I am a novelist with work published in science fiction, fantasy, mystery and historical "novelized biography". I've won the Prometheus award and the Dragon award. I also write under the names Elise Hyatt and Sarah D'Almeida. http://sarahahoyt.com/
Labor day is one of those holidays that never made any sense to me. “Let’s celebrate people who work” makes about as much sense as “Yay for everyone who draws breath!” or perhaps more accurately “let’s hear it for people who have two thumbs.”
Sure, there are people who don’t work, but just like people who don’t have two thumbs they are vanishingly rare. And to a great extent equally unfortunate. Because humans were made to strive, and lack of strife makes us impaired and handicapped, just like people lacking one or both thumbs are impaired and handicapped. Both sets can rise above the handicap and live normal lives, but it’s an extra block on their way.
But of course, I’m not stupid, and I know that “labor” in the sense of the early 20th century doesn’t mean merely work. It means “work that might fall under collective action of organized labor.” All over the rest of the world, labor day was May 1st and dear Lord, in the seventies, during the cold war, it was the gamboling day of commies and other enemies of mankind.
Mayday was ripe for bombings, “mostly peaceful” demonstrations, etc. And in countries suffering from mental illness, like Portugal, the one TV channel that ran during the day was entirely turned over to USSR parades of troops before stands draped in red crap and flying red flags.
In the US, and frankly in saner parts of the rest of the world, people will use labor day to remind us that all work has dignity and all work deserves to be respected.
Mostly people seem to emphasize manual, dirty-jobs type of work, because, well, people tend to assume that’s the work that’s less valued.
To an extent they’re not wrong, though we’re on a cusp of change on that. It used to be when I was a kid, in pre-history, er…. I mean the mid 20th century, and until about ten years ago, everyone assumed if you had the brains you went to college, and jobs that wouldn’t require a college degree — yes, those existed. Why, you used to be able to be a retail manager or serve people fries without a degree. Crazy, I know — were for “stupid people” and had no attention or honor.
Therefore Labor day should recognize these unsung heroes of work!
We’re now at a sort of cusp. Everybody knows the money, the glory, frankly the ability for anyone to make enough money will young, is in skilled manual labor.
This is no longer working exactly as advertised. These manual jobs, which were always physically hard, are becoming hard to get, or to get reputable ones. And the glut of people applying means the pay is down. And–
But none of that matters. What matters is that regardless of what “Labor” is being celebrated by whatever society, work matters to humans.
Work might be necessary to humans. Regardless of what work is, or what work is prized by the society you live in.
Work gives shape to our days. Work allows us to live on our own as adults. If we’re working we are probably doing something needed, something others will pay for. And all work has its own dignity. Whether what you’re doing is a dirty job or a clean one, a desk job in a cube farm or a creative writing job at your comfy chair (she says.)
I say this as someone who spends a large part of her time defeating the idea that her job is utterly useless, since it’s work for leisure and not for necessities. I mean no one ever died for lack of a good novel, or even a blog post.
But the truth is that people don’t live only for the bare necessities, and there were definitely days, or months (sometimes years) that books kept me this side of the sod. And sometimes a blog post made me see everything differently and better.
So all work, so long as someone is willing to pay for it at least, is important and has dignity.
And yeah, even if you’re just doing it because you need to eat and have a roof over your head, it still has dignity, because you’re looking out for yourself, and avoiding being a responsibility for others.
Not everyone can have a glamorous career, whatever a glamorous career means now. Most people just have jobs.
And “just jobs” is enough.
Of course the prize is jobs you love. Labors of love.
But if you can’t do what you love, it’s sometimes enough to love what you do. And sometimes you can learn to love it, by thinking of all the things you love that are enabled by the (however irksome) work.
So go love and labor, and labor for love.
Working is part of being human, and it’s necessary to help us stay human.
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
Hayden Jaeger, youngest son of the Chairman of the Council and Ambrose Vinogradov, the youngest son of the Founder, were thrown together by random chance as they were assigned to be dorm mate at the University. It was not an instant friendship.
300 years before the fall of the Troystvennyy Soyuz, the foundations of a secret society are about to be laid down . . .
Over 200 years ago, a Plague overran the world, and 9 out of 10 human beings died. In a small Japanese village on Shikoku, a group of American tourists found themselves stranded — and in grave danger of being murdered, merely for the sin of being 外人 (gaijin). Luckily for them, their Japanese hosts took pity on their plight, and took them in as their own. This is the story of their descendants — who still, more than anything, wish only someday to go home. That is . . . . . . if they still have a home to return to.
A decade ago, Fuercon and its allies won the war with the Callusians. In the years since, peace reigned, and the horrors of the war became a distant nightmare. However, that peace is an illusion. A new enemy lurks in the deepest shadows of space, patiently waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Not everyone, however, is blind to the danger. Brigadier General Ashlyn Shaw (ret.) remembers the war that came close to costing her life and sees too many similarities between the early days of the war and now. Others see it as well. Unfortunately, they are the minority and too many choose to ignore their warnings.
As they work to identify the source of the threat, a new generation attends the Basilone Military Academy on Fuercon. Among them is Jake Shaw, Ashlyn’s son. He and his fellow cadets are set to take part in training cruises during the summer between their first and second years. It is a rite of passage for them and a chance for the Academy instructors to see how they react to military life onboard a working military cruiser.
Second in an exciting new series of adventure novels by master storyteller Scott McCrea!
When archaeologist Steven Mauceri is stabbed by a mysterious figure wielding an ancient obsidian knife, California surfer and beach bum Jeff Galleon is dragooned into accompanying the wounded man and his family on an archaeological dig in the Philippines. The expedition survives murder and kidnapping attempts, but will they keep their lives once they enter the ghastly underground temple of the great god Quetzalcoatl?
Jewels of the Feathered Serpent is the second Jeff Galleon Adventure by Western Writers of America Spur Award finalist, author Scott McCrea.
For years, old Solomon Heiskell told anyone who would listen that his land had oil in it. After years of drilling, and finding nothing but dirt and rock, his son Ared gave up the dream and took up sheep farming, even as so much oil was being discovered a few miles away that Oil City sprang up overnight. But when his flock is slaughtered in the night, and his father vanishes, Ared uses his remaining capital to buy a drilling rig and hire out to any of the smaller landowners in the area that will have him. The big money doesn’t want competition from wildcatters, they want control. And his father’s reputation as an eccentric shadows the son.
But come what may, Ared Heiskell has signed on for — The Long Fight!
This iktaPOP Media edition contains a new introduction giving the novel historical and genre context.
Denied a promised posting in Paris, Ian Landquart, a reporter with the storied Chicago Bullet newspaper, is shunted off to a suburban bureau and assigned to redact racist language from the historical archives.
To salvage his career, he investigates an elephant-owning farmer who protested nonviolently on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021. But as Ian gins up an FBI probe, he learns that his progressive teenage daughter is dating the farmer’s conservative, gun-owning son—ensnaring the teens in the case.
With a Swiftian eye, The Insurrectionist lampoons the news media, our woke era, and government overreach in J6 prosecutions. Defying the official narrative, The Insurrectionist explores the abusive nature of politicized prosecutions.
Steampunk. It’s not just a genre, it is science fiction in its purest form. In this collection, you will read of the ways that technology could both help and harm mankind. Steam power took a special kind of bravery to use and master, and the people who live in a steam-powered world adjust to that need: engineers, inventors, tinkerers and experimentalists of every kind and every manner imaginable.
Within, you will meet clockmakers and war-widows, steamship captains and airship pilots; you will see wailing engines race and clanking automata strut. Hurry on! The engineer is feeding the coal, and says she’s raring to go.
See that red lever over there? Grip ‘er tight, and heave forward the throttle…
The Earth below is a house in disorder. The spacers increasingly just want to be left alone. They need less from Earth all the time so many don’t really care what they do down there on the Slum Ball, but what if improving technology made it easier for them to bring all their old factions and sects and rivalries among the stars? The three partners April, Jeff and Heather hope to beat them at that game and find a firm foothold out there before the Earthies arrive. The book is also laying out details leading up to the merge of the “April” series of books with the story of the “Family Law” series.
Tales of Wonder and Magic A woman, sent to a far off duchy, finds a mysterious wolf haunting the forest, and learns there are secrets no one even suspects. Playing with props for amateur theatricals has more consequences than any of those doing it dream. . . act with care. A king’s tyranny sends a woman searching desperately for a legend of lions, there being no other hope.
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.
No, no; the choice is between Trump and a closed oligarchy that does NOT have your interests in mind. In short, whatever you want to do, you _cannot_ vote Harris. Oh, yes, you can cast your vote beside her name, but she is not the front runner; she is a front, just as her putative boss, Joe Biden, was.
Go back to the year 2020, the year when, under cover of COVID, Joe Biden ran for the presidency from his basement. Why did he do that? Fear of COVID? That was the claim, of course, but the movers and shakers of the country, especially the democratic ones, did a very impressive job of demonstrating that COVID was just not that impressive. Sure, during the George Floyd riots, they might sic the police on people sitting on their front porches, shooting those same people with paintballs. But for themselves? Please; it was party city throughout the pandemic for anyone well connected enough. And for the rioters? They were pretty much hands off.
So much for COVID.
Flash forward to the Trump-Biden debate. There it became fairly obvious that the sitting president was…mostly not there anymore. I write this not with contempt but with a degree of sympathy; that fate awaits most of us, with time. More importantly, is there any reason to believe he was fully there when his handlers kept him locked in the basement during the 2020 campaign? There really isn’t. Moreover, the people who would swear that he was are the very same people who were telling us that he was sharp as a tack right up until the debate and for some time after; their word is worthless.
And then we have the pattern of conduct, the misguidance and mismanagement from the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle through the collapse of our southern border. It is not just hard, it is impossible, to identify a single thing that has gone well for the United States in between. Especially has the economy been a disaster, and not one that the smoke and mirrors of the Democratic Party and their lapdogs of the press has been very successful in hiding. That pattern is consistent and consistently horrifying. That pattern says very strongly that the Joe Biden of the debate was the same man who stayed in his basement in 2020.
He’s been this way all along.
Then, too, we have the palace coup that drove Biden from the 2024 race. Obviously, he did not decide that for himself, either.
Even so, even if Biden was incapable of doing much of anything on his own, or was not allowed to, decisions still were being made, to include decisions to do nothing, to include the decision to force him from the campaign.
Who was making those decisions? We don’t really know. Obama is a likely member of the junta – and, yes, clearly, it is a junta – as are the Clintons, both the rapist and Felonia von Pantsuit. I would suggest that the thirty-five or so members of the House and the five senators who publicly called on Biden to step aside are not members of the junta, but that those who likely gave them their marching orders, Schumer and Pelosi – who is never out of office even when out of office, are. Hakim Jeffries may well be. Garland probably is a member. Kagan may represent the left wing of the Supreme Court. Perhaps there are a few others.
Speaking of Kagan and the legal system, do but note that the supporters of the junta are the same people who will talk about the rule of law even as they prostitute the law to wage lawfare against anyone – Trump and the J6 protesters, principally – who tries to supersede them and return the country to an actual republic.
It is, by the way, unclear and I think rather unlikely that Kamala Harris is a member of that junta, any more than Joe Biden was. This, quite despite her holding views that are not easily distinguished from, say, Marx or Engles….or Lenin…or Mao…or perhaps – we cannot say for sure and when we are sure it will also be too late – Pol Pot or Stalin.
Soros? No, I don’t think so. He’s pretty distasteful from all perspectives. Now does the junta consult with him? Regularly, I am sure. But the names don’t matter and will probably never be known for certain. The only name we’ll be allowed to see is that of Kamala Harris, the frontwoman for the junta that has been telling Joe Biden what to do for more than four years. And which will be telling Kamala Harris what to do for another four to eight, if they’re allowed to.
Just think of it, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a bit over three terms; Obama and the junta may have as many as five. Hell, they may have an infinite number, if they succeed in destroying the Republic.
“Bu’, bu’, bu’, muh democracy!”
I have some bad news for you, the people moaning about the loss of democracy are the same people who decided to simply install as their nominee a woman who is thoroughly disliked, even within their party, whose previous run for the nomination was a disaster, who has had, in other words, not a single vote cast for her this year, and a paltry few in 2020.
In short, let me suggest to you a more modern, more accurate definition of democracy in 21st century America:
Democracy, n. The unlimited and uninterrupted rule of the junta that looks after the interests of the vile and already filthy rich kleptocrats, corrupt bureaucrats, quasi-literate journalists, drooling pedophiles, academic lunatics, soulless and stupid entertainers, and other assorted human garbage on the inside of the Democratic Party.
If that’s the definition of “democracy,” and it now is, and that is what you want, wouldn’t you be happier in, say, China or perhaps North Korea?
But to finish with the same point we started with, which should be much clearer now, it is impossible to actually vote for Harris. The most you can do is vote for a junta, and, indeed, a junta that bears close resemblance to the Politburo that ran the Soviet Union or the one that is now running China, an oligarchy the members of which loathe actual democracy and don’t really hide that they do.
Every time a visit to Portugal looms, I find myself struggling internally. And I have to ask myself what is wrong with me.
Don’t get me wrong. Part of it is traveling. I despise travel and the further away I have to go the harder it is to psyche myself for it.
Yes, even cons. Years ago — I think now my grumpy nature is better understood — when I was writing six books (tradpub which is always more work/time consuming than indie books) a year, and driving the kids around, etc, friends used to tell me “Oh, don’t worry, con xyz is coming up. You get to relax and have fun.”
Of course, for me cons are work and back then they were fairly terrifying work, since I was meeting editors, and a misspoken word could make or break my career. Now I go to cons to meet fans, and by and large I love my fans and fans and my professional friends are quirky and kind and can quite pleasantly ignore my more awkward quirks.
So now my relationship with cons is love/hate. I actually enjoy hanging out with friends and spending time with my fans. But I still hate traveling, I hate sleeping in hotels, I hate not having my cats and my ROUTINE. I like waking up and having my food, and my coffee and petting my cats and talking to my husband, and sitting in my chair to work. I like evening walks with my husband (when I can convince him.) I like– Well… I like my life and the older I become the more I autistically resent disruptions to it.
But you know, there are things we could be doing… Suppose my husband had arranged for a stay at a seaside B & B for a week or two. I’d still be fried over “we have to leave the cats!” (Particularly with how Havey is right now. I mean, we might only have two weeks.) But I’d kind of be looking forward to it. Relaxing for two weeks, no cleaning, no home maintenance, no cooking. Just writing, and walks on the beach.
Okay, but going to the beach in the States we could drive. It would not involve long plane rides, 24 hours with connections.
Okay, but here’s the thing: Imagine I was going to Great Britain, or Italy or Greece, in the 1990s. (The specification is important, since right now much of the world appears to be on fire, which in turn makes me hesitant to going.) I’d be excited. Looking forward to it.
So, do I seriously dislike Portugal? Is that the problem?
… No. I mean, would I go to Portugal if I didn’t have family there, and a complicated relationship relating to growing up there?
No. Probably not. Mostly because my cultural touchstones, the places where I’ve set stories, are not there. So, I’d try to see the places where I dream.
BUT supposing I had no history with Portugal and were visiting, I’d also, again, probably be excited. Because, you know, it’s an interesting country, with an interesting history, nice beaches, a wealth of historical architecture. We’d go, poke around museums and such, and have a grand old time.
So… Is it my family?
Well, no. They’re the ones enticing me there at all, in this election year when I’m more nervous than a cat at a canine show and really hate to leave the country.
And they’re not so all-encompassing that Dan and I won’t “escape” for two or three days, or five or six one day at a time, and go walk around castles and museums, Roman ruins and old churches. (And yes, I’ll try to post pictures.) We’ll be home in the evening for dinner and to see relatives, and that works.
It’s more… the country. It’s….
Things will have changed. Yes, the relatives too, but also the places that harbored memory. Places I used to go cannot be found. Little stores I loved; patches of wood I walked through; the little art materials store that required one to take the 19th century elevator that creaked and swayed, all of it is gone, as though it had never been. The places where mom and I used to have ice cream. The coffee shops where my friends and I unhooked the world and turned it around the other way are all vanished.
The places I grew up, grandma’s house where I go when I dream, are all either so changed that they’re unrecognizable, or gone, plowed under, paved over.
It’s in a way like visiting the graveyard and looking at pictures on the graves, and remembering the people you knew, only with places. (Though at my age there’s plenty of tombs of friends and relatives that I’ll inevitably visit on the trip.)
But more so, because I found the last time that the places I loved have forgotten me. Meaning that my mother’s friends, people I knew, no longer remember I exist. In a way this makes perfect sense. After all, I was never central in their lives, and I’ve been gone almost half a century. Memory rewrites and heals over.
And you know, here’s the thing, even if I could go back there 40 years ago, I wouldn’t be the same going back, so it would all still feel strange and out of place. Because I have changed. I found recently how much I have changed, and how little I can tolerate the small concessions that used to be second nature to me when I lived there. The culture rubs me wrong, not because it’s changed (Oh, it probably has, but not markedly) but because I’ve changed so profoundly. Become a foreigner. And of course, everyone who knew me and remembers me still expects me to belong, to KNOW to fit in effortlessly. (Spoiler: I never fit in effortlessly, I merely used to be able to pretend.)
So even if I could go to the past, I’d fit oddly. The person who lived there and the things she loved, even if she never quite fit in, is quite gone, as if she’d never been.
Except for memories. Strange memories. Early morning, in deep fog, coming out of the train in downtown Porto. The old buildings vanishing into smoky fantasy. The trolley cars. Perhaps a hint of a smell of roasting chestnuts. The bookstores, where I could lose myself for hours. The coffee shops where I could sit and have a coffee and a pastry, and read…
Sitting on my parents’ terrace, late a summer night, listening to music and looking up at the dark sky with all the stars. (The fields around there are now skyscrapers, the stars lost in the light.)
There are memories and things I loved. But they’re not there anymore, just like I’m not there anymore.
And all that stays behind is memories. Snapshots in the mist. Sitting down to tea with grandma. Walking under the drizzle through downtown streets, the thought of a book waiting me up the road guiding my steps. Summer evenings with the late-setting sun drowning in red in the west, and a warm breeze blowing.
The people and places I loved and which are gone. Just as I am in a way gone.
The me that I barely remember passes through, a ghost among the ghosts.
We live not in places, but in slices of places and time. Before and after us, others possess places we love and live in them their way. Our time remains back in the past. New times take its place. People forget us, and we forget them. Absence like death dress people with their best smiles, perhaps, but it also changes them in our minds to what they never were.
Maid most dear, I am not here. I have no place, no part. No home anymore, in sea or shore. Except in your heart.
I don’t remember chasing no rabbit, or falling down a rabbit hole, and my name for certain sure isn’t Alice. (I changed that!)
So how in the name of that is holy and unholy did I find myself in a world in which the United Arab Emirates — the United Arab Emirates, land of medieval oligarchs in robes — are coming down on the side of free speech against a Western Country: Liberté, égalité, FAFO-ité.
And here? Here? I find myself on the same side as RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard? Seriously?
Of course the truth is that the Junta in power has gone so far down their own communist rabbit hole that they can only win a non-crooked election in North Korea.
Seriously, people. I don’t know when the tea with the Mad Hatter comes into this, but I’m very afraid getting out of this one while possible and to an extent already baked in the cake, it won’t be as easy as waking up and realizing they’re all a bunch of playing cards.
(Though they are, and in the hands of the stupidest cabal ever, to boot.)
First, points of order relating to the recent fundraiser: We have now cashed all checks received. If we didn’t cash yours, we didn’t receive it.
This relates to being asked by someone what happened to a check last year which was never cashed. If not cashed, it wasn’t received.
We know some checks disappear into the ether because a check from a supporter who has since become a fan disappeared in the first fundraiser. Since it was substantial, she contacted me, and we’ve since become friends. But yeah, she voided that one as we have no idea what happened to them.
Wait, some of you send stuff late. So if in the last two weeks, we probably didn’t get it yet, but the other ones we collected and took to the bank this weekend. (For reasons, it involves a trip of around 3 to 4 hours. And while I KNOW we can do it on the phone, neither of us like doing it on the phone, so– We try to do a banking trip once every couple of months, unless it’s absolutely necessary to do it more often.)
I’m also probably going to run another fundraiser in November, as a number of you asked I do that. If y’all think this is crazy tell me in comments. Some of you maintain it’s easier to have at least two widely divergent in time fundraisers, because people donate more in two small chunks. (It’s easier on the budget.)
Still relating to fundraising: one of you sent me a SASE and asked for answers on how to get published. I will answer that soonish. It’s … complicated and depends on what you want out of publishing. If it’s money the answer is “Go indie,” but unfortunately guiding someone through that is not easy, simple, nor can it be done via snail mail.
WHILE ON THAT: Someone last year sent me a small pack of coffee and asked me not to try it till I’d emailed the email enclosed for the backstory. I emailed. Twice. No answer. Now keep in mind my hotmail is flakier than heck. So, if you’ve been answering, I haven’t got it. (On that and as a permanent thing: if the email that’s out in the ether does not work, try the book promo email. If neither of those get you to me, my assistant’s email — which I think she’s posted at times, for various submisisons — will get you to me. If nothing else she has my phone number and can voice-nag me.)
And still on fundraiser but sideways: If you’re a subscriber to my substacks or patreon, I honestly am not ignoring you and THERE WILL BE POSTS this week. To explain, and relating to the state of the writer, we have been pursuing some symptoms that make no sense, and right now all tests have come back very clear. The symptoms, which include waking in the middle of the night in a panic, and anxiety and depression not related to ANYTHING psychological might have a physical cause (it’s the sort of thing that recedes into nothing, the more you approach, but sometimes there is a very odd physical cause, and sometimes a life-threatening one, hence all the tests. It is apparently often a sign of hidden cancer, and since all forms of cancer gallop through dad’s family line, we’d like to eliminate that. Though sleep problems are first on the line.)
In the end, it might not be physical, but the last four years country-wise (or if you prefer, career wise, as far as I’m concerned, the last 9) and PTSD and such. I’m taking steps to deal with THAT anyway. But you know… medical tests eat your life. So it’s sent my ability to get stuff done in a reasonable time into a vortex of crazy.
At the same time we’re dealing with dual bureaucracies relating to getting younger son to have a wedding that very aged, not in great shape grandparents can attend (My parents. His other grandparents are gone). I’m entirely unsuited to dealing with ANY bureaucracy, much less two. My reflexive answer is to hoist middle fingers and scream “You’re not the boss of me.” Curiously that doesn’t work well. But we have a pathway to get it done, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll visit and son will get to introduce his bride that he’s (justifiably) so proud of. And the world will go on. HOWEVER it’s still taking up a lot of cycles and “Today we have to file this.” Which is tiring for everyone, particularly me, as I’m the one who can deal with ONE side of it.
By early October it either happens or doesn’t, and things will get more regular. Before then I HOPE barring you know sewage flooded basements (We were right, it was city problem, but apparently they’re sliding it under act of G-d. Ask why considering second fundraiser!) or MAJOR illness (minor is just life) to have a couple books out.
We’re also investigating non-Amazon print on demand for blog collection (this one on patriotism and acculturation) to be out before Christmas.
Other balls that have been in the air for a while, but then life got crazier: My doing regular (not sure what that means, could be every month, or every week or–) readings and interacting with fans over video/sound. A script for what will be a series of comics, largely covering the novel A Few Good Men. Finishing the next two Dyce mysteries. (The middle of the night waking up is messing me up.) Launching a series of “radio plays” for the heck of it.
These things will come as soon as I can, but it will take time.
I know I still owe a USAian stories antho, and my problem has been that having a world kidnap my brain means the new short story became impossible. But I HOPE I can finish the all consuming book this week. It’s moving again, even with lousy sleep. So probably will get that out in October (fingers crossed.)
And yes, I owe tuckerizations, but that depends on writing books set in the real world, which, yes, are coming. Again, the last two years got very weird in unexpected ways. Things are settling, in a new pattern, but that’s life.
So, the state of the writer: Guardedly optimistic. Working again. Still very tired, but trying to change things and improve habits to fight that.
For those who don’t wish to follow through, he claims there were no real fat people in the fifties/sixties, when mothers cooked for their families, etc. It’s one of the those things of “he’s right and wrong” because he’s much younger than I and I can assure him the having home cooked meals was not universal, or even close to it, food was already processed by the time people bought it to use as ingredients, and there were indeed fat people (though very rarely as abnormally fat as now, but you do see those throughout history too. And I can go into that if anyone wishes me to write on fat, and why our society is exceptionally “fat”. It’s a number of circumstances, including that we’re as a rule older (the very fat people of the past were usually very wealthy, meaning they could live longer with serious physical issues. Like Henry VIII with a debilitating, never-healed leg wound) and that … well, the pictures that Devon uses to illustrate the “there were no fat people” are part of the problem. Because those pictures of the sixties and seventies show people who were by and large on extreme diets due to the worship of “thin.” We do know there are serious metabolic consequences to whip-saw dieting — trust me, I’m a case study — and to early-life anorexia, as well as to extreme dieting while pregnant, which screws up the baby.)
The post is still worth reading, and I’m very glad it can be said. It’s just his being younger than I, I think, and also falling into the writer trap of “there was a master plan.” This is usually true in novels, never true in reality.
Sure, there was a short of prospiracy of cult devotees of the communist manifesto in places of power in entertainment and mass communication which led to the poison of “Marxist feminism” inserting itself into the dynamic and making everything objectively worse.
Note henceforth I can refer to it as simply “feminism” because “feminism” in modern society is Marxist. But there was, before that nonsense, a sort of sensible feminism. It curbed the greatest excesses of societal oppression of women (which happened because women are the most precious resource of any society. Do I need to unpack? You don’t let the people who can literally give your tribe a future wander off on their own and be captured by the enemy, for ex. This leads to curtailing the movements of women, historically) and advocated for stuff like a widow’s ability to manage her own household and money, without needing to return to her parents’ home or be subordinate to her inlaws. My grandmother was a feminist in that sense and at points it was opposite what is considered feminist nowadays. How opposite? Well, you see Victorian feminism was for women and children. So, it actually encouraged a woman to have children, treat her children well, stay home with the children and have no other employment, if the husband could at all manage to support her.
This was most often not possible, btw. The mid 20th century ideal of the housewife who stayed home and did nothing but watch her kids, cook for the family, decorate and maybe garden is the ideal of a very wealthy society. As such it was probably transitory and illusory, both. It was also, and Devon is absolutely right on this, aspirational and amazing. Because if you can afford to do it — and are temperamentally suited to it — what is better than to spend your life making the life of your family and community better?
It is particularly suited — center mass — to most female personalities. Women tend to be more social than males and like to perform acts of service for the community. It’s not that we’re saintly, it’s just what evolution selected for in females probably from the time we climbed down from the trees, if not before.
While women’s work tends to be indoors and non-dangerous, most women throughout history worked. And I’m going to lay down a marker here that I’m not even sure most women watched over their own children, in the sense we tend to think of it, the sense of the mid century housewife doing everything for her own kids. (And here, as with my thinking those very thin people of the sixties and seventies — I have my own pictures and honestly it looks odd, because people a generation before and after were if not “fat” more “normal”. I think that thinness and all the dieting are reflection of “listening to experts” who indulged their own fancy — being the seed of weight problems later, that housewife having nothing to do but mind her kids seeded the boomers neuroticism.)
While people tended to raise their own kids, and certainly (as I’ve said many times) the societies (upper class Victorian, Roman) that outsourced the raising of kids to hirelings did NOT fare well long term, child raising was more… flexible in the past.
I still caught the edge of this, to an extent. I mean, my mother, like my grandmothers, worked from home in her own business, and minded me in the sense that mom — and grandma — were there and provided meals at set times. But to be honest, from the time I was four or five, I played with other kids in the neighborhood for entire days. They played at my house too, sure, but that meant mom watched us all maybe one day out of six (Sunday was for extended family.)
More importantly, going back to former times, the children were expected to help with household work at about four, and often were apprenticed/had jobs/were in serious school (how serious? Well, people often entered university in their pre-teens. And don’t tell me they didn’t learn as much. They didn’t learn the same, but the amount was maybe more than we do as preparation) all day, etc.
It is a mistake to look at the middle years of the 20th century as “the way things ought to be.” To an extent we were already seriously off course.
To the point of fat and there not being a fat gene, etc. True. But at the same time there are things that break the system and predispose people to accumulate fat.
I’m not going to defend pre-packaged food, which is a thing regulated by the government and therefore by “experts.” Like, the ones who decided in the eighties that fat was bad for you but sugar just “got used up” which is a metabolic misunderstanding of epic proportions. For me and my family I always preferred to cook from scratch, because it’s healthier and often cheaper. But let’s face it, the diet of our ancestors wasn’t particularly wonderful, between lack of refrigeration and often being limited to what grew locally. Sure, they got limited amounts of protein, which might be good in a way, but which we’ve also find stunts growth and perhaps brain development.
Go ahead and cook from scratch and local if you can, but the fat epidemic is probably more related to see saw dieting in an attempt to reach the standards of thinness the experts said we should have, and the fact our health care has gotten good enough people survive with serious illnesses. My metabolism has never been the same, for ex, since I was put on strict bed rest for six months with first son. It is likely at a less wealthy time I, myself, and my son would both have died of eclampsia.
However, there is one contributing factor that absolutely can be blamed on feminism and that Devon hit on, though glancingly: the fact that all of us work, and work ridiculous hours.
Someone else mentioned that Americans define themselves by their job, as if that justified our existence. They’re not wrong. I figured that out in the aftermath of 2018 and being let go by the two main purchasers of my work. I realized I was suffering from middle aged unemployed man syndrome, as I’d defined myself by my jobs, even though they were in many ways crappy and stress filled.
And it’s interesting that Devon pointed out corporations jumped all in on “Women should have jobs” because it expanded the workforce and therefore lowered wages for everyone, because my friend Bill Reader had tentatively told me the same a few weeks ago. As in “Was it all a ploy like importing a lot of third worlders? A way to depress wages?”
I don’t think it was a “ploy” as I don’t think it was calculated. I think it was partly, sure, the communist manifesto at the back of a lot of influential brains, but also the fact life had got so good. Women not only could stay home, but were under-utilized. Look at recipes from the fifties and these people weren’t really cooking from scratch, but buying a series of canned things and combining them, with the result that a meal that would normally take half the day to prepare (Still does to me, if I’m doing something big from scratch, which is why nowadays it’s so hard, because we don’t eat that much, and it seems a waste of time.) And cleaning the house had gotten exponentially easier with machines (Seriously. I washed clothes by hand. You don’t have any idea how much time it took.) Women found themselves seriously under-employed, and therefore started casting their minds to what else they could do.
Now, if that prosperity had hit fifty years later, when there was an internet, there would have been a flourishing of work-at-home jobs, and I still think that’s where we’ll end up. But in the sixties, seventies and eighties, what it caused instead was bored women to start ENVYING their husband who got to go out and have jobs. (The fact most men’s jobs were no longer difficult and arduous helped with this. Women are still not hankering to be construction workers, truck drivers or trash pickup workers.)
Did corporations step on the accelerator and aid and abet this ethos? Yes. But corporations are served by university graduates, and the universities had already come up with the narrative of the oppressed woman freed by work.
And this in turn depressed wages, which in turn made it absolutely necessary for everyone, male and female to be “married to the job.” Because there’s always someone who is willing to work harder/make more sacrifices than you.
Recently we found ourselves explaining to both sons that yeah, though in very different jobs, we too worked 18 hour days in our late twenties and up through our late thirties. It’s what you have to do to establish yourself. And to be honest, because of increased longevity “establishing yourself.” and gaining credibility in your field, no matter what it is, takes longer and longer and longer. I mean, Dan is still working way more hours than he should be, and he might still (I haven’t checked) be considered “the kid” in his office. (Even if he works from home.) I know I suddenly crossed from “Raw beginner” to “Old woman of science fiction” somewhere in my mid fifties, and I’m still working raw beginner hours.
As I tried to tell my parents at one time — with marked lack of success — that Americans aren’t overweight because we’re lazy but because we work too much. It’s just most of our jobs are so all-absorbing.
So, in the essentials — aside from quibbles on the “fat” thing — I’m in accord with Devon that feminism has caused a break in American life, and by extension destroyed the family in our health.
It’s more that feminism was not so much an intended thing as a trend that picked up after World War Two.
Part of the problem is that all reproduction is a war between men and women — or in the animal kingdom males and females — in that each sex tries to have the most babies with the least expenditure of energy and effort, so at the expense of the other.
If you study evolution, this is how some species ended up with things like…. well, eating your mate right after copulation, or completely atrophying and becoming a pimple on your spouse’s side, but a pimple that can still impregnate her.
That kind of war is all very well, but the point of it is that it leads to more children.
This broken situation where each man and woman is an independent and competing economic unit is not leading to more children, or even a healthy and connected life.
Instead, it’s led to a life of anomie where humans have value only as economic production units, and can be discarded when no longer (or not yet) functional. Where it’s a shame to not be “employed” and “producing.”
This type of life is obviously completely compatible with communism/Marxism, in which the individual only matters so long as he produces, and where he’s a widget who is the same as everyone else.
And like all forms of Marxism, it leads to death and unhappiness. (Not necessarily in that order.)
The bitterly funny part of it (more bitter than funny) is that the entire left blames this on “capitalism” and doesn’t realize their version of feminism does nothing but feed all humanity into the maw of faceless corporations.
It would be funny if we weren’t living it and at risk of dying laughing.
(Pardon the lateness. This week will be weird as it’s a series of medical tests and stuff. And the stuff is weirder than the tests. – SAH)
If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo,please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months(unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH
BSR sets off on a mission to keep the peace in their corner of the galaxy. Their first impressions of the situation turn out to be badly in error, and the their shepherd uses the opportunity to provide them with an education. Their best efforts miss the mark, until Bob turns to a new friend for help. Ride along with the fleet, while they figure it out.
Raj and Shirin thought they were safe. They thought their son was safe. They had fled their family home in Mondal’s Landing and to the protected enclave of McGuire Point, out of the reach of Colonial Security. But when Colonial Security attacks the Point and the cost of ending hostilities is returning the couple and their son to the Landing, what decision will Governor McGuire make? And will their newfound home stand by them or sell them out? From the review of Charis Colony: The Landing at ricochet.com: “Charis Colony: The Landing” offers a story that is fast-paced and cerebral. Raj Mondal is forced to confront long-held beliefs and challenge authority for the first time. Martin offers readers several competing views of society in this novel.
Mark Lardas, at ricochet.com and at marklardas.com
From libertyisland.com; “The novel takes up a number of themes that have been occupying my mind in the last couple of years. One is this: Suppose the answer to the Fermi Paradox is that there are no technological civilizations within 1,000 light years of Earth? Suppose the smartest life-form inhabiting the nearest Earth-like planet is about as smart as one of the great cats? Or a racoon. Well, that planet is Charis, and in the novel it’s been colonized by humans for a little over 277 local years. The next theme is the trouble resurgence of eugenics as a medical, ethical practice. The third major theme is how countries like China – and now the Netherlands and Canada- are institutionalizing a downright predatory corruption of medicine: Mandatory organ donation. The sort of thing Larry Niven was already warning about over fifty years ago in A Gift from Earth and the Gil the Arm stories. Finally, it’s all wrapped up in a struggle between a soft totalitarianism that gives citizens material comfort and security and a classically liberal free society where life is less certain and more risk-fraught. And it’s a love story between Raj and Shirin, the protagonists, and it also deals with the future of religion.”
In the end, you don’t need a hero in the field. You need a team.
A year after high-risk missions to stop terrorists, arms dealers, and criminals, CIA officer Olivia Markham no longer operates in the field. Instead, she runs a clinic for immigrants in a backwater Balkans capital. Olivia has also found a modicum of peace—and someone to love. Her career trajectory? A safe desk job at Langley.
Until the day terrorists attack the clinic, upending Olivia’s world and sending her back into active fieldwork.
Olivia, whose protective instincts often collide with her duty, now finds herself once again walking a tightrope between pursuing Agency operations and her own. When Captain Alžběta Czerná of Czech military intelligence calls for help to free a young trafficking victim, Olivia convinces Anastasia Fiore of Italian foreign intelligence to join their unsanctioned mission.
But Olivia has made more than one enemy during her short career—inside and outside of the Agency. Shocking allegations rocket her to the top of the CIA’s most wanted list just when a terrorist targets her. And more than her career is at stake. Much more. As Olivia sets out on what could be her final mission, Stasia and Beta initiate their own operational protocol for their friend.
Set a year before THE ELIOUD LEGACY series, THE GUARDIAN INITIATIVE tells the story of how Olivia Markham, Beta Czerná, and Stasia Fiore team up to aid the victims of their intelligence targets—regardless of the consequences.
FROM ANNA FERREIRA (PERSONALLY RECOMMENDED BY SAH WHO READ IT): The Root of All Evil
When murder comes to Stockton, it brings long-buried secrets in its wake…
Kate Bereton leads a busy but unexciting life as the clergyman’s only daughter in a small Dorsetshire village. She’s grateful for the break in routine heralded by the arrival of her stepmother’s latest guests, but when Kate discovers a dead body in the parsonage one morning, she finds herself in much more danger than she could have ever anticipated. Terrified and desperate, she turns to the local magistrate for help. Mr. Reddington is eager to aid his dear friend Miss Bereton, but can they discover the murderer before it’s too late, and the secrets of the past are forgotten forever? With a dash of romance and a generous helping of mystery, The Root of All Evil is a charming whodunit that will delight fans of Jane Austen and Agatha Christie alike.
To save the future, sometimes you have to reach to the past. Thomas Sutton was not your average fourteen year old, not even in an Ark City. Born in one of the three refuges of the last remnants of life on earth, deep underground, he knows his history. A century after an asteroid shattered and struck the earth, they have been trapped below by volcanic eruptions, toxic gasses, and radioactive dust. But what if he could…change things? What if he could reach the past, to prevent the asteroid’s impact?
In a land where ten thousand fairy tales come true, Alissandra knows she is in one when an encounter with a strange woman gives her magical gifts, and another gives her sisters a curse.
And she knows that despite the prospects of enchantments, cursed dances, marvelous birds, and work as a scullery maid, it is wise of her to set out, and seek her fortune.
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.
SETTING A TRAP TO CATCH THE MAKERS OF CHAINED WIZARDS.
A clue has sent Penrys back to Ellech, the country where she first appeared four short years ago with her mind wiped, her body stripped, and her neck chained. It’s time to enlist the help of the Collegium of Wizards which sheltered her then.
Things don’t work out that way, and she finds herself retracing a dead scholar’s crooked track and setting herself up as a target to confirm her growing suspicions. But what happens to bait when the prey shows its teeth?
In this conclusion to the series, tracking old crimes brings new dangers, and a chance for redemption.
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.
According To Hoyt 