A book questioning the benefits of mass immigration is shooting to the top of the Amazon bestseller list after going viral when it was yanked from the site April 17.
All the leftists who shriek about book bans were notably silent when “The Camp of the Saints,” a 1973 dystopian novel written by French author Jean Raspail, became unavailable at the largest bookseller in the world. 
The work of fiction depicts the collapse of Western civilization after a horde of third-world migrants overtakes the country. The book’s publisher, Vauban Books, released a statement following the book being removed from Amazon on April 17.
An X post from Vauban Books on April 20 said, “On Friday, April 17th, Amazon US removed the paperback listing for our edition of Jean Raspail’s The Camp of the Saints (at this writing, the book remains available for purchase in Kindle and audiobook formats).” 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Our statement on Amazon&#8217;s suppression of The Camp of the Saints in the United States: <a href="https://t.co/JDTE5i4XbH">pic.twitter.com/JDTE5i4XbH</a>
— Vauban Books (@VaubanBooks) <a href="https://twitter.com/VaubanBooks/status/2046262858904641889?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“We have since been informed by Amazon that the book is in violation of the company’s ‘offensive content’ policy,” the statement continued. “Amazon has supplied no information as to which portions of the book are offensive nor to whom.”
Vauban Books also noted that the book had been selling well after first being listed on Amazon in July 2025. “In the eight months since, Amazon has sold roughly 20,000 paperback copies of it.”
“The Camp of the Saints” was also said to have been “extensively reviewed in the American and international press” and found that its reviewers &#8220;have been unanimous in their assessment of its abiding importance and relevance to contemporary debates.”
“While we cannot say for certain has taken this extraordinary step, it may be no coincidence that the listing was removed one day after New York Magazine published a critical article on Vice President Vance that referenced the book.”
Following public outcry, Amazon reportedly <a href="https://x.com/VaubanBooks/status/2046621879574688215">shared a response</a> with Vauban Books courtesy of their media contact, stating, “We’ve resolved an error that briefly affected the availability of a paperback listing of The Camp of the Saints, and the title is now restored.'&#8221; 
The publisher said that Amazon &#8220;appears to be in damage control mode,&#8221; and again confirmed that the book was originally taken off the website due to their &#8220;offensive content policy.&#8221;

Amazon

Amazon Yanks Anti-Immigration Novel, Accidentally Sends It Rocketing Up The Charts

anti-immigration

Books

Censorship

Conservatism

Entertainment

Fiction

Cancel Culture

‘Cancelations are Canceled’: Science Fiction Competition Tries To Cancel Author, Sees Backlash

U.S.

Wokeness

1JBP-Books copy

Ten Classic Books I Recommend For Any Stage Of Life

Carl Jung

Friedrich Nietzsche

George Orwell

Jordan Peterson

Literature

Psychology

As some of you know, my exciting new thriller novel <a href="https://store.dailywire.com/products/a-woman-underground-by-andrew-klavan" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://store.dailywire.com/products/a-woman-underground-by-andrew-klavan&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1729369497861000&amp;usg=AOvVaw30uR2TpbxtYVoH42hsMO5Y">A Woman Underground</a> was published this week. And I’ve been trying to figure out how to convince you to buy a novel I know you’ll love. So I finally decided to consult with my friends in the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz presidential campaign. And they’ve given me some tips on how to sell you this great and innovative mystery story.
Let me start by asking you this: Are you man enough to read A Woman Underground? Because I’m a man. I can bench press 500 pounds. Not all at once, obviously. But a little at a time. Over a couple of days or weeks maybe. I mean, it’s 500 pounds, so, let’s see, at a pound a day, that would take me a little under a year and a half.
But the point is: I’m man enough to support A Woman Underground. Or a woman above ground. Or anywhere a woman chooses to be. I’m just sick of these so-called men who think that women have to be on the part of the ground THEY want them to be on. I’m man enough to love it when a woman takes charge. Especially if she’s wearing one of those skintight latex body suits, and maybe a pair of really high heels so she can step on my chest while I cry out in a mind-bending mixture of agony and ecstasy. Because I’m a man. I eat carburetors for lunch. Because that’s the sort of thing real men say. Standing around naked in the locker room, talking about eating carburetors, maybe with a fine Chablis, and some of those little parsley sprigs. I love those. So let me just cross my legs awkwardly at the knee and ask you again: Are you man enough to read A Woman Underground?
Now some of you guys might be thinking, “Hey, all this time, you’ve told us how masculinity is toxic and how white men screw up the world by building and inventing stuff, which ruins life for everyone else by making it too great. So look, to prove there are no hard feelings, I’m going to drink a beer just like a white man would. In fact, I’ll even put on one of those orange vest thingies and go hunting, maybe for a giant rabbit who’ll spin my rifle around till I blow my face off as if I were Elmer Fudd, except that Elmer Fudd knows how to load a rifle and I’m not totally sure.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Andrew Klavan Show</a></h3>
And hey, what about the brothers? I suspect some of the brothers won’t buy A Woman Underground because it has the word woman in the title. You naughty brothers! But I’ll tell you what: to convince you to get down with the struggle, I’m going to give every black man who buys my book a million free dollars. And how about some marijuana? The Harris-Walz campaign told me the brothers just love them some marijuana, so I’ll give you so much marijuana you can start a business selling marijuana, standing out on the street corner until the cops haul you away. That’ll be a change of pace. So yessir, there’s plenty of reefer for any brother who’ll buy my amazing new thriller novel A Woman Underground.
And speaking of women. Some of those other novelists want to keep you women home in the kitchen, having babies who grow up to have more babies, and so on until there are whole generations of babies who rise up and call you blessed. Who wants that? I’m the kind of novelist who understands that what you women really want is to abort those babies so you can sleep with men who don’t give a damn about you without being punished with all of these damn babies all the time. So if you’ll buy my great new novel A Woman Underground, I’ll come to your house myself and personally kill all your children so you can sleep with anyone you damn well want.
And that’s my sales pitch for my gripping new thriller novel A Woman Underground, which is exactly like the pitch for a Kamala Harris presidency, except that you’ll actually love A Woman Underground, and when it’s finished, there’ll still be an America.
 * * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. He is the bestselling author of the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fourth installment, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1613165536?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_3&amp;storeType=ebooks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A WOMAN UNDERGROUND</a>,” is now available. Follow him on X: @andrewklavan
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Klavan_AWomanUnderground_Cover_Landscape_V1 copy

I Asked The Kamala Campaign How To Sell You My New Novel

2024 Election

Andrew Klavan

Kamala Harris

Novel

Satire

The following is an interview with journalist and author Lou Aguilar about his new novel “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Washington-Trail-Slade-Cork-Mystery/dp/1964505089">The Washington Trail: A Slade and Cork Mystery</a>.”
* * *
Daily Wire: Lou, how long did it take you to write &#8220;The Washington Trail&#8221; and what sort of process do you use as a writer? 

Lou Aguilar: Two years. It was my first tough guy mystery novel, although I love the genre and its icons — Hammett, Chandler, Spillane, Fleming, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Andrew Klavan</a>, the modern master of the milieu. What I learned was that, unlike my three other novels, I had to do far more than advance the story with style. I had to leave clues that the reader could absorb leading up to the denouement and they had to be fair and not out of nowhere like “The butler did it.” I had intended to move to my Great Hollywood Novel next, but the publisher of &#8220;The Washington Trail,&#8221; Aethon Books, asked me to do two more Slade-Cork mysteries and I agreed. I hope everyone enjoys the characters and their adventures as much as we do.
DW: Tell us about your protagonist(s). Where do they come from and what obstacles do they face?
Lou: There are really two protagonists: private-eye team Mark Slade and Neil Cork. They were roommates at Georgetown University 12 years earlier — Slade an American History major, Cork English Lit. Slade comes from a long military family, Cork is a blue blood. After graduation, Slade joined the Army Rangers fighting in the Middle East, Slade became an FBI desk analyst. Slade had intended to wed his college girlfriend Nina Holt once back stateside, but she dumped him for her journalism career and is now a CNN Congressional reporter. Happy family man Cork reprimands Slade for his casual sex affairs to overcompensate for Nina. But Cork mainly lambasts Slade for his violent approach to solving cases, which undermines the agency’s sophisticated reputation. However, to survive their latest case, the two detectives must depend on one another’s distinctive skills — then just maybe save the country.
<div id="attachment_791789" style="width: 372px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Washington-Trail-Slade-Cork-Mystery/dp/1964505089" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-791789" class="wp-image-791789 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/09/71OUTnkoBSL._SL1360_-362x576.jpg" alt="Courtesy: Aethon Books" width="362" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/09/71OUTnkoBSL._SL1360_-362x576.jpg 362w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/09/71OUTnkoBSL._SL1360_-189x300.jpg 189w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/09/71OUTnkoBSL._SL1360_-768x1222.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/09/71OUTnkoBSL._SL1360_.jpg 855w" sizes=" (max-width: 362px) 100vw, 362px" /></a>Courtesy: Aethon Books</div>
DW: You&#8217;ve mentioned a love for Raymond Chandler&#8217;s pulp detective novels and his intimate knowledge of the city of Los Angeles and how the city sort of becomes a character in the story. How does Washington DC integrate into &#8220;The Washington Trail.&#8221;
Lou: Only in Washington can the seemingly trivial case of a young romance gone sour escalate to a national security threat. To make this contrast work, I had to physically describe the city as ground zero for such international skullduggery. DC seems to have more of a crisp, solemn spirit in wintertime, which enlivens sites like Georgetown, Rock Creek Park, and the C&amp;O Canal, all significant in the story. The fact that Slade prefers traveling by bicycle highlights the setting.
DW: You’ve worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood. As a writer, what new tools did screenwriting give you and how have those translated into writing crime fiction?
Lou: I realize that the best suspense thriller movies – &#8220;The Manchurian Candidate,&#8221; &#8220;Seven Days in May,&#8221; &#8220;Three Days of the Condor&#8221; – were improvements on some decent novels (the film &#8220;Condor&#8221; cut three dull days out of James Grady’s &#8220;Six Days of the Condor&#8221;). So, I wrote the book thinking like a good screenwriter by making it impossible to improve upon it, only differentiate it. I’ve already turned it into a six-episode series script for some astute producer.
DW: You have also lived and worked in Washington DC in the past, how prevalent is the deep state? 

Lou: Washington was liberal when I lived there but nowhere near as far Left as it’s become. I worked at The Washington Post as a cub reporter at the tail end of the Ben Bradlee regime, and the guys who brought down Nixon had journalism standards the young punks now in charge eschew. DC really is a Marxist swamp: From academia – even once staid religious universities like The Catholic University and Georgetown – to media and government, including the Pentagon and the intelligence branches. In my novel, the FBI showing up is not &#8220;To the rescue.&#8221;
DW: Did any unexpected surprises emerge in the story as you wrote?
Lou: Did they ever. My story became even timelier as I was writing it. Two years ago, I posited a senile, vegetating incumbent President losing in the polls to his suspiciously ousted predecessor, and the Deep State (FBI especially) freaking out about the latter’s possible return. Because this time, it’s personal! And they’ll do anything to stop him – even murder. Reality actually caught up with my fiction. As far as the new Democratic candidate goes, maybe the events of my novel forced the switch. Ha. 
 
DW: Will you be hosting any book signings or events?
Lou: We’re mapping out a nationwide book tour now. I’m most delighted about the confirmed signing at the most prestigious bookstore in DC, <a href="https://www.politics-prose.com/?srsltid=AfmBOooeM3nYgNa773VF2GEVx6lQqK1Cd07HD_506yEvfHEFA3GHtJqV" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Politics and Prose</a>, on September 28th. I used to work there so it’s something of a dream come true. More book events to be announced soon. 
 
DW: If (and when) “The Washington Trail” gets turned into a movie, which actors do you see playing Slade and Cork?
Lou: My trouble is that Slade and Cork are young men (32), and I haven’t seen a recent movie featuring a virile, commanding young white male lead in a decade. Most current actors are minority acolytes to the ubiquitous and ridiculous &#8220;non-toxic&#8221; girl boss protagonist. But if there’s a young Sean Connery out there, then I’d love to hear him say, “My name is Slade – Mark Slade.” And for Cork, I think a young Robert Downey Jr. would be perfect.
* * *
About the author:
Lou Aguilar was born in Cuba and lived there until age six, when his anti-Castro scholar father flew the family to America one step ahead of a firing squad (for his dad, not Lou). He attended the University of Maryland, where he majored in English, minored in film, and found both to be dependent on great writing. He became a journalist for The Washington Post and USA Today, then a produced screenwriter, then an established novelist. His debut book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Jake-Mayor-Lou-Aguilar/dp/1942756682/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3807CK7YE955N&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.kuimUlzrymLSG6hSgdPnSlfUDZlcMuX09RVLy75C_rs.3WeIJHGNH2zbIg8pT8vMfB0D8DmTQUyOENJeh_MnnjA&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=lou+aguilar+jake+for+mayor&amp;qid=1724771610&amp;sprefix=lou+aguilar+jake+for+mayor%2Caps%2C188&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jake For Mayor</a>, came out in 2016 to glowing reviews. His second novel, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Paper-Tigers-Lou-Aguilar/dp/1947309552/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2N4P69RUKIJFC&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.I5Sf8lYXUcnKcgIKMdrZXLsaev5WI_pmCY_VZyLEdI1R7fDihaUU7fa7T79gEfBi.wxY0SHKF2dIQvsXigrMx-U3179DrhtzG-_eCFL_2Ohs&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=lou+aguilar+paper+tigers&amp;qid=1724771737&amp;sprefix=lou+aguilar+paper+tigers%2Caps%2C173&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Paper Tigers</a>, popularly fictionalized his Washington Post experience. And his third, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Spirit-Lou-Aguilar/dp/1953271308/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LOV3ZC0YLX3I&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.GQtqX2pEftCjXb7Du0zLelUIQ7NiHFBSf-dO_8TEuzPGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.ifYta8hn9V04Ocfosi0f7ZVA--xI-RLjDJjG_X2NnaU&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=lou+aguilar+christmas+spirit&amp;qid=1724771865&amp;sprefix=lou+aguilar+christmas+spirit%2Caps%2C189&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Christmas Spirit</a>, is a perennial Yuletide favorite. The Washington Trail is his first political thriller. Lou is also a culture columnist for The American Spectator.

Light trails at rush hour in Washington

‘International Skullduggery’: Interview With Novelist Lou Aguilar On ‘The Washington Trail’

'International Skullduggery': Interview With Novelist Lou Aguilar On 'The Washington Trail'

interview

Washington D.C.

Just in time for the holiday season, author Faith Moore is releasing her debut fiction novel that’s based on one of the most beloved Christmas tales of all time.
“<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Karol-Faith-Moore/dp/195600730X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Christmas Karol</a>” provides a refreshing antidote to the confusion and cultural chaos that plagues the world right now. The story’s heroine is Karol, a woman grappling with her role as a woman and a mother. Through the course of extraordinary events, including a visit from ghosts, she realizes what truly matters in life.
“Christmas Karol,” a modern twist on Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” follows Karol on her journey through her past, present, and future all to discover an eternal truth: It is far better to have what matters than to have it all. It takes a frank look at motherhood in the modern age and what it means to embrace the worthy work of raising children.
<div id="attachment_649419" style="width: 387px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-649419" class="size-large wp-image-649419" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/Book-Cover-Christmas-Karol-377x576.png" alt="Book cover &quot;Christmas Karol,&quot; by Faith Moore, DW Books." width="377" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/Book-Cover-Christmas-Karol-377x576.png 377w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/Book-Cover-Christmas-Karol-196x300.png 196w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/Book-Cover-Christmas-Karol.png 457w" sizes=" (max-width: 377px) 100vw, 377px" />DW Books.</div>
Moore is a freelance writer and editor and — most importantly — a stay-at-home mom. She has been published in the Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, Federalist, and Daily Wire, among others. She is the author of the non-fiction book, “Saving Cinderella: What Feminists Get Wrong About Disney Princesses” and “How to Set It Right.”
Faith took time away from her busy schedule to answer some questions about “Christmas Karol” including her inspiration and her goals for publishing this type of book right now.
<h3>Q: Why this novel?</h3>
Every year at Christmastime, my family sits down to watch the Alastair Sim version of “A Christmas Carol.” It’s something we’ve done since I was a kid, so at this point, the story is sort of imprinted on my heart. It’s part of our family lexicon and has become a kind of shorthand for us for a variety of different emotional experiences. So it makes sense that I reached for it when I wanted to tell a story about motherhood, a topic which, for me, is filled with emotion.
Being a mom is the great joy of my life. I often say it’s not my job, it’s my vocation. It’s the thing I feel most called to do. But there was a time when I wasn’t sure it would happen for me. I suffered a miscarriage and various infertility struggles but, in the end, I had my two beautiful boys. “Christmas Karol” is, in some ways, a story about gratitude. About what a gift it is to be a mother and the ways in which we sometimes forget to be thankful for it.
<h3>Q: What attracted you to the classic “A Christmas Carol”? What makes it a good fit for this generation of women?</h3>
“Christmas Karol” is a modern retelling of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” in which the Scrooge character has been reimagined as a workaholic mom named Karol whose miserliness is not about her money but about her time — how much time she chooses to spend (or not spend) with her family.
I think this notion of being given the chance — as Scrooge is, and as Karol is — to take a step back and view your life and your choices from the outside could be really powerful for women today. The wonderful thing about the Scrooge narrative is that, even though he goes through this huge supernatural experience, all the material things are still the same at the end of it. He’s still an old man, his fiancé is still long gone, his nephew grew up without him. But his perspective has shifted and that changes everything.
I think women today are being sold a narrative that, in order to be valuable or successful, they have to work outside the home. And many women structure their lives around that narrative without questioning whether that’s really the right narrative for them. We could all do with a bit of a Scroogian shift, in my opinion.
<h3>Q: How did this story come to you? What was the moment of inspiration?</h3>
The idea for “Christmas Karol” came to me at Christmastime at the tail end of the pandemic. I’ve been a stay-at-home mom since my first son was born nearly nine years ago, but during the pandemic, all the working parents suddenly came home. And there was a lot of talk about how impossible it was to parent full-time and work full-time.
The myth of “having it all” was being exposed in real time. But there was another, more surprising thing I was hearing from these parents: how wonderful it was to spend so much time with their kids. They were experiencing their kids in new ways, seeing them in a new light, and they were really enjoying it. But then the pandemic ended and everyone went back to work.
So, that Christmas, after our yearly viewing of the “Christmas Carol” movie, I started to think: what would it take for those parents to take that realization of what they were missing when they were going off to work and actually do something about it?
<h3>Q: What do you believe are the biggest challenges facing modern working women?</h3>
Feminism has sold women the lie that they can “have it all.” We are supposed to work full time and parent full time and enjoy it. But that’s impossible. You can’t be in two places at once. But women are treated as if they can.
Society tells them that it’s the job and how they perform at it that’s the measure of their success and value. This leads to a sense of resentment toward their children. If work is the thing that matters, then all their children’s needs are just a distraction. And there’s no wiggle room — no acknowledgement that perhaps a woman may want to take some time to stay home with her kids when they are young — built into the system for women. It leads to a lot of heartache, anger, and guilt.
<h3>Q: Your father, Andrew Klavan, is a famous novelist. Have you picked up any writing techniques from him?</h3>
My father taught me that telling stories is something you could actually aspire to do when you grow up. But, even more than that, he taught me that it was a job, and that was really huge.
So often we think of writers as these undisciplined artists who work when the muse strikes and sit around moodily in coffee shops the rest of the time. But my dad showed me that it’s work, just like anything else. You have to be thoughtful, methodical, and meticulous, and you have to put in the time. That’s been so helpful to me. It meant that I was able to write this book even though I only had an hour or so a day while my toddler was napping.
I know how to work. My dad taught me that.
<div id="attachment_649423" style="width: 442px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-649423" class="size-large wp-image-649423" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/image0-432x576.jpeg" alt="Courtesy: Faith Moore &amp; Andrew Klavan." width="432" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/image0-432x576.jpeg 432w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/image0-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/image0-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/image0-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/image0-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/image0-scaled.jpeg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 432px) 100vw, 432px" />Courtesy: Faith Moore &amp; Andrew Klavan.</div>
<h3>Q: How would you explain the power of fiction to touch the human heart? </h3>
Humans make sense of the world through metaphor and emotion. Stories help us understand things we wouldn’t otherwise be able to articulate. It’s why Jesus told parables. We inherently understand something better when we live it alongside the characters in a story.
If you’re doing it right, fiction doesn’t tell you what to think or what to believe or even how to feel. It’s not an argument or a manifesto. It’s an entire world in which themes and metaphors and humanity coalesce to make something that touches us each differently based on who we are. In a world where everyone is telling us what to think, we need stories more than ever.
<h3>Q: Who are your literary inspirations?</h3>
My favorite living author is Curtis Sittenfeld. She writes with the sort of crystalline simplicity that is nearly impossible to do well, and her characters are so well drawn it hurts. She wrote a book called “Eligible” which is a modern retelling of “Pride and Prejudice” and served as a bit of an inspiration for “Christmas Karol.” My favorite author of all-time is Charlotte Brontë. In my stories, I’m always going for the level of passion and emotional resonance that Brontë gives us in “Jane Eyre.”
<h3>Q: What’s next? What do you think are some important stories that need to be told? </h3>
I’m fascinated by the fundamental differences between men and women and the ways they complement each other. I want to tell stories where women are strong because they are feminine and men are strong because they take care of them. I love using classic stories as frameworks for new and exciting stories. My next project is in its very early stages but is sort of “You’ve Got Mail” meets “Cyrano de Bergerac” meets “Kate &amp; Leopold.” Stay tuned!
<h3>Q: Your favorite Christmas story? </h3>
“A Christmas Carol,” of course!
* * *
The novel “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Karol-Faith-Moore/dp/195600730X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Christmas Karol</a>” released November 7, 2023, and is now available.

Snowing in Rzeszow

Author Faith Moore’s New Twist On Classic Christmas Tale Exposes The Myth Of Moms Having It All

Author Faith Moore's New Twist On Classic Christmas Tale Exposes The Myth Of Moms Having It All

Christmas

Feminism

Readers Pass

While ruminating on his life’s work for <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1944/12/the-simple-art-of-murder/656179/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Atlantic</a> in 1944, Raymond Chandler noted that “in everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption.” He explained that it is no less true for hardboiled detectives like his creation, Philip Marlowe, than it is for tragic Greek heroes. Perhaps even more so, as the world-weary private eye is generally well aware of the misfortune his profession is likely to bring down on his head but chooses it anyway for the chance to bring a little justice to an unjust world.
Cameron Winter, the poetry-loving assassin-turned-detective at the heart of Andrew Klavan’s eponymous mystery series would have understood exactly what Chandler meant.
Klavan’s creation of Winter and his redemptive arc began when his friend Otto Penzler, the legendary mystery editor who’s worked with everyone from Elmore Leonard to Mary Higgins Clark, called him at the height of the pandemic asking for a Christmas novella. He knew it was the perfect opportunity to write the detective story that had been lurking in his mind for decades. The problem was — he’d never been able to get the story out of his mind and onto the page because he couldn’t quite nail down his leading man.
“For me, a story is not a full story until I have the exact right character to be in it,” Klavan says. And so, the tale, which he expects to cover ten books, remained an idea, something he knew he would pursue someday when he had a clearer image of the character who could carry it. It wasn’t until he reflected back on his 40-year crime-writing career — which twice netted him the Edgar award, the most prestigious prize in the genre — and asked himself what inspired his passion for detective fiction that he realized he at last had his man.
<div id="attachment_646011" style="width: 389px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-646011" class="size-large wp-image-646011" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/715lcREuGkL._SL1360_-379x576.jpg" alt="" width="379" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/715lcREuGkL._SL1360_-379x576.jpg 379w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/715lcREuGkL._SL1360_-198x300.jpg 198w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/715lcREuGkL._SL1360_-768x1166.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/715lcREuGkL._SL1360_.jpg 896w" sizes=" (max-width: 379px) 100vw, 379px" />Courtesy Mysterious Press</div>
“I’d just reached that stage where you kind of want to sum up,” he says. “You kind of want to look back at everything you&#8217;ve been doing and say, ‘What is this all about? What have I been talking about all this time?’” He thought back to the scene from Chandler’s classic &#8220;The Big Sleep&#8221; that had spurred him to try his hand at crime fiction in the first place. At a pivotal moment during Marlowe’s visit to a client’s mansion, the detective looks up and sees a stained-glass window depicting a knight rescuing a fair maiden. Marlowe thinks to himself, “If I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him. He didn&#8217;t seem to be really trying.” For Klavan, the moment revealed Marlowe’s longing to be a good man, a hero, even in an era where, compared to knights in shining armor, heroism has been rendered obsolete.  
“I thought at the time that here&#8217;s a guy, he&#8217;s a shabby little man. He&#8217;s a private detective. He&#8217;s not rich,” says Klavan, “he doesn&#8217;t have any kind of class or anything like that. And he&#8217;s living in corrupt Los Angeles, but he carries this idea of chivalry inside him. And he&#8217;s not a fool—he knows this is going to get him kicked around and beaten up. And he&#8217;s going to be attacked and hurt and endangered because of it, but he&#8217;s still going to carry this thing around.”
And so Klavan invented Winter to explore a man whose capacity for violence is offset by a deep moral core that reveres Western ideals, especially as they are expressed through poetry. Winter’s inner conflict reaches a tipping point when it’s no longer clear that his country for which he has killed still upholds those Western ideals. “Did Winter do the right thing when he killed people out of patriotism?” Klavan asks. “And what should he do going forward as his nation loses the values that he loves? That&#8217;s what I&#8217;m trying to discover — what does a man do when the things that he loves exist only inside him and have fallen apart in the world outside?”
Or, as Chandler put it, “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.”
In &#8220;The House of Love and Death,&#8221; the third installment of the Cameron Winter mysteries which hits bookshelves today, Winter grapples even more forcefully with the fact that his adaptability to mean streets is preventing him from finding the love he longs for. An item in the paper about the murder of a family in a tiny Chicago suburb fixates him. The local sheriff is content to accept that the daughter’s boyfriend, whose father is connected to a Mexican drug running gang, is the culprit. But Winter can’t believe the young Romeo is capable of such violence. 
<div id="attachment_645997" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-645997" class="size-large wp-image-645997" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/71NDeIlUN9L._SL1200_-384x576.jpg" alt="" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/71NDeIlUN9L._SL1200_-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/71NDeIlUN9L._SL1200_-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/71NDeIlUN9L._SL1200_-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/71NDeIlUN9L._SL1200_.jpg 800w" sizes=" (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" />Courtesy Mysterious Press</div>
The romantic entanglements of the other victims, including the psychologist father and his socialite wife, prompt the detective to look elsewhere for answers. At the same time, Winter’s therapist helps him grapple with the fact that his obsession with getting to the bottom of such mysteries is part of his inner journey to discover if he’s still a good man, capable of loving and being loved. As Winter puts it, “Sometimes I thought I was the coolest hero outside the movies. Other times I figured I was what the recruiter said I was—a crazed killer, corrupted by the yearning for manly heroism in an unheroic age…”
Winter’s quest to find redemption is, for Klavan, the deeper theme beneath his detective story.
“Breaking Bad, The Shield. The Sopranos — almost all of the great stories that arose out of our recent golden age of television were shows about bad men, in which men expressed genuine masculinity but did it through the commission of evil deeds,” Klavan tells me. “And I thought to myself, we’ve essentially outlawed masculinity. The only way that a man can be an actual man is to be a bad man. And so those are the only stories we have left to tell. I very consciously wanted to take a guy who had been who had been in some sense the bad man, but is now thinking, ‘Alright, how do I get back? How does America get back to being America today? With masculinity being as condemned as it is, how do I now build a manhood and a life that I can be proud of?’”
Whether Klavan allows Winter to find redemption in &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1613164467?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_2&amp;storeType=ebooks&amp;qid=1678364735&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The House of Love and Death&#8221;</a> or in some later story, Chandler would be proud.

GDWOODMANAK15

Andrew Klavan’s Redemptive Detective Series Returns: ‘The House Of Love And Death’

Andrew Klavan’s Redemptive Detective Series Returns: 'The House Of Love And Death'

A leading SciFi/Fantasy fiction magazine is closing submissions because of an avalanche of artificial intelligence-generated spam.
Neil Clarke, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the award-winning Clarkesworld Magazine, said in a <a href="https://twitter.com/clarkesworld/status/1627711728245960704?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter thread</a> Tuesday that he would temporarily close the magazine to new submissions because of the sheer amount of poor quality content written by AI chatbots and other software. Clarke lamented that there are no easy solutions to what could become a growing problem.
&#8220;Submissions are currently closed. It shouldn&#8217;t be hard to guess why,&#8221; Clarke wrote Monday.
Clarke gave more details on the situation Tuesday morning. &#8220;We aren&#8217;t closing the magazine,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;Closing submissions means that we aren&#8217;t considering stories from authors at this time. We will reopen, but have not set a date.&#8221;
&#8220;We don&#8217;t have a solution for the problem,&#8221; Clarke continued on Twitter. &#8220;We have some ideas for minimizing it, but the problem isn&#8217;t going away. Detectors are unreliable. Pay-to-submit sacrifices too many legit authors. Print submissions are not viable for us. Various third-party tools for identity confirmation are more expensive than magazines can afford and tend to have regional holes. Adopting them would be the same as banning entire countries. We could easily implement a system that only allowed authors that had previously submitted work to us. That would effectively ban new authors, which is not acceptable. They are an essential part of this ecosystem and our future.&#8221;
Clarke identified most of the problems stemmed from outside writers. &#8220;The people causing the problem are from outside the SF/F community,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Largely driven in by &#8216;side hustle&#8217; experts making claims of easy money with ChatGPT. They are driving this and deserve some of the disdain shown to the AI developers. Our guidelines already state that we don&#8217;t want &#8216;AI&#8217; written or assisted works. They don&#8217;t care. A checkbox on a form won&#8217;t stop them. They just lie.&#8221;
In a separate <a href="http://neil-clarke.com/a-concerning-trend/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blog post</a> on his website, Clarke pointed out that the number of plagiarized submissions began to tick up at the end of 2022, and have surged dramatically in 2023 after AI chatbots became more popular. A graph on the post showed that less than 25 submissions per month were rejected and banned for plagiarism in October; that number increased to 50 by December, then surged all the way to 350 by February 15, 2023. An updated graph shows that the number has spiked to more than 500 as of February 20.
Clarke said that these AI submissions have obvious patterns, but refused to give examples because he did not want to help the violators get better at avoiding detection or paint legitimate authors with a broad brush. He also admitted that several stories that were rejected probably evaded AI detectors, or resulted from editors erring on the side of caution. Clarke also noted that other editors of fiction platforms have experienced similar problems; the phenomenon appears to be mostly aimed at high-profile markets that offer more money per word.
Plagiarism in the arts follows multiple instances of plagiarism in education. Last week, a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/florida-high-school-says-students-in-elite-academic-program-are-cheating-on-essays-using-chatgpt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Florida high school</a> said that students in a prestigious academic program were cheating on their essays using ChatGPT. In December, a Furman University philosophy professor said that AI chatbots are the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/artificial-intelligence-is-the-future-of-plagiarism-university-professor-warns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">future of plagiarism</a>.

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Award-Winning SciFi/Fantasy Magazine Closes Submissions Amidst Avalanche Of AI-Generated Spam

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Outmarted_concept_1 (1)

The Man Who Outsmarted The Devil

Once upon a time there was a girl who was lost in the dark. For a long time she didn’t know that she was lost. Or even that it was dark. The darkness was the air she breathed and she thought that was enough.
There were things in the darkness — normal things. Trees and houses, people and cars. The kinds of things you might find in the light, but they were not in the light.
Long ago the darkness had begun to talk to the girl. It told her things. And she listened. Things that would happen. Things that wouldn’t. Things that ought to happen but didn’t. Things that didn’t happen but should. The girl thought the voice of the darkness was her voice and she listened without questioning what she heard.
It was frightening in the dark. Frightening for the girl to be wrapped up in darkness. But she didn’t know she was in the dark. So she didn’t know why she was afraid. It was normal to be afraid. That was all there was. And the voice of the darkness spoke to her and explained the world to her and she saw in the dark. She saw through the dark and believed in what she saw.
But then one day there was light. A tiny, flickering, feeble, pinprick of light. It was faint, but the darkness around the girl was black — so inky black — that even the faintest little spark of light was blinding. She struggled through the darkness toward the light. But the darkness held her back. It wrapped inky tendrils of darkness around her and pulled her backward. Back into the dark where it said she belonged.
And suddenly the girl became aware of the dark. Aware that there was dark and that she was in it. And through the dark she saw the things in the light. Beautiful things. The same things as in the dark — trees and houses, people and cars — but alive and vibrant, illuminated. And the girl ran to them. Ran to them with open arms, her fingers tingling to touch them, grab them, hold them close.
But the darkness was faster than the girl. It grabbed her by the waist, the wrist, the hair. It pulled her down and down and down, enveloping her. And it whispered in her ear. Whispered to her about the things in the light. About what they really were and how they couldn’t be trusted.
But now the girl knew that the voice of the darkness was not her voice. And she fought and struggled against the pull of the dark.
Every day the light flickered. And every day the girl strained toward it. And every day the darkness pulled her back. But the girl looked into the light and she loved what she saw. She heard the voice of the darkness but now she heard her own voice too. And her own voice sounded like the light. And the darkness sounded broken and twisted and full of cracks.
The darkness swirled and rippled. It braided itself into the girl’s hair. It undulated under her clothes and into her pores. It snapped, suddenly brittle, and fractured into a million tiny pieces and lodged itself into her brain, her heart, her lungs. The light flickered. Waiting.
The light didn’t come for the girl. The girl knew she had to go to the light. But the darkness had a hold on her she didn’t know how to break. It breathed with her breath and pumped with her heart and thought right alongside her thoughts. But the girl was brave. She was brave and she wanted — desperately wanted — to be in the light. To touch it, yes, but more than that. Be surrounded by it and live in it.
“Come with me, then,” the girl said to the darkness and she gathered up her courage and she walked into the light.
She came trailing tendrils of darkness. They swirled around her head and slithered in and out of her fingers and her toes. They crackled in her heart, pricking her and scratching her and making her squirm. But she ignored them. Or, when she couldn’t ignore them, she talked to them in her own clear voice and made them be still.
The light didn’t speak to the girl. It didn’t welcome her or tell her to go. The light just was. And the girl was in the light. And the darkness was in the girl.
Once upon a time there was a darkness which was lost in a girl. And a girl who lived in the light.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Faith Moore is a writer and stay-at-home mom. She lives with her husband and son in New York City.

The Girl Lost

FICTION: The Girl Who Was Lost In The Dark

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