Book promo

*This is not an excuse for this being late. It’s a “argh” stop giving me things I didn’t ask for, directed at wordpress. No really. WordPress decided to add an experimental “AI assistant” to help me “write your posts.” So, something I don’t need, which gets invoked whenever I want to do something more than image and text, or even to format a blog. And when it comes up, it bolixes everything. Not just wordpress, which hangs up on an infinite loop, but also the browser. For something I don’t need, didn’t ask for and frankly don’t want. GRRRRRR. So this is my FOURTH attempt at this post, and …. three hours! Word press always delenda est, of course, but could it please stop trying to be smart? We can deal with its stupidity. This attempt at intelligence on the other hand is over the top stupid. – SAH*

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

Edited by Jamie Ibson, with a story by Dan Bridgwater: We Dare: Old Age and Treachery.

Fifteen outstanding authors. Fifteen stories about people who have been there before!
Never underestimate an old man in a business where men die young.
War is a young man’s game, and one where failure usually leads to your death. There’s a reason some people survive when others don’t—they’re faster, stronger, smarter, and usually luckier than everybody else—and you antagonize them at your own peril!
From knowing how to judge the intelligence data to understanding how to play “the long game,” or just having the experience from past operations to be able to tell when things are about to go wrong, these old men and women know what they’re doing… and woe betide the new recruits who don’t listen. Be careful, because that old timer sitting next to you—the one who doesn’t say much—may have a skill or maybe even a robot that’s going to kick your butt!
For, as the old-timers know, an ounce of experience is worth a pound of youthful exuberance!

From Karen Myers: Broken Devices: A Lost Wizard’s Tale (The Chained Adept Book 3)

Book 3 of The Chained Adept
CHAINS WITHOUT WIZARDS AND A RISING COUNT OF THE DEAD.
The largest city in the world has just discovered its missing wizards. It seems the Kigali empire has ignited a panic that threatens internal ruin and the only chained wizard it knows that’s still alive is Penrys.
The living wizards and the dead are not her people, not unless she makes them so. All they have in common is a heavy chain and a dead past — the lives that were stolen from them are beyond recall.
What remains are unanswered questions about who made them this way. And why. And what Penrys plans to do to find out.

From Holly Chism: Lizzy’s Tail

A small, plush horse learns what it means to be real when a little girl chooses her and takes her home. Through adventures and accidents, Lizzy the horse becomes real to her little girl, Carrie, even though she is still a toy.

By Robert J. Horton, Revived by D. Jason Fleming: Three Riders (Annotated): a pulp western omnibus

iktaPOP Media proudly presents three classic westerns by pulp author Robert J. Horton!
Rider o’ the Stars
When he was hired on to the Diamond H Ranch, the stranger gave his name as Dane. After seeing his skill with rope and gun folks started calling him “Lightning Dane”.
Was he a gunman? An outlaw? Why was he here? Nobody knew except Dane himself. And he wasn’t talking.
The Prairie Shrine
Annalee Bronson and her mother left everything behind when her father died, setting out to homestead in the prairielands of Montana. But being from the east, they simply don’t have the experience to cope with all the circumstances they find themselves caught up in.
Luckily, prairie poet and loafer Andy Sawtelle and mysterious gunman Silent Scott are more than willing to lend a helping hand.
The Man of the Desert
It starts with a stampede, and never lets up from there!

From Leigh Kimmel: The History of the Implementation of the Library Computer System (LCS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Originally the author’s thesis for a master’s degree at Illinois State University, this work examines the history fo library automation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from the earliest beginnings through the implementation of the Library Computer System (LCS) under the leadership of Hugh Atkinson to the creation of the ILLINET Online (IO) system. All of the chainges are studied in teh contest of the Illinois Board of Higher education (IBHE) mandate for library resource sharing throughout Illinois’ academic libraries to reduce expenditures while maintaining quality scholarship and education, and of the effects these changes had on library services to the user population.
The process of implementing LCS is studied to show the way in which the library administration handled the various crises as they arose and what effects these decisions had on the long-term structure of the system. Following implementation, it continues to study the subsequent developments of the online computer system to increase service to the library’s users. In addition, three doctoral dissertation are examined which used LCS as a research tool for the study of collection and use patterns in academic libraries. Finally, the author examines the results of automation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the context of the academic community and the state of Illinois at large, and draws conclusions from them.

From Lawdog: The Africa Files (The LawDog Files Book 2)

Africa is different.

Most people who grew up in the Western world don’t realize just how different.

In this volume, LawDog relates stories of growing up in West Africa, including run-ins with the flora and fauna, a younger brother, their engineer father and redheaded mother.

The Africa Files isn’t just a collection of childhood shenanigans, though there’s a lot of that, but also a fond recollection of a time and place that shaped a Texas lawman.

From Blake Smith: A Kingdom of Glass: A Novel of The Garia Cycle.

Zara hasn’t seen her family in eleven years, but she doesn’t mind. They sent her to live in a neighboring kingdom when she was small, and she’s adopted her foster parents in their place. She lives the life of an aristocratic Garian girl- riding her horse, shooting her bow, exploring the castle with her friends- and she has nothing to wish for.
Until she’s summoned home, to a prospective marriage she doesn’t want, family she doesn’t remember, and a poisonous royal court that threatens everything she’s ever known. The East Morlans are nothing like Garia, and Zara struggles to find her place among the scheming Morlander aristocrats. Along the way, she makes new friends, meets enemies, and falls in love. But secrets abound in the glittering palace, and Zara must discover who she can trust as she fights for her life and freedom in a fragile, beautiful, kingdom of glass.

From Pam Uphoff: Aslanov (Fall of the Alliance.)

The Three Hundred Families control the Three Part Alliance. To the Elite, their Family is their first priority.
Twenty years before the Fall . . .
Lord Dzon Konstantin Aslanov returns Home after a five year long assignment to another World to find his Family as poor a fit as ever. He is about to find out the cost of disobedience.
If only they’d tell Konstantin why he needed to marry so soon, to the right woman. And not like his idiot brother eloping with . . . the daughter of Kon’s new boss at the Bureau of Intelligence. And why should Kon marry this particular woman when her aunt was so much more interesting . . .
As Kon investigates government contract fraud, he begins to suspect his Family is involved . . .
And the consequences . . . deadly

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: TASTEFUL

I was born female in a country that was profoundly patriarchal and, back then, patriarchal without guilt. So, it was acceptable to make jokes about women being dumber than men. And it was acceptable for teachers to assume you were dumb because female.

Most of these things amused me. It was always fun in mixed classes after the first test to watch the teacher look at my test and at the boys in the class trying to figure out what parent was so cruel as to name their son a girl’s name.

I enjoyed breaking people’s minds. And once I was known in a group or place, I was not treated as inferior. The only things that truly annoyed me were the ones I thought were arbitrary restrictions, like not going out after 8 pm alone. Took flaunting them a few times to find out they weren’t arbitrary. Or rather, they were arbitrary but since culture-wide flaunting was dangerous, and I was lucky not to pay for the flaunting with life or limb.

Yes, I went through a phase of screaming that I was just as good as any man. Then realized it was true and stopped screaming it.

Then got married and had kids, and realized I was just as good but different. I could do things men couldn’t do. Parenthood is different as a woman. And none of it mattered to my worth, just like being short and having brown hair doesn’t make me inferior to tall blonds. Just different.

And even though I’m a highly atypical woman, at the beginning of my sixth decade, I find myself completely at peace with the fact I am a woman and not apologetic at all for it.

Imagine my surprise when I found out women don’t exist. There’s only man and non-man.

This nonsense, from here, has got to stop. When you get so “inclusive” you’re excluding an entire biological sex (but curiously not the other) you might want to re-evaluate your principles. Also, your sanity.

Yes, I know, saying this makes me a TERF, which is nonsense. Maybe a TERNF, since I’ve not called myself a feminist since I was 18 and realized feminism aimed for making women “win” at men’s expense. It wasn’t aiming for equality but for “equity” and since I never needed a movement to outcompete males, I decided it was spinach and to h*ll with it.

Also I’m not trans-exclusionary. If women don’t exist, what the heck are men who are trans trans TO? Non-man? Uh… what? What are drag queens imitating? Is it just non-man?

Dylan Mulvaney is a TERF, since he keeps referring to his “days of girlhood.”

Look, Portugal was sexist and patriarchal. It assumed I was less because I lacked a penis. It told me there were professions and fields of knowledge I shouldn’t try because I was born female. It told me that men would always outcompete me.

This was annoying — and they were largely wrong — but I could overcome it.

I’m not sure I can overcome this idea that I’m imaginary. Because when people get to the point of denying that women exist or are a sex of humanity, they might be too far gone to realize what they’ve become: Rank misogynists.

So, at the risk of shocking them: I exist. I’m a woman. My experience in life, and my experience in this body is bound up with being — in fact — a woman: a being born with female sexual organs and genetics, who experienced periods since the age of 11 and who could and did conceive and give birth.

I’m sorry if that’s terribly hurtful. I have nothing against adults who think they were born into the wrong body. If changing their body into a broad facsimile of a female’s brings them relief, so be it.

But what are they changing into if females don’t exist? And why must I pretend that I don’t exist so they feel better?

Sorry, but just as the rules I was born to, I don’t feel like pretending to be lesser so you feel better.

Your delusions don’t obligate me to be delusional.

I’m a woman. I’m not no-man. That’s a joke from the Odyssey. And even the ancient Greeks in their machistic glory didn’t imagine it applied to women.

WOMAN — say it. Get used to it. The female half of humanity.

I’m a WOMAN. I exist. Lots of us exist. We’re a majority of humanity. You might convince those of us who are soft headed Marxists to deny themselves. Heaven knows they have been trained to believe a million impossible things before breakfast, poor kiddies.

But most of us have had just about enough of this. This has gone too stupidly far.

Now it stops. We’re your mothers, your grandmothers, your wives, your sisters, your daughters. And we’re not going to be erased.

I was going to write something completely different today, but woke up with an uneasy feeling.

You know, like when you’re walking in a natural setting and everything goes deathly quiet. Or when you’re in a city and suddenly every non-licensed vendor starts rolling up their blankets to shove away as if they’d never been there.

No, it’s not that there are massive and very strange brawls going on in the comment section of most “right” blogs. (Right being anyone to the right of Lenin.) That’s expected when the left does something so painfully and blatantly provocative that everyone wants to open the fourth box, but half of us are sane enough to know that’s not how any of this works.

The left thinks this means they’re winning. Just like they think every time they fail to start the civil war they so desperately want it means we’re defeated. (Yes the nuttier among you think the same) when in fact we just come up with better ways to thwart them (or let them bury themselves. Whichever comes first.) AND if they continue in this vein they’ll get what they’re asking for good and hard, and they won’t like it one bit. Neither will we, because the delayed reaction will burn itself into the psyche of this great land for generations and not in a good way. (This is not incitement, note, Fed the Fred, it’s prediction. Because you know, I live in the real world not in the f*ck-f*ck world of DC where you believe something like “Patriot Front” will be believed and followed.)

This is not about Donald Trump. Yes, he has a grave injustice being committed against him, all the graver as they ignore the very real transgressions of Hilary and Hunter and yeah, the Zhoe Bai-Den.

But you know? He’s not just a big man; he is, whatever else he is, a champion, and this is his chosen battle. He’s proven in the past — all but with the covidiocy — he’s more than capable of wielding his lance. We sent him forth. He knew he’d get hit. He’s not cried craven yet. Let him fight! He does it remarkably well and loudly.

And if he falls, we’ll find someone twice as “bad” to make DC lose its mind. Oh, maybe not this cycle, where everyone else is “wise managers” (SPIT!) but the next. And meanwhile… who knows?

The republic isn’t dead or even mostly dead, but it is in a headlock. People who want it dead have seized its institutions and means of communication…. eighty years ago. The people, though by and large, are all right and in fact getting more all right by the minute. The Trump presidency would have been impossible in the eighties, when Reagan was too dangerous. And Reagan himself was too dangerous when Goldwater was terrifying. And both of those and the overton windows of their time were created by a lockstep, unopposed mass media that maintained a semblance of reasonableness both because no one knew what was going on behind the scenes AND because they tried not to outright show their hatred for America and Americans and they drooling love for every totalitarian in existence, or even dreamed up.

Now they’ve lost that mask, and boy are they opposed. I find it hilarious that both the “news” division of mass media and the “entertainment” portion still believe that firing someone is to silence them. Doesn’t work that way anymore, guys.

So, that’s the moment. It’s not as dark as you think.

It might be terrible for Trump, but guys HE KNOWS THAT and he hasn’t backed down yet. If he was wounded or scared he’d not be running again. He is sane enough and smart enough to know what can happen. (If you think he doesn’t know about the Jan 6 prisoners, or isn’t carefully staying away from them because the worst he could do TO THEM was try to intervene, you aren’t very sane.) And no, he’s not just working on reflex. The successes he managed (peace in the Middle East) weren’t done by whatever kneejerk he was being pushed go. (And if you think he wasn’t, you aren’t thinking.)

Let Trump be Trump.

I will vote for anyone who goes up against Zhou Bai Den with two exceptions — no, not those. Pence and Christie (my fingers wanted to type McCain) because voting for snakes is the Democrat schtick, and I wouldn’t culturally appropriate them, heaven forbid — not because I don’t think they’ll at least try very hard to rig this election but because hey, they might fail to. And if they don’t, they might have to create 400k votes out of thin air, and that will be … well, then you can’t unsee it.

One thing you need to realize is that we’re not up against communists. We’re up against people who grew up as communists, but communism was an international conspiracy, with its head in Russia, and it needed that element to be even vaguely competent. Well, Russia is not what it used to be, if indeed it ever was outside the fiction written by those mad lads in Foggy Bottom. What we’re not battling is the scattered pieces of the snake, wriggling around and trying to hold on so their graft and grift isn’t discovered and isn’t taken away, and so they’re not punished. …. It’s not working wonderfully for them. Without the cover of the benevolent “We want to govern you better and give everyone a pony” Soviet bullshit, all they can do is flail around in public and show how venal, perverted and crazy they are. No, seriously, 30 years ago Noisome in California would be considered and sold by the monopoly media as the upcoming boy genius. Now he just thinks he is while the rest of the country watches in horror.

Remember, DURING LOCKDOWN, with “rent a rioter” in full display, and the TV amiably trying to convince the locked in populace that we were in a full race war (most of the rent a rioters were white felons) and that everywhere was super dangerous (BTW notice they’ve tried to re-start the riots two summers now, and nothing happened. Because that kind of illusion can only work when everyone is locked in AND everyone is watching TV more than usual because of the “pandemic.” They can’t restart the pandemic — oh, they’re trying — so they can’t restart the rent a riot either. Though they will Jan through March of 2024 do their level best to REALLY get us in a world war. If they have to bomb one of our cities and blame the Russians for it in order to have the power to mess the elections again.) and with them running psi-ops against Trump back to back on every TV screen, people went out and voted for Trump in numbers never heard of for a sitting president, ever. Despite his refusing to stop the Covidiocy (which to be fair he had no power to) and even making noises of going along with it to an extent (including the vaccine.)

The people are fine. Our overtaken institutions can and will inflict misery on us, but not as much as they think they can, because they don’t control as much as they think they do. (Totalitarians never do, and these aren’t very good at totalitarying.) It’s going to be a touch few years or couple of decades, but we’ll survive, and start putting the FDR (that Admirer of Stalin) legacy to rest at last.

SO– So why am I standing here, sniffing the air, and wondering if I should at least get out of the way of whatever is about to come through?

Well…. blog comments.

No, bide a while. Listen. Yes, there’s a free for all donnybrook even in staid blog comments. Not here, but there have been a couple now in discord groups, but….

That’s normal.

You know what’s not normal? We’re missing most of our agent provocateurs. I have one I’m watching, but I’m not even sure he’s one of them. Might just be awkward (No one here is ever awkward, right?)

I mean, I blocked the ijit who runs around the net screaming about me, but that’s just the latest mask of Chlamydia. But there were a good three or four others whom I counted on to say something appalling/try to push me into a dicey position when things were fraught.

They were here, in unprecedented numbers before Jan 6, trying to push me to attend and even offering to pay the way. (I can’t claim I expected a set up. I just couldn’t see any purpose to the gathering except “one last hurrah” and I hate traveling.) They were here for everything even the stupid Maoist poster proposed demonstrations, and the fake trucker convoys.

So where are they?

And it’s not just here. The only ones I see in other blogs are the obvious ones like Chlamydia. (Who might in fact BE technically Chlamydia. Forget how he’s been identified. For one, the person mentioned wasn’t old enough to be having arguments with us 22 years ago on all the blogs, and he WAS under one of his names. I think really those names a conglomeration from a call center somewhere possibly even abroad. Which would explain the out-of-touch nonsense.)

But all the semi-plausible, a list of which I keep in the back of my head and don’t ban here are gone. And all the semi-plausible are gone everywhere else too.

And I’m worried. At a time like this? It’s not natural.

I don’t see anything, but the illegal vendors are rolling up their blankets and running.

Listen, Clarice, it’s not the silence of the lambs that worries me. Lambs can be silent because they sense the predator, yeah. But that’s lambs and right now there’s mighty few on either side.

What worries me is the silence of the weasels and coyotes.

They usually get louder before attack, and much louder when they’re trying to herd us towards something inadvisable.

What would make them fall silent?

What in heaven’s name would make the weasels and coyotes disappear?

I don’t like it.

Keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark, and be ready to jump out of the way.

Something wicked this way comes.

Promo PROBABLY Wednesday (there are reasons.) You see, I sat at the wrong computer to check on something else, and then the kittens sat on me. I can’t get up. I tried, honest. It’s been…. 4 hours. Here I am. I have stuff to do….

If I die, tell people it was feline murder… They’re so cute and happy and and and WARM. I can’t. I just can’t.

Have some kitten pictures, to cheer you up.

This is Indie-Pol, cat-god of Indianapolis (Look at his name!) and he likes his tummy rubbed.

He really likes his tummy rubbed, and he doesn’t belly trap, just hugs your wrist with soft paws while you pet his tummy.

And this is Helen who now only answers to Helena (I blame Dan). She supervises the writer.

I’d take a picture of them on my legs right now, but the phone is upstairs, and as we know, that’s not reachable. Not with KITTENS on me.

I’m fuzzed and I can’t get up.

If our current “elites” were Lizard Aliens, bent on destroying us before we move off planet, what would they be doing differently?

Go on. Think about it. I’ll wait.

Bet you that you didn’t come up with anything. Or at least anything that doesn’t go “But then again.”

Oh, you might have come up with some reason they’re not lizards. The lizard is there for funsies. They seem very upset about a warming world, so perhaps they’re ice moles or something. All the same —

It is not my point to argue that our self-proclaimed better are aliens. I mean, sometimes I look at it and go “Whoa, what are the chances they wouldn’t do something beneficial to humans at least once, by accident?” But then again, you know? That’s like Biden never hires anyone who doesn’t turn out to be — literally — some form of criminal loon. Not on purpose (probably) but because of the water he swims in and what he is. So, it’s entirely possible the “elites” are just human haters without being aliens. Which is far less fun. But more likely. Though I think the time for “far fetched conspiracy theory” to become “Absolutely reality” is now three days or less.

Anyvay…. moving right along, the place where “they’re aliens and trying to exterminate us” is most obvious is the proliferation of genders.

Not only does it make it hard to reproduce (and for the people brought into physical conformance with their mind self-image often impossible) but more importantly, it betrays a complete lack of understanding of the human species and how we work.

You see, humans have two sexes. Male and female. When male and female get together, most of the time, within certain age ranges, reproduction occurs. Which means there are more little humans.

There is no such thing as “gender” except as a bizarre and twisted misnomer that conjoins sex with behavioral characteristics, some of which have absolutely nothing to do with sex; some of which are sexual, but only in the sense of “preferred style of approaching the other sex”; and some of which are outright bizarre paraphilias.

Paraphilias is any sexual interest/obsession/style which doesn’t lead to reproduction. They range from “doesn’t lead to reproduction but hasn’t been bred out of the human species so it must have some evolutionary value” — like being gay (which seems to have evolutionary value. No, I’m not going to argue it. Notice I’m not arguing the morality or rightness of it. But it seems to confer some strengths to a reproductive line) which is probably the most “Normal” in the sense of having existed everywhere at all times, including when it was against interest. — to things like “I’m a dragon kin demi-boi” which were invented yesterday and most of us would have to go consult a list to figure out, and which not only don’t lead to reproduction (or at least make it really had to find a mate) but are the result of a great deal of confusion between “Sex” in the sense of something you are and which describes your role in reproduction and “sex” in the sense of what you like — or would like, or imagine you like — to do in bed. IOW and in plain speaking, a confusion between sexual role in reproduction — male or female — and KINK, which is a preference in pleasure mode.

The “genders” multiply because they’re not genders, understood as immutable characteristics written in your DNA but social modes. And social modes are infinite and infinitely shaded. In that sense “Genders” will eventually multiply till each of us has our very own. And that, frankly is silly, particularly when enshrined into law, and mutated into compelled speech.

Let me put it another way: years ago I was a guest of honor at Penguicon, and found myself bemused by a tag that had check boxes for what you were willing to do at the con, ranging from hugging to multi-sex orgy. Not shocked. It’s SF and, well, we’ve found a bunch of work arounds for “I’m not very good at interacting with people” but bemused. I wasn’t there for that, so I left it blank, though I’m more than willing to hug friends.

The “gender” as it’s being used by activists is the equivalent of those tags. Eventually, if this goes on, everyone will have his or her very own gender and pronouns. “Hi, I’m Sarah, Sarah/Sarah, I’m a Dansexual with shades of sapiosexual and fiction-sexual.”

REALLY? What even is the point? We can introduce ourselves, right, and at long last get to whether we have any sexual interest in the other person, right?

Only we can’t. Not in a society so perverted by Freudian misconceptions (has been since the seventies, at least) where everyone who is healthy is assumed to WANT to sleep with everyone else. So, you need the definitions in your face, up front, before you even meet.

But none of this actually leads to the function of sex, which is reproduction. (Sure, and pack bonding. And stress reduction. And hierarchy establishing. NOT taking away from those, but ultimately the purpose is to make more humans.) Which is why we’re in trouble.

In fact the face-forward this-is-what-I-like-in-bed is severing bonds, rather than creating them, and interfering not only with all the not-bed forms of relationships, but also destroying our ability to form bed forms of relationships.

Dropping things like “I’m attracted to men/women” in the same pot as “I’m a woman who likes carpentry and is stronger than most women; I like women; I like wearing flannel, I MUST be a man in a woman’s body” is crazy enough. We suddenly find ourselves REQUIRED to sleep with men who are wearing women’s bodies, even if we have no interest in women, because otherwise we’re bigots. Or we find men — objectively designed by evolution (not a correct wording, but the closest I can get) to be bigger and stronger, mostly through stuff that happens before they’re even born — must be allowed to compete with women in sports because they think they’re women, and therefore it’s the same.

But if in addition you drop into it stuff like “Demi-sexual” which means you’re only attracted to people you know — aka what most of us think as normal — and “asexual” and you’re then mixing biological genre, sexual attraction, mental-only definition of sex based mostly on non-sexual preferences, AND “the very specific type of people I would consider sleeping with. And the circumstances under which I’d sleep with them.”

Then add to that a bunch of other things we’re told are genders, like “Asexual” — no that just means you don’t want any, not that you ARE a different thing — or dragon-kin — I too like to pretend I’m a dragon, but I know it’s silly and only do it online — or another of the myriad insanities, and ….

It’s all insane because you’re not comparing apples to oranges. You’re comparing apples to Ford Fieros and then throwing in some skyscrapers for funsies.

Let’s talk. There are two sexes, male and female. This is defined by the role the individuals play in reproduction and is largely unchangeable.

Now is the time for you to stop screaming. What I’ve said is only controversial if your head is full of idiocy.

Biologically, humans come in two functional sexes. Male and female. Both are needed for reproduction. Yes, there have been reports (beyond that one) of spontaneous cloning, and they might — or not — be true, but actually, ultimately, they’re one-offs and non reproducible at will. For most of humanity if you want to reproduce grab a member of the other sex and GO. You might not succeed, depending on age and health and compatibility, but you have a good chance of doing it, if those align.

Yes, there are birth defects and “indistinct genitalia” at birth are not that unusual. HOWEVER by adulthood the birth defects are a tiny percentage. And most of them are either sterile or, regardless of genitalia, function only as male or female. The fully functional ones are an even tinier percentage. Holding out for that to make humans non binary is like saying humans aren’t bipedal because some people can’t walk. Pfui. If you’re not a toddler this doesn’t pass the sniff test.

At any rate, those are the base biological sexes. You were, unless you’re one of the almost vanishing minority, one or the other at birth. Not ASSIGNED at birth. You just were.

We can’t actually change that where it counts. Not in terms of reproduction. We can change your appearance so you pass as the other sex. (Though I’m told the up-close in the pants stuff is not as exact and capable of passing as we’d like to think. I don’t know. And I’m not going to look at pictures.) That’s about it.

Even that is fairly difficult, as most people never quite pass and get stuck in this uncanny valley area where they trigger everyone’s subconscious alarms, which sucks.

I’m not saying that for some people with severe gender dysphoria NOT acquired last week in a mass event in an internet forum that is not a relief. I mean, being able to sort of pass. I can visualize that all too easily, okay? Let’s just say that.

HOWEVER that’s all. If you feel you’re the opposite sex to the point that cosmetic surgery helps, and you’re an adult, go for it. You can live as the other sex. It’s none of my actual business. You can’t actually change your reproductive sex, though. And the things done to pass as the opposite sex — hormones, etc — are likely to render you sterile. Sorry.

Also I wish to make it clear we are not capable of making you reproduce as the opposite sex nor are we even close to it. Look, if being able to reproduce as the opposite sex were the moon landing, we’d still be in the phase of looking up at the birds and making noises that indicate flying is cool. But we can’t say it better because we haven’t invented words again. I must say this, because there’s been a lot of fast stepping and lying from advocates and even “scientific publications.”

If you’re a kid — early twenties or under — contemplating sex transition, that’s fine, but make your decision with the understanding you’re giving up reproduction. Because you are. No, not even in fifty or a hundred years. It’s not even as close as “immortality” which is always fifty years away.

I must say this, knowing some people will be very upset and reflexively be mad at me for saying, and not at the liars promising otherwise, because people promising otherwise are LYING and people are making decisions based on things that can’t happen.

Anyway — so at base — there’s two sexes, male and female. Those matter for reproduction. They have bloody nothing to do with how you dress, what you like to do for fun, or even what you like to do in bed.

After that, and in a completely different sphere, there’s sexual attraction: there have always been men and women who are attracted to each other. They’re the vast majority of humanity, the reason that vive la difference, and what makes the world go round, or at least keep going. That’s fine. Then there’s men who are attracted to men and women who are attracted to women. That’s been normal throughout history (whether it’s exclusive, or they’re attracted to the opposite sex too.) and therefore is normal under “humans present this way.” Note I’m making absolutely no claims to morality much less religion. I know what my religion prescribes and I try to follow it, but in civil society I favor not discriminating against a normal variant of the human race. Or discriminating for, for that matter. It is what it is, and it should be neither reviled nor favored. Just human, okay.

The same goes for being naturally uninterested in sex. It’s happened throughout history too. Sure, in some cases it’s probably a mental or hormonal issue. But probably not in most cases. It’s normal. And we should stop treating celibates like there’s something wrong with them too, okay? They’re just part of normal human panoply.

And then…. and then we get to other things. Oh, you’re a man who likes to dress as a woman to sleep with either women or other men? Sure, whatever. But since I’m not interested in sex with you, why do I need to know that? Why does society at large need to know that?

You’re someone who wishes to have extreme mutilation body modification because that’s what your kink calls for? Whatever. You’re an adult and you’re paying for it yourself? Don’t do it on the street, and don’t scare the horses. And if your post op mutilations — I’m think the non-human ones — scare the horses, stay the heck out of the street. Because it will scare children too.

As for people who like to sleep with a lot of people of one or both genders at once… again… what does this have to do with me, since I am not now, nor am I likely to be interested in you? I don’t actually care.

We don’t need new pronouns. They’re all used in the third, not the second person, and you can’t control how people talk about you behind your back. (Mostly as “that crazy sob/b” honestly.) If you change sexual appearance, and you pass, the pronouns used for you are already the other sex. Beyond that, this game of gotcha and “I’m more special than thou” serves no purpose but create a mess and make it more difficult to establish any relationship from professional to social to, yes, sexual.

Leave the pronouns alone. If you really hate male and female there’s something seriously off in your head and you’re confusing old divisions based on reproduction with advertising to the world precisely in which way you wish to be laid.

And while we’re at it, let’s get at the source of this nonsense: Humans are not bonobos, no matter how much Freud wanted them to be. We are largely a monogamous (sometimes serially monogamous) mates-for-life species. Largely heterosexual, with the normal, understood, low percentage variations. Our hormones conspire in this, by making us bond to the people we bed. What this means in practicality is that making us sleep with everything that moves breaks us, doesn’t mend us. Our mind shatters at being forced into A LOT of meaningless sex. Yes, there are people who are not monogamous, and it seems to be inborn. BUT I’m talking the majority of people.

So, no one should be looked down on for not having a lot of sex. Or not having a lot of sex with strangers. Or not having sex at all. All of those are normal. Freud was crazy. Certifiable.

Second: given that we’re not bonobos, we need to establish sexual etiquette. Starting with “it’s always all right to say no.” And “knowing each other for a while is better” and such.

And then we need to establish ways for people to approach/get to know each other, without sex being immediately expected. (That should be as is the statistical exception. It exists. And it should have its own spaces. But its spaces are not the boardroom or the classroom, for instance.)

We need to do this. And start working on it now.

Because the opposition, the complete semantic confusion of “genders” ends up with each of us with his or her own gender, our hand against everyone else, and convinced they hate us.

It’s time to stop the crazy. Get your head clear. Then help the people next to you.

The future is fractal.

Okay, that’s probably bullshit, but it sounds better than saying “We can’t predict the future at all, stay frosty.”

This is also not exactly true, but it’s as true as we can make it, in human words, right now. Yeah, sure, the future is still probably composed of days, and the people experiencing it will be human (If not no, what’s the point?) etc, etc, world without end.

But that’s not what I’m talking about. The future I refer to here is the future we prepare for. And the future work and earning activities we specifically prepare for, to be exact. You know, the things education used to do.

Mind you, education never did that very well, but it tended to adapt with the times- ish.

For instance, education always thought in its own internal forums that it was about something it really wasn’t. Like in the middle ages it probably — not sure, wasn’t there. Stop laughing — thought it was about making better and more knowledgeable Christians. Clerics/clerks for the massive church bureaucracy extending across Europe. And it was, sort of, maybe. But what it actually was doing was creating a learned class that could read and write and speak a lingua franca, which allowed diplomacy and commerce to go on. The more were needed, the more the learning apparatus became bigger and more complex and more internationally respected.

Then as education turned to practical things, in the great industrialization, things that used to be considered at best shady crafts like medicine and engineering became part of the system, and people got the stamp of approval of officialdom to practice their craft, for which there was increasingly more need.

Meanwhile, because late-stage industrial revolution needed literate and at least somewhat educated workers, child labor was forbidden and minimum education made the state’s responsibility.

Then things went weird. Partly because, I think, the left thinks an uneducated “proletariat” is more likely to suit their needs. Partly because all states got alarmed and saw people who could actually think as a threat. And partly because they just suck, yo.

So public, mandatory education turned into indoctrination factories. Twenty years ago, I already had trouble finding college freshmen who could express themselves in writing with any degree of clarity.

Look, I’m not being picky. It wasn’t “oh, no, you used the passive voice.” Dear Lord, no. It was more like the best had sentences that made sense by themselves, they just didn’t add up to a coherent meaning. The very best had a paragraph that made sense. The rest made you go “What even?” And the majority just made no sense whatsoever.

The only way to explain it is that they’d learned whole word reading, and therefore thought of words as symbols. But because as symbols written words are very complicated, they only really remembered first and last letter — which was all that was required in school, since they knew the context, and it was all multiple choice — so, claimant was the same word as complaint was the same word as concomitant and what actually got typed was part the student and part the word processor fixing it.

The result was… well, AI is not that bad. And these were people I’d meet or talk to on the phone, who made perfect sense in speech, but weren’t in any way literate, not even vaguely, particularly since they read by the same method.

These people could even, sometimes, write sensible messages on the level of “went shopping” or “where are you?” but anything out of the every day and super-common left them floundering because, again, they weren’t in any way shape or form literate.

I understand that has got worse, with the result that after 12 years of state schooling, most colleges find themselves teaching very elementary reading and math.

And I want to make this clear, this is not the fault of the kids in any way. It’s the schooling that has gotten…. bureaucratized, clerisized (in the original sense. Most teaching schools are temples of the Marxist cult) and rendered anti-teaching. Look, kids would be more literate if left to loiter on street corners, okay?

Now, obviously, most kids learn to read and write, at least somewhat once they’re out of the government prison schools. Over the next ten years all of them — the ones who go to college and the ones who don’t — seem to be come more or less literate, and many even learn to read for fun.

But they should be doing it much, much earlier, okay? And the solution is not to make university free or mandatory. That will just delay their achieving literacy.

In fact, university, free or not is not the solution for anything. With increasing frequency, and depending on the area of the country, if university is the answer, the question is very, very stupid.

It took me forever to realize this. And even longer to realize why. I imagine it’s worse for those embedded in the University system.

Look, guys, I only realized the problem with traditional publishing because having achieved just below top rank success, I realized how little that was, and started digging at why. (Yes, I’m part terrier. Deal.) If I’d been a publisher, editor or an enormously successful author, I might never have started that dig, and never realized that most houses had traded “being commercially successful” (I.e. selling, i.e. what their job was) for “Educating the people” and “Looking good at the cocktail parties me and my homies all attend.”

I’m not inside the university system, though I connived in sending both my kids through it in what might have been the most spectacular misuse of influence and wealth in my life, and the thing I regret most after not homeschooling.

And now you’re all looking at me like I lost my mind. No, listen. These are not your father’s universities. Except in the ways they are, which makes the whole thing worse.

The way they’re not is the way they’ve become just one more avenue for continuing indoctrination and trying the whole Diversity Inclusion and Equity, which is and should be DIE because that’s what it is. More and more the professors, openly or not, view as their job to let minorities and particularly women have the best grades and graduation rates and succeed. This is why University is a terrible bargain for girls more than for boys. They are given the impression they know a lot; actually know nothing; hit the world and become convinced patriarchy is holding them down.

The way they are exactly what they were in your father’s (and my father’s) day is that they are admirably preparing people for the 20th century. Except they’re doing this in an environment where memorizing factoids is counterproductive since the computers in our pocket can give us those instantly. (I’m not against stupid memorization. That’s my other regret. I should have made the kids memorize poems and factoids when they were tiny. You who have small children should do this, all the time. Turns out memory is a muscle. It needs to be exercised. But it doesn’t make much sense in terms of a pedagogical or the main pedagogical objective.) So memorizing long lists of “if/then” is mostly ridiculous, and doesn’t benefit the student. And examining them on those is even more so, which is why we’ve become more and more paranoid about cheating to the stupid point.

The other thing that doesn’t make much sense is the whole hierarchy of learning. Sure, professors who got their degrees a bazillion years ago, like me, are very well informed of the basics of the field. You know, the things you can acquire in a week, with some study online and a few lectures that are free. What is missing is how to apply it to the current age.

Yes, I know I sound like the educators saying “but they don’t need to read. The computer can do that for them.” but I’m actually the opposite. They should have all the very basic abilities. On that they should layer an ability to pick up the more advanced bits as needed. And move on to other advanced bits. Because information and data are more available now than they ever were.

What we’re doing instead is dinning into their heads a narrative where the certification and the blessing from the “experts” is all important. Which is counterproductive. And unbelievably stupid.

What we should be training… well…. reasoning from facts and factoids. Flexibility. Innovation. Ability reason from present conditions and find the best place and time to improve them.

The kids — eh, for me anyone 45 and under — have amazing opportunities at their disposal, and college is — at best — putting blinders on them.

More importantly, it is rendering them unfit for a future where the best security is multiple streams of income, the best guarantee of excelling is to be able to take your losses, roll with the punches and emerge whole on the other side, and the best guarantee of a middle class life is stubborn refusal to give up.

The universities, particularly for highly specialized careers consume a person’s entire youth: six, seven or ten years. Heck, the typical bachelors is now six years, and no, that’s not the students’ fault. Universities multiply and maximize time needed to complete in order to keep being paid more.

The problem is, we do need something like universities. Yes, I know, people can pick up most of it on the fly. But specialized stuff like medicine, engineering, law, physics, etc. still need to be taught. For things like the first three which honestly are all more art than anything else, apprenticeships would work best, given an alternate licensing system. It is my guess too that being ossified those places will be the last to admit it. Honestly, business administration too need apprenticeship more than college.

But Physics, math, chemistry, etc. all the advance, specialized fields need … something like university. Just mostly not university as it is now.

But we even need or could use a university system for the liberal arts. We don’t realize that because those fields were turned into indoctrination first. But I have a friend who used to teach art history, and we do need that, because it’s like a message sent to us from the past. More importantly we need to be able to analyze real history and real economics, and sharpen our wits one against the other, until we find solutions for present problems, or track down where we went very wrong.

We need it particularly because the world is changing at speed. Not in social mores or that, which are imposed from above, in the great part, but in technology. Each bit of technology has repercussions no one is tracking or fully understanding, to the point the crisis in commercial real estate took the idiots in charge by surprise, though it’s been coming for twenty years and was made inevitable for the covidiocy. Instead, as in the days of Noah when they married and were given in marriage until they drowned, our “business administrators” were building and buying showier and bigger headquarters until lockdown. Or even after. Into which they now can’t herd employees at any price in the world. (And why a lot of them went under.)

This is daft. I saw teleworking coming for most desk jobs 20 years ago, and mentioned it here at least 12 years ago.

But these people were educated to think that things don’t change. They don’t learn the basics, but boy do they learn dogma. More unchangeable dogma than any pope ever processed.

So, yes. We need “something like college.” We might need it at multiple times through a life in which tech and jobs will change a few times. What form it takes, I don’t know, but my guess is it will not resemble at all the live in/don’t have a job on the side, etc. etc.

I feel, more than think, because this is not my area and I’m sure there’s factors I don’t know or underestimate (none of them being providing a happy environment for beardo the weirdo, who needs to retire or become a barista already), that what would work is labs and perhaps classes for things that absolutely must be done in groups. (Fewer than anyone thinks, except for stuff like chemistry.) For the rest? Assigned subjects with recorded lectures that can be taken at any time and discussions in something like a discord group, to sharpen mind against mind. Perhaps tutors to oversee groups of students (more like England, or the early-modern system.) And exams. Lots and lots of exams, including certification exams, some of which will be more valuable than others.

The objective should be to learn and become flexible in your ability to analyze facts and to move from “expertise” to “expertise” and adapt when tech wacks their job upside the head and they have to learn something different.

Basics are important, and being able to discuss and adapt what you know is important. But that’s not what we’re training.

For you people with promising kids, yes, sure, things like welding or HVAC do pay for now, but I’m also afraid of those fields becoming crowded. If they absolutely must go to college, try to push them into fields where the training is short because the time, let alone the money, is a massive sunk cost, which in a time when everything changes very fast is not wroth it.

And if you can make sure they have paying hobbies, and two or three sources of income.

Because multiple streams of income, and a wide ability is the best way to stay employed and profitable.

As for us, who are at an age that at any other time would be retirement… well, you know what you’re depending on for retirement. But for most of us it is a losing proposition, both in terms of maybe the money being there, and in terms of us living a lot longer than people used to. You’ll get bored.

So– stay flexible, learn more, multiple streams of income.

And don’t get so wedded to your view of how things are that you can’t change when your job becomes obsolete. Or perhaps something completely different.

Stay ready; stay flexible. Keep riding the wave.

We’ll Never Survive By Our Wits Alone – a Blast From The Past From May 2011

Three days ago, I took it upon myself to dispute the conclusions of Michael Levin writing in the Forbes blog and prophesying the end of the book. Not just the end of the paper book, or the end of the book as we know it, but the end of the book, period.

He seemed to believe it was at least in part suicide, with the publishers choosing to publish a lot of things that no one really wanted to buy, and – as it were – metaphorically standing at the end of the abyss saying “stop me before I jump.” In this scenario, Amazon came along and gave the final shove.

Perhaps because economics is my hobby, I tend to look at the same scenario – and I’ll admit Michael is right – grosso modo – about the scenario – and see the free market at work. Or perhaps more accurately, the iron law of economics at work: if there is a market that’s being badly served and someone else comes up with a way to serve it better, the model will change and the old way of doing things die out. Or in other words (sorry, writing this late at night after a day spent packing for two weeks abroad) if you build a better mousetrap the manufacturers of inferior mousetraps will go out of business.

So far so good. What I disagreed – and disagree – with is the disappearance of the book as such. Michael, who, it turns out, is a good sport and didn’t even get upset at my calling him Mark – Okay, didn’t get VERY upset – (It’s something I do to Michaels. My friend Michael Kabongo has been for some time “Tony” to our circle of friends. No, he doesn’t like it, so I wouldn’t advise trying it.) but his comment in the “about” section of my blog clarified his argument.

Dear Sarah,

Many thanks for reading and responding so passionately to my piece about publishing in Forbes. The reality is that there are more of them than there are of you and me, in that you and I pay for content and others don’t, or won’t in the future. Maybe I’m as wrong as you say. But my first name is Michael, not Mark, so perhaps we both have a right to be wrong! I enjoyed your piece and am glad that you saw fit to write about it. Warmly, Mark no wait Michael

(I think by “passionately” he means that I’m excitable. That’s fine. I am. My husband says so, and he knows me quite well.)

His next statement however raises eyebrows. For more on this, look at the Baen Free Library. Also, note that Baen has long run its ebook section on low prices and no DRM and far from having a loss continues to thrive.

For yet more corroboration that piracy alone won’t kill an industry, look at music. Yes, it’s completely different from before going electronic, but again, provided the price is reasonable and there’s no DRM you’ve eliminated two reasons to pirate: costs, and because it’s a challenge. Music for money still exists and it still supports artists.

The caveat here is that Michael works, mostly, in non fiction. I’m not sure of the mechanics for non-fiction. I know in fiction, most people have an instinctive understanding that only this writer could produce this work, and if the writer starves in his lonely little attic, you won’t have any more… Honor, or Athena, or Captain Vimes, or…

I’m not sure the same understanding applies to non fiction. It’s entirely possible that people just assume there’s no intrinsic virtue to how-to or non-fic, that the info was there, if anyone else had collected. Non-fic might fall under the misguided apprehension that “data wants to be free.”

Also, because some non fic, at least (school books) is unlikely to crawl out from under the thumb of the big houses any time soon, it will probably be overpriced and DRMed to the gills.

So Michael might be right. It might be the end of a TYPE of book. I don’t think so, but I’ll concede the point that on THAT I have no other proof than a gut feeling that once people realize the stuff you can get for free is worth what you pay for it, they will realize non-fic writers need to live also.

However, as I told Michael Levin, in my answer to his comment, the future is notoriously hard to make predictions about, particularly when it hasn’t happened, yet. I will admit for non-fic he might very well be right, which means the market will transmute to another media. I’m going to guess specialized how-to and non-fic blogs, probably supported by contributions.

UPDATE FROM 2023: Ah. I was right. Books have no gone away. Not fiction and not non-fiction. In fact, I’ve recently found it hard to figure out if a well researched book on, say the revolutionary war, is traditional or indy. And indy tends to have the lead. Why? because people write these non-fiction books about their passion: something they’ve been working on their whole lives.

Now I grant you this might be harder to make a living from — I don’t know. I imagine no one ever made a living from the incredibly specialized books I tend to buy or want as reference for writing. I mean one of the biographies of Marlowe I bought way back cost me $250 because it had a print run of 80. No. I’m no missing a zero. 80. — and that if you really want to write about the plight of the inhabitants of some small village in Greece it will be hard to raise the money to travel there. Then again if it’s an interesting enough book, you can fund it with your future readers. I’ve seen people do it.

So, just for the record:

How it started: “ZOMG the book will stop existing.”

How it’s going: Not even remotely so. People do pay for the books they want, because pirating is hazardous and whatever you download is probably infected, but mostly it’s not convenient to go hopping trying to find it for “free.”

It might be sometimes you pay for the convenience of having the book available and appear on your device immediately, but you still pay.

And most of the time, it’s worth the cost.

I was thinking, never mind why, about large countries eating small ones next to them, or small ones surviving, and I thought, in the way that human cultures work next to each other, it’s quite possible the US will eventually eat Mexico.

Oh, not soon. 200 or 300 years. I think the idiots in power are trying to speed it up by opening the borders, but they are idiots, and their ideas rarely yield what they want.

And yes, I think right now at least, given the cultures involved, this is a dangerously stupid idea, so any Mexicans reading this, no I don’t think we should annex you. (I know I have Portuguese readers. I don’t think we have any Mexican ones, but who knows?) I really, really don’t. The merger of the cultures would truly suck. And yours would probably win, because y’all are atavistic.

But in 200 or 300 years, who knows?

Why merge? It’s that long UNPROTECTED border. There is no big obstacle. And a wall won’t be a big enough obstacle, no.

England and Scotland at a larger scale.

But there are exceptions, of course. Portugal is the only stand out from the general unification of the peninsula, probably because Portuguese are very contrary. (Though that might be in the process of being diluted by communications and travel.)

Anyway, when I was thinking of that — because I’m not a well woman. Also, I was doing laundry. Dishes are for plotting. Laundry is for thinking about history — I thought about what would remain of the culture that works in such an event.

Of course I’m not sure. There’s no way to be sure. As is, our idiots in power think they can replace the population and get themselves more compliant people, and that only means they never actually dealt with Latin culture (which is mostly what they THINK they’re importing. Never mind.) Yes, sure, there’s a lot of going along with the “betters” but revolution is also a way of life. They’re just blinded by the stupid assumption communism is the future so all revolutions will be “for” them. This was Obama’s mental issue, too, when he planted OWS and thought the people would naturally support it, because people are “naturally communist.” (Rolls eyes.)

Anyway– getting back on track (sadly it’s one of my Adderal days.) — as I was thinking of that, I thought what remained was likely to be a straight up dislike of authority.

Why, you ask? Well, because it seems like we have inherited that all the way from the early British, though how I don’t know since most of us almost for sure don’t have enough English genetics to do that.

In 2012 I wrote a post called We King Killers. I ran it by Toni Weisskopf before I put it up, because something about it felt funny, and she advised me not to publish it, because it might be construed as incitement. (It wasn’t. It was mostly me running down an historical rabbit hole, but yes, she was right. And I don’t need more paid agents provocateurs flocking. So, it was good advice.)

The gist of the article is that the English, throughout their history are addicted to king killing. Which is kind of funny, because the French did it once, and get the bad reputation. No wonder they hate the English.

And the trend seems to have transferred to America, on more or less the same cycle of presidents either killed or attempted against. Seems to be a deep set cultural thing.

I didn’t realize how deep it went, though. I’ve been reading a mystery series set in the time of Edward I (I won’t post the name here, because I’ve met the author long ago, and he’d be very upset to be mentioned on this blog. But the books are decent. All his books are.)

Apparently around that time (and a hundred years before that,) the merchants of London rebelled and wanted… well, self-government and a republic.

This amused me no end because the earliest record of husband’s of family are as merchants in silks and luxury goods in London. (Probably where our lines connect and responsible for his tiny percentage of Portuguese: you see, dad’s paternal line were merchants in luxury goods.) And I could totally see them involved in that. We know for a fact they were involved in the glorious (failed) revolution, etc. And of course, an ancestor fought in the civil war.

Yes, his family is mostly (MOST of it) on the other side, but that’s…. the puritan character, right? And the belief they’ll emerge on top, like every smart person who falls for communism. (I wish they’d get a grip on reality, but hey.)

I suspect though that should we swing to a real tyranny (look, no. It’s not. They’d like it to be, but they can’t get enough of a grip. They have the institutions but not the people. It’s like the only way to precipitate a famine for real would be to confiscate food door to door. And while they’d love to do that, they can’t because we have guns. Like that.) they’d find their “king toppling” ways again. Because it’s part genes, part family culture.

And I think that part is so strong, it has survived the dilution of the original stock. (The blood and soil people who want only pure blood from revolutionary times would be able to round up maybe one or two pure Americans. With luck. The other part of the American character — like my dad’s family — is to marry the most exotic they can find, so there have been a lot of …. ah…. integrated imports. Even “born here for three generations” would be a stretch for most people.) Weirdly, most of my kids’ friends who were most aggressively don’t tread on me American had at least one foreign parent. (I know that didn’t use to be the norm, but I think in the eighties and nineties we drew an anti-authoritarian pool of immigrants.)

I don’t even know why, but I think it’s partly our image, and therefore the bend of character of those who throw in with us. “Nae Kings, Nae Queens, Nae Lords, Nae Ladies. We’ll never be fooled again.”

I think in the end that will remain. In fact, I’m almost sure of it, as much as it’s possible to be sure of something my grandkids likely won’t see.

I’m not sure where it comes from, how it attaches to our culture. And yes, I know you’re going to say Great Britain seems to have lost it, and so do the other anglo-descended cultures. I’m not sure that’s true. There were lulls and periods of “good kings” whose PR enabled them to sound like they cared for the people, etc. (Most of them didn’t.) But the characteristic always surfaces. More violent when it’s been repressed for a while. (Salutes in the general direction of Australia and Great Britain.)

In the same way that the French tend to be wordy and chaotic, no matter what actual genetics fall in THAT pool, the English tend to be “practical anti authority” and trying to limit the power of the state.

I suspect the aberrations of the 20th century, which haven’s played out in the rest of the anglosphere have to do with monopoly of very persuasive means of communication and story telling. More than ever before in human history. Or pre-history.

But hey, we’re shaking that off, and I suspect it will get to the rest of the world. Just later, and unpredictably. (Because the future comes to America.)

But that’s for the future. For now, we have to deal with our own issues.

It will happen, because the trend of history is that it will. And mind the “king killing” isn’t always — or most of the time — literal. We didn’t kill George III, but we most definitely “killed” him in these shores. And a lot of it, from John Lackland on involves clipping governments little ugly sticky wings.

There is, let us put this way, in anglo-descended cultures a marked self-government bend.

Now go forth and exert your natural cultural tendency.

Book promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: Herbs and Empire: Merchant and Empire Book Eight

When Saxo smeared herbs onto the great-hauler’s leg, he just wanted to ease the bird’s pain, not turn his world upside-down.

Saxo, called Birdson, has no family, friends, or skills, aside from caring for Master Agri’s great-haulers, the birds of burden in the Northern Empire. A beast healer priest discovers Saxo’s secret—the boy is an herb healer with a beast calming magic.

Now, Master Jeaspe wants to train Saxo to heal. Master Agri wants Saxo’s gifts—and income—for his own use. Yoorst, Lord of the Beasts, has other plans.

When the gods speak, men obey. If they are wise.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: The Schrödinger Paradox: Heisenberg’s Point of Observation

To save the future, sometimes you have to reach to the past.
Thomas Sutton was not your average fourteen year old, not even in an Ark City. Born in one of the three refuges of the last remnants of life on earth, deep underground, he knows his history. A century after an asteroid shattered and struck the earth, they have been trapped below by volcanic eruptions, toxic gasses, and radioactive dust. But what if he could…change things? What if he could reach the past, to prevent the asteroid’s impact?

FROM JERRY BOYD: Shipping Out (Bob and Nikki Book 34)

After as much as the company has practiced bugging out, you wouldn’t think that loading up a few hundred folks and their belongings would be that tough, would you? Well, if that’s what you think, you haven’t met our shepherd. Tag along and see how they come up with solutions to problems they didn’t even know they had.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Beach House on the Moon

The Moon is a dead world, airless and desolate. Emmaline Waite has known this fact since childhood, when she watched the Apollo landings.

But here she sits on the shores of the Sea of Tranquillity, looking up at the gibbous Earth as the waves roll in. What madness can this be?

She gets no time to contemplate that question, for she is not alone. She is about to enter a realm of love and fear, of mindbending secrets that change her understanding of human history, and of self-sacrifice.

Her life will never be the same.

FROM DAVID VINING: Colonial Nightmare

When George Washington was 21 years old, he went on a dangerous mission into the wilds of the Ohio River Valley to deliver a message from the Virginia colonial governor to a French military base, Fort Le Boeuf, a message to prevent war between England and France. The journey was harrowing and dangerous as Washington, joined by frontiersman Christopher Gist and Iroquois leader Tanacharison, also called the Half-King, braved the bitter cold of an unforgiving winter.

Washington wrote of his journey as a report to the governor, but he gave an incomplete portrait of the goings on of his journey, for he was attacked. He was attacked by something he could not explain. Something not of the New World but of the Old. Something that had preyed upon innocent for centuries. Something that scared him so much that he refused to report it to anyone.

Here, for the first time, is the full account of the colonial major’s journey. Far more than an act to prevent conflict between nations, it became a conflict that pitted evil against a man unlike any other, a man who had to potential within him to lead a nation.

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: CROWDED