Author: Sarah A. Hoyt

Mostly this is me phoning it in, as it’s been a fairly exhausting if short — I didn’t drag butt out of bed till 11:30 — day.

two days ago the u-turn of the cold from hell became clear. It not only did a U-turn, it headed down and started making itself worse and worse and worse.

Today I went to the doctor. It was a long-waited appointment for another reason, but she looked into this too. Apparently besides my asthma acting up, my body decided this was an excellent time to develop sinus infection from hell.

So, improvements: I have found what was wrong with my CPAP and got it fixed. Needless to say being able to sleep solves a multitude of issues, though I seem to have some sleep debt I’m recovering from.

Also, the doctor gave me a couple of medicines to deal with the asthma (a new thing) and an antibiotic and prescription cough med. Also a different kind of allergy med. We’re going to hit it with everything on the market and probably some stuff extra too.

That’s what I’m doing to deal with my stupid health.

The walks will resume as soon as I am sure of not passing out.

Now the good news is today is the first time I COULD resume the long-postponed revision. And it’s still going well. Hopefully I’m better tomorrow and can spend more time on it.

Now various notes: on my promo post email, it’s started randomly dumping people in junk. If I don’t remember to check every week, it just erases them. So if you’re a friend, or even “just” someone hoping to be promoted or to get in touch with me for other reasons, ping again, and if you can ping me by another means, and I’ll look for it.

I’m trying to figure out how to publicize the upcoming book. Anyone wishing to volunteer as a stop in the blog tour (Not for two weeks, at least. it won’t be up for preorder before that) or who has some bright idea of how to promote, please let me know.

I think that’s it. Any other complaints? Requests? Thrown rotten oranges and peanut shells?

Let me know. And again, sorry to phone it in, but I’m not functioning very well.

Oh, and just as I start feeling sorry for myself, a friend has it much worse. Because some people can’t catch a break. Please Help Us With Medical Expenses.

We’re going to look at our finances tomorrow, and then I’ll figure what I can give. I totally understand these are my friends, not yours, but if you can, G-d bless you.

For those of you who have no idea what this is about or what I’m doing, I’m reading back through THE Portuguese collection of science fiction, the one I read and which pulled me into this crazy fandom and eventually this crazy profession. (I might have come into it to write mystery, maybe, but considering how ill mystery was (yes, worse than sf) when I started, I doubt I’d have stuck it out.)

Anyway, if you missed it, the full explanation is there: The Future of the Past.

This week is kind of weird, because it should have been this book: L’Univers Vivant. Which would translate as “The Living Universe”. They didn’t get creative with the name, either. They called it O Mundo Vivo in Portuguese.

Des galaxies en collision ; des milliards de mondes volatilisés : un chaos a l’échelle cosmique progressant vers notre Voie Lacté… et l’escadre spatiale de Jerry Barclay lancée vers l’Infini pour tenter de juguler ces cataclysmes… et découvrir alors le fantastique secret de l’univers.

Roughly: Galaxies in collision; millions of worlds vaporized: chaos on a cosmic scale progresses towards our Milky way…. and Jerry Barclay’s space squadron launched towards the Infinite to try to curb these cataclysms… and then discover the fantastic secret of the universe.

To be fair this sounds like it would be more fun and not get caught up in the author’s private obsessions. The author’s private obsessions? you say. Hold fast.

First, what happened: I couldn’t find L’Univers Vivant in English, and while I could read it in French it would be rather baffling to throw it at you if you couldn’t also read it. What if I really loved it?

Anyway, so I went to Amazon and I found a series by the author. I picked the first book.

Now, this series, from what I can tell started later, and the writer fell more and more under his particular obsessions as he got older.

So, let’s get into the author: Jimmy Guieu was the pen name of Henri René Guieu who mostly wrote as Jimmy Guieu. (Incidentally the only time I had a touch for a translation in Portuguese, they wanted me to use my “English name” for the Musketeers. Eh.)

Sorry, I know from Wikipedia, but…

Henri René Guieu (19 March 1926 – 2 January 2000) was a French science fiction writer and ufologist, who published primarily with the pseudonym Jimmy Guieu. He occasionally used other pseudonyms as well, including Claude Vauzière for a young adult series, Jimmy G. Quint (with Georges Pierquin) for a number of espionage novels, Claude Rostaing for two detective novels and Dominique Verseau for six erotic novels.

I have a weird feeling I read at least one of his erotic novels. (My best friend stumbled onto one and shared. I found it was not my thing.) Weirdly, I’m fairly sure I never read Time Spiral. (I might have read L’Univers Vivant, but if so it didn’t leave a mark.) See that ufologist thing? Yeah, the more Jimmy Guieu wrote the more he started viewing his novels as channeled (more or less) non fiction in which he wrote to “evangelize” his ideas on UFOs and Ancient Aliens.

They think by hooking up into the UFOlogists and Ancient Alien people he got more readership than he would otherwise. This strikes me as odd, as it’s weird for UFOs and Ancient Aliens to have more readership than SF, but France is a strange country and there was a cottage industry in Chariot of the Gods like books. So, it is possible.

Anyway, Jimmy Guieu is the best selling science fiction writer in France, in all times, sort of like their Heinlein. They gave him his own imprint. So–

Perhaps I’m judging him too harshly, as the time spiral was published in 1952. Perhaps my reaction to it has to do with my having been ill and underslept and at the beginning of recovery. Or maybe the ideas in this book rubbed me particularly wrong, part of it due to the ancient alien stuff rubbing me very, very wrong.

A quick summary, with some spoilers, but trust me, if you decide to read it you’ll still find surprises… (and how.):

Jean Karaven who has theories about the origin of mankind is called upon by his friend in… Caltech? (I don’t remember. None of the American setting rang “right”) who has invented a time spaceship. The mechanism for time travel is weird, but not unheard of, if you read a lot of weird stuff. Anyway, it takes a spaceship and it travels backwards. They travel with military personnel, since this is a government research project, and they first go back to Lemuria — shut up — where they hook up with the party of aliens there to civilize the natives. There, improbably, a pair of identical twins fall in love one with Jean Karaven and another with an Austrian engineer who is along for… reasons. They fall in love with them so hard that they end up returning to the present with them. While there they have adventures, mostly relating to a tribe of hairy red cyclops. (Oh, I have words on the origin of those.) Then they go further back in time to where the first “alien teachers” have come to Earth to teach the natives who are…. golden hermaphrodites. These golden hermaphrodites are descended from, for lack of a better term, spirit jelly fish. Don’t go there. Don’t even. The adventure in that time is curtailing a would be space Lord who if he lived would cause da eeevile on a massive scale. Then they undo a snaffu in Lemuria where Karaven’s girlfriend got killed, and unkill her. This inexplicably (or perhaps explicably, but by that time I was not tracking very well) required them to kill their time doubles, which they do with no compunction. And then they come back to the fifties,with their brides.

The main problems I had with it:

As some of you know I’m semi-nutty on there having been ancient civilizations. I am sure there have been, at least at the Greeco-Roman and perhaps at the 17 century level. We really can’t DISPROVE their existence in the vast, unrecorded years of human presence on the planet.

This is based on my belief that building civilizations is as natural to us as building dams is to beavers, and that the present civilization is only 10k years old. 20k if you want to go to first traces.

HOWEVER I do not believe in Ancient Aliens. Look, I have an issue with aliens to begin with, it’s why I don’t tend to write them much. However I’m agnostic on whether aliens exist and whether they’ve ever visited the Earth.

What I don’t believe in is these “helpful, advanced aliens coming to teach mankind.” That makes my teeth hurt. I read a lot of those books (yes, a lot of them French) when I was young, and I still read them sometimes because anything touching traces of ancient civilizations will eventually end up in that and make me ARGH. Because even reading them as a kid, I got the contempt for mankind, the desire for someone more “enlightened” to come and help us, etc. The need for someone perfect to rescue us from our imperfection. Look, guys, I already have a religion. Which is what this seems to be to me, groping for religion and refusing to consider the traditional ones, out of spite.

I hate it for other reasons, like the assumption that humans are the slow children of the universe. (I much prefer the idea, mooted in Have Spacesuit Will travel that Humans are the old ones of the Galaxy. No reason, but I’m human, so I’ll cheer for the home team.)

As a plot (or life theory) device, it ends up becoming deus x machina that explains everyhiting, solves everything, etc.

In this case it was bizarre, because while the aliens supposedly looked down on us because we’d got into war, etc. the aliens themselves have wars, and take gleefully tot he suggestion of using virus weapons against the cyclops in Lemuria, and to pre-kill someone before they commit a crime. In fact the aliens have amazing weapons (disintegrators) and are ever eager to reach for them, etc.

All of that seriously upset me. It might have upset me less if the book came right after Lost in The Stratosphere, as it’s only a reasonable bit worse than that. But after last week’s this was a big letdown.

More minor things that I disliked intensely: the treatment of women. Note this is me speaking, okay? It’s so bad that I wondered whether the cardboard character women that so annoy feminists in SF are picked up exclusively from foreign novels? I mean, these female aliens are leaders of their groups, blah blah blah, but go head over heels for these guys, despite the fact, btw. that they’re 7 feet tall and these guys are just over six. And the fact that they’re supposedly much further advanced aliens. They go for them so hard in a few days acquaintance that they abandon their mission and everything they trained for to go to a time they know nothing of and marry these guys.

Now, can you make that fly? And make everyone human? Sure you can, but Guieu DIDN’T. It’s like they take a look at the Frenchman and the Austrian and man, oh, man, they’re in love forever. I could make crude jokes, but I won’t.

A giggle-worthy point that might be a mistranslation, the first time the main love interest — Layla — shows up, she’s described as blond and pure. I don’t know how they get “pure” from visual, but cool, whatever.

Evolution. Oh, dear, evolution. Evolution is supposed to work linearly and always make species better. Oh, also the aliens guide our evolution. (If you just saw me with middle fingers aloft, you can see through space. Because ARGH. We’re not livestock.)

The action was not told in slow enough motion to matter. The people never seem to have an internal life.

Really minor stuff, and might be translation. The beginning particularly is filled with brand names for everything mentioned, from cars to guns, and always by the formal name. Thompson guns, not Tommy guns. Etc. etc. etc. It felt wrong and unnatural.

Anyway, I didn’t like it. which is me and might have as much to do with where I am right now and my own particular sensitive points, but well, I’m glad I added knowledge of this author to my arsenal, since he seems to be the most influential sf writer in France. (He only died in 2000.)

Fortunately (?) the next book on the list is an old friend, though one I haven’t read in a long time now.

Yeah, that is the Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.

I remember being mildly confused by it when I first read it partly because the Portuguese title promised more of a hard sci fi about the colonization of Mars or something. (The title is literally translated as The World of Mars.) However, even confused, I remember loving it.

The last time I read it was when the older boy was going through a Bradbury thing…. Oh, dear, 20 years ago. (He had to pick an author for a project in English and he picked Bradbury.) I was of course a very different person.

I’m looking forward to getting reacquainted with it and seeing how it hits me now.

I’ll report next week. And sorry for being so scathing on this book. It’s entirely possible I’m unfair, but there it is.

Okay guys, just checking, but I think this is a case of “We are not the same.” And I think most of y’all will be with me.

If you were adventuring throughout the galaxy and you landed on a planet where people told you “oh, we no longer have wars or violence. We evolved past that.”

Would you

a) assume they’re superior beings?

b) get the hell out of dodge as far as your spaceship can carry you, before whoever has farmed these sheep comes to collect?

Because my answer is B with an extra “make sure I can’t be traced from here.”

As you probably can deduce, reading of this week’s “legacy sf” book is not going well. My kindle estimated 2 1/2 hours to read it, and it’s probably been that, in five minute increments, because it’s that long between “pshaw!”s. Yes, there will be a post about it, but for now this is just about one thing I stumbled on this morning.

That was … well, the setup is ancient aliens guiding humans. More on that later. But anyway, as the ancient aliens turned their back, the humans created atomic bombs. And used them for peaceful (?????) stuff like leveling mountains for engineering purposes (just keep on going.) But then a scientist created a super-bomb and was made minister of war and decided to attack the neighbors with it… Which meant humans weren’t evolved enough to blah blah blah….

Wait, let me give you the quote because it exemplifies the thought pattern so well:

“A generation passed during which time this dangerous invention was used only as a controlled explosive for building dams, destroying mountains, to divert the flow of rivers, etc. But one day a scientist drunk on power built A-bombs with the agreement of his government, which appointed him War Minister, he started a dreadful conflict. The conquered under the supervision of the conquerors pursued their own research no less secretly. We do not know exactly how it happened, but the fact is that 20 years later a new atomic war broke out. This time the two antagonists each had their A bombs and even hydrogen bombs. It was a cataclysm of unheard of violence.”

Jimmy Guieu, The Time Spiral

That sound you heard across the miles between us was me hitting my head on my desk repeatedly.

Look, this book is full of many, many bad ideas of the Alien Civilizers suborder. And again, we’ll go into why those rankle later. Much later.

That paragraph above though really got under my skin because unlike, say, the idea that evolution leads to more perfect and moral forms which is also in the book, it is very much still an European attitude.

Some of you are in various off-blog groups with me and have been unlucky enough in recent weeks to trigger rants about Europe, specifically about what my European relatives think is happening here and their refusal to believe my lying eyes might be better than their “best source” news in Europe. (Which, let me tell you, having heard the news on CNN international while I was there, it makes our plain, old Communist News Network seem right wing.)

I keep getting this sense that this is what families spread across Germany and the US must have felt like in the 30s, but I also realize that’s bs. That was more or less a narrative imposed during the war. Actually given our own shitheads (I’m looking at Woodrow Wilson, FDR etc.) our beliefs about good governance and how to organize a country — at least as propagated from the top. I’m sure American citizens were always different to an extent — weren’t that different. The big difference was Germany going on an invading rampage and also their bizarrely massive extermination program and its ethnic/religious overtones. (Look, we also sterilized and euthanized people. Leftists always do.) And for various reasons most people didn’t believe that was actually going on in Germany, so it wasn’t a point of contention for families across the Atlantic.

But now, the international leftist media complex has the bit between its teeth. In a bid to save its project of making us own nothing and eat bugs, they’re painting a picture of us abroad that doesn’t even have a vague, coincidental resemblance to us.

Yes, I do realize that due to our movies and people thinking they depict reality Europeans always thought that we engage in a minimum of a firefight a day, that all our places are as dangerous as the most dangerous areas of Chicago, etc.

Famously etched in my mind is the picture of being in a store with my mom a few years ago — having left a house that since I moved has acquired industrial strength steel shutters on every window, and bars on the lower level one, and taken the wheel, the stereo, etc. out of the car we parked — and hearing the lady said America sounds great but she couldn’t live with the crime and the danger.

At the time I lived in Colorado Springs, downtown, where I not only routinely forgot to lock my car (or my house) sometimes for days at a running, but one particularly crazy week left my purse in the car for a week, with the car unlocked. (Yes, I am aware you couldn’t dot hat now. Even before open borders, the provision of better and more comprehensive services to “homeless” had made the city a vagrant addict paradise and frankly it was getting dicey to walk alone downtown early morning or after dark. HOWEVER even then it was better than the good neighborhood in Portugal my mom lives in.)

So, yeah, it’s been like that for a long time, but now it’s deliberate and fairly insane. From what I gather, they think anyone who tans is at risk, that there are people marching in the streets with swastika armbands, and the country might not be safe for me and mine because of our — fairly unremarkable — Mediterranean appearance.

Also of course, Orange Man Bad hates Europe and loves Putin, and he’s just going to give Europe to Putin, and–

I can’t. I can’t even. I’ve started answering with “I remember when you were smart enough not to buy commie lies.” (Look, dudes, they think MACRON is right wing. They probably think Castreau is a conservative.)

BUT at the bottom of it, at the bottom of their puerile rage at Vance for telling them they have to defend themselves, at the center of their anger that we are telling them we will no longer send American boys to bleed for them, is the attitude about war.

Now, if you look at that bizarre paragraph above, you’ll understand why Europe thinks the way to prevent violence is to forbid the weapons. Because first they build atom bombs, and then a SCIENTIST is mad with power and uses them. Look, dudes, dudettes and dudissimos, this is not how government works in any sane country. I really don’t know about France — see sane — but in the US the only weapons scientists mad with power are allowed to deploy are biological and information control, and that’s because idiots didn’t see it coming.

No scientist in a nuclear lab ever said “Hey, I have a bomb! I’m going to use it to nuke South Nostrillia.” And most people don’t research/create/keep weapons, whether private or public because they twirl their mustaches, cackle evilly and think they will now have the power to kill others.

Even the bad guys don’t get weapons for that reason. They get weapons because some force, either mental or practical, makes them think they need them to defend from something, be it either mental “They’re going to get me, I have to get them first” or practical “I need money, they have money.”

The hierarchy is “Wanting to do something” and then getting the weapon, not the other way around.

Sane nations, yes, develop and stockpile the scariest weapons they can think of (but not biological, because we’re all human and that’s just stupid. Yes, I’m looking at you, China. You might think you’re a completely different and superior type of humanity, but really you’re just like us, and what kills us kills you. What you are in fact is eating rocks dumb for thinking you’d found a cheap shortcut to world supremacy.) And they let other nations know they have them. Because that keeps you relatively safe, and if you’re lucky in relative peace. Until that one nation or group is dumb enough to try sh*t.

Which is why the whole evolved and above it all theory that if you don’t have weapons there will be no war does not work, and makes China’s eating-rocks-stupidity seem like a flash of brilliance in the dark.

What it is ultimately is “If only everyone,” but applied to nations. “If only everyone gave up all their weapons, we wouldn’t’ have war.”

This is bullshit, because war comes from competition for scarce resources, from illusions of cultural supremacy, from dictatorships not being able to feed their own serfs without it, etc. etc. ad nauseum, up to and including the actually righteous “Well, we have to go and exterminate the Northern Anklians because they eat babies alive.” (And the number of times they actually did is shocking. And yes, the only way to destroy a culture that perverse is to exterminate it root and limb, because cultures have a life of their own.)

For all those reasons and some I can’t think of right now, humans will have war. And if they gave up all more advanced weapons, they’d fight with spears and knives. And if they gave up those they’d fight with rocks. And in the bizarre instance they lacked even those, they’d fight with teeth and nails.

The other is a fable for maiden aunts, (as Heinlein put it) and not very smart maiden aunts at that.

(Which is why the instance in the Bible requires a spiritual transformative event. Not confiscation of all books about war.)

The problem is Europeans really, really, really believe that war is always evil, that having weapons and a will to fight CAUSES war, that the military is inherently evil. That even a liking for military history or uniforms will bring about war.

I’m not actually joking that I was taught this in school in the seventies. Patriotism, plus a military mind set causes war.

This utter bullshit must have been very comforting when they didn’t want to face the actual stew of bad ideas, bizarre utupianism and misguided centralization of government, not to mention scientism and worship of “experts” that caused the long war of the twentieth century.

It must have been super comforting to think that now they had evolved past it. And if they didn’t mention the bad things, or own weapons, they would be safe.

Honestly, I suspect America too preferred they dreamed pacifist dreams so we didn’t have to come over and clean up their mess again.

But it was wrong. it was wrong for them, and it was wrong for us. Because it’s based on the “if only everyone” and never, in the history of ever, has everyone done something. If there were a shot invented tomorrow that made us perpetually healthy and young, not everyone would take it. If I tried to give away magic cornucopias that would be perpetually filled with whatever food you wanted to eat, not everyone would take them. If there was a button you could push that would ensure every child in the world was born healthy and beautiful, not everyone would push it.

Because never, in the history of ever, even in small groups has “everyone done x.”

Which means we’ve been protecting them from the bad actors, including those straddling their continent and Asia, while they made us their sin eaters and have lived in an idiot’s dream believing they’ve “evolved” past war and they’re naturally peaceful, not like us, the savages that we are.

Meanwhile their neighborhoods and cities turned into gangland, they were taken over by openly hostile invaders, and in response became more and more restrictive with the law abiding. I expect Great Britain to conduct a great search for nail files, and confiscate them next. (Oy, do you have a license for that nail file? You could put someone’s eye out with that, you could.) I’m only shocked they haven’t started declawing and de-teething their citizens. (Yet.)

However you need to understand they view their helpless state as superior, and look down on us as dangerous savages who live in a land of constant violence.

…. which is why they’re running in circles, trying to demonize Orange Man Bad to bring him down, because how very dare we say we won’t go die for them and protect them, and that it’s time they sharpen those nail files and buy some books about war.

Why do we want to make them savage barbarians like us? Don’t we know what they’re capable of? Think of all the wars they could start. Why, they might have to control themselves. Worse, they might have to face they are normal human beings and not some magical evolved species, beyond aggression, war and patriotism.

Meanwhile, we know very well what they’re capable of. We know what they do to their own citizens and expect announcements tomorrow that they’re serving live baby. We know that they might not embrace extreme nationalism, but their other extreme, non-functional isms, like socialism, are probably worse.

And we’re tired of abetting their dreams of superiority and their false Utopia.

And we found the most hurtful word in our vocabulary is “No.”

I’m a bad person. I want to keep saying it, over and over again.

I’m going to propagate this across my substacks. I keep meaning to post there, but haven’t for several months.

Of course, I haven’t been exactly well for several months. I realized yesterday that I still haven’t opened and read the Christmas cards people sent us. I’ve also only cleaned I think 4 times since October, not the normal weekly cleaning.

So, why?

Well, when we landed I was very ill with pneumonia. That took me to the beginning of October to beat.

And then my thyroid went sideways, partly because of the stress leading up to the illness and, doubtless, the illness itself.

So that took till January to start getting treated. I’m now on the lowest dose, and the hypothyroidism symptoms have resolved somewhat (yes, I had thyroid problems before, but this is a different and more obvious type) I was due for a follow up early March, but I was very ill and coughing a lot, so it’s been postponed till May.

Then I was okay by the end of March… And I got ill again, and that’s been the last three weeks. A little better, much worse, almost well and it does a u-turn.

Now, this might be ALL the thyroid, because hypothyroidism messes with your immune system, or it might be… who knows?

It’s probably not cancer, just to get that out of the way. My tests all came back clean. This is particularly important because my brother has lung cancer, so of course my parents are convinced I must too, because they think in narrativium.

However, the hypothyroidism does things like make my mouth very dry, which means I wake up several times in the night, which also leaves me susceptible.

Again, this is by way of explaining why you haven’t yet seen the book finished in October. (Okay, there’s another thing there, which is that HOW to revise it beyond minor tweaks, actually hit me only a month ago, and I did about 1/4 before I got sick. I’m probably just about well enough to resume that, and release e-arcs and put the first volume of that book (well, it’s too large to BIND) on pre-order.

The voice remains too wonky to do readings. I don’t know if it’s the cold or the thyroid or yes.

There have been other things, mostly under life disruption and work, but honestly, the recurring illness is mostly what’s messing me up.

Older son has suggested — not ordered, which is rare enough — that perhaps I need a vacation. Perhaps all the dislocations, extra work, etc. of the last three years have taken their toll, and I just need a week of not doing much.

Which in theory is an excellent idea, except it requires us to GO somewhere, because if I’m in the house, that’s half of my work, and my husband doesn’t have the vacation days he can take and… well…

Anyway. If you’re on my substacks, I am better, or at least in one of the upper plateaus of whatever the heck this is, and I’ll resume feeding them, I SWEAR. I might figure out an alternate to the fiction substack for next year. Like, a subscription on the blog, now that wordpress allows it. Let me investigate it. Just because I like the interaction here (or on discord, even) better than on substack. That would also make it easier, since it reduces the number of things I have to keep track of.

The decision hasn’t been made yet. And I might keep all of it. We’ll see.

Anyway, I’m giving myself to the end of April and trying to take things easy, but I promise posting on the substacks will resume and the edits will get done. Because enough is enough. And I feel like I’m letting all the subscribers and the people waiting for the book down.

And I’ll try to post like a normal human being on my blog, too, instead of letting things slip. A measure of how weird it’s gotten, my friend Charlie gives me a post a month for Mad Genius Club. Last week I cued his post up, made some edits, put an image up. Well, I thought I had. When he told me he couldn’t find it to link, I went to MGC….

Either I posted it on someone else’s blog (Look, who knows?) or I did all that and then closed the window without posting.

That’s how weird things have gotten. Particularly at night, when I am tired. Reminds me of the bad year in 2015 when I’d find myself waking up in bed without any memory of having come up from my (then) basement office. I’d go downstairs and find out that I’d left the computer on, or sometimes a manuscript on the stand, with changes to be entered (Which often meant the cats had spread it all over the floor.) I called it “the veil of darkness” in the sense that my mind blanked out, and my body went on and did things.

It’s not QUITE so bad. It’s mostly the things I don’t do that I thought I did. (Particularly annoying is when I DREAM of doing things, because then I have the work TWICE.)

I’ve also learned to stop and go to bed when I start feeling “fuzzy”. If you miss me at the aggregator blog, that’s why.

Oh, I should say I’m not losing my mind, in the sense that I’m not forgetting things, beyond the usual ADHD. It’s more that I have very little energy and am at least a little tired at all times. Which means that I do basic triage (which is why I haven’t managed to READ the Christmas cards, yet. ) When I’m well, I’m trying to overdue work. And when I’m not well, I’m trying to do the minimum to not have it all collapse on me. Stuff like doctor’s appointments, vets appointments (one of our cats is terminal and getting much worse, so that takes up a high priority bit of time, too. Not quite at the point of our helping him over the bridge, but he requires medicine and such.)

Also to be fair, this last cold-like-substance got both sons, healthy men in the prime of their lives, and they both still have residual cough. It even managed to get Dan sick for three days, and Dan NEVER gets sick. So this was some kind of serious illness. Not the flu, no. Not Covid, either. Just a cold, but a heck of a cold.

Look, this will resolve itself. I have an endocrinologist appointment first week of May. That should give us some answers.

I have an appointment with my regular doctor next week. I think what I have going (beyond stress and tiredness, which I admit might be part of it, since last year was awful) is a synergy between real viruses and my auto-immune. Like, my asthma gets spun up and that makes my colds much worse. So I might need new meds to keep the auto-immune under control. (I can’t take montelucast, it makes me suicidal. It’s a rare side effect, and it hit me. One of the daily inhalers makes me permanently hoarse to the point I can’t make myself heard. And the newest supposedly best one I can’t have because my insurance refuses to pay for it and it’s a ridiculous price.)

Anyway, let me have the rest of this week to be a bit of a flake, and I will do my best to be back in the saddle next Monday, okay?

UPDATE

I figure this warrants an update. I called my CPAP place and got an alarmed phone call back very quickly. They went and checked the stats it calls home. Apparently my tank is either warped or cracked because it’s gotten a leak so high it turns itself off twice an hour or so. They will get me a new tank tomorrow (since they’re closing soon.).
THAT should make a big difference. I’ll keep you updated. IF it works, I might take a couple of days to just sleep….

I mean, I still have a cold/allergies/autoimmune, but sleep makes things a million times worse.

Book Promo

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

FROM DAN MELSON: The Fountains of Aescalon: Connected Realms Book 1

The first thing Alexan knew was standing over an impossible corpse with an ichor-stained sword.

Exiled from home for reasons of politics and health, he has to orient himself in a new home, but he still has the skills he was ‘born’ with, skills which make him a wizard in his new homeland. A blasted, sterile cavern has many portals, but the one he chooses leads to the top of a huge tree, the source of magical power for an entire world.

Power is plentiful in Aescalon, but those who have it want to keep it all for themselves, and the arrival of a new wizard upsets the balance. It seems everyone who doesn’t attack immediately wants something from him – including a cursed demi-goddess desperate to escape her fate who thinks Alexan may be able to help her.

But Alexan can’t even help himself until he unravels the secrets of The Fountains of Aescalon

WITH A SHORT STORY BY ROBERT MILLER: Face the Storm (J. R. Handley Presents Book 6)

In the darkest corners of space…
They protect the galaxy.

When chaos strikes and the unknown threatens, only one force stands between civilization and destruction: The Space Coast Guard.

Rescue. Defend. Survive.

Elite officers face hostile aliens, deadly storms, and intergalactic warfare in a fight for survival. No mission is ever routine. No sacrifice too great.

The stars are waiting. Answer the call.

Are you ready to FACE THE STORM?

FROM MEL DUNAY: Loving A Deathseer (The Jaiya Series Book 3)

Journey to the country of Jaiya, in a world not quite like ours. Here, humans ride trains, drive cars, and use cell phones, but they share their world with insect people and trollfolk, and stranger things lurk in the shadows… In a place like Jaiya, a servant has to obey his employers’ every whim, even if the whim isn’t in the job description. Erno spends his days rushing around while his wealthy employers bark orders at him. By night, he cases out his employers’ homes and sells the information to his burglar friends. He has only three rules: don’t get close to anyone, don’t let anyone get hurt, and don’t let anyone get framed for the crime. But his latest job will plunge him into a world of political intrigue,and test his rules to the breaking point. His only chance at redemption lies in the love of a persecuted young woman named Zeni, with the power to foresee his death…. Note: Zeni is related to a couple of characters from Monster and Dreamlost, and the heroines of those two books show up in this one. However, Deathseer is meant as a standalone.

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 DAVE FREER: Storm-Dragon

On the treacherous Vann’s World, Skut battles a savage wind and deadly hamerkops to rescue a mysterious, telepathic creature. Fleeing a rising tide and a menacing Loor-beast, he forms an unexpected bond with the tiny, electric-charged being that sees him as its protector. As Skut navigates the perilous tidal tiers, his impulsive escape from Highpoint Station unravels into a fight for survival—both for himself and his newfound companion.

Podge is the new kid in town, trying to keep his head down. Meeting Skut is about the only bright spot in his introduction to this strange new world. The boys bond over Skut’s creature, and trying to avoid the class bullies. This is only the beginning; soon Skut finds his new friends do not ease the growing concerns of the adults around him while the town is coming under a mysterious threat. What can two boys and a tiny storm-dragon do?

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Darkship Thieves.

Athena Hera Sinistra never wanted to go to space. Never wanted see the eerie glow of the Powerpods. Never wanted to visit Circum Terra. She never had any interest in finding out the truth about the darkships. You always get what you don’t ask for.
When escape becomes discovery…
After waking to an intruder in her bedroom aboard her father’s luxury space cruiser, Athena’s desperate fight for survival catapults her into a small lifeboat and the vast darkness of space. But her attempt to find help takes an unexpected turn when she encounters the legendary darkships—legendary vessels rumored to steal the energy-producing Powerpods that orbit Earth for their own secret purposes.
As Athena is drawn into the hidden world of a secret colony nestled within an asteroid in our solar system, she begins to question everything she thought she knew. The truth about her father’s empire, the true nature of the darkship thieves, and her own place in this complex web of secrets will challenge her understanding of power and freedom.
With dangerous forces hunting her and nowhere left to run, Athena must navigate a new reality where old legends prove true and new allies might become something more. What started as a desperate escape becomes an adventure that will forever alter her destiny—if she survives.
Darkship Thieves—the Prometheus Award-winning space opera that combines high-stakes action with thought-provoking exploration of liberty, authority, and human resilience.

FROM DECLAN FINN: Wyverns Never Die (Honeymoon from Hell Book 3)

THE SEQUEL TO THE DRAGON AWARD NOMINATED “LOVE AT FIRST BITE” CONTINUES!

Marco and Amanda have been hounded from Chicago to San Francisco by all the forces of Hell. Surely, Wyvern Con science fiction and fantasy convention in Atlanta would be safe? Who would dare attack a convention the size of a small city?

Everyone.

Before the newlyweds even arrive, they are nearly killed by Chinese assassins. The local vampire nest has turned on them. Cyber-zombies have been unleashed on the streets.

Somebody has been playing a game with Marco and Amanda. But this is one honeymoon couple that like to play chess. And now, it’s time for their gambit to commence.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Shadow of a Dead God

What secrets lie beneath an alien world?

A routine archeological dig on a world once ruled by the mysterious Star Tyrants. For Moon-born Liu Shang, working on a planetary surface might be unsettling, but she could manage — until the dreams started.

Unwilling to drag others into a harebrained search, she headed out alone, contrary to mission rules. Just as she was about to give up, she found an unlikely artifact.

Handling it connects her to the mind of a long-ago rebel against the Star Tyrants’ rule. Nothing will ever be the same.

A short story.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

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

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

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: DIFFICULT

Happy Easter for those who celebrate. Those who don’t, go for a walk, celebrate Spring and the return of life. It’s been a long, long winter, real and metaphorical.

Promo post will happen sometime this week.

The left…. well… they are people of wealth and taste. Or at least a lot of them are.

I’m not questioning the wealth, though it seems now most of them got rich by sucking government teat (well, it always seemed like that, looking at how rich congressmen get. Now we just have more evidence of how it was done.)

I’m questioning the taste.

Look, I grew up amid leftists by definition because I grew up in Europe and I have an intellectual bend. While it has gotten like that here too, I’d say in that Europe was a good twenty years “ahead” of us. So it was like going to an ivy league school in the early oughts.

I knew that they had nostalgie de la boue — for those not of French inclination “a taste for mud” — meaning if presented with a group of people who shower every day, look after themselves and others, etc. and a group of people who are somewhere between bohemians and criminals, wash once a month, have sex with cockroaches and don’t even look after themselves, much less others, the leftist will always inevitably find something to praise about the repulsive ones.

This is part the myth of the noble savage being at the very basis of their philosophy — Marx would be as nothing without his theories having mated with Rosseau — and the fact most people ATTRACTED to leftism, particularly at the level of becoming activists being… well… wrong ‘uns.

Yes, there is a continuum between wrong ‘uns and Odds, and most of us are Odds. I’d say wrong ‘uns though are the ones motivated primarily by envy. And envy is the cardinal VIRTUE to leftists, the thing that makes them righteous is that they envy the people who have and do and look as they don’t do.

I am not saying most of us didn’t look at the kids with large friend groups and feel a twinge of jealousy. But jealousy isn’t envy. I wanted to be able to be like them, not to destroy them so no one could be like that. The second is envy. Jealousy resolves itself, as you get older and start understanding trade offs… Like, I could be jealous of Melania Trump who is about my age (?) and looks at most thirty and has the body I never had but wish I did. But I do understand that she’s made keeping herself in shape and beautiful part of her life’s work, while I have been known to bum around in a robe all day if books are being particularly loud, and if my husband had married me for my looks, he’d have been very disappointed I wear makeup like war paint, and only when facing things that scare me. OTOH though I understand she’s a smart lady, she probably would find it onerous to spend a week running down a rabbit hole raised by a casual mention of an historical incident in a fanfic. …. But I do and I have to, and it’s part of the reason I don’t have time for makeup and exercise machines bore me to death.

I.e. I’ve come to terms with people are themselves, I’m me and we wouldn’t like each other’s trade offs. All in all I am okay with who I am, partly because I’ve never been anyone else.

Envy doesn’t let you do that, and the last final idea of envy is always to destroy those you envy, and to gloat over them.

If you look at all leftist movements, envy is their fatal flaw. None of us would object to affirmative action/DEI if it were a series of voluntary, privately founded programs to say teach black people or women what they need to get ahead in business. We might find it (I would) specious that it only applies to ONE skin color or sex, but hey…. Since historically these people did worse, maybe there’s something cultural we can fix. I’m all for that.

(I’m here thinking of a friend I had back in the eighties, who had two phds and couldn’t find a non-retail job, and she was convinced it was racism. Then she came by my house on the way to a job interview and … well, I wouldn’t wear what she had on to do yard work. I freaked, and lent her one of my skirt suits, and fixed her hair. She got the job. And she moaned about “why didn’t anyone tell me that before?”…. look, how she missed the whole “dress for success” movement is a puzzle, but she was my friend, therefore an Odd, and– yeah, cultural holes happen.)

But the left isn’t happy with that. It’s not enough for women who aren’t inclined to marriage and children to be perfectly all right with going into business, and being in fact treated the same as men in business. No. Women who want marriage and children must be shamed/destroyed. The only allowable option must be for women to have “careers.” Women must in fact be forced to be men, to retroactively validate the choice of some wrong ‘un who was shamed for not being normal.

And it’s not enough for business and hiring to be color blind. Not a bit of it. Black people must be advanced over white people. White people must be prevented from advancing and treated worse than any black person ever was, absent slavery. Because the wrong ‘uns — most of them not black — want it retroactively validated that it wasn’t their fault they didn’t get ahead.

The logic of envy causes the left ultimately to hate the good for being good, the happy for being happy, the normal for being normal.

(If you haven’t caught the whiff of put down in “neurotypical” you haven’t been listening. Now I’d give my left arm and a bit of the right to not have a mind that gallops in all ways at once, and to be able to achieve concentration and working on one thing at a time WITHOUT meds. But I don’t look down on the neurotypical. I just wish I could function like that. I don’t want THEM to stop functioning as they do. What would that serve?)

Their logic inexorably leads them to hate humanity itself. I once watched a future evolution series (I THINK Animal Planet, though it might have been another science channel) and could predict every step based on the idea the creators hated humans and would put thumb on the scale for the ultimate “winners” to be as far from humans as possible, including all mammals ending up extinct, then all warm blooded creatures, ending up with intelligent octopi swinging from trees. (I’m actually not joking.)

So I’ve known all this, but all I can say is that they used to be better at hiding it. And they didn’t use to make it so obvious in your face, all within a week.

They didn’t use to ACTIVELY in the same week, cheer on actual demons, or try to spring actual proven gangbangers from jail while ignoring murder victims, or explain, snootily that Mayan child sacrifice wasn’t actually violent, but just a way to communicate with the gods.

They do all of this, mind you, and did my whole life, quietly and behind the scenes, including cheering on genocidal dictators and mollycoddling terrorists.

But few of them did it in public, and if they did they always had a million caveats and excuses.

Oh, yeah, I don’t have links, but we were also treated to Taylor Lorenz simping for a murderer, and when called on it she said that of course she also sympathized with Palestinians.

Now, part of why they seem so out there and brazen, and the rest of us are standing here, eyes agog wondering what the heck has come over them, is that they have lost their cover.

It used to be that when they chose to ignore something in the media — like say the mother of a murder victim at the white house talking about her daughter being killed by illegals — while pushing a story of victimhood about a human pustule like Abrego Garcia, the general public never heard the real story. Definitely we didn’t have places like this blog, three email lists I’m on, or Twitter, where people will point out Abrego Garcia has gang tattoos and that only members of MS-13 have those, partly because if anyone else has them MS-13 kills those people.

So part of it is that their control of the mass-industrial information complex has been removed, and now they’re doing what they always did but in full light of day. I keep visualizing them as a bunch of villains who used to do things behind a curtain and now are doing them with the curtain removed, and don’t understand we can see them.

And part of it is simply that they’ve been going down this philosophical bend so long that they’ve now reached their ultimate conclusion.

And the fact that their covert, “virtuous” attempts at destroying civilization and humanity, by hiding it under the cloak of “saving the Earth” are failing only makes them angrier and the hatred that accompanies envy stronger.

I feel like they’re speeding towards some metaphysical black hole of evil in front of G-d and everybody. And I hope and pray it doesn’t come because if it does the backlash will change us forever as a nation and possibly as a civilization. To be fair, that backlash will also be needed for civilization and humanity to survive.

They’ve come pretty close with trying to excuse/approve of the atrocities of 10/7. And they’ve only gotten away with it to the extent that they have managed to hide somewhat here (And massively abroad) how atrocious those atrocities really were.

But I feel as though they’re building up to something even bigger and more brazen. And I hope something prevents them from that. Because it won’t go well for them.

Or, ultimately, for anyone.

Today’s book is The Last Spaceship by Murray Leinster.

For those wondering why I’m doing this, I have an explanation here. I am following as a kind of guide the one Portuguese science fiction imprint, mostly because it’s likely to be stuff I’ve read before, or at least it is guaranteed some of this is what pulled me into science fiction reading. (And inevitably writing.)

This is the rough list I’m following. And by the way next week’s is an adventure of sorts. The book is by a French author, Jimmy Guieu L’Univers Vivant  which translates roughly as “The Living Universe.” Problem being, as far as I can tell L’Univers Vivant has not been translated into English, and even if I were feeling adventurous enough to translate it, the author died relatively recently, so the rights are still in the hands or … relatives? friends? agents? I don’t think I want to play “find the rights holder.” So, with some trepidation and because I think it will be interesting to look at a foreign title — I’ll be honest, I don’t remember liking much of the foreign sf, except Pierre Barbet, and I don’t know how that will hold up now — I decided to try Jimmy Guieu’s first book in his available series in English. That is The Time Spiral (Polarian-Denebian War Book 1). It’s a bit of an adventure, since the reviews are meh, but hey.

So, that’s next week. Now for this week’s book, let me show you the Portuguese cover, which struck me as very cool.

Murray Leinsters real name was the strangely respectable William Fitzgerald Jenkins. I have absolutely no idea why he used a pen name, except that at the time science fiction (or writing for the pulps in general) was considered not quite respectable. So, it would be like taking a name to be a stripper at night, while being a suburban mommy by day. More or less, though I think the prejudice against the pulps was being considered low brow, not indecent. (This by the way is the reason many female authors used pen names, and not some imaginary prejudice against female writers.)

From wikipedia, on how he came by his pen name: “Murray” is a reference to Leinster’s mother’s maiden name (“Murry”), while “Leinster” alluded to the connection between his middle name (“Fitzgerald”) and the Dukes of Leinster. (By this principle, Dan’s pen name would be Seymour. Though if it comes to that I’ll hold on for the archaic St. Maur.)

Murray Leinster was born in the 1890s and there’s some confusion about where he lived in childhood. Though he and his parents were born in Virginia, the census has them living in Manhattan in 1910. He was a high school dropout and first published in the pulps before WWI.

He wrote for every genre of pulp and broke into science fiction in 1926.

Because his is a grand resume of the sort you expect from a science fiction writer, he was also an inventor, and again, quoting from wikipedia:

Leinster was also an inventor under his real name of William F. Jenkins, best known for the front projection process used in special effects.^[7] He appeared in September 1953 on an episode of the educational series American Inventory, in which he discussed the possibility of space travel.

From what I can understand, The Last Spaceship was first published as a novel in 1949, but it was earlier published as novellas in Galaxy.

First overall impression: I liked it. Really, really liked it.

Second overall impression, and please keep in mind that this is me writing this, okay: there were times in reading this book that I was going “Woah there, Murray. You’re really hitting me over the head with the libertarian philosophy. Don’t make it so on the nose!”

It is a series of problem plots. or if you prefer, an increasing spiral of problems that the hero — Kim — and his girlfriend/wife solve on the side of liberty.

It starts with the idea that future worlds have something called a punisher circuit which can block you from places, block you from commerce, hurt you, paralyze you or even kill you. Kim has been declared persona non grata due to his having found a way to get around the punisher circuit. They took away his means of avoiding it, and have put him under punishment. At the same time his girlfriend is locked in her apartment as a means of softening her up so she’ll fall into the clutches of one of the local oligarchs.

Kim reclaims his ancestor’s spaceship, the last spaceship that ever flew before the culture switched over to matter transmitters. This way he avoids being exiled to a space penal colony.

His first problem is how to go as far as he needs on almost no fuel, which he solves with much can-do and ingenuity.

By the end of the book he’s figured out how to circumvent the game of oligarchs and despots, and he and Donna retire to a new planet. I’ll just say that, without too many spoilers, okay?

Finding out it had been originally published as novellas explained the only complaint I had about the book: that sometimes, in the beginning of a chapter, it starts with an interesting scene, then backtracks way back to explain who these people are and the entire situation. Obviously those chapters are where the novellas started, and they had to explain everything in case a new reader didn’t know the previous novellas. I could do some belly aching about how this could have been smoothed over by editing, but seriously? It was eminently readable anyway.

Oh, as part of all this, I particularly liked this story because Kim is the technical expert, but Donna is sort of a generalist thinker, and suggests solutions to him by saying “if we could do this,” often with analogies. This is very much how Dan and I work, and their interactions reminded me of our interactions.

Leinster also has an unblinkingly realistic view of women, and says things that would probably get a man torched (literally) in the current day. Things like pointing out an aging, not very pretty woman who has no hope of getting a man is obligated by psychology to convince herself she hates males. Or that women tend to dramatize tragedy in their own lives. Or that no woman will willingly take her husband and settle in a world with a surplus of women.

He very much refused to believe that women were purer or kinder beings and doesn’t try to convince me of some mythical “sisterhood” of all females that I never encountered in real life. Perhaps I’m jaundiced, but his observations on women agreed with mine, and he doesn’t portray them as either children or angels but as fully competent human beings shaped by social and evolutionary pressures different from males.

I very much enjoyed The Last Spaceship and its hopeful view of the future and it only took me a day to read because I was sick, and reading it around trying to work (which of course I wasn’t actually up to doing.)

Once I’m done reading next week’s experiment, I’ll probably go poke around for more Murray Leinster science fiction and see if it’s all this decent.

Oh, yes, as a side observation: since I’ve been reading these books kindle has stopped trying to sell me romances — note they’re not quite sane. The only romances I ever read are Jane Austen fanfic. And yet they try to sell me Mafia romances — and is now trying to sell me science fiction.

I’m not sure if this is reflective of the current market, or of the people who pay to promote the books. I’ve noted for some time that practically the only space opera remaining is mil sf because Baen kept the lights on through the long night when no one else would publish space opera. This is an impoverishment of the field, and I sometimes feel like I’m the lone ranger trying to resurrect the other sub genres of space opera, and I’d appreciate if some of y’all got in the game, because it’s my favorite sub-genre. (I am, mind you, exaggerating for comic effect. Periodically I stumble on very decent non-mil-sf like Arthur Mayor’s Space Station Noir.)

But being pushed mil sf doesn’t annoy me. It’s not my favorite, unless the writers have the skill of Weber and/or Ringo, but it doesn’t actually annoy me.

However, 9 out of ten “science fiction” books pushed at me are “dystopian.” I didn’t like dystopian fiction back in the eighties when it was practically all you could find, and I like it no better now. As I said I grew up under the assumption that we would be getting hit with a nuke and there was nothing I could do about it. And I was determined to survive and make the future back from the past. I have yet to see a reason to doubt my decision.

File that under “old woman yells at cloud.” And do try The Last Spaceship. You won’t regret it.