According To Hoyt

It’s been a year since my mother died.

How am I doing? Well, I’m dealing. I’m dealing blind against an unseen opponent in a game I don’t understand, but everyone smiles a lot and life goes on.

Look, I don’t want you to imagine me prostrated by grief. That’s not how this works. We all know our parents will, ideally, die before us. And mom and I… Chalk and cheese, you know? No, not like that. Or in some things exactly like that.

The thing is, a daughter like me is a terrible thing to happen to a mother who spent most of her life carefully filing down the sharp angles so she could fit in the round slot for the proper pegs.

No, she wasn’t repressed. Mom gave people repression. She was not meek and mild. People were meek and mild around her.

But all the same, she knew how to play the game, how to impress people the way she should, how to get across what she wanted to get across. She commanded groups, made parties wonderful, and could fill a room, just by herself, if she was in that sort of mood.

And then there’s me… I’m…. me. I probably could impress people, if I remembered and didn’t have three or four novels competing for my attention inside my head, at any given time. I was reasonably good looking and even enjoyed clothes and makeup… sometimes. And sometimes I forgot and went to the store in my painting jeans and with my hair pulled back. I’m actually (I didn’t know it) and introvert and some of our biggest fights were about her wanting to drag me to parties, because of course she wanted to, and I wanted to stay in my room with a book.

And then there were the things I was enthusiastic about. They baffled her. She knew what they were, she just couldn’t for the life of her figure out why I liked them. She tried. For my 19th birthday she went to the one bookstore in town that carried books in English and ordered the complete works of Villiam Shogspierre in English. And when they told her she might prefer them in Portuguese she said “I don’t prefer them at all. My daughter does, and she prefers them in English, thank you.” (Yes, she knew how it was pronounced. It was part of distancing herself from it.) I have better ones which aren’t tiny print printed in Yugoslavia (No, I don’t know why that was what they had) but I keep that one.

Sometimes she got upset about the things that fascinated me, as though by paying attention to them I was denying her and shutting her out. She once threw every book she could grab in my room out the window and into the farmer’s field out the back wall. It was a fit of fury at these books I carried everywhere. It’s been fifty years since she did that, and I still don’t understand it.

She used to get very upset when she caught me reading. (That’s what brought the fit on.) So I trained myself to fling the book under the nearest piece of furniture and sit very still as if I’d just been staring at the walls when I heard someone approach. Baffled my husband for a year until he figured out what was going on.

My brother and I used to talk in book quotes. Despite an almost ten year age difference, we had a tendency to be reading the same book, at the same time. In fact, until his eyes went bad, we’d often get there for a visit and he’d have the same book on his bedside table that I’d left on mine at home. (Only in Portuguese.) And we both had eidetic or near eidetic memory (in my case marred by being so ADD that…. well, you can’t remember what you never paid attention to.) So, when one of us would quote something we found significant in the latest book, the other would answer with a quote from the same book. It was like mad libs for autists, I guess, but we enjoyed ourselves greatly.

… At one point, after half an hour of this, Mom just yelled at the ceiling “I wanted normal children!” Followed by “I met my old classmate at the fair last week, and her daughter is a hairdresser, and her son has a garage, and they’re successful and happy and NORMAL. I wanted normal children.”

… Someone played a horrible prank on the poor woman, and gave her two changelings, even if my brother masks better than I do, or perhaps was never crazy enough to do truly outre things like marry a foreigner, move across the ocean, write books for a living.

I’d like to say she supported that the whole way…. but…. well, dad says she did. Dad says she was proud of me.

Maybe she was. She had a picture of me receiving the Prometheus on her living room table. I suspect it was because I was in an evening dress, wearing pearls and for once in my life had my hair done. “Look, my daughter. She’s not a bum ALL THE TIME, okay?” (I know, it baffled the presenters, too. BUT I’d promised my fans if I won I’d dress up.) On the other hand, when someone over there asked what I did for a living, mom would break herself crossing the room to scream “She’s a housewife” before I could say anything. (I might or might not have mumbled “the world’s worst housewife, maybe.”) And I won’t deny it hurt a little when I saw my colleagues mothers’ making a big deal of their books. I never gave mom copies after the first three — okay, in English, she wasn’t going to read them, but I thought she might put them in the front room bookcase? — because she hid them in the closet under the stairs, with the old shoes. And I — baffled! — have no idea WHY. Which to be fair, she probably had no idea why I was doing it either.

She was, however, a woman on the run. She was always doing something, cleaning something, designing something, whether a dress, a room, a table, a party. Her normal mode was at full throttle.

I find it somewhere between funny and ironic she fell running down the stairs, carrying a vacuum cleaner the cleaning lady had forgotten in the unused guest room. It could have waited another week. But it bothered her. So… she was running down the stairs, and lost count of the steps. She couldn’t see where she was because of the vacuum. They told us she’d broken her hip, and she did that too, but not that she’d hit her head because apparently concussions are irrelevant, but she’d hit her head on the umbrella cabinet hard enough to break the door, and I suspect had a closed-cranium concussion. I had one of those at 40. It’s different at 91.

I find that funny, because it’s the most mom thing ever. And if given the choice of that or going quietly in her bed ten years from now, she’d probably have picked going at 91, still on the run and doing things.

She used to call every Saturday. Usually when I was in the middle of my cleaning time, the phone would ring, and it was mom, which meant the next two hours were toast. I didn’t realize all the news from the entire family over there came through her.

I now can clean uninterrupted, but my Saturdays are… kind of lonely.

How am I doing?

I’m dealing. We never got along well as it were, but her presence and her personality, in approval and disapproval, and in the spaces between, shaped a lot of what I did and do, and how I did it.

For instance, I stole her smile. Perfectly aware I was not a beauty like she was, and I certainly didn’t have her way with people, I fixated on the one thing I could copy. My own smile was awkward and odd. So I sat in front of the mirror and practiced her smile until it became my smile. And I learned her trick of memorizing funny things people do, and then replaying them for the family, like a skit. Oh, and my house is 100% cleaner than those of my peers all the time, because …. what would mom say? (Nothing good, is what she’d say. We’re in the middle of a move and both houses are filthy.)

When she vanished, it was like driving along a Colorado road, and suddenly the mountains vanish. Look, you live on the foothills, you don’t do anything with the mountains. but suddenly they’re not there, and your world is curiously flat and colorless and why did they vanish? Where did they go? Can you even orient without them?

… I’m managing. Most of the time I’m fine, really, except suddenly, out of nowhere I hit something: a word, a phrase, a memory. A way to cook a dish I still do routinely. Her never fulfilled (often repeated) promise to teach me how to put in a zipper. (I can’t put in zippers in clothing. It’s like a disability.) Something. Sometimes just a quality of the light. And suddenly I’m crying. I’m not even sad, and I don’t know why I am crying, but there it is.

She always ended our phone calls with orders, “Go get your family in gear. You know they can’t figure their way without you.”

…. She has no idea. The boys are in gear enough. So is Dan. But mom meant that I should do what I can, I think. And was afraid I’d disappear into book and neglect the important things.

Do I do that? Sometimes. But then again, I love the boys. All three of them, even though Dan is a little superannuated for a boy. And sometimes they need me.

I try to be there for them, because I know mom expects it of me, so here I am, grinding through the speed changes the best I can.

I’m dealing. No one said this stuff was easy: mothers and daughters, the way we can’t help disappointing each other, the big love that has no need of shared interests to echo it, the persistent sense that you disappointed someone and you’re not sure who or how, the memories of shopping for shoes together, the ridiculously large ice creams she bought me and watched me consume, because she couldn’t… This weird feeling when someone who is so much a part of you is now a part of eternity.

I’m dealing. I’m getting the family in gear (I think the gear is turbo reverse parking, but hey) and I’m doing the best I can with all of this.

I can’t believe it’s been a year. And the horizon still retains the outline of the mountains that just vanished one day.

It used to be illegal, at various times and in various places throughout Europe, to cast the king’s horoscope.

I’m surprised polls aren’t similarly illegal.

Look, I’m not saying polls should be illegal, but I wonder why governments haven’t made them so. And I think they’ll ultimately be defeated by the same mechanism that made casting anyone’s horoscope completely legal. Because in a way at this point they’re sort of the same thing.

Stop staring at me like I’m nuts. To explain:

It is a point of popular “people are so stupid” lore that “People read the horoscope” but in fact most people don’t believe horoscopes. We know that, because no country on Earth (okay, I don’t know about Asian countries) makes it illegal to cast its leader’s horoscope.

When it was illegal, it was because the horoscopes were believed. (BTW I arrived at this rabbit hole by — while flossing this morning — wandering down the path of Heinlein’s story Life Line and would I like to know my date of death (actually super-handy for planning, and since I don’t think it’s the end, probably yes) and how in most societies someone who could tell to the minute how long you’ll live will be run out of town/country or killed.)

Oh, I’m not saying all of the horoscopes were believed. As with any highly skilled professional, some were better than others, and some would be believed over others, but–

EVEN IF THE LEADERS DIDN’T BELIEVE IN FORETELLING, they had to take it seriously, because the vast majority of people did.

Take the situation with Elizabeth I. She had no descendants of her body. This meant there were (there always are) more than one pretenders.

If you cast her horoscope saying she’ll die in a year, and the vast majority of people believe in foretelling, the pretenders will start marshaling for the due date, and once they do … it’s easy to start a war. Or easier.

So casting the leader’s horoscope was forbidden.

These days enough people think the horoscopes are poppycock that no one cares. No, literally, no one cares. I have a bad habit of hitting really weird conspiracy sites, (look, it’s mostly a fun “I’m tapped out” type of habit. Like looking up asteroids that might kill us. That sort of thing. Or videos of a guy walking through cemeteries and reading inscriptions) and in January of every year they’re full of how every leader will die this year. Or how every nation’s leader is the antichrist. Yes, including King Charles (As if the man who can’t tie his shoes without help and is not popular with anyone were the guy who is so charming he starts a new religion with himself as a divinity.)

No one cares.

Then there are polls. Yeah, Trump’s approval is supposedly the lowest evah. But I remember when Obama’s was really high, supposedly, and no one wanted him to campaign with/for them, and his merchandise went straight to the discount bin. While almost all of Trump’s endorsements for the primary sailed through.

And you start wondering. Really, really start wondering. Like “Is this like the horoscopes that were incitement to rebellion” ways to get people to do the inadvisable? The answer is: almost certainly.

We know that the left uses polls to hide its massive fraud and attempts at fraud. We all know that the left uses polls to try to encourage/discourage voting.

It also uses it to enforce what remains of its social clout. I’m absolutely sure that Jelly Roll wouldn’t have made an ass of himself while guest hosting for Kimmel, if not for the polls telling him that, yes, of course, everyone hates Trump. And his attempts to roll back his commentary are ridiculous, saying he’s in the middle, and that he likes to hunt and he’s a Christian, but…. But not rowing back the comments about Trump being racist and all the rest. Because the polls tell him this is safe.

In fact, the only reason that the left keeps hold of the Mass Media and all the people who are highly visible, is that they can report these polls that give them an illusion of inevitability.

Of course, the downside is that it reinforces the echo chamber, so that, you know, they’re convinced all the people scream for socialism and such, and causes misfires like their attempts to ignite real rebellion with astroturf, like Occupy Wall Street or Antifa.

But ultimately? It’s a dying effort. Just like laws about the king’s horoscope are probably still on the books in Europe but no one bothers because people don’t believe in horoscopes, the polls are losing their effectiveness as propaganda and opinion molding tools.

Their few spectacular failures, which seem to be increasing, plus the fact that we know who answers those things, and that one in ten people know who to crawl into the poll’s innards to figure out what is going on, all of it accumulates and helps them lose credibility. This might or might not be helped by the fact all authorities including mass media lost a lot of authority during the Covidiocy, and they were already trending down.

In the end, at some point, like king’s astrologers, the polls will scream into a vacuum.

While life goes on and ignores them.

Book Promo

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

FROM KEN LIZZI: Long Gambit: Book Two of The Twilight Galaxy Series

The Long Gambit is the second book in Ken Lizzi’s Twilight Galaxy — the ongoing saga of the free trader Long Gambit and the crew who keep her flying through a slowly collapsing galaxy.

Captain Pyater Welloons is one missed payment from losing everything. His ship is clamped to the pad for unpaid moorage fees, his accounts are nearly dry, and the only job on the board is a humanitarian rush run: twelve million doses of medicine for a plague-stricken backwater called Owming.

The catch is that Welloons has to source the drug himself — on Ixtpa, a planet where nearly everyone is chemically modified and the automated factories run themselves while the population drifts pleasantly toward oblivion. The one compound he needs has been bought up to the last ampule to treat a cattle plague on another world. So Welloons does the only thing a man in his position can do: he plans a heist.

What follows is a working-crew space adventure with teeth — a midnight break-in through an automated underground, a street ambush, a slow-motion brush with suffocation when a part nobody replaced finally fails, and an ambush by two pirate ships that knew exactly where the Long Gambit would be. The crew’s best hope turns out to be a piece of bargain-bin junk the captain told them to throw out.

And when the ship finally reaches Owming, Welloons discovers that delivering the medicine and getting it to the dying are two very different problems — and that the people who ordered it may be the last ones who want it to arrive.

For readers of working-ship, declining-empire space adventure in the tradition of C.J. Cherryh’s merchanters, Andre Norton’s Solar Queen, and Nathan Lowell’s Solar Clipper. Dry humor, a crew worth riding with, and a captain who keeps his word even when it costs him. The story is the point.

FROM K. ANDERS: Resurgence of Light

Twelve years ago the sky over Marseille tore open and the Dyn Lords took Europe in a season. The armies are gone. The gods who answered humanity’s summons are burning through their Chosen faster than they can replace them. What’s left of the Resistance hides in wet cellars and calls them cottages, because a dry room means a desiccator has found you.

Micah Jones didn’t sign up to save the world. He crossed an ocean because Amy Allgood said yes to a goddess, and somebody had to keep her breathing. That was a whole team ago. What’s left is three people, a hunted road through occupied England, and a goddess who takes a little more of Amy every time the Resistance needs her.

They pick up allies on that road: a paladin who talks like a field manual, a cleric who has buried every hero he ever healed, and a hooded creature with human eyes who fights beside them and won’t say why. Something is hunting all of them through the tunnels, and it is not what any of them think.

Resurgence of Light is told in three braided strands: a desperate present-day flight through occupied England, the fall of a legend in France, and the two years that took one team apart one funeral at a time. Every chapter opens with a dated page from a twelve-year war journal.

It is a novel about what the gods take back, and about a man who can serve the Voice or save his friend but no longer both.

Fast, brutal, and unashamedly heroic. The good guys don’t win because the odds are fair. They win because they refuse to stop.

FROM EDDIE FERGUSON: The Horn of Caninia: A Boy, His Talking Dog, and a Kingdom of Hounds

Some new kids get a new school. Ian Richards gets a new world.

When his family moves to a rambling old house in the Texas bayou country, twelve-year-old Ian Richards expects nothing but mosquitoes, boredom, and a summer without his friends. What he finds instead is a symbol carved into an old oak, a matching mark deep inside a drainage culvert, and a shimmering gate that swallows his Afghan hound, Penelope—whole.

Ian goes in after her. On the other side is Caninia: a world of two moons and talking dogs, ruled by the noble Queen Coraline and threatened by an alligator warlord named Snaptooth who is swallowing villages one by one. The canines fight with teeth and claws. It isn’t enough. But Ian has something no dog in Caninia has ever had—a human’s knack for building, scheming, and turning a weakness into a trap.

He can’t out-bite an alligator. He might just out-think one. With a nervous whippet, a rambling pug scholar, a Doberman hiding a dangerous secret, and a talking dog who has waited her whole life to finally speak her mind, Ian sets out to find the legendary Harrier’s Horn—an artifact that answers only to a human hand, a canine paw, and a small silver cross from home.

The Horn of Caninia is the first adventure in The Adventures of Ian Richards—a fast, funny, heart-first middle grade fantasy about courage, loyalty, second chances, and a boy and his dog against an empire. Perfect for readers who love talking-animal kingdoms, portal adventures, and good guys who win the hard way.

FROM MALORY: The Clockwork Terror of Blackglass Island: A Felix Jones Adventure

Book Two of the Felix Jones Adventures. New to the series? Start with The Weird Map in Mr. Glimm’s Skull.

Felix Jones is the kind of kid who builds a frequency scanner from broken library barcode
readers and uses them to forge permission slips. He is not exactly the student teachers dream
of sending on school trips.

But when his Year 7 class arrives at the Museum of Time and Tides on fog-locked Blackglass
Island, something is immediately wrong. The curator doesn’t blink. Ever. The classmates who
were throwing scotch eggs twenty minutes ago are now breathing in perfect synchronization.
And beneath the volcanic rock, something is ticking — a deep pulse that keeps trying
to sand away all of Felix’s best ideas.

Archibald Rook has been planning this visit for a very long time. Blackglass Island isn’t
a museum. It’s a machine — a lighthouse built around a shard of alien crystal that broadcasts
a frequency capable of rewriting human thought into clockwork obedience. All he needs is
enough brains to run it at full power. Thirty-two Year 7 students will do nicely.

Felix and his best friend William are the only ones the signal can’t reach. So it’s just
two twelve-year-olds, a Victorian signal cannon, a swarm of clockwork crabs, and one very
loud brain against a man who wants to silence the entire world.

The Clockwork Terror of Blackglass Island is the second adventure in the Felix Jones
series — smart, fast, and funny enough to get the book-hater in your life to read past
page one.

FROM TC ROSS: Bloodstone: The God’s Ransom: Boons and Banes, Book 2

The curse on Magnolia Manor is broken. The beast is gone. Verity Magnolia is human again.

And the god who put that curse on her just escaped from prison.

The Binding Death — Zeus’s parting gift, branded into her wrist — draws her life force to his with every passing hour. September Zamfir made a promise when he rode into her enchanted forest: he would walk the world for her. He’s about to discover how literally he meant it.

The only way to break the Binding Death lies with Hades himself, who hasn’t been seen in decades. To reach him, Sept and Verity will have to cross the Appalachian mountains, navigate the territory of rogue shifters, visit a goddess who holds ancient grudges, and eventually cross an ocean now patrolled by Poseidon’s dragons — all before Zeus heals enough to come looking for what he’s owed.

Their small company grows into something none of them planned: a werelion Warden from the Blue Ridge mountains, Artemis and her arrows, a mysterious little girl who may be the missing daughter of Hades and Persephone, a half-brother Cryptik with a rebel’s heart, and a flying air schooner that won’t survive its maiden voyage quite as long as they’d hoped.

Meanwhile, at the Gehrig Workshop, Sept’s youngest brother Sunny is learning to be a Tinker with one arm and a clockwork replacement — one near-disaster at a time.

Bloodstone: The God’s Ransom is the second book in the Boons and Banes series — a gaslamp historical fantasy set in 1887 America, where magical bloodlines run old and deep, the gods are not myths, and the debt between them and the people they’ve wronged keeps coming due.

FROM LEE ECKHARDT: THE WATSON PROGRAM: A Science Fiction Mystery

Fifteen-year-old Mallen de la Pena lives aboard a cityship, a star-faring vessel with a crew of thousands. Since his parents were killed on an exploratory mission Mal has led an isolated existence that is almost completely divorced from the rest of the crew; his only real companion is the cityship’s computer, Zhang. The lonely Mal is happy to have the chance to aid eminent archeologist Jonathan Archer catalog a collection of alien artifacts, but his excitement turns to horror when the ship’s teleportation device suffers a catastrophic malfunction and Archer is killed. Then, only a few hours later, Mal himself almost dies – in a million-to-one accident. Only then does he begin to understand: Jonathan Archer did not die by chance – he was murdered. When the authorities refuse to believe him, Mal must become a Sherlock Holmes to find the killer, with Zhang as his Doctor Watson…

FROM HARDING MCFADDEN: Beyond 175

RETURN TO THE LOST CONTINENT

In 1915, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the master of adventure fiction, wrote Beyond 30, a prophetic vision about our world locked onto a course certain to lead us to a horrendous World War. That global nightmare became a reality in ways the brilliant Burroughs couldn’t imagine, and so he never returned to the apocalyptic setting he’d created. This was a rarity for a writer who loved to pen series, ala Tarzan, Barsoom, Pellucidar, and many, many others. Now, after a hundred and ten years, writer Harding McFadden, himself a devoted Burroughs fan, has picked up the thread of Beyond 30 and offered up a powerful sequel that would have made the Master proud. Filled with bizarre creatures, barren wastelands, and insane villains, Beyond 175 explores the frigid, barren landscape of the once mighty Russian Empire. Here is a novel filled with excitement, thrills, and adventure that pays homage to the great Edgar Rice Burroughs.

FROM MACKEY CHANDLER: Family Law

People love easily. Look at most of your relatives or coworkers. How lovable are they? Really? Yet most have mates and children. The vast majority are still invited to family gatherings and their relatives will speak to them.

Many have pets to which they are devoted. Some even call them their fur-babies. Is your dog or cat or parakeet property or family? Not in law but in your heart? Can a pet really love you back? Or is it a different affection? Are you not kind to those who feed and shelter you? But what if your dog could talk back? Would your cat speak to you kindly?

How much more complicated might it be if we meet really intelligent species not human? How would we treat these ‘people’ in feathers or fur? Perhaps a more difficult question is: How would they treat us? Are we that lovable?

When society and the law decide these sort of questions must be answered it is usually because someone disapproves of your choices. Today it may be a cat named in a will or a contest for custody of a dog. People are usually happy living the way they want until conflict is forced upon them.

What if the furry fellow in question has his own law? And is quite articulate in explaining his choices. Can a Human adopt such an alien? Can such an intelligent alien adopt a human? Should they?

Of course if the furry alien in question is smart enough to fly spaceships, and happens to be similar in size and disposition to a mature Grizzly bear, wisdom calls for a certain delicacy in telling him no…

The “April” series of books works from an earlier time toward merging with the “Family Law” series.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: A Dragon in the Foie Gras (Timelines Universe Book 3)

Captain Delaney Wolff Fox is back.

She’s just led her team on a months-long hunt through the penal world al-Saḥra’ (known otherwise by its semi-satirical name “Sanddoom”), looking for an industrial-sized illegal drug “kitchen” that’s been supplying colony worlds with various illegal substances via a network of involuntary migrant “mules”. That hunt ended satisfactorily, and rather explosively, with the destruction of the “kitchen” and hundreds if not thousands of personnel associated with it.

Now the team is heading back to Earth, hoping for some well-deserved shore leave . . .

. . . but it’s not to be. A long-sleeping foreign agent has been found in a stasis chamber in an abandoned Chicago warehouse, and it’s up to Delaney and crew to investigate the mystery, by traveling back to the year 2017 to find out why the agent was placed in stasis then, and why the stasis seems originally to have been planned to end in late 2020.

And when the sleeper wakes, asks for and consumes an entire pound of goose liver pâté, and asks for more, it’s pretty obvious they’ve got

A Dragon In The Foie Gras

FROM KAREN MYERS: The Chained Adept: A Lost Wizard’s Tale

MEET A POWERFUL WIZARD WITH UNANSWERED QUESTIONS–AND AN UNBREAKABLE CHAIN AROUND HER NECK.

Have you ever wondered how you might rise to a dangerous situation and become the hero that was needed?

The wizard Penrys has barely gained her footing in the country where she was found three years ago, chained around the neck and wiped of all knowledge. And now, an ill-planned experiment has sent her a quarter of the way around her world.

One magic working has called to another and landed Penrys in the middle of an ugly war between neighboring countries, half a world away.

No one has any reason to trust her amid rumors of wizards where they don’t belong. And she fears to let them know just what she can do — especially since she can’t explain herself to them and she doesn’t know everything about herself either.

Penrys has her own problems, and she doesn’t have any place in this conflict. But they need her, whether they realize it or not. And so she’s determined to try and lend a hand, if she can. Whatever it takes.

And once she discovers there’s another chained adept, even stronger than she is, she’s hooked. Friend or foe, she has questions for him — oh, yes, she does.

All she wants is a firm foundation for the rest of her life, with a side helping of retribution, and if she has to fix things along the way, well, so be it.

The Chained Adept is the first book of the series.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Five from Nouvelle Bruges (The Occupations of Nouvelle Bruges and New Lyon Book 3)

In an occupied city where every movement is documented and every document is monitored, a hotel concierge discovers five names in an overnight manifest bearing a designation that appears in no official vocabulary. The designation means one thing: these men are to be made to vanish.

Élise Marceau has spent eleven months reading every document that crosses her desk. She has mapped the occupation’s administrative systems with the same thoroughness she brings to managing the Hôtel Aurore. She knows how the apparatus works — and, more usefully, she knows where it doesn’t.

The five men she sets out to save are a railway freight scheduler, a former detective, a structural engineer, a linguist, and a shipping logistics administrator — professionals whose expertise the occupation has decided constitutes a threat. What follows is not a rescue. It is an argument in document form: a demonstration that systems can be defeated from within, using their own logic, by people who understand them.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Draw One In The Dark (The Shifter Series Book 1)

Deep in the Colorado Rockies, Kyrie Smith has mastered the art of keeping secrets: like how she turns into a panther at will, or how she’s trying to solve a string of shifter murders while serving up the daily special. But she’s not the only one with something to hide.

Take her coworker Tom Ormson—your typical guy next door, if your typical guy could transform into a dragon and might have accidentally killed someone. Then there’s the lion-shifting cop investigating the murders, a guilt-ridden father, and a trio of dragon shifters hunting for something called the Pearl of Heaven.

As if navigating a world of supernatural intrigue wasn’t complicated enough, Tom’s falling for Kyrie, discovering powers that shouldn’t exist, and learning that trust is a two-way street paved with decades of secrets. In Goldport, Colorado, where the coffee’s always hot and the shifters are always watching, solving a murder might be the easiest part of Kyrie’s day.

Welcome to small-town life where everyone has something to hide—and some of those secrets have scales, claws, and a tendency to roar.

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 to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: place

By Holly the Assistant

You know the party games, right? With the cups, and the kid puts a pea under one, and switches them around, and then reveals that it’s under a different cup than you thought? Or makes a quarter vanish then pulls it from behind his friend’s ear?

Look over there! Lake America! Look over there! Horrible President Rankings! Look over there!

And everyone is looking. Over there.

I established a habit back in the first term of President Trump of when my leftist acquaintances started screeching about something inane, going to check the Executive Orders page at the White House Website. (I am a classical musician: of course I have leftist acquaintances. The real trick is telling which are truly leftist and which are situationally leftist to stay employed.) We have several interesting Executive Orders this week, among the mundane, expected, and distracting. There’s the one about beef trimming imports, there’s the Space Academy which is to be under NASA interestingly enough, and then there’s the National Emergency.

The what you say, Holly?

Yes, we have an Executive Order titled: DECLARING A NATIONAL EMERGENCY TO SECURE
THE UNITED STATES BULK-POWER SYSTEM. You can read it here, and you should, because I do not speak electrical or national security fluently enough to tell you what it means: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/08/declaring-a-national-emergency-to-secure-the-united-states-bulk-power-system/

I do not know if this means that no one can build a solar plant with solar panels from the PRC, or if it means that no one can buy solar panels from the PRC if they will be grid tied, or something else entirely. I do not know if this is the reason for renaming Lake Ontario, so everyone is looking the other way and screeching, or if something else is. But I find it interesting that the first I heard of this was bopping over to the White House website to see what Executive Orders were up.

If you do speak fluent electrical and national security (Jeff maybe?) and you feel like you can translate, maybe you’d be willing to do so in the comments?

And if you know of something else that Pres. Trump is distracting from, drop that in the comments, too, assuming it’s public knowledge, of course, just not widely known public knowledge.

Our recently departed, beloved Havelock-cat was not the brightest bulb in the string. Or if you prefer, while not precisely dumb (he could figure out how to manipulate us a treat) Havey had two enormous areas of mental blindness: One was hygiene. We assumed he lost his mommy early and was never taught to clean himself. As far as he was concerned there was one part of his body he was supposed to groom: his left paw. His being a very fluffy cat this caused incidents of chasing him through the house while he distributed the poo in his tail and backside all over the carpets. His other huge blind spot was more endearing and also more exasperating: Havelock-cat was incapable of imagining that anyone — ANYONE — human or animal could wish him ill. (Which is one of the reasons we made d*mn sure he didn’t go outside, ever.)

The inside of our house should have been a perfectly safe place except that when we acquired him the house already contained D’Artagnan. I’m not going to cast shade on D’Artagnan, who was adorable and also older son’s cat, but his nickname was Slinky McEvil for a reason.

We had — still do, I’m looking at it — a glass fronted bookcase that is antique and was bought a millionth hand or so, for which the key has long been lost. You can open it by grabbing the upper edge and pulling. Which requires either a human hand at chest level or a cat standing on it.

Havey would inexplicably end up on the bottom shelf, looking piteous and trying to get out. I had to hide to find out what was happening. And the sequence was this: D’Artagnan would jump a top the bookcase, pry the front open just enough, then toss “coveted disputed toy” (a realistic mouse) in the bottom shelf. Along came Havey and went in to retrieve the toy. at which point D’Artagnan body-slammed the door closed. Voila, piteous, crying, stuck Havey.

Now for this to work once makes perfect sense. I mean, it was pretty d*mn devious for a cat to do that. But it happened over and over and over again, till I wedged a shim in the door that had to be removed before the door opened (and which cat paw from above couldn’t reach.) It’s like after getting trapped ten times, Havey came along and went “Oh, wow, there’s the toy and no D’Artagnan inside, I’ll just nip in!” “What could go wrong THIS time?”

My mantra when freeing him quickly became “Havey, this cat is not your friend. This cat does NOT mean you well.”

This story came to mind yesterday when I was thinking of DEI, particularly in the arts (though honestly, to an extent, in everything else.”

Because I keep looking at people (and enterprises) caught in it and going “These people are not your friends. These people don’t mean you well.”

And yet– I was talking to my husband and said the only people hard-sure that writers will be replaced by AI soon are people who have no understanding of technology and the fine flowers of trad pub, particularly “literary” who were published on the strength of being called “I’m Foreign and Oppressed” and writing about their oppression. And in their case it’s because their entire work could be replaced to advantage by ChatGTP (Or a small PERL script. Whichever.)

So, I understand the temptation. Look, heaven knows I do. When I was a struggling writer, trying to get in, if I had half a clue how to sell “exotic tale of hardship” without lying, I’d have tried it. Yes that’s different from nowadays when rather inexplicably all of trad pub (with the obvious exception, thanks guys) has gone headlong for “must have exotic name and Marxist-story-of-oppression” to be published at all. But still. When you’re in the phase that you’re flinging manuscript after manuscript into the maw of an establishment that will reject you for the stupidest reason and sometimes no reason at all, and which will often NOT TELL YOU when you’re rejected, after year two or three you’ll take anything that gives you a hand (or foot. Or nostril. Or eyebrow) up.

So what is the problem with that?

The problem is that while most publishable — heck, most bestseller-quality — manuscripts never got out of the slush pile (for the simple reason for about ten years slush piles weren’t even read. But that’s a long story) the reason these people got out of the slush pile had nothing to do with readibility let along reader appeal.

In fact, let me tell you as someone with a non-standard back story, it might relate INVERSELY to finding a wide audience. Why? Well, because story telling is the art of evoking a whole world from a half dozen details. To know which details to pick, you have to be VERY plugged in to the culture. As I tell people, most of the 13 years it took me to break in was acculturating enough. Because storytelling is a form of communication. And communication is harder across cultures.

On top of which if you are randomly selecting people for reasons other than quality QUALITY ALWAYS SUFFERS.

And that applies not just in writing, but in every single front of human endeavor.

Do I mean that EVERYONE advanced by DEI is mediocre? Oh dear Lord, of course not. Just the vast overwhelming majority.

In which they partake with the rest of the human race, because of most human endeavor is a mire of mediocrity, most people (duh) never rise above average (half never make it that far) and even geniuses are pretty hopeless at things that are not their core competency (TRUST ME in this. I raised two of them.)

Which is why if you are not selecting for excellence at “the thing” (Whatever the thing is) what you’ll get is mostly crap. Sometimes by sheer accident you’ll pull up a diamond, but the vast majority will put a hoover to shame, they will suck so badly.

And it doesn’t matter if they were advanced for being able to tan, having a family that worked on a tan for the last ten thousand years, or being female, or any other reason. If there were a DEI program initiated for left-handed blind-in-one-eye, one-legged Samoans, we’d end up with a lot of useless people there too.

The thing is that for the people thus selected, this seems like mana from heaven. It’s “I don’t have to struggle so hard” and it’s “Advancement for me and my family” and…

Look, I’m not saying I’d resist it if someone offered me a million dollar contract for aging people of Portuguese origin who have trouble losing weight (Curse you thyroid, couldn’t you have gone the other way?)

BUT–

For the group, in aggregate, it’s a disaster. Part of the perception that women just aren’t as competent, that even all the propaganda about girl bosses can’t counter is that we’ve been randomly advancing women on the flimsiest excuses for decades. Thus most women found in positions of authority are… not worthy of being there, and screw up at higher than average rates.

The same goes for every single protected category.

On the other hand if you want to make a group hyper-competent? Discriminate AGAINST them. (No, I’m not recommending this. I think everyone should get a fair shake, but historically this works.) Why? Because the people who make it to the top are by definition those with the ability to work harder, to work smarter and to just be more ambitious and focused than anyone else.

We’ve been applying this refining process to Jews for generations, and now idiots think Jews run the world, because they’ve run into enough examples of hyper competence. Also, it’s what’s at the back of weird ideas of female or black supremacy. Because back when they were discriminated against those categories threw some spectacular examples of genius and drive. I suspect my sons’ generation is going to see, in ten to twenty years a lot of examples of spectacularly hyper achieving white males. Because they’ve been discriminated against since kindergarten and most are lost boys, which means the VISIBLE and powerful ones will have had to swim through shit to get there.

I’m not advocating for discrimination. I’m advocating the reverse of discrimination. Treat every person as an equal competitor and concentrate on his/her/it/hamster’s ability to DO THE THING.

You’ll get the occasional dim bulb that slips in. (Look, every boss has a nephew or a son in law, okay?) but by and large, you’ll be picking the best people for the job if you pick for competence and ignore irrelevant characteristics.

The alternative is to destroy how everything works (Every incompetent person in a position of power will have a knock-down effect that affects hundreds, if not thousands) and to create actual hard-set racism and sexism in people who are affected by this.

Because in the end, why would people advance you for no reason? To be helpful and kind to you?

Well, no. Since these are politicians it’s most to own your group’s vote forever. And to make you more and more dependent on them.

Falling for it once is one thing. But it’s been decades. We know the knock-on effects of these policies.

Like Havelock in the glass case, it’s time to consider: These people are not your friends. These people don’t mean you well.

(Interestingly, this was a blast from the past when it was run in August of 2020, and it seems a good reminder for today, as well. https://accordingtohoyt.com/2020/08/25/the-right-to-go-to-hell-a-blast-from-the-past-from-february-2019/ –Holly the Assistant)

More applicable than ever now when those few of us somewhat at risk are being prevented from taking our chances with a new type of common cold and paying the the price in complete economic destruction and underhanded seizure of private property — what do you think ruining city real estate values and destroying businesses is? — and while maniacs are blaming invisible monsters of oppression for individual actions and wanting to destroy all of society the name of Marxism. It’s time to stop that sh*t. Only individuals have rights, and among individual rights are “to be able to make choices the bien pensant disapprove of.- SAH.

The left is very adamant about charity not coming “with a sermon.”  It is most of their excuse for wanting government not churches to preach.

But while I understand the convinced Christian’s need to preach and to save everyone from hell, which if you believe it is an eternal sentence and an awful one is mere human decency, I don’t understand the left’s similar need to ensure that everyone lives “a decent life” by its lights.

They refuse to understand that just as people are entitled to disbelieve and deny eternal salvation (and if you’re a Christian you know they are entitled to that. It’s called free will. Just as they’re entitled to sin. Doesn’t make it right. They’re still entitled to it. You can’t force anyone to be holy) they can refuse to live a middle class life. (Or better. The left keeps imagining that middle class is much further up than it is. Possibly because so many of them these days are spoiled rich kids.)

This came to mind last night, thinking of someone in the comments (sorry, I don’t remember the name) who said that maybe 10% of the homeless were aggressive and dangers to themselves and others.  Others simply were mentally ill or caught in the trap of child support but behaved like decent human beings.

The child support thing is iniquitous, and usually on both sides.  No, seriously. Women on the make will drive a man to ruin to finance her lifestyle in the name of “the children.”  Men on the make still find ways not to pay, and if the woman is decent and doesn’t want to turn her kids’ life into unending strife she ends up living in poverty to provide for the kid. I’ve known this on both sides, partly because it’s impossible for a judge to adjudicate fairly without truly knowing the parties involved. Partly because scammers gonna scam.  (It’s almost like no-fault divorce and marriage as a transitory fancy is a bad idea particularly when there are children involved. Never mind.)

The mental health… I’m fairly sure there are still services available should someone need them and know how to look.  And perhaps without the noise of the violent it would be easier for those people to find help.

But I still wonder if the mental health issues are such. And I wonder about other things like “but what if people just want to live like that?”

I have learned through rather bitter experience that you can’t help everyone and also that what you want for yourself and your life is not what other people want. Some people will do the absolute minimum to keep a roof over head and food on the table, even if the roof is leaky and substandard, and the food is whatever and they never do any house keeping and live in what can only be described as utter squalor.

I found long ago that given the absolute same income as someone else, we tend to live better.  Why? because we work beyond the money we have.  I don’t mean just that we work to get out of that level of poverty, I mean that we will trade time for the money we don’t have.

So, when my husband was the sole provider because my writing wasn’t selling yet, I made a lot of my clothes, refinished furniture and, of course, cooked absolutely everything from scratch.  Other than our cars, which we always bought used and fully paid for and drove into the ground, we easily kept up with our dual income friends.  Why? Well, not child care was part of it, but furniture, clothes and food were the other part. It’s just cheaper to do for yourself.

It was also a massive amount of work. Particularly since I was trying to break into writing, and was getting up every day at five am to write for two hours before the routine with the kids started.  I remember years of being short on sleep and going to bed with a long list of work that still needed to be done and I hadn’t got to in my head.

Was it worth it? Well, it was for me. I don’t like living in squalor.  I wanted nice furniture and a nice, clean house.  And I wanted my kids to have good food.

All of which amounts to: it was for me. It might not be for someone else.

It took me forever to figure this out. Let’s say the dime only dropped in the last ten years.  So, I kind of get the left not “getting” it.

Partly because if you come from a background where everyone worked a lot all the time to secure the best lifestyle they could, it’s almost impossible to visualize someone wanting to live in what we’d consider unacceptable circumstances.  Or perhaps not even “wanting” as fundamentally not being willing to pay the price to get a better situation.

Look, I’m not even a hundred percent sure of that last one.  We tried for decades with someone, and everything you gave that would bring a better life got either broken or ignored or thrown away.  Perhaps there is a Petersonian thing there, of people believing they only deserve to live at a certain level and anything above that making them uncomfortable. (Peterson says in terms of people not taking necessary meds, etc, that having seen our own brokenness and that we’re often untruthful and evil — even when we don’t mean to be — we think we don’t deserve to be well, etc.)

Or perhaps it is simply that doing anything, even using the thing that makes it easier is too much effort.

I’ve said before that I think the vast majority of people don’t feel the need to work above a subsistence level and that those of us who do are the mutants.  I still believe so. In evolutionary terms, if you continued hunting after you had mammoth in your cave, you were just going to deplete the game and end up starving eventually.

That’s not the way it works now, but the human brain is not a thing of the industrial revolution.

I believe a great number of the people who live in “chronic poverty” are in fact at the level at which they wish to be/the level for which they’re willing to work.  The left keeps coming up with increasingly fancier explanations, which are now devolving to “invisible demons” of oppression (seriously, in our society? Besides, if societal disapproval caused you to be poor, then a lot of gay people would be historically poor, instead of statistically at the top.)

It never occurred to me that a lot of people who are “homeless” might fall into the same category.  By which I mean the ones who aren’t crazy, addicted or dangerous to others.  Maybe what they have and what they do is the level they wish to live at.  Or at least it’s comfortable enough they don’t wish to do anything to get out of it.  But it makes sense.  After all, by the numbers, these people already live better than your average medieval peasant.  At which point, honesty, my only problem with their choice is whatever help they get that is non voluntary, i.e. taxation, not private charity.  If they’re living like that and it’s their choice, and they’re wholly financed by private charity? Don’t care. None of my business.  Everyone has the right to go to hell in the way of their choice.

What disturbs me about the left’s inability to recognize that choice is that those choices end up being financed from my purse, and the purse of the others who choose to work.  That they are in fact holding up a gun to the heads of working fathers and mothers and demanding money to keep people who (what was Occasional Cortex’s cutesy phrase, exactly, I can’t remember) “aren’t willing to work” in the level of comfort they are okay with.

And then the fact that those people aren’t living at what the left thinks American middle class level should be, in a decently ecologically approved house, with the car and the organic meals and full health insurance, the left will come back and demand more.  More and more money to pour down the hole of trying to change people’s choice on what they consider an acceptable level of comfort and living.  What they aren’t willing to work to get out of.  What, in fact, they’ll preserve if they get more “help” by doing even less to help themselves.

That’s what I object to. I object to the use of people’s choices to blackmail other people out of theirs.

I object to this holy crusade of the left that turns anyone who has less than you into a de-facto saint who needs to be championed, while you need to be tormented because you worked (or your ancestors did) to get to a level you consider acceptable.

I object to this Christian heresy with no redemption, no hope, no future, and no one being good or holy except those who envy and live at the expense of others.

I don’t think there’s ever been a civilization as rich as ours, but even in rich civilizations of the past, there were people who lived at all levels. And though social motility was smaller or slower or hidden, it was possible.  It could happen. It might take multiple generations and grim determination, but it happened.  Just the same, there were any number of people who were satisfied once they reached the “we’re not starving” level and went no further.

There still are.  In the infinite variety of humanity, what you consider comfortable I consider insupportable.  And it’s not just poverty, either. I’d probably die if forced to live the life of a socialite, forever minding what people thought, and having to have the latest styles.  I don’t want that. I’m not interested.

In the same way I suspect any number of the “poor” would think I was crazy, keeping the work hours I do, and taking time to refinish furniture, or clean, or…  Because they don’t feel the need to it.

And that’s their right. They are entitled to live as they want and to do just the minimum to get there.

And the left is NOT entitled to use holy envy to make everyone who wants better and works for it to feel guilty. Nor are they entitled to rob us to finance the lifestyle of people who don’t want to make any extraordinary effort and feel fine the way they are.

And it’s time we stopped this nonsense.

You choose what you want to sacrifice for what. I will willingly sacrifice time and effort for a clean and decent house.  You won’t because you place more value on time on the sofa watching your favorite program? You do you.  Just don’t ask me for money to get you a better house.

You see what you want and you pay the price.  And the do-gooders can go take a flying leap.  As long as your hand isn’t in my pocket, I don’t care.

Look, we’re in the middle of moving, going to bed late, waking up late, and I am just barely up and dressed at almost noon. I’m not functioning too well.

BUT I still must ask: Are you guys okay? You, there, on the other side of the screen? Because from where I am, you guys — not commenters here. At least I hope not — are losing your damn minds.

Like half the commenters on the right are shrieking about taking the vote away from women because hardcore, crazy feminists and social media posturing idiots are defending a mass murderess of children.

No, I’m not going to say “not all women” because if you don’t know it’s not all women who want to murder their children, you should be fitted with a straight jacket and put in a padded cell.

What I’m going to say is: Has none of you learned to recognize a psy-ops yet? How often do I need to shout it from the rooftops?

It doesn’t surprise any of you that some many “women” — fifty cent army, bots and pudding heads — are shrieking that all women should have the right to murder their children? As in… at all? This is all super cool with you, and totally representative of the sentiment of 99% of mothers who, btw, raise healthy children to adulthood?

(And yes, here, full disclosure, for much of my kids’ teen years I’d say “When you’re eighteen, if I let you live that long.” BUT we all knew it was a JOKE. Like my joke that I was going to hold my (by then six one, finished at six four) younger son out of the window by his ankles and shake him till he stopped being an idiot.)

But Sarah? A psy-op from WHOM? Oh, dear. Actually it is multiple intersecting psy-ops with the runners of each jumping on the bandwagon and doing their best to push it, because it SERVES THEIR PURPOSE.

1- first and most numerous and probably most powerful (We should all be grateful the money from USAid has been throttled down, or they’d be funding armies of bull dykes burning cities, because BLM worked so well for them in 2020) is the Democrats. They’re out of ideas. They’re out of gas. They’re out of voters, which is why they’re clutching fraud to their chest like a life preserver. BUT BY GUM if they can stoke a war between men and women and tar the right as women haters (with the cooperation and help of a lot of the idiots — I repeat, idiots. Not to say retards because people suffering from mental retardation are blameless. These fully-functioning humans are beneath them morally. AND intellectually)… well, women will vote for them for the same reason I voted for Trump in 2016 (when I didn’t know him.): This sucks, but least likely to harm me, personally. (I’ll add they tried to stoke exactly this battle over ABORTION and found out that most women aren’t really THAT interested in their right to murder their offspring, and therefore they still lost 2024.)

2- The other half of the red green alliance. For some reason, probably because this is the year of the bad idea bunny, or perhaps because people who are drowning catch at the stupidest straws, Islam has become convinced they can take us, and hold us. (Heaven help us. It would be the illustration of biting off more than they can chew, but it would fundamentally change us too.) They view it as a personal offense that we have unveiled women (also that we keep dogs. Also … well, everything.) They would love nothing less than to convince American men that women should be veiled and confined to the house. It would make their sharia platform WAY more palatable.

3- China. I’d say Russia too, but they are more broke these days and their ten kopek army is probably smaller. Why? Because infighting in the US is good for them. Because the democrats winning is good for them. Because Americans not reproducing is good for them.

And if you’re chafing at the first and saying “So the right wing can’t rebuke women, because they won’t vote for us? They don’t vote for us anyway.” I say again: IDIOTS. Arrant, blatant, running towards the precipice screaming “you can’t tell me not to jump.” That bullshit is bullshit from beginning to end. a) you don’t know women don’t vote for the GOP. The difference, statistically between MARRIED women and men in DECLARED voting record is… minor. And all of it is subsumed by fraud. Note declared. The vote is secret. This is exit polls. Women, particularly single women in mostly leftist enclaves will say they voted for the left. Question: Of the left and the right, which is more likely to commit violence against those who don’t vote for them? You do the math.

And if you say you know a lot more liberal women than men? We all do. But they are of a type. Usually young or old (older than me, and I’m turning 64) this year. And both of them are running software that was installed in higher education and infused with feminism and victimhood. A lot of them might also be masking. Look, again, women are more likely to VOICE the accepted opinion. Because women crave social approval more than men (in general, blah blah, continuum, you know the disclaimers.) It’s the software in the head saying “You’ll never survive as a lone wolf(ess) you need social approval from the band.

Second, what do you think you’ll gain by tarring all women with loony leftist desire to sacrifice children? Let the left call for child murder. Do not assume all women are on that side. If you do you have nothing to gain. If you don’t you stand to gain all the women who are on the left out of habit and stupidity and who will suddenly go “The fuck is wrong with these people, actually?” and who might be red pilled.

Look, yes, there are a lot of women behaving badly online. You, yes, absolutely, should call them out. You should call their behavior what it is: Savage, vile, and anti-survival.

What you shouldn’t then do is jump to the conclusion that all women should be stripped of civil rights. And this is coming from someone who in times of extreme stress has said she’d be willing to give up the vote if it stripped all them bitches of the vote too. Until her husband reminds her some men are commies too.

How many women are even on social media? As a percentage? We who are relatively speaking extremely online tend to forget not everyone is. But the percentage might be maybe around 25% for the younger generation. And by that I mean: people who are on social media, and actively involved, beyond posting “pictures of Junior for grandma and the aunties.”

How many of those women are calling out solidarity for a woman who murdered her three children? Not even all of those, just a vocal minority.

How many of those calling out solidarity are ACTUALLY calling out solidarity for the act and not saying “Wait, we don’t know all the facts of the case, her husband remarried suspiciously fast, and…. um…. what the hell was going on, actually?” Because while the act of murdering your own children is, traditionally and through history awful and horrifying (And I don’t even want to think about it, because it hurts) we do have a system of justice that weighs everything.

Look, if you told me: “No matter. We’re killing everyone who kills children, to make this not happen again. Once we know they done it, we take them out back and shoot them.” I’d say the idea is maybe too rash, and the Supremes might protest, but…. OTOH, well, it might help curb this type of thing, so maybe…

But that’s not the system we have. And I can see psychiatrists and psychologists — professions dominated by women — calling out for more information and a more tempered opinion.

Which doesn’t amount to “Let women kill babies. She done right.” or even “it’s all the husband’s fault.” Just “Let’s find out more about this.”

Am I in this camp? I don’t know. I haven’t read enough on it to be in any camp, and I’m constitutionally inclined (not the US constitution, my constitution) to “Take her out back and shoot her.” Like all women who suffered through infertility, women who kill their own children are our particular and declared enemies. I think. Psychologically.

But I can understand the women and men who are in that camp, and I don’t think they’re monsters, unlike the ones who think mothers want to kill their kids all the time. (And not just, say, when they mow the carpet. Or make a bomb that creates a six foot crater in the backyard. Or… What? They’re in their thirties. I obviously just shouted loudly at them in a Latin mother way.)

I, personally, and as a matter of passing interest would like to know what psych medicines if any this woman was on, because some of them are notorious for creating mass murderers. (Which yes, this is. Women mass murderers usually prey on children and the elderly.)

BUT again, the monsters — and bots, and 20 kopek army, and whatever the hell — calling for women to be able to murder children are despicable. And you’ll find it’s probably because they want to push “Well, see, this is why we need abortion up to your water breaking and beyond.” Like you can solve murder with more murder.

But it’s not a war between men and women. It’s, as always, a battle between civilization and Marxist barbarians grabbing at any passing event to promote their hellish cause. Stop helping them.

The funniest and MOST INSIGHTFUL article I saw from the right on this wanted to ban women from social media.

This is of course impossible, and also likely to cause much furore and backlash by itself, which will if not make it possible for the left to win (they mostly win by fraud. No, really. Hence the hysterical fight against voter ID) possible for the left to hide its cheating under a plausible wave of indignation. The author of the article (I’m lazy but you can probably find it. I think it was townhall. I could be wrong) himself says that of course it’s impossible.

BUT it is the most insightful article because…. women.

Look, men and women are different. From each other, of course, within the group (we’re not Marxists. We know that) but mostly, in aggregate, different from each other as groups. Different enough that I have often non-ironically wondered if Heinlein was right and we’re merely symbiont species. And again this comes from a woman who is closer to male in brain organization. Close enough to be more masculine than the most extreme feminized men on the other side.

But women in general have a huge weak spot that’s probably evolutionary (because a pregnant woman can’t survive alone if kicked out of the band.) They crave mass approval and applause. They want to be in good with the vast majority of people. (I think I can be absolved of this, given 2020.) They also tend to be cowards, when asked for an opinion in public, and again say what they think will be approved/praised.

I think on the other end of the scale from me this is scary-stupid. Like, women will change their entire lives and do reprehensible things because they think it will get them approval.

And I’m not claiming complete exemption here, even me. I remember being young and worrying that people would think I let my husband control me, and therefore doing a lot of shitty counterproductive nonsense to prove I was my own woman, for instance. Because that’s how the brain is wired, and that was the perceived judgement from society.

This is why women consume more fashion, obsess over their appearance, distort their kids’ upbringing to make their kids seem to be “good” in whatever way is fashionable (see all the women transing their kids) etc. etc. etc.

This tendency of women is responsible for most of the evils of the west, yes. And yes, it’s a problem. And why I, episodically go on my rant about giving up suffrage if them bitches are stripped of it too. Hold on for why this would be wrong. Deep breath.

OBVIOUSLY this tendency is exacerbated by social media, particularly the vapid CCP owned, bot-infested climes of Tic Toc. I am still disappointed we didn’t keep Tic Toc banned. Yes, yes, free speech. BUT CCP owned and controlled. Nothing in our Constitution requires us to facilitate enemy psy-ops.

And yeah, if there were a way to ban women from social media that weren’t a major attack on everyone’s social liberties, I’d even consider it.

But it is written “the idiots shall always be with you.” and even if you could ban women, the extreme of feminized men would be just as bad.

Now why this tendency to seek approval doesn’t mean we should ban women from voting (Or not necessarily. I too have my moments.): The actual voting record, as far as we can tell (which ain’t very far) shows that married women are pretty dang close to men.

This means the tendency can be overcome by rationality, life experience and education/growth.

Which means that yes, women have this vulnerability and they should be taught they have it, and how to overcome it.

Not, you know, have our education system lean into it and teach them that they have to be feminist shrieking harpies to be “free” and “not slaves of patriarchy.” And all the other nonsense. Which exacerbates it by giving girls a permanent victimhood complex and teaching them safety is on the left. AND WE’RE PAYING FOR THAT. You and me.

If your kids are in school from elementary on, read all their materials. And be ready to pull them out and homeschool them, for the love of… well, your kids.

And stop with the crazy attempts to remove the natural issues women face: pregnancy, birth, vulnerability by making men more vulnerable and having the state help women all along the line. No more advantage to women in custody or divorce. No more DEI promoting of the minority that’s actually a majority. No guilting of women that want to have children.

These are all things that the state (various states and nations, really) has done to make women “stronger”, but evolution is millions of years deep. Women are always going to feel vulnerable and be susceptible to mob pushing. The way to fix that is not to remove their disadvantages but to make them rational, thinking beings. Which we know they can be.

The solution is not to take the vote from women. The solution is…. equality. Treat men and women as being alike. Don’t demonize men. Don’t coddle women. Teach them the virtues of the West. Teach Marxism for the horror it is.

The hour is late, and as this psy-ops proves, a lot of you are susceptible to enemy propaganda.

It’s time to stop aiding those who would divide us to conquer us.

I have breaking news from the dawn of civilization: Men and women are different.

Note that the last time I said this I got accused of being transphobic, which is utterly baffling since if men and women were the absolute exact same, then what would be the point of changing? And why would you feel like your mind and your body didn’t match, if minds were exactly the same?

Now, with the understanding that these mental modes are indeed a continuum, with women who are on the spectrum functioning closer to male minds, hormones cause different brain development, before you’re even born. The different hormone baths that males and females get create very different structures. (Yes, those can go wrong, So there’s a small percentage of people who do indeed have a mismatch.)

How different? Well, men’s mental pathways tend to be more straight forward. They think point A to B to C. Women’s brains are more interconnected and resemble a web rather than a railway. So a woman will think from A through D to B, then pull in E and F before with all that input arriving at C.

“Ah, you say. So men are more logical.” Um… no. Both sexes can be taught to use logic. I don’t think it’s natural to either. There is a reason the default of human society is the tribal mob and witch hunts But both can be taught logic and reasoning based on facts.

It’s more that each extreme mode of human brain (again, remember it’s a continuum, though the most direct of women will still be more “webby” than the most “webby” of men.) is suited to a different kind of problem. And it is the way you imagine that evolution would shape them (though it’s best not to invent just so evolutionary stories, because… it’s never that simple.) Men’s brains are awesome at solving engineering problems and math problems, and plotting a direct journey, and…. Women’s brains are great at managing complex group issues, like how to get different people to work together, or creating complex narratives that take a lot of details into account (not fiction, necessarily. There’s modes on that too. Men normally write great plot, women write great characters. The failure mode being when they don’t LEARN to do the other side.) or how to coordinate involved, complex stuff.

This is where “diversity” comes in legitimately, because having a woman in an engineering team, even if she’s mostly male-brained, helps bring factors the guys might forget. And having a male on the planning of some gigantic corporate meet up will allow him to go “hey, how about we plan the THING and stop getting lost in the weeds.” Unfortunately that requires equal footing and not special considerations and leftists exist.

The failure mode on either side is obvious. What the left likes to call “Toxic masculinity” gets so obsessed with “doing the thing” it tramples over every other consideration. And toxic femininity gets so obsessed with the people part of the project that it all devolves into the politics of the serraglio.

Because yes, the aggression modes of each sex is also very different. I have a tendency to not understand female aggression and to just wade into a confrontation with both fists and the occasionally steel-pointed boot. Which has not served me well while moving in mostly female environments for work. It’s not expected of a female, makes the other females hate you. And makes me very vulnerable to female-aggression.

Female aggression is the poison in the cup, the dagger between the ribs in an embrace. In less obvious or lethal forms, it’s the politics of the serraglio, what you imagine concubines did to advance themselves (and their children.) No, not that part of what they did. Take your mind out of the gutter. I mean a war of petty aggression with words and rumors and indirection. I always know I’m in the middle of a female war (and not armed for it) when someone approaches and says “Did you see what that bitch posted this morning.” And I go and read the post and it says something about her dog throwing up on the carpet. And I don’t get it. And then the first person unpacks it into this complex hint about how the poster is implying the first person is a bitch who messed up something. … Is it true? Sometimes it seems to be. But I don’t get it. I don’t get it when applied to me, I don’t get it when applied to someone else. And I sometimes think I give people this kind of “hint” without meaning to. I don’t give hints. if I have a problem I’ll tell you. Or as I tell people “I am not passive aggressive. I’m aggressive-aggressive.” This might have something to do with coming from a line of females who were taller than most men and built like brick sh*thouses. It allowed us to survive being physically aggressive. Most women can’t, because most women are smaller and weaker than men, so they had to develop underhanded ways of fighting.

Male aggression will break your ribs, plaster your face or kill you. It’s direct and brutal. In its less disguised form, it will give you a dress down at top of voice. It will demote you or dock your pay or generally be obvious.

Both aggressions can create failure modes for society, but society has favored the female mode of aggression since people congregated into cities. WHY? Because male aggression leaves people dead, which is counter-civilization.

So men had to learn to tame the beast and fight with words. For the same reason women had to. Because they are powerless before more powerful individuals (or the state. If fighting gets you killed, you learn to just call names.)

Look, it was a process. If you don’t believe me, go and see when dueling was outlawed. it’s quite recent, pretty much everywhere. But the point here is that one sex can function as the other. It’s just harder, and only some individuals manage it.

NEITHER SEX IS DESIGNED FOR FAIR PLAY, HONORABLE INTERACTION, GIVING THE OTHER GUY A CHANCE.

Go read that again. Neither sex is naturally honorable. This is nonsense based on Noble Savage illusions. Honor, duty, gentleman’s code, lady manners? All of that are triumphs of — by and large — Judeo-Christian civilization. Don’t believe me? Go see how other cultures operate, particularly those barely touched by the west.

You won’t find honor or gentleman’s code anywhere. Just nature, red in tooth and claw, be it among males or among females. Even the vaunted Greeks and Romans…. I mean, go read unexpurgated histories, sometime.

Now I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: Making women’s way of climbing dominant in business via DEI initiatives has borked a sytem not designed for it.

Forcing that proverbial engineering team to take on a majority of women, particularly when women were being hard-pushed into engineering regardless of inclination, and to take their opinions FIRST causes the engineering team to get caught in a loop of “what she said about my lug nut” and completely forgetting to DO THE THING that brought the team together in the first place.

I don’t know what forcing a man into nursing would do, because men aren’t being forced into “female professions” but my guess is a much more direct approach that misses things.

Also in the management fights men are curiously defenseless in front of women, the same way I’m defenseless. They have no idea what code the women are reading, but they don’t have the decoder ring.

So, if you are really invested in women in business AND the fairness code of the west, you MUST — MUST — teach your daughters to be gentlemen in the classical Western fashion. It is doable. My dad achieved it. And that will restore to the west the ability to DO THE THING and the fairness of competing for position in an open and non-underhanded way.

But other than that? Men can default to “female ways of fighting” when they feel powerless. And btw men that do so are very, very good at it. Which makes them rather despicable.

Most of our politics, particularly on the left (because they perceive their time is passing, I think) is now “feminine coded” as is a lot of our boardrooms. This is mostly because the centralization of the industrial age made most people feel powerless and have to fight underhand.

…. and because we no longer teach ANYONE to be gentlemen. Not men, not women. BUT we do hard-forbid private male aggression. So in public, men have to fight underhand and by stealth. As do women. And the Western habits and ability to do things fall.

All of which is to say: We need to restore the unspoken principles of our culture.

We also need to stop attributing its fall and its destruction to the other sex.Yes, sure, Marxists used feminism as a stalking horse. And women (and men) fell for it. But Marxism used everything as a stalking horse. And it’s not the fault of anyone alive now. (Unless they’re very old.)

What we have now are males who are told from birth that they’re bad evil, and all the ills of society are their fault because they were born with a penis. And women who are told they’re discriminated against and ALWAYS victims, because they were born with a vagina. And it’s all the fault of the other sex.

Piling on with more creative ways of demonizing men and women (which this education predisposes both sexes too) does nothing except increase the distance between men and women. And because men and women NEED each other for balance (that true diversity) it skews society more and more.

Also at a very fundamental level it stops men and women being able to build a marriage which is the ultimate relationship of trust between sexes. Which in turn prevents family formation and the raising of a sane next generation.

In the war between men and women, the only ones who win are those who want the extinction of the human race.

Yes, right now both men and women have been twisted into operating at the most toxic, particularly when relating to the other sex.

This is neither natural nor accidental. And it’s time to walk it back rather than pile on either side.

Start today. Tear down the wall. Extend a hand to the other side.

The future you save might be your own.

Book Promo

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

FROM PAM UPHOFF: De Cyborg Kid (Chronicles of the Fall)

A Novella in the Three Part Alliance

PFUG, Inc. Project Find Uncle Gustav.

A kidnapping . . . the daughter recovered, the son apparently lost forever. Illegally cyborged and sold.

The Vogel Family might regret his very existence, but with a supreme indifference to mere legalities, a determined teenage boy is determined to find his long-lost uncle. No matter how many Cyborgs he has to rescue . . .

FROM HOLLY CHISM: A Sunny Day on Ganymede

Imagine growing up in a colony. No, not one on Earth–one in space. On one of Jupiter’s moons, or maybe on a station…or an asteroid! What would it be like to be a kid in a research station on Io, or Ganymede? What would it be like to grow up inside tunnels dug into an asteroid? Or on a station floating in fixed orbit somewhere? Join Jack, Sean, Raffie, Jake, and Chris in this collection of stories…where one of the biggest differences a kid can make is by asking the right questions.

FROM DALE COZORT: Nazi Treasure Hunt Book One: Marsh War

---

Marsh War is an alternate history novel set in the aftermath of an alternate World War II where Hitler went for Moscow rather than the Caucasus in spring 1942. As a result, World War II in the east stalemated deep inside Soviet prewar territory. The Soviets were too weak to push the Germans out, even when the western allies pushed into Germany. Diehard Nazis fled to the German-held Soviet Union and held out there for years until the western Allies crossed into Soviet territory and destroyed them.

With the Soviet Union battered and partially occupied, the United States emerges from World War II as the World’s only real Great Power. Great, right? Not really. In 1949, two years after they destroyed the last conventional Nazi resistance, the US still occupies large parts of the western Soviet Union and has been sucked into the treacherous politics of the Polish/Soviet border regions, with nominal allies close to war with each other over economically valuable and ethnically mixed areas.
Stalin pursues his intrigues in this dangerous region, while Nazi remnants scheme to regain power.

While the US settles in for a postwar boom, US occupation forces in the Soviet Union search for missing German scientists, Nazi advanced technology and looted Nazi treasures. They also search for missing loved ones and brace for a coming war they are woefully unprepared for.

FROM SHANE HALLAWA: The Stylite

Teresa Amadei is a depressed young woman dealing with the sudden death of her mother, Juliana, with whom she has long been at odds since the murder of her father, Peter, when she was little. Her aunt and uncle, Bridget, and Jesse Abbate, send her to be helped by a Byzantine stylite in the Nevada desert, Father Simon. Father Simon trains her in the Way of Fire, a form of meditation that translates into a martial art, into a wandering, ascetic demon hunter and Lamp Bearer.

Teresa is sent on a journey to the city of Alexantine in the midwestern US, where many have started to move to as a refuge against the growing turmoil in the US and the West as a whole. Along the way, she fights the Daemoklos, demons who have escaped from their eponymous grimoire, led by their god-king Varazhah. Joining her on the road is her older cousin and fellow stylite, Matthew Abbate, and the Saracen, a mysterious knight with a mass following, whose identity and purpose remain unknown.

To defend the world, one must let go of and surpass the world. To survive against the outer demons, Teresa must face her inner demons, and at last make peace with Juliana, who continues to speak to her daughter beyond the grave.

FROM EDWARD HERING: Hypnagogia

Where does your mind wander in the quiet moments before sleep?

Hypnagogia is a collection of seven speculative tales conceived in the hazy, unfiltered threshold between waking thought and deep slumber. Spanning hard science fiction, quiet suspense, and dark cosmic dread, these stories trace the unpredictable paths of a mind untethered from daytime logic.

Inside this collection:

• Deadman Vector: A high-risk prospecting voyage goes catastrophic, forcing a crew to endure five brutal minutes at 75 gravities—where survival is measured in sheer physical endurance.
• Chandelier: Stranded on an undeveloped world after a hyperdrive failure, a freight captain must survive in an aggressive alien ecosystem, accompanied by his sole passenger: a taciturn, enigmatic alien entity.
• Methuselah: A chance meeting at a party catapults an ordinary guy ten thousand years into a bizarre, distant future.
• Desecration: Ken’s life changes for the better when the girl of his dreams moves in next door—until he discovers that ancient, unseen forces have a far darker purpose for him.

From the unforgiving physics of deep space to the strange encounters waiting just around the corner, Hypnagogia captures the vivid, restless imagination that takes over when the lights go out.

Close your eyes. Step into the drift.

FROM JAMES MAYNARD: Flying on the Wings of Change: A story from Americas Divorce

What happens when a wounded veteran, a computer genius, and a handful of fiercely independent misfits decide that the best way to change the world is to stop waiting for someone else to do it?

G has spent years flying from a wheelchair, learning to make the sky obey him even when his body won’t. T is a computer wizard with a mysterious past, an enormous extended family, and a talent for turning impossible ideas into working machines.

Together, they build things that shouldn’t exist.

Aircraft that push the limits of what remote flight can do. Technology born in garages and workshops instead of corporate boardrooms. And a community of people who have decided that family isn’t necessarily something you’re born into.

But building extraordinary machines attracts attention.

Soon G, T, and their growing family find themselves caught between government agencies, competing agendas, and people who would very much like to know exactly what they’re capable of. What began as tinkering and experimentation is becoming something far more consequential.

Because when you build something powerful enough to change the rules, eventually somebody comes looking for the keys.”   

FROM JAMIESON WARD: Unlocked: The Man with the Dragon-Head Cane

Mara Wolfe is the best investigator the Utah State Bureau of Investigation has.

She’s also on the verge of being fired.

Ten partners in four years. A file full of complaints. “Insubordinate.” “Reckless.” A closure rate no one can touch and a stillness around danger that makes people deeply uncomfortable. When her lieutenant finally runs out of patience, he doesn’t fire her — he reassigns her. To the weird cases. The ones nobody can explain and that no one wants. And to a civilian consultant she didn’t ask for, doesn’t trust, and can’t stop thinking about.

Tobias Crane walks with a cane and has eyes that speak of things better left unsaid. The detailed dragon head on his cane is neither decoration — nor just a carving.

The case that brings them together: six people found wandering the Parowan Gap at dawn. No injuries. No memory. No longer wholly human. It should have been a dead end.

It isn’t.

What finds Mara at the end of it will take her somewhere her Marine training, her badge, and her instincts never prepared her for. The old world — the one that existed before this one had a name — was always more than myth.

It’s been waiting to come back.

And something there just kicked open the door.

Unlocked is Book One of The Man with the Dragon-Head Cane — a six-book urban fantasy series rooted in Welsh mythology, set against the ancient landscape of southern Utah.

FROM LEE ECKHARD: YOU CAN’T SEE US: A SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

Seventeen-year-old Katherine Matheson, in the hospital recovering from an automobile accident, is astounded to discover she can now hear what people are thinking – the accident somehow liberated a telepathic ability she never knew she had before. Almost immediately she is contacted by the Wheel, a group of telepathic nomads on the run from the mysterious Janus, a powerful mentality whom is determined to capture them and use them for his own nefarious purposes. Kathy joins them as they flee from California to New Mexico and then to Illinois, knowing her life is in danger but finding, in the Wheel, a kind of family she never had before. But all families have their secrets, and the Wheel is no exception: Kathy is eventually forced to confront just why the Wheel was created and what it really is… NOTE: Kathy Matheson previously appeared in ‘The Empty Place’.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Clerics in the Kitchen (Timelines Universe Book 10)

When your meth lab is built on a factory scale…

The planet Sanddoom. Desert exile world for most of Earth’s Radical Islamic Fundamentalists. Run by Mad Mullahs, who repay the favor of American leniency by creating a world of slavery, insurgency, and export of dangerous drugs via their own outmigrating people, headed for other colony planets.

The first two are covered by a hands-off agreement with the Americans.

The last, not so much. And Captain Delaney Wolff Fox’s special assignments fire team, FTSA1, aren’t going to stand for it. Their job is to hunt down and eliminate

The Clerics in the Kitchen

FROM MEL DUNAY: Ancestors of Jaiya Series Collection

Four Books in One! Welcome to the land of Jaiya, where humans share their lands with strange creatures, and where darker powers lurk in the shadows! Slaying a Tyrant: the dancer Vanti dreams only of perfecting her art, until her family names her their gladiator in a deadly tournament that will decide her country’s fate. Her reluctant mentor, the brooding warrior Gurion, may hold the knowledge she needs to survive. But as the tournament approaches, Vanti discovers that she will need more than speed or strength to defeat the magical powers of King Obiar the Conqueror. Saving a Queen: Prasa escapes her city as it falls to imperial forces, with only a few allies and a desperate desire to save her fleeing people. Her only hope of escape lies with Nirav, a dashing smuggler who pilots a balloon through dangerous mountain passes. As they soar over breathtaking landscapes, Prasa finds herself caught between her royal duty and her growing attraction to the mysterious pilot. In a world where humans share their lands with strange creatures, and where darker powers lurk in the shadows, Prasa faces her most difficult decision. She must choose her own path: a new war against her enemies, or a new start for her people, with new allies at her side. But Nirav carries a secret cargo that makes their balloon a target for a monstrous creature out of the old legends. Scapegoating a Hero: Anora hides her rare and unsettling power: the ability to steal other people’s memories with a single touch. By day, she plays the respectable wife to Naval officer Rijal in their arranged marriage. By night, she reluctantly uses her abilities as a spy to protect her nation’s hard-won freedom. When Rijal kills the sleazy businessman who was blackmailing Anora, he’s immediately arrested. Their marriage of convenience becomes anything but convenient, as Anora discovers feelings she never expected to have for her husband. Seeking the Quantum Tree: secret agent Sena must warn the neighboring land of Avugah about a planned invasion by the ruthless General Drozniya. When Drozniya attacks ahead of schedule, Sena finds herself trapped behind enemy lines. Aided by handsome businessman Taavid, she must try to save the other Jaiyans trapped in the occupied zone. In a world where humans share their lands with strange creatures, and where darker powers lurk in the shadows, Sena uncovers General Drozniya’s true obsession: the Quantum Tree, a legendary source of mystical power that could rewrite reality.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Stars Beyond the Reach of Kings (The Aurigan Conflict)

Far from the capitals of two rival interstellar powers, the fate of free worlds rests not with admirals or emperors—but with ordinary people.

The Hesperus Reach lies on the distant frontier of human civilization, where neighboring colonies have been drawn into opposite spheres of influence. New Albion remains aligned with the commercial traditions of the Anglo Commonwealth. Vesper has prospered under the careful guidance of the Aurigan Dominion.

Neither empire seeks conquest in the old sense.
One offers opportunity through commerce.
The other offers security through dependence.

Caught between them are Daniel Wren, an Anglo survey pilot determined to do the right thing; Marcus Venn, whose ambition slowly becomes betrayal; Elise Harrow and Julia Serrin, two remarkable women who discover that truth matters more than ideology; and Elias Varr, a forgotten scientist whose secluded world holds a secret capable of changing the balance of power across known space.

As hidden agendas collide and long-buried technology resurfaces, old friendships are tested, governments reveal uncomfortable truths, and two colonies must decide whether freedom means choosing the better empire—or refusing to belong to either.

Inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Stars Beyond the Reach of Kings combines thoughtful political science fiction, compelling characters, and high-stakes adventure into a story about forgiveness, responsibility, and the enduring struggle to remain free.

Perfect for readers who enjoy the political depth of classic space opera, realistic interstellar diplomacy, and intelligent science fiction where ideas matter as much as battles.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Darkship Thieves

Athena Hera Sinistra never wanted to go to space. Never wanted see the eerie glow of the Powerpods. Never wanted to visit Circum Terra. She never had any interest in finding out the truth about the Darkships. You always get what you don’t ask for.
When an intruder in her bedroom forces Athena to flee her father’s luxury cruiser in a tiny lifeboat, her escape leads her straight to the legendary Darkships—mysterious vessels that steal Earth’s power supply. And into the life of the pilot of the Darkship.

Thrust into a hidden asteroid colony and hunted by powerful enemies, Athena discovers shocking truths about her father’s empire and her own identity. As she navigates this dangerous new reality, what began as a fight for survival becomes a battle for freedom that could transform humanity’s future.

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 to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: rude