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 PAM UPHOFF: Wild West Bar and Grill
Horst Aslanov is a seventeen-year-old criminal. Or at least he aspires to be one. But his mentor is missing, the number two boss is a dictatorial idiot, and it’s hard to say if the possibility of a police raid is better or worse than the violent criminal gang moving into their area.
The Wild West Bar and Grill is a restaurant in a cross-dimensional future Moscow. Serving authentic barbeque, and tiny shows of wild west shootouts. It’s also a cover for an unlicensed brothel . . . which is an extra layer of cover for an ID hacking and brainchip forging operation. But the old forger is missing, and now Horst has to decide if he’s going to try to keep the business running . . . or go straight.
FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: Hunter of Secrets: Familiar Generations
Secrets lurk below the surface, waiting, watching, restless …
Jude Tainuit, once alone and outcast, plans for his wedding. And wonders if is sister-in-law elect will survive his fiancée’s growing irritation. Aunt Martha has filled a freezer and a half with baked treats in anticipation of the pending nuptials.
Darkness rises in the north …
Jude and his Familiar, Shoim, go on alert as strange creatures fall into Devon County. Power calls them, rips holes between the planes of existence, something corrupt and blood-laced. The twisted magic beneath the Beck Farm stirs, summoning the Graff Rider. The pale horseman and the Becks share a tie, one Jude and Shoim must unravel before twisted evil reaches the surface and tears the land apart.
Secrets swirl around the living and the dead, secrets that a Hunter must unravel or all he has hoped for will be lost!
FROM NATHAN SHUMATE: The Shadow Over Vinland: and Other Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
From the imagination of Nathan Shumate, the man behind the Space Eldritch and Redneck Eldritch anthologies and The Last Christmas Gift: A Heartwarming Holiday Tale of the Living Dead, comes this collection of ten stories of cosmic Lovecraftian horror: from the deepest prehistory to the darkest future, to that innocuous neighborhood just down the road…
FROM DAVID COLLINS: The Wrong Button
Jerry Anderson was an astronaut faced with an impossible choice: die of asphyxiation in a few hours or see if the alien pod he was transporting really was an escape pod and find out if it could actually save him.
When he enters it, he finds that the controls are unreadable, lacking anything to go on, and rapidly running out of air. He presses the blinking green button.
The next thing he knows, he isn’t human anymore, and he finds himself on a seashore, next to some birds feasting on a body that looks very similar to his new body.
He is alive, but staying alive will be a challenge, and he will be able to communicate with the locals, assuming the next ones he finds don’t kill him on sight.
FROM J. W. KERWIN: Only In Clerksburg (Brendan O’Brian Legal Thrillers Book 4)
During prep sessions in the office, Wally Pratt appeared to be the perfect expert witness. But as soon as he took the witness stand, instead of telling the jury about a shipment of gold coins that had gone missing during the Civil War, he began talking about space aliens and mind control.
Brendan O’Brian travels to the little town of Clerksburg to assist a fellow attorney who is representing professional treasure hunters suing the federal government. When the attorney mysteriously disappears, O’Brian’s one-day court appearance turns into an extended stay.
O’Brian quickly discovers that Clerksburg is anything but an ordinary town. The bank manager attempts to rob his own bank. The minister’s wife does a public striptease. The local judge has a penchant for handing out ten dollar fines. And the mysterious Merchants Association seems to have more power than elected officials.
But perhaps the strangest thing about Clerksburg is its relationship with the military base in the national forest north of town. And that turns out to be a key factor in the treasure hunters’ case against the government.
FROM TERRY M. RUWE: Space Ranger: Down the Event Horizon
Leaving the Rangers was Eddie’s way of dealing with tragedy, but the Rangers weren’t going to leave him alone even as a regular in Space Force.
When a high tech weapons theft involves Eddie’s new ship, he has to get involved. Can he stop the transfer of the stolen goods to the Alliance’s adversaries before the whole situation devolves into war? Can he save his shipmates from becoming cannon fodder?
FROM HOLLY CHISM: The Last Pendragon (Legends Book 1
“The last thing I expected when I went to grieve in the mountains was to get chased by werewolves, kidnapped by a dragon, or meet a legend. But that was exactly what happened.”–Sara Hawke
Sara Hawke, a highly-educated former PhD candidate in Linguistics, is plunged into a situation that strains her skepticism: first she meets a pack of werewolves while camping on the night of the full moon, then she’s rescued by a man the werewolves seemed to fear. Her rescuer then decides that she’ll be good company until he decides to let her go. Then he tells her that she has the potential to be a sorceress, and offers to teach her.
Along the way, she learns that legends aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be, and are occasionally more than they seem…
FROM KAREN MYERS: The Chained Adept: A Lost Wizard’s Tale
MEET A POWERFUL WIZARD WITH UNANSWERED QUESTIONS–AND AN UNBREAKABLE CHAIN AROUND HER NECK.
Have you ever wondered how you might rise to a dangerous situation and become the hero that was needed?
The wizard Penrys has barely gained her footing in the country where she was found three years ago, chained around the neck and wiped of all knowledge. And now, an ill-planned experiment has sent her a quarter of the way around her world.
One magic working has called to another and landed Penrys in the middle of an ugly war between neighboring countries, half a world away.
No one has any reason to trust her amid rumors of wizards where they don’t belong. And she fears to let them know just what she can do — especially since she can’t explain herself to them and she doesn’t know everything about herself either.
Penrys has her own problems, and she doesn’t have any place in this conflict. But they need her, whether they realize it or not. And so she’s determined to try and lend a hand, if she can. Whatever it takes.
And once she discovers there’s another chained adept, even stronger than she is, she’s hooked. Friend or foe, she has questions for him — oh, yes, she does.
All she wants is a firm foundation for the rest of her life, with a side helping of retribution, and if she has to fix things along the way, well, so be it.
The Chained Adept is the first book of the series.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Phoenix in the Machine
Dreams come true in cyberspace — but so do nightmares.
Roger remembers dying in a fire on the launchpad. He’s reconciled it with being alive again. However, being an infomorph in a simulated environment has been a difficult adjustment. Toni tells him he went mad the first time he awoke, and she had to crash the computer.
Now he helps her playtest the games her employer designs. But cyberspace outside Toni’s local area network is a dangerous place. A disastrous experiment in Bangladesh left the world in a moral panic about AI and machine consciousness.
When a careless connection betrays him to those who cannot distinguish between an AI and a post-biological human being, he and Toni must flee. Their cross-country journey will either destroy him or deliver him the spaceflight he’s awaited for a century.
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: desert
According To Hoyt 
She tilted her head to one side. “Didn’t you say your family house had been left all but a desert, Karlos, so you had to return? Your family ghosts may aid us.”
“It would be more suitable,” said Karlos, dryly, “if Ciara’s did. It is a concern of the kingdom.”
LikeLike
Ain’t gonna soldier no more – time to desert!
Whaddayamean, there’s snow …
LikeLike
The fifth chair stood empty, leaving the table’s complement unfilled. A landed aristocrat turned to the alien diplomat. “Why would she desert us before dessert?”
“To send a message, my good man, that shall save far more than her waistline. Time’s sands wait for no human. Shall we eat cake?”
LikeLike
The corporal gave him a pitying look. “Desertion is never a smart move, but trying to desert before dessert in the middle of a desert is extra stupid.”
[Locking down the hatch on the Carp-proof bunker] :-P
LikeLike
“Oh dear, I truly hope there’s an alternative exit”, he said as the crew finished the cofferdam and the garum tanker delivered 2000 gallons of sauce for the carpload in the next truck. :) :)
LikeLike
Nice set of promos as always!
One look at the desert outside the capsule and Harris sighed. “Missed the landing by a ‘bit’, my ass. This sure as hell isn’t water.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
“What kind of vacation spot is a desert island? A desert is a place with no water.”
“Ah, but the older definition of “desert island” is an island with no people living on it. Right now, I’m tired of people except for you.”
LikeLike
Knew this bunch would go for it…
“And don’t come back!” the pilot growled, firing off a rocket at the fleeing rabble for good measure.
“Are you sure you want to end the assault here, Chosen of the Carnelian?” a man asked, bringing his mech up alongside one that resembled a powerfully built minotaur colored a shade of red that matched its nickname, Carnelian Avalanche.
“The infidels crossed the border, Çavuş Avcı,” the other pilot responded with a shrug. “Has His Majesty given orders to pursue them all the way into Pasargadae? Or perhaps King Esmail has given the all clear for us to deal with this problem in his territories?”
“Neither that I am aware of, Excellency.” the NCO admitted.
“Then we are done here,” the other man said, turning his mech around. “If the desert doesn’t kill the infidels the Pasargadae forces will. And don’t even start with your whining, Boğa. These rabble are unworthy of us and you know it.”
“Any ‘whining’ as you call it would be because of the quality of our foes, Alparslan, not us being done with them.” a mechanical voice retorted.
“Heh. So it would be.” Alparslan Burakgazi conceded with a chuckle. “Let’s hurry back to camp. I need to go over the results of that rocket launcher.”
“You’d damn well better,” the mech responded. “Those shots were underwhelming.”
Alparslan and his mech, Elnath of the Immortal Six, bickered and bantered all the way back to camp. It was a relief when be brought the Carnelian Avalanche back to the engineering station and dismounted, running a hand through his sweat-soaked, flyaway raven hair. He was looking forward to getting back to his blueprints so he could figure out why that rocket launcher he designed had underperformed yet it was not to be. None other than Ejder Kartal, a Boluk-bashi of the Janissaries, approached him flanked by his subordinates.
Alparslan quickly bit back the vile curse he wanted to spit and saluted him with what he hoped was a respectful facial expression. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Boluk-bashi?”
“His Majesty has new orders for you and I believe both you and His Excellency Elnath will be pleased with them.” the captain said, his expression polite.
“This ought to be good,” Elnath rumbled, a sneer in his mechanical voice. “After all, His Majesty wouldn’t make you his errand boy just to tell us about a bigger horde of unwashed peasants, would he Kartal?”
“It is indeed worthy of your time, Excellency,” the Janissary said, looking up at the massive mech. Alparslan bit back his amusement; Elnath never had been afraid to say what needed to be said when it came to the Sultan’s admittedly sharp-toothed lapdogs. “We received word from Her Majesty Lysandra a few days ago requesting our assistance. She faces down the combined forces of Baldraz, Wenlock, and Loire and they have indeed dispatched all three of their Immortals.”
“All three?!” Alparslan exclaimed, unable to hide his shock. “Who finally woke Sadalmelik up?!”
“None other than Alphonse Faucher, the knight who disgraced himself by serving as the late King Philippe’s assassin.” Kartal clarified, unruffled by the Carnelian Avalanche and his Chosen’s exclamations.
Elnath’s response was a resounding, sinister laugh “Indeed, Janissary. That actually sounds like a good fight. All the better if I can beat the Amethyst Priss to death with her own limbs.”
“I take it His Majesty wants us to depart for Arev ASAP?” Alparslan asked, unable to keep a wicked grin off his face.
“Of course. We will accompany you to the front,” Kartal replied. “Let us know when you are ready but do not waste time.”
“Of course not,” Alparslan said, his grin turning positively feral. “We wouldn’t miss this for all the pleasures in Paradise.”
LikeLike
“Say, Happy Mother’s day to Mother Nature or you get a barren dessert” Prince Rudolph said.
“You mean desert my prince” Visor Grimes corrected him.
“Oh, that too, you don’t bless her she’ll blight every tree and no cherries for pie” Prince Rudolph replied.
Grimes sighed, the prince might make king, if he stopped eating for a month or two, all he was going to make it to now was a heart attack.
LikeLike
“It’s cheap, and Susan will love it. There’s a pool, a Jacuzzi with hot water from the springs, a shuffleboard court…”
“It’s July! The weather report says it’s over a hundred degrees in Desert Hot Springs,” June protested to her husband.
Tom shrugged. “It’s a dry heat. And you said you were running out of ideas to keep Susan busy over summer vacation, so I thought we’d give it a try. George bought it as an investment, and I didn’t feel comfortable saying no to his offer – he’s the senior partner in my firm, and he’s giving us a big discount. He says the motel isn’t very busy right now.”
“I wonder why,” June grumbled, but since the matter seemed to be settled she went ahead and packed.
The trip turned out to exceed June’s expectations. Susan happily played shuffleboard with her father, swam in the pool with her mother, and read her books in the air-conditioned room. The motel’s restaurant served steak and baked potatoes, which pleased the entire family, and June had to admit that the getaway had made a nice change from their routine. Most important, Tom looked more relaxed than he had in a while. She pointed this out to him during a late-night swim, after she had put their daughter to bed.
“I’m glad you’re getting a nice rest. You said things at work were busy?”
“Really bad. It usually slows down in summer, but not this year. That lawsuit against the country club doesn’t seem to be going in our favor. We can’t seem to find any new evidence that it was sabotage, and the owners aren’t being straight with us. I’m starting to think this whole mess was orchestrated as revenge.” He shot June a quick look. “This is all confidential, and please don’t get any ideas about investigating. If word gets out the firm could be in big trouble.”
LikeLike
The holographic map showed the Local Group of stars, all of the systems within fifty lightyears of Earth in a flattened format, only showing the stars and the D-link levels between them. “This is classified, Top Secret with SAP and SCI flags,” Admiral Malone said, her fingers flying across the keyboard to show relative national groupings in false color. “Japanese colonies here,” and a long streak of green with small bubbles appeared, “followed by ours,” two large bubbles of blue that were between the green streak, “various other powers,” small lines and bubbles of yellow, pink, and white, “and finally the Chinese colony efforts.” An oddly…squeezed if large lobe opposite of the US and Japanese colony lines showed up.
“We’ve been wondering why the Central Committee not only started the war with Japan, but also did it in a way that the United States would have to either stand aside or ally with Japan,” she continued and sighed. “The earliest theory was that the PRC decided that taking colonies for their people was cheaper and easier than establishing new ones. Which doesn’t make sense, especially considering how the war was going. The PRC Space Forces were willing to accept major losses for attritional damage on our fleets, especially if they could destroy space yards and our logistic nodes.
“But, two months ago, we found out that it does make sense,” and her fingers tapped on the keyboard and a flashing blue line wrapped around the PRC territory. “We sent two exploration ships, and they looped around PRC territory and came back. All the worlds they found there? Blasted and dead, even if the worlds could be inhabited…well, Mars would be cheaper to terraform than most of them from what we’ve seen.” Martian terraforming was one of the great economic catastrophes when the D-drive had been developed, turning a thousand-year glory project into an instant fiscal black hole the moment the first ship found a fully habitable world only two jumps on the Α-level drive alone.
“We think that the Local Group is…well, blessed to be a habitable oasis in the middle of an interstellar desert, and the PRC hit the edge of the oasis first. There isn’t anywhere for them to go, not economically,” Admiral Malone continued. “And that explains why they’ve been pushing so hard, especially for the Japanese worlds and the Sirus worlds. They want to complete as much of an arc of colony worlds as possible and expand in that direction. If they have the only ships and logistic capabilities to take over, the colonies have to accept Chinese dominion or die, and be taken by Chinese forces.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
On the floor lay a man in Turkish uniform — or what was left of him. At a distance the body had appeared altogether intact, but as we approached to make a more thorough examination, we realized it was in fact a hollow shell, like a butterfly preserved on a collector’s pin.
Oddly enough it was Blake, our tough guy, who ran retching from that discovery. And Miss Sanders, our nurse, was the one who knelt beside the corpse to make a closer examination.
“Without knowing what reduced him to this state, I’m hesitant to do anything that involves direct contact with his remains.”
She used a long implement to turn the body over to reveal the face. Although the eyes were open holes into the cavity of the man’s head, the features were surprisingly well preserved, sufficient to recognize him: the commandant of the infamous castle that had served as a sort of combination prison camp and slave pen. When Yates’ clockwork falcons had taken it, he’d escaped by a ruse, and
“Looks like he finally got his just desserts.”
LikeLike
It’s not easy to write something that induces both curiosity and shudders. This qualifies for sure!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nomination time
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/22816293-june-2024
LikeLike
The girl slashed the last chains. The other girl lay without stirring, and the first one went to pick her up.
The three boys ran toward her, and Marcus followed, with the second girl.
“She will make a desert and call it peace,” said the first girl to the third.
LikeLike
Dark eyes regarded me steadily, missing nothing. Obviously, and still.
“So, what would you say the word ‘desert’ means to you, Ambassador?”
It took yet another slight effort of will for me not to turn around and look for whoever he was talking to; even with someone by my side who’d grown up as one of the natives of these Daughter Worlds, it was very odd indeed to think of myself as one (even slightly) representing Old Mother Earth. (But, Things had Happened to me. And, around me. And… still-yet were.)
I looked out the open end of the tent, at a near Mars-scape of rocks and sand between ’em, more of the second than the first; all under a crisply and uncompromisingly blue sky. Then back down, at the little table between him on the ‘front’ side and me and Inga together on the ‘back’ side.
With its freight of walnuts, olives (big black luscious ones), and dates. Soup-bowls-ful of ’em, all of those and others I did not know for sure.
And a pitcher and glasses of water-and-ice. Which did not, of course, run dewy-damp outside with condensation here like back home.
“A challenging place, demanding and sometimes harsh or fatal to those not wise in its ways. Full of creatures inclined to stealth or claws or even poison. Yet sometimes also a rich and bountiful place, to those who are willing to make its acquaintance and respect its nature and ways.” Having said all that, I was almost surprised at myself; but I’d been (once again as so many times) swept up in the flow of inner-knowing. (“True wisdom is right action” as the Buddhists supposedly say, and so on.)
That inner guidance which had carried me from Los Angeles through Midgard and Muspellheim-Niflheim, and that eternal-daytime world of the servants and agents of the Gate Weavers themselves… now on through to here. (No matter their Gates had always carried my body; that guidance also had led me, and most importantly kept my mind present with me as I’d gone.)
And almost as if to punctuate that last bit I’d said, though without any contrivance, I snared one of the plump dates. “Wow, that’s good. Haven’t had any of these in a very long time.” (Always been a merry kitchen-thief of all such things, ever since I was a little girl.)
He looked at me, still steadily under black brows; picked up a date for himself as if in approval. “So many, in your place, would’ve said, a bad place, an empty or worthless wasteland. It’s almost always translated by your English word ‘desert’ — and yet in ‘Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem apellant’ the word ‘solitudinem’ basically means a place where one is by oneself, a lonely people-emptiness, and only next a waste land or desert. And yet to us, ours, challenging as it truly is sometimes, is not empty. So we would not say, ‘Where we have made a desert, calling it peace.'”
And he smiled, almost self-deprecatingly, almost like a bunch of my own family gathered around our kitchen just before dinner was ready, might. “Of course I am hardly a scholar of Latin, in any of its many and various forms, ancient or current. It is such an interesting tendency, though.”
“You call me by a title I’m still a bit doubtful I merit, yet I know not what to call you further, my host, at all.” (How was I so formal? Yet it came to me like instinct, like calm sure-footedness. Like guidance, maybe almost like Necessity, in the full old Greek sense.)
“You may call me Tariq ibn-Fadlan, though that is not my name.” His eyes were, it seemed, laughing; but not unkindly or dismissively or at me.
“And you may call me Emma or Miss Lancaster, though those are indeed parts of my right name.”
“And so, Emma if I may be so bold, what does the name I gave mean to you, say to you? If indeed it says anything, beyond its self-defining sound.”
“Well, if I’m to be completely direct, the ibn-Fadlan part is either quite a remarkable coincidence, or you’re being something of a trader observing the interesting foreigners, as ibn Fadlan did among the Viking-age Norse. Almost as if you’re now being a ‘speaker to barbarians’ — to borrow from a recent set of books from my own Earthly background.
“And as for that first name, since I’m ignorant of its original meaning, I must confess I can only think of that recent neo-Goebbels of warlord-ruled Iraq, Tariq Aziz — which surely ought have nothing to do with us here.”
And I smiled, to carry farther away any implied taint of association.
“Well, the first is much what I’d meant to imply. And the second is surely a little true, though more by caution than prevarication; we are not such a people as to open up fully to anyone at first. But the name Tariq does have a meaning, as you said. The one who knocks at the door; or the night visitor, the one who comes calling to stay and enjoy company for a while rather than be quickly in and out in the challenging heat of the day.” And he ate an English walnut, chewing it meditatively or so it seemed to me.
“And so the other meanings; one who travels under the bright stars, even those bright sun-points themselves. Perhaps even ‘morning star’ in the very old sense of Lady Inanna-ud.” Licked his two fingertips, politely.
“But were you yourself of Portuguese origin, for example, I would likely have given you quite another name — Tariq ibn-Ziyad was the conquistador who subdued Iberia for the Moors, so rather undiplomatic to hand you such a handle for a host, at least on so short an acquaintance.” Smiled at me.
“And you did say that Tariq ibn-Fadlan is not your name; but did not say by it that either Tariq or ibn Fadlan was necessarily wrong.”
“On the other hand, your given name, Emma, is said to signify ‘universal’ or ‘whole in herself’ or so it is commonly written. Couple that with the French and Frankish meanings of your middle name, and you, my remarkable guest, reveal yourself as a ‘universal famous warrioress’ — which might or might not be true in any superficial sense, but is nevertheless rather something of a recommendation to all the perceptive wise.” And he paused.
“Along with everything you have seen and survived. Do you understand, of all the people… taken, by the Kingly Norse in their history-turning raid on Old Earth, you are the only one of you all available for anyone to talk to? The Free Norse, the faction of your companion Inga Ragnarsdottir here, say that most of those — having grown up as ignorant of all the Daughter Worlds as (almost) everyone else on Old Earth — are yet simply not steady enough in their sense-of-reality to talk sensibly; and most of us out here believe them in that. And the Miinarii who keep the Gates have embargoed Old Earth for some unknowable time. So you, Miss Lancaster, are the very nearest thing we’ll have to an ambassadoress, for some likely-long while.”
What I wanted to do was squeak, “Huh? What?? Me?!?”
What I said instead was, “That’s really remarkable news, I hadn’t heard it.”
“So perhaps soon sometime you’d like to come visit us, me, by night. Come knock at our figurative door when our long, 23-hour night as you’d reckon it, is just getting started. To be a tariq, under our lovely-bright stars.
“And I do promise you will, then and now, be treated with respect. We are most of us among the Faithful, who believe there is no God but The God and that Mohammed is His Prophet. Yet the Prophet in Medina and the Prophet in Mecca do not always see eye to eye, even on the sacred page; so we’ve had recourse to the Prophetess Noor of Jiddah, our Jiddah not Old Earth’s, to set all in a right (so we’d say) perspective. Women here are different and not less, and are treated properly by right. So believe we most, so must do we all.” And there was that warm smile she’d seen before, fleetingly.
“Noor means light, or radiance. And so blessedly has she been to us, for centuries on centuries here, down to now and onward.”
(My recent ‘morning’ story, at a rather-later point. Trying first-person telling here, which Emma seems to invite as she… grows.)
LikeLike
No particular inspiration hit me with this week’s keyword, sadly. If it had been “dessert,” I could probably have come up with half a dozen!
oh, Happy Belated Mother’s Day to Sarah and all the Mums out here!
LikeLiked by 1 person