Corrosion

by Johan Kalsi

Galactic society is ruled by algorithms. From interstellar travel and planetary terraforming to artificial intelligence and agriculture, every human endeavor has become completely dependent upon the hypercomplex equations that optimize the activities making life possible across hundreds of inhabited worlds. Throughout the galaxy, Man has become dependent upon the reliable operation of ten million different automated systems.

And when things begin to go wrong and mysterious accidents begin to happen no one has any idea what is happening, except for a sentient medical drone and the First Technocrat of Continox. But their ability to even begin to try fixing the unthinkably complicated problem of galaxy-wide algorithmic decay is complicated by the fact the former is an outlaw and the latter is under a death sentence.

Johan Kalsi is Finland's hottest science fiction author. An accomplished geneticist as well as a 6'3" ex-Finnish Marine, in THE CORRODING EMPIRE, Kalsi shows himself to be more Asimov than Asimov. THE CORRODING EMPIRE marks his English-language debut.

Genres: Science Fiction

210 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 20, 2017

Reviews

[Jon 9 · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was also posted on Amazon.com's page for this book, where Teddy's fans well and truly got MAD...

To all future Puppies with a persecution complex: Please do take care to read up to the final edit before you make your stunningly predictable complaints about fake reviews. Far be it from me to accuse the Vile Faceless Minions of looking silly, but come on...

Much like with my review for "SJWs Always Lie" - inexplicably not subtitled "My Inability To Somehow Not Notice Two Chapter 5s During My Awesome Editing Skills" - I am delighted to admit I did not read "The Corroding Empire". I did not need to. It was not the cover itself that convinced me of giving it a 1 star review, but rather the attitude and motivations the publisher had in creating the cover that provides all the justification I need.

Consider an alternate scenario: Castalia House releases this book, with the real name of the author (whoever that may be) on the cover, as well as not having the identical artwork, fonts, and positioning of the words as an other considerably higher selling book. In other words, the book by (insert actual author name here) would be allowed to stand on its own two feet and attract judgment purely for its literary merits, or lack thereof, and then attract those who want to read it into buying and scoring the publisher some bucks. It stands to reason that if the book was of high quality, then people would buy it, and the book would not need to rely on any cheap publicity stunts based on trying to score political points.

And yet it is precisely this desperation on the part of Vox Day - a guy who seriously holds the hilariously stupid view of "White Genocide" that mixed race babies will totally cause the destruction of Earth - that leaves a permanent black mark on this book and completely strips it of whatever credibility it might have as a literary work. Because no matter what Mr Beale may insist about how totally awesome he thinks this book is, it's quite evident that he was clearly not confident in the ability of this literary work to sell without saddling it with a spectacularly lame gimmick as part of a great big amount of bitterness he has in relation to the success of John Scalzi.

It's truly amazing how much sour grapes old Theodore is full of that Mr Scalzi has a highly lucrative book deal worth millions of dollars, something which Beale is nowhere close to ever achieving. Other "highlights" of Beale's obsession with Scalzi include the Hugo Awards of 2015 and 2016, wherein Beale thought-policed his mindless drones, uh, I mean, followers into voting specific works dictated by a slate onto the ballots, with the "success" of seeing nearly all of their nominations fall far behind "No Award" in the final voting. This was all motivated by the self-entitled purpose of winning awards they somehow feel should automatically be theirs by some Divine Right, and to stick it to the so-called "SJWs" and "CHORFs" who are totally working behind the scenes to steal the whole science fiction genre from "TrueFans(tm)" like Voxy and his Dread Milk minions. I mean, they never exactly elaborate how this conspiracy actually works, but still...

This is the mindset behind the "Corroding Empire's" publication. Not one motivated purely by a desire to please fans and for the love of writing, but by petty squabbles fuelled by inferiority and insecurity complexes on Theodore Beale's part, as well as a ridiculous obsession with needing vindication from awards. Perhaps Beale should research some of the most highly regarded movies of all time, many of which did not ever win or even get nominated for Oscars, and do the same for music albums and TV shows and video games etc and their equivalent awards which they never won, and then he could maybe reach a much-needed epiphany about whatever "vindication" he so desperately craves.

In closing, I present a contrast of an author who used and still uses a pseudonym for her writing with far more dignity and grace, even if her real name ended up getting leaked. I talk of course of the highly successful J.K. Rowling, currently writing as Robert Galbraith for the Cormoron Strike series of crime novels, all of them highly rated and highly selling. And of course, one can't forget that according to TheRabidPuppiesDotCom, Hugo Award Nominee and perhaps the world's greatest author Chuck Tingle has a counter going for how each book is doing: Scalzi's "Collapsing Empire" has an Amazon Best-seller's Rank of #235, where as "Corroding Empire" by (insert real author name here) is ranked #1671. Add another notch of failure to Castalia House's marketing strategy.

Now comes the part where I get an outraged phone call from Castalia House decrying me for my "WrongThink". I could definitely use a laugh.

EDIT: My bad on the "Harry Seldon" thing. An honest mistake. I've never read any Asimov novels, the closest exposure I've had being the "I, Robot" movie released in the mid-2000s, which I remember liking. Nothing a trip to my local library can't fix. Duly changed those references in my review anyway.

Also changed the "its" parts. Unlike the perpetually outraged Miserable Doggies over on old Theo's blog, I can actually take constructive criticism. I do love how Voxie desperately ignores during his rant how he clearly wasn't confident enough in the ability of this book to sell without attaching a desperate plea for attention aimed at someone considerably more successful than him. And his attempt to spin how his book ranks several thousand places below Mr Scalzi's on the Paid In Kindle Store rankings (#8,722 to #337 to date in fact) is funny too. Oh Theodore, don't ever change.

EDIT 2: Oh, this popcorn tastes even sweeter. Getting accused of being obsessed by a bunch of bootlickers crawling all over Amazon looking for 1 star reviews to get outraged over. Vox says "Charge" and you mindlessly obey. But hey, I'm glad of anyone who decided to read this book because of my review - I'll have achieved what Day's Twitter accounts, blog, and desperate book cover all failed to do: sell you a book. I'm sure the Dark Lord would be delighted if it wasn't such a sad indictment of his marketing skills. I do still find it hilarious how low the bar you set for "publicity" of a book is though. A 1 star review laughing at the sheer ineptitude of Vox Day apparently counts as high class marketing. Meanwhile, certain real successful authors who don't rely on dated No True Scotsman beliefs about literary genres set considerably higher bars for publicity. Oh, and to the guy who wants to report the review for mentioning "white genocide"? Yeah... good luck with that. I made it pretty clear that that stupid belief is Theodore's stupid belief. Nice try Dread Milk minions.

ONE FINAL EDIT: If your sole takeaway from this was "OMG FAKE REVIEW!", I don't particularly regret to inform you that my review honestly admits I never read the book, I then provide justification for not reading the book (namely the publisher's marketing of the book), and provide specific examples to support my point (namely how the cover of the book was created and the reasons that even the publisher himself has admitted to) and therefore reach an easy to follow conclusion that if the publisher clearly didn't have enough faith in the book based on whatever literary "quality" it does or does not have without using a hilariously inept gimmick, there's no reason for me to regard this book in anything but the lowest regard either. Thus, real reasons given for a 1 star review, and perfectly within the rules of Amazon's Terms of Service. I realise that literacy is not the strong point of the Dread Milk, but they could at least take a break from considering any criticism of their Dear Leader as blasphemy and actually try to absorb and discuss constructive criticism like adults.

[Contrarius · Rating 1 out of 5]

For the pups out there:

No, I did not purchase this book. Yes, I did download the free Kindle sample and read it. Yes, this review does address the actual content of the book.

And now, on to my review --

First the positive stuff: the preview has precisely one line that made me laugh: “Louis attacked the door with all the barbaric savagery of a pagan neo-goth prying jeweled eyes out of a statue of Saint Kurzweil.” So there's that.

Unfortunately, that one positive point is entirely outweighed by the many negatives.

For one thing, the narrative has a fully predictable and transparently misogynistic male gaze. The physical appearance of the male MC is not described at all, and very few details are provided about any of the other male characters, but the attractive young female doctor is described in loving detail -- her clothing, her “slender index finger” and long scarlet fingernails, and so on, and the text even goes into great detail as she puts up her hair. And of course she's not described doing her job -- she's described having trouble doing something as simple as putting her hair in a ponytail. And, of course, one of the first thoughts our male MC has about her is to wonder whether she’s having an affair with the boss. And also of course, she turns out to be an idiot. Sigh.

Other than that, my main takeaways were some really awkward names, some obvious “the bosses are crooked idiots” digs, lots of entirely unconvincing pseudo-scientific handwavium, and very poor editing. Nothing terribly exceptional if you like that sort of thing, and I must assume that sort of thing is typical for Castalia.

And then, of course, there's the idiocy with the book's cover. For those who are blissfully unaware, the cover (and title, and fake author name) were specifically designed to mimic The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi. There was initially some trouble with Amazon about the copycat technique, but eventually the original cover was allowed on the site. At first VD claimed that he had a right to do this as parody, but later he changed his story and claimed that the book wasn't actually a parody but rather an homage to Asimov.

In sum: VD himself has said that this isn't a parody, and it's certainly not funny enough to be one. And it's also not interesting enough or well-written enough to be taken seriously as "real" sf. Don't waste your money on it.

[Vagabond of Letters, DLitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Far better than the original - both as a parody and as straight science fiction - than the peak SJW represented in John Scalzi's pretentiously (and portentiously) 'diverse' (to the point that genderqueer pansexual mixed race womyn kings and xir similar coterie spouting Leftist globalism acutely interfere with suspension of disbelief, not to mention enjoyment-as-SF instead of political screed) 'The Collapsing Empire' upon which it was based.

[Ken Wolfson · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I were so insecure about myself that I resorted to inventing a rivalry with another author and then writing an entire trash book under a false name imitating theirs and then calling my trash book a parody of theirs to cover up how much it sucks, I'd have given in to my depression years ago and killed myself.

[Severius · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terribly disappointing book. There is an interesting premise buried here in a mish-mash of half thought out plots and semi-stories.

Every chapter is it's own story; but with no beginning, a confusing middle and an abrupt end. There is no characterization since there are no character that last more than a few pages. The book reads like the outline of a much better book that I wish I could read.

This is further damaged by spelling errors, paragraphs that repeat, and in some places characters that change names multiple times in the span of a few pages. It made the book quite a slog.

It's quite unfortunate because beneath the dross is an interesting idea, and each of the half-stories were fun for their brief length. If the stories here were polished and expanded out into perhaps a few books or longer novellas, I would really enjoy them.

[Carbonel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating future history

Really fun old school SF ala Asimov. Loads of weirdness, technological speculation, action and pathos. Wish there were more like it.

[Mikkel · Rating 2 out of 5]

There’s a real interesting setting behind this book, and you get the sense that the author is trying to set up the frame for an epic tale.

Unfortunately, all that future potential doesn’t change the fact that this book is a confusing and frustrating mess. Half the time, I had no idea what was going on, or where the many disparate stories told were taking us, and at the end, there was no satisfying conclusion, and no clear picture of where the story is actually taking us.

[Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

To put it bluntly, this is really good sci-fi. The stories are varied but tied together by the overarching theme and the various reincarnations of Servo. It's not heavy on explanation of backstory, thankfully, the details have to be teased out of the short stories. The details of the algodecay aren't explained by talking heads saying things like "As you know, Space Dave, the Space Empire has more Space Ports than…" or in blocks of texts as a character monologues.

This is not a parody. It's good story-telling based on a simple concept: 'What if "Foundation" was actually interesting?'

[E W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably more of a three and a half star book, but I found it mostly enjoyable. I will be the first to say I am not well read in classic scifi at all, so if this is an homage to anything, that went sailing straight over my head. There's not really a plot per se, more it's a connected history spanning multiple centuries and multiple planets, all facing algorithmic decay, which is destroying galactic civilization. The downside to this- we don't really get to care about any characters because you don't get to stay with any of them for long. However, I do think that the sketches of characters we get to see are pretty interesting and I really wanted to spend more time with several of them. I will say several of the chapters only made sense in hindsight and two separate chapters POVs were tied to characters who were aware that they were sensing the world outside of their expected norm and commented on it despite it not mattering much to what they were doing. I guess I expected those observations to matter, and then they went nowhere. Regardless, I enjoyed this light fare and hope to see a more fleshed out look at this universe because I found it pretty fascinating. Also, Servo, man, talk about some dedication to his mania, even as I was unsure whether he was making things worse or better.

[Jeff McGraw · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read most of this book on a series of flights. Fun stories and great take on Foundation themes. The authors use of zombies in space was unexpected but the explanation made complete syfy sense.

I rate it as a 4 because it was a great set of stories, well written, and entertaining. I personally reserve my 5 ratings for something like Dune or LOTR.

[Michael O’Connell · Rating 1 out of 5]

No. I didn't read it nor would I. This is apparently some rotten milk left over from the Rabid Puppies feud between one Mr. Theodore Beale and himself. This is not parody, only theft of idea and theft of identity. Shame on everyone involved—including Goodreads for allowing this to make it this far!

[John Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mixed but good effort

Although this book establishes its universe well, some of its short stories need a lot of editing. Nevertheless, each chapter was entertaining if not interesting. I look forward to a more polished sequel.

[Angie Kern · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weird book


Written more like an anthology of short stories set in the same universe, the author introduces multiple characters spanning hundreds of years linked only by a robot who shows up in each one. While this was interesting enough to keep me in it to the end, I found the somewhat confusing world-building, numerous typos, and lack of female characters left me disappointed in my choice to purchase this.

[Adam Gulledge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure what to expect going into this, but if taken in the context of a novel meant to take the wind out of Scalzi's sails, I would say it succeeds.

The stories this novel presents are very loosely connected to each other, and ideas and concepts will come and go with almost every chapter. It can make things a bit confusing, but the trade-off is nothing stays so long that it gets stale.

Fingers crossed that Mr. Kalsi writes another book like this one.