CHICANONAUTICA PHONES A CHICANA ATTACKED BY A MONSTER

The Terrible Twelves on Tapastic is announced in Chicanonautica, at LaBloga.

It's the story of a young Chicana:

Who has monster problems:

In a new frontier for books:

You can read it on your phone:

READ THE TERRIBLE TWELVES ON TAPASTIC

The Terrible Twelves cover art by INOGART

You can now read -- with the help of modern technology -- a new novel by me, and my wife the fabulous Emily Devenport.

It’s called TheTerrible Twelves, a YA about Bea Garcia, a girl from a Chicano family, who starts getting attacked by a monster on her twelfth birthday, so she has to go live with her aunt and uncle in Arizona. Then she finds out just how unusual her family is . . .

(Note: The Terrible Twelves is a work of fiction. It is NOT based on a true story. Any resemblances to persons or families living or dead are purely coincidental!)

And it’s not a book or an ebook, or even an audiobook! You can read The Terrible Twelves through the modern miracle of Tapastic -- a website that now features mostly comics, but is expanding into other things. Once you get the app, a whole new universe of entertainment is open to you.

Yes, this is another experiment on the new frontiers of publishing, in the tradition of BrainpanFallout, because we’re such hearty pioneers.

I WROTE CORTEZ ON JUPITER ALL BY MYSELF!

First, let me take this time on Cyber Monday to ask you to consider buying and giving my books during this seasonal consumer orgy. Now, for an important message . . .

Honestly, it was just me, all by myself. I'm extremely proud of the fact that I wrote my first published novel as a solo effort. Just look at all the editions of it. None of them list anybody as the author but me.

But still, it keeps showing up on the interwebs, Cortez on Jupiter, listed as being by Katherine S. Hogan as well as yours truly.

No. Wrong. I am a the sole author of Cortez on Jupiter! I never even met Katherine S. Hogan, much less wrote a book with her. And once someone made the assumption that she was my wife, and said so online, to add to the confusion.

Katherine S. seems to be a nice person. According to her Amazon Author Page she's a former high school teacher, has written three editions of Barron's GED Writing Workbook, and Take the Lead: Make Youth Sports What They Were Meant to Be, and lives in Virginia with her four children. All noble pursuits.

I have never been anywhere near Virginia.

And please don't bother her about this. Chances are it wasn't her fault. Somewhere along the line, somebody put the wrong Hogan down in the wrong space, and now she's listed as my co-author on sleazy little websites that will probably put insidious malware on your computer, just like those ones that offer free PDF ripoffs of my books.

It's best to stay away from that stuff.

And I had thought I had taken care of this years ago, but it keeps popping up, Guess I have to keep on explaining it . . . what a world, what a world . . .

CHICANONAUTICA REMEMBERS THE ALAMO

Blame it on television, Chicanonautica is about the Alamo, over at La Bloga.

It's a great Americano myth, from John Wayne:

To Walt Disney:

Good thing Lalo Guerrero did his take on it:

And now it's getting sci-fi on us:

NOTES FROM TRUMPTOPIA

It didn’t take long. BLAM! Here we are, Trumptopia. Folks are grumbling about moving to Canada. There are protests across the country. The bigots are feeling empowered and their hate incidents are too numerous to keep up with. 

The Klan and the Nazis are happy, though. 

Call me old-fashioned, but if the Klan and the Nazis are on one side, put me on the other. Please.

And this is all just the reaction to the election -- just wait until he’s inaugurated . . . And if you thought that the election campaign was off the wall, wait until the batshit craziness of the Trump administration kicks in.

I’m not scared. I’m mad. I’m not running for a safe zone. I’m standing my ground.

Trump is a con man. He tells people what they want to hear, takes the money, and runs. He’s notorious for not paying for things. He’s over a billion dollars in debt. He’s not even a real billionaire. He can attract attention, but he ain’t no leader.

What he never does is deliver.

We’re not going to see a wall at the border. There is not going to be a deportation force taking people away. His dubious allies in Washington can’t agree about how to do things.

Yeah, his fans are running amok. There will be damage. I blame him for that.

He doesn’t have a master plan to install a fascist state in a hurry. What I see coming is chaos. It won’t last long, because it’s unstable as a bomb made by amateurs. It’ll come crashing down, leaving a big, ugly mess. 

I’m reminded of Apocalypse Now. When Brando asks, “Do you find my methods too extreme?” 

And Martin Sheen says, “I don’t see any method at all.”

Then we’ll all have clean it up, as usual.

CHICANONAUTICA HAS A TRANSDIMENSIONAL VIDEO CHAT

Deadlines make it weird on Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga.

Because what is utopia to some is dystopia to others:

And vice versa:

So the help of someone – or something – like Victor Theremin is needed:

And who knows what the future will bring?

¡FELIZ DEAD DAZE!

Argh! The whole Halloween/Día de los Muertos/Dead Daze (see Smoking Mirror Blues) complex snuck up on me this crazy year, under the nefarious stealth of political turmoil . . . Don't let all this 2016 shit get you down! Remember your dead loved ones. And let your imagination run wild . . . In times like these we really need it.

CHICANONAUTICA TAKES ON TOM SWIFT

Chicanonautica exposes racsim in the original Tom Swift novels over at La Bloga.

Tom Swift is considered to be popular Americana:

Nostalgic proto-steampunk stuff:

A far cry from Afrofuturism:

And in other news:

VOTE!

Growing up in West Covina, California, voting was no problem. The folks in charge of our local precinct knocked on our doors and let us know where the polling place was. They practically came over and walked us there on election day. They didn't care what party you were with, or who you were voting for. They wanted you to register and vote, dammit!

Ah, America!

Then I moved to Arizona. Just about every election, they moved your polling place, and finding it was a job in itself. It was like they didn't want you to vote. After several hectic election days, and horror stories from friends who didn't make it in time to cast their ballots, my wife and I signed up for early voting.

We get our ballots in the mail, fill them out right away, and mail them immediately. We have already voted in the upcoming election. It feels good. Voting always give me a natural high.

Yeah, I know some of you don't think there's anybody to vote for, and the system is so corrupt that it doesn't matter. The way I see it, democracy is like pinball: huge, multi-million player pinball. You shoot the ball in, thwack it in the direction you want, and hope it doesn't go tilt. Sure, there's a helluvalota interference from all the other people who are voting, but that's life. It's not about you, or me, it's about us.

And that's never easy.

And if you don't get your thwack in, you're not participating. You're hiding under a rock, letting everybody else decide what's going down. If it all goes tilt, you didn't do anything about it.

You may think you're high and mighty, above it all, but you look pretty low to me.

Pardon me, but I have some more thwacking to do.

CHICANONAUTICA STEALS THIS CIVILIZATION

It's recomboculturism versus cultural appropriation in Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga.

Who's afraid of dealing with other cultures?

Does Tenochtitlán translate into Hollywood?

Who are these turkeys?

We need to get down to business.