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Yesterday the right-o-sphere was afire with the outrage of a show in a bar in TX called “Drag your children to pride” in which parents took children to watch drag queens in definitely inappropriate outfits, do definitely inappropriate dances. Then the children were coached either to participate or hand the drag queens money.

At the same time, Pizza Hut has decided to include books about drag queens and transsexual children (Pizza Hut doesn’t seem to realize there’s a difference) in their “incentive to reading program.”

A lot of the outrage has the tone of “this is happening all over” and “it’s the end of the world” and that’s bullsh*t. It’s not happening all over. Most parents don’t engage in that kind of stupidity. And the world has spun on through more horrible stuff than this current insanity.

On the other hand, I find myself outraged — just as I was when of Dan’s co-workers would take his entire family to Hooters with tiny kids in toe — and in sympathy with my socon brethren. In a sane world, CPS would be descending on those families like a bunch of bees on honey, and taking the kids away. Because that ridiculousness is inappropriate, insane, and frankly painful to even know it’s happening.

But the fact that the CPS isn’t taking the kids away, and the fact that parents are — at all — doing this nonsense makes me step back and go “Woa!” and “WHY would you do that?”

The most inappropriate thing I did with my kid was take him to a Libertarian party meeting, and frankly at 2 he was too young to be affected by talk of making government powerless. Also, we couldn’t find a babysitter.

I mean…. I don’t think it’s appropriate to take kids to see exotic dancers, male, female or squirrel. What is in these parents’ heads, precisely?

So I followed the link the twitter discussion, and then got even more disturbed.

About half the comments were by liberals — and if they don’t want to be called NPCs they shouldn’t all say the same — saying something like “But the parents are only taking the kids to these shows so if they grow up to be drag queens they’ll know they’re loved and accepted.”

Um…. clears throat…. What else are they exposing the kids to, so they know if they want to do it when they grow up, they’ll be loved and accepted?

Look, drag queen is a performance profession. Yes, profession. It’s done for money. It’s a sub-form of burlesque, which means it thrives on pushing the boundaries and the outre, which also means being ‘loved and accepted’ not only doesn’t mean much of anything, but also might destroy all their joy in their transgression. In fact, the reason drag queen performers participate in these shows and in drag queen story hour is not to be accepted, but to experience the transgression of doing this in front of children.

Honestly, it doesn’t mean they’re minor-attracted. Or gay. Or anything else. Drag queens get their rocks (and often money) off on the performance, and transgression of social norms. That’s all it is. And most of them, by the by, are outraged at being aggregated to trans.

Can your kid grow up to be a drag queen? I suppose. I mean, sooner or later every guy dresses up as a girl, usually for Halloween. Some find they like it. Waves hand. Whatever.

The performance they put on is a poor caricature of females, but that’s acceptable under burlesque and shock-acts. That’s fine too. Whatever.

I grew up in the seventies. I’m used to un-funny comedy acts. I don’t attend them voluntarily and had one of my boys decided this was what they wanted to do for a living, I’d have disapproved. Which if they were that type would have increased their interest in doing it.

And?

Look, my mom disapproves of what I do. She disapproves of reading fiction, much less writing it. In her head all writing and reading should be “useful” meaning manuals and the like. She strongly disapproves of what I do.

I don’t care. I’m an adult, and I do what I am called to do. I am sorry she doesn’t like that I do it, but that’s life.

So, why must kids know that drag queening SPECIFICALLY is approved of?

Are their parents also taking them to circus performances, so they know if they want to be clowns or jugglers they’ll be loved and approved of? No? Why not?

For that matter, are these mostly upper middle class parents taking their kids to watch plumbers and carpenters work, so they know if they grow up to be plumbers or carpenters, they’ll be loved and approved of? No? Why not?

I suspect it’s because the parents have rats in their heads and also confuse drag queens with trans, and want the kids to know it’s okay to be trans.

But WHY is it so important for them to know it’s “okay” and they’ll be “loved” if they’re trans?

The message of “you can do whatever” is everywhere now, so why this?

Have they taken them to visit with ultra-conservative religious families and told them it’s okay if they grow up to be conservative and hetero. If not why not?

But more importantly, and seriously, why do these people think that total strangers applauding whatever they decide to do — whether it’s “caring” (enabling) drug addicted homeless or pretending to be the opposite sex — is so all-fargin important.

People don’t love you because you’re straight, gay, a drag queen or a plumber. (Though people often love a timely plumber, in appropriate circumstances.) People love you for who you are, outside those characteristics. People applaud you for doing difficult things. BUT NOT ALL PEOPLE. Only people who are close enough to you, either physically or emotionally, to give a hang.

You’re never — unless you’re a rock star — going to get multitudes of strangers fawning over you. And even if you are a rock star — or less likely a writer — strangers will only fawn over you for a limited, specific time.

Here’s a newsflash: People have their own lives, their own priorities and their own interests. NONE of us are the center of the universe. And no matter how outrageous anyone gets, he or she or it or idiot can’t get people to care about him or her universally. And I fail to understand why ANYONE would want to.

If you think the most important thing in the world is for some kid to know he’s loved and approved of if he grows up in 20 years to become a drag queen, I have very serious and urgent advice: GET A LIFE.

Because the rest of us have more important things to do with ours than hang on what anyone wants to dress up in.

Leave us alone and stop performing for the applause.

I think the beginning of maturity is realizing everything has a price.

There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, if you will.

And then you continue learning it, throughout your life.

If you’re looking at me askance and wondering how I came by such a materialistic view of the world, take a deep breath and read what I wrote again. I didn’t say the price is in coins, or in dollars, or in any symbolic denomination, though I suppose symbolic denominations make the price easy to see, sometimes. More on that later.

What I’m saying is that everything you want has a price. And the prices you don’t see are often the most terrible of them all.

Telling your kids they can have anything they want is outright destructive, if you don’t add “if you’re willing to pay the price.” Telling your kids they are so smart they can go anywhere is again, destructive, because success in life is not “just” intelligence. It requires a lot of other qualities, and the acquiring of them,as well as the performing of various positions that might look easy or prestigious from outside, is always more expensive than you’d think.

People who find it unfair that a CEO gets paid more than a store cashier might also have other mental deficits, but most of all they have failed to realize that there are prices to pay. Yes, of course being a cashier can be mentally and physically draining as well as unpleasant. I trust you to believe me, having known some, so can a CEO’s. It’s more that the CEO never can lay the job down and walk away, and that the job has the potential to eat everything else they love, something cashiering hardly ever does. (Unless it’s your own store and then it’s a wholly different animal.)

And that’s the other thing. When I was growing up in Portugal during a socialist upheaval, there was much grumbling about those dastardly business owners. But if you’ve been one, or known one, you know what every business owner — even owners of writing businesses — must do, what time and love and sheer effort much to to secure any success at all. People who own businesses are often owned by them, and what goes into them is heart’s blood. It’s a price. And you pay it. Knowing that sometimes no matter how much you pay it won’t be enough.

That most selfless and noble of all decisions, marrying for love, has a price too, depending on who you marry and when. In my case, for instance, it cost me accreditation and connections, and things that would have made the price for achieving high business and monetary success less onerous. I paid in my hands in dishwater, in learning to sew and mend, and yes refinish furniture, and other things. Though part of that price was for the right and privilege to lever my lance in the field of fiction writing.

I’m not complaining of the price. Totally worth it. But I also can understand my parents’ resentment — no, perhaps too strong a word — apprehension, concern and frustration at seeing me toss out a degree for which they’d paid — not in money. That I dealt with, but in not having me apprentice or enter the factory and bring in money for the house from the age of ten or so — and choose a much harder path with what must have seemed to them as much, much higher risk and lower potential rewards.

Having kids has a price too. My parents paid it, and I’ve paid it. And perhaps the biggest, most onerous cost of having kids is how it affects everything else in your life.

It makes sense that when you’re little everything you are and everything you do will go to “feed” the children’s needs whether those be in food, or time, or learning materials. It’s like a crisis situation that goes on roughly two decades, as you try to do the best you can, so they can be launched as well as you can afford to.

But more important is the price no one tells you you’ll pay. A friend, on losing her son posted on facebook that being a mother was having a piece of your heart running around in someone else’s chest.

Maybe not every parent is like that, but I’ve found that’s true of me (And not mothers only. I believe my husband feels the same way.)

And yeah, you blame yourself for all their stumbles, failures, and character defects no matter how small, even when they obviously are not your fault. That too is a price. As is understanding that at a certain point they have to pay their own price. If you try to pay it for them it will go wrong. At the very worst they’ll never realize the price. At the intermediate level, they’ll end up in a destination you chose, with a price you paid, and even if everything is great, they’ll wonder if that’s where they want to be. Because it’s not their destination and they didn’t pay.

There is a reason humans give birth in pain. Without it, how much would the average person value the mewling infant that needs them for everything.

You can’t pay the price for anyone else, because how do you know they even want that? And if they do, how do you know they’d pay that price, themselves or have you pay it for them.

Look, look back on your past, how many times did you make a choice of a path that you now wonder why on Earth?

Everyone I know at some point says “if I knew then what I know now.” Like if I knew which country I’d spend my life in, I’d have taken that computer science scholarship out of high school. Far more useful than languages, here. But I didn’t know, and it would have seemed far-fetched. So I went with what I knew, and made a less than ideal decision.

Most of all what our decisions cost is other decisions. You choose to be a stay at home mom, instead of a high power executive…. Or vice versa. Either way you sacrificed your self and the path not taken, and taken a risk.

Given how dependent on the situation and your knowledge at the time the decision is, how can you make it for someone else? You don’t know their own knowledge of their situation, much less do you know as they do what motivates them, and what they’re willing to sacrifice for what they want. Sometimes, even they don’t know it and are acting on an hunch.

It makes sense to make those decisions for little kids. “Yes, you will sacrifice your chance to play in the rain for the goal of not getting cold and potentially sick, because I say so.” Or “You’ll sacrifice the potential fun of petting the mountain lion, because I don’t want you mauled.” Because little kids don’t know any better.

But every year more of the decision should be theirs, because they know what they’re willing to sacrifice, not you. You can advise, inform, and help. You can worry sick that they’re closing the door on opportunities, or ignoring advantages. (That’s your price for the joy of having them.) But you can’t decide for them. You can’t sacrifice for them. You can’t live for them.

Even if you know more now than they do now, you’re not them. Your knowledge of them isn’t as exact, and you don’t know what drives them. Not even your kids, whom you’ve known from birth (and for mothers before.)

You can’t live someone’s life for them, because only they know the price they’ll pay.

My husband I have turned our backs on paths leading to fortune at least three times. TBF we didn’t tell our parents of it, but I’m sure they’d disapprove. But the price required was too high for us, either in time, or in required obeisance to repulsive ideas.

We picked a calmer and poorer life. The price was ours to pay.

Given that parents and children who (most of them) love each other and know each other incredibly well, can’t make that choice for each other, how can a government? Particularly a distant government, of a continent sized nation.

It might seem right and just to them that we incur famine to avoid the Earth temperature going up a degree over a century. It certainly isn’t my decision. The Earth has been warmer in the past with no catastrophe, and I don’t want to starve to death. I don’t even want to surrender the comforts of the 21st century to appease their cult of an angry weather goddess in which I don’t believe.

And it’s not their right to make that choice for the rest of us. Particularly when they use up more fuel in attending the “conferences” for their supposed “emergency” than I’d spend in a 100 years of living a normal 21st century life. Just like it’s not their right to tell us how to defend ourselves, where to live, how many children to have.

None of that is theirs to decide, because they don’t pay the price. We do.

Everything in life has a price. And to force others to pay the price for the result you want is evil.

Plain, unadulterated, irreconcilable evil.

Left to run rampant, it will destroy the world and all in it.

*So, you’ll love this one: If you saw this post come up essentially empty except for intros, that was what was saved in draft. When I finished writing the post and tried to publish, it failed because — it told me — I didn’t have permission to publish posts. Since I’m the owner and sole poster here, that was…. weird. I thought “Ahah, Worpress is being funky” found the draft post, which is usually updated to the last minute, and published that. It came up empty. So I went to edit and copy-pasted the contents. No, I have no clue what’s going on, but this is stupidity of a very high order. Very high. As in Colorado-high.- SAH*

Book promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, 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. ;)*

FROM PAM UPHOFF: Murder in the Rigel Brigade (Fall of the Alliance Book 6)

Detective Inspector Smirnov is back!

On medical leave, with his leg in a cast, so the man gunned down in the street wasn’t his case. Even thought he’d been in a meeting with the man just a few hours before.

No, his problem was reviving the Rigel Brigade because a cross dimensional World has set it’s sights on Rigel as a nice place to acquire.

So it’s time for a cross-dimensional shopping trip for the equipment and personnel the Brigade is going to need.

And return to find the Council Chairman and eight others dead in a brutal assassination.

Can Inspector Smirnov solve the crimes while training the Brigade? And can he do it before the next invasion?

FROM AMIE GIBBONS: Scorpions of the Deep: A Southern Psychic Thriller (The Scorpions Demonic Thrillers Book 1)

If you love chilling, demonic horror that’ll keep you up at night, and stories of the ultimate battle between good and evil for humanity’s soul, then plunge into this pulse pounding, paranormal thriller series from bestselling author Amie Gibbons.


Since The Fall, demons have walked the Earth. Most people these days don’t believe. But as the world grows darker, what they don’t know will hurt them.

Sarah Blakely’s back home after her life falls apart. With no plan, no direction, and no hope, she could use something to believe in. Especially after her depressed mind starts playing tricks on her.

She’s seeing and hearing things that aren’t there, that can’t be there, because the supernatural isn’t real…

Sarah’s either losing her mind, or there are more things in Hell and Earth than are dreamt of in her philosophy, and they’re using her depression to break her. She’s not sure which would be worse… but she’s about to find out.

FROM DAVID COLLINS: The Void Ripper (Starship Medusa Book 1)

The AI informed Jason that due him having to some traces of alien DNA, he was now the Captain of a massive alien Starship. That should have been good news.

Except that a lot of government agencies had different ideas about the massive ship.

And then there were all these other different alien races, and the wars.

And the AI, it may have gone a little insane being a derelict for centuries…

But real problem was, Jasons DNA had a second trait, one that shouldn’t be there…

FROM CLAYTON BARNETT: Obligations of Rank

Empress Faustina has always ruthlessly used those around her. With her three sons now young men, it is their turn.

To the imperium’s west, the Texans are increasingly unhappy with the empress, especially following her use of a fusion weapon against the city of St. Louis. A broken demi-human, Edward, is sent to patch up what affairs he can.

North, fleeing the ice and snow of a coming ice age, the Canadians and their army are on the Ohio River, threatening territory the imperium considers its own. Young human Robert, undercover as a simply legionary, joins a task force to find out what is going on.

But the prize is the terraforming of Mars, led by the Russian Empire. Crown Prince Laszlo, a friend of the Russian court, takes an experimental ship to determine what they and their Machine allies are doing on the once-red planet.

FROM PAUL CLAYTON: Escape From the Future and Other Stories

What if you had access to a time machine and could go back to visit a deceased love… one more time. Would you?

In 1962, Bobby Newman’s Grandpa, a basement inventor, loses his wife to cancer, then begins to lose his mind to grief. While tuning up his not-yet-perfected time machine for one last visit with his wife, he ends up going the wrong way… into the dystopian future of 2025. Inexplicably, he sends the machine back.

Fourteen-year-old Bobby uses it to lead Mom and Dad on a mission to find Grandpa and bring him back.

But Grandpa has other ideas…

FROM SAM SCHALL: Destiny from Ashes

Colonel Ashlyn Shaw is on a collision course with an enemy determined to destroy her and all she holds dear. Honor demands she not turn away from the upcoming battle. Duty requires her to do whatever is necessary to protect her command and her home system. The Corps and her family stand with her, ready and willing to do whatever it takes to finally bring this war to an end.

But when the enemy turns out to be closer than she thinks, how will Ashlyn react? Will this finally be what breaks her or will it see the might of the Fuerconese Marine Corps raining death and destruction down on all who would stand against Fuercon and her enemies?

Honor and duty. Corps and family. These are the hills upon which Ash and every Marine in her command will live and possibly die as they fight to protect Fuercon and her allies.

FROM DAVE FREER: Cloud-Castles

Augustus Thistlewood was an idealist. The youngest scion of a vastly wealthy family, he’d come to help the poor, deprived people of the strange world of Sybill III – a gas-dwarf world with no habitable land. The human population, descendants of a crashed convict transport, lived on a tiny, crowded, alien antigravity plate they called ‘the Big Syd’, drifting through the clouds in the upper atmosphere. It was a few square miles of squalor, in a vast sea of sky, ruled by the degenerate relics of two alien empires.
The problem was that the people of the Big Syd wanted to help themselves, first – to his money, his liberty, and even his life.
Only two things stood between them and this: the first was his ‘assistant’ Briz, – a ragged urchin he’d picked up as a guide. She reckoned if anyone was going to steal from Augustus, it was going to be her, even if she had to keep him alive so that she could do it. And the second thing was Augustus himself. He didn’t know what ‘giving up’ meant. Actually, he didn’t know what most things meant. As a naïve, wide-eyed innocent blundering through the cess-pit of Sybill III, he was going to have to learn, mostly the hard way. Some of that learning was going to be out in the strange society that existed on the endless drifting clumps of airborne vegetation, and the Cloud-Castles of the aliens who hunted across them. Most of it was learning that philanthropy wasn’t quite what they’d taught him in college.

FROM KATRINA LEGG: Some Like it Bot (Noir Good Deed Goes Unpunished)

When the blonde bombshell walked into his office, Deputy Corbin was certain he’d seen this show before.

Then she asked him to solve her murder.

Deputy Corbin will have to follow a convoluted trail of lust and madness to save the tragic starlet… and he might not be in time, even if he figures out who did it.

This is a long short story, not quite a novella, and should not be mistaken for a novel.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Other Rhodes (Rhodes Mysteries Book 1)

Lily 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,
Lily will risk everything to plunge into the interstellar underworld
and bring the love of her life home!

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.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: RECESS

*Before I start, my friend Tom Knighton over at Tilting at Windmills, is offering a special subscriber deal for ATH readers. – SAH*

This morning the sentence “This bucket of tears” crossed my mind and made me smile. You see, it takes some explaining, but when I was little I thought the common expression for the current mortal life was not “valley of tears” but “bucket of tears.”

How I got there, takes a bit of explaining.

I come from a region of the North of Portugal, which was Galicia almost as long as it’s been Portugal. Either side of the border the language spoken is more similar to the other side than to either Portuguese or Spanish. Among us Galegos, we understood each other just fine.

And one of the characteristic issues is turning all vs into bs. My brother Alvarim signs himself in family communications Barim, which is what we all called him, of course. And I’m still prone to fall into this, you won’t fully know me, until you hear me — when extremely tired — use something like “I don’t habe any vs because habing vs is the debil.” My family shrugs and rolls with it.

Now, I actually have no idea if “balde” is the official Portuguese word for “bucket” or if it’s a regionalism, but for me, as a little kid, balde was bucket. And on being taught the Ave Regina prayer, the phrase “neste vale de lagrimas” (In this valley of tears) in my dad’s at home accent (he was correct at work) immediately translated to “This bucket of tears.” Which of course, made perfect sense.

Now that we’re done with the overly long and complicated explanation….

So, we all live in a valley of tears. It is futile to think if you live correctly no disaster will befall you. As we learned in 2020, no matter how good your plan, it can be ripped from you by idiots running with government and computer models, not to mention an unholy need to steal elections.

Just ask any small business/small restaurant owner, or any of the dozen kids I know who spent their lives planning and working for a career in the performing arts.

There was nothing they could do to overcome the speeding tray heading for them.

Or look at my …. um….. life course.

Believe it or not I took languages and literature not because I was passionate about the subject, but because it was easy, and almost guaranteed employment. Since Portugal is a tiny country, not only do you need a passport to swing even the tiniest of kittens, you need a translator to ask the Spaniards to lean the other way so you can do so. Someone with seven languages would be a no-brainer as a translator, and I could do simultaneous interpreting on the fly for three of those, so I’d be fine.

But just to make sure, having watched my brother eat his heart out with years of unemployment after finishing his degree, I got a certificate for teaching (which meant an additional two classes, to be fair.)

… I then married an American, moved to a country which didn’t accept my degree as a teaching degree (my university wasn’t assigned a code, therefore I couldn’t take the certification exam, because they were computer-graded and would spit the exam out without a code. Just as well. Imagine my career in public schools. Curiously, as we found when the kids were applying to college, my university now has a code. And the teaching degree is accepted. Stop staring at me. Do I look insane?) and there wasn’t much need for a multilingual scientific translator.

I did find a job as such, for a year, but it was underpaid, overworked, no chance of promotion, and they wouldn’t let me take time off for infertility exams/treatments (since I wasn’t technically “sick.”

So–

So… I improvised. For a while I free-lance translated, and was starting to widen my client base, when I ended up on bed rest with older son, and then moving across the country. At which point (since in those days translating was local (no internet)) husband gave me a choice of rebuilding the translation business or trying to write, as I’d always wanted to do.

You know what I chose. And sure, most of the time I made about what an underpaid secretary made, but I got to be home with the kid, and then the other kid, who came as a complete surprise. And clearly we never starved, nor was I suffering from lack of intellectual challenges.

What brought this on?

Well, there was this article reporting with much shock that 30% of college graduates have no life plan.

<Rolls eyes towards ceiling.

How could they? In the middle of the mess we’re in, those of us with more experience and knowledge are finding it very hard to have two year plans, let alone life plans. What can kids, green as grass and twice as innocent know of what might happen in the next 20, 30 or 50 years. Nothing.

How do you plan for the collapse of the central planning, top-down model that now controls the entire world? How do you plan for a change of guard so massive that the last one on this scale involved guillotines?

Even if we manage it without violence — maybe, though like Uncle Lar, I feel a violent spasm in the future and not too far off — as BGE has pointed out there will be a bunch of economic disturbances. Given the massive technological upheaval we’ve been experiencing in the last …. 20 years, “catastrophic inovation” will have a lot to say to the shape of everyone’s future, even in the best of the best case scenarios.

So…. In the bucket of tears, all we can do is prepare the best we can: both by having stuff to get us through the lean times, but also by learning all we can and staying flexible.

And keep learning. And keep your eyes open for opportunities.

Yes, we’re probably heading into a recession of some magnitude, but given knowledge and flexibility, there will also be a bunch of opportunities to go and be on the ground floor of new, fast-rising structures and institutions.

Well, the rest of you. For me, the only thing I’m good for now is writing. But the way to do that is also changing very fast.

Adapt, Improvise, Overcome.

Those who think they can stop us haven’t seen anything yet.

Yes, in this bucket of tears there will always be contretemps and disappointment, loss and tragedy.

But we, like our ancestors, will be ready to meet the trouble and defeat it.

Be not afraid.

Now go get ready.

Those who don’t learn from History are doomed to repeat it. Those who learn from history are doomed to scream like crazy people while being dragged along into the same old insanity by those who failed to learn.

Sure. Okay.

Of course you can learn from history, because humans are humans as far back as we can ascertain, and probably longer that. Some of the observations on Chimpanzees make me wonder how human they are, in the good and the bad. No, not us, but so many of the mechanisms are present that it makes me wonder about all those hominins and hominids and how close they were to us.

So, for instance, utopian regimes never work, because humans in general can’t “bend” to be good all the time. Nations or crowds can decide to do this or that, and “everyone will do this.” Only it never works that way. Any regime that needs “everybody to just” will not work. And history shows that over and over and over again, in tedious detail.

But there are more lessons from history, and our Founding Fathers used those to decide we’d be a democratic republic, and how it would be set up. Some of those lessons were from Greece and Rome, but some of the structures are from British history and common law.

However it is important to realize that history doesn’t repeat. It rhymes. And it’s important to study the differences, to see what will be the same, and what will be different.

You can’t say communism took over this and that and that, and therefore it will work here.

That’s mental. That’s like saying “I can throw stone balls from the roof and they’re fine, so I should be able to throw glass balls from the roof and they’ll be fine.”

So, let’s talk some lessons from history when it comes to totalitarian take over, shall we?

First, there seems to be a hard limit on the kind of crazy Marxist regime that the idiot left wants to impose here. The hard limit is due to the fact that it can’t feed itself. Or do much of anything for itself. That’s why Marxist regimes turn military and invade everything. (Something Putin is trying to repeat, because he’s still a Marxist.)

Invading nearby more prosperous lands allows the regime to give goodies to its followers and the people who do its dirty work. But it also allows an illusion of increased prosperity which the regime needs to go on.

(I always found it funny that the soviets called us imperialist, when in fact they needed their empire to just keep going.)

How long can a communist/socialist/Marxist regime to keep going?

We don’t know. History doesn’t tell us that, because frankly the only way the bad regimes have survived is with help from other places. Mostly, alas from us. We propped up the entire cold war, to avoid a nuclear confrontation which might never have been a thing if we hadn’t propped them up.

And Venezuela is being propped up by the Junta refusing to mine oil locally. Ditto Russia, to an extent.

North Korea depends on China.

China, well, we propped up that too, which is why they thought it was worth it taking our presidency.

Look, we can learn from history, but we have to remember where we are right now.

And right now… It’s not a good time for collectivism. Heck, it’s not a good time for statism. It’s not a good time for center-out regimes.

And the bright idea China had of buying itself an American President (so called) is also a fine example of not learning from history, but to the whispers of their most insane rulers, the ones who mainlined lead and killed all the grandmothers who told stories. Because they don’t even realize we prop them up. (Consider nationalism and racism (yeah, they are racists, why?) And so they think they can take us down and be the sole power in the world.

It doesn’t work that way. I guess they can delude themselves about it a little while, like they can convince themselves that their bright and shiny African colonization schemes work. (In reality, Africa is already winning. Africa always wins. Not its people. But Africa does.)

Because if they do manage to take over the US, even for a year — bet you they won’t. And no, don’t be stupid. They’ve taken over the US administratively, but if you don’t live in one of the super blue areas, you know snooks are being cocked at their instructions. left and right pretty much — everything they have and have built everywhere else will collapse hard.

Even with the half-rule of the demi-president, which most of us are somewhere between growling at and ignoring, the world is already shaking. Because it can’t work without a mostly free America.

If America can’t feed itself, no one can feed America. Sure, we could conquer the entire clown car of them, but they wouldn’t keep us going for a week.

So– History. But here it’s different. Mostly because America is always different. And I could tell you why, but that’s a whole other post.

The other portion of history to take into account is that we’re not close to falling to the leftist bullshit. If you think we’ve already fallen, you’re a lot like them and think the wraper is the present, and would eat cat poop in a candy wrapper. They’ve taken over the institutions, the government, and a lot of our “structure.” That’s bad because we actually need some of those things. I guess we’ll find out which we need because they are actually not working at all. which is par for the course for anything the left takes over, of course.

Most of what we’re seeing is the structure flailing around trying to get something that makes the country believe in collectivism again.

And that’s the thing: We were closer to believing in top down and center out and collectivism a hundred years ago than we are now.

We really believed it in the fifties. To some extent the sixties started as a rebellion against that, but the USSR had its propaganda ore in, and it all went South and became about collectivism and drugs, and the US not being good, and–.

But the propaganda is busted. the last four years really revealed what’s in the heart of the collectivists. (They don’t like us very much.)

And unlike 100 years ago, there isn’t only easily controlled media to convey the easily controlled message.

Yes, I know they’re trying. It’s not working. It’s not working in Europe, where they control the message a lot harder.

China seems to be committing suicide city by city till you wonder if that’s what a civil war now looks like, there.

Russia… well, I’m sure Putin thinks it’s a super power.

All of these “they’re more organized than us, they’ll do better” are … not.

There’s only us. And where we’re going the collectivists can’t even imagine.

They’re going to break a bunch of things, and some of them we’ll need to rebuild. I guess we’re doing one of those “get rid of everything in your house. Now bring in only what you need” clean ups.

Right now we’re learning that a lot of the history we studied was wrong. A just-so story created by collectivists to try get their way.

So it’s dangerous to believe those books. If you’re going to read history go to original sources.

And then keep going.

Because you can learn from history, but unlike my joke quotes in the opening, you’re not condemned into ANYTHING. History doesn’t really repeat. (Unless you’re in China, apparently, but that might be a matter of the history we think we know.)

The future is unwritten. It’s up to you to write it.

And to me. And to all of us.

And I’m laying down my marker on “It’s going to suck for a little while, but then it’s going to be amazing.”

Let’s make it amazing.

Today is one of those frustrating days when I sit down to do something, and get interrupted. But…. for…. reasons, I’ve spent a lot of time recently reading and re-reading this poem. The last stanza has a way of reducing me to tears.

Hymn of the Breaking Strain – Rudyard Kipling

THE careful text-books measure

  (Let all who build beware!)

The load, the shock, the pressure

  Material can bear.

So, when the buckled girder

  Lets down the grinding span,

‘The blame of loss, or murder,

  Is laid upon the man.

    Not on  the Stuff—the Man!

But in our daily dealing

  With stone and steel, we find

The Gods have no such feeling

  Of justice toward mankind.

To no set gauge they make us—

  For no laid course prepare—

And presently o’ertake us

  With loads we cannot bear:

    Too merciless to bear. 

The prudent text-books give it

  In tables at the end

‘The stress that shears a rivet

  Or makes a tie-bar bend—

‘What traffic wrecks macadam—

  What concrete should endure—

but we, poor Sons of Adam

  Have no such literature,

    To warn us or make sure!

We hold all Earth to plunder—

  All Time and Space as well—

Too wonder-stale to wonder

  At each new miracle;

Till, in the mid-illusion

  Of Godhead ‘neath our hand,

Falls multiple confusion

  On all we did or planned—

     The mighty works we planned. 

We only of Creation

  (Oh, luckier bridge and rail)

Abide the twin damnation—  

  To fail and know we fail.

Yet we – by which sole token

  We know we once were Gods—

Take shame in being broken

  However great the odds—

    The burden of the Odds.

Oh, veiled and secret Power

  Whose paths we seek in vain,

Be with us in our hour

  Of overthrow and pain;

That we – by which sure token

  We know Thy ways are true—

In spite of being broken,

  Because of being broken

    May rise and build anew

    Stand up and build anew.

I didn’t realize until a couple of days ago the big problem with the “divine infant” syndrome, where infants and children are assumed to be the voice of wisdom, reason and knowledge.

We’ve all laughed at the woke eight year olds — it’s always eight year olds — who talk about how terrified they are for the election of a Republican, or the potential repeal of Roe vs. Wade, or whatever it might be. I mean, let’s talk about it, shall we? I’ve heard of “woke eight year olds” terrified of the repeal of net neutrality, okay?

And we giggle when they say something like “that’s a micro aggression, because my ten year old told me.”

But the biggest problem, in the way of the paved way to you know where, is that this has seeped into the culture, everywhere since the sixties.

If there is something done and established, and something supported by the youth, well then the youth stuff must be better.

This might have made some sense in a time of rapid techno development, but it makes zero sense in modes of living and being in the world.

I mean, sure, if I’ve just acquired a new gadget and can’t for the live of me figure out how to make it work (doesn’t actually happen that often because I’m a fairly competent non-techy) my son is likely to know. well, if my husband isn’t available.

The only other thing I will lean on my sons for is media trends, from games to comics. If I think I’m impinging on an area that might have a deep history I know nothing about, then I ask the boys. Or my husband. Because al of them watch/play/do more visual stuff than I do.

You know what I don’t do? Find the youngest person who can speak and ask them what I should do about some moral dilema. Or if abortion is right. Or what to believe about anything.

The problem, if you look at practically all visual media, the child is the “smart one” and the one who is “wise.”

And this has primed us for ridiculousness. Most of those teachers wanting to talk to kids under five about their sex lives are seeking absolution. No, seriously. In the back of their brains, if the kid agrees, they’re obviously okay.

And of course, it allows a lot of sometimes confused, not actively malicious parents to believe that their three year old “really” know they’re the opposite sex, despite physical evidence to the contrary.

Because, you know, kids know!

This bizarre illusion would be funny if it weren’t having such disastrous results. I’m not exactly sure how it started. I know in medieval poems and ballads the “infant at the breast” speaks, and always tells the absolute truth, but part of that is that a) the child was innocent and therefore a conduit for G-d’s grace; b) it was a miracle, which clinched it.

If I had to guess at the new cliche, I think it comes from wanting to subvert expectations. Same thng that gave us the “wise and all knowing homeless lady” for a while. But while you can play with those particularly in SF and fantasy. (This is why you guys haven’t forgiven me for killing a certain gator) it didn’t take like the “all knowing infant” has. Because all knowing homeless is obviously crazy and dangerous, but everyone likes kids, and kids do sometimes SEEM to have amazing insights.

Seem to? Well, within their limited knowledge they might surprise you with something like “Mom, you’ve been sneezing since we changed our pillows.”

You know what your kid — even a very smart one — won’t surprise you with? “Mom, the approach to space colonization is all wrong.” (Okay, fine, my son said that at 8, but he still hasn’t built the space/time travel machine he promised if only I bought him more K’nex. I’m starting to think he just wanted to scam me out of more K’nex.)

I don’t know if the reason we’re all falling for this is a result of a life soaked in story and narrative, but for the record, there are things kids know and things kids don’t know.

They might be experts in something they do every day and you never do. They might notice things that you know are unimportant, but they think are all important. This will allow them sometimes to notice, say, that you missed something in the cake you’re baking. Particularly if they saw you making it before, or the recipe is in a video. But they won’t tell you you’re using the wrong type of flour, unless they can read and are obsessed with cooking. And even then he won’t be 3.

Kids are human. They don’t have extra-sensory ways of acquiring knowledge. So in general they know less than adults do, and often rely on their parents for their opinions. And sometimes think their parents’ opinions are not what they are, but they misinterpret the signs.

A little kid has no clue if he’s “really” a girl, because he has no clue what a girl is, not inside. Which is why he concentrates on the stereotypes. They might want to wear pink, or play with dolls or whatever but that’s a really stupid reason to castrate a boy and destroy his future. (And for the record every little boy at some point wants to do something profoundly girly. One of mine wanted to learn embroidery. He likes making things. And every little little girl becomes smitten with a set of playing cars or a train set.) Also, I hate to say this, but almost every kid at some point wants to be a cat, a robot or a car. Because they don’t know any better, not because they’re all-knowing.

They particularly do not understand how society should be organized. How would they have come by that knowledge?

Remember the old “The kids are our future” — well, self-obviously — but they are not magical, and they’re not all-knowing.

It’s time for the kids to be kids and the adults to be adults again, before this crazy train goes over the cliff and onto the flaming dumpster fire.

Consuming stories is all very find, but you really shouldn’t believe fiction. And writing stories is great, but drinking your own ink is toxic.

Remember reality and don’t be fooled by pretty dreams.

As you see and read things like this, it is very important to remember these are not the signs of a winning ideology.

Yes, watching the entire DAVOS insanity is …. bizarre and disheartening. (For one, because seriously — looks at ceiling — You, Author, need a writer’s group. Seriously. Evil, gloating villains with German accents. Are You for real now? I know You think You’re using stereotypes to highlight the importance of not writing stereotypes of something, but seriously. Decide on schlock or literary now. And as characters, we’d prefer schlock. Yes, worse things happen, but at least SOME characters get to be happy.)

But you have to remember nothing in this are the signs of a winning ideology, one that has any grip on hearts and minds.

Yes, the communists always wanted to watch your every move and control everything you did and if possible thought. They even achieved some of it by being low-key and sneaky for a while, when the mass-communication technologies favored them anyway.

But now? Now they are saying the quiet part out loud, and so desperate — as their ideology of top down and center out control proves absolutely bankrupt in every sense, including economic — that they have changed from “we must gull them with promises” to “We’ll just control everything and watch their every expression, and they can never escape, never!”

This is always the final phase of crashing regimes, and it won’t go any better for them now.

I won’t go into the whole disgusting video, though you’re welcome to torture yourself, if you wish, but there are so many built in lies that it’s ridiculous. No, Covidiocy was not when everyone consented to or chose to be watched all the time. It is when the idiots at the top tried to control us and watch us and eventually failed biggly.

No? Oh, please. If they hadn’t failed, we’d all still be locked up and wearing masks, and unable do do anything outside. If you think they relinquished that power voluntarily, you should stop boggarting the soma. Their beau-ideal is China, where they can arbitrarily lock up and starve an entire city. And you know damn well they’d be doing it to us, together with the entire bunch of violation of rights that Chinese endure, if they could.

But why does it work in China? Aren’t they human? Well, yes, they are. Their culture though is virtually alien. But there is more to it, such as the fact they exist at the wreckage of a medieval system colliding with a highly industrial one. Most of the Chinese probably live as they did 1000 years ago. (Which is why the myth of the great Chinese market for our entertainment or whatever is just that.) And then there’s a very wealthy techno-industrial-entrepeneurial class at the top, which is able to be controlled because they’re not willing to live like 1000 years ago.

This is not the west, which has over five hundred years of independent and fractious middle class culture, which will not knuckle down that easily. Yes, the Marxists think if they impoverish us, we’ll be peons, but they never understood that “not of bread alone lives Man” and there’s culture, habits and patterns of thought.

The point is that in most of the US — I don’t know about Europe, my window into that is disheartening since my family fell for the covidiocy hook line and sinker — by the Summer of 2020 people were ignoring the shouted orders from above, either openly or sneakily, or with malice aforethought.

I hope someone preserved the logs of the mandatory contact tracing, etc. for future historians. I would like to know, as a matter of curiosity, how many times Deez Nuts and Bit Eme went out to dinner or attended public functions. I’d also like to know how many times the phone numbers of public officials responsible for the nonsense were filled in on various forms. I can personally attest to the fact that Manuel Garcia O’Kelly and Wyoming Knott did some amazing stepping out during the crazier times.

Vaccine passports are required in Europe, of course. I casually mentioned to my mother that we’d gone to the movies, and she was like “So, you got vaccinated.” “Uh, no. What the h*ll, don’t tell me you guys put up with that.”

And there you go. This is why the evil villain plans will fail.

There can be no World Government, because there is no World Culture. And even if there were, it would be applied with regional variations that would make a mockery of all their plans.

But the other thing that cartoon critter above is dreaming of on video: electronic surveillance so fine they can detect and destroy dissidents.

It’s a nightmare. It’s a nightmare, in the sense that it’s not real. I do realize it’s massively scary, but the fact is what he’s talking about is ultimately impossible.

I’ve told you guys before to watch “The Lives of Others.” Because in a way it documents the failure mode of the totalitarian state: collecting so much information, they can’t process it.

And if you’re going to say that “but their technology was much more primitive” you’re not wrong. What you’re missing is that such technology limited their ability to collect info, as much as their ability to process it.

Now both are much better, but the information they can collect still vastly outperforms their ability to process it.

In fact, the tech he discusses above requires AI, which we’re learning — like perfect renewable energy, like immortality (both of which might be easier) — might in fact be impossible, or if not impossible centuries away. It also would require that AI which, to work at that level would need to be sentient, to agree with their aims and ideas (which means the AI would need to be as insane as they are and in the exact same manner.)

All of these are things that work in books and movies, but not in real life, and it goes back to my idea that we are absorbing more story than our brains can handle, when these things seem to make sense. Even to crazy German super-villains.

But more importantly, it is important to realize that the failure mode of regimes and modes of government (And the entire world, including the West has been enamored of top-down center-out for the last 100 years at least) is when they go from “well persuade most of them to our great and glorious cause” to “we must watch them all the time and intervene before they can think of rebelling.”

That mode is a failure mode because it never works: not in families, not in companies, (and I’m sure all of us have had at least an experience with those and that mode) and not in countries. Much less the world.

What you’re watching is an aristocracy, depending on science they don’t understand, and trying to hold onto power that has long since slipped through their hands.

Yes, they can break a lot of things, but new systems will emerge.

Take their idea of all currency being digital. It’s called “Make gold the default currency again, fast.” Because the black market is the only thing that will keep human populations alive, and humans like to be alive. And gold is the obvious currency, probably by weight.

They can’t win. They can make things very bad for a year or so. And frankly, not unsurvivable for most Americans. (Yes, there’s always the edge cases.) And then the world will go on without them, while those of them that survive sit around asking themselves in a German accent how the plan could have fallen apart.

Be not afraid. In the end we win they lose.

Let’s get ‘er done.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

– Major John McCrae

World War One distorted everything we know, every way we live. Long before you and I were born, the world had been changed by the long war of the 20th century.

A war that was unnecessary and probably nefarious.

But people don’t see history with the Author’s eye. And even now, if our country is attacked, even if “them idiots in the white house” brought it about, if our country is attacked, we’ll fight.

Today we honor those who died for their nation. We remember those we personally knew.

When our own time comes, let us go with dignity and honor. And if required, allow us to take an honor guard.

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. ;)*

FROM Z. M. RENICK: Nine Times a Cat (The Seelie Court Book 4)

Deputy Emma Greer is back! An encounter with a stranger on Silver Mountain Road convinces her that her hometown of Silver Springs, Colorado, is once again being stalked by the Fae. A shapeshifter has taken up residence in one of the subdivisions and is killing people in order to get around the curse laid upon it, a curse that means it can only change into its cat form nine times.

But there’s more at stake than Emma realizes. This confrontation has been very carefully orchestrated, and her soul is about to become a battleground. Defeat means leaving her home vulnerable to a ruthless predator; victory means the loss of everything she has ever known.

FROM THOMAS DOSCHER, (RECOMMENDED BY DOROTHY GRANT): Repatriation: Part 4 of The Vixen War Bride (The Vixen War Bride Series)

With the misunderstanding surrounding Ranger Captain Ben Gibson’s marriage to the local Va’Shen high priestess, Alacea, finally cleared up, relations between the Rangers and the local occupied alien village have never been better. Because of this, Alacea believes it’s the perfect time for the two of them to move to the next logical stage of their relationship: having a baby. For Gibson, this means one thing.

He needs to get out of town. Now.

Fortunately, he has the perfect reason to do so. Alacea has asked him to try to find out on what planet the village’s commandos were killed so that the villagers can perform the proper funeral rites. Armed with a list of names he can’t read and literally no information on where to start, Gibson and his interpreter, Lieutenant Patricia Kim, head off for the main air and space base on Va’Sh to begin the search.

But they are not the only ones with an interest in Va’Sh’s missing commandos. A secretive organization is moving around in the background, intent on completely undermining the fragile peace between the two worlds.

FROM DOROTHY GRANT: Blood, Oil and Love (Combined Operations Book 2)

In a colony world desperate for resources, a search for new reserves reveals a shadow war!

Lizzes Olsen is a newly minted petrogeologist researching the untapped potential of places on her planet even terraforming overlooked. Unfortunately, the site she’s found is deep in enemy-occupied territory. The same enemy is funding the radical eco-terrorism that turned her university toxic, and training terrorists to kill the Empire’s geophysicists and geologists. Between bombings at home and being hunted abroad, Lizzes’ career, and her life, are in danger.

On the other hand, she has the unlikeliest of allies: a fairy god-Gunny Sergeant, and a very determined Imperial Recon soldier named Twitch who’s out to make her his very own happily ever after. If it takes a hecatomb of her enemies to get her down the aisle, they’re going to make it happen…

FROM MATTHEW C. LUCAS: Yonder & Far: The Lost Lock

Fae Banished to Boston Town, 1798

In a shocking move, the Queen of the Fae has banished John Yonder and Captain John Far to the human world. Rumor has it that they have opened a law practice catering to the Fae. To what purpose, no one really knows.

John Yonder has accepted a seemingly simple case. He need only recover a lock of hair for a Fae courtier. She had given it to her lover, Wylde, who is also in Boston.

Yonder tricks a fortuneteller, Mary Faulkner, into assisting with the case. With a whisper in her ear, he tethers Mary’s mind to Wylde’s, creating a terrible, but potent human compass.

Following Mary’s guidance, the trio sets out to follow Wylde. They set course into an uncertain and rocky future on land and sea, as pirates, slave owners, and a host of others hinder their path to Wylde, the lock of hair, and a possible return home to the Fae.

FROM TONY ANDARIAN: The End of the Beginning: Dawn of Chaos 2 – Hell Gate, Part IV (Sanctum of the Archmage Book 5)

A new constitution prepares Carlissa for an era of enlightenment. The harsh traditions of the past fade, and a promise of freedom stirs the air.

In the space of one terrifying day, that promise is shattered in a bloodbath of fire and magic.

Thousands of years ago, an epic battle was fought between good and evil. The demon lords had opened a door to the realms of hell itself, and their horde threatened to overrun the earth. But the Kalarans, led by the hero Calindra, destroyed their hellgate and drove them from the world.

The Great War has long since been lost to myth and legend. The Church struggles for relevance as the people forget their covenant with the gods. A renaissance of freedom and learning stirs the air in the modern age of Carlissa, led by the royal family, and the wisdom of the Archmage.

All of that comes to an end when a dome of shimmering magic appears in the capital city.

As the people fight desperately to survive the chaos that follows, they wonder bitterly why the gods seem to have abandoned them. Their only hope lies with the magic of the Archmage — and his, with a young princess who never wanted to rule. She must find the strength to set aside her bard’s calling and take up a battle against impossible odds, or surrender her land and people to the Black Magus and his demons.

In The End of the Beginning, Randia, broken by loss, must find the courage to complete a desperate quest, or see her land utterly conquered by the demon horde.Sanctum of the Archmage, Volume One – Dawn of Chaos
Dawn of Chaos, Book 2: Hell Gate
Hell Gate, Part IV – The End of the Beginning

Note: An earlier version of this book appeared as part of the novel Dawn of Chaos, published briefly on Amazon in 2017. That book has now been re-written and expanded into a series of six novella-length installments.

FROM AMIE GIBBONS: Psychic Noir (The Big Sleep): A Southern Psychic Mystery (The SDF Paranormal Mysteries Book 8)

Ariana gets the band back together for an epic rescue mission into a terrifying, totalitarian version of Nashville in this exciting new installment of the SDF Paranormal Mysteries.

Practically nothing can escape PI psychic Ariana Ryder’s Sight for long. But one mystery has eluded her for four years. What happened when Grant’s soul vanished without a trace?

They discovered a possibility last Fall. Ariana, Carvi, and AB got sucked into a pocket reality. Suddenly, they had whole new universes to search.

Carvi’s scientists think they’ve found the pocket reality Grant’s trapped in. Now, Ariana just has to go in and get him out.

Ariana gets the old team back together for a rescue mission into the unknown reality. But can they find Grant, bring back his lost mind, and escape a twisted version of Nashville, before the pocket reality collapses, or worse?

FROM BLAKE SMITH: A Small and Inconvenient Disaster (The Markham Series Book 2)

Everywhere she goes, Maria Mason is plagued by little catastrophes. Getting caught in the rain, running from the friendliness of a muddy dog, tripping over her own feet at the worst possible moment- she has been subject to all manner of accidents, and to fend off the worst of them, she has learned to be silent and still.

Until she accompanies her friend Miss Gordon to London for a season of gaiety and pleasure. Life in Town is full of wonder, and soon Maria has new clothes, new friends, and the attention of the amusing and clever Mr. James Callahan. She begins to wonder if she has outgrown her propensity for falling into disaster, only to find herself embroiled in the worst sort of catastrophe when she is obliged to mediate between her feuding friends. One wrong word, one false step, and she might lose the regard of her friends- or worse, the love of a good man.

FROM PAM UPHOFF: Bad Tolz (Fall of the Alliance Book 5)

Bad Tölz. A World named for a city on the Home World . . . Barely controlled by the “True Men” Mentalists of the Drei Mächte Bündnis. An unstable alliance of aggressive Worlds . . . on the brink of civil war.

Fynn, a bastard half-breed adopted by a friend of his dead father, was, despite his irregular antecedents, an ordinary college student. Then the increasing problems in in the Alliance led his new father to pull him into a secret society sworn to protect an Alliance that is crumbling.

When Bad Tölz is invaded, Fynn is all that stands between his World and brutal subjugation.

FROM DENTON SALLE: Stand Against the Dark: Book 4 of the Avatar Wizard

“Many have died trying this, lad. The Elder Powers are neither gentle nor kindly.”

With those words from his teacher, Jeremy began the ritual to bargain with one of the Powers of the World. He could gain much or lose everything as the Dark again endangers those he loves. But first he must survive bargaining with the Lord of Storms and Winter, who brings the cold from between the stars.

Return again to the world of the volkh, where Elder Powers hunt the river of stars, where women walk the path of shadows, where cities fall prey to strange diseases. A world where power comes from either the Dark or the Light. Join Jeremy, Galena, and their friends as stand against the Dark’s return.

Book 4 of the Avatar Wizard continues Jeremy’s adventures in a world where magic works and folklore of Eastern Europe is true.

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.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: LAZY