Book Promo And Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike
Book Promo
*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog. Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so. As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste. 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. I ALSO WISH TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT IF THEY WANT TO TIP THE BLOGGER WITHOUT SPENDING EXTRA MONEY, CLICKING TO AMAZON THROUGH ONE OF THE BOOK LINKS ON THE RIGHT, WILL GIVE US SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR PURCHASES MADE IN THE NEXT 24HOURS, OR UNTIL YOU CLICK ANOTHER ASSOCIATE’S LINK. PLEASE CONSIDER CLICKING THROUGH ONE OF THOSE LINKS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR THAT SHED, BIG SCREEN TV, GAMING COMPUTER OR CONSERVATORY YOU WISH TO BUY. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*
FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY: Sleeping Duty: Waking Late
Gilead Tan and Andrea Fielding survived their stint in the military, got married, signed up to emigrate to a terraformed colony world, and went into cold sleep for the journey from Earth. While they slept, the starship went through the wrong fold in space and settled for a different world, a wild world.
Three centuries after the founding of a colony on the uncharted planet, Gilead awakens to find humanity slipped back to medieval tech and a feudal structure.
Worse, the king who wants Gilead awake won’t let Gilead awaken his wife.
FROM CRAIG W. STANFILL: Terms of Service: Subject to change without notice.
1984 meets The Matrix in this riveting science fiction novel about corporate totalitarianism, personal freedom, and one brave character’s journey to reclaim her humanity from an oppressive regime.
250 years in the future, artificial intelligences control every aspect of Kim’s life – from what she has for breakfast to who she is allowed to have sex with. Living in the northeast province of what used to be the United States, she is a rising star at The Artificial Intelligence Company, training and managing sentient beings called “AIs” in the enigmatic parallel universe of Virtual Reality.
When a seemingly harmless lark sends Kim’s life spinning out of control and the AIs begin to go mad, Kim launches into a journey of self-discovery and chaos that threatens to tear down society’s corrupt powers, and possibly civilization itself.
For fans of classic dystopian literature like Brave New World and ground-breaking TV shows like Black Mirror, Stanfill explores the lurking dangers of a surveillance state where privacy is dead, corporations have unlimited power, and even using the word “I” is forbidden.
FROM J. L. CURTIS: Rimworld- Into the Green
After a chance encounter with Dragoons and Traders turns a routine planet exploration into a rout that kills his team and his career, Lieutenant Ethan Fargo, medically retired, wants nothing more than to hole up in the backwater Rimworld he’d explored and enjoy a quiet retirement far from people or problems.
Unfortunately, he’s about to find out that he’s not as retired as he wants to be, and that his new home system comes with dangers, politics, and Dragoon sightings of its own. What promised to be a boring retirement will turn out to be anything but.
FROM M. C. A. HOGHARTH: Who Is Willing
Alysha Forrest is looking forward to her assignment as the Songlance’s newest lieutenant, particularly when it gets her placed as the liaison to the ship’s water environment crewmembers. Interfacing with the mermaid-like Naysha and the alien Platies who serve as the ship’s navigators is an exhilarating experience, and all the other officers on the crew are eager to welcome her into the fold… all of them, except one.
Mike Beringwaite, the overbearing ensign who ruined their leadership retreat years earlier, has somehow made lieutenant too. When a routine problem in the water environment throws them together, Alysha has to decide how willing she is to forgive him for what he did, whether she can work with him again, and most importantly, if she can trust him–with her life.
The disaster at the leadership retreat is nothing to the one they have to handle now. If they can….
FROM ROBERT BIDINOTTO: WINNER TAKES ALL: A Dylan Hunter Justice Thriller.
A MURDEROUS CONSPIRACY FOR ULTIMATE POLITICAL POWER
Engaged to be married, mysterious journalist Dylan Hunter and CIA security officer Annie Woods are desperate to put their violent past behind them.
But then an investigative reporter is brutally, mysteriously murdered.
A visionary presidential candidate is targeted for destruction.
And a horrific day of unspeakable terrorism rocks Washington, D.C.
Soon, Hunter’s investigation puts him in the cross hairs of a power-hungry billionaire and a cold-blooded assassin. Camouflaged by “fake news,” a deadly conspiracy of Russian spies and American traitors aims to install their puppet in the White House.
And these predators will do the unthinkable to bring America under their total control.
The stakes — political and personal — couldn’t be higher. Because to stop them, Dylan Hunter must make an irrevocable choice. He must revert to his dark, secret life as a violent vigilante, waging a one-man war of justice against the corrupt and untouchably powerful.
It’s a decision that will, finally and forever, seal his fate … including his future with the woman he adores.
But for now, only one thing is certain:
In the tidal wave of political violence raging through the blood-soaked streets of Washington, D.C., the final outcome will be … WINNER TAKES ALL.
FROM ELISE HYATT: Dipped, Stripped and Dead.
A Dyce Dare Mystery
When she was six, Dyce Dare wanted to be a ballerina, but she couldn’t stop tripping over her own feet. Then she wanted to be a lion tamer, but Fluffy, the cat, would not obey her. Which is why at the age of twenty nine she’s dumpster diving, kind of. She’s looking for furniture to keep her refinishing business going, because she would someday like to feed herself and her young son something better than pancakes.
Unfortunately, as has come to be her expectation, things go disastrously wrong. She finds a half melted corpse in a dumpster. This will force her to do what she never wanted to do: solve a crime.
Life is just about to get crazy… er… crazier. But at least at the end of the tunnel there might be a relationship with a very nice Police Officer.
FROM ANNA FERREIRA: The Flight of Miss Stanhope: A Short and Sweet Regency Romance.
Marianne Stanhope is in trouble. Her family is urging her to accept the attentions of a most odious suitor, so she turns to a gentleman of her acquaintance for aid. But Mr. Firth has his own reasons for assisting Miss Stanhope, and it falls to her childhood friend Mr. Killingham to convince her that she’s made a dreadful mistake.
FROM C. CHANCY: Gateway to Fiction.
THE LONG AWAITED WORLDBUILDING BOOK!
Do the Research, Keep the Shiny! A writer’s guide. Want a good story? Choking on yet another sparkly cinematic production that has all the flash and explosions yet no real people in it? If you want stories done right, sometimes you’ve just got to do it yourself. But how? Roll up your sleeves, we’re going to cover it all. No preaching; no “but thou must follow steps X, Y, Z”. Just, here’s some ideas, and some examples, of how it can work. From getting over that first hump of pen to page, through getting ideas and characters from point A to point B, all the way to how to keep breathing when the whole world’s crumbling in. There are links. There are tropes. And there’s a sober explanation of why fanfic has always mattered. In your mind’s eye there’s a world no one else has seen. Here’s some tools. Worldbuild away!
FROM ROBERTO JULIANO: Cry Bullies Protecting yourself against social muggers and victimhood aggression
Cry Bullies…How to spot them, who they pick to bully, how they fight, and how to fight back.
FROM GEORGE PHILLIES: The One World.
Amazon warriors against musketeer hordes!
The Holy Musketeers have found another continent to loot. The opposition? The primitive natives have no muskets and no cannon. Their cowardly men send their women to fight.
FROM DAVE LEWIS: Moira And The Two Nathans.
Immuration. She’d known the definition. Now she knew the meaning, in all its drawn-out horror. She didn’t know how long she’d been immured, only that she was nearing her end. Then, like a miracle, there was someone to free her, but — who was he? Where did he come from? Why did he know her name?
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: FUZZY
According To Hoyt 
Mea culpa. I made a mistake and sent Sleeping Duty in too soon. It will be on sale for 99 cents on a Kindle Countdown starting next Sunday, not today. Apologies.
Hey, send it to me for insty then? Not now, because I’ll forget.
Thanks! Will do.
It’s a day for flubs…. a reader found a few last typos in Gateway to Fiction, I’ve edited and sent those in, so Kindle will update and the PB should be out of revision soon. *Feels very sheepish.* Baaa, humbug….
I’ve been wondering how easy it was to fix such errors in e-books, as I’ve found a few. Would the authors here appreciate such finds, or is it nit-picky?
Well…. if you find one or two, or they’re just typos, you can send, but don’t expect the writer to fix.
IF… Well, I was just reading a book that I think was dictated and not carefully proofed. Unless the writer is not very proficient ESL. There was a typo per page. The book is very good, but seriously, I almost sent her the list.
In a similar situation, a friend who had few but BAD typos (shit for ship) got a list from a reader and wrote back to thank and beg the reader to be a beta.
Look, it’s not hard. For me right now, I’m lagging on fixing things, because I’m in the middle of dealing with non-writing issues. (More in today’s post.)
And there’s no point being picky if you have say under 10 typos in 120k words. That’s good even for trad. But–
A lot of what I find are not traditional typos, but words that autocorrupt accepts. “Because of his injuries, Malcolm needed help to do(n) his fuzzy slippers” kind of thing. I spent too much time typesetting to not notice such things.
Eh. Yesterday the book I read kept making me giggle. Things like The Handsome Cab. (Hansom cab.) ON EVERY PAGE.
I appreciate catches, but I don’t always fix them instantly. Life . . .
And the revisions are up! Yay!
“Oh Look Mommy! It’s a Fuzzy! It looks so cute!” the little girl squealed.
Battle Commander Rellik Reredrum, Conqueror Of A Hundred World, held his anger in check. It was bad enough that his invasion force had been defeated by these primitive humans but being seen as “cute” by their children was almost too much to bear but bear it he must.
WHEN wilt thou save the people?
O God of mercy! when?
Not kings and lords, but nations!
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
Flowers of thy heart, O God, are they!
Let them not pass, like weeds, away!
Their heritage a sunless day!
God save the people!
Shall crime bring crime for ever,
Strength aiding still the strong?
Is it thy will, O Father!
That man shall toil for wrong?
“No!” say thy mountains; “No!” thy skies;
“Man’s clouded sun shall brightly rise,
And songs be heard instead of sighs.”
God save the people!
When wilt thou save the people?
O God of mercy! when?
The people, Lord! the people!
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
God save the people! thine they are;
Thy children, as thy angels fair;
Save them from bondage and despair!
God save the people!
—Ebenezer Elliot
Best-Loved Poems of the American People happened to flip open to this one when I was looking for something to read my oldest daughter.
I thought I’d share.
“You got him?” said Alcestis.
“At the cost of about an ounce of skin,” Jonathan retorted, squeezing the squirming moloch into the cage. “The kinds of potential animal soulmates some people have…”
Alcestis preened her own fur with self-conscious demureness. “Well,” she murmured, “we can’t *all* be soft and fuzzy.”
I hope the ILOH is OK with a bit of fan fiction:
———————————
Team Happy Face had finally tracked down their target, a necromancer posing as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. The takedown was going perfectly, until he stabbed himself with a rune-engraved dagger and rose almost instantly as a lich. Then it took a storm of silver bullets and two thermite grenades to finish off the undead remains.
At that very minute, miles away in the Capitol building, in the middle of a Democrat Caucus meeting, Speaker Pelosi suddenly went berserk, biting everybody in sight. Four Secret Service agents took charge of the rest, set them to evacuating the unbitten while they held back the Senators and Representatives that had been closest to the Speaker, now suddenly turned violent, foaming at the mouth, teeth snapping. One agent smashed in the face of Adam Schiff. Another broke Maxine Waters’s back across a chair.
They evacuated last, barricaded the doors, and one made a phone call, shaking. Then they waited, trying not to listen to the unearthly howls and shrieks from inside the chamber.
Fifteen minutes later, eight heavily armed and armored men marched in, led by a huge, expressionless man in a black suit.
“Agent Franks. MCB. We’ve got this.” Definitely not the warm and fuzzy type.
He unblocked the nearest door with no apparent effort, opened it, and led his group in. The last one shut the door. There were a few minutes of indescribable noises, followed by silence.
The next week there were more than twenty state funerals. All were closed coffin.
/sigh
If only.
I raised my eyebrows at my traveling companion’s rather loud coarse expletive.
“What’s the matter, Jorge?” I asked.
“Damn insurance for this leg of the trip is 4 times other legs.”
I smiled. “Simple explanation for that. Pilots to Xarathustra are ETs, and their navigation is always a little fuzzy.”
With all due respect to H. Beam Piper.
Yeek.
I leave a comment here that ‘Who is Willing’ can be read without prior reading of any of the other series books. It’s Star Trek episodic like that. 🙂
Thank you for posting on Mother’s Day, and I hope you are having a good holiday, Glorious Hostess! ❤
Pretty decent. Both boys remembered, even if younger snerk wished me a happy birthing people day…..
Oh, he reads the Babylon Bee. 😆
Nomination time:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/21978389-june-2021
Lieutenant Nathan Stout, liaison officer was required to sort out an argument between the haired and hairless Wassse crew members.
“First, let’s get one thing straight, the one who started all the fuss,” he queried the First Officer, “was he or was he not, a fuzzy Wasse, I ask you?
The plan had been a quick sandwich for a little energy before the next run. Easy peasy, until Cather pulled the loaf of bread from the back of the fridge, only to notice the fuzzy green spots on the outermost slice.
His first impulse was to toss that slice and see if the rest had spoiled. Except mold fungi had a nasty habit of sending microscopic hyphae throughout something as soft and porous as bread — and he had no desire to make himself sick. He was supposed to be helping sick and injured people, not ending up one of them.
The bread hit the trash can with a thud. Now he had a decision to make: try to find something else to make a quick meal, or run down to the convenience store on the corner?
One thing was definite: he was going to give the firehouse kitchen a proper cleaning, even if he had to come in and do it on his own time.
Something moved. She whirled. This time, it was not a cat. It was dark, and not a cat-like shape, and it was fuzzy about the edges. It did not run away but came toward her.
And then it shifted entirely into a wolf, and she screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
When the device went off, the prana went weird and to my overloaded senses, the lovely synesthesia was one of a beautiful brown smell with fuzzy soprano visuals rattling into my brain.
I almost puked up a green sandpaper-smelling contralto, the rotten chocolate bile flavor filling in the back of my throat.
“What’s this?”
“I don’t know. What does it look like?”
“Well, it’s fuzzy…”
“Fuzzy like a cat or fuzzy like one of those black caterpillars that you don’t want to touch?”
“Cats can kill you too you know.”
“I know, but they’re so damn cute when they do. Those caterpillars are not as far as I’m concerned.”
“Relax. It’s cat-level fuzzy. Kinda looks like a Tribble.”
“Oh, man! Those things reproduce like crazy! We’re going to be up to our eyeballs in fuzzy in 24 hours!”
“Here.” He raised his hands and cast a swift spell. A pale light glowed. Now things had to be strides away to be indistinct. “I’ll teach you this spell too. This simple one and the advanced, which can shine for your eyes only. But here is the sleep spell. Watch.”
The first crossroads came after the trees veiled her from sight. Casually, she inspected it.
She knew which one they had directed her to take.
Then, she knew which one had something to do with that dream.
She swallowed. To actually see the signposts for some reason made it clear.
The blanket was extremely fuzzy and extremely warm, and Angela did not even think about whether it was enchanted as she wrapped it about herself. She would not suffer in cold to see if merely mundane means could make the cold yield.
She rather suspected that enchantment would be needed.
The noise sounded out fuzzy and indistinct; they were far enough away from me to hide what they said, which, to be sure, was not likely an accident.
I wondered if any of the wonders here included very sharp ears.
But soon enough people were talking in front of me.
I enjoyed the other Dyce Dare mysteries. Is there ever going to be a fourth?
[REPLY FUZZY
TRY AGAIN LATER]
Yes, there is. See today’s post for the hold up. BUT IT WILL GET FINISHED.
“Did he say second left, or second right?” Julia asked herself, stumbling in exhaustion down the dimly lit hallway.
Dripping with water from the storm raging outside, the crash of thunder was muffled by the old walls of the inn.
The second door on the right was unlocked, the quaint room within illuminated by the lightning flashes through the window.
Shedding her wet jacket and shoes, Julia fell into the soft bed, cuddling with the surprisingly fuzzy pillow.
Under her head, a pair of eyes opened, glancing up at her.
Either the beginning of a horror tale… or the start of a beautiful friendship.
Why not both?
Fuzzy Wuzzy Was a bear;
Fuzzy Wuzzy has no hair;
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy;
wuz he?
Learned that yearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs ago.
We must have been in the same room.