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 DALE COZORT: Devouring Wind

“They’re coming for us, from the sky and emptiness.” Ten months ago, technology guru Sharon Mack and her autistic and strangely prescient daughter Bethany were trapped in the wild alternate version of Earth called Bear Country. They took refuge at Fort Eegan, an outpost built by a peculiar cult with mysterious ties to the US government. Now a new Exchange brings terrifying new consequences.

The new Exchange blocks Fort Eegan’s water supply, threatening deprivation now and catastrophic floods in the future. It also pits Fort Eegan against beings with superior technology, inhuman ruthlessness and a weapon capable of devouring everything in its path, including Fort Eegan.

In spite of the danger from the new Exchange, the humans of Bear Country are nearing a war with one another. Ruthless escaped convicts hold hundreds of women hostage. With supplies dwindling, they eye Fort Eegan’s already limited resources. Inside and outside the fort, conflicts fester among the isolated humans, including a deadly love triangle. Fort Eegan’s only hope is to unite before it is blown away by the devouring winds.

FROM SCOTT MCCREA: U.S. Marshal Ezra Flint: Hard As Flint: A Western Adventure (A U.S. Marshal Ezra Flint Western Book 1)

Introducing an action-packed new Western series by master storyteller Scott McCrea and introducing his new character, Marshal Ezra Flint—a rough, tough lawman who fights for what is right and never gives ground to a wrong-doer.

Marshal Ezra Flint keeps the mean streets of Misery safe, but things get personal when his ex-lover runs off with one of the most dangerous bandits in the territories. Flint goes on a quest to bring her back, but each step of the trail is dogged by paid killers. He traces her to a flyspeck town in Kansas, but can he bring her back before the killers find him?

Hard as Flint is the first in an exciting new series of westerns featuring Marshal Ezra Flint by Western Writers of America Spur Award finalist Scott McCrea.

“Hard as Flint is a noir western with an especially hardboiled marshal. It’s a story of the violence of the West and of the passions that make men do dirty deeds. I hope you’ll like it,” said author Scott McCrea.

BY MAX BRAND, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: The Gun Tamer (annotated): The Classic Pulp Western

When Don Felipe Christobal Hernandez Consalvo appeared at the local dance, every young lady noticed him. Most especially did Mary Mackay notice him. Lydia, her mother, could tell immediately that, no matter how charming and elegant, there was something off about the man. Her husband, the colonel, saw only Consalvo’s regal heritage, and invited him into their home. Now Lydia must play a complicated game, doing nothing to push her daughter away, enlisting outside help from the sheriff, and trying to solve the riddle of Don Consalvo, who claims to be the merest fop, yet is a crack shot capable of defeating the fastest draw in the land.

• This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving the novel genre and historical context.

FROM DAVID K. THOMASSON: The First Impression

A man framed . . . his life ruined . . . and then the twists begin.

Jack Bolt rose from a hillbilly childhood of poverty, neglect, and abuse. Thanks to his unusually keen mind and the faith of a teacher and a bookstore owner, his future looks bright. At age 25 he’s working maintenance in a college town, studying on a scholarship, and about to marry the girl of his dreams.

During a routine service call at a church he runs into 13-year-old Sarah Ellison. Moments after he leaves, Sarah is brutally murdered. Bolt is charged with the crime and convicted by a brilliant prosecutor who uses his own honesty against him.

He’s been framed with tainted evidence, but this is no whodunit. Bolt knows exactly who did it—Conrad Baylor, church deacon and deputy chief of police.

Held in jail during his trial, Bolt is haunted by the ‘howdunit’: How did Baylor manage to tamper with the evidence and frame him? And how can he discover the secret and clear his name if he goes to prison?

But then, in a strange turn of events, Bolt is offered a chance to prove his innocence and recover his once-promising future. That’s when a deadly game of cat-and-mouse begins . . .

FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY: Long in the Land: A Science Fiction Lost Colony Adventure (Martha’s Sons Book 2)

He’s a man on the run. But on this harsh alien world, freedom doesn’t mean he’s safe.

Peter Dawe can’t face his mother’s relentless grief. With her anguish deepening his guilt and the colony’s governor out for revenge, he’s desperate to escape a deadly situation ready to explode. So he jumps at the chance to journey north away from danger, chasing the rare sight of a long-lost aircraft.

Buoyed by the glimpse of a machine he’s never seen before, Peter discovers the pilot desperately needs aid for his newborn son. But with sinister agents searching for them both, the remote planet may not be big enough to preserve the young fugitive from his enemy’s vengeance.

Can Peter find them refuge before they all fall to their doom?

Long in the Land is the thrilling second book in the Martha’s Sons science fiction series. If you like captivating world-building, edge-of-your-seat tension, and memorable characters, then you’ll love Laura Montgomery’s high-stakes tale.Buy Long in the Land to make a stark choice today!

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Bite Sized (Liquid Diet Chronicles Book 1)

Meg Turner has been a vampire for twenty years. Her favorite food is rapists. Which is how she met Andi Donahue, her new best friend/ girl Friday.

And then the nightmares start. And the bodies start showing up–bled out and raped. Just like Meg was. They don’t have a whole lot of time to stop the killer before he strikes again, and only one way to stop the killer.

But how can Andi help Meg stop a killer she can’t even see?

FROM KAREN MYERS: To Carry the Horn – A Virginian in Elfland (The Hounds of Annwn Book 1)

AN ENTIRE KINGDOM BUILT AROUND A SUPERNATURAL NEED FOR JUSTICE, ENFORCED BY THE WILD HUNT AND THE HOUNDS OF HELL.

What would you do if you blundered into a strange world, where all around you was the familiar landscape of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, but the inhabitants were the long-lived fae, and you the only human?

George Talbot Traherne stumbles across the murdered huntsman of the Wild Hunt, and is drafted into finding out who did it. Oh, and assigned the task of taking the huntsman’s place with the Hounds of Hell, whether he wants the job or not.

The antlered god Cernunnos is the sponsor of this kingdom, and he requires its king to conduct the annual hunt for justice in pursuit of an evil criminal, or else lose his right to the kingship, and possibly end up hunted himself.

Success is far from guaranteed, and no human has held the post. George discovers his own blood links to the fae king, and he’s determined to try. But Cernunnos himself has a personal role to play, and George will have to sort out just why he’s the one who’s been chosen for the task.

And whether he has any chance of surviving the job.

Find out what it’s like to live in a world where you can help the Right to prevail, even if it might cost you everything.

FROM WILLIAM STROOCK: The Great Nuclear War of 1975

In a Different 1975…
Superpower relations breakdown and a nuclear war all but annihilates the Soviet Union and devastates the United States.
100 million Americans are dead.
After Washington is destroyed, a smalltown judge delivers the oath of office to Vice President Rockefeller.
Surviving American forces on land, sea and in the air await orders from the new president.
Americans across the nation climb out of the rubble looking for a homeland that no longer exists.
In surviving capitals across the globe, governments ponder the implications of a world without the superpowers.
In Britain, a rump cabinet meets in the Cotswolds to plan a way forward without the United States.
Commonwealth Prime Ministers in Canberra, Auckland and Ottawa look to the UK for leadership.
In Buenos Ares, a weak government plots the takeover of the Malvines.
As radiation sweeps down from Siberia, the Chinese government faces unprecedented famine.
In New Delhi, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wonders how she will feed India.
In Rhode Island, one man will start a trek halfway across North America to reunite with his family.

William Stroock is the author of 15 novels including the World War 1990 alternate history series.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Shadow over Leningrad

In Stalin’s Soviet Union, Tikhon Grigoriev lives a precarious life. He knows too much. He’s seen too much. A single misstep could destroy him, and if he stumbles, he will take his family down with him. With Leningrad besieged by Nazi armies, the danger has only increased.

He’s not a man who wants to come to the notice of those in high places. But when he solved a murder that seemed supernatural, impossible, he attracted the attention of Leningrad’s First Party Secretary.

So when a plot of land grows vegetables of unusual size and vigor, and anyone who eats them goes mad, who should be called upon to solve the mystery but Tikhon Grigoriev. However, these secrets could get him far worse than a bullet in the head. For during the White Nights the boundaries between worlds grow thin, and in some of those worlds humanity can have no place.

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: SATISFY

Twenty ears ago, my mother and nephew visited us for a month, from mid-June to mid-July. As you know this is the time of flags out everywhere, even in neighborhoods you’d not expect a lot of them. This amazed the Portuguese contingent, filling them with culture shock.

Portugal flies its flag like most European countries, at various governmental institutions, maybe some large companies. Unless, of course, there is a soccer championship going on, and then you see it everywhere, but as a team symbol, not as a country symbol.

In Europe, love of country is … complicated… as it is in most places where the obvious fraud — let’s call it what it is. They might have less visible fraud than here, but they have more controlled information, and their elites surely behave like they can’t be unseated — and lies from above have long — long — ago convinced the people they stand no chance of controlling their destiny.

There’s a love of the people that almost amounts to chauvinistic pride of “race” if you believe — and they do — that nationalities are “races” or “breeds.” So they are nationality-supremacists, believing their genetic breed (a largely imaginary construct) is superior to all others. But the country itself is viewed as a sort of imposition. And the flag pretending thereto is part of the nationality thing, which is so gauche, so embarrassing to be devoted to. The government is known as “Those bastards” or “Those idiots” by and large, by most people. (Okay, that’s not so different from us.) Unless comparing them to other governments, in which case theirs is the best of a bad lot.

If there is need of the military, draft is instituted. In fact most of the countries still have a nominal draft, though they draft very few people. But the possibility is there.

So– why did I title this “What comes after?”

It’s not what comes after America. My gut feeling is that what comes after America is more America, and harder and more seriously than before. I could be wrong. Making predictions is difficult, particularly about the future. But that’s the movement I’ve seen in the much maligned grass roots. I think there’s a revival of culture and nationality in our future, and what comes after will make people look at the century from the mid twentieth to the mid twenty first and scratch their heads and ask what they were thinking. (Though the revival will have to reach far further than that, but that’s something else.)

It’s the time in the middle, that’s a worry. The next 20 to 50 years, as clown world waxes and wanes, or if you prefer waxes on and waxes off.

Say Biden gets frauded in in November, and between thinking their compatriots are idiots, or knowing there was fraud, people lose hope for a while. Will our flag too become a symbol of shame? Our military recruitment has not yet reached European levels, but it’s headed there.

I don’t know.

I think the military recruitment is a reflection of the lack of trust in the clowns in charge, more than disillusionment with the country. I could be wrong, but that’s my feeling. After the withdrawal from Afghanistan the last thing I’d expect is for anyone to give themselves over to the stellar decisions of the FICUS and his Junta.

I think by and large Americans still are proud of being Americans. Will that change?

Having grown up in Europe — and mind you, I left almost forty years ago, so not only is my information dated, it is dimmed by time and the fact I was a kid for most of the time I lived there — my feeling is that what causes the disillusionment, the giving up, the “I’m done with this” is the feeling that the rest of the country continues voting for “those bastards over there” or at least supports them.

They forget, if they ever knew, that their information is highly controlled and that their news are mostly pravda. There is a belief in reporters that I haven’t (fortunately) seen here in decades. Their disillusionment with and mental divorce from their homeland is partly because they believe their countrymen have inexplicably all chosen this deranged path.

Now I’ve seen glimmers of it here at times. Idiots — many who purport to be on our side — who swallowed the 81 million votes for basement Joe and who beat their chests and ask like everything was fair and above board.

And most people, to be fair, don’t realize how extensive the fraud is. When it comes to frauding themselves in, the left aren’t leaving anything to chance. It’s belt plus suspenders used for destruction. It’s ax and chainsaw, I suppose. Everything from the easy false registrations of Motor Voter to software shenanigans, to the ever-green letting illegals vote, to the vote harvesting that makes grandma in the nursing home vote the way the pink haired nurse’s aid says, to vote-ahead or vote-by-mail that as well as massive opportunity for fraud also allows them to know exactly how much fraud is needed ahead of time.

How slick and sewn up an operation is is became obvious in 2020 where they didn’t even feel the need to campaign because they had it in the bag thanks to the fraud.

It is because of this that it’s amazing to see how panicked they are. But since they drink their own ink, it’s possible the peons have no idea how extensive the fraud is and believe they won fair and square.

However it’s also why I don’t hold much hope for the elections. Yes, I think we should vote. All of us. Because I think the more of us vote, the more the fraud will have to be open and in your face.

I personally am hoping for 400 million votes for the nearly dead pedophile-mummy.

Why? Why vote at all if it won’t carry the will of the people?

Other than my twisted sense of humor in seeing them trying to sell that the population is now 700 million, overnight?

Well…. Because it matters. It might not carry our will, but it will do several things.

It will serve them notice of how many people oppose them. They will lie about it, and have fake polls and heaven knows how many propaganda operations, but they will know. In the dark of night, in the privacy of their diseased brains, they will know and fear. To the extent they haven’t tried to start gulags and haven’t attempted to carry their commie agenda by force of arms it is because they know the size of the opposition, and what they’ll meet with anywhere outside the easily cowed cities.

It will also let those of us in opposition know how many of us there are. This too is important. The big cities are a great illustration of this.

I’m utterly convinced that most of the big cities have been frauded for the left since the beginning of the twentieth century. Machine politics is and has been a thing forever. Now BGE doesn’t think they’re that frauded. And maybe he’s right. Or maybe not. The idea that they’re solid dem is so implanted that people will falsify their preference in speech and normal life, because they think they’re surrounded by the left.

It’s hard to say once it gets to a certain level of fraud. Because if people think they’re surrounded by one kind of thing, they try to fit in. This is how you see sudden, overnight reversals, when people realize they’re not alone.

But in any case, things like Ante-fa and Buy Large Mansions and the nascent nazis of Hamass do what they want and inflict depredations on large cities and often minority neighborhoods because people in those cities and neighborhoods who are in opposition to the left think they’re alone. And therefore instead of standing defiantly and telling the rat bastards to quit their shit show and get out of town, they stay quiet and hunker down and try to go unnoticed.

You don’t want the country to become like that. Even if the control of our own polity gets frauded away from us, it is important for people to know they’re not alone, not surrounded by idiots who support the left and their outrageously damaging project.

Because I think that is ultimately the problem in Europe. Each one thinks they are the only one who sees the horror and the bad things. And so they hunker down, and they despise their polity. They don’t fly the flag. The don’t sing the anthem. They hide and seethe.

Let’s not be like that. Vote. Vote as hard as you can. And speak out. Denounce the fraud. All of it. And when and opportunity to make something like “Let’s go Brandon” viral do so. Don’t be intimidated by whispers of how uncouth it is or shouts that we’re bigger than that. Tokyo Rose — left Rose just sounds weird — comes in many forms, and are always followed by useful idiots who think they’re being delicate or kind or whatever the heck. Ignore them.

Tell the truth whenever you can. Or at least don’t lie. And given half a chance, make a noise to let others know that they’re not alone. I’ll note that if you are embedded and can’t decloak, you can use the “isn’t it a shame” to propagate something like “Let’s go Brandon.” “Isn’t it a shame that those uncouth people didn’t let the reporter — who was just trying to save them from their folly — cover up their nonsense with ‘Let’s go Brandon”? Imagine children hearing them shout F*ck Joe Biden! What a shame, how uncouth. And they are supposedly pro family.” (For more helpful techniques, I refer you to Comrade Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareschi.) This is likely to fly under the radar of the true believers, who maybe wish you wouldn’t mention it, but you’re just being a little enthusiastic after all! However, anyone who like you is embedded and in the dark and who hasn’t HEARD of FJB (you wouldn’t believe it, but yes, there are people who haven’t) will be cheered and know they’re not alone.

This blog will stay on as long as humanly possible, and yes, there are plans for different hosting/blogsite should it become needed. At some point there will a non-live secondary site built, hopefully this summer so the switch if needed is seamless. Not yet, because we’re still living through the after shocks of moving. But THIS light will stay on as long as I can remotely keep it on. I’ll try to be more timely, too. As soon as book that kidnapped my brain is finished.

You too, do what you need to do to let others know they’re not alone.

Sometimes, a light, seen in a great distance is all you need to not lose hope. And to keep the faith in our miraculous country.

Be not afraid.

You’re not alone.

When I was an exchange student, I borrowed a lot of books from the library. First, because I have a wicked reading addiction and I certainly couldn’t afford to buy books, and second because I was curious about the culture and particularly fascinated by the type of book I didn’t normally find in Portugal.

One of the things I binged on because fascinating was the self-help section.

Yes, even at seventeen I found a lot of it was absolute hokum. Other stuff was basically proto-Jordan Peterson: do this, do that, and some things about your life will move in the right direction. The things were fairly innocuous to obvious (doesn’t mean I hadn’t missed one of them by a mile. In this case “people will judge you by your appearance and put you in fairly broad categories.” It had never occurred to me that my habit of dressing like and engineer — is every relevant part covered. Cool — would lead people to think I wasn’t interested in boys, or that I was slovenly.)

However the subgenre that drove me nuts, because I couldn’t figure out what they meant by that was the whole sub-genre that existed at the seventies, which classified people into “winners” or “Losers” and claimed — in some strange spasm of misguided pseudo-freudianism — that whether you were a winner or a loser was set before you were vocal.

Look, yes I know. Your attitude towards life changes a lot of what you get out of life and how people view you. And I do know it’s possible to break a child’s perception before the child is verbal. But it was the almost astrological nature of the thing: if your destiny was set this way, you could never change it. Also, what was all-important was how others perceived you. Not whether you could actually do the thing you set out to do, not whether you were good at whatever the task was, but how much people perceived you as being a “winner.”

The feeling I got was that these self-help manuals were either mostly aimed at salesmen, or that the writers had a weird perception of life as “forever in high school” and worse, as the sort of high school you saw in movies. Now I think about it, a lot of the current advice on how to date, etc. seems to hinge on the same thing. Not how to be happy/create a happy life with another human, but how to be seen with all the cool babes/hot guys.

In the same way these manuals were how to trick the social signals into being thought “the cool one.” It might have worked or not. I won’t dispute that demeanor and how confident you are affect your success in every career. BUT none of it seemed to have anything to do with “be competent” or the actual work of doing …. well…. the work. I think the self-improvers assumed one already could do the work and they were just fixing the social stuff. Maybe that was true. Or maybe it would have been in a society that hadn’t already for two generations been hiring for “makes right” (left) “noises because those signal an excellent education.”

However the truth is at our point in time, fifty years later, we have a lot of people who signal very competent and who can’t tell their elbow from a flying elephant. And worse, in more recent years we have a vast number of people who are exquisitely trained to believe that “acting” is the same as being; that mumbling a certain amount of mumbo jumbo will change reality for reasons they don’t understand — and no one does, because they aren’t real — but which worked in school, and therefore must work in real life.

Part of this is how ridiculously borked our education system is. And no, if your kids didn’t go through school in the last 30 years (I hear it’s worse in the last 20) you have no idea how bad it is. (There appear to be some areas of “okayness” too, but since the bad comes from education schools, it’s extensively propagated. Okay is about the best you can hope for in most cases.) Like, everyone knows that “whole word” doesn’t work, but they might not realize that the buzzword by kids’ time had been changed to “whole language.” And it was…. the same thing. Any system where the teacher tells the kid to “just guess” it’s whole word. Because there’s no guessing in reading. Yes, sure, some words are pronounced differently, have different emphasis than you expect, but if you pronounce it, you either recognize it and change it, or you can correct the kid on how it’s pronounced, but kid is in general area. (As in, people KNOW what you’re saying, as all of us know, they just sometimes laugh at how mangled it because you never heard it aloud.) If the teachers tell you that phonics doesn’t work because “the kid can read everything, but he won’t know the meaning” the teacher needs to be told that’s what dictionaries are for. Learning to read shouldn’t give you an immediate meaning. For one a lot of meanings change with the other words around them. If you memorize “shape of word” and “meaning” together, not only are you going to make a lot of mistakes — a lot of words in English have the same general shape but are very different: wards and warts for instance — but also you’ll think of the word as a pictogram for the meaning.

How can I tell this is a rampant problem? Well, it was already a problem 20 years ago when I found myself reading/grading people’s essays or stories. I would come across sentences that made ward/wart mistakes that weren’t easily explainable by spell check. And it wasn’t a mistake per sentence, but a mistake every other word, so that you started at it and tried to divine the meaning by a process similar to reading the entrails of the sentence. Reading whole essays like that was…. uh. Mind boggling. Being expected to treat them as though they were in English was even more mind boggling. The fact that these were written by young people who presented as rational, even bright in person just made it very clear it was a literacy thing. They were not, in any functional sense literate. And at least 50%, sometimes 80% of the ones I interacted with wrote like this.

This is my private explanation for why we have a plagiarism crisis in colleges right now. These people who got graded/passed all the way through graduate school, but who aren’t in any way literate, are expected to produce work. … so they steal a sentence from here, another from there, (and sometimes the sentences contradict each other but how would they know) because the entire writing process is essentially magic to them and they can’t figure out how to do it.

The process is actually familiar to me both as a teacher and as a student of foreign languages. There is a level at which you generally get the gist of what you read, but you can’t get every nuance, and you’re not in any way shape or form competent for writing in it. If at that stage you’re compelled to write anything more than two/three words long, you’ll desperately regurgitate sentences you read that stuck in your mind, in what you hope is a coherent whole. Needless to say, mostly it’s not? The most I’ve managed is when I need a character to say a word or two in another language in a book, and even then I’ll run them by a speaker to make sure that it’s the right sense/connotation/tense.

Our schools have managed to make normal, bright students who have finished 12 years of schooling — and who don’t count as failures to learn — into the equivalent of ESL students with maybe a year or two of instruction.

Even with how much our tech enables voice to text and video communication, we still depend on writing in most professions. The result of each profession being hit by a wave of illiterates is unimaginably bad, and probably at the back of a lot of things from how strange corporate leadership is, to bridges that fall down.

Worse yet, because the teachers who get these people down the line are either themselves already illiterate or can’t figure out how to fix the problem, so that the students can “learn the thing” they concentrate instead on telling the students how to fix everything by thinking the right thoughts/saying the right words, mostly words that signal or integrate into a Marxist world view.

I honestly think that’s how we’ve arrived at “math is racist.”

But anyway, predictably, we have a crisis of competency everywhere. And we have already lost two, maybe three generations to this. And if you’re a member of those generations who can read, write and — rarer still — think it’s no fun for you either. You’re not even going to get ahead, because these people are not looking for competency. They might think they are, but no. They’re looking for things they “understand” as competent. Which… “Do an interpretive dance of bridge design” might be the kindest image for what they’re looking for.

And in the middle of all this, starting in the 90s or so we’ve been bombarded with mission statements for people, for companies, for small tiddlywink clubs. These “mission statements” are the equivalent of those “look like a winner” things of the 70s. As though putting on your mission statement “We strive for excellence” means that excellence is magically conferred. (Maybe the “write your own vows” thing is a subset of this general lack of competence. First, I never understood why anyone would want to. Second, what they write are not vows. Usually they’re weird prose poems that make no sense. Third, the ones that are vows are bizarre. “I promise to always love your smile.” Does this mean if her teeth get knocked out in a freak bicycle accident, the marriage is annulled?)

Anyway, this long rant — brought to you by “Why, yes, I do have a sinus headache” — is to say that things are bad, and the only way out is to really strive for excellence.

But wait, things are worse than that. Because the last three years have taken a massive bite out of the sanity of those of us who are “generally competent” at our thing. We’re enervated, depressed, and between the state of the state and fears for what the zanies will do in the future, not to mention living and working in clown world, a lot of us are phoning it in, barely functioning and doing the bare minimum.

I personally keep getting sick, which is probably stress and annoying, but not nearly as impairing as the fact I go through vast stretches of time when I can only read Jane Austen fanfic. This happened in the past, of course, but not to the point I did it for years at a time, unable to pull up. And I know it’s psychological/overstimulated/vaguely depressed because I’d also live on crackers and milk if I didn’t force myself to eat more rationally (at least some of the time.)

So I know I’m not “striving for excellence.” And mostly this post is for me, but I think it might help others too. Yes I do understand sometimes you can’t. Often I can’t, these days. But we really need to make an effort and strive to do the best we can at– well, everything. Because we know how to. And so many others don’t. And we need to bridge what’s going to be some very tough years when most people don’t have what it takes to keep civilization even pretending to continue.

Whatever it is you do, do it as well and as competently as you can. Yes, you’ll have bad days, but try — at least try — to work at things and do them well.

Do it for the children, do it for the future, do it for humanity. Do it for spite.

Go on.

Again and again these last few years, my mind turns to the part of Heinlein’s Puppet Masters where a large part of the country doesn’t realize that they’ve been invaded by aliens.

Their news are controlled. The entire apparatus of civil society, too, has been captured by the aliens (who — spoilers for a book 11 years older than I, really? — are a sort of parasite that attaches to the central nervous system and puppets the human) and therefore use all their power to enforce the idea that the aliens don’t exist and everything is normal.

When our hero, from an area that knows it’s occupied, or at least where the centers of power haven’t been captured (or totally captured) visits, it’s the little tells that let you know something is rotten. While everyone goes about their daily business, and everything is seemingly normal, it’s the little things: the pools are all closed for a reason or another, because the slugs (the name for the brain-puppeteers) can’t afford to have anyone see them, when people strip down. People are more dressed than normal. Some people wear humps under their clothes. Though as the novel demonstrates it’s often hard to figure out which of them are just a hunched back.

Yes, it’s an allegory for communism. Sure. And every time I hear that said with a sneer about “gimmick books” and “allegories” and sometimes the lip curled and the words “red scare” uttered, I want to put the idiot against the wall — no, not that way. Just grab him by the shoulders and throw him against the wall — and ask him exactly when did he (or she) decide that communists were sort of fuzzy sweet pets, who never meant no harm. Then beat them about the face and head with the Black Book of Communism. After they stop trying to be superior, I’d point out to the last … 16? 20 years, when the masks of those in public have been progressively yanked off (the most marked period being when they were all demanding we don masks, of course.) have proven that in fact the worst thing about McCarthy’s red hunt was that it was much too late. Similar to trying to expose the puppet masters when they control all the key positions.

More importantly, Heinlein was a good enough writer, that no matter with what intent he started writing, the novel reads true. As in “If this unlikely premise was true, it would go exactly this way.”

And because of that, it does significantly mimic a free country whose positions of power are taken by humans who had — alas, unlike in the Puppet Masters — willingly made themselves slave to an inhuman and evil philosophy. One that renders them less able to understand or function as human beings.

Again and again, my mind turns to it, as even a lot of the “right wing” (ridiculous term for the side to the right of Lenin, which spans such a gamut of opinions it might as well be an entire world.) say things like “contesting the election was wrong” or talk about the “insurrection” of January 6, and in general try to make out that the world is completely normal, and our normal processes are still working, and what the media reports and obsesses on has some relation to reality.

But the important thing to remember is that the masquerade has been on for a long time.

Things didn’t become glaringly in your face until 2020. But it was there, if you looked. Before entering a lot of places of power you needed to have a puppet master controlling your brain, or at least roll up a piece of cloth, put it between your shoulders and try to pass. And most places of power were hard controlled. If you knew where to look, you saw the humps, you saw the closed pools, and people wearing coats in the middle of a hot summer.

And the unified media was obviously mind-controlled and obviously all spinning the same story. Whatever the cause of the left at the moment, it was in every movie, every book, every news report, whether it be “abortion not being legal kills people” or “women must have careers” or — lately and er… abortively — a lot of propaganda for cute, cuddly illegal immigrants, who are being deported and leaving behind defenseless children. Children, I tell you!

Now it feels crazier because more people are seeing it. The happy go lucky media is still happily putting its mind-controlled morons out, to talk about the great things Biden has done, or how wonderful the economy is, or whatever the message of the day is, but most of us are watching the hump between their shoulders, and looking around at a social landscape ravaged because the aliens don’t understand humans or the economy. And the more they stomp and tell us that there are no aliens, the more obvious they are, standing there, in front of G-d and everyone with the brain-controllers between their shoulders.

I think part of the insanity and horrible sense of impending doom of the last few years is precisely that dual view, or the world the media and mass communication describes, and the increasing awareness of more and more of us of the grim and unavoidable truth beneath it.

The good news is that though we feel stupid, looking for the signs for closed pools, and the humps between shoulders, ultimately the truth wins, because reality is what doesn’t go away when you don’t believe it.

The other good news is that the masquerade is falling apart. And once you see the horrible things the puppet masters have done in the name of “our democracy” or really (just) their lust for power you can’t unsee them.

And so in the end we win. Perhaps slower than any of us wants, and yes, sure, with more casualties. But we win, the Republic wins. Government of the people for the people shall not perish from the Earth.

The masquerade is breaking. Yes, the dual view makes you crazy, but in the end it’s best for everyone.

Reality can be hard to accept and cause us to have to do things we’d rather not. But it exists, unlike the lies.

Be not afraid.

This is not a real post. I woke up late, and we had overnight guests, so there was breakfast talk, which we all needed… and well….

But yesterday night, just before going to bed and related to yesterday’s post, I was thinking “Isn’t it weird? We’re not just living in strange times, but hilariously funny ones.” Granted, you need to have a bit of a black sense of humor, and also it will probably be funnier in 100 years, but really.

Isn’t it funny that they tried to start a “misinformation” czar and got ratioed to hell and back and had to walk it back?

Isn’t it funny that they keep screaming the economy is great and not even crazy people believe them, and they can’t figure out why?

Isn’t it funny they’ve now tried to restart the panic about an unknown disease… five? times and it doesn’t take and they can’t figure out why not?

Isn’t it funny that both here and in France, the people spontaneously have come up with “Wife of political leader is really a man” to the point of driving the politician nuts? I mean what do Michelle Obama and Madame Macron even have in common? And why is this the annoying thing people latched on?

Isn’t it funny that all over the world, people who used to scream about the Will of the People and sometimes still do are raging and frothing at the mouth about “populism”? (The word doesn’t mean what they think it means.)

Isn’t it funny that most of the “populist” leaders have the most absurd hairstyles? Even Boris Johnson while he was worth spit couldn’t control his hair. Is that where the alien probe/G-d/the author injects sanity? It leaves the hair in a mess?

I’m sure there’s a lot more funny things, that I can’t think of right now, because I came up with like a dozen more last night but don’t remember them. Feel free to add.

Yes, we’re going through very strange times, and it’s still possible a number of us might die. But at least we’ll die laughing!

Because the left controls all the institutions and has seized all the mechanisms by which “government by the people, for the people” was supposed to take place, it’s trivially easy to get despondent about it and to become “black pilled.”

We all have moments. Even I. Which is why I have developed checks to apply to my thought process to keep it from spiraling.

The first check is: Yes, they’re very loud, but they’re not very effective. Recently a friend reminded me that all through these four years, (because let’s face it, they seized power by sneaky means in 2020) they haven’t managed to do the things we feared for the FIRST year of their control.

Trump is still alive, and the suits brought against him are more and more obviously absurd. Yes, there are some people unjustly arrested, and even one is bad, but let’s face it there haven’t been massive arrests.

Remember how we felt the day after the election, all of us arranging for electronic boltholes. I literally expected to wake up and be barred from online. And that is with me being fully aware I’m a very small fish in a very large pond. I expected, at the very least, to be kicked off FB and Twitter, and all platforms outside this blog. And perhaps have to have this blog independently hosted elsewhere. Years ago.

That didn’t happen. In fact, Twitter went the other way, because Elon Musk is he supervillain we didn’t deserve, but got anyway. (Supervillain by his modus operandi. His positions are… a bit all over the place. He’s not my libertarian ideal. But then neither am I. Or anyone.)

And they keep ranting about bringing us “under control” and making us eat the bugs, but to be fair, the more they push the more we run the other way. Even the car companies which fell into place with the EV BS are now running the other way because “the dogs don’t like it.”

No, there hasn’t been a massive revolution/uprising. But there have been millions of people saying “No. Also go fish.” On everything really. They keep trying new versions of feeding us bugs, or whatever, and it falls flatter and flatter everyday.

They have tried to follow the communist playbook, because it’s all they have, but it’s not… working, because America is not an Early 21st Century hierarchical nation. So making wealthy people partition their houses with 3 poor families doesn’t work. They’re trying to bring in the poor of the world to play that role, except the ones they bring in aren’t exactly early 20th century poor. They range from their own countries commie and entitled (the majority) to people who have never SEEN civilization and who are more or less kidnapped for the project.

As is, I have no more than a vague impression that almost as many people are running the other way, because of course they don’t publicize that, but it’s very much the sense I have. Yes, sure, we have a lot more indigents, and some cities like NYC and Denver are drowning in them. And the border, all of it, is a disaster zone, because, just the churn there would make it so. BUT… but….

Look, there are things that break through. I’ve now seen two law enforcement type of posts about families — entire families — that “disappeared” and when you look it turns out it was illegal families, and they were headed South of the Border and dropped out of phone contact with family here, and no one has heard of them. Did they wisely put themselves in the equivalent of witness protection, or did the cartels who originally trafficked them get them? Needless to say, I don’t know. But in the posts there is this sense of “they were trying to go back home like so many people who came in are.” Yeah, two families is not much but look… It’s families. I’d expected the disillusioned going back would be mostly single males, because it’s a hellish journey and they would have less to hold them here.

And then there’s the fact that despite all of the left’s push for illegal immigration, I haven’t seen the magazines on the checkout stands change, not even in my visits to Colorado. And during the immigration under Bush they already had.

And there’s the interviews you hear. “I don’t like the way they’re treating us. We were told we would be treated like kings/queens. We didn’t come here to work. We’re going back, because at least back home we have a network.”

Then there’s the fact that they’re bringing in people from farther afield, like Chinese and Africans and yes, keeping them in paramilitary camps with military discipline. And yes, part of the reason they are doing it is to use them against us, when we raise a fuss over the fraud this November. But why do you think this would go better for them than their other plans have? Yes, sure, they’ve gutted our military. But the biggest military force in this country is not the active military, but the retired military. No third world rag-tag army can be trained to oppose them, because American superiority is in the software in the head.

Anyway, if they could draw more from South America, they would. And if they could disperse people among the population throughout the country, they would. It’s just not working out their way.

Also, they keep trying to gin up the new BLM… but they can’t understand why their attempts at making Palestine the thing aren’t working. Which is both sad and hilarious, to be fair.

Their attempts at ginning up the new disease panic, too, are only hitting the same 10% or so of severely ill mental health patients who are still double-and-triple masking and burning Fauci candles.

Their impotent fury at us keeps circling around trying to get us to give up their guns, because they know if they send the stasi out to round us up for… anything — and note they might think this is possible, because they have no idea of the scale of the country — most won’t come home. But that also isn’t working.

Sure, they’re putting a lot of bad stuff into place — Net Neutrality. Open borders. — but none of it is working the way they want to. Mostly because ALL OF THEM suck at seeing second order consequences, and most of all at seeing that laws aren’t magical and don’t create instant outcomes.

Part of it is that their pet theory makes them really bad at humaning. When you believe all humans are widgets, you cope very badly with real humans.

Most of it though is that their time has passed.

In many ways, and due to the way tech influenced life, the late nineteenth and most of the 20th century were ideal for collectivism. The mass-everything from manufacturing to means of knowledge diffusion made it easy for collectivists and statists to seize power even in countries that were explicitly against them (such as ours.)

They could control the flow of information so that even their more or less glaring incompetence and inefficiency could be made to look as “government by the best people.”

I suspect that communism, on a country wide scale, couldn’t have been pushed into power in any other time, with any other tech. Even in France, the proto-communism of the revolution lasted less than a generation.

But this centralized everything time has passed. There are things which it is still better to mass produce and distribute centrally, but fewer and fewer every year. And mass communication while useful for storm warning and such is giving way to more efficient, and largely more accurate, distributed information (including entertainment.)

Which is why they’re acting like their world is melting, despite all their advantages.

And the thing is: it’s all over the world. All over the world they’re cheating, screaming and sticking elbows in the machinery of state trying to force things back to the 20th century.

It won’t work.

You are not alone. The revolution against centralization and the war on Marxism are world wide.

And the other side is losing.

It’s going to hurt like a mother, because they still have a lot of control. But it’s not going their way.

It’s much slower than we’d like, but history is. It’s “very slowly, then suddenly.”

Yeah, I’m old and I might not see the end of the fight. But we are not alone. And we’re fighting the good fight. And in the end, the good guys win.

You’re not alone. What you do, however small, matters.

Be not afraid and be of good cheer.

You got this.

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 DENTON SALLE: Adventures on a Dark Road: Book 6 of the Avatar Wizard

A runaway dwarven princess, witches, dragons, assassination attempts, and a rebellion?

Jeremy had been dreading this trip. His girlfriend’s mother, a bear shifter, hated him. However, it was quickly getting worse than he ever could imagine. And that cursed sword haunts him, telling him that together they can rule the world.

From the Hall of Eternal Music to Bjornhold to the Artic Wastes, Jeremy fights against the machinations of the Dark as it seeks to corrupt and destroy the innocent. If he falls, those he loves are doomed. If he wins, well, long shots happen…

Join Jeremy and his friends in his latest adventure in a world based on where the lines between Good and Evil are clearly drawn. Fans of Ric Riordan, Jim Butcher, or Garth Nix will love this latest story set in a Slavic world of wonders. Click now for your copy!

FROM KYRA HALLAND: Mages’ Home (Defenders of the Wildings Book 1)

Once, they were hated and hunted by mage hunters and Plain folk alike. Now, former bounty hunters turned renegade mages Silas and Lainie Vendine finally have the life they dreamed of – a home and ranch of their own where they can live in peace and raise their family, and the friendship and respect of their non-magical neighbors.

When a company from across the western sea comes to Prairie Wells, bringing marvelous new inventions, Silas and Lainie figure it only means more prosperous times ahead for the town and for them – until an old and vicious hatred of mages rears its head.

As troubles stirred by unseen enemies divide the town, many of Silas and Lainie’s neighbors turn on them. When danger strikes at the heart of their home and family, Silas and Lainie must fight to protect everything they love, everything they’ve worked for, before it’s all destroyed.

If you love fantasy filled with romance and adventure in a unique setting, come join Silas and Lainie Vendine in this new tale from the Wildings. Mages’ Home is the first book of Defenders of the Wildings, a follow-up series to the epic romantic fantasy-western series Daughter of the Wildings. It is a self-contained series and can be enjoyed even if you haven’t read Daughter of the Wildings.

Contains language, violence, and mild sensual content.

FROM P. L. KENNY: The Demon Ring of Lilitu: A Christopher Lyte Weird Mystery

D is for Darkh…and death…and demons. A mysterious medium enthralls high society. A vicious blackmailer leaves a trail of ruined lives behind. An ancient evil holds a beautiful heiress under its spell. Can Christopher Lyte end the terror of the demon’s ring?

FROM MACKEY CHANDLER: Family Law

People love easily. Look at most of your relatives or coworkers. How lovable are they? Really? Yet most have mates and children. The vast majority are still invited to family gatherings and their relatives will speak to them.

Many have pets to which they are devoted. Some even call them their fur-babies. Is your dog or cat or parakeet property or family? Not in law but in your heart? Can a pet really love you back? Or is it a different affection? Are you not kind to those who feed and shelter you? But what if your dog could talk back? Would your cat speak to you kindly?

How much more complicated might it be if we meet really intelligent species not human? How would we treat these ‘people’ in feathers or fur? Perhaps a more difficult question is: How would they treat us? Are we that lovable?

When society and the law decide these sort of questions must be answered it is usually because someone disapproves of your choices. Today it may be a cat named in a will or a contest for custody of a dog. People are usually happy living the way they want until conflict is forced upon them.

What if the furry fellow in question has his own law? And is quite articulate in explaining his choices. Can a Human adopt such an alien? Can such an intelligent alien adopt a human? Should they?

Of course if the furry alien in question is smart enough to fly spaceships, and happens to be similar in size and disposition to a mature Grizzly bear, wisdom calls for a certain delicacy in telling him no…

The “April” series of books works from an earlier time toward merging with the “Family Law” series.

FROM CELIA HAYES: Luna City Behind the 8 Ball

Welcome to Luna City, Karnes County, Texas … Population 2,456, give or take! Fugitive former celebrity chef Richard Astor-Hall is beset with travails in his attempt to build a new life in tiny Luna City – providing caviar cuisine on a canned tuna fish budget to patrons of the Luna Café and Coffee; an old girlfriend turns up as the bride at a lavish wedding, the family of his pet cat and cooking partner, Captain Kitten in the Kitchen, turn up, demanding the cat be returned to them … and his junior kitchen staff want his help in entering a chili-cooking contest! And then there is the matter of another long-lost artistic treasure, the Gonzaga Reliquary, which may still be hidden somewhere around the old Gonzalez family ranch house … folklore, home folks and gentle comedy abound in this eighth visit to the most perfect small town in Texas.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Love in the Time of Campaigning

As Frank Correra brings his family to a lunar settlement to get them away from a worsening political situation on Earth, he reminisces about how he and his wife met.

Frank had always dreamed of the skies. As a clone of an astronaut who subsequently became a US Senator, Frank thought he had a clear path ahead of him. But when it comes time to apply for the Air Force Academy, it is an election year. His ur-brother can’t promise a nomination until he’s won another term, and this year promises a hard race to run. When the other side puts up an ugly attack ad, can Frank find a way to discredit it before it destroys his ur-brother’s chance of re-election, and with it Frank’s slot at an Academy appointment?

A short story of the Grissom timeline.

FROM RACONTEUR PRESS, EDITED BY LAW DOG WITH STORIES BY MATTHEW BOWMAN, J.M. NEY-GRIMM AND MORE: What! You Again?: The Spurgle Chronicles

The final episode of the Spurgle Chronicles as told by ten authors. Stories of malicious incompetence and how Spurgle gets his comeuppance. You’ll be laughing at each account of how the most hated man in fiction gets his. Heroics, humor, and how on earth did he manage to do that?

“So we bid au revoir to Andrew J. Spurgle—maybe to visit him again in the future, but ever eager to see what the literary world at large does with him.

Use him (albeit carefully, and seek medical attention if things start burning)! Abuse him—he is resilient!

He is our gift to the literary world. Have fun with him!”

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Bowl of Red

At the top of a tall mountain, there lives a dragon. And the dragon is the master of all animals.
Okay, let’s rewind that. Tom Ormson is a dragon shifter, the scion of a line that was created to rule both Chinese and Norse dragons. But he doesn’t want the job. He co-owns a diner with his wife, Kyrie, who is about to deliver their first child.
In fact, they just got married, when the entire shifter-world, which centers on their diner goes insane.
You see, it is a time of Ragnarok, which means all of the shifter clans are in turmoil, with changing leadership. And the lion clan, to which Kyrie belongs has just lost its leader. Poor Rafiel, too, is tormented by very strange dreams and premonitions. Also, the Queen of the Norse dragons has woken, and wants a word with the Great Sky Dragon.
Hold on to your hats. A wild ride is about to begin, with Tom, Kyrie and their friends at the center of it.
When it ends, the world will never be the same again.

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: SINCERE

First, the Hoyt household woke up cloudy with a high chance of a cat practicing Engineering.

Yes, you know it. It’s Indy. Every morning he wakes up and he chooses engineering. This week we had friends visit, and I realized they were giving the sidelong glance to gates placed in strategic doorways (in front of the doors) and probably think we’d evolved from general purpose nuts to security nuts, and the gates were designed to prevent armed teams from breaking in.

To be fair, mom has similar ones that lock, to break the house into “security zones” which at the very least will slow down intruders who break in, and give help a chance to arrive while parents are still alive. But they live in a far more dangerous country (even if in a decent neighborhood. But I see the crime statistics for breakins in their neighborhood) and they’re in their ninth decade, so this makes some sense.

Of course we explained it was to keep Indy out of oh, the sewing room, our bedroom, and the piano room, and other places that either have stuff that would hurt him, or stuff he could hurt. At which point our friends, probably, merely thought we were crazy.

And then there’s morning like this one. I found out the little sh– The ridiculous cat has used his large and freakishly agile paws to defeat the child look on the baking cabinet. Because this house has a tiny pantry that is an adapted coat closet, we’ve had to co-opt one of the lower cabinets for baking supplies. This might not be the best option.

Anyway the child lock is the type designed to — and according to the Amazon reviews it works as such — defeat kids up to three years of age.

So a great part of this morning was devoted to chasing Indy around and spraying him till soaked. After finding him in the cabinet, ears-deep in the sugar bag, going om nom nom nom. TWICE.

This also sets up an interesting dynamic, because Muse immediately comes to his defense by gnawing on my ankles. she loves me, but loves big brother better. Circe, meanwhile, who is incredibly sweet and pets-oriented is distressed there’s discord, and runs around in circles of confusion.

ANYWAY…. This to set the tone of my highly distracted morning.

Meanwhile, in case you wonder, we keep living in clown world. This morning my world was rocked by my friends discussing the “King Charles Portrait”. Look, this is what a not very smart man does to try to be innovative and special, and above all “smart”. Diabolical? Only to the extent our current “elite” in search of the outre runs into the outright evil. Also — she says in her normal “calm” manner, totally appropriate for the man who at one point wished he could be a kotex sanitary pad.

And to explain what you’re seeing and feeling in clown world: First go here. This is the most clear explanation of what our education does to people, teaching them a closed-system of shibboleths that has no contact with reality, meanwhile making them afraid of actually thinking.

There’s a right name for the “Woke” ideology, and it’s critical constructivism. Critical constructivist ideology is what you “wake up” to when you go Woke. Reading this book, which originally codified it in 2005, is like reading a confession of Woke ideology. Let’s talk about it.

And let me point out this was already going on when I was in college, 40 years ago. It’s just that now it displays its dysfunctionality more obviously in the age of the internet.

Which brings us to the next bit for you to consider this morning:

Scenes From a Global Struggle- Elites still command the strategic heights, but their power and prestige are slipping like water through their hands

Or if you prefer, they’re increasingly more in command of the “structures” while the rest of us build under, build over and build around.

I told you this struggle is world-wide. And it’s in a great way recovering what the late nineteenth and the twentieth century took away. That was the area of centralization. Now we fight for decentralization. In this, the “works of the elites” fight on our side, due to their having achieved “4th generations stupidity” like all Marxist elites do. After 4 generations of selecting for adherence to Marx, they are more incompetent and crazier than old-style nobility after fifteen generations of inbreeding, when they could only find the right end of the queen to put the crown on one time out of tree, given hints. Which is why everything seems to be falling apart and also why, though there is a lot of eating live frogs in the way, in the end we win they lose.

As a side note on this, and as part of my ongoing certainty that G-d is not only an Author, but also basically one of us, including His love of awful puns, I’ll point out from that article, something that might evade you. The horrendous Brazilian fraudsident, a cross between Brandon and Bernie Sanders, goes by Lula. In Portuguese this means Squid.

I leave you with this parting thought: “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.” (Speaking of King Charles’ Portrait. LOL)

And now I’m going to go and figure out where the screw came from that Indy just left at my feet. And then I’m going to go write another 3 chapters of the book that won’t shut up. Look, I KNOW. I owe you chapters of Witch’s Daughter over in Chapter House. AND I’m THIS close to finishing Rhodes to Hell.

But No Man’s Land has commandeered my brain and won’t let it go. At least I have some hopes of bringing it to a close in another 50k words. Terrifying as it is already 135k words. However if I finish it, maybe I can finish other stuff before the next one in series kidnaps me?

Look, it’s my hope. Don’t take it away from me.