It’s All Out!

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

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.

No Man’s Land: Volume 2 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)

Volume 2

Skip thought he’d figured out the rules of survival on Elly.

He was wrong.

Now his potential allies from the Star Empire are turning up dead, one by one. Spies and saboteurs have infiltrated every level of Ellyan society, and Skip is running out of people he can trust.

As he races to save the king and archmagician—his only remaining allies—disturbing secrets about Elly’s culture emerge alongside buried truths about his own family’s past. One moment he’s explaining the bewildering concept of binary gender to confused Ellyans, the next he’s making impossible choices that could strand him on this world forever.

His last gambit is reckless. The odds of success are slim. And failure means losing everything—his mission, his allies, his only way home.

But some fights are worth the risk, even when the deck is stacked against you.

Sometimes the most dangerous enemy is the one you never see coming.

No Man’s Land: Volume 3 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)

Volume 3
Skip’s idea of crisis management?
Stress baking. While he’s kneading away his anxiety, Eerlen Troz is fighting for his life—and his unborn child’s—in an ancient and familiar battle.
When saving Eerlen’s life requires forging an unexpected blood brotherhood, it creates something neither person anticipated: a memory bond between two worlds.
Through shared consciousness, they uncover a conspiracy that threatens not just Elly, but the entire Star Empire.
The plot runs deeper than anyone imagined. Lives, fortunes, and freedom itself hang in the balance. But exposing the truth means surviving long enough to tell it—and their enemies have other plans. Two minds. One mission. A universe-spanning conspiracy that someone will kill to protect.
When the fate of worlds rests on an unlikely brotherhood forged in blood and baked goods.

(Excuse me while I run around madly for a few minutes with my head on fire. Okay, done now.)

For those on the ledge, not sure if they should stay or they should go, try Charlie Martin’s Review:

Sarah Hoyt’s New Book: ‘No Man’s Land’ — It’s Not What You Think.

I don’t know if there will be another post today. No, let me explain: Yes, I know I’m super late with feeding my poor subscribers, but I HOPE to have an earc of Witch’s daughter by the end of the month, so it can come out next month. HOPEFULLY.

The fly in that ointment is that my thyroid is out of whack again. Which means my energy is very limited. And I’m helping younger DIL with a home reno thing, which…. well, you know?

Anyway, if I have energy after writing a couple of chapters and the two or three hours of schleping and fixing and organizing, I’ll do a post. if I don’t however, be aware I’m probably alive just exhausted.

So to amuse you, I’m going to link my own favorite clanker songs, starting with Home of the Spacer, because it’s played in the first chapter of the first book. (At Skip’s father’s funeral.) I have incidentally managed a bagpipe version, I’m just not happy with it yet. So still tinkering.

Then there’s the Strains of Earth Anthem of the Interplanetary Diplomatic service which Skip joins and which is played at his funeral. (Ah. If you haven’t read volume 2 it’s your problem!)

Then there is this lullaby, which plays a pivotal part in the emotional punch of volume 3.

Erradi the Cold

And, tying in with Charlie’s review above:

And for a friend who likes this one best of all:

There are other clanker songs in the works, but today midje was exceptionally stupid on videos, and I only had a minute or two here and there, while helping with the reno, so it didn’t happen. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

(I didn’t forget what an awful anniversary today is, though I confess I did when booking book release, but that’s because I was looking at the calendar and counting two weeks and two weeks and two weeks, instead of looking at the actual date.
That’s why there will PROBABLY be a post, but it depends on energy and day cooperating. I think it was the first of several milestones that let us know this is not a game and it’s time to wake up. Yes, I know whence I speak. You could say it was one of a series starting with nine eleven, but if you go there, you will never finish because it starts further back. I think 10/7 was the bucket of cold water that woke up a lot of people sleep walking for 25 years or more. Not that it was a good thing, mind. But it was a full measure of our danger. Anyway, more tomorrow if I have the spoons.)

41 thoughts on “It’s All Out!”

  1. Woke up at 4, checked the date, then went straight to the Kindle app. I am going to be so sad when I finish the book. But then I’ll go back to book one, because it took me a bit to track the names and family relationships, so I can re-read with better understanding while I wait for the short stories, sequels, and inevitable fanfic.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Well, that didn’t take long! Woo hoo.

        Congrats to you Sara. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving author … as in deserving of lots of readers!

        Liked by 1 person

  2. If there’s anyone here who hasn’t read it, it’s very, very … very good. But we’ve all read it, haven’t we?

    Sarah, I’m beginning to suspect your body has a dangerously low tolerance for government (by) bureaucracy. Any government you meet. Maybe you need a stampede of electric longhorn cattle to clear the way?

    Liked by 2 people

    2. I very much doubt everyone has read it. Checks hit counter. My posts get on average 15k hits these days. Plus about 5k people via email.
      IF I’d sold 10 k books I ASSURE you I’d have noticed. Besides, between the three volumes I’d have exceeded my fundraising goals for the entire year.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I get a copy via email. But I click the header to read at AccordingtoHoyt to read both the post and comments. Initial comment and reply to comments (after initial reads, like this one) on AccordingtoHoyt. Is my initial read counted twice, or once? What about subsequent replies? Personally, if I’m bumping numbers (if it matters)? Great. For what Sarah needs? Maybe not.

        Like

  3. First, releasing a hopeful work on the anniversary horror is a good work in and of itself.

    Second, we’re fine, we’re all fine here, how about you? (Those lines were pretty much what made Han Solo my favorite character in Star Wars)

    We’re on a project which involves turning a large former storage area into a laundry, so no telling what the day will bring. Hopefully none of us will hurt ourselves.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Re: Soundtrack album: So true. [Laughs quietly. $SPOUSE and Kat-the-dog are sleeping.]

      By some miracle, Amazon figured out that NML should autoload on both the new Kindle as well as the older one I take with me. (Stronger glass, and it fits in the Tandy sleeve that they used to offer. 11 years on it, so far.)

      Now, I have to balance three really good books that I want to Read Right Now along with the painting project that weather says has to happen Wednesday.

      Dons headphones. Checks if tolerance for K-pop has improved.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I gave it a shot…and my tolerance for K-pop is still pretty much zero unless I’m dining in a Korean BBQ establishment. And there the food is a good distraction.

        I am, however, impressed at the number of astounding costume changes the K-pop girl bands go through to make a 3 minute video. I also get to laugh at the boy bands doing their version of gangsta rap (so cringe, it’s truly amusing).

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      1. I’m going to put it on bookfunnel (It tells you how spectacularly bad last night is that I couldn’t remember that and kept thinking “bucketobooks”) probably tomorrow. (LOOK the DIL will be here any minute, and helping her takes priority because she’s somehow become my little girl just like my massive hisurte sons are my little boys.)

        Liked by 1 person

  5. I was expecting some sort of demonstrative Trump Thump of Hamas. It occurs to me that those wretches are so fragmented and ineffective, other than local mayhem on their own folks, that they DoW can’t find any targets worth a B-52 sortie nor the JDAMS that would be expended.

    So the “negotiations” are proceeding with very little input from Hamas. And if the IDF can effectively protect the Gazans away from the loon-tunnels, then its over and they can play a long game of paying bounties for loons. Not the utter annihilation that would have been best, but probably good enough to serve as an object lesson for whatever remaining “paleos” are capable of rational thought.

    So as the dust settles, it is right about time for some other bunch of idiots to make some pointless obscene demonstration of hate.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. And as to the moment: Success! You worked long and hard to launch this one. Take a bit of time just to savor the accomplishment.

    Liked by 2 people

  7. Well. I think you’ve done an impressive bit of plotting by tying together the reveal about Ellyan magic with the personal conflicts of both of your viewpoint characters, and doing so without reducing the suspense about how things are going to develop. You’ve made it hard for me to stop reading and spend time copy editing. (I’ve skipped past other comments to write this, for the sake of not risking spoilers, and I hope I haven’t provided one.)

    Liked by 2 people

  8. I’ve been reading this story from the first time SAH let the words out of her head and onto the digital papaer of Substack. I have now ordered the trio of paperbacks, and will be glad to have something I can just pick up, flip to a random chapter, and enjoy!

    Liked by 2 people

  11. Time to order my copies of volumes 2 and 3! I shall alert the wife.

    (My attempt to create an Amazon account of my own was stymied by the fact that I let her and her father use my number as the associated phone for his account, but he passed away a few months ago, the password was lost long before he died, the associated email address died long before the password went walkies, and no, Amazon cannot and/or will not delete the account without knowing what the account ID was. Sigh.)

    Liked by 2 people

      1. Huh…I wonder why it wouldn’t let me? Maybe I just wasn’t seeing how at the time. I don’t care so much about having direct access to Amazon, but I’d really like to be able to leave reviews…

        Like

    2. Sigh. Reminds me to get mom’s new Amazon password on my computer. OTOH we won’t kill mom’s phone or email until we get everything turned off. We try to just spread our accounts to her between us and the grandchildren so that all we have to do is force log her out of those accounts. But those dang accounts that track IP addresses are starting to disallowing that these days. Sigh. One of the worst ones is a PIA to stop or change the CC number (looking at you YouTube TV. This one seriously might be “Ah gee you aren’t getting paid because the credit card was cancelled? Too damn bad.”) Oh well. That is for far into the future to worry about. (FWIW I usually dig enough to figure it out. But still a PIA.)

      Liked by 2 people

  13. Speaking of terrible anniversaries, it’s also the birthday of H Himmler, J Behar, and V. Putin.

    But we refuse to let our opponents set our calendar.

    We remember the fact that the greatest “trilogy” of October 2025 is out today…

    Liked by 1 person

  16. “No Man’s Land: Volume 1” by Sarah A. Hoyt
       https://www.amazon.com/No-Mans-Land-Sarah-Hoyt/dp/1630110698/

    Book number one of a three book space opera science fiction series in the Chronicles of Lost Elly.  I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback published by Goldport Press in 2025. I have ordered the second book in the series and I will order the third book when it becomes available.

    Ok, this one is little strange but very good.  Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson, Envoy of the Star Empire, a retired Commodore in the Britannia Empire of Star System, becomes a roving junior ambassador for the Queen Eleanor.  One of many junior ambassadors, also known as Skip Hayden.  While drafting a new trade agreement with the newly found lost colony planet Draksall, Hayden is attacked by several men with Terran blasters.  In the ensuing melee, Hayden is transported to another lost colony planet, Elly.

    Elly is unlike any other lost colony planet found to date.  There are no women, there are no men.  All of the human beings are hermaphrodites. And there is magic, lots and lots of magic.  Not much technology, mostly swords and bows.  Hayden ends up on the run with the young King of Elly and a couple of his retainers.

    The author has a fairly busy website at:
       https://accordingtohoyt.com/

    My rating:  4.5 stars out of 5 stars
    Amazon rating:  4.7 stars out of 5 stars (50 reviews)

    Lynn

    BTW, the book feels very much influenced by Heinlein (“Friday”) and Pournelle (“King David’s Spaceship”) to me. This is a very good thing.

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  17. Pingback: Instapundit » Blog Archive » YES, I AM AWARE I ALREADY PROMOTED. BUT THIS ONE HAS CLANKER SONGS:  It’s All Out!

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