John Bierce
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johnbierce.bsky.social
John Bierce
@johnbierce.bsky.social
Fantasy novelist, author of Mage Errant, The Wrack, and More Gods Than Stars. Science and history nerd, some flavor or other of leftist/Marxist/anarchist, can burp the alphabet.

johnbierce.com
Sounds like a wonderful place, hell yeah!
November 15, 2025 at 10:51 PM
I've had a couple characters in my books who are good at telling me what to do with them, the rest are lazy bastards who want me to sculpt their life choices like it's my responsibility or something.
November 14, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Yeah, absolutely! My neck, too. Took a couple weeks to get used to the new posture and stop making a bunch of typos, but I don't ever plan to go back.

Also, I highly highly recommend a vertical mouse, that made a huge difference too.
November 14, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Haters are always gonna hate. Get your petty revenge by creating anyhow, and enjoy watching them get even madder.
November 14, 2025 at 2:32 AM
It's no skin off my back if someone just plain doesn't like my writing- no artist who has ever lived creates universal art. Bad reviews and negative quality judgements are an inevitability.

It's when others decide they're the arbiters for what is worthy of exploring in art that I get annoyed.
November 14, 2025 at 2:32 AM
I can't even count how many negative and one-star reviews I've gotten for having lots of queer characters in my books- but everytime I do, I hit a mental button that reads "make it gayer."
November 14, 2025 at 2:32 AM
(Are some things harder to create meaningful art about? Sure! And that's without even getting into certain sensitive, difficult topics that make it extremely challenging to avoid minefields. In the end, though, that all still comes down to skill, research, and thoughtfulness.)
November 14, 2025 at 2:32 AM
Creating art is its own reward, in the end. It can be difficult, frustrating, and exhausting, but there are few more rewarding human activities- especially in this era of encroaching AI bullshit.
November 14, 2025 at 2:32 AM
Ayuuuuuuuup.

I waffle on whether automatically assuming protagonists are in the right/good guys is a related phenomena, but that's also definitely folks just liking the characters too.
November 13, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by John Bierce
Take LoTR. The reason evil exists in the books is because the creator is singing new creations into existence and Melkor wants to co-opt the song. It’s the reason Sauron’s armies are twisted forms of elves. The evil in LoTR CANNOT CREATE, they can go “this thing looks like this other thing”
The far right is obsessed with Lord of the Rings and Musk keeps posting about "hobbits" because modern scientific racism owes more to fantasy worlds and gaming systems than genetic science, and they see both as effective mediums for right-wing propaganda www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
Why Elon Musk Needs Dungeons and Dragons to Be Racist
The fantastical roots of “scientific racism”
www.theatlantic.com
November 12, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Ayuuuuuuuup
November 11, 2025 at 11:47 PM
Well, I've gotten plenty of wrong book spam emails before, but this one's just especially egregious
November 11, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Ayuuuuuuuup
November 11, 2025 at 4:46 PM
I'm a big Predator fan anyhow, but this was something special!
November 10, 2025 at 2:09 PM
The issues driving capitalism to short term thinking far predate executive bonuses as an institutional force driving corporate behavior- hell, the causes of crises of capitalism make up a big chunk of Marx's writings. Short term thinking is the historic norm under capitalism sans intervention.
November 10, 2025 at 4:20 AM