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.*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 ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: Castles, Creatures, and Nights: Familiar Generations Book Three
Strange things stalk the nights. Especially nights when the land remembers …
Christmas brings surprises both welcome and otherwise for Jude and Shoim. Can they survive the peak of baking season, or will Shoim finally end up in a pie?
Mike and Rich find themselves over their heads, assigned to observe delicate diplomatic negotiations in a haunted—perhaps—castle. Abyssal beasts might be easier to survive.Join the next generation of mages, sorcerers, Healers, and Hunters on a wild trip through nights silent and otherwise.
- Deborah, Hiram, and Art try to prove that they are grown-up magic users. Their parents disagree.How does a Hunter say what he cannot speak, mourn when tears are forbidden?And more!
FROM JERRY BOYD: Bob Has a Tantrum.
It’s time for Bob to square some things away with the Commonwealth. Rules are rules, though, and that means two weeks in a ship with no gravity. When they get where they’re going, they still have a bureaucracy that hasn’t changed in a thousand years to get through. Come along and see the adventures of the crew of the good ship BS Karen.
FROM DANIEL ZEIDLER: The Constable’s Quest.
A novella-sized tale of adventure, humor, good versus evil, and Cops & Dragons.
When a dead red dragon crashed in the alfalfa field on the outskirts of the city, Watch Sergeant Sigurd Arnson hoped it would attract the King’s attention to the remote frontier territory and the increasingly cruel duke who administered it for the Crown. What the dead dragon attracted instead was a runaway teenage girl with a magic talent that could lead her to the dragon’s lair and the treasure within. Now the duke has ordered Sigurd to take the girl into the Wilds and find the unclaimed hoard within seven days or they and their families will suffer the duke’s wrath.
FROM EDWARD THOMAS: The Crossroads and the Oni
A young samurai lies dying by a crossroad in feudal Japan. His prospects for survival are dim until an ugly old lady finds him. She seems to be an oni, a powerful evil spirit. In return for her help she demands he become her husband. Certain death or marriage to the Oni, which should he choose?
FROM HOLLY CHISM: The Dragon’s in the Details
Six stories of dragons hiding in today’s world:
A Friend, Indeed–A little girl meets the best friend she could ask for when she finds a dragon sleeping in her wagon.
Tempest–What do you do when you find a dragon in your favorite teacup?
Clowder–These are absolutely not cats, no matter what they look like, and will take offense at your mistake.
Back Yard Birds and Other Things–If the dragon defends your chickens, you invite it to stay.
Houdini–When the pet supplier sends the wrong kind of dragon, the pet store’s got a problem.
Hoard–Not every dragon cares for gold, gems, or cash.
FROM GEORGE DIMOCK: Le Boulanger: The Bread Baker.
Whether you have never baked bread before, or are an experienced baker, this book is an invaluable resource. The author shares his 35 years of baking experience, taking you from the simplest breads through the more complex. It is intersperced with bits of bread history, as well as recipes from throughout history.
FROM D. JASON FLEMING, BY CHARLES ALDEN SELTZER: 3 Ways of Lead (Annotated): A Pulp Western Omnibus
Charles Alden Seltzer was one of the first crop of western authors, a contemporary of Zane Grey and William MacLeod Raine. But he *really* hit his stride in 1921, and these three post-1921 novels prove it!
Brass Commandments
“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.”
Last Hope Ranch
When Ned Templin rode out of the desert to the Last Hope Ranch, Lisbeth Stanton was grateful, because he saved her from having to kill a man. But when Templin told her he was staying, and that he was an outlaw, and that a posse was on his trail looking to hang him for murder, her opinion changed a little.
And it kept changing, for Templin was an enigma, with secrets and motivations she never could have guessed. And, it turned out, so was her father, whom she had been with her whole life but never really known. Between Sheriff Norton and his posse, and the criminal gang Blaisdell’s Raiders, secrets would out, and bullets would fly, at the Last Hope Ranch!
The Way of the Buffalo
When Jim Cameron saved a stranger’s life, he hardly expected that stranger to promise to shoot him dead.
Sunset Ballantine wasn’t bothered that a man had tried to shoot him from a distance — no bullet had ever touched him, despite living his long years in the west and getting into many a gunfight. He *was* bothered that this Easterner was going to run a railroad right past his front door in sixty days. And even more bothered that the man didn’t change his mind once the threat was issued. Ballantine’s word was iron law in Ransome, always had been. Yet this Cameron, understanding full well that Ballantine meant it, and would undoubtedly beat him to the draw in any fair fight, was pushing ahead anyway.
Would Cameron back down? Would Ballantine go back on his word? Could an old western hand face down the forces of Progress, or must he go the way of the buffalo?
- This iktaPOP Media omnibus includes introductions giving the novels historical and genre context.
Charles Alden Seltzer was one of the first crop of western authors, a contemporary of Zane Grey and William MacLeod Raine. But he *really* hit his stride in 1921, and these three post-1921 novels prove it!
Brass Commandments, Last Hope Ranch, The Way of the Buffalo
This iktaPOP Media omnibus includes introductions giving the novels historical and genre context.
FROM JACK HEREEMA: Marigold: Our Lady of Thieves.
A young child is found on a tip heap and is rescued from a dismal future by Sir Kai ap Gruffydd, a man whose courage and fighting prowess is known all over England. There is something about this girl that speaks to him . . . like he has somehow known her from his past. When he asks her name, she tells him. Her name is Marion. With the guiding hand of her new guardians, Marion blossoms into a young lady who can recite the catechisms taught to her by nuns, and then execute the most intricate sword-fighting skills ever seen by man or woman.
In the meantime, the Sheriff of Nottingham has been secretly working for Philip Augustus of France, whose sole purpose is to create civil unrest in England to undermine and emasculate King John. The foul treatment of the people of England by the sheriff galvanizes a gang of outlaws, under the leadership of Robin Hood, to thwart the sheriff of all efforts at every opportunity. Our heroine, Marion, is drawn into this conflict when she sees impoverished women and children who are suffering from the consequences of high taxation, forced labour, and brutal violence.
It is up to Robin Hood and Marion, along with their compatriots such as Friar Tuck and Alan a Dale, to outwit and outmuscle the sheriff, and bring down his use of unjust draconian power against the rights of the common weal.
FROM BOB MADISON: Cash and Carrey
High school jock Cash Hamilton has almost everything: he’s tall, handsome, a star football player and beloved by all the girls. The one thing he hasn’t got is his namesake: Cash is dead broke. But a rich novelty manufacturer has a way out – all Cash has to do is date his hated school rival, brainiac Stu Carrey.
Add to his problems an amorous snake, a New Age swami, an angry not-so-ex girlfriend, and a room of wombats, and you get a complete picture of dating in The Modern Age.
Cash and Carrey is the first adult romcom by Bob Madison, author of the acclaimed young adult novel Spiked!
Gay for pay has never been so much fun—or so dangerous.
“Cash Hamilton, the hero of Bob Madison’s new novel, is a 21st-century South-California Bertie Wooster. His special friend, Stu Carrey, is the son of a tycoon who manufactures gags and novelties–joy buzzers, whoopee cushions, wind-up plastic penises, and such. Cash isn’t as genteel as Bertie, or as gentle, but he still gains entrée into some of the stately homes of Orange County. He’s a witty and surprisingly likeable narrator, and his prose is as well-stocked with laugh-getters as Mr. Carrey’s warehouse. Cash and Carrey is outrageous and extremely silly. It’s also as sweet as it is funny.”
– Christopher Miller, award-winning author of The Cardboard Universe, Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects, and, American Cornball.
“If Dobie Gillis and Groucho Marx had a son it would be Bob Madison. Funny, silly, and funny.”
– Nick Santa Maria, comedian/author
(The cover to Cash and Carrey suketh mightily. Bob, if you want me to fix it ping me and I’ll try to do something about it next week.)
FROM JASON FLEMING, BY P. G. AMERTHON: Marmorne (Annotated): The Victorian Classic
The British Segrave brothers were as different as could be. Emil, the eldest and a solicitor, was passionless and precise. Julius, the middle brother, had enough energy for three normal men, so his decision to mount an expedition to Africa was no surprise. Youngest, Adolphus, was the peacemaker between the other two.
How their fates became tied to the quaint French village of Marmorne, and the Prussian invasion of France, none of them could have foretold…
This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving literary and historical context to the novel.
FROM KAREN MYERS: Tales of Annwn – A Virginian in Elfland
A Collection of Five Short Stories from The Hounds of Annwn.
The Call – A very young Rhian discovers her beast-sense and, with it, the call of a lost hound.
It’s not safe in the woods where cries for help can attract unwelcome attention, but two youngsters discover their courage in the teeth of necessity.
Under the Bough – Angharad hasn’t lived with anyone for hundreds of years, but now she is ready to tie the knot with George Talbot Traherne, the human who has entered the fae otherworld to serve as huntsman for the Wild Hunt. As soon as she can make up her mind, anyway.
George has been swept away by his new job and the people he has met, and by none more so than Angharad. But how can she value the short life of a human? And what will happen to her after he’s gone?
Night Hunt – When George Talbot Traherne goes night hunting for fox in Virginia, he learns about unworthy men from the old-timers drinking moonshine around the fire and makes his own choices.
Who could have anticipated that the same impulse that won him his old bluetick coonhound would lead him to his new wife and the hounds of Annwn? Every choice has a cost, he realizes, but never a regret.
Cariad – Luhedoc is off with his adopted nephew Benitoe to fetch horses for the Golden Cockerel Inn. He’s been reunited with his beloved Maëlys at last, but how can he fit into her capable life as an innkeeper? What use is he to her now, after all these years?
Luhedoc needs to relearn an important lesson about confidence.
The Empty Hills – George Talbot Traherne arranges a small tour of the local human world for his fae family and friends, hoping to share some of the sense of wonder he discovered when he encountered the fae otherworld.
He’s worried about discovery by other humans, but things don’t turn out quite the way he expects.
FROM CHRISTOPHER WOERNER: In the Details
This is a collection of essays covering the last few months, current events ranging from the war to the virus to the economy to the tyranny we’re living under every single day. Until very recently, none of us would have thought this was possible, and yet here it is. Our tyrants want as much misery as possible spread across the world they control. I hope to motivate and inspire a resistance movement, this is day-to-day coverage of why we need that.
The B-side is similar, collecting the comic strips I’ve made recently, a hopefully-more amusing look at the struggling we face. And this is where we are now.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Sound of One Child Crying.
Who is the child Reza can hear crying every time she goes to the new addition to the Royal Library? Her boss insists there is no child, that it is nothing more than her uncanny sensitivity to the unseen world making a nuisance of itself.
Worse, searching for answers gets her angry rebukes about respect for the dead. The further Reza goes, the more certain she becomes that someone is hiding an ugly secret.
It’s a secret that traces back two generations, to a dark period in this land’s history. A time most people would prefer to forget, not caring that denial doesn’t make a problem go away.
The truth may set you free, but not without a price. And Reza fears that death itself might turn out to be an easier price than the one demanded of her.
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: Health
According To Hoyt 
“Bruce, what happened? You missed the last few League meetings.”
“I caught a bad cold Clark and I’m annoyed by people who are always healthy.”
“I understand. Ma and Paw were annoyed that they caught colds and I never did. But look at the bright side and imagine sneezes that cause more damage than a tornado.”
“Well Clark, you have a very good point.”
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Unless the stairs were infested with some kind of miasma that would slowly sap their well-being until they could be struck down with ease. Or confuse their wits so they thought they descended when they did not.
A light burned ahead. For a moment, Autumn did not trust its reality.
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“Here’s to hot wars and hot fevers.”
“Why?”
“Because, that’s the only way to get promoted, for those above you to die of sickness or in battle.”
“That’s not what I meant when I suggested toasting to our health.”
“That’s fair. But it’s still better than your ‘Over the lips, past the gums, look out stomach, here it comes.'”
“Hey!”
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I learned that toast as “here’s to sickly seasons and bloody wars.”
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Isn’t that why the Army Air Force had so many young colonels in WWII? Or one of the reasons?
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Rapid expansion of the forces was also a reason. In bomber command, lack of longevity did play a major role. There’s a reason for the huge to-do over Memphis Belle actually surviving 25 missions. She was the first. Of hundreds that had tried. Ten men per plane … (Granted, some planes came back and were scrapped, or only lost part of their crew, or the men survived as PoWs, but still …)
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One of the biggest issues of living in a Dawn Empire household?
Zero privacy, in the classic upper-class/nobility-type manner. Worse if the Servants, the mage constructs of a Dawn Empire noble, aren’t yours. They will gossip like nothing else. I walk softly for a man, and I can hear them sharing stories of who has been looking at who, flirtations, romances, up to and including some very graphic descriptions of sexual acts that make me envious.
Mostly because I don’t have the flexibility to pull off some of them.
And yes, they are sheet-and-underwear sniffers. Because it’s for your own good, and they can sometimes know how your health is before you know you have a problem.
Living in Adelaide’s house was weird, and being her father-and knowing the exact history of what was going on with her-always threw me for a loop. Several loops. Several dozen loops.
But if I was awake late at night and couldn’t get to bed, there was always someone there for me. I knew that my wife always had help if and when she needed it.
And I was never short a golf foursome the entire time I was there (even if Ian was cheating somehow).
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Nice set of promos today! And dragons seem like the ‘feature’ of the day!!! :-)
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For those curious, Marmorne is part of a project I’m doing of publishing at least four Victorian novels (not yet in ebook form anywhere) for Victober.
Victober is a yearly event that people have been doing, where they read nothing but Victorian fiction for a month. If you are of a mind to take part, keep in mind that while I’m publishing the books separately, there will be a collection of all of them first week in October, which will cost less than buying them one by one. I don’t mind getting extra money, of course, but I’m not trying to double-dip. :)
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Which would include the original ‘Sherlock Holmes’ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I read the books, funny how most were first serialized in news papers to increase subscriptions.
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It would include the first run of Holmes stories, as everything after “The Final Problem” post-dates Victoria’s death. And they were printed in The Strand magazine, rather than a newspaper. (The two novels prior to the short stories were also published in magazines — A Study In Scarlet in Beeton’s Christmas Annual and The Sign of the Four in the February 1890 issue of Lippincott’s Monthly.)
I’m a little unclear on the timelines of newspapers publishing serial novels in the English-speaking world, it certainly was done (in the US it happened at least through the 1890s, with sporadic attempts to bring fiction to newspapers continuing through the 1950s), but magazine publication of fiction was pretty standard for the 1880s and 1890s and, while the Holmes stories certainly skyrocketed sales of The Strand, it was not a sure thing at first. The editor told the art director to hire Walter Paget, who had illustrated King Solomon’s Mines, and the art director by accident hired Sidney Paget, Walter’s brother. Fortunately, Sidney’s version of Holmes was iconic from the beginning, despite his talent being (supposedly) inferior to his brother’s.
But the entire point of what I’m doing is searching out and bringing to ebook books that have been forgotten and not reprinted in proofread editions yet. The Holmes stories have been in electronic form since the 1990s at the latest. Now, I could do Sexton Blake, a sort of rival to Holmes, but that’s on my schedule for early next year, to coincide with SteamCon.
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I’m investigating women novelists for a P & P fanfic, in which all the girls write fanfic of some victorian novelist no one has heard of now.
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I’ll message you. Even authors the academy remembers are going to be “new” to most readers, like Elizabeth Gaskell.
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has to be early nineteenth, because of Pride and Prejudice setting.
It would be, btw Fanfic And Foolishness.
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Right, sorry, you said “Victorian” and I assumed it was somehow later. Not sure I have any/many “unknown” ones for that era.
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Maria Edgeworth.
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Yeah. Downloaded some of her stuff.
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What? Not “Fanfic and Folly”?
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For a 20th century instance, the San Jose Mercury-News did a serialized novel that was published in their Sunday supplement. Somewhere in the late 1980s, I believe. More-or-less SF, it had something to do with a computer that had a tendency to catch fire while someone was typing on it. (IMHO, it ranked quite poorly with contemporary stories from Analog.)
I don’t recall much of any details, especially not the title nor the author’s name. OTOH, the Murky-News was flogging it as a Bold Experiment(tm) during the run.
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One paper, for one book, doesn’t really make it a cultural “thing” for me. Especially in the Sunday supplement. It’s an interesting footnote, particularly in how the genius MBAs thought doing it was a “bold new experiment”. Because you know they had MBAs and therefore were certain they knew everything there was to be known.
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Yes. I found it quite amusing that they thought they were treading “virgin territory”, not noticing that such authors as Arthur Conan Doyle had already plowed that ground.
They did manage to illustrate that mediocre stories don’t do well, no matter how much they are promoted.
As a side note, I think I dropped my subscriptions to Analog and the SF Book Club when the TBR stack was a) getting high, and b) had too many books/stories that didn’t thrill me. (Most of the books had been set aside within a few pages. The house walls were not suitable for the traditional response to horrible books.) This was within a few years of the Murky story.
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“Certain death or marriage to the Oni, which should he choose?”
Sometimes it works out….
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“The health of my book is assured with a promo post at ATH!” ~:D
Yay! Woohoo! Yeehaw!
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Thank you! I was mostly meaning to ask how to get the link for you, being an Amazon virgin (the company, not the tribe). My beloved has been working on that book for a couple of years, inflicting recipes on his beta taster (ooh, muffins!) and various friends. Now he’s going between trying his hand at SF and branching out into pastries, pies and pudding.
I am so lucky.
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baker to the stars!
I want to read this.
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Please tell him thank you for putting it on KU – I have already checked it out for download. It sounds very interesting!
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She should stop being so foolish, she told herself. Any king, or queen, would have regard for the good health of a royal visitor with so many soldiers. After all, how strange could it be?
“He will see her in the small chamber, beside the garden,” said the gate guard.
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“To your health!”
A chorus of male voices echoed in the cavernous aircraft hangar as everyone repeated the toast together — health! — and then raised their glasses. The war had not been managed well. It had drained their country of its resources, and even the best mercenary company on the continent (in the world, the men here would say) had trouble procuring the necessities these days. Yet these men now drank the world’s finest vodka — the spoils of war.
One man among them, a grizzled veteran now stout in his old age, stood silently frowning at the glass in his hand. His private jet was waiting. Three hours from now, he would be toasting the health of some political snake in the capital. Out of his element.
His adjutant stood earnest and attentive at his elbow, waiting to receive the unwanted glass. He sighed, resigning himself, and carefully placed the glass of vodka — still full — on the floor at his feet.
“But Mr. Prigozhin,” said the adjutant, “Why do you not drink?”
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This one calls for a particular character…
“Congratulations, Baron Smythe! You have a clean bill of health!”
“Oh, what a relief! Thank you, Cleric Dirksen!” the elderly man said before turning to the petite blonde standing next to the healer. “You as well, Lady Anya.”
“Please, Baron. I’m merely Cleric Dirksen’s apprentice and should be addressed as such.” she replied modestly, giving the nobleman a sheepish smile.
“But that would be disrespectful to your father!” Baron Smythe said, shifting uncomfortably on the exam table.
“He understands. Please, do not concern yourself. Chryssa never insisted on using her title either.” the young woman stated, a pained look crossing her face as she mentioned her sister’s name.
“Ah, of course.” the nobleman finally said, not wanting to broach the topic since Anya brought it up.
“Come back in a month for a follow up, or earlier if something happens.” Lorenz Dirksen, Cleric of the Order of St. Azriel, said, giving both his apprentice and his patient a look that told them that time was up.
“I will. Thank you once more.” the elderly baron said, getting off the table and giving the healers a courteous bow before leaving.
“Sometimes you can be as much trouble as Chryssa was.” Dirksen teased his apprentice, giving her a paternal pat on the shoulder.
“I-I’m sorry,” Anya murmured. She never had been good at handling these sort of conversations and tried thinking of a different subject. “At least most of the injured from the Refuge Wing have been treated.”
“A lot of the credit for that goes to you of course,” the healer said. “Shame that we’re not making any progress on the guards, though.”
Of course. The guards that had been utterly crippled by fear from the culprit, Maximilian Amsel’s, mysterious escape from prison. No form of therapy, magical, chemical, or talking, was even scratching the surface of their terror. Just how much power did he possess? And why did Chryssa…? Anya sighed heavily. She had to tell her teacher.
“Cleric Dirksen,” she began solemnly. “I volunteered to join the search for the fugitive Maximilian Amsel.”
“You WHAT?!” Dirksen shouted. “No, Anya! We need you here! If anyone can break through the guards’ bewitchment it’s you!”
“Perhaps so,” the petite blonde said. “But Chryssa vanished not long after Maximilian did.”
“Of course she did. That idiotic… Gah. Sorry,” the cleric caught himself before going off on a frustrated rant. “I know she’s your sister even with all the headaches she causes everyone. You think she went after him for the bounty?”
“No,” Anya responded with a slight shake of her head. “She would have made quite the fuss over it if she was.”
Dirksen chuckled before nodding in agreement. “True. We’d have had a note pinned to the wall with a huge knife about how Crissy Rouge was going to bring the fugitive back dead or alive before the incompetent buffoons of the Order could. With the appropriate amount of uncouth language of course.”
“We would have known if she engaged him in battle already, too,” the girl continued. “For her to go silent… I’m afraid this means she’s cooperating with him.”
Now it was the cleric’s turn to use some of the uncouth language he had spoke of so disapprovingly when it came to Chryssa Bellbrook, or Crissy Rouge as she preferred to be called. “God above! If those two set their sights on the Order…”
“That is why I must go, Cleric Dirksen,” Anywa said, her soft features and dark blue eyes hardening with determination. “I must find my sister and hear from her why she’s done such a thing.”
“Are you prepared to go all the way if you must, Anya?” the healer asked. “Odds are they are both Corrupted on par with a Baron of Hell at the very least. Possibly worse in Amsel’s case.”
“I am.”
“Then I have nothing more to say except God be with you and grant you a safe return.”
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Let’s pay a visit to Epsilon Colony:
“Doctor Cambridge?” said Cherry. “Could you help me? I’m sick. I’ve felt sick ever since, well, you know…”
David Cambridge knew. Ever since Finlandia was scuttled. Ever since her paramour Charlie Tristam didn’t come back. Ever since his Carolyn didn’t come back.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s start with your vitals.”
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David Cambridge gave Cherry Parker a cursory exam, but being pretty sure of what was happening, he sent her to another doctor. Cherry returned to David’s quarters that afternoon, wide-eyed with worry. “You knew, didn’t you?” she said.
“I didn’t know. I guessed.”
“But Doctor Cambridge, what’ll I do now?”
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“Uh, isn’t it ‘Health and Welfare’ rather that ‘Wealth and Hellfare’?”
“If this was about a government department or the like, perhaps. This is about not being able to buy or bribe your way to Heaven. It’s a sermon, after all.”
“Weird for you give one.”
The demon just smiled.
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Seems like I heard somewhere that one could expect the devil to be an excellent theologian. I don’t remember where I heard it, though.
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Smacks of C.S. Lewis, but not sure.
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A bird trilled.
It might still be casting about, he reminded himself. It was unwise to underestimate any beast, let alone one a wizard conjured. Perilous to his health.
His arm ached from the flight. At least he did not have to fly back. Slowly, he walked along the hedge.
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It was only after lunar sunrise that Valery Mishin realized he hadn’t even thought to ask the Amerikanski astronauts about the health of Colonel Alekseev. It was as if, when the man left the Soviet moonbase and was carried aboard the Amerikanski lander to be taken to their moonbase’s Medlab, he’d vanished from the remaining cosmonauts’ lives.
But how to inquire at this point? Mishin cast an uneasy glance at Yakov Tsiklauri, who was now their effective commandant. Personable as the Georgian might be when not correcting someone, he was still KGB — his ability to contact the Defense Minister without going through the capcom at Star City had removed all doubt about that.
On the other hand, not showing any interest in the Colonel’s well-being could also be seen as a failing, a lack in proper comradely spirit.
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“That’s not good for your health, son.”
Will’s nose wrinkled. That was what his mother said whenever she insisted that he eat whatever soup she put before him without so much as naming the herbs she stirred into it. Or telling how bitter they would be.
He would be, anyway.
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Thank-you for the promo!
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The defense lawyer placed his finger on a small gray box. “First, I present to the court, Defense Exhibit A.”
A woman wearing a white bikini, sitting in a wheelchair, appeared in front of the defense table. Gasps of shock and horror ran through the courtroom, because she should have been pretty. At one time, she must have been. Now, though…
She had no nose, just a hole in the middle of her face. Her left eye was obviously blind, the sclera and iris discolored, and fixed at a disturbing off-center angle. Her left cheek was sunken and scarred, her left ear a ragged stump, surrounded by a mass of scars interspersed with sparse wisps of straggly brown hair. The right side of her bikini top sagged half-empty, partially concealing another wicked-looking scar. More long, puckered scars marked a right arm deformed and noticeably shorter than her left. Her right hand was a stiff, misshapen claw, the last two fingers missing. She was covered with more scars and patches of uneven, discolored skin. Her legs had wasted away to two crooked, withered sticks, obviously useless for walking, or even standing.
Tears ran from her right eye, down the intact side of her face, and splashed on her ruined breast.
The lawyer’s voice broke through the mood. “And now, Defense Exhibit B.”
The woman sitting beside him stood up and walked around the table to the wheelchair. Side by side, the resemblance was obvious. She reached out, and her hand passed through the other woman’s shoulder.
“That is all your ‘modern medicine’ would do for me. Have a good look.” She positioned her hands over the wheelchair’s insubstantial handles and ‘pushed’ it in front of the jury box. “Besides the disfigurements you can see, my pelvis and spine were crushed. Half of my body was dead to me and even so it hurt, constantly. Spurious impulses from the damaged nerves, they told me. There was some hope the pain might fade, eventually.”
“I could never have a normal life. I needed help for the simplest and most embarrassing things. I had to wear diapers, all the time, because there was no…control. Sex was out of the question. I couldn’t feel anything and pregnancy would almost certainly be fatal.”
She let that sink in, then stepped away from the wheelchair, quickly stripped down to an identical white bikini and stood defiantly before the jury.
“Now look at me.”
She was the very picture of glowing health, from her shining golden-blonde hair to her firmly planted feet and all the flawless skin between, with none of the scars and deformities of her wheelchair-bound doppelganger.
“This is why Ms. Evans is on trial, because she broke a few stupid rules made up by ignorant bureaucrats unable to imagine that such advanced medical technology was even possible. She offered to help me when no one else would, and I accepted gladly. I will be forever grateful to her for giving my life back to me.”
She looked at each juror in turn, right in the eye — those who didn’t avoid her gaze. “Look at me, and ask yourselves why she should be punished for this. I can’t think of any good reason.”
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Arah became curious when she noticed Mark mumbling to himself.
“What’s up, Mark?“
“Semantic satiation.”
“Huh?”
“I must use the word ‘health’ in an assignment and I’ve repeated it so often in my head, it sounds weird. healthhealthhealthhealthhealthhealth – such a goofy word!”
With a sigh, Arah returned to her homework.
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“Your Honor, my client is not guilty by reason of insanity!”
The Prosecutor protested, “That’s absurd. He’s only being charged with Solicitation of Prostitution.”
The Defense continued, “I present my evidence. This poster-size photograph of Officer Patricia Kirk in her streetwalking costume. The defense contends that such beauty is not compatible with a man’s mental health.”
“Aaaah.”
“Your Honor?”
“Case dismissed!”
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