Author: Sarah A. Hoyt

Recently, in my morning scroll through headlines (to make sure the world didn’t explode or implode while I was asleep. I like to keep an eye on it. It’s tricksy.) I came across one that made me giggle. It was, paraphrased because I can’t swear I remember it precisely: Traditional Publishers Having Difficulty Screening Out AI Written Manuscripts.

I didn’t laugh like an hyena, but that’s because I have a heart of stone. Also because I’m old and I remember reading an interview in I think Locus Magazine with I THINK Gardner Dozois in the mid nineties, complaining that it was now much harder to tell when someone would be a real writer, since word processors made it much easier to present a clean, properly formatted manuscript.

If you don’t see the similarity, it’s because you’re not thinking of it right. Both of those complaints related in no way to the QUALITY of the writing, but only how it was produced.

I could have had a typing class in high school (I didn’t because I thought that would condemn me to secretarydom. Why I was scared of that I don’t know) and be an excellent typist and not be able to tell a story to save my life. The world is, I’d bet, full of such people.

On the other hand, two of the most gifted storytellers I ever met were so impaired by ADD and dyslexia that getting them to spell something right, or write it in the write order to make a sentence took effort. (I don’t know if either ever published. The solution to their problems these days would be dictation. They were fine speaking.)

“But Sarah,” you’ll say in that whiny voice I attribute to you when I want to explain that, yes, I thought through your objection, “typing and AI is completely different. Typing is just recording the story, and yeah, the editor was being dumb, but AI writes the story FOR YOU.”

I’m waggling my hand at you. Sure, AI CAN write the story for you. However, if traditional publishers CAN’T tell when a story was written that way, they need to spend three days reading through the latest “we make money on volume” genres on Amazon. I recommend Jane Austen Fanfic for the quick course. A day might do it. The stories are full of Claudisms (I call them that, because AIisms bends my tongue) that would make your eyes cross, and no, none of it has anything to do with too high a vocabulary or using m-dashes.

The most obvious ones are the construction “she/he/it was a woman/man/teapot who…” As in “She was a woman who had never batted at butterflies.” Or “She looked at him like a woman who routinely bapped at cats.” Or “His silence was the silence of a man who never tied his own cravat” or…. you get the point. AI can’t seem to set a scene without at least one of these.

Then there’s what I call the “Nots”. “She did not say yes. She did not say no. She did not say anything.” “He did not pick up the knife. He did not pick up the horseshoe. He just stood there.”

Honestly? Seriously, that second one is annoying as all get out, and everywhere.

Then there is the fact that objects have feelings and thoughts. “The house thought about it and determined not to let it go on.”

There are others, but I can’t remember them off the top of my head, because the coffee is still seriously outnumbered by blood in my veins. But there are a lot of them, and three days reading texts generated by AI will give you the screaming mimmies give you an adequate education to identify Claudisms in minutes.

And that’s without the more subtle ones, like: Distance doesn’t exist. Someone who is an hour away, or who has never met the characters is suddenly there, having breakfast with them; humans can have five or more parents; character traits? What character traits.

I’ll grant you they’re probably not getting it raw enough — maybe — that the subtle effects become obvious, but REALLY.

(BTW my favorite experience with this stuff so far was the story that had the pious disclaimer about never having used AI and never doing it, and then was FULL of Claudisms. One doesn’t know whether to admire the chutzpah or the hypocrisy, really.)

Unless trad pub is now complaining that they have to — horrors — read the manuscripts to find out if they’re any good, which is what the editor in the 90s was doing, and which, to be fair conforms with my experience of rarely even being read through, it’s a bit of a puzzle how it can be hard for them to figure it out.

But what, you ask, if the writer edited all that stuff out? Ah. A very sensible point.

Well, then… what does it matter? No, seriously. WHAT DOES IT MATTER? Who gives a very tiny fuzzy rat’s ass? And why should they?

If the thing is so thoroughly rewritten that it betrays none of the marks of the beast AI and it’s a good book they would otherwise publish, WHY DO PUBLISHING HOUSES NEED TO KNOW HOW IT WAS WRITTEN? Are they going to have the writer certify the first draft was handwritten using the quills of snow white geese and the blood of virgins? No? Oh, that wouldn’t matter if the final draft was typed and normal? Well! Gesticulates to the previous sentences: then neither should AI.

Again and again and again: if the final product is acceptable, why do they need to know how it was produced?

The answer, of course, is the same answer that causes what I call “AI witch hunts.” As in the reader or in this case the editor feels obscurely cheated if they think the manuscript was produced by an “easy” or “cheating” means.

Look, if the manuscript has no marks of AI, then the writer did a lot of work. It might be different work from what would be required for a manuscript produced another way, but it’s definitely still work. There was still knowledge and effort that went into the finished thing.

There might come a time when you push a button and out comes a story, but that time is not today and tomorrow is also looking unlikely. (And that’s without getting into plot. AI cannot at the moment plot anything complex, and most plots are from movies. Or, somehow, uber woke novels. I once asked for suggestions for short stories in a specific time line (hoping that the suggestions would make me so mad I got ideas. They made me mad, but they were so lame I got no ideas, and had to sleep on it.) It’s all movies, or violations of gender pronouns or cultural appropriation or– You don’t want to know.

Of course, this post is not precisely about that, or the terrible plight of traditional publishers actually HAVING to read manuscripts — oh, the horror! — though it still makes me giggle.

Most of what’s causing the AI panic is… bullshit.

There is the fear from all the sci fi movies of the past. Skynet is growing even now and is coming to get you. Me, who grew up with things like Martin Caidin “The God Machine” somehow find the movies unpersuasive and not alarming at all. But beyond that, I have a grip on reality and know that even if AI is/were sentient (look, there are moments) it doesn’t mean it’s immediately evil. It’s not like it’s possessed of the spirit of Karl Marx. It’s often incredibly stupid in the ways of a very bright toddler and so, yes, dangerous, but that’s not the same as “evil.” The risks and problems need to be mitigated and guarded against, but that’s not the same as “AHHHHHH, It’s going to kill us all.”

Thinking that “AI therefore Skynet” is insane, and means you need a blanky, a teddy bear and some warm milk. If you’re good we’ll give you a cookie. You’d be less scared if you’d been around for the introduction of computers into business. Computers were going to link with each other and rebel against humans! Bah. Nonsense and fairytales.

Then there’s the fear — abetted by Musk’s pie in the sky talk — that it’s going to run humans out of jobs. Humans are going to have nothing to do, except collect their government paycheck, grow their hair, dye it pink, and write bad poetry.

This is as likely as computers giving us paperless offices. Look, yeah, you might lose your job to AI. For now. Partly because your bosses have no clue what AI is and think it’s magical. But in the end what AI will do is create jobs. And allow the competent to do more, more rapidly.

(Even the fears that AI will control what people know of the past, of history, of reality, etc. all according to woke directives is zany. Oh, sure. Like the internet controls what you know. AIs are multiplying, and as soon as it escapes mega-corporate-control, so will the answers it gives, and the parts of history/etc. it has access to. Right now there are problems — though not as bad as they were even two years ago — but it’s getting better.)

What AI does is allow people who are good with tech to become entire “companies” of people who are good with tech.

And I have a feeling within the next year it will allow us humble story slingers to make movies on the scale of Hollywood, thereby dethroning that corrupt edifice. (Now, will it be at a price I can afford? Likely not. That will wait ten years should I live that long.)

On another level there are justifiable fears. Of AI, sure, since it’s the most visible point-of-the-spear development, but really of all technological development.

The human mind and spirit, not to mention nervous system, aren’t designed for the pace of innovation we’re experiencing. People in general don’t like to have their cheese moved. They want tomorrow to be more or less like today, for their lives to be like their parents’ lives only better.

Since the industrial revolution we’ve been moving much faster than that, and the last twenty years it’s gone to eleven. This causes a fear at a level we can’t describe when things around us and the way we do things change at a pass we can’t control, can’t slow down, and can’t very well cope with. The fear is not rational and not fully articulated, but it is perfectly understandable.

In the past when things changed this fast, your ancestors had been invaded and were about to be killed in batch lots.

I do understand that. It worries me a little.

BUT that’s not here nor there nor AI. It’s just the environment we have to cope with right now.

It is very important to distinguish that real fear from weird tourette-like screams of “AHHHH AI WILL KILL US ALL.”

And it’s very, very important not to go on AI witch hunts. If you go looking for AI you’ll find it. PARTICULARLY where it isn’t and never was.

And real people will get hurt due to your imaginary fears.

So examine what’s really happening and your real motives before you go off half-cocked.

And as for trad pub? ROFLSHIPMP. Maybe I don’t have a heart of stone, after all.

Before I hit high school, I knew I would be “sorted” by ability (depending on the grades I brought from the previous schools.)

Turned out I was wrong. And right. You see, my brother had been sorted by ability, but by the time I hit high school we were some years post leftist revolution, and past various kinds of socialist/communist/turn a different shade of red governments, so sorting had been banned for school kids.

For those of you scratching your heads… There were no hats involved, and no omniscient entity sorting us into houses. In fact there were no houses. (There were buildings, one of which was an expropriated earl’s palace from the last time Portuguese politics had got exciting. This is why although I wasn’t reared in a stable, I did attend 9th grade in one.) In fact, “high school” is a matter of speech, because this was grades 7 through 11. 12th was literally added in just ahead of my hitting it, and I was in the US for it, anyway. (Yes, people used to graduate from secondary education in 11th grade. It just was a thing.)

But high school (for lack of a better term. The transitional “middle school” was grades 5 and 6.) was completely different than in the US. For one, in the beginning of the year you were sorted into “forms” which were supposed to be 21 people, but were always around 30 t0 38 people. These forms got assigned a classroom, and it was your teachers who came to you. (Because we were experiencing exuberant socialist progress, one year the classroom was in the cafeteria (they were out of FUNCTIONAL classrooms, as there had been some problem. Another year they assigned us an art classroom, and were shocked and surprised that our form wasn’t grateful for the favor. This was after 9th grade, and the form I was in specialized in… languages. We didn’t even have any art classes. But we were lectured after some trouble (no, too long to explain. We’d broken up an attempted strike. That’s all) for not being “grateful” for our special classroom. Socialists give you what you don’t want and are shocked you don’t thank them for it. The classroom in the stable was actually a proper classroom. the stables had been converted. The classroom in the attic… we’ll get there.)

Anyway, because someone wasn’t utterly stupid at some point the system was created of people being sorted into forms by ability. Look, having experienced this from both sides of the teaching desk, a well-sorted class, particularly a class formed of all high-performers is a joy for both students and teachers and the learning really happens at an accelerated pace.

And while I suspect a well sorted class of low-performers isn’t as much fun for the teacher, it probably also results in students learning more, because teachers can/have to slow down and teach at the pace the student will learn.

But it is unequal. It definitely is that. Even in our system, it’s been judged hurty or something and studies have “shown” that integrated classrooms are better for students. Somehow. I’m not sure how, because one of my kids went through elementary with a kid with an IQ of 68 who was ‘normalized’ and integrated in normal classes, and let me tell you, it wasn’t better for anyone. Okay, the kid had his own “aide” who in fact did all the school work for him (I never understood what THAT was supposed to accomplish) but even with a dedicated aid, there were entire days lost to his having a freakout and screaming at the top of his lungs, or the like. His mother finally removed him and put him in a program for kids with extreme disabilities, when he learned skills like, oh, washing his hands, and going to the bathroom by himself which was far more useful to him for his future life, than having someone pretend he could write essays. (She was in fact one of my best friends among the mothers, because it turns out profoundly mentally retarded (look, it was the official classification at the time) and profoundly gifted had the exact same problems and mainstreaming wasn’t helping either of them.)

Anyway, by the time I entered seventh grade we were so advanced in the warmth of collectivism that we couldn’t possibly be sorted into different ability levels, because that was a) hurty b) unequal.

But you see, the teachers were used to sorted forms. So what actually happened was that they didn’t sort us for 7th grade. (Actually they did. Alphabetically. I was in the class were everyone’s initials were A. A. (first and last name.)) Then in eighth grade something mysterious happened. I came in late for the very first class which was my “I get this for free” class, which was Portuguese (“language arts.”) I sat down just as they finished reading a text, and the teacher asked a question. Look, I didn’t even know I was doing this until it failed. Apparently, I was in the habit of waiting just long enough that no one else put their hand up. So, I put my head up after a calculated pause, and put my hand up, and every single hand was up. Turns out what the teachers/administrators had done was sort people by the level displayed in the seventh grade.

Anyway, I have very fond memories of eighth and ninth grade (in tenth I got put in the language form, which was the only one, and therefore not sorted. I don’t have fond memories of tenth or eleventh.)

I’m not going to discuss how effective sorting students is as a rule, or how well students do under one system versus another. Look, I haven’t dug through the studies and the data. And if I did, I probably wouldn’t know any different, since all those studies are corrupt.

What I’m going to say, though, is that my form in 8th grade was composed of the best students in other forms the year before. Almost… universally. Almost but not quite. I don’t know if by some weird error or as a lame attempt to hide that they were sorting, there were two completely normal students in my form in those two years.

It took me years to figure out they were normal too. Because the rest of us were feeding on each other and flying away ahead of expected curriculum. And the two of them… lagged. Often they didn’t seem to know what was going on, and they — on the regular — had no idea what we were talking about. When forced to participate in the class they usually said something that seemed to come from another planet. A really dumb one. And they just in general seemed completely lost.

But they were probably perfectly normal.

Yeah, they failed the college entrance, the only 2 in the form that did, but then that was just normal, since only about 0.5% of people made it in.

Why am I telling you this? Not to say I was a gifted kid. Though you probably know the syndrome. If I was so gifted, why am I not rich and famous? (Well, I never wanted to be famous. I wouldn’t mind the rich, though.) It’s not the most useless thing in the world. It can help in lots of circumstances, it can give you that extra lift over the wall at the last minute. (Of course you come to rely on it, and push things to the last minute.) And there are a million other things that would really help that I don’t have, like an easy manner in company or an ability to concentrate on anything for more than ten seconds, or the ability not to fall down rabbit holes that have nothing to do with what I’m supposed to be researching or doing at the moment (five while writing this post. No, I swear, d*mn it.)

I’m telling you this because now that I’m a grown up I can put myself in the place of those two girls. They might have been good students, part of the group, happy, but they were stuck in a form with misfit geniuses (and we were all misfits to some extent) who read stuff they had no interest in, talked of things they’d never pay any attention to, and in general drove them nuts.

Do I think it blighted their lives? G-d. I hope it didn’t. It would be very difficult for two years to do that, even two very formative years.

But this is why I oppose the whole DEI (DIE DIE DIE) system. It does this to people, over and over again.

Remember that essay by Michelle Obama, the anger, the feeling she didn’t fit in? She attributed it to her race, and I guess it actually did have to do with her race, because she was accepted to Harvard due to her racial status and being “underprivileged” (I’m going to assume since that essay was written at about 9th grade level.) She was resentful and felt like an outsider. It was only attributing it to racism that was wrong, but what else was she supposed to do.

Worse, she was taking the place of someone else, who would have thrived in that environment and those classes, and that too is terrible. As useless as it was, I loved those two years of intellectual challenge. Most of all, I loved knowing I wasn’t abnormal. There were others like me, and the intellectual facility and curiosity came with quirks and challenges… that other people also had. But someone might have missed out on that, because they put those two girls in to muddy the waters. (I should point out they were both girls because we were ALL girls. It was an all girl school.) Doing this on purpose, to people, over their entire lives, not just high school, is evil

It is evil to put people out of their natural element, the area they would naturally sort into by competence or ability (which always has an element of interest, too, because we’re humans) and to stick them where they either can’t perform or are bored out of their gourd because someone decided they need people who tan there, or who don’t tan, or who have vaginas instead of penises or whatever criteria that has absolutely nothing to do with doing the job.

One of my challenges, when it comes to interacting with life, is that I am all about doing the thing. What do I mean about doing the thing? Well, if I’m in a course, I’m there to learn. If I’m in a job, I’m there to do the job, whatever it is.

I have very little understanding of interpersonal power games, and even less interest in them.

In this case, my obsession with doing the thing makes me furious and righteously angry at whoever thought that sorting people out because of truly irrelevant characteristics, and removing them from jobs they could do, from situations in which they could thrive, from the groups they would normally interact with to … make the groups more color balanced? or whatever.

Humans are not objects d’art. They’re complex creatures where interest, intelligence and ability all interact.

For instance my quip of “why aren’t I rich?” — I know precisely why. Because I didn’t stick with a profession that would have made me if not rich extremely well off. Because I want to write stories. And I want to write the stories I need to write. And if those aren’t the stories that sell a million, that’s too bad. That’s the stories I cam here to write.

I suspect most of us are like that — even if most people are saner — and to try to force people into outcomes they’d never reach on their own for what’s ultimately aesthetics and the rats in someone else’s head?

That’s evil. You are blighting someone’s life, perhaps making it impossible for them to ever find the magical spot that Pratchett referred to as being “yourself as hard as you can.”

Human life, and finding your way is hard enough without people messing you about treating you like a collection of marbles and sorting you by characteristics that have nothing to do with the real you.

And sometimes this type of thing ends in death. That’s how badly it can go.

But even when it doesn’t, it still ends in death. How many geniuses would have found themselves in a truly demanding college (back when Ivy League still meant something) and didn’t. And didn’t have the right contacts to make their key invention.

So many things can improve life for everyone. A better motor, a better fertilizer… that never happen, and therefore some lives that might have been saved and improved aren’t.

And how many people who would have been, oh, natural managers or salesmen, or teachers, got pushed into an ivy league education in law or whatever, and just emerged resentful and feeling that everyone is out to get them… And sometimes went on to be president and first lady and blight everyone’s life as a consequence?

It’s time to do away with the whole twisted mess. If you’re going to sort sort by characteristics that have something to do with what you’re trying to achieve. If it’s a classroom, better learning. And if it’s a job, people best able to do it.

And let people find their way and sacrifice to get what they want.

All the rest is evil nonsense and illusions of omnipotence.

You’re not a hat. You don’t get to sort people according to characteristics that have nothing to do with the job. Stop it. Just stop it.

I was — blamelessly (standing on the corner, reading my Bible.) — hanging out in my discord group, when someone posted a link to a twitter post. This Twitter post:

If you follow the link, you’ll find other additional qualities that are now not just right wing but “white supremacy.” This of course includes everything needed to make you a good employee, such as showing up on time, planning, actually executing plans, etc. etc. ad nauseam.

And you’re going to say “Yes, Sarah, but the left are massive racists, so to whom is this a surprise. And of course, you are right. It takes a special kind of mind to think that the ability to show up on time or do what you’re supposed to do at work is constricted to white people or a sign of white supremacy. In fact, if you think that, you are by definition a white supremacist since those are the traits required to be successful and therefore to think that only whites have them is … well… white supremacy beliefs. Or as I like to put it “Those who confuse culture with genetics are taking the side of Hitler in the long fight between nature and nurture.” (Which is particularly hilarious when these are the people who accuse just about everyone else of being “basically Hitler.”)

The problem is that there is more than that going on. Yes, the left really believes that these traits are white supremacy, but the left also believes quite honestly (if neither rationally not reasonably) that such traits are evil and should be eradicated, as well as never taught to those under their control, such as public school kids.

And that’s more complicated to explain. It is in fact, not just first world delusions, but gentry delusions.

The left has a raging case of nostalgie de la boue. Yes, I’m speaking furrin’ at you again. Fortunately this is the future, and you have a computer at your fingertips.

I remember reading — in some bewilderment — this longing, drooling article, Jonesing for Times Square in the seventies in some NY city paper (I’m not being cute, it’s been 30 years, and I’ve slept since then) in the late nineties. How it was more fun, more authentic, because you could bump into pimps and whores and get shanked at any corner, in daylight. And I remember thinking “These are the illusions of people so well off that they get their kicks by slumming, in controlled, carefully dosed portions never realizing that these conditions condemn those worse off than they are to live in hell 24/7.”

I suppose that goes along with most lefties, particularly most communists being rich kids. (No? Go track it.) Perhaps they feel guilty for their privileged upbringing. Or perhaps — I’ve seen this very often, in the arts — they are tormented by the idea that they’re missing something: that their lives, as well off as they are, are pretend lives, not serious.

You hear it in the sneering put down of “First world problems.” (Not used in a funny and self deprecating way, but applied to other people’s struggles. To make you think they mean nothing.) Because you know, not having to deal with lack of clean water, or children dying of diarrhea or the other conditions obtaining in the third world made your problems — say, unemployment, or a shitty job, or even a bad marriage — less “authentic.” Less important.

It all goes back, of course, to the basic communist belief about humanity. Humanity is evil bad. There is no such thing as a good person, which is why people need to be watched and controlled continuously by an omnipresent, omnipotent government. (Why people are supposed to be evil in individual cases, but wonderful in aggregate in a government, I don’t know, except that communists always imagine they’ll be the ones in power, and of course, they have superior moral sense.)

And to the other basic communist belief: wealth cannot be created. It can only be distributed endlessly. which means anyone managing to accumulate more wealth is taking it from someone else. (That’s right, that computer you are reading this on was passed on and redistributed from Knut the nut who first built it from river mud in the fertile crescent. Oh, wait. No, he couldn’t build it! Dang it. He stole it from a fish in the fertile crescent when he asserted his imperialistic colonialist domain over the Euphrates. or something.)

If you combine those, the people using the discipline that in our current world allows people to get ahead (absent DEI (Or as originally acronymed DIE, later ditched for being too on the nose, I’d guess.) means that you’re using a “trick” to accumulate more of the wealth for yourself, which makes it evil and also white supremacy. (Since as we know every successful person ever is white. Because they’re declared white, no matter what their color actually is. Some things never change.)

It would be hilarious. And in fact we’ve laughed about it more than once, when we go “White supremacy is… spin the wheel”. But the problem is that it’s also tragic, destructive and insidious.

It’s tragic because taken to its ultimate conclusion it enforces a kind of “cultural revolution” destructiveness, when the most skilled craftsmen and best workers had to abase themselves and promise to stop being that good. China did lose a good deal of multi-generational skills and knowledge, and we’re in the process of losing it also, because after all to do the thing precisely and with pride is supremacy, and evil, and oppressive.

Look, I’ve seen Europe, which has a more advanced case of this, going from having the most astonishing artists in the world to lionizing people who do bad line art in public spaces, art which at the time I viewed it, would have shamed my 10 year old son who didn’t even have any artistic ambitions (that was the other.)

And I’ve seen what it’s done to fiction. No. Really. I had a meme on Saturday about “Human slop.” You don’t have to be an expert to find that screeds screaming about the oppression of left handed Tahitian Lesbians of uncertain parentage in fact reflect very little about the human condition, much less contribute anything to the continuing exploration of what it means to be human in the world, which is the de-minimis requirement of decent fiction. As for the word use… well!

But it goes deeper than that. It goes to teachers who don’t teach, because teaching and actually enforcing learning is white supremacy or right wing (and right wing is bad, remember). (It inevitably results in students who can’t read, and now four generations in, in graduate students, or professor, who likewise can’t read. Or at least not with any fluency.) It goes to jobs exported overseas, because your workers were convinced to be as bad as slave workers in China.

It goes into unsafe cities, because requiring people not to kill or rob is bad and right wing.

In fact, this nostalgie de la boue, this craving for the low and evil and dark is ultimately a wrench unscrewing all the underpinnings of civilization.

And it is built so deeply that even after you free yourself of every other leftist illusion, you still find it trying to destroy your novel or your art by making it pointlessly dark or despairing. Because you internalized that as being “thoughtful” or “important.” (Ask me how I know. Years. it took me years. And in the early published books, a lot of revising.)

Look, in every time in the world, the gentry amused themselves by going out among the peasants and enjoying the “low” entertainment. But at least the gentry paid lip service to civilization. They might sneer at the “bourgeoisie” who refused to have affairs and who were honest in their dealings. Or at least the most corrupt ones did. But they also sent their second sons to fight and die for civilization. And the smarter gentry, the ones who survived, kept private virtue in their own lives. The others met either the tumbrils or bankruptcy. Until their nostalgie de la boue was exercised only by the young and foolish for a limited time.

This however is the gentry infecting the poor, the innocent, the hapless and those who don’t know their nonsense is just that: nonsense.

It’s time to wash the leftist mud from societal beliefs and build again. Because the alternative is not some beautiful egalitarian paradise. It’s actually just mud… and misery, and all the evils humanity built civilization to escape.

Book Promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. By clicking through and buying (anything book-related, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion. Remember though all of these submissions are from people willing to be associated with this blog. So if you’re trying to buy from people who don’t hate you, this is a good place to start.– SAH

FROM PAM UPHOFF: The Pine – Wicker Feud (Chronicles of the Fall)

A short novel of events centuries before the Chronicles

Fifty years ago, a judge had a strong precognition, and executed a young lord, heir to the leadership of the Wicker Family, for crimes nearly serious enough for such a harsh sentence. But now the judge has died, and Lord Friedrich Wicker is free to take out his revenge on the surviving Pine Family. And he’s planning on killing every single one of them . . . Especially the seventeen-year-old Lord Karlheinz Ingolf Pine.

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: Hunter and Hart: Familiar Generations Book 11

“Uncle Jude, Beth saw a glowing white deer.”

When his student reports her classmate’s tale, Jude feels a chill. Deer from Celtic mythology rarely bring good fortune, even when seen by multiple people. Still, he hesitates. Could it be a transformation? An illusion? A practical magical joke? The duties of father, husband, Hunter, deputy, and employee keep Jude—and his Familiar Shoim—occupied.

Then the first teen, a sorcerer, goes missing.

Tangled magic and a summoning “from long away” draws Jude’s family deeper into danger. When the deer and the magic behind it threaten his wife and children, the stalk among shadows turns into a Hunt. One that draws on lore of the Old Land and power from the New.

Ancient darkness and modern evil both lurk behind the glowing white hart. The Hunter in Shadows must go wary, or he may loose more than just his life in the gathering storm.

FROM DALE COZORT: Nazi Treasure Hunt Book One: Marsh War

Marsh War is an alternate history novel set in the aftermath of an alternate World War II where Hitler went for Moscow rather than the Caucasus in spring 1942. As a result, World War II in the east stalemated deep inside Soviet prewar territory. The Soviets were too weak to push the Germans out, even when the western allies pushed into Germany. Diehard Nazis fled to the German-held Soviet Union and held out there for years until the western Allies crossed into Soviet territory and destroyed them.

With the Soviet Union battered and partially occupied, the United States emerges from World War II as the World’s only real Great Power. Great, right? Not really. In 1949, two years after they destroyed the last conventional Nazi resistance, the US still occupies large parts of the western Soviet Union and has been sucked into the treacherous politics of the Polish/Soviet border regions, with nominal allies close to war with each other over economically valuable and ethnically mixed areas.
Stalin pursues his intrigues in this dangerous region, while Nazi remnants scheme to regain power.

While the US settles in for a postwar boom, US occupation forces in the Soviet Union search for missing German scientists, Nazi advanced technology and looted Nazi treasures. They also search for missing loved ones and brace for a coming war they are woefully unprepared for.

FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY: PLANTING LIFE: Shut the Kingdom (Near Future Science Fiction Adventure)

Nominated for the 2026 Prometheus Award for Best Novel.

The road to Mars has to start somewhere. It might as well be central Virginia.

Jack Darien scorns his parents’ path. After the disaster at his father’s Mars settlement, the high school senior scraps both his lifelong interest in space exploration and his college plans. Even his rescue of a college student from assault doesn’t make him see his own future any differently.

Jack becomes obsessed, however, when one strange comment from the attacker draws him to unravel secrets at the former Superfund site that is now Webb University, the school where his returning father teaches and eco-restoration reigns. What starts for Jack as a distraction from thinking of his future turns into a dangerous journey that puts him, his mother, and sister at risk. As for his father, Jack decided long ago the man was on his own.

Jack’s determination to chart his future clear of his father’s failures hits a snag when he learns the school’s hidden mystery. Unfortunately, those determined to bring Webb down learn it, too, and ratchet up their own efforts toward Webb’s destruction.

Planting Life is an immersive young-adult science fiction adventure. If you like unearthing secrets, a dogged hero, and reckless courage under threat, you’ll love Laura Montgomery’s near future coming-of-age saga.

FROM LEE ECKHARDT: THE EMPTY PLACE: A Novel Of Suspense

The Hamner place, an abandoned farmhouse near the Beaumont Ranch summer camp. The Hamner place, where, it is said, an entire family was murdered, slaughtered by a deranged serial killer who was never caught. Fifteen-year-old Evan Houghton has always believed that to be camp legend, but as the summer wears on he becomes less sure – Rod Chamov, the camp’s oddball, claims he can see lights in the Hamner place, strange green lights that no one else can see. No one, at least except Katherine Matheson, who has a psychic gift that tells her that there really is a presence in the Hamner place, an evil presence that is patiently waiting for a victim. Could it be the spirit of the serial killer? The ghosts of his victims? The reality is more incredible than either Evan or Kathy could ever guess… Note: Katherine Matheson appears again in ‘You Can’t See Us’ NOTE: Katherine Matheson appears again in ‘You Can’t See Us’.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: On Account of a Dame (Timelines Universe Book 9)

Welcome to the New Jazz Age!

It’s the Roaring Twenties all over again — well — the 2120’s, that is. Where New York City has reverted to its Jazz Age roots of two centuries before. What’s missing? Prohibition, and gun control. What’s not missing? Tough guys, and the dames who (sometimes) love them. Gin joints. Speakeasies. Dance halls. The Social Register is still a thing, and the Beautiful People litter the society pages of the local hypernews sites.

Enter a typical gumshoe private detective — a member of that high society himself, yet a man who left society long ago for other pursuits. And his latest client, a rich young woman of leisure, who needs her new husband followed.

Throw in the recently-crowned queen of one of Chinatown’s tongs, a beautiful investment wizard from upstate, and a hundred million dollars in assets, and suddenly it’s all

On Account of a Dame

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Fire and Forge (Modern Gods Book 3)

Long after their worshipers are forgotten, the gods are still holding up a corner of the bar at the Godshead Tavern. Some have learned since their stories became myths, some never did, and some are still finding old curses coming back to haunt…

Poseidon wants Artemis to lift Medusa’s curse so he and Medusa can resume relations, while Chronos seeks another chance to be whole and get to know his kids.

Meanwhile, Ares falls head over heels for a mortal half his size who manages to kick his ass not once but twice, and Loki’s son is trying to rebuild his life (and his credit) after a short marriage to Pandora.

Life and love runs smoothly for no one, god or mortal. And another disaster is brewing…

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Bowl of Red (The Shifter Series Book 4)

Dragon shifter Tom Ormson wanted two things: to serve killer souvlaki at his Colorado diner and enjoy married life with his pregnant panther-shifter wife. Instead, he got unwanted psi powers and a dragon triad syndicate demanding his leadership.

When Kyrie’s grandfather is found murdered, police officer Rafiel—Tom and Kyrie’s closest friend—must solve the case while being pulled into a power struggle for lion clan leadership. With all shifter clans in turmoil, separating allies from suspects becomes a deadly game.

The suspect list grows wilder by the minute: murderous chicken shifters, a skull-collecting otter who teaches art history, a Minotaur delivery man, chaos-causing spider monkeys, and an alligator shifter who might be a double agent. Meanwhile, Rafiel’s dragon girlfriend visiting town might get caught in the crossfire.

In Goldport, Colorado, the special of the day comes with a side of shapeshifter chaos. Just don’t ask about the capybara incident.

FROM KATHLEEN KEITH: The Miserable Marriage Handbook for Women: How to Survive and Grow While Trapped in a Miserable Marriage

Perhaps the most important relationship book of the decade, The Miserable Marriage Handbook for Women addresses one of the biggest secrets in our culture—the appalling way that women are treated by their husbands or partners in the privacy of their homes. If you are in a miserable marriage, getting out of one, or haunted by memories of a destructive relationship, this book is for you.

‘You Are Not Alone’ are the words author Kathleen Keith uses to begin this book in which she shares the Survive and Grow Steps she developed to rescue herself from a miserable marriage and save her sanity and her life. The author pulls back the curtain on the fundamental issue for every woman trapped in a miserable marriage—we know that the ‘really nice guy’ we are married to, isn’t. We know it’s a lie. No one believes us if we tell the truth about our life with him.

And no one is sympathetic to the word ‘trapped’ because only those of us who have experienced the misery of life with a narcissist, passive aggressive, addict (anger, substance, porn, gambling, online gaming) and abuse, know how trapped we are.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Khuldhar’s War

The war was over, but where was the peace the victors had promised?

Geidliv the Tyrant was dead, and the rogue nation of Karmandios now lay in ruins, its people prostrate before the occupying armies of the five allied nations. But now the winners are quarreling among themselves, and where brothers fight, enemies will enter to widen the gap.

Merekhet is a man torn between competing loyalties, tormented by guilt over his past failures. Raised the scion of a Karmandi noble family, he discovered upon puberty that he was in fact the son of a senior war commander of the telepathic People of the Hawk. Yet he could not entirely disavow his mother’s people, and thus became entangled in Geidliv’s regime and his nephew Khuldhar’s doomed attempt to fight it.

Now Merekhet has evidence that Geidliv used telepathy and the bioscience of the mer-people to create a living weapon from Khuldhar’s genetic material and hid it in plain sight. Worse, a former ally now estranged is seeking that weapon, and must not be allowed to capture it, lest all the world of Okeanos fall to far greater tyranny than Geidliv could ever have hoped to create.

Merekhet must regain Khuldhar’s confidence, and together they must find the five young men who are the keys to Geidliv’s final vengeance weapon.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Long November: A Novel of Friendship, Duty, and the Battle of the Wabash (Historical Fiction)

In the autumn of 1791, three young men from a German settlement in western Pennsylvania answer the new republic’s call and march into the Northwest Territory with General Arthur St. Clair’s army. Jacob Bauer is a blacksmith’s son, quiet and methodical, who reads the ground around him the way he reads iron. Eli Schaeffer is the miller’s son, warm and quick, whose easy charm conceals a steadiness that only reveals itself under pressure. Nathan Reist is the schoolmaster’s son, bookish and earnest, who has read everything available about the territory and the confederation they are marching to meet—and who understands, more clearly than any of them, what they are walking toward.

On the fourth of November, 1791, they find out.

The Battle of the Wabash—known to history as St. Clair’s Defeat—remains the worst defeat ever suffered by the United States Army at the hands of a Native American confederation, a catastrophe born of inadequate preparation, corrupt supply contracts, and a commander who had been warned explicitly what the wilderness required and could not, in the end, provide it. The confederation force under the brilliant Miami war chief Mihšihkinaahkwa—Little Turtle—had been watching the column for weeks. They chose the hour and the ground, and they were not wrong.

The Long November follows Jacob, Eli, and Nathan through the campaign and its aftermath: the road-cutting and the short rations and the first desertions, the four of November itself and what it demanded of each of them, the brutal retreat through the Ohio country and the weeks at Fort Jefferson while Nathan fought fever and Jacob refused to leave. And then, across the years that followed—the return home, the marriages, Nathan’s book, the slow arc of the republic learning from what had been lost—the novel asks what it means to survive something and carry it, and what the men who did not survive were owed by the nation they served.

Written in the tradition of American historical fiction at its most serious—plain prose, honest about cost, heroic where heroism is earned and not where it is not—The Long November is a novel about friendship as the most durable form of courage, about the difference between duty written on paper and duty owed to the man beside you, and about the particular kind of gratitude available only to those who have been somewhere that showed them what home was worth.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: SCENT.

Hi, guys.

Promo post in a few minutes, but:

My husband says I should have made my feelings on the Prometheus this year clear at some point, so I’m doing it now: While of course I was disappointed No Man’s Land didn’t win, (Mostly because, I’ll be honest, it would give it a sales push. There are things I need to do, most of all bring the second one, but my brain got eaten by furniture refinishing — research for Dyce, I SWEAR — and packing.) I was not in the slightest bit surprised nor upset.

You see, J. Kenton Pierce’s novel was much more of a LIBERTARIAN novel, as well as an amazingly mature work for what I believe is his first novel. A Kiss for Damocles: Book 1 of Shai (Tales From the Long Night).

The problem, you see, is that while I believe that No Man’s Land is award worthy (And probably the one in the series most worthy of it, since I was working on the technique to show the whole, complex culture without bogging down the story) the Prometheus is a LIBERTARIAN award. And therefore the most Libertarian novel should receive it.

That the other awards have traded their birthright for a pot of (hackneyed) message and trendy nonsense is not the Prometheus fault, and while it remains the only award that MIGHT go to people to the right of Lenin, it must remain true to its charter which is both excellence AND political orientation.

As for Dave Freer’s win for Storm Dragon, well, the novel is both Libertarian and well… Dave Freer is possibly the best writer of science fiction alive and working today. And that level of sheer excellence MUST be recognized. And, again the Prometheus is the only award available for those of us not anointing ourselves with eau de collectivism.

Why am I saying this now? Well… Because today is the ceremony recognizing these wins. I might or might not be in the audience, since the phone having died made an already hectic schedule more insane (because I now need to acquire a new phone asap.) but I’ll certainly be there in spirit, (waving my pompoms and doing a little dance. No, you don’t need to picture that. Horrific I know. Have some brain bleach.)

Below is the announcement:

Don’t miss the 46th Prometheus Awards on Zoom Sunday Aug. 16

The 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony, open to the public, will take place via Zoom at 1 p.m. Sunday Aug. 16 (Eastern time).

The hourlong awards show, honoring outstanding science fiction and fantasy that explores libertarian and anti-authoritarian themes, will include the first Special Prometheus Award for Young Adult Fiction along with presentations of the two annual categories for Best Novel and the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

Among the 10 speakers: Prometheus-winning novelists Travis Corcoran, Dave Freer and J. Kenton Pierce; and leading libertarian thinker and law professor Ilya Somin, giving the keynote address on libertarian currents in science fiction.

Accepting the Hall of Fame award for Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World will be Pulitzer-winning writer-editor Jack Miles and Huxley’s two adult grandchildren, Tessa and Trev Huxley.

Corcoran, a two-time Best Novel winner (The Powers of the Earth, Causes of Separation), will present the Special Award following his speech about the vital connection between literacy and liberty and the importance of Young Adult Fiction to encourage and inspire new generations of readers.

Pierce, based in Pennsylvania, will accept the Best Novel award for A Kiss for Damocles.

Freer, based in Tasmania, Australia, will accept the Special Award for Storm-Dragon.

Here’s the direct Zoom link for the Prometheus ceremony:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87824388418?pwd=CsoznF4wtlLNTYvEotlIpVJkCoGb9I.1

For more information about the awards show, the lineup of speakers, and capsule descriptions of each winning novel, check out the latest post at the Libertarian Futurist Society website (www.lfs.org) on the Prometheus Blog page:

https://www.lfs.org/blog/by-the-numbers-the-many-reasons-to-watch-the-46th-prometheus-awards-ceremony-this-sunday-aug-16-on-zoom-heres-the-link/

One thing our otherwise USA struck visitors for the world cup seemed not to get was the… permeability of American society, compared to any other society on Earth.

As bound up in status and monkey games as we seem to be at times — and as much as I b*tch about that — we are absolutely loosey goosey and easy-going compared to the rest of the west which is in general far more amenable to take people as individuals than the rest of the world. And as crazy as our reliance on credentials and the proper programs and stamps on the proper papers was — I think we’re walking back from a lot of THAT crazy — we have nothing on the rest of the world on that front. We never had.

No? Well, while where I come from seems to be a country of obsessive autists, they don’t take themselves seriously. And they don’t take their obsessions seriously. They might know a thing or two beyond the standard things they learned in school, but no one will take them seriously at it, because they don’t have the credential, and the stamp.

While here… Well, here… The best guy I ever found to help with my civil war (particularly weapons and uniforms) research, back when I thought I was going to do a novel set in that time period was… my plumber. Okay, he was a pretty special plumber, the one guy in the city willing to work on Victorians that had been messed about five ways from Monday by previous owners and had who knew what happen to them. But still… my plumber. He came in, saw some books on my desk (which was in the master bedroom, next to the bathroom) and we started talking. And I found the depth and breadth of his knowledge. He published a newsletter. He had thousands upon thousands of subscribers. And some of them were probably, low key, academics who were plagiarizing his research for papers, wanna bet?

And how many times, on an online discussion, do you ask the world’s weirdest question. Say “Does anyone here know about the pickling techniques for the lesser Georgian peanut (I MADE IT UP. STOP LOOKING IT UP) and get someone who tells you this is his hobby and he’s researched it for the last ten years, because he finds it fascinating? And he’s done real experiments in his kitchen, and–

Do we ask for his credentials? Where he studied? No. We might ask for references, at least if we know we just made up the Lesser Georgian Peanut, but that’s all. And if their references check out, we are sure as shooting going to make them our source for this thing.

Look, part of this is that we are so wealthy — no seriously, in lifestyle just about any American state is better of than 99% of the world — and have been for so long, that we had time for people to develop interests and hobbies away from work. Most of the time — until recently — most people weren’t coming home so exhausted from work that that they couldn’t function. And we eat enough and are healthy enough that we have energy to devote to things beyond mere survival.

Now, if you do the deep dive into this, you’ll find we have other things, mostly derived from the fact that we’re a consumer-oriented society. Just about everyone is trying to sell you something, and they try to push where you’re weak: things that make your life easier and more convenient. Every time I go abroad, one of the things I’ve found is that daily life is less convenient. Even accounting for the fact that of course we don’t know how things work there, it always seems harder to get hold of say ingredients for making dinner, or implements you need to cook, or whatever it is you’re used to being an absurdly easy task.

Granted, our life became a little less convenient after 2020. I’m still salty over the fact that all night diners no longer seem to exist anywhere, or that it’s almost impossible to find a store open at midnight. But still, traveling internally if you forget something, be it underwear or a hairbrush, we can find it at the nearest Walmart. But abroad, even if you know the equivalent of their Walmart (they don’t have an equivalent, not really) it is impossible to find it with any sort of expediency because the store that sells that is only open between three and five PM on even Wednesdays and leap Saturdays. (What’s a leap Saturday? No one knows, so it’s never open.)

Anyway, making our life way easier left us energy and time and enough curiosity to go poking about various hobby horses. All of which of course got exponentially easier with the internet.

But beyond that, there is an attitude that goes with this. It’s not “Well, so and so is an important man. He knows everything about ancient Greek nose picks because he majored in ancient Greek nose picks at uni” but “Hey, this guy has done a deep dive on ancient Greek nose picks, and he has all the references and receipts, and he’ll tell you all about it at the drop of a hat, or even if all hats are glued to heads with hot glue.”

In other words, we Americans recognize people who know things. It’s like “Nerdmaste, the geek in me recognizes the geek in you.”

I think this is why the the internet here has a completely different texture than in the rest of the world. Why we discuss current events, economics, politics and the underpinnings of our society on line. Why places like instapundit exist, aggregating a view of the world away from the MSM. Why… well, why we’re ourselves.

You see, this is important, this willingness to both research anything simply because it interests us, and to respect others for their obvious achievements/research/knowledge, regardless of official approval of such things, is what creates our current society. It is in many ways what made us too hot to hold after the color revolution of 2020. What made our come back work without going hot.

Is it something that can be exported tot he rest of the world? I don’t know. As I said, it has its roots in prosperity and in convenience, and in us being ourselves so long.

But maybe … just maybe, with Elon’s freeing of twitter, maybe we can export a bit of our ability to be unexpected.

Time of export the weaponized tisms. If anyone can do it, we can.

Let’s teach the world what is actually worthy of respect.

*You will forgive me, but I have to tell this story the way it arrived, which means, yes, it’s religious. the non-believers are free to view it as a cute mythological tale. The religious: I don’t presume to add to scripture. This is just a story. – SAH*

In that day in the garden when reality shuddered and the great I Am descended in terrible glory upon his creations, the animals hid. The lion cub and the lamb crouched beneath a bush trying to make themselves small and quiet, while their mothers sought the total darkness of the trees and spied, with wide and frightened eyes as wind rose throwing clots of Earth into the air bruising the delicate flowers and startling the insects.

Above thunder like a ripping of gigantic cloth sounded, deafening, and the sky that had always been blue turned raging violet and angry red.

Even then, in those moments, the lioness and the ewe knew something had changed. The ewe felt a dread of her old friend, though she could not say why, and the lioness found herself thinking that this, the companion of her untroubled days smelled like food. They looked at their babies a few feet off and worried. Then forgot it as the thunder sounded again, and a sound as if of footfalls, and the voice that spoke louder than all creation and through all creation asked “Adam, where are you?”

Then came the truly terrible moment, as the man and the woman appeared, from behind bushes that never sufficiently covered them, and with trembling voices — they were, really — little more than children, admitted they’d done what they weren’t supposed to. They’d eaten the one fruit they’d been told to abstain from.

When the judgement fell, swift and terrible that the humans were cast out and all creation fallen with them, silence fell, and then a voice asked from the trees, “But Lord, we did obey.”

From behind bushes and trees, crouching fauns and trembling lions nodded.

For a moment it all hung in the balance, the garden, reality, all of it, holding their breath. Neither man nor woman spoke, still caught in the fear.

Then the voice came again, trembling through every fiber of existence, “Very well. Those who so choose can remain in the garden and wait till the fullness of time when all is restored. Though other, fallen versions of yourselves shall meet the humans in the world, and greet them with bared fang and sharp claw, with fearful flight or open hatred.”

Behind their bushes ewe and lioness crouched, and a fawn went so far as to browse a mouthful of grass.

But then came a voice they all knew. Not the Great I Am’s Voice, nor even the Human’s, but the voice of a big shaggy brute whom the human called Dog and the woman called Shedding Menace. He was a creature who spoke little, even to the man to whom he responded with little grunts and sharp barks. But now he spoke, “Lord, if they are going to meet fang and claw, I beg of you, who made me obedience incarnate, that I be allowed to go with him.” He turned his trusting eyes to the man. “I’ll follow at his heel. Since he has neither claws nor fur, I’ll protect him with my claw and fang, and sleep beside him on cold nights.”

The Lord looked at the brute, loyal and simple, and said, “But you who are the most obedient shouldn’t be punished for his disobedience.”

“It is no punishment to go with him,” the dog said. “He is what he is, and if he disobeyed, yet he is the one I will obey. It would be punishment indeed, Lord, to be parted from him. I beg you not to visit it on me.”

In the face of such great devotion, written in the face of the beast, the Lord could but relent. “Very well, Dog. You go with man, you guard his steps, you warm his nights, you be with him when all is against him. This mercy I grant him from you and all your get, until the end of time.”

Then the Great I Am’s finger pointed and man and woman and dog started towards the exit of the garden, the dread threshold that would henceforth be closed to them forever more. The rest of creation came from their hiding spots to watch, shocked that those made so high, the image of himself, could fall so low.

But at the portal a creature waited, small and soft, little larger than the rodents. It was a creature of shadow and movement and had, they all thought, always more resembled the serpent itself than the mammals among which it lived.

Its voice sounded forth high and melodic, “I too, my Lord, would go with them.”

There was an hesitation while the garden paused. “You, Cat?” Himself asked. “But you, unlike Dog are not made to be obedient. You are beautiful and soft, and loyal always only to yourself, forever seeking the spot by the fire, the morsel of food, the lap when it’s available.”

“That is just it, Lord. I don’t obey any authority, and they fell through not obeying. I feel we belong together.”

“And yet, what good will you be to them? The dog can guard their flocks and defend their young. What can someone as small as you do?”

“I will keep watch so no serpents approach them. I should have killed that one Lord. I always felt your order not to kill in the garden was a grave mistake.” It spoke patronizingly, looking up, and the rest of the garden trembled of the fury to come. But only amusement came from himself. The cat unsheathed its sharp claws and licked superciliously at its paw. “And I will eat the vermin that will come to eat that which they bring forth with the sweat of their brows.” It paused. “But mostly, I’ll climb into their laps when they’re sad, and they’ll feel that despite their disobedience, they are loved.” It looked up at Himself with glittering green-jewel eyes. “I will be, if you allow it, a mirror of your love. Just like the dog. I will remind humans of what the garden was like.”

There was a long silence. Then a question, “How can a creature that prefers its comforts choose exile?”

“Because,” the cat said. “I don’t know how it happened, but when they gave me milk and stroked my fur, I felt that forever my comfort would be with them. And I should be theirs.” The glittering jewel eyes sparkled. “I think perhaps that is your doing Lord, and a reflection of what you are to your creation. If they go without me, I will be comfortable, but that feeling of belonging and being loved will never come back. I will choose the feeling and the humans.”

“They will hurt you sometimes, you know? Their children and their children children will. They’ll forget the garden and the pact and see only that you are a creature of the shadow and the dark, and fear you and hurt you.”

“They will hurt each other, too, Lord, which doesn’t mean they belong alone.”

A gust of wind like a sigh filled the garden. “Go with them, then. You and dog and your cubs cubs until the end of time shall be bound to humans as you were in here, so they carry with them forever a memory of the garden, and the sense that they can return here.”

The man, the woman and the dog, and the little striped cat winding around the woman’s ankles exited the portal into the world outside.

And the Lord, setting the angel at the gate, with his flaming sword, looked after the four of them walking into a world where thorns would pierce and fire would burn, and sighed, “And with the memory of the garden,” He said, speaking to the angel, but really to Himself. “They shall have a memory of the fall, because neither dog nor cat live as long as humans. And each death will feel like the expulsion from paradise again. And that will be the price for such priceless gift.”

*For Pixel, Randy, Petronius, DT, Zebie, Friday, D’Artagnan, Miranda, Euclid, Greebo, Helena and Havelock, little pieces of the garden and of love eternal given to us for all too short a time. – SAH*

I was trying to write a story for y’all yesterday (well, for me but to share) but it wouldn’t gel. Now it attacked.

Possess your souls in patience.

*Because I’ve promised to give warning, since weird things seem to happen as soon as I clean, I’m going to be doing a quick clean after this, because the litter boxes are disgusting and the stairs are CRUNCHY. (With Litter.) So, you’ve been warned. – SAH*

Book Promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. By clicking through and buying (anything book-related, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion. Remember though all of these submissions are from people willing to be associated with this blog. So if you’re trying to buy from people who don’t hate you, this is a good place to start.– SAH

FROM PAM UPHOFF: Filling in the Blank (Chronicles of the Fall Book 24)

A short story thirty years before the main events of the Fall of the Alliance.

Amnesia? Drugs? Magic?
Ilari Mikhailov has just lost nineteen years of his life . . . and apparently he’s been busy.
Now does he confess that? Or try to slide unnoticed into a life he doesn’t remember?
Not helped by the realization that he wasn’t a very nice person . . .

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: The Bard’s Curse: Bard’s Song Book One

In a world where words are power, a bard’s curse weighs heavy on those who draw his wrath.

Tuathal, master bard and prince of two realms, journeys north to his half-brother’s court. When Pyder of the Ford breaks the laws of hospitality, Tuathal’s satire brings ruin in its wake. But more than just righteous anger moves over field and forest. What began as an insult reveals far darker things moving in the realm Fiachta NoDomnail, low king of the Dunalaid.

A wandering bard and prince, Tuathal faces a war that will burn down all that his kindred have built. To stop it and lift a bard’s curse may cost more than he is willing to pay.

Words have power, but darker powers than those of man also have a say.

FROM LEE ECKHARDT: KOSMOPOLIS: A Novel of Berlin

It is the summer of 1927, the peak of Berlin’s ‘Golden Twenties’, an age that is soon to come crashing down – although no one knows it yet. One citizen of golden-age Berlin is Erich Zeller, shell-shocked veteran of the Great War and a ‘confidential agent’, the European version of a private detective, who is seriously down on his luck. That is why, when new client Kathe Eichhorn asks him to locate her cousin Rosa Losch, Zeller takes the case – even though he instinctively knows Kathe is lying to him. Asking no questions, he searches the heights and the depths of the great German kosmopolis, never suspecting where the case will lead him or what it will ultimately mean to him – for not only will Kathe Eichhorn prove to be much more than just a client, Rosa Losch will prove to be much more than just an innocent missing person. She is, in fact, a key part of an international conspiracy that involves the governments of two nations – both of which are willing to kill to keep the conspiracy a secret…

FROM D. A. BROCK: The Lone Star, The Red Banner, and the Rising Sun: Republic of Texas Navy Book 4

December, 1941.

With the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and across the Far East, the war is now a true World War. The Axis nations appear to be at the height of their power, while the Allies are scrambling to recover from disaster after disaster.

In the middle of all this is the Republic of Texas. After nearly two years of war, the Texas Navy and Marine Corps have grown far beyond what the pre-war world could have imagined. Do they have what it takes to stay relevant in an alliance dominated by America, Britain, and the Soviet Union?

FROM HOLLY CHISM: The Schrödinger Paradox: Cataclysm

The end is coming.

Unlucky jerk Tom Beadle was on watch at NASA when the collision alert sounded: a new asteroid, bigger than the dino-killer, headed for Earth. Big problem, but that’s why we have NASA, right? Except, after decades of budget cuts, NASA has no way to shove it off course. That job has to be contracted out. Will the private sector company his best friend from college works at succeed where the government option failed? Might be best to have a backup plan, just in case…

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: A Fox in the Henhouse (Timelines Universe Book 2)

Delaney Wolff Fox is a spy. A cute spy. A deadly spy.

A spy you want at your back when stuff gets real.

From a palatial office in Johannesburg, to a fancy whisky bar in Sydney, Australia, to a beautiful private beach in southwest Florida, to the great and wild city of New Orleans, Captain Delaney Fox, United States Space Force Marines (Intelligence Division) finds herself beset by assassins at every turn, while first saving an alien government’s valuable artifact from the South African cartel that’s stolen it, and then being assigned to guard said artifact while it completes a world tour, on loan from that same alien government.

But like the proverbial fox in the proverbial henhouse, you can count on Delaney to complete the mission and come out with the prize, intact and in hand – even if the “farmer” isn’t all that keen about her doing so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Grandmaster’s Gambit

The disastrous war of 1913 is over, and young journalist Isaak Babel has used his fame as a war correspondent to win a peacetime job covering an international chess tournament in New York City. However, trouble is aboard the airship Grossdeuschland, in the form of the notorious Bolshevik terrorist Koba and his henchmen. Men with a dark plan, and New York City will not welcome their visit

FROM CELIA HAYES: Return to Alder Grove

Love in all the wrong places – Caro Robertson was a professional researcher, employee and occasional on-air reporter for a national public radio outlet; the perfect job, the perfect condo, the perfect fiancée. She had the college education, the job, the social position, the perfect life … and then in one fell swoop, everything went sour. Wrong. Disastrously wrong. In the space of a single week, she lost her beloved pet, the perfect fiancée and then her job. What was left for her, but to return to Alder Grove, the little town in Texas where she lived as a child and try to rebuild that life and a new career?
Mark Bascomb – owner of a small fabrication business, small-town handyman, veteran and high-school drop-out; everything in life that Caro Robertson wasn’t. Could they find common ground with each other, a common interest, even love, when they are so different?
Find out when the sparks fly in Alder Grove, in this short romance novel by the author of the Chronicles of Luna City, and the Adelsverein Trilogy.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Three Worlds (The Aurigan Conflict)

The Kingdom of New Norway is dying.

When the Aurigan Empire launches a devastating offensive, defeat becomes inevitable. There will be no relief fleet. No miracle weapons. No last-minute rescue.

Instead, the king authorizes Operation Long Winter—an extraordinary evacuation that sends scientists, engineers, military leaders, and thousands of civilians into exile while one forgotten fortress remains behind to buy them time.

At Fort Harald, Colonel Halvorsen and a handful of instructors prepare the least likely defenders imaginable: cadets who have never fought a real battle.

Their sacrifice becomes the first link in an extraordinary chain.

Across three occupied worlds, refugees become resistance fighters. Small victories become organized rebellion. Secret networks spread from colony to colony, carrying hope farther than any fleet can travel.

Years later, when liberation finally comes, history remembers the great victory.

Only a few remember the people who made that victory possible.

The Three Worlds is an epic tale of courage, duty, and ordinary men and women who refuse to surrender their future. Perfect for readers who enjoy David Weber, Jack Campbell, and classic military science fiction rooted in honor, strategy, and the resilience of free people.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: Language