Getting there...

It looks like I'll have plenty of feedback on APoS by the end of the month and can shift my focus to making corrections and clarifications (as needed), after Labor Day. I am getting more and more ready to start back on it, and once BA's 2nd book is done with plan to do some more reading about the times. Just to refresh my memory.

What's interesting about APoS is how it's shown me the animalistic nature of men is never far from the surface in too many people. The casual cruelty and sadistic actions of the MAGAt crowd in the US is just the latest iteration of human hatefulness. What the Nazis did with the Final Solution. What whites did against African Americans for centuries, let alone after the Civil war. What Serbs did to Bosnian Muslims after the collapse of Yugoslavia. What Russia did to all of her neighbors throughout her history. And what the British did to Irish Catholics, not just in Northern Ireland. All of it fits the pattern of brutal violence perpetrated by supposedly civilized human beings.

There were reports that British Army and Protestants in Northern Ireland laughed at the deaths of Catholic men and boys. Constables made jokes and sang after Bloody Sunday. Paratroopers treated the bodies of the dead like sacks of potatoes. Then they'd get really angry when any form of revenge was taken.

What's happening in Ukraine, with Russia bombing homes and markets and town squares and schools and hospitals, is only furthering the idea that man is not a decent creature. Just seeing what Republicans and the cultists of that orange bastard are doing to this country proves it. We are one step away from the jungle, and too damn many want us to return there.

It helps to keep this in mind as I tell about Léonidès' cold-blooded actions in Blood Angel.