Category: Uncategorized

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. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction.

*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving” led, and apply the usual cautions to buying. – SAH*

NOTE TODAY I’M ONLY PROMOTING THE BOOKS AMAZON LETS ME GET THE LINK FOR. NO I DON’T KNOW WHY I CAN’T HAVE LINKS FOR SOME OF THEM. GRRRR. IF YOU SENT A BOOK AND I DON’T PROMOTE THIS WEEK, PLEASE SEND AGAIN NEXT WEEK.

FROM HOLLY LISLE: The Longview Chronicles.

It’s a fine interstellar line between recapture and freedom. Her one act of kindness will trigger an epic fight to restore cosmic justice.

Box set: Over 600 pages of massive intergalactic battles exposing the dark heart of a vicious, futuristic humanity.
In the deep reaches of space, escaped slave Melie longs to captain her own ship. And with a promotion on her current vessel, she’s in reach of the goal that will set her free from the rich and powerful’s brutality. But when her protégé commits treason, a failed attempt to help gets her demoted and delays her flight from the galaxy’s merciless gladiatorial system.
Dreading having her identity discovered, the jaded woman scrapes by seeking some way to improve her fate. So when a sensational public massacre stirs rebellion, Melie seizes the opportunity to enlist a misfit band of victims to spearhead the ultimate trap for the elite.
Can Melie rally her eternally persecuted peers to overthrow a ruthless regime?
The Longview Chronicles contains six books in the fast-paced The Longview Chronicles dystopian science fiction series, and doubles as the third book in the Cadence Drake series. If you like underdog heroes, sweeping galactic action, and darkly envisioned futures, then you’ll love Holly Lisle’s gripping suite of adventures.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Other Rhodes, now with hardcover edition.

Lilly Gilden has a half-crazed cyborg in her airlock who thinks he’s Nick Rhodes,
a fictional 20th Century detective. If she doesn’t report him for destruction,
she’s guilty of a capital crime.

But with her husband missing, she’ll use every clue the cyborg holds,
and his detective abilities, to solve the crime her husband was investigating
when he disappeared.

With the help of a journalist who is more than he seems,
Lilly will risk everything to plunge into the interstellar underworld
and bring the love of her life home!

FROM M. C. A. HOGARTH: Zafiil Volume 1: FireBorn UnPainted

Enter into the heart of an alien race in the first historical novel set in the Peltedverse…

Thousands of years ago, the God of the Faulfenza promised His people He would send a messiah to lead them into a Golden Age, alongside the Others: aliens who would be to them as brothers and sisters. Not a generation has passed without longing for the fulfillment of that Promise.

Zafiil Paidiiza Qodii has dreamed of finding the Others since she was a child, a dream that spurred her to train as leader of one of the Faulfenza’s galactic scout teams. Against all odds, hers is the ship that makes the prophesied discovery–and reveals the cost of the God’s promises, and the part she is destined to play in His designs…

Zafiil: FireBorn Unpainted begins the epic saga of the Faulfenza’s first contact with the Pelted Alliance, and unveils at last the mysteries of one of the Peltedverse’s most beloved alien races.

FROM CELIA HAYES: Lone Star Sons: Being The Entertaining and Mostly If not Always True Adventures of Texas Ranger Jim Reade and his Blood Brother Delaware Scout Toby Shaw in the Time of the Republic of Texas.

The time – 1842
The place – the Republic of Texas, a place threatened and besieged on all frontiers!
Jim Reade lay on his back in the desert dust, incuriously seeing that ominous shadow circle, lower and lower until every finger-like dark feather became distinct against the burning sky . . . He hurt in every bone, from his head to his fingertips, and all the way to his booted toes. . .the sun had blazed on his exposed face and hands for many hours, and there was a mass of congealed blood which had oozed from his forehead, running back into his sweat-matted hair.
Jim Reade, a volunteer Texas Ranger, is the sole survivor of an ambush in the contested Nueces Strip. Rescued by Indian scout, Toby Shaw, the two young men join forces in pursuit of a mysterious wagon carrying a treasure in silver and gold – a treasure with a curse upon it!
Sworn blood-brothers, Jim and Toby meet with other challenges and mysteries, including a trove of documents sought after by spies of three nations, a girl vanished in the midst of a vicious feud between two families, a den of murderous robbers on the Opelousas Trace … and a tiny baby left an orphan in the desert!
Lone Star Sons – the classic Wild West rides again, in this collection of adventures intended for younger readers by the author of the Adelsverein Trilogy.

FROM C. CHANCY: Seeds of Blood

Welcome to Intrepid. Where Halloween brings tourists, turning leaves – and demons.

Over two decades of bloody murder, Steven Savonarola carved a sorcerous Demongate into the heart of his own hometown. With less than two weeks to disarm it before Halloween, Detective Church and the IPD are running out of time.

Lucky for them, they have an edge: Myrrh, a hell-raider with over a thousand years’ experience shattering dark magic, and Aidan, a half-demon fire mage with a very personal grudge against evil.

The plan is simple: Find the tainted sites. Purify them. Try not to die.

They’ll need all the help they can get. Steven may be gone, but shadows in the mountains are determined to see the Demongate open – even if they have to slaughter half the city to do it. And when it comes to killing shadows, even hell-raiders don’t know everything.

If they’re going to make it to All Saint’s Day, they’re going to need hot lead, cold mead, and a weapon that’s out of this world.

And a little praying wouldn’t hurt….

Welcome to Intrepid. It’s a hell of a Halloween.

BY CHARLES ALDEN SELTZER, EDITED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Brass Commandments (Annotated): The classic pulp western

“He’s man’s size, goin’ an’ comin’. No show, no fuss; likes to play a lone hand. Cool an’ easy an’ dangerous. Two-gun. Throws ’em so fast that you can’t see ’em. Lightnin’s slow when Lannon moves his gun-hand. Dead shot; cold as an iceberg under fire.”

Such was the opinion in Bozzam City of Flash Lannon. Five years of getting an education back East might have tamed him, some, but when rustlers target his cattle, and the local law doesn’t care, Lannon nails a new law to the wall of the local post office: his brass commandments naming the five men who must leave the country — or die.

Five named men… and “one other”.

    This iktaPOP Media edition contains a new afterword by indie author and editor D. Jason Fleming giving historical and genre context behind the novel.

FROM CLAYTON BARNETT: Cursed Hearts: A Novel of Machine Civilization.

Even with San Diego occupied by the Mexican Army, Katarina Sosabowski pursues her MBA at UCSD, and is happy to welcome and put up her visiting step-cousin from Japan, Christopher Dennou, for a night so he can complete his enrollment the following day. But a minor earthquake brings a major surprise: Chris’s younger sister, Maya, murders their mother and escapes Neuroi Institute, the research facility that created them. While Chris and ‘Cat’ grow closer to one another, Maya inexorably crosses an ocean and half a continent to take back her brother, killing anyone who gets in her way.

FROM PAUL CLAYTON: The Blue World: Anunnaki Advent.

The best laid plans of gods and men go awry on… the Blue World.

Loosely based on Zecharia Sitchin’s Earth Chronicles, The Blue World follows the efforts of the Sumerian gods, the Anunnaki, as they land on earth to mine the gold there in order to repair the damaged atmosphere of their home planet, Nibiru. The Anunnaki miners find gold mining laborious and dangerous, so they genetically engineer a hybrid race to do it for them. Mixing Anunnaki DNA with simian, they create The Human, “those who work.”

FROM DALE COZORT: The Moscow Option-1942

In this alternate history scenario, Hitler makes a different choice in spring 1942. Instead of heading south toward the Caucasus, he renews the German drive on Moscow.

That’s a tough choice. Moscow was the vital transportation and communications hub of the Soviet Union, as well as an important symbol of Soviet power, and while the Soviets pushed the Germans back from Moscow in their winter offensive, the Germans were still far closer to Moscow than they were to the Caucasus oil fields. On the other hand, the Soviets expected a drive on Moscow and had built up formidable defenses in front of it. Going after the Caucasus oil, if it worked, would conquer over 80 percent of Soviet oil, but getting to those oil fields meant covering huge, maybe impractical distances, wearing down German men and machines and opening up long, vulnerable flanks, as the Germans discovered at Stalingrad.

The different decision leads to alternate World War II, with ripples spreading to the Pacific even before the Germans move a single soldier, with the course of the war diverging, converging and diverging again as the fates of dozens of countries and factions throughout the world change.

The Moscow Option-1942 appeared as a serialization in The Best of Space Bats volumes 1 & 2. This volume simply brings those pieces together. It is written for history lovers and is a description of a fictional world rather than a traditional work of fiction with fictional characters and story arcs.

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: FREE

THE GOAL IS $50,000

the counter stands at: 11,703.97 (Updated at least every 8 hours, more if i happen to be here. Longer, maybe, overnight.)

IT ENDS JULY 16TH.

The Short Version Of Why I’m Doing This: I started the blog to promote my writing. It did that a little, but mostly it’s its own thing. I have fans for the blog and fans for the fiction, and never the twain shall meet.

After years of friends (including Jerry Pournelle, and no I never did it in his lifetime) telling me I should do a fundraiser or rattle the tin cup after every post, I realized that while I love the blog and don’t intend to give it up, it’s eating my life and to an extent my fiction writing because there’s only so many hours in the day.

So…. I decided to do a fundraiser, so I can hire people to do some of the other stuff that must be done, so I can blog, write, and not be so sleep deprived that sometimes, inexplicably, I go down for fifteen hours of sleep without planning it.

For the fuller explanation etc, look here: TANSTAAFL DAY 1- In Which The Writer Tries to Fund the Blog.

THE INCENTIVES AND TIERS:

Tier 1– $10 or more – A shout out on my blog, all with all other the supporters, by name, in one massive “Thank you” post. [Jokey or offensive names will not be included at author’s discretion.]

Tier 2– $25 or more – Email jpg of certificate with funny fish saying “I Was Carped at according to hoyt.com” and a Certificate of being a member of Hoyt’s Huns, cultural wars sapper battalion, in good standing.

Tier 3– $60 or more – Exclusive ebook collection of USAian stories. (Including a new, original, never published story.) Estimated delivery August 2023

Tier 4– $100 or more – Your name will appear in a mass death/other mass event/list in one of Sarah’s books. [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.]

Tier 5– $150 or more – A sound file of Sarah saying “Moose and Squirrel.”

Tier 6 – $250 or more – Will send a signed copy of trade paperback Gentleman takes a chance and one large postcard with book covers, also signed. (USPS- continental US only. All others, let’s talk.) [estimated delivery Sept 2022]

Tier 7 – $350 or more – Three signed books (of our choice), plus two extra items from “Sarah’s Garage”, (also of our choice) which might very well be a small rubber fish. (You’ve been warned.) USPS only. Continental U.S. only [estimated delivery Sept 2022]

Tier 8 – $500 or more – Personalized tuckerization. You will become your very own zany character, with at least a line or two of dialogue, and physical description. Physical safety and life of character not guaranteed. If you perish, it will NOT (repeat not) be in a mass death event or a list of other kinds.  [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.] [Jokey or offensive names, descriptions and personalities will not be included at author’s discretion.]

Tier 9 – $1000 or more – A CHOICE OF:

Option 1 -Will read the first 10 pages and outline of your novel and provide timely critique, with the understanding that I am not infallible. (A skype, zoom or other video call to discuss the work for an hour or so.) [estimated delivery Winter 2022 – Spring 2023]

Option 2 – Large box of ten signed books, plus items ranging from a con badge, to a mini dinosaur skeleton or a print of Sarah’s original art, or other items from Sarah’s garage. USPS only. Continental U.S. only [estimated delivery Sept 2022]

Option 3 – Signed copy of Sarah’s old copyedited or page-proof manuscripts. [estimated delivery Fall 2022] (5 limit.)

Tier 10 – $5000 or more – You will become a major character on one of my books, and I’ll try to reflect your appearance, and chosen personality.  [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.] [Jokey or offensive names, descriptions and personalities will not be included at author’s discretion. You don’t get to have someone else be an offensive character. (Sorry!) Your actions will be altered to serve the plot if needed.] – Limit 5. (You’ll be informed if this has been claimed, and given a chance for a refund or of a comparable reward.)

Tier Insane – $25000 or more – My husband and I will travel to a city in the continental US and have dinner with you and your plus one.  (Continental US only.) – Limit ONE. [Delivery up to July 2023.] (You’ll be informed if this has been claimed, and given a chance for a refund or of a comparable reward.)

ALL TIERS INCLUDE ALL PREVIOUS TIERS EXCEPT FOR THOSE THAT ARE NUMBER LIMITED.

If you want to be thanked/mentioned by a name different from your regular one, please email to: bookpimping at outlook dot com.

TO DONATE:

DONATE TO ACCORDING TO HOYT TAANSTAFL DAYS (The previous words are a link!)

FOR CHECK DONATIONS:

Sarah A. Hoyt

Goldport Press

304 S Jones Blvd #6771

Las Vegas, NV  89107

THIS IS PINNED TO THE TOP OF THE BLOG. THE DAILY POST WILL APPEAR BELOW THIS.

(I’m going to get some coffee before the regular blog. If life intervenes (the guys are both home) it might be three hours or so before the real post is up.)

Okay, the gentlemen might not like this picture as much, but…. It just happened. I call it Romeo and Juliet ;). Yes there will be more straight up pin ups, tomorrow, etc.. It is released under Creative Commons (CC BY)

REE, objectification. Oh, shuddup. I like pinups for the aesthetics, and besides they make me happy. (Even if this one is built like a boy.) There might be some males, soonish, too. Or couples.

Anyway, I’m going to try to do one a day through the fundraiser. They are released to you under Creative Commons Licence (CC BY.) You can use it in any way you wish, including for computer background, calendar and/or book cover. ;)

Or just look at it.

Humans don’t know the future. But we think we do, or at least can extrapolate it.

This worked very well in the times of Gorg and Morga, cave people who donated us the brain we think with. (Okay, no, I don’t know for sure, but as an explanation, it sort of works.) It didn’t take a genius to know if you went to fight the Hurgs over the ridge by your lonesome self, or even with your three brothers you would lose. Why they had 100 people and that new fangled throwing spears thing. The same way if a hunter went out in drought or famine, he was likely to come back empty handed, etc. And if Morga hasn’t conceived a child in ten years, she probably won’t tomorrow.

BUT….

We live in a world that’s far more complex, and filled with different inputs in information, all of which give you a very different idea of the future.

And since all through the 20th century — partly mind you simply by the human desire to be in with the “crowd” and to be “right” in the opinion of those with power, partly because so many people were captured by the Marxist nonsense and because those in power kept those who disagreed out — the media, the entertainment, and the general culture was heavily Marxist, the input was filtered through “capitalism bad, and it will crash and impoverish everyone.”

It was further filtered through the sense most conservatives seem to have (heaven only knows why) that prosperity is bad (I think y’all have some Puritan ranter in the backs of your brains, okay?) and that you should live in caves and eat acorns or the future will be corrupted. (Okay, some puritan ROMAN ranter. Never mind, that’s who lives in the back of mine.) This gives you “if things are good, or at least not terrible, we’re headed for disaster.”

Then there are the people who are convinced left to their own devices people make terrible decisions. These are mostly educated beyond their abilities, or as we call them bureaucrats and others of their ilk.

The result of this is that the inputs most people in my generation got were horrendous. They were also, as we’re becoming OBVIOUSLY AND PATENTLY FALSE. (They were obviously wrong to me sometime in my thirties, when an anonymous donor sent me a subscription to Reason and I started thinking about what I’d been fed.)

Stuff like “The world will be massive overpopulated by 1990.” Or “We’re running out of fossil fuels” in the seventies. Or “There will be no food or potable water for everyone.”

We now know those are bullshit, of course, but it was — go look if you don’t believe me — the ethos of science fiction in the eighties and nineties, and it is still, massively, the ethos of science fiction published by traditional sources today. (Baen mostly excepted. Salutes.)

Sometime in the early nineties, my scream was “NO MORE RUSTY FUTURES” which was my description of futures in which everyone lived in the gutter, ate bugs, and groveled before an unaccountable elite.

Now I’m not going to say me and my kind are prophets. (I hope not. Mostly I write what’s interesting, not what I think will happen.)

And we know only what? 0.8% of the population even reads science fiction/doesn’t think we’re terrible eggheads with no clue.

In fact, it’s sort of the other way around. My tribe tends to write a distillation of what they’ve been fed. (Which combines with the editors’ ideas of what’s coming, and wanting our fiction to rest on “solid foundations.”) Which means the dystopias of the 80s and 90s is what everyone believed would happen.

I found is so depressing, I started reading alternate history or historical.

Not only because the futures were depressing, but because I found them so unlikely. I mean, how are you going to have cities packed to the level of New Delhi in the sixties when so few people are even having kids? And why is everyone wearing masks against pollution, when our air is clearer than it was in the early 1900s? And–

My suspension of disbelief was hung by the neck until dead.

BUT what was out there was what had seeped to the back of people’s brains and it was as expected as that tiger jumping on you would be to a caveman.

What is this in the name of?

Well, I look at our exquisitely indoctrinated educated “elites” and the world they’re trying to bring about.

The US hasn’t reproduced enough to cause massive overpopulation, but they’re sure it’s out there, somewhere, so they are importing people by the batch load over the Southern border. And they’re sure we’re running out of fossil fuels, so we must transition to “clean/green” energy now. And they KNOW we’re massively polluted, even though we’re obviously not, so we’re all going to dieeeeee. when Gaia gets offended enough she turns up the thermometer. Oh, and we must eat bugs or go Vegan, because otherwise how will we feed everyone.

This is all absolute and complete twaddle, of course. But it’s in their back brains, as “obviously” so they can’t argue with it. They just go along with it, because it’s “true.” True at that level they can’t think, because it’s the assumptions fed to them in the seventies and eighties (and for the younger ones recently, as word from above.)

THIS is what we’re fighting against.

And I’m not absolutely sure how to do it. I promise, and intend to continue to beat those ideas up on my blog, and hopefully to incorporate the ideas of a bright, hopeful future into my fiction, to try to turn this around.

You see, what they project can’t come about. But it can destroy a lot of wealth and kill a lot of people before it crashes.

It’s time to attack the false prophets. I can’t, of course, do it alone, so I must ask that you amplify it, in words, in blogs, in stories.

Let’s build a bright and hopeful future, to which we can aim our civilization.

Be not afraid. Steer to the future we deserve.

America comes from that better future. And we’re going back there.

Note SF Pinup #1 released under Creative Commons below, as a kind of general thanks to everyone for putting up with the fundraiser.

THE GOAL IS $50,000

the counter stands at: $8,861.81 (Updated at least every 8 hours, more if i happen to be here.)

IT ENDS JULY 16TH.

(Sorry for the late update. I’m going to get some coffee before the regular blog.)

The Short Version Of Why I’m Doing This: I started the blog to promote my writing. It did that a little, but mostly it’s its own thing. I have fans for the blog and fans for the fiction, and never the twain shall meet.

After years of friends (including Jerry Pournelle, and no I never did it in his lifetime) telling me I should do a fundraiser or rattle the tin cup after every post, I realized that while I love the blog and don’t intend to give it up, it’s eating my life and to an extent my fiction writing because there’s only so many hours in the day.

So…. I decided to do a fundraiser, so I can hire people to do some of the other stuff that must be done, so I can blog, write, and not be so sleep deprived that sometimes, inexplicably, I go down for fifteen hours of sleep without planning it.

For the fuller explanation etc, look here: TANSTAAFL DAY 1- In Which The Writer Tries to Fund the Blog

THE INCENTIVES AND TIERS:

Tier 1– $10 or more – A shout out on my blog, all with all other the supporters, by name, in one massive “Thank you” post. [Jokey or offensive names will not be included at author’s discretion.]

Tier 2– $25 or more – Email jpg of certificate with funny fish saying “I Was Carped at according to hoyt.com” and a Certificate of being a member of Hoyt’s Huns, cultural wars sapper battalion, in good standing.

Tier 3– $60 or more – Exclusive ebook collection of USAian stories. (Including a new, original, never published story.) [estimated delivery Aug 2022]

Tier 4– $100 or more – Your name will appear in a mass death/other mass event/list in one of Sarah’s books. [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.]

Tier 5– $150 or more – A sound file of Sarah saying “Moose and Squirrel.”

Tier 6 – $250 or more – Will send a signed copy of trade paperback Gentleman takes a chance and one large postcard with book covers, also signed. (USPS- continental US only. All others, let’s talk.) [estimated delivery Sept 2022]

Tier 7 – $350 or more – Three signed books (of our choice), plus two extra items from “Sarah’s Garage”, (also of our choice) which might very well be a small rubber fish. (You’ve been warned.) USPS only. Continental U.S. only [estimated delivery Sept 2022]

Tier 8 – $500 or more – Personalized tuckerization. You will become your very own zany character, with at least a line or two of dialogue, and physical description. Physical safety and life of character not guaranteed. If you perish, it will NOT (repeat not) be in a mass death event or a list of other kinds.  [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.] [Jokey or offensive names, descriptions and personalities will not be included at author’s discretion.]

Tier 9 – $1000 or more – A CHOICE OF:

Option 1 -Will read the first 10 pages and outline of your novel and provide timely critique, with the understanding that I am not infallible. (A skype, zoom or other video call to discuss the work for an hour or so.) [estimated delivery Winter 2022 – Spring 2023]

Option 2 – Large box of ten signed books, plus items ranging from a con badge, to a mini dinosaur skeleton or a print of Sarah’s original art, or other items from Sarah’s garage. USPS only. Continental U.S. only [estimated delivery Sept 2022]

Option 3 – Signed copy of Sarah’s old copyedited or page-proof manuscripts. [estimated delivery Fall 2022] (5 limit.)

Tier 10 – $5000 or more – You will become a major character on one of my books, and I’ll try to reflect your appearance, and chosen personality.  [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.] [Jokey or offensive names, descriptions and personalities will not be included at author’s discretion. You don’t get to have someone else be an offensive character. (Sorry!) Your actions will be altered to serve the plot if needed.] – Limit 5. (You’ll be informed if this has been claimed, and given a chance for a refund or of a comparable reward.)

Tier Insane – $25000 or more – My husband and I will travel to a city in the continental US and have dinner with you and your plus one.  (Continental US only.) – Limit ONE. [Delivery up to July 2023.] (You’ll be informed if this has been claimed, and given a chance for a refund or of a comparable reward.)

ALL TIERS INCLUDE ALL PREVIOUS TIERS EXCEPT FOR THOSE THAT ARE NUMBER LIMITED.

If you want to be thanked/mentioned by a name different from your regular one, please email to: bookpimping at outlook dot com

TO DONATE:

DONATE TO ACCORDING TO HOYT TAANSTAFL DAYS

OR

UPDATE: I’ve fixed the broken link. For some reason copying from yesterday’s post bolixed it. Note the text above the button is also a link.

or:

FOR CHECK DONATIONS:

Sarah A. Hoyt

Goldport Press

304 S Jones Blvd #6771

Las Vegas, NV  89107

THIS IS PINNED TO THE TOP OF THE BLOG. THE DAILY POST WILL APPEAR BELOW THIS.

Yes, in the future I’ll be doing normal, full posts on this blog, under the fundraiser post, but posting that first one was scary and incredibly stressful. (No, you have NO idea how much.)

So, what the heck, some of you liked this picture when I posted it here, so…. The following picture is my own artwork and is hereby released under the creative commons attribution license.

This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

I call it In Space, Only the Winged Cats Know What You’re Up To.

So, here we go, day 1.

THE GOAL IS 50,000 DOLLARS

This is a combined fundraiser and “pardon our dust” since everything is conspiring to make this go really weird.

THE PITCH:

Donate to According to Hoyt, because I spend a lot of time, sweat and tears on this blog, and a laborer is worthy of her pay.

THE TOO LONG/DIDN’T READ:

This is not an emergency. Repeat: this is not an emergency. Do not head for the basement, do not put on your pith helmet. You can hug your cats, but you’ll still be here tomorrow to heal from the scratches.

This is a blog fundraiser.

According to Hoyt has stood here for dunnohowmanyyears (no, seriously, I have no idea, but I think it’s about fifteen or sixteen. I know it’s more than 13, because I was blogging every day when we got Havelock-cat, who is 13) and Lord knows over that times I’ve been silly, I’ve been strange, I’ve (unfortunately) been wrong a time or twenty. But every day I wake up and know I have a blog to write, and feel guilty if I don’t. I’ve taken “vacations” but since I never get enough guest posts, it’s not a full vacation.

And for that entire time, the high water mark for blog intake on donations and promo kick backs (from Amazon. I don’t ask anyone for money to promo them. sheesh) was — I think — back in 2006 about $4000. Right now, including kickbacks, it runs about $2k a year.

Now I won’t lie to you and say I’m going to give up blogging if the blog doesn’t fully fund. At this point it’s an addiction, my “pages in the morning” Nor am I going to say the blog hasn’t helped. It has, in ways big and small.

However the main purpose for which I created this blog, which was to promote my fiction is pretty much a bust. I have fans for the blog and fans for my fiction, and the two meet but seldom.

Over the years, y’all have told me I should be getting paid. And the late, and most definitely great, Jerry Pournelle, about 10 or more years ago told me given the level of engagement, and how much content I provide, compared to blogs that are making a lot of money, I should be making around 50k a year.

I was just afraid I’d have a fundraiser and make $20. (And then I’d probably stop blogging, just in sheer shame.)

Well, last November, as a last ditch effort, so we wouldn’t have to sell the piano Dan inherited from his mom (and which he learned to play on), I did a fundraiser to get us out of a ditch.

As all of you know, I made more than $20. Which was good, because we are always counter-trend, and almost managed to lose money on the last house, while everyone else was selling at crazy rates. As is we are “whole”. Which is why there is no emergency.

But I still have this here blogging habit. And consume a lot of hours on it, and then feel guilty because it doesn’t pay.

So, here goes.

THE INCENTIVES AND TIERS:

Tier 1– $10 or more – A shout out on my blog, all with all other the supporters, by name, in one massive “Thank you” post. [Jokey or offensive names will not be included at author’s discretion.]

Tier 2– $25 or more – Email jpg of certificate with funny fish saying “I Was Carped at according to hoyt.com” and a Certificate of being a member of Hoyt’s Huns, cultural wars sapper battalion, in good standing.

Tier 3– $60 or more – Exclusive ebook collection of USAian stories. (Including a new, original, never published story.) [estimated delivery Aug 2022]

Tier 4– $100 or more – Your name will appear in a mass death/other mass event/list in one of Sarah’s books. [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.]

Tier 5– $150 or more – A sound file of Sarah saying “Moose and Squirrel.”

Tier 6 – $250 or more – Will send a signed copy of trade paperback Gentleman takes a chance and one large postcard with book covers, also signed. (USPS- continental US only. All others, let’s talk.) [estimated delivery Sept 2022]

Tier 7 – $350 or more – Three signed books (of our choice), plus two extra items from “Sarah’s Garage”, (also of our choice) which might very well be a small rubber fish. (You’ve been warned.) USPS only. Continental U.S. only [estimated delivery Sept 2022]

Tier 8 – $500 or more – Personalized tuckerization. You will become your very own zany character, with at least a line or two of dialogue, and physical description. Physical safety and life of character not guaranteed. If you perish, it will NOT (repeat not) be in a mass death event or a list of other kinds.  [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.] [Jokey or offensive names, descriptions and personalities will not be included at author’s discretion.]

Tier 9 – $1000 or more – A CHOICE OF:

Option 1 -Will read the first 10 pages and outline of your novel and provide timely critique, with the understanding that I am not infallible. (A skype, zoom or other video call to discuss the work for an hour or so.) [estimated delivery Winter 2022 – Spring 2023]

Option 2 – Large box of ten signed books, plus items ranging from a con badge, to a mini dinosaur skeleton or a print of Sarah’s original art, or other items from Sarah’s garage. USPS only. Continental U.S. only [estimated delivery Sept 2022]

Option 3 – Signed copy of Sarah’s old copyedited or page-proof manuscripts. [estimated delivery Fall 2022] (5 limit.)

Tier 10 – $5000 or more – You will become a major character on one of my books, and I’ll try to reflect your appearance, and chosen personality.  [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.] [Jokey or offensive names, descriptions and personalities will not be included at author’s discretion. You don’t get to have someone else be an offensive character. (Sorry!) Your actions will be altered to serve the plot if needed.] – Limit 5. (You’ll be informed if this has been claimed, and given a chance for a refund or of a comparable reward.)

Tier Insane – $25000 or more – My husband and I will travel to a city in the continental US and have dinner with you and your plus one.  (Continental US only.) – Limit ONE. [Delivery up to July 2023.] (You’ll be informed if this has been claimed, and given a chance for a refund or of a comparable reward.)

ALL TIERS INCLUDE ALL PREVIOUS TIERS EXCEPT FOR THOSE THAT ARE NUMBER LIMITED.

TO DONATE:

DONATE TO ACCORDING TO HOYT TAANSTAFL DAYS

OR

or:

FOR CHECK DONATIONS:

Sarah A. Hoyt

Goldport Press

304 S Jones Blvd #6771

Las Vegas, NV  89107

THE QUESTION:

This mode obviously doesn’t have an anonymous form. If enough people ask for one, I will put up a fundraiser at GiveSendGo. The problem being those going that way can’t receive any of the incentives, no matter what they donate. Do you want me to do that?

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

If you want to be thanked/mentioned by a name different from your regular one, please email to: bookpimping at outlook dot com

Also, today’s post will appear below this one, supposing I figure out how to pin this one to the top of the page!

I feel I should get a prize for not letting younger son inflict naked drawing of the funding fathers on you. (Joking, joking. Don’t kill me, younger son. He’s not that kind of son.)

WHAT THE HECK DO YOU WANT THAT MUCH MONEY FOR, SARAH?

Well, I’ve always had a dream of having my very own money bin where I go for morning swims.

Okay, not really. I can’t even swim. And I’d probably get dust allergy from the dollar bills.

The truth is I started this blog to promote my fiction. And instead what I got was an extra commitment.

Let’s face it, people, I’m over committed and not as young as I used to be.

If the blog funds, I can hire a publicity-help person for the fiction and maybe to do things like manage the t-shirts y’all want and other stuff. (You know him. You like him.)

I can also hire someone to take the every day administrivia off my back.

And then I can write more, keep this blog going, and not be so exhausted all the time.

According to Hoyt TANSTAAFL DAYS (Till July 16th):

THE GOAL IS $50,000

the counter stands at: $3,632.82 (Updated at least every 8 hours, more if i happen to be here.)

That art above is a really old piece of art. I posted it on Facebook with “We’re not dead. Our flag is still there. We came from the future, and we’re going back.”

I’m posting this late at night, to explain things.

Tomorrow I’ll start the blog fundraiser.

Again, I WANT TO EMPHASIZE this is not an emergency, I’M NOT ASKING YOU TO RESCUE ME.

We’re doing all right, right now. Without y’all bailing me out in November, we’d have been in serious trouble because the house sold weird. (We’ll just say that.) But we’re fine. I promised not to ask for emergency help, and I’m not. This is just a blog fundraiser.

The fundraiser is for the blog, which is part of my writing ah enterprise. If the blog funds, I’ll be able to get help on some of other stuff and not end up with “not a post” posts, as well as devote a ton more effort and attention to all my writing in general. And perhaps have a bit more energy.

Until today I’d blithely assumed I could use GiveSendGo, but they don’t allow me to offer rewards for donations, and were offering rewards. (And we have the official only maybe a secret billionaire will pledge.)

So, it will have to be my paypal, and I’ll keep track of the amounts and update a few times a day.

I’m shooting for 50k, mostly because this one, being a business thing, I’ll have to pay taxes, of course, but mostly because Jerry Pournelle told me 10 years ago that I should have a fundraiser and set 50k as a goal. Yes, it seems like a crazy goal (Almost as crazy as that highest tier we’ll have, mostly as a joke!) and I’m a little embarrassed of putting it up. But Jerry said I should be able to clear that, given how often I post and the engagement, so I’ll try.

Doing this as a yearly event, in the first two weeks of July will allow me to not have intrusive begging or donation links on it the rest of the year. The timing is obvious, I think.

So, tomorrow will start the TAANSTAFL days on this blog, which will end on the 16th. I’ll probably put it up around noon.

Because I know these fundraisers get awkward and strange and make the blog very boring, there will be a “real post” TM beneath the fundraiser post. And I’ll do my best to make the fundraising fun too.

Word is that younger son is making cartoons of me. Pray I don’t have to kill him for it ;)

Anyway, see you tomorrow for the start of the whole thing. Next year I’ll be more precise and polished. This year I’m fumble fingered and strange, so enjoy the comedy aspects.

Till tomorrow.

They lied to you. They lied to all of us these “progressives” whose greatest goal was always to take us back to the mass-everything of the late industrial age, in the early twenty first century.

Their power and glory resided in the early twentieth century, with masses of illiterate-in-English workers pouring in, and the precinct bosses controlling them and their votes; with “progressives” of both parties in the white house, setting the course of the future. And then with world wars giving them all the control of an “emergency” they tasted real power, and the ability to tell other people how they should live forever. We were going to be ruled by “experts.” The country was in the very best of hands. And stop those screams for popular control. That was a dream of the 18th century. The common man was unable to rule himself, and needed the educated elites to build the future while standing on the people’s neck.

And through all this, the enemy, which always trades in lies — because their nature is so hideous they can’t look at themselves in the mirror — called themselves “liberal” and “tolerant.” Though in fact they were so intolerant that their minds could see only imaginary categories and never real people. And that when their opinions were proven wrong in truth, they invented new complicated theories and doubled down.

Also, and THIS is the biggest lie possible, they called us “Conservative” and “Establishment.” This a century after they had captured all positions of power, become a positional good for the elites (who all want to at least pretend to be communist. Partly out of fear of being expropriated — they took entirely the wrong lesson from the revolutions in France and Russia — and partly because communism (and the hip new fascism the Marxists now espouse) is actually a sort of feudalism, and they all plume themselves on being feudal lords over an expropriated, impoverished population.)

I’m not actually surprised the left bought this, but I’m surprised many on our side did. It took the cultural battles of the last decade for scales to fall from most people’s eyes: for instance the one with us, the powerless, the ones who had fought and scrambled our way into publication and where the only bestseller was published by a house looked down upon by the other houses, and where we were accused of holding women and minorities down. (As though we had the power, even if we had the intent. And for the record, we were majority women and minorities. We don’t care about the color or sex of those who write the books. It’s the books we care about.)

They used that formulation over and over again, by the way. While punching WAY down they claimed to be speaking truth to power. While quelling rebellion, they claimed to be fighting the “establishment.” And their excuse for everything going to crap under their leadership was always that anyone wanting to fix it was “a white male, scared of losing power.”

After a while, almost everyone, at almost every level was touched by this and saw it happening and went “But wait a minute.” And the luvvies claims that anyone who opposes them is immediately a white male does not wash. (I’m probably darker than spun gold now. I’ve been working outside. And I don’t have a penis. I looked in my pants just now. I also happen to be xx and have birthed two sons. I don’t have to be a biologist to realize I’m not male. And while my Mormon friends joke about my being an unbaptized Mormon, no. I’m not. Just had enough coffee to prove it.)

So it’s come to this. The supreme court in 3 landmark rulings has started to lay an ax to the foundation of rule by experts.

Is the work done? Oh, deary me, no. But it is started.

Will it cause chaos? Oh. Yes. Yes, indeed. And attempts to do it slow to minimize chaos will probably not hold. Because what they are striking down is the FOUNDATIONS of the current establishment.

Every single institution, every single PERSON has been corrupted by this idea that government should be by experts, and top down, center out. It’s all over the world, yes. But it has never had any business here. Yet contagion works, and we’re part of this mess, which the last two years, and the maladministration of the Biden Junta have exposed as not only stupid and erratic, but realistically dangerous and potentially civilization ending.

I think that’s the reason for these rulings. It’s not that the court is any less go along to get along than when they refused to hear the cases centering on the election. It isn’t that most of them (Thomas and Alito excepted) aren’t at their heart bureaucrats who suckled at the tit of the Marxism-enabling maleducation of the last century.

It is that they can see what’s heading for us, what the idiots they enabled into power are doing. And they’re scared. As they should be. And so they are trying, late and terrified-like to undo enough, to allow us to survive.

Is it going to be easy? Pardon me while I laugh.

To quote my very wise grandmother, we’re all going to eat the bread the devil kneaded, and that’s when there’s bread at all. You know the call: “PREPARE, PREPARE, PREPARE” and know it might not be possible to prepare ENOUGH. Be flexible. Adapt, improvise and overcome.

This winter is going to be bad and the next couple of years are going to be interesting.

For one, there’s going to be a while that no one has any idea what the rules are, what the laws are, what it is safe to do/say.

Which means daily life will get sportive, even before gas and food shortages.

But, hey, it’s going to be worse in the rest of the world. They’re not good at making it up as they go along.

As bad as it is going to get I have great faith in the American people and the tattered remains of constitutional law.

Yes, it’s still going to hurt to feel like everything is falling down around us, and that we don’t fully understand the shape of what’s to come.

It’s time to make sure what’s to come is us, Americans. We were always the barbarians at the gate of the establishment left. And now the ax has created some breaches in the door, and we’re pouring in.

The time is short, and we must be about making sure the right things are erected in the aftermath.

Be not afraid.

Build under, build over, build around.

Because the establishment has suffered body blows, and it will collapse.

And then we must be ready to take the weight.

I’m sitting on the other half of the sofa, and a very weird thing happened.

You see, I usually blog from the family room. No (sane) reason, really, except that this is the social-media computer, and the blog is somewhat social. Also, I often do this at night, while husband is watching tv.

I didn’t yesterday, because I felt…. odd. Not sick and I suspect anyway it’s allergies, since it came on after time outside (and I haven’t seen anyone outside the family for a while, so who would I catch sick from?) but my throat was itchy and I was semi out of it.

No problem, I’ll do it tomorrow.

So– Today I sat down and wrote MGC and opened this page, and then HAD to sleep. I don’t know if any of you have experienced this, but it is very weird. It’s like you really can’t fight it. When I worked in an office, I’d often go to the bathroom, just so I could close my eyes. Because you will sleep. Your choice is where. This is usually maybe 15 minutes.

Today it was two hours. And I’m still not fully awake.

Why? I don’t know. The logical hypothesis is that I’m getting sick again. I don’t have time for this.

Blog fundraiser goes up the day after tomorrow, and I have things to organize and set and be ready for. (Runs around with hair on fire.)

So, I’m going to blame it on the cat, who snores and emits sleepy-ons.

Honestly, it’s probably worry about the fundraiser. Mostly worry it will fail big, since you guys came through with the big rescue seven months ago.

This is not a rescue. It’s a “Let’s see if the blog can fund.” I wouldn’t do it, but I can a) use the blog funding as seed money to get the fiction off the ice pad (Sometimes it feels like I’m running on ice) partly by hiring someone to manage the image and the publicity (No. I know him. And you guys will LIKE him.) and someone to run the side stuff on the business. And someone to collate and get the collections ready.

If it overfunds, it’s money to pay for audio book readers.

So… I’m basically fundraising for operating capital for the business, which I THINK is justified? Well, I suppose getting paid for the work I put in is justified too. (Right? Maybe? The way I’m justifying it to myself is that it’s not fair to deprive of my family of the fruits of my labor. I’m not right in the head, okay?)

Anyway, now I’m somewhat awake, and kind of functioning, but not really, so I couldn’t think of anything to blog about except to complain that I fell asleep and hope I’m not falling sick, and then publicly run around in a panic over all the stuff I need to do the next two days. Did I say I’m weird? You knew I was right?

Okay. Now I’m going to finish the two short stories (one for the collection that’s part of the rewards for the fundraiser) and go make a list of the “gifts” for donating (part of this is that it’s ridiculous to consider them a “price” which of course it isn’t. It’s just a thank you for donating. I mean, up to twenty it’s a printable certificate (in eform but suitable for printing) that says “I was carped at according to hoyt” that is not a big enough thing to COST $20. But this is not a store. It’s a fundraiser. (And you guys collect carp!)

So, anyway….

<Lurches up.

I’m going to take the meds (the daily ones) and go work. Keep your fingers crossed I don’t fall sick.

*Isn’t this more interesting than “this is not a post?”*