Book Promo And Vignettes By Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike

Book Promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, 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 BILL SACRAM: Burn It With Fire in Endless Battle Wyrd Warfare (Raconteur Press Anthologies Book 80)

The hour is late. The bottle is low. The lightweights have gone home. What’s left is the stuff that burns going down & the stories nobody tells until everybody sober has left the room .

Eleven stories. Eleven wars. One question nobody wants answered.

A survey scout stranded on an ocean world follows something enormous through the water, and finds out whose nightmares he’s been having. Two British privates break through the wall of a trench in 1916 and find what’s been taking the bodies out of no man’s land. A Union major and his Confederate cousin stand back-to-back in New Mexico because the dead Comanche in the valley below don’t care which uniform you wore. A frozen squad at the Chosin Reservoir learns that the thing killing them can be hurt–by noise. A Navy senior chief sits in a courtroom that’s just been cleared of its jury, and finally tells someone what came out of the fog at 25 degrees north.

From the Western Front to Korea, from Katanga to the Bermuda Triangle, from a deployment gate cut into the earth at Oak Ridge to a Warsaw schoolhouse full of things that shouldn’t have a body, these are soldiers doing the job in front of them while the rules quietly stop applying.

Some of them come home.

FROM DALE COZORT: Through the Wild Gate

Robinette Thornburg, the half-human daughter of ultra-rich Robert Thornburg, thought she was fully human, just weird, for the first twenty-one years of her life. She went to expensive private schools, then Harvard. On her twenty-first birthday, she learned that she was half Mangi, the result of an encounter between her father and a primitive near-human woman from the Wild, an alternate reality North America where primitive humans arrived half a million years ago, but no modern humans ever did.

That was the first she had heard of Mangi or the Wild, closely held secrets of the wealthy families who control Gates to it, but she finds out far more than she wants to about the Wild when mysterious enemies kidnap her and leave her to die in the Wild, naked and weaponless.

Robinette nearly starves before finding her way back to our world through an early, uncontrolled Gate. She vows revenge, but on who? She teams up with Eric Carter, a down on his luck private eye and former bodyguard to her father. The two try to figure out who kidnapped Robinette and why, a quest that takes them through the decadent world of the Gate families, the only law in the Wild. It also takes them back to the Wild and then to a final confrontation with, their lives and the fate of the Wild at stake.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Light Up the Night

Dane Crockford is tired. Tired of the green energy crapping out and leaving his wife Rose gasping for breath when their air conditioning dies, tired of trying to hide his use of his own solar panels from the nationalized electrical company, and tired of worrying about his daughter and son-in-law, trapped in an abusive indenture program to pay off their student loans. He’s not the only one, either. Everyone in his home town is in a similar situation, many of them with their children doing dangerous jobs without pay to offset crippling student debt. So when his grandson Toby accidentally discovers an energy generation method that isn’t wholly owned by the federal government, he jumps on the possibility of building something that works, in spite of and around the federal monopoly.

But what the monopoly doesn’t realize is that their grip on Dane, and on his home town, is far less secure than they think. When they disconnect his house from the power grid, they have nothing to hold over him, to force him to work for small rebates on his monthly bill. The utility has unleashed the power of a cranky old man with a rare skill, and they’ve got no idea that they’ve tossed the pebble that starts an avalanche.

“Holly Chism is one of the great, unappreciated authors of our generation. Her work reminds me a lot of Clifford Simak’s.” – Sarah A Hoyt, author of Darkship Thieves

FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Emerald Relay: The Jade Dragon Protocol, Book 2 (The Four Banners 3)

The signal was never supposed to be found.

When the survey vessel Tarashima receives a perfectly authenticated fleet order that Fleet Command never sent, retired intelligence officer Major Hiroshi Takamura is pulled from his fourth retirement—eleven days in—and into an investigation that reaches back thirty-one years.

Someone has built the Emerald Relay: a distributed communications network capable of transmitting authenticated commands to every installation in the eastern spiral simultaneously. There is no central point that can be identified or disabled. The theoretical framework was stolen from its creator. The evidence trails point at every nation at once—which means the evidence was manufactured.

The relay hasn’t activated yet. But the window is closing.

With Inspector Mina Park managing the four governments’ back channels, physicist Dr. Aiko Watanabe calculating how much time remains, and former Bureau analyst Madam Xiu Lian emerging from eleven months of solitary investigation with an archive no one knew existed, Takamura must find the relay’s physical archive before someone uses it to start a war—or to own one.

The Emerald Relay is the second novel in the Jade Dragon Protocol series: Golden Age espionage fiction set among the stars, in the tradition of John le Carré and Isaac Asimov.

FROM LEE ECKHARDT: JACK CORBETT – SPACE CADET: A Science Fiction Novel

Jack Corbett appears to be a typical junior high student of the 1980’s. Appears to be, on the surface; in school the best the socially awkward Jack can expect is to be called a ‘Space Cadet’, something he can only avoid by Dreaming. The Dream – capital ‘D’ – is a complex fantasy where he is Jax Corbett, the mighty hero of the starlanes. Unlike his unhappy real life, Jack can control the Dream completely; in adventure after fantastic adventure the confident Jax Corbett never fails, never falters. Until now. Now the Dream seems to have taken on a life of its own, a life Jack can no longer control. The Dream eventually becomes so real that Jack believes he is going insane – until he is confronted by a stranger in the actual world, a stranger who somehow knows about Jack’s fantasies! What can it mean? The explanation is so incredible Jack has trouble believing it – until he finds himself plunged headfirst into the Dream, a dangerously real Dream with the stranger in pursuit and Jack’s own life hanging in the balance…

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Lunar Surface Blues

The High Frontier is no place for foolishness, but nature can always make a better idiot.

Four years ago, Molly’s parents brought her up here to the Moon when their work brought them to Shepardsport. In the time since that move, she’s earned her place here and a seat on this field trip. Only one problem — she’s been given the worst possible EVA partner.

A pencil-necked dweeb with an attitude, Benji wants to be one of the guys. But his stunts keep putting them both in danger, and the adults keep blaming Molly.

When Benji gets in over his head, can Molly save him before it costs both their lives?

A short story of the Grissom timeline.

FROM LINDSAY PEET: The Caliuga Setup (The Jaf Daskal Diaries Book 4)

Deserts, disasters, double-crosses… Jaf Daskal returns.

It all began as a simple scam; steal the treasure you’ve been paid to retrieve.
But you have to flee, and your airship is taken by a storm to a new continent.
You’re mistaken for emissaries of the Emperor to this long-lost land, and you live it up as Inspector General.
But some folks aren’t ready for the Empire, as they’re building their own, and don’t appreciate the loose rules of some folks.
Jaf Daskal finds himself in the middle of a struggle to define a land’s future, while coping with a new religion, a new aphrodisiac, and a new love.

The Caliuga Set-Up is Book Four in the Jaf Daskal Adventures, a rollicking tale of humor, farcical mischief, adventure and intrigue.

Click ‘Buy Now’ and tumble headfirst into the chaos of Caliuga and Jaf Daskal’s life!

FROM MEL DUNAY: The Star Master Duology: Shadow Captain and Spider Star: A Complete Science Fiction Series

Jetay is a slave, and so is his brother. They crew a rundown freighter at the ragged edge of Settled Space, and Jetay hides the blade he can form out of psychic energy, because faceless men in red armor are hunting down psychics like him. Then Lady Lanati of the Partisan Alliance buys passage on his ship, finds that her rebellion has no officer available for a secret mission, and puts him in a uniform he has no right to wear. It turns out that he’s pretty good at this. The next thing he knows, he’s a free man with a military commission, standing between a self-crowned Pharaoh and a machine that devours psychics and destroys stars. Both books of the Star Master duology in one volume: 200,000 words of rotating-POV space opera with fleet battles, found family, an enemy captain you come to like, and a courtship that takes two books to reach one kiss. No explicit content. The complete story.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Lion in Paradise (Timelines Book 3)

All Col. Dr. Ariela Rivers Wolff, M.D., Ph.D., USSFM – the Lion of God – wanted was a little piece of paradise to call her own.

Being stuck on a desert world – even if she was the CO of the premiere battalion of the 1st U.S. Space Force Marines that was based there – was not getting her any beach time. Mostly because, without an ocean, there’s really no beach at all.

But she’s got a fix for that problem.

Now, if only the academics studying the problem of terraforming the exile world of al-Saḥra’ would get out of her way . . .

. . . and if only the religious fanatics who want their planet left as a desert, despite all the water from the planet’s former oceans being accessible only a few miles down, will leave the terraforming project alone long enough to see the good it will bring them . . .

. . . then, the Lion would truly be in Paradise.

But even in paradise, black clouds – and black ships – can herald danger for the Lion, herself, and for her daughters as well.

FROM RANDY BROWN: Assignment Day

In 2080 , senior year comes with one huge assignment: rebuild a dead person’s life from every digital trace they left behind, then upload them into VX, the virtual world every living person visits daily.

Corb Thomas wanted an exciting assignment, maybe someone famous, maybe someone who could help him win the ultimate prize: cash, cars, or an unlimited VX wallet.

Instead, he gets Ben Theige, a painfully ordinary rocket scientist who died decades ago. Or at least, that’s what the records say.

The deeper Corb digs, the stranger Ben’s life becomes. Missing data. Corrupted coordinates. A death certificate that doesn’t make sense. A mysterious student following him through VX. And an AI assistant who may know more than it’s telling.

With his girlfriend Kay and best friend Ruben pulled into the mystery, Corb starts to realize Ben wasn’t boring at all—he was hiding something big enough to break the most powerful system in the world.

Now a school project has turned into a race through secrets buried in both the real and virtual worlds.

Because VX doesn’t make mistakes. It doesn’t change the truth. And it definitely doesn’t erase the past.

Unless someone taught it how.

FROM TALEENA SINCLAIR: A Death in the Country: A John Recht Novel (John Recht Novels Book 2)

When John Recht goes to visit an old army friend he hopes to sharpen his estate management, not solve a murder.

Bale Janow is the man everyone hates. Cashiered for cowardice during a pivotal engagement with Waldbach’s long standing enemy the Horde, he has only one advocate, John Recht’s host Charl Wallend. Unhappy memories and dark secrets are brought to light when death rocks the insular community of the country estate.

John and his trusty valet Martin must discover who’s simmering anger is stirred to fresh action and is responsible for A Death in the Country.

FROM JAMES YOUNG: Missives From the Green: An Alternate History Collection

“Halfway down the trail to Hell, in a shady meadow green…”

Fiddler’s Green. A pleasant rest stop halfway to the Styx, the Green was originally accessed by nautical service to the English Crown. Alas, it has currently been infringed upon by those felled while mounted upon noble steeds both living and mechanical. This collection contains six “What ifs…” of military alternate history whose characters would certainly qualify as its eternal denizens:

• Ride with U.S. Army tankers as they rush their new Pershing tanks into the Battle of the Bulge in “Blackjack At Bastogne.”
• Stand on the deck of the U.S.S. North Carolina as she rushes to save an Arctic Convoy from Kriegsmarine raiders in “A Christmas Action.”
• Fly with American pilots as they desperately attempt to stave off the Luftwaffe during a Second Battle of Britain in “Londonfall,” a Usurper’s War short story.
• Join the 72nd Armored Battalion as it desperately stands against the Communist tide outside Pusan in “Mr. Dewey’s Fire Brigade.”
• Two decades later, witness VF-84’s Tomcats battle the North Vietnamese Air Force (NVAF) and its Communist allies over Hanoi in “Mr. Ford’s Cats.”
• Finally, for the first time as part of a larger collection, this volume also includes the Usurper’s War novella Pandora’s Memories.

So go ahead and empty the proverbial canteen and prepare to be regaled once more by a “Master of Alternate History.” There’s plenty of “sabers keen” and “fierce melees” to be found in this collection of clashes that might have been.

NOTE: These short stories can also be found in the Arc of Ares series edited by James Young. They are collated here for ease of accessibility and fiscal economy.

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 to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: EXTEND