Worst of Bad Horse described; sold at Everfree NW, Seattle, WA, USA, August 11-13 2023 · 3:37am Jul 7th, 2023
Who's going to Everfree NW in Seattle this August 11-13?
I'm not!
I won't be at the con, but RBDash47 will be there with copies of The Worst of Bad Horse, and of many other books. He's planning to bring 10 copies. This post is to find out if that's enough (or too many). And to persuade you to buy it. Or not, depending.
The stories are the same stories you've seen here on fimfiction, except for "Think Inside the Box" and "A Carrot For Miss Fluttershy", which are both show-like scripts, which knighty still won't allow on fimfiction.
WOBH also has lots of story afterwords, some much longer than the stories they're after; and even longer standalone essays. I regard them as the important part of the book, but YMMV.
In this blog post, I'll
- tell you why you should buy the book
- tell you why you shouldn't
- ask you what you'll do.
Why You Should Buy WOBH
… other than that it has a great cover:
The stories, you can read for free on fimfiction. But the essays–I honestly think you can't read anything like them anywhere else. Most of what they say has been said before, but not gathered together in one place, with the connections between them shown, written in an almost-conversational and mostly jargon-free style.
My main ambitions for the essays are:
To bring science and art back together
One frequent subject is how someone's beliefs about the world affect what art they make and like, including what stories they tell, and like to hear. This includes asking how or whether the world is divided up into things; looking at the philosophy behind medieval art, naturalist art, modern art, and modernist poetry; comparing ancient, medieval, modern, and pony stories; and what the meaning of "is" is.
I try to
- identify the philosophies underlying various art
- explain the reasoning behind them
- show how neuroscience, machine learning, or other empirical knowledge has validated or refuted them
I argue that it is not science, but philosophy, religion, and Romanticism, which disenchanted the world; and that it is science, not philosophy or religion, that lets us gaze in wonder at the deepest mysteries of the universe, and understand why they're wonderful, rather than dismissing them with childish stories. This book has something to offend everyone; but if you're religious, you may be especially offended.
To stamp out philosophy
A recurrent theme is to show that the doctrines of Plato lead to stories that lie, and that we can now say, objectively, that these doctrines are wrong. Every method of reasoning that works, eventually gets called "science"; so almost everything that we still call philosophy today, is garbage that needs to be thrown out. The exceptions are largely (mostly?) questions of value, which few philosophers engage with effectively, because they don't usually identify the underlying disagreements over value that generate the disagreements about metaphysics that generate disagreements about ethics that generate disagreements about politics. (Jonathan Haidt is doing something like this, but he uses empirical science.) Science is strictly better than what we call "philosophy" at everything philosophers actually try to do, except for the things they shouldn't even try to do.
To be more fair, I see naturalist fiction, philosophy, and science as points on a continuum of reasoning methods. Naturalist fiction is where you begin when something puzzles you, but you haven't gotten a grasp yet on just what it is. It's a way of playing with possible worlds. Philosophy is what you do when you've got enough of an idea to put names to things and talk about the problem directly, rather than playing with story situations to find out just what's triggering you. Science is what you do when you've got a clear enough understanding to form some testable questions and try to answer them. The problem is that people always stop at the philosophy stage, and philosophy is terrible at answering questions.
To bring to light what people have really been arguing about for thousands of years
I think that Western arguments about science, philosophy, and ethics mostly boil down to two opposing philosophies:
- One which values truth above all else, and believes (without sufficient reason) that it's better to believe true things than false things, and so values art that ask questions
- One which values a good life above all else, and believes (without sufficient reason) that it's better to believe false things that create social unity than true things that might bring social chaos, and so values stories that tell useful lies
(This claim does not map in an obvious way onto America's current culture war, and wasn't meant to; it's based on 4000 years of history, though only bits and pieces of that are in the book. Also, when I say "a good life", I mean that in a modern utilitarian way, meaning "a life that gives me hedons". Humans get more hedons from "virtuous" activities like having friends, raising kids, and gaining social status, than from the things usually called hedonistic. The ancient Greeks who defined philosophy as the pursuit of the good life, like Plato and Aristotle, were never very clear about whether they valued truth or a good life more. (I've heard that Greek word "eudamonia", which Aristotle was so fond of, has the same ambiguity.) The Puritans wanted physical pleasure in heaven, and the pleasure of self-righteousness on Earth. The Nazis found pleasure in spectacle, drama, self-righteousness, battle, and "glorious death"; and I think there was more than a little BDSM element there, too.)
The group which values pleasure above all else calls the other group "hedonists", and the group which values truth above all else calls the other group "idealists". This isn't surprising; a sub-theme of the book is to explore why groups so often attribute their own worst excesses to their opponents.
The important and distressing thing is that we still don't know which of these groups is right. Throughout most of history, it's seemed like the second group was right: humans are nasty creatures, inclined to evil, who can be prevented from killing their own group members only by telling them useful lies (usually ones which redirect their killing at someone else).
But the Enlightenment, evolutionary theory, free market economics, democratic institutions, and a variety of sciences have now exposed the mathematical mechanisms which produce a constructive chaos out of the border between order and randomness. This shows us that it's possible to set conditions under which order, complexity, and morality arise spontaneously, without central planning or moral instruction.
Using this knowledge effectively, though, is still far beyond our society's capability, partly because of all the bad old philosophy we've all internalized. So I don't ask how to do that. Probably all of us alive today have to die off first. Assimilating modern science into ethics and politics would be an endeavor at least as traumatic as the death of God, is doubtless far beyond our Overton window, and would require more than one book.
Trigger Warning: Metaphysics
Are you triggered by metaphysics? I am. I hate metaphysics, and am not much fonder of metaphysicians. The ancients I can excuse; they didn't know any better. But no one in the 20th, let alone the 21st, century, has any excuse for turning to Plato or Hegel for wisdom. That's an obscene perversion of human intelligence, about as reasonable as consulting an astrologer or a witch doctor.
This book has a lot of metaphysics.
The thing is, ordinary humans all have a metaphysics. If you've ever wondered what life is, or whether you have free will, or what the difference is between right and wrong, you had a metaphysics. And if you didn't then spend years trying to answer those questions without using metaphysics, you still have a metaphysics. You just don't know it, because your metaphysics are the things you believe that you don't know you believe.
You might believe, like Tolkien, that the world was created in a state of goodness but has gone downhill since then, and that right and wrong must be dictated by an ultimate spiritual authority. You might believe that hard work will be rewarded, or that it won't. You might believe that you can write a story unlike anything anyone's ever written, or that everything that can be written has been written. You might believe problems should be solved by the people who have them, or by the government. You might believe social change should be gradual, or revolutionary. You might believe that justice means equal opportunity, or that it means equal outcomes. You might believe abortion is murder, or that it's a natural right. But do you know why you believe these things? Or do they just seem obvious to you? Do your plain and simple reasons convince other people that your views are right?
People argue about these things all the time, yet no one seems to change their mind. This is because all of the beliefs I just listed depend on your metaphysical beliefs. These are a small set of assumptions you make to interpret, simplify, remember, and reason about the world.
Your craft determines whether your fiction is "good" in terms of being well-written, enjoyable, and memorable. Your metaphysics determines whether it's "good" in terms of being more helpful than harmful. That's because your metaphysics determine whether what you think is helpful or harmful.
Why You Shouldn't Buy WOBH (at Everfree NW 2023)
The book to be sold there is the first edition. There will be a much-improved second edition, which is more than halfway done, and might be for sale at Ponyfeather Publishing by the end of 2023.
I've edited most of the stories for the second edition. Some in minor ways; a few in noticeable ways. Those edits will eventually find their way onto fimfiction; most already are. That includes the change to "The Quiet One" that I just blogged about, important changes to chapters 1 and 4 of "Fluttershy's Night Out", restoration of a short but necessary scene to "Think Inside the Box", extensive edits that probably no one will notice to "The Gentle People", and fixing a WTF moment in "A Carrot For Miss Fluttershy" that's bugged me since the day I wrote it. The 2nd edition will drop "All the Pretty Pony Princesses" and "Celerity", and add "Displacement".
The essays will be much-improved in the second edition. The ones in the first edition are okay, but poorly-connected, confusing, and now and then, say things I now think are wrong. (If you already have WOBH, PM me for a crucial correction to the table on p. 143.) They are difficult enough, even in the 2nd edition, that you might not want to struggle with the even more-difficult versions in the first edition.
As far as I know, only two people have ever read the essays other than RBDash47, who typeset them: NumberFifth and Ice Star. Which is why I definitely should not have spent months this year revising them. But I did.
What Will You Do?
That said. Who wants to buy a 1st edition of WOBH at Everfree? The paperback will cost about $30; the hardback, about $50. It's probably your last chance to buy a first edition, which will be priceless when the second edition is one day regarded as a landmark work of philosophy and art theory. 
(Full disclosure: I don't have a copy of the first edition, and don't plan on buying one.)
If you have an opinion on this, especially if you're going to Everfree, please leave a comment saying
- whether you would like to buy WOBH at Everfree, yes or no ("no" answers are also useful)
- if you probably would have bought it at Everfree, but won't now that you know there'll be a 2nd edition (so RBDash47 will have an idea whether this announcement will significantly reduce the number of copies he should buy)
I am going to Everfree and would love to purchase a hardback copy.
To clarify the pricing -- those prices are what it costs to print a copy at Lulu. There is additional markup associated with stocking and selling physical retail inventory at a convention.
The hardback WoBH would be around $50; the paperback would be around $30.
(Tagging 5736724)
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Oops. Sorry.
I will be at Everfree Northwest and I think I failed to buy a copy of tWoBH at Final BronyCon, but I will have to check to make sure I don’t have it. I am interested in getting one if so. (You’d think I would know off hand, but I bought a very large number of books at Final BronyCon and have not read all of them yet)
Aw, dangit. You had me excited there for a moment. I'm planning on making this year's EFNW my first actual venture into the world of ponycon, and would have loved the opportunity to meet you in person. Maybe I could have even gotten you to sign my (slightly worn, oops) copy of TWoBH. Would have been an honour.
AW HECK YEAH PARTY OF TWO BAYBEE
YOU AND ME AGAINST THE WORLD ICY
If it's just a first edition reprint, then yeah, I can safely say I won't be getting any more copies as of right now, though I'll certainly stop by to say hi to RB. And also to buy a whole buncha books, most likely including a copy of Ice Star's own newest anthology, as well as RB's latest print project.
But a new edited edition, you say? You hinted at wanting to redo some of the essays to me a while back, but I didn't realize how serious you were about that goal. I suppose I should learn not to doubt you. But now I gotta buy another one, gosh darn it. I do so admire your dedication to your stories and writing, and how you continue to ponder their effect, construct, and how they can be improved upon a literal decade on. It still miffs, me though. Ever so slightly. Take my money, good sir, and my time. Gimme edition no.Duex.
(That being said, [and apologies if you've been asked this a multitude of times before], any chance of a new one, or have you hung up your pony writing hat forever?)
I'm definitely happy to see Displacement make its way on there, it's probably my favourite comedy of yours (unless Inside the Box counts?). Having to say goodbye to Celerity and ATPPP, though? Oofa. Celerity is is definitely among my favourite pieces of yours, and my second favourite (yes I know you hate favourites but we can't all be like you) among all your Twilight Zone stories (just behind The Element of Audacity). And while All the Pretty Pony Princesses did take me way too long to understand, I still believe it has something really interesting to say. I imagine its striking from the list had something to do with its unique formatting, and how that may prevent it from properly outlining the underlying idea, which is understandable. Might there be other ways of getting the point adequately across in the printed word? I dunno. Just sad to see it go.
Also wish Pony Play could find its way on there somehow, but given its M rating, yeah guess not. Oh well.
(As a side note, when did you change the title of The Magician and the Detective, and what brought that about? The old title, simple as it may have been, alluded to how the story was more about the characters of Trixie and Holmes rather than the mystery that brought them together. I rather liked that about it.)
To anyone who is at least vaguely interested in getting a copy themselves, I would certainly recommend it. It's a collection of 95% of Monsieur Bad Horse's pony-related works, roughly organized by what they have to offer, but a very large section of the book (maybe 40% or so?) is made up of those aforementioned essays. And they're pretty intimidating, at least for myself. When you're a young person who barely knows how to engage in even the most basic of philosophical discussions (exhibit A: me. I can't put pull big ideas from my brain for shit), it's a bit daunting to jump into a series of essays procured by someone who's quite intelligent and has clearly spent much time thinkering and tinkering with big ideas of philosophy both ancient and modern. I found them to be (mostly) surprisingly digestible, though, even if I had to slow down sometimes to understand everything that was being said. Most of the essays use one of BH's stories to feed into/demonstrate a particular idea, which is then broken down and connected to other ideas. It's a bit of a continuous cycle. I remember being simultaneously aghast and amused when I came upon a short story about Big Macintosh having feelings for Twilight but being unwilling to act upon them (not even seven pages), immediately followed by twenty-one pages of BH using that story as a backdrop to deconstruct the concept of essentialism, how it's influenced the foundation of modern art and how all of us live our lives, despite how fundamentally archaic the idea is, complete with quotes, complex mathematical equations, a map of electrical activity in rabbit brains, and 3 full pages of references. So it's a lot of that. It's a book pushes you, with a guiding hand directly from the author, to consider more deeply the fiction you've just read and how it reflects the world and attitudes around you, which is a fascinating and wholly unique experience. For myself, at least.
(I do hope I've represented all that correctly. I still feel quite like a bumbling student among scholars, so please forgive any... naïveté.)
In the end, it's a tome of beautifully crafted short stories, some comfortingly melancholy, some complexly comedic, interspersed with a myriad of thoughtful essays that tore open my understanding of how the society around me thinks and seethes, the ancient and decrepit foundations upon which it is built, and how I can continue through life being content with myself and how I consume and create art when I'm surrounded by people clinging to ideas of virtue and essence.
To whoever's gonna be in EFNW, especially hanging around the book nook, hope to see you there. To the Evilest of Equines, your presence will be missed. Thanks for writing.
I will sadly not be in attendance and I'd have to double check my collection to see if I already came into a copy, but I think even if I did, I'd be interested in a second edition copy if I can wrangle my finances in that direction. n_n
By my reading of what I've read about Socrates...Socrates seemed to value the pursuit of TRUTH very highly. So I think accusing this whole lot of "valuing pleasure above truth" is a bit of a take.
Plato did in at least one dialog that features 'Socrates' as a character (but a 'Socrates' who might be rather unlike the real life Socrates!) present the idea that in his 'ideal republic' it might be wise to lie to much of the public about certain things. So...I'm not saying your claims have ZERO validity? I just think you might be ignoring one rather large side of the question.
Also, it's ironic that I keep quibbling with you about things, while you're one of the relatively few people on this site who write essays about writing that I think are (so very?) interesting and worth reading.
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I've gone back and forth on whether to include Socrates in that list, but only because of Plato's early dialogues which end without resolving the argument, which are the only writings about Socrates depicting him as pursuing truth. They conflict with the middle and late dialogues, in which Socrates has a pre-determined "truth" that he wants to arrive at, as well as with what Xenophon wrote about Socrates. Also, even the early dialogues use dishonest rhetorical tricks, which might be Plato's fault, but... it's really hard to talk about who "Socrates" is, when usually we mean "the Socrates of Plato's dialogues".
What is shown more-consistently in Plato's dialogues is that Socrates pursued the "Good" above all. Whether Socrates ever said that is dubious; it's much more in line with Plato's philosophy of Forms, which Xenophon said Socrates explicitly rejected as stupid and childish. And "the Good" ultimately parses out, i.e., in Republic, to mean "the construction of an orderly society which gives me the time and luxury to do philosophy, and lets me have sex with any woman I want, while slaves toil to provide my needs."
I put Socrates in the list mostly because he's an integral part of that tradition of seeking the good life over truth--its founder, if you accept the common view of philosophers (which implicitly sees seeking the good life as synonymous with seeking truth, 'coz the common view today is that of the hedonistic tradition). Nonetheless, I just removed Socrates from that list, because the early dialogues do mostly show him pursuing truth carefully and honestly, and I don't want to get into the early vs. later dialogues debate just to include him in that list.
I'll be at EFNW! I may or may not be buying any books there, not sure yet.
Comrade Lenin has entered the chat
(Jeez, I wish I could buy it)
I’d honestly love to own both editions. Will the books be signed?
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No; that would require shipping them to me and then back to RBDash47, which would raise the price by $5-$10.
If it helps, I did read the whole book back in 2019. I also lent it to my brother - who never got into ponies - and he really liked the essays. He described the experience of reading something like that in the context of MLP fanfiction as surreal.