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
I AM CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED TO STILL PROMO NO MAN’S LAND OR MY HUSBAND WILL BE VERY SAD
To make it worth your while, this is the clanker-assisted sound track so far. (Note there are five songs, not just one. For some reason if I link the playlist, people think it’s just one song. So, all five get linked. And no, Ellyans don’t sound female (well, anymore than they sound male.) Most of their voices are in the high tenor low alto range. However when talking of bearing children it freaks us normal humans out less if it’s a female voice: Space Admiral’s Son; Seventeen; New London, New London (is a Hell of a town.); The Prodigal; Royal Escape. (Yes there will be more songs soon. I have a trip this weekend to South Dakota, which I can’t get out of for various reasons. (Friday to Monday.) After that and a few days of rest I should be back to normal.)
FROM SARAH A. HOYT: No Man’s Land
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.
FROM DAVID WELCH: The End of the Feud
Clarence Stone grew up surrounded by violence. In the hills and hollows of West Virginia, his family feuded with neighboring Burton clan, the big dogs of the region After seeing countless family buried before their time, Clarence set out to escape. His plan was simple: Run away and join the army. Unfortunately for him, his did it just a few months before shots were fired at Fort Sumter…
Now, despite his best intentions, war has made a far better killer than any of his quarrelsome family ever were. Still, his plain remains the same; go home, pick up his prize horse, and get as far away from the feud as possible. Let the fools dumb enough to fight it wipe themselves out. But the few remaining Burtons are not going to let any Stone escape, and are ready and willing to chase him all the way to the Rockies to see the job done. Stone’s only ally is a strange tomboy travelling west alone, convinced of her own toughness for reasons he’ll never understand. Adding to his troubles, an uprising of plain’s tribes rampages across the plains, endangering his chosen path. The man has seen enough of war, and wants only a place to carve out a life of his own; but in the end it may be that the fight he flees is the only thing awaiting him.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Gnawing the Bones of the City
Tikhon Grigoriev has a problem.
He’s a member of the civil police, but has come to the attention of the political police. In Stalin’s Soviet Union, that is a very dangerous situation. He’s hanging on by his fingernails in besieged Leningrad, and he has a family to think of.
Worse, he has reason to believe that something uncanny stalks the frozen ruin that is a besieged city in subarctic winter. But as a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he is not supposed to believe in the supernatural.
How can he keep his head in this impossible situation?
A short story.
Note: includes intense scenes that may be disturbing to some audiences. Reader discretion is advised.
FROM JEFF DUNTEMANN: Ten Gentle Opportunities
Caught cheating a powerful magician out of ten nuggets of pure uncommitted magic in a rigged card game, Bartholomew Stypek needs a place to hide. As a spellbender he is a partial magician, who can read and change magic spells, but absent a stash of magical force, cannot cast his own. With his anarchic familiar spirit Pickles and the ill-won magical Opportunities, Stypek leaps blindly across universes…and lands in the break room of a small ad agency in upstate New York.
Because New York State doesn’t support spirits, Pickles manifests as the nearest local equivalent: AI software in the agency’s heavily networked copier. She wanders into a nearby corporate network looking for allies, and discovers a virtual universe where AIs live off-hours. Pickles is soon seducing Simple Simon, a naive AI tasked with controlling an immense robotic assembly line in the corporation’s manufacturing plant. Stypek, meanwhile, is mistaken for a penniless Eastern European computer science intern, and is taken in by Carolyn Romero, the ad agency’s copywriter. Expecting the usual suspicion and contempt, Stypek is humbled by the kindness he’s shown, and one by one uses the Opportunities to help his new friends with their problems, including Carolyn’s failed marriage.
But Jrikk the magician isn’t so easily thwarted. Soon Stypek, Pickles, Simple Simon, Carolyn, and their human and AI friends must fight for their lives against the evil force sent to retrieve Stypek to the magician’s dungeons.
FROM MARK VRANKOVICH: The Hikikomori: The Girl Who Couldn’t Go Outside
Hikikomori are Japanese recluses. Right now in Japan over a million hikikomori are hiding in their bedrooms, hiding from their past and future. Hiding from the disappointment that having dreams can bring.
Miko is a hikikomori. As Miko’s dreams fade her Tokyo bedroom becomes her entire world. The city outside transforming into the realm of nightmares, a place where horrid memories and growing fears wait to pounce.
Playing car racing games on her laptop is all that distracts Miko from her situation. Then one day her parents are away, and her mouse batteries run out.
So Miko stands trembling next to the apartment door. Unable to live without her racing games, she must venture out into the world to buy batteries. But little does Miko know the consequences for herself, and for Japan, if she steps out that door.
What Japanese Readers Say: “A must-read for all Japan fans. Could even a Japanese writer portray contemporary Japan so realistically and poignantly… The Hikikomori is certainly a powerful piece of work.. I hope this story will spark interest in Japan and the Japanese people… You will surely be a fan of Miko… The perfect balance of pain, laugh and tears… It is a gem of a book that I, as a Japanese, am confident to recommend… It exposes social problems in Japan that are never visible from the outside… This novel will make you happy like eating chocolate… My heart was full of positivity by reading your novel… When I finished reading your novel, I felt confident and motivated to live positively. I am so glad I was able to read this book this summer!!”
FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Reluctant Spy of Tharsis Heights: A Martian Mystery (Mars Fiction)
Josef Kellerman thought he’d left intrigue behind when he fled the collectivist takeover of Ceres. On Mars, he rebuilt his life as a simple architectural photographer, keeping his head down and his past quiet.
Then his camera is found containing classified images of Martian defense installations.
Administrator Chen offers him an impossible choice: face trial and twenty years in the deadly Hellas Processing Facility, or spend seven days at the ultra-luxurious Olympus Crown resort identifying the real spy among thirty-seven suspects. Josef has no training in espionage. His only skills are a photographer’s eye for detail and a businessman’s instinct for reading people.
With the reluctant help of a sardonic intelligence officer, an investigative journalist who suspects his cover story, and a wealthy widow with secrets of her own, Josef must navigate diplomatic receptions, corporate intrigue, and multiple intelligence agencies—all while someone who doesn’t want to be found watches his every move.
Set against the backdrop of 22nd-century Mars, where domed cities cling to red mountains and three great powers circle each other warily, THE RELUCTANT SPY OF THARSIS HEIGHTS combines the classic spy-under-pressure thriller with humor, heart, and a protagonist who would really rather just take photographs.
Perfect for fans of Eric Ambler, John le Carré, and The Expanse.
BY EDMUND HAMILTON, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: The Vampire Master: The classic weird pulp horror novel
A thrilling novel of corpses that would not stay dead, and a gruesome horror in the hills of New York.
- This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving genre and historical context to the novel.
FROM S. T. GAFFNEY: China Harbor: Out of Time
Sheila Reilly, once a prominent research physicist aboard the Wells Explorer, now an American refugee living in China Harbor after the Millennium War destroyed America, has barely survived the last 5 years. Sheila’s very life may now depend on the secrets she keeps. Even from Yam, the man she loves and who has helped her eke out an existence for the last 2 years.
Discovery of the wreckage of the Wells Explorer sets in motion a chain of events wherein Sheila must come to terms with her past and is given an opportunity by the enigmatic ancient Lin Yi to change history, but perhaps at the price of losing everyone she now loves. Suddenly everyone in China Harbor is looking for her, from General Chen, the conflicted head of the often brutal People’s Guard and the villainous Colonel Kwan, who will stop at nothing to get the power he wants, to one mysterious stranger out of Sheila’s past, who started it all so very long ago. As Sheila races against time to save the past, no one in China Harbor who has touched her life is safe, from an innocent produce vendor to Yam’s young daughter who longs for Sheila to take the place of her dead mother.
Approx: 180,000 words (This would be the equivalent of 450 pages in a trade paperback. Average novel is 100,000 words.)
FROM HOLLY CHISM: Normalcy Bias: Look closer…things aren’t always what they seem to be.
Look closer. The things that you’re assuming you’re seeing? May not be what you think. Is that really a mouse, or is it a Brownie? Is that really an owl? Is that polished gemstone a stone…or an egg?
We take so many things for granted. Some of them may be harmless, but many are a lot less so. I wonder how many people ignore red flags every day, because they only see what they expect to see?
This collection takes what’s “normal” and asks “What if it’s something more?”
FROM DEX QUIRE: Crocodile Words
Crocodile tears are fake tears, can crocodile words be fake words?
Joffrey Simpson O’Day moves from the dry badlands of Eastern Washington State to the lush greenscapes of Western Washington to a Seattle-like city called Sunbreak City. Hayseed, Joffrey attempts to turn himself into a big-city sophisticate but he commits the ultimate faux pas—he insults a book held sacred by millions. He draws upon his head the wrath of everybody. Crocodile words come at him from all quarters. Will he survive?
FROM BLAKE SMITH: A Small and Inconvenient Disaster
Everywhere she goes, Maria Mason is plagued by little catastrophes. Getting caught in the rain, running from the friendliness of a muddy dog, tripping over her own feet at the worst possible moment- she has been subject to all manner of accidents, and to fend off the worst of them, she has learned to be silent and still.
Until she accompanies her friend Miss Gordon to London for a season of gaiety and pleasure. Life in Town is full of wonder, and soon Maria has new clothes, new friends, and the attention of the amusing and clever Mr. James Callahan. She begins to wonder if she has outgrown her propensity for falling into disaster, only to find herself embroiled in the worst sort of catastrophe when she is obliged to mediate between her feuding friends. One wrong word, one false step, and she might lose the regard of her friends- or worse, the love of a good man.
FROM MICHAEL FURTIG: Whiskey: The Quintilogy Part 1
It’s a big galaxy out there. As mankind reaches out, new planets are identified, terraformed, and settled. These new frontiers can be dangerous places for the settlers. Fleeing to these places are intergalactic fugitives, and following them are bounty hunters.
Landing on a newly terraformed planet in his ship Vengeance, bounty hunter Quint Walker gets more than he bargained for with his bounty. Trapped on the planet by a scheming governor, a gang of vengeful terrorists, an angry mob, and a barkeep making sure he pays his tab, Quint scrambles to keep his footing. All the while, a deadly tally is climbing. When it reaches five, he knows he’s going to die.
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.
FROM KAREN MYERS: On a Crooked Track: A Lost Wizard’s Tale (The Chained Adept Book 4)
Book 4 of The Chained Adept
SETTING A TRAP TO CATCH THE MAKERS OF CHAINED WIZARDS.
A clue has sent Penrys back to Ellech, the country where she first appeared four short years ago with her mind wiped, her body stripped, and her neck chained. It’s time to enlist the help of the Collegium of Wizards which sheltered her then.
Things don’t work out that way, and she finds herself retracing a dead scholar’s crooked track and setting herself up as a target to confirm her growing suspicions. But what happens to bait when the prey shows its teeth?
In this conclusion to the series, tracking old crimes brings new dangers, and a chance for redemption.
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: MIXED
According To Hoyt 
Now that humanity is part of a multi-species interstellar empire, “mixed company” has a completely different meaning from what you find in the old etiquette manuals. For starters, anyone who wants to put together an event at which there will be food has to consider what each species can and can’t eat. And not just exotic foods you used to hear about on extreme eating blogs — ordinary things like onions and garlic are as deadly to half a dozen species in the Chongu Empire as improperly prepared fugu would be to a human.
And even if a given food item isn’t toxic, it doesn’t necessarily mean that any given species can digest it. Obligate carnivores can suffer severe digestive complications if they get too much vegetable matter, because their stomachs and small intestines simply aren’t adapted to assimilating it.
Because there are so few foods that everyone can eat and enjoy, and those would lead to a very bland and unsatisfying meal for all, it’s become customary to prepare different foods for each species — which means that servers at anything formal have to be able to deliver the correct plates to each seat, with no mixups. It’s a little easier for an open buffet, because you just group your offerings by which species they’re appropriate for, and mark accordingly. Anyone with a lick of sense knows to keep to the line that’s marked for your species.
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To make matters worse, you can’t invite some species because how they eat kill the appetite of other guests. [Twisted Grin]
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And then there are some species you can’t invite because they kill more than the appetite of the other guests.
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To make matters worse, you can’t invite some species because how they eat kill the appetite of other guests. [Twisted Grin]
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Darn it Sarah, now I had to add a couple more books to my already too-large stack of TBR. Also, I meant to promo the new paperback edition of China Harbor https://www.amazon.com/China-Harbor-S-T-Gaffney/dp/1969546026/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0 and try out this as a new blurb.
For five years an American physicist has been eking out a meager existence gutting fish as a refugee in China Harbor, an island off the mainland of China, after China has destroyed North America with a surprise nuclear attack. She believes herself responsible for the tragic end of the Millennium War due to her failed attempt to prevent China’s treachery with a time travel experiment gone wrong.
In the course of one long, fateful day, everything suddenly becomes possible. Everything is dangerous. Everyone she has encountered in the last five years is now in jeopardy. Everyone in China Harbor is urgently seeking her, for good or ill. Five years of secrets come tumbling out from every corner. A deadly game with the future itself in the balance unfolds so rapidly that the reader is dragged along, eyes popping at every new revelation.
S. T. Gaffney’s unique take on time travel from the perspective of an actual scientist is tempered with ancient Chinese philosophy and practices to create a mind-boggling mix of a thriller. Over a dozen characters, all quite distinct and endearing or frightening, are pulled inexorably to a mind-shattering confrontation where even more secrets are revealed and everyone risks it all for good or ill.
You’ll find yourself immersed in Chinese culture, both ancient and modern, even as your mind is filled with science and philosophy blended together with an urgency that carries you along. This book is filled with unforgettable characters and drama that won’t let you go.
I guess you could say my achievement was mixed. :)
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Frank, you didn’t send me a link OR THE NAME OF THE BOOK. I had to guess from the description! Don’t do that to the jet lagged writer.
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Well, I’m a total idiot. Not necessarily a new discovery. :)
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Hugs.
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I got to think about this writing prompt but my mind is all mixed up. [Crazy Grin]
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I got to think about the writing prompt, but my mind is all mixed up. [Crazy Grin]
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The doorbell rang. Sherlock didn’t move, but did start counting seconds in his head.
One thousand one, one thousand tw—
The doorbell rang again.
Barely two seconds between rings. Someone so desperate they don’t care whether they’re being rude. Ergo, probably a client. He got up and started down the stairs. They’ll probably ring again in about five seconds.
Sure enough, four seconds later, the doorbell rang again, as he was only halfway down the stairs. Even sooner than predicted. Really desperate. Oh dear, this is going to be a missing-spouse case, isn’t it? Those are usually boring. The spouse has usually run off with a lover, and the jilted spouse won’t believe it until shown the evidence. Then it’s fountains of tears if the jilted spouse is a woman, and if the jilted spouse is a man then it’s generally swearing mixed with threats of violence — usually towards me! As if blaming the messenger ever makes sense! Either way, boring and not worth my time. Still, it might be something else. I’ve got to at least open the door and find out.
He opened the door and sized up the woman standing there in a glance. Red-haired, quite pretty, might be a model or an actress. Tear-stained makeup, wedding ring on left hand, fingers of right hand twisting wedding ring nervously around and around. Indeed, another “Please find my spouse” case. Boring. He started to shut the door.
She stuck her foot in the door before he could close it. Only about one in five missing-spouse clients have the presence of mind to do that. So she can think on her feet even when she’s worried. Still, that doesn’t mean this won’t be a boring case… except now I have to talk to her and explain that I’m not going to take the case. Drat, this is going to involve fountains of tears and accusations of heartlessness. Well, I can always hope that this one won’t be boring.
He opened his mouth to speak, but the red-haired woman got her words out first. “You must be John’s roommate… um, Sherlock, was it? Is John here?”
Oh. I didn’t see that coming. Someone who knows who I am, but isn’t here to see me? That’s unusual; perhaps this won’t be boring after all. She wants to see John? What’s her connection to John, I wonder?
John poked his head into the upstairs hallway. “MJ? It really is you! What are you doing here? I thought I couldn’t possibly be hearing your voice, because you were in New York. Why are you in London?”
The woman apparently named (or more likely initialed) MJ pushed the door open, ran up the stairs, and flung herself into John’s arms. Completely at ease with him. She knows John very, very well. Who is this woman? “Oh John, John!” she was sobbing. “It’s Peter! He’s missing, and I don’t know what to do!”
John looked up and met Sherlock’s inquisitive gaze, then looked down at the woman in his arms. “Well, MJ, as it happens, you’re in luck. Haven’t you been reading my blog? You haven’t, have you? Or you would have known that you came to the right place.”
He looked up again. “Sherlock? Let me introduce my sister, Mary Jane Parker.”
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Bit of messed-up formatting there in the italics; the part that starts “then it’s generally swearing mixed with threats of violence” is supposed to also be in italics because it’s still Sherlock’s thoughts. I fixed the rest of the mixed-up formatting but missed that one until after hitting Reply.
This one came about because I had said “Wait, those two characters from different universes have the same last name. What if it wasn’t a coincidence?” And the first scene just sprang to my mind. I still don’t know why Peter Parker is missing, or why he came to London before he went missing. Was MJ attending a conference and Peter went with her? Did Peter disappear in New York City and MJ flew all the way to London to find her brother? I don’t know yet, so this first scene is all I have (so far) of this crossover fanfic. But perhaps I’ll figure it out and be able to write more.
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I’m pretty sure the Doyle explanation of ‘not a coincidence’ may be true. I understand that Doyle’s John Watson married a woman named Mary.
When I had all of those items together, I concluded that whomever invented MJ, borrowed those names from the Holmes stories.
Looking back, Peter Parker’s love life was maybe a more complicated series of inventions than we might think growing up on versions that just go ahead and have Mary-Jane Watson as his first and final love interest.
Though, I do think that the very first Spider Man I consumed did have Gwen Stacy and her death. But it did not have her father as a significant figure.
But, yeah, if we admit modern remakes of Sherlock, I think this cross over is very reasonable.
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The modern Sherlock remake also had John marry a woman named Mary. More than that I will not say, because some details about her life are extremely plot-relevant to certain episodes of the show and would therefore be quite large spoilers.
As for whether Stan Lee intended Mary Jane Watson’s last name to be a reference to Mary Watson née Morstan in Doyle’s Holmes, I obviously can’t say it’s impossible but I don’t think it was. Mary Jane Watson’s first introduction in the comics came after two years of build-up when Peter’s Aunt May was suggesting that he try going on a date with “that nice Watson girl” who lived next door. (This was before he started dating Gwen Stacy). He resisted the suggestion for a while, thinking that if his aunt liked her, he would probably find her plain and unattractive. Then eventually, in issue 42 of the original comic books, Peter finally agrees to go on a date with the nice Watson girl next door — and when he meets her, he’s stunned to near speechlessness by her beauty. Resulting in her delivering her famous line, “Face it, tiger… you just hit the jackpot!”
So since she was given her last name and her first name(s) at different times, it seems unlikely that she was intended as a reference to John Watson’s wife Mary. Especially because the Doyle character was known as Mary Morstan for most of her appearances, only marrying John (and taking his last name) fairly late in the series of Holmes stories.
(BTW, I said “first name(s)” above because opinions differ on whether her first name is Mary Jane, or whether her first name is Mary and her middle name is Jane and she just goes by first + middle all the time to distinguish herself from all the other Marys out there.)
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On Peter Parker’s love life being complicated, I learned from the Wikipedia article about Mary Jane Watson that Gwen Stacy had originally been intended to be Peter’s permanent love interest, with Mary Jane being the foil who contrasted with Gwen’s personality. But the fans thought Mary Jane was a more interesting character, and kept writing to the writers asking for Mary Jane to be made Peter’s love interest. And the writers said, “And we just couldn’t help but feel that way ourselves. The characters had gotten away from us and had taken on a life of their own.” (Not that anyone here can relate to that one, oh no…) And so the decision was made to replace Gwen Stacy with Mary Jane as Peter’s love interest going forward. Which I assume is why they had to kill Gwen Stacy off, because any other way of showing her and Peter breaking up would be completely implausible. Though that part is my assumption, not backed up by any quote from the writers to the best of my knowledge.
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I’ve also heard that they killed off Gwen because it occurred to them that the next step would be that Peter married her, and they settled down, and they didn’t wanna.
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I have one idea for a followup scene, but it’s not enough to build a whole scene from. Sherlock would say, somewhat accusingly, “You never told me you had two sisters. You let me think you only had one!” (The cell phone charger analysis from episode one). And John would reply, unapologetically, “Yes. Yes, I did. I never tell anyone about my sister MJ, and once we swear you to secrecy and then tell you everything about Peter Parker, you’ll understand exactly why.”
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He couldn’t eat spicy food – it was dangerous to be TX-MXd.
Vampires, and magic? Yes, please.
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Word Press Must Die!
It keeps asking me to log on.
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Her heart pattered.
The game had nothing whereby Florian could win Helena. Perhaps, perhaps the game had nothing to do with this world except insofar as it hinted at the world. She had already torn the story to shreds by saving Linnet.
Or perhaps it would lash back at her.
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She hoped.
She wondered what would happen if she went back to the village. The homes looked sound enough to stay the night in, but she did not not know.
Firs darkened the way ahead. She wondered whether it was wise to go much farther. It was dark enough that she had little time left before the sun actually set, and she did not want to find her way about by moonlight.
Something gleamed white ahead. Honor blinked. It was unlikely to be the hut. Perhaps whatever plant had the seeds?
A girl looked at her. Behind her, a boy.
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“We had to leave the them. Too many bloodbeasts in the area. Barely made it out ourselves.”
The speaker for the band looked up with tired eyes. Bandages still wet with blood were wound around several limbs, peeking out around battered, soot stained armor. Cold Autumn wind howled mournfully through the trees.
“Thought you should know. You see them, Taker, you treat them kindly, right? Take them in. Keep them safe.”
It was a plea. One with but one answer.
“I will.”
The man called Taker handed over silver coins to the speaker. The weary warriors turned about and trudged back down the dirt path that curved back towards the town. Towards beer, beds, and blotting out the memory of what they’d seen, most like.
The graveyard on the hill had but one occupant. One still living, that was. That one strode back through the gate towards one of two standing buildings. The news was not good. Too late in the day to head out. Little time left to prepare.
. . .
Skitters and kobs were the first signs. Insect like skitters fed on rotting meat, but swarmed like locusts in the night when driven by something more fell. Kobs were generally the weakest of beasts, but were adaptable enough that they could be found in nigh any environs. The kobs chased the skitters, hoping for free food in the fight.
They were to be denied this.
Traps made of sticky tar caught the skitters while the kobs fell into the simple snares that dotted the field facing the dark wood. A simple sling with a hot coal from a nearby burning brazier was enough to set the tar alight. Screams replaced insectile chittering and coughing growls from the kobs.
Next came the sandwraiths. They flowed across the grass like fish swimming on air. The sandwraiths dove towards the flames. Taker tossed out small jars of sanctified oil where they gathered. Sandwraiths shrieked and fled, driven away in fear.
The wraiths fed on the energies of death. If they consumed enough of it, they would grow into something far more dangerous, but were no more than annoyances at best while this weak. The truly dangerous things were still out there. Demonspawn. And worse.
The smell of wet rot rolled over the graveyard like a slap to the face. Take could feel the stones twitching. Grumbling. The dead did not like their rest disturbed. Matthias Tombs was the Taker for this little town. It was his duty to protect the quiet dead.
Matt gripped his blessed maul tighter. The first corpse stepped through the tree line. Slithering intestines writhed in its wake.
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Thirty bodies. Thirty unclaimed souls. A heavy burden to bear for any man living, even one with the title and responsibility of a Taker. Matt slammed the blunt end of his maul into the chest of the fifth corpse of the night. The wild undead rocked back as the combination of physical force and unwavering faith assaulted the puppet body and the malevolent demonspawn riding it, respectively.
Another darted forward, angling for the gate behind the thick limbed Taker. A strong kick sent it tumbling into the other one, spoiling its own attempted attack. Three more heavy strikes put the two down for good. Twenty four more to go.
Something cold and wet stuck his face. A moment later the rain began in earnest, drowning the sputtering tar flames in moments. The only light remaining was the brazier and Matt’s own blessings, glowing with cool silver radiance as the night deepened towards the darkest hour. Wet and getting wetter by the moment, he waited. Watching the dark wood.
An interminable moment later, lightening illuminated the tree line for a brief moment. Brief but enough.
The rest of the wild undead, bodies housing vile demonspawn, arrived at once. Behind them, a larger shape loomed. Blackened armor covered a broad figure wielding an ugly flail and shield. A chelob. Multifaceted eyes stared unblinking at the single figure protecting the graveyard. It hissed and yowled in some profane tongue.
Matt did not roar or stomp. He simply stood his ground, flexing his toes in his boots and feeding faith to his chosen weapon. The silvery glow around the maul shrunk and grew sharper, more defined.
Demonspawn lurched forward. The stones rattled a warning.
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The storm intensified as the darkest hour grew near. Lightening flashed almost continuously while thunder rumbled and roared above. Demonspawn shrieked as the bodies they were bound to broke. But even as they died, they flung themselves forward.
Red blood turned pink as rain washed it away. The Taker’s strikes did not slow as the hour grew later. But mortal men must pay a tithe for their labors. His breaths became more difficult. The maul felt heavier. A bone, free of its prison of flesh made him stumble for just a moment on the slick ground.
A moment was enough. The chelob strode forward with powerful steps, swinging its flail through the demonspawn in an attempt to reach the Taker in a moment of weakness.
The stones hummed a dire promise.
Matt flung himself back from the strike as the hum grew louder and the stones began to shed a pale light behind him. The oldest stone, worn smooth and small from untold years of rain and weathering, began to rise. The chelob struck wildly. Matt dodged and parried what he could.
A soundless roar shattered the storm. The quiet dead denied the intrusion of demonspawn in no uncertain terms. Raindrops suddenly shot away as if gravity had changed its mind in an instant. Wild undead shuddered and fell where they stood, collapsing onto the wet ground. The chelob hesitated for just an instant.
In that instant, it lost a leg at the knee. Then an arm. And last of all, its head, crushed flat.
Matt sighed. Put down his maul, leaning it against the gate. Fetched his tools. Shovel, tarp, cloth, and all. One by one, he gathered the bodies. Wrapped them with care and gentle hands. Carried them inside, each to their new and final homes.
The stones were quiet.
And last of all, the spirits.
“Momma?”
A girl, barely an adult by the look of her stared in utter shock into the graveyard. Her ghostly feet took one step, hesitant, towards the gate.
“It’s okay. They’re waiting for you.”
The ghost girl barely noticed his presence. She was already on her way home.
Others took more time. Bandits by the look of them. It took time to remind them they were dead. Strange, that. One would think that the dead would know themselves, if anyone would, thought Matt. But no.
There were merchants. Guards. A muleskinner. People with lives, once. All were welcome in the graveyard. The quiet dead refused none. None but demonspawn and the like. Mortal people were welcome one and all.
Even bandits. Even the murderers, rapist, and thieves. What sins they had in life, these were nothing in death. All were welcome to rest one final time in the earth.
The town respected the graveyard. Its purpose even on the wild frontier, revered and honored. The yard needed a Taker, though. The Taker needed to seek out the fallen and bring them home. This was the bond between Taker and graveyard.
Dawn broke over the broken field outside the gate. Matt tidied up the stones before heading back to sleep. The stones remained quiet. The beasts stayed away. The town woke with the daylight.
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I want to write more science fiction but all that comes out lately are things like this:
—-
Introduction
Now that you have Perl installed and a working development environment, it’s time to understand the fundamental building blocks of the language. This chapter covers Perl’s syntax rules, how statements work, the different types of literals you can use, and the essential pragmas and practices that make your code robust and maintainable.
Think of this chapter as learning the grammar and vocabulary of Perl. Just as you need to understand sentence structure before writing essays, you need to understand Perl’s syntax before building complex programs. We’ll move systematically through each concept with practical examples you can run and modify.
—-
Do I win points for keeping “dead” languages alive?
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Perl is far from a dead (computer) language. I used to teach it to military and civilian programmers when I was in the government. Even now I’m using to harvest textual and statistical data for my PhD thesis.
Sometimes the older tools are best. Just ask my sister: she still maintains COBOL programs for a major credit card processing firm. She and I may be the last two practitioners of this dark art.
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Ever since the sun blew up, results have been… mixed.
No, do let go your precious pearls, Terrans — of course I’m not talking about the ancestral Sun of humanity, which should be good for another half billion years or so, or several times that if you’ll be up to building a sub-Kardashev-I sunshade (Lagrange point installation optional) in front of your awesomely Very Special Homeworld a few hundred mega-annae hence.
Instead (and of course) I’m talking about that big semi-scandalous former colony on Brigham VII — the one around that late-stage giant that turned out, a couple of centuries down the road, to be not so so much violently unstable as on its very last tottering dregs of stellar life.
(Had we our unrestricted pick of colonization targets, of course, likely that one would’ve been bypassed until well past its expiration date. But then again interstellar faster-than-light tramlines form where they do and are stable, or not, as they are; and the quirk of nature that makes those to often-faraway high-output suns tend to exist more and tend to be stable enough, crucially, to traverse that very first time without any equipment on the other end… biases us towards some, well, starry fixer-uppers.)
It could’ve been such a tragical yet inspiring story, and, in many ways it has been… world rallied to the cause, its entire planetary neighborhood recruited to their assistance, and all the familiar rest (if you’ve not been hiding under the equivalent of a rock, informationally, these past several lifetimes or so). And it is, literally and genuinely, the stuff of legend how Project Dandelion Starseed saw dozens of millions of people all re-settled onto solar-sail long-haul craft, over generations and decades in advance of the sub-supernova ending Not With a Whimper But a Bang.
Just sitting there, in cramped (by comparison to your more typical free floating space colony or station) quarters, quite simply waiting for the end (of Brigham A) to turn over into the beginning (of their very highly boosted slow-boat interstellar journey to their alternate colony site of choice). Evolving, socially, not towards any kind of rancid or blackpill authoritarianism, but still away from our “natural” more-or-less freely exchanging, FTL-mixed over-culture. (Those who wanted to flee, had gone.)
So that when the long-awaited starboom finally came, and much to spec and very nearly on schedule — they had tended to drift a bit into their own little corner of the Many Worlds; and the further decades spent on their high-speed but lonely way to one of a few dozen prospect systems did very little to counter that drift. While they’d picked up this and that, here and there, culturally, first; even a few who’d come in (by FTL) expressly for the grand (and only a little likely to be fatal) adventure.
Well, then, no surprise; except that they were, of course, headed to some of the most-promising nearby worlds, the slow and unbiased way. And except that Brigham was already hundreds of light-years away from Old Earth, so there really wasn’t much competition at all for ‘slowboating’ to those oh so lovely (at least to remote sensing) untouched worlds. And, they had to leave the slow way, or else re-roll the colonization dice quite anew…
This is how we got to where we are, now. With our greatest and most deeply dynamic expansion (by FTL influx following a slowboat pioneering run) done in the care of the “astrogypsies” — equally happy on or off planet, quite content to spend a few decades or generations in the closer confines of a relativistic old-school starship to get somewhere new and found a new world’s society, in their own image. Then get their feet figuratively under them, and go do it all again within a handful of generations.
Even where they’re willing to let us, the gadje (only a tenth of them are actual Romany but the words and the cultural elements do amplify), come in late to their party and join the fun — and that’s far more often than not over the broad scope of human colonization today — they’ve already been there and done the “founder effect” thing. Though one of the first things they do is generally set up a tramline stabilizer (having first built the considerable industrial base for it), it’s still, basically, their world.
And of course we could, ourselves; except it’s a lot farther from Earth in their direction; and we’ve not evolved, socially, to be happy crammed into a tuna tin (as we’d see it) for decades on end; and so forth. Not even in our Near Stars, away from Earth and Mars and the clouds of Venus and the icecities of the Outer Moons — are we the sort to fit into a slowship for so long, and human hibernation (unlike FTL) is still a doper’s pipe dream.
So until and unless more available (but still restricted time-travel-less) FTL drives come along, or we ourselves change, to be more like the Romany (-esque) culture of the astrogypsies themselves, or, something… it’ll be the ones who turned the lemons of an exploding star into the lemonade of a truly mobile and expansive interstellar people… who mostly inherit the stars.
(Also just going to note here my recent picture challenge entry did indeed start off with: “They say mixed relationships are the worst. When she’s the granddaughter of Jason M’Bara…” For what’e’er it may be worth.)
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Thanks for the links to the official soundtrack for NML. I’m using a mp3 capture program (ffmpeg) to create an album: The Clankers: No Man’s Land. Tube of You keeps linking to the older songs, so the official set is getting a collection of bonus tracks. A mixed tape, perhaps. /ducks
The drives into town (1.5 hours round trip) are going to be fun!
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I’m also doing a “Songs of Elly”. But Pete, just email me and I’ll send you the wav to download! You don’t need to make it hard on yourself. (Songs of Elly: Missa’s confession, Master of Illusion) Others I haven’t put up because they make no sense unless you read the book. “Meeting Lover” for instance, in which the person talking can’t even remember the height and hair color of the person who knocked him up. Eerlen calls it the “Ditsy and Knocked up” song.
Then there’s The Snake’s Lullaby. Of course, the Erradian Lullaby is already up.
Anyway, Dan thinks I should do a “Traditional songs of Elly” album too.
This clanker thing is weird uh? If we get to this point with movies, I don’t promise not to play…..
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Thanks, but I’ll pass on the .wav files. I just go to YT, load the video and start the capture program. The dreaded algorithm has other Goldport songs in the queue, so if it’s one I want (K-pop gives me brain-freeze), I change the name of the output file and start. Variations on the tunes, I’ll think about.
I have a couple of days before stitches come out (small incisions, but nylon sutures), and listening to/watching the tracks is fun. Chores when I’m up to it, maybe later in the week. Have a road trip in a couple of weeks, and the two hour drive needs some good music to maintain a semblance of sanity.
Yeah, I’m doing soundtrack-ish for part, including songs relevant to the book (Blossom of the Peas, The Blue will Hold) not currently in the official list. Also doing a Songs of Elly playlist (Missa’s Confession/Lament, Erradi the Cold) for a second set, and Writer and Clanker’s Blues to finish. :)
Songs by Sarah and the Clankers for the win!
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I love the Blooming of the Peas because of the earnestness of the Spanish Guitars. Also the hyperbolic threats.
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{Late to the party again; the wife has shoulder surgery tomorrow morning so the last few days have been consumed with pre-op and insurance headaches on top of getting the house in order so he has nothing to do except recuperate for the next 6-10 weeks.}
Jessica Perkins peeked around the corner to see her husband Murray speaking with a stranger at the front door. Who could be calling at this hour? she thought to herself. Murray had switched off the TV when the 11 o’clock news came on, and the Perkins household was preparing for bed.
When the knock came at the door, Jessica retreated to the end of the hall and hid herself as Murray had instructed. Now she could hear Murray speaking from the far end of the foyer. His normally strong and boisterous voice sounded like that of a naughty child caught in the act, now pleading with his parent. This more than the late hour worried Jessica in a way she found deeply disturbing.
“Please, I beg you. Take everything – the house, the cars, the money, and the stocks and bonds in my safe deposit box. I even have a large mixed bag of gold and silver coins there. It’s all yours! Just … don’t make me go with you.”
Jessica’s view of the stranger was blocked by Murray’s tall frame and broad, powerful shoulders. Murray often joked that an offensive tackle’s build stayed with him the rest of his life. Even now at age 55 with the NFL two decades behind him, Murray was a physically imposing man. Even so, he seemed diminished by the presence at the door. The stranger slowly raised an arm and pointed into the yard. Jessica wasn’t sure if she was more puzzled by the loose black cloak the stranger wore or by the bony, withered hand that looked almost skeletal.
A tense silence prevailed as the stranger continued to point with an outstretched arm. Jessica wasn’t sure if only seconds or several minutes passed as she watched Murray stand motionless in the doorway. With no further conversation Murray slowly stepped through the door and walked somberly down the stone pathway to the street. Her curiosity could restrain her no longer, and Jessica rushed to the open door. The view she beheld filled her with abject terror.
The precisely manicured lawn was gone, replaced by a boggy marsh. The street lights that lined her beloved Maple Avenue were no where to be seen, yet the tableau was lit, a baleful, sickly moon hovering low on the horizon. Even the street was gone. In it place ran a languid river, a boat resting at the near shore, the boatman holding it steady against the current with long pole. And Murray, slogging though the marsh towards the boat, the cloaked stranger following closely behind.
Jessica began to call out, to shout Murray’s name, but her cry became a gasp as the stranger turned and regarded her with a blank-eyed stare and rictus grin. Jessica’s heart seemed to stop even as her blood ran cold under the stranger’s gaze. She recognized him from myth and fiction, from a hundred campfire ghost stories. It was none other than the Grim Reaper.
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