Without further ado, here is the cover, designed for Scout & Engineer by the talented John Cox:

This issue of Scout & Engineer introduces two new features: an essay on the philosophy of fiction, and the kick-off of Scout & Engineer Reviews. The essay is brought to us by the talented Stuart K. Hayashi. The literary critique segment initiates with my review of Tom Wolfe’s Back to Blood, which will be available from Little, Brown and Company on October 23.

Something else I'm very excited to offer this go around: an interview with author Shelly Reuben in which she discusses her writing, her heroes, and her work in arson investigation.

As with the inaugural issue, this one delivers outstanding short fiction from five authors who dare to create the both entertaining and thought-provoking. Annette Hansen, Will Conway, Sara Puls, Ryan Cooke, and Jenean McBrearty.

As always, excellence in form is the golden standard, though S&E also champions individualism, a celebratory worldview, heroism, knowledge, confidence, and wit.

See our shop page to buy your copy of Scout & Engineer No. 2 in paperback, PDF download, or Kindle or Nook ebook.

What's impressive is that even this book--so gutsily BOOK through-and-through--engenders a cinematic scent, one that results from more than the verdant scenery for which it is famed. At a pace of approximately every three pages, Zafón churns out sentences commanding enough to be clipped from context and broadcast in preview to the fullness. Big Spaghetti Western-worthy lines. Coming-attraction lines.

One of my personal favorites from The Shadow of the Wind:

"Our world will not die as a result of the bomb, as the papers say, it will die of laughter, of banality, of making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that."

In honor of reputable preview-sentences of books past (and present), I would like to offer the following previews from Scout & Engineer's works to date:

Scout & Engineer No. 1

From Be Clear and Prosper by T. D. Edge: "Your church reckons the universe gave you all some sort of auric glow that convinced all other religions to lay down their good books and grab an enpound detector. But I say you simply brainwashed enough punters to make it past the spiritual, in inverted commas, bleedin' tipping point."

From Inside the Mountain by Nemone Thornes: "There was so much that was smothered before it began, because people didn't see the lines they ran on, the hidden rules that controlled not only their behaviour, but their thoughts, their knowledge of what was possible."

From Convergence by Zeke Jarvis: "Thus, although one will not find the actual sum of a given series, one at least can determine whether or not a finite sum exists. Sometimes, this is the best for which one can hope."

From Eyewitness by Erika Holzer: "That did it. The press was treated to a family reunion on the sidewalks of New York and the spectacle of a Mafia princess being whisked away into the bosom of her family."

Elena Gorokhova, from this issue's interview: "These last two decades of the Soviet state were known as a period of stagnation, both economic and intellectual, with cynicism and disillusionment settling in the generation of my peers."

Wendy Never Married by Christopher Blonde

From the title story: "I studied studied studied, day and night, I got the music theory books and I'd fall slam asleep listening to either the guys singing or this typing-teacher-sounding lady talking about how to beef up your vocal cords and still keep 'em limber."

From The Strange Case of Christine Hodge's Pica: "No matter how close she snuck to the lawnmower with its hood popped vertical, she could not put her finger on why the pungent smell made her not just want, but violently need, to drink."

From The Poincaire Boys' Girls: "He had been happy. A new sort of man, he thought. Just having met Marah. Still dripping from his baptism in the white of her eyes and teeth and heart. Why then? Why had he?"

From The Picture That Cost Alice Everything: "It was like sitting outside in a solid block of shade, squinting for clarity at a minute detail across the way, then realizing with a sudden sense of time-loss that you cannot see the detail clearly any longer because the sun has shifted to you. You are highlighted. You are warm."

From Carnies Chase Fast Women: "News of my pregnancy was met with numerous chastisements on how I never should 'of' opened myself to a man who'd blow off in the wind within the week."

From A Solution For Camels: "Gran, just like I have not heard Mama storm at people with great bolts of f-words and s-words, will tell me a dressed-down version of what Mama said by reply."

From Sports & Entertainment News: "Because my internship involved, in part, sieving through a voluminous haul of letters to the editor, I could pinpoint the moment when every reader in town became personally privy to the unabridged, unsung, and unexpected full story. Amazingly, it was right away."

From Who is Carlotta Jenkins?: "Eternity promises you the opportunity to see your loved ones, and liked ones, and casually acquainted ones, over and over and over and over, so help you God."

From the included selection of Esther in the Flesh: "Every weekday since the third week of her AP English class, I had eaten lunch in the teachers' lounge because I more or less viewed the cafeteria as a cafe for spiritual vampirism, a place where one went only to lose in testimonial momentum whatever was gained via the intake of food, and because our librarian was understandably loath to allow my handling of books while I ate."

The good thing about these previews, of course, is there is no need to wait for the betokened works' months-off release dates. For interested readers, Scout & Engineer No. 1 and Wendy Never Married are both available in paperback, PDF download, Kindle ebook, and Nook ebook here.

Thanks for reading!

Our blog will feature brief (400-600 word) reviews of current and older novels, memoirs and other nonfiction books in which overall tone leans toward the literary, short story collections & poetry collections (single- or multi-author), and individual short stories.

Scout & Engineer reviews--which will partially summarize, not spoiling large, late-in-work plot points--will contain analysis based on factors such as the plot's coherence and intrigue level, characterization, consistency, overall style, and more. These reviews will also take into account a given work's conceptual congruity (does it present an integrated world view?).

Of note to potential reviewers is that S&E reviews should offer an examination of works in terms of Scout & Engineer's stated, championed, and incorporated philosophy: individualism. Reviews should acknowledge when and where a novel or other work advocates groupthink or depicts characters' actions as resultant of doomed genes, their existence within a malevolent universe, their cog-function within a crude social machine, etc. Also, reviews should highlight ways in which books or shorter works properly integrate the concepts of free will/volition, individual rights, cause-and-effect, egosim, etc.

Authors interested in submitting a work (self-published is fine) for review are also welcome to contact Hannah (editor@scoutandengineer.com) for further details.

Finally, for would-be reviewers: we cannot offer payment at this time. For that reason, this arrangement would be ideal for anyone interested in accumulating review clips and experience.

Thanks for reading.

This month, in lieu of regularly scheduled programming, S&E offers a single-author short story collection. Its snazzy pic lies below, and you can read all about it here. It is available for purchase as a PDF download here.

The skinny: 9 regular-sized shorts, 1 flash. One reprinted from S&E No. 1; 2 making reappearances, having been first published in other magazines. The others--previously unpublished, in print or electronically.

What I would like to briefly emphasize is that the stories in Wendy Never Married (primarily) abide by the theme of individualism. Issue No. 1 contained stories similarly themed while distinct in subject, style, etc.

At this juncture, I can confidently say there will be a Scout & Engineer 2--slated for release early in October--and that it will provide an assortment of precision-crafted stories, from a variety of talents, that weave in S&E's core focus. I'm gratified to have read the work of these authors, and I encourage all who enjoyed the first issue to stay tuned for our second.

I would also mention, though, for a second time, a point I originally belabored here. Namely, that Scout & Engineer will only go to print when a solid issue's worth of theme-appropriate and stylistically excellent material has been gathered. For this reason (a change from the planned design), Scout & Engineer does not offer subscriptions; readers are encouraged to sign up for our newsletter &/o connect with us on Facebook and Twitter for announcements concerning new issues.

A brief word also on submissions. Since the gates officially opened, S&E has received a bounty of stories that reveal their authors' polished sense of story, discipline, and familiarity with the best of words. I'm delighted to say--as I was to see--that the stylistic quality of submitted stories has been, on average, very high. In the minority, unfortunately, are those submissions that integrate our theme. And as for the detailed theme--well, that point can be found belabored in more or less any editorial piece sitewide. As long as submissions that--creatively, skillfully--match in some sense with our focus keep rolling in, I will gladly continue orchestrating new issues.

On a closing note, if you like what you've read in our first issue, and if you enjoy the stories in Wendy Never Married, please consider spreading the word about S&E; putting us on the radar of authors whose work would be at home here; posting reviews to Amazon, Nook, and Kindle pages; liking S&E on Facebook; following on Twitter, etc.

And there's always the helpful-to-all option of bulk-buying copies and with them replacing Gideon hotel bibles. Whatever strikes you as appropriate.

Thank you for reading both the Scout & Engineer blog and literary offerings, and thank you for your time.

I'm posting the unedited version of a letter to the editor I recently wrote for two reasons. Said editor's word limit is a fixed 200; this is . . . over that. A weense. Also, I think this may help clarify a stance a la this post's title; individualism--its literary incorporation so valued here--just ain't got that swing (or the rhyming counterpart thereto) sans the comprehended, valued, defended concept of individual rights. And so:

Today, I voted in favor of the few candidates who appear consistently dedicated to across-the-board liberty for citizens of North Carolina, and against Amendment One. Many of the popular arguments both for and against this proposed alteration sidestep the core element being voted upon. Left-wing, right-wing, and wingless (... grounded?) voters will never reach a unanimous opinion on whether homosexuality is morally permissible; fortunately for everyone's government-protected individual rights, we don't need to massly concur on what is likeable, moral, gross, in-all-senses healthy; we don't need to agree on much, actually.

If we are to stand by the separation of church and state (and if we are to protectively seal our government from ideologies up to and as harmful as Islam, we must commit to the separation of church and state), our constitutional definition of "marriage" must only take into account the elements of that union that conceivably may require government intervention. Regardless of the contract type, courts are charged with judiciously weighing in on contract disputes because this process is vital to the acquisition, management, and defense of one's earned property; and attempting to hold "individual rights" aloft while diminishing "property rights" ... well, it's a bad joke.

I find it reprehensible that people who present themselves as rational patriots, defenders of the Constitution, do not see the error in telling adults of sound mind that they cannot voluntarily enter into a contract whose (legal) upshot relates to property and taxes. It is boggling, furthermore, that a purported patriot thinks him or herself justified in decreeing that this taxpaying citizen cannot be extended benefits presently extended to these (hitched) citizens.

I consider it a shame that with this measure and others similar the Republican Party alienates so many who refuse association with modern-day discrimination. It's a shame because the Democratic Party collectively supports many adamantly anti-individual-freedom programs. Inasmuch as "individual rights" is a hollow concept when one tries to subtract out property ownership, "redistributing wealth" and forcing taxpayers to monetarily sponsor other people is an unequivocal violation of the idea of Liberty for One (and therefore, the idea of liberty). Faults such as these too frequently go glossed over, not properly taken to task for their affront to freedom, because, again, many rational voters will not cast lots with a party that trends toward unabashed and unconstitutional treading upon rights in the name of a belief system that far from everyone adheres to.

The Republican Party should defend the republic of the United States of America; it is failing. What it gains in (generally and to an extent) respecting private property ownership (of most), it loses in assuming the power to force-apply a majority's moral stance onto every minority in jurisdiction.

Ayn Rand said

"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)."

How right she was. On a closing note, I would like to quote her once more:

"Intellectually, to rest one's case on faith means to concede that reason is on the side of one's enemies—that one has no rational arguments to offer. The 'conservatives' claim that their case rests on faith, means that there are no rational arguments to support the American system, no rational justification for freedom, justice, property, individual rights, that these rest on a mystic revelation and can be accepted only on faith—that in reason and logic the enemy is right, but men must hold faith as superior to reason."

It is an insult to this country's Constitution to defend it on the grounds of religious conviction or tradition. Yesterday is valuable exclusively to the extent that it proffered objective values that are such-judged in the scope of independent reason. Every toddler with Legos understands that collapsing a structure is a lazy moment's work compared to building one; what we stand to speedily lose in every election is hard-earned government protection of rights for every individual--the monied tycoon, single mom, social recluse, frat boy, black guy, white dude, heterosexual or homosexual or bisexual individual. We stand to sacrifice today and tomorrow to the religion of yesterday; we stand to inflate our government to the brink of bursting--unscrutinized sentiments providing the dizzying breath for this.

However, fortunately, we also stand to turn back the tide of irrationality and force; to salvage the America in which tribe membership does not matter but merit does--the country in which one is not Brother or Sister Whoever in whatever groupthinking/moving/earning/spending National Family, but is: One.

2. Elena Gorokhova. Fiercely intelligent, powerful woman; apt memoir writer with an eye for the kind of detail that makes all the difference. What an honor to feature an interview with her.

3. A few occurences throughout  No. 1's ripening phases:

"Empire State of Mind." Twenty, thirty times a day.

An Amazing Spiderman t-shirt ascended through the shirt-ranks to become my common-law-official editorial uniform.

Groupa guys called Lehigh advanced to even intenser levels of madness in March. The watching world understandably went wide-eyed, windily stuttering "Wh-wh-whuh?"

Interesting take on the western.
Convenient bookmark.

Writers who appreciated Scout & Engineer's premise voluntarily submitted their work for consideration. When I judged a work both appropriate to S&E's guidelines and appealing to my own editorial sense, I offered a payment for the right to include that work in the congealing premier issue. Authors, having determined the payment/publication package worthwhile in the context of their own personal goals, accepted; and the editing marched on. It sounds so simple. (It is.)

The aftermath of wild nights of editing looks
somewhat different than that of other
wild nights.

The food item most consumed in-office was, rather anticlimactically: apples.

En route to the finals.

Held the physical proof in my hands. Thought: from a "wouldn't it be nice" kind of thought. Nice, indeed.

To a great extent, unfortunately, the emphasis on philosophy in fiction is not just absent, it's replaced by encouragement to kill the lights within the sector of one's authorly self that proposes, tests, and rules on hypotheses. The thing of the (abnormally long) day seems to be plastic-covering any part of the mind that insists "I think" before typing word one.

Philip Roth said, "I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you--it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists."

I disagree.

With a gusto that required founding a new publication to contrast his and so many writers', readers', and literary professors' notion that to excel at the nuts and bolts of literature, an author must check his cohesive culled (fair) conclusions about life at the blank screen. While readers are steadily encouraged to read voraciously, there often comes the point at which attempts to connect one metaphor--tugged into the light after so much studious staring--to the next in effort to detect a coordinated skeleton beneath is rebuked. And why? Because the ideas shined upon in writing are not accountable to reason? Because literature's not about that? Says them. 

Nothing is so praiseworthy to me as a story laid upon a nonporous ideological foundation and driven skyward with technique that is subtle, creative, informed, disciplined, appropriate. In case that should sound restrictive, let it be known that I've seen this done in your classroom-bound literature-lit and I've seen it in alien stories and comedies.

There's something a little mangled about the author who presents the author's self as one of these finely perforated, see-thru authors who "tries" to do nothing with writing--more or less lettin' her rip non-discretionary-style--and then writes an anti-volition parable. I mention this not thinking of any one specific writer, but more the composite Writer representing the patchwork standards of an era. As often as I read the advice not to foist your own trifling perspective on your characters or plot, I read lauded shorts and novels that (with scant ambiguity) are totally built on an idea: the idea that characters, plots, lovers, domesticated dogs, and writers are all drooling, predestined nothings so what's anything matter anydamnway.

I've said as much in other places on this website, but: I call cop-out. You don't get to stay in vogue with some idealess literary trend by loophole of "Well, yeah, my work is idea-based, but the root idea was that ideas are all illusory figments that were present in seedling form in the BANG." It rings kind of needless. Craving the structure that only comprehensive ideas can engender but considering that some lowly vice that must be justified. The shout here shouldn't be "Admit it! You LIKE ideas!"; liking fitting correct ideas together is not some backwoods weakness. On that note, Scout & Engineer is not a confessional.

Scout & Engineer is a forthcoming habitat for those readers and writers who, within a single smile, integrate idea-lust and love of the beautifully written word. Stay tuned.