Sick of the Jewish Hate – by Jon LaForce

I am going to be rather un-Christlike for a moment. I am also not apologizing.

ARE ALL OF YOU DONE HATING ON THE JEWS AND/OR ISRAEL ALREADY? 

*takes a deep breath*

For most of the last… oh let’s say ten years now, it’s slowly ramped up, till I can’t scroll through five facebook posts without seeing somebody going off about “Israel is suborning our government”, “the Jews really run everything in X” (X indicating Hollywood/Movie industry or some other area involving major capital expenditure), “AIPAC owns Trump and the Pentagon,” in a bizarre network of enmeshed conspiracy theories so overlapping I might as well be looking at a Full Stack from IHOP dressed in a syrup made of arsenic, cyanide, and Polonium-210.

And I don’t understand why. Why point the finger at them? What do you gain from it? What has pointing the finger at them, without anything more than supposition, done for your life? Are you happier? Are you wealthier? Did you unlock the secret to immortality?

If your answer to any of the above is “No” or “I have gained nothing,” then why do you persist in this nonsense? Are you no better than a dog returning to their vomit? Are you a mindless animal subject to whatever bestial flights of fancy pass through your skull?

“But Jon, what about AIPAC?”

What about it? It’s no different than the NAACP in that regard, or the NRA, or any other politically motivated organization. Until you figure out how to get the money out of politics for EVERYBODY, we’re stuck with them. Figure out a solution or stop whining, because you have yet to help. 

Things got more agitated after the events of 7 October, 2023. Now, I don’t doubt that IDF personnel have done some dumb crap in the course of that conflict. It’s physically impossible for that not to have happened. However, I am also objective enough to understand why that would happen. 

See, it’s bad enough that Hamas decided to engage in an unprovoked assault. But the prep work for this was massive. And I don’t just mean the initial engagement. I mean the backside, where Hamas fighters were posting snuff videos they filmed during the course of their attacks, to websites specifically set up for this purpose, showing themselves engaged not only in the most vile forms of SA imaginable, but mutilation of still-living victims and corpses, infanticide, geronticide, the works. They openly bragged about their depravity. 

Imagine being the parent who’s safe in that moment, but worried about your daughter at the music festival. Then you get a text message from her. But it’s not the sweet reassurance that she’s safe. It’s a video of her being tortured. The last living memory you have of that precious child you have loved and raised across the last 16, 17 years is her being tortured to death. The last memory of her voice is the sound of her screaming in agony and terror before she’s beheaded on camera. 

Imagine what that does for one’s psyche. 

Now, imagine that writ large across a nation. I’ve known about Hamas’ actions in the days after, for a couple years now, thanks to my own determination to stay educated on armed conflict and it’s evolution. Some days, I wish I didn’t know. I despise any who would enable such behavior, for the sheer evil which it is. I have zero qualms, as a Christian, judging them fit only for Hell and eternal damnation. 

As a sidenote, considering all of the buildup which occurred, how did nobody over in Gaza decide that maybe they should warn their neighbors, to stop this tragedy? How did nobody in Gaza look at Hamas and decide “ya know, I think it’s time to stop the lunatics before people start tossing bombs and artillery” and start eliminating Hamas fighters? From what numbers can be found, roughly 7,000 militant fighters decided to do this. In Gaza at that time, the demographic breakdown allows for 480,313 military aged males between 15 and 64 (not including the militants). Given a sufficient volume of AKs and ammo, nobody associated with Hamas leaves Gaza except in a body bag. Had the Palestinians handled their business on 5 and 6 October, I severely doubt the Israelis would’ve stopped them. And the world could’ve been spared this awful tragedy.

I can understand why the Israeli response has been what it has been. Do I agree with all of it? No. But I don’t need to. Nor do I need to condemn it. Neither of those are my job.

But to try blaming all of the world’s woes on Israel, to try suggesting that somehow a nation smaller than the Greater Los Angeles area, with half the population, is magically running the world via a cabal of yarmulkes and kippahs, is either the height of lunacy, or the world is collectively the biggest collection of bitches in the multi-millenium spanning period of human existence. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. I already know where I stand. A  whole lot of you need to off your cope trains of believing every single conspiracy theory which comes along so you can feel better about yourself and act so petulantly smug.

Theologically, it still makes no sense to be so angry, bitter, and vindictive against the Jews. I know, somebody wants to run to the comments and say “But Jon, the Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus of Nazareth!”

No kidding. I hadn’t noticed.

“But Jon, you’re Mormon, why do you care about what happens to the Jews?” 

Maybe I like reuben sandwiches. 

Maybe I have friends who are Jews.

Maybe I served in uniform alongside Jews. 

Maybe I remember that our Blessed Savior was Himself a Jew, born in Bethlehem of the house of David out of the tribe of Judah and a descendant of Abraham through Jacob. 

Maybe I remember something more about what it means to be a Christian. 

He prophesied the coming destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in Matthew 23:37 with the unfortunate epithet: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”

But just as He spake concerning the destruction and the Diaspora to follow, so also did He declare that in the fulness of time He would He redeem His people of the House of Israel and fulfill the covenant made through Abraham regarding the physical and spiritual salvation of his lineage. Some will argue that doctrinally, only a spiritual gathering exists. I say this is false. Remember that his apostles openly asked him after his resurrection in Acts 1:6-7 “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.”

In plain English: “It will happen, but it is not your place to know that now.” He would go on to explain the necessity of their ministry proclaiming his resurrection and the redemption of all mankind through His infinite and eternal atonement, “unto the uttermost part of the earth.”

Now, in Deuteronomy chapter 28, we get a promise from the Lord to the whole Host of Israel regarding their obedience to His commandments, first with a blessing and then with a curse if they should prove themselves unfaithful. This warning is repeated throughout the Old Testament (1 King 9:7-8, Jeremiah 24:9, and Psalms 44:14). We see the fulfillment of that in these days.

Now, are you ready for something mind-blowing?

Just because Christ said it would happen does not mean you personally need to contribute to the hate or the noise.

Did He call you by name and say “You must hate these people, revile them at every turn, excuse every evil committed against them, and blame them for all the world’s woes?”

Or did He, whom we as Christians claim to be Our Lord and Savior, lay down the expectation that we act with kindness and compassion toward all? 

“And who is my neighbor?”

Ponder those words. And think then upon our Master’s admonition at the conclusion of the parable regarding the Good Samaritan.

“Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?

And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.”

Did He command the apostles to raise up an army and avenge His death in blood and fire? Or did He command them to preach the new and everlasting gospel, performing baptism for the remission of sins, confirming the gift of the Holy Ghost upon all who would receive it, encouraging all to become perfect, even as our Father which is in heaven is perfect, “that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” 

What have we been commanded to do? Can we bring about true conversion to Christ through hate and spite? Or must it come from a place of genuine care and true charity?

In the end, whether you do it for political grandstanding reasons, or because you think they’ve got it coming by way of theology, you’re in error. You want to hold specific individuals guilty for their own trespasses? That’s fine. But to try damning and condemning an entire nation for their religion, to try justifying the atrocities committed upon their people, as so many of you have, is every bit wrong. You cannot justify your language or your behavior any longer. 

Be better.

Sorry for being so late — this actually is germane — but I’m still recovering from stupid infection and also not sleeping very well.

Why is this germane? Because words are still not flowing easily — in case you haven’t noticed the blog has been relatively sparse — but I got “poetry” or in this case song lyrics first. This is fascinating to me, at least from a “how my brain works” perspective, since I originally started in writing with poetry, and it’s the family disease, even more so than for normal Portuguese. (I’m totally going to blame the Irish contribution to my DNA.)

Anyway, as you guys know — well, I don’t remember if I wrote it on a post or in comments, so you might not — we had a mini-family-reunion (Because we’re a mini-family) over the weekend, and therefore time to sit at the keyboard was low, but I managed nine songs, seven of which have music and three of which have videos (but not published on youtube yet due to not sleeping much and have to do some house stuff.))

While I was setting one to music I realized there were some words that kick me in the… well, that seem hard wired to the core of my being. Take the line (from the song about the duel at the Troz clan reunion, for those who have read the book) “Instead, he drank his shattered honor/And spent it on his rage.“

I used those words advisedly, because “shattered honor” isn’t even an image in my mind. it’s just a kick to a very ancient part of my being that brings up an immediate emotional reaction.

I won’t pretend this is innate. I know exactly what implanted that button in me. To wit, I almost called this post “words my father taught me.” Words like honor and dignity, like ancestral, like ancient, like duty reverberated through my father’s voice like a bell, imbuing them with qualities to which Western Civilization (all human civilization to be fair, but Western for sure and with certain resonance) aspires, and which made it what it is.

Words like that go back. All the way back to the dawn of civilization. They call each of us to things outside ourselves, things that make the individual act and work for things greater than our very short lifespan.

To an extent — understand — they are very strong for me because my father is MADE of them. I don’t know what he would be without those, but judging by myself, nothing good.

Yes the words can be weaponized for evil too. Of course they can. The strongest things in human nature can. But when properly employed, and particularly when combined with the values of Judeo Christianity, they are why men (and some women) will stand between their beloved home and war’s desolation, why a mother will voluntarily starve to death to feed her kids, why men and women will subsume their own desires and needs for those of the people in their keeping and under their care, why a naturally dishonorable person will bear up and act honorable so not as to dishonor those who raised him/her and who taught her/him better.

Properly employed they are the very building blocks of civilized behavior, of what raises us above the appetites we share with dogs (to quote Rex Stout) and the common greed we share with roving nomads who despoil settled communities.

And the words themselves have weight and — as I said — bypass all rational thought to get us to do the right thing in situations when there is not much time to think. As I said, for me, it seems to reach back, ALL THE WAY BACK to the pineal gland, the oldest structure in our brain.

But they are not genetic. Civilization isn’t genetic. It might seem like that, because culture almost acts like it. The things we learned very early, before we consciously could learn anything are almost ineradicable. But they are not. The weight needs to be installed, and it normally is. Through songs and lullabies, through stories told in early childhood, through your father reading you Roman poetry (pfui), through conversations overheard amid adults.

Where that’s missing, where the expedient and the “smartness” of despoiling and tricking others is most admired, civilized culture unravels. And not all the modern appliances, not all the lighting, not all the buildings will save you from ruin and barbarism.

We’re in the fourth generation largely raised by strangers, as women have been told their highest calling is as corporate drones, and men have been convinced their highest call is as tom cats and consumers and only a fool raises his own kids.

Honestly, it’s puzzling — particularly for a time-capsule woman like me — to contemplate how well civilization has held when the words of power have been ridiculed and destroyed.

It’s like for over a hundred years people have been running around chopping at the columns holding up the roof. I’m amazed so much of the roof still stands.

Culture is very difficult to eradicate. Particularly culture that deeply implanted and that old.

But when my generation, the grandparent-age, largely doesn’t remember, the roof starts buckling.

It doesn’t help that the left keeps attacking words, though honestly at this point they’re just silly. They think meritocracy means “group merit” aka head counting of “under-represented minorities.” And of course the utterly despicable Maureen Galindo has tried to claim that Zionists are somehow “anti-Semites.”

But more importantly, we LET them take the words, by not installing them early and often. In our defense few of us had them installed.

It’s time to bring them back. Not by just so stories, no. But by making sure the stories we tell are seen through the lens of civilization. And by raising our own kids (or other people’s kids who need it) and by taking an interest in making sure that civilization goes on.

As always, it won’t be easy, and I’m not pretending it is. But in the long term, if we want civilization to go on we must rescue history, all the way back, and make sure it’s known. And we must make sure those of us with worst impulses have reason to behave in the best way. Because the nature of humans is what it is, and some will always be born despicable. The more of those we raise to be good people the more secure civilization is.

Do, please try, to snatch brands from the fire. Lest the world burn.

COMPLETELY UNAVOIDABLE SELF PROMOTION:

I have a bunch of books on the Based Book Sale. Three of them are NML’s three volumes, which if you buy them now will cost you $3 total. I don’t intend to do this often because, well, it’s expensive (I get about 33c.) But I felt compelled to do it now, so… I’d take advantage of it if I were on the other side of the screen.

No Man’s Land: Volume 1 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)
No Man’s Land: Volume 2 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)
No Man’s Land: Volume 3 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)
Draw One In The Dark (The Shifter Series Book 1)
Death of a Musketeer (The Musketeers Mysteries Book 1)
Done With Mirrors: A Collection of Short Stories (Sarah A. Hoyt’s Short Story Collections)

High school English teachers get obsessed with fairly minor aspects of literature. One perennial favorite is “Theme,” and this leads to hours of frustration in class as teachers struggle to make a room full of bored students understand — let alone care about — the theme of a story. Moby Dick is about Man versus Nature, or the sin of Pride, or the nature of obsession, or some damned thing like that. The Great Gatsby is about social class, or the nature of identity, or the moral corruption of the 1920s, or maybe about giant eyes watching you.

          The students come away convinced that literature is either filled with hidden secrets they’ll never be smart enough to understand, or that literature is full of plonkingly obvious messages and it’s a bunch of hooey not worth understanding.

          The funny thing is that English teachers — and let me note here that my experience was in a very good school with amply qualified teachers — focus on theme and message but ignore a lot of the mechanics of telling a story. I don’t think any of my English classes talked about dramatic structure, or narrative voice, or how to create a scene. It’s as if we were studying automobile repair and the instructor spent all his time telling us about different kinds of fuel injector systems without really going into why you need fuel in the first place.

          In recent years I’ve taught in a summer program at Smith College, trying to guide a dozen bright high school girls through how to create a science fiction story over the course of two weeks. I think I’m learning as much as they do. In the process I’ve had to rediscover what all those topics that bored me in high school English are really for. And the biggest revelation has been theme.

          Theme isn’t (only) a way for high school teachers to frustrate students by having them try to discover some secret hidden lore in every story. It’s a cheat code for writers.

          Let me explain: the process of writing involves a little physical effort, chiefly moving your fingers around on a keyboard. But it does demand a lot of mental effort. Every word on the page represents a decision. And decisions are hard.

          Seriously! What neurobiologists call “executive function” involves multiple regions of the brain, including much of the prefrontal cortex, the cerebellum, and parts of the midbrain. Lots of cells are active when you make a decision. And when cells are working, be they brain cells or muscles, they burn energy. They generate waste. They get tired. There’s a reason why we make bad decisions when we’re tired. Your brain literally doesn’t work as well.

          For experienced writers, the specific words in a sentence don’t require a huge amount of decision-making — rather the way that the details of driving a car become essentially “muscle memory” for an experienced driver, so that one can drive while having a conversation, or planning a novel. But plenty of decisions remain even for writers who can crank out sentences by reflex: what’s going to happen in a scene, what scenes go in the chapter, and so on. And those decisions take work.

          Themes are a way to streamline your decision-making process by narrowing the scope of things you have to decide about. I’ve always said that “constraints cause creativity” and it’s true. Faced with a blank sheet and infinite possibilities, most people can’t create anything. Give them a set of constraints and then the creative spark ignites. That’s what story prompts are: constraints, so that you can apply your limited executive function ability to a defined task instead of wasting time and effort trying to decide what task to do.

          A theme is a ready-made set of constraints. Let me use my new novel The Ishtar Deception as an example. As the title might suggest, the theme is deception. My main character, Sabbath Okada, is a secret agent sent by the government of Deimos to the megacity of Ishtar on Venus in the year 10,000. The life of a covert operative is naturally full of deception, and having that as my theme made all my story choices very simple: nothing can be as it seems. Every action is a deception of some kind, every relationship a betrayal. Even the betrayals aren’t what they appear to be.

          This actually makes the job a lot easier. In every interaction between characters, I already knew that there was deception going on. That decision was made for me when I picked my title. Following the famous guideline of “who, what, where, when, how, and why,” I had already made many of those choices before any scene began. “Who” was everybody. “What” was lying. I managed to off-load a third of my decision-making effort to my theme!

          Along the way I finally understood the distinction between a theme and a message. A theme is a process, a message is one possible outcome. In my novel there are many deceptions going on, for many different reasons. Some are justified, some are silly, some are deadly. Having deception as my theme meant I could explore the various kinds of deceptions people commit, and the reasons for them. Whereas if I started with a message — “Lying is bad,” perhaps — then all I could do is state it, over and over.

          So don’t be afraid of themes. They weren’t invented by high school English teachers to fill up class time, they were invented by working storytellers as part of the universal tool kit for creating stories. When Homer was trying to figure out what would happen to Odysseus next, he just had to decide “who is going to violate the rules of hospitality in this section, and how?” He knew his theme. Pick a good one for yourself and half your work is done.

James Cambias’s newest novel is The Ishtar Deception, the latest in his “Billion Worlds” series of far-future hard science fiction adventures from Baen Books, due for release June 2 of 2026. You can read his blog at www.jamescambias.com.

I don’t know if the rest of ya’ll are 100% clear on the weird workings of my marriage when it comes to politics. Not that there was a reason for you to be, but for this post it is necessary to understand it.

When we first got married Dan was well…. in eighties terms, a Reagan democrat. I shoved, argued and seduced him considerably to the AMERICAN-right from there, but he retained the conviction that “politics isn’t quite nice.” So, 99% of the time, he’s a LIV (Low Information Voter). His instincts are in the right place, but he pays zero attention to politics until it obtrudes on his consciousness, sometime around three months before an election. And then he starts by asking me a lot of questions before proceeding to research his options. Because he assumes I know what they’re up to, and he doesn’t.

His department in this marriage is popular culture outside politics, movies, songs and also what the heck is going on in the neighborhood. When I wave incoherently at a house he goes “Oh, Joe and Tish, yeah, they’re nice. Three kids, and their dog has been sick.” I don’t understand how he does this, as he doesn’t even talk to neighbors that often, but he knows them and they all like him. (I think some of them think I don’t speak very good English, considering how hard I avoid them.) He also keeps an eye on the kids unless it’s something complicated, in which case I do, and figures out money and investments.

My job is almost solely politics. (Okay, and cleaning and cooking, because I’m faster and better at it. As well as minor home maintenance and gardening.)

… Younger son and I are ROUTINELY sucker punched by his reaction to something. Like we’ll be ranting about oh, Swallwell, and he says “What an unfortunate name. Is he a Republican?” Or he finds out that Trump’s Mar-a-largo was raided two years after it happened, and is hopping mad, and gets upset when we go “Oh, yeah, that” because well…. we’ve processed it already.

That was at least the deal until recently.

This morning I woke up to news that a CNN poll (CNN – Snort, giggle) said the Republicans are in trouble for the midterms. Also that everyone is displeased with the Trump economy.

Okay. Maybe this is true? Who the heck actually knows? I’ve not been particularly impressed with polls in a long time, and I take them to be “Battle space preparation for how much fraud the left intends to perpetrate.” I remain convinced that without fraud, the left would routinely get a solid 25% of the votes, and half of those would be people too old to know better.

As for the economy…. It’s better than under Biden. I don’t feel we’re about to crash. BUT I UNDERSTAND people’s short memories and impatience.

And to give people their due, I wish Trump would stop making like Obama and Biden and drawing red lines for Iran that he later erases. Look, I understand his not wanting to destroy the production capacity for oil, because of how that affects the world, but it’s obvious we’re going to have to, so do it quickly, then get back to real stuff, and we’ll cope. (Respectfully, Mr. President. Truly.)

BUT again, for decades now polls have been more corrupted than voting, and you know what voting is like.

I’m not seeing any of this hostility to Republicans here on the ground, or amid my acquaintance (note I didn’t say my friends, who tend to be on the right. Acquaintance is more mixed.) There is in fact a growing horror among all but the crazier about what the democrats have become.

And then there’s this sense things have shifted.

I suspect even if the left wins the elections, they’ll find it’s a phyrric victory. I actually expected them to b eable to do a lot more while they had 4 years of autopen, but instead what they actually accomplished only served to hurt them more in people’s eyes.

I think Trump has created a lot of change not just in how things are done, but in the culture. So where the “left” is now is not where it was among the people. (Among the politicians it’s apparently now the CCP but that’s something else.)

How changed? Well, there’s my beloved LIV. You guys don’t know how I’ve suffered. I’ll sit here, next to him, setting up the memes, chuckling to myself. And of course he asks why. And I show it to him. And then I have to do a half an hour lecture on “How we got here” before he gets why the meme is funny. (Unless it’s a non-political meme.)

And then there was last week. We started with the Rubio as Helen of Troy. And he GOT IT immediately. Not just the Helen of Troy (his dept in the household includes movies, after all) but he GOT THE RUBIO thing. Immediate belly laugh. And as though this weren’t enough, he got three others, immediately.

Our younger son did due diligence in searching the basement for pods. There were none.

Here’s the thing though, you guys have no idea what a seismic shift this is. I keep telling you we know how outrageous the left is because we’re political animals and extremely online. That we have to have patience witht he normal, let alone low information voter.

BUT– Oh, he’s still a LIV compared to me. But–

Maybe the LIVs are paying more attention now. And maybe the Earth has moved (for everyone. ;) )

Just a ray of hope as you face all of the left’s attempts at discouraging you well before the elections.

So. Don’t be discouraged. Get out there and work instead. Because the current left is worse than ever (and that’s saying a lot.) And we have a future to work on.

Be not afraid.

Sorry, I completely forgot to tell you:
This is the last day to enter based booksale for the summer.
No Man’s Land was their #2 bestseller last time!
So, you know….

Anyway:

https://basedbooksale.substack.com/

This has been an extraordinarily busy weekend and today got away from me.
I promise to be back tomorrow.

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. By clicking through and buying (anything book-related, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion. Remember though all of these submissions are from people willing to be associated with this blog. So if you’re trying to buy from people who don’t hate you, this is a good place to start.– SAH

Book Promo

FROM PAM UPHOFF: Mercenaries.

A hundred and seventy years before the Fall of the Alliance . . .

Anatoli Vyatkin and Wolf Offen have graduated from college into a major economic slump, and no job offers at all.

So why not check out some property Wolf inherited? Previously rented to a mercenary company, a desperate mayor from a world under threat mistakes them for real mercenaries . . . well, why not give it a try?

FROM KYRA HALLAND: Bad Hunting (Daughter of the Wildings Book 2)

Once a hunter of renegade mages, now he’s the one being hunted.

Silas and Lainie have defeated the dangerous rogue mage who brought Lainie’s hometown to the brink of open warfare. But the town of Bitterbush Springs isn’t big enough for two wizards, or even one, so they’ve hit the trail. Married now and on the wrong side of the mages’ law themselves, they just want to find a good bounty and stay out of trouble.

Then Silas gets word that another mage hunter down in the dry and desolate Bads is onto something big and needs backup. The money is good, and Silas can’t turn down a fellow hunter in need, so he and Lainie head into the badlands, only to discover one mage hunter dead and another one missing. And if they can’t find the killer hiding in the vast, trackless desert, Silas could be next.

Join Silas and Lainie in an adventure filled with magic, danger, and romance and discover the wonders and mysteries of the Wildings in the epic romantic fantasy-western series Daughter of the Wildings.

Content note: language, violence, and mild to moderate sensual content.

BY ED LACEY, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Blonde Bait (Annotated): A hard-boiled noir thriller

Mickey Whalen lived on his boat and bummed around the Caribbean all by himself, until he found a woman alone, on a sandbar, with a suitcase full of money. He fell for her, hard, even as he was trying to figure out who, or what, the hell she was running from!

• This iktaPOP Media edition includes an introduction giving historical and genre context to the novel.

FROM RACONTEUR PRESS: Crashed Landings: Stories of First Contact, Strange Arrivals & Cosmic Adventure (Raconteur Press Anthologies)

Ten writers. Ten crashed landings. Zero warnings.
In Crashed Landings, editor David Badurina has assembled ten all-new stories inspired by the group-adventure films of the 1980s and ’90s —The Goonies, Explorers, Stand by Me, The Sandlot–where a strange event throws mismatched kids together and nothing is ever quite the same afterward.
A boy and his bully chase a fallen meteorite through the woods — only to find out it belongs to someone else. Three friends on prom night stumble onto a robot that fell out of the sky, and have to put it back together before the town pays the price. A fungal alien heart crash-lands in the forest and starts rewriting the wildlife. A teen grief camp gets an unexpected visitor from a crashing seed-pod. A space trucker with a time-traveling rig and a trunk full of contraband coffee recruits a girl with a slingshot and a very good reason to disappear. A boy in Kansas realizes the thing living in his skin isn’t quite him anymore. Bird-like aliens help a crash-landed human pilot evade an enemy patrol on a planet that isn’t Earth. And more.
These stories share a DNA: emotion, banter, wide-eyed wonder, and the kind of friendship that only happens when the world gets weird enough to need it. Good guys and bad situations. Stakes that feel real. Characters you’ll root for. Endings you’ll remember.
If you grew up watching kids on bikes outrun something impossible, and you’ve been waiting for that feeling in prose, Crashed Landings is for you.
Ten stories. One anthology. Infinite crash sites.

FROM FRED PHILLIPS: Sons of Gold and Fire: A Boy, a Dragon, and an Impossible Quest

From the award-winning Gold and Fire Series — Winner of the 28th Annual Critters Readers’ Poll (1st Place, Tied), Finalist for the 2026 Imadjinn Awards Best Middle Grade, and Nominee for the 2025 Kearsells Indie Book Awards.

Aron’s brothers are gone, snatched by goblins in the night. His father and his knight-master rode after them into the mountains and never came back. The only one who can fix this is Aron — and the great golden dragon who is his best friend.

But Doubloon has been snared in a wizard’s enchanted trap, held fast by a net that his own fire cannot burn through. With his family imprisoned and his dragon helpless, Aron is out of options.

His only move is across the mountains. Alone. No harness. No wings. No backup — except a smart-mouthed goblin who talks, a couple with dark ideas about adoption, a sabrecat who takes his last strip of jerky, and one massive platinum dragon who actively despises humans.

Sons of Gold and Fire is a quest story that never lets up. Packed with monsters, narrow escapes, and a friendship between a boy and a talking goblin that nobody planned but everybody needed, this is the kind of book that stays with you long after the last page.

Perfect for fans of fast-moving adventure with heart. Ages 8–14.

Series reading order: Book 1 — Dreams of Gold and Fire Book 2 — Sons of Gold and Fire

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: Of Land and Magic

Something hides under the land …
Knights guard secrets …
Three sisters watch a new world and old evil …
Stone and metal conceal a surprise. Or do they?

Four short tales of fantasy, set in places as different as central Spain and the cool valleys of Austria, to the deserts of Arizona and a city like and unlike our own.

FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY: PLANTING LIFE: Shut the Kingdom (Near Future Science Fiction Adventure)

Nominated for the 2026 Prometheus Award for Best Novel.

The road to Mars has to start somewhere. It might as well be central Virginia.

Jack Darien scorns his parents’ path. After the disaster at his father’s Mars settlement, the high school senior scraps both his lifelong interest in space exploration and his college plans. Even his rescue of a college student from assault doesn’t make him see his own future any differently.

Jack becomes obsessed, however, when one strange comment from the attacker draws him to unravel secrets at the former Superfund site that is now Webb University, the school where his returning father teaches and eco-restoration reigns. What starts for Jack as a distraction from thinking of his future turns into a dangerous journey that puts him, his mother, and sister at risk. As for his father, Jack decided long ago the man was on his own.

Jack’s determination to chart his future clear of his father’s failures hits a snag when he learns the school’s hidden mystery. Unfortunately, those determined to bring Webb down learn it, too, and ratchet up their own efforts toward Webb’s destruction.

Planting Life is an immersive young-adult science fiction adventure. If you like unearthing secrets, a dogged hero, and reckless courage under threat, you’ll love Laura Montgomery’s near future coming-of-age saga.

FROM MACKEY CHANDLER: I Never Applied for This Job (Family Law Book 8)

Lee seems to be getting a handle on this sovereign business. Mostly it is making sure you have exceptional people and then stay out of their way. She’s learning moderation a little at a time and commissioned a self programming AI who may be a he instead of an it.
Friendship is also a difficult process to master when you are torn between the standards of several species, but she manages to satisfy Badgers ideals, and her Human allies turn out to be very good friends too. A little working vacation with Jeff and April solidifies that bond and gives then a couple of adventures too. They really needed to check on the Bunnies and the Jeff had to teach the squids to keep their filthy tentacles off Lee.
Now if the Earthies would just stop trying to kill her, and they figure out how to deal with the impending death of money, maybe she can do some stuff again just for fun.

FROM DALE COZORT: Snapshot II: The Necklace of Time

For eighty million years, the Tourists have taken Snapshots of Earth, creating living replicas of continents. Life in the Snapshots quickly diverges from the real world, creating a universe where humans and animals from Earth’s history fly between Snapshots, exploring, fighting, and sometimes meeting their alternate history selves. In 2014, the Tourists create a Snapshot of North America in a snow-globe shaped artificial universe, linked like pearls on a necklace to other copied times and places. In that timeline, Simon Royale—a.k.a. Simon-2014— is a legendary best-selling author. When he was only seven-years-old, his sister mysteriously vanished. Simon-14’s writing—and the power in it—is born from his obsession with discovering what happened to her. But now, cut off from the life he’d known, he may never find out.US-53 isn’t really the past. Thanks to the Tourists, it’s a mutant off-shoot, the 1950s grown up and sneaky, with sharp elbows. In this version of the timeline, Simon Royale—a.k.a. Simon-53—is just an aspiring author with a trunk full of unpublished novels. Then the two worlds connect. For an ambitious publishing company, it looks like a golden opportunity for Simon-53 to leverage Simon-2014’s fame.Can the clashing versions of Simon Royale coexist in the unnaturally linked timelines? Simon-2014’s legal battle over the right to his own work and identity are the least of his worries. In the 1953 timeline, his sister is still alive. What made her disappear in one reality but survive in the other? Is something dangerous hidden in his memories or his first novel? As Simon inches closer to the truth, one thing is clear: it’s a secret someone is willing to kill to keep.

FROM ANNA FERREIRA: The Flight of Miss Stanhope: A Short and Sweet Regency Romance

Marianne Stanhope is in trouble. Her family is urging her to accept the attentions of a most odious suitor, so she turns to a gentleman of her acquaintance for aid. But Mr. Firth has his own reasons for assisting Miss Stanhope, and it falls to her childhood friend Mr. Killingham to convince her that she’s made a dreadful mistake.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Baying of the Hounds

In the world we know, Nikola Tesla’s Wardencliffe experiment proved a costly failure and was ultimately torn down for scrap. But what if things had gone differently and he pressed his work to completion? In a world similar to but unlike our own, Tesla completes his transmission tower. But when he turns it on, he discovers his calculations were incomplete. Some unknown factor has created a connection with another world with physical laws unlike our own. The commingling of curved and angular space has led to catastrophe. Now his greatest rival, Thomas Alva Edison, compels him to repair the damage. To do so, Tesla must make his way through a ruined city to the locus of the damage. And through his mind echoes the baying of unseen hounds. A short story originally published in the anthology Steampunk Cthulhu.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: No Man’s Land: Volume 1 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)

Because the promo must flow! (There will be clanker songs later)

Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.

On a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong. Catastrophically wrong.
Now technology indistinguishable from magic courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson, Envoy of the Star Empire—Skip to his friends— has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it all.
Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies, Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total destruction.
Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: tacit

No I haven’t gone Monarchist — snort, giggle — I’ve also not been replaced with a pod person.

However work on the second book of Chronicles of Lost Elly — NOT THE SECOND VOLUME, that’s out, the second book Orphans of the Stars — brought up the concept and then I ran into some stuff on Twitter, which made me realize there are instances of that — sort of — in our own world.

Okay, to some extent kingship, like all forms of government, is always “by consent”. Piss off enough people who are strong/rich enough to unseat you and you’re going to have a problem. (Communism, of course, solves that problem by making everyone not the dictator and henchmen poor and powerless. It’s a choice for them. Not the people. In that sense it’s most closely related to feudalism, and I suspect Europe would still be locked down in THAT if it weren’t for the Black Death upending everything.)

However in small enough or in some cases distributed enough (later) systems, the kingship is more by consent than not. This is particularly the case if the king doesn’t really have armies. Or does, but it’s no more than some of his vassals can command.

Which is the situation in Elly, because small, distributed population, primitive armament and some of the clans, say, or even rich tradesmen can command a larger force than the king’s dedicated “personal guard”. In primitive fighting the size of the army is a lot more important than the proficiency, to a point, so that’s that.

And the problem is since they are also more … um…. primitive in communications — which weirdly isn’t any or much different than the situation we’re in, where we have massively unreliable mass media, and a zillion small voices often contradictory or falling for Mass Media’s bs. — it means that any rumor that catches hold of the people, or acquires legs of some sort can mean the kingship will be toppled. If not by killing the king (which might or might not be difficult) by disengaging from him so completely that he might as well not be there.

They have in fact, in their very long history had several situations like that, when it then takes a strong and charismatic king, with an ability to use rumor and story to his advantage to become a king again in anything but name.

So, why was I thinking about that for any other reason than that I’m writing the book. Because it occurred to me that it applies in all sorts of ways in our world to things that aren’t exactly monarchies.

For instance the Papacy. There is a concerted campaign to discredit Pope Leo, against all possible sanity or sense. No, seriously, they are calling him “Obama’s Pope” when the man has more than once possibly stretched his neck out too far to signal “I’m not a leftist.” I covered some of it here on the blog, but yesterday I sort of lost it at instapundit and blasted one of my favorite blogs for a serious case of head in ass. Here.

Note I’m not defending Leo because I’m Catholic. I was one of the first/most prominent Catholic bloggers to make bear and Pope jokes about Francis the excessively woke. I like to think that even if I weren’t Catholic I’d be defending Leo. A) because it burns me when someone is accused of exactly the opposite of what they’re doing, thereby catching the same flak from the right he gets from the left. b) if the left really wants you to hate him that badly, then you probably shouldn’t. Particularly since he seems not to like commies.

And every time I do this someone is like “Well, then why doesn’t he come right out and say it?” Well, because he is a king by consent. Yes, once upon a time the pope had armies and could send them out on various punitive expeditions. But right now, um…. no. And frankly the lower offices can and often do ignore him. So he has to be agreeable enough that people don’t simply tune him out and strong enough that he can do something other than wear the crown. Or in the Pope’s case the funny hat thing.

(Oh, I suspect the reason for the campaign to discredit him is that Leo has already once come out against mass migration from the third world. And if he can carry or make that point bear fruit and convince third worlders they shouldn’t be doing this, a lot of grifters within the church structure lose their rice bowls. Not to mention a lot of other grifters not in the church, and oh, yeah, the people who hope to wholesale replace their electorate.)

Anyway, so that’s why he doesn’t come right out and say stuff.

However, while on that, I’ve been reading Roger L. Simon’s American Refugees book. Thank you to whoever linked it. I’m reading it for obvious reasons: I are one. And it’s a fascinating mix of matching my experience and places I giggle, because — I like Roger. He was my remote boss when I worked for PJM and though we never had much contact, I find him eminently readable and interesting but — liberals who got red pilled have some interesting illusions, like his idea that the left ever actually was for free speech, and it wasn’t a from-the-lips-out and no such things behind the scenes (like how they controlled mass media and kept conservatives away) thing.

Anyway, one of the things he ran into which we did also is the existence structures of power in the red states we moved to, some of which bear a striking resemblance to kingship by consent, because there’s really no reason for locals to put up with corrupt or incompetent petty pseudo-GOP people, except personal loyalty and “I remember when his daddy…”

I’m not in politics. Well, other than this blog, and the fictional politics in my books. But if I were, that would be a b*tch to deal with, particularly since we would be dealing with it as refugees/new comers, ie. handicapped by “y’all not from around here” and “You can’t just that because you just arrived.”

So, definitely to topple the petty small local kings, you need some kind of power: either local ties that allow you to say “yeah, and I wasn’t that impressed by his daddy, either” OR a rumor mill worthy of a dystopian novel. (Which to an extent is what the left employed to flip those petty kings on the right.)

Anyway, I really don’t have any other point except that I find people don’t understand this. We are so entrenched in an elective system that we assume everyone is able to behave like an elected leader.

While in fact, for those whose power is more granted by prestige and tradition, they have to be almost Machiavellic to manage to do anything they actually want to do.

And many are. But they baffle those watching them. Having figured it out, I wanted to share the insight.