From now until September 3rd, Tantor is offering the audiobook version of the firsr Alyiakal novel — From the Forest — at a 60% discount.

Here’s the link:https://www.audiobooks.com/promotions/promotedBook/691547/from-the-forest?refId=262177

No matter what people claim, no one likes to admit that they were wrong or that they made a mistake. I can certainly understand that, but the lengths to which some people will go to avoid such an admission can be truly terrifying.

It’s even more terrifying when one of those individuals is the President of the United States and when tens of millions of people so believe in him that they also can’t admit he made a mistake. From what I’ve observed, Trump is psychologically incapable of admitting he made a mistake, and all the rhetoric and blame-gaming involving the reflecting pool fiasco and the continuing insistence that the Iranians want to “make a deal” are just the latest manifestations of that inability. His pronouncements that everything he does is “wonderful,” “beautiful,” “fantastic,” and the like are also symptomatic of the same mindset.

This mindset also leads to a raft of problems. If you can’t admit a mistake, you can’t fix it. You can only blame someone else. So “vandals” sabotaged the reflecting pool, and District Attorney Pirro “folded like an umbrella” when a federal judge pointed out that there was absolutely no evidence of vandalism. Since Trump awarded the no-bid contract to cronies, he can’t admit that it was a bad decision because that would mean he’s not infallible.

The same mindset applies to the 2020 Presidential election, or the felony convictions involving the Trump company’s misrepresentation of its financial condition, or the civil cases repeatedly finding him guilty of sexual abuse.

But instead of recognizing Trump’s inability to admit mistakes, tens of millions of Americans buy into his lies. Wanting to believe a President isn’t a fault, but failing to admit that the President has made mistakes and lied repeatedly is.

But whether those “true believers” ever will admit Trump has made mistakes and repeatedly lied is another matter.

The lead article in the latest edition of The Atlantic is entitled “The Age of Reading is Over.”

The article makes a quite persuasive case for that thesis, and for the sub-thesis that Americans in particular have been seduced by the ease of immediate electronic communication, instant on-demand electronic entertainment, computer/AI-assisted (if not largely/totally composed) schoolwork, technical analyses, books, and speeches.

Part of the reason for this, I’m convinced, is that Americans are far more interested in results than process, and failing to understand processes can result in unfortunate outcomes.

Reading itself is a process by which one perceives symbols based on or representing sounds of spoken language, and extracts their meaning to various ends, i.e., entertainment, obtaining personal or professional knowledge. Those symbols we read are also a means for preserving knowledge, data, and other information.

This process requires skill and active participation by the reader, unlike watching/listening to information or even entertainment presented visually/digitally. Today thirty percent of Americans cannot summarize a two-page document or explain what it means, up from less than 20% ten years ago.

But what happens when fewer and fewer people in a culture can actually read and understand the information?

We’re already seeing some of results from the decline in reading, including an ongoing decline in both non-fiction (you know, “factual” books) as well as declines in virtually all fiction except romantasy and fiction about dragons. From 1930 to 2000, the average IQ of Americans increased steadily. Since then, it has declined by three points a decade. American adults now have, on average, a smaller vocabulary than they did fifty years ago. At the same time, the ability of students to understand and analyze written work has declined, as has their ability to compose a coherent sentence and paragraph.

I’ve also noticed a decline in the ability to discern between lies and what is actually supported by verifiable facts (otherwise known as “truth”), and I suspect, but cannot prove, that readers are better at such discernment, primarily because readers can assimilate more information more quickly than viewers.

Not that verifiable facts make much difference to most people now that the age of reading is passing.

Last of the First has been received very well by readers, and for that I’m personally and professionally very pleased. But there are a few readers who were disappointed by the ending, feeling that it was thin and that they wanted more.

What might be the difference between these readers and most of my readers?

As with all novels, it’s a matter of expectation. Some multiple books about a single character build to an end in a way, in reader hindsight, that it seems it really couldn’t have happened otherwise. That was what I was writing.

In others, there are fights and struggles, sudden betrayals, and the reader is never quite sure who will end up on top and how. For readers who expect absolute uncertainty until the last chapter or even the last page, I can see why Last of the First left them not quite fulfilled.

The four books about Alyiakal show the methodical rise of a mage who is also very deliberate and thoughtful, more so with each book. What Alyiakal does from the beginning is to develop not only his skills, but the skills of all those around him, even when it may not benefit him immediately or ever, knowing that his success not only depends on his abilities, but on those of his men, and equally important, on the trust of his men in him, as well as the trust of his superiors, and their superiors. He also operates always in the long-term best interests of the Mirror Lancers, and he never aspired to where he ended up, but accepted his fate because it was his duty.

Saelora operates in much the same fashion, avoiding pettiness and back-biting, and developing a trading house relying on a structure again built on ability and trust.

By supporting Laartol and cultivating allies all across the Mirror Lancers, by the time Alyiakal is posted to Cyad, there are only a handful of individuals who pose a real threat – provided Alyiakal handles matters thoughtfully and with care, because nothing is certain until it is.

There’s nothing wrong with either kind of ending, but I felt the structure and ending I wrote was best for Alyiakal, especially given how history views him.

Many if not most people have come across the rule of holes: When you’re in a deep hole, stop digging.

It seems obvious enough when you think about it. Don’t compound the problem by doing more of the same thing that got you in the hole.

Unfortunately, too many people, especially politicians, seem never to have heard the rule of holes or, if they have, they’ve forgotten it.

If government is running a deficit and the national debt is increasing at a dangerous rate, you’re not getting out of the mess by more deficit spending.

If you’re fighting a war that you can’t win without enormous losses, either in dollar terms or increasing casualties, you might want to try something different instead of pursuing more of the same.

If more and more students can’t read or effectively make simple calculations without electronic help, continuing to rely on teaching to standardized tests, inundating students with meaningless praise, watering down primary and secondary education, and judging educations’ success on how good students feel might not be the best approach to getting out of the educational hole.

If we’re seeing more and more corruption in government, business, and public life, re-electing and praising and supporting politicians and business people who’ve continually demonstrated a lack of honesty and little concern for public welfare isn’t exactly likely to improve the situation.

When AI-created algorithms are addicting more and more people to waste time buried in iphone and computer screens, what sort of sense does it make to pour billions into AI and associated data centers to enable even more electronic addictions and to increase the power drain on an already fragile electric grid?

But almost no one seems to want to stop digging.