After you fail to conquer the Earth - John Ringo's The Tuloriad

I enjoyed The Tuloriad on a number of levels. It was a sympathetic exodus and rebuilding story... about the man-eating alien invaders. Which in no way minimized or forgave the fact that they, you know, used to eat people.

The Posleen/Legacy of the Aldenata series starts with man-eating alien centaurs who are well-nigh unstoppable roaming the Earth and eating people. The Posleen, as they are called, have very little mercy or empathy or culture of their own. How could beings like that have a society let alone reach the stars? In the later books, culmnating in The Tuloriad, Ringo and Kratman go back and look at the earlier books and say, basically, no they couldn't, that's not natural. Something changed them and made them that way.

This leads to the central question of the Tuloriad: Who did it to them, why, and can the Posleen change themselves again, this time into something better?

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Kill dinosaurs, make $. Also, zombies are a great business plan - The Flock

Chalk one up for the League of Stupid Fictional Business Villains. Guys, guys, I know many of you don't like corporations, but this is not how greed-driven evil works unless you're a complete moron.

I've just found out about an upcoming book called The Flock and have procured a copy for review from my place of business. I grabbed it because hey! Dinosaurs! Awesome, right?

But read the summary:

"A population of prehistoric, predatory, highly intelligent giant proto-birds who've roamed for thousands of years in the trackless savanna of what's now a government military reservation in central Florida....the Berg Brothers, a Disney-style entertainment conglomerate, crave the land as residential real estate. When a right-wing militia is hired to destroy the flock, a naïve young Fish and Wildlife officer and his girlfriend find themselves caught in the resulting melee."

Yes, that's right. Evil Not!Disney hires mercenaries to kill the only dinosaurs on Earth.

You can't attribute every single behavior you hate to corporations - pure evil alone does not = cash $. They don't get an allowance from Satan. That's just bad business sense!

Evil Not!Disney would not hire mercs to kill the only dinosaurs on Earth. They would lock them behind bulletproof glass and charge people thousands of dollars to see Dino Fun Land! And immediately trademark a cute cartoon character based on them. Get it right.

But maybe I am totally wrong. Maybe this book makes more sense than the blurb. I'll report back after I read it.

ETA: In conversation online with a friend, a moment ago, she asked me to explain how one funds evil if Satan does not give an allowance, and I did. To wit - evil is not, in itself, a business plan. Evil is generally either a hobby or a side-benefit of your actual profession. If you want to be evil professionally, you need to come up with a way to monetize it in order to quit your dayjob. For example, blowing up a peaceful alien planet does not, actually, make you richer. In fact, I'm pretty sure the explosives would set you back quite a bit. However, blowing up a peaceful planet and having a fleet of ore ships ready to cart the mineral-rich remains away could very well be a cost effective money making proposition. You see where I'm going with this?

Artists, a contest you might be interested in...

Naomi Novik, Hugo-nominated author of the popular Temeraire series of fantasy novels starring sentient dragons in the Napoleonic Wars, has started a very interesting and unique contest indeed. The author and her editor and art director will choose five of their favorite submitted works of Temeraire fan art and ten runners up, and then Novik will write "a short original piece of fiction to go with each".

The end result will be published in a charity benefit chapbook to benefit Novik's favorite cause, The Organization for Transformative Works, a non-profit protecting the legal right of fan writers, artists and vidders to continue to create and post their works. Winners will get a work of fiction by Naomi Novik based on their work, and their fan art published = as well as copy of the chap book, of course.

The really interesting part is that, to quote the author, "Your artwork may feature any scene, character, or characters from any of the six Temeraire books, in any medium you choose. Alternate universe settings, chibi, and parody entries are welcome, or anything else you come up with." That means if you always wanted to see a story about dragon ninjas and do an amazing work of art depicting dragon ninjas, Naomi Novik might just write you the ninja dragon story of your dreams. Really, what more could a die-hard fan ask for?

Contest details are available here.