progress update
Closing out the week (and month) at 45,000 words of BLADE OF SHADOWS, and 4,500 words of WIZARD-ASSASSIN.
Happy Halloween, everyone! Or happy Protestant Reformation Day, depending upon your preference.
Though it is interesting to consider how the major Reformation figures would respond to trick-or-treaters.
Martin Luther would regard dressing up in costumes as a papist superstition, though he no doubt would be amenable to free food. John Calvin would denounce it and write a fifteen-hundred page book explaining why trick-or-treaters were predestined before creation to their fate of collecting candy (if any trick-or-treaters did show up, he would give them toothbrushes). Ulrich Zwingli would get killed in battle before he had a chance to develop an opinion. John Knox would denounce trick-or-treating as the work of the devil, and blame the entire thing on Elizabeth I specifically and the English in general. The Council of Trent would conclude that 10% of all trick-or-treating candy (and fifteen percent of the Reese’s pumpkins, those are good) must be paid to Rome. Henry VIII, seeing the outflow of candy from his realm, would demand that all trick-or-treating candy be paid directly to the English Crown, and then would execute one of his wives once he learned she ate all the Reese’s pumpkins before he could get to them. Thomas Cranmer would agree with whatever Henry VIII and his heirs wanted, until having an attack of conscience five minutes before his execution, whereupon he will dramatically denounce his previous views and thrust his hand into the fire.
Of course, actual early modern festivals tended to be much more rambunctious than modern trick-or-treating.
I’ve made a lot of jokes on this blog over the years, but I think this might have been one of the most obscure ones. 🙂
-JM
I loved it despite being very rusty on my Reformation personalities. Did you have to research them to come up with cases for each major Reformer? 😂
Happy Halloween! I actually came here because I’m reading ghost in the corruption now after a long break reading other authors. I’ve read almost all of your series over the years and quite enjoy them! It’s no big deal but I have noticed you still make some typos (wrong word rather than incorrect spelling) that an editor or beta reader would find. I can only assume you really don’t want to mess with such editing. I’m wondering whether this would be a good application of LLM AI. It could consume whole chapters and find errors like this:
But she had heard Emperor Valerius say several times that it was all well and good to die for your nation, but it was a lot better to make the other bastard die for his nation, and Caina had **some** to see the wisdom in that aphorism.
I tested it in chatgpt and it picked it up Just fine.
Thanks! Glad you are enjoying GHOST IN THE CORRUPTION.
I do think LLMs are a civilizational-level mistake that are going to tank the economy in the next few years, so I refuse to use them. That said, these days a few typos are excellent social proof that a book was not in fact generated by AI.
John Knox would preach from the pulpit about how Halloween corrupted children by offering treats, and demand that all candy be thrown into the sea.
Getting ready for the annual children pay-off here, with the biggest package I could find of Reese’s, along with Skittles and Starburst. Family are hoping that the house continues to get few customers, so they have more Reese’s to themselves!