30 days On

Good morning, Stroock's Books and Shabbat Shalom. 

We took a gym break yesterday and had a cigar instead. Sorry. Midway through May that's our eight cigar of the year. We're on pace for 25-30 cigars in 2025. Not bad, no?

We've no insights on the New Jersey transit strike. Related, Congresswoman Mickie Sherrill is leading the Dem primary for governor. This is a good thing. Also related: Trump has a 47% approval rating...in New Jersey? Look at that. We may be blue, but we're still not crazy. 

After one month in print War Night: Stories of the Great Nuclear War of 1975 has 40 ratings for a 4.4 star average. The bad ratings are finally coming in, but overall 84% of raters gave War Night 4 + stars. It's also gotten a negative, two-star review titled, 'This story already ended'*. There's no such thing as a bad review or rating, and they add credibility. War Night has earned back 2/3rds of its production costs (which were higher than normal) and will break even in the next 30 days. 

As with other novels, War Night's readership looks like the Allies in World War Two, US/UK/AU/CA. It hasn't really popped in the rest of the world yet. So we've a ways to go. What are you bloody Continentals waiting for, another Normandy Invasion? [Kraut wankers-Ed]. Kraut wankers indeed.

War Night can be read as a standalone compilation novel of nuclear war short stories. The book is actually a good place to start The Great Nuclear War of 1975 series. This was not our intention, but there it is. Sales of the other three books in the series have increased. There's no business reason to stop writing in this universe. The question again is where do we go from here? 

As of this morning War Night: Stories of the Great Nuclear War of 1975 is ranked #22 in its Amazon category. 

The Israelis are hammering Gaza today. They've told Hamas deal now or we're coming. It seems slowly the diplomatic wheel is turning in Israel's favor. US/Arab administration of Gaza relief. Hamas out of Gaza. Stroock's Books stance is bomb Gaza. 

Meanwhile, more alarm in the Israeli media about Trump's nuclear proposal to Iran. Our own impression is at the worst Trump's proposal delays the Iranian bomb.  Trump's saying deal or else. We'll see. In 2013 Barry Soetoro made a bad deal with Iran because he was desperate for any deal at all. Exit question, what is the likelihood that Trump would take a bad deal?

What Will's Watching: Andor S2 Episode's 10-12: These went from ok, to meh, to terrible and 12 was really terrible. Characters mostly just sat around and talked. Every time Cassian Andor was on screen we got bored. We stuck with the finale just to see how things would end. E12 was not just the season finale but the series finale. We'll have some final thoughts next week. 

DOGE report: we read through and edited Thatcher's War interlude chapter. It's ok but not done. Not even close. We're primed to begin the South Armagh chapter. 

*This reviewer is almost certainly righter than he knows.