3 Takes
Ark Press Authors
1. A Conspiracy of Pickles
2. Enthusiasm is Human
3. Big Sky Frontier
1. Sam R. OYKEN
A Conspiracy of Pickles
“Yep. This place.” BUTTONFLY gestured all around. “You probably haven’t heard that one before. That’s what we used to call CIA. Way back, before you were born, I’m guessing, all those officers who lived in Georgetown, the old OSS swashbucklers, they’d kiss their wives goodbye in the morning and say, ‘Well, Honey, I’m off to the Pickle Factory.’” “I wonder why they called it that.” “I don’t know,” said BUTTONFLY. “Maybe because they used to get into a lot of pickles. Those guys, they had a sense of humor about the place, they didn’t take themselves too seriously. And they couldn’t wait to get to work. Not anymore, though. Now everyone here takes this place and themselves very seriously, because it’s no longer a serious place. And they can’t wait to retire.”
“We turned into a bureaucracy with an intelligence collection outfit attached to it as an appendage and mostly getting in its way, not an intelligence organization with minimal bureaucratic trappings, the way we were created. The reason CIA exists, Andre, the one thing she’s supposed to do before all else, is to collect intelligence. But the professional bureaucrats, the ones who work here at Hindquarters and mostly have never gone out into the world to collect a single scrap of information for the President, they’re the ones in charge now.”
Excerpt from The Pickle Factory. Pre-order The Pickle Factory by Sam R. OYKEN.
2. Larry Correia
Enthusiasm is Human
The creation is the fun part. I’ve said this many many many times, the writer’s greatest weapon is contagious enthusiasm. If I’m having fun writing it, I know you guys will have fun reading it. That’s it. That’s the big fucking secret.
AI has no enthusiasm.
If an author isn’t having fun writing, you can tell when you read it. It’s a vibe. It’s a feeling. You just know. If the author was having a blast you know it. The scenes where a good author was grinning or crying or doing a triumphant fuck yeah fist pump, you fucking know. Because reader and author are both human, you fucking GET IT.
Source. Pre-order American Paladin by Larry Correia.
3. Travis J. I. Corcoran
Big Sky Frontier
When there is a frontier, it is impossible to deny that the pie is growing. Want a farm? Go hack one out of the forest. Want a house? Go build one.
Once the frontier is gone, value can still be created ab initio. The pie is not fixed. For the price of a cheap computer you can create a novel or a software package. With a $100 video camera you can be a garage Kubrick. With a free Craigslist ad you can be a dog-walking entrepreneur. But the closing of the frontier made it easier for the collectivists to argue that the pie is fixed. And—worse yet—it made it impossible for the rest of us to get away. . . .
There is not an ocean in front of us, dooming us to captivity—there is only sky. The frontier is still open. Onward!
Source. Pre-order Red State Mars by Travis J. I. Corcoran.
The Books
