Much Delayed Apologies (As Well as a Quick Update)

Michael Feirstag

 

I apologize for the delay in keeping readers and fans up to date. Things have so dramatically changed in my life as of late that I still have yet to truly catch my breath.

First came Miracle #1, which was the birth back in May of last year of my son.

Needless to say, the birth of a child is nothing less than completely life-changing—all the more so when it’s your first child. As much as my wife and I thought we knew what to expect, there is no way, in retrospect, that we possibly could have. The sleepless nights and high cost of daycare are one thing. What I believe most took my wife and I by surprise was how much we love the little guy and would do just about anything in the world for him.

The mere presence of my son fulfills me in a way that I never dreamed possible. It used to be that only my writing made me feel that my life in any way mattered. Taking one look at my blue-eyed, raggedy haired little son, and I now know that my life does in fact definitively matter.

Having a child (especially a real little one) makes it especially hard to keep up with one’s writing career—all the more so when you take into account Miracle #2, which is the fact I’ve finally found gainful, full-time employment.

Not only is this new job of mine infinitely fulfilling, but it is also fair-paying—two things that I never foresaw as being in the cards for me (which perhaps explains why I kept quitting one job after another, all in the name of trying to make a full-time go of my writing career). That I made this significant change to my life mere weeks after the arrival of our little baby only goes to show the lengths a human being will go to make a better life for his or her child.

With the big ups inevitably come the big downs.

Only hours after the birth of my little son, I received news that my good friend Jason Famous, fellow e-book author and inspiration for my novel Through the Eyes of an American Foreigner, tragically (and very unexpectedly) passed away. He is survived by his lovely wife, Allison, and their two dogs, Scratchy and Lobo.

There is something about the death of a close friend that literally stops you in your tracks and makes you instantly reassess everything. That Jason (alternatively known as Anonymous Zaius) died at the exact same age as I currently am only serves to make his passing all the more sobering.

Before the birth of my son, my biggest fear was the possibility that I might come to die before putting what I still believe to be my potential science fiction masterwork to paper. Now my biggest fear is that I won’t be able to stick around long enough to be there for my little boy.

That being said, I have not yet given up on The Another One Star Ambient House. It is still in draft format, and I’m hoping to perhaps get it into proper shape for publication sometime before the conclusion of 2020.

Just earlier this afternoon, as I continued to make feverish revisions to Draft 13 of The AOSAH, my little son came padding in on his hands and knees to come say hi to Daddy. My wife came quickly rushing in behind him to scoop him up and quietly usher him away.

I laughed in response and asked her to please leave him sitting there in my office.

If I want my son to remember me for anything it is for the fact that I still continue to do something I very much love—despite the distractions of a full-time job; or a too-much-fun-to-play-with, demanding little baby; or the fact I only made $5.31 in profits from my writing last year.

As much as having a baby initially prevented me from continuing work on this life-affirming, all-encompassing labor of love (AKA my writing), my little son is in many ways my biggest impetus.

If only to give my son something really interesting to read one day and hopefully remember his father by. . . .

 

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Trump Needs to Be Bigger Than Trump (For the Nation, If Not Ultimately for Himself)

Michael Feirstag

 

American Flag

 

Forgive me for delving into politics, but this week I honestly have no other option.

By way of a brief disclaimer, I do not have a single partisan bone in my body. I detested Hillary Clinton just as much, if not far more, than I did Donald J. Trump back during the 2016 election. The reason I detested Hillary Clinton had nothing to do with her being either a liberal or a woman. The reason I detested Hillary Clinton is because of the way she was complicit in her husband’s deplorable treatment of women. That being said, when it came to the 2016 election, I had no other option but to begrudgingly vote for her. It was either that, or vote for an even bigger sexist pig than Bill Clinton ever was: an orange-haired former TV clown who openly brags about sexual assault with the same amount of vigor and pugnacity as the Hon. Brett Kavanaugh now presently denies it.

As much as we all may dislike it, the Trump phenomenon is quite simply bigger than big. More than a consummate statesman, Trump is nothing less than an ostentatious showman: two parts Ringling Brothers Circus to his one part partisan blowhard. BIG as Trump is (and you know he’s simply loving every minute of it), it is time he finally fill the too-large shoes he is wearing and actually behave like a United States president. Instead of pushing Brett Kavanaugh to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat, and thereby further divide our already deeply fractured country, Trump should do what is best for both parties and immediately rescind Mr. Kavanaugh’s nomination. Trump should then do what Trump supposedly does best—upending all previous expectations by putting forth a new name to fill the currently open Supreme Court seat: that of Judge Merrick Garland.

Not only is Merrick Garland nothing less than a true moderate (not unlike Justice Kennedy, whose seat he would now finally be filling), but, had the Republican majority in the Senate not decided to play politics back when Obama first nominated Merrick Garland, our nation would have never found itself in such a godforsaken quandary: stuck between believing Dr. Christine Blasey Ford (whose testimony was highly compelling) and believing Judge Kavanaugh (whose red-faced, bile-spitting combativeness—justified though it may well have been—did little more than to further disqualify him). Instead, the Republicans would now have a moderate on the high court (Garland), with Justice Gorsuch finding himself just as easily confirmed as he did in his initial go-around.

The benefits of Trump nominating Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court would be threefold: not only would it help to solve the nation’s predicament with Brett Kavanaugh, but it would go far to heal the deep rift between the Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Senate, thereby initiating nothing less than a nationwide political reset. More than even that, such an unexpected (and nonpartisan) move would help to solidify Trump’s credentials as a political maverick and real go-getter—single-handedly bringing our country together, and, in one fell swoop, forever silencing his naysayers.

In the end, it all comes down to what Trump hopes to achieve with his most unprecedented presidency. Does he want to go down in the history books as a president who only looked out for himself and ultimately failed, or does he want to be remembered as a man who wound up being even bigger than the very presidency itself—by shunting off all previous placards and labels (liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat) and finally being his own independent, fair-minded self?

What America now needs, more than ever before, is a figure who has the courage and self-determination to stand astride both political parties and finally bring all Americans—regardless of whatever it is that divides them—together. A pity that a short-sighted, self-centered guy like Donald Trump appears to be the only individual on the present political stage with either the balls or the capacity to actually do so.

Your friend,

Michael Feirstag

 

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8/1 Release of Song of the Cynthatha

Michael Feirstag

 

SONG OF THE CYNTHATHA Cover, Post-Clarity (JPEG) FINAL, FINAL

 

In order to celebrate the August 1st release of Song of the Cynthatha, I am running a book giveaway for the first book in the Progeny series from now through August 22nd. To enter this Goodreads giveaway (of which 100 free copies of Progeny will be made available to the lucky winners), please click here.

Also, there will be free Kindle copies of my first three e-books available on Amazon according to the following schedule:

A Song of Love for America will be free from August 1st through August 5th.

Through the Eyes of an American Foreigner will be free from August 6th through August 10th.

Playing with Fire will be free from August 11th through August 15th.

As always, thanks so much for loyally reading!

 

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Tribute to Anthony Bourdain, 1956-2018

Michael Feirstag

 

It was with both shock and surprise that I learned this morning of the passing of Anthony Bourdain. Although I seldom, if ever, watched his show on CNN anymore—if anything, because I felt he allowed himself to be WAY overexposed, and I in truth grew to be completely sick of even hearing his instantly recognizable baritone (sorry, Tony)—it is only now, after he has passed, that I realize what a truly gaping hole has been left.

What pisses me off more than anything is that all these news stories and obituaries pouring in are getting it all wrong, by identifying Anthony Bourdain first and foremost as a celebrity chef. No offense, but that is total and complete bullshit. More than anything else, Bourdain was a WRITER. And he was a real writer, too. Not one of these pansy-ass pretenders who has a big hit and then folds up their writing career (ahem, Harper Lee and Jerome David Salinger). Granted, Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo were far from literary masterpieces (and certainly failed to achieve anything even close to the hype and success of Kitchen Confidential), but, through the arena of television (and his two critically acclaimed shows, No Reservations and Parts Unknown), Bourdain was capable, on occasion, of reaching literary heights of near genius.

Probably my favorite episode of Parts Unknown was the one devoted to Montana. Instead of exploring the usual tourist-friendly haunts that one has long come to expect while traversing the great waste that has now become American television, Bourdain’s genius was to get to the heart of a particular locale by speaking to the people who actually lived and breathed it. What made the Montana episode stand out was that Bourdain chose to interview a literary heavyweight like poet and author Jim Harrison. Instead of filling this particular episode with so much of his sometimes frivolous, ostentatious language (sorry again, Tony), Bourdain instead allowed Harrison to speak. And speak Harrison did, with both the air and gravitas of a poet—in this way giving voice to the ethereal and sometimes forbidding landscape of the great state of Montana. That this episode first aired only days before Harrison’s death, and thus served as a testament to his salt-of-the-earth, soul-of-a-poet legacy, only seemed to make it all the more poignant.

Maybe the reason Bourdain’s death has so abruptly and unexpectedly hit me is because I grew up surrounded by chefs—each of these chefs in turn being both informed and inspired by the legacy of the late, great Anthony Bourdain. In truth, I probably never would have been as inspired to write what I consider to my first truly great novel, Playing with Fire, had it not been for the success and cultural effect of Bourdain’s culinary-inspired writing (which, let’s face it, has a HUGE debt of its own to pay to the writings and political musings of yet another surprising suicide, Hunter S. Thompson).

My best friend in the world, Robert Carpenter, was the first of my many chef friends to introduce me to the literary joys of Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. That Bourdain was an actual chef, in New York City, seemed to give him the street credit any other aspiring food writer would have otherwise lacked. In truth, Bourdain became nothing less than an underground figure within the culinary world—until the rise of the phenomenon of the celebrity chef, of course, which, in retrospect, perhaps very well turned Anthony Bourdain’s life upside down. My buddy Robert even had the two of us eat at Brasserie Les Halles in New York—and all because Bourdain had once worked there.

I remember the two of us being accosted on our way out of Les Halles by a group of young hoodlums. They wanted money, and both Robert and I merely just shrugged. “Sorry,” said Robert, with a huge, shit-eating grin on his face. “We’re both poor boys.”

“Poor boys?” one of the young hoodlums asked, with his barely postpubescent voice sounding feisty. “Not if you just ate at freaking Les Halles!”

As great as Kitchen Confidential undoubtedly was, the document that Robert and so many of my other chef friends hold up to the highest esteem is “Decoding Ferran Adria,” the No Reservations special episode. Again, instead of subjecting us to his sometimes over-the-top comments and tongue-in-cheek, half-humorous asides, Bourdain allowed the experimental, even out-of-this-world cuisine of Ferran Adria to truly speak for itself. And that, more than anything else, seemed to be the ultimate hallmark of Bourdain’s truly singular talent: exposing all of us mere pedestrians through these myriad culinary/cultural worlds to the otherwise unknown, sometimes invisible giants who make these strange ecosystems tick.

Rest in peace, Tony. May the great literary gap that’s been left in your wake never be filled—if anything, to serve as a perpetual funeral monument to your greatness.

 

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Going Rogue: Thoughts on the Movie “Solo” and the Future of “Star Wars”

Michael Feirstag

 

lightsaber

 

I don’t know what it is about a new Star Wars movie, but I simply cannot seem to resist the impulse, as both a proud fan and writer of science fiction, to weigh in with my opinion.

After the debacle that was The Last Jedi, I honestly did not know what to expect going into the newly released movie, Solo: A Star Wars Story. For the record, this is the first time since the release of George Lucas’ infamous prequel trilogy that I did not attend a new Star Wars movie on opening night. The reasons for this are elucidated in my previous blog post, Goodbye to Star Wars, which was my response to what I now feel in retrospect is the absolute worst movie to ever be foisted upon the fans of the original Star Wars trilogy (yes, even worse than The Phantom Menace), Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi.

Looking back, I can now very easily identify why I had such a negative and harsh reaction to The Last Jedi. In sum, Rian Johnson’s film was nothing less than a knife in the back and betrayal of the very mythology that initially empowered the original Star Wars trilogy in the first place. Even the prequel trilogies, as bad as they were, adhered to George Lucas’ original genius and vision. While The Force Awakens at least attempted to recapture the magic of the original Star Wars films (and in my opinion failed, if anything because the only thing J.J. Abrams appears to be truly talented at is recycling and rebranding the genius of past cultural milestones, like Star Wars and Star Trek), The Last Jedi seemed intent on doing one and only one true thing: imploding the entire Star Wars canon and turning it upside-down on its head.

So here it finally is: my explanation as to why the new Star Wars universe is bound to inevitably fail creatively (with the notable exceptions of the two standalone Star Wars films, Rogue One and Solo, which, by the very nature of their separateness, do not have to adhere to the mythology and creative mores of the original two trilogies). The reason the new trilogy (Episodes VII, VIII, and IX) is doomed to fail is because it neglects to adhere to a continuity of creative vision. Instead of hiring one team of directors and screenwriters to craft three unified, interconnected movies, we have the slapdash approach of writers and directors that are completely at odds with each other. While J.J. Abrams seemed intent to introduce a new generation to the magic and wonder of George Lucas’ original Star Wars, Rian Johnson hoped to altogether reinvent it.

That being said, I have a strong feeling what a number of you are now probably thinking: that J.J. Abrams, as the director of Episode IX, will be able to tie the new trilogy appropriately up, as he was the one who initially served us up this whole creative mess to begin with. There are two reasons why I predict J.J. Abrams will fail to ultimately do this:

For one, J.J. Abrams is good at starting a story out, but he is absolutely lousy at finishing a story or even bringing it to a believable second act. Just take a brief glance at J.J. Abrams’ previous track record. The television series Lost, for instance, the pilot of which Abrams both directed and wrote, was a work of absolute genius—until the number of mysteries that Abrams so expertly introduced to us in the first half of season one all eventually wound up with very disappointing denouements. (Think the damn hatch, for Christ’s sake. Instead of something metaphysical or spiritual, it wound up housing nothing more than some British guy named Desmond.) Then we of course have J.J. Abrams’ questionable take on the Star Trek universe. Promising as his first Star Trek film was, what else was its follow-up, Star Trek: Into Darkness, but a rehashing of that first introductory movie? Where the first film ends with Kirk and company finally getting their own ship to go exploring the rest of the universe with, so too does the damn second film—with the story arcs of both movies being nearly identical in both tone and delivery. The reason for this, I do surmise, is that J.J. Abrams is a very talented producer: one who is very good at getting creative ideas initially off the ground, but is in no way qualified to craft a cohesive, narrative-driven story. When it comes to legitimate storytelling (or even exploring an actual second act, let alone the required third), I feel that Mr. Abrams would be better served leaving it to the writing and directorial professionals.

The second reason that Episode IX is doomed to fail is because Rian Johnson did such an expert job of destroying the very mythology that made the original Star Wars films so very powerful in the first place. I honestly don’t see where J.J. Abrams can possibly hope to go with Episode IX that will fulfill the needs and expectations of the new generation of Star Wars fans, who apparently enjoy seeing something as beautiful and even mystical as George Lucas’ original mythology being completely upended, as well as the old-school Star Wars fans who grew up being inspired by the genius of the original trilogy. Indeed, it cannot be simply by coincidence that Solo, respectable standalone Star Wars film though it may be, is not raking in nearly the cold hard cash that Disney was apparently expecting it to. As bad as The Last Jedi was, and with the number of hardcore Star Wars fans I know who found themselves personally insulted by it, I am frankly surprised that Solo is doing as well as it currently is.

This brings us to the very core of what I believe to be Kathleen Kennedy/Disney’s gross miscalculation when it comes to Star Wars’ lasting legacy. The continuing saga of the Skywalker family is not the platform by which to experiment with the future course of the Star Wars universe. While Rogue One and Solo are both standalone movies, they have the freedom to defy previous Star Wars conventions without putting at risk the entire Star Wars franchise. Mess with the Skywalker clan, on the other hand, with a proliferation of writers and directors all seemingly working at odds with and trying to one-up each other, and Disney now has a real can of worms on its hands.

But so it goes in the world of Hollywood. The need to make money—versus telling a decent story—will always trump artistic integrity. A pity, in a way, that the original Star Wars turned out to be so surprisingly successful (and jumpstarted this whole single-minded obsession with creating the next big Hollywood blockbuster in the first place). Had George Lucas’ original trilogy remained a mere cult phenomenon, like The Evil Dead or even Spaceballs (which never would have existed, had it not been for Star Wars), it might well have sustained some trace amount of both vision and creative integrity. At the same time, Lucas would have probably never made The Empire Strikes Back had the first Star Wars film totally flopped.

So I suppose, in a way, that it’s a real catch-22. I’m just thankful that we ever had any good Star Wars films to begin with. Bad as things might eventually turn out, in light of Disney’s short-sighted, money-grubbing take on our beloved Star Wars universe, we longtime fans will always have George Lucas’ original trilogy. In the meantime, I very much urge fans of the original trilogy to go check out Solo: A Star Wars Story. It might not be a masterpiece, but at least it is entertaining. As a standalone movie, you also don’t have to worry about the mythology of the original Star Wars in any way being messed with.

And that, my dear friends, is well worth the price of admission.

 

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Is Trump the Best Thing to Have Ever Happened to America? Ironically Enough, Yes.

Michael Feirstag

 

Yosemite Autumn

 

Forget the purposely attention-goading title for one brief moment, as I am by no means a proponent of Trump or his isolationist, supposedly populist agenda. If anything, Trump is responsible for the worst moral crisis to face this nation since the height of the Vietnam War. That being said, it is sometimes only in the face of severe crisis that a nation is allowed to ultimately define itself.

Let’s pull a tactic out of Trump’s now rote and all-too-predictable little playbook, by boomeranging the subject straight back around to me (please bear with me here, as I promise you, the point will eventually be worth it). I honestly thought I knew what it was to be humble. So too did I believe I knew what it was like to repeatedly stare failure straight in the face. That was exactly one year and four months ago, before I left my safe and reliable job at a local university to pursue my professional writing career. Why did I wait until the age of nearly forty to finally do this? Because I thought I was being smart, and I thought I was playing it safe.

Needless to say, I still have yet to achieve any level of financial success with my writing. To add insult to injury, it now appears nearly next to impossible to find a decent-paying job again. Good thing I had what used to be an ample 401(k) to keep repeatedly cashing in on as I continue to pursue my flagging writing career, while simultaneously trying to convince someone, anyone to at the very least please finally interview me. (So much for the robust, supposedly job-driven Trump economy. And I happen to live an area with an exceedingly high demand for willing, qualified workers—if you happen to be seeking out a barely minimum-wage-paying customer service or third-shift manufacturing job).

In all honesty, the primary thing that has driven me until now is the motivation, no matter how crazy, to make my mark and creatively contribute. That being said, I continue to write and I continue to endlessly revise my written works, in hopes that what I have to offer will someday perhaps be appreciated. In the meantime, what else is a poor, unemployed, thirty-nine-year-old human being supposed to do?

So it is that it suddenly hit me the other day, when I was sitting around all depressed about the fact I will seemingly never be able to creatively contribute: Even if I never do achieve any lasting financial success with my writing, in some small, miniscule way I am still having an effect on humanity’s lasting artistic legacy. And the way I am making this mark is not necessarily by creating, but instead by being a well-intentioned consumer. Every time I pay to see a really high-quality movie (think Blade Runner 2049 or Three Billboards), buy a CD by one of my all-time favorite musical artists (like Rush or David Bowie), or purchase a book by a true master of modern-day literature (e.g., Kurt Vonnegut or Philip K. Dick), I am in effect endorsing the creation of future such masterworks. Even if some of these artists have in fact already expired, it does not in all reality truly matter, as it shows that there is still a demand for such high-quality, thought-provoking art.

It all comes down to what I one day remember hearing the respected techno musician Moby say: as there was no way he could make a living as a musician through conventional means (like selling CDs or even touring), he had to sell out to a number of corporations in order to finance his future musical output. The important thing was that when he did sell out, he did so both morally and ethically. And the same exact thing goes for all the rest of us as consumers. So long as we continue to support true art (and the fluid definition of that is, by necessity, up to each and every one of us), then there you finally have it: We are all, little by little, having an effect on the future artistic course of humanity.

So what does all this have to do with the juvenile, self-serving antics of our current American president? In effect, simply everything. The worse and more disastrously Trump behaves, the more we, as the American people, now need to take the moral reins of our nation in our own white-knuckled, increasingly frustrated hands.

The good news is that we already see evidence of this happening. What else is the Me Too movement and the millions of school-aged children justifiably marching for peace in the streets if not a moral and ethical response to an immoral, non-ethical president? Just as we exercise control over humanity’s artistic destiny by making smart choices as consumers—and thereby contribute in our own, noncreative way—so too must we all serve as moral and ethical checks to the pornstar-banging baboon now pretending to be our president.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, Trump may perhaps be one of the best things to have ever happened to our country—only not in the ways that Trump and his well-oiled, supposedly Christian cronies might think. By testing our nation’s moral and ethical boundaries, Trump is unconsciously emboldening us, the American people, to finally flex our socio-political will and to exercise our economic power. By showing us exactly what we do not want in our future American presidents, Trump is, by pure accident, allowing us to finally define what we in fact do want. And that, more than anything else, will inevitably turn out to be Trump’s true and lasting legacy.

Your friend,

Michael Feirstag

 

P.S. For those of you tuning in because you are interested in my writing, I do apologize for not updating this website more often. Hopefully that will soon change, with the publication of two more novels and the acquisition of an appropriate day job. So you know, I will next be working on revision nine of Song of the Cynthatha, which will hopefully be released sometime this summer. Meanwhile, I continue to revise the great beast of what I am still hoping to eventually one day be considered my science fiction masterwork, The Another One Star Ambient House.

 

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New Book Version Updates Tab

Michael Feirstag

 

Since Amazon is being a pain in the ass about bringing my previously published e-books up to date, I have decided to add a tab to the header of my site, which will for now on detail the most up-to-date versions of my e-books. Check the copyright page of each downloaded book. If the version number does not correspond to the latest version listed on this website (or if there is no version number, which should be listed just above the copyright citation), I urge you to please contact Amazon and request an up-to-date version be delivered to your reading device.

Why Amazon does not offer writers more control over their e-books I really can’t bring myself to fathom. Should it not be the author of a written work who decides what is, and is not, that particular work’s final released version? Hopefully other writers will begin to take this same approach, so that Amazon ultimately has no choice but to give fellow writers like myself full artistic control.

As to why I keep making so many changes to my already released e-books? What can I say, but that I am very much a nitpicky perfectionist? Perhaps that explains why I have made a second career for myself as a freelance proofreader/editor. More than anything else, I want to know that you, the good reader, are getting the best possible version of my e-books. Sometimes nothing more significant has changed than a chapter title. In others cases, such as with the latest version of Playing with Fire, I have made substantial changes—including the deletion of what I now feel to be several unnecessary chapters.

Most recent e-book versions available, in order of initial publication date, are as follows:

A Song of Love for America—Version 2.3

Playing with Fire­—Version 3.2

Through the Eyes of an American Foreigner—Version 1.3

Progeny—Version 1.3

Son of Adman—Version 1.3

 

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Goodbye to “Star Wars”

Michael Feirstag1 Comment

 

star-wars-2369316_1920

 

Here I sit, several weeks later, still mulling over The Last Jedi. As much as I wanted to love the movie, I honestly hated it. As silly as The Force Awakens was, at least it appeared to open the doors to a potentially open-ended future. Now Luke Skywalker is dead, and the Jedi are all but killed off. So good thing we have lackluster Rey to save the day and an assortment of doe-eyed, ethnically ambiguous slave children, who apparently walked directly off the set of The Golden Compass.

I even revisited the movie one last time yesterday evening, just to ensure I somehow didn’t miss anything (you’re welcome, greedy Disney), and I came to hate the movie even more upon its second viewing than I did upon the first. Most of the movie seemed like nothing more than an attempt to distract the viewer from the fact there is very little by way of Star Wars mythology and/or any kind of actual story. If anything, the film comes off as a crude, slapstick parody of The Empire Strikes Back, without the gravitas or import of the original film.

That the critics all seemed to love the movie is completely beside the point. Nearly every Star Wars fan I speak to thinks The Last Jedi was horseshit. Little wonder then that no one appeared to be excited or in any way pumped up after watching the movie. Instead, everyone seemed to be very silent and refused to look one another in the eye while walking out of the theater—like they had all undergone very invasive colonoscopies.

If I had to rate all the Star Wars movies thus far, here is how I would rank them, in order from best to worst:

1. The Empire Strikes Back

2. A New Hope

3. Rogue One

4. Revenge of the Sith (Darth Vader’s “Nooooo!” notwithstanding)

5. Return of the Jedi (despite the cuddly Ewoks, who made George Lucas many millions)

6. The Force Awakens (if anything, because it gave us hope for Disney Star Wars)

7. Attack of the Clones

8. The Last Jedi

9. The Phantom Menace (which, other than Darth Maul, just plain sucked)

As you can see, despite its fantastic critical ratings and blockbuster box office earnings, The Last Jedi appears very far from the top of my own personal Star Wars list. But what do I know, anyways? Other than the fact I have lived and breathed Star Wars ever since the moment I first saw the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. . . .” pop up on the screen as a tiny, three-year-old child?

In truth, I am almost happy The Last Jedi was so terrible. Instead of wasting more of my life fantasizing about and perpetually celebrating Star Wars, I am now finally free to move on. I’m sure I will be there to watch the new Han Solo movie—if anything, just to check in on my once-beloved Star Wars—but in no way will it be a life-affirming event for me. It will be like running into a thirty-something man on the street whom I was once very close childhood friends with: we will both smile with the recognition of shared memories, but in no way will we want to have anything more than the bare minimum to do with each other.

More than anything, The Last Jedi only gives me further motivation to continue work on The Another One Star Ambient House, which is nothing less than my own multi-book science fiction epic, and of which I am just now completing the first initial draft of Book I.  Although The AOSAH may be a far cry from the majesty of the original Star Wars trilogy, it certainly can’t be any worse than The Last Freaking Jedi, which, let’s face it, was nothing more than one vast money grab.

So thanks for that at least, Disney. Now that the bar for future science fiction has been set so pathetically low, it almost certainly opens wide the doors to a new golden age of science fiction: one in which Star Wars is no longer at the very top of the heap, and one in which dollars and cents are no longer considered an adequate measure of a creative work’s true and lasting import.

 

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12/15 Release of Son of Adman

Michael Feirstag

 

SON OF ADMAN Most Final Cover (300 dpi JPG)

 

Good news! To celebrate the release of the second book in my Progeny series, Son of Adman, which will be available to purchase this coming Friday, December 15th, my first three books will be available FREE on Amazon from the 15th though the 19th. These three books comprise what has since come to be known as my Fargo Trilogy: A Song of Love for America, Through the Eyes of an American Foreigner, and Playing with Fire.

This Friday just so happens to also coincide with the release of the new Star Wars movie, so there is even more of a reason to celebrate. Let’s just hope it’s better than The Force Awakens, which was just barely one notch above Revenge of the Sith. As my very own brother (who doesn’t even go crazy for Star Wars, like I clearly do) told me on our way out of the theater after seeing The Force Awakens, “The Force just wasn’t with that one.” Although I argued with him at the time, in retrospect it was all too much like how I had felt in the wake of seeing The Phantom Menace. Once the excitement of seeing a brand-new Star Wars movie had finally subsided, the reality hit me that the film had been little more than a mere snooze. So it also now goes for The Force Awakens, which I still have yet to watch all the way through on Blu-ray without falling asleep.

If the new Star Wars movie does turn out to be a big bore, maybe consider giving my Progeny series a try. Although it is not set in a galaxy far, far away, hopefully it at the very least will help to transport you.

Cheers!

Michael Feirstag

 

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On the Cusp of Yet Another Great Adventure

Michael Feirstag

 

AOSAH 2 (Invert)

 

So here we are, on the cusp of yet another great adventure. . . .

First, how about I come clean to you all? I have tried very hard these past ten months to make a real successful go of being an independent e-book author. Good as the writing has gone for me, I’d be lying if I said that all was well. In that respect, I guess it comes straight down to your definition of what constitutes success as a writer. If the definition of success is generating a number of quality literary works that hold true to what you first set out for them to embody, then there you have it: I have been more successful these past ten months than I could have ever possibly dreamed for myself. If, on the other hand, one’s definition of success is being able to make enough of a living off one’s writing to financially be independent, then I have in fact failed . . . and I have failed most spectacularly.

Hell, there have even been days where I’ve been lucky just to give away a mere handful of e-books, to say nothing at all of actually selling them. But so it goes, I suppose, in the great Age of the Internet. Because as easy as it is for me to get my books out to the masses, so too is it equally easy for everyone else. The big difference? That I have been working my ass off these past twenty or so years to try and make this finally happen. Granted, some works are better than others. And no matter how good a book might be, the biggest challenge is often in finding the proper audience. Still, never in my worst possible nightmares did I ever think I would be sitting here, ten months after quitting my respectable, well-paying job as a proud state employee, with barely two or three cents being made from my e-books.

More than anything, it is my Progeny books that have turned out to be my biggest disappointment. As difficult as my first three books may well be to get a handle of, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write anything quite so accessible (and might I say commercial) as my Progeny books. Needless to say, only one of the three books that have been written has actually been published . . . but still, even that book seems to be going virtually nowhere. So it is that I now find myself on the cusp of this terrible yet very exciting decision.

At best, I only have two or three months before I finally have to set out to find myself a full-time job again. Living like a monk on virtual peanuts is in no way easy—even when you have a nice, patient wife who’s bringing in decent health benefits. That being said, do I continue to work on the fourth book in the Progeny series, which keeps on continually calling out to me . . . or do I instead choose to do something else? With the limited time that is left to me, I honestly don’t know if I’ll have this same chance in my life ever again: to work on whatever the hell it is that I want to, without having to consider the well-being of my own personal finances or kowtow to essentially anyone.

So it is that I now officially declare to the world my bold new plan, which is to put the fourth Progeny book to the side and instead embark upon writing what I hope to one day be considered my science fiction masterwork: The Another One Star Ambient House. Although very difficult to describe, what I aspire for this book to eventually be is a fantastical, sci-fi mash-up of The Wizard of Oz, Frank Herbert’s Dune, the original Star Wars trilogy, and my own precious Progeny books. Throw in a smattering of The Matrix, the books of Carlos Castaneda, and my own vast proliferation of ethnographic/religious/psychological research, and there you have it: The Another One Star Ambient House in a singular nutshell.

Instead of trying to complete such a massive undertaking in a mere two to three months—when I have in fact been in the process of researching and outlining this vast behemoth for something like the past twenty years—I have decided to instead split it up into three separate (and more workable) parts. That way at least the initial seeds of my masterwork will be made available to the public. How ironic that the entire justification for me quitting my day job ten long months ago was exactly just that: to make enough money with my writing to be able to bankroll the writing of The Another One Star Ambient House.

From time to time, I plan on updating you all on my progress. Since I’m not entirely sure anyone out there will even be paying attention, I have fittingly decided to entitle my blog A Voice in the Wilderness.

Your friend,

Michael Feirstag

 

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