Month: June 2026

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, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. By clicking through and buying (anything book-related, 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. Remember though all of these submissions are from people willing to be associated with this blog. So if you’re trying to buy from people who don’t hate you, this is a good place to start.– SAH

FROM PAM UPHOFF: Sweeper (Chronicles of the Fall Book 22)

A novella in the Three part Alliance A science fantasy about house repairs and family.

A badly mentally damaged boy, living on the street. Sweeping sidewalks. Living on charity, scrounging and kicks.

Lord Volodya Ignorov, newly transferred into the Bureau of Intelligence in Nova Moskva inherits a rundown house, and a runaway servant. “Probably dead by now.”

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 4

Imperial Princess Regnant Alice and her fiancé, Crown Prince Daniel of Xeros, and the plucky crew of the Imperial Space Yacht Aurora, with the assistance of the Goddess Eireala, have traveled tens of millions of light-years from the Milky Way Galaxy to mend a rift in space.

Once that’s fixed, they’ll head home – and Alice and Daniel will finally be wed!

But nothing ever goes according to plan . . . not even an Imperial wedding.

You’re all invited to the nuptials, regardless . . .

The fourth volume of the BBESP light novel!

FROM JULIE FROST: Smuggling Spaces

Beagles
And dragons
And bears
OH MY

Russell Fisk, the owner/operator of the interplanetary tramp freighter Inquisitive Tamandua, really hates transporting live cargo. But when money’s tight and jobs are hard to find, he’ll take what he can get.

Sometimes the client’s paperwork is iffy. Sometimes the live cargo is unpredictable. And sometimes the dead cargo is even more unpredictable.

Whether the meerkats are engaged in a blood feud, the graveyard is haunted, or the miniature multicolored glow-in-the-dark capybaras might spontaneously combust, Russ has one simple (ha) mission:

Getting his cargo and crew from Point A to Point B in one piece, while staying a step ahead of the feds.

FROM ROBERT MILLER: Sword of the Hopeful King

In a realm forged by ancient legends, twelve-year-old Eofor refuses to mourn his dragon-rider father—because the magical amulet at his chest still pulses with a living heartbeat.

Running to the mountains to find the father he knows still lives, Eofor discovers that his father was hunting rogue dragon riders allied with a monster from an age long past. Beneath the kingdom, something far older lurks, but so does the blade that will save the kingdom if Eofor can wield it.

One impossible rescue. One four-winged flight. One chance to claim the Sword of the Hopeful King… or watch the kingdom fall.

Sword of the Hopeful King — Where a child’s faith meets dragon fire and destiny takes wing.

FROM STEPHANIE OSBORN: Eclectic Osborn: The Many Worlds of Stephanie Osborn

Many of Stephanie Osborn’s avid readers have requested her short works be collected and put in print. It took some time for her to write enough to make it economically worthwhile, simply because she usually writes novels.

But the time has arrived! Eclectic Osborn is that collection. Between its covers, you will find fantasy, mystery, horror, satire, and more, many of which have never seen publication before this volume. Sate your appetite for great stories with this diverse plate of tales!

EDITED BY CHRIS KENNEDY: Anthromech

Fifteen new science fiction series. One shared principle: Humanity must never surrender the final choice to the machine.

Welcome to “Anthromech” where technology may serve, amplify, and even merge with humanity, but it must never rule it; these stories push back against the tired assumption that machines will inevitably inherit the future.

This isn’t your traditional anthology, though; it is a Simultaneous Series Launch, introducing fifteen new series in one explosive volume. Readers won’t just discover new worlds here; they’ll help decide which of them march forward into production as full series. Which ones will succeed? You make the call on which ones you want to see more of.

Even more unusual, over half the stories pair veteran, bestselling Chris Kennedy Publishing authors with newer writers, turning the book itself into an act of mentorship as well as an imagination of the future. So climb aboard “Anthromech;” after all, the machine is nothing without you!

With stories by:
S.W. Swoope II & Chris Kennedy
Craig Bell & Kevin Steverson
Richard Cartwright & William S. Frisbee, Jr.
Joseph Hower & William Alan Webb
Charli Cox & John E. Siers
Jay Burr & Mark Stallings
David Appleby & Robert E. Hampson
Abigail Jenkins & April Kelley Jones
M.D. Boncher
Russ Tilton
Michael LaVoice
C.A. Waldron

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: No Man’s Land: Volume 1 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)

Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.

On a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong. Catastrophically wrong.
Now technology indistinguishable from magic courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson, Envoy of the Star Empire—Skip to his friends— has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it all.
Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies, Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total destruction.
Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.

FROM STEPHEN PALMER: Americans Abroad: A Novel of Western Europe’s Surrender to Islam

Americans Abroad takes the reader to London, Paris, Berlin, and beyond. The novel explores the seemingly peaceful Islamic invasion of Europe, the feckless responses of Western European politicians, the intolerance of those preaching tolerance, and the weaponization of accusations of Islamophobia and racism. Can Muslims co-exist with Western democracy? Do they even want to? Or is co-existence merely a steppingstone on the path to domination? Americans Abroad probes these issues and makes the case for Christianity in a fast-paced, entertaining read, mixing humor with thought-provoking questions of religion and culture.

Six Americans travel to Europe—two go for work, two for fun, and two for Christian ministry opportunities. As they travel about the Continent, they encounter each other, as well as the effects of Muslim mass migration. The Americans commit the politically incorrect sin of noticing the downsides to “cultural enrichment” from third-world immigrants.

Americans Abroad follows Stephen Palmer’s successful three-book Unlikely series. In his fourth novel, Stephen shifts focus from American politics to broader issues of Western culture and religion.

After a successful twenty-year legal career, Stephen Palmer retired from Big Law at age 46 to focus on writing, public speaking, and volunteer Christian ministry activities. Stephen and his wife, Jennifer, live in Starkville, Mississippi after thirty years in the Atlanta area.

FROM BRIAN HEMING: Monster Girl Evolution: Tournament of the Smart: An illustrated tournament battle litRPG

“AN ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT SATIRE” “a fun read and not to mention hilarious” “Peak fiction.””this is ironically genius level.”

After the Kingdom of Dumb was attacked across the dimensional barrier by the Empire of the Smart, Amy led her team to take the fight to the Empire, along the way levelling up and evolving into a Luminous Fount of Dumbness, alongside Mizuno’s evolution into a Techno-Mage Evolved Smart Girl, Misty’s into an Armored Evolved Horse Girl, and Sassy’s into a Hyperactive Omega Puppy Girl. After taking over a machine-controlled world of the Empire using Mizuno’s hacking powers, the girls entered the Tournament of the Smart, a team fighting tournament that will determine the next ruler of the Empire.

Now they must fight increasingly powerful opponents, giving every match their all as they seek the throne. But can the Empire of the Smart accept a Dumb ruler, or will shadowy forces succeed at rigging the tournament and crushing the girls and their hopes to make a place for dumbness in the universe?

32 illustrations, full color if your device supports it.

FROM DANIEL WILLARD: The Mobster’s Daughter

Danny couldn’t understand why he was so attracted to Carly, because they didn’t have a lot in common. Danny was quiet; Carly couldn’t stop talking. Danny loved science and math; Carly was terrified of them. Danny read science fiction; Carly read Harlequin romances. Danny’s favorite band was Pink Floyd; Carly had never heard of Pink Floyd.

It was only later that Danny found out that Carly’s father was a Mafia boss. That made things complicated, because Danny’s father was an FBI agent.

The Mobster’s Daughter is a tale set in Youngstown, Ohio, a blue collar city of giant steel mills and back-room bookie joints, close-knit families and unsolved disappearances, church festivals and car bombs.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Catch That Thought

Skid Milliken has a problem. Rent’s due, clients are scarce, and he can’t afford to be picky when he’s on a space station a long way from Earth. So when a Chongu scientist walks into his office claiming she’s being pursued by an unseen cabal, he grabs the job.

Now Skid has a real problem. Someone’s chasing him, and is willing to kill. His scientist is carrying a deadly secret from a distant planet — and someone in her circle of students is a traitor, but no one knows who.

Can he sort out this tangled yarn of lies and half-truths before it kills him, even as an ancient enemy closes in?

A short story of the Chongu Empire.

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: ADAPTABLE.

Only four Sarah And The Clankers songs this week, because I REALLY had a crazy day yesterday.

Last week’s The Week In Clankers

The full list up to two weeks ago: The Clankers did Sing.

Sorry. I haven’t been sleeping, yesterday was brutal (just scheduling. Nothing BAD happened.) And I’ve sat here staring at the screen for two hours now, while my thoughts run in every direction like stray sheep.

So, treat this as an open thread: Europeans discovering America while coming for the world cup; the latest cray cray on the left (spoiled for choice); the IPO for space x.

I’m going to nap so I can write. Because staring at the screen is not productive.

I’ve been trawling the wilds of X again. In my defense it’s the only way to find out what is actually going on in the rest of the world that the press wishes to hide.

Anyway, I fell into a talk about the reflecting pool where the title was Decay is a Choice. Like this: apparently, as far as I understand (I don’t have the history on hand just now) the story goes like this: the Obama administration spent something like 300 million to have the reflecting pool be “ecologically minded.” Meaning it was either filling from a river or from grey water (I don’t remember which) and it was lined in a “natural” way or some crap. (I honestly can’t remember, though the post I read two weeks ago described what was done in oh so green sounding words, and all sorts of eco-techno nonsense (most eco-techno is nonsense because they don’t understand engineering and don’t know reality from a hole in the ground. They’re frankly iffy on reality beyond wordage.)

On the surface, this was done for ecological and green reasons, and of course all the usual suspects applauded, but what actually happened was that within two weeks — predictably — the reflecting pool was basically open sewage with algae and goose poop. AND THEY LET IT STAY LIKE THAT.

Now you can argue that this was because they couldn’t admit failure. Sure, you could. And it probably was part of it. Heaven knows the Little Man Who Wasn’t There (Obama) was absolutely loathe to admit he might fail/have failed at anything. Or done anything wrong.

But given his not-so-hidden hate-on for our country, you know and I know he got a secret (?) frisson from the fact that the reflecting pool, supposed to reflect a monument to America’s past, was in fact open sewage. In his tiny (not a reflection of intelligence but of pettiness) mind, this reflected the true state of our country and all that jazz. In fact, at the same time they were tearing down monuments to our past and covering others in graffiti.

A post on ex, the one entitled “Decay is a Choice” was in fact hypothesizing that the left does this stuff on purpose.

I know it sounds far-fetched, but I’m sure he’s right. It’s a combination of four things:

1- They’re Marxist who think that wealth is a finite pie and somehow bringing America down will automagically bring everyone else up. (This is the opposite of reality. There should be a term for that. Not just false, but the actual opposite of reality. But Marxism is a reductionist and stupid lens to view things through.)

2- They are straight up oikophobes, imagining that places abroad, particularly those with people who tan are full of natural communists. America isn’t so America must be eeeevil. And therefore they hate us and want us to suffer.

3- They genuinely straight up love decay, filth and nastiness. You see, they are upper class keyboard muffins (thank you shesellsseashells for the lovely term) who have never experienced nastiness. To them this is what “authentic” means as opposed to their lives which they experience as plastic and too nice. For some it might be a cover for guilt for their unearned riches. For others it’s simply a kink. Nostalgie de la boue.

4- They are despicable sadists who get off on making everyone suffer. This goes with their illusion of being “elite” and wanting the “peasants” to be humiliated.

At this point you guys are looking at me like I’m nuts, but really cast your mind on the administration of the autopen and tell me if those points don’t unify everything they did, from the open border bringing in the dregs of the third world (not sending their best is the best case scenario. Most places were sending their utter worst), to letting gangs run rampant, to defunding the police, to indoctrinating kiddies on the stupid idea that slavery was the point of the country, to taking our money and giving it to people who hate our country, to not letting us have the energy we need as an industrial society, to– Everything they did really.

From the outside, it looked like America was decaying, but the decay was not organic. Decay was a choice and the choice wasn’t ours, but imposed from above.

Decay is a choice.

And it only goes on until the people decide enough is enough. Let me put it this way, as the um…. spicy stuff going on the other side of the pond shows? Decay only goes on until the governed decide they’ve had enough.

And we’ve had just about enough. We’re not getting spicy because FOR NOW our government is combating the decay.

However, California should take notice of what’s going on the other side of the pond. Because not only is decay a choice, IT IS NEVER THE CHOICE OF NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS. And it is never the choice for people who live in it. People prefer living in clean surroundings and being safe. Most normal people want to work, have a home, have a stable relationship and raise fat babies.

Anything else is being imposed upon them by a plague of academics who, for the reasons listed above (and probably others) decided that the West and PARTICULARLY America deserved decay and decline. And since they’d actually never understood decay and decline, they decided to impose it from above. Which means it’s not real. It’s Kay-fab decay and decline. Which–

People don’t like. The encoprofication of reality is not the preference of normal, healthy human beings. Of which, thank the good Lord, the US still has plenty, whatever the news tell you. (I didn’t even list above the decay of our education, which is very much a choice. There’s nothing wrong with the minds of the young. Our education establishment has worked really hard at preventing them from learning, is all.)

It is important for everyone — yes, particularly you, doomer 23900 in your dungeon — to realize that encoprofication (From coprolite) is not real. It’s a choice. It’s a mod on reality. There is no reason for it to exist. Just like there was never any real reason to stop building nuclear plants; there was never any real reason for not producing oil in the US; there was never any reason to let mentally ill and drug addicts turn our cities into cesspools; there was never any reason to destroy and spit on our past.

It is the choice of a cultural minority, which has installed itself in the seats of power and for whom this is an aesthetic and possibly sexual choice.

It is NOT OURS. And there’s no reason to allow the small group of shit-aesthetes any power.

It’s time to push their noses in. Before the necessity comes to us that came to people across the pond. Because that necessity comes with a lot of horrible choices and also inevitable pain I don’t wish on our land.

So go forth. Build under, build over, build around. Make things beautiful, shining, prosperous. There’s nothiing wrong with that, and no reason to feel ashamed of preferring it.

And annoy a Marxist today. Yes, I now it’s easy. But also every time a Marxist cries an angel gets its wings. And I don’t care if you don’t believe in angels, just do it anyway.

Go be clean and happy. And if you still can, raise fat babies. If you can’t, help someone else raise fat babies.

There’s a lot of angels needing wings.

I was there. I remember. All through the early oughts, we, the insufferably, terminally plugged in wondered when this amazing new means of communication, this thing that allowed all of us to become “journalists” would pay off in elections, in public opinion, in everything.

In 2016 and definitely in the reaction to 2020 and the ridiculous gaslighting and prosecution not just of Trump but of anyone who said what we all saw happen “the results of 2020 were impossible and, oh, btw, the king is so senile he talks to invisible people and no longer knows who or what he is” we saw the first fruits.

The left brought everything they had to bear. EVERYTHING. Starting in 2016 they were a locked-in-step chorus, not just the news, but every “artist” (pardon me if I scoff) from writers to producers to everyone, all spoke with the same voice trying to convince us they had already won, resistance was futile and we were just the remnants of the lost world where truth mattered.

Ten years earlier it would have worked. Arguably it worked, in crowning Obama and whoever was really ruling for him.

In 2016 it sputtered and died. If you think it wasn’t a big surprise, go look at the news from that election, as the results came in (Always advisable if you’re down anyway.) They threw everything they could at it, in 2020. Everything. From the — What did Joe call it. I can’t remember the exact wording anymore. Besides it’s early, and I haven’t had coffee (I might not finish this before ten, but let the record show it’s six am. Gah. It’s a day like that) — the most comprehensive and inclusive fraud machine ever deployed in American politics (and hooo, boy, that’s a lot) and they managed it. Nothing short of a revolution. Then they started dismantling everything.

And yet…. and yet we’re still here, and 2024 didn’t go the way they were so sure they’d set it up to go.

Also the fraud has become — as it was for those of us who watched it all the time — obvious, glaring, in your face. (Hi, California!)

And now, now suddenly, it seems the whole world is wakening and seeing and demanding sanity, not the crazy stuff that our self-proclaimed betters force down our throats every day and claim is for our own good while making the world into hell.

What changed? Well, some of it really was just more people reading their news online, till mainstream news are the domain of the very young, the very old and the very busy and naive.

But more importantly, I realized last night, we keyboard journalists in our pajamas (to coin a phrase. Eh.) stopped simply reacting to and amplifying or picking and choosing among the main stream.

In my early blogging days almost all my blogs (and my posts at instapundit) were inspired or took from main stream news sources.

There’s still a bit of that, of course, but Epoch Times and other smaller players are a breath of fresh air. And there’s genuine individual reporting from people who are there, or involved with the thing, or know about the thing. We’ve even done some (Thank you to Larry Good for his posts on the water that Data Centers actually use, not the scary weirdness we’re being propagandized with. And thank you to other guests over the years who brought their expertise to my blog.)

However, the turbo charge is so new most of us haven’t processed the change: Twitter/x not being just an echo of the narrative and amplifier of main stream news but a genuinely free speech platform (with hickups, of course, but getting better.)

Without twitter, we wouldn’t know that Ireland is actually reacting to the outrage perpetrated on it. Or that England is taking things passively. Or that we, who aren’t on the left in the US, exist and are still fighting. Without twitter, we would be like most of Europe, where our MSM seems almost fair and balanced by comparison tot he leftist bilge inflicted on them.

And — hear me out — this is just the start. There is also, as someone has noted, a great change in the air, a great change in Latin America (of all places) and a great change in the world in general which honestly can be traced to USAID stopping financing every leftist cause around the world.

Turns out that the great and invincible left that kept pushing for world communism and fighting America as it was founded and making us feel like we couldn’t win was actually a vast paper tiger founded by our very own tax money.

We were being robbed to fund our enemies, while the media at home lied and told us to give it all up.

This, where we stand now, is just the start. The villains have started being unamasked. Some of their funding was removed. But we are only at the very beginning of a great big change.

When I was little and a young woman all the leftists said “Come the revolution.” because of course, part of their heretical beliefs is that in the end there is a communist revolution everywhere that puts them in power.

Turns out they couldn’t be more wrong. Yes, there is a revolution coming. There is a revolution, in fact, under way. But it is against the false creed the left has blared in our ears while keeping us gagged so we couldn’t protest.

This is just the beginning.

In the end, we win, they lose.

A lot of people have said we’re approaching the 250th anniversary in a very muted way. And they’re not wrong.

Though to an extent it’s not fair to compare it to the centennial, because it’s a half-centennial, it’s still a noteworthy occasion for the Republic and we definitely should celebrate it. And I won’t lie and say that it wasn’t part of the reason I voted for Trump — way down the list of reasons, guys — because I didn’t want the 250th to be “celebrated” by accusing us of racism, sexism, homophobia and pillorying the founding fathers in effigy.

But I’d also be lying if I said that I’m not somewhat disappointed that I haven’t see more official celebration noise from Washington DC. I suspect it’s because, let’s face it, the president is busier fixing more important things, and also that when the left fights you to the ground on things like cleaning goose shit and algae from the reflecting pool and adding a ballroom to the White House, they’re going to fight you for every play, every firework display, every flag waving.

Heck, we know they are since they already went after the performers for the concert and basically mau-maued them into dropping out. Something those performers are going to find/are finding is a very bad idea, because the left neither buys nor supports art. But they are noisy and artists are sensitive. (Unless they’re on the right. Skin like rhinoceros we had to grow, people. And even so some of us get discouraged at times. Those of you on whose shoulders I’ve cried (not very often) KNOW this.) And the left is willing to do this to SPOIL A CELEBRATION OF AMERICA. Because to them this is political. Loving America is political. Think on that. “I love my country” is political.

It is political because they imagine themselves as something other than belonging to a nation, as sort of like gods, floating around the petty sphere of national politics. Which they’re not. Instead they’re weaponized fools destroying that which gives them the ability to speak freely. Never mind…

People have said even at the private level, there’s less celebrating and decorating. They think this is because the economy is bad. I don’t THINK so.

Look, first of all, as hard as things are just now, I don’t think the economy is bad as such. Note this is an opinion, because our numbers are and have been completely monkeyed with. But my opinion comes from things like: I don’t feel like crying at the grocery store checkout anymore. I find a lot less dairy and meat on sale, which is a bummer, since we more or less live from that. OTOH the prices are lower, and obviously people are able to afford it more, since less or it goes into sale. Other stuff. Like our friends are complaining less of catastrophic need for money. Oh, it still happens, but far less. Like…. have you noticed I’ve run a lot fewer give send go requests for emergency help from my circle on instapundit?

Now am I saying it’s all bread and skittles? Well, no. Because you see things got very very bad. By election 24 we were seriously considering some retrenching that would materially hurt our lives. Because we couldn’t figure out where to find the money. BUT–

The feeling I get now, at least from my circles, is that EVERYONE is hustling as hard as they can. Like everyone has another job, on top of their job, another hobby-that-pays, another something. Everyone is working super-hard.

This is something that started under the autopen administration, because everyone was working more than one job JUST to keep their heads above water. (I guess I’m working two. Here and fiction. Oh, and instapundit. I guess …. well, the Little Pickle while on a trip with me, watching me keep up with things, pointed out I SHOULD sleep sometime. At least occasionally.) But now we’re still doing it, and sometimes doing it harder because we’re trying to recover. The looming mid-terms and the next presidential election are all too close. We remember how close we came to crashing. And we’re afraid of getting back there with no preparation. So we’re preparing. By working like crazy people.

We haven’t seen our local friends in forever, because they’ve been working like mad people. And so have we, except when I get sick (yes, yes, I should sleep sometime. Look, I hear you. Also if you need the info, I’m on a maintenance antibiotic which seems to be working and have a CT scan and a scope scheduled for July 15th. Yes, I have to wait that long because then I can have it done by a specialist and it’s one step less. I won’t lie and say it’s not nervous making. Now shut up.) Oh. Now I think about it, Dan has three jobs too, except one of them is strictly seasonal. But still. Then he wonders why he doesn’t have time for music and writing. Okay. Something will have to be done.

So, even I, who live and breathe the fourth — the High Holy Usaian Holidays! — have not done much yet, and we’re less than a month off.

In other words, I think every one of us, who are patriots and want to celebrate, starting at the White House and on down, are so d*mn busy we haven’t had time for the frivolous but fun celebration of our beloved Republic.

Another bit is that we’re all contrarian as cats. Remember when the covidiocy tried to forbid celebrating the fourth and even LA was a sea to shining sea of fireworks? Well, we feel less of a need to spite the left because they’re not in fact in power right now. HOWEVER–

Look, it still spites them. And those of you younger than I who will be alive if very old at the tri-centennial will want to tell your kids your remember the 250th and what you did to celebrate it.

So, let’s plot and plan. What can you do to celebrate our great nation’s 250th anniversary? What do you think will make the left squirm the worst?

Me? I’m going to try to write some tales. Now, I don’t know how many or when, but I’d like to start in about a week. Tales of the USAians, maybe. Or maybe something else. It’s not much, but it’s what I can do.

What can you do? Make a joyful noise. We’ve survived — warts, stumbles and all — for 250 years. Yes, the work to restore will be immense, but for now let’s celebrate the simple survival. Sit down. take a load off and make a joyful noise.

The work will wait. For now it’s time to celebrate.

Recently there have been a lot of days I glance and the headlines, then shut the browser and dive into writing. Because honestly even some of the things happening here, I AT BEST don’t understand and hope sincerely there is something going on behind the scenes to make it more hopeful. Also, I don’t want to ponder questions such as “Will California ever be a representative state again, even slightly influenced by the will of its inhabitants?” Not that I particularly care about California, but I know what happened to my beloved Colorado. And then there’s abroad. Don’t go abroad. They do things stupidly there. From the latest nonsense of our neighbors to the North to Spain killing trouble teens and deeding their kids future to the Muslim invaders whose ass their ancestors’ kicked all the way to Africa, to… Well, we’ll just say under no circumstances should I have done a deep dive into the Henry Nowak’s case. More is still coming out and I stumbled on a piece this morning about how the lesson the British establishment took from this was “We need to fight disinformation.” By which they, like the Autopen Administration mean “We must stop people telling the truth in a way other people hear it.” And then I get very angry and have trouble writing fiction or blog posts or much of anything.

I am slowly coming to the conclusion that Heinlein was right during WWII to only read the papers two weeks late, when it was pointless to get angry about old news.

However of the many things that enrage me — why is your blood pressure so high? asks my doctor. We must put you on meds. No, they must not. I must curate what I read, is all — right up there, at the top, under the tab marked “I’m getting sick because I can’t kick the *ss of people who righteously need it” are a bunch of naturalized Americans talking about what a terrible place America is and how ashamed they are of our history. PARTICULARLY some *sshole in the news talking about how there was nothing worth celebrating for the 250th anniversary.

This is when I start stomping around the house screaming “America, love it or leave it.” Or “Terrible compared to what? (with a choice of profane adjectives afterwards)” Or “If you hate us why did you come here?” Most of all though, I basically want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them till all their teeth fall out. And then I can help them pack, hold a whip around for their return ticket to whatever sh*thole they came from, and they can go back to the place they really love. Or, alternately, we can save money and time, put them in a large packing box and mark it “return to sender. Content not up to standard.” I promise we’ll put holes on top of the box. We’re not monsters.

If you’re looking at that and raising your eyebrows, let me make things clear: No, I’m not saying we can’t criticize our nation or our government. Look, I’m still me. I looked, just this morning (Okay, I was trying to figure out where the heck I put the kleenex store. I swear our basement is arranged according to a schizophrenic hoarder’s dream) and there was no pod in the basement. If I go an entire year without criticizing the government, even when they’re the guys I vote for — which honestly, usually means I wanted to vote AGAINST the other guys — I strongly advise to come rescue me, because it’s a sign I’ve been kidnapped and am under duress.

But criticizing our government or particularly aspects of our nation, even the parts we can’t change, like climate or fauna — y’all, Texas is lovely, but could it be SLIGHTLY less lizardy? Shudder. — is not the same as criticizing the nation. And it’s definitely not the same as hating the nation, saying there’s nothing to celebrate, or pretending that our history is particularly terrible or scandalous compared to the rest of the world.

Those of you, if we have any reading this, who are recent graduates from our factories of mass industrial “education” let me assure you that if you think that America is “The worst” you’ve been the victims of a scam that maleducated you and gave you a skewed view of the world.

Briefly, every nation in the world is composed of humans. Humans — though this was said originally of Americans in another form — can be counted on to sometimes do the right thing, after they’ve tried everything else. This is particularly true when it comes to humans in the thrall of a newfangled idea that all the experts say is true. So, if you flinch at stuff like slavery, or eugenics, or even witch trials, rest assured that all these ideas were, at the time, considered “actually compassionate” and endorsed by all the best experts of the time. Which is also a caution towards assuming your opinions and the way we live now are the right and correct ones. Because I guarantee that not very far in the future, people will be looking at the 21st century and saying “Ew, they were the worst.” (And I could give you guesses at the things they’ll say, some of which will shock the living daylights out of you. Though I bet they’ll come up with new fads that make me want to shake them to.)

It is the temptation of the young and poorly educated to think that what we “know” now was always known and that the things our ancestors did that horrify us they did KNOWING they were wrong and from evil motives, instead of their being merely human, doing the best they could in their times.

In that sense, the US does more self-examining and chest-beating than any nation ever, except for ancient Israel. Also, because your teachers were themselves maleducated and dreaded above anything seeming TOO patriotic (quelle horreur) they didn’t tell you that for all the bone headed stupidity this nation has achieved (Hey, we elected Woodrow Wilson and FDR and let them run around doing stupid sh&t to their heart’s content, blatantly against he constitution, okay?) we’re still a shining line among the nations of the world.

Take slavery, for instance: it’s still a defacto occurrence in most nations in the world, particularly Africa and China (ooh, boy, China) not to mention every single Muslim country. It might fly under other names, but it’s still there. Oh, here too. You’ll be happy to know the stunning brave people attacking ICE are fighting for the perpetuation of slavery. What? Oh, yes, WHY DID YOU THINK THEY WANTED TO BRING IN PEOPLE IN BATCH LOTS WHO HAD NO DEFENSE AND NO CONTACTS HERE? Sure, there’s also an army of them brought in to plunder the social net programs (which honestly should not exist, not here of all places) but a lot of them were brought in simply to work for no or very low wages and to be in positions they couldn’t complain. Do you think the vast numbers of kids apprehended in California pot farms were there on a field trip? And don’t get us started on the unaccompanied minors (a lot of them kidnapped from their families) released to the first person who claimed them who subsequently disappeared. Pretend they’re all JUST being exploited in sweatshops. No, really, by far the preferable fate, and you’ll sleep better tonight.

But the point is this is not a “American guilt.” Yes, absolutely it is something we should be working on, which is why good border control and a pruning back of H1B visas to about 1% of current would be a really good idea. No bringing in of the vulnerable to exploit and no displacement of American workers by what amounts to slave labor is a good idea, but more importantly, it removes the incentives to enslave people one way or another. Because wanting to enslave people is a defect of the human heart. Yes, yours too, gentle reader. (Though some of us consider telling people what to do a chore and are therefore slightly immune to THAT one issue.)

On every score just about, America is better off than most of the nations of the world. Yes, even Europe, whose patina of history and beauty has been cracking in truly ugly ways recently.

Which is why so many people, including yours truly, was always attracted to the US and came here to live and to become as American as possible. (98% or so. There’s some that will never conform, but that’s for anyone raised abroad, even Americans.)

Yes, becoming American after coming here was work. Yes, some of it pretty much amounted to chasing myself around my own brain rooting out “everybody knows” most of them things I learned with mother’s milk and before I could examine what I was being taught. I’ve described it as being akin to self-brainwashing. Rooting out as much of my previous culture as I could find and identify and correcting it.

Now a lot of it — maybe 25% — wasn’t so much rooting out wrong things for right ones, as rooting out “habits of how we do things” for new ones, that fit better with the US. It wasn’t a moral thing, just a fitting in thing.

So, why do it? Why undertake that painful process if there was no moral issue involved? Well, because there was a moral issue. Having undertaken to come and live here, I owed it to my hosts (and later my co-citizens) to respect their habits, traditions and beliefs as much as humanly possible. I.e. to become as much like them as possible.

Because by coming here to form a family and have children raised as Americans, I was in fact marrying my fortune (in the sense of fate) and future to America’s, and uniting my progeny to hers. It is nothing else than a marriage. And as in a marriage, you adapt as best you can to your spouse’s habits and way of doing things (and he/she to yours) so I was duty bound to adapt to America. Only since I am one person, and relatively unimportant, in all but matters of morals, I am the one who should adapt, because standing by yourself and telling the world to move is cute, but very ineffective, and a nation of at least 300 million is the world, compared to me.

And, this is very important: if you’re going to marry your fortunes and your fate and your descendants to a place WHY WOULD YOU DO IT IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IT’S THE BEST PLACE ON EARTH? (Warts and all?)

If you are moving to a place you think it’s terrible, particularly if that place is a foreign country, WHY MOVE? Why not stay where you are?

Now, there are times and movements of utter necessity. Sometimes people have to abandon a place they love and to which their ancestors gave blood and money, for the sake of preserving their lives (salutes Dave Freer across the ocean) but even then…. EVEN IN THOSE CASES why would you move to a place you consider worse? Why not escape to the best place you can find, one you’re prepared to adapt to and love with all your heart and all your mind and all your will power?

And yes, some people come here for money, same as many people marry for material considerations. There’s nothing dishonorable in a marriage of convenience. That was most marriages throughout history. However, as a matter of morals and attitude, once you decide on the marriage of convenience you’re still honor bound to cleave to your spouse and defend them right or wrong to the best of your ability (even if slowly and carefully trying to influence their less than admirable qualities.) BECAUSE you wed your future to them. Your descendants are part of them. If you find you can’t love them, it behooves you to leave.

Of course, what we’re facing is the international would-be elites, who view themselves as supra-national. They think that they can move anywhere, and they don’t need to fit in because they’re above us, the common folk.

In fact, what they have done, in their ignorance and vaunting ambition is ignore that culture always exists and there’s no such thing as a human who is above culture. What they’ve fallen for the is “international” illusion that was part of the supposed international socialism, aka communism. It was never true. At the root it was always Russian nationalism projected on the whole world.

And what they have done by trying to mold themselves that way is turned themselves into a culture of international parasites. They remind me of the line in Independence Day “They’re like locusts….”

There is only one remedy for those people. If you hate this country so much that you can’t celebrate 250 years of survival against all odds?

My offer to help you pack stands. And I’m sure all Americans of good will — and ooh, do we have a will! — will contribute to your return ticket.

Or, you know, postage. And we promise to punch air-holes on top of the box.

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, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. By clicking through and buying (anything book-related, 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. Remember though all of these submissions are from people willing to be associated with this blog. So if you’re trying to buy from people who don’t hate you, this is a good place to start.– SAH

FROM DALE COZORT: The Best of Space Bats & Butterflies

Space Bats & Butterflies Book Four is part of a collection of books that bring together alternate history or time-travel stories, book excerpts, essays and world-building exercises from the ninety-plus issues of a long-running Alternate History zine.

• Japan Wins at Midway.
• Earlier B17 Trigger a Bomber Race
• France Fights on From North Africa
• Barbary Pirates Raid New England
• Alternate Biography
  • A Con Artist & His “People’s Car” Changes the World
  • Lenin Lives on to Shape the Soviet Union
  • A German Master Army Builder Transforms Nationalist Chine into a Powerhouse

Fiction stories and excerpts:

• In 1937, High Tech Descendants of Japanese pirates invade California From an Alternate Reality.
• A British Wizard tries to Save the US Pacific at Pearl Harbor
• The Apollo 13 Missions Succeeds & the US Triggers a Deadly Trap Lurking on the Moon.
• In a Strange Variation on Alternate History, Dinosaurs and Mammoth Fight a Desperate War.

FROM JAY MAYNARD: Lone Star Crystal (The Crystal Therapy Chronicles Book 3)

Magic heals. But can it survive the light?

Crystal therapy has transformed lives in rural Missouri and distant Wales. Now it is coming to Houston, rising at the heart of the Texas Medical Center.

CJ Hollister knows how to build things that last. He trusts foundations, schedules, and hard reality — not magic. But as the Texas Crystal Therapy Institute takes shape, he finds himself drawn toward something more permanent than anything he has ever built.

His daughter Rachel is a bioethicist trained to question power and defend autonomy. From the outside, crystal therapy raises troubling questions: permanent suits, new names, and a commitment that can never be undone. When her father chooses to step inside, professional skepticism becomes something far more personal.

The system works. The people inside it choose to be there. No one is forced to stay. But Rachel must decide whether consent is enough when the choice changes everything.

As the institute nears completion, father and daughter must face the same question from opposite sides:

What does it mean to choose a life you can never leave?

Lone Star Crystal is the third novel in The Crystal Therapy Chronicles, a science fiction series about healing, identity, radical choice, and the consequences of changing the world.

FROM RACONTEUR PRESS, WITH A STORY BY J. KENTON PIERCE: The Muse Within Us: An Anthology of Dark Fantasy and Horror (Raconteur Press Anthologies Book 77)

What happens when inspiration stops feeling entirely human?

Paintings that command armies. Songs that shatter crowds. Ancient poems that speak directly into an immortal ear. A revolver forged from the ruins of Earth, passed from hand to hand across generations, delivering justice with a chorus of the dead riding in its steel.

The Muse Within Us is an anthology of dark fantasy, horror, military science fiction, and literary speculation. These eleven stories all ask one question: does inspiration come from within, or are we tuning into signals already moving through the world?
Editor Wally Waltner has gathered writers from across the speculative spectrum. Within these pages: a sorcerer-seamstress transformed into a dragon by her masterpiece; a court prince whose animation magic revives a forgotten civilization; a musician haunted by crowd-controlling spirits called the whispers, carrying two hundred dead from one show; a Norse scholar who realizes he has been speaking ancient kennings directly into an immortal ear; and a war painter ordered by a god of war to paint ever bigger victories until he refuses and pays the price.Also here: a baker empowered by a minor demon of boiling oil trapped in petrified wood; a mason’s boy whose hands transform into the arches of a destined cathedral; a blues musician whose song outlives him through new vessels; a gunsmith on a dead Earth forging a revolver that carries a chorus of voices across centuries; and a young woman who discovers that flowers blooming where bodies fell grant strange artistic power at a terrible cost.

Some of these muses are generous. Several are predatory. All of them change the people they pass through.

The Muse Within Us because what moves through you may have its own agenda.

FROM RACONTEUR PRESSES, WITH STORIES BY KARL GALLAGHER AND ROSS HATHAWAY: For Want of a Rivet (Raconteur Press Anthologies)

Small decisions. World-altering consequences.

That’s the premise behind For Want of a Rivet, an anthology of eleven alternate history military stories that asks one deceptively simple question: what if a single invention, tactical choice, or quiet act of courage had gone differently?The stories span a century of conflict and a dozen theaters of war. A Royal Navy pilot spots the German fleet and changes the shape of World War One. Air privateers carrying Letters of Marque dogfight over the Western Front while a brash young balloon-buster rewrites the record books. A Japanese naval officer quietly suppresses a breakthrough antenna technology that will shape the Pacific war. German engineers develop a submarine that makes the Atlantic a killing ground. British scientists discover how to bend the enemy’s own guidance beams back against them, and a stage magician helps make the resulting deception invisible. An all-Black paratrooper battalion that was supposed to be fighting wildfires instead drops into the Battle of the Bulge. A French Foreign Legion scout finds a Roman tunnel under the most heavily defended line in Italy. A Polish tank crew fights to hold the cork in the bottle as Operation Unthinkable opens. A SOE agent moves through occupied France on a prosthetic leg — and the rivet that keeps it silent may decide the war. Britain and Germany forge an uneasy alliance against Soviet France. Japan defends the Imperial Palace to the last man.

These are stories about the human cost of invention, the weight of small advantages, and the soldiers, spies, and engineers who never made the official record.

Eleven contributors. One question. For want of a rivet, the war was lost — or won.

Stories include: ”Wings over Jutland” (William Meinert) · “Ace of Aces” (Karl K. Gallagher) · “Radio Waves” (Joe Salem) · “The Danzig Ghosts” (Michael Patrick Coady) · “The War They Could Not Print” (Ross Hathaway) · “Little Groups of Paratroopers” (Bart Kemper) · “Callis Caecus” (Nick Aalderink) · “Operation Unthinkable” (Samuel A. Mayo) · “Cuthbert’s Silence” (D. S. Ligon) · “Axis of Alliance” (G. Scott Huggins) · “The Last Kamikaze” (Robert Miller)

FROM J. MANFRED WEICHSEL: Savage Headhunters

Based on a more-or-less true story of World War II

All World War II soldiers Brian and his pal Jefferson want to do is collect the skulls of their enemies. Their exploits are captured on film by Abigail, a hot female war correspondent, and they become celebrities back home.

But one day Abigail, jealous of the attention Brian and the other men are getting, has a picture of herself with a skull published in Life magazine. The American public is outraged, and when the American public gets outraged, they demand blood.

Who will live and who will die in this gory, grotesque satire from the subversive author of Action Girls: Triple Threat, Ebu Gogo, and Five Maidens on the Pentagram?

FROM LEE ECKHARDT: SECRET OF THE LOCKED CITY: A Novel of Mars and its Canals

Nineteen-year-old Cyril Michael Haskin is the youngest NASA astronaut ever to set foot on Mars. Through an incredible series of events he finds himself transported – not across space, but across dimensions – to another Mars, a completely different Mars from the one he knows, a Mars crisscrossed with canals built by a long-vanished alien civilization.
There seems to be no way to get back home – until he learns of the Locked City in the Syrtis Major region, the only Martian structure Terran colonists have been unable to enter, a place some believe to be still inhabited by the Old Martians. Cy becomes convinced that he must reach the City, but is prevented from doing so by the authorities, for he, the young man who appeared out of nowhere, finds himself under the increasing suspicion that he is actually a Martian sent to spy on the colonists.
Along with three new friends he sets out for Syrtis Major, braving the perils and terrors of this savage Mars to reach his goal, not knowing if he can even gain entry to the City, much less find a way home.
Will he be able to solve the Secret of the Locked City?

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: No Man’s Land: Volume 1 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)

Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.

On a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong. Catastrophically wrong.
Now technology indistinguishable from magic courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson, Envoy of the Star Empire—Skip to his friends— has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it all.
Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies, Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total destruction.
Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.

FROM FRANK HOOD AND S. T. GAFFNEY: That Has Such Creatures

How does a man find home when nowhere and everywhere is home?
An aging rocker sets the record straight about his controversial career and unknown love.
Why does a humble mixologist in a vape shop think he has the right to claim he saved baseball?
A young man catches a leprechaun who changes his life in a most unexpected way.
A wandering wizard and his young apprentice are tasked with performing a secret and dangerous task for a powerful king.
Six years after his friend’s death, Charlie Moore finds a document that may lead to terrible consequences for all those who have connections to the late, rich, and eccentric David Larkin.
A cat is offered a chance to protect his mistress from a mysterious creature.

These are a few of the short stories in this collection that range from science fiction, fantasy, and horror to mystery. The husband and wife team of Frank Hood and S. T. Gaffney serve up a book full of mostly fictional stories, and a few that might just be stranger than fiction.

“Very much enjoyed DARKNESS, DARKNESS.” Ray Bradbury

“The man knows how to write a sentence!” Harlan Ellison

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Time Enough to Spy

A spy has at long last come in from the cold — but all is not as it seems. The longer his debriefing continues, the more uneasy he becomes. In particular, how can he reconcile his presence here with the impossibility of both rescue and escape from a polity with the power to remodel the bodies of their subjects at will?

What secret hides behind those cool professional faces of the agents who briefed him so long ago? Has he been induced to betray all he was sent to protect?

A short story of the Madrian Empire.

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 1

Alice is the Imperial Princess Regnant of the Galactic Empire. At 22, she has been thrust into power after her father (the Emperor) and her two older brothers have all died in various ways. Her Imperial Chancellor, Lord Rupert, does everything he can to support her, but has somewhat different ideas about how the Empire should be run than did his late Emperor.

Alice has one major problem: She cannot be crowned Empress Regnant until she marries and produces an heir.

But Alice, being kept busy three days a week by interminable audiences with petitioners, and the rest of the week with what she terms “mostly busy work”, has no real way to meet young men — well, reasonably eligible young men, anyway, and of her own age — with whom she might eventually take up and form a household. And she chafes at the necessity of trying to rule, hands-on, an Empire so huge it cannot be truly ruled by any one person to begin with.

She just wants to leave people alone, as her father and his predecessors did for centuries.

Then, into her life walks the Crown Prince of a planet many, many parsecs away from the Capital Planet…and her life begins to take on a life of its own…

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Witch’s Daughter (Empires of Magic Book 2)

FOR SOME REASON AMAZON IS PLAYING SILLY GAMES WITH THE REVIEWS FOR THIS BOOK, WHICH I THINK IS AFFECTING SALES. IF YOU’VE READ IT, PLEASE REVIEW!

Some letters come from the living. Some come from the dead. This one comes with a formula that turns a rowboat into a miracle.

Seventeen-year-old Lord Michael Ainsling — youngest brother of the Duke of Darkwater, builder of mechanical marvels, survivor of fairyland — receives a letter from a man sixteen years dead. The inventor Tristram Blakley has not perished; he has been imprisoned by his own genius and begs the one mind in all of Avalon brilliant enough to understand his work to set him free. All Michael has to do is find seven missing brothers first and walk a magical path..

Fifteen-year-old Albinia Blakley has spent her whole life under her mother’s iron thumb — and her mother is a witch. The day Al finally escapes down a rope of knotted sheets, she lands in a world she doesn’t recognize, with no money, no magic kit, and no idea that the stranger who catches her is about to become her greatest ally.

Together, a girl with more secrets than she knows and a boy who builds machines that try to murder him must outwit a sorceress, navigate the treacherous courts of Fairyland, and unravel an enchantment years in the making — before a family is lost for good.

Witch’s Daughter is a gaslamp fantasy brimming with wit, warmth, and wonder, for readers who love their magic wrapped in velvet and their adventures served with morning tea.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: Book I The Glass Constellation (The Calibration Fall Trilogy 1)

At the height of interstellar civilization, humanity and its allies have achieved what earlier ages believed impossible: instantaneous communication across light-years, perfectly calibrated faster-than-light transit, and seamless cooperation between hundreds of worlds.

Then the measurements begin to fail.

A military reconnaissance squadron disappears despite flawless telemetry. Manufacturing systems produce identical components that no longer behave identically. Communication relays return contradictory timestamps from the same transmission.

At first, the anomalies are dismissed as statistical noise.

But when a catastrophic trinary stellar cascade destabilizes the hidden constants underlying interstellar technology, the great network binding civilization together begins to fracture. Navigation diverges. Synchronization collapses. Entire fleets lose agreement on shared space and time.

As governments struggle to preserve order, scientists and archivists race to understand a terrifying possibility:

The universe itself is drifting out of calibration.

Caught between political denial, military desperation, and the accelerating collapse of physical certainty, humanity faces a crisis unlike any war or invasion in history. The enemy is not a hostile species or empire.

It is the failure of reality-dependent civilization itself.

The Glass Constellation is the first volume of The Calibration Fall Trilogy—a sweeping hard science fiction saga of collapsing interstellar order, drifting physical law, and the enduring struggle to preserve meaning in a universe that no longer agrees with itself.

Perfect for readers of:

• Foundation
• Dune
• Revelation Space
• A Fire Upon the Deep
• Hyperion

FROM KAREN MYERS: Bound into the Blood – A Virginian in Elfland (The Hounds of Annwn Book 4)

Book 4 of The Hounds of Annwn.

DISTURBING THE FAMILY SECRETS COULD BRING RUIN TO EVERYTHING HE’S WORKED SO HARD TO BUILD.

George Talbot Traherne, the human huntsman for the Wild Hunt, is preparing for the birth of his child by exploring the family papers about his parents and their deaths. When his improved relationship with his patron, the antlered god Cernunnos, is jeopardized by an unexpected opposition, he finds he must choose between loyalty to family and loyalty to a god.

He discovers he doesn’t know either of them as well as he thought he did. His search for answers takes him to the human world with unsuitable companions.

How will he keep a rock-wight safe from detection, or even teach her the rules of the road? And what will he awaken in the process, bringing disaster back to his family on his own doorstep? What if his loyalty is misplaced? What will be the price of his mistakes?

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: MONEY