According To Hoyt

There are hinge moments in life. Things happen and after that life is never ever the same.

Some of those we are deeply conscious of: weddings, funerals, the birth of a child. There is a moment of sundering realization when you realize not only have you become someone else, and your preoccupations in life will now be quite different, but you’re also aware that there’s no going back.

Weirdly I’m really bad at those. At realizing such things, I mean. The only one I was absolutely sure of was when I held first son, then just less than a day old. I was startlingly, suddenly, aware that this creature would command my attention and was damn well entitled to my protection and undivided loyalty for the next eighteen years. (Yes, it’s cute that I thought it would be 18 years, and not that for the rest of my life the better part of my heart would be running around in someone else’s chest. The illusions of youth, I guess.)

Other than that, I have an habit of traipsing unawares past the point of no return, and leaving a pleasant or at least not unendurable way of life behind without ever realizing it. Even stuff like marrying overseas, I think rationally I knew would change everything, but I truly had no clue it would change me, or that changing me would be necessary to acculturate to my own home, or that the old adage of never going home again applied. And sure, I had many issues with the country itself — not as many as I have now, because now I see it from outside — and its unavigable bureaucracy was 99 of them. But of course I also have family there, and I didn’t realize how many of them I was seeing for the last time on my wedding day, because they died between that and the next visit when I was supposed to meet them, or moved away themselves and our paths never crossed again.

Would I have done it differently, if that had happened? Well, I wouldn’t. But I’d be more aware of the price I was paying and that sometimes five years or more go by between visits, and in that space I lose people like grandma without ever a chance to say goodbye. I’d have taken exactly the same step, of course, and maybe not knowing the price is better, because you don’t linger in pain at a moment of joy. Other such moments: when we moved away from Charlotte. I wasn’t even sure we’d like Colorado, much less that we’d only return (so far at least) to see our local friends once and that 20 years later for a few hours. And that some would have died, or moved away.) And now, of course, the move from Colorado. It is entirely possible I’ve gone to Pete’s Kitchen, on Colfax, for the last time in my life. I don’t know. We keep meaning to visit, but this summer has proved unexpectedly fraught, and I promised to visit my father in the fall. Also my brother isn’t doing well.

There are other hinges you don’t even know are occurring or are in your future. Like, your car of 30 years throws a fit on the highway, and suddenly the engine (and therefore the car) is scrap, and a fixture of your life is gone. Or your kid brings home his childhood friend who is now something more. (I love the Little Pickle, and the change is for the better, but ooh, boy, is it a change.) Or, though it’s not happened to me — knocks on head — there’s some sort of accident or incident and afterwards things are never, ever the same.

Then there are the hinges of fate you sleep walk through. But maybe that’s just me? To this day, and it’s been 33 years, I can’t tell you how or why I thought I could be published and middling successful and this would not affect my day to day life. I never expected stupid things like the neighbors knowing what I did for a living without my telling them (much less their crazy assumptions about writers. Castle has a lot to answer for) or the washer repairman spazzing when he saw my name and I confirmed I was indeed THAT Sarah A. Hoyt, or– a dozen such incidents. I’ve in fact taken to avoiding the neighbors all together and letting Dan be the social director, because he can tapdance more skillfully than I can.

The blog…. the blog was a total different ball of wax, since it started out being just a writing promo thing (I’m nto good at that, you might have noticed.) But the only way I could remain engaged enough to write everyday was to talk about things that matter to me: politics, culture, social issues, and odd stuff like this. And all of that made me far more of a public persona (even as small as this blog is) than I ever intended to be. It comes with some good and a lot of bad, as people not only make assumptions, but people who are, of necessity or temperament, in the political closet tend to avoid me or worse.

It is what it is. The hinge was always there, and I was always bound to open it, I think. And as with me living my natal clump of dirt behind, I’d have done the same, exactly the same way, it I’d known. Only it would have made the whole thing more unpleasant knowing what I was sacrificing.

I suppose there are also false hinges: things you think will change your life forever and then don’t. I don’t think I’ve experienced any of those. Or if I did I no longer remember them. It occurs to me something like winning the lottery might be one of those. I mean, yes, Dan would probably retire, but I doubt much of anything else would change. Oh, yeah, I probably wouldn’t do fundraisers, since those are psychologically difficult. Other than that? I’d write. And Dan would work (Okay, he’d work at things he likes more, but….) We’d visit the kids and their spouses when we have time. And…. that’s about it. Maybe I’d pay my much abused assistant a little more. That’s about it. Not a hinge, though it looks like one from here.

So what is this all about? Well…. I have a couple of tests — one that promises to be distinctly unpleasant — scheduled for tomorrow. Weirdly, the mildest diagnosis possible will result in immediate surgery. But that surgery should fix the problem once and for all. And other than a couple of days to recover, it’s not a hinge.

The second mildest diagnosis is also “We don’t know.” In which case it’s also not a hinge and I stay on fairly high dose maintenance anti-biotics which I seem to be tolerating well enough.

Anything else…. Well…. there’s a panoply of horrors there, and a vista of a future where my life is consumed by health issues (or ended by them, of course, one must say though not pleasant to contemplate.)

Is that likely? Eh. Right now they have absolutely no idea what’s going on, so not only is anything possible, but it’s hard to hazard a guess.

This disturbs me because I’m in the middle of a dozen things and very busy. (Whether I’m very busy to distract from this test which I knew was in my future, I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader.) I am, of course, running my fundraiser (and a more lackadaisacal one I can hardly imagine), and I’m refinishing our bedside tables. Look, we bought them when the kids were little, and they’re pressboard. We were, you see, going to buy good ones in a few years, but there were always other needs. And those d*mn things bubble up if you spill water on them, which given they’re bedside tables is kind of inevitable. We were going to replace them ten years ago, but have you seen the price of bedside tables? So…. So I’m doing what I do to pressboard crappy furniture. What? No, not setting them on fire. There is a perversity in me that means I must make them as fancy as humanly possible. So I’m marbelizing the tops (the epoxy finish at least will ensure that water spills are no longer a problem.) REALISTICALLY marbelizing. Cream/brown marble. And then painting the body of the thing to look like more convincing wood than the wretched paper veneer ever did. (Incidentally I didn’t realize how much I missed refinishing. I haven’t done it at all for almost 20 years.) And because insanity is a thing, I’m also creating a headboard to go with it. Do you want to know? No you don’t. The Little Pickle and Dan are divided on whether to be impressed of have me committed.

I’m also in the middle of Orphans of the Stars (I REALLY need a better title.) and almost done with Rhodes to Hell, and have another half dozen books waiting to be finished. Oh, and we’re moving in a month or so, though Dan is trying to contract as much of it out as possible to keep me writing. (Look, chilluns, it’s a family thing. The kids required us to move, so a move is happening. Oh, it will hopefully also contribute to a better, or at least easier time after. And a better lifestyle to keep our aging bodies in shape. BUT until it’s done, it’s mostly a time and funds sink.)

If the diagnosis is bad, all of those threads will be cut, middair. I might — in fact probably will — do them/continue with them, but everything will be slow and stupid, and hard to finish. And I’ll have trouble remembering why painting the headboard was so much fun, after all. And then things will change. Though finishing the books, particularly the Elly ones will be the highest priority, since I’m convinced if I die with them locked in my head, I’ll end up IN THEM. And I don’t want to be an Ellyan. They’re more complex and bizarre than we are.

Yesterday I told Dan I’d much rather not do the tests. Because he knows me very well, he said in complete calm seriousness, “Fine. Then call them and cancel.”

And part of me very much wants to do that. Even if it’s the worst, if I don’t know I can go on for quite a long while before it brings me to ground, and wouldn’t it be better not to know.

But of course I can’t. If I know even if it’s the worst, there’s a chance it can be stopped in its tracks, in which case I owe doing so to Dan, who really doesn’t want to be left alone, to my kids, who now and then still need me, to the pickles ditto, and even to my dad, who would stand a good chance to lose both children before his number is up.

So, no, I won’t cancel. The door will swing open. The hinge will creak ominously.

Is it a real hinge? Will I walk through the door and be changed forever? I don’t know. No one does. Maybe it’s nothing, and two days of discomfort, and the door will swing closed again and life will go on as usual. (Do I put purple on the headboard grapes? Seems needed, but just a touch, over the blue and the black.)

Or perhaps nothing will ever be the same.

The hinge is creaking, the door is opening, and there is not much I can gain by worrying about it. I’ll just try to meet what’s on the other side with a minimum of fuss, and get as much done as I may.

On the other side.

According to Hoyt 2026 Fundraiser, Day 13

(I will keep this up through day 17, because people have asked due to pay schedules.)

If you wish to donate: There is a Give Send Go fundraiser for this specific fundraiser set up. Here is a Paypal Me Link if you prefer that. (Yes, I know. Paypal, but for now, they’re behaving.) If you have a monthly donation setup to the permanent Give Send Go, that is still working and thank you! There are also two substacks you can subscribe to. One is on the side bar of the blog, the other is supposed to be a newsletter, as well as giving you chapters of the current work in progress if you become a paid subscriber. It takes cards. For snail mail: Sarah Hoyt 304 S Jones Blvd #6771 Las Vegas, NV 89107

And if you want to read the whole appeal, it’s here: Toss A Coin To Your Blogger, Oh Readers of Plenty.

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 MARY HARE: Hearth and Helm: Voices from the Epics

For over two years, the Meaningful Differences substack responded to the inspiration of Homer’s *Iliad* and *Odyssey* and Virgil’s *Aeneid* with stories, poems and essays. This collection comes from that work. From the hearth’s precious warmth to the helm’s unyielding call, heroes and ordinary men and women endure the timeless struggles of duty, loss, leadership, and survival.

**The Aeneid section: ** Aeneas turns back to the flames of burning Troy, searching desperately for Creusa after losing her on the way to the rendezvous. Dido succumbs to cursed love and bitter abandonment, missing Aeneas’s unspoken answer. A skilled slave mother struggles to stay with her nursing twins after frightened women burn some of their ships. And a father shares hard-won wisdom with his son, before leaving him to return to the field: “Learn virtue and true toil from me-fortune from others.”

**The Iliad section: ** When Agamemnon appropriates Briseis, the wrath of Achilles spreads devastation through ordinary lives. A soldier and his once-captive wife confront their own painful echoes of the spoils of war. Hector removes his helmet to bid farewell to Andromache and their infant son as a father, then dons it again for battle. Ordinary sons of herdsmen and shepherds fall in the brutal grind of combat. In the end, Achilles reminds us: Die Must We All.

**The Odyssey section: ** Odysseus’s crew perishes on the wine-dark sea, caught between starvation and divine wrath. The suitors discover too late the cost of arrogance, while the land mourns one of them who tried to do right. Telemachus arms beside his father with sword and spear as they reclaim their house. Penelope tests the beggar’s identity with wary hope: Is It Really Him? A man is nothing without the gods-or the family waiting at the end of the long road.

Blending mythic grandeur with unflinching portrayals of combat, leadership, sacrifice, resilience, and homecoming, these stories-drawn from Substack favorites-illumine the hearts of warriors, their families, and the unsung souls caught in epic events. For military readers, historians, and anyone who loves the *Iliad*, *Odyssey*, and *Aeneid*, *Hearth and Helm* responds with fiction, poetry and essays that honor both the glory of the fight and its profound human toll.

FROM DALE COZORT: Growlers: A Snapshot Novella

In the strange universe of the Snapshots, the CIA runs black ops through the unlikeliest of fronts: a struggling dimension-hopping zoo. When the circus arrives in a crumbling British colony town on an ancient, isolated version of South America, they set up shop in an abandoned elementary school for what should be a simple mission. But nothing stays simple when Nazi-tinged spies from a rival Germany start circling—and the enigmatic Growlers begin to stir. Part spy thriller, part dimension-hopping adventure, Growlers is a fast-paced snapshot novella where the fate of worlds may ride on a few misfit animals… and the reluctant keepers who guard them.

FROM CHRIS THORNDYCROFT: The Fae Wars: Red Dragon Rising: Albion Book 1

As dragons stalk the mountains of Wales and rebel cells with machine guns and explosives wage a desperate war against elven mages and their spell fire, an ancient prophecy is awakening. The final battle for Britain is about to begin.

On a remote island off the coast of Britain, a hidden magical order guards a secret that could change everything. A hero long dead is about to return, awakened to face his ancient, most deadly foe. Once and Future King, promised in Britain’s time of greatest need.

Two years before, portals opened around the Earth, spilling forth an armada of elves, orcs, and ancient creatures from myth. Within weeks, humanity had fallen. Nations collapsed. The survivors were forced into slavery beneath the rule of the Fae or carried on the war from the shadows.

Carys Reed, a schoolteacher-turned-resistance fighter, never believed the stories of King Arthur. She has spent years battling the Fae occupation, not chasing legends. But when she is tasked with helping Britain’s greatest hero recover his legendary sword, she discovers that the old myths were true … and that she’s about to be part of a new one.

The fate of humanity hangs on Arthur’s success, yet the Fae know the danger he represents. The Imperium’s dreaded Security Bureau has dispatched its most ruthless agents, and they will stop at nothing to ensure Arthur and Excalibur are never reunited.

Red Dragon Rising is the explosive first novel in a thrilling new series set in the bestselling Fae Wars universe—where myth and modern warfare collide, and the return of a legend may be humanity’s last hope.

EDITED BY LUCY HARRELSON: Roots & Rivers: A Collection of Myth and Folklore

Beneath ancient trees, beside blackened hearths, and deep within forgotten waters, the old stories still whisper.

In Roots & Rivers: A Collection of Myth and Folklore, legends rise anew through a breathtaking tapestry of voices and traditions from around the world. From haunting retellings of Greek mythology to eerie encounters with cryptids hidden in shadowed forests, to the dangerous bargains of jinn, these tales blur the line between the sacred, the monstrous, and the deeply human.

Across continents and centuries, gods walk among mortals, spirits linger at the edge of firelight, and ancient creatures refuse to be forgotten. Some stories are dark. Some are wondrous. All are rooted in the timeless power of myth and the enduring currents of folklore that connect us across cultures.

Step into the water. Follow the roots. Listen closely.

The stories are waiting.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: The Law of Magical Contagion

The capper to Siobhan Miller’s terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day was a dog, tied to the stop sign. She hates dogs. She’s terrified of dogs, and that was a big dog. Looking sad and lonely, tied to a stop sign. That was not okay. She was the only one around, so she took him home. Only to find that he wasn’t a dog, but one of the Good People, under a curse. And there were more of them.

And they were all after her. And all she had was the dog (who wasn’t a dog) to help keep her from being taken away from all she’s ever known. Because that dog? He and his twin sister are family that she didn’t know she had, and their appearance has upended everything she’s ever known about herself. Including that she was human to begin with. She has a lot of questions.

Starting with curses, and how and why they sometimes spread.

FROM CAROLINE FURLONG: Theophany

Ten years ago the Savients took over Niban, forcing the independent inhabitants into poverty and despair. Bass White saw the careless cruelty of the Savients kill his mother and his father. When a resistance cell is discovered in his city bloc, the Savients seek to make everyone pay.

With his wife Amie, Bass races into the caverns to escape the Savients’ brutal enforcers: the Atrasai. The couple barely make it to the limits of known territory outside their underground city, however, before the Atrasai catch up with them. It would take a miracle to save them…

…or a combat medic robot.

Join Bass and Amie in this sci-fi story of healing, hope, and wonder. After a decade of fear and pain, even a little light can bring out the best in man and machine. But will the best be enough to heal?

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Reason (Timelines Universe Book 1)

January 1993. Somalia. Operation Restore Hope. A Marine platoon pulling a security patrol runs into an insurgent ambush in Mogadishu, and when the platoon commander winds up unconscious from a blow to the head taken when an IED rolls his command Humvee, and the First Sergeant is killed as soon as he exits his vehicle, command falls to a badly wounded gunnery sergeant — initially trapped in the same vehicle with his platoon commander and their driver, but conscious and alert and ready to bring some personal hell down on the RIFs…if he can just get out of this damn vehicle, grab a rifle, and drag himself and his busted-up, non-working leg over to a firing point without bleeding out.

June 1993. Washington, DC. A First Lieutenant with a freshly-healed scar on his head encounters a beautiful redheaded floor nurse at Bethesda Naval Hospital. He’s there to see his Gunny, who’s been stuck in the hospital with a broken femur since he was transported home in February. He’s the platoon commander who was knocked hors de combat by the IED, and he’s been sent to find out why his Gunny is obstinately refusing to accept an important decoration for his participation in the incident.

Turns out that’s going to be quite a job, because Gunny’s got his reason. Will the Lieutenant, and his ally the nurse, be able to convince his Gunny there’s a better reason to accept the decoration?

Might be they’ll need a little help from a friend…

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Other Side of Midnight

Life has been a nightmare for Mitya ever since he was arrested on trumped-up charges and exiled to Siberia. But this labor camp in the far north of Magadan Oblast hides a secret far more terrible than the merely human evils of the Great Terror. For the universe we know is not the only one, and there are places where it interpenetrates with universes where the laws of nature as we know them do not operate, where humanity has no place. Worlds inhabited by beings ancient and terrible, to whom humanity are slaves, playthings, food.

FROM PATRICK K. MARTIN: The Armies of Midnight: Censored

Lord Shyam has come to Ravan with his army at his heels. It is to be his final step in his war against The Enchantress, the woman who destroyed the world and him. Ravan’s queen Eilína Irinadottir, is now trapped in the cage of the dread lord’s revenge. Can she keep herself and her people alive or will they be just more casualties on Lord Shyam’s road of war?

FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Eyes in the Mist (Science Fiction Singles)

In the Swiss Alps, a patch of fog is moving against the wind.

When climbers Thomas Keller and Rudolf Faber descend from the Schneehorn glacier, they witness something that defies the laws of meteorology — a dense, deliberate mass of mist that climbs uphill, carries lights in its interior, and leaves one man changed in ways no doctor can explain. The survivor cannot remember what he saw. The other man does not return.

Journalist Helen Grant arrives in the mountain village of Brunnfeld to cover what local authorities are calling an accident. What she finds is a pattern: missing persons, unexplained behaviour, a blind man who describes things he has no way of knowing, and a radio observatory at nine thousand feet that has been recording signals from the glacier for six weeks — signals that appear to carry structure, repetition, and intent.

As the investigation deepens, a team assembles around the mystery: a British intelligence operative, a Swiss neurologist, an atmospheric physicist, and Helen herself, whose drive to find the truth will eventually lead her into the mist. What waits inside is not what any of them imagined. It is older than the Alps. It has been watching humanity for three centuries. And it has been trying, in the only way it knows, to give something back.

The Eyes in the Mist is a slow-burn Alpine mystery at the intersection of cosmic horror and first contact — a story about the things that look at us from the dark, and what it means when their gaze turns out to be, against all expectation, a kind one.

For readers of John Wyndham, Arthur Machen, and Alistair MacLean.

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

Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.On
a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate
inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong.
Catastrophically wrong.Now technology indistinguishable from magic
courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric
civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel
Hayden, Viscount Webson, Envoy of the Star Empire—Skip to his friends—
has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it
all.Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the
beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies,
Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and
infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total
destruction.Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.Volume 1The
Ambassador Corps has rules: you cannot know everything, don’t get
horizontal with the natives, don’t make promises you can’t keep.They’re
a lot harder to follow when assassins are hunting you, your barbarian
allies could kill you for the wrong word, and death lurks around every
corner.The unwritten rule? Never identify with the natives.Skip’s already broken that one.Now
he’s racing against time to save his new friends from slavery—or
worse—while dodging energy blasts and political intrigue. One
crash-landed diplomat. A world of deadly secrets. And absolutely no
backup. Some rules are meant to be broken. Others will get you killed.

WHAT HUNS DO, OTHER THAN BOOKS:

Yes, I know it’s weird, but other people do things other than write. I don’t GET it either.

Wire Wood And Leather

https://wirewoodandleather.com/

Morrigan’s Mercantile

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

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

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

If you have questions, feel free to to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: STRONG

According to Hoyt 2026 Fundraiser, Day 12

(I will keep this up through day 17, because people have asked due to pay schedules.)

If you wish to donate: There is a Give Send Go fundraiser for this specific fundraiser set up. Here is a Paypal Me Link if you prefer that. (Yes, I know. Paypal, but for now, they’re behaving.) If you have a monthly donation setup to the permanent Give Send Go, that is still working and thank you! There are also two substacks you can subscribe to. One is on the side bar of the blog, the other is supposed to be a newsletter, as well as giving you chapters of the current work in progress if you become a paid subscriber. It takes cards. For snail mail: Sarah Hoyt 304 S Jones Blvd #6771 Las Vegas, NV 89107

And if you want to read the whole appeal, it’s here: Toss A Coin To Your Blogger, Oh Readers of Plenty.

According to Hoyt 2026 Fundraiser, Day 11

(I will keep this up through day 17, because people have asked due to pay schedules.)

If you wish to donate: There is a Give Send Go fundraiser for this specific fundraiser set up. Here is a Paypal Me Link if you prefer that. (Yes, I know. Paypal, but for now, they’re behaving.) If you have a monthly donation setup to the permanent Give Send Go, that is still working and thank you! There are also two substacks you can subscribe to. One is on the side bar of the blog, the other is supposed to be a newsletter, as well as giving you chapters of the current work in progress if you become a paid subscriber. It takes cards. For snail mail: Sarah Hoyt 304 S Jones Blvd #6771 Las Vegas, NV 89107

And if you want to read the whole appeal, it’s here: Toss A Coin To Your Blogger, Oh Readers of Plenty.

By Holly the Assistant

Sarah has run off to obtain an appliance. So you get me for now.

An older friend lamented this morning in a non-local group chat that she’d missed a boil water order yesterday, but at least she feels fine. A younger friend asked how one even finds out about such things?

It’s a good question, with rather mixed answers, depending on your location, and no one real answer that works everywhere, and struck me as a good thing to bring up here, as obviously municipalities are failing to communicate to new residents how to find stuff out in their towns.

What I’ve learned so far: The HAMs find out about everything over their radios, someone else said local radio stations carry such alerts, so radio’s an option. Some folks still get daily papers. One has a local news blog that updates regularly to skim. There are text alert services in some areas. Someone said that the emergency sirens formerly used for tornadoes are now getting run for all weather events, which gets them ignored, unfortunately, but can be used to note to check the weather app or website. I get emails from the County, rely on Reverse 911 or a County Deputy showing up for Really Important Things (like GO NOW orders), and follow all the various interesting agencies and a couple local gossip groups on social media, and of course my neighbors talk. The hiking group wins the prize for fastest location and identification of any wildfire within eighty miles, interestingly enough. The neighbors get the prize for Large Predator Alerts.

How do you find out what’s going on? If there’s a wildfire, a SWAT situation, a flood, a tornado, or a cougar removing chicken coop roofs?

And since it’s Friday, and possibly your payday, here is your reminder that it is ATH Fundraising Season.

If you wish to donate: There is a Give Send Go fundraiser for this specific fundraiser set up. Here is a Paypal Me Link if you prefer that. (Yes, I know. Paypal, but for now, they’re behaving.) If you have a monthly donation setup to the permanent Give Send Go, that is still working and thank you! There are also two substacks you can subscribe to. One is on the side bar of the blog, the other is supposed to be a newsletter, as well as giving you chapters of the current work in progress if you become a paid subscriber. It takes cards. For snail mail: Sarah Hoyt 304 S Jones Blvd #6771 Las Vegas, NV 89107

Thank you very much for your donations.

OR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 9, 2026
LFS announces 46th Prometheus awards winners:

J. Kenton Pierce wins Best Novel for A Kiss for Damocles

Aldous Huxley novel Brave New World to be inducted into Hall of Fame
The Libertarian Futurist Society (www.lfs.org), a nonprofit all-volunteer international organization of freedom-loving science fiction fans, has announced Prometheus Award Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction winners.

The 46th annual Prometheus Awards ceremony

The 46th annual Prometheus Awards will be presented online Sunday afternoon Aug. 16, 2026, in a zoom awards ceremony open to the public.

This year’s hour long ceremony, tentatively scheduled for 2-3 p.m. Eastern time and emceed by LFS President William H. Stoddard, will feature a guest speaker: Lifelong science-fiction fan Ilya Somin (George Mason University law professor, Cato Institute scholar and author), who will present the Hall of Fame award.

Updates will be posted on the Prometheus Blogover the next several weeks about additional speakers and the ceremony line-up.

The Prometheus Award for Best Novel

A Kiss for Damocles, by J. Kenton Pierce, won the 2026 Prometheus award for best novel for novels published in 2025.

The science fiction novel, published by Raconteur Press and launching Pierce’s Tales From the Long Night series, illuminates the ethics and efficacy of free trade and self-defense as a proper foundation for civilization.

Pierce’s novel is set on a remote planet where humans in towns and homesteading communities are struggling to recover centuries after a catastrophic attack and volcanic cataclysm that set back and severely limits their use of advanced technology. At the story’s heart is Shai, a young homesteader facing harsh frontier conditions, corrupt Townie politicians, dangerous native species, and sinister forces amid still-functional A.I.-powered orbiting war machines.

Pierce celebrates the self-reliance and resilience of self-regulating frontier communities that survive and evolve based on the hard-won realities of voluntarism, mutual respect and cooperation. But this is also a cautionary tale about the deceptive ideals of a command-and-control politics and the perennial tendency toward abuse of power, reflected in the Townies’ push for higher taxation, fiat money and state takeover of education to indoctrinate new generations.

Narrating from her wry but hopeful perspective, Shai becomes a leader in her community’s struggles to defend their freedom, preserve their heritage and restore their world.

Visit the Prometheus blog for a full review of A Kiss for Damocles that illuminates how it fits the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Award on quality and liberty.

The other 2025 Best Novel finalists were Storm-Dragon, by Dave Freer (Raconteur Press); War by Other Means, by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press); No Man’s Land, by Sarah Hoyt (Goldport Press); and Powerless, by Harry Turtledove (CAEZIK SF & Fantasy.)

The Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction

Brave New World, a 1932 novel (Chatto & Windus) by Aldous Huxley, won the 2026 Best Classic Fiction award and will be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.

This dystopian classic offers a still-timely cautionary tale of collectivist soft tyranny under seemingly benevolent world government and technocratic central planning.

Critiquing his era’s rise of collectivism and scientism, Huxley warned about behavioral/biochemical conditioning, propaganda, censorship and manipulation of artificial wombs limiting intelligence and initiative to create and control different castes.

At a time when the intellectual and artistic elite saw most forms of authoritarian collectivism as the inevitable and positive wave of the future, Huxley foresaw the dark side of utopia. The novel explicitly dramatizes how such trends deny individuality, liberty, reason, romantic love, the family, history, and literature (including Shakespeare, which inspired the novel’s title).

Visit the Prometheus blog for a full review of Brave New World that illuminates how it fits the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Award on quality and liberty.

The other Hall of Fame finalists were The Star Dwellers, a 1961 novel (Faber and Faber; Avon Books) by James Blish; That Hideous Strength, a 1945 novel (Scribner) by C.S. Lewis; Salt, a 2000 novel (Gollancz) by Adam Roberts; and Singularity Sky, a 2003 novel (Ace) by Charles Stross.

Prometheus Awards History

The Prometheus Awards, sponsored by the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), were first presented in 1979, making it one of the most enduring awards after the Nebula and Hugo awards, and one of the oldest fan-based awards currently in sf.

For more than four decades, the Prometheus Awards have recognized outstanding works of science fiction and fantasy that dramatize the perennial conflict between liberty and power, favor cooperation over coercion, expose the abuses and excesses of coercive government, and/or critique or satirize authoritarian systems, ideologies and assumptions.

Above all, the Prometheus Awards strive to recognize speculative fiction that champions individual rights, based on the moral/legal principle of non-aggression as the ethical and practical foundation for peace, prosperity, progress, justice, tolerance, mutual respect, civility and civilization itself.

All LFS members have the right to nominate eligible works for all categories of the Prometheus Awards, while publishers and authors are welcome to submit potentially eligible works for consideration using the form linked from the LFS website’s main page at www.lfs.org

While the Best Novel category is limited to novels published in English for the first time during the previous calendar year, Hall of Fame nominees — which must have been published, performed, broadcast or released at least 20 years ago — may be in any narrative or dramatic form, including novels, novellas, stories, films, television series or episodes, plays, musicals, graphic novels, song lyrics, or narrative or dramatic verse.

The Best Novel winner receives a plaque with a gold coin, and the Hall of Fame winner, a plaque with a smaller gold coin.

For more information, visit lfs.org or contact LFS Publicity Chair Chris Hibbert (publicity@lfs.org).

Sometime ago, in the aftermath of plagiarism scandals at the ivies, I said this was happening because the people entering the ivies are functionally illiterate.

I don’t mean to say they can’t read simple messages, or sign their names, or even read and answer multiple choice questions. I mean I think they’re incapable of reading for pleasure, or reading to acquire information. There is a difference. Many people can read, but get bogged down in reading a long text and keeping information from it in their heads.

My main reasons to say that were two fold:

a) the plagiarism cases in modus operandi reminded me exactly of what happens when a partly proficient foreign language learner tries to cobble together a complex essay. (Or even a simple one.) You go out and take paragraphs from various things, that seem to say what you want said in that paragraph of your essay. You might make small changes, or not, because the problem with that level of proficiency in a foreign language is that you mostly understand it, but you’re not confident enough with the structures of the language to write a full paragraph without falling on your face. (I remember agonizing over things like who/whom sometimes for an hour. Yes, I knew the rule. I also knew informal speech often broke it, and I’d diagram the sentences and still be hoplessly confused.)

b) I’d seen exactly this type of thing while teaching entry level college English in the early oughts. You could not assign a complex text and expect them to get the meaning, and for about half or three fourths of the class, asking them to write an essay was a bridge too far. You could ask. They just couldn’t do it. The essays turned in read like someone who couldn’t carry a thought to the end of a simple sentence. If I only knew people by their essays I’d think I was teaching the special ed class in some elementary school. But I knew them as people, and talked to them. Most of them were smart, had a decent vocabulary and could make a cogent argument in speech. It was only when trying to read or write that the wheels came off.

Because I’d taught foreign languages before, I knew precisely what this was a symptom of: bizarrely incompetent teaching. The kind of teaching that, if it were being done by a 16 year old in a one-room school house somewhere in the American prairie in the nineteenth century would have got her lynched, because it’s designed to NOT teach people while taking up maximum time and effort. Only the sixteen year old would never have done that, because after lesson three she’d have realized the kids weren’t learning (or even paying attention) and tried something else.

To turn out “well educated” (this is a misnomer. They’re well trained. To sit and listen and parrot back. They’ve no acquired any of the tools of civilization though) people who can’t read takes the might of the department of education, the cumulative apparatus of the schools of education and state licensing. Only people who have the basic instincts of humanity pounded out of them by a lot of nonsense are stupid enough to continue following the herd off the cliff.

Frankly, they follow the rules and what they were taught, because then they’re covered. They can’t be sued for malpractice if they’re doing what the manual taught them were best practices. (Yes, also, a lot of them are dumber than cheese. But not all. A lot are normal or high intelligence people rendered dumb by education dogma.)

My misgivings were given some backing by this: At Harvard, a student thought A Clockwork Orange was written in “Old English” and used AI to “translate” it. Others “view reading as an unnecessarily burdensome way of acquiring knowledge” and think professors who ask them to do it are “arbitrarily withholding information.”

Now, yes, I am aware that A Clockwork Orange is written in a weird style. But that is the problem. These people are not illiterate-illiterate, but they are functionally illiterate in any way that counts.

If it were written normally, a student might struggle through it, a page or two at a time. But you throw in a weird style and they come aground, because reading a book normally written is already so much effort the weird style makes it impossible.

How did we get here? Well, remember what I said above about weird education theories? It’s mostly, really, whole word. Yes, I know your schools will tell you they don’t use whole word. That’s because they keep changing the name every few years, as it acquires a bad odor. But the method is always the same.

When my kids were little, 20 some years ago, it was “whole language” and the teacher could wax poetic for hours on how this enhanced learning and blah, blah, blah. But what I can tell you is that they took my 5 year old second son, who was reading quite well on his own, and made him non-functional at reading. Instead of sounding out the word “We’re not supposed to do that” he was supposed to “guess” which for a kid (and an adult. Sometime in private ask me how I heard an attending physician call something by the name of a death camp by accident.) means if it starts and ends with the same letter it’s functionally the same word.

When you’re reading a simple text, like instructions on how to brew coffee, you can realize you have the wrong word and go back and correct until you get the right one. But a whole novel? Even a long short story? It doesn’t even have to be written in a difficult style. You’re not going to go back and second guess every single word.

Now, sure, in defense of this “just guess” the establishment brings out that English isn’t phonetic. This is wrong. English is not non-phonetic. English is bizarre and takes some very weird turns around the block of language, but it is still largely phonetic. When I look at “phonetic” for instance, I’m not going to read it as pyrotechnic. I’m not going to do that, because I know ph makes an f sound, and the only thing that makes a c sound, however weird, is at the end.

Look, I came from a highly phonetic language, and while I did and sometimes still do read a word or the other very weirdly in English, it’s not that bad. It’s mostly pronunciation issues which can be remedied.

What I mean is however difficult English might be to shove into the Latin alphabet, that doesn’t make it a language written in pictographs. If it were, there would be much higher variation between the shape of the words to facilitate that. And the teaching method would be different.

When I went to the school in one of my “Rain fire upon their heads” expeditions on the subject, the teacher told me that yeah, sure, with phonics they would read everything, BUT THEY WOULDN’T KNOW THE MEANING OF WHAT THEY READ.

This level of stupidity, again, cannot be natural, you have to be indoctrinated into it. They are treating the language exactly like a language written in pictographs. If you don’t learn the arbitrary meaning that goes with the shape, you’ll never learn the meaning, and will just have useless shape cluttering your mind.

Of course English isn’t like that. In fact, the way I became fluent in English (because I was tired of not being, is the short answer) was to sit down with The Door Into Summer (because someone had given it to me in unabridged English) a pencil and an English-Portuguese dictionary. Every time I read a word I didn’t know I looked it up in the dictionary and wrote the meaning above it in pencil. When I got to the end of a page, I went back and re-read that page. When I got to the end of the chapter, I re-read the chapter. And when I got to the end of the book I started from the beginning again. The first pass took six months, the third took a week. And by the end of the third I was near-fluent and could start on other books in unabridged English (mostly by doing a walk through of hotel lobbies where American or British tourists stayed, because they tended to ditch books they had read rather than take them back on the plane.)

But the point here is I sure learned the meaning of those weird words, most of which I was pronouncing very badly. Normal kids can too. Heck, when I got younger son to stop guessing, he bugged me so much for “what does this word mean” that I bought him an electronic dictionary. (Mostly because like most kids who taught themselves to read, he never got the order of the alphabet. not at the internalized level that makes looking up things easy.) And he learned meanings.

No, the nonsense with whole word/whole language/whole and entire insanity is that it is the theory trying to run the world, when the theory is demonstrably not fit for the world. And they keep bringing it back for the same idea they keep trying communism. The theory seems so shiny to them that it has to work. HAS to for sure.

It doesn’t work. What it does is produce people who think they’re literate, think they’re educated, but can’t read anything more difficult than a picture book or instructions on how to lock their bikes without missing important information.

Now you can say what you will about the usefulness of making people read “literature” but the fact is that while technology can compensate for the inability to read anything complicated, it doesn’t work as well as an auxiliary to memory.

Look, forget the “one day the internet goes down forever”. Sure, it can happen, and then these people will be left alone with books rendered largely useless. BUT there’s more to it. If I want information say on Elizabethan London, I know which book to grab off my shelves and exactly where to look.

Okay, fine, AI, but as we know AI does indeed hallucinate. Often on things that have nothing to do with politics, just some glitch. if you can’t verify the information, you’re lost.

And I posit that the rot, the inability to read fluently goes a lot deeper than that. I’d estimate a good 75% of people have trouble reading and absorbing information from the text.

This leads to all sorts of things, from a love of ‘procedure’ — you deviate, and you’re in unknown territory. Just do the form you’ve memorized — to not fully reading important information (Why even do I fill in my history on forms before an appointment?) to being unable to understand a story that’s longer than a few hundred words.

Since our world is built on stories, which is how news and information are even delivered, this is not just pathetic, it’s civilization-endangering.

So what do you do about it? It’s not too late. The best time to start would be 50 years ago, but the second best time to start is today.

If you have the problem I described, you can teach yourself phonics. Grab a program off the shelf. You’ll feel stupid as heck, but it will rebuild what you lack and you’ll find yourself understanding complex texts much more easily. Which will unlock new horizons both of work and pleasure.

And if your kids are in school and you’ve been assured they’re not learning whole word? Have them read a text with a lot of new words. If they’re either “guessing” or think that cremation and crucifixion are the same word, it’s whole word whatever they call it. Get yourself a phonics program (hooked on phonics is how I retaught the kid to read) and teach the kid. He’ll kick and scream, but that only builds character.

Right now, it would be easier to become literate by standing on a street corner than by attending public school. That is because public school is designed wholly to NOT teach people the basics.

There is a rumor this is a clever plan to create a population that can’t verify information. Maybe. I’d suspect for the left it’s merely a happy side effect. The plan is to allow people to “teach” with no effort at all and without involving in fact with the kids.

It’s time to reverse that. And since the education system is patently unable to do so, it’s up to us.

Build under, build over, build around. And make sure people can read the way to the future.

According to Hoyt 2026 Fundraiser, Day 9

(I will keep this up through day 16, because people have asked due to pay schedules.)

If you wish to donate: There is a Give Send Go fundraiser for this specific fundraiser set up. Here is a Paypal Me Link if you prefer that. (Yes, I know. Paypal, but for now, they’re behaving.) If you have a monthly donation setup to the permanent Give Send Go, that is still working and thank you! There are also two substacks you can subscribe to. One is on the side bar of the blog, the other is supposed to be a newsletter, as well as giving you chapters of the current work in progress if you become a paid subscriber. It takes cards. For snail mail: Sarah Hoyt 304 S Jones Blvd #6771 Las Vegas, NV 89107

And if you want to read the whole appeal, it’s here: Toss A Coin To Your Blogger, Oh Readers of Plenty.

Many years ago, when Dan and I were young and hopeful — let’s see, carry the nine and make faces at the calendar… it was well before older son was born, so probably around 37 years ago? — Dan had a job interview near his parents. Since at the time we lived more than 12 hour drive away, we stayed with them. And since Dan hadn’t got a new suit in something like six years (and the suit got actual wear back then. Also he’d got it before we were married, and he hadn’t trained his taste, really) we went out and blew our meager budget on a very nice suit for him.

His mother was furious at this. She insisted we should have spent half the price on the suit for him, the other half in a similarly upscale outfit for me. Now, part of this was feminist rats in her head. But part was that she was obsessively worried about what would happen if, when they were seriously considering him, they invited us out somewhere so they could meet me too.

The idea that this was a thing baffled both Dan and I. This was the eighties. Most of our friends were working various temporary and makeshift jobs, and even those like Dan who worked in a tech avocation weren’t exactly socializing with the boss.

Because I don’t like things I can’t understand, I thought about it. A lot. And I realized that there were a lot of plots in old sitcoms about bringing the boss to dinner. And even homespun humor by housewives books talked about the anxiety of meeting the bosses, etc. This for positions that weren’t exactly VIP.

I was therefore forced to believe that at some point this was a thing. And the point had to be in the twenty year window after WWII when my MIL’s ideas of the world were being set in stone.

This also made it very clear why our attempts at making headway in life made no sense whatsoever to her generation. Both his parents and mine (with the added flip that mine were in a completely different culture) kept giving us advice that amounted to “Well, just tell the boss you want a 200% raise, and then sit back and spend the money” and then being incredibly upset we didn’t do it. (This wasn’t literally their advice, but a lot was d*mn close.) The fact that if we’d done that we’d have ended up fired or worse referred to mental health professionals didn’t make a dent, because they KNEW what we should do.

Of course, we came into the job market in the early eighties when not only were things falling apart and not fully recovered from the Carter plague years, but new tech was already starting to upend the market. And the boomers having decided to cut their hair and go to work had taken most of the positions we might have gotten, and–

Look, I’m not going to compare misery with the current generation. We’d lose. We came into a market with expensive houses, but not ludicrously expensive. We had trouble finding jobs, but at least temp work… worked. it wasn’t retail. And retail, as it was, (I did it as my first job) wasn’t being run by people too stupid to realize they’re shooting themselves in the foot with the hours they set for employees and the way they run the work schedules.

But that said, there was no clear path to get where we wanted to go. There was no path for me, of course, because I was told again and again publishing was no longer viable. No one read. You couldn’t make a living in it. And every way to break in was now moot. Write short stories first? It was harder to break into short stories than into novels. Submit cold? No one was reading it. Go through agent? Most agents now had the slush pile of publishers of old, so if not impossible, it was almost impossible. People kept telling me to attend cons, which was correct, except for the fact that we were broke and had no access to the con circuit (as in, we had no clue where to find out if they were happening) because neither of us grew up in the culture.

Then there was Dan, with his degree in number theory, working at the thing he learned on the side for grins and giggles: Programing. In the eighties and early nineties. It was part insanity, part scam, and bosses expected you to live to work. The idea of having a life, much less a marriage seemed to not occur to them. (True fact, Christmas eve 1993 Dan’s supervisor was confused he was leaving work early. When Dan pointed out he had to buy a gift for his 2 year old kid, because HE’D WORKED STRAIGHT THROUGH THE LAST FOUR WEEKENDS, his boss seemed puzzled. After all…. wait? Kid? When did codemonkeys start having kids?) And we again saw no “path” to go anywhere.

There was no road. And yet…. We kept doing, finding, and since there was no plausible road, we tried the implausible, the crazy, sometimes the absurd. We still are, honestly.

I’m not holding us up as a pattern. We are too risk averse, and only jump when the fire is starting to choke us. Which means by the time we jump we’re out of resources and end up in absurdly tight situations monetarily speaking. And I value security far more than I should.

BUT we still had to jump, because there was no road, and the bridge was out. And some of those jumps worked, and we could get a little ahead.

Everyone I know my age to about 5 to 6 years older to two years younger, the weird micro generation wedged between boomers and x who certainly aren’t boomers though some have some characteristics (look, if Zillenials get a name, can we be BooX? Let’s socialize it.) took the weirdest approach to career. Very few of us work in the field we majored in, where we thought our career would be. And even fewer work in the field where were started out. Or even the second of those. Our “careers” so called resemble a drunkard’s walk more than anything else. And yet, for all that, we didn’t do badly, as a group. Most of us are okay.

And as invidious as the situation the young people of today find themselves in, I think they’ll be okay too. At least if we can get over the effects of the Autopen-plague.

Look… It’s like this — the biggest thing holding them back right now is the illusion that there is or there should be a road to success. That there is a path that, if you follow it, will deliver rewards like clockwork. If you only do what you’re supposed to.

As my assistant pointed out, when I was talking to her about it, there used to be paths. The paths, traditionally, through history, were to apprentice with your dad, and eventually get into the same job. Some people were even very happy this way, and families developed high influence in certain fields.

If you were less affluent, or you know, like Leonardo DaVinci, a bastard and therefore couldn’t be say a lawyer, like Leonardo couldn’t, then you were more or less indentured to a master in some trade. It then was supposed to work like following your dad’s footpath. You learned from the master and eventually became a master yourself, and you had all the contacts and knew how things were done.

This worked for centuries, until the renaissance and the industrial revolution, and accelerating technological innovation made it non-viable.

But note it worked for values of working. It lent a certain rigidity to the advance of society, since anyone with any knowledge “knew how things had always been done” and also … well. I wouldn’t have liked my mom’s job. Utterly unqualified for it. Or my dad’s. My mind wouldn’t bend to the math, and who the heck is that interested in textiles, even?

For a moment, briefly, there was a path again after WWII. When the GI bill allowed people to go to college and fill positions in a crazily revving up economy, in ever-growing top heavy associations, both government and corporations, there was that path. “Go to college and work hard” And you’d end up with the key to the executive bathroom and eventually a secure retirement.

By the time we entered the work force THAT was dissolving. A college degree was slightly more useful than today, but not nearly a guarantee of “A good job.” So we had to improvise.

And the things that we improvised (let alone the people before us) accelerated tech yet more, causing upheaval where I never thought to see it. If I’d stuck with my original profession I’d now be out of a job. AI can do scientific translation much faster than I could at my peak, and frankly, the person who needs to check it over doesn’t have to be a senior translator paid a bazillion. You can have a relatively young and underpaid person doing it…. And I have to tell you, honestly, that is the one job I never thought would be affected. Yet, here we are.

So the kids are trying to get a foothold while the traditional job market as such as hit an iceberg and is listing dangerously. The orchestra still plays on, but there is no room in the lifeboats.

The metaphor is the one I used when all of my contemporaries (seemed like) got fired in 2003 partly as the aftershock of the horrible post 9/11 quarter (because bad sales are always the author’s fault, of course!) My first career also foundered, but I rapid fired enough proposals that, while there was no room for me in the lifeboat, I was floating on the grand piano. (For the record, one of the cooks of the Titanic survived that way. Apparently he had drunk so much alcohol that despite having swam to the grand piano, he didn’t die of hypothermia. There is a metaphor in that too. Like most things that worked in my path to my present career, being a little drunk (or in my case just desperate. I don’t really drink much. Maybe three times a year and not enough to register) helps.)

But first, if you’re a young one (At this point for me that’s anyone under 50) you must rid yourself of the idea that there is a road. Or in the metaphor, the idea the voyage will go on, as promised. Or even that you’ll fall into a relatively secure path like a lifeboat.

There are no roads. There are no paths. If you keep insisting on staying on the path and doing what should work, you’ll either stagnate or worse.

I’m very sorry if you’re as risk averse as I am. Yes, your immune system will hate you. (We’re now trying to solve damage of decades!) BUT you must scout out a new way to get where you want. You must think of all the wild ways to get there, and be ever alert for an opportunity, no matter how small. And always, always, be aware of where innovation is, and try to go with it, to find what new step has just formed in the every protean situation and take advantage of it.

The Titanic metaphor fails in that — unlike traditional publishing’s slow but inevitable journey — technology and economics haven’t suffered a fatal disaster. The turmoil is caused by catastrophic innovation.

When you’re trying to find your way amid shards of opportunity and rumors of prosperity, it might seem like a distinction without a difference. But there is a difference.

Unless things go really really wrong in a political sense in the next ten years (And honestly I think it can’t happen. It might happen for two or even four, but not all ten.) and politics throttles economics aborning, we are on the verge of an explosion of opportunity and innovation.

Which means things are opening up, not closing down. It’s just they’re opening up in ways no one was trained to see.

First you need to read yourselves of the idea that there is a path, an order, a way to get where you want to go. Or even that where you want to go will be there when you get there.

Instead, do what you can, what you’re good at, what you can learn to be good at, and do it unreservedly, with gusto, all the while scouting out the next step, the next opportunity.

Where we’re going, we don’t need roads. Which is good, because there aren’t any.

Which is why Americans are uniquely qualified to survive and thrive in this. Chaos is our native state.

Pull up your bootstraps, keep your eyes peeled. Go!

2026 Blog Fundraiser!

Hi. This blog doesn’t have ads (you might have noticed.) And unfortunately no one gives me a grant to write here, seven days a week, give or take (for values of “write.” Mechanically and time-wise the meme post is brutal.) Never did. Probably because I’m not the sort of blogger that USAID would fund. I like the USA too much.

Also, like most bloggers to the right of Lenin, I have paid a steep price (as has my whole family) because I stepped out of the shadows. Yes, even I, in this little blog.

This is not a complaint, and it’s not your fault. I chose to do it. (Though I’ll say I never thought things would get this crazy.) It is however a fact of life. Just as the blog is a third career, competing with the paying one (writing) the the unpaid one (cleaning and handywoman.)

Which is why after resisting it for years, I do an annual fundraiser. (I have so much psychological trouble with this, that if it were only for me, I wouldn’t bother, but frankly Dan and even the boys deserve some compensation for the years they’ve shared me with the blog.) This is not an emergency. I won’t say we’re swimming in dough, but we do know where the next meal and mortgage payment are coming from. SO PLEASE DON’T HURT YOURSELF TO CONTRIBUTE. And I’m not threatening to quit blogging. I will quit when and if I feel I can, but this year is not even the eve of that time. So, not demanding you give.

However, anything you can give without hurting yourself, is much appreciated.

If you wish to donate: There is a Give Send Go fundraiser for this specific fundraiser set up. Here is a Paypal Me Link if you prefer that. (Yes, I know. Paypal, but for now, they’re behaving.) If you have a monthly donation setup to the permanent Give Send Go, that is still working and thank you! There are also two substacks you can subscribe to. One is on the side bar of the blog, the other is supposed to be a newsletter, as well as giving you chapters of the current work in progress if you become a paid subscriber. It takes cards. For snail mail: Sarah Hoyt 304 S Jones Blvd #6771 Las Vegas, NV 89107

And if you want to read the whole appeal, it’s here: Toss A Coin To Your Blogger, Oh Readers of Plenty.

By Holly the Assistant

Quicksilver here feels this is an important enough point that she actually held still, almost, for a photo last night! She’s an aptly named kitty.

Quicksilver would like very much to inform you that her big brother Indy and big sisters Muse and Circe, and courtesy Uncle Havey, need you to please drop a few bucks in the annual blog fundraiser for churu supplies.

Sarah is in fine shape and off doing Sarah things with her Dan, and I am updating the blog so you know she’s still alive. (We know you: you start to fret.)

I can’t say that there’s much to report on our front except for this being the worst year yet for growing food. Wildlife, however, has delivered on entertainment. We had two sets of magpie nestlings, and watching the parents try to teach the dozen or so youngsters how to magpie is fun. “You expect me to CATCH a grasshopper? How about I just open my beak and you stick one in?”

We also have baby hummingbirds again: haven’t spotted the nests, but the babies are coming to the hummingbird feeder, zipping around as they do. Last year was a bad year for the hummers, almost none returned from migration. This year they’re rebuilding numbers, probably because we’re all dedicated to feeding them, because with the ongoing drought there are few flowers.

The does are teaching the fawns to cross the road: caught one showing her fawn to look both ways before crossing and wait for my vehicle before they did this morning. We’ll see how many survive.

Watching national politics has also been entertainment these last few weeks–McConnell? Platner? Seriously? Not sure which party is more . . . absurd here. Local politics are humming along as murkily as usual, tiny pond, moderately sized fish, lots of mud. (Tiny pond? A friend lost her primary by 40 votes. That tiny.) All in all I prefer rural politics: few participants, you know them all personally, and they all have to live together win or lose. Also if someone’s in the hospital you know, and probably took his family a casserole.

I believe I have managed to attach Sarah’s fundraising links, so go ahead and do that, thank you. Pretty Silvy wishes you to keep her kin in churu. You wouldn’t want to let that sweet face down, would you?

If you wish to donate: There is a Give Send Go fundraiser for this specific fundraiser set up. Here is a Paypal Me Link if you prefer that. (Yes, I know. Paypal, but for now, they’re behaving.) If you have a monthly donation setup to the permanent Give Send Go, that is still working and thank you! There are also two substacks you can subscribe to. One is on the side bar of the blog, the other is supposed to be a newsletter, as well as giving you chapters of the current work in progress if you become a paid subscriber. It takes cards. For snail mail: Sarah Hoyt 304 S Jones Blvd #6771 Las Vegas, NV 89107

The purpose of this post isn’t to complain about Grokpedia. Look, I wont’ deny there’s a mini rant on that, because it unwittingly called me stupid and WORSE it called me OLD which at my age is VERY sensitive. It also utterly failed to get real cultural differences. However the point is where Grok learned this nonsense, which is US. And also how this nonsense causes problems and poisons minds.

So — does a little dance — rant first, explanation after.

My husband, who for some reason believes annoying me is as good as exercise by raising my heart rate, went trolling Grokpedia, which I’ll grant it, is less biased than Wikipedia. What it is is a fabulist of the first order, creating “facts” by taking things out of context and weaving “just so” stories around them.

For instance, it confidently assures all and sundry that my biggest influences were Ursula Le Guin, Joan Vinge (!) and a third woman whose name I can’t even remember now, and whom I might in fact never have read, just due to the vagaries of when books were available.

Okay, fine, all of you who are groaning and saying “Ursula Le Guin is responsible for you being a science fiction writer, woman!” are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. But not the way Grok intended. Look, annoying someone so much they become writers is not the same as influencing how they write. None of that makes any sense.

Do I know where Grok got that bullshit? Well, yes, yes, I do. You see, it made up a little just-so story to go with it. According to it, my brother had me read these women so that I knew it was okay for women to write science fiction, and to encourage my ambition to write which was not a profession for women “under the Salazar regime.”

PEOPLE. That gigantic groan that just made the entire Western US tremble was not the ghost of dinosaurs, screaming from their fossil formations. That was in fact me, myself and I.

How and where do I start? That story above is so wrong it’s not even wrong. It’s a parallel reality where the moon is made of green cheese and Indy plays the violin in an orchestra.

First, my brother was NOT trying to encourage me to read science fiction. (Much less write it. My family had long accepted that I would at some point write, but they expected I would, like the rest of the family, write POETRY, which is an acceptable hobby for everyone in Portugal. The country doesn’t have a large enough population to sustain FICTION writing as a profession, so hobby was what they expected.) He was in fact — poor man — trying to hide science fiction books from me as at my age (the person who loaned him books reminded me recently — he found me on FB — that I was 9 not 11 as I’ve been ASSUMING) he thought they’d confuse me. (They did. But not more than history books or adventures in other continents did. It was glorious.) Also, because some of them were… uh…. spicy. (I didn’t get most of the spice. Like kids don’t.)

When he failed at this endeavor, he tried to control the books I got my greedy little mitts on, by not bringing the spicy/weirder ones home. By then it was much too late because I’d started taking the train to the city and READING SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS BY STANDING UP IN THE BOOK STORE NEAR THE SPINNER RACK UNTIL CHASED OUT. Then coming back the next day.

By the time I was twelve, I was blowing my birthday money on science fiction unless mom caught me first and spent it on useless stuff like shoes. By the time I was fourteen and engaged in various low-paying but paying gigs, my brother gave up and went halves on me on books, when we were both semi-broke. (Yes, pooling your resources to buy the equivalent of a $5 book is pathetic. Thou shalt most certainly DEAL.)

But…. did he then try to encourage me to read female science fiction authors?

Uh….. so, this is where Grok thinks I’m stupid and need to see someone like me doing something before I try it. This is the kind of bizarre affliction I never even UNDERSTOOD. People, I did things because I was bored. I often tried things I didn’t think were possible at all. Because they looked interesting.

Does the woman born in a small rural village in Portugal who came to the US and became a fiction writer in her THIRD LANGUAGE look to you like someone who sits around waiting to be “represented” in an endeavor so she knows it’s societally approved of and she can do it?

In fact, ladies, gentlemen and small pterodactyls, do I look like I ever gave a fig about whether anything I wanted to do, from whom I married to how I dress, to my hobbies, passions or profession, was something society — ANY SOCIETY — approved of?

Look, if I’d done what was approved of in Portugal when I was a kid, I’d be much better at crochet (my one womanly gift. Okay, crosstitch too, though that might fall under therapy against anxiety), I’d be passionately interested in telenovelas (they were radio novelas, but trust me, same same), I’d engage in a lot of celebrity gossip. Oh, and I’d have MAYBE because I was “smart” gone through ninth grade, then got out to do something societally approved of like secretary or clerk, until I married someone who lived not very far away.

This had nothing to do with Salazar (more on that later) in any way, shape or purple nothing. It has to do with Portuguese culture. The EU has made a lot of it go underground and it’s not spoken of openly, but I’d be shocked if women are considered as smart as men. And a bookish woman is an abomination. AND a woman who is interested in geeky stuff will find a way to disguise it, because she’ll be under suspicion of not being quite straight. Now in my time, before heavy indoctrination by the EU, this was more so. With bells on. I ROUTINELY got told by people including family members and teachers that I was in no way as smart as a boy and would only hurt myself trying to be. (People like my brother stopped saying it after a while. My dad never did. And mom advised me to PRETEND not to be as smart as boys because otherwise I’d only invite trouble.) I didn’t care probably because of a touch of the tisms, but also because I WAS BORED and just wanted to do things that looked interesting.

This gets to where Grok is calling me old. People, I was SIX when Salazar died. I was 11 when his successor was toppled by the international socialists. (Some other AI thought I approved of the Salazar regime because I compared it to FDR’s. THAT was a leap. I did compare it to FDR’s (without the minimal holding back FDR had due to our system of government) because he cribbed FDR’s speeches, even, for crying out loud. In no way did I mean to imply that made it non national-socialist or good. As far as I’m concerned both Salazar and FDR were national socialists and to hell with them.) This doesn’t mean I approved of the international socialists that followed, on account of they sold out millions of people in the Portuguese African colonies to the USSR and their Cuban mercenaries, and filled mass graves (As communists always do) and also made my teenage life a misery, due to my tendency to say exactly what I think to teachers who are spewing indoctrination. The later is a minor issue compared to the other crap they were doing, but very close and personal.

Now do I know where Grok got all this load of crap? Oh, yeah. I know. Because during SP I pointed out I’m tired of people trying to claim that women weren’t in science fiction till yesterday, and pointed out I knew these female writers from early on when I WAS A KID. Which it then confabulated with my complaints about sexism while I was growing up (to the extent I noticed it, which to be fair, wasn’t much, it bothered me. I tended to bowl over any discouragement or even shouts to stop, but it bothered me) and with the fact my brother introduced me to SF/F (more or less inadvertently) and wove it into this just so tale. The Salazar thing is probably because the idiots on the left attribute all sexism to right-wing (which Salazar wasn’t anymore than FDR was, not AMERICAN right wing. Though granted European right wing) regimes and to the fact some bright bulb thought I’d come here to “escape” when the national socialist regime fell. At eleven. By myself. (What can I say. I’m precocious. I headed to the beach, got some duck-shaped water-wings, and floated all the way across the Atlantic. Needs must, because I STILL can’t swim.)

(Note, I’d be proud and happy if Grok reported this as the way I came to America. Mostly because it’s absurd.)

Before I get to the point beyond the rant: the first woman writer that had ANY impact on my reading (I don’t know how much impact she had on my writing, if any) was Anne McCaffrey, because I was of an age (late teens early twenties) when she was published in Portugal to fall headlong into Pern. Before that I read women like I read men or small purple dinosaurs. I didn’t care, so long as it was words on the page. Heck, I preferred science fiction, but I read everything else too.

In fact, if you’re going to be keeping score, the female writers I read most in my early to late teens were Pearl S. Buck and Agatha Christie, one slowly giving way to the other, neither in science fiction and only Agatha Christie rivaling the spaceship on the cover books.

My favorite authors for the largest part of my growing up were, to no one’s surprise, Robert A. Heinlein, followed at a slight trailing distance by Simak (look, deal) and Bradbury, and at a longer loping distance by Poul Anderson and Phil Dick. Further back and mostly falling under “I’ll read their book if available” were Van Vogt, Asimov and a dozen people I can’t call to mind RIGHT NOW because coffee still hasn’t had any noticeable effect, for some reason. (A very busy weekend is my guess at the reason.)

Biggest influences? Robert A. Heinlein. And as an adult, a bunch of other people, including Pratchett. (And Pournelle.) My reading has always been wide and varied and I steal story telling tricks from everyone, including real history.

Right, now the relevant part of this: Why did Grok create this bizarre just-so story out of a reality that didn’t even vaguely corresponds to its story? Because Grok learned confabulation from humans. When faced with dispersed and unclear facts, it constructs a just-so story. As humans do.

So, you know, Portuguese born science fiction writer mentioned her brother introduced her to science fiction, and she mentions these female writers. Also, the other side says she ran here when Salazar’s regime fell. AHA! this was why her brother introduced her to female writers.

People do this ALL THE TIME. Continuously. With relish (and sometimes mustard.) Not just the left, but every human does it. About things that are either obscure, or which they don’t want to spend months researching. We get hold of three or four disparate facts and run with them into a “just so story” that explains EVERYTHING.

This is how we get people assuring us that say Neanderthals had no sense of direction at all. Now I know that’s partly from brain structures, but as older daughter in law pointed out, they colonized all of Europe for a long time, and surely they couldn’t have moved around as a vast pack, afraid to lose the rest of the tribe. They had to go hunting and then come home after all.

This is how Marija Gimbutas invented an entirely female paradise before men dastardly invented patriarchy. The entire story falls to pieces if you poke it and not just because she confused bull’s heads with uteri, but because it has no internal psychological sense (like, if a matriarchal society was so perfect, why did men overthrow it? It’s not like they were a separate species.) Sure all of it is based on shards, misinterpreted figures and a lot of wishful thinking. BUT it’s a just so story and it made people who wanted to believe in mythical women who were communal, giving, and not in the slightest human, very happy.

This is how, of course, Marx constructed his theory which had nothing to do with real economics, and was 99% the wishful thinking of a grifter consumed by envy.

This is how Antonio Gramsci retconned Marxism to apply to people who could tan and who, unlike those traitors of the working class who chose country over class in WWI were NATURAL communist, and therefore the future.

None of it makes sense, if you think it applies to real humans. Real humans don’t think a certain way because they tan a certain color.

BUT they’re just so stories and because humans like just so stories, they eat them up with a spoon. Each of these bits of nonsense confuse a lot of people and make them believe horrible things and commit murder and worse (yes, there is worse) under the grip of just so stories.

90% or sometimes more of what I do here at ATH is poking holes in just-so stories that are being pushed as psy-ops to make you act in ways that aren’t good for you (or the world, or anyone.)

Every time you’re presented with a story, be it for why you shouldn’t allow data centers, why AI is going to take all your jobs, why the socialists will win forever, why we’re all gonna DIIIIIIIE, etc. etc. etc. ask yourself “How would this story play if happened to REAL humans who are actual individuals and don’t act in prescribed ways?” I mean I won’t request that you imagine everyone in the story is like me, because that’s highly unlikely. But I hate to tell you how much even one person with a touch of the tisms and no idea of HOW he/she’s supposed to act, let alone any intention of obeying can screw up a just-so story. And my brothers and sisters in tism are everywhere in the world and everywhen in history.

The left routinely makes the mistake of assuming people are vast groups of widgets. The right does too, until someone points out it makes no sense.

Because humans and clankers have a lot in common when it comes to Just-So stories. And all of it p*sses me off. Which must be my justification for this rant.

That and telling you to do what my mom complained I always did: When a story is too perfect, for the love of heaven, poke holes in it. The life you save might be your own. The liberty you save might be all of ours.

ARGH. UPDATE: I forgot to mention I’m conducting this blog’s fundraiser till the 15th (which will be fun since it’s a day after surgery. Never mind).

DAY SIX OF ACCORDING TO HOYT’S ANNUAL FUNDRAISER.

(Note there wasn’t one for Christmas last year, as NML did well enough I skipped the thing that makes me uncomfortable.)

Jerry Pournelle was the first person to insist what I do here has value and I should be paid. I ignored him because it makes me uncomfortable. However, as this blog and responsibilities associated with it have grown, my family thinks I owe it to them to allow it to pay at least a fraction of what a job that eats this much of time would.

So, if you find value in the blog, please contribute commensurately, understanding this has cost me not just in time and worry (not so long ago credible worry I’d be debanked or worse) but also in exposure to some very nasty people for both me and my entire family. (As I pointed out sometime ago when people were complaining that Glenn Reynolds doesn’t “need” money and shouldn’t fundraise, every blogger, large or small, to the right of Lenin has paid a price for what he or she does. And some of it is monetary. The rest is honestly probably ultimately medical. Fundraising can’t compensate for this, but it at least helps our families cope.)

If you wish to donate: There is a Give Send Go fundraiser for this specific fundraiser set up. Here is a Paypal Me Link if you prefer that. (Yes, I know. Paypal, but for now, they’re behaving.) If you have a monthly donation setup to the permanent Give Send Go, that is still working and thank you! There are also two substacks you can subscribe to. One is on the side bar of the blog, the other is supposed to be a newsletter, as well as giving you chapters of the current work in progress if you become a paid subscriber. It takes cards. For snail mail: Sarah Hoyt 304 S Jones Blvd #6771 Las Vegas, NV 89107

IF YOU WANT THE FULL SPIEL AND EXPLANATION IT’S HERE: Toss A Coin To Your Blogger, Oh Readers of Plenty

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

FIRST OF ALL WITH A THANK YOU TO DOC N, FOR BEING A GOOD SPORT ABOUT MY USING ONE OF HIS COMICS AS A MEME: His webcomic. And his scifi story arc.

FROM SARAH HOYT’S INSUFFERABLE SELF PROMOTION: Witch’s Daughter.

Some letters come from the living. Some come from the dead. This one comes with a formula that turns a rowboat into a miracle.

Seventeen-year-old Lord Michael Ainsling — youngest brother of the Duke of Darkwater, builder of mechanical marvels, survivor of fairyland — receives a letter from a man sixteen years dead. The inventor Tristram Blakley has not perished; he has been imprisoned by his own genius and begs the one mind in all of Avalon brilliant enough to understand his work to set him free. All Michael has to do is find seven missing brothers first and walk a magical path..

Fifteen-year-old Albinia Blakley has spent her whole life under her mother’s iron thumb — and her mother is a witch. The day Al finally escapes down a rope of knotted sheets, she lands in a world she doesn’t recognize, with no money, no magic kit, and no idea that the stranger who catches her is about to become her greatest ally.

Together, a girl with more secrets than she knows and a boy who builds machines that try to murder him must outwit a sorceress, navigate the treacherous courts of Fairyland, and unravel an enchantment years in the making — before a family is lost for good.

Witch’s Daughter is a gaslamp fantasy brimming with wit, warmth, and wonder, for readers who love their magic wrapped in velvet and their adventures served with morning tea.

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: The Bard’s Curse: Bard’s Song Book One

In a world where words are power, a bard’s curse weighs heavy on those who draw his wrath.

Tuathal, master bard and prince of two realms, journeys north to his half-brother’s court. When Pyder of the Ford breaks the laws of hospitality, Tuathal’s satire brings ruin in its wake. But more than just righteous anger moves over field and forest. What began as an insult reveals far darker things moving in the realm Fiachta NoDomnail, low king of the Dunalaid.

A wandering bard and prince, Tuathal faces a war that will burn down all that his kindred have built. To stop it and lift a bard’s curse may cost more than he is willing to pay.

Words have power, but darker powers than those of man also have a say.

FROM TALEENA SINCLAIR: A Death In Good Society: A John Recht Novel (John Recht Novels Book 1)

A Death in Good Society

A John Recht Mystery
by Taleena Sinclair

When the body of Maire Beaufort, society’s adored “Angel of Waldfeld,” is found propped against a canal wall in the city’s most fashionable quarter, her death is more than just a tragedy; it threatens to ignite a diplomatic crisis.

Captain John Recht, former intelligence officer, is summoned from retirement to investigate on the heels of burying his wife. What begins as a straightforward murder quickly unravels into a labyrinth of deception, ambition, and betrayal. Powerful families are at odds, the palace whispers of scandal, and the Angel is at the center of it all.

As John and his trusted allies pursue truth through the salons and alleyways of a city built on secrets, they discover that the crime is only the first move in a much larger game—one that could topple governments and destroy the beginnings of John’s new life.

Set in the richly imagined city of Waldfeld, John Recht must discover just who is responsible for A Death In Good Society.

For readers of Patrick O’Brian, C.J. Sansom, and Dorothy Sayers.

FROM ROSS HATHAWAY: The Mything Road: The Bureau of Imaginary Problems 2

Reality is held together by stories.
Someone just put them up for a vote.

Agent Mara Quill expected paperwork, containment protocols, and maybe a mildly haunted bridge.

Instead, she found a miniature golf course running a continent-spanning network of cryptids, myths, and living infrastructure—controlled by a windmill that requires her to vote on reality itself.

Each decision expands the system.
Each connection strengthens it.
Each story becomes part of something larger.

And it’s working.

Forests answer. Rivers align. Mountains approve. Creatures once dismissed as folklore take their place like they’ve been waiting for someone to start the meeting. Because they have.

Then something notices. The Devourer does not attack cities or armies.
It consumes structure. It erases meaning. It unravels the connections that make reality hold together.

And now it has found a network built entirely out of those connections.

Humanity’s response?

Deploy everything.

Ancient myths once carved into stone.
Legends whispered across generations.
Cryptids that refuse to be forgotten.

And, because this is still technically a government operation—Forms.

Thousands of them. Binding. Defining. Weaponized paperwork that can anchor reality just long enough to hold the line.

As interdimensional networks begin to connect, foreign agencies scramble, and something cold and ancient steps through to observe, Mara Quill realizes the truth:

This is not a new system.

This is not a new war.

This is something humanity has been building, defending, and remembering for longer than history admits.

The bridges are not roads. They are conversations.

And this one has just turned into a battlefield.

FROM ERIC W. COWPER: The Cough Is Loose (Bougie Apocalypse Book 1)

When the Cough starts dropping people in the streets, most folks panic.

Jackson “Jack” Harlan and his wife Raych make coffee.

Retired Army Sergeant Major Jack always knew something like this could happen. While society unravels overnight, he and Raych load the white 4Runner, fire up the Coleman stove, and stick to the plan: proper percolator coffee, hot ham and beans, and controlled violence when necessary.

Armed with enough guns and ammo for a small army and an ironclad commitment to not becoming savages, Jack and Raych fight their way out of the suburbs, pick up fellow survivors, and lay down the golden rule that will define their apocalypse:

“We shoot the Walkers… then we go back to the beans.”

A serialized military-flavored post-apocalyptic pulp story with World War Z realism, Zombieland humor, and stubborn civilization in the face of collapse. Because even when the dead start walking, breakfast doesn’t cook itself.

FROM DECLAN FINN: Cross Over (Honeymoon from Hell Book 4)

Amanda Colt and Marco Catalano’s original honeymoon has been extended by an all-expense paid trip to Rome. After fighting off vampires, wendigos, elves, necromancers and mad scientists, the Vatican Ninjas have decided to add to their training.

There is one other students will cross their path: NYPD Detective Thomas Nolan. He has had his own share of nightmare encounters with the forces of darkness.

But devilish things are afoot in Rome. Noises are coming from the catacombs. A film crew is afoul with monsters.

When these three cross over to join forces, they just have to make certain they’re not going to cross over for good.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Soul Inheritance

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

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

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

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: She Dreams Day and Night

Nancy White they called her, a good, solid name for a troubled girl. But she knew her father had called her by another name, before he disappeared through the gate into another world of strange stars and stranger moons. No matter how hard the staff of Hildred House try to force her to forget, she remembers. And longs to reopen the gate, to rejoin her father on that alien shore where cloud-waves break.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Parcel On Wren Street: and Other Cases of Richard Fairchild (The Aurigan Conflict)

Commander Richard Fairchild thought retirement would be peaceful.

After a distinguished career as a fighter pilot in the Anglo Fleet, a war injury has left him grounded and living quietly with his sister Margaret. Quietly, however, is not the same thing as peacefully.

When a parcel addressed to another man arrives at the Fairchild residence, Richard notices several small irregularities.

Before the package can be returned, the intended recipient is murdered. What begins as a simple curiosity soon develops into a far-reaching investigation involving secret courier routes, hidden communications, and enemy agents operating throughout the region.

Across twelve interconnected adventures, Richard Fairchild and his companions uncover:
• A mysterious parcel containing hidden star coordinates
• A woman using false identities to gather intelligence
• Secret transmitters concealed in an abandoned manor
• A murder among former military aviators
• Smuggling operations hidden behind legitimate commerce
• Coded musical performances used for espionage
• A passenger who vanished from a starliner without a trace
• The mastermind behind an extensive spy network

Assisted by his practical sister Margaret, the capable Dr. Alice Merriweather, and the increasingly tolerant Inspector Geoffrey Pritchard, Fairchild finds himself drawn into mystery after mystery as clues slowly reveal a larger conspiracy.
Written in the tradition of classic detective fiction, The Parcel on Wren Street and Other Cases of Richard Fairchild combines fair-play mysteries, memorable characters, gentle humor, and science-fiction adventure into a series of puzzles where observation matters more than violence and intelligence proves more valuable than force.

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: FLAG

DAY FIVE OF ACCORDING TO HOYT’S ANNUAL FUNDRAISER!

This blog is running its annual fundraising drive, so that I can quiet the voices in my head that tell me I might as well do macrame or perhaps take an interest in tiddly winks. (Also because Jerry Pournelle tried to convince me to do this for years, and yeah, I miss him.)

There is a Give Send Go fundraiser for this specific fundraiser set up. Here is a Paypal Me Link if you prefer that. (Yes, I know. Paypal, but for now, they’re behaving.) If you have a monthly donation setup to the permanent Give Send Go, that is still working and thank you! There are also two substacks you can subscribe to. One is on the side bar of the blog, the other is supposed to be a newsletter, as well as giving you chapters of the current work in progress if you become a paid subscriber. It takes cards. For snail mail: Sarah Hoyt 304 S Jones Blvd #6771 Las Vegas, NV 89107

IF YOU WANT THE FULL SPIEL AND EXPLANATION IT’S HERE: Toss A Coin To Your Blogger, Oh Readers of Plenty