Hey! Want to buy yourself a great holiday gift while at the same time saying, “Hey, Michael A. Ventrella, thanks for all the entertaining blog posts I’ve enjoyed”? Why not buy one of my books? That way we both win! You get a fun and entertaining read, and I get another small book sale. You can download a copy for less than $6!
Here’s what people have said about “Bloodsuckers: A Vampire Runs for President”:
“Bloodsuckers takes modern politics and adds vampires to the mix (yes, we already know all the jokes you’re making!) to make it actually new and exciting. Washed-up reporter Steve Edwards can’t believe what he sees when a Presidential candidate is gunned down by a man who then disappears before his eyes, apparently transformed to a bat. But that’s just the beginning as Steve finds he’s been framed for the crime and what he’s seen is just the very tip of a blood-drinking iceberg. Ventrella’s quick, bright dialogue punctuates the adventure with dry humor even as he ratchets the tension up towards an ending that might just surprise even the jaded reader. Highly recommended!” – Ryk E. Spoor, author of Grand Central Arena and Phoenix Rising
“Bloodsuckers draws back the curtain of politics and confirms the fear we’ve all suspected about our leaders for decades. A cutting expose of the—what, this is fiction? Naw … Well then. Funny, quick, too smart for its own good. Had me viewing politicians with new suspicion.” – Mur Lafferty, Campbell-Award-winning author of Ghost Train to New Orleans and The Shambling Guide to New York City
“Sharp as a stake through the heart, Bloodsuckers works both as an entertaining thriller and as satire of our current out-for-blood political landscape. I loved the characters, the political insight and the final revelation!” – Dennis Tafoya, author of The Poor Boy’s Game and The Wolves of Fairmont Park
“Bloodsuckers is a delicious blend of mainstream thriller, oddball horror, and biting social commentary. Sink your teeth into this one!” – Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Code Zero and V-Wars
“What could be more horrifying than vampires with a taste for blood? Vampires with a taste for politics, as well. Mike Ventrella gives us both, plus action, adventure, laughs and chills, in Bloodsuckers, a political satire with bite.” – Jon McGoran, author of Drift and Deadout
“Politics, intrigue and vampires—a match made in Washington, DC. A bloody good political thriller that sucks you in from the start and gets its teeth into your imagination.” – Gail Z. Martin, author of Reign of Ash and Deadly Curiosities
“The book is a lot of fun. It manages to be many things at once. It’s both thrilling and humorous. Both politically charged and poignant without being preachy.” – Lucas Mangum, author of Flesh and Fire.
Many bloggers have a button for “tips” if you enjoy reading their blogs, and some have ads. (The ads you may see here are placed by WordPress — I don’t get any income from them.)
All I ask is that you give my books a try — if you like VentrellaQuest, you’ll probably like the books, too! And if you have read one of my books, another great present idea that is absolutely free is simple: post a review.
So Happy Holidays! And thanks for all your support!
Here we go again. People are still debating whether a make-believe character can be a color other than their own.
The Mall of America — you know that place, America? Home of the widest variety of people on the planet? — anyway, the Mall has a Santa Claus this year who isn’t white, and that is making racists’ heads spin.
Many conservatives cannot stand the idea. Ronald Reagan would have never stood for it. 
(Here, of course, is where I insert a picture of Mr. T performing as Santa at the White House in the Reagan administration. Come on, you all knew that was coming.)
Santa is, of course, based on St. Nicholas, who was from Turkey, and thus was a darker skinned middle eastern man (just like Jesus!).
The idea that a fictional character like Santa must be white fits in with the conservative bubble, where everything involves them and has to fit into their world view or it either doesn’t exist (climate change, evolution) or it is changed to be just like them (Jesus and Santa).
But it’s not just Santa. I’ve seen science fiction geeks get all crazy when someone suggests that Superman could be black. “But he’s not!” they scream.
Well why not? Geez, he’s not even from earth. He could be green with yellow polka dots. Why would that distract from truth, justice, and the American way? (OK, well, admittedly it would make it harder to pose as mild-mannered Clark Kent…)
There are indeed instances where the race or gender or sexual orientation of a fictional character is important to the story — but if it’s not, who cares? Why does it matter one bit what race Santa is?
For that matter, artistic license allows you to change the race of real people. Look at Hamilton, the wildly successful play. There was a conscious choice to cast people of all races to make an artistic statement even while the story itself tried to be accurate. So what? It’s art. Enjoy it and stop insisting that everything has to revolve around you.
Look how happy this kid is and how he doesn’t care about the Mall of America Santa’s race
Welcome, Trump supporters! To truly tell if you belong in our group, please acknowledge the following:
(a) Clinton would have been beholden to Goldman Sachs if she had been elected since she gave them speeches! (b) I’m so glad Trump has appointed a Goldman Sachs employee to oversee the economy for us.
(a) Clinton should be locked up because she used a private server for her emails. (b) David Patraeus is a perfect candidate for Secretary of State, because who cares if he used his private server for emails and shared them with his mistress and was convicted for it?
(a) Trump will bring about a new era of law and order! (b) There’s nothing wrong with putting people with criminal records in charge of our government.
(a) Clinton violated campaign finance laws and tried to steal the election — I don’t have any evidence but I know it’s true! (b) The 1,000 cases of campaign finance violations the FEC charged Trump with are meaningless and minor.
(a) The people have spoken and they want major change — they want Donald Trump as President! (b) It doesn’t matter that he was beaten by a larger margin of popular votes than any candidate in years, because what the people want doesn’t matter anyway, it’s all about states.
(a) Clinton doesn’t support the troops and that’s why we didn’t want her. (b) You don’t have to be a veteran to understand the troops, so there’s nothing wrong with a guy who got a bunch of deferments from the army being President and having that person appoint Sarah Palin, a woman with no military experience whatsoever, for head of Veteran’s Affairs.
See? It’s easy! All you have to do is hold two completely contradictory opinions without having the slightest bit of self-consciousness of being a hypocrite, and then you, too, can be a Trump Supporter!
Freedom of Speech is meaningless if it only protects speech we all like.
Trump, soon to be known as “the Tweeting President,” has declared that people should be jailed for burning the American flag. 
People who claim to be patriots (but who don’t quite grasp the concept) are cheering him on, pointing out that burning the flag is an insult to America and the veterans who have fought for what the flag stands for.
Well, duh. Of course burning a flag is insulting. So is standing on a corner with a sign saying “God Hates Fags.” They know it’s insulting when they do it. That’s why they do it.
But America has thicker skin than Trump, who spends more time thinking about how much he can’t stand Saturday Night Live than he does going to necessary intelligence briefings.* America knows that we can take the insults, because we’re better than that.
And we know that if we start banning speech we don’t like, then it may be our speech they come after next. The Founding Fathers knew that when they wrote the 1st Amendment. The Supreme Court knows that, as they have ruled many times. You have to protect speech we hate. Speech we all agree with doesn’t need protecting.
So if you really believe in freedom, if you really are a patriot, then mean it. Stand for what the Constitution guarantees. Don’t make exceptions.
Don’t be a thin-skinned baby who can’t take an insult — you know, like the immature child that a minority of us chose to lead us.
“The Electoral College was set up with a specific purpose in mind and we should do what the Founding Fathers want,” people say to me whenever I argue for getting rid of it.
Well, fine. If your desire is to do what the Founding Fathers wanted, then we’ll need to change a few things.
Of course, in those days where it could literally take weeks to travel from state to state, each state was much more independent and unique, almost like the way the European Union is now. We were less a country than a collection of independent states (which is why we are called the “United States of America” and not just “America”).
That changed quickly. People started seeing the President as the leader of all the people and not as just some figurehead off there in the distance. (Seriously, does anyone know who the leader of the European Union is?)
And the states started having elections to choose this leader. Congress decided on a date for these elections — because that’s not in the Constitution either — and soon, the popular vote winner in that state decided who the electors were. By 1824, this led to the election of Andrew Jackson, exactly the kind of person the Electoral College was set up to prevent getting into the White House. Thus, within forty years of the writing of the Constitution, while some of the Founding Fathers were alive, we had already moved away from the original intent of the Electoral College.
So for those of you who say we should keep it in order to honor what the Founding Fathers intended: You’re 200 years too late.
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