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DOUBLE FEATURE #6: “SUPERSOLDIER” will be the longest non-annual, regular issue thus far, coming in around 70 pages. Ot...
10/08/2024

DOUBLE FEATURE #6: “SUPERSOLDIER” will be the longest non-annual, regular issue thus far, coming in around 70 pages.

Other than the “SUPERSOLDIER & SUPERSOLDIER 2: REVEILLE” double feature, the last issue features the stories:

By Dan Luby:

“HAVING SEEN ALIEN” -
Script to Screen to Space…to Scream…

“FUZZY LOGIC” -
What kind of an idiot designs an AI with the future of the human race in its control…

….with digital Tourette’s Syndrome to prove a point?

By Jay Fountain Au (under Jay Ellefson)

“GLASSMAN AND THE 7TH RABBIT” -
An emotionless automaton struggles to understand organic life by violent deconstruction…and then learns that NO ONE F***S WITH THE 7TH RABBIT.”

Internet radio overnight for creatives and mental defectives. Terrestrial is 94.7 out of New Jersey… for whatever the f*...
10/06/2024

Internet radio overnight for creatives and mental defectives.

Terrestrial is 94.7 out of New Jersey… for whatever the f**k reason.

Randomly checked my old author email a half hour ago.In the inbox was an email from MZD. No idea who the f**k MZD was of...
10/05/2024

Randomly checked my old author email a half hour ago.

In the inbox was an email from MZD. No idea who the f**k MZD was off the top of my head, but the subject title was “When do I get Crimson Mirror, Grey Shoes?”

I’m sorry. I’m super emotional. Hang on.

Okay.

MZD is Mark Z. Danielewski. No single writer has affected me or shaped my art & how I see the world than any other.

I first met him at a reading in 2008 in Somerville - we had on the exact same color of grey Chuck Taylors and I joked about it with him. I met him again a few years later in 2012…called me grey shoes. Thought that was nice he remembered me.

He wrote of The Ascendant:

“I’m glad you realized you were never broken.

You’re also one of the few I’ve read that knows a writer doesn’t finish the work; the work finishes them. But you’ve only just risen…and yet you follow this mirror colored red? (red was in red colored font obviously).

A broken heart it is then!

When you are finished - I would beg an audience with the Hierophant if I may?

- Z”

This is the second happiest moment of my life, behind the birth of my child. (tears of joy photos available on request lol).
Had to break out my fifty-year sword hardcover to bask in the moment.

09/20/2024

I need an associate director for “Decay”.
Seriously.
Inquire within (DM)

09/18/2024

Quick poll:
You gettin’ Crimson Mirror next week?
like = yes
laugh = f**kin hate you bro s**u everything else = napes, dude, but I still love ya

I was asked today “what gives with the Mars Volta song & the line ‘I am of pockmarked shapes, the vermin you need to loa...
08/30/2024

I was asked today “what gives with the Mars Volta song & the line ‘I am of pockmarked shapes, the vermin you need to loathe’” in relation to my new novel Crimson Mirror. Well, it’s complicated, but I’ll try to boil it down as succinctly as possible.

One of, if not the most core of its themes is loss & the survivor’s guilt that can and often does come with that loss. This is especially true of loved ones and people who leave us prematurely, suddenly, tragically, and worst of all - preventably.

There’s a search we all undertake for meaning, for reason, and reconciliation in such a thing - and in one of life’s cruelest ironies, those of us capable of the most feeling and thoughtful of responses invariably turn the light of examination upon ourselves - eg. what could I have done differently, could I have prevented it, and so on. It’s a slippery slope, and it’s not long before one starts to blame themselves as being responsible or culpable.

Survivor’s guilt is a short-cycled species of internal suffering, meaning that once we’ve reached the delusional, destructive conclusion above, we’ll periodically but constantly remind ourselves of how we’d let those we’ve lost down to adequately punish ourselves for our transgression - this we believe eventually that we “deserve”.

The song uses the line in a slightly different context, but in Crimson Mirror it takes on a different meaning when it’s repeated, over and over again, in one characters’ internal prison in which they tell themselves “I am of pockmarked shapes, the vermin you need to loathe,” or, in other words, I am hideous and ugly, a terrible human being, and by you hating or despising me you make the loss of my loved one not the product of cruel chance, circumstance, or just unluck - for in that framing, our loss loses its significance and meaning.

The cold truth is this:

Our loved ones are sometimes just taken from us, pure and simple.

It’s rotten, it’s unfair, and it’s one of the very worst parts of living in my estimation. Here today, f**king gone tomorrow. I HATE IT. But it’s a lesson I only -just- learned, and I learned it only by writing this book.

I lost my best friend seventeen years ago like this, and I’ve destroyed myself from within in spectacular fashion at times and for long stretches, entirely trapped in a prison of my own making because I felt that it’s what I deserved. But I didn’t lose him, and it wasn’t my fault - he was taken from me, and from all of us.

I’ve at last shed that weight having written the catharsis in that point in the narrative, and that feeling of having that weight lifted can’t be accurately described with mere words.

My sincere hope is that even just one person out there who reads the book and deals with the same issue sees this as well, and with any luck will find even a measure of the same peace I did. You are not vermin. You are loved, and the first person who would tell you that is the very same one you’ve lost, wherever they are or may be.

08/24/2024

Hi kids, Wally here. Wanted to take a moment to share with you all…

…how it’s now officially ridiculous the connections to my own ACTUAL, REAL LIFE the books I’ve written for my hierophant trilogy have had.
Like….WAY too much of a f**king coincidence. All three instances so far:

1) “The Ascendant” - a novel I began writing in 2020, a pretty dark period of my life. The main character, a brilliant biochemist w/a heavy dose of neurodivergence + childhood abuse/neglect/trauma attempts to “fix” himself through science, and puts himself into a comatose state. in the end, it’s not science or technology that saves him, but something a bit more…human. Connection.
In 2022…well. We all know what happened there. No need to rehash. But uh….yeah. HOLY FU***NG S**T x1

2) “Crimson Mirror” - One of the two protagonists and central character to the whole trilogy, Lourdes Cardenas, is named after an old friend of mine I hadn’t seen nor spoken to in 25 years. We’ve recently reconnected (Yay!!) and a whole part of my past has filled back in. HOLY FU***NG S**T x2

3) “Crimson Mirror” (again) - Part 1 of the book, a section called “The Corpses of Saint Michael’s”, takes place on the campus of the first college I went to but could only go for 2 years because…reasons out of my control 😞 so then, AS IF ON FU***NG CUE, my sophomore year roommate (and a couple of other buddies), who basically VANISHED like, 27 years ago, drops out of the goddamn sky. Was supposed to see them yesterday, had to work. S**t happens. However..

HOLY FU***NG S**T x 3.5 (extra points for basically the same thing happening twice)

Crazy, right?

Yep. So uh, (coughs)

(mumbles under breath)
COUGHS
Third book is about the end of the world
COUGHS

please COMPLETELY IGNORE this reading of my upcoming novel.
08/16/2024

please COMPLETELY IGNORE this reading of my upcoming novel.

Final covers for the hardcover and paperback editions of both Crimson Mirror and pandora.Final final final, I swear. The...
08/08/2024

Final covers for the hardcover and paperback editions of both Crimson Mirror and pandora.

Final final final, I swear. They ain’t changin’.

Paperback of each first, then hardcover:

Ascendent Publishing @ Plymouth Punk Rock Market….
08/03/2024

Ascendent Publishing @ Plymouth Punk Rock Market….

Address

Framingham, MA

Website

http://www.ascendentmedia.org/

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