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. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction.
*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving” led, and apply the usual cautions to buying. – SAH*
NOTE TODAY I’M ONLY PROMOTING THE BOOKS AMAZON LETS ME GET THE LINK FOR. NO I DON’T KNOW WHY I CAN’T HAVE LINKS FOR SOME OF THEM. GRRRR. IF YOU SENT A BOOK AND I DON’T PROMOTE THIS WEEK, PLEASE SEND AGAIN NEXT WEEK.
FROM HOLLY LISLE: The Longview Chronicles.
It’s a fine interstellar line between recapture and freedom. Her one act of kindness will trigger an epic fight to restore cosmic justice.
Box set: Over 600 pages of massive intergalactic battles exposing the dark heart of a vicious, futuristic humanity.
In the deep reaches of space, escaped slave Melie longs to captain her own ship. And with a promotion on her current vessel, she’s in reach of the goal that will set her free from the rich and powerful’s brutality. But when her protégé commits treason, a failed attempt to help gets her demoted and delays her flight from the galaxy’s merciless gladiatorial system.
Dreading having her identity discovered, the jaded woman scrapes by seeking some way to improve her fate. So when a sensational public massacre stirs rebellion, Melie seizes the opportunity to enlist a misfit band of victims to spearhead the ultimate trap for the elite.
Can Melie rally her eternally persecuted peers to overthrow a ruthless regime?
The Longview Chronicles contains six books in the fast-paced The Longview Chronicles dystopian science fiction series, and doubles as the third book in the Cadence Drake series. If you like underdog heroes, sweeping galactic action, and darkly envisioned futures, then you’ll love Holly Lisle’s gripping suite of adventures.
FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Other Rhodes, now with hardcover edition.
Lilly 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,
Lilly will risk everything to plunge into the interstellar underworld
and bring the love of her life home!
FROM M. C. A. HOGARTH: Zafiil Volume 1: FireBorn UnPainted
Enter into the heart of an alien race in the first historical novel set in the Peltedverse…
Thousands of years ago, the God of the Faulfenza promised His people He would send a messiah to lead them into a Golden Age, alongside the Others: aliens who would be to them as brothers and sisters. Not a generation has passed without longing for the fulfillment of that Promise.
Zafiil Paidiiza Qodii has dreamed of finding the Others since she was a child, a dream that spurred her to train as leader of one of the Faulfenza’s galactic scout teams. Against all odds, hers is the ship that makes the prophesied discovery–and reveals the cost of the God’s promises, and the part she is destined to play in His designs…
Zafiil: FireBorn Unpainted begins the epic saga of the Faulfenza’s first contact with the Pelted Alliance, and unveils at last the mysteries of one of the Peltedverse’s most beloved alien races.
The time – 1842
The place – the Republic of Texas, a place threatened and besieged on all frontiers!
Jim Reade lay on his back in the desert dust, incuriously seeing that ominous shadow circle, lower and lower until every finger-like dark feather became distinct against the burning sky . . . He hurt in every bone, from his head to his fingertips, and all the way to his booted toes. . .the sun had blazed on his exposed face and hands for many hours, and there was a mass of congealed blood which had oozed from his forehead, running back into his sweat-matted hair.
Jim Reade, a volunteer Texas Ranger, is the sole survivor of an ambush in the contested Nueces Strip. Rescued by Indian scout, Toby Shaw, the two young men join forces in pursuit of a mysterious wagon carrying a treasure in silver and gold – a treasure with a curse upon it!
Sworn blood-brothers, Jim and Toby meet with other challenges and mysteries, including a trove of documents sought after by spies of three nations, a girl vanished in the midst of a vicious feud between two families, a den of murderous robbers on the Opelousas Trace … and a tiny baby left an orphan in the desert!
Lone Star Sons – the classic Wild West rides again, in this collection of adventures intended for younger readers by the author of the Adelsverein Trilogy.
FROM C. CHANCY: Seeds of Blood
Welcome to Intrepid. Where Halloween brings tourists, turning leaves – and demons.
Over two decades of bloody murder, Steven Savonarola carved a sorcerous Demongate into the heart of his own hometown. With less than two weeks to disarm it before Halloween, Detective Church and the IPD are running out of time.
Lucky for them, they have an edge: Myrrh, a hell-raider with over a thousand years’ experience shattering dark magic, and Aidan, a half-demon fire mage with a very personal grudge against evil.
The plan is simple: Find the tainted sites. Purify them. Try not to die.
They’ll need all the help they can get. Steven may be gone, but shadows in the mountains are determined to see the Demongate open – even if they have to slaughter half the city to do it. And when it comes to killing shadows, even hell-raiders don’t know everything.
If they’re going to make it to All Saint’s Day, they’re going to need hot lead, cold mead, and a weapon that’s out of this world.
And a little praying wouldn’t hurt….
Welcome to Intrepid. It’s a hell of a Halloween.
BY CHARLES ALDEN SELTZER, EDITED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Brass Commandments (Annotated): The classic pulp western
“He’s man’s size, goin’ an’ comin’. No show, no fuss; likes to play a lone hand. Cool an’ easy an’ dangerous. Two-gun. Throws ’em so fast that you can’t see ’em. Lightnin’s slow when Lannon moves his gun-hand. Dead shot; cold as an iceberg under fire.”
Such was the opinion in Bozzam City of Flash Lannon. Five years of getting an education back East might have tamed him, some, but when rustlers target his cattle, and the local law doesn’t care, Lannon nails a new law to the wall of the local post office: his brass commandments naming the five men who must leave the country — or die.
Five named men… and “one other”.
This iktaPOP Media edition contains a new afterword by indie author and editor D. Jason Fleming giving historical and genre context behind the novel.
FROM CLAYTON BARNETT: Cursed Hearts: A Novel of Machine Civilization.
Even with San Diego occupied by the Mexican Army, Katarina Sosabowski pursues her MBA at UCSD, and is happy to welcome and put up her visiting step-cousin from Japan, Christopher Dennou, for a night so he can complete his enrollment the following day. But a minor earthquake brings a major surprise: Chris’s younger sister, Maya, murders their mother and escapes Neuroi Institute, the research facility that created them. While Chris and ‘Cat’ grow closer to one another, Maya inexorably crosses an ocean and half a continent to take back her brother, killing anyone who gets in her way.
FROM PAUL CLAYTON: The Blue World: Anunnaki Advent.
The best laid plans of gods and men go awry on… the Blue World.
Loosely based on Zecharia Sitchin’s Earth Chronicles, The Blue World follows the efforts of the Sumerian gods, the Anunnaki, as they land on earth to mine the gold there in order to repair the damaged atmosphere of their home planet, Nibiru. The Anunnaki miners find gold mining laborious and dangerous, so they genetically engineer a hybrid race to do it for them. Mixing Anunnaki DNA with simian, they create The Human, “those who work.”
FROM DALE COZORT: The Moscow Option-1942
In this alternate history scenario, Hitler makes a different choice in spring 1942. Instead of heading south toward the Caucasus, he renews the German drive on Moscow.
That’s a tough choice. Moscow was the vital transportation and communications hub of the Soviet Union, as well as an important symbol of Soviet power, and while the Soviets pushed the Germans back from Moscow in their winter offensive, the Germans were still far closer to Moscow than they were to the Caucasus oil fields. On the other hand, the Soviets expected a drive on Moscow and had built up formidable defenses in front of it. Going after the Caucasus oil, if it worked, would conquer over 80 percent of Soviet oil, but getting to those oil fields meant covering huge, maybe impractical distances, wearing down German men and machines and opening up long, vulnerable flanks, as the Germans discovered at Stalingrad.
The different decision leads to alternate World War II, with ripples spreading to the Pacific even before the Germans move a single soldier, with the course of the war diverging, converging and diverging again as the fates of dozens of countries and factions throughout the world change.
The Moscow Option-1942 appeared as a serialization in The Best of Space Bats volumes 1 & 2. This volume simply brings those pieces together. It is written for history lovers and is a description of a fictional world rather than a traditional work of fiction with fictional characters and story arcs.
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: FREE
According To Hoyt 
“Free? You think the Powers that we Ultras have makes us Freer than the rest of humanity? Nonsense. We pay a price for our powers and the price is different for all of us. While as a Titan I can fly great distances, lift greater loads than other humans and are tougher than other humans, I pay a great price. Regular humans are more fragile than Titans and we have to be very careful around regular humans or we can cause great harm them by accident. While by some miracle, our wives are safe in the wedding bed, a simple hug in the morning can hurt them. No young ones, we are not Freer than the rest of humanity.”
“What about flying? Can’t you fly as free as a bird?”
The Lecturer chuckled and held up an ear-and-speaker headset. “See this? I have to wear this every time I fly. It connects me with local Air-Traffic Control so I can avoid other flying Ultras, air-cars and other aircraft. I also wear a beacon at my waist so aircraft & Air-Traffic Control can know my location. Fortunately, other flying Ultras can spot me more easily than aircraft but the communicator helps me talk to them. I could also talk about the situation when I leave the US and attempt to visit other countries but that’s a full lecture in itself.”
“The best things in life are free,” said Gilmartin brightly, quietly, to nobody in particular.
“No, they’re not. Back to work, slave.” And cracked his whip smartly ten inches above Gilmartin’s head. That combination of arrogance, petty brutality, and boredom was almost a signature of the Slaver worker class.
And as he bent to pick up one more heavy, irregular rock, Henry Gilmartin smiled slowly and softly where only the ground could see. You have no idea what’s comin’ next, just around the corner.
Unsurprisingly, these guys were the one to answer this prompt word…
“Maximilian! Is it really you?!” Sōgyū Kuroda shouted, staring in disbelief as the man walked through the door.
“Indeed it is,” the man replied, taking his usual seat at the bar. “All charges have been dropped.”
“Good!” the bartender snarled before letting loose with a burst of Azuman obscenities, slamming his fist on the counter. “How could they think you did that?! Ugh, that officer pissed me off! And that big lout with him, too!”
“It’s what happens when political games surpass an organization’s original purpose,” the knight replied soberly, shaking his head. “Regardless, I’m here and those two aren’t. Some sake for freedom if you please, Kuroda-san.”
“Hai!” Kuroda exclaimed, briskly walking over to his premium bottles. “Only the best will do for today, Maximilian!”
Fun fact: the random generator turned that up. For next week. This week got spot.
For some reason, the Beautiful but Evil Princess jumped ahead, given the chance.
…. for some reason….
A sinister scheme of some sort, obviously. I mean, what else do you expect from evil space princesses?
Well, she’s free to do it.
Spot on.
A quiet voice from the back asked, “what happens if you fail to spot an airliner?”
“And I collide with it? People die and while I’d survive the collision, I’d be in Big Trouble.”
“Free.” Thinking the word left a bad taste. Granted, his life before the Dulsi arrived had been hard. But the Dulsi promises of freedom from worry and hardship were just lies. He worked harder than before, had less, and had to answer to the Dulsi. Free? More like a slave.
Cancer-free. That’s a good feeling. But can one ever really be cancer-free again? Whatever caused those cells to go sideways and start working for the enemy might still be there. Even after five years of “remission” (after chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and multiple surgeries), it might come back. What can one do?
You know, it’s the same with communism and all the other “-isms” that put material things above people.. All they do is warp, starve, and destroy; but they keep coming back. What can one do?
Live. But find the right way to live. Help yourself by helping others. Eschew hate for love. Be grateful and you can’t be hateful.
Live. Not “for the moment” but for eternity. We already know the best things in life are “unseen”. Don’t try to be the one who “gained the whole world but lost his soul.” Remember, “The one who dies with the most toys” doesn’t really “win”; they just have more to answer for at the final judgement. Don’t be like that.
Live free.
I’m so sorry. It’s a terrible thing to happen. My dearest friend’s husband died of lung cancer. He was like a father or big brother to me. We begged him to stop smoking, which he did, finally. He suffered through chemo, radiation, surgery. It was awful to see him slip away. We loved him dearly. After his death, I helped my friend pick up the pieces and continue to live a full life. She had also suffered from cancer and lost both breasts, but they caught it in time. She worried, too, that it might come back. I helped maintain her garden – it was huge – complete with greenhouse, and planted year-round. Her sons were also a big help and a blessing. She and I traveled together many times – Venice and Juneau were two of our favorites. In the summer, we drove to Lake Tahoe weekends and holidays. She was a member of my family as I was to hers.
It is a huge blessing to have a friend like you. And let’s face it, folks who have or had cancer typically don’t have a lot of friends. We should all be more compassionate and copy your example.
Thank you for the kind words. Best wishes.
The first immigrant on my mother’s side was kidnapped from Wales in 1647. He landed in Northumberland County near the mouth of the Potomac River where it enters Chesapeake Bay. He was 11 years old, and indentured for seven years. When he completed his contract, he was free to go.
c4c
“First you gotta give up your White Privilege!”
She fixed the speaker with a cold glare. “Why do you keep calling me ‘white’? I have no race, no ethnicity, and no ‘privilege’ of any color. I am not even related to any known racial or ethnic group. I was born on another planet; on this world I am a minority of ONE. I am not connected in any way to the last seventy-five thousand years of your history. I had nothing to do with anything that happened to your ancestors, and I refuse to acknowledge any guilt you try to project at me.”
All of them gaped at her, temporarily shocked into silence.
“There is something else I do not understand. Why do you adhere to the political party that enslaved your people, and hate the party that set them free?”
When silence greeted her, she looked about the room. “You will not be free after I begin your classes, however lovely the summer.”
“Is it not one of the charms of summer,” said Charlotte-Rose, leaning forward, “that you may sit about at leisure and enjoy the beauty of the scene?”
You’re not out yet, he reminded himself. That was why he had scheduled a day to meet her, these little uncertainities. But once he was up the wall and out the gap, it was simple to slither down again, and he could pass as any common guest, his loot hidden.
[This one is a little weird — if it’s anything near-conventional, it’s the song equivalent of a fanfic. But since I heard the original of this (which was also its inspiration) once again earlier tonight, and since “free” fits it very well, freedom and its price… here goes.
And, yes, the “cold steel rain” is indeed (see recent and older vignettes) the autumn sleet of Marquesas. Also try not to mind that those words aren’t actually (quite) anywhere in the original lyrics at all…((smile))]
(To the tune of “Wish You Were Here”)
Don’t they think we can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue sky from gray?
And didn’t they think we’d exchange
All their green spring fields
For our cold steel rain?
Sly smiles all in vain.
Did they think we would take
All our heroes as goats?
Pretty flowers for trees?
Hot air for our cold breeze?
False comfort for aid?
And didn’t they think you would trade
A walk-on part in their war
For a starring role in the grave?
How I wish, I wish you were here.
Still we’re not their lost souls
Swimming ’round their fish bowl
Year after year;
Stumbling over the same hard ground
Nothing there to be found
But their half-truths and fears.
Oh, but how I wish you were here.
As soon as the rumor started to speak of a muddy route out, a boy vanished from among the servants. Some remembered that he had talked of a cousin.
So, thought Rosaleen, my mother was wrong when she thought orphans were free of attachments. She wondered who else would flee.
The number included a dark-haired knight with no title at all. He had to have no overlord short of the queen in order to be in their number, she knew. She managed her curtesy and realized that he had to be the last, as the lowest ranking. It was done.
Awesome. A new Chauncy and an old favorite by Hayes. Wheee…
“Free!”
The crew took the news poorly.
Indentured until my majority, after eighty-four years, such an inadequate word to describe a late February birthday.
The crew pushed Gilbert forward to speak, “Captain Frederic, beggin’ yer pardon sir, we’d just as soon you stay.”
“Mabel pines for me. No more voyages!”
Tonym was free. And he no longer gave a damn whether he graduated or not. He no longer had a wife, nor any prospects of getting another one.
A free radical, ready to cause destruction in the body politic.
If I’m lucky, thought the crow, a cancer to take it all down.
(another bit from “Breaking Strain”)
Lucius slid back out from under the jury-rigged water reclamation unit. “I finally found the problem. It looks like a connector worked itself free on the way over here.”
Shelly cringed inwardly, recalling the overland trip between the moonbases, all the jolting they’d endured from the rough ground they’d crossed. Would they have been better off to have taken it back apart and flown it over here in landers? “At least it was something repairable.”
(and from later in the Grissom timeline)
Here at Sparta Point Elaine was free, but that freedom was bounded by the clearing in which the old ranger station stood. And not just because Special Agent Horn and his goons were still actively searching for her — the redwood forests were lion country. Most nights she’d hear the mountain lions yowling, and it wasn’t unknown for them to be active in the daytime.
She missed Silicon Valley with its endless array of places to go and things to go. However, she knew it wasn’t possible to return. She owed Marshal Gruzinsky her life now, so she must remain hidden here in his secret base behind the Redwood Curtain.
(Trying again on my second effort, set a few decades later in the Grissom timeline)
Here at Sparta Point Elaine was free, but that freedom was bounded by the clearing in which the old ranger station stood. And not just because Special Agent Horn and his goons were still actively searching for her — the redwood forests were lion country. Most nights she’d hear the mountain lions yowling, and it wasn’t unknown for them to be active in the daytime.
She missed Silicon Valley with its endless array of places to go and things to go. However, she knew it wasn’t possible to return. She owed Marshal Gruzinsky her life now, so she must remain hidden here in his secret base behind the Redwood Curtain.
“Free Kittens” the hand written sign said. With a cute little girl sitting next to a cardboard box in the yard. Kathleen urged me to stop and got out to inspect the offerings. Mandy, the little girl in question, introduced her to Pumpkin, the placid mother cat, and apologized that only one was left. A black boy, the runt of the litter. Mandy handed him to Kathleen and he snuggled between her breasts. I knew then that Onyx would be going home with us right then and there. I sighed, knowing that there is no such thing as a free kitten or puppy.
(I had a second one, but WP apparently ate my first two attempts to post it. Trying one last time before I give up and post it on my blog.)
Here at Sparta Point Elaine was free, but that freedom was bounded by the clearing in which the old ranger station stood. And not just because Special Agent Horn and his goons were still actively searching for her — the redwood forests were lion country. Most nights she’d hear the mountain lions yowling, and it wasn’t unknown for them to be active in the daytime.
She missed Silicon Valley with its endless array of places to go and things to go. However, she knew it wasn’t possible to return. She owed Marshal Gruzinsky her life now, so she must remain hidden here in his secret base behind the Redwood Curtain.