Blazing Reader,

For the 4th of July, Jordan Henderson (the cover artist for both my novels) released a series of new paintings, titled Fantasia Americana — challenging the fantasy that America is truly a free nation (or ever intended to be). The fifth and final piece is my favourite:

Nihilism — ignorance or indifference to good and evil, right and wrong — makes pawns out of people more efficiently than all the propaganda, brainwashing and TikTok videos in the world.

The other paintings focus more on mass formation psychosis. You can view all five on Jordan's Substack.

While you're there, check out his fantastic essays, Realism is Mysticism: Against Nihilism and Treebeard's Razor: The Ents Weigh in on AI Art & Writing.

Jordan can wield a pen as skillfully as he does the paintbrush. If he ever decides to write and illustrate his own book on philosophy, he'll probably sell a million copies. He has an uncanny ability to bring clarity, wit and meaning to even the most abstract concepts.

I only fear that if his illustrated guide to The Meaning of Life, The Canvas and Treebread's Razor does so well, I won't be able to commission him to paint the covers to my novels anymore.

John C.A. Manley

P.S. I almost forgot. Be sure to check out this interview with Jordan Henderson on The Corbett Report — just released last Wednesday — where he explains how the Fantasia Americana series illustrates how "preposterous it is to think that this is supposedly a government by the people, for the people."

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.