According To Hoyt

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

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

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.

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: Hunter, Traitor: A Familiar Origins Story (Familiar Tales)

The Hunters’ lord turns his back on duty.

Matias held duty to people closer than duty to his sworn lord. Now alone and outside the shield of the law, an old man forces his battered body to obey his will and continue the Hunt.

Only one Hunter remains faithful—perhaps.

What can a single Hunter do? Where are the others? Dare any stand up to a corrupted lord and see justice done?

A Familiar Origins novella, set fifty years after the Mongol invasion, two hundred years before Lord Adrescu’s Blade.

FROM KEVIN CRAIGHTON: Salvation

Vengeance belongs to someone.

John Rogers is a retired Army Ranger and bodyguard living in Southwest Florida. After years in personal security, John seeks a quiet life but is drawn back into the darker side of life when his best friend asks him to protect a church volunteer on a mission of mercy. The novel explores themes of redemption, justice and faith, as John grapples with his past, begins a new relationship and rekindles his spiritual beliefs.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: A Huntress on the Rocks (Timelines Universe Book 4

A young military intelligence agent. Hunting a murderous drug dealer across a floating city on a water world light-years from Earth – with only his name, and a vague description of what he might look like. Will she finally find her quarry and bring him to justice, or will cases of mistaken identity mean she’ll simply end up

A Huntress on the Rocks

(A Delaney Wolff Fox story)

FROM ALIDA LEACROFT: Cecily

Wicked uncles, abductions, courage and romance…
Her father lost at sea, under seemingly scandalous circumstances, Miss Cecily Winiard is brought to the northern Spa town of Harrogate, to make her come-out under the aegis of her great aunt. Her family are in dire straits, and she must make an advantageous marriage. Except… her great aunt’s ideas of an advantageous marriage and Cecily’s do not run in tandem. Her great aunt wants birth and breeding, and certainly no-one with an interest in vulgar commerce. Young Lord Coleford, is, as far as her great aunt is concerned, a vulgar Cit and entirely unworthy to even breathe the same air as a Winiard, let alone have further pretentions. It’s a trifle awkward that Cecily likes him. It’s even more awkward that she, on the instructions of great aunt, snubbed the eligible young man severely. That is not something he’s accustomed to. He’d come to Harrogate expecting to be bored, not to be treated like a hatstand.
And stalking behind the gaiety and social whirl, there lurks the scandal of her father’s disappearance, and the plots that surround it.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Fixing Up Love (Building a Life Book 1)

Amaryllis left school with a worthless degree and a fiance who wasn’t that into her. She refused to go back home to wallow in her family’s judgment of her choices, so she took refuge with her best friend instead. Her very handy best friend, who was fixing up a foreclosed house he’d bought. It was a really big job, and he could definitely use her help. His handiness kind of made her want to get handsy, but would fixing up the house together fix up their relationship as well?

FROM KAREN MYERS: Mistress of Animals: A Lost Wizard’s Tale (The Chained Adept Book 2)

Book 2 of The Chained Adept.

AN ERRANT CHILD WITH DISASTROUS POWERS AND NO ONE TO STAND IN HER WAY.

Penrys, the wizard with a chain and an unknown past, is drafted to find out what has happened to an entire clan of the nomadic Zannib. Nothing but their empty tents remain, abandoned on the autumn steppe with their herds.

This wasn’t a detour she’d planned on making, but there’s little choice. Winter is coming, and hundreds are missing.

The locals don’t trust her, but that’s nothing new. The question is, can she trust herself, when she discovers what her life might have been? Assuming, of course, that the price of so many dead was worth paying for it.

BY LEIGH BRACKET, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: The Starmen of Llyrdis (Annotated): The Pulp Libertarian Science Fiction Classic

Michael Trehearne sensed his difference from other men, but he little knew he was a changeling of the only race able to conquer the stars!

Leigh Brackett’s 1951 novel, which first appeared in Startling Stories, not only prefigures books like Alfred Bester’s The Stars, My Destination and movies like Joss Whedon’s Serenity, it also makes a strong case for open source software and free culture in general, decades before either of those terms were coined.

• This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving the book genre and historical context.

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 LAURA MONTGOMERY, PERSONALLY RECOMMENDED BY SARAH A. HOYT: 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.

IN THE STILL ONGOING BASED BOOK SALE FOR 99c UNTIL TUESDAY NIGHT: FROM SARAH A. HOYT: No Man’s Land: Volume 1 (Chronicles of Lost Elly).

(The link goes to Based Book Sale. You can search for No Man’s Land on the side bar. C. Chancy also has a book in it.)

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.

Volume 1
The Ambassador Corps has rules: you cannot know everything, don’t get horizontal with the natives, don’t make promises you can’t keep.
They’re a lot harder to follow when assassins are hunting you, your barbarian allies could kill you for the wrong word, and death lurks around every corner.
The unwritten rule? Never identify with the natives.
Skip’s already broken that one.
Now he’s racing against time to save his new friends from slavery—or worse—while dodging energy blasts and political intrigue. One crash-landed diplomat. A world of deadly secrets. And absolutely no backup.

Some rules are meant to be broken. Others will get you killed.

BUY STUFF FROM PEOPLE WHO DON’T HATE YOU:

JSS Smoked Snacks.

They were in a show this weekend, with Morrigan’s Mercantile so we visited younger son and Little Pickle (Younger DIL) and tried out their jerky. It’s amazing. Highly recommended by me and Dan both. Oh, we also talked to them. They don’t hate us. (Gooble gobble, etc.)

SPEAKING OF, Have you Need FOR: Sharp, Shiny and Sylish! Morrigan’s Mercantile!

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: WORK

My assistant shocked me last night by saying the difference between my early writing and the current publications is as though they were written by two different writers. There is a connecting thread and a hint, but it’s in no way the same person writing it.

It didn’t shock me because I disagreed, mind. It shocked me because no one had ever seen it before.

Sometime around Draw One In The Dark — though not showing fully in that book, yet, because… well, because I was severely concussed WHILE writing it — I stopped holding the prose and the story in a death grip.

… So, okay. Everyone here knows (probably) I have a driving phobia. (It set in around the time of the most recent concussion, about 12 years ago, and I assumed it was a matter of “getting over it” until very recently. Recently my husband has become convinced it’s a matter of my eyesight. Though the astigmatism and nearsightedness can be corrected, my visual acuity is more or less gone. It never was great, mind. I’m talking about the ability to, say, see a bird against a tree. That ability was never great in me. I sometimes could only see such things when they moved. (Like a cat, yes.) But over the last 15 years, since night blindness became absolute, I have trouble with things like seeing a red kindle cover against BROWN wood. Similar colors blend together. We keep running into situations where my husband thinks I’m a ditz because I lost something, coming to help, and realizing I’m actually “blind” and can’t see the thing right in front of my eyes. Not was in not noticing it, but not seeing it, till he lifts it from the background. So now he’s not sure I SHOULD be driving, as this worries him terribly.

But that’s a digression.) The thing is I learned to drive at thirty five. And the first few times I went out alone in the car, I held the wheel in a death grip. And I did truly lamentable things, like braking too suddenly, or being terrified of deviating an inch from the center of my lane. And don’t talk to me about passing. Heck, I got in a lane and was in that lane forever. I might make right turns to avoid changing lanes. By the time I hit my head the last time, except for night driving which was already very scary, I was fine with driving. I drove the kids to things. I drove myself to things. I drove to places I got lost. And the thing is, while I paid a lot less attention — I once set off to North Colorado Springs and ended up in the outskirts of Denver, because I was trying to plot in my head — I drove a lot better, because I had internalized the process.

Writing is kind of like that. You start off all tight and trying to control everything. Like if you woke up tomorrow as a centipede and tried to walk.

Add to that, it took me almost 14 years to break in with novels (12 with short stories) and it’s more like my first years learning to write, I was in a car with the world’s most cryptic instructor. “THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUBMISSION. WE’RE NOT INTERESTED.” “Was that my sudden stop? Did I not pay enough attention to the changing light? Was it the sudden turn? Did I cut someone off?” Or if you prefer “Was it my characters? Was my plot too silly? Did I use strange vocabulary that betrays I’m not a native speaker?”

By the time I actually broke in, I was not only a nervous Nelly (more like a nervous JELLY) but I’d internalized a lot of rules that I don’t think actually exist. Stuff like “The outline must be detailed and fifty pages long at least.” And “I must research everything, even things I know.” And “I must remove anything that doesn’t advance the plot.”

I mean, these might be rules for SOMEONE, but they’re not good rules for me. By doing that, what I did was prevent the sudden gaps into which magic falls. In No Man’s Land when Brundar promises Skip his first born, I sort of knew how the book ended, but I wasn’t thinking about that. It was just a silly overreaction on Brund’s part. He’s exuberant, you know? And yet, it’s one of the things that makes the novel feel TIGHT and properly foreshadowed.

In fact, my obsession with removing anything that didn’t advance the plot meant I removed ALL foreshadowing, until Dave Freer pointed it out.

And I went on like that for a long time. The constant threat of “most careers are three books long” and “This could end at any minute” and the fact baby needed shoes didn’t help. At various points people accused me of being scared of success. I never was. I might not like some side effects of success, like fame, but baby needed shoes. However, I was terrified of failure, and terror is not good for artistic expression. (See, Maggie, I’m admitting it.)

And then about the time of Draw One In The Dark, I formed a resolution as to my career. “I” (meaning my career) “Won’t die, even if they kill me.” (Again, meaning my career.) It’s been largely true, btw. And also, it gave me the back bone — stuborness mostly — to keep going, and to…. let go of the wheel. Slowly. Learned to hold it normally, not with white-knuckled fear.

Draw one in the Dark I committed the great act of courage of not removing an unnecessary but charming scene: the one with the three guys in the car. If you read the book, you’re going “But that’s essential to character development.” Yeah, I know. Now. But just a year prior it would have been ruthlessly cut. The people who tell you any story can be improved by being cut to the bone aren’t right. They’re people who like a certain type of story, and also who write long and florid. I write excessively lean in first draft. My revisions, as I gained confidence, started being “put ins.” As in “Oh, dear Lord, no sensory input for a chapter.” Or “Oh, I forgot to mention.”

And slowly, slowly, the books became mine. Like the Darkship Thieves series.

Which I think is what my assistant is seeing. The language became more natural. The characters became more themselves, not cartoons….

No Man’s Land? Well, that’s a horse of a different color. It was my first, real indie novel. Yeah, I know Witchfinder. And it did very well. But Witchfinder was “my indie novel while my main income came from trad pub” so I was still trying to be…. I don’t know, respectable? Maybe? Trying to …. uh…. my older DIL keeps threatening me with a sign that says “As far as anyone knows we’re a perfectly normal family.” Like that. I was trying to be a perfectly normal writer. Then there were Deep Pink and Another Rhodes, but they are very short novels written while I was profoundly ill.

No Man’s Land was where I went “Screw normal” kicked off my shoes and went into a dance without knowing any moves, and without caring what people thought.

Terry Pratchett said the way to be successful was to be yourself as hard as you could. Is it true? I don’t know. But I feel a lot better about my work when I am.

What lies ahead? I don’t know. But for the first time in many years I — at least when I’m not sick — am excited when I sit down to write. Every workday is an adventure. And for the love of Bob, I’m writing song lyrics. And they’re not bad (she says immodestly.)

So what is all this all about? I don’t know. But if you’re out there, feeling like you’re working as hard as you can to keep up a facade, unless that facade is absolutely necessary to keep your job or not to get killed (and even then, find a place and a time you can take off the mask and let the skin relax. And remember who you are. Trust me. It’s what will give you the strength to go on) dare to let go.

Take off your shoes, and join me in this new dance neither of us knows. Yes, our feet will get filthy and people will laugh at us. But we will be more alive than we’ve ever been.

And if we produce art, maybe, just maybe, it will be our best work.

Trust me.

On the count of three, kick off your shoes.

If you read mad genius club, you know I’ve been under the weather. And though it shouldn’t have psychological effects, this did. For a while there I was unable to choose anything. Like …. do you want ice-cream or rat poison was an actual conundrum. (Not that anyone asked me that, but yes, that was the level of “I can’t even.” And if I could summon words at all they came out flat.

This broke yesterday but of course I’m profoundly behind. And now I’ve hit the stage where I can write, but it all feels like utter drek. This is absolutely bog standard for when I’m very sick. But of course I still worry about what if it sticks like that?

Oh, yeah, and it’s probably nothing to worry about. I’m furious at myself for how slowly I’m recovering — this thing did a u-turn at least once — but almost everyone I know has had it, and the thirty year olds have as much trouble kicking it as the sixty year olds. And this one was so nasty Dan caught it before me. (And is still working on kicking it off, though admittedly better than me.)

I’d like to promise you that next week I’ll be up to snuff, but of course I can’t. I’m going to try really hard though.

And no, this is not the whole point of the post. So ahem, the spiel:

And yes, if you have one of the first books to come out, it came with a foreword explaining this, but I’ve decided to remove it and let the book stand on its own. Also, there’s stuff to explain, some of which will be new to you even if you have read about it before, or you’ve read the book. (And yeah, I promise to write the stuff I mention. Soonish.) And yes, this is a weird place to do it, but this allows me to link the post places that haven’t heard of No Man’s Land. So, bear with me a little.

As some of you know, No Man’s Land is special to me. Look, just like a mother loves all her children, a writer loves all her books. It’s just that some are favorites.

Why is No Man’s Land a favorite? That’s easy. Because it was my first world and because I spent so much time in it as a kid. For various reasons it was a good place to hide, partly because it’s so different from the real world, particularly the world I lived in at the time.

But it’s also the world I thought I could never publish. Why? Well, partly because in Elly, the world in question, everyone is a functional hermaphrodite.

What is a nice writer like me doing with a book like that?

Well– First, I’m not precisely a nice writer. One of the things M. C. A. Hogarth has achieved — I’m not sure she was aiming for it — is convince me that I’m not just a craftswoman but an actual writer. She’s achieved it it by posting things like this, because I have to admit she’s right:

If you’re on twitter this is the link. And if you’re not, this is the link.

Because this absolutely my process. Why would any rational human being, much less a rational human being to the right of Lenin want to jump into sexual/gender weirdness while the left is using it as one of their vehicles to destroy society.

Well, maybe because it’s when it’s needed. You see, the people in Elly don’t choose their gender/sex anymore than we do. They are a bio-engineered race and their ability to each both sire and bear children is a blessing and a curse. For one, because of how they’re designed they have a very difficult time forming relationships, and the only reason they have a semi-organized society is because they were invaded a few times (and fought it out, and invaded again) by a totalitarian empire. They managed to adopt some structures, like marriage (of sorts. They have trouble with it) and monarchy (of sorts. It’s more like tribal power writ large) and commerce (of sorts.)

For another, as the series continues, they’ll have a real disadvantage in relation to normal humans. Also an inability to integrate with greater pan-galactic society. This is complicated, since the only reason they survived at all is that their designers — who were brilliant and insane, geniuses with a My Little Genetics kit and cracked wide personalities — gave them nanos that enable any number of them to have a wide range of psi-powers. And those psi-powers are important to humanity at large AND vanish if more than five generations from Ellyan ancestry. What do you do with that? Normally being a minority hampered in the reproductive department, they’d be genetically swamped and disappear. But the Star Empire that first makes contact with them needs their psi-powers and can’t let them disappear.

So, the situation is fascinating to me, because at what point do humans become zoo animals kept in artificial barbarism so as to preserve their “specialness?”. (They don’t, but the whole thing is very complicated to negotiate.)

BUT when this started out it wasn’t even that. It was that I’d read the Left Hand of Darkness and was OFFENDED to the chore of my proto-writer soul. Because the biology made no sense. The society made no sense for humans of any kind and also REEEE. being fourteen, at the time, I knew everything. So I decided there and then I was going to write better hermaphrodites. (Which I obviously couldn’t. No, seriously. My first attempt was forty pages handwritten.)

However, being — shakes fist at Maggie Hogarth — an artist (ptui. Did she have to make me admit that?) and cracked, I woke up that night with a not quite prince in my head running towards the chamber where his womb-parent the king has just died.

For those who’ve read No Man’s Land, no, weirdly it wasn’t Brundar. It was his ancestor, 500 years ago, at the start of the War of the Magicians. (Yirt the Justice Bringer. Though Brundar has another nickname for him.) And yes, those stories will happen, probably in a series of novellas and shorts.

I did write the novels. Eight times. They got rejected everywhere. The final rejection was a demand I change the pronouns to “she/her” instead of male pronouns. At the time I didn’t/couldn’t because well, visually they look more masculine (not that they look particularly either. Rendering them in midjourney for the sound track is a trip, because it either gives them beards or breasts randomly. And sometimes both.) As in, they don’t have breasts. And if I use “she” everyone sees breasts. However and more importantly, as time when on I realized that using “she” turned it into another big plea for female supremacy or exclusivity of some sort, and frankly I can’t even. (However in the second novel, a female-view-point character keeps thinking a lot of them are more like women or in one case “Psychotic little girl” — this is said admiringly. It’s that sort of situation.)

Anyway, into the drawer it went for a good long time, until two years ago I realized I was getting old, and might die with it unwritten. And at the same time had the brilliant idea (if I say so myself) of introducing a more normal human character (Not that Skip is precisely normal. And I mean that in the good and bad sense.) to be our “seeing eye dog” in the completely new world.

So the book starts with what appears to be a standard mil sf chapter with Future British in Space. And then the second chapter is the death of the hermaphrodite king and his child of the womb inheriting much too early. And because they are barbarians and call their psi-powers magic, you’ll think you were dropped into a high fantasy.

Anyway it ended up at 265 words, which means I had to publish it in three volumes on Amazon. (And the second book, Orphans of the Stars is going the same way, I’m afraid.)

I put the first volume on sale for 99c in the Based Book Sale. I will keep it at 99c till the morning of the eighteenth. Since I don’t intend to put it on sale again for at least a year, this is your chance to grab it if you either haven’t read it OR you intend to give it to a bunch of friends. (Hey, I can dream.)

But isn’t it weird to put it in the Based Book Sale which is supposed to support traditional values and all that?

Well, no.

Because the book actually is disturbingly wholesome. Y’all know that into all of my books a broad stripe of darkness must fall, but really, in the fundamentals, not this one. Oh Skip goes through a disgusting interlude, but he gets better, and fundamentally he’s a decent human being bound by honor and duty. And Elly is practically a screaming advert for marriage and having a lot of babies. (No, seriously.) And emphasizes them as life and civilization affirming. Also the characters are fighting bravely and for a large part of the book seemingly hopelessly against one of the worst villainous societies in science fiction. (Would you believe cannibal slavers? Sure, I knew you would.)

Anyway, that’s No Man’s Land, and it’s in the Based Book Sale. The first volume is only 99c, which is 3.99 off and makes the whole book much cheaper.

MEANWHILE I hate to bother you, but, Done With Mirrors is on pre-order. It’s a collection, but it’s the size of a novel and though the stories are previously published, the one from Black Tide Rising is double the size, because I misunderstood the specifications. Also, some of you might have missed some of the stories, since they were published in various anthos. Now, the collection comes out Valentine’s Day, and I would like to get to at least 200 pre-orders, and it’s lagging short of 150. No, you don’t have to buy it, duh. But if you’re inclined to, please do so.

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.

(If you want it printed, you have to wait till Sunday, because I got confused about when to upload it. Sorry.)

Okay — embarrassed — done with the sales spiel. You’ll be glad to know the songs have returned. I’ve done the next three on the sound track and will upload it when I have time. And there is one of the “Songs of Elly” cooking as well. I’d also like to do readings, but I need to stop coughing up a lung.

Honestly, I really am on the upswing. It just feels like I’m at the base of a very tall mountain! Hopefully next week I’ll be well.

You make your bet and you pay down the price….

Even if you don’t gamble, you do this every day.

People seem to be unaware of it, because when you make the wrong bet no one comes to pull the money out of your wallet. And heck, often you have no money. But you still pay for it.

Everything you do in life is a bet: your education, your job, what you choose to spend time on, what you choose to work at and make an effort at: all of those are bets. And whether they win or lose, you put down your bet first. As in, you put in your effort, the years of passion, the years of stress, the work, the time, and sometimes the (literal) money. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. Life is too uncertain to pretend it’s not a roll of the dice. Most of the time you take some bad with the good, even if everything goes according to plan.

Take my writing. Okay, it was a crazy bet, particularly when you consider English is not my native language and I was writing for a culture I took some time to understand. And given the chances of even getting published back then — which of course I didn’t know when I started trying, of course, because those things were completely opaque — were slim as heck. And yet… well, here we are. So I did get published and I did make a living from it. I even beat the odds on staying published, since the average career when I came in was 3 books. And all it cost me was years of lost sleep, getting up at five thirty to get a couple of hours of writing in before being mommy. And then years — years — of writing like a fiend while they were at school, and doing all my work before and after. And making as much for all that effort as an underpaid secretary.

On the other hand, even then there were things that came with it I didn’t expect and which were a price. Like being known. This is even harder with the blog, which is not something I even set up to do, it just sort of happened. I’d much rather not have my real name attached to it, you know? There is a danger and not just of harassment.

Oh, yeah, and my family paid all the price too, though honestly I don’t know if I’d have been the world’s best mother if I hadn’t been a writer.

Anyway, this is not an extended whine. It’s saying: I wanted something and I paid the price. And I was lucky enough to get it warts and all.

Mostly what I saw, in writers’ groups and with acquaintances as I came up from nothing to fledgeling to fan writer to semi-pro, to professional, I saw that mostly people got what they were willing to “pay” for. If they wrote a few stories and expected instant success and didn’t get it, well, they stopped. And those who were published, but something happened and the publisher didn’t want them anymore, they gave up and whistled as they went because they were free. And then some of us stuck to it, half in love and half in hate, but mostly because we wouldn’t be failures, I think. Oh, and because baby needed shoes.

I was thinking about this the other day as a friend was talking about the left’s obsession with millionaires and billionaires. Because he said none of them would pay in time and effort, in work and in worry and in everything that comes with it.

And it doesn’t even take billionaire and millionaires, because I remember when Dan had a traveling job and made more money than ever before or since, we weren’t willing to pay in the time he was away from home, in his not seeing the kids as much as he wanted to. And so it was a price that was too much for us, and we stepped down to a lower income and lower lifestyle, just so we could have the other stuff with that, like time with the boys.

But there are people out there whose tolerance for stress, for uncertainty, for possibility of loss… all of it is massively larger than average, and they can do things like change the world. Like start companies that aim to take humanity to the stars.

My hat is off to them. I’d stop sleeping, I’d never have a minute of peace.

But fortunately my ambitions don’t run that way either. They run to writing my stories and making enough to live on. And if by a miracle I make enough to pay off the kids’ student loans I’ll be so happy, it will be like my crowning achievement. That’s it.

The flip side on that is that I don’t claim anyone’s reward for their own efforts. I mean, I’d hate for someone to come up and say “I’m supposed to get published, because I worked just as hard as she did and I–“

Oh, and I’ll absolutely admit that there’s luck involved. But luck is just how far you go. If you want the minimum you can have it, even if the price is being a total b*tch to yourself. I’m here to attest to that. I was willing to work enough for my modest needs.

But that, in the end is why the left’s envy is so destructive.

They don’t pay the price. And they want the big reward. The one that requires insane work and risk tolerance and all sorts of sleepless nights and sacrifices of a healthy family life and everything else. But they want the millions or billions, and they are offended it wasn’t just handed to them.

And, given a chance they will destroy those people who are willing to take the risk and make the effort. And they’ll destroy all opportunities for people to do so. They will take away every opportunity for the world to be the kind of world where people take risks and improve everyone’s life (even if they do it for their own comfort and profit, they usually improve the world for everyone) while demanding all the rewards of all that work and effort.

I think it would be easier if they understood that everything has a price. That everything has to have a price. And that without people willing to pay that price all of us would be poorer.

But I don’t think there’s any way of getting through to them.

And so we’ll have to endure it. You takes your bets, and you pay the price. And our price is to live with spoiled children who will scream and pout all the way, and think they’re entitled to spend the money of those who make the effort to create and make and do.

And not let them stop us. Ever.

(Note from Holly: Sarah is well, for a value of still getting over the never ending crud that’s going around. Alive, has eaten breakfast, has taken the editing pencil back from Indy cat who has decided to become an artist, we think . . . but it’s a bit of a time crunch on fiction and . . . dang it, Indy! Give that pencil back! Would y’all buy his artwork if we gave him colored pens and let him draw? Or books if he’s actually trying to write? I wouldn’t put writing past that cat.)

(originally posted here https://accordingtohoyt.com/2019/03/25/we-dont-make-ourselves/)

One of my grandmother’s favorite sayings, usually while excusing someone for something stupid or mean they’d done, or even more for continuous counter-productive behavior, was “we don’t make ourselves.”

True as far as that goes, and in the deep intersection between nature and nurture, it’s often very hard to tell who did what.

One of my kids tests off the scale for verbal reasoning/competency.  One of my kids tests off the scale for math.  Hint, they’re not the kid you’d expect, either for their professions/interests, or from interaction with them.

Partly, I think, because would-be verbal son is so introverted he’s not been around people enough to polish his verbal fluency.

Thing is, he could have, if it were a high value for him and he wanted to do it, get over his introversion and learn social graces and sociability.  I know. I acculturated pretty completely, (I’ll never acculturate as completely as if I’d grown up here, because a lot of the learning we do is before we can speak, but I’m say… 95% of the way there, and no worse than an American who spent his first year or two away from the US with foreign relatives, which you know very well happens) and culture is laid so deeply in that it’s not, but it acts like inborn characteristics.

Now breaking your habits of mind and behavior is hard. It feels like going insane. Our minds have all sorts of safeguards in place to prevent that happening, from distrust of what is strange, to the deep, abiding comfort of habit, which pulls you towards routine, which forms a great part of what you are.

You can’t do it without sufficient wish, sufficient will, sufficient motivation.

But it can be done.

We don’t make ourselves, but we sort of do.  Take the innate differences between male and female.  I realized how massive they were when younger son turned 14. I’ve always been an unusual strong female (perhaps not now. Years of illness have taken their toll.)  I don’t remember, anymore, how much I could lift at 30, but I remember the trainer telling me that it was more than the average male.  And I had greater endurance.  Which I already knew because through the many, many house moves of our thirties, Dan and I would consistently do most of the work, long outlasting any male friends who came to help (and in one notable occasion doing as much as an 8 person team of professionals, because yeah, we were paying but it had to be done sooner than they’d manage.)

HOWEVER that was in a time when I was in exceptionally good shape, and it’s not normal.  When younger son — who is a bit more inactive than the rest of this family and at the time had flab instead of muscles — turned out to be able to dead lift a 100 lb. cement sack when I couldn’t.  And I was in actual decent shape.  And he’d just started getting the call from Mr. Hormone, betrayed by a fall in voice register and a sudden and — to his mother startling — hairiness.

I.e. I know that males, including very young males get an advantage from testosterone that I simply don’t have.

If I wanted hard enough however, I probably could have maintained the strength of my younger years and be “stronger than the average male” (probably just stronger, not you know, overwhelmingy stronger.) which would still cause me to fold like wet kleenex when faced with a male with a modicum of training or in good shape (which I’m going to guess doesn’t describe the “average” male.)

I wasn’t willing to do that.  On this side of recovering from serious and prolongued illness, I’m doing my best to actually exercise. I don’t however have any interest in becoming exceptional at strength (if it’s possible, still, at my age, which I doubt.)  I just want to be in reasonable good shape, because I have better things to do with my time.

So, what is this in name of?

Oh. We don’t make ourselves.

There will be some time in your life when you’ll either come up against something you really, really want and aren’t good/strong/smart enough to get.  Or the thing you always wanted and were smart enough to get will disappoint you so greatly, break you so badly, that you won’t be sure you still want it, much less keep chasing it.  What was once interest and desire and the ability to work insanely will turn into “anything but that.”

I don’t know anyone my age who hasn’t experienced times like this at least once: either in career or in work, or with their children.

Sooner or later we all hit the wall and become profoundly broken and find it hard to take one more step, make one more attempt, reach for the brass ring once more.  My friend Dave Freer blogged about this.

You will experience this, even if you’re not a writer.  You will hit this wall. You will find yourself lost, with the beloved thing now an object of aversion, something you will give anything not to do/be/be around.

What then?

Obviously in the case of some marriages, some professions, even perhaps some living situations, for your sanity, for your peace of mind, for your survival you have to walk away.

But what if you don’t have anything to walk away to? What if you molded yourself into this thing you wanted to be for a lifetime, and you have no other goal, no other dream?

Well, then, again to quote grandma, you must forge your gut into a new heart. And you must march on.

Because you have nothing if you give it up. And you die. You either die physically or you kill a part of yourself. And you can’t go on.

No marriage, no career, no child rearing will be as it was in your dreams.  When you embarked on this, with flags flying and trumpets blowing, be fair, you had no clue what it was like.  You didn’t even know what it was truly like.

Just like no plan survives engagement with the enemy, no dream of “I want to be/do/create” ever lives up to the image in your mind.  And every career field, filled — alas — with humans is filled with suckitude and failure.  If you run from this, you’ll meet it again, sometimes over and over again. And you’ll die lost and embittered.

Forge your gut into a new heart and go on. Older, wiser, experienced, prepared.  And make the thing you love into as close as possible as what you imagined.  Ransom yourself from the depths of bitterness and horror and tiredness.

Be not afraid.

And I too will take my own medicine.

I have good news: We live in a time of great opportunity. I also have terrible news: we live in a time of great danger. The two inevitably run together, and the two will inevitably come to fulfillment in whatever measure. At most in our small way we can control the measure of it in our little portion of the world. We cannot and will never entirely banish risk. Because to banish risk is to banish opportunity.

Okay, first I probably should explain why I think we live in a time of great opportunity: Some of it is obvious. Take AI for instance. Yes, I know there is over and mal-investment, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. As soon as “managers” stop trying to push it into all sorts of things it can’t and will never do and let people who understand it use it, it will be a great boon to productivity and yes creativity, because it can do the donkey work and leave the actually creative humans to do the creative bits. Yes, it will UNDOUBTEDLY benefit the most accomplished and creative over the raw beginners (and ruin a lot of raw beginners too lazy to learn the donkey work so they can check it.) Tell me some new technology that didn’t in fact do that. For is it not written, to them who have more shall be given? Same as it ever was. And while laziness is not a capital crime (that’s stupidity) it always enacts a penalty.

But the thing is that as far as I can tell almost every field, not just AI is on the verge of just such a kind of breakthrough, marred only by the fact that for reasons known only to the psychiatrists we don’t have (no, really) our country (and countries around the world) decided it was a great idea to outsource science and research to the government, which as we all know destroys everything it touches. Only it seems to be losing its capacity to destroy and abolish and can — at best — delay things. And even that not indefinitely.

Then there’s politics. Look, yes, I go through times of fear and terror because we are on a knife edge, but listen you, we’ve been on a knife edge since our great republic was instituted. The sense we weren’t at some point is a great lie propagated by old people who remember the past fondly. What we have going for us right now is that Trump and Musk (and others, mind you) are aware what’s at stake is no less than their lives. If the left gets any power again, not only them but their entire families and loved ones will be dead one way or another. These powerful men don’t intend to be killed. So, possess your souls in patience and let them figure it out.

Of course the left is at a big disadvantage because they can ONLY keep their dominance when they control the entire flow of information, which is, at this point, impossible.

I’m not saying it’s all plain sailing. The enemy — and in this case they ARE enemies — gets a vote. BUT we have the advantage.

All of this combined are really great news and also terrible.

Why terrible? Because none of these things from information technology to AI to new automated manufacturing processes that render China’s slave labor obsolete say confined where they’re intended to stay.

What I mean is everything has third, fourth, fifth order effects. Remember the internet was supposed to facilitate military communication. Looks at blog. You can bet the left didn’t intend to lose their control on news and written media. And yet, here we are.

The loosening of new tech upon the world at a fast pace disrupts everything. The term is Catastrophic Innovation. Humans aren’t equipped to change their lives that fast.

On top of that, well, the attempts at retaining control like the entire idiocy of Covid and the theft of the elections (which was the reason for the covidiocy) rip the mask some more.

At this point very few people believe in our institutions and “the way to do things.” Which to be fair is deserved as all of that was the flimsy order imposed by FDR. Again, the only reason it took hold and stayed on was because control of the flow of information was part of the deal.

Now?

Now we’re in one of those rare times in history when anything is possible.

What do I mean? 1776 was one such, when we departed from the way things had always been done. And with great opportunity came great peril, too: Glares at the French Revolution.

The fun part is that our constitution, designed for a small government, is still the best for the new ways. While the modernizations (supposed) of the 20th century are old and busted, because they sought to impose the massive top-down control of mass manufacturing to people. Which doesn’t work.

So, will we get through this okay? Yeah, I think and hope so. At least in the US, because we do have the blueprint and the knack of spontaneous organization.

The rest of the world? Who knows? And even here we will go through some pretty terrible times/places, I guarantee it.

Thing is, you can’t break an order once it’s established. You need some great tech or location upheaval to even return to an earlier, better organization.

The communists weren’t wrong about that. The old order needs to shake apart and people need to reject it. It’s just that what they want to impose never worked and will never work. It leads to the tyranny of the darkest, most absolute monarchies. (North Korea, Cuba, too many examples to list them all.)

But the old order is shaking lose of itself, because it was never sustainable.

And we have a chance.

It is our very great privilege to be alive at this time. We must fight through the peril to the hope. In our hearts and minds, more than anything.

Be not afraid. This is no time to go wobbly.

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

FROM SARAH A. HOYT, ON PRE-ORDER: Done With Mirrors.

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.

With an introduction by Holly Chism.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: I’m the Beautiful But Evil Space Princess Who Rules A Galactic Empire But Really Wants To Leave People Ruthlessly Alone: Volume 3 (I’m The Beautiful But … Wants To Leave People Ruthlessly Alone!)

Imperial Princess Regnant Alice and Crown Prince Daniel of Xeros are now engaged to be married, by the laws and customs of the Church of the Goddess on Xeros.

But if you’ve ever had a wedding, or anything like a wedding, you know you have to hope the guests will be well-behaved.

Enter the Goddess herself, and her “plus-one,” Michael of Terra, who have a bit of an emergency for which they need our plucky crew.

But don’t worry . . . it’s only the universe unraveling. It can wait till tomorrow.

The third volume of the BBESP light novel!

FROM TESSA KAINE: Try Me: Shaw Security, Book 1 (Billionaires of Aspen Ridge)

When Leah Mitchell’s coffee shop became the favorite morning stop for Pierce Construction’s new security consultant, she told herself to ignore the way his presence made her pulse race. After all, Grant Shaw was older, impossibly wealthy, and way too serious. Plus, he had a kid. The last thing she needed was complications—especially not tall, dark, and brooding ones.

He knew better than to get involved with a suspect’s sister. But something about the sunny coffee shop owner got under his skin, making him break all his own rules. When the threats against Pierce Construction escalate, he’ll do anything to keep her safe… even if it means losing her forever.

With her sister under suspicion and her hometown’s future hanging in the balance, Leah has to decide if she can trust the man who’s determined to protect her—even as he steals her heart.

Try Me is a dual-POV, age-gap billionaire romance featuring a single dad ex-military protector hero and strong heroine with a small-town heart that he can’t resist.

Authors note: Try Me is a steamy instalove novella that can be read in about two hours. If you love a quickie, this will hit the spot!

FROM PAM UPHOFF: A Political Marriage (Chronicles of the Fall Book 20).

Lord Kalev Meknikov a young noble in a high tech civilization . . . Lady Aurora Denhart a young lady with a father in politics . . . and you’d think in such a high tech society that political alliances wouldn’t require silly things like marriages between young members of the families . . .

But here they are . . .

A somewhat silly and sweet romance within a Science Fantasy Universe.

FROM SCOTT G. HUGGINS: Through a Spyglass Darkly (The Adventures of Jehanne Dark)

In a realm where stone gazes turn men to eternal statues and ancient magics bind the fate of kings, half-gorgon assassin Jehanne Dark hungers for escape from her blood-soaked life. When a ruthless usurper unleashes a deadly totem that petrifies armies and threatens the throne, Jehanne sees her chance: pledge her lethal talents to the besieged King Michael in exchange for a crown—and a pardon.

But as betrayal coils like serpents in the shadows, Jehanne must navigate treacherous alliances, forbidden sorcery, and her own monstrous heritage. With enemies closing in and the line between hero and villain blurring, can she claim victory without losing her humanity… or her heart?

Dive into this gripping dark fantasy of intrigue, vengeance, and unlikely romance, where every glance could kill—and every choice reshapes a kingdom.

BY GEORGE SURDEZ, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Ladies of the Legion (Annotated): Two French Foreign Legion Pulp Adventures

A short novel and a short story exploring two very different effects of the feminine element on Legionnaires, told by the master of Foreign Legion adventure!

Lady of the Legion

She came in over the wall of a lonely French fort in the Sahara one night. And the commander decided to sacrifice himself and his men, rather than give her up to an Arab bridegroom.

Madame Takes Over

Rules Of Engagement don’t apply to the widow of a Legionnaire…

• This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving the stories genre and historical context.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Soul Inheritance

Fresh out of college, Evelyn Alexander’s first order of business was finding a place to live. One she could afford on her small inheritance before her job started. None of the local rental agencies had anything in her price range, but…she found a small Victorian house for sale, the only one mostly untouched in a decaying neighborhood of subdivided rental houses.

Complete with a ghost. A very attractive ghost. A very attractive ghost with a strong dislike of the idea of anyone changing his house. So, of course, she bought it. A cranky ghost for a roommate was still a better option than the tiny studio with criminal neighbors.

Between working to restore her new house, embezzlement at work and a murder next door, Evelyn has her hands full. As she works to get on her feet as a productive adult (and not fall in love with a ghost she can’t have), the problems start to snowball. And it’s only compounded by learning that her house has far more secrets than just a single, cranky (attractive) ghost…

FROM DAVID PERLMUTTER: “Honey and Salt”

Olivia Thrift, a.k.a. the superheroine Captain Fantastic, is excited to be meeting fellow Canadian superheroines for the first time. However, when their gathering is violently interrupted, it quickly becomes a savage fight against evil. And, when Olivia suddenly loses her powers, will she be able to set things right when her fellow heroines are immobilized?

FROM MARY CATELLI: A Diabolical Bargain

Growing up between the Wizards’ Wood and its marvels, and the finest university of wizardry in the world, Nick Briarwood always thought that he wanted to learn wizardry. When his father attempts to offer him to a demon in a deal, the deal rebounded on him, and Nick survives — but all the evidence points to his having made the deal. Now he really wants to learn wizardry. Even though the university, the best place to master it, is also the place where he is most likely to be discovered.

FROM JULIE LAURENT: Captured and Calibrated: The Erotic Adventures of Ellektra-7

One night on Copacabana, Ellektra danced under the stars. The next, she was stolen by the Virex Concord—aliens who turned her into their perfect erotic star.

Abducted during Carnaval and subjected to merciless enhancement, Ellektra’s body is rewritten: libido dialed to insatiable, every touch amplified, her pleasure shared through an unbreakable empathic link. She’s no longer just a woman—she’s a weapon of desire, designed for their interstellar pleasure arenas.

But Ellektra remembers Rio. She remembers freedom. And when the opportunity arises, she breaks free, stealing a sleek scout ship and vanishing into the galaxy.

Now, with the sarcastic AI Calyx as her only companion, Ellektra drifts from system to system—crashing on pleasure moons, bargaining with alien lords, seducing her way out of trouble. Every encounter tests her new limits, every orgasm reminds her what she’s become.

She’s free, but she’s not finished. Because somewhere in the stars, a promise still burns: she’ll come back for the woman she left behind.

A pulse-pounding, explicit sci-fi erotica adventure—full of alien lovers, multi-partner ecstasy, and a heroine who refuses to stay caged.

FROM COLE MARLOWE: Doors That Lock From The Inside: A Journey Through Spiritual Doors That Led To Locked Doors

Doors That Lock from the Inside

Love’s endurance amid spiritual doors that lock from within—a brilliant mind lost to unseen currents.
Day 1, Surfers Paradise: Cole Marlowe’s wife Sayuri—stylish Tokyo U. grad, Columbia MBA—collapses unresponsive. Follows 55 days of deterioration into strange disassociation and psychotic outbursts, City Hall battles, patient-rights standoffs, police/ambulance calls, refusals, vanishings, and muriyari psych ward commitment.

From Day 56 the layers are exposed: hidden vault reveals 4-year cosmic journey. 1,000+ Proton emails editing Beau Bauer’s The Dreaming Ring—outback starseed fasts, tree-trances, shadow walkers, Arcturus transmissions.

Fictionized for privacy (Japan’s MH laws), Marlowe’s Day-by-Day diary unravels it real-time. Flashbacks: Okinawa romance to Tokyo blind spots—“light worker” vigils, hoards, Beau’s deflections (“peaches,” temples). Vault playbook: deprivation → fixation → voices/“lights” → god-mission.

Sayuri rejects food/meds as poison, claims divinity. Wry expat voice skewers New Age solo quests sans guardrails: unchecked “awakenings” devour bright minds. Cultural anchors (tax-wife rituals) ground cult warnings.
No tidy end. Medicated glimpses amid locked doors. Marlowe reclaims vigilance: test novelties vs. ancients.
For genuine seekers, sincere spiritualists, cult survivors, expat spouses, skeptics—Brain on Fire x Educated in Tokyo twilight.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Longhorn Protocol (The Detective Stories)

A modern mystery in the tradition of Agatha Christie—where nothing is quite as harmless as it appears.

Fresh out of the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Daniel “Danny” Reyes intends to enjoy a brief, well-funded pause before real adulthood begins. A modest trust fund gives him freedom, a private pilot’s license gives him perspective, and Austin’s booming tech scene offers temptation he mostly resists.

Then a weekend gathering at a Hill Country ranch ends in a quiet disaster—one that authorities are all too quick to explain away.

As Danny follows small inconsistencies that no one else seems interested in noticing, he finds himself brushing against venture capitalists, ethics boards, and international tech interests who insist they are doing nothing improper at all. In a city where artificial intelligence is big business, curiosity becomes dangerous, politeness becomes camouflage, and the most respectable figures may have the most to hide.

Lighthearted, intricate, and sharply observant, The Longhorn Protocol blends classic mystery misdirection with 21st-century espionage, proving that in modern Texas, the real secrets are rarely encrypted—and almost never loud.

THE BASED BOOK SALE STARTS ON THE 11TH. THE FIRST VOLUME OF NML WILL BE IN IT.

Signup for the 2026 Spring Based Book Sale Now!

BUSINESSES THAT AREN’T BOOKS BUT ARE FRIENDS (OR FAMILY) OF THE BLOG!

Shiny, Sharp, and Stylish…

Welcome! To Morrigan’s Mercantile!

MurphicIndustries

For your gaming figurines and other such needs.

AN MY ORDER FROM KING HARV’S COFFEE INCLUDED A FEW FREEBIES, ONE WAS THIS:

Attack of the 50 ft Tough Old Lady 1 lb NEW!

Which is very tasty.

For all your Imperial coffee needs, we recommend you fly King Harv’s Imperial Coffees.

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: THUNDER

So, there is a state of detante with the cats right now.

I think it’s because Dan and I have been sick for pretty much two and a half weeks, which means we have fed them late, slept late, not done things they expect on time.

This means that Indy is in desperate need of stimulus. No, I don’t know what’s with the ax. I left the ax on the table, as one does and found him just sitting there, looking like he would never plan anything. Which obviously he’s doing.

Anyway for the last several weeks we’ve been finding the door to the garage open. This is okay, because we have a pretty solid closing spring-activated glass door, but still we kept telling each other “We need to make sure we close the door when we leave.” Then last week Dan went to the doctor and left me sitting on the sofa, because I felt pretty sick. Minutes after Dan leaves, I hear noise from the door and go back to find that Indy has opened it. I told him off, and he was pretty upset at me, because OBVIOUSLY I was supposed to be GONE with daddy. So, he sat on the floor at my feet and glared at me for ten minutes solid.

What else has he been up to? Well, he can reliably open our bedroom gate (it’s a six foot gate we have to stop him bowling through the bedroom door.) This has become a game of wills between me and him. Most of the time he leaves the gate alone. Oh, yeah, he can only open it from the outside, not from the inside.

So, the other day when I came out of the shower, Muse was sitting on my bed, the gate was open and Circe was hesitating outside the gate. I picked Muse up and put her outside, but I knew that Indy was in there. The closet door was slightly open. It’s a sliding door, and he knows how to open it. However I was still feeling sick, and didn’t want to dive in the closet to find him. So, I went out instead, and pretended he didn’t know he was there.

I left him there for a couple of hours and fed the other cats while he was in there. When I went up, he was on top of my dressers, with his face pressed against the gate. He hasn’t broken in there again. :D

This morning he decided I was no longer allowed to leave dishes on the counter, and he batted all the silverware down. Thank heavens he didn’t do the glasses.

Other things he’s done: getting to any plastic bag with food I leave in his reach, including the FLOUR. Sigh.

Other than that? They’ve been super-needy. Today he insisted on sitting on my mouse hand, while his sister, Circe, crowded me from the other side.

Anyway, today I’m better, cold wise, just very tired, so I’m going to go to bed early with a book. Maybe that will fix it.

And because I can’t talk about cats without sharing pics, let’s have some pics. I promise more serious posts next week!