According To Hoyt

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH

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

DONE WITH MIRRORS

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

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

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

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

Nine stories. Nine worlds. One unforgettable collection.

With an introduction by Holly Chism.

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

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

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

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

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

The third volume of the BBESP light novel!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But here they are . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lady of the Legion

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

Madame Takes Over

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

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

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Soul Inheritance

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

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

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

FROM DAVID PERLMUTTER: “Honey and Salt”

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

FROM MARY CATELLI: A Diabolical Bargain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doors That Lock from the Inside

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Signup for the 2026 Spring Based Book Sale Now!

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

Shiny, Sharp, and Stylish…

Welcome! To Morrigan’s Mercantile!

MurphicIndustries

For your gaming figurines and other such needs.

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

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

Which is very tasty.

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

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

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

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

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: THUNDER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Part of the problem we’re having with our discussion of voting rights and the SAVE act is that I swear 90% of the people in the US have no idea what the difference between illegal “migrant”, legal immigrant, green card holder and CITIZEN.

Look, I’m going on my own experience going TO Green card holder, then being a green card holder, and then becoming a citizen.

I know it sounds completely insane to most people here. I tried to explain to my husband that there was this confusion out there, and he just stared at me going “What? What do you mean they don’t know?”

But his mom, the day after we got married — I hadn’t yet applied for a green card! — told me my name was pronounced differently because I was “An American Now.” And though in her last years my MIL became a View fan, I want to point out in no way was she a stupid woman, and she had a a bachelor of arts from Oberlin. (Yes, that probably explained the View habit. But again, she was not stupid.) At the time I hadn’t yet absolutely decided I was going to change citizenships even. (Mostly because I didn’t want to hurt my dad. It took me a few years to decide, but hey, when I did I went to it full tilt. It’s sort of how I do everything.) But I kept running into people who told me I was a citizen now, including notably a Yale graduate. They would ask me who I was voting for. They told me “You’re American now.”

Curiously, once I became a citizen, I started running into a different kind of crazy — still do — including the people who tell me that I must still have dual citizenship, because I wouldn’t want to give Portuguese citizenship up. And of course the jokers who tell me all the work I did to become an American citizen doesn’t count; being in the US for my entire adult life; living completely isolated from any Portuguese culture in the US; practically forgetting Portuguese (I no longer speak it as a native, really) none of that counts. I was BORN on the magical dirt, and that’s the only thing that counts.

And then there are the people who understand the LEGAL divisions, but not why it should matter. So you get the rank idiocy of foreigners wanting to vote in American elections, because what we do influences their countries.

And the rank — and self interested, because fraud — stupidity of democrats and extreme leftists (BIRM) claiming that everyone who is in the country should vote because “Why shouldn’t they have a say on what happens where they live???” This has given us crazy cakes stuff like ILLEGALS allowed to vote on local and state elections, because after all they live there, don’t they?

This makes as much sense as my having a say on how a hotel room is decorated because I stay there for a week. I can guarantee that the hotel would have something to say if I got in with cans of paint and painted the room bright yellow to cheer me up, got rid of their carpet for luxury vinyl and brought in all my cats to stay.

The reason they would have a problem with it is that I don’t own the hotel room, yes. But more importantly, it’s that I stay in the hotel for about a week. I’m a guest — supposing at least that I pay the rates. Otherwise I’m a squatter and have even fewer rights — and frankly whether the hotel room gets demolished, or every wall painted black the minute I leave couldn’t matter less to me. It’s there while I need it, and I pay the price to stay there legally (Again, if I don’t, they’re entitled to dump me and my stuff in the driveway, and call the police. At least they should be. Let’s not go into how crazy some local laws have gotten.) But it’s not MINE. I have nothing invested in it, and in the end I leave and go back home.

This is actually roughly equivalent to most illegal (and even a lot of legal) immigrants, yes, even to America. They come here because it’s convenient to them. They come here specifically to make money to send “home” and they fully intend to retire back “home”, if possible by building the most expensive house in wherever they came from and living from some kind of US pension.

Now compare that to people who are born in the US, whose entire LIFE, family, their entire experience of everything is in the US.

They are citizens and have invested in the future of the country, particularly those of us who have kids/grandkids/great grandkids. You live here, and try to steer the country to what you think will be a good future for your kids. Sure, you might admit the occasional foreigner, just like families adopt the occasional kid. But they should very much want to be Americans, fit in America and raise their kids to be Americans. They should, as much as possible, make themselves American and marry their future to America’s. Which justifies them being citizens.

Which is what I did. I suppose you can’t demand that every immigrant marry an American, but I will point out this is ideal. While I was born in a different culture and family, American culture and ideas had a very strong influence on me from just about when I started to read science fiction. (And mystery, but mostly science fiction.) I’m not using this to claim that people who read American fiction/watch American movies/etc. are American or should vote in our elections. Possess your soul in patience.

What I mean is that there were seedlings of American culture in my brain even back then. However they were partial and weird, because fiction — I know this is hard to understand, but trust me — isn’t reality. As is, my ideas were more accurate than if I’d watched Hollywood movies, but not by much. Fiction I read gave me a picture of the US somewhere between the 1920s and the 1970s, but not exactly any place on that time line, and it concentrated MOSTLY on the big cities, particularly NYC and Los Angeles. And the news were no help there.

In fact, the first three years, until I decided I’d become American (or bust) were spent mostly in correcting misapprehensions I had about the US. And this was AFTER I’d finished High School in the US.

It takes time. It takes time and living here, even if you’re fluent, isolated from people from your native country and really want to be American.

For instance, it took me five years to realize crime wasn’t out of control just because I heard sirens all the time: like American policemen turn on the sirens for traffic stops, or (as a cop acquaintance put it, yes, I know it’s a joke) the “fresh doughnuts” sign went on at Krispy Kreme. It didn’t mean it was like the movies, and people were being murdered left and right.

Or take the complete idiocy of our very first house purchase. If I’d been acculturated, I’d know that house would never sell at a higher price, and it was a stupid purchase. Or–

Anyway, the thing is, I came here. I came here as a full speaker of English. And once I’d decided (Might have been two years in. I’m old. The years bleed together) that I was going to become American…. I went all in.

Since I’ve moved to the US, my entire time in Portugal has been maybe a total of three months, cumulative, over FORTY years. My kids have spent maybe a total month there, in one week or less increments.

We got news of the family every week, via my mom. And my kids like the family there. BUT they are very much foreigners (They are to my kids, and my kids to them.) My kids grew up in the US. My kids grew up Colorado Kids. that’s a far greater identification to them than the fact they had a mother who was born abroad. One of the cutest things about my boys is that they don’t hear my accent, but they do identify the ten words or so I still pronounce the British way (because I first learned British English.)

I became a citizen before first son was born. And yes, the reason was pretty much because I was going to have AMERICAN kids and raise them to be American.

I remember one of the moments of frustration my mom had with older son, when she just yelled at him, “You’re so, so so so….” Hands up in the air “American!”

She did not expect the kid — he was fourteen — to give her a slow smile and say, “Why, thank you ma’am.” (One of the rare occasions of communications across languages.)

Anyway, this is the oath I took:

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

And I meant every single word of that. When I naturalized, I gave up all allegiance to the place I was born. I love my relatives, of course, but they are foreign. This is the country I married, as much as I married my husband. I built my home here, and I work to make this a country for my children and should I have them, my grandchildren world without end.

I’m not a guest. I’m not spending time here and intending to “return home.” THIS IS HOME. MY HOME. I have no other.

And that’s why I have the right to vote here. Because if this country gets demolished, or turned into a socialist shithole matters very much to me. And to my kids who, G-d willing, will live here after me.

And that’s why citizens are different. Now, can we police citizens to make sure they are wedded to this land of ours, and don’t intend to go back? No. BUT requiring citizenship is the very minimum you can do.

Citizenship and proof there of means there’s at least a chance they’re of us. Not just a hotel guest — or squatter — who wants to paint the walls black, or set explosive charges off in his room.

Lies, Truth and Rats a blast from the past from August 2014

This post is late because I have an outdoor not-my-cat who loves me. He brought me something that squeaked for breakfast. He brought it back very fresh. In fact, he brought it back for me to kill. Fortunately I was in the kitchen and he was in the outdoor mudroom thing we call the airlock. I stood in the kitchen, listening to the squeak-thump and wondering if I should intervene, but the chances it was a bunny are minor. Sounded like a rat. And the chances of a desperate rat in the kitchen were really high.

Eventually Greebo (He’s just a big softy) grew disgusted with me and carried of his victim breakfast to enjoy elsewhere.

All of which has absolutely nothing to do with the post this morning. I mean, I could twist myself into pretzels and come up with something, but I’m not going to and instead I’m going to plunge head first into the post.

Imagine everything you’ve ever been told is a lie.

No, seriously. Close your eyes and picture it.

This kind of ah epistemological upheaval is very difficult. I’m telling you this as someone who found out about half of what she knew was a lie. What? Oh, little things – the first flight across the Atlantic was NOT as I’d been taught Sacadura and Cabral. “I regret I have only one life to give for my country” was not said by one of the assassins of Dona Inez de Castro before his execution, no matter how much my history book said so. (It might have been said by him TOO, but I suspect someone just thought it sounded good and stole it.) If you take more than an aspirin at one time, you won’t die. (I remember standing frozen in the kitchen when I’d complained to my host mother of a headache and she said “Just take a couple of aspirin, honey.” I thought “She’s trying to kill me!”) Other things that aren’t true that I “knew” were true: if you take a bath before it’s an hour after you last ate, you won’t die. Oh, and if you wash your hair every day it won’t fall off. Also, the entire street won’t turn and laugh at you if you go out in last year’s fashions. In fact, fashions are different in different countries. (And in the US, different parts of the country.) Things I found about the US, like for instance, it’s not all paved and built over, and Americans don’t ALL live in skyscrapers, was a different thing. You expect to find new things about a country when you go to a new country. You don’t expect to find out new things about how the world works.

Even the aspirin thing? Blew my mind. “Why did my mother tell me I would die if I wouldn’t?”

Of course, the answer is because someone told it to her. (Also mom hates meds. ALL meds. She wouldn’t even take vitamins, because she was sure it would kill her.)

I understand it was much more difficult for people like the inhabitants of the former soviet block to come out and find out that everything was the other way around. In fact, anyone who comes from a repressive and self-aggrandizing society gets a shock when coming to the greater world. For instance I’ve heard of Arabs stunned to find out they DIDN’T win the six day war.

So, why am I talking about this? We are not in a repressive society, or not that kind of repressive society. News leak in around the edges.

Except we sort of are. Our press is not in collusion because they think that the dictator will punish them (unless you mean not inviting them to parties.) But they are in collusion in order to be thought of as “beautiful people” and “good people” and smart.

And it’s amazing how much of that crap you end up buying. I mean, everyone behind the curtain knew their news lied. It was just the AMOUNT of the lies that was unbelievably large. They thought some things would be true. Same with people coming from Arab countries. I bet you if we kidnapped someone from North Korea and exposed him/her to the real world, they’d be shocked at how little their great leader occupies our consciousness day to day. Because that’s probably the part they believe. That he looms large in enmity or alliance in the west. In fact, I’ve read stories of transplanted Arabs and the part they didn’t anticipate was how little people in the west think about Islam and Muslims day to day. How their neighbors were neither resenting them, impressed nor spying on them due to their origin/religion. (Most of the time the neighbors think they’re South American :-P)

I don’t know how much we’d get “The truth” when transplanted to another country, but I’ve noticed that British newspapers (even sometimes the Guardian) sound terribly “right wing” to me. I know they’re not. It’s just compared to our press.

But American media looms so large in the world we tend to drag the rest of it at least partially with us into madness.

Still, I wonder what when we emerge from this mess – we will, though it will take a while and feel like we’re swallowing live frogs. (I’m almost sure Greebo didn’t bring me a frog.) – will be completely upside down from what we imagine.

This is relevant for what we talked about yesterday. Because I read a lot I knew of the horrors uncovered in communist countries after the fall. It shocked me – still does – that people not only still go around, proudly proclaiming themselves communists, but also that the schools are still teaching communism as the better/more moral alternative and always coming up with false equivalence soviet-style “we have homeless too.”

But what you have to remember is that MOST people didn’t sign up for the epistemological upheaval. And most humans are REALLY bad at that sort of thing. REALLY REALLY REALLY bad. As in, most can’t, not after adolescence. And some not then.

Even when I was an exchange student – a self selected group – I was one of the very few ones who socialized/had my best friends outside my linguistic group (British and Japanese, actually.) Most people would go to their linguistic group or the next one. Portuguese would preferentially associate with other Portuguese, then Brazilians, then Spanish, then Spanish colonies, and so on.

I mean, even while they were in the US. This is because that spare-time association allowed them to reaffirm at least some of their world view and to say “Americans think this, but—”

I chose to go off without this protection because I wanted to know what was true/true and what was agreed-upon true.

BUT I’m abnormal. I run towards that which scares me. (Not a survival skill.) [Okay, unless what scares me is the possibility of allowing a rat in the kitchen. And that’s not so much scares me as “ewwwww”]

For most people maintaining the imagined integrity of their world is worth being wrong. Even being wrong in significant ways.

Because of Soviet Agit Prop, the “communist” view was “popular” and “cool” in the west since the seventies and counterculture, at least. (It was popular in intellectual circles before that.) It’s probably hard for you young kids to picture, but even stalwarts on the right assumed that communism was somehow more “moral” even when it failed. They disapproved of their curtailing of freedoms, etc, but it was ASSUMED it would have better results than capitalism, if allowed to continue long enough. The right merely objected to the cost in human capital.

If this was true on the right, imagine on the left. Do you wonder that the journalists didn’t report the true horrors or reported them with exculpation. “If it weren’t for embargos against Cuba, it would be a paradise” is still believed. And as for Russia… Well, truth be told if we hadn’t sent them wheat they would have starved, but instead you’ll hear about how our insane capitalist arms race kept THEM poor.

But more importantly, once the exculpation and the nine days wonder was over, and the snide laments about the good guys losing, it was back to acting as though communism had never fallen. In fact, over time, that has mutated to a denial that all the times communism has been tried, it was in fact communism, and an insistence it’s “never been tried.” This is combined with eructation about Marx still being “right” – mostly they insist he’s right about things like literary criticism (and no, even there Marxism isn’t of any use. It’s like trying to measure elephants in light waves. It’s just that most people don’t care enough about these niches to go and show them they’re wrong, so they can protect their epistemological certainty wrapped around themselves like a blanket.)

This is typical of people under stress and whose world view is under attack to such an extent they can’t cope. They erase whatever challenged it and place it outside the discussion, and go back to repeating the cherished platitudes.

You can see the embryonic effect of this in a kid who has done something disastrous that threatens his view of himself. “I didn’t break the dish. Aliens flew through the window and broke it.” Is the first defense. The next is to pretend it never happened.

You can also see it in the white house, as our red-diaper baby president stumbles around breaking things, but can’t process it, because it would mean upending everything he’s been taught and his vision of him as “smart” for believing these things. He’s a normal human or possibly a normal incurious human. He didn’t sign up for this kind of upheaval. So he keeps stumbling around, pretending he didn’t do things, pretending things are different. Hence the insistence that removal of troops from Iraq was the former administration’s fault despite recordings of him bragging about doing it.

The problem is this: due to effects of a super-abundant society where people are not close to the bone – in fact are so far from the bone they haven’t seen bone in years – and the dominance of the press and academia by the far left, people’s view of reality is at least as skewed as that of people behind the iron curtain in the bad old days.

This corrupts everything, even those of us who are awake. What sounds right and plausible is twisted 25 degrees from reality. Western society is a giant bubble and a loud enough bubble that even people outside the bubble believe it. And a lot of the things propagated by the bubble are antithetical to the west and fossilized old communist propaganda, because the denial-reaction of our “elites” has enshrined that as “smart” and “cool.”

Will it take a crash to correct?

I don’t know. I think a crash might be inevitable, but whether it would correct it or not, I don’t know. The magnitude of the crash that would correct it scares the heck out of me and might not be possible, due to see how far from the bone we are.

I think what will correct over time is that technology is changing too fast for centralized anything. They’re losing the plot in each field it hits. And because of their mismanagement (Centralized is always more inefficient) the fields it’s hitting first are the ones they most control: media, entertainment, education.

We can hear that epistemological “reset” in the voices of the publishing industry’s execs as they say over and over again that their houses are better for authors because covers and editing and publicity, as though saying it made it true.

It’s possible things will right themselves as the generation that is most heartily promoting its epistemological error passes from this world. (Not long before I do, so I can’t verify that.) Kind of like the generation of the desert had to pass before the promised land could be entered.

Or it’s possible it will happen faster, as technology will change very fast. At least it seems to be on a track of not so much rapid change but “rapid change that makes a difference to normal human beings in every day life.”

It’s unlikely to stop.

And they simply can’t adapt.

This is going to make the times ahead as interesting as those thumps and squeaks from the mud room. (See, I told you I could tie it back!)

But we are at least semi-awake. So, whether we’re flexible or not (and a lot of us are, being Odd) the shock will be lesser to us.

In the end, we win they lose.

For the last ten years I’ve been watching somewhere between alarm and disquiet, as conservatives went all in on: “No college! Trades!”

I’m not going to argue with you on college. I feel some great changes are coming that way, anyway, in the next ten years or so, though remember that for about ten years you’ll still need that piece of paper, though perhaps increasingly less. And ten years can mean 12 or 15 or 20. These things aren’t exact.

I think the loss of need for a college degree will only come when companies are allowed to test their own employees, and I don’t honestly know what is in the way of that, but I’d guess a forest of petty fogging rules and anti-discrimination lawsuits.

My guess is before college degrees are completely useless too, it will have to be understood that no, they don’t even guarantee the student can in fact read, much less learn.

But these things take time. Yes, at some point we’ll it “Then suddenly.” But on the way to “then suddenly” there will be a lot of “first slowly.”

And a lot of professions will always require college or its equivalent: medicine, engineering. Possibly law.

Here is the thing though, yes, the trades and manual work I impervious to challenges from AI. Yes, they really are needed. But if you push everyone into them, they’ll become as bloated as college once was. And also, some people simply aren’t designed for manual labor.

Look, I love the skilled trades in theory. But I don’t have the combination of hands and mind that would make me good at one of them. I like heavy labor, but more the kind like farming, which requires strength and endurance.

Oh, in another time when Journalism was a skilled trade you trained into out of high school, by being put on flower shows and obituaries, and the like, I’d probably have done okay at it.

Am I saying you shouldn’t put your kids into trade school? Well, no. Absolutely, if the kid has the type of talents and inclination for it, it is a way to make a living.

However, don’t go thinking it’s the One True Way. For most of them, in the end, it’s still working for someone else, and furthermore I expect in the great innovation wave (if we can avoid giving power to the leftists for ten or twenty years, at least) of the next century or so, most of those professions will be automated or otherwise rendered obsolete.

In fact that is the most important thing for your children — for everyone’s children — in the next few years: They must be prepared for a world in which innovation changes everyone’s lives and work at a rapid clip. Which means that they need to be fast and nimble on their feet.

It is the most important thing, not just for them, but for the nation.

Look, both tech and the current innovation climate means we need a lot of… small entrepeneurs. I’m going to lay down my dust right now that we’re going back or at least going towards — I don’t know how much of it was a pipe dream back then — that beloved standby of late 19th century and early 20th century science fiction: the genius in his garage, making something that turns the world on its head.

The combination of information on the internet — all of humanity’s knowledge at our fingertips — and increasingly affordable and accessible automation is making this possible as never before, or at least not in the last 100 years.

I know a lot of you are homeschooling kids and I approve of this. And if you’re doing that, you’re uniquely placed to give your kid the most important last finishing touch: Encourage them to start a business when they’re about sixteen.

What the business is doesn’t matter much. It should be something that interests the kid at that time, but it doesn’t mean it’s their lifetime vocation. Whether that’s 2-D printing, beading, computer repair, it really doesn’t matter at all. Whatever is within your means to stake out (I have a dream. We’ll see how this year goes. But I’d like to start $500 grants for kids to start businesses.)

It doesn’t matter if the business never makes more than allowance-money. And it doesn’t matter if it fails.

It matters that it be taken seriously, and the kid should be encouraged to do so, and to learn to establish his business as a legal entity, to keep accounts, to calculate prices, to figure out how to promote, to create business plans.

That and the experience of working steadily towards a goal is what the kid will take from having run a business. That and understanding that “the one thing” isn’t a thing. that you’re not FATED to do this or that. That the future is not written in stone. That you can fail and fail and fail and still come out ahead, as long as you get up once more than you were knocked down. Understanding themselves and the variety of their raw talents, and the limits of what one can do with sheer talent and work, the play of luck into even the most carefully planned business, etc. All of this will be invaluable to the kid so when they’re launched into the world they won’t be afraid to be entrepreneurs and innovators. If they end up getting a chance at that. And we need entrepreneurs and innovators by the score.

And what if they end up wanting to go to college? Well, let them, and help them in the measure of possible. Having learned how to run a business won’t hurt them in that.

However, don’t shy away from civics, history and politics. If the kids end up in college, they’re going to be submerged in a lot of crazy ideas. Make sure they know those are crazy, even if they have to parrot them for a while to get a grade.

Don’t send your kids down the “one true way.” I actually only know half a dozen people who are working in the field they studied for. And some of us you have to apply a lot of latitude. I’m sure my professors would be shocked if they knew what I’m doing now. (Given ages, most of them are dead. Which is probably for the best.)

Prepare them instead to pick paths, and to make the most of what they can do at any given time.

And for their sake, and the sake of this nation as we head to our third century? Teach them to be self-starting, self-bossing innovators, and unafraid.

It’s the best you can do.

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

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

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

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

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

Nine stories. Nine worlds. One unforgettable collection.

With an introduction by Holly Chism.

This has a bunch of pre-published short-stories, but I figure even the most fanatic of you has missed one or two. And the one from Black Tide Rising — Do No Harm — for good and sufficient reason, because I either never got the guidelines OR forgot them and given THAT year it could be either, was only half-published. This has the other half.

Anyway, the stories are: Honeyfall, Scrubbing Clean, Last Chance, Great Reckoning in a Small Room, Horse’s Heart, Do No Harm, Dead End Rhodes, The Knights of Time and Done with Mirrors.

Oh, and Holly Chism was good enough to give me an introduction.

I’d also like to thank Toni Weisskopf for permission to use Do No Harm.

How this collection happened: Well, I got the Elephant Sat On Me and couldn’t finish Witch’s Daughter. Heck, writing for this blog was a stretch. BUT–

I intended to do Witch’s Daughter late Jan and Done With Mirrors Late February. instead I split the difference and this comes out on Valentine’s Day. It’s up for preorder.

I was markedly better today and signed two short story contracts, for Baen, one of them for Chaos and Consequences, edited by Jason Cordova and featuring Brundar and Skip. (It’s something from The Worlds of Men, but different POV. Um…. The Worlds Of Men — third book. Not written, but already in my head.) As well as clearing a ton of what Dan calls Administrivia.

I’d have written, except the cats sat on me and I napped. (Alternate garden of Eden story, where there is no serpent but there’s a cat.)

Tomorrow should be better. (And yes, there will be a post. This one is just because the link is finally working for Done With Mirrors.) Which is good because I was on the verge of going to war with Amazon.

I will say Amazon, even with new craptastic software “improvements” is about as bad as the other places to sell indie writing. BUT it is a much bigger gorilla, and one I can’t do business without, and that makes me a lot more volatile and angry at it.

Anyway, the link works now.

Having caught the illness some of my younger fans are calling “And then the elephant sat on you,” I’m glad to report that I’m feeling better. Like, markedly better enough I actually gave some thought to going to church, until a coughing fit doubled me in two and stopped the nonsense.

But except for the lingering cough and some residual “tired” I’m much better.

Which doesn’t explain this weird combination of tiredness and boredom.

Except perhaps it is tiredness: from being ill. And boredom: because we’ve both been ill and more of less penned inside the house for two weeks straight.

When my husband says he has to go to the pharmacy, but has no intention of getting out, just going through the drive-in and I say “wait for me” because it would be good to confirm the world still exists, things aren’t precisely normal.

Thing is normally boredom doesn’t affect me. Yes, I am extremely ADD and so boredom is a fact of life, but normally, in the Portuguese expression “I can set off the fireworks, enjoy the show, and run for the dropped canes.” (The last was something boys in the village did. I didn’t even realize how unsafe that was to my forties.)

By which I mean when I’m bored I can normally create fiction and amuse myself. Or of course read someone else. I have been reading someone else a lot, but it’s somehow not enough. And as for creating any own amusement….

Part of it is that I’m tired. I write two pages, and I feel like I’m all done. These blogs are testing the limit of my endurance, and they ain’t that long.

But worse yet, when it comes to fiction, or even to serious topics here, is that I feel I have …. werewolf problems.

Okay, I’m not sure how to explain this, and I once described it to my older son and alarmed him so thoroughly he was sure I was having a stroke. I’m sure that’s not it, because it’s a normal symptom for me when getting better from upper respiratory issues.

No, I don’t think I’m becoming a werewolf. It’s more that nothing feels right. My teeth feel too long, my skin feels itchy. My clothes fit me funny.

This is annoying enough, but the problem is I feel I can’t evaluate literally anything.

Which gives me problems with simple things, like, cooking dinner. “What do you want for dinner?” “I don’t know what do you want?” “We’re only one person, you don’t get to ask me that.” Or with reading books “Is this mystery making no sense, or am I ill and not able to track?”

And it’s much, much worse when evaluating our current political moment, say, or my own writing. “Did I get that idea across? Do I sound like I’m speaking from a parallel universe?”

This is far worse for fiction, because I can’t tell if I’m hitting the notes I’m aiming for.

So, what is this other than an extended whine?

Well, it is an extended whine. I mean, nothing like a fine whine when one is out of sorts.

On the other hand, it’s also a lesson for the rest of you, sort of a “we’re all humans.” As I knew that some of you are having issues with their own black dogs.

But more importantly and quite beyond all that, it’s sort of trying to remind myself that just because it’s been two weeks it doesn’t mean I’ll never be able to write again.

It’s just a tantrum by the body. Which unfortunately affects the mind. This too shall pass. (I hope.)

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH

FROM CEDAR SANDERSON: Tomato Wyrm.

Cecilia Duringhurst never expected to inherit anything, much less her estranged great-uncle’s country manor. It’s in a bit of a sorry state, coated with dog hair and staffed only by Jock, the old gamekeeper… but it comes with a greenhouse, large gardens, and the hopes of escaping city life.

Determined to save Hendre Court from ruin, she finds an unexpected ally in Greig MacDougall, Jock’s grandson and her new gardener. Together, they are swapping city life for muddy boots, endless weeding, and the fragile hope of turning heirloom tomatoes and cut flowers into a sustainable future.

As they dig in side by side, unearthing old secrets and new possibilities, Cecilia senses the estate holds more than soil and stone—something ancient and watchful that is tied to the Duringhurst line, and rooted to this hill.

Secrets and seedlings will burst forth in the spring… and just possibly, despite the frosts of misunderstandings and chill winds of finances, a relationship that will entwine all of them and blossom.

FROM ROSS HATHAWAY: Nothing Happened and This is The Report

IMAGINARY PROBLEMS ARE THE MOST DANGEROUS KIND.
That’s why no one is supposed to notice them.
Hidden inside the federal bureaucracy is a quiet agency tasked with handling things that must not be acknowledged, because the moment they become real, they become powerful. Cryptids, buried histories, unexplained phenomena, rumors that refuse to stay rumors: the Bureau of Imaginary Problems exists to ensure these things remain effectively imaginary.
Most days, that means paperwork. And cake. And pretending nothing happened.
But when a routine investigation uncovers connections between old legends, polluted creeks, forgotten civilizations, and creatures that refuse to stay in one story or one timeline; the Bureau faces its worst fear: a problem that keeps being believed.
As cryptids negotiate their place in the modern world, Time itself pushes back against containment, and oversight committees demand answers they don’t want, the Bureau must do what it has always done best: smooth reality, bury the truth, and protect the public from stories that could make the world unmanageable.
Because belief creates meaning.
Meaning creates agency.
And some problems can only be solved if everyone agrees they were imaginary all along.
Darkly comic, sharply satirical, and unsettlingly plausible, Nothing Happened and This Is the Report is an urban fantasy about myth, memory, and the dangerous comfort of not knowing—where the greatest threat isn’t what lurks in the shadows, but what happens when people start paying attention.
After-action paperwork pending.

FROM JESSICA SCHLENKER: Excessively Attentive

Elizabeth Bennet harboured few expectations for her trip to Kent. Primarily, she was to see her dear friend Charlotte, which necessarily entailed tolerating the odious Mr. Collins. Perhaps, if she were truly fortunate, she might even gain an introduction to the great Lady Catherine — whether she wished it or not. She promised to fill her letters home to her father with faithful recountings of any absurdities thus encountered; he almost promised to write back.

But when a revelation prompts Mr. Bennet to arrive in person, Elizabeth is drawn into the center of a long-buried family mystery. A single portrait holds the key, and the truth it unlocks threatens to upend everything she understands about her past and her expectations for her future.

Excessively Attentive is a Regency-set reimagining of Pride and Prejudice that remains faithful to Jane Austen’s wit, social precision, and moral insight. Thoughtful, character-driven, and richly grounded in period voice, this novel asks what it means to belong — not by birth alone, but by character, courage, and choice.

BY ED LACEY, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Dead End

Two big-city cops.

Bucky was young, strong and ambitious. Doc was older, smart, knowing all the ropes. They were partners — on special assignments and all the graft, including the favors of a red-hot blonde. And then came the big case, a kidnapping, and they wound up in a shabby, smelly hideout, with a million dollars in cash, and no place to spend it!

The iktaPOP Media edition of Ed Lacy’s classic noir novel includes an introduction by D. Jason Fleming that reflects on possible influences on the novel from Lacy’s life, with a digression into why it would make good material for a low budget film adaptation.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: THE GLOAM DOCTRINE (Science Fiction Singles)

The most dangerous weapon in the war is considered obsolete.

Captain Samuel “Sammy” Jackson was once destined for the most prestigious cockpit in the fleet—until he questioned the doctrine behind it. Now he flies the XN-47 Gloam: an ugly, slow, outdated two-man interceptor assigned to the men no one else wants.

The Gloam cannot dogfight.

It cannot outrun anything.

It cannot compete on paper.

But while sleek autonomous fighters vanish in perfect, inexplicable ambushes, the Gloams keep coming home.

Their secret isn’t superior technology. It’s inferior technology—manual switches, crude sensors, mismatched components, and human backseaters who don’t follow algorithms. The enemy’s artificial intelligences can predict every optimized system in the war. What they cannot model is stubborn, inconsistent, deeply human decision-making.

As victories mount and official credit vanishes, Jackson begins to understand the truth: the Gloams are winning a war no one is allowed to admit exists. High Command wants their chaos replaced with elegant automation. The enemy is already learning their patterns. And the only way to survive may be to fracture the fleet itself into something no machine can comprehend.

In the darkness between stars, speed is irrelevant.

Beauty is a liability.

And the future belongs to the ugly ships that refuse to be understood.

For fans of hard military science fiction, aviation history, The Right Stuff, The Forever War, and character-driven space combat grounded in real doctrine and politics.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: The Last History-Keeper: A Liquid Diet Chronicles Tale

Imagine what it would be like to remember all of history.

Justinian doesn’t have to imagine. He’s the last of a nearly-lost line of vampires, the last keeper of history, hunted by tyrant and monster alike, alive only because of the grace of God, and the luck of having an early pope hide him from those hunting him. He’s been in the catacombs of Vatican City ever since, hidden and safe.

But now…now he’s needed. Vampire, priest, visionary, historian, he’s been sent forth into the world, to walk it once again.

His ordained path leads him to…Manhattan, Kansas. To a brand new nest, filled with orphans and outcasts. And the journey takes him into the path of those who need his help: a six year old girl with an unmanageable memory, and a brand new line with gifts that terrify.

https://amzn.to/4qaAAyCFROM NATHAN BRINDLE: The Lion and the Lizard (Timelines Book 2)

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Thirty years ago, Dr. Ariela Rivers Wolff, M.D., Ph.D., AKA The Lion of God, had a pretty exhausting week.

Her world was invaded by time-traveling soldiers, she was nearly turned into human toothpaste by an experimental dimension jumper when she went to find her parallel “Dad,” who just happens to be able to borrow a Space Force fleet to come and take out her world’s invaders . . . and then she found out she was considered by those same invaders to be a saint in their odd religion, and one of the targets of their invasion. If that wasn’t enough, she nearly fell completely out of the universe into a time rift, being saved only by the skin of her teeth by her parallel “Dad”.

After all that, learning she was going to be the one to bring universal healing and long life to the human race in her particular timeline was just the icing on the proverbial cake.

Anybody else would go home, turn off their phone, pull all the blinds, lock all the doors, and take the rest of their life off. But Ari isn’t “anybody else”. And her cult of admirers across two timelines won’t take “nobody home” for an answer.

Fast-forward thirty years. Scientists have detected radio transmissions in an unknown language from several hundred light years away. And now she’s been asked to use her special “saintly” skills as demonstrated on her last “mission” to make first contact with whoever they are.

And that’s only the beginning.

Looks like Ambassador Dr. Ariela Rivers Wolff, M.D., Ph.D., is going to have another pretty exhausting week. Or six.

FROM KAREN MYERS: To Carry the Horn – A Virginian in Elfland (The Hounds of Annwn Book 1

AN ENTIRE KINGDOM BUILT AROUND A SUPERNATURAL NEED FOR JUSTICE, ENFORCED BY THE WILD HUNT AND THE HOUNDS OF HELL.

What would you do if you blundered into a strange world, where all around you was the familiar landscape of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, but the inhabitants were the long-lived fae, and you the only human?

George Talbot Traherne stumbles across the murdered huntsman of the Wild Hunt, and is drafted into finding out who did it. Oh, and assigned the task of taking the huntsman’s place with the Hounds of Hell, whether he wants the job or not.

The antlered god Cernunnos is the sponsor of this kingdom, and he requires its king to conduct the annual hunt for justice in pursuit of an evil criminal, or else lose his right to the kingship, and possibly end up hunted himself.

Success is far from guaranteed, and no human has held the post. George discovers his own blood links to the fae king, and he’s determined to try. But Cernunnos himself has a personal role to play, and George will have to sort out just why he’s the one who’s been chosen for the task.

And whether he has any chance of surviving the job.

I DID TOO PUT A COLLECTION OUT: It’s up for pre-order, but for now Amazon won’t let me monetize the link. However, if you can’t wait: Done with Mirrors.

And meanwhile, you know, No Man’s Land is back at the end here like a cat that keeps showing up at dinnertime. And honestly? Same energy. Always gets food from this…. Why? I don’t know.

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

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

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

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

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

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

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

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: color