maine and Massachusetts. The story takes place in Pennsylvania.

Fourth off, they were all renamed Citgo over a decade before the story takes place. Only one "classic" storefront remains.

I legitimately didn't know at first if he was talking about a gas station or a small power facility of some sort (generator/genny/jenny) because he misspells things constantly, as you'd expect from someone who grew up without Internet. Semen is cum, not come.

I don't know why i continue reading his books, it's the same weirdness and clumsy pedophilia shoehorned in. Yeah let's just toss in a sentence about how the mystical succubus totally would've raped the 12 year old boy, why not.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59929377-based-and-redpilled---a-notebook-for-all-of-your-based-ideas---120-pages

https://www.amazon.com.br/Wow-That-Was-cking-Cringe/dp/1676712909/

https://www.amazon.com.br/You-Know-Had-Do-Em/dp/1650042582/

It's my first Mishima book and I didn't expect for it to be so incredibly bleak

Ryuji is a lonely everyman bored with sea life. He wanted glory when he was young and by his mid-thirties he realized that wasn't going to happen and just went on with settle down. He's hardworking, introverted, has 2 million yen in savings as he's not a spender, quite a sober character, I liked him.

Fusako is a good female character, she's a hardworking woman forced to become the family breadwinner after the death of her husband, she's a sensible woman and her biggest mistake is probably not paying enough attention to what her is son was actually doing and how he felt.

I hated Noboru, he's a spoiled, rude little brat. He should have been spanked but when Ryuji decided not too was hilarious as it probably hurted Noboru more than 50 spanks with a belt. Also, for all the talk he came of as a especially when he and his buds vivisected a cat. The “boss” was a psychopath, the kind that later becomes a serial killer, his “friends” behavior was all very cult-like.

The translation had beautiful description passages and I liked how Mishima incorporated goofy everyday happenings like Ryuji bathing in the square drinker and just straight up admitting it. Noboru is so neurodivergent he needs his archetypes to be 100% perfect and can't stand the idea of them going through mundane stuff.

I still don't understand what exactly Mishima is trying to tell his audience with this story. The boy's hatred for their fathers probably parallels Mishima's disgust with post-war Japan.

!bookworms

Weaving heedlessly through traffic, Pizzashill cursed the incompetent rightoids that polluted the streets of Eastern Oregon with their late-model F-150s and ridiculous, oversized SUVs. "The fools!" he thought, "do they have any idea how shitty their gas millage is in a vehicle like that?"

Cutting off another Ford Explorer, he inwardly congratulated himself again on his shrewd acquisition of such an economical vehicle: His off-white 2002 Honda Civic had only 220,000 miles and moderate rust damage; the entire purchase price had been less than the monthly payment would be on the Range Rover he'd just swerved in front of. "Psh," he thought to himself, "as though rightards could comprehend a concept as sophisticated as interest rates. Why, at 4.95% APR on a $100,000 SUV, that means every month they'd be pissing away almost..." here he performed some quick mental arithmetic "...a fuckload of money," he concluded, reflecting warmly once again on his prudence.

bzzz

The mobile phone on his dashboard – a refurbished Samsung Galaxy S6 with a Boost Mobile SIM card – vibrated to indicate a new message. No time to check it, he was almost there. Accelerating into the final turn, he yanked the wheel hard to the left, ignoring the angry horns of the other drivers. Centrifugal forces – "Imaginary, just like sexism," @pizzashill reminded himself – tossed his phone across the dashboard and hard into the window with a loud thonk.

bzzz

The phone buzzed again as it dropped into the passenger footwell.

Slowing as he approached the enormous warehouse looming in front of him, an ominous, windowless concrete structure, Pizzashill ignored the arrhythmic rattling from his car's exhaust system and casually brandished his blue staff ID badge (that's right, blue for management) at the RFID scanner to his left. With a cheerful beep and a green light, the scanner registered his arrival and the automated barrier lifted to allow him to pass. As always at this moment, Pizzashill felt a momentary flash of triumph, "The King is back, baby" he mused silently.

bzzz

Yet another notification sounded from the damp mat on the floor of the passenger footwell. He was progressing deliberately through the ranks of stationary vehicles, judging their owners for their fiscal profligacy while cursing them for their fortuitous parking. "If only they'd give managers a designated lot," he thought to himself, not for the first time, "It's outrageous that I have to compete for spaces with these wagies who answer to me."

bzzz

Again! What could possibly be so important? "I swear to god, if I have to to explain to Poj one more time how to reset the robot vacuum, I'll have a half a mind to – no, no, not that. Remember, she's only a woman. She's doing the best she can with her limited capacities," he reminded himself, gently steering his thoughts away from domestic violence. Finally, he found a spot between two large pickup trucks and brought the Honda to a halt.

Switching off the ignition, he fumbled for moment in the footwell to recover his phone and glanced at the screen. Three text messages and a voice memo, all from @Poj.

"hey a bunch of strange men in black SUVs are on our street" @7:53 am

"oh my god, I think they have guns." @7:54 am

"Pizza, it's the actual glowies, they say they have a warrant" @7:57 am.

His heart sank in his chest. "Shit," he thought, "I always knew this day might come." Steeling himself, he pressed play on the voice memo. Poj's panic-stricken voice filled the car's beige, lightly stained interior:

"Oh my god! oh my god! I hope you get this message. The FBI are here, they're everywhere! There's so many guys, they're searching everything! They've taken the ham stocks. They took the Pokémon cards. I tried to get them to keep the door shut so Pudding didn't escape and they said, 'Ma'am, you're lucky we don't confiscate that tubby cat as evidence, too.' What's going on, Pizza? I'm so scared right now! What should I do?"

"Shit (again)," he thought a second time. So this really was it. After everything he'd worked for, everything he'd built, this was how his empire would come crumbling down?

No. Not like this. Not a chance, he wasn't going down that easy. Not Pizzashill.

"Don't say anything," he texted back, "Tell them you want a lawyer. Remember, glowies are just IRL jannies. Remember what we talked about that one night? I love you, babe."

Like a gladiator preparing to enter the arena, knowing full well he had almost no chance of coming out alive, he suited up: steel toed boots for the warehouse floor, neon high-vis vest, blue ID badge clipped to his lanyard. He jiggled the sticky door handle of the Honda three times to get it to open, and stepped out into the crisp spring air.

He strode toward the entrance of the building with purpose. Pizzashill knew he had only one card left to play, but damned if those dumb feds hadn't just activated his trap card.