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[bryant]

I dropped by Tom Kratman’s web board the other day to find out what my favorite Baen author had been up to lately, and found this excerpt from an upcoming novel:

Thomas felt unwelcome tears. He forced them back only with difficulty. So gallant, so brave they were, those boys over there fighting and dying against such odds, and with so little hope.

Gribeauvil, seeing the boy’s emotions written upon his twisted face, said, “Yes, son; give them their due. They are a great people, a magnificent people. And we are damned lucky to have them, now.”

Thomas agreed. And more; he thought of himself, alone, trying to save his mother and little brother from the alien menace. He wished to be a man, was becoming one, he knew. But alone he could never have made the slightest difference for his family’s survival. That took an army, an army of brave men and boys, willing to give their all for the cause of their people.

Perhaps for the first time, Thomas began to feel a deep pride, not so much in himself, but in the men he served with, in the army they served, and even in the black-clad, lightning bolt-signified, corps that was a part of that army.

Thomas was learning.

“Those boys” would be SS soldiers. The black-clad lightning bolt-signified corps is the SS. And don’t forget the depersonalization — Thomas is nothing by himself. He can only matter as part of an army. In this case, he only matters because he’s part of the SS.

Someone asked Kratman why he chose the SS. He gave three reasons:

a) Good troops taking, in many cases, a bum rap. b) a way to further annoy the left, literarily. c) Moreover, though you doubtless have not been following the snippets, in the context of John Ringo’s Posverse ALL mankind are going to become something very like them…the few who survive anyway.

Yeah. The SS weren’t so bad, it’s fun using shock tactics to piss people off, and everyone’s going to wind up like the SS in that universe anyhow.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'll think about it but frankly I doubt I will. I really have about as much reason to trust you as I would, say, Gene Smith. And I have no reason to trust him at all.

And I really don't mind criticism. You would be very surprised. What I object to is criticism based on some small facet, taken out of context. And thus we have, for the nonce, an impass.

Let me give you one hint though: writing fiction is, for me anyway, a form of method acting. What my characters do, say or believe is only rarely what I believe, but is generally what I think _they_ believe. Sometimes,I even know it is what they believe or claim to believe. Willie's speech before congress is, forex, a truncated version of the DNC party platform for election 2000. Oh, yes it is.

Tom