The Way Of The Shadow Wolves: The Deep State And The Hijacking Of America

[GeneChing]

By Stephen Seagal! :eek:


Steven Seagal has written an action novel, starring himself, about the deep state (https://www.avclub.com/steven-seagal-has-written-an-action-novel-starring-him-1821529875)
Clayton Purdom
Friday 9:42am Filed to: STEVEN SEGAL

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Screenshot: YouTube

Apparently smarting after his interview with Piers Morgan (https://www.avclub.com/why-the-****-are-we-still-listening-to-steven-seagal-1818843791) was ridiculed far and wide for, among other things, obtusely arguing against NFL player protests and enthusiastically praising Vladimir Putin, lawman and blues guitarist Steven Seagal licked his wounds by writing a book, such that he could better explain his political ideas. It is written in the only language Seagal knows: that of a low-rent, straight-to-DVD action flick, its dual nature upheld by each side of the colon in its title The Way Of The Shadow Wolves: The Deep State And The Hijacking Of America. The foreword is by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, because of course it is.

The book follows John Nan Tan Gode, an Arizona Tribal police officer, described on the first page of the book as having “classic chiseled features,” who stumbles upon a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of power. It is, in other words, a written adaptation of a Steven Seagal movie by Steven Seagal himself, a casting suggested most prominently by its cover, in which the legendary lawman saunters brow-a-furrowed out of some sort of wolf sunset.

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Screenshot: Amazon.com

But it is also much more than that, built in the mode of so many religious and political “novels” transparently dramatizing their ideologies with a low-rent narrative, ranging from The Omega Code back to, well, Atlas Shrugged. The book synopsis touts the bona fides of Seagal and his co-author, Tom Morrissey:


Shadow Wolves is a book of fiction based on reality. Both author’s (sic) have worked with, confronted, and seen the power of the Deep State and the manner in which many federal government agencies willfully violate the Constitution and the laws of the land in service to special interests.

The 2016 election has for the first time made many American citizens aware that the Deep State is very real; that the mainstream media is a fake news media offering a false narrative designed by the secret intelligence world in service to special interests.

The whole thing was originally uncovered on Twitter by TheWarax, who pointed users toward some of its most noteworthy reviews:



The Warax
@iAmTheWarax
Ok guys, so Steven Seagal wrote a book called

THE WAY OF THE SHADOW WOLVES: The Deep State and the Hijacking of America.

If you were wondering "is the foreword written by Joe Arpiao," well of course it is.

What we need to talk about though are this book's reviews. pic.twitter.com/LqKXIA0CKm

The Warax
@iAmTheWarax
We need to talk because this review from a "clandestine case officer (spy) working the Latin American cartel terrorist target … and the interagency enemies of the constitution target" is better than Steve's whole ****ty book. pic.twitter.com/cWpPy44vei

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRiVykrWsAAoKwH.jpg:small

6:25 PM - Dec 20, 2017
View image on Twitter
41 41 Replies 117 117 Retweets 865 865 likes


The Warax
@iAmTheWarax
Replying to @iAmTheWarax
We need to talk because this review from a "clandestine case officer (spy) working the Latin American cartel terrorist target … and the interagency enemies of the constitution target" is better than Steve's whole ****ty book. pic.twitter.com/cWpPy44vei


The Warax
@iAmTheWarax
"Read this book as if it were a TOP SECRET briefing,"

not making this up

"on the real enemy, which consists of rogue elements of the US Government … but are actually central to the intersection of treason, pedophilia, nuclear smuggling, and everything else that is evil." pic.twitter.com/g7VcCnQRtD

6:36 PM - Dec 20, 2017

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRiYSqmW4AA_hMn.jpg:small

34 34 Replies 99 99 Retweets 558 558 likes

Now that people have noticed the book, its reviews are sullied by sheeple unshook by Seagal’s prophecies:



The Warax
@iAmTheWarax
Replying to @iAmTheWarax
You all probably think I am fukn with you but know this, I would never lie to you pic.twitter.com/O5mZPXevS6


The Warax
@iAmTheWarax
UPDATE: Ppl who saw this thread are leaving reviews now pic.twitter.com/KhMUje5IgR

9:22 PM - Dec 20, 2017
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRi-T8wW4AEwcHW.jpg:small
10 10 Replies 65 65 Retweets 654 654 likes

Still, perhaps we should give The Way Of The Shadow Wolves: The Deep State And The Hijacking Of America (with a foreword by Sheriff Joe Arpaio!) its fair shake. After all, as Seagal’s author bio notes, he “is an actor, producer, screen writer, director, martial artist, sheriff, musician and international businessman.” He also has experience with groping 16-year-old girls, falsely claiming to have worked with the CIA, fending off sexual-harassment lawsuits, uh delivering roundhouse kicks or whatever, and turning into a wolf, if the cover of his debut novel is to be believed. Why would we doubt his ability to write a kickass novel that proves the existence of a vast international conspiracy of pedophiles or something?

Thread: It is available for $2.99, or free if you have Amazon Prime. Act now.

The Way Of The Shadow Wolves: The Deep State And The Hijacking Of America (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70619-The-Way-Of-The-Shadow-Wolves-The-Deep-State-And-The-Hijacking-Of-America)
Thread: Seagal is at it again (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?37259-Seagal-is-at-it-again)

[GeneChing]

I Read Steven Seagal’s Insane Novel So You Don’t Have To (http://www.cracked.com/blog/i-read-steven-seagalE28099s-insane-novel-so-you-donE28099t-have-to/)
By Mark Hill · February 02, 2018

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Once, it would have been inconceivable for Steven Seagal to write a novel about anything other than him punching men in the *****. But times change, and now Seagal has given us The Way Of The Shadow Wolves: The Deep State And The Hijacking Of America, a "book of fiction based on reality."

http://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/1/1/646111_v1.jpg
Amazon

Shadow Wolves perfectly encapsulates every far-right American conspiracy theory and worldview into one insane package. Also, Seagal's collaborator, Tom Morrissey, writes like a thousand monkeys disassembled a thousand typewriters and then choked to death on the pieces. So let's travel the way of the Shadow Wolves together, and see what we discover.

The Setup: A Seagal Stand-In Takes On The "Deep State"

The Deep State, as the preface explains through leading questions, is a shadowy cabal of bureaucrats, spies, politicians, bankers, journalists, professors, judges, doctors (?), and other powerful people who are responsible for everything from drug smuggling to fake news to "child exploitation (pedophilia)," all in the name of oppressing the masses. Eric Trump thinks Twitter and Ellen DeGeneres are part of it, and to give you a sense of who else believes such things, Amazon says readers who purchased Shadow Wolves might also be interested in the nonfiction Pedophila [sic] & Empire: Satan, Sodomy & The Deep State (Trump Revolution).

Our hero is John Nan Tan Gode, a "Ghost Warrior known as a 'Shadow Wolf.'" We know that a Shadow Wolf is an elite Native American tracker so in tune with nature that they're essentially magic, because John is introduced to us while sitting alone in a movie theater watching a documentary about Shadow Wolves. This is a classic writing technique called "Tell, not show. Then keep telling it every five pages because your readers constantly pause to yell at teenagers." To truly understand the mastery of the English language on display here, let's take a quick Tom Morrissey Prose Appreciation Break, featuring actual quotes from the novel.

-- A pack of four-legged coyotes ran past John's vehicle.

-- When he parked at the casino a half hour later, Jimmy had no idea that he was being watched and filmed by a shadowy man with a heart as empty as a cave.

-- John replied quickly, almost wishing he hadn't mentioned his dead grandfather.

The Hero's Native American Heritage Gives Him Ass-Kicking Superpowers

John is a tribal police officer in Arizona (there's a real but unrelated non-magical ICE unit also called the Shadow Wolves) who is concerned about "billionaire drug lords" and "the 'Other Than Mexicans' ... assembling for what America had never known before -- a jihadi caliphate." Every other interchangeable Shadow Wolf we meet shares his views. In real life, Native Americans lean heavily Democratic, but in Morrissey's world, chiseled aboriginal warriors in the prime of their lives all speak like geriatrics who think that Bill O'Reilly's greatest failing was being too liberal.

Many stories are too blunt in implying that their hero is a Christlike figure. Shadow Wolves is too blunt in implying that John is a Seagal-like figure. John's always the smartest, toughest, coolest person in the room. When people punch John, it hurts them more than him. He knows every form of martial arts. John calls people *******s and then congratulates himself on how witty he is. John is repeatedly called Big John, the big man, and the big lawman, because Steven Seagal clearly wishes that people called him Big Steve. Which they could, but not for the reasons he wants.

We're told that John's powers come from his grandfather teaching him the "ancient ways." These ancient ways are never explained, because all the research Morrissey did for this book was through Pinterest's "vague platitudes" tag. At one point, John convinces a U.S. marshal to help him by insisting that he's a patriot who wants to keep the spirit of the American Revolution alive, because his Mohawk ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War. (The Mohawk fought for the British to defend their land from "patriots.")

In other totally real Native American attributes, John has "the spirit of the snake in his bloodline and that gave him power over some people and many snakes." We never find out what that means, and immediately after being introduced to his power over many snakes, John talks to some coyotes (the number of legs they have is unspecified). Coyote chat allows John to discover a dead body and a Mexican-Arab-Obama conspiracy. That's right, President Obama. Gasp!

Tom Morrissey Prose Appreciation Break, Writing Realistic Native American Characters Edition!

-- "We are Native Americans, we sit on mother earth for anything we need." [Note: This is said in response to someone objecting to sitting next to seven corpses.]

-- "DC ... John Gode ... DC ... the land of the Redskins." That was Sunday's way of making a joke in a serious situation by bringing up the politically-correct silliness over the name of that team.

-- John made a ghost move, evading the thrust.

The Writing Shows A Shocking Lack Of Faith In Its Audience

John's investigation involves chases, shootouts, interrogations, and other theoretically dramatic moments that are written with all the passion of a bank statement, but every scenario plays out the same way. John gets a "gut feeling" about what's happening and what should be done. The other Shadow Wolves either agree with his plan or eventually fall in line after it's explained that John's gut is always right, so he never has to explain his logic. John has so many gut feelings that he should look into what is clearly the early stages of stomach cancer. At one point, his gut helps him resolve a hostage situation, and the chapter smugly ends with "All lives matter. Do they not?" Real sick burn on America's growing pro-hostage-murder movement, Morrissey.

This 220-page novel has less plot than a coloring book. A huge chunk is dedicated to John capturing cartel members who make Speedy Gonzales look like Carlos Fuentes. (Morrissey tries to give them depth by implying that they're only uneducated moron criminals because Mexico is nothing but a drug-riddled hellhole.) They go about uncovering the Deep State's scheme while John constantly reexplains his plans and the plot to his allies, because this book has less faith in its readers than the "Do Not Eat" label on a silica packet.

Every piece of dialogue is followed by a sentence that explains the point of what was just said. If Tom Morrissey had written Harry Potter, it would read, "You're a wizard, Harry," said Hagrid, in order to inform Harry that he was a wizard. Wizards were people who could do magic. A judicious editor could cut this novel down to an angry YouTube comment.

Tom Morrissey Prose Appreciation Break, Elegant Writing Edition!

-- A long wailing woman's scream came from the house. They knew something bad was happening or about to happen.

-- "We got warrants ... federal warrants." He waved some papers at John, indicating that he was holding the warrants in his hand.

-- "Everyone on that show Cheers knew one another's names because they all lived at that bar. You, however, live in the desert, where no one knows your name, and when it gets dark they can't even see you."

Virtually Everyone In The Government Has A Hand In One Conspiracy Or Another

John's elite investigative skills eventually lead him to randomly stumble across a key piece of evidence that was left for him in a coffeemaker. That's declared a brilliant hiding spot, because John has the rare personality trait of liking coffee. Then his mentor, who also happens to secretly be a high-ranking intelligence agent, gives a lecture on the entire plot that he knew about all along, rendering most of the book pointless. The government has been infiltrated by members of Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, and ISIS (it's nice that Hezbollah and ISIS were able to put aside their numerous bitter differences). They're planning, with the help of the Mexican cartel and all those evil doctors, to "takedown" the "Great Satan."

Almost everyone is in on it. At one point, Special Agent Mo "Dogface" Miner is asked by a FEMA executive, "Why the **** are you letting our cartel-jihadist allies get captured by the locals?" That, it turns out, was a complication in the Deep State's plan to "jam five hundred jihadists up America's ass in one night," which they'll do by fooling regular state law enforcement with a cover story that they're "crisis actors on their way to a major exercise." In Seagal's world, every random cop and soldier knows and accepts that the government uses "crisis actors" to fake mass shootings, but only the evil authorities know that some crisis actors are secretly terrorists.

We never hear from Special Agent Mo "Dogface" Miner after that. In fact, multiple characters get a chapter dedicated to planning events that are never mentioned again. This book abandons more characters and plot points than Steven Seagal has abandoned wives and children.
continued next post

[GeneChing]

Tom Morrissey Prose Appreciation Break, Compelling Villains Edition!

-- "This is not good-bye, my friend. Think of it more as see you soon. Because you will ... see me soon." [Note: The villain never follows up on this threat.]

-- General Clap did not understand the way of the ancient warrior. However, the Shadow Wolves did. [Note: The Shadow Wolves are not in this scene.]

-- It was his greatest achievement in life to have gotten this far, so close to the heart of the Great Satan, and now standing poised, with a scepter at the ready, to behead this "supreme evil." [Note: Metaphors this mixed are considered toxic.]

The Thrilling Climax

This Tom Clancy after a crippling head injury potboiler culminates in a terrorist plot to simultaneously attack the Las Vegas Strip, the Grand Canyon Skywalk (no!), the Brooklyn Bridge, the Mall of America, the Sears Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the New York Stock Exchange, and, of course, a small Native-run casino where the mom of two characters happens to work.

Luckily, the cartel-jihadist-doctors throw a raging party on the eve of the attack, during which they smoke hashish, listen to "Arabic music," and have women who, cover your eyes children, kiss multiple men. John and his team infiltrate the party, kill most of the baddies, then torture the head villain for information. That info is used to mostly stop the attacks. Then we're informed that the American people elected a new president who, in the part of the story that requires the greatest suspension of disbelief, is "stronger and smarter."

All told, the 220 pages contain 111 deaths. In one shootout, an agent, "[takes] all four out with strafing headshots." This book writes gunfights like a child recapping Call Of Duty highlights. Later, in a fight against a terrorist, John Nan Tan Gode, a man who respects life and is deeply in touch with nature, taunts his foe by telling him that he's coated his knife and bullets in pig blood. Seagal and Morrissey think that Muslims react to pigs like Superman reacts to Kryptonite, and that it is hilarious.

Tom Morrissey Prose Appreciation Break, Making People Root For The Terrorists Edition!

-- "How's that pig blood feel, *******? Is it starting to course through your veins, maybe even ****ing off the Prophet?"

-- He produced a crucifix he was wearing under his shirt. "They treat these things like vampires treat them."

-- "Don't think time matters to them anymore," John said quietly, respecting the fact that they had just killed a small group of men. [Note: Morrissey, you dip****, you just had him brag about coating his weapons in pig's blood. You couldn't write a grocery list.]

Examining This Book's Target Audience

If this book has a key flaw, it's that it's the literary equivalent of getting punched in the kidneys by someone who isn't Steven Seagal. It thinks a plot is something you scream repeatedly and that suspense is a pansy liberal myth. It wants you to take seriously both the idea that every Muslim is plotting to destroy America and phrases like "Shadow Wolf-only lunch meeting." It's a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories and far-right bugaboos: FEMA, Benghazi, George Soros, false flag attacks, the murder of Seth Rich, Sharia law in Michigan, evil Syrian refugees, and more are all thrown into barely coherent scaremongering rants. This book may be written like Microsoft Word came to life and immediately started begging for death, but it's also a primer for getting inside the head of people who think Alex Jones has a lot of good ideas.

And then there's the (sadly predictable) way it treats women. Early on, John tries to meet a "woman reporter" who sent him a seductive picture of herself. In Seagal's world, this is how "woman investigative reporters" get in touch with sources -- by physically mailing them pinup photos. Other role models include the "woman agent who could hold her own," John's "lady who was way more than just a lady," and the sole female villain, who tries to kill John by seducing him. See? They have strong female characters in the Fox News mirror universe. Note that the reporteress with the gams is immediately murdered, the "woman agent" is never mentioned again, and John's lady is shuffled away from the final battle.

Seagal and Morrissey have invented a world for scared old men whose hatred of immigrants is second only to their hatred of reading. This is a book that's too cowardly to admit how racist it is. Seagal and Morrissey invented a bunch of magical Indians who love to taunt, kill, and commit war crimes against the enemies of Real America using their ancient spirit powers. And the only thing the good races and the evil races can agree on is the ugly, nihilistic belief that America "brought upon themselves their own destruction by their naive concept of justice and fairness."

Steven Seagal has less respect for his fans than Jim Jones. That he's asking money for a book that went through less editing than the story I wrote about a dinosaur cop when I was ten is borderline criminal. That he thinks nothing in it contradicts his claim to be an environmentally conscious Buddhist speaks to either incredible hypocrisy or an incredible number of concussions. And at the risk of sounding like a Deep State media elite, the fact that he made the sexually irresistible Native American hero a stand-in for himself is nauseating, considering that he's been accused of raping a Native American actress.

Tom Morrissey Prose Appreciation Break, Human Women Edition!

-- "What do you have for weaponry, woman?" John asked. ... "I'm 'mama grizzly bear' ready m'love," she assured him. "I would prefer 'mama grizzly bare-ass' ready, but for now we'll go with what you got." [Note: Gross.]

-- "I give a **** about you staying in one piece and continuing to be my man. And I want my man alive."

-- Alicia whispered, "I hope he didn't pick up on us and is now setting up for our arrival." She looked at John, hoping he could dismiss her fear. He did.

Mark is on Twitter and wrote a book that is not about Shadow Wolves.

Major kudos to Mark Hill for jumping on this grenade for us all. :D

[GeneChing]

On Politico.com! Kudos to Nathan Rabin. Another grenade jumper. That's becoming a funny little club.


https://static.politico.com/dims4/default/6793755/2147483647/resize/1160x/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2Fbb%2Ff6%2 Fbba0cd364faf89f5179878b012b3%2F180220-seagal-ap-1160.jpg
I Read Steven Seagal’s New Book ... It’s Even Crazier Than You Imagine (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/21/steven-seagal-deep-state-novel-shadow-wolves-joe-arpaio-217031)
In conjuring a gigantic conspiracy involving the Deep State, Mexican drug cartel, Islamist terrorists and Barack Obama, Seagal may have created the definitive kitschy artifact of the Trump era.

By NATHAN RABIN February 21, 2018

The ultimate kitsch artifact from the early days of the Trump era is a novel, The Way of the Shadow Wolves: The Deep State and the Hijacking of America, and it’s written by two patriots deeply concerned with immigration control and the malevolent forces abetting the destruction of America: Tom Morrissey, a U.S. marshal-turned-novelist, and Steven Seagal.

Yes, that Steven Seagal: former movie star, ponytail enthusiast, blues guitarist, energy drink proprietor, prolific direct-to-streaming C-list actor, Putin and Trump super-fan, alleged serial sexual harasser and a former reserve sheriff in both Louisiana and Arizona.

Even as Trump has abandoned Birtherism, blaming it all on the nasty FAKE NEWS, neither Seagal nor Morrissey are so swayed by reality and an overwhelming preponderance of evidence. While the authors don’t make explicit reference to forged birth certificates, the massive scope of Obama’s almost Satanic evil in Shadow Wolves renders the prospect of a mere faked birth certificate totally inconsequential.

Consequently, The Way of the Shadow Wolves isn’t just a conspiracy thriller; it’s more of an every conspiracy thriller. And what sinister mastermind lurks malevolently at the very top of a twisted plan to destroy America by flooding it with terrorists? None other than Barack Hussein Obama.

Even a figure as transparently evil as Obama needs help, however, so in Shadow Wolves, Obama is in cahoots with a motley assortment of evildoers, including his Islamic terrorist brethren, a murderous Mexican drug cartel and the shadowy Deep State—forces that would be only too happy to replace the Constitution with sharia law. All that stands in the way of this sinister cabal, with their hashish-fueled and hooker-laden sex-murder orgies, is a godly, morally pure assemblage of “Shadow Wolves,” Native American lawmen uniquely adept at tracking drug dealers and illegal immigrants. (I was shocked to discover that Shadow Wolves actually exist and are a real unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, because they’re portrayed here as the ultimate romanticized fantasy of Native Americans: real-life Jedi whose heritage gives them borderline supernatural powers and allows them to live in perfect harmony with nature.)

In his introduction to this Fox News fever dream, Sheriff Joe Arpaio writes, “It is my hope that you have not only enjoyed the story line of The Way of the Shadow Wolves, but you will also think about the message portrayed here. It is less than a hair’s breadth from the frightening truth of what is actually happening today.”

The story is, essentially, a fight pitting Obama and his newfangled Axis of Evil (the Deep State, Islamic Jihadists and the Mexican cartel, who obviously share many goals and have complementary ideologies) versus an entire squadron of Billy Jacks. In fact, Seagal and Morrissey repeatedly and reverently reference Billy Jack, the once-ubiquitous but now mostly forgotten film series in which actor/director/co-writer Tom Laughlin portrayed the ultimate underclass lefty avenger—a half-Native American Vietnam veteran-turned-wise protector of everyone left behind in Nixon’s America. Seagal and Morrissey don’t seem to realize that Billy Jack’s politics—anti-war, anti-big business, hippie-loving—are antithetical to their own; to them, his defining characteristic is that he was a ridiculous caricature of Native American wisdom and spirituality who also kicked ass. (In a wonderfully representative bit of dialogue in the book, a protagonist actually explains, “Billy Jack was a fictional character who kicked dumb ****s, uh, like you, in the nuts. He did that in a lot of his movies.”)

Elsewhere in the book, we get a Pizzagate-esque explanation of what exactly the “Deep State” is, when a Mexican official complains, “It is crystal clear to all of us that the [U.S. government] is completely penetrated, and this trafficking of human jihadists is approved by [Obama] himself and being protected by rogue elements of the CIA, FBI and DEA—the same rogue elements that have been smuggling drugs, guns, gold, cash, and small children for the American elite ever since Allen Dulles and J. Edgar Hoover first created a secret state within a state.” In a law enforcement establishment overflowing with traitors intend on bringing down the nation, Arpaio, who is now running for Senate, is here lovingly referenced as one of the only people who can be trusted.

You would imagine a man with as much on his plate as Seagal would hire an actual novelist to ghost-co-write his novel, but The Way of the Shadow Wolves is so adorably incompetent and inept that it’s hard to imagine that a professional writer had anything to do with it.

Seagal and Morrissey’s book is intended as a startling warning of the horrible danger our nation is under, but it closes on a hopeful note with the election of Donald Trump—who is not mentioned by name, but is depicted as a white knight (emphasis on white) on a steed saving Western civilization from the evil Muslim hordes that would destroy it.

Following an upswell of patriotism sweeping Trump into office, the authors write towards the book’s end, “The [outgoing] POTUS was in full disaster mode, leading an effort to discredit and drive his successor from office. Fully funded by a multi-billionaire outside the country, rioters were being recruited and paid for by this cabal and were waging war against the Constitution and the will of the American people.”

All is not lost, however, as the novel ends on a note of breathless hyperbole: “Finally, there was a feeling of tremendous change sweeping across the land as a new president was sworn into office and was immediately beset unto by the Deep State and those left behind from the previous administration. But he was smarter and stronger and far more adept than any of them had ever imagined.”

When Trump first started running for office, a lot of people suspected, perhaps correctly, that his presidential run was little more than a cynical bid to generate interest and excitement in a Trump News Network to the right of Fox News—a plan that went horribly awry when Trump accidentally ended up getting elected president. On a similar note, I can’t but help but wonder if Sheriff Joe’s whole senatorial campaign (which would seem Quixotic were it not for the fact a former reality TV host and Arpaio super-fan sits in the Oval Office) is little more than a bid to win the attention of reality TV producers and generate interest for a Sheriff Joe reality show. I’m sure Seagal would be happy to pop in regularly—after all, Arpaio let the actor join the Maricopa County sheriff’s department for season three of the reality TV dud “Steven Seagal: Lawman.”

Shadow Wolves ends with a disclaimer: “This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental. But always remember that the truth comes in many forms.” Also worth remembering, especially as the line between bad reality TV, conspiracy theory, and real life blurs to the point of meaninglessness: Bull**** comes in many forms, too.


Nathan Rabin is an author, columnist and the proprietor of the website Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place, where he first wrote about Seagal’s novel.