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
OKAY, PLEASE LISTEN: THIS IS STATED ABOVE, BUT AGAIN: ALL I NEED FROM YOU IF YOU WANT YOUR BOOK PROMOTED IS A LINK TO AMAZON. Please, for the love of all gods and fishes and all the birds in the sea, DO NOT SEND ME THE BOOK, THE COVER, THE BLURB, OR WORSE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE STORY. I get a ton of spam on that email because it’s here every week. PLEASE don’t make me read five pages to figure out if you’re someone sending me a link or a spam bot. If you’re afraid the link might not work, you can also send me your name and the book title with the link. That’s acceptable too. BUT DON’T SEND ME THE UNABRIDGED WORKS OF TOLSTOY WITH THE LINK AT THE END.
I’ve had about enough so this is the new policy: IF YOU MAKE ME WORK TOO HARD, I’LL REPLACE YOUR BOOK COVER WITH A PICTURE OF A CAT GIRL. MEOW AND SHAME OR SOMETHING – SAH
FROM TOM KRATMAN: For the Eternal Glory of Rome
GIVE ME BACK MY LEGIONS!
In September of the year 9 A.D. three Roman legions are trapped in the Teutoburg Forest by tens of thousands of rebelling Germanic tribesmen under the Romano-German renegade, Arminius. In an attempt to save what can be saved, an alien starship transports one of those legions, Legio XIIX, to safety. But the aliens are rushed by events and transport the XIIXth not just in space, but through time as well.
Dropped four centuries into their future, under the leadership of their first spear centurion, Marcus Caelius and the young but promising junior tribune, Gaius Pompeius, Legio XIIX must fight to survive almost from the first moments of arrival. Moreover, they must march and fight across a continent to find their way home.
Because home, the Roman Empire, needs them—their discipline, their tactics, their indomitable fortitude—more desperately than it has ever needed anything . . . because New Years Eve, 406 A.D. is coming, and with it, a horde of barbarians are going to cross the frozen Rhine and, unless stopped cold, destroy the Empire.
At the publisher’s request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).
FROM DALE COZORT: Wokuo Incursion II: Enemy of My Enemy
In 1938 California, the sky belongs to invaders from another reality, high tech descendants of Japanese pirates. Flying battleships blot out the sun, drones patrol the streets, and a single bite from the RAGE virus turns neighbor against neighbor in mindless fury.
Former bootlegger Scotty Davis races through this occupied nightmare, delivering secrets for a living while dodging resistance hit squads and the invaders’ fading tech. One wrong turn could make him a victim or a traitor.
Across enemy lines, Colonel Eddie Martin gambles everything to contact the invaders’ ancient foes, ruthless survivors from a reality already destroyed. Despite their power, the invaders are desperate refugees on the brink of collapse, and they will stop at nothing to keep the US from allying with their enemies.
But alliances forged in apocalypse come with hidden agendas. When the enemy of your enemy knocks, can you trust them to save your world, or will they burn it down to destroy their ancient enemy?
Enemy of My Enemy — a high-stakes alternate history techno thriller where betrayal is the only certainty.
FROM K. MACCUTCHEON: Discovering America Again: Daily Quotations from the Explorers
A guided journal for the United States 250th Year. Discover the explorers who discovered America in this daily guided journal for the 250th birthday of the United States. From Leif Ericson and Christopher Columbus through Lewis and Clark to Neil Armstrong, each day has a quotation from an explorer and a short meditation on what it means for us today. A great fun way to learn about US history and re-discover what made this country great.
FROM IAN CLARK: Victor One
They took the one person he couldn’t afford to lose. Now he’s coming for them all.
LAPD detective Charlie Irish thinks he left the bloody grind of homicide investigations behind—until a woman he loved is brutally murdered in her run-down Hollywood apartment. To the world, Terri was just another failed actress. But to Charlie, she was an innocent whose senseless death has him risking everything to find her killer.
Haunted by guilt and longing for revenge, Charlie worries that this is a case the LAPD doesn’t want him to solve. Torn between protocol and payback, he dives headfirst into the rotting underbelly of Los Angeles. There—among the cunning call girls, Armenian hitmen, and scheming Hollywood celebrities—he takes his last crack at finding the truth.
As the trail twists through seedy motels and Beverly Hills mansions, Charlie finds himself in a world where even a little curiosity can get you killed. The deeper he digs, the more he’s sure: Terri’s past wasn’t what it seemed, and someone powerful wants it buried for good.
Hunted by the people he once trusted and betrayed by his brothers in blue, Charlie has nothing left but a badge he’s willing to break and a love he’s ready to die for.
Because this time, justice isn’t enough. He wants vengeance.
BY ROBERT J. HORTON REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Three Riders (Annotated): a pulp western omnibus
iktaPOP Media proudly presents three classic westerns by pulp author Robert J. Horton!
Rider o’ the Stars
When he was hired on to the Diamond H Ranch, the stranger gave his name as Dane. After seeing his skill with rope and gun folks started calling him “Lightning Dane”.
Was he a gunman? An outlaw? Why was he here? Nobody knew except Dane himself. And he wasn’t talking.
The Prairie Shrine
Annalee Bronson and her mother left everything behind when her father died, setting out to homestead in the prairielands of Montana. But being from the east, they simply don’t have the experience to cope with all the circumstances they find themselves caught up in.
Luckily, prairie poet and loafer Andy Sawtelle and mysterious gunman Silent Scott are more than willing to lend a helping hand.
The Man of the Desert
It starts with a stampede, and never lets up from there!
- This iktaPOP Media omnibus includes introductions by indie editor and author D. Jason Fleming putting the book into historical and genre context.
FROM HOLLY CHISM: Soul Inheritance
Fresh out of college, Evelyn Alexander’s first order of business was finding a place to live. One she could afford on her small inheritance before her job started. None of the local rental agencies had anything in her price range, but…she found a small Victorian house for sale, the only one mostly untouched in a decaying neighborhood of subdivided rental houses.
Complete with a ghost. A very attractive ghost. A very attractive ghost with a strong dislike of the idea of anyone changing his house. So, of course, she bought it. A cranky ghost for a roommate was still a better option than the tiny studio with criminal neighbors.
Between working to restore her new house, embezzlement at work and a murder next door, Evelyn has her hands full. As she works to get on her feet as a productive adult (and not fall in love with a ghost she can’t have), the problems start to snowball. And it’s only compounded by learning that her house has far more secrets than just a single, cranky (attractive) ghost…
FROM PAM UPHOFF: Family Fortune (Chronicles of the Fall Book 17)
Why would Captain Mishka Nix of the Security Bureau be called out for a simple runaway servant? Except . . . there’s something odd going on . . . even before Lord Saveli Solovsky took a fatal fall down a flight of stairs.
Anzor ought to be a rich kid, getting ready for his Presentation. Not that he minds hanging out on a raw Colony World, but the pretenses are piling up and when the police show up to tell him his father is dead, he’d better be wary and word things carefully . . . so they aren’t actual lies . . .
FROM M. C. A. HOGARTH: FireBorn’s Legacy (The Fallowtide Sequence Book 9)
Qora Paunene Zela has never been able to glimpse the future like other Eyes of the Faulfenzair God… but he’s always known where he’s supposed to be, so powerfully that he never questioned it, even when it took him off-world on the Faulfenza’s prototype warship, and from there into captivity and war among aliens. That those aliens should rescue him seemed fair, since they were the ones responsible for the mess they’d made of the galaxy. To a Faulfenzair’s way of thinking, anyway.
But the God has called Qora abroad again, and this time even a male who knows he’s in the right place at the right time isn’t sanguine about the journey. It’s one thing to wait on history to unfold… another entirely to follow in the footsteps of one of his people’s lost prophets, on the trail of the fourth and final messiah.
A lifetime of trusting the God may not be enough preparation for the revelations awaiting Qora at journey’s end….
Fireborn’s Legacy ties together the history of the Faulfenza, as told in Zafiil, and the intertwined Eldritch and Chatcaavan stories from the books of the Fallowtide Sequence. It also sets the stage for the final conflict that will unite the sapient species of the Peltedverse and all its multiple histories. Let the saga commence!
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Margins of Mundania
A tween boy’s Christmas gift opens a world of wonder and brings joy to a whole town fallen on hard times. A young New Englander in the early Twentieth Century discovers that some parts of human history don’t bear too close examination. A literary critic in the old Soviet Union must confront his own moral cowardice.
These stories, along with a multitude of bite-sized works of flash fiction, carry you from the most prosaic of events to the moments of awe that offer glimpses of matters larger than ourselves.
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: Waves
According To Hoyt 
Bought Ms Chism’s vampire accountant series last week – I think I did it through the Street Snacks link. Liked it a lot, and yes, did leave the 5-star review for the series under Snacks.
It’s sunny here in Oregon today. *waves hi to everyone*
LikeLike
Waves back from Flyover County (the one east of Medford). After the cross-Cascades drive on Thursday, it’s nice to have decent (by January standards) weather after a warning-worthy Winter storm. I was able to check and refill the batteries today, for the sort-of portable solar system. (Built on a 16′ flatbed trailer. It’s usually fastened to hard points behind the house.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Years ago drove up with my son to Ashland, helping him move, and caught the train back to CA.
Of course, the train doesn’t go through Ashland, so caught a little shuttle bus at something like a 7-11, and we drove Dead Indian Memorial east to find the tracks. Interesting road; maybe I’ll try it again some time – in daylight.
Bloody bus headlights failed. It was pretty good moonlight, and I lent the driver my (then very small) EDC flashlight, and we found our way to the station in KF. Nice lady at the station took the one other passenger to one restaurant, me to a different one, where we had our dinners, and then she collected us before the train arrived.
Switched to a more powerful EDC light shortly thereafter.
LikeLike
I’ve never been on Dead Indian Memorial Road (apparently, the “Memorial” was added later. DIRoad would be a bit coarse), since I seldom have a need nor desire to go to Ashland. We took Highway 66 once, and that was quite enough for a lifetime. The hairpin turns resemble the ones for hair more than roads. It was daytime, in good weather, but unless I had a crashing need, I’d pass. (As I recall, we were following a motorcycle–touring bike or a Harley. He didn’t seem to be all that happy with the road, either.)
My normal shopping route to Flyover Falls is through a few miles of mountain-ish road. Tight enough to warrant close attention, but after a couple dozen years, it’s pretty straightforward. The biggest concern is the wildlife, or the occasional stray herd of cattle, or a Golden eagle at the roadkill cafe. Balds don’t do that, but they like the river valley more.
LikeLike
Out of curiosity, how does hwy 66 compare to west side coming off the plateau and the lava fields for hwy 242 (Old McKenzie Hwy)? East side coming out of Sisters, heading into the lava fields are meh, seen worse (coming out of Sequoia National Park out of the mountains west … might have gotten car sick).
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve never been on 242, though TripCheck says it’s closed in winter. Highway 66 is nominally open, though for the Wednesday/Thursday storm warning, they had lots of “forget it” notes on the map.
The map doesn’t day it’s closed to towing, but I’d skip it. Oh, a utility (not box) trailer might do OK, but it’s twisty. Really twisty. Dead Indian has a permanent warning for towing in winter, so it might be worse than 66.
I was a passenger when a buddy and I did a hike over Franklin Pass, then back over Sawtooth from Mineral King. No experience with Sequoia proper. Then again, I don’t seem to get carsick. Had a couple of passengers tell me to be a bit less enthusiastic in turns, especially after the puppy lost her breakfast on $SPOUSE’s lap. Oops!!!!!!!!!!
LikeLike
There was a blanket between puppy and lap, so I survived the experience. Mostly.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, hwy 242 is closed to towing. Hwy 242 is closed now, probably through mid-June, or even into July. Also closed to anything over 20′ (I think). No motorhomes, or box trucks. I do not recommend taking a dually pickup, or jacked up rig, through, up or down, the west side. Even the east side is iffy, but it is more open, and less twisty. West side not only very twisty, but lanes are narrow, little to no line of sight either direction, and there is little to no roadside on most of it. Serious vertical cliff, with overhangs, and *vertical steep on the down side, and it is a long way down to the bottom of the big trees that “look like” they are close to the road. These sections are not counting the narrow sections where the road goes between unforgiving lava flow beds.
(*) No. Vertical cliff and vertical steep, are not redundant.
LikeLike
Lincoln county?
(It’s the county east of Taylor, where Medford is. Medford, the origin of Tombstone Pizza – originally made for the Tombstone Tap, located across from a cemetery.)
Well, it’s the Medford I think of first.
LikeLike
Q: What do Dallas, Medford, Springfield, Salem, and Milwaukie* have in common?
A: They’re all cities in Oregon that share the name with others (in some cases, myriad–looking at you, Springfield–many others).
There’s a Lincoln county in OR, somewhere in the very NW corner.
(*) Not quite the same spelling as Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but hey.
LikeLike
What, no Rochester?
LikeLike
Remember, o Readers, that you can be FORCE MULTIPLIERS! When you read books, you can rate and review them.
Even short reviews are of aid to the writer, because sheer mass helps. (And if you really can’t review, still rate.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
They crossed a bridge where the stream had not even little ripples of waves, and found others streaming ahead of them.
Even if all the scholars go to Confession, Violetta told herself stoutly, it will not take that long. Besides, they should all go.
She still felt relieved on arrival.
LikeLike
“Waves!”
Thanks for the Promos!
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Tommy, why is your hair still wet?”
”Hang on. So check me on this: Photons are effectively both particles and waves, right?”
Suzette nodded. “Characteristics of both, yes.”
Tom nodded as well. ”Okay, and one of the photon’s particle characteristics is they have mass, right?”
”Yes. That’s an easy experimental proof.”
”Okay. So now regular matter can’t get up to the speed of light because its mass increases as it accelerates, to theoretical infinite mass at C, correct?”
”Yep. Where are you going with this, Tommy?”
”Hang on, let me get through this. In spite of that mass to infinity thing, photons do not have infinite mass, correct?”
”Correct,” she said, crossing her arms.
”Okay, so what if it’s not the speed per se, but the acceleration that actually increases mass?”
Suzette’s brow furrowed. “Isn’t that a difference without a distinction?l
”Well, not if what I am thinking works. So we’ve been using the spatial transition into the spatial anomaly your brother discovered before the accident to actually try and go places through it, change the relative position on transiting back into our spacetime, but it’s not working. What if we don’t change coordinates in our spacetime, but change our velocity? Basically transition, change our state to velocities that are unreachable in our physics over in this hyperspace, or subspace, or pocket space, or sideswipespace, or whatever we end up calling it, and then transition back to our spacetime to the exact same coordinates with luminal or even superluminal velocity, never having accelerated here?”
Suzette frowned. “But…” She frowned harder. “That would mean…” More frowning. Then she pulled over her pad and stared at the equations they’d worked out to describe the transition event and the characteristics of the alternate spacetime. “The math actually does not say that would not work.”
”That’s what struck me in the shower just now. So how do we design an experiment, without demonstrating E=MC2 and blowing ourselves up like your dear departed brother, to figure out if we two just invented FTL travel?”
LikeLike
Umm… Sarah, you might want to use a different threat. Some people (not me, of course) would be tempted to send you what you don’t want just to see what you’d come up with for a cat girl picture.
LikeLike
Back at Tuscaloosa, Danny had learned about how the scientists of the early Twentieth had struggled with the paradox of light appearing to be both a wave and a particle, depending on what experiments one was doing with it, and how that led to the development of quantum mechanics. For the most part it was treated as pretty much a philosophical thing, right up to the point that integrated circuits started getting into the ultra-large-scale integration levels, with the circuits so small and closely packed that the quantum behavior of electrons became as important as their behavior in classical physics.
Now that he was studying the science that underlay the Kitties’ technology, he was discovering that a lot of what had puzzled those scientists was the result of certain cognitive blind spots of a primate, and specifically a persistence predator evolved from arboreal frugivores. On the other hand, it also appeared that the Kitties had bypassed a lot of the struggle humanity had gone through by the simple expedient of discovering a wrecked ancient spaceship on an airless celestial body of their home system — and within it a technical manual which had allowed them to leap straight from chemical rockets to FTL drives that evaded the lightspeed limit by slip-sliding through the edges of adjacent timelines.
Which means all those alternate history novels you read as a kid may be actual places out there somewhere.
LikeLike
Suzette studied her brother’s equations while Tommy dried off and got dressed. When he returned, he had two mugs of coffee, one which he set on the table next to her, then stepped back quietly. Tommy recognized the look of intense concentration on Suzette’s face. He leaned against the doorway, quietly sipping his brew until she came out of her revelry.
“Maybe,” Suzette began slowly, “we’re looking at this the wrong way. Yes, mass and energy are equivalent, just as Einstein discovered, but there are other implications. Whether you look at mass as waves or particles doesn’t matter. Mass warps the fabric of spacetime, a phenomenon we call gravity. It literally changes the topology of Euclidean space. But so does energy. See here? Sully used ring theory to describe the spatial anomaly, but he extended the definition beyond the three spatial dimensions we perceive.”
She stabbed the display with her stylus. “This section here, it describes a torus with subspace topological properties. It appears Sully was going for a type of mass-energy-spacetime unification beyond the limits of a Euclidean frame of reference, but short of a Grand Unification theory. I believe he was trying to formulate a way to enter the anomaly safely, to enter and exit subspace without crossing the Einstein threshold and spontaneously turning into a cloud of plasma and gamma rays.”
Tommy stood over Suzette and read the tablet from over her shoulder. Her understanding of advanced mathematics was analytic, methodical; Tommy had always had a more intuitive grasp. They complemented each other and had made some rewarding discoveries together. Being in love with a woman like her was something he’d never hoped for in his wildest dreams.
” ‘Wow’ simply doesn’t cover it.” Tommy’s eyes glazed over. With Suzette’s explanation, the equations opened up in his mind and he saw the full depth of what Sully had achieved. He contemplated what this meant for humanity and was humbled. The stars would be theirs. “But how did you figure that out so quickly?”
Suzette turned and smiled. “I guess twins really do think alike.”
LikeLike
Her pants rolled up, Cari stood in the sand, eyes closed, letting the waves lap around her bare feet. Max watched her, politely holding her shoes. “She’s picking up an echo,” Max thought. “Something happened here, sometime.” Events left echoes, Cari had explained, the more intense, the stronger the echo.
LikeLike
Max knew it was essential to watch his friend closely. If she was smiling, she was sensing something happy – no worries there. But he’d seen her tremble before, as if she were being crushed by a wave of fear or sorrow. Then it was time for tea or ice cream.
LikeLike
“Music?” Jon looked between Clara and Stephan. “What would the point be?”
“To draw attention,” said Clara.
“The question,” said Honor, “is whether it would draw the attention we want. Waves of locusts might draw attention, but whether we could use it would be another matter.”
Edur scowled in thought.
LikeLike
can’t help myself….
http://www.mrboffo.com/cwharchives/cwharch.htm
LikeLike
“Those are support vessels for the group. Why do you call them sidebands?”
“Without the carrier at some point, they wouldn’t exist.”
“Without the carrier…”
“…wave. Yes.”
“Damnit, Sparks!”
LikeLike
“It’s hard to believe Master Chief but there was a day when man sailed the waves of terrestrial oceans, not the void of space” Lt. Cmdr. Rollins opined.
The Master Chief was COB of the Ship, funny how they kept that tradition after all these centuries.
“We’re still doing that sir, still waves and shoals out there, just different names now, it’s still the men running the ship guiding it through those waves and shoals, sir” Master Chief Cooper replied.
“Think we’ll ever change Master Chief?” Lt. Cmdr. Rollins asked.
“I hope not sir, the universe needs us just like we are” Master Chief Cooper replied.
LikeLike