Born Free
I can’t get my act together for a post today. Mostly because we FINALLY came home last night, and today I seem to be like my cats on catnip. CAN’T stop spinning long enough to think.
Forgive me.
I hate to do this during one of the fundraising days, but meh. Means one less day of fundraising. That only (theoretically) hurts me.
I swear I slept well, but I feel like I could just sleep….
Anyway, post tomorrow.
We all know what Deja Poo is, right? It’s that distressing sense you’ve seen this sh*t before.
In this case the sh*t is Musk’s third party formation.
I was going to write a long post explaining why this was a bad idea, but it turns out my friend Kim Du Toit was there before me.
His post is called “Nope” and you should definitely read the whole thing.
For those not clicking through, I agree with all of it but these are the most relevant parts:
Let me make myself crystal clear on this topic: every single time in the last century and a half that some asshole has tried to create a third political party (e.g. Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose, Ross Perot’s Reform) the net result has been an electoral victory for the Democrats.
And:
Because make no mistake: if Musk’s little exercise ends with the fucking Democrats taking control of the White House and/or Congress (which is what history tells us will happen), they will reverse everything that Trump has managed to get done: closing the border, ending the USAID boondoggle and hamstringing the loathsome Dept of Education, to mention just three of the domestic wrongs righted.
What this steaming bunch of Communists will inflict on the world with their pathetic attempts at foreign policy of appeasement of shitholes like Iran and China cannot be imagined.
To which I’ll add, Communism, for the first time in my life, for the first time in my parent’s lives, is on the verge of being exposed and shown for the horror it is. Biden’s bullshit went a long way to making people feel like all these extreme left ideas aren’t cool or important but utter bullshit held together by greed and hate. This is true, btw. That’s what they are.
The problem is that Musk is giving the bullshit one last grasp, a chance to escape destruction. A chance to inflict more death and destruction on the suffering world and perhaps destroy humanity forever.
And the problem is that I know why Musk thinks this is a good idea. It’s the way his brain works. I live with someone who has an engineering brain. Over the years, and because I have had some epic fights with him over this, my husband has come to understand that people problems can’t be solved like engineering problems. Neither iteration of failure till success nor “but this is logical and will now work” function with people.
What Elon is missing is that “If only everyone would just” is an impossible. If you were giving everyone free ice-cream and the solution to some problem were “if only everyone would accept the free ice-cream” there would be wars over people who didn’t want the ice-cream and didn’t even want to take it and give it to someone else.
This becomes exponentially more difficult if your “if only everyone would just” requires anything at all from people, let alone the very real sacrifice and trouble that would come if we — best case scenario — could rearrange all of society into a more rational model right now. I mean I can see the outlines of the change needed and which I think will come over time, and the sheer magnitude of it will rip society apart and cause very real harm if it changes suddenly leaving people with no established pathways and procedures to do things.
I fully expect this to happen, btw, and for sure if Elon’s brain dead party attempt gets a chance. Because if we keep letting the left do their shit things are going to collapse. It’s that simple. Which is why I’ve been pounding the drum of “build under, build over, build around” and even so, even in the best case scenario the carnage real and metaphorical will be terrific.
When it comes to societal change, you can have fast and bloody or slow and painful.
Is the BBB my beau ideal? Oh, my sweet summer child.
I am like a Sans Culotte reincarnated, who now understands that “fast and bloody” swallows the world in blood and brings on a bad case of Napoleon. I WANT to burn it all down and dance on the ashes. I want Trump to sign an EO that says “From now on the Constitution of the United States of America is fully applied, and any part of the government not authorized by the Constitution is abolished; any precedent that contradicts our funding documents is burned and abolished. I will forego, just this once, scourging everyone who has inflicted and continues to inflict these non-Constitutional abominations on the people of the US, through the mall and out of town while screaming “Begone.” If they shut up and go away in a timely manner that is. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
But I also know that’s just another route to fast and bloody, after which the people will cry out for someone who brings peace and victory. And France still hasn’t recovered from its bout of that particular case of butt monkeys. So, no. Just no.
Look, I don’t think that Elon is going to attract anyone but the extremely young and the extremely autistic. So the usual 2% of the population who are so far gone they don’t get that never in the history of ever has “everyone just.”
And then maybe he’ll wake up.
But we live in strange times. And evil is afoot and dragging its tail through our educational institutions. These are dangerous times and the possibility that he will give the commies yet another chance at power is horrifying.
Look, how dumb is Elon being? So dumb he doesn’t seem to realize that with de-naturalization again on the agenda, if the left gets power he’s in deep trouble. Oh, I am too. Because de-naturalization for crimes becomes a problem when his having helped Trump in 2024, or his allowing free speech is considered a crime by the left. And me? Well, my very existence is a crime. I’m a female of Latin ancestry whose favored stance is standing with middle fingers held aloft at the left and all its ideas, all its glamour, all its works and corrupt temptations.
Musk, buddy, I get your point. Or rather, I get how your thought pattern breaks. But in the name of all that’s holy, stop this shit. If you continue you’ll manage to make yourself as hated on the right as you’re on the left. (And no, even helping the left win won’t save you. Those bastards never forgive. Marxism is a bitch. It doesn’t include the concept of redemption.) And that will put a serious damper on your getting us to Mars.
What’s worse, what you’re doing is flopping around on the floor, screaming and kicking because you can’t have ice cream RIGHT NOW instead of in two hours.
I raised toddlers of a direct and engineering mind before. What you need is to wash your face in cold water and take a deep breath.
As someone put it this morning, America already has a third party. It’s MAGA. It’s moving through the GOP, gutting and replacing as it goes. It’s moving as fast as the people allow it to. You’d have the same people, the same hold overs, the same institutions. Everyone isn’t going to just–
Let MAGA MAGA.
If your break with it is so profound that you must DO something, then go and do to the democrats what Trump did to the GOP. Take them over, gut them, and send the communists into outer darkness. (Scourges optional.) That is good and productive. it still won’t get you “if only everyone” but it might get me to my pipe dream where the two main parties are GOP and Libertarians, and I can support now one, now the other and they can keep each other in check.
On the serious side, Elon, I suspect you’re sleeping with something that’s bad for you. I don’t know for sure, because I don’t keep up with these things, and the only “who is sleeping with whom” reports I care about come from my characters (and only because it affects the plot.)
But I’ve seen this before. Men have a tendency to be highly influentiable when it comes to pillow talk. Not only have I seen it in friends, neighbors and relatives, but history is full of examples.
I don’t know if you are what you eat (way TMI) but men tend to believe what they f*ck.
Given who you are, the power you have, and how much the left hates you and fears you, I beg you to consider whether that sweet p*ssy you found and who can screw you into figure eights might be a honeypot.
Screw her or not. It’s your choice. But stop taking your cues from “this feels really good.”
This dumb idea of yours not only holds the potential to be disastrous for you (and less importantly but more personally me) but it can send the world into the darkness of left dominance for another 20 or 30 years.
Which given the birth rates (or lack thereof) and various other trends might very well do for civilization if not for humanity.
I think mostly Elon is going to get really disappointed and then decide he needs to be king or emperor or something. Which…. The net is full of Dark Enlightenment nutters convinced if only they could rule, then everyone would just. (Do I need to explain why this is bullshit or what it leads to.)
But on the outer rim of possibility this will actually make it into ballots and allow the left to win, we can’t afford it.
If any of you have his ear scream really good into it, for me. If needed, I’ll lend you the chancla to hit him twice upside the head.
This is like watching your buddy walk drunk towards the abyss. If he had the power to pull everyone with him down into the pit and the dark.
No. Just no. As the irrepressible Mr. Du Toit says “Nope”. Just nope.
I’ve seen this shit before. I’m getting tired of the smell.
Let’s just let communism bury itself and move on. Then we can fight on the details.
Now…. ahem….
This will be going on for the next two weeks.
This is the reason for doing a fundraiser. THIS IS NOT AN EMERGENCY. Don’t hurt yourself.
If you read this blog a few times a week and feel like donating, I’m tremendously grateful.
If you read this blog and don’t feel like donating, that’s fine too.
If you wish you could donate but can’t, consider buying one of my books (hopefully a bunch coming out starting next month… Yeah, i am better) and if you like it leaving a review. If you’ve read my books and enjoyed them, consider leaving a review. If you can — and have something you know well — consider sending me a guest post to give me a “free day.” (No guarantees of acceptance, of course.)
I’d like to say I’m doing better and will be better at following through on rewards. But I still have them pending from other years, because the last four years have been a slow upward battle. I am better, but I’m not adding to that backlog. (Though I’ll continue trying to fulfill promises long overdue.)
For this year, I’ll (merely) give you ways to donate.
The Give Send Go is still active. Lately I’ve gotten more disenchanted with them, though. Not only have they hosted fundraisers for the kid who stabbed the track star through the heart, but there was some appearance of encouraging racialist bs. True or not? Don’t know. Haven’t looked that closely. Still, that and the fact they calculate how much of the raised money you actually get in some weird way makes them less than shiny.
So, what else is there? Well, there is paypal. Yes, I removed the button from the side (though I’ll return it) because they were threatening to fine people for badthink. Whether that was entirely organic or part of the Autopen administration it’s open to debate. They were being very enthusiastic about forcing everything from social media to everything else including debanking. At any rate, I think it is safe to use a paypal link for the next four years. Give or take. (Look none of these services are pure. We use what we can and seems safe at the time.)
While on that, yes, the address in Las Vegas is still available:
Sarah A. Hoyt
Goldport Press
304 S Jones Blvd #6771
Las Vegas, NV 89107
(Note this is a drop box. Please don’t send perishables that will be damaged by heat. If you want to send something out of the ordinary, contact me first. I’ll figure out antoher place to send it where things won’t be damaged and I can retrieve it. And it might be best to catch me at a con. (Younger DIL says I have do do more cons. Sigh.)
Please, please, please do not send Indy a multi-tool. I realize this is probably futile pleading, but he’s enough trouble as it is. No, seriously. If you want me to have time to write, don’t send Indy a multitool.
And that’s it for now. A heartfelt thank you to anyone who contributes, thinks about contributing or (“merely”) leaves a nice review on one of my books.
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 JOHN DAVID MARTIN: The Lost Sword and Other Stories
Jared Thorne: A para-human detective and his dryad wife hunting for a legendary lost sword in a multi-dimensional city.
Eysteinn Bjarnarson: A descendant of the viking who settled North America fighting to win the love of the town beauty. His only opposition? A monster of Indigenous Canadian legend and…her father.
Captain Faust of the North American Marine Corps: A descendant of one Dr. Johannes Faust who learns some deals are heriditary. But can they be re-written?
Milo “Wolfkiller” Patel: A teenage bullrider on an alien world facing the challenge of his young career.
Pawel and Tamar: Newlywed asteroid miners whose wedding cruise from the trans-Martian orbit out to the belt turns deadly.
These are the characters whose stories I have faithfully recorded for you here.
FROM J. MANFRED WEICHSEL: Planet of the Wage Slaves
Richard would rather be in his special place than have to get a job, until he’s transported against his will to an office planet where the only way to escape from work is death! With the help of a rebel coworker named Destiny, and a newfound power, Richard must navigate an impossible maze of particle board cubicles and endless spreadsheets in order to take on the oppressive whip-wielding boss and save her people.
Planet of the Wage Slaves is a hilarious, satirical take on the modern work environment that will have you laughing and cringing at the same time. It’s the perfect read for anyone who’s ever felt trapped in a soul-sucking job, or who just wants a good dose of surreal sci-fi comedy. So put down that TPS report, grab a copy of Planet of the Wage Slaves, and join Richard on his absurd journey through the cubicle jungle!
FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Phantom Atlas: A Chronicle of Coincidence and Courage
Embark on a thrilling odyssey with Ned Hawthorne and Theo Caldwell, two Yale men spared by a twist of fate from the Titanic’s doomed voyage in 1912. Driven by a hunger for adventure and a knack for unraveling mysteries, they chase whispers of ghosts and curses across a world teetering on the brink of war—from Scotland’s haunted cairns to Siberia’s demon-plagued rails. With charm-laced bracelets and a battered notebook, Ned’s quarterback bravado and Theo’s skeptical logic unmask smugglers, thieves, and spies hiding behind legends. As the Great War looms in 1917, their journey lands them in Washington, D.C., decoding ciphers that could alter history. The Phantom Atlas weaves heart-pounding action, rich historical detail, and the enduring quest for truth in a tapestry of courage that will grip fans of adventure and mystery. Join Ned and Theo to uncover the shadows that haunt the world’s edges—before those shadows strike back.
FROM BRIAN HEMING: Illustrated CONAN Adventures: Black Colossus
This illustrated version of Black Colossus contains:
- Original title page and cover art from Weird Tales June 1933. (warning: contains mild nudity)
- Over 70 all-new full color illustrations. (warning: contains mild nudity based on the original text)
- Text and formatting based on the original publication of this story in Weird Tales June 1933.
Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, is called upon by the beautiful princess Yasmela to lead the armies of Khoraja. But what dark magic lies behind the enemy desert hordes and their mysterious masked sorcerer, Natohk?
Neural networks were heavily leveraged to create the breadth of illustrations in this story, capturing the epic detail, dark magic, and heroic deeds of Conan’s world.
FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Lion and the Lizard (Timelines Book 2)
Thirty years ago, Dr. Ariela Rivers Wolff, M.D., Ph.D., AKA The Lion of God, had a pretty exhausting week.
Her world was invaded by time-traveling soldiers, she was nearly turned into human toothpaste by an experimental dimension jumper when she went to find her parallel “Dad,” who just happens to be able to borrow a Space Force fleet to come and take out her world’s invaders . . . and then she found out she was considered by those same invaders to be a saint in their odd religion, and one of the targets of their invasion. If that wasn’t enough, she nearly fell completely out of the universe into a time rift, being saved only by the skin of her teeth by her parallel “Dad”.
After all that, learning she was going to be the one to bring universal healing and long life to the human race in her particular timeline was just the icing on the proverbial cake.
Anybody else would go home, turn off their phone, pull all the blinds, lock all the doors, and take the rest of their life off. But Ari isn’t “anybody else”. And her cult of admirers across two timelines won’t take “nobody home” for an answer.
Fast-forward thirty years. Scientists have detected radio transmissions in an unknown language from several hundred light years away. And now she’s been asked to use her special “saintly” skills as demonstrated on her last “mission” to make first contact with whoever they are.
And that’s only the beginning.
Looks like Ambassador Dr. Ariela Rivers Wolff, M.D., Ph.D., is going to have another pretty exhausting week. Or six.
FROM HOLLY CHISM: Bite Sized (Liquid Diet Chronicles Book 1)
Meg Turner has been a vampire for twenty years. Her favorite food is rapists. Which is how she met Andi Donahue, her new best friend/ girl Friday.
And then the nightmares start. And the bodies start showing up–bled out and raped. Just like Meg was. They don’t have a whole lot of time to stop the killer before he strikes again, and only one way to stop the killer.
But how can Andi help Meg stop a killer she can’t even see?
FROM KAREN MYERS: To Carry the Horn – A Virginian in Elfland (The Hounds of Annwn Book 1)
AN ENTIRE KINGDOM BUILT AROUND A SUPERNATURAL NEED FOR JUSTICE, ENFORCED BY THE WILD HUNT AND THE HOUNDS OF HELL.
What would you do if you blundered into a strange world, where all around you was the familiar landscape of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, but the inhabitants were the long-lived fae, and you the only human?
George Talbot Traherne stumbles across the murdered huntsman of the Wild Hunt, and is drafted into finding out who did it. Oh, and assigned the task of taking the huntsman’s place with the Hounds of Hell, whether he wants the job or not.
The antlered god Cernunnos is the sponsor of this kingdom, and he requires its king to conduct the annual hunt for justice in pursuit of an evil criminal, or else lose his right to the kingship, and possibly end up hunted himself.
Success is far from guaranteed, and no human has held the post. George discovers his own blood links to the fae king, and he’s determined to try. But Cernunnos himself has a personal role to play, and George will have to sort out just why he’s the one who’s been chosen for the task.
And whether he has any chance of surviving the job.
Find out what it’s like to live in a world where you can help the Right to prevail, even if it might cost you everything.
To Carry the Horn is the first book of The Hounds of Annwn.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Rockin’ the USA
It’s not easy being married to the leader of the band, even in the best of times. When everything becomes political, you’ve got a nightmare on your hands.
Laurel had her doubts when her husband signed on to headline Governor Thorne’s Independence Day concert in Candlestick Park. Now that the band’s committed to the appearance, the Flannigan Administration has decided to shut the show down, with prejudice.
Laurel knows she has to fight this attempt to stop the signal. But doing so may put her in more danger than she could ever have anticipated, and risk those she loves.
A story of the Grissom timeline, originally published in Liberty Island Magazine.
This edition also includes a bonus essay on the era of dictatorship in Grissom-timeline America.
FROM MARY CATELLI: The Princess Goes Into The Forest
Act with care. . . .
In the home of a wealthy but vanished family, four young people, inventorying the household, find the props for the family’s amateur theaterics. But a few minutes of donning them to play at roles has consequences that none of them could have guessed. One plays a subtle courtier, one a brave swordsman, one a powerful enchantress. . . and one takes up the role of a princess, and goes into a forest.
FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Lights Out and Cry (The Shifter Series Book 5)
It is New Year’s Day in Goldport Colorado, the most shifter-infested town in the known universe.
At the George — the diner where shifters gather — Kyrie is about to give birth, Tom is getting psychic messages from the Great Sky Dragon and Rafiel is looking for information on why the mayor exploded.
Fasten your seat belts. This is going to be a fast ride into adventure and shape-shifting, after which things will never be the same.
AND THERE IS A KICKSTARTER: Ken Lizzi’s Cesar the Bravo Live on Kickstarter
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: PREFER
Yes, I know it’s a nuisance. And I’m not going to claim that if I don’t get enough money I’ll shutter the blog or any such foolishness.
I’m just going to say every blogger to the right of Lenin has paid the price in career, in wealth, in prospects. And that keeping us poor and meek is a great way to serve as a warning to others who would speak out. If you want to nullify the “warning,” consider donating.
If you read this blog a few times a week and feel like donating, I’m tremendously grateful.
If you read this blog and don’t feel like donating, that’s fine too.
If you wish you could donate but can’t, consider buying one of my books (hopefully a bunch coming out starting next month… Yeah, I am better) and if you like it leaving a review. If you’ve read my books and enjoyed them, consider leaving a review. If you can — and have something you know well — consider sending me a guest post to give me a “free day.” (No guarantees of acceptance, of course.)
I’d like to say I’m doing better and will be better at following through on rewards. But I still have them pending from other years, because the last four years have been a slow upward battle. I am better, but I’m not adding to that backlog. (Though I’ll continue trying to fulfill promises long overdue.)
For this year, I’ll (merely) give you ways to donate.
The Give Send Go is still active. Lately I’ve gotten more disenchanted with them, though. Not only have they hosted fundraisers for the kid who stabbed the track star through the heart, but there was some appearance of encouraging racialist bs. True or not? Don’t know. Haven’t looked that closely. Still, that and the fact they calculate how much of the raised money you actually get in some weird way makes them less than shiny.
So, what else is there? Well, there is paypal. Yes, I removed the button from the side (though I’ll return it) because they were threatening to fine people for badthink. Whether that was entirely organic or part of the Autopen administration it’s open to debate. They were being very enthusiastic about forcing everything from social media to everything else including debanking. At any rate, I think it is safe to use a paypal link for the next four years. Give or take. (Look none of these services are pure. We use what we can and seems safe at the time.)
So, here’s the paypal link.
I’m very grateful to all who contributed and all who might contribute.
And please, please, please, don’t send Indy-cat a multitool. He already broke into my bedroom yesterday, past the locked gate and closed door. Because he has hand paws that are scarily agile.
Also, stop wishing more Indies on me. Now there’s a skinny orange boy catching and eating birds in my driveway….
I’m trying to do it from the car, and it’s just slow enough on tethering that it’s not giving me the links ….
Like unexploded angry incense from the 4th, these memes had to be used up on the fifth.
There might be an extraordinary meme post on Monday, for the other stuff.
In the meantime, while you’re here…. I stayed up blowing up stuff and singing the Star Spangled Banner (if you heard me, you know exactly who and where I was. Dear Lord do I sing badly. Even the DIL’s beautiful voice couldn’t cover it up. Badly but with much feeling, note.) till very late, and woke up two hours ago.
Which time other than the necessities like feeding the cats has been spent here, gathering the memes and uploading them a process that WP makes a pain.
This is my “light” post. I try to do it at night on Friday while husband watches TV, but sometimes — blowing up stuff — this fails, and then I spend the morning on Saturday looking for/organizing/uploading memes.
Because Saturday is also our errands day, I’ve uploaded memes as a passenger in a car. Sitting outside in the car while husband goes see if the store as xyz. In between stores. After shopping/putting away. While my family is having breakfast. Etc. etc. etc.
But the memes get done anyway, and I know they make a lot of people happy. Which is why I do them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m running my annual fundraiser. If you need a full explanation of why, go here.
This is not an emergency. Don’t hurt yourself.
These are the main ways to donate:
Note on the side of the blog, you can see a way to contribute by signing up for my substacks. Yes, there will be — by and by the first probably this weekend/early next week — earcs with a little advance of what’s coming, as well as serialization though I’ve found that difficult on substack (It doesn’t keep/you can’t link back posts. I’m going to try a subscription system HERE later. Might work better for serializing) which is why I have trouble keeping up with it. BUT it is a way to sign up and get something in return. (And yes, if you paid for the last year I’m going to give you this year for free. Haven’t yet, because I got sick again — yes, better now — and because I’m SO tech declined it’s not even funny.)
You can also buy the books and leave reviews. (And yes, there will be a way to buy earcs and EVENTUALLY a way to buy the books directly from me. That could take a couple of months, see technologically DEclined.
Thank you to everyone who contributes to the comments and to make this place a wonderful community. I couldn’t do it without you.
And thank you to everyone who donates.
My neighbors started celebrating days ago and frankly sleep has been notional for the boom ratrat boom.
It does my heart good.
I don’t mean to write a long post today, just mention what a miracle and a wonder that this little experiment in self government turns 249 years old today.
So, go and watch the sacred musical which yes is wrong in parts but oh so right in many ways.
Now…. ahem….
This will be going on for the next two weeks.
This is the reason for doing a fundraiser. THIS IS NOT AN EMERGENCY. Don’t hurt yourself.
If you read this blog a few times a week and feel like donating, I’m tremendously grateful.
If you read this blog and don’t feel like donating, that’s fine too.
If you wish you could donate but can’t, consider buying one of my books (hopefully a bunch coming out starting next month… Yeah, i am better) and if you like it leaving a review. If you’ve read my books and enjoyed them, consider leaving a review. If you can — and have something you know well — consider sending me a guest post to give me a “free day.” (No guarantees of acceptance, of course.)
I’d like to say I’m doing better and will be better at following through on rewards. But I still have them pending from other years, because the last four years have been a slow upward battle. I am better, but I’m not adding to that backlog. (Though I’ll continue trying to fulfill promises long overdue.)
For this year, I’ll (merely) give you ways to donate.
The Give Send Go is still active. Lately I’ve gotten more disenchanted with them, though. Not only have they hosted fundraisers for the kid who stabbed the track star through the heart, but there was some appearance of encouraging racialist bs. True or not? Don’t know. Haven’t looked that closely. Still, that and the fact they calculate how much of the raised money you actually get in some weird way makes them less than shiny.
So, what else is there? Well, there is paypal. Yes, I removed the button from the side (though I’ll return it) because they were threatening to fine people for badthink. Whether that was entirely organic or part of the Autopen administration it’s open to debate. They were being very enthusiastic about forcing everything from social media to everything else including debanking. At any rate, I think it is safe to use a paypal link for the next four years. Give or take. (Look none of these services are pure. We use what we can and seems safe at the time.)
While on that, yes, the address in Las Vegas is still available:
Sarah A. Hoyt
Goldport Press
304 S Jones Blvd #6771
Las Vegas, NV 89107
(Note this is a drop box. Please don’t send perishables that will be damaged by heat. If you want to send something out of the ordinary, contact me first. I’ll figure out antoher place to send it where things won’t be damaged and I can retrieve it. And it might be best to catch me at a con. (Younger DIL says I have do do more cons. Sigh.)
Please, please, please do not send Indy a multi-tool. I realize this is probably futile pleading, but he’s enough trouble as it is. No, seriously. If you want me to have time to write, don’t send Indy a multitool.
And that’s it for now. A heartfelt thank you to anyone who contributes, thinks about contributing or (“merely”) leaves a nice review on one of my books.
I have the best fans in the universe.
Now, go blow up some angry incense.
Like most people here who read science fiction growing up, I was raised on the idea of the world-nation.
By the time I was in my twenties, I knew that wouldn’t work. Acculturating more than once (back and forth, really, after my year as an exchange student) had made it clear that countries don’t actually want to merge, no matter what idealists and crazy people want.
And yet, somehow, I managed to believe the “open borders” part of libertarianism well into my thirties. I really have no explanation for this other than “I wanted to believe.”
Look, the problem with the idea of open borders all over the world — which effectively means no countries, if you don’t get that, because you can’t keep governance cohesive nor honestly any traditions nor regional culture, is that the worst cultures prevail.
No, seriously, go back in history. Any time a more civilized nation is invaded by utter barbarians it becomes barbaric for generations. This is not because the barbaric behaviors are better, but because the bad drives out the good. If you’re predatory, those not being predatory get shut out. In a high trust society, enough predatory behaviors change the society.
I eventually got it, when I understood the importance of CULTURE.
Look, I do get the Libertarian philosophical position, and as a philosophy it is correct: individuals should be free to seek their best life, regardless of national borders.
The problem is that this is incomplete. It leaves out what nations are.
Nations are, roughly, a group of people inhabiting a region and sharing a culture. Nations have a right to determine their own best interests too. And their best interests might go against that of the immigrating individual.
Or put it another way: A nation at its most basic is a group of individuals with roughly the same idea of what makes a good life. And those individuals have rights too.
The other problem no one takes in account is culture.
But that’s because all of the modern age seems to be a really weird exercise in ignoring culture.
Yes, the rights of individuals are paramount. They have to be or we get the fun house of totalitarian ideologies.
BUT individuals have cultures. And cultures are weird, and no one has studied them very well. Cultures are the other half of “what makes a human.” Sure, nature. But culture is the other half. Culture is nurture. And humans being social apes you ALWAYS have culture.
And culture is tricky and complicated.
Take it from someone who has MOSTLY acculturated. There’s always five percent you will fight the rest of your life, because it’s stuff embedded at the back of your brain when you were an infant or barely more.
The problem is that not all cultures are equally functional. There is a balance between the individual and the group that most cultures have chosen the side of the group on. Which not only makes them vulnerable to tyranny, but also weak on innovation, creativity and the other motors of prosperity.
You can’t import a lot of individuals from one culture together without importing the culture. And it takes time to integrate them into your culture.
So, open borders are a suicide pact.
As is open trade, to an extent. Sorry. Don’t throw things at me. We cannot, cannot, cannot be dependent on trade with slave states. You can’t have FREE trade with slave states.
Our relationship with China the last 20 years illustrates this. And no, we don’t know if China’s turn to the authoritarian over what they already were was mitigated or DRIVEN by free trade with us.
Until we know how to navigate that we can’t do it.
Until we figure out this conundrum, I remain philosophically for free trade and free individual movement. And deeply aware how impossible that is right now. Because philosophy shouldn’t be a suicide pact.
I think there is a path to where we can have the philosophical good. But it’s going to be a long, long time.
Until then we need to protect our own, in our country. And each country has to look to its own best vision. Not some mocha-choca kumbaya the whole world is one bs.
Look, Heinlein believed in one world government, at least in his early books. Every writer of the period did.
The thing is that his one-world-government was essentially “America everywhere.”
Would that work? Yes, yes, it would. If we could export America everywhere it would work. Because America is ridiculously tolerant of different origin, different religion, and — unless handicapped, which it’s been the last few decades — very good at assimilating the stranger.
But the problem is that we can’t assimilate the world.
Or rather, we can, but it involves conquering it and killing everyone over the age of three. Which is a monstrous idea.
After his tour of the world Heinlein himself understood this and the emphasis on world governance in his books shifted.
Philosophically, I long for a world in which both open borders and open trade are possible. It is literally the best for mankind.
In this workaday world of ours, I know that culture and tradition, and the “nurture” that is half of what makes us human makes them both impossible. Or at least deeply dangerous for our country, the last best hope of mankind.
So — I’ll work towards a world in which the rest of the world is more like America. Incrementally. Slowly.
And not destroy the hope of tomorrow for the inflexible philosophy today.
Blogs are a weird thing. No, look… When I was young, I wanted to be a journalist. I’ll wait till you stop hissing.
The thing is, I wanted to be a real journalist. And because I grew up with all sorts of books set in the thirties and forties, I both believed that journalists would tell the truth and that they had a pathway where they came up by doing obituaries and flower shows and worked up to investigating homicides and crooked politicians.
Weirdly interning for a newspaper over three months, as part of my journalism class in high school didn’t dissuade me. I worked in the morgue where I did research for people, basically. And that was fine.
It was becoming more aware of newspapers, and how slanted they were, and also the interview where I was told I was politically biased and they couldn’t hire me, when in fact I was politically un-biased that dissuaded me and shut that door.
Just as well, since journalism was probably never what I thought.
But the weird thing is that in a way I’m a journalist now, though more of an editorial opinion writer. In a way that I couldn’t have figured out when I was young. No, seriously, much amusement is derived from mentally writing a skit in which I go back in time and explain it to young me. “No, no, you won’t work for someone. You just get on the computer and you have your own site where you blather and anyone can read it.”
It is beyond my creativity to imagine explaining to young me the idea of my readers enjoying my typos. (And that’s a smack on the hand with a ruler for every misspelling, Miss Almeida is how I grew up. And let me tell you remembering which way the little accents were supposed to lean was more than tone-deaf me could tell. Of course they’ve now modernized and got rid of accents. When it’s no good to young me. The bastiches.)
Anyway, I think bloggers provide a service people like. Or if they don’t, they have no readers. Our audience is — like the audience for indie books — the purest form of market there is. “I either produce value or no one reads it.”
Given the audience on this blog (I get fewer pings, dropped over night. Seems to be a google counting this.) of around 4k a day give or take, whatever the heck I’m doing (how would I know?) seems to have an audience.
Now if I were doing this for a newspaper, first of all, I wouldn’t be doing a column a day, and second it would be a regular paycheck. I could be entirely deceived on this (why not?) but the impression I had of such jobs is that they paid decentish middle-class type salaries.
Here’s the thing: blogs don’t pay like that.
Blogs pay one of two ways: by having people donate money, or by advertising products. I do some of the second, but honestly, it makes about enough to take my husband out to eat once or twice a month. I do the promo posts because it helps people, but Amazon doesn’t pay bounties on books by and large, so….
Anyway that’s fine. I choose to write the blog. And I didn’t stop even when it paid nothing.
However, I think we can agree that it is a service that has a value. What the value is is up to the readers to determine.
The other part of this is what this blog is.
It’s not as…. bad anymore — for the times they are achanging — because there are things like indie publishing for my fiction, but also because there is a turn of some sort going on in the culture.
But it is still counter-cultural, and against the overculture imposed by the self-proclaimed elite. Who still control much of… everything.
There are signposts on “how crazy is it for me to be doing this?”
The weird stuff attendant on our having to leave to Colorado (or the timing. We were leaving because of the health already, but if we could have taken a year to move it would have been less costly and traumatizing) has never been fully explained.
The fact we were once denied renter insurance because the agent looked at my blog, and said it was too risk…
But most of all, you’d best believe there was a price: in lost work, lost opportunities, and the danger thereof for both me and my family. Even without considering anything more melodramatic.
If you go against the established, loud beliefs of “the good people” you’re either crazy or dangerous and probably both. People hiring you or associating with you might hesitate to do either.
Sometime ago I got in a fight on twitter with someone who disapproved of Glenn Reynolds of instapundit doing fund raising because he’s a law professor and takes expensive vacations. Therefore he “doesn’t need it.”
But that’s not the point, is it? It’s not need. I did one fundraiser in need.
The others? I do because I provide a service every day. I get up and I have to post. or I’m working till midnight on a post the day before. One or the other. Every day. (And you should ask my husband how much he approves of this.) Including on our recent trip. I’d be typing in the car, or late any night in a hotel. No vacation unless I get enough guest posts to take a break.
And the thing is, as well or as badly as us, bloggers to do right of Lenin, do in our day jobs (well, it should be easier now that I’m over the nine month sinus infection with attendant cough that kept me awake at night. How bad was it? I had to sleep with a cough drop in my mouth and woke up coughing when it was gone, then put another one in. Yes, like that. For nine months. I should be able to get books out. That’s my dayjob.) I GUARANTEE to you we all missed opportunities because our politics are known. We ALL even the boss at instapundit have to work much harder than we would to do well at our day jobs if our politics were secret or left. All of us have paid the price for sticking out our necks.
Most of us can’t or won’t give you specific instances. Some of them I know only through gossip, and can’t substantiate. Others… well…. you have to guess what happened by the negative shape of things that should have happened.
But all of us have these. And if you compare histories the pattern becomes d*mn obvious.
Because you see, there is a price for sticking your neck out, for breaking the chorus of approved opinions. For being the nail that sticks out.
Now, you’ll say, that was our decision. You’re not obligated to compensate us.
You’re right. You’re not.
Heck, for years I took the entire cost of it because it was my choice. I refused to do a fundraiser. Until I realized it affected my family too. And while they never complained, it d*mn well wasn’t THEIR choice.
The point is, though why do a fundraiser rests on two things:
1- is the service worth it to you.
2- do you think it’s worth to compensate people who take the risk to stick out, so that not everyone has to sing the same song from the same “approved” songbook?
The idea of the lost opportunities, the stomping down on those who dissent, is to make them examples, to prevent them from being perceived as someone to emulate.
If you’re okay with that, you should do nothing. If you aren’t, you should do what you can to compensate those who dare stand out.
That’s all.
Now, my particular fundraiser: I know I’m dismal at follow-through on rewards, though arguably that is mostly due to wretched health these last few years. That HAS been getting better though, and I will try to do better going forward.
Yes, I am aware I still have tuckerizations to do, and they are coming, though it needs my writing books with “normal world” names. Which are planned.
And I have plans for the substack.
However, the options this year will be much clearer and easier. We’ll go into that on the fourth. Not today.
For today I’m just sticking to explaining why bloggers fundraise. And how I view it.
And that’s it.
Not an emergency, and I don’t wish anyone to hurt themselves to contribute. But if you can, if the service provided is valuable to you, consider contributing anyway.
And no, not starting today. Will start on the fourth. This is more a “think about it” for now.
Good Morning. Happy July. Are you ready for the High Holy Holidays?
I am giving the house (back for a little while) a good drubbing, because that’s what I do before the 4th. On the 4th I just go for fireworks with friends, watch Independence Day and generally relax.
The other high holy holidays, the celebration of Valley Forge and the crossing of the Delaware that involves a fast and all, broken on Christmas Even starting with hessian soldier cookies (you bite the head off, of course!) and a freedom tree (It’s a little artificial oak, that gets decorated in American flags.)
Before you ask, yes, I might be completely insane.
On the BBB I have this to say, and Elon frankly should be saner than this: Cutting taxes is not spending money. Cutting taxes is mitigating the amount of stealing the government does.
NO ONE EVER has grown the economy by keeping taxes high or increasing them. In fact, every time we cut taxes the amount of taxes collected GROWS. Which is good and bad. Good only if we apply it to reducing the debt.
But in any case, to calculate the budget we is doing it wrong. Cutting taxes is not and never has been a debt-increasing move. The Congressional Budget office needs a rolled newspaper taken to it. And as for the parliamentarian they need to eff right off. Never in the history of ever have illegals been entitled to Health Care or Welfare. TBF no one is THIS IS NOT A CONSTITUTIONAL FUNCTION OF OUR GOVERNMENT. Let private charities take care of those in need. Robbing from Peter to pay Paul is always and has always been a bad idea that leads to destruction of society, morals and productivity.
However I can see how one could “sell” the need to take care of our own. But if we’re going to rob our citizens to look after the world, we’re going to bleed out and the world will be no better. Which is what’s been happening.
Oh, I do understand how we got here. I almost started this post with “The whale is a fine fish, and the tears of it are wet” because yesterday on Twitter I came across a tweet that encapsulated what the younger generation have been taught and how bizarrely stupid it is.
I’m not going to reproduce it, but if you’re on xeet, you’ll find my answer in my timeline, likely. I’m not going to reproduce it since I suspect the original post was made by a hard core racist. And it’s sad to say this but “the racist had a point.” Mostly the point the OP had was that no, slaves did not build our infrastructure or — it was unclear — much less that of the UK.
One of the lies that has grown, as tenacious and stupid as the idea that the USSR won WWII for the allies, is the idea that the west is wealthy and safe etc. because enslaved Africans built everything. This is utter and complete nonsense.
I don’t know if England used slaves for construction — it’s to be fair possible, though unlikely — but even if they did their work would not be the main portion of it. The US really didn’t. Most slaves were employed in farming.
And while on that, slavery is so fracking inefficient as an economics thing, that … well, slaves might cost more money than not, as we’re finding out by relying on China’s effectively slaves for our labor. Because while slaves can produce a lot of things cheaply, they both produce things CHEAPLY (meaning the labor isn’t very good) but also delay and discourage innovation/better processes/higher efficiency.
This is why the South where most enslaved Africans were was for a century or so after their manumission poor, backward and economically distressed. Yes, yes, the reconstruction and carpetbaggers and all that might have driven poor Dixie down, but poor Dixie was already vulnerable and not very economically viable due to a reliance on the inefficiencies and shoddy labor of slaves. Kind of like yeah, pneumonia might make you very ill, but it only got an in because you were already overworked/stressed.
So the OP was wrong in saying that it was amazing how Africans could build all the infrastructure in the West, while their own lands didn’t rise above grass huts.
There is a built in racist assumption in that — that the “not rising above” grass huts has something to do with innate capability — but it’s not wrong on the substance.
Of course the reason most of Africa doesn’t “rise above” grass huts is that grass huts are perfectly suitable for the climate, and no more is required. I remember driving across a substantial portion of African (dear Lord, I’m old) almost 50 years ago, and seeing what looked like 19th century illustrations of native villages, but they had cars parked around, and antennae on the roofs of the huts for television reception.
It’s just that like the unheated/unairconditioned houses of my youth were quite sufficient to the Portuguese climate — while in most of the US they’d be death traps — grass huts are perfectly fine for most climates in Africa. And humans tend not to build/create more than needed.
Whether Africans who move to Europe or America are capable of building better has to do with the individual African and how much of Africa’s short-term thinking and tribal culture they bring along with them.
BUT the answer to that OP was even crazier. Some guy — British by the wording — said the reason that the Africans hadn’t built the infrastructure in their nation was that “someone keeps nicking their stuff.”
I’d be wondering what he meant if I hadn’t read my kids’ school books. If I hadn’t seen it printed out that the reason other continents/the third world are poor is because we stole their “raw materials.”
This is stupidity on stilts. I answered in my normal calm fashion by pointing out this guy is an idiot. Because
a) Africa is not a country, but a continent. The genetics are more varied in it than in any other region of the world. And the climates and cultures are very different too.
b) No one nicked their stuff. When the Marxists try to explain how we “stole” things it’s all on the power differential of industrial states trading with tribal states.
c) Africa is still, in natural resources, the richest continent on Earth. (I remember, as a little kid, hearing relatives who lived there talking about how you could LIVE from a one acre plot, because you got FOUR crops a year. Etc.)
d) what holds Africa back is tribalism. Until Africa conquers tribalism and other holes in the head caused by culture, it will remain backward. (And is now exporting its backwardness to Europe. Because Barbarism, like Slavery is an infectious disease of the human mind.)
The problem is that people were taught this. Just like they used to be taught that whales were fish. And most people don’t look at what they were taught and analyze it for mistakes.
So a generation raised on the idea our wealth exists because we stole it — I remember a friend’s kid, coming back from a religious mission to Africa, telling me how guilty he felt that we were so rich at their expense. I don’t know if I convinced him this was bs. I don’t know if it was possible to — thinks it’s only right we be despoiled and reduced to the same wasteful misery as the rest of the world, to somehow atone.
Which is what giving welfare to — and for that matter opening the border to — the multitudes of the third world seems just and right to a lot of people, some of them very religious. (Some of them even my religion.)
It’s bullshit. Our making our lands into hell won’t make theirs into heaven. Or even improve for a moment their wretched lot.
In fact, it will make them poorer and more wretched as right now the US is the engine of innovation and improvement in the whole world.
So, the BBB — which I’m told just passed by the skin of its teeth — if flawed, yes. Very. We really need to get all these financing the third world boondoggles out for our sake and the sake of the third world, frankly.
BUT as is, it might be the best we could do. And it is NEEDED.
Guys I think we’ve passed the event horizon when we could pay off the debt through austerity. I think we passed it somewhere in the reign of the autopen.
The only way we save ourselves now is by growing the economy. And that means honestly reducing the tax burden on this nation, and reducing as many regulations as humanly possible, and set us free to grow and produce and innovate.
So. Let’s do that.
And while on it, and because you’ll be wondering — yes, I’ll be doing the annual (hopefully the only this year) fundraiser. Because of the traveling, it will start on the fourth this year.
Tomorrow I’ll explain why I’m doing it — not the need, but the philosophical reason — and also how I intend to make up by how poorly I treated my substack subscribers this year. That was mostly due to illness and I’m glad to report this last round of almost-anti-human antibiotics seem to (caveat I only finished three days ago) have vanquished the NINE MONTH LONG sinus infection. Which means I can sleep without coughing. And there should — truly — be an earc on substack this week, and I’ll reinstate the memberships of those who lapsed because they’re entitled to the earc, since they paid for a year already.
I’ll also have a simpler financing mode this year, etc. BUT I’ll explain that tomorrow.
For now: We have our butts in a bear trap as a nation. The bear trap is debt and senescence and the corruption of relying on tyrannical states.
The only way we escape it is by working really hard and being massively creative.
Fortunately both of those are basically what Americans do.
So go build under, over and around. And get ready to take the weight when the conventional structures collapse.
Go do it.
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 HOLLY LEROY: You Kill Me – A Lt. Eve Sharpe Thriller (Lt. Eve Sharpe Thrillers Book 1)
One of the techs held up a driver’s license. “Her name is Rebecca Ann Walsh,” he said.
A shrill alarm went off in my mind, screaming for attention.
The M.E. looked down at the dead girl and then up at me, his face chalky white. “That’s. . . the mayor’s daughter.”
My heart slammed into my throat. In that instant, I knew that everything in my life hadn’t just changed—it was obliterated. Irrevocably. Forever.
LIEUTENANT EVE SHARPE should have seen the avalanche of trouble headed her way, but events had dulled her edge and crumbled her foundation of toughness. With the press and politicians all coming for her, Eve begins to question whether she is really a cold-blooded murderer or simply losing her mind. Was it an officer-involved shooting gone wrong? An honest mistake? Or something much, much worse? There’s one thing for sure: it has turned the Chicago Police Department upside down, and Lieutenant Eve Sharpe’s life along with it.
Perfect for fans of J.A. Konrath’s Lt. Jack Daniels, Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch, Ann Voss Peterson’s Val Ryker, and Harlan Coben’s Tell No One.
FROM DALE COZORT: Snapshot: Book 1 of the Snapshot Universe
Alternate realities you can fly to.
For eighty million years, the Tourists have taken Snapshots of Earth, creating living replicas of continents. Life in the Snapshots quickly diverges from the real world, creating a universe where humans and animals from Earth’s history fly between Snapshots, exploring, fighting, and sometimes meeting themselves.
In 2014, the Tourists’ newest Snapshot catches Middle East Analyst Greg Dunne rushing toward Hawaii to join his wife, who just went into labor. The new Snapshot doesn’t include Hawaii, cutting Greg off from everyone he loves.
Greg is thrust into the aftermath of a hidden, decades-old massacre, where Germans from a pre-World War II European Snapshot battle ranchers from a Korean War-era U.S. Snapshot,a fun house mirror version of the US cut off from the world since 1953.No Beatles. No Internet. No Personal Computers. No cell phones. No Vietnam War.But an endless new frontier.
The prize in this struggle: an ancient, wild Madagascar Snapshot. Whoever controls it can fly to Snapshots where dinosaurs still roam, Indians rule the New World or Nazis or Soviets control Europe.
Caught between powerful opponents, and joined by a woman nearly driven mad by her past, Greg struggles to survive in this cutthroat new reality, to remain faithful to a family he may never see again, and to find a way back to his original Earth.
Set in a unique universe and played out in the shadows of larger social and technological issues, Snapshot is a fast-paced story of power and revenge, and an intriguing speculation of what we might have become.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: One Last Homecoming
Sherry had planned a quick trip to her home town for her forty-year class reunion, to see the current classes’ Homecoming game. Instead, she arrives to find the high school just as she remembers it, complete with long-demolished buildings and long-retired teachers. It’s Homecoming, all right — her senior year.
For someone with happy memories, revisiting one’s younger days might be pleasant nostalgia. Sherry dreads the thought of being stranded in the past, forced to reassume the old roles after decades of independence.
How can she return to her own time when she has no idea how she got here? Worse, a hostile entity is making its presence known — and it may not want to let her go back. And the Homecoming game isn’t the one she remembers from four decades ago.
FROM HOLLY CHISM: Certified Public Assassin
Molly McGuire: murder for hire…
Working as a Certified Public Assassin was, after all, the fastest way to pay down millions of dollars of medical debt. Between that payment and the student loans from getting her associates’ degree, she’s barely making enough to keep body and soul together, but the debt’s almost gone.
Except…she’s paid her student loans. Many times over. There’s something going on, and her handler can’t figure out what. Hiring a hacker to track whatever’s glitching in the student loans database and programming seemed to be a logical next step; however, it isn’t just a glitch. Somebody’s got it in for Molly…and for everyone that has a license to kill.
This has barreled from circumstance through happenstance, and straight into enemy action. But who’s the enemy?
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 MACKEY CHANDLER: Neither Here nor There
This is a stand alone story unrelated to any of my other books or shorts.
So many scientific discoveries have been serendipity rather than a goal to which someone worked as a logical progression. Instead, it was a spill or a misplaced item.
An ingredient measured out in error or from the wrong bottle. Often, a mistake over which someone was bright enough or curious enough to say: “Oops, but that’s interesting, isn’t it?” Uranium ore left next to photo plates, adhesive that wasn’t as permanent as hoped for, but still usefully tacky, or foreign growths in a Petri dish acting strangely…
A major revelation could be a blessing indeed, or if it was big enough to be a life changing development, one might have a tiger by the tail. Wouldn’t that be interesting?
FROM SARAH A. HOYT: A Few Good Men (Darkship Thieves)
Ladies and Gentlemen, we declare the revolution!
He spent 14 years in solitary. Now he’ll ignite a revolt.
Born a prince among Earth’s fifty tyrants, Lucius Keeva emerges from imprisonment with a fractured mind and a deadly purpose. When assassins hunt him, fate delivers him to the USAians—secret keepers of America’s forgotten beliefs.
For 500 years, this underground faith has preserved the Constitution while awaiting their prophesied leader. In Luce’s madness, they recognize their messiah.
Now the son of tyranny becomes liberty’s champion. As the USAians rise from the shadows, their weapons of war finally unleashed, a broken mind and a fallen prince prove the perfect weapon against an unbreakable regime.
One madman. One ancient faith. One last chance to restore the republic from legend.
A FEW GOOD MEN —where belief becomes the ultimate revolutionary tactic.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY BAEN BOOKS.
FROM CHRISTOPHER WOERNER: Same as the Old Hope
Coverage of current events leading up to the 2024 election. I was very surprised by the election results so that isn’t really seen in this book, so in a sense this is showing how impactful the results were, because I wasn’t the only one out there thinking this. But it turns out that we’re not the overwhelmed minority.
The B-side of this book covers popular culture. Haven’t had much to say about that for a while but here’s a few things about comics, music, movies and so on.
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: INSIDIOUS.
According To Hoyt 