Month: December 2021

The left believes the truth is whatever you say fervently enough. This is of course, not reality, but I can guess how it got this way in their minds.

Blame this on the strange conjunction of my reading Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time (yes, it’s my link. I make some pennies from it.)I think I read it before, when I was not doing well, but the echoes are very faint) and this episode of well, what used to be trifecta.

I will first admit that I’ve always been HIGHLY suspicious of the rehabilitation of Richard III, partly because the people involved in it are cult-like, partly because the left always rehabilitates monsters.

OTOH….

I like the Tudor period not because it was great, but because it was interesting. The Tudor’s are somewhere between the Clintons and the Obamas given unlimited power.

So, can we trust anything that came out of a tightly controlled info environment? No. I’ve seen what the mass media did to Trump and how hard they’re trying to make Biden sound wonderful. Give it a few centuries….

So, maybe Richard III really was a decent man who was taken down and destroyed by a clan of very evil people.

(He is fortunately well beyond our judgement. And if he was good, someone else knows.)

The other was the fact that in the video even Scott Ott refuses to believe that the FBI is responsible for the deep fake. Even though we’ve seen plenty of evidence of their being dirty over the years.

Now, of course it’s possible it’s someone else. I believe I pointed out before that most of the white supremacist comments vanished overnight from my blog once I blocked SPECIFICALLY Russian IPs from commenting. And a lot of the crazy white supremacist anti-semitic stuff on blogs does seem to have a distinctly non-American flavor. Is there any reason to believe they wouldn’t stage something in person? Something that looked like the fake rally?

No, of course there isn’t.

One of the things that Americans are traditionally very vulnerable to is information wars. If it makes you feel better, the rest of the world is also coping with the information suddenly playing the joker and going wild.

We’re somehow coping better, and I have no explanation for this, except blogs to the level we use them, are extremely American for some reason.

What is all this about?

The truth is the truth. The method expounded by Tey to figure out the truth will work for us, too. You can figure out the puzzle if you look. But you have to look.

And you have to be aware there are people all over the world who think it would be a great idea if the next iteration of the US is a form of national socialism. Because that’s sort of where they live, anyway, including China. It is not a functional government, but it’s more functional than INTERNATIONAL socialism, and they’re clutching onto it for dear life.

Because individualism and not having power over others are unthinkable.

Do let’s make them think it. With spikes. (Or pikes, if it comes to that.)

Yeah, deep fakes exist, but we have the power to find the truth. And the truth exists as well.

Remember that. And be not afraid.

So I Saw This Meme the Other Day; or, How a Joke Becomes a Novel by C. V. Walter

freakazoid  –  i am moron !!

I saw this cartoon the day it aired and it tickled my funny bone and my imagination in ways a lot of other things haven’t.

I tend to ask a lot of “what if” questions or answer funny ones when I’m trying to keep myself from doom scrolling through the internet.

I was wasting time on Pinterest a few years ago when I saw a screenshot of a tumblr thread about dinosaurs.

I always love the ones about dinosaurs. I either learn something or get awesome pictures of dinosaurs. There’s not really a situation in which I lose when I click on them.

So I clicked on this one about dinosaurs.

It asked, what if there were aliens and they’ve already been by the Earth but when they were here, there were a whole bunch of these big, scary lizards on the planet so they said “Nope!” and left.

With some of what we understand about the dinosaurs, they might have actually been looking at giant chickens and geese. Which, really, doesn’t make it any less scary if you’ve encountered these animals in real life.

What if they came by the Earth looking for something and thought “You know, that planet would be perfect if it wasn’t for those big, scary lizards.” So, they sent something to the planet to take care of the lizards and left to let things die out and then forgot about us.

And, what if it only looks like a meteor because we don’t know what a terraforming pod would actually look like?

What if they came back, expecting a perfectly terraformed planet to find…us.

How much would we have in common? If they created a planet that was ideal for them to live on, and we’re here, how compatible would we be?

What if they weren’t looking to conquer and destroy but fleeing a psychotic government that was bent on destroying its own people? They’re here, not as examples of peace and advanced technology, but as refugees?

What would we do? How would we handle it?

We have so many books and movies with aliens as the enemy or these beings who are so advanced, they no longer want anything but peace. What if they’re more like us than either of those other options could possibly be?

And there, flying through my subconscious, was the Forward Hope, running away from a crazy Emperor and smack into the Bradbury 12. The only casualty? A whole bunch of supplies and one Molly, a woman who left what most people would have considered a pampered existence to take a blue collar job on a space station.

I couldn’t take another alien invasion, humans are evil, repent because destruction is nigh book. So, I found a hero to pull Molly from the horror of dying in the cold vacuum of space and put her back together, in body and spirit. And, I’ll be honest, he started putting together some of the pieces of my heart that had been broken by the world gone mad that was the pandemic.

The Alien’s Accidental Bride was the story I needed; one of hope, healing, reconciliation and adventure.

The stories after the Accidental Bride explore the best place to hide an Alien, what happens when you suddenly have the chance to be cured of something that has shaped your entire life, the importance of family and networking and adapting cookie recipes to unusual ingredients in outer space.

Upcoming ones are the nature of rumors and the absolute destruction they can cause, fun upgrades to prosthetics, what happens when you outsource your white cells to something that can be re-programmed without your permission and how far dare we take genetic manipulation.

And all that’s happening before I even really get to the dragons.

Because, yes, sometimes when you’re exploring the parts of the maps that say “Here Be Dragons”, you actually find dragons.

Other than a few seconds here and there, this is the first time I sat in front of my computer today.

So, what was I doing? Well, in about five minutes I’m going to be doing what I want to do, which is work on Bowl of Red.

BUT we have a problem with getting to where I roll out of bed in the morning and just write. I MUST have the “essential rooms” functional and unpacked. Normally for me that’s kitchen, bedroom and two offices. Right now they’re all in some state of WTF except my office which is unpacked, etc, but I’m having trouble with ONE cat who likes to pee on my chair. I have the fake leather to re-cover the chair and stop that, but I need to unearth my sewing supplies.

At this point I’m targeting early in the next year for “Sarah has essential stuff set up” and sometime in March for ” house is completely unpacked, and we’re not stumbling into piles of boxes at random. Since that’s also when we’re targeting for #2 son to move out AND hoping house sells, March promises to be very eventful. Hopefully in a good way.

Anyway, what ate today was “Dining room.”

There is nothing STRUCTURAL wrong with the dining room, mind, except we decided not to bring with us the massive entertainment center we were using as a china cabinet. Now this is wise, because THIS dining room is not 15 feet long, so it would not have fit. Oh, and the dining room is small-ish. And necessary.

We’re the kind of people who shouldn’t have dining rooms, to be fair. Most of the time the room is empty and unused. In fact, in other houses we targeted the dining room as my office.

BUT this house’s big defect (every house has one) is that the kitchen is barely functional. We’re working on it by changing some of the cabinetry in the kitchen, and having a rolling kitchen isle, but there is no way we can EAT in the kitchen, so the dining room is essential.

It’s also impossible to paint all in one day, because so far we are on coat 3 of primer. On two walls, because we have to keep the table and chairs and stuff in there, or we don’t have anywhere to eat.

See, normally I leave painting the house for summer, after everything is unpacked, etc. But this house doesn’t have a ton of light. (It has my other requirement: a lot with a ton of trees, which I love and couldn’t get in CO. Well, I could, but we call trees “our little fire hazards,” so….. but these are mature trees that overshadow the house. It gives it a very soothing “green” light i summer, but well…. yeah. “shadow.”) AND some deranged person painted it forest green and mustard yellow, which is almost brown.

Now, Dan insisted we have painters paint the house before we moved the first stick of furniture in. And that’s fine.

EXCEPT (follow the bouncing ball, really) the two rooms in the house that had wall paper.
I mean, we were perfectly willing to have the painters paint them, but they stared at us in horror and threatened to run away. They said you paint, then the wallpaper bubbles up, you pin-prick the bubbles and paint again, in an infinite series.

I told them no, you do a first coat with shellac, which doesn’t make the paper bubble up (this also works with paper-veneered furniture, of which we have two bedside tables waiting to be painted — more on that later) then prime and paint.

Which is more or less what I’m doing, except shellac was unobtainum in both states, so I’m using the specific type of zinzer used on flaking walls, because it glues it down. It works.

Anyway, the two rooms with this problem are the dining room and Dan’s office. I probably won’t be able to do Dan’s office till March (though I might try) because he’s working more or less 24/7 (Okay 16/6 and a half) BUT I need to unpack the dining room, which means putting furniture against the walls, which means not wanting to move it after. Besides, the wallpaper is mustard and beige, with an unpleasant dirty look. (I don’t think it’s dirty, though I suspect it’s at least 30 years old. Just…. looks dirty.) And I’m in there for at least two meals a day. So, it needs to be painted (look, I know it sound frou-frou, but I do need a certain environment to function. Or at least I need it not to be aggravating on a daily basis. Also, I like color and a light and airy look (Though this house IS getting decorated in “Crazy writer eclectic.” It’s the first house we’re not decorating expressly with an eye to selling. We’re not saying we won’t move again, but if this works out, we sell the other house and pay this one off, and hold on to this one and spend at least part of the year here. Or more likely, we live here till we die or go into care, and the kids have the task of clearing it out and selling it really cheap just to get rid of it.)

So– So, it’s on the second coat of KILZ on top of Zinzer on two walls (the other two one is mostly window, so this is like 2/3 the area. Tomorrow I get to give the final coat to those two walls, move everything back, and start on the other two. The target is to have it done by Saturday so I can UNPACK.

On the way there, though, we ran into something….

Look, 25 year old me HATES me.

Why? Well, at 25 we were living in North Carolina, where antique furniture was dirt-cheap at garage sales and flea markets. We were so broke, we couldn’t afford IKEA (still can’t, really) so we took $500 and furnished the house in antiques.

Most of which were painted with like 15 coats of paint. Which I peeled off. (Two of those would be white, and one would be green, and there were INEVITABLY two metallic coats.)

My 25 year old self CURSED people who painted furniture.

Except…. did I mention the house is dark? Or at least not really bright? And the dining room will of necessity be somewhat cluttered.

I hate that these days people PREFER painted furniture, but given the house and the fact most of what we have is really dark…. Heck, I’m tempted to paint our dressers too.

We’re not painting things metallic paint….

Okay, most of what I intend to paint isn’t real wood, like a lawyer bookcase with paper veneer which has been with us 30 years, and is in horrible shape. Honestly, I approve of painting ugly veneered 70s furniture. A lot of it looks good painted, particularly if you pop out all the fake plastic “carvings” on the doors, or replace the doors completely.

BUT one of the items IS real wood, and was one of the first things I refinished. What I should say here is that I also did a crappy job of it, and it’s both too dark and weirdly lumpy (first time refinishing.) Also, it’s a cabinet that I’m not sure what it used for once, but at some point someone cut into a shelf so it could take a keg of beer. So…. you know, if we’re talking desecration.

Most importantly, though, since we’re NOT painting the 18th century China cabinet, a beautiful and delicate piece, or the colonial dining room table, we kind of need to paint everything else, to keep the room from being suffocating.

I’m painting everything white, though I’m open to pale blue.

And it will probably happen tomorrow (AFTER posts here and at MGC) because tomorrow is warm, for the first time in a long time, so I can do it outside and it will dry.

But I’ve given the awkward mahogany cabinet a couple of coats of white and will finish tomorrow. I bought ceramic cloisone knobs to make the whole thing seems fancy. I’m using it for things we want to hide (Mostly? cooking machines that don’t fit the cabinets in the kitchen.) We’re using the lawyer’s book case for glassware. And I might go thrifting or a sideboard or at least a dresser of unusual size, if we can transport it. Failing that I’ll find used kitchen cabinets and hack a sideboard from them.

Yes, I will post pictures, if you really want, when it’s all done.

But believe it or not I’m having a crisis of conscience, because mahogany is a good and rare wood, and…. yeah.

Look, if me today is doing things that me 25 years ago would scream at me for, because circumstances change and we need different things now, what it brings home to me is HOW STUPID it is for total strangers to try to plan what millions of people need.

Anyone with sense would know it can’t be done.

And yet, it’s kind of the underlying creed of centralized government. That other people can decide what you should have, and when, and what your future will look like.

Maybe twenty five year old me can go yell at them instead?

It would make for a change. ;)

Okay, real post tomorrow.

Last year, in our escape from lockdown Colorado, we visited a riverboat museum near Kansas City, and that was….. bizarre.

No, not the fact we went to the museum. Given how starved we were to see human beings, how addicted we are to museums, the weirder the better, and the fact I grew up on Mark Twain, it was almost guaranteed we’d go and poke about the museum.

The museum itself was also not bizarre. It was an interesting snapshot of life just before the civil war. (We incidentally found that one of my husband’s collateral ancestors (they were the only family of the name, in the town, but the name is not in his ancestry, so a brother or cousin of an ancestor) was bringing guns into slave states, in boxes marked “bibles.” Which frankly is no more than we expected. It’s rather annoying we have no idea what happened to that young man.) However, I grew up in a house that had been in the family for generations, and among people who never threw anything away that could still be used. So a lot of the dishes and the glassware looked like the stuff I used every day as a kid. Heck, a lot of the shoes and such looked like stuff you could find poking around the attics and outbuildings of the area in which I grew up. (And of COURSE we did. We were kids.)

I mean, it was interesting, but not startling or revelatory.

What was startling and revelatory was where the boat, which had sank some 150 (? I’m too lazy to look it up. Bear with me) before discovery was found: In the middle of a wheat field.

Apparently rivers, in the great flatlands of America have a tendency to meander wildly. Okay. I kind of get that. But the fascinating part is that no one had noticed. The boat sank in a time of newspapers, and reports, and writing and more importantly property records. And people have been looking for it pretty much since it sank. BUT THEY WEREN’T LOOKING IN THE RIGHT PLACE.

The family that owned the wheat field in which the riverboat was buried, had no clue it had ever been anything but a wheat field in living memory. A river deep enough that a floating palace was lost with all its contents (but no lives, save for a poor mule left tied up) just changed course slowly enough that…. well, it sort of became a wheat field.

Now, I understand that due to modern engineering this doesn’t happen anymore. Or at least it’s not supposed to. But all the same, bear with me a moment.

One of my favorite blogs was casting doubt that the republic still exists.

This is a little…. How do I put it? I love the blogger, but d*mn if you’re more depressive than I am you need to start reality-checking obsessively. (I do.)

The republic is sort of a schrodinger thing. If we’re going on “We only have a republic if it obeys the constitution as written”…. it probably ceased to exist twenty years in.

Of course it didn’t. There are…. meanderings and latitudes given and necessitated by the fact that we’re humans and that frankly tech innovation has thrown us a few curve balls that our founders, also being human and therefore fallible, no matter how amazing, could never have anticipated.

The biggest curve ball, though was mass production, mass communication and generally mass everything, which might have been a logical step in the industrial revolution, but the level to which it went was definitely had to see from centuries before.

The Mass Everything age almost necessitated the antithesis of the constitution: centralization of power, power in the hands of an unelected bureaucracy, all of it aided and abetted by the press covering it up.

If the republic is gone, it has been gone since at least the 30s, probably the 20s. Sorry, but nothing we’re seeing, from political prisoners to outrageous treason of both the People and the Country in the seats of power is new. FDR did it. Woodrow Wilson did it.

What is new and revolutionary is that we’re no longer in the “Mass Everything” age.

The left, who are the natural people — hyper social, power-craving, etc — to ascend that type of hierarchy are in control of the commanding heights of mass communication and bureaucracy, etc.

Their problem is that this is increasingly less relevant. And every time they make a major power grab, like the psy-ops we call the Covidiocy (NOT the virus. Yeah, the virus exists. It’s a severe flu, that fortunately kills very few people under 80. BUT the measures taken around and supposedly because of it, and the fear mongering in the mass media) loses them power. I’m highly amused in the grocery store by the — I’m sure corporate-enforced — announcements coming over the loudspeaker thanking us for wearing masks for “everyone’s safety.” Mind you, there’s usually ONE person in the store in a mask. Someone whose eyes look perfectly deranged and who is often dragging a masked toddler (poor thing). The rest of us at this point are treating it as “Something only crazy people and corporate entities believe is needed, anymore.”

And it will be hard, if not impossible to gin up the next panic. (which is why I’m sure the next grab will be a world war. But that’s something else.)

At this point everything those who belong to the old structures and long for centralized, massed power and communication can do only turns us against them and their obsessions. It’s sort of like…. a vaccination.

Look, America is an idea so powerful that though honored mostly in the breach, it has changed the world. Granted the echo-revolutions abroad were mostly crazy. But the fact that even the worst regimes have to FAKE being elected tells you the power of the idea.

It won’t perish. And we have a chance to ah…. really …. I hate it to say this but we have a chance to build back better, closer to the infrastructure the founders gave us, one better suited to a world of fractured production and communication.

Look at the people who supposedly have power. Note the trail of flames from their hair. No one who is winning is that scared.

But Sarah, you say, then why haven’t we revolted already.

Well — ask anyone on the left — we are revolting. Okay, jokes aside, we are rebelling. In a hundred different ways, we are turning our backs on the idea that “the best people” have our interests in mind, or that even if they did they could be trusted to carry them out, or any of that.

It used to be the institutions no one would doubt were the medical establishment that flew under the flag of ‘public health’ and public schooling. I mean, we screamed, yelled and pointed to abuses (and slow ratcheting thereof) and got told it was still mostly good. Oh, yeah, and the collection of statistics. Even when it was obvious they were lying, they were still used to slap us into silence.

I won’t say that’s a thing of the past but it’s becoming so. And it will become more so faster, the more they struggle.

Most of this type of movement is invisible, until it isn’t.

Today someone shared a meme lamenting that the right doesn’t just have right wing stations, etc. but is creating their own separate structures for information and commerce. Well, duh. The fact this is a surprise for them is amusing. For most of us, though, it’s news. We know we need it, but the movement is as yet slow and if you’re not looking in the right place you’ll never see it.

But it’s like that. This is how society changes. Not from above with fiats. That only distorts it. But slowly, from the bottom up. First almost imperceptibly and then all at once.

And then we forget that there was ever a wheat field there, and return to thinking that things are “as they ever were.” But they’re not. And you can see the signs if you look. The left is looking and getting scared. And scared people make stupid moves, which unfortunately affect us too.

Look, after a hundred years of psy-ops to make us feel isolated and small and like theirs was the inevitable future win, the surprising thing is that the worm is turning at all, not how slow it is.

Yes, we went along to get along, because we really thought we were small and isolated and because in the absence of alternate structures, we had to earn a living in their world.

For many of us it’s still that way. But the water is shifting. The silt is moving in to what was once river bed. Culture is on the move.

And there are far more of us than there ever were of them. And we’re an ornery bunch. Had to be to stand looking at mass-communication, mass-education, mass-entertainment and mass-bureaucracy, and plant our hands on our waists and say “No, you move.”

We’ve got this. It’s slow. Infuriatingly slow, because we’ve been standing (we thought) alone so long. And cold is the brotherless back, as our Dave Freer tells us.

But it’s changing. And it will heal over the break, and function again, at least for a while.

America is not dead. It is asleep. But it’s stirring. And it’s opened one eye. The rising will be swift and startling.

Keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark. And be not afraid.

book Promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, 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 PETER GRANT: Silver In The Stones: A Classic Western Story of Greed and Revenge

What comes with a silver boom? Backstabbers, claim-jumpers and con men – and that’s just the start.

Walt Ames is working hard to keep his horse ranch afloat and his transport business in motion when silver is discovered on his property. It’s going to take cunning, determination and more than a little luck to investigate the claim while others are trying to kill him for it.

Can he keep his business and integrity intact, or is everything Walt loves going to fall prey to the perils of a silver rush?

FROM ROY M. GRIFFIS: The Thing From HR: a Cthulhu, Amalgamated novel

ON SALE!

A Cthulhian romp that’s equal parts Terry Pratchett and Mel Brooks… and it just might be the funniest novel I’ve ever read.– Upstream Reviews

I laughed far too much…you’ll enjoy dark humor, dry wit, slapstick moments, and elements of romantic comedy. – Amazon 5-star review

What’s a nice Shoggoth like him doing in a dump like this?

Narg was content working as a Damnation Services-10 in HR. Sure, he was related to one of the Elder Gods, but a little nepotism never hurt any Thing. His life was just wailing and gibbering, right up until his Uncle needed a small favor from his nephew.

All Narg had to do was go down among the humans…and pretend to be one of them.

These are not your Grandfather’s tales of Eldritch Horror: this is the untold story of the ghastly, unappreciated (and entirely expendable) minor monstrosities that support the Inscrutable Plans Of Dark Gods And Elder Things Beyond The Knowledge Of Men.

The Cthulhu, Amalgamated series is a comic romp full of action and mystery, including, of course, Sanity-Shattering Horror––and that’s just the paperwork. Even H.P. could not conceive of the Corporate Terrors that await The Thing from HR.

FROM DENTON SALLE: Charms of the Dark: Book Three of the Avatar Wizard

The war between the Light and the Dark continues and Jeremy survives his last adventures to find even the mighty keep of the volkhvy is threatened by foes from within.

Returning with his Master from Galena’s home town, Jeremy, battered and weakened, finds armed warriors massed outside the keep. Later the bird of prophecy sings of deception and enemies within. When Galena is sent away on her own mission, he finds he must cope without her as the Dark exploits his vulnerability.

Will Jeremy falter or will he resist the temptations and charms the Dark sets against him? Will the Dark triumph in its attack on all that which he hold dear?

Return to the world of the volkhvy where the myths of Slavonic legend are real as Jeremy faces hard choices to defend his friends.

FROM DOROTHY GRANT: A Perfect Day, With Explosions.

Jenna Brooks is a welder, and a fashionista whenever she can afford it. AJ is a former Special Forces spacer, who finds himself completely outside his comfort zone with her. However, terrorist bombs can overcome almost any divide – the hard way.

When Jenna stumbles over a corpse wearing an important clue, she’s roped into a high-stakes counterterrorism operation to uncover a counterfeit fashion ring that’s funding the terrorists.

As the trail of blood money and knock-off shoes starts leading closer to home, Jenna’s going to need all the help she can get to stay alive. AJ’s just the man to do that – but he’s after a lot more than merely her safety. It may cost her everything she’s worked for… and also her heart.

FROM DALE COZORT: Char

Char of the Real People walked out of a mud-hole she didn’t walk into, wearing a deerskin skirt and carrying a crude spear. Then the murders started.

Char is a unique blend of police procedural and alternate reality, with county sheriff Francine Hart relentlessly pursuing clues–footprints and blood samples–that point to a murderess who is human-like, but not our kind of human.

Whatever else Char of the Real People is, Sheriff Hart discovers that her quarry is brilliant and supremely adaptable, eluding police again and again. Can even the smartest fugitive escape a modern police dragnet and get back to her own reality?

FROM ROBERT WENSON: Unexpected Tales from A to Z.

Some things you just can’t expect. Among them you will find:

Bartholomew and the Banana Blizzard. The denizens of Burensburg are threatened by the activity of a thoughtless gold-mining operation, until Bartholomew finds a solution.

Esmé and the Eloquent Eggplant. Esmé likes to talk to plants. One of them starts to talk back – but there’s more here than meets the ear.

Hendrik and the Horrible Hollyhocks. First there was one hollyhock on Hendrik’s farm. Then there were two. Now they’re out of control and nothing seems to stop them.

Miranda and the Mesmeric Maestro. The War of 1812 is raging and President Madison is quacking like a duck. Miranda finds that a knowledge of Homer is useful.

Pepy and the Princely Prestidigitation. Pepy’s father and the Prince of Egypt have been captured by the Amorites. Pepy is no sorcerer’s apprentice, but he knows a bit of stage magic. Is it enough?

Ursula and the Urgent Ululation. A pair of train robbers are holding Ursula and her aunt prisoner in a cottage deep in the Black Forest – but they don’t know about Ursula’s friend.

The heroes and heroines of these stories are ordinary boys and girls confronted with problems, from an Argumentative Alligator to a Zany Zoo, that call forth cleverness, ingenuity, and courage.

FROM D. W. PATTERSON: Mach’s Legacy: A Future Chron Novel

The appearance of the shining globes at first was a nuisance. But then the disappearances began. At first small, a fusion ship or a space habitat. Then planets and entire planetary systems started “winking out”. Could the famous physicist Elias Mach and his great-great granddaughter, Emmy Gibbs find an answer before it was too late?

“Mach’s Legacy” is a novel set in the future (2490s) and is the twenty-seventh book in the Future Chron Universe. If you enjoyed “Mach’s Legacy” consider reading the next book in the Future Chron Universe, “Spin-Two”, for more Hard Science Fiction – Old School.

See the author’s blog dwarrpatt.blogspot.com for more information.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Other Rhodes

ON SALE TILL THE 7TH.

Lily Gilden has a half-crazed cyborg in her airlock who thinks he’s Nick Rhodes,
a fictional 20th Century detective. If she doesn’t report him for destruction,
she’s guilty of a capital crime.

But with her husband missing, she’ll use every clue the cyborg holds,
and his detective abilities, to solve the crime her husband was investigating
when he disappeared.

With the help of a journalist who is more than he seems,
Lily will risk everything to plunge into the interstellar underworld
and bring the love of her life home!

FROM ALMA BOYKIN: The Lone Hunter: Familiar Generations Book One.

All Hunters have a Hunting partner, save for one . . . the Lone Hunter, the Hunter in Shadow.

Jude Tainuit Hunts alone. Exiled from the Clan, he watches over Dover County. A twisted beast and rumors of a new, powerful magic worker force Jude to emerge from the shadows.

A Hunter Hunts, even though it cost him his life.

A Familiar Generations short story.

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.

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.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: GRIEVING

So, as I’ve mentioned before, I am an introvert. I can fake extrovert. Though honestly, I think part of the way I fake extrovert is by being so introverted I am “eccentric.” Because see, for normal people seeing you walking down the street rocking a hat made entirely out of feathers (not that I’ve ever done that. I’m allergic to feathers, but take it as a metaphor) means you must be an extrovert AND extremely self-confident. They’d never DARE do that. It never occurs to them you just put the first thing that came to hand on your head because it was cold, and it happened to be the feather duster. (You removed the handle because that was just weird.) It also never occurs to them that you don’t realize they’re all staring at you, because you’re trying to figure out just why your character wants you to write him doing THAT.

So there are certain words that make me stop and look and go “um…. did I put my underpants on my head again.”

One of those words, as used by someone who is British was “peculiar.” As in, she commented on someone’s share of my blog, that I’d gone increasingly peculiar in recent years.

This causes the mental equivalent of patting my head to make sure I’m not wearing a feather duster for a hat. Or in this case that I’ve not been locked in my echo chamber to the point I don’t see how things are outside it.

I– Don’t think so?

And before you say “But you wouldn’t know.” Dude (Dudette and dudekin too), all my life I’ve been subject to suddenly going galloping into imaginary worlds, and then having issues when I have to interact with the real one, remembering that this is the real one. Like “Oh, yeah, cars don’t fly.” (Used to be a big one when I was a teen.)

In the same way that as a depressive, I fact-check reality constantly. For one, if the world REALLY is coming to an end, I’d like to know, thank you very much. Because it would be terrible to be sucker punched by the apocalypse after YEARS of dooming it on not much excuse.

In the same way, I have sort of a built-in mechanism for reality checking my analysis of situations/whatever. Like I’m ALMOST sure that we’re experiencing as much of a “Salida” as an invasion from illegal border crossings. But I’d not stake my life on it. It just has that whiff, but I haven’t found enough data to back it up yet.

However, in a time of corrupted data, it’s hard to be sure of anything. 90% of the reading I do in newsites and blogs is looking for the interstitial spaces and seeing what they show.

Look, I learned as an artist that you don’t really draw the thing, not on initial approach. You draw the blank space around the thing. And to be fair, after that, if working in black and white, you mostly draw the shadows. (Or at least I do. The exception is drawing something living because then I FIRST have to get the eyes right. Don’t ask. It’s like having the right name for a character.) I’ve been reading news like that for years.

Now, are my conclusions often unusual? Sure. But I find I tend to be more wrong when I follow what “everybody knows.”

I don’t want to rag on the person who made the peculiar comment, but she is one of the people on the soft left who are intentionally conventional (also European) and trusts the signals almost exclusively. Like, when she ran a magazine, you could jump out of the slush pile if you’d graduated from Clarion or one of the other accredited workshops. (No, I never made it in.)

On the other hand, she TRIES to be fair which is more than can be said for most on the left, and was one of the few who listened to our side during Sad Puppies. (Even if she didn’t believe us.) Though I haven’t tracked her the last few years (I’m not that social, and I’ve been busy with other things) so I don’t know if she has done the requisite grovel-and-apologize.

I also do know, from when I was in the closet that saying that kind of thing is what you do when you are trying to distract from looking at wrong thought or knowing wrong thing.

However, I took the whole “peculiar” thing and started taking it apart. Mostly because I was doing heavy manual labor while not feeling well at all, and thinking about things is how I forget I’m in pain. (I’m not feeling well enough for thinking of stories.)

I will admit I am peculiar, in that I stick out. I stick out in my position on a ton of things, particularly if you’re the sort of person who values the “authorities” of universities, of governments, of “the experts” — top men, you know?

Then again, when you look at where those authorities and opinions have taken us, you realize they are mighty peculiar indeed.

We now have 100 years of governments, “scientists” (mostly of the “social”) kind and other “experts” trying to push normal people into a system that would work great if everyone, at the same time, lost all our instincts and our culture, and what makes us human, and robot-like worked their prescriptions.

And by worked great you must understand it would mean people living sad lives with no purpose, but according to plan. With NO surprises for the rulers.

Despite commanding the heights of culture and not inconsiderable force, these “experts” have managed …. nothing good.

Mostly they’ve managed to put 100+ MILLION thinking, feeling humans in their graves prematurely, take prosperous lands and turn them into wastelands, distort economies to create gross inequity, then complain about the inequity.

And despite all this, humans, and notably Americans, have managed to work around all this “expertise” and central planning to improve life on Earth, innovate, and create and be happy.

It’s almost like all the narratives the experts feed you are mighty peculiar indeed.

(Adjusts feather duster hat.)
The minute one of their five year plans works as planned, or makes life better for any human for more than ten seconds, I will consider their opinion.

But I will not turn over my thinking/analyzing brain to their consensus narrative. There is a truth. It can be discovered. (Sometimes with much effort.)

I don’t care if it’s contrary to what everyone believes. Reality exists, and it’s worth knowing.

Mostly because reality bites you in the fleshy part of the back otherwise.

If that means I horrify the conventional ants in their conventional anthills, fine. And if they stomp me for it, fine. At least for a brief moment, I’ll have known and spoken truth.

And that’s worth it.

I’m posting this to say I won’t be posting tomorrow. Not really. Saturday is going to be a lot of work. A lot of work. But then by Sunday things should be back to normal-ish and next week I should be human.

So bear with me tomorrow (writing this on Thursday) and I might not post at all on Saturday. And keep me in your prayers. It’s nothing dangerous, but it’s tight scheduling and a lot of work.

Meanwhile, to amuse you: my writers’ group used to have “writing challenges.” Some were very silly. Some were fun.

So what story would you write from the following challenge:

First sentence “The invisible mice were everywhere.”

Make it science Fiction.

The left is at it again, changing the name of its current push. Teh Grauniad, being the idiot children they are ran with it first, but it’s now everywhere.

“The right invented woke to mock us! It was never a thing of the left.”

I’m old enough to remember when they did that at SJW “It was not a thing we called ourselves. It’s a mockery the right created for us.”

You could hear pins drop when we pointed them at games created by their co-religionists about how to be an SJW. In the same way, I’m sure those of an enterprising spirit should be able to capture — now — a ton of their articles and tweets encouraging each other to be “woke.”

I look forward to their ditching “anti-racist” the same way in about five years.

I don’t remember when they ditched “Reality based community.” From my perspective, they just shut up about it when Obama was elected. But it wouldn’t surprise me to find that they also claimed we invented it to mock them.

What they should ask themselves is why they are so mockable. And why each name they attach to themselves becomes ridiculous.

They should ask themselves why, like bad Chinese restaurants, they change their name whenever the effects of what they peddle become known.

Because Marxism is poisonous and it kills. Either fast — in full communist regimes — or slowly by lost hope, despair and slerosis, as in Socialist Europe. It’s a poisonous philosophy in which there is no hope.

It also has bloody nothing to do with reality. For one, its paradise hinges on “everyone should just” — there is not a single instance in the history of mankind in which EVERYONE in the world (or a country, or a village, or a large family) “just” did the same thing. Even perfectly sensible, logical things that don’t go against basic human nature (which Marxism does) and don’t kill your will to live. Heck, in my friend group “Everyone should just stop going off on obsessive research/work, eat balanced meals and sleep 8 hours a day” is the unobtanium.

Marxism ignores the whole…. back brain. Part of Jordan Peterson’s genius — for me at least — was recognizing it exists and we need to negotiate with it. And often it wins.

For Marxists, that — the accumulated instincts that evolution gave us — should “just” stop existing.

The only way Marxism can make sense is if they ret-on history to fit their theories (Which they’ve been doing in academia, officially, for 100 plus years.)

But even so enough sticks out, that if you look at it up close and personal you go “that makes no sense.” To an extent my dive into history started with realizing their explanation for WWI made no sense what-so-heck-ever. (One clue: look not at nationalism, but internationalism, in the form of world-spanning empires. That’s NOT soil-and-blood or “love your land” nationalism. It is by definition internationalism. Particularly when you realize that the “kings” were a multinational (and interrelated) elite, owing nothing to their supposed country.)

Anyway, so, it’s kind of hilarious to see the left don mantles like “Reality based” and “woke” and anti-racist. Not to mention “SJW” which consisted of people afraid to leave their own rooms, and capable of melting into hysterics at being called the wrong pronoun thinking of themselves as “warriors” on behalf of people who didn’t ask for it, and for measures that help no human ever.

In fact, by the way, their entire pronoun crusade is roll on the floor funny, because socialism demands and functions only in absolute uniformity. So their hope of being called some bizarre made up pronoun is sort of like jumping up and down and saying “Socialist Sempai, send me to the camps first.”

Anyway, if you have to keep changing your name, maybe what’s wrong is what’s underneath.

I do appreciate that we’re mean and shouldn’t laugh and point. Well, no. We should. Because the whole thing is so toxic, that humor is the only thing preventing us from getting really, really, really angry.

But they don’t get that. The “reality based” and “woke” ones have so parted with reality that they think if they just change words they’ll create paradise.

May the Lord have mercy on their souls and bring about a true wakening to reality in them.

Before the butcher’s bill comes due.

Yes, I know. By now I was supposed to have the fairytale book out so you could order hard copies for Christmas. It’s proofread, and I need to typeset it, but we’ve been dealing with house in Colorado and issues related to.

Let it rest as proven (trust me) that it’s going to take a couple of months to go back up for sale, until then there’s a couple of things that were screwed up and we’d like fixed. So we’ve been trying to get that set up and since husband is working crazy hours, it’s been me. With the normal issues of setting things up by phone when you’re mostly deaf and have an accent.

I think I have a solution worked out, and we won’t need to worry about it from Sunday on. Well, till time comes to talk to agents and select between two recommended by neighbors we like (and who have a vested interest in our selling well.)

So, what am I hoping to do? Well, not to jinx myself as I did two years ago, but I’m hoping to finish books and start putting them out at speed. And this time I do have a plan not just a deadline. Which is kind of the difference between wanting to get across the river and having a boat.

To wit, I’ve arranged for someone to do the parts I can contract out and don’t enjoy. (The covers I enjoy, by and large. But not copyediting/entering stuff, etc.)

Meanwhile, younger son will be doing “Boxes from Sarah’s Garage” and also selling a bunch of things on ebay which we were about to toss or donate. I.e. he’s been rescuing stuff from our hands all this time, including games and tech from the nineties, which apparently people pay for. Who knew? Yes, he’s also looking for work, but in the meantime, he’ll be making some money. Right now he’s setting up his work and filing space, so he can work.

So, the holidays will be weird. Not that I was ever super mom, or super housewife. (Which made it hilarious when someone in Portugal asks what I do, and before I can answer my mom screams that I’m a housewife, leading me to mumble under my breath “I’d be the world’s worst.”)

For some reason, I usually ended up with a novel due the 20th of December and one the 15th of January, so putting up the Christmas tree on the 24th was a thing, and I usually didn’t bother with other “decor.”

But this year will be sad, since we’re still mostly surrounded by boxes, and unpacking has priority over putting up any decoration. I might put up the 4 foot tree, if I find it in time, but honestly I doubt it. My plan is to unpack the areas we’re most intensively living in — kitchen, dining, offices and bedrooms — by the end of the year, and letting the rest go hang.

I have located my toile fabric, so Sunday will be devoted to making and hanging up curtains, before the cold comes. Again, so next week I should be able to work.

It’s funny — probably — that I just want to do my job and keep getting sidetracked and prevented. But the joke has worn thin.

So, wish me luck. It might be a sad set of holidays — but I have the family and we are okay, so…. — but hopefully it ushers in a better and more productive.

Oh, yeah, Another Rhodes is on sale all this week for 99c. There will be a book on sale every week for the rest of the year. This is this week’s.