GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #490: THE SINS OF OUR FATHERS

 

I forgot to tell you all that while I was still recovering from my amputation, I read the final piece of fiction in the Expanse series. Everything that follows (including the link I'm about to post) contains spoilers. If you are interested in reading the series, skip tonight's GF.

Remember when I wrote this? I only knew there was one novella left to tell for The Expanse, and I speculated that it would tell us the ending of Filip's story. Surprise! I was right. I kinda hoped that it would reunite him with his mother so she would know that she didn't actually kill him when she killed his father. That was a bit optimistic for me and the series, anyway.

When the ring space was sealed off from humanity, Filip was working in a different solar system and got stranded there, living under his mother's last name instead of his father's. Being the son of a crazed fascist (maybe an oxymoron there) is a pretty fucked up thing to live through, especially when you realize that your father is a lunatic. He works at surviving with his team on this distant planet so far from the Belt that the Enterprise would probably take a long time getting him back even at warp nine.

So now he's helping build a new civilization because everyone has (rightfully) decided that they will never go home again. This is home now. And everything seems to be going as well as it could given the circumstances until a strong charismatic man starts taking power little by little until it's starting to look like a lot. Filip, being his father's son, is very familiar with what is about to happen if he doesn't step in and handle it. And he handles it in a big fuckin' way.

He becomes the colony's first murderer.

Had he still been in the frame of mind he'd been in when murdering thousands in the name of the Free Navy, he probably would have stepped in to fill the sudden power vacuum. He doesn't. The others don't know quite what to do with him. Should they kill him? Did they have the resources to imprison him for life? One way or the other, he doesn't care. He knows what he did and what he deserves, and he's willing to take his punishment. But he really, really had to kill that guy. That guy definitely had it coming.

They choose to exile him, and the end of The Expanse shows us Naomi Nagata's son heading out on his own in a strange new world with only the fact that he has easy access to water to comfort him. Well, that and the fact that gravity here is almost like home, so his Belter body won't go into convulsions and kill him.

Wow. There's only one thing I can say to that.

O Discordia!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #487: MORE GODDAM FUCKERY

 

Maybe I'm not the one to be upset over this. When I was editor and publisher of Tabard Inn: Tales of Questionable Taste, I went against everyone's advice. Rather than get a PO box for submissions, I decided to list my home address instead. My reasoning was, who the fuck would want to come after me? And if anyone did? I could handle that shit pretty easily. I didn't expect quite so many stalkers. In the end they were harmless, but it's a little unsettling, especially if it's your first stalker. That surprised me. And a lot of submissions came from prisoners across the country. I was OK with that. Most were in for life, anyway. One guy would be dead long before his sentence was up, even if he lived to be 120 years old. Still, I'm pretty sure my grandparents didn't like the idea of so many murderers knowing where I lived. (Fun fact: I published one of those murderers. It was a good story.)

But I got a letter in the mail on Saturday. It was addressed to Gramps, and it had an IMAGE OF MY FUCKING HOUSE ON THE ENVELOPE. That's the picture above. I thought, what the fuck is this guy selling? I had to know. Gramps wouldn't object to me opening his mail, as he's been dead for years. I suspected it was spam, anyway. This is an image from the actual letter itself:

It turns out that it was a sales pitch for home insurance, and to drive the point home these fuckin' clowns put an image of my house in the letter. Note the disclaimer. This was an image taken from public records, which I can only assume means Google Maps. They further state that no one has actually come out to visit my house.

That is fucking well not reassuring. Why in the unholy name of fuck would they do this? What purpose does it serve? It's goddam creepy, is what it is. Kind of like checking Google Maps so you can look through the windows of houses, hoping to catch someone naked.

And yeah, sure, public records. I get it. Anyone can access those. Got it. But just because something is legal doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

This is more goddam fuckery that I can just do without.

I wish we had James SA Corey back when I printed my home address in my own literary magazine. Ty Franck is half of that author, and after the bio explains where the other half lives, his part says that he will let you know where he lives if and when he wants you to come over. That would have been a good attitude for me to have back then.

You might doubt my wisdom in sharing those images. Never fear, every house in this area looks like that. Someone would have to go door to door to find me, and in a neighborhood where soliciting is prohibited, something like that would not go unnoticed. That car out front isn't even mine. Never was.