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 LAURA MONTGOMERY, GO AND GET IT. I READ IT AND LOVE YOU AND YOU NEED THIS IN YOUR LIFE: PLANTING LIFE: Shut the Kingdom
The road to Mars has to start somewhere. It might as well be central Virginia.
Jack Darien scorns his parents’ path. After the disaster at his father’s Mars settlement, the high school senior scraps both his lifelong interest in space exploration and his college plans. Even his rescue of a college student from assault doesn’t make him see his own future any differently.
Jack becomes obsessed, however, when one strange comment from the attacker draws him to unravel secrets at the former Superfund site that is now Webb University, the school where his returning father teaches and eco-restoration reigns. What starts for Jack as a distraction from thinking of his future turns into a dangerous journey that puts him, his mother, and sister at risk. As for his father, Jack decided long ago the man was on his own.
Jack’s determination to chart his future clear of his father’s failures hits a snag when he learns the school’s hidden mystery. Unfortunately, those determined to bring Webb down learn it, too, and ratchet up their own efforts toward Webb’s destruction.
Planting Life is an immersive young-adult science fiction adventure. If you like unearthing secrets, a dogged hero, and reckless courage under threat, you’ll love Laura Montgomery’s near future coming-of-age saga.
*I read this book. It kept me up all night. You need it. You do. – SAH*
BY SARAH A. HOYT, COMING OUT THIS TUESDAY! No Man’s Land: Volume 1 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)
Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.
On a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong. Catastrophically wrong.
Now technology indistinguishable from magic courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson, Envoy of the Star Empire—Skip to his friends— has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it all.
Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies, Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total destruction.
Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.
Volume 1
The Ambassador Corps has rules: you cannot know everything, don’t get horizontal with the natives, don’t make promises you can’t keep.
They’re a lot harder to follow when assassins are hunting you, your barbarian allies could kill you for the wrong word, and death lurks around every corner.
The unwritten rule? Never identify with the natives.
Skip’s already broken that one.
Now he’s racing against time to save his new friends from slavery—or worse—while dodging energy blasts and political intrigue. One crash-landed diplomat. A world of deadly secrets. And absolutely no backup.
Some rules are meant to be broken. Others will get you killed.
(Also, I have a new Self Made favorite song on this book: Skip Hayden’s No Man’s Land.)
E. L. LYONS: Austringer’s Wrath: Gifts of the Auldtree, Book Two
Sequel to Starlight Jewel
The Austringer has fallen! A new Austringer is risen!
Minalav is in pieces, needs are high but trust is low. After Axly’s plan placed her on the throne, she is faced with the displeasure of High and Low Birds, the Nameless, and the humans of the city.
In a bid to bring much needed supplies, Axly offers the one thing all nations covet: sprygan weapons. In the lands of Remorra, General Grimwalt is selected to represent his kingdom. Sent by his cousin, King Henry, who has more in mind than just the sprygan weapons, Grim must negotiate with a woman he doesn’t remember.
FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Quilted Circle Mysteries 2: : Eight More Suburban Scandals (The Detective Stories)
The Quilted Circle Mysteries 2: Eight More Suburban Secrets
A Cozy Mystery Collection Featuring the Quilted Circle Sleuths
The Quilted Circle is back — and suburbia will never be the same.
Five retired women from the northern suburbs of Philadelphia claim to meet for quilting, crafts, and community projects. In reality, they’re an unstoppable (and nosy) detective club whose “hobbies” keep unraveling local scandals. Whether it’s a sabotaged PTA bake sale or a dog-napping at the neighborhood park, these lifelong friends can’t resist pulling at loose threads until the truth comes out.
In this second collection of laugh-out-loud cozy mysteries, the Circle faces:
- A yard sale box hiding a fortune and a family secret.
- A poisoned PTA fudge tray that turns school politics deadly.
- A golden retriever ransom scheme with suspicious paw prints.
- A country club accident that looks far too tidy.
- A Halloween disappearance inside a haunted house.
- A cookbook contest scandal with recipes worth killing for.
- A parade float sabotage that puts one of their own in the spotlight.
- A stolen snow globe that draws the Circle into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse.
With wit, warmth, and more than a few well-timed casseroles, Vera, Dottie, June, Lois, and Marie prove that curiosity, friendship, and sharp observation skills never retire.
Fans of Agatha Christie’s village sleuths, Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club, or Rita Mae Brown’s Sneaky Pie mysteries will adore this second installment in The Quilted Circle Mysteries.
Quilting may keep their hands busy — but solving crimes keeps their minds sharp.
FROM ANDREW MILBOURNE: Flames of Retribution (A Bayonet Books Anthology Book 13)
Are you ready to face the fury of dragons that aren’t just beasts—they’re harbingers of vengeance? In “Flames of Retribution,” Bayonet Books unleashes 11 scorching tales of mythical monsters, ancient evils, and fiery showdowns. From bio-engineered horrors stalking primate troops in “The Ghost of Arriscado Basin” by Jon Michael Kelley, to a steamship crew battling an unseen terror in “Isle of Ash and Flame” by J. VanZile, and a knight’s desperate quest against legendary lizards in “Born of Blood and Flame” by J.T. Arralle—these stories blend fantasy, horror, and pulse-pounding action like never before!
Featuring gripping contributions from authors like Andrew Milbourne, Dean Stone, Matthew Olaranont, D.J. Swift, Eric J. Juneau, Gaetan Battaglia, A.B. Casadella, and Sarah Das Gupta. With an incendiary introduction by J.R. Handley exploring humanity’s eternal dance with dragons—from ancient lore to modern myths—this anthology pays homage to the ultimate predators that haunt our dreams.
Why settle for friendly fire-breathers when you can dive into tales of raw retribution? Perfect for fans of “How to Train Your Dragon” gone dark, Dungeons & Dragons epics, or classic monster hunts like Beowulf and St. George.
Don’t let the flames die out—order your copy today!
FROM JAMES YOUNG: Days That Never Were: An Alternate History Art Collection
This book contains 14 visual representations of alternative history scenes from the universes created by James Young, Slinger of Tales. Each piece not only depicts key events from his Usurper’s War and Arc of Ares’ series but also explains the background of how the artwork came to be. An additional purpose of this work is to give fans of fine military art another unique avenue to enjoy this medium. Dive into this book today to find days that never were…but could have easily been.
FROM MARK CHESTEEN: Great Moments In Beanery: (A Book For Victims Of Short Attention Span Disorder)
A collection of short humorous stories, quotes, headlines, and articles designed to make you laugh out loud. Straight humor, no politics or satirical derision of others disguised as humor. If you can read these stories without laughing, you might need a funny-bone implant.
FROM HOLLY CHISM: The Schrödinger Paradox: Entanglement
In the face of extinction, you do what you must, regardless of who stands in the way.
Tom Beadle only volunteered for NASA’s neighborhood watch program when his department said it would maybe help him get tenure.None of them counted on the Neighborhood Watch becoming a mortifying political liability when a malfunctioning probe accidently reveals an asteroid hiding behind the larger outer planets, setting off impact alarms– and politicians looking for blame. When their answer is to defund the Watch program and fire all involved, Tom’s only chance to save the earth is to lie through his teeth and try to deflect the asteroid under cover of harvesting rare not-of-this-earth elements. And even that may not work.
FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Cross-Time Kamaitachi (Timelines Universe Book 5)
I did not land here as a warrior, but a warrior I so soon became . . .
One moment, Dr. Yukiko Yamaguchi was in her high-tech singularity research lab in California, busily adjusting an electronically-leaky fitting playing hell with her instrument readings.
The next moment, she was falling through space, and landing hard in a wilderness area she would quickly discover was her family’s ancient stomping grounds in Japan – but with an apocalyptic twist.
A hundred years later, there would be legends of a great yōkai, a demon, whom some called a kamaitachi – a sort-of whirlwind, weasel-like creature with blades for claws, which catches up unwary humans and slices their skin. But this kamaitachi is no ordinary yōkai – rather, she is
The Cross-Time Kamaitachi
FROM BLAKE SMITH: The First Adventure of Sir Garamond de Crecy
Sir Garamond- Gerry, to his friends- has been knighted for less than a month, and he’s already found his first great quest: saving the beautiful and helpless Princess Alyssia of Ollandra from the dragon that is holding her in dreadful captivity. Or so he thinks…
A lighthearted short story.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Love in the Time of Campaigning
As Frank Correra brings his family to a lunar settlement to get them away from a worsening political situation on Earth, he reminisces about how he and his wife met.
Frank had always dreamed of the skies. As a clone of an astronaut who subsequently became a US Senator, Frank thought he had a clear path ahead of him. But when it comes time to apply for the Air Force Academy, it is an election year. His ur-brother can’t promise a nomination until he’s won another term, and this year promises a hard race to run. When the other side puts up an ugly attack ad, can Frank find a way to discredit it before it destroys his ur-brother’s chance of re-election, and with it Frank’s slot at an Academy appointment?
A short story of the Grissom timeline.
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: grubby
According To Hoyt 
The passengers flowed off, many of them grubby and streaming away from the school, others, more elegant, heading into it. Augustus kept his face schooled, but she could feel the tension in his arm.
Not to mention her own wait.
With the last other passenger leaving the platform, Florian emerged.
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They go in clean and come out grubby — that must be quite a school!
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They are leaving a train in the vicinity of a school
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Thank you for the shout-out, Sarah. I really appreciate it!
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“Your Cadet looks very grubby.”
“Yep, young Peter does but he got ambushed by a dozen Rogues, any one of which could have given him a good fight, but Peter managed to take them down. He just didn’t want to give up.”
“There’s that.”
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Cleaning the chimney is the grubbiest job I do around the house each year. Dragging that brush up and down the chimney a dozen times to break loose the creosote, then shovel and vacuum it up off the fireplace and hearth makes me look like an extra from Mary Poppins.
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Ack! I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but you’d think I’d have noticed that the National Novel Writing Month organization shut down in March this year. No more crutches. Guess I have to challenge myself instead.
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I did NaNoWriMo several times without ever signing up on their website. Other locations gave me places to talk and post progress.
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me too.
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Oh, really? Interesting… I canceled my account and sent them a strongly worded letter when they went politically stupid in 2016/17, and haven’t paid attention since. I wonder what their reason was. I’d guess that AI would play havoc with both the challenge and the creativity parts of their creative challenge, when literally anyone could turn in the 50k on day one without actually writing a single word of their own.
Just looked up some info, and the Wikipedia (ick) says, in “tell me without actually saying” that going woke and broke over AI is exactly what they did: In 2024, “the organization…deemed the use of AI to be acceptable and stated ‘the categorical condemnation of Artificial Intelligence has classist and ableist undertones’.” Financial sponsors bailed, donations (already low) cratered, published authors refused to associate with them…and there’s the end.
And the president of the board, who had been installed in 2024 and kicked off the final fiasco — a creature billing herself as “Black. Queer. Metacognitive. #2e. She/her.” — blamed the organization’s demise on “financial problems and vitriol in the community.”
So, yeah… Sad, because they were doing a really cool thing, but not much of a surprise in hindsight.
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When an organization uses the words “classist” and “ableist” there’s no hope for them.
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When they didn’t go back to in-person groups in 2021, and then started rolling hard left with the “privileging previously silenced voices” I bailed and didn’t go back.
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Grubby. Grubby, grubby, grubby-I could hear my mother’s voice as she inspected my life. She had aspired to elegance, poor woman, and what she got was me. Awkward, shy, loud, opinionated, obsessive-nearly every thing but elegant.
I slung my rifle over my shoulder and kept slogging down the dusty road.
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Gleaming polished aluminum, sparkling light-weight glass, the latest in high-efficiency gas burners and refrigeration, all mounted on a tricycle-gear wagon – this 21st Century chuck wagon was anything but grubby except when serving meals.
The entomologists had their own carrier for beetle larvae.
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Pulls lanyard attached to rope Carp away!
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Celeste had moved with me, walking backwards as I carried Sarah back to the truck, covering the ramp to the street with her zapper. Once I gently put her inside and closed the door Celeste hurried around to the passenger side, jumped into the back seat, climbed over to the front seat to grab her bag from the front footwell, then back to the back, pulling something out of it and waving it around over Sarah’s still form. I jumped in front and got us rolling as the gizmo in her hand made a soft whistling noise. “Oh, Sarah,” she said under her breath.
There was no traffic on the side street, or the slightly grubby alley I turned down next, carefully watching behind me, likely due to all the recent explosions and gunfire and space battle noises from the next block. I started to hear sirens converging from other parts of the city. Just as I turned onto a second back street another large blast shook the truck. “That will be the records room,” said Sarah softly from in back. I glanced in the mirror and saw Celeste pulling more things from her bag and doing stuff with it to Sarah, then the steering wheel buzzed remonstratively at me as the truck’s lanekeeping system noticed me drifting a bit, so I shifted my attention solely to my driving.
“Peer Sarah, you have some significant burns on this leg and shoulder, but this bleeding has me more concerned,” said Celeste from the back seat. “It appears a disrupter shot mostly missed you, so the nerve pain should be temporary. It does not appear you hit your head when you fell. I have set a brief pain block, and I am getting the bleeding stopped. I had to shut down your chameleon nans. Tony, don’t weird out when she looks different.”
Then her level tone changed to some real heat in her voice. “Now, what the grent are you doing out here on this backwater? Are you pursuing me?”
“Pursuing? Well, no, not the way you are thinking.” Sarah managed a weak chuckle, which shifted to a cough and a catch from the pain that caused. After a pause, she continued, her tone more formal. “High Peer Celeste Trevathan Freehaven Winter, I am first of your protection detail.” Then more quietly, “Though at this point I am possibly all of it…”
“My detail?” Celeste’s disbelief was obvious. “That’s drell. I don’t rate any detail. I am so far down the succession…” she stopped, then her voice went softer. “Sarah, what happened?”
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“In reality, the use of beetle larvae as a protein source was particularly inspired. They fried up very nicely in their own fat and added a delicate crunch to the plate.”
“Thank you. It comes from my background growing up on New Guinea where they’re considered a delicacy.”
“Unfortunately, we award you no points for their use as it made your plate appear grubby.”
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Cari emerged from the archaeological dig covered from head to foot in mud. She was smiling triumphantly; whatever it was she’d set out to find, she found. But then she spotted Max approaching. “Eek, don’t look!” she squealed. “I’m a grubby fright!”
Not to me, thought Max. Not to me.
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Cari waited at the sideline as Max limped off the pitch. His kit was beyond dirty: grass stains, mud, blood, the works – his teams colors were barely recognizable. “Ack, don’t get too close,” he laughed. “I’m filthy, and I probably stink, too!”
Not to me, thought Cari. Not to me.
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Nicely done; the symmetry of the pair hit me right in the feels.
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Glad it resonated with you, at least a little. Cari and Max are fun to write, and this week’s prompt made it pretty easy!
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OT but interesting…Vice was showing Ghostbusters tonight. It’s impressive how well it holds up.Largely, I suspect, because of the characters and story. Aside from the one-liners, what struck me was the presence of Catholic and Hasidic priests and rabbis contributing to the final confrontation with Gozer. They are there, blessing and praying and otherwise supporting the forces of, “science,” Suggesting both have roles fo play. Hard to see that happening now.
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It was a grubby business, digging through people’s digital “dirty laundry” by fair means and foul — but when you’re in a war for your very existence as a species, you don’t have time to worry about niceties. Catching a black-marketeer or worse, a spy, might well shift the course of a battle. Turn enough of those situations, and it may well make the difference between survival and extermination by a star-empire of fanatics who believe that only hive species should be intelligent.
However, I noticed that the ratlike Eemia were disproportionately over-represented in this line of work. They tended to be viewed as cowards and untrustworthy by a lot of the species of the Chongu Empire, and I’d marked it up to their skittering gait and quickness to move to cover when a threat approached. Unsurprising that few of them should be found on the front lines — but they certainly were proving their courage in various forms of undercover work, infiltrating organizations that had been compromised by enemy agents. More than a few of them never came back, and their families received medals that note only that the citation is classified.
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Hendrick burst out of the undergrowth, trailing torn ferns and shedding leaves, grubby from the mud but grinning broadly as he walked past her toward the wildling.
The wildling snorted and charged, ready to gore. Hendrick smashed his fist into its face, drawing blood and dropping it where it stood.
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“This is way beyond grubby, Vince.” Selena held a soiled garment daintily between thumb and forefinger as if it could contaminate her through level 3 power armor. Level 3 is full nuke-chem-bio rated, after all.
“What I said,” Vince replied over the comm link, “was that pirate transports are some of the grubbiest ships out there.” He nudged a pile of empty ration packets and drink pouches on the floor. A Gurjo rat scampered from under the pile and squeezed into the air cycler vent. Vince laughed when Selena squealed predictably.
Selena’s voice was ice cold over the link. “I am going to space you for putting me on this detail. You know I hate rats. And I hate you!”
Vince laughed again, imagining the pout on his sister’s face. “You’ll love me again when you get your split of the bounty on this tub, enough to forget the rats and the dirty underwear in your hand. Which reminds me: full decon procedures for you when we get back.”
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Lieutenant Salinas didn’t sigh but walked carefully through the ship’s hallways. Every other tramp he had been on in the last six months of inspections started out at grubby and got worse from there. One was so bad that he had to requisition another set of duty boots after stepping in something that got worse the longer it festered on the material. Trash was randomly strewn in places, the air vents clearly hadn’t been cleaned in months, and the less said about the crew’s general hygiene, the better. And the developing headache from what could only be a far too high carbon dioxide count wasn’t helping, either.
“PO,” he said softly as the rest of the inspection team carefully moved things around to look for contraband, “did you check the life support logs?”
“Running tight, sir,” PO Hendricks nodded. “Nothing to require us to condemn and impound, but we would have to send nearby ports notice that the Captain needs to check and fix his systems.”
Salinas was about to shake his head, then stopped as the pain got a little worse. “Check again. Look for something to pull and test, physically. Something is going on here, I just don’t know what.” He paused, then stepped a little closer. “And call the Marines on, as well,” he ordered softly. “I want our teams backed up by at least two Marines.”
Hendricks’ eyes narrowed. “Something wrong, sir?”
“I can’t put my finger on it,” Salinas muttered. “I wish I could, PO, but this ship’s conditions are an invitation to mutiny or desertion at any port that sees more than one ship a month. But the crew books are all long-term crew members. Only reason why I can think things are bad here is to get us off as quickly as possible.”
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With both of them in view, she did not need to move. She needed only to listen. And hope they spoke of things she needed to know, in enough detail.
“Enough of this,” said Marcella. “Honor can be dealt with. What else is there?”
“Trouble in the south. He’s stirred up by all the healing. Most of them think it’s even enough, but he’s angry about grubby little brats causing trouble with his spells. And there will be trouble once she is gone. The hospitals act as if they have some right to her powers.”
“Won’t Elfriede get another one?”
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Aside: Justice Kavanaugh is firing on all cylinders in his concurrence that just dropped Monday to the Supremes staying the ICE reasons-for-questioning constraints order in LA:
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(Part 1/2)
There’s a reason they used to call this ‘stoop labor’ and it’s not hardly gone out of style. James’ mind kept up a sort of running commentary, as he plied the hoe against the weeds and mixed the soil up into a smooth fill to put around the radishes and young tomatoes. Every once in a while, he’d need to stand up again for a few moments; one of the many parts of this work was judging when and how often and long to do it for best balance of efficiency, lost time vs. slowdown from a stiff back.
Not exactly quite what he’d envisioned, back among the “Green Hills of Earth” (which for him there-and-then had been northwest Tennessee), once he’d finally well-and-truly settled on going out and going up. He felt, well, grubby, from grubbing in this dirt, one more too-long half hour. (Never mind how well he knew this dirt, all rich and gray-black with carefully conserved organic matter, was a minor miracle in its own self.)
Far into the 21st century, and we’re still doggedly hoeing crops. What was it they’d said, or one of ’em had, back in that old flat-movie?
“‘Once we looked up and wondered about our place in the stars; now we look down and worry about our place in the dirt.'” Or something like that. He’d been so ‘into the flow’ of it he’d quite simply not noticed he’d spoken.
Low, and soft, never meant for anybody else to hear. But loud enough…
“James D. Ellicott, are you even listening to yourself? Or just letting your mouth run-on wild, on purely unsupervised robo-pilot?” Annette’s voice came softly and easily and conversationally, not accusingly or hectoringly.
For one big instance, she’d said D not Dark — his middle name was simply his mother’s maiden name, and one not at all uncommon among the Darks and Moons and Scarces and especially Carters, back in south Virgina where his parents had come from (and where he’d secretly dared to imagine fictional John would’ve come from, way back in his day, somewhere around Chatham or Gretna in the heart of Uranium Country). But out in the wider world? He’d had people ask him if that was an Indian name; no, doof, not either kind.
But it wasn’t exactly approval in her gray eyes, even though that specific tone reminded him more than a bit of home. She stopped and stood up tall, herself, and pointed upwards with one slightly-dusty finger. “Look up all the way, remind yourself what you see. It’s not exactly ‘seeking a new home for humanity away from a dying Earth’ you’ll find all around us. Though I do admit it’s a little tough to see the stars, even at night in the right direction, from where we stand.” Nights were seldom or never properly or fully dark, here, for fundamental and inescapable reasons…
With something like a start, James remembered he was inside a scene very like parts of the end of that same movie… only bigger. Maybe it still wasn’t a full-sized Island Three, like in those old (only somewhat naive) books; but you could see the sun almost at the top of the sky, shining down on you through enough miles of air it made your sky genuinely blue. And maybe there were none of those captivating endless ring-lakes so many of the old paintings showed (nobody had twigged to the Rayleigh-Taylor-O’Neill instability, yet), running right around the habitat cylinder or else (as possible here) far along it; but there was open water in visible plenty enough, boiled out of the same raw asteroidal materials that had made up almost everything around him.
“I guess I was more than a little bit back home, hoeing in the garden with everybody else, in weather that felt a lot like this.” It wasn’t quite hot enough for the sweat to stick every bit of random flying dust to your skin like in the summer hills (that lowlanders called mountains, and more than a few of their people did too), but it wasn’t too far off it. (And there James’ mind went to temperature control, to the big radiators that formed much of the very outside of the opaque ‘land area’ of an O’Neill colony.)
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(Part 2/2)
Annette smiled, her way, like a slow shy Earthly dawn. He wasn’t really at all sweet on her, far less courting; but a man could do much much worse. “I remind you what we’re really doing, besides de-weeding (no poisons in it) one more rooftop garden — with its productivity better than the old high care American Victory Gardens, or the old keep-what-you-grow Soviet backyard plots, that put all their stupid commie-snot collective farms to a shame never admitted.
“We’re hoe-weeding an eating garden in full view of the cameras, so that two people who know what they’re doing can be motion-studied later, and analyzed, so that for a next step a robo-op can stand here and supervise a bunch of ‘bots as they try out the weights ‘n’ ware that run them on the same task — with insights and ‘training’ by you and me. Maybe modelling for them more, with her motion-capture exo-gear, as she does that herself; but all of it based on what you and I do now, never mind if we never meet her once.
“An ecologist and agricultural-systems designer, which is to say a space farmer; and someone who’s been at this himself, right in the middle of a genuine, honed, no-reason-to-keep-anything-that-won’t work evolved tradition that some clever people” — and there was her very rare, but likewise usually most extremely sharp, criticism cutting like a diamond-coated knife — “haven’t the simple basic common sense to see or value.” And she looked at him if anything even more directly, intensely.
“Now, do you see anything different, to that here, James Dark Ellicott?” That could’ve been any of his cousins, back home; maybe, that thing they talked about, of ‘cultural diffusion and integration’ among all the very different people who came Up Here to stay, was a real thing after all.
And he smiled, like he was in the middle of the best times back home, the times that he still missed more deeply and fiercely than he’d let on even to himself. (Or maybe, especially to himself.)
“No, Annette Joyce Ford, I do not see any such. And I’d be thanking you for reminding me to look at what’s plain in front of my own eyes.”
And she smiled, that way, again. “So let’s finish this in good time, and as I’ve said that means very much not in any kind of a rush. Then if you’re agreeable, you might help me with a little show-and-tell for a gaggle of newbies — they need to get their first notion of agricultural ecology, sky-hab style; and you can pour some grubs and Japanese beetles in among a half-dozen chickens for me, if you please, for one thing.”
He chuckled. “Hen candy, that one ought to be fun to watch. The urbonewbs as much as the hens at their treat, of course.”
“Of course. But let’s get back to the work, the cameras still don’t care one bit but this rooftop won’t weed itself.”
James smiled, in a way he still had no idea how richly charming. “I have to suppose, if ever it did, that would be way too easy on us for any of our own rightful good, surely and by half.”
They bent again to their work, together, under the warm mirrored sunlight.
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