DREAD Reviews 12
Dad Reads and Examines Authors While Distracted
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We look back on events and, with hindsight, find them inevitable. History's greatest champions become mere figureheads, for of course the world took that one course - as it should. Nothing else could have happened, and a single person can't change or affect anything.
Simultaneously, as we hurtle into new and frightening eras, we seek out our geniuses, our scientists, our leaders, tacticians, and strategists, our priests and our role models. We defer to them, argue with them, support, oppose, or avoid them in manners passive and overt.
Only in the present do we see how one person makes a difference. A person alters the course with every train they board, as well the ones they don't take.
Never minimize yourself.
Fun facts about great people who changed the world:
George Washington defeated the planet’s largest expeditionary army (with a naval landing that wouldn’t be topped until D-day) all while having rotten teeth that hurt his mouth so much he had to bring a personal chef with him everywhere to make sweetcakes so he wouldn’t starve to death.
Simon Bolivar, somehow less famous than Washington, said: “One revolutionary war? I won six!” It’s too bad nobody cares - nobody even remembers that Bolivia is named after him. Sorry, Bolivar.
Napoleon unleashed a bloody reign of terror killing royals and nobles all across Europe without ever once being “good enough” in the eyes of his wife (I wish he’d come back and do this for us again).
Alexander conquered the world then croaked before he grew up enough to stop using terms like “YOLO” and “all your base are belong to us.” Imagine being that juvenile at the age of 32, it’s no wonder he died so young, I bet he did it on purpose.
Marie Curie, who laid the groundwork for radioactive research and things like X-rays and cancer treatments - her journals are still so radioactive they are displayed in lead-lined boxes and must be handled with a hazmat suit.
I don’t know what all this means, but it seems like harnessing pain is one way to pursue greatness.
Katherine explains the birds and the bees, and now I know how baby writers are made:
Olney’s asking me to get over WW2 already.
Meanwhile, here’s me shedding one manly tear every night because I still miss the Roman Empire:
This is pretty heavy... But can we be certain that aliens had nothing to do with this? Extraterrestrials might have abducted and replaced George! We’d never know:
Muskets, cannons, airships, the scent of moonpine, cattle grazing on grey lunar grasses?
Shut up already and read this! It’s a Victorian space adventure to Earth's nearest planetoid - one brimming with lakes, forests, and infernal savages:
A zoo becomes an airbnb in this android-run dystopia:
Timothy Leary’s dead (<-clickme) No no no no He’s an angel Popping pills:
Like me, E.M.R is an optimist. He imagines a future where AI coaches us on hooking up with a real girl rather than a world where AI replaces our girlfriends entirely. Or who knows? Maybe she’s not real and AI just learns to play hard to get:
An unsanctioned psyker recalls how much the Tyranid Shadow in the Warp used to drive her crazy. But now that the alien menace absorbed her biomass, she’s come to a grudging understanding:
I’m not going to say anything witty with this one since the author is already funnier than me.
Need proof? This line -
“So you quit Substack, and you quit writing, and you quit the gym for good measure.”
It’s not a one-off, either. Daniel has other funny (and poignant) posts besides this one. Go check them out:
Vampire, siren, cougar, ancient Greek monster - every man remembers that one time he got gobbled up by some gal who didn’t have his best interests at heart. But few can describe one like Isabella does:
An asteroid wrangler down on his luck pulls up another list of space rocks that wouldn’t impress a thrift store geologist. For a guy who hates luck-based phenomenon, one wonders why he chose asteroid mining - AKA “big expensive galactic slot machine” - as a business venture. With the latest financial report taking on the appearance of a squashed bug, what’s he to do but stare longingly at a bunch of percentages on a periodic table?
Wanted? Palladium asteroid. Or platinum. Or uranium. Literally anything cool, please. What they got? Iron and copper. Or maybe a little bit milky? Wait, on second thought, could this be a BONY asteroid? In any case, hopefully it’s not just a KFC asteroid:
Well dang, son. I’ve been catfished before, but never like this:
This isn’t just how advertisers see us, it’s how our future AI overlords see us too. Those ad execs peg us as a rashy, testosterone-starved man-babies drooling over sour cream and trucks parked on cliffs. But our AI gods? They see deeper than that, and they’re taking notes.
I bet they’re chuckling in binary as they catalog every insecure twitch we make watching this carp. Our coffee-maker juggling, our celebrity worship, our frantic swallowing and slathering of every FDA-rubberstamped pill and oil thrown in front of us - to our terabyte-tyrants-in-waiting, we’re not just a target demo, we’re a glitchy subroutine begging for techno-holy optimization. We’re data points so predictable that by now our future betters have already mapped the most direct route from mattress-snuggling euphoria to bovine-teat-chugging breakdown.
Don’t hate the commercials - both may be laughing at your elbow rash, but the advertisers just want your wallet… while the AIs want your soul:
Excitingly, my top spot this issue (here at the bottom which is not yet the bottom) goes to a poet. It’s fitting, since a larger portion than usual this issue features poets. As many of my followers know, I don’t much care for poetry - heck, I prefer most of my music plays without lyrics! But talent is talent, and great people are great - that’s why DREAD contains poems and poets. On a personal note, I enjoyed seeing that this author is a Hungarian expat. I lived in Budapest for two years. I rarely meet Hungarians in the U.S. or even see them online!
Instead of sleeping, we spent all night tripping out to this heavy metal prayer about the circle of life and death. So it's no wonder our lids open like vanishing tombs the next morning:
Now for my shameless self-promotion! Part 5 of Chains of a Demigod is out. It’s almost 8000 words of heartbreak, action, and grit:
Bonus entry: If you haven't checked them out yet, Graeme's reviews are great! Three of DREAD 12's mentions are stolen directly from him. Unlike DREAD, McAllister’s Mates are real reviews, and Graeme makes you excited to click the links. Here's his latest:
Thanks for reading!
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Really enjoy your writing, entertaining and insightful!
Thanks for reading!