Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and no matter how
hard you try to fix it, it just doesn’t get any better, you don’t know what do,
where to go, and how to change it. The anticipation is often the worst, the
future poisons the present, you have no idea as to how to escape it, or rather
– to prevent it, and you feel your hatred chewing you from the inside out.
…Or you can do what the Kurds in Syria did: once POTUS the
Donald sold them to Erdogan’s Turkey, they quickly did damage control by
re-allying themselves with the Assad regime, which is backed by Putin’s Russia.
Therefore, now they have new allies that got their backs, (because the RF and
Turkey have different ideas regarding Syria and the Assad regime), Putin’s
critics had to zip it again about his external policies, Erdogan and his
proxies have lost the advantage again, and U.S. has shit and cineole to show
for all that.
Listen, this isn’t surprising – all too often, even during
the Cold War period, the U.S. just tried to pick-up any loose ends, and when it
came into proper opposition, as in Vietnam, let alone North Korea, it faltered.
Still, it usually faltered militarily, rather than diplomatically, as it did
now, and that makes it worse for the U.S. For the governments of the other
countries, in either Middle East or elsewhere, it is business as usual, live
with it.
Throughout my youth, in the 1990s and especially the early
2000s, the Western governments liked to talk about the concept of a ‘global
village’ where people of every race (use whatever noun you want here) are
equal. Aside from the fact that the communists’ concept of internationalism was
basically the same thing just wrapped in a different package, the truth is that
something like this was being worked out by people – primarily westerners – pre
WWI…though largely at the expense of the rest of the world, at least in theory.
Then the WWI happened and the world changed completely, in fact, it changed
several times throughout the 20th century, until the end of the Cold
War in the early 1990s, when the USA won and the U.S.S.R. was no more. It was
Pax Americana… and the U.S. blew it, but they also sold their concept of the
‘global village’ – see above. Only now that they are no longer in charge of the
world officially – Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Turkey, and so on are
showing to everyone that that is so – they no longer want a ‘global village’
and are trying to stop it. The result is pretty much the same as it was with
the Kurds: the Yankees do a power play/temper tantrum and move out, expecting
for everything to collapse and/or for everyone to come running back to them,
begging the U.S. to come back. Once, this would have been the case. Now, there
are other options on the table, and while they still may not be as attractive
as the U.S., they are much more attainable and realistic, and once they’re
realized, U.S. finds itself facing failure instead.
That said, there is an exception for every rule, and in this
case, it might be the Brexit. Supposedly, on October 17, 2019, the U.K. and the
EU made some sort of a preliminary arrangement… or at least a rough draft of
one… yay? Not exactly, because not too long before that, Her Majesty the queen
Elizabeth the II kind of tipped her hand by giving away that the royal family
might be the main reason as to why the Brexit is happening in the first place,
and not because of the public opinion or anything like this. So far it is being
ignored and overlooked, Her Majesty made sure that the Royal Family stays well
away from the Brexit mess per se…until her recent speech, when she gave away
her pro-Brexit status clearly enough. Again, everyone is ignoring/overlooking
it, but once the Brexit begins for real, it is anyone’s guess as to how the
game will go. What next?
…Well, unlike Russians, who received shock
treatments/therapy from their governments since the days before the yoke of the
Golden Horde and got used to them and consider it a part of their daily lives,
especially when it comes to politics, the Westerners have not. They do not like
it, and because the U.K. in particular is a constitutional
monarchy these days, it means that their kings, queens and dynasties can
get executed and/or exiled, the divine right of kings be damned. Seriously,
look at the English history, especially in the 17th-18th
centuries… or, conversely, look at the biography of a man named Oliver
Cromwell, the one and only Lord Protector of Britain, a symbol of a very
particular time in that country’s history – the time when that land had no king…
The punchline is that Cromwell and his uncle, (or father, I do
not remember), wanted to immigrate to the proto-U.S. at one point, but was unable
to do so because of some royal law or another. Talk about karma! – but where
does it leave us?
…With Mr. Kwame Mbalia’s novel, ‘Tristan Strong punches a
hole in the sky’, published as part of Rick Riordan’s series of various authors
who publish books set in the manner of RR’s novels… or at least they were
supposed to. First, there was ‘Dragon Pearl’ written by Mr. Y.H. Lee, and now –
the novel of Mr. Mbalia. The two novels do not have much in common with each
other, but both break out of the mold set by RR. In his novels, the characters
have to beat the clock, everything is structured around certain dates when
various goals have to be reached, or else the characters’ world is doomed. Ms.
Chokshi’s novels follow this structure, as do Ms. Cervantes’, and even Mr.
Hernandez’ ‘Sal and Gabi’ do – sort of. However, Mr. Lee’s DP novel did not –
it is fundamentally a Korean mythology meets Star Trek kind of a universe, when
the titular character decided to clear-up her brother’s name, making her quest
a much more personal issue than in case of the other novels, and also she is a
kitsune, aka a completely non-human supernatural entity. In some cases, for
example, in a Pathfinder™
RPG session, there’s no problem with a kitsune character, but apparently RR and
his superiors at Disney™ thought
differently regarding Mr. Lee’s DP novel, since he was the only author in those
series who wasn’t making a sequel – until now. Mr. Mbalia’s novel ‘Tristan
Strong’ is very different from DP, but again, it is not built as the RR novels
are either.
RR novels are linear, with the characters running around in
a metaphorical straight line, all but checking off various check boxes on their
sheets: we have been there, there, and there, that, that, and that is done,
only this, this, and this is left. DP also did something similar, but much more
weakly, at a more leisurely pace. ‘Tristan Strong…’ doesn’t do that either,
rather it’s more a dungeon crawl, as the titular hero and his team travel
around Alke, an imaginary world, built around Afro-American and African
mythologies, fighting, well, a semi-metaphorical depiction of slavery.
Now, let us be absolutely clear – of all the social
inventions of humanity, slavery is one of the worst, period. Yet none of RR novels
really deals with it, either. His novels depict a fairly glamorous and
people-friendly version of the U.S., and neither do any novels of his current
entourage. By dealing with such a real-life issue, Mr. Mbalia’s novel certainly
has broken the series’ mold and changed something, but-
But here is when we return to the real world, again, and
according to its’ data, Mr. Mbalia’s ‘Tristan Strong’, as well-written as it
is, (and it really is, especially for a children’s/YA novel), should’ve come
out next year, January 2020 or so, not now, October 2019, when a different
novel from the series, one based on Navajo/Native American mythology, should’ve
been released. Instead we go ‘Tristan Strong…’ and from what I’ve seen, his
arrival to the book stores such as Chapters™ has been accompanied by far less fanfare than RR’s
latest ‘Apollo’ novel (TTT), or Ms. Cervantes’ second novel, (‘Fire Keeper’)
have. Why?
…Because there is something going on in the background of RR
& Disney partnership. The first two novels of the ‘Apollo’ series were very
progressive, especially in regards to LGBQ+ community, the third novel – ‘The
Burning Maze’ – had none of those elements at all – and the latest work, ‘The
Tyrant’s Tomb’, had a homosexual secondary character – Lavinia Asimov – whose homosexuality
was mentioned but never seen, and often felt about as tacked-on as the
secondary plotline in Ms. Cervantes’ first novel – ‘Storm Runner’ – did. And now
we got Mr. Mbalia’ very impressive and well-written novel which is notably
downplayed, and we get a break in the original progression of the novels, when
each of them arrives on bookshelves. Again, there is probably a very reasonable
and justified explanation for this change in strategy, but given that real life
sucks, I would not bet on it. Ah well, best of luck to RR and his comrades in
team Disney, they will probably need it. Anything else?
Well, the ‘Absolute Carnage’ mega-plot in Marvel’s comic
books is ending, and it was much ado about nothing – not much is changing in
the Marvel comics’ world, though I think that we are going to see Venom
fighting a dark god named Knull at some future point, but that is neither here
nor there.
Instead, this is it for now. See you all soon!
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