According To Hoyt

*A minor update before your Tuesday-Sunday book promo. For those who saw me at ConFinement coughing and hacking and having trouble with the whole upper respiratory symptoms: I actually brought meds in the car for the trip in fear it would be doing that all the way home. And it was fairly horrible at the con, to the point I was always exhausted JUST from coughing. Spoiler: I stopped coughing completely about an hour into our car trip, and haven’t needed inhaler or cough syrup or any of it. I think the issues was a combination of very strong scent soap booth (Don’t get me wrong. It’s that lady’s right to sell them, and the booth was very popular. I use scented soap myself. It was just a LARGE booth and therefore overwhelming) and some ijit smoking pot near our room. I’ll note here that since the latest bout of thyroid I have ALMOST no sense of smell, but I smelled pot in the elevator and apparently it was very obvious on our floor. Again, for the record, whatever, and there are actually people who use it for medical conditions, but if you’re in a hotel would you have mercy on us poor asthmatics (I can’t smelll it but my bronchi and lungs still respond, and I’m deathly allergic) and use comestibles or whatever. Thank you. My lungs thank you. Anyway, if you were worried, I’m perfectly fine. Of course I started coughing while writing this, because my brain is like that. But it will stop as soon as I do the rest of the promo.

HOWEVER, I SPENT A LOT OF TIME HIDING IN MY ROOM, BECAUSE EXHAUSTED, SO I MIGHT HAVE ESCAPED CONTAGION — FINGERS CROSSED — BUT APPARENT THE FLU WAS MAKING THE ROUNDS OF THE CON. SO IF YOU’RE FEELING ODD, GET TESTED. – SAH*

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, by clicking through and buying (anything, 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.– SAH

BY JOHN VAN STRY: Lock & Load (Valley of Fire)

In the heart of the Fire Nebula, war rages across the stars. Crown Prince Wolf Alexander-Morgan and Princess Mariella, forged in the crucible of combat and mech warfare, stand at the forefront of a desperate counterstrike against a ruthless empire that has already struck at their homeworlds. With elite squadrons, aging battleships revived from slumber, and hard-won alliances hanging by a thread, they prepare to carry the fight straight to the enemy’s stronghold.

But victory demands more than firepower. As hidden truths surface, old grudges resurface, and the line between ally and threat blurs, Wolf and Mariella must navigate treacherous politics, overwhelming odds, and the weight of their own destinies. One wrong move could doom their kingdom—or end the war in flames.

Pulse-pounding space battles, brutal ground assaults, and the clash of crowns await in the explosive conclusion to the Valley of Fire trilogy. In a galaxy where loyalty is tested in fire, some legends are born… and others are extinguished.

FROM CEDAR SANDERSON: Tanager’s Fleet (The Tanager Book 3)

Captain Jem Raznick and the weary crew of the Tanager crave a moment’s peace after grueling evacuation runs across star systems. But spymaster Jade Star’s urgent summons shatters that hope, yanking them back to the fog-shrouded swamps of Boudreaux. Posing as orchid hunters, they must infiltrate the murky underbelly of the port to find missing operative Dilar Restin, and the explosive secrets he’s uncovered, before it’s too late.

What begins as a covert rescue spirals into a deadly trap: buried family betrayals surface, pirate shadows close in, and unexpected allies emerge from the mist with their own hidden agendas. Only when the true stakes are revealed, the culmination of Jade’s decades-long master plan, does the crew realize the galaxy itself hangs in the balance, with one wrong move dooming them all.

In this gripping space opera finale, Jem races to untangle a web of galactic deceit, protect his makeshift family, and ignite a defiant legacy. Heroism isn’t born in solitude. It is forged in the fierce, unbreakable unity that defies the encroaching void.

FROM SHANE GRIES: Battle Drills: Kill Zone

In the frozen kill zones of Tau Ceti IV, Terran Marine Private David Hernandez fights a brutal war against the relentless Kharkan hordes. But when peace shatters the battlefield in the most unexpected way, survival takes on a new meaning—one far from the front lines.

Years later, Hernandez joins the elite mercenaries of Jackson Solutions, trading fatigues for high-stakes contracts in the lawless Zone of Separation. Amid corporate betrayals, pirate raids, and shadowy alliances, he uncovers a conspiracy that could ignite interstellar chaos.

As loyalties fracture and enemies close in, Hernandez must master the deadliest battle drills of all: trust no one, and fight to the last breath.

FROM URNA SEMPER: The Pearl Crucible: A Dardana Fenek Mystery (Incidents on Iphigenia Book 4)

In Aulis, capital of the distant world Iphigenia, Dardana Fenek is a detective with more secrets than clients. Stumbling into a high-stakes murder investigation, she finds herself in a race against time to make her career—or end her life.
In a society where clones are property, and women are second-class citizens, Dardana lives on a knife’s edge. Can a detective with everything to lose solve the case of a lifetime? Or will enemies seen and unseen destroy her?
With her loyal partner and lover Barsina—an indentured clone girl won at cards—she finds conspiracies reaching from grimy Aulis markets to a desert archaeological dig. Complicating the case is handsome Ensign-Captain Mardonios, whose attraction to Dardana is matched by his dedication to justice.
As the clock ticks and a household of servants faces execution, Dardana confronts corrupt officials, a ruthless madam, and her own mysterious past to unveil the truth about a fifteen-hundred-year-old painting…

FROM JOE HUFFER: Hoosier Flats: A Novel of the Greatest Generation

In rural small-town 1930’s Indiana, a boy becomes a bootlegger– and a man too.

Fifteen-year-old Matt Wyatt knows the Depression is squeezing the life out of his family’s farm. When the Crawford clan offers his father a lifeline — cash in exchange for quiet runs of moonshine–Matt becomes the least-suspected bootlegger in Polk County. What starts as a thrill soon plunges young Matt into a world of violence, loyalty, and moral compromise.

Anchored by the girl who steals his heart, Matt navigates dusty back roads, outlaw justice, and the thin divide between right and wrong as one run goes terribly wrong and the consequences will follow him far beyond the Indiana flatlands he calls home.

Spanning the last days of Prohibition to the shock of Pearl Harbor and World War II, Hoosier Flats is a coming-of-age novel about duty, family, and the heavy price of growing up in hard times.

FROM JAKE BARTER: The Sniper

A debt of honor. A murdered son. A war that comes home.

Joseph Boghadair was once one of the U.S. Army’s deadliest snipers. Now retired and struggling to support his family, his life is shattered when his son is murdered.

With the justice system offering no answers, Boghadair turns to the one man who still owes him everything.

Paul Connors is the richest man in the world—though almost no one knows it. Years earlier, in Iraq, Boghadair saved Connors’ life. Now Connors intends to repay that debt, using resources and influence few people even realize exist.

What begins as a personal mission of revenge quickly uncovers a powerful conspiracy buried deep within the federal government. As Boghadair takes up the rifle once more, Connors brings overwhelming force to bear, pushing the conflict into the open and making secrecy impossible.

Each strike raises the stakes. Each move draws more attention. And once the war is declared, there’s no turning back.

The Sniper is an action-driven techno-political thriller about loyalty forged in war, justice pursued outside the system, and how far two men are willing to go when the enemy is no longer overseas—but at home.

FROM MOE LANE: Frozen Dreams (Tom Vargas Mysteries Book 1)

This is going to be the best post-apocalyptic high urban fantasy pulp detective novel you will read today!

Cin City. The tinsel crown of the magical Kingdom of New California – and Tom Vargas’s favorite place in the whole, wide world. Sure, as a Shamus he has to Clear a lot of Cases, listen to a lot of lies, and get battered and bruised in the process, but it’s worth it. Cin City is worth it.

But when trouble shows up as a dead mage at the Castle, he’s got to work fast and smart to save his city. New California doesn’t have mages, you see. And Cin City is safe for just as long as nobody can prove otherwise.

(Note: this book has a sequel, but it is not part of an epic fantasy trilogy.)

FROM CHARLI COX: The Fae Wars: Northwest Front

---

Fae Wars returns on a new front as war rages in the Pacific Northwest!

Corporal Erik Doherty isn’t some kind of special operations super soldier; he’s just an infantry grunt trying to get by in what was once the United States Army, now an enforcement arm of the Fae overlords. When orders come down from a chain of command more interested in boot licking their new masters than protecting American citizens, he has to make the choice. To serve and live, or run and die?

Ashleigh Greene is a teenage girl with a price on her head, the Fae looking for retribution for the killing of one of their nobles. As her hometown burns behind her, she flees into the mist shrouded forests of the Pacific Northwest, her family killed by dragon fire and her world destroyed.

On separate paths, each human comes face to face with a haunting legend that has lived for thousands of years. One that has been waiting, watching, and hating the old enemy that has finally returned. Together, they bring war to the Fae in a battle for honor and revenge.

Book seven in the best-selling Fae Wars series!

BY ED LACY, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Room to Swing (Annotated): The Pulp Noir Classic

Black private eye Toussaint Moore knew a murder frame-up when he saw one, especially when it was hung neatly around his neck. Instead of dawdling around New York waiting for the NYPD to arrest him for a murder he didn’t commit, he followed the one lead he had: the victim’s hometown in Ohio. Only a stone’s throw north of Jim Crow Kentucky. If he can’t find who wanted that white man dead, and quick, all he’s going to have left is room to swing!

Winner of the 1958 Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel by the Mystery Writers of America.

• This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction by D. Jason Fleming giving historical and genre context to the novel.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: On Account of a Dame (Timelines Universe Book 9)

Welcome to the New Jazz Age!

It’s the Roaring Twenties all over again — well — the 2120’s, that is. Where New York City has reverted to its Jazz Age roots of two centuries before. What’s missing? Prohibition, and gun control. What’s not missing? Tough guys, and the dames who (sometimes) love them. Gin joints. Speakeasies. Dance halls. The Social Register is still a thing, and the Beautiful People litter the society pages of the local hypernews sites.

Enter a typical gumshoe private detective — a member of that high society himself, yet a man who left society long ago for other pursuits. And his latest client, a rich young woman of leisure, who needs her new husband followed.

Throw in the recently-crowned queen of one of Chinatown’s tongs, a beautiful investment wizard from upstate, and a hundred million dollars in assets, and suddenly it’s all

On Account of a Dame

FROM JOHN MARTIN: Another Clever, Chimerical, and Charming Collection of 100 German (or at least Germanic) Words: Once again, Absolutely Informative, Completely Trivial, … Book of 100 German Words of the Day 2)

We’ve all seen the memes about that… crossword puzzle game being played in German, right? Well, here you have a collection of some of the most staggering linguistic morphological nightmares ever found in the wilds of German and Austrian newspapers, magazines, nature shows, legal documents, websites, and academic publications. All of these are to prove just how accurate those memes really were… no…. to prove how understated those memes really were. Along with the gigantic chimeras of the compound word world, there are some everyday vocabulary items you might actually use some day. Viel Spaß!

FROM JOHN BAILEY: Quade! Book I: The Titan Contract (The Quade Expeditions 1)

On Titan, survival isn’t guaranteed. Trust is even rarer.

Commander Elias Quade was preparing to retire.

Then the offer came.

A buried alien vault beneath the methane storms of Titan.
A sealed artifact no one has opened.
A private contract no one else will take.

The risk is extreme. The pay is exceptional.

But Quade quickly discovers he’s not alone.

A rival expedition—backed by the powerful Axiom Directorate—is already moving in. Corporate interference, sabotage, and cryovolcanic instability turn the mission into a race against time.

As drones fail, temperatures plummet, and the terrain fractures beneath their feet, Quade must rely on skill, discipline, and human resilience—not just machines—to survive.

What they recover will point to something far larger than a single artifact.

And someone is willing to reshape humanity’s future to control it.

The Titan Contract is the first novel in The Quade Expeditions, a hard science fiction survival series blending realistic space exploration, corporate rivalry, and high-stakes planetary danger.

Perfect for readers who enjoy:

• Competent protagonists
• Realistic technology
• Survival against hostile environments
• Moral tension without melodrama

The expedition begins here.

FROM KAREN MYERS: The Ways of Winter – A Virginian in Elfland (The Hounds of Annwn Book 2)

Book 2 of The Hounds of Annwn

TRAPPED BEHIND ENEMY LINES, CAN HE FIND THE STRENGTH TO DEFEND ALL THAT HE VALUES MOST, OR EVEN JUST TO SURVIVE?

It’s the dead of winter and George Talbot Traherne, the new human huntsman for the Wild Hunt, is in trouble. The damage in Gwyn ap Nudd’s domain reveals the deadly powers of a dangerous foe who has mastered an unstoppable weapon and threatens the fae dominions in both the new and the old worlds.

Secure in his unbreachable stronghold, the enemy holds hostages and has no compunction about using them in deadly experiments with newly discovered way-technology. Only George has a chance to reach him in time to prevent the loss of thousands of lives, even if it costs him everything.

Welcome to the portrait of a paladin in-the-making, Can he carry out a rescue without the deaths of all involved? Will his patron, the antlered god Cernunnos, help him, or just write him off as a dead loss? He has a family to protect and a world to save, and little time to do it in.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Universal Donor (Modern Gods)

Same liver, different vulture…

When you know you can regenerate any organ, fast…why not donate your kidneys?

Prometheus has been a teacher all of his life, nearly. Sometimes, like with teaching Man to harness fire, it got him in trouble. Sometimes, he’s able to make an even bigger difference for his students. Especially when they need a kidney as much as they need knowledge.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Done With Mirrors: A Collection of Short Stories (Sarah A. Hoyt’s Short Story Collections)

DONE WITH MIRRORS

From Prometheus Award winner Sarah A. Hoyt comes a dazzling collection that showcases why her work has appeared in Analog, Asimov’s, and Weird Tales—and why readers can’t get enough.

Magic-soaked noir in 1920s Denver. Mirror-hopping time lords fleeing across infinite universes. Survival in John Ringo’s zombie apocalypse. Murder and mystery in the world of Darkships and Rhodes. Each story in this collection pulls you into a different world—and refuses to let go.

Previously published in acclaimed anthologies from Baen and Chris Kennedy Publishing, these nine tales span Hoyt’s most beloved universes alongside standalone adventures. Whether she’s writing in Ringo’s Black Tide Rising series, exploring her own Darkships and Rhodes worlds, or crafting speculative noir that defies categorization, Hoyt delivers the vivid storytelling and emotional resonance that has earned her a devoted following.

From rain-slicked streets where magic and murder collide to the far reaches of space-time itself, Done With Mirrors demonstrates the genre-hopping brilliance of one of speculative fiction’s most versatile voices.

Nine stories. Nine worlds. One unforgettable collection.

Contains the short stories: Honey Fall; Scrubbing Clean; Last Chance; Great Reckoning in a Small Room; Horse’s Heart; Do No Harm; Dead End Rhodes; Knights of Time; Done with Mirrors.

With an introduction by Holly Chism.

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: SOAK

There is a post going around “right wing” (defined as to the right of Lenin) on twitter. Some of these people are people whose posts are normally thoughtful and full of insight. So I presume they’re thinking with something other than their brains — at a guess their justifiable anger — because the course they’re recommending serves no one but the left and the enemies of freedom.

The “idea” goes something like this: “If the Save Act doesn’t pass, we’re going to punish the GOP in the midterms because it’s obvious they’re a uniparty and they won’t do anything they were elected to do.”

People, I’m old. I’m tired. Sarah finds her ear trumpet, puts it to her ear, looks at the argument again, and says “Eh, sonny? Say again? You’re coming in broken and dumb as fuck.”

What? Some of you in the audience are going to pound your chests and tell me that piece of arrant stupidity above is sane or makes any sense? Bah. You’re blinded by the noise.

Fact the first: The GOP majority in the Senate is razor thin. No, truly. It’s razor thin. There isn’t much give.

Fact the second: That razor thin majority includes couple/half dozen rinos. Yes, this upsets me as much as it does you, BUT the fact is until things change on the ground, their districts ARE going to elect rinos. Still better to have them in the tent, because sometimes they’ll play.

Fact the third: Democrats are increasingly panicked, and the SAVE act panics them — justly — more than anything else, as it’s basically the end of their rule if it passes. So not, their coalition won’t splinter, except maybe by one or two.

Fact the fourth: Fillibuster allows them to stop votes on this. Yes, we could do away with the fillibuster, but I’ll remind you it kept us from going full UK under the autopen.

Fact the fifth: No, if the SAVE act doesn’t pass, it doesn’t mean all is lost. And if it did, why insist we must “vote them out” they would be, since all would be lost. We still won election since 2016, and 2020 required an extraordinary amount of effort from the left to steal. They won’t be able to muster that AGAIN.

Fact the sixth: As long as we don’t let states count votes for days, and stay on the cases that do, and blow up every instance of fraud on social media, we’ll be fine.

So — why these posts? Because they help the democrats. If you convince the GOP voters to punish them for not doing what they don’t have the votes to do, then you can bring in the full circus of Democrat rule.

Who does this benefit? The dying democrat party.

What do they intend to do? Well, look to Virginia and to what they’ve said. They’re talking camps and executions for those of us who are vocal.

Yes, in a normally functioning Republic you can punish one side by voting for the other. We’re no longer and haven’t been, really, for my entire time as an American (It’s just more open now.) In the republic as it is right now, if you vote to punish the GOP you’re voting for a passel of lunatics that outright proclaim themselves “socialists” or “Communists” and whose first priority is the destruction of our country.

Worse, you’d be doing this to punish the GOP for not doing something they simply don’t have the numbers to do.

As I said “Coming in broken and dumb as fuck.”

UNLESS YOUR INTENT IS TO HAND US BOUND TO OUR FOES.

It’s not? Then start examining the “oh, I’m so mad” posts that come across your timeline.

In the current state of the republic, there is nothing for it but to buckle down for the long run. Yeah, if we have to continue voting GOP they’ll get above their station. Which is why we must get over rough ground as fast as possible.

For right now, weld your ticket to “Straight vote GOP” and be ready to thwart fraud from the left.

Because the only chance our great country has is not to let the lunatics touch the levers of power for at least 12 years. And meanwhile, yes, work at replacing the RINOS and work as hard as you can at changing the culture.

And refuse to commit suicide by voting for the other side.

Because stupidity is a capital crime. It always is.

Ending the con exhausted because I’m apparently allergic to something in the hotel, and last night was the first night I slept since we got here. I spent the other nights coughing. Yesterday I finally got cough syrup, and slept. So I’m more than a little wrecked, and trying to rest before we head back so I don’t end up getting ill.

How out of it was I? Well I typed 42 instead of 47 on the title of the post last night and didn’t notice until midday today. Hey, the numbers look alike, right?

The promo post will PROBABLY be Tuesday. There’s a chance of being able to do it tomorrow, but it’s unlikely. OTOH it gives you more time to send me your books to promote, right?

This blog (and this writer) will be back on its regular schedule till Tuesday.

Should I warn you when I’ll be out of pocket, so you can lay in popcorn for whatever will happen in the international sphere?

First, a request to President Trump:

Sir, may I humbly request you stop doing awesome stuff on Saturday. This humble meme gatherer would like her afternoons off. Thank you for your attention to this matter — SAH.

To the people belly aching about war with Iran: BITCHES, I watched our country be humiliated by the taking of hostages. My 12 th grade class song was “And I Ran, I ran so far away” and no, it wasn’t talking about aerobics. We’ve watched Iran finance destruction against the US and Israel and taunt our presidents. We watched them arguably interfere with our elections for decades.
Yeah, we bombed the evil oppressive regime of Iran. Don’t like it? Go cry SOMEWHERE ELSE. Your crocodile tears give me a rash.

By Holly the Assistant

Sarah is at a family reunion of sorts, and expects the regular weekend posts to happen when she needs a break. Please possess your souls in patience if they are late.

Interestingly, eagles sitting on posts, and hawks sitting on posts, and smaller hunter-scavenger birds sitting on posts, are a common feature in my life. They show up to eat what is there in the field that is eating the crop, or what was there eating the crop before the heavy machines rolled through. Trying to find a photo of this, however, on the internet . . . well, I guess eagle on fence post is just not a showy enough eagle for the internet.

Have a lovely Friday. The sun is shining, Gertrude get off the table (cats!), and the weather is suspiciously April-ish for February, as it has been suspiciously April-ish since November, and we have no snow when we should have a couple feet. I expect a very bad fire season in the Western USA, so if you need to make sure you have a rescue inhaler or in house air filters for wildfire smoke, given how the winds blow east, please so do. And the rest of us should get ourselves outside and start clearing hazards.

See you in the comments! Or with the chainsaw . . .

Is there something you’d like to do? Some secret ambition that seems out of reach? Some longing of the heart that you think will never happen?

No, I’m not going to sell you my instant method for achieving this. For one, signing any documents for an impeccably dressed gentleman, a man of wealth and taste, who smiles a lot and smells a little of sulfur. That’s probably bad for you. And though I’m part Nigerian princess (apparently) probably on my father’s side, you’re not my beloved and I don’t have a bank account with a million ill-gotten dollars I need to transfer to you, with which you can achieve your dreams. I can’t even promise that if you do this you will succeed. But I can promise you you’ll get closer.

What’s the miracle action?

Good question, because I have an answer. And you’re not going to like it: Take a step. Take a step towards what you want. Just one. Do it.

Yeah, yeah, journey of one thousand steps starts with a single step and all that. But you know why those sayings persist? Because they have a point. It does start with a step. Which — at some point — makes the next step easier. which makes the NEXT step easier. You might not notice the “easier” part for a 100 or 1000 steps, but eventually it will kick in, I promise.

Want a cleaner house? clean one little corner. Tomorrow clean a bit more. Then a bit more. (At which point you’ll have to start from the beginning but that’s the Zen of house cleaning, as it were.) Want to be famous game designer? Start with learning programming or find a program to do it in. (Like I know. That’s not my area of expertise.) Want to have a paying you tube channel? Put up three videos. Want a blog with high traffic? Write a post every day. Send the more interesting ones to your friend who posts at the giant aggregator blog. Want to write a novel? Write a page. Want a better job? Think what your ideal job would be, then what you need to get there. And then take a step: write resume tilted at it; take that online certification; sign up for — groan — that college class. Take one step.

Now, that last one? If you’re going to do the immense job, to walk those thousand steps one step at a time, make sure it’s something you desperately want. It helps. It helps because the progress motivates you.

And here we hit the other thing. It’s recently come to my attention that we and people like us will do a lot of stupid work, a lot of ridiculous things that don’t pay anyway, or that eat away at our soul, instead of reaching for that thing we really, really want; for that secret desire of our hearts.

I’ve known Odds who have some amazing, OBVIOUSLY outsized talent: painting pictures, or making amazing clothes, or creating moving music, or, yes, telling stories. But they never do. Even though it’s obviously what they are happy doing. Instead they work an endless stream of soul-eating jobs, many of which are also extremely low pay. Why?

Ah. Well, when I was doing it — and ooh, boy, I have that T-shirt. Bought multiple times, because I loved it so much. (Though in my case the “outsized talent” is meh, but I have something I use instead of and it serves my simple needs.) — I kept getting told I had a fear of success. Which normally caused me to snort-giggle or something ruder. I would like to point out not only do I emphatically NOT have a fear of success, I don’t understand anyone having such an odd animal. What I DO have is a panic fear of failure.

This is very useful when it causes me to, say, scramble madly to remain published after my first series “failed” and I was told I’d never work in this town again. Scrambling madly kept me published for over twenty years and arguably ensured more success than that enjoyed by people with actual outsized talent.

It is, however, what causes the syndrome above. Because, you know, if I fail as a translator, or as a retail worker, or an office worker, or even as a housewife, well, that’s fine. I can fail at those. It was not what I wanted. It was not heart’s blood. Losing it didn’t MATTER. Meanwhile my precious was safe, because I wasn’t acting on it, or not really. This was at first with writing, and then with writing WHAT I REALLY WANTED TO. (Which required me to go indie, but I had the keys to do it since 2011, so why only last year? Because if it failed it would break me, that’s why.)

And that’s what I see in a lot of people.

… Except the precious isn’t safe, because over the years of not doing it, your inner self becomes frustrated and embittered. You fail by never doing it more certainly than if you did it. Jordan Peterson says if you’re a creative who doesn’t create you start dying. Psychologically, first, but eventually physically. He’s right there. But he’s not right ENOUGH. It’s not just creatives. It’s everyone who has a secret need to do something, to succeed at something. You avoid it, and avoid it, and avoid it. And it turns sour and despairing in you, and you feel like a failure and it infects everything in your life, eventually.

Yes, I know it takes a lot of courage to do the thing you really want to do — arguably I’d never have managed it without the Chinchilla of Hope Brigade cheering me on all the way and telling me to keep going, it wasn’t horrible (Which is why they’re thanked in the opening to No Man’s Land) — courage and persistence and a lot of steps. Make your gut into a new heart and take a step. If the secret desire of your heart is neither illegal or immoral, you should still do it. The alternative is slow suicide with steps.

Find or create a cheering section and take a step. (Lord, if you have to use an LLM. Heaven knows they’re fawning and servile enough. I want one with the personality of Mycroft in TMIAHM.) Just one step. Then another.

As Jordan Peterson also says, if you’re so broken, so HUMAN that all you can do is a small, irrelevant first step (the one he gave for cleaning your room was just opening your closet and looking at it. Just looking.) do that, then reward yourself for it. And tomorrow do a little more.

Because there’s really no alternative, if you want to do something that much. It’s that or death.

I can’t promise you success. There is no way to guarantee that, particularly if your desire is to do something artistic. And I sympathize with your need for safety and certainty.

If I were a super-hero, I’d be “Security Girl” because that’s what I crave.

And yet, here is a paradox: Every time I’ve done the sane and secure thing: buy the smaller house, get the day job, take the agent lower on the vine, because (theoretically) she’ll have more time for me, stay with trad pub– EVERY TIME I do that it blows up in my face, sometimes spectacularly.

On the other hand, if I ignore caution and safety and — against my best judgement — do the thing I really want to do no matter how crazy: if I buy the big, impractical Victorian in bad shape, with the understanding I’ll have to build it while living in it and doing everything else too; if I move across the country (of across the ocean) without ever having seen the place I’m moving to, and with nothing but a vague idea that’s where want to go; if I finally go indie and do what I want to?

It always turns out well. Every single time. And no, I don’t think that’s just me.

I think the effect is when you jump off the edge, and are trying to fly, you are scared enough to do everything you can. And then you actually fly. (This is a metaphor. Don’t do that in real life. Please. Unless you’re a bird. Then you can do it. But birds don’t read blogs, so you should see someone for that delusion.)

So go on. TRY IT. Avoiding it just guarantees failure. And bitterness. And death or something like.

So. Go on. Take a step. You know you have to.

I need to stop being surprised at how bizarrely naive people are. I was going to say I don’t think I was ever that innocent, but of course I was. I mean, I know this isn’t entirely believable to most of you (as Bradbury demonstrated, the old were never children) but I was once a little baby, a toddler, a little girl. And I can still on occasion be startlingly naive and well meaning, particularly when I have some reason to like the person selling me the swamp land in Florida. … And since I generally like people (they’re fascinating) this leaves me open to a lot of bs.

But let me put this way: I was never happily and stupidly credulous. When someone tried to tell me to do something for my own good or worse for a bunch of other people who weren’t asking me to do it, I always wondered what was in it for the person. Always as far back as I remember.

Which is why I sometimes hit my desk so hard with my forehead that it leaves big dents, and I wonder “How can adults not see the trap in giving a lot of power to the government? Precisely?” Particularly a bunch of power over your ability to express yourself on the internet?

Yeah. Increasingly I’m coming across articles on the right lauding the kind of Self-Doxing that Europe is requiring of people on the net. Because, you know you should prove your age before you access stuff. And also we really should “clean up” the net. For the children.

When I come across this nonsense I’m neither child nor work safe for about ten minutes. And I’m fairly sure I invented some new German swear words.

Look, yes, there is horrible stuff out there. Arguably there always was. Not just the internet but everywhere. My parents kept a tight rein on me and we lived in a village. Most of the books I read had been stored by some ancestor or other. Apparently some of them liked spicier stuff? I mean– weird, but– Look, Victorian porn was bizarre, okay. Anyway, moving right along, there was also Roman myth available because I sneaked the books from a friend’s father’s library.

If you’re laughing, don’t be. It gave me a very weird idea of what went on between men and women. And the livestock manuals didn’t help. Not even slightly.

The point being that a child who is curious and will read everything could stumble on bizarrely inappropriate stuff even in the “safe” mid sixties in a country known for ALMOST keeping its women in purdah.

And I raised kids in the age when the internet was a wild frontier. You could — and sometimes hilariously did, at a con, in front of a bunch of people, type something innocent in, and get page upon page of outright gross porn opening up on your screen. Add to this that my kids each had their own computer, kept in their rooms from age three, and had internet connections from age 8 and 12.

So, how come they didn’t get catfished by pedos, or get a porn addiction or– Well, like with houseproofing the house, we didn’t internet proof the house. We internet proofed the kids. We explained all the possibilities, the pitfalls, why things weren’t good for them, until it came out their eyes, I think. We still dealt with an addiction issue, but it was to neopets, not porn. And we talked to and with them. A lot. Some would say endlessly. So we knew what they — even super-secretive younger son — were thinking and doing. And they were aware that Dan could — and did, about once a month — look at their history and see what they were up to.

We were very hands on, very active parents. And when they read something that had mention of adult relationships (usually not terribly explicit) they were comfortable enough to talk to us about it.

Oh, and we raised them in a church that gives a strong moral foundation.

Did it work? Seems to have. They’re in their thirties and seem like decent human beings.

Was it a lot of work? Oh, heck yes. I refer to days and weeks of getting up each day with a longer to-do list and never getting to sleep 8 hours a night, and–

Was it worth it? Absolutely.

Because it was tailored to our kids, whom we understood, we could keep them out of danger without nerfing everything around them. When they came of age, they were prepared because they’d never been over protected.

As I tell people: The Spanish royal family tied pillows around very tree in their park to protect their hemophilliac sons, who still got injured and died young. Because nerfing the world doesn’t work. Preparing the kids does.

Are there misfires? There are always misfires. Even in the tiny village where I grew up, girls got persuaded away by traffickers, and kids found out things they shouldn’t be exposed to, and child abuse is a human failing. BUT I was okay, despite my bizarre reading and some very weird ideas, because my parent shad made me suspicious of strangers bearing gifts. Perhaps a little too suspicious but that’s better than the alternative.

Unfortunately telling people “The solution to keeping kids out of trouble is to watch them, to talk to them, to discuss things with them, and to know your own kids” is not popular. “Let’s give the government the ability to see that everyone is on the internet under their own real name and address and says only things that are safe for the kids” is. Because it involves no personal work.

It does however open the door to a lot of horrible stuff and to totalitarian control, that has nothing to do with the children. And don’t come back at me with “if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about” because you’re not an infant or a mental defective and you KNOW better.

For one because every one of us who is on the internet publicly and on the right has a passel of stalkers. They’re mostly annoying and probably harmless. Maybe. Looks at Charlie Kirk’s death. MAYBE. Yeah, people can find addresses for us. If we’re smart enough, those are decoys (not counting some bizarre internet confabulations that link me to people I’ve never met, too. And the fact that Dan and I have apparently to body doubles running around who are married to each other. For a while we lived in the same neighborhood in Colorado Springs. Never managed to meet. Now we’ve both diaspored away. I usually find out because someone tells me they went to my talk. It’s not mine. Or for a while that they saw a house I’m selling. The other Sarah Hoyt is a real estate agent. Their sons have the same names as ours. I have a head story that they’re us from other universes.) Anyway…. we all have people who’d like to kill us for things we say. And some of them don’t even work for the government.

If I were doing this again, from the beginning, I’d fly under a nom de internet. Heck, I did for a while, I just dropped it because it was so much effort. Because you really don’t need your net life to bite you in the *ss in real life, because you didn’t do anything wrong, just said some thing that someone else didn’t like. Or even didn’t say it, but they spun it up in their heads to where you said it.

To clarify: I’ve had people furious at me for writing a post about my own struggles with awards and whether to campaign for them, that someone else convinced them was about THEM. (Hint to anyone wondering: I NEVER WRITE THINGS TO GIVE HINTS. If I think you’re doing something assholish, I’ll name you by name. You’ll KNOW if I’m talking about you. The exceptions are close friends I don’t want to call out, just say “well, they’re good people, but they’re wrong on this” because they’re friends. And I don’t name writers and books when I find a book horrible, because I don’t need total strangers googling themselves and coming over to yell. I have trouble enough.) I’ve had people have a confrontation on this blog and decide I was the devil and go on multi-year revenge quests, at least three of them ongoing (and crazy. Did I mention crazy?) I’ve had people develop a crush on me sight unseen and try to move INTO MY HOUSE (which was fortunately not my house, but our drop address. But still.)

Forcing me to dox myself would materially endanger me and mine. My husband, my kids, my cats. Yes, the kids are grown and moved out, and fully able to defend themselves, but they have their own social lives and careers that don’t need my public life hanging over them.

And this is me: I do nothing more wrong, ever, than writing some things that upset people for reasons that often are in their own heads. And for questioning orthodoxy because it makes people uncomfortable.

Then there is the governmental decisions of what you’re not ready to see. Yeah, yeah, it was supposed to be stuff like porn. Guess what? It took them zero seconds in the UK to decide kids needed to be protected from knowing about the rape gangs. Or the Israeli hostages. Or….

Yes, yes, all that is strong material for young minds, but guess what? It can happen to kids, so kids should know about it.

The government can in fact take something as simple as “protect kids from porn” to “Protect” kids and adults from the truth. And will. As soon as some bureaucrat with an ax to grind gets hold of it.

I’d think after the gaslighting of COVID you wouldn’t be so eager to give the government the power to control what you see and what you read, and to come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who says something they don’t like.

And don’t give me “The US is different”. Yeah, until we aren’t. We’re still living with FDR’s bs. And this would just make it a lot worse and postpone getting rid of it.

We’ve been fighting back, to the extent we have, because the internet gives us the ability to talk freely and to talk back at the barrage of mass media propaganda. To codify some “internet safety act” would be to tie us hand and foot and deliver us bound to our foe.

You can take your little horse out of the rain. And not wait with sandwiches by the phone. Because we’re not — repeat not — going to let you do that. Particularly not after the last 5 years. We’ve seen what y’all want for us. And we don’t want it. Bleating “For the children” is not persuasive anymore.

“BUT SARAH! CHILDREN WILL SEE BAD THINGS!” Oh, yeah? And they won’t in schools? This article is horribly written, but the point is the books this school carries. Click through. The ones I’ve read are appalling for eighteen year olds, and I wouldn’t want anyone younger getting them. And yet, they’re fighting back against the mom trying to remove them from the school library where kids are supposed to roam free.

Nerfing the internet will do nothing if you let your kids go to public school. Nerfing the internet will do nothing, if your kids have friends whose family situation might not be ideal.

Look, the truth is nerfing the internet will do NOTHING. Yes, there is bilge out there. There has always been, there will always be. Don’t delude yourself the situation was better pre-internet. It wasn’t. It was just different.

The solution to keeping your kids safe and introducing them to this fallen world at a safe and sane pace is to WORK WITH YOUR KIDS. There is no other solution. There is only blood, sweat and tears, day in and day out. And yes, sometimes it will fail, because horrible things happen to good people. But it is still the only solution.

I don’t remember who said that it makes no sense to prevent adults from eating steak because children cannot chew it. However, it’s even worse to prevent the children from seeing the inappropriate by blindfolding every single person, and giving the government the chance to say what is inappropriate.

Don’t be naive. The government is not your friend, even when it is, temporarily sort of kind of on your side. People in government are there because they like power. And the more power they get, the more they’ll take.

The solution to raising moral, sane kids is for PARENTS to raise them.

Not to nerf the world with injurious laws.

No, I don’t mean aliens who are like us lot, though that’s a strange idea. Maybe all the people who talk about aliens disguised among us are really talking about Alien Odds, coming here because they don’t fit elsewhere. But I’m so for sure not going there.

There’s been a lively discussion in the comments about the nature of aliens and whether it’s plausible that we are in fact alone in comments.

First I must say as Drak said that I hate and despise the idea of all aliens being more advanced and/or somehow standing in moral judgement over us. Yeah, maybe that’s possible, but it’s certainly not guaranteed, nor would be universal.

And then 11B-Mailclerk posted the following comment, which makes it actually plausible we’re the most advanced, or close to: Link.

Quote:
11B-Mailclerksays:

February 18, 2026 at 12:05 pm

The prior two generations of stars lack sufficient “metals”, basically anything heavier than Lithium. Stellar Thermonuclear Synthesis forms elements up to Iron. When the stars flare up in their end states, they scatter elements for later accumulation in subsequent stars. The supergiant stars go supernova, producing further heavy elements that are net endothermic in fusion reaction, and scattering all the produced stuff vigorously for later re-accumulation. Further heavies are formed from less well understood processes, including, apparently, pulsar collisions in dual-star systems. I suspect black hole accretion areas eject a significant fraction of stuff that fell in and bounced off other stuff, more condensate and scatter for re-use.

Our Sol System is about a gen3 -3.5, so rather rich in metals. Earth, particularly rich in heavy elements. Thus lots of current state comments.

Hard to build an industrial civilization if one’s planet doesn’t have large surface deposits of metals. The “black iron ore” / “banded iron deposits” of Earth are hypothesized to be biological residue, from our earliest ocean of iron-saturated water. That ore is cheap to process, and yields relatively high-quality resultant metal.

You need that cheap Iron to get to cheap electricity, whereupon Aluminum goes from rare precious metal to cheap commodity. Thus to aircraft and spacecraft, thence other supermetals.

You also need huge deposits of easy to burn fuel. Wood works, but you run out of trees way too fast. Coal solves the problem. Almost as if someone knew we would need a 3000-5000 year pile of cheap fuel, and spent a billion-ish years growing vast swamps only to fold them under mountain ranges, heat for eons, and cook up solid-carbon-rocks. Also some choice liquid stuff for lubricants and fuels.

Kinda amazing the right stuff for civilization and its advance was just there all along for us to find and figure out.

And then some clever monkey looked at Uranium anew and said “thats odd”…..

Back to that early primordial H/He/Li mix. It is -very- difficult to initiate H-H fusion. A star has to be supermassive/hypergiant to light a pure H or H/He core. If there is even a small trace of Lithium, even a very small star lights early. We found this property out when one of our early Thermonuke tests went 3.5x yield. We thought only one isotope of Lithium would be fuel for fusion. Turns out, the other major isotope is also pretty good if you first superheat and compress it, like in an H Bomb or Star. The predicted primordial soup has -just- enough to get stars going easy enough and fast enough to get metals at Sol/Earth levels in the 13-14 billion years.

Another just-right “Goldilocks” value that makes or breaks a universe with Us in it, right about now.

(Omitting Goldilocks comments on gravity, the weak and strong nuclear forces, C, and a number of other phenomena that are oddly, coincidentally, -just- right for everything to work as needed to get to what is.)

Is this accurate? I don’t know, but it’s plausible. And it makes it entirely plausible that we’re the first to travel in space and/or the most advanced.

If you just recoiled at that idea, that says more about the culture of science fiction than it says about the odds this is true.

Which brings us to “the great white alien” (Pardon me!) in the style that natives in the 20th century referred to either the American president or the British King as “the great white father.” Beyond all probability of lack thereof, there is the fact that this cliche in fiction has become SO PERVASIVE as to make it ridiculous and boring. Just through repetition. As I said, Pratchett skewered it beautifully in Good Omens. If for no other reason than “booring” I’m going to oppose it. Just on the basis of being me and reading scifi.

It was new and refreshing when Heinlein did it — though note even his superior aliens aren’t MORAL or at least not moral by human standards! He was saner than that. Try for the same– but now it’s old and busted. Come up with something else.

In fact the idea that aliens are more advanced MORALLY is a complete non-sequitor. Surely morals are different depending on the species/world? What is life enhancing and improving for sharks isn’t the same as for humans. And we’re both children of the same world. How much more different would aliens be?

I will confess to a great now no longer secret love for “Humans are the old ones of the Galaxy” i.e. we were once the Lords of it all, carrying the Human Burden, as it were, until the colonies/satrapies/protectorates rebelled, and confined us to Earth. And everyone out there is terrified of our return.

I’m not a fool, I know the reason I love that so much I could eat it with a spoon is because it’s very flattering to us humans. And being a human I like us being flattered. But it’s also so countercultural in this culture of human-hatred that it is very cheering. If you do that, it might be as improbable as the “Great White Alien” but I will not chide you for it, because I’m too busy nom nom nom nomming it with a spoon.

The truth though is that if we have alien visitors of encounter aliens, we’ll likely never know. Why? Well, because aliens will be aliens. We have recently done studies on the cognitive abilities of things like octopi and elephants. And elephants at least might be close to our level. Just so alien and along such different lines that we’d never know how to communicate, not really. Or even how to evaluate their intelligence. Not really.

Now, I know Trump has promised to release anything about UFOs.

I could be wrong, but I expect it to be a giant nothingburger. There might be stuff about orbs and other unexplained stuff, but no aliens. I mean we know that Orbs occur. They occur in ghost hunting too. And that they often react as though sentient. What they are we don’t know. But they’re probably no alien. And I doubt they’re sentient as such. However we shall see.

Ultimately how we see aliens are a reflection of how we see ourselves as humans. And frankly I’m tired of us beating up on ourselves. And all in on us building ourselves up for a change.

It might be bad — both for Western Civ and Humans — to have too much self regard. It might mean we trample other ways of doing things for no other reason than being different. Maybe.

But it’s not nearly as dangerous as too little self-regard or oikophobia. THAT is deadly and will kill those who engage in it.

It’s time we stop it.

Yes Humans (And western civ) have flaws. But they are the greatest thing of its kind, from our own perspctive. i.e. if humans are destroyed, we will be too. And self-murder is repugnant. As for Western civ, again judging on the principle of fewest dead babies and long, healthy old age, it’s winning. And again, as a human I must support that.

Try not to live for the approval of some imaginary alien, and instead to support that which is good for yourself and your own species.

Aliens, if they exist, will take care of their own. They don’t need you to be their Great Human Savior.

Be for humans because you are human. What enhances humans enhances you. Anything else is nihilistic hubris.

Yesterday I was kidnapped by Witch’s Daughter to attempt a big push to finish. Which was odd, since I thought I’d have to finish editing the first 9/10 before the last three chapters consented to be written. Anyway, they’re done for a value of done that includes a lot of square brackets with “They resolve the thing with the griffins” — and by the way, who in living heck allowed me to write a story with a mythological species that has at least four valid spellings? To which I add, of course, my plethora of invalid. my poor copyeditor. She’s getting white hairs — which I hope to fix today, so it can go to the structural editor, while I keep pounding on the wording itself, and resolving tiny discrepancies like “What happened to her magical stones” from front to back.

Good news, the end is near. No, not that end but getting this novel written, which considering it was started almost 15 years ago is something. (Yes, Rogue magic will be done too. I HEAR you. Trust me.)

However the side effect of my sitting at my desk — actually since it was the weekend, I sat on the recliner on the family room, while my husband watched stuff, but never mind — all day is that I did not do any dishes. I’d put dishes in the dishwasher Saturday night which I — naively — thought were done. But because I still had to feed us on Sunday, and because we found a bunch of dishes that were supposedly done, but weren’t (look, I was unloading late at night, okay?) means there’s a pile on the counter.

Two things to add to this: the dishwasher is practically brand new. It might be a year old, or a year and a couple of months, but not much more than that. And it’s top of the line, because we didn’t want problems because they interfere with my work. And it’s been washing badly for about two weeks. Which …. I figure I would need to deal with but not yet. Actually I specifically meant to deal with it next week, since this week was ‘fun with doctors.’

Now I have a pile — and I mean a pile — a dishes to do this morning, while I also have to finish Witch’s Daughter, sort out the books and set up for Confinement, where I have a sales table (The Little Pickle will sit at it most of the time, honestly. But–) and do all the laundry so we don’t attend the con naked. (NO ONE WANTS TO SEE THAT.) And also the inevitable stuff that will come up (It’s this month, I swear. It’s been a month of years.)

One of those would normally be a day, but I’ll do as much as I can, and try to do more tomorrow….

But I have one question: What happened to things that just work?

I realize I might have a force field around me that does things to machines. Perhaps mom was right discouraging me from becoming a mechanical engineer but REALLY!

The washer and dryer are speed queen — again, we didn’t want problems, so we paid more… — and we’ve already had a repair call a few months ago, because something went wrong with the timing and the washer loads were taking longer and longer and longer. What did we do wrong? Nothing. “It’s something that happens to this model.”

I suspect what it is is a bunch of stupid “environmental” regulations under the Autopen. Because their ideal is to have the machines work not at all, so only the self-proclaimed elites who have servants can afford not to stink or spend half their lives at the kitchen sink.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve had it up to here — indicates a point well above her head — with stupid environmental rules that nerf the functioning of our household appliances.

I grew up where no one had household appliances and let me tell you housekeeping even for our little family of four was a full time job. Even with a girl who came to wash dishes after dinner and a cleaning lady doing dust-and-vacuum on the weekend, mom did so much on the house, just to keep it functioning that I’m still in awe she also managed to run her own business, and a successful one too.

And the worst part of all this is that there is no point. No, I don’t mean the climate scam, that everyone suddenly is actually admitting was a scam. I mean if it weren’t a scam none of this would still make any sense.

Look, the low-flush toilets — which I see a point for in say Colorado or Idaho, or Arizona or other states with low water — are now better, yeah, (but they’re not so low anymore) but for years what low flush actually meant was “either fill a bucket and throw it in with force, or stand by the toilet, flushing, and flushing, and flushing” Which in the end, I’d bet you amounted to more water.

And the last few dishwashers we’ve had — a reason we went with this one, which actually doesn’t have that problem — had so much insulation to save electricity on heating the water that we ended up having to do three or four loads for a normal dinner for our family. (Yes, I cook from scratch, but I’m not older son. I don’t use that many pots and pans.) In the end, of course, it took five hours to do the dishes, and used a lot more electricity.

So the supposed point of it was never served. It just “sounded good.” That’s it. Which to be fair, is the way of things done for and by the government.

If the Earth really needed saving — no, it doesn’t. Your soul might need it. The Earth doesn’t. Stop confusing geology with religion — the government would be the absolutely wrong way to do it.

Besides the pervasive “do it so it looks good” which actually hurts things, I swear there is a spirit of hatred for everything human and for the masses they supposedly serve.

They want us smelly and busy at our kitchens, which they’ll soon declare need to be a fire in the middle of the room, with a hole in the roof above, and swishing the dishes in the nearest river, once they ban soaps and detergents.

And I’ve had just about enough of it. If feminism and women liberation meant anything, instead of trying to shove us into male dominated professions whether we want to be there or have a talent for it or not, they’d stop the bureaucracy’s attempt to shove us — and a lot of men — into the role of medieval serfs, tied to homestead and field, unable to do anything else.

Bah.

I’m going to go do the pile of dishes, and swear a bit to clear my head now!