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
FIRST LET’S GET THE INCESSANT AND INTRUSIVE SELF PROMOTION OUT OF THE WAY, SHALL WE?
FROM SARAH A. HOYT, FOR 99C: Odd Magics: Tales for the Lost
Odd Magics
This is a very strange collection of fairytales, recast for modern life. In it the prize isn’t always to the fairest, the
magic is rarely to the strongest.
But lonely introverts do find love, women who never gave it a thought find themselves at the center of romance.
Doing what’s right will see you to the happily ever after.
And sometimes you have to kiss an accountant to find your prince.
FROM SARAH A. HOYT, FOR 99C: A Few Good Men (Darkship Thieves Book 3)
Lucius Dante Maximillian Keeva was born a prince…
or so close to it as makes no difference. He is the son of one of the fifty Good Men who — between them — partition and rule all of the Earth.
But for the last fourteen years, he’s been imprisoned in a small cell, in what amounts to solitary confinement.
You can’t stay sane in solitary confinement that long, not even if someone supplies you with reading material.
When Luce escapes, he finds that his family is dead and people are trying to kill him. He doesn’t respond as a sane man would.
It is just as well.
Restoring a constitutional republic to a world gone mad, five hundred years after the fabled USA vanished from the face of the Earth is not a job for a sane man.
And Luce Keeva is just the madman for the job.
FROM SARAH A. HOYT, FOR 99C: Darkship Revenge (Darkship Thieves Book 5)
The World Can’t Be Made Safe….
But it doesn’t mean Athena Hera Sinistra isn’t ready to try. Flying back to Earth Orbit from her asteroid home, leaving behind unresolved questions and turmoil, Athena becomes a new mother in orbit.
As is perhaps fitting, her daughter is born during battle with an unknown foe.
A battle that ends with Kit – Athena’s husband – missing, and Athena’s ship damaged.
So Athena names her daughter Eris, and goes to war.
What follows is a non-stop fight by a very angry mother, who wishes to make the world(s) safe for her newborn daughter, and other children too.
When the adventure is over, it is just the start of another, where children will be rescued, old tyrants brought to justice, and freedom restored.
If it can be.
FROM D. A. BROCK, ON SALE FOR $1.99: Texas at the Coronation (Republic of Texas Navy Book 1)
For seventy years after a devastating war, the Republic of Texas kept to itself. But it would be rude not to attend the international naval review celebrating Britain’s new king, George VI. So with war clouds over Europe, Texas sends the elderly armored cruiser, San Antonio, and her new captain, Karl von Stahlberg.
While making new friends and meeting Texas’ ancient foe, can Karl and his men avoid sparking a war?
FROM D. A. BROCK, ON SALE FOR $1.99: The Lone Star, the Tricolor, and the Swastika: Republic of Texas Navy Book 2
Autumn, 1939…
The war that the Western nations have long dreaded has erupted in Europe. After the conquest of western Poland by Germany, the war on land settles into the so-called ‘Phony War’.
But the war at sea is anything but phony. Especially when the French Government accuses the Republic of Texas of providing aid to Germany. The tension escalates, and Hitler fans the flames for his own nefarious purposes.
After a devastating sneak attack, Commodore Karl von Stahlberg is thrust into command of the Texas battle fleet. Can he defend Texas against the enemy’s onslaught, or will Texas be defeated?
FROM D. A. BROCK, ON SALE FOR $1.99: Texas in the Med: Republic of Texas Navy – Book 3
September, 1940…
The Battle of Britain is at its height. Every day RAF and Allied fighters rise to meet the swarms of German planes seeking to bomb Britain into submission.
In the Mediterranean, the Royal Navy, badly overstretched by the loss of the French Navy, struggles against the powerful Italian Navy to keep that vital waterway open while supporting the besieged island fortress of Malta.
To aid their ally, the Republic of Texas is sending Vice Admiral Karl von Stahlberg and the Texas Naval Expeditionary Force. Can his small force of cruisers, destroyers, and two aircraft carriers stem the rising tide of Europe’s dictators as the tyrant Pétain works to break up the Allies?
FROM D. A. BROCK, ON SALE FOR $1.99: Tales of the Texas Navy: Volume 1
This mini-anthology contains two short stories in the ‘Republic of Texas Navy’ universe, revealing heretofore unknown facets of that world.
FROM HOLLY LEROY: Sudden End: A prequel to the Hostile Earth Series
Long before the events depicted in Hostile Earth, the end came. This is how it happened. Lisa Evans, sixteen, lives with her mom and dad in a cute little town, Rose Vista, California, It’s an idyllic life, except when you reside at the bottom of your high school’s social ladder. Picked on, laughed at, and embarrassed daily, it’s been rough for Lisa. But the next day things are going to change. She has an opportunity to take back her life. Then a catastrophe strikes. In the beginning, everyone thinks that it’s a simple power outage and everything will be back to normal in a week or two. Instead, the entire world has gone dark, cities have burned, and the jails have emptied. There is sickness, starvation and death everywhere, and each day that goes by, the population shrinks even further. Sudden End is a STANDALONE SHORT NOVEL (22000 words or 92 pages) prequel to Hostile Earth, post-apocalyptic series.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Ghosts of Christmases Past
These are troubled times. The Flannigan Administration’s hostility to clones has reached a boiling point, resulting in the Expulsions. All of NASA’s astronaut clones have been sent to lunar exile in Shepardsport.
Christmas is approaching, and Brenda Redmond is helping put on a musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol. But the three ghosts who visit Scrooge in the classic Charles Dickens story aren’t the only ghosts haunting the corridors of Shepardsport.
Even as Brenda is trying to get her young players ready, she must also track down the source of the strange visions that are coming unbidden to the settlement’s inhabitants.
A novelette of the Grissom Timeline.
FROM MARY CATELLI: Sorcery and Kings
Tales of wonder and magic.
A fire master must find a magical starter of fires.
A mysterious queen holds a ball in a city filled with magic.
Magic of roses and gold are needed to fight a dreadful war.
An oath keeps a ghost captive.
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: Minister
According To Hoyt 
“Arise and face the day, good brother!” carolled Torrin. “Our father himself has come to teach us! He’ll have Mother in to minister to you if you’re sick!”
Lelio froze. Mother would know at once if he feigned illness. But he preferred bigger boys with wooden swords to Father’s lessons.
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Yes, Minister.
(j/k)
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The longer Rog lived with the Alandales, the more he realized just how much difference the time between his and Ted’s birth had made. Ted had been raised as the son of a Congregationalist minister, just as their ur-brother had been. But by the time Rog came along, Appleton had given up on trying to recreate the upbringing of Bob Noyce, realizing that the world had changed too much, largely as the result of Noyce’s own innovations. Rog grew up the son of an accountant, and had started discovering information technology while still in grade school, looking over his father’s shoulder at spreadsheets full of financial information.
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C4C
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”So, fine, we ‘got’ him,” Clarence glared around the room, his brows furrowed after the preceding long argument. ”What, then, do we now do with Minister Pete over there?” He said, gesturing at the earphoned man in a dirty business suit, a cloth bag tied over his blindfolded head, manacled to a plastic chair, locked in a plexiglass box, it’s AC unit whirring away so he didn’t cook, and all of that sealed within a metal faraday cage in the corner of the abandoned subway station. At least the true believers had let the geeks in the group do their tech thing so they were not already being raided by the regime’s QRF.
”We make them pay!” declared Rebecca, shaking her fist dramatically, her red curls quivering with her fervent belief in The Cause. Clarence sighed. He knew she was going to be trouble when he first met her after he dropped in on this ghuforsaken planet and started recruiting. He should have trusted his special forces gut on her, but she had such solid connections for regime intel.
“Pay?” asked Pete, incredulously. “You mean ransom him back? Are you absolutely sure he didn’t see anything when we snatched him?”
”Besides,” said Clarence, “all of your fibers and hair and other traceable evidence is all over his clothes.”
”Then he has to vanish,” said Larry, the practical one. “Let them search and never find a trace of their Transport Minister. That will shake things up. Just melt him and dump the goo in the storm drains.”
Clarence was actually in favor of something along those lines but he held his peace. He was here to train these fine examples, so he had to let them work through things to learn. He could poke and ask questions and point out issues with their plans, but he was not setting himself up as some sort of oracular warlord – his job was to get them on their metaphorical feet, at least resistance-toddling, and then head out to another city, wash, rinse repeat, until this “People’s Republic” had too many problems at home to bother anyone else, especially Clarence’s real Republic back home.
”Look, I taught you analysis. Do the steps,” he reminded them, and sat back to see if his little revolutionaries could shakily stand up while not losing their collective diaper.
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Thank you very much for the promos, Sarah.
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Perhaps the knights would minister to his wants, and his wounds, when he got out the other side.
If he got out the other side.
He obeyed their directions to the letter, but if the forest would spare him for that, it was the first place where that was true.
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“Prime Minister Dubey,” Nakusa Dalit, Marquess of India, nodded to the current Prime Minister of India. “I apologize for requesting an early appointment, but Her Majesty has asked me to investigate some of the issues with India’s integration.”
The Prime Minister’s expression was a politician’s bland smile, Dalit knew, over a sea of resentment. She was everything a man of his rank hated to deal with-a woman with power of her own to deny him sexually, from the untouchable caste, “pretending” to be of higher caste by her accent and dress and choice of words, a “mouthpiece” of a “Western” ruler, and utterly unwilling to play by the standards of what the ruling class-or India in general-thought was “proper.” And with the power to enforce the Empress’ requirements of law and order by violence, if needed.
And very competently, as well. “Issues? What issues?” Dubey remarked blandly. “There have been accusations…,” and his face grew red in anger as Dalit cut him off with a gesture of her hand.
“Not accusations. Facts. Proof of corruption, despite the Thone’s direct instructions to deal with them,” she said, her hand raised in interruption. “Failures to begin enforcing Imperial laws and regulations, despite a great deal of time and resources to ensure that. We are still four years away from the formal integration of India into the Dawn Empire, but there have not been any efforts to begin integration. Indeed,” and she reached into a messenger’s bag over her shoulder, “we have proof that staff in your office have been playing shell games to hide issues of corruption.”
“Her Majesty does not,” Dubey snapped angrily, putting his palms against the table and staring to rise, “does not have the authority to investigate…”
“She does,” Dalit snapped over his anger, her voice flat and sharp as a knife. “And if you think I am dangerous and offensive, I am your best friend in these circumstances. If the Empress Theodora is sufficiently offended, or if something were to happen to me, or the issues are not resolved to her satisfaction-she will send in an Imperial Companion or a Magos Terminal to investigate. Backed up by a full Legion-perhaps two Legions-of the Imperial Army. And if you think you can convince the media or bleeding hearts liberals or perhaps Russia or China to defend you with soft power…the Empress is of the old blood. The sort of Empress that will not hesitate to crucify first and show mercy later. And she will only hesitate long enough to consider all of her options first.”
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“As you might have guessed, you’re here today, Mister Arneson, for me to offer you a portfolio with the new Government, as our new Minister of the Exterior.” Arkady Lermontov’s voice was deep and level, his look open and expansive.
“Surely I must have misunderstood, High Commissar, though the Minister of the Interior has been announced…” Vijhalmur Arneson was relieved to hear no stress or wavering in his own voice.
“Surely you did not, Mister Arneson, though of course the official release of the existence of the Ministry of the Exterior is due some weeks hence. Given your expertise, and if I might say excellence, in the orbital rocket programme of the Commissariat of Science and Technology, you’ll already’ve been at the center of some of its work. Some. Simply being named to this post entitles you to learn much of the rest…” He broke off, and scowled.
Actually scowled. Which was by all accounts very bad.
He got up, took off his military-style cap with all its gold braid and red accents, hung it up and followed it with his uniform-type coat. “I’d like you to indulge me in a little game, Mister Arneson, for a few minutes. Of negligible risk to either of us. Is that acceptable?” His voice, now, was near-merry.
“Of course, High Commissar.” It was a rote answer; and yet fully meant.
“It is called — the Truth. Nothing you or I say will or may be anything else.”
Vijhalmur Arneson easily managed a nod. More wouldn’t’ve been easy.
And Lermontov went to the inner office door, opened it, said “Attention to orders, Lieutenant Parker, and ask Miss von Neumann to join us soon.” He opened a drawer, retrieved a bottle and two small glasses, put them on the table with a wave of his hand.
“So, what do you think of our successes in space? Which are at once also our successes in worldwide-reach missile technology. Again, the Truth.”
“Achieving orbit is a major milestone, though our five-stage rockets are not very, let’s say, effective at putting much up there. Old Earth’s five miles a second versus our eight… it’s a far higher bar to clear. And it cannot get any better, here on New Palestine.” This planet was one of the ‘fat Earths’ with much more mass than Old Earth; no more surface gravity, due to its lower density, but still far harder to escape, or even to only circle.
“With chemical rockets, yes. And of course our ancient quintessence-based drive and energy technology doesn’t work any more, since The Day The Music Died and its shift in fundamental physics. Alas, Minster-designate.”
“It’s a matter of tuning, they tell me. Only the old tech worked through a tuning match with a few nuclei like yttrium, so it’s not as if we can just reach into the atoms and shift their resonances like re-tuning a violin.” There was a sort of sadness in Arneson’s voice; sad, and wistful.
Arkady Lermontov smiled, only smiled, over the rim of a glass he’d filled and half-raised in the meantime.
“So, High Commissar, bearing in mind our game: why me, and why even have a Ministry of the Exterior, again? Is it because the Long War was just won without our hardly ever firing a shot? The ‘Strategy of Technology’ as the old turn of the millennium book had it? And if so… given our rockets are doomed to be exponentially more costly in fuel and hardware than on Earth or some smaller globe, given how even with nuclear rockets our mass ratios must be huge…” There was a triple knock on the door, as loud as cannon shots in the intimate near-silence.
“Enter,” said Lermontov.
A youngish woman came in, sober civilian clothes nothing like the typical military-style “fashions” common to the whole People’s Alliance era. “May I present Free Scientist Erika von Neumann, no relation to the notorious Dawn Era polymath, who can enlighten you somewhat, Mister Arneson.”
He nodded to her, then — mindful of the Game — simply had to ask. “Free Scientist? As in, techno-condottieri?”
She made a face that almost, but did not quite, blush. “Immunity from any and all political and military-political gameplay is a huge benefit, brevet Minster. Even given some of the quasi-prostitutional overtones of bein’ a tech’un.” Her voice had a little German in it, and lot of uplands.
“Mister Arneson, here is one of the things you’d be dealing with, as a way to end-run the ‘tyranny of the rocket equation’ as they call it.” He laid a grayscale enlargement down, facing Arneson. “Have you ever heard of an old idea called Orion, or the Ulam Drive, or perhaps Thunderheart? This is only driven by chemical explosives, this model; but it took a hundred-ton test vehicle to the edge of space.” And gazed at it, even upside-down to him, for a brief but obviously very fond moment, then resumed, “Miss von Neumann, the summary.”
“Our Northbridge Sorrel thermonuclear test proved we can throw a fifty-ton drive plate far beyond the speed of sound. Of course it’s only in air, not in vacuum, but it did show the survivability. And there are other plans to continue the testing, later, off-world. It’s actually amazing, how it gets easier the bigger you make it, not harder the bigger…
“And for the initial lift, the new warm superconductors should allow us to rise from the ground using magnetic repulsion against a ground loop, then use the magnetic-trapping of the ionized fireball from a first explosion as a sort of balloon, refreshing the plasma as needed, until you’re high enough to simply start banging away and fly free.”
The sheer audacity of it almost literally took Halmi Arneson’s breath away from him for a moment. Almost like the Dawn Era, the dash and verve. “This will not and cannot come cheap,” he said, as if to the air.
Lermontov smiled. “For longer than you or I or anybody has been alive, the Long War has taken much of our resources. On a perpetual war footing since the Very Bad Day froze our grandfathers in their tracks and made them go back to whatever they could cobble together out of our dim, murky past.
“It isn’t only the economy that’ll have to change, it’s our politics too; and never mind how much that sounds like an anarcho-republican or even a devout Paleomerican. There are convincing arguments, from history without a scramble for survival. The People’s Alliance must change, or collapse, lest we create another eternal war. No, thank you so much; and that word comes straight down to us from both the Council of Peers and the Emperor of Soviets himself.”
Miss von Neumann had filled one glass and fetched and filled another, and now topped off the High Commissar’s. Then: “Long live freedom and devil take all ideology. Viva la libertad carajo!”
Yes, there were Paleomericans aplenty, up in the high valleys. And it also seemed some of them ended up as Free Scientists. Or perhaps, only perhaps, as High Commissars? Even harder to wrap your mind around that than ‘rocket propelled by repeating nuclear explosions’ — assuming you’d been a mere Major Project Director, instead of whatever these two were, truthfully.
Still, Halmi drank. Merrily. It tasted like high-country moonshine, to his very scant surprise.
“Tell him the best of the rest, Miss von Neumann. Yes, I mean that too.”
And she smiled. Oh, dear heavens above and now not so unreachable, did she smile like the fiery dawn on an innermost planet. “The Discontinuity did shift the coupling constant, the vacuum expectation value, whatever you call it, of the quintessence field — so yttrium metal does not conduct it, or act ferromagnetically, or whatever analogy you prefer. So, no go.
“But” — and there was that supernova smile again — “yttrium selenide, a compound not an element, does most of what yttrium metal used to do. We’ll have a long and rocky road back, after whole generations of neglecting or junking all our old magical and star-drive quintessence machines, but…”
By now she’d re-refilled three glasses. And raised one. “If I may be so bold, High Commissar, Minister?
“Ad astra per aspera. Et inter sidera, ibi libertas.”
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“…so here we have the Minister of Petrochemical Production, the Minister of Virological Research, the Minister of Economic Adjustments, the Minister of–” Jamal’s’ handler paused as he checked his notes. “–Ancient Musical Forms Reconstruction, and the Minister of the Interior for the New Southern Territories, Western March.”
The agent frowned. “Just…how many Ministries does the Royal Commonwealth of Pancatholica actually have? That seems…oddly specialized.”
“Oh, they have tons,” his briefer noted with a faint smile. “We’ve identified somewhat in excess of 1500 ‘Minister’ level positions simply in the civilian Ministries. The military hierarchy is proving harder to study but doesn’t seem any less overpopulated.”
Jamal MacDuffy frowned. “His Majesty’s government sounds overly complicated. With so many decision makers it must be a wonder anything gets done at all.”
“Ah, but that’s the neat part. Not a one of the Ministers does anything of consequence. It’s the permanent staff that actually gets anything done, including setting policy.” A short laugh indicated he found the matter richly humorous. “Not unlike many other governments, as it happens, if a more extreme example.”
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Rev. MacDougal sat with his head buried in his hands, the open squeeze bottle of Scotch whiskey on the desk of his tiny Starship berth in front of him. He had prepared himself to minister the Faith to the pagans of Doralus III as the Emperor commanded, but he had not anticipated the depth and extremity of their aboriginal beliefs.
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Some good ones in the promo today, thanks!
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Strope was in the room of the doors, which would determine his fate. He was acting on the will of Lord High Protector who was filling in for King Carolus I who was enjoying a leave of absence. Strope had thought His Protectorness to be a fairly reasonable person, but here he was having gotten in trouble with His Protectorness’ Actuality Minister. There was discussion in the kingdom on sex reform, and Strope had objected that such was akin to reforming gravity. He had directed the fine minister to fly off a building, and now look at his situation. He had to pick a door.
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