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 SARAH A. HOYT, ON PRE-ORDER: Done With Mirrors.
DONE WITH MIRRORS
From Prometheus Award winner Sarah A. Hoyt comes a dazzling collection that showcases why her work has appeared in Analog, Asimov’s, and Weird Tales—and why readers can’t get enough.
Magic-soaked noir in 1920s Denver. Mirror-hopping time lords fleeing across infinite universes. Survival in John Ringo’s zombie apocalypse. Murder and mystery in the world of Darkships and Rhodes. Each story in this collection pulls you into a different world—and refuses to let go.
Previously published in acclaimed anthologies from Baen and Chris Kennedy Publishing, these nine tales span Hoyt’s most beloved universes alongside standalone adventures. Whether she’s writing in Ringo’s Black Tide Rising series, exploring her own Darkships and Rhodes worlds, or crafting speculative noir that defies categorization, Hoyt delivers the vivid storytelling and emotional resonance that has earned her a devoted following.
From rain-slicked streets where magic and murder collide to the far reaches of space-time itself, Done With Mirrors demonstrates the genre-hopping brilliance of one of speculative fiction’s most versatile voices.
Nine stories. Nine worlds. One unforgettable collection.
With an introduction by Holly Chism.
FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: I’m the Beautiful But Evil Space Princess Who Rules A Galactic Empire But Really Wants To Leave People Ruthlessly Alone: Volume 3 (I’m The Beautiful But … Wants To Leave People Ruthlessly Alone!)
Imperial Princess Regnant Alice and Crown Prince Daniel of Xeros are now engaged to be married, by the laws and customs of the Church of the Goddess on Xeros.
But if you’ve ever had a wedding, or anything like a wedding, you know you have to hope the guests will be well-behaved.
Enter the Goddess herself, and her “plus-one,” Michael of Terra, who have a bit of an emergency for which they need our plucky crew.
But don’t worry . . . it’s only the universe unraveling. It can wait till tomorrow.
The third volume of the BBESP light novel!
FROM TESSA KAINE: Try Me: Shaw Security, Book 1 (Billionaires of Aspen Ridge)
When Leah Mitchell’s coffee shop became the favorite morning stop for Pierce Construction’s new security consultant, she told herself to ignore the way his presence made her pulse race. After all, Grant Shaw was older, impossibly wealthy, and way too serious. Plus, he had a kid. The last thing she needed was complications—especially not tall, dark, and brooding ones.
He knew better than to get involved with a suspect’s sister. But something about the sunny coffee shop owner got under his skin, making him break all his own rules. When the threats against Pierce Construction escalate, he’ll do anything to keep her safe… even if it means losing her forever.
With her sister under suspicion and her hometown’s future hanging in the balance, Leah has to decide if she can trust the man who’s determined to protect her—even as he steals her heart.
Try Me is a dual-POV, age-gap billionaire romance featuring a single dad ex-military protector hero and strong heroine with a small-town heart that he can’t resist.
Authors note: Try Me is a steamy instalove novella that can be read in about two hours. If you love a quickie, this will hit the spot!
FROM PAM UPHOFF: A Political Marriage (Chronicles of the Fall Book 20).
Lord Kalev Meknikov a young noble in a high tech civilization . . . Lady Aurora Denhart a young lady with a father in politics . . . and you’d think in such a high tech society that political alliances wouldn’t require silly things like marriages between young members of the families . . .
But here they are . . .
A somewhat silly and sweet romance within a Science Fantasy Universe.
FROM SCOTT G. HUGGINS: Through a Spyglass Darkly (The Adventures of Jehanne Dark)
In a realm where stone gazes turn men to eternal statues and ancient magics bind the fate of kings, half-gorgon assassin Jehanne Dark hungers for escape from her blood-soaked life. When a ruthless usurper unleashes a deadly totem that petrifies armies and threatens the throne, Jehanne sees her chance: pledge her lethal talents to the besieged King Michael in exchange for a crown—and a pardon.
But as betrayal coils like serpents in the shadows, Jehanne must navigate treacherous alliances, forbidden sorcery, and her own monstrous heritage. With enemies closing in and the line between hero and villain blurring, can she claim victory without losing her humanity… or her heart?
Dive into this gripping dark fantasy of intrigue, vengeance, and unlikely romance, where every glance could kill—and every choice reshapes a kingdom.
BY GEORGE SURDEZ, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Ladies of the Legion (Annotated): Two French Foreign Legion Pulp Adventures
A short novel and a short story exploring two very different effects of the feminine element on Legionnaires, told by the master of Foreign Legion adventure!
Lady of the Legion
She came in over the wall of a lonely French fort in the Sahara one night. And the commander decided to sacrifice himself and his men, rather than give her up to an Arab bridegroom.
Madame Takes Over
Rules Of Engagement don’t apply to the widow of a Legionnaire…
- This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving the stories genre and historical 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 DAVID PERLMUTTER: “Honey and Salt”
Olivia Thrift, a.k.a. the superheroine Captain Fantastic, is excited to be meeting fellow Canadian superheroines for the first time. However, when their gathering is violently interrupted, it quickly becomes a savage fight against evil. And, when Olivia suddenly loses her powers, will she be able to set things right when her fellow heroines are immobilized?
FROM MARY CATELLI: A Diabolical Bargain
Growing up between the Wizards’ Wood and its marvels, and the finest university of wizardry in the world, Nick Briarwood always thought that he wanted to learn wizardry. When his father attempts to offer him to a demon in a deal, the deal rebounded on him, and Nick survives — but all the evidence points to his having made the deal. Now he really wants to learn wizardry. Even though the university, the best place to master it, is also the place where he is most likely to be discovered.
FROM JULIE LAURENT: Captured and Calibrated: The Erotic Adventures of Ellektra-7
One night on Copacabana, Ellektra danced under the stars. The next, she was stolen by the Virex Concord—aliens who turned her into their perfect erotic star.
Abducted during Carnaval and subjected to merciless enhancement, Ellektra’s body is rewritten: libido dialed to insatiable, every touch amplified, her pleasure shared through an unbreakable empathic link. She’s no longer just a woman—she’s a weapon of desire, designed for their interstellar pleasure arenas.
But Ellektra remembers Rio. She remembers freedom. And when the opportunity arises, she breaks free, stealing a sleek scout ship and vanishing into the galaxy.
Now, with the sarcastic AI Calyx as her only companion, Ellektra drifts from system to system—crashing on pleasure moons, bargaining with alien lords, seducing her way out of trouble. Every encounter tests her new limits, every orgasm reminds her what she’s become.
She’s free, but she’s not finished. Because somewhere in the stars, a promise still burns: she’ll come back for the woman she left behind.
A pulse-pounding, explicit sci-fi erotica adventure—full of alien lovers, multi-partner ecstasy, and a heroine who refuses to stay caged.
FROM COLE MARLOWE: Doors That Lock From The Inside: A Journey Through Spiritual Doors That Led To Locked Doors
Doors That Lock from the Inside
Love’s endurance amid spiritual doors that lock from within—a brilliant mind lost to unseen currents.
Day 1, Surfers Paradise: Cole Marlowe’s wife Sayuri—stylish Tokyo U. grad, Columbia MBA—collapses unresponsive. Follows 55 days of deterioration into strange disassociation and psychotic outbursts, City Hall battles, patient-rights standoffs, police/ambulance calls, refusals, vanishings, and muriyari psych ward commitment.From Day 56 the layers are exposed: hidden vault reveals 4-year cosmic journey. 1,000+ Proton emails editing Beau Bauer’s The Dreaming Ring—outback starseed fasts, tree-trances, shadow walkers, Arcturus transmissions.
Fictionized for privacy (Japan’s MH laws), Marlowe’s Day-by-Day diary unravels it real-time. Flashbacks: Okinawa romance to Tokyo blind spots—“light worker” vigils, hoards, Beau’s deflections (“peaches,” temples). Vault playbook: deprivation → fixation → voices/“lights” → god-mission.
Sayuri rejects food/meds as poison, claims divinity. Wry expat voice skewers New Age solo quests sans guardrails: unchecked “awakenings” devour bright minds. Cultural anchors (tax-wife rituals) ground cult warnings.
No tidy end. Medicated glimpses amid locked doors. Marlowe reclaims vigilance: test novelties vs. ancients.
For genuine seekers, sincere spiritualists, cult survivors, expat spouses, skeptics—Brain on Fire x Educated in Tokyo twilight.
FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Longhorn Protocol (The Detective Stories)
A modern mystery in the tradition of Agatha Christie—where nothing is quite as harmless as it appears.
Fresh out of the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Daniel “Danny” Reyes intends to enjoy a brief, well-funded pause before real adulthood begins. A modest trust fund gives him freedom, a private pilot’s license gives him perspective, and Austin’s booming tech scene offers temptation he mostly resists.
Then a weekend gathering at a Hill Country ranch ends in a quiet disaster—one that authorities are all too quick to explain away.
As Danny follows small inconsistencies that no one else seems interested in noticing, he finds himself brushing against venture capitalists, ethics boards, and international tech interests who insist they are doing nothing improper at all. In a city where artificial intelligence is big business, curiosity becomes dangerous, politeness becomes camouflage, and the most respectable figures may have the most to hide.
Lighthearted, intricate, and sharply observant, The Longhorn Protocol blends classic mystery misdirection with 21st-century espionage, proving that in modern Texas, the real secrets are rarely encrypted—and almost never loud.
THE BASED BOOK SALE STARTS ON THE 11TH. THE FIRST VOLUME OF NML WILL BE IN IT.
Signup for the 2026 Spring Based Book Sale Now!
BUSINESSES THAT AREN’T BOOKS BUT ARE FRIENDS (OR FAMILY) OF THE BLOG!
Welcome! To Morrigan’s Mercantile!
MurphicIndustries
For your gaming figurines and other such needs.
AN MY ORDER FROM KING HARV’S COFFEE INCLUDED A FEW FREEBIES, ONE WAS THIS:
Attack of the 50 ft Tough Old Lady 1 lb NEW!
Which is very tasty.
For all your Imperial coffee needs, we recommend you fly King Harv’s Imperial Coffees.
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: THUNDER
According To Hoyt 
“Behold The Sound Of Thunder!”
“Fred, we don’t need ears to know that you farted. We can smell it.”
[Yes, I had to do that.] [Crazy Grin]
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I’d rather not, that movie was awful! [Grin]
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“Dang!” Joe Belcher exclaimed. “Drak Bibliophile used the fart joke I was going to base my own vignette on! Now what am I going to do?”
“Well,” said his wife mildly, “you could write a vignette about how he stole your thunder.”
Joe blinked – considered – and sprang for his laptop.
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🤣
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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.)
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this
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“There’s clear sky ahead!” called Helena and hurried forward. Giles scrambled after, keeping her from getting ahead of them, and they all climbed out on the outcropping of gray rock, roughened with lichens, with half a dozen sapling striving in the cracks.
Augustus surveyed, quickly, and then called, “Over here!”
Moments later, faces looked up, and Augustus waved. When they stood still — she thought, but could not be certain, that it was Georgiana and Corridon — he turned to Helena and asked for her light spell.
Minutes later, everyone in their tower scrambled up, babbling of shadows.
“Like thunder in a clear sky,” said Augustus, “shadows not being cast are dangers.”
“Thunder,” grumbled Georgiana, “means there is a thunderstorm near. What are these monsters from?”
“We escape,” said Violetta. “We tell the king. He sets every master wizard in the kingdom on the matter, if that many are needed.”
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In the current Congress, what do we get when we demand the Senate pass the SAVE act?
Thun-derrrr.
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Someone had brought a boombox into the robotics shop and hooked their phone up so they could stream Shepardsport Pirate Radio on it. Right now the Timeline Brothers were doing the Alternative show, with alternative rock and alternate history.
Unsurprising that their first number for the hour should be Kim and the Humdingers’ “Thunder and Rain,” given that today the Timeline Brothers were interviewing Laurel Sinclair on her new novel England and Everything After. It was pretty controversial in the alternate history community, dealing as it did with a breakpoint in the Triassic, with the Reelfoot Rift not failing, but extending the Gulf northward — but still having a recognizable European history so that English settlement in North America progressed pretty much the same, when a change that big, that early, could well have butterflied away the development of the entire human species.
(Laurel Sinclair’s the wife of Steven “Kim” Sinclair, the leader of the band).
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Not a vignette: getting a really strange feeling watching this Superbowl. Will be very happy for normality.
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🦉
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How and why would you expect Normalcy?
John in Indy
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How and why would you expect Normalcy?
John in Indy
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Honor lingered by the door for a time, but then she heard a sound like thunder. She sighed. She did not know whether it really was thunder, this world might have a thousand things that sounded the same, but she should go in, in case.
Edur stood by the door.
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Thunder rumbled across the sky as lightning flashed between the clouds. “I’m Thor!” he cried. “Well, you should have stretched first,” Freya told him.
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Worst “pull my finger” jokes ever.
I’m jealous I couldn’t participate…
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“Marcie, add thunder and lightning to the simulation, level three.”
“Enhanced thunderstorms,” the AI responded. “Multiple cells, rapid and intense strikes.”
The viewport holograms changed from sunny to dark, ominous storm clouds. To make shuttle pilot, I have to be able to land this brick in a hurricane if necessary.
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Great promos as always, and yes, please put up honest reviews! They DO help!!!
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(Part 1/3)
Tom tried really hard not to laugh out loud; it could be bad for student morale. (Like, offhandedly telling someone they couldn’t write their way out of a paper bag, as judged from that story — which was enough to scar some people for life, or put them off writing for years, go figure that if you could.) “I think I see the bug in your spell there, kiddo.”
Clancy Silverman gave him a dark look. Maybe “kiddo” wasn’t the very most politic way to address a second-year magic student, and a 19-year teen to boot. “I’m assuming you just read this script out loud, in a strong basic casting-circle of course, and then… nothing much visible happened?”
Extra points for it being written on lined paper torn from a legal pad. It was easy enough to believe formal writing and paper had useful effect on a purely-verbal spell; but unless it entered your intent or intonation, that was simply horse-puckey. The amount of wasted effort and Will involved..!
“Yes, nothing happened; an utter dud of a spell.” She was silent a moment, under her long fall of (naturally) nearly-scarlet hair. “Wait, what do you mean, nothing visible happened? Nothing comes of a dud spell, it’s sort of… the definition of a dud.” Puzzled, annoyed, mystified. Reddish brows furrowed in bemusement.
“You even capitalized ‘Thunder’ here, and likely that carried through in your Tone and Intent as well as your Will. It looks like a name, it might even have sounded like a proper noun as you spoke it; yet all this looks just like an Environmental Impact 101 assignment — basic weather control. Bet you were all simply told to “call thunder” as a spell prompt, right?
‘Well… yeah. I mean, you grow up hearing people say that, it’s less of a thing than people calling lightning, naturally enough; but of course they warned us off of doing anything like the second very, very explicitly.” A short pause. “For flatly-obvious reasons, lightning is dangerous.”
So is Thundr, Tom Corcoran couldn’t help thinking. Well-tempered, can take a joke better than almost anyone; and a fiercer weapon than any mere object you could ever name. “And when you didn’t get a big Bang! from the sky, right on cue, you — what? — simply re-orated the spell?”
Clancy laughed right out loud, briefly and (mostly) courteously. “No, not at all, first-year mistake. Not only am I not a rookie any more, that’s a big no-no on the spell range. They’ll shut you down in an eyeblink, never even mind the Observer from class watching and recording your every move.” In her typical mercurial way, air and fire in her Chart, she sighed deep.
Tom steepled his fingers a moment. There was a line between simply giving advice and counsel, and starting to do trainees’ work for them, that he’d not have gotten near even as an interested relative — never mind being on the research faculty himself. “Did you get any warnings, from that? Range monitoring typically includes someone listening to verbal elements and/or watching somatic components, as well as proofreading any written Sending.”
Another puzzled look. “No, of course not. And of course they don’t look at your notes, ever, you’re free to bring whatever you want as long as you’ll not be burning or otherwise Sending what you wrote out — which is fourth year stuff at the earliest anyway, very strictly off-limits now.”
“What do you know about Summoning? That’s a touchy subject, with some few people, I know — actually working through, um, Personages doesn’t fit so well with the prevailing ‘input-output paradigm’ they like to push, these days — which some of us old-timers used to call the ‘drop in your penny, push the lever, and just pick up your gum’ school of magical Workings.”
“O-kay, yeah. Some of our professors hint at that a lot, without actually telling us much, or by just referring us to this or that classic text. If they don’t ignore it completely, or shut you down hard if you ever try to even sneak up to the subject. It’s, exactly like you say, a touchy sort of thing; and most of us stay well away from the Third Rail there. And with a few other magical topics I could name, too, but won’t unless you push.”
“Possession is immensely rare, child, unless you’re in one of the few old traditions that practice it. Old-school Voudoun, or traditional mid-20th century Wicca. ‘Drawing Down the Moon’ comes close, at the very least.”
“Yuck. Blindfolds and ropes and all that creepy crap. Though I’d kinda like to try out some of that dancing naked in the moonlight, sometime; it’s not a thing teachers talk about much, except to throw deep shade.”
Tom leaned back and put down his sandwich. “Traditionally there was a lot more one-on-one attention, most traditions. Teaching magic, ‘core magic’ as in today’s usual curriculum, is a lot more like, well, high school.”
“Well, yeah, of course. That was our New Age Dawning, and all.” And then she was silent for a while, that stretched some. “You can’t possibly be saying there is a, spirit ally, or loa, or whatever, can you? I mean, if there is a Spirit of Thunder wouldn’t calling on the thing itself be more or less identical to calling on the Spirit of it? I mean, that’s the essence of the Principle of Correspondence they teach us, how to read old-style texts and discussions; calling on the Spirit of Thunder ought to be literally the very same thing as calling on thunder, simply as itself, so why run all the way around the barn to reach the well six feet away?”
Tom grinned. “Agatha McCaffrey, right? She uses that line all the time.”
Clancy answered his smile. “Yeah, of course, but… can we stop doing it, here? Stop ‘beating around the bush’ on this? I got a provisional fail.”
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(Part 2/3)
“Oh, that’s not right. You need to go see the ombudsman on that, but, now I have to just tell you, don’t I? Did you ever do a textual scan on what you wrote, and then Spoke in-circle? Simple plug-it-in Cyber Web stuff?”
“Huh?” Absolute bafflement. Then… “You mean, sometimes ‘Thunder’ isn’t only regular, grumbly after-lightning thunder? I don’t get that at all.”
“Norse.”
“Won’t take Northern Traditional, at all, until next year. Wait… Thor?”
“Look up his by-names. Nicknames, sort-of.”
“We got that in Celtic Traditional already. And Classic Mediterranean too. You can’t hardly even read the mundane Odyssey or Iliad without kennings.”
She dropped into what they once called ‘a brown study’ several moments.
“Thundr. I have seen that somewhere, maybe not even magic.” Another pause that lasted a while. “So, Uncle Thomas, what did I actually do, out there on the dusty, chilly spell-range?” She even looked a tiny trifle worried.
“It looks to me like you Summoned the… patron of thunder-the-loud-noise. Bearer of ‘Crusher’ the big-dang war hammer, and all. Only since they keep you kids away from anything like a Greater Summoning, I’d guess you simply got his attention. Is there anything you’ve done recently, that resembles a sacrifice? Even a little, even mundanely?”
She winced. “Half an hour ago I dropped my tray at lunch, even paid extra to get genuine watered-wine with my dinner; it’s been a ghastly week. No clue why, nobody was near enough to trip me. Splash, all right in the dirt!”
“You likely need to talk to Elizabeth Erdelyi. And not in any sort of very official setting, at least to start. Those who are Chosen, aren’t always fitted nicely into our mass-production ‘New Age’ model of magery. Or, in your sort of case, more like shamanism crossed with war magic, with a more than trivial touch of the old-fashioned ‘seidhr’ thrown in.” Paused. “At least that’s what I see when I Look. Or, take a very quick glance at it.”
She, visibly, brightened. “See, that’s what I’ve been waiting and really, truly hoping to get into. Every time I come across some reference to the old-time Norse ‘volva’ — that really resonates with me, somehow. As long as all the deeply old-school nastiness like human sacrifice and slavery is kept well and strictly out of it.” She shivered. “I’d not have fit in so well, back on those old Viking-era days, not at all. Ugh and Eeuuw!” And after another pause, “As long as I can do that without, well, getting in trouble with God. I mean, I’m a Lutheran just like you and the rest of the family! Well, except for Emily and her sort-of-atheism, whatever that is.”
“Spirit allies are allies, Clancy. Sometimes they’re also figures of faith and religion, but it’s not required, at least not by most of ’em.
“Sometimes I think calling them ‘gods and goddesses’ was one of the worst things our ancestors did trying to shut down ‘nonconforming’ religions in general and literal magic in particular.” His voice was a little far-away.
She laughed again. “Wars of the Roses, Uncle Thomas. ‘Earthly worship’ not ‘heavenly worship’ — yet, it was about as bad as any religious war, or so they’ve been telling me in European History class. At least it wasn’t the downright vicious-evil horror-show stuff they did routinely, back in the old Russian Insurrection days. Or, during the Spanish Civil War, or…”
Clancy lifted a brief prayer that ‘Marxism’ had pretty much been burned out of the human system, a full century ago in the 1920s and late teens. Nasty-bad as those dozen or so years had been across the Russian Empire, before the ‘Krasnyy’ fever had mostly broken at last — she shuddered, a bit, contemplating an alternate history where that infection of the mind had continued on raging, or even spread its contagion across the world…
“Okay, I heard you suggest I should go to the ombudsman, but with what? I still need a solution to my actual problem. Ugly provisional fail, on’t.”
“That’s pretty simple. You should talk to Elizabeth, probably Marina McKay as well. If you did make a connection, your assignment ought to be pretty easy to complete successfully on the re-test. With proper spadework done in advance, of course.”
“Spadework? You mean, extra magic, or just political greasings of egos?”
“Both. Going to the class ombudsman to simply explain the extra contextual circumstances is a great start, but that would go even better if you had a note from someone who’d listened to you and Looked at things. I’m guessing Marina would suggest you do something like a shamanic journey on it, go to some Personage relevant to such things and get some deeper context there.”
“Yeah, right, shamanism. Not quite another Third Rail thing; but still not a wonderful idea to bring it up. Your magic is ‘supposed to be’ rooted in ‘scientific’ principles and routed through ‘approved best practices’ too.”
He cocked his head a little. “You do know her family was in the mix with Lilliana Markova and her family in Russia, back in the day, right? One of the major centers of the Flowering Generation back in the 1960s, when the New Age really started avalanching downhill, and magic went mainstream?”
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(Part 3/3)
Clancy snorted. “Yeah, and major doofus-move joining the long conga line to go bother her about stuff like that, right? ‘Oooh, are you really the?’ fanfarts, so nye kulturnyy, at least if you trust Robert Heinlein on Russian-lingo stuff.”
“Heinlein was way ahead of his time, in magic and science both. Sure, one can pick out a whole list of bloopers in his work, especially his earliest fiction; but notice they get corrected pretty soon in later stuff. Lovely time to be alive, overall; post-Imperial-War expansion in science and in so many technological useful-arts, in magic as well — sometimes I truly envy that time, most of it was just before mine in a lot of ways.”
And Clancy couldn’t help shuddering. Yes, though there had been a lot of bad stuff just before, the Great Depression and then the Imperial War with the Japanese Empire and that short-lived pseudo-Marxist nastiness in Italy and Germany before the ‘Second Great War’ really got rolling in Asia and too much of the Pacific — but the 1950s and 60s were genuinely amazing, and they had laid so much of the foundations of her own modern world.
But what if things had been different? What if Russia had fallen to the Red Menace back in the 20s? What if America had joined the collectivist levo-fascism from Europe, even somewhat, in the 30s? What if the Second Great War had been fought with Russia and America on opposite sides, or had been followed by some kind of nuclear-armed stalemate, or even war?
What if the 1960s had been hijacked by the ghosts of Lenin and Marx? Or China had gone from the Imperial frying pan into some Marxist fire? Some odd way, her mind seemed to be trying to get her to fall down the rabbit hole of nasty, ugly, alternate-historical speculation.
Maybe no post-Imperial-War collaboration between von Braun and Korolyov and Tavilas and eventually even crusty old Goddard. Maybe no unmanned Moon rockets in the late 40s, no manned Moon landings from the early 1960s on; no nuclear rockets developed in the 1970s to work as space tugs and throw thousand-ton payloads to Mars and beyond, then brake and come back ’round for another boost… no big space stations, no Moon and Mars bases, no…
No point in falling into some black-hole of ‘what-if-bad’ right now.
“Sorry, I just zoned out. Thinking of what could’ve gone wrong, starting with Lenin and the Bolsheviks actually winning — and even being sort of admired for it or something, Marxist chic, T-shirts with madmen like Marx and Lenin and Mao Tse-Tung and Castro — no Flowering Children going wild with digging into traditional magic and really making it work practically. Maybe no Katias Tavilas from Lithuania, to set her stamp on our whole rockets-to-space thing; maybe no Lilliana Markova in Petersburg to help lead the Magical Springtime; those idiot Communists might’ve sent even Korolyov to some concentration camp or something. It’s scary. Even without imagining America and Russia in some tense atomic-bomb face-off!
“And, twice sorry, Uncle Thomas. We were talking strategy.”
“Clancy, you do sound a bit like a volva, really. While alternate histories might not affect us any, here on our timeline, it’s still very much the sort of thinking that goes with being a seer. Perhaps Marina’s ‘take’ on this — assuming you really did initiate some sort of personal relationship with the Thunderer — might include an approach to Freyja as well, sometime not too far in the future. You know, patroness of seers.”
She chuckled. “They keep saying and saying that being a Libra is really all about relationships, with people and things and ideas. On and on and again and some more. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, though. I said they keep saying it, and they do; but I didn’t say they were wrong.”
Tom picked up his sandwich, and suddenly noticed the time. Temporal awareness worked in mundane ways, too. Held it out to Clancy, instead.
“Best thing you could do right now is… eat something. Fifteen minutes to top of the hour. Or did I mis-understand you saying your lunch ended up as a libation to… whoever-and-whatever? Corned beef on black rye bread.”
“Eeek! I have to get all the way across campus to Mathematics for Arcana class, and eat too. Professor Dodge used to teach at Oxford, and it shows up big-time in how he conducts his classes.” She dug in, appreciatively.
“Let things move forward on their own awhile, Clancy. If you say ‘just let things drift’ people tend to take it badly; but sometimes you should not just do something, but stand there a little while instead. I’ll reach out to Marina — Professor Marina Sholokhova McKay — and see if she’d like to hear more about this, and to come to dinner soon with our family and you.
“Thank you, Uncle Thomas. For everything, today and all the other days.” It was a little indistinct, said around a mouthful of sandwich, but quite earnestly meant. And her face said… simple, uncontrived bliss.
And suddenly, Thomas Corcoran had a little picture pop into his own mind, all fully unbidden. Clancy Silverman, only a bit older than she was right now, standing on Chryse Planitia in a pressure suit. Taking a break from teaching Basic Seership 101 at the local lyceum. A volva in truth.
“Per aspera ad astra, Clancy.” With one of those sly subtle smiles of his.
She grinned. “Inter sidera, ibi libertas,” with her mouth only half-full.
Past troubles to the stars. Out among the stars, there is freedom.
(Hat-tip to Sarah A. Hoyt, for the English original of that second Latin motto, some months back. And for something vaguely like this variant timeline, minus all the magic, see Tom Kratman et al., “The Romanov Rescue” and “The Romanov Rising” — so far. Unsolicited plug.)
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