Cover of Legends and Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes by Travis Baldree. The book genre is Gaslamp Fantasy.

Here and Where: Book Reviews + Infidel753’s Meditations + Podcast

Posted on by da-AL
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1bKmdGi98yHTSe70pLcbyf?si=252c0e6fc39b43ce

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Reading and writing (like on my novels) offer the easiest ways I know to gaze at life from either a searingly photo-realistic angle or a dreamy fantasy vantage.

The one just read and the one I’m in the middle of couldn’t be further apart in terms of vistas, and I’m grateful for both!

Here are my reviews of them for Goodreads and Amazon …

Cover of Acts of Desperation, a literary fiction novel by Megan Nolan.

Acts of Desperation, a literary fiction novel by Megan Nolan: Combust the most harrowing things inflicted upon you, burnish them into self-hurt, then smelt them into strength… Acts of Desperation is so literate, so raw, so intelligent that after I finished it in print, I couldn’t stop listening to Lauren Coe’s brilliant audiobook performance of it. Beyond a mere ‘coming of age later’ by a young Irish author, it’s a nakedly honest take on how todays cultural place for girls and women still has a long way to go. Warning: could be triggering, though was worth it for me.

Cover of Legends and Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes by Travis Baldree. The book genre is Gaslamp Fantasy.

Legends and Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes by Travis Baldree: Such a sweet fun novel that I almost abandoned it — I’m halfway through and so glad I didn’t! There’s something so cocaine-addictive about monster-ish creatures un-besmirched by computers, phones, and electricity. Especially these ones who’ve just been blissed off their feet by their first tastes of giant killer-ess Viv and horned and tailed Tandry’s java, and furry little guy Thimble’s cinnamon rolls. Now that I’ve sampled Gaslamp Fantasy, I can’t wait to try more. Travis Baldree penned and illustrated his first book as a kid, went on to develop computer games and start a family, and has voiced so many novels (including this one) that surely the story telling rhythm and form run through his veins.

By the way, here’s Travis’s fascinating account about how his book sold incredibly well as soon as he initially self-published it.

Today’s guest, Infidel753. blogs from Portland, Oregon. He first contributed to Happiness Between Tails with this post about his work helping women seeking abortions and this post about his thoughts on eating flesh. For his poetic meditations that follow, he explains, “I’ve long felt that I should have lived in a different world entirely — a world that doesn’t exist, and can’t exist.  These two pieces represent, perhaps, the light and dark sides of that feeling.”

Meditation #6 — what should have been by Infidel 753

Screenshot of Meditation #6 by Infidel753.

Meditation #7 — temptation in the sky by Infidel753

Screenshot of Meditation #7 by Infidel753.

Do you prefer fiction based on fantasy or reality?

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Published by da-AL

Happiness Between Tails speaks to and from the heart. It connects lovers — of pets, authors, books — and of my still-unreleased novels, “Flamenco + the Sitting Cat” and “Tango + the Sitting Cat.” The stories are my love letters to all who fear they're too odd, too damaged, too old, too whatever to find happiness. ContactdaAL@gmail.com • BuyMeACoffee.com/SupportHBT

35 thoughts on “Here and Where: Book Reviews + Infidel753’s Meditations + Podcast”

  2. I did read it just now. There are so many fascinating concepts here and you hit on them perfectly. It was a great read and I agree with much of it.
    I think though that man’s evolution does not happen in a straight line. There are many peaks and valleys and they are necessary. Progress, like stagnation or decline comes in stages. So while Greco-Roman civilization was far advanced and produced so much, it was eventually brought down by man’s own resistance. Progress and civilization was kept alive in part due to the writings and transcribing of Monks who treasured those cultures and preserved them.
    Even Christianity has/had its problems. These were due to the fact that it is run by humans. Although religion is based on various accounts of God, it is governed by man, who by nature is imperfect. Not all can be good because of that fact.
    Your post is a great read and could lead to countless hours of fascinating discussion. Very well done.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Much thanks for the kind words.

      There is no doubt that humans are imperfect by nature. These imperfections can probably never really be expunged, because they are rooted in our genetic heritage. Having studied primate behavior, especially that of chimpanzees (our closest relative), it’s startling how much of their social behavior — especially as regards status/dominance, violence, and sexuality — is like a somewhat simplified version of our own. It becomes very clear that almost everything about us reflects the fact that we are just another ape species, with more complex societies because of our higher intelligence, but still fundamentally the same.

      Civilization has at least managed to mitigate human imperfections. The human per capita death rate from violence in modern times is much lower than that of hunter-gatherer societies (or chimpanzee societies), even when high-violence events like World War II are factored in to the modern statistics.

      Not to barrage you with links (although this is still relevant to the post, given the meditation reference), but you might also be interested in this book I reviewed, which made it very clear that the Classical civilization was indeed destroyed specifically by Christianity, and that the nature of that civilization and the nature of Christianity made them fundamentally incompatible with each other. If Christianity had not existed, or if Constantine had not granted it a dominant position which its meager (even in the early fourth century) number of adherents could not have won on its own, there’s no reason to think the Classical civilization would not have continued to exist and progress. Certainly it would not have been destroyed as thoroughly and dramatically as it was.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. Actually the push now is for more accurate weapons. The H-bomb was invented in the 1950s and we have never developed, nor needed, any weapon more powerful than that since then. The last few decades, the emphasis has been on things like cruise missiles and laser-guided bombs which pack a lot less explosive force but can be guided far more accurately to a target, minimizing collateral damage to anything else that happens to be nearby.

          Most recently, defensive weapons have become more advanced. Notice how most of the missiles Russia fires at Ukraine get shot down before reaching their targets, for example.

          The number of nuclear weapons has been greatly reduced by international agreements. The US and Russia now each have about five thousand, compared with about thirty thousand each at the height of the Cold War.

          Liked by 2 people

          1. Yes, the precision bombings … I have seen the Chinese embassy at Belgrade … 😉 … but that was 20 years ago, I guess they are much more precise now. And it has the “benefit” that one does not need soldiers on the ground, one can kill from a desk somewhere. I am against killing, it does nothing good for world and mankind.

            Liked by 1 person

            2. The Ukrainians hit the same part of the same government building in Moscow twice at a range of hundreds of kilometers. That’s how accurate they are now.

              If you need to destroy an enemy command post, it’s better to do it with one cruise missile than to need to drop 500 non-guided bombs and obliterate hundreds of houses nearby as well as the command post, as was the best we could do a few decades ago.

              Liked by 1 person

                1. When the Russians invaded Ukraine without provocation, bombing towns, raping women, massacring civilians, and trying to conquer the whole country, they had to fight back. Fighting back involves killing the aggressors. In the real world there’s no way around that. History is full of bullies and aggressors who cannot be dealt with except by fighting back. Stupid clichés and slogans don’t do any good. They’re just an easy way for people at a safe distance from the hard choices to feel smug and superior.

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