IN GREAT WATERS

Kit Whitfield's latest novel, ISBN 978-0345491657, is a bit of a REVELATION.  I just read it last week and I have to say, it's looking as if might HAUNT ME FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.

PLOT SUMMARY:  Imagine what the world would be like if, back in the day, a NAKED VENUS stepped out of a filthy canal in old Venice, wrung out her hair, and TOOK OVER THE CITY.  She got married to the landscum a "Landsman" and they had a great many children who became the foundation of the Venician royal family.  All the other royal families realized what a GOOD THING they were onto in Venice and sought out those kids to marry their own kids.  Before you can say "Eat A Human For Lunch" there were piscatorial operatives ruling every country in the WORLD.

CLIFFIE'S NOTES:

>> This is not just a wish-fufillment fantasy.  It's a dystopian horror story as told from the POVs of a piscatorial princess, held captive to family duty and medieval chicanery, and a very young finboy named Henry who's being held captive in a nobleman's house in England.  The author starts by laying out the DREAM, and then in typical human dystopian-writer fashion, she twists it around into a NIGHTMARE.

>> It's pretty disturbing to me, how well the author appears to UNDERSTAND and DISPLAY exactly where fish thinking overlaps with -- and departs from -- human thinking.  It's almost as if she KNEW us.  It's almost as if she WERE one of us.  

>> She relieved my anxiety on THAT score by making the Deepsmen (as she calls them) a COMPLETELY NEW AND UNKNOWN SPECIES.  Clearly a species that descended from HUMANS, as if it were not ENTIRELY THE OTHER WAY AROUND in real life.  So maybe she was JUST GUESSING.

>> But then she hooks around again and solves the core conflict of the story -- THE SAME ONE YOU OR I WOULD HAVE CHOSEN AS THE MOST DISTRESSING PROBLEM TO SOLVE -- in very much the way WE would have solved it.  It's creepy as anything.  


HOW DOES SHE KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT US?

I want to discuss this at the next monthly chapter meeting.  GET A COPY.  READ IT.   Fear not -- although it seems at first like it's going to be another "young adult" novel, it is complex, well-written and well worth the time spent reading it.  And she only screwed up the period-appropriate grammar with anachronisms a couple of times.

Well, They Finally Noticed...

After YEARS of hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth about the world decline in HONEYBEES, MONARCH BUTTERFLIES and CODFISH, the Naked Ape scientists have finally doped out the REAL nature of their problem.  YOU'RE KILLING OFF EVERY LIVING THING AROUND YOU, STOOPIDS.  The bulletin that seems to have allowed someone to finally CONNECT THE DOTS was a study on the flying insect population in nature preserves in Germany.  They found, to their dismay, that the overall population of EVERY species they counted was down 75%.  Then someone asked, "Gosh, might this reflect an overall, worldwide decline?"  

Well, gosh, yes, it DOES.  

The insects are finally TAKING A POWDER in response to DECADES of genocidal efforts by the featherless bipeds.  YOU KNOW THE INSECTS ARE PLAYING HARDBALL WHEN YOU CAN'T EVEN FIND A LIVE JAPANESE BEETLE OUT BACK.  And that means, of course, no bats to eat them -- starveling baby birds -- unpollinated apple blossoms -- AND OF COURSE, UNTOLD THOUSANDS OF TERRIBLY HUNGRY FISH OPERATIVES.  

Leave it to the landscum not to notice anything happening unless it directly affected their yard-beautification plans or their WALLETS.  With all the GoFundMe efforts to SAVE THE MONARCH BUTTERFLIES they forget that they also need to SAVE THE FISHFLIES.  SAVE THE PILLBUGS.  SAVE THE CARPENTER BEES.  SAVE THE EIGHT-SPOTTED FORESTERS.  SAVE THE FRUIT FLIES.  

But only if you want to SAVE YOURSELVES.  Otherwise, you SHOULDN'T EVEN BOTHER.

I heard a radio report about the German study.  The announcer listened to the guy from Germany describe how surrounding a small nature preserve with thousands of acres of monoculture farmland, nuked with every kind of pesticide imaginable and lacking any of the plants these insects need to FEED THEIR OWN KIDS, inevitably kills off whole species of those insects.  The announcer said, "So are you telling us to shop at the farmer's market?  Eat locally?"  "You should try to grow your own food," the German guy said.  HADN'T HE JUST GOTTEN THROUGH SAYING THAT THE WAY NAKED APES GROW THEIR OWN FOOD IS KILLING OFF ALL THE INSECT SPECIES?   ISN'T THAT EXACTLY WHAT HE JUST SAID?

Some days, it seems as if the Naked Apes are DOING OUR WORK FOR US.  

R.I.P. beloved fish flies...

I Thought This Was Going To Be A Happier Post...

There have been some bracing reports recently that Dagon followed up the recent HURRICANES down south with a RAIN OF FISH in what the Shaved Monkeys call Mexico.  Just another little reminder to the Naked Apes that THEY ARE SURROUNDED and they will NEVER GET AWAY.

But then I saw this horrible news item from last week about a couple of people who were raped, beaten up, then beheaded by some sort of political rebels AND BLAMED IT ON US.  Apparently the woman who was killed served the wrong kind of FISH and that BROKE SOMEONE'S SPELL and then the mayhem started.

Just once, can't they take responsibility for their own cannibal-society actions?  WE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

This is why these people need to be KILLED AND EATEN taken into the sea to dwell with Dagon in wonder and glory forever.