Apparently I Won?
This was rather unexpected.
Hello to those of you from Astral Codex Ten review contest!
I’m pleased to say that, despite various ups and downs (including giving myself only a 15% chance of success, following the prediction market) my review of the life of Joan of Arc and the evidence it provides for Catholicism won Scott Alexander’s review contest.
I am shocked, gratified and kind of baffled by this. I read fiction about characters with complicated master plans that work, and I read history talking about human beings with complicated master plans that don’t work, and yet the very first time I tried an elaborate master plan - to enter Scott’s contest, set up a blog serializing the Tragedy of the Titanium Tyrant, my first novel, and then, when my entry won, get lots of readers - it worked perfectly. I was expecting it to fail! I was hoping for the consolation prize of just being one of the finalists!
Maybe it wasn’t a very complex master plan. More likely, I just got lucky.
Anyway: Congratulations to the other contestants. Congratulations particularly to the other finalists. Congratulations especially particularly to Edward Nevraumont and Gallow, who wrote the other two finalists (and who I both voted for, along with myself). Commiserations for Alex King, who got the most Likes out of any contestant and who was the one of the four contestants the prediction market gave the best odds on not to make it into the top three. Commiserations also for Max Nussenbaum of the review of JFK Assassination Theories and the anonymous authors of the Sermon on the Mount, Airships, “As Little As Possible,” and Person of Interest, all of whom I rated highly and was disappointed to see not among the finalists.
To the people curious what I have to say: Mostly I’m writing fiction over at my fiction blog, Palace Fiction, where my first novel is being serialized. I plan to repost the Joan of Arc essay, and then I don’t expect to write many essays for the next couple weeks. I’ve signed up for the Inkhaven writing residency, though, and while there I intend to do seven posts a week, written at the residency, for as long as I can keep it up - so if you subscribe, you’ll see something then. Current planned topics are essays for fiction-writers discussing the internal processes of different types of government, an explanation of why agricultural productivity is the most important thing for a country prior to the development of the railroad and an essay for everyone explaining why I believe in decadence even though ACouP doesn’t.
If you want to give me money, I recommend subscribing to Palace Fiction; Substack wants me to set up a different Stripe account for my two blogs, so paid subscriptions for this one aren’t on yet and consequently there are no perks for paid subscribers. If you just want to see what I have to say, though, I’ve got a Free Subscription button right here at the bottom of this post.
Congrats! For what it's worth, your essay convinced me to start writing (and to take ideas I had previously dismissed more seriously again)