Book Promo

*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog.  Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so.  As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste.  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. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM DAVID L. BURKHEAD:  Shirok Means Vengeance (Elara of the Elves Book 2)

Kidnapped by orcs as a child Elara, heir to the elven house of Greenwood, was raised as one of them. So long did she live among the orcs that she scarce remembered her childhood in the Greenwood. She grew to think of herself as orc, even marrying one of them. She earned high honor among them as a worker of steel, and one who could hear its voice.

When elf warriors out of Greenwood killed her orc family, slaughtered their clan, and brought her back to Greenwood, she learned that she was the last survivor of the royal house of Greenwood and, thus, their queen by right.

While the elves saw her as their queen, Elara saw them only as enemies, as the ones responsible for slaughtering the family she loved. And so, she bides her time, awaiting an opportunity to bring destruction to the elves who had ripped her from a happy home.

She would have her vengeance.

 

FROM ELIZABETH BRUNER: Calling the Blood (Blood of the Fae Book 1)

After centuries of warfare, the Fae were banished from the human world, taking most of the magic with them.
Not all of them made it through the gates to the fairy lands. And not all of the magic is gone. A group of warriors vowed to protect humanity from the remaining fae and so they have over the centuries.
Christopher Chevalier, a descendent of one of those warriors, has spent his life studying combat and magic to fight the fae. When he comes across humans acting like fae, using magic he’s never heard about, he has to swallow his pride and ask for help from Listrial, the Fairy Queen and one of the fae who got trapped in the human world.
Dan Ben-David just wants his refrigerator to work consistently. When it reveals another world, one he forgot he’d lived in, he finds more questions than answers about his past.
Winifred Andersdotter wanted nothing more than a nice evening out with her boyfriend. When they’re set upon by thugs who’d taken exception to her boyfriends red cap, they fight back and everything begins to change.

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: ROUND

Today is my 34th (religious ceremony) anniversary, i.e. the “real anniversary” though we often celebrate the civil wedding in the summer, because you know… well, because for instance today we’d planned to go out to dinner, and the weather is bitterly cold with blowing snow, so we’re not. I’ll make dinner and we’ll eat at home.

Which honestly is fine.

I’m doing a quick cleaning as per usual on Friday, only quicker since it’s only been US in the house most of the time (it’s amazing how much more mess even ONE extra person adds) and then try to get some writing done.

You know, some of our time together has been neither easy nor pleasant: illnesses, being broke, worrying about the kids.  But I wouldn’t trade it away for anything else.  All in all, these have been 34 very happy years, and I’d be very happy with another 34.

That’s about it, since I don’t exactly have the brain for a real post.

Only two things: I gave my friends at MGC the option of deleting this comment but they inexplicably chose not to:

https://madgeniusclub.com/2019/12/26/update-courtney-milan-rwa/#comment-135165

Since it links to things we’ve discussed here, I think it might be worth discussing.

Also, as usual I’m diffident about promoting my work, on my own blog, but I have the first blog review for Deep Pink.  It’s here.

And now I’m off to clean and write so I can have a nice dinner with my husband this evening.

You guys have fun.

Sorry this is so horribly late.  I’ve been trying to finish a few commissioned covers so I can close that to do list before the end of the year.

I actually meant to write this yesterday, but was fairly useless by the end of the evening and knew I wouldn’t find the right words.

I’ve got bad news and good news.

The bad news is that having figured out two more or less permanent burrs and occasional (very occasional) posters on this blog are actually trolls and probably paid, one of them for sure Turkish (and probably not the one I said so) the other one just a Johnny-one-note who has been calling for blood and guts and inciting physical revolution everywhere he posts and frankly apropos nothing much, I realized it’s going to get much much worse.  Which means things are going to get very confused.  And it’s all going to ramp up to 11 in the lead up to the election.  Which means there’s a few things we must establish up front, if this blog is going to be any use.

Softheads – When I talk about softheads, it’s not necessarily an insult. Some people are more prone to emotional manipulation than others, particularly emotional manipulation in one direction.

This has nothing to do with intellectual capacity. In fact, some of the most susceptible to emotional manipulation are really brilliant people. I’m one of those people, give or take the brilliance (meh) because I tend to try to be rational, which means emotion gets in under my guard.  For instance, until Trump won in 2016 I didn’t realize how depressed — despairing, in fact — I’d been.

Yeah, if you go back and read my posts, it doesn’t come across that way, but trust me, it was as though a weight lifted off my mind, such a weight that I hadn’t been able to think straight around it.

But I’m a depressive. As a depressive, I have to be aware of the “burn it all down” and “let’s light the funeral pyre” impulses. I have to, because I had to learn to compensate for those, or I’d never have lived past my teenage years.  (And the explosion would have been EPIC.)

Can I be a softhead though?  Oh, sure. Until two friends, one a Libertarian icon and one a Conservative icon, (in amazing agreement) sat me down separately and made the case for Trump, I was ready to get locked into never-Trump land. It was only after they talked to me that I took a look at who my companions were on that side, and recoiled.  Though even now I’m saddened and mildly angry at how many people I used to trust are all ready to vote for a commie instead of for a president who has turned out much better than even his supporters could have anticipated (except Scott Adams, of course.)

And how many of them are actual embedded leftist agents, and how many are softheads? I doubt they themselves know. When you are subjected to a lot of push from everyone around you, and people you are used to trust and think reasonable, you tend to go along and have trouble breaking out of it.

Humans are social creatures. None of us is immune.

Trolls – I always knew we had a few trolls here.  Some of them are just people who hate me, personally (bats eyelashes. One only knows why!  Me, who am all sweetness and light) and some are people with a deep agenda. Some are even very subtle. Normally I only block people when they really get on my nerves.  RES (it’s all the wallaby’s fault) and I had a discussion about blocking, must be six? years ago now. He gave me the key to blocking, which is “block people who act like the drunk uncle at a wedding” and therefore diminish everyone’s ability to communicate.

But I might have to do more work, in the future, like search those people who seem to have a specific agenda (which is how I found belisarios whatever has a Turkish last name, and the twitter under his email is in Turkish (and also sells dubious copies of CDs and DVDs.)  So it seems to be obvious that we are dealing with paid (a friend who works in the field of well… fraud, tells me Turkish trolls are cheap) elements, spreading a specific message.

And the message, honestly is “All is lost, let you and him fight.”

Anyway, I’ll have to get more proactive on that.

Disinformation campaigns – it has become obvious that there are several disinformation campaigns going on.  The Steele Dossier might be the most innocent of those because it was aimed  at the press and high level political stuff.  But look, in a global world, where trolls can be had for very cheap abroad, and where the opinion making is moving off the main stream media and onto blogs and websites, the enemies of the US both internal and external (FYI most of them are a continuum, honestly) WILL use cheap trolls for disinformation but more importantly to shape mood and influence reactions (Facebook ran studies on this since 2015. WHAT do you think it’s being used for?)

We’re no longer in the land of the copy-pasta trolls we’ve all known since 9/11. These are highly sophisticated and can make softheads of some fairly smart and influential people.

You can tell it’s a campaign though through several signals:

The first and most important is that it comes LITERALLY out of nowhere.  I.e. it might be a perennial issue, and one the right roughly agrees on, but suddenly it’s EVERYWHERE at once.

The recent “ahhhhhh porn!” campaign is typical of this.  Suddenly, it was everywhere.  Friends (okay, okay, acquaintances. Those people are nuts) who are on the chans tell me these are tested there first, and from there appear in fringe blogs that are … uh…. not necessarily what they seem to be. Or at least some of them aren’t.

And then with amazing suddenness it’s everywhere, including the most respectable sites on the right/libertarian spectrum.

That one, shocked the heck out of me, with how rapidly it propagated and has me questioning the softhead/infiltrator continuum. (though honestly it could be just susceptibility.)

It was a campaign designed to divide the right, specifically; one that’s hard to answer, because honestly who is PRO porn; and one that was designed to weaken the first amendment, which is congruent with the left’s aims. (Give government a chance to regulate porn, and everything from “gun porn” to “religious porn” can be forbidden. In fact, China bans “unrealistic” stories under that heading.  Think about it.)

Also, note, when most of the right from libertarians to conservatives went “wait, what” the entire topic went away, very rapidly.

But mostly, mostly, the main thing to look at is “What in heck brought this obsession about?” “What brought this up, all of a sudden?”

In the same way, before the election in 16 there was something like it with “burn it all down” without waiting for the election. It wasn’t as blatant, and it didn’t get to the best sites overnight.  But it was … curiously out of tune with the times. Even those like me who were sure it was all lost (but was trying not to betray it) thought it was a little weird that it was coming out of nowhere and insisting we burn it all down before the election.

The definite bad news is that it’s gotten much worse and the trolls/agents have gotten much better at their job.

The good news is that the reason this is happening is that Trump has turned out much much better than expected, and that his policies are good for America which means they’re making rivals and enemies of America deeply uncomfortable and scared.

Take fracking, which has made us net energy exporters. This is going to hurt a broad range of countries from the Middle East to Russia. And some of them have no way to save themselves if the price of oil won’t come back up.

The idea of Trump being re-elected is an existential threat to them.  And most of them can’t face the American armed forces, but they can get Americans at each other’s throats.

They are probably doing this to the left as well, which explains the utterly crazy-cakes  shampeachment, not to mention the insane candidates the left is fielding.

Both  of which also fall under evil will oft evil mar.  I.e. if the left weren’t fielding such insane candidates, there wouldn’t be the need for a campaign to start the boogaloo NOW before Trump gets reelected.  But then, these people don’t understand Americans very well.

The more it looks like Trump will be re-elected, the worse the disinformation via trolls and agents will get, and the louder the calls to start the boogaloo now, as well as branding anyone who says “the heck” as a coward or an enemy agent.

But I want you to pause and think about it: all of us who AREN’T Never-Trumpers agree that Trump fights.  And that he’s not a coward. And yet, has he fielded armies? No? Then maybe it’s not a time for a physical fight.

Yes, the situation in Virginia is worrisome. Yes, the possibility of massive fraud come November has me using up a lot of hair dye. BUT neither of of those has come to a point yet where the calls to boogaloo make any sense.  Virginia might. They’re tap-dancing on a powder barrel. But it hasn’t YET.  And as for election fraud a) the president and various groups have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes. b) does anyone think Trump will take fraud lying down. c) the left has no clue how to act by stealth anymore. They counted on a complicit press. They’re sure to botch it. They’re sure to be obvious.

The shampeachment? It’s bizarre and indicates a level of disconnect from reality that has most of us going “Wait, what?” but I think in the end it’s a leftist own-goal.

So, as I said before, there might be a time for this word. The time is not now. And anyone screaming for it now is either being paid to (I find it interesting two of the almost-for-sure paid people were screaming for just that) or are people whose (usually depressive) tone of mind predisposes them to buy what the left is selling (just like the very moral fell for the “urgency of hampering the first amendment to stop porn.”)

If you’re a regular here, and I’ve known you for years, much less if you’re someone I’ve considered a friend, if I smack your nose when you start repeating whatever the campaign of the day is, it’s not personal. Unless someone has stolen your account (it happens, we’ve had two cases here of someone impersonating a regular, some years ago) I know you’re not a troll.  If someone makes you think I’m attacking you (and hey, it could be word press. Some threads are hard to track) that person probably doesn’t have your best interests at heart. That said, I might smack noses. The person who smacks your nose to keep you running off the ledge is not an enemy. (I got my nose smacked hard, granted in private, in the run up to 2016. In private, in one case, in public but in person in another.) If you think I smacked your nose unduly hard, you probably have my email.  You wouldn’t be the first one to email me and go “I really am not a troll and I don’t know why my IP shows THAT.”

BUT more importantly, I’d appreciate it if you discuss the subjects rationally and allow yourself not just to reconsider your positions, but to consider what I’m saying, and also where you might have got the ideas/influence pushing you the other way.

Because the campaigns are going to get worse, and the trolls more subtle leading up to November.  As I said, Trump’s reelection is an existential threat to foreign and domestic enemies, who might not be able to hold on another 4 years.

And that later is the very good news.

They’re fighting very hard to divide and us and get us to destroy ourselves because they’re losing power. And they’re afraid of losing permanently.

Be not afraid and do not fall into despair.

 

 

Everything is fine. We just decided to rearrange furniture while younger son was here.

 

Merry Christmas. Happy Fourth Night. Keep the lights burning in the darkness.

Sometimes all we need a light to hold onto, a star to follow, a multitude, each holding a tiny candle, until the entire darkness is turned as bright as day.

Let it be so.

Be not afraid.

Mostly because I’m busy and I have a book out.
Wait, I have a book out? Sure. It’s a short-ish novel (not as a short as some, but about half the size of my normal novels, and it’s the story of a poor guy who has to go to hell.

I actually want to say a few things about it: Deep Pink has a music theme, but this is not a series theme. And other books probably won’t involve Heaven or Hell, which I’m a little uncomfortable dealing with in fiction.

Some of the characters will be continuing to the next book and beyond. Beyond the main, ones, I mean. This is just the setup book.

Note the books below use my Amazon associates link. They give me a little extra money, without costing you anything. Consider using them.

That’s about it, for your COPIOUS spare time over the holidays, I give you:

DEEP PINK:

Like all Private Detectives, Seamus Lebanon [Leb] Magis has often been told to go to Hell. He just never thought he’d actually have to go.
But when an old client asks him to investigate why Death Metal bands are dressing in pink – with butterfly mustache clips – and singing about puppies and kittens in a bad imitation of K-pop bands, Leb knows there’s something foul in the realm of music.
When the something grows to include the woman he fell in love with in kindergarten and a missing six-year-old girl, Leb climbs into his battered Suburban and like a knight of old goes forth to do battles with the legions of Hell.
This is when things become insane…. Or perhaps in the interest of truth we should say more insane.

AND NOW A FEW BOOKS FROM SOME OF MY FRIENDS (OBVIOUSLY NOT ALL. IT WOULDN’T FIT):

FROM ANNA FERREIRA: Christmas at Blackheath.

Agnes Rawlins would never dream of showing a melancholy face to her brother’s guests. She may be a spinster, and treated little better than any common housekeeper, but she is responsible for bringing Christmas cheer into the dark and rambling Blackheath Manor, and she does not shirk her duty, even when she has little reason to celebrate.

William Marlowe, Viscount Claridge, has reluctantly accepted an invitation to spend the Christmas season at Blackheath. It’s not his first choice- how anyone could wish to spend time in the gloomy manor house is beyond him- but when he meets the kind and gentle lady of the house, he find that Christmas at Blackheath might not be so bad after all.

FROM SAM SCHALL:  Betrayal from Ashes (Honor and Duty Book 5)

War is never clean. Honor doesn’t always win out. Betrayal becomes the shadow currency that can tip the balance of power.

Colonel Ashlyn Shaw learned those lessons the hard way. Five years ago, she lost her command and her freedom because of the machinations of those willing to betray Fuercon, the homeworld they’d sworn to protect. Supposed allies conspired with enemies. Now Fuercon and its allied systems face a war on multiple fronts.

A war where the enemy doesn’t want a diplomatic solution. One where the enemy claims victory based on the number of civilian deaths.

This is not a war of attrition. It is a war of survival.

It is also a war Ashlyn and her allies have every intention of winning. But to do so, they must first unravel the layers of a conspiracy that goes much deeper than any of them suspect.

Honor and duty. Death before dishonor.

FROM JIM CURTIS:  The Grey Man- Generations.

A new generation carries on the legacy of service in the latest Grey Man novella…

Marine Corporal Jace Cronin, a scout/sniper, survived insurgents in the Philippines, only to be handed an even greater challenge: the Naval Academy. He won’t be headed in alone, though. Esme Carter got her own slot and is ready to go head to head with him over who’s the best. They’ve got their eyes on lieutenant’s bars and pilot slots, and woe betide anyone who gets in the way!

FROM JASON FUESTING:  By Dawn’s Early Light (Echoes of Liberty Book 1).

Eric Friedrich was supervising the last ice harvesting shift for his ship’s shot-up environmental systems when they detected an anomalous ice comet drifting by. Investigating the icy tomb, Eric finds a ship that couldn’t exist–a relic from a nation the Protectorate killed billions to erase from history… And will kill even more to keep secret.

When his world explodes, Eric must make allies in the unlikeliest places, and seize even the slimmest chance of survival while unraveling a conspiracy that shattered planets and set off interstellar war!

FROM PAM UPHOFF:  Moles (Wine of the Gods Book 48).

A short story. #48 in the Wine of the Gods Universe

Ice, a top notch Analyst has just been given a new assignment. To investigate his best friend, and find out if he’s a foreign agent.

Dog, an up and coming young analyst has a new assignment–to investigate his friend and Mentor, and find out if he’s a foreign agent.

Could get interesting . . .

FROM KAL SPRIGGS:  Stolen Valor (Forsaken Valor Book 2)

They stole my life, so I stole one right back.

My name is William Alexander Armstrong. I come from a long, honorable, military family. My grandparents were heroes back home… but not me. Kidnapped by pirates, I’ve had to fight to survive on the streets of an alien world. Only now, I’ve got a way out.

The only trouble is, my way out is to serve in the enemy’s military, hidden under a stolen identity. I’ve got to hide who I am, build alliances, and hope to keep my head down at a military institute where one in three trainees don’t survive.

But hiding isn’t in my blood. I’m an Armstrong, I’m born to fight, born to lead… and in this case, that might be the only thing that saves me. Because something is rotten at the Heart of Drakkus Prime, and stolen identity or not, valor may be the only thing to save the day.

FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY:  Long in the Land (Martha’s Sons Book 2)

 

A very secret war…

With the planet Beredul liberated, the Wiyert and the humans from Earth celebrate their first victory against the fadohl—but at a cost. The fadohl now suspect the existence of an enemy. And they must never know the location of that enemy, since Earth’s defenses consist of two stolen AI ships and a ragged band of Wiyert armed with salvaged weapons.

How can the Earth humans hope to defeat the advanced technology of the galaxy-spanning fadohl?

By never, ever, letting them know there’s a war…

FROM MARGARET BALL:  A Child of Magic (Applied Topology Book 7)

An old enemy, a new threat… When their son Aleksi is kidnapped, Thalia and Lensky are left wondering if the reason is ransom (bad) or revenge (worse). It’ll take all Thalia’s genius for applied topology (aka magic) to retrieve their baby – and meanwhile, the other topologists are turning into cats, getting jailed in the eighteenth century, and otherwise keeping life interesting.

 

FROM PETER GRANT:  Taghri’s Prize

Taghri has left the Sultan’s army to seek his fortune – and he seizes opportunity when it knocks. In the confusion of a pirate raid on a trading caravan, he kills their leader and captures their ship. The vessel is now his prize of war… but some prizes may be more trouble than they’re worth!

Nestled among the gold coins in the captain’s cabin is a stolen Temple sacrificial knife, whose Goddess is now paying close attention – too close! – to its new owner. Among the slaves he’s freed is a princess, formerly being held for ransom, who comes with political and personal intrigues all her own. Even if he survives the attention of both, there’s also a pirate lord out there, hell-bent on avenging the death of his son.

It’s going to take all of Taghri’s skill, experience and cunning to survive winning this prize!

 

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN:  Eerily Familiar: Familiar Tales Book Seven

 

Something hunts the hunters . . .

Something waits in the shadows, watching. Lelia Chan and her Familiar, Tay, hear vague rumors of trouble among the shadow mages. Everyone’s heard rumors before, and keeping her boss happy is more important. Then a painting tries to capture her friend. When her mentor and good friend André and his Familiar Rodney both go missing, Lelia has to take charge.

She’s not ready. No shadow mage ever is. But she’ll find a way or die trying.

Things worse than than death hide in the shadows. And they LIKE meeting over-confident young mages . . .

I always find it hilarious when I’m told I’m not in favor of fighting back, and that I think everything is all right.

This is sort of like when I get accused of being an optimist and a pessimist for the exact same post. Or when my most apolitical books get flagged as political. Or…

Sometimes people are reading hieroglyphs written on the inside of their eyelids.  Kind of like people who decide I want open borders. Or you know, that I run around twitter threatening people (My twitter account might be suspended. I recently clicked a link a friend sent me, with something funny about Portugal, and I tried to answer but the comments never showed and it said something about my account being suspended. Which frankly affects me not at all. I mean, it echoes these posts, is about it.)

But guys, what we’re engaged in is a fight to reclaim the culture.  That precious artifact who followed me here after I blocked him on facebook for instance thinks it is a sign that we’re LOSING the culture war that there was massive outrage about The Last Temptation of Christ in the eighties, but nothing about this Brazilian movie about a gay Christ.
Um…. to level set: I only found out about that movie because I was avoiding work as hard as I could, and found it in a sidebar of a blog I read.  The short version: it’s imported bullshit that won a lot of prizes. The chances of more than a couple thousand people seeing it are nill. And the chances that anyone who would be outraged even knows it exists is even less.

Yeah, sure, the left keeps trying to gin up outrage, because they mistake offensiveness for relevance. And Christians are an easy target because they don’t chop people’s heads.

However, Christians outlasted people trying to chop off their heads. And if you think the Romans didn’t make obscene parodies of Christianity, you haven’t read first century graphite.

I do understand being outraged at the things these people do. I don’t understand deciding everything is lost because of it.

If you think attacks on Christianity are “Marxism” you’re crediting the artists with way too much thinking and AN ideology. Most artists are doing things are doing them to get shock and outrage. In the eighties it was said that the best way to sell a million books was to get fundamentalist sects burning them.

The Last Temptation of Christ benefited from that effect, as did Piss Christ and other bullshit that is not in any way “art.” Because the left loves outraging the Christians.

All the media jumped up on the demonstrations and how outraged people were, which in turn helped sell the blasphemy and abomination.

So, running around with your hair on fire, screaming all is lost because the new outrage isn’t ginning up outrage? You’re either a false flag or a softhead (which doesn’t mean stupid, btw. Some of the smartest people I know are looking for “a simple theory of everything.”)

And what does it accomplish? It gives the left the notoriety they so dearly crave, and makes them feel edgy and important again.

That ain’t no way to fight the culture war.

So, how do you fight the culture war?

1- Be aware of false flags and soft-heads.

Look, we all do this. We all forget people lied to us or about us in the past (okay, not me. I’m a resentful bitch) and want to think “they’re right on this, now.”

We also all have depressive times and despair. The left is MAYBE 25% of the population, but due to the crawl through the institutions, they have loud megaphones. It’s easy to believe you’re surrounded.

One way to identify false flags and soft-heads who repeat them is to consider who they’re trying to appeal to. If they are talking to the left’s idea of a right winger: uneducated, untraveled, xenophobic, racist, anti-semitic, etc, they are probably one of those.

So, people screaming about the inherent evilness of being able to tan? they’re just appealing to who they think the right is. Chances are they’re not of us.  Or they’re soft-heads.

Same way, signs of disrespect to Christians? Not the end times. Except for very short times in history, unbelievers have always made fun of Christians, but this is okay because we also make fun of each other. But the left doesn’t get that. So they think they can spin it to us as signs of the apocalypse.

Another good sign of a false flag or a soft head are people trying to push you do exactly what the left wants you to do: bomb buildings. Shoot up people.

Why do they want us to do that? Because they can no longer control the flow of information. But this would get us demonized everywhere.  Yes, they tried to gin up something like that a number of times, but the story keeps falling apart.

Do you want to give them a story that doesn’t fall apart? Why? So they can make “right wing” (aka to the right of Lenin) a dirty word for a generation and take us all the way to Venezuela? WHY?

TWO of the people calling for violence in the comments — and the ones being the most vocal and explicit? — one was from Turkey and the other one is a …. uh…. known agent provocateur. Perhaps paid.

You guys have been on the internet long enough. SURELY you know that the people presenting themselves as American and outraged aren’t necessarily so.

BTW both of those people comment on instapundit and other places. Our enemies — both ideological and national — are trying their best to make sure we go down hard and the one thing they were always good at was dizinformazia. Remember that. If you can’t tell them by their weird use of English (and they’re getting better) you can tell them by their weird ideas of what Americans are.

These people are everywhere, and multiplying. It will get worse before the election. They’re testing topics to divide us. One hint of a “non-natural” topic was the whole porn thing which came out of nowhere, and was suddenly everywhere in the form of conservatives who should know better yelling we needed government control of speech.

Several tells it was manufactured: a) it came out of nowhere, with no provocation. b) it plays exactly into what the left thinks the right is: prudes (same reason they tried to spin us with stories of how Trump has affairs with porn stars) c) It’s naturally divisive, because which of us can say we APPROVE of porn taken to the extreme, or of porn-addiction? None, right? And the false flags were really good at calling those who opposed government control “porn supporters” (that’s another sign, btw, the massive, ridiculous accusations. Particularly since government has never been any good at stopping that sort of thing.) c) if it had succeeded — doesn’t seem to have — as they expected, they could slide in an anti-porn candidate at the last minute, a paragon of virtue who would pull enough votes away from Trump their margin of fraud would do the rest.

Beware of any of these spins that takes support away from what has been a pretty decent president (better than I expected) while pretending to support him, particularly.  Beware of incitement to purity spirals. (Yes, I know, yes. Some people are… Rockefeller republicans. And when they start insisting we vote for the leftists to save America from Trump, that’s when you know they were false-flags all along. And damn it, I was a soft head for too long where some of them were concerned. Anyone who says the outright commies are better than our flawed president? Yeah, no. But I’m seeing a lot of misrepresentation and dividing of people who aren’t those — yes, myself included — and it’s time to take a long hard look at those promoting it.)

IOW as in Puppet Masters, stay alert. A man with an ideological overcoat just might be an enemy.

2- Don’t look away

Please, please, please, be aware of how outrageous the left is.  No, I don’t mean things like Piss Christ, or stupid movies suggesting that Christ was gay (for the love of Bob, that has been a ridiculous attack since the second century at least) because that just gives these pseudo artists the attention they crave.

Instead be aware of the things they don’t want you to know how outrageous they are:

Yes, sure, the shampeachment.
But also things like Guam tipping over. Things that reveal their utter inability to comprehend and process reality.  And I know you’re going “But that’s a day that ends with y”

Of course it is, and there are reasons for it, including the fact that they hire for ideology ONLY and that they’ve had cover from the press for so long.

But the majority of the public doesn’t know how incredibly, ridiculously incompetent they are.

To the public at large — though less and less as they drop their masks and lose the advantages of a complicit press (now making itself irrelevant) — this is still the party of the “educated” and “smart” people.

Someone was shouting about why we don’t have the money the left does.  Well two reasons: first they hire for the really plum jobs by ideology. Second because magnates make their money then turn left.

This is because leftism is a positional good, and “high class.”  This is what we need to puncture. Show their incompetence, their ignorance, their utter stupidity. It’s not hard. The masks are coming off.

3- Engage.

No, don’t go an buy rings.

Engage in discussions. Dare to be contrary. Yes, both when you see false flags and soft heads, and when you see outright Marxists and socialists, protest. Refute.

Be polite and clear. And talk sense. With examples. You won’t convince the person, but you might convince spectators. And even if not, you give an example of talking back.

TRY not to sound like their stereotype of a right winger. They will try to spin it as you’re clutching a gun and a bible. Don’t play into it. Even if you are religious, nothing is gained by going all religious on them.  Attack them on the sanity and sense fronts, instead, and on their APPALLING lack of knowledge of history.

Yes, this means you probably are going to have to read a lot and study a lot. And filter out the obvious bias. I remember an otherwise excellent mini-series on Washington that kept telling us he only joined the revolutionaries because he was so vain. (Rolls eyes.)

If you an do it, though, learning is its own reward and makes you more resistant to false flags and soft heads. It also gives you insight into how they think and their image of us — from the stuff they add to otherwise factual accounts. That’s priceless. It’s like getting a picture of their heads.

If you’re rural, they’ll try to wind you up as part of that. Don’t fall for it. Instead turn it on its head and defend city living and point out that there are many of us living among them (there are) and arguably the most productive ones.

Be prepared to be reviled and attacked.

Be prepared to have insanity spewed all over you.

The attacks will increase the more effective you are. It’s just the way it is.

Believe it or not, I’m actually extremely conflict averse. I had to learn to overcome that. In another world, I’m quietly writing my books, probably getting all “intellectual” and stuff, which is one of my defects and tendencies. Not making a lot of money — because too intellectual — but happy enough.  That’s not the world we live in. Sorry.

You need to stay aware and you need to fight back. Their overreach and insanity is becoming massive, as they feel their influence waning.

Light them up. Disprove their pet theories. Make them look ridiculous.

Most of the time, honestly, “When did you become psychic” suffices. For instance, yesterday on facebook, a person was insisting all Republicans secretly hated the poor and were greedy.  It’s just a ridiculous idea, that only illusions of being psychic can bolster it.

As part of this, I ENJOIN you to have what I haven’t done so far: have a a set of files, where you keep facts. Label them: Economy, religion, relations between sexes, etc.
Dispassionate facts are the best way to show the ignorance of the other side.

It might be easier if you get together with friends with different expertise. Make sure they are people you trust absolutely. And keep shared folders. I’m in the process of getting this together with some friends. Hint, keep a copy in each of your computers, if you can. The cloud is another name for “other people’s servers.”

4- And this is perhaps the most important, and it’s hard to see:

It’s not just the masks that are coming off. The wheels are too.

Like Obama, the left has the mierdas touch.  Every industry they take over turns to crap. Yes that includes government. No, a big central government is never EFFICIENT. But it can be more efficient than it is right now.

The left has several problems when in charge. One is that they BELIEVE everyone is corrupt. It’s part of their set of beliefs. So they think if they’re corrupt it’s fine. It’s just the done thing. (That’s the reason they believe that a strong government is needed. Apparently people in government aren’t humans and corrupt, but angels. Never mind.)

Second is that the left is mostly ideology over all. Which doesn’t only mean they HIRE for ideology. It means everything they do is for ideology. What to sell? The idea is to pull ideology. How to establish economic policy? Ideology. Purging the office of undesirables Those are never the ones who don’t work, but the ones who oppose you ideologically?  This means ideology becomes the mission, and the real mission, whether selling or creating or governing? It is forgotten and ignored.

So EVERYTHING the left does turns to shit. It’s been accelerating over the last 40 years. And now, the only thing keeping the entire economy from coming apart, while the left plays f*ck-f*ck games is the few of us still doggedly working at the thing we’re supposed to do AND the fact we’ve had some spectacular innovations in medicine, information technology and other stuff.

But even so, the wheels are coming off.

You want to win this culture war, and preserve civilization?

Sure, keep a preparedness supply, be good with weapons and get in as good a shape as you can. That’s just SENSE. No matter how you fight, winning is never assured and things COULD drop in the pot. Better be prepared.

But more importantly, build redundant industries, structures, organizations of our own.

Are you worried about Amazon? Well, running around screaming just bolsters the left’s claim we need to all go back to the paddock of traditional publishing… which they control.

Come up with an alternative, one that can survive now, because it’s just to the side of Amazon, but can change fast and take over if the wheels come off. (And btw, yeah, we’re trying to work on it. But tax regulations requiring you to collect taxes across states and be informed of what’s due in each state, for every 2.99 purchase are hampering efforts.  But you should try. And think through all the ramifications. And be ready.) I have several friends testing out alternate-news ideas. And dear Lord, there must be other areas you can start building against the crash NOW.  Consider, please. It doesn’t take one person with a lot of money and time. It takes millions of us with a little money, a little time, a little expertise, each working his own little niche.  Connecting can come later, or through ad hoc organizations.

But you should be doing something. Consider, learn, work, and start.

Because the hardest part of preserving Western Civilization is going to be replacing the collapsing dinos.

The meteor has already struck. They are already dying. And yes, most of their functions are harmful or not needed. But not all. So for those that are needed? Be prepared to be the little mammal who comes out of his burrow and starts doing what needs to be done.

It’s not glamorous. Heaven knows it’s not easy. But it needs to be done.

Be not afraid.

 

 

*Sorry for being late. Was taking D’Artagnan to the vets for subcutaneous hydration.  And then Dan had to fool with my associate links, so they actually work because the way I did the others didn’t-SAH*

Book Promo

*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog.  Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so.  As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste.  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. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM ANNA FERREIRA, FOR CHRISTMAS:  Christmas at Blackheath.

Agnes Rawlins would never dream of showing a melancholy face to her brother’s guests. She may be a spinster, and treated little better than any common housekeeper, but she is responsible for bringing Christmas cheer into the dark and rambling Blackheath Manor, and she does not shirk her duty, even when she has little reason to celebrate.

William Marlowe, Viscount Claridge, has reluctantly accepted an invitation to spend the Christmas season at Blackheath. It’s not his first choice- how anyone could wish to spend time in the gloomy manor house is beyond him- but when he meets the kind and gentle lady of the house, he find that Christmas at Blackheath might not be so bad after all.

I HAVE  A STORY IN THIS BOOK. SO DOES DAVID WEBER, KEVIN J. ANDERSON AND OTHER NAMES YOU’LL KNOW:  Trouble in the Wind (The Phases of Mars Book 3)

Throughout the human experience, historians have wondered, “What if?” What if Sherman had fought for the South in the U.S. Civil War? What if Germany had fought to the end in World War I? What if World War III had actually happened?

Wonder no more, for these questions, along with many others, are answered within the pages of this book. Told by a variety of award-winning authors, like Sarah Hoyt and Kevin J. Anderson, the 2018 Dragon Award Winners for Alternate History, S.M. Stirling, the 2019 Dragon Award Winner for Alternate History, David Weber, a three-time Dragon Award Winner for Best Military Science Fiction, and Brad R. Torgersen, the winner of the 2019 Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction, “Trouble in the Wind,” deals with ground combat that never happened in our world…but easily could have.

The third book in the exciting “Phases of Mars” anthology series, there is something for everyone inside! From fighting Hannibal at the Battle of Cannae, to the early death of Napoleon, to scouting the bush in Angola, “Trouble in the Wind” traces a history of ground warfare…that wasn’t. From warfare in Taylor Anderson’s “The Destroyermen” series…to S.M. Stirling’s “Black Chamber,” this book has it, so come aboard and find out “what if” all of these things had changed history…just a little. You’ll be glad you did!

BY C. V. WALTER:  Hunting Red (Blessed Curse Book 2)

Jason always wanted to be a detective. When he was medically retired after an accident following a high speed chase, he started the Guard Dogs, a motorcycle club that saves and protects missing and abused children. When one of the kids goes missing hours before they’re going to rescue them, the trail leads him on a chase through a world he’d never dreamed existed.

Red’s life has become an urban legend and she’s rather proud of that fact. The stories told in the dark of the night help her on her mission to save the children who have been chosen by the Folk to become Wolves. A curse that was cast before written memory has become a weapon and she’s working against the clock to keep them from using it against humanity. When Jason’s investigation gets in her way, she can either take him out or ask for his help.

FROM C. J. CARELLA:  They Shall Not Pass (The Bicentennial War Book 2).

An Implacable Foe

The Nemeses are here. A mysterious species responsible for wiping out countless civilizations. Can the star-faring nations of the Known Galaxy stop the million-year-old force gathering at their doorstep? Hasty alliances are formed and former enemies stand together as the US Navy, weakened after the Horde invasion, must rebuild in the brief months before it has to fight for the survival of humanity.

Always Faithful

While America prepares for war, the conflict’s outcome may depend on a single person. Colonel Lisbeth Zhang, USWMC, has been captured by a cult of warp-crazed cultist and is held in a fortress planet deep in a lawless part of the galaxy. A joint team of Marine Wraiths and CIA agents led by Heather McClintock launch a covert rescue mission. Zhang’s warp abilities may be the key to defeating the Nemeses – but only if the small team of Marines can defeat impossible odds to bring her back alive.

They Shall Not Pass is the second book of the Bicentennial War, sequel to the best-selling Warp Marine Corps series.

MARTIN SCHELL:  Awakening the Butterfly.

Suppose humanoids from a relatively close part of our galaxy came to earth not as mentors or monsters but simply as trading partners. Earth could not compete with the economy of scale of their production and distribution networks, which would be supplied by raw materials from a wide variety of planets.

Early in the 22nd century, half a century after the arrival of these aliens, our planet has become economically depressed, exporting raw materials and mirroring the dependency of Third World countries during the 20th century.

A multicultural team of earthlings based in New York City has developed a limited form of time travel that is based more on spirituality than science. They summon a man from our era to recover lost information that will help them transform our global culture into a planetary culture that can participate more fully in the interstellar community.

Awakening the Butterfly is a quantum fiction novel that takes its title from a famous poem by the Taoist philosopher Zhuang Zhou (Chuang Tzu). The story develops an old idea that the human soul has components, a recognition that is utilized by a second team of earthlings who specialize in limited teleportation.

Consensus reality is presented as a physical phenomenon as well as a social one. In this future world, computer games are used for work instead of play. The plot explores other aspects of humanity’s future including: romance, ethnicity, education, literacy, baseball, and planetary government.

This book is self-referential, emulating The Saragossa Manuscript but set 300 years later. My aim in offering it is to broaden the scope of imagining the future and inspire the reader by introducing some concepts that you’ve probably never encountered before. Enjoy!

FROM ALENE R. LOWRY:  Einarr Stigandersen and the Jotunhall (The Adventures of Einarr Stigandersen Book 1)

Once upon a time, Stigander Raenson had been heir to a thanedom. Then a curse drove him and his family and crew out of their home. Dispossessed, the crew of the Vidofnir wanders the cold seas in search of treasure, glory, and a way to end the curse.

Einarr, son of Stigander, lives a vagabond’s life on the Vidofnir, never giving much thought to the home he barely remembers. That is, until an unexpected squall and the attack of a demon-headed ship send them to winter at the Hall of his father’s childhood friend.

Now Einarr has just a single season to convince the Jarl that he would be a worthy match for the Lady Runa, the Jarl’s only child. Will he return in one piece, or will the Jarl’s impossible quest be Einarr’s undoing?

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: ripe

And despair is a sin. It is a sin even atheists should be able to understand, if you understand sin as betraying essential parts of what you believe in, what you aim to do.

Jerry Pournelle reminded me of this many times, when my depressive bend took hold of me.

I’m sick and tired of people wanting to abandon ship and/or act like loons because they think all is lost.  I have no idea who’s selling you that bill of goods (or rather, I have a good idea of where it’s coming from, but not why you’re buying it.)

Despair is easy. It absolves you of responsibility. It means what you do today doesn’t matter. And it might lead you to do something profoundly evil. Not just bad, evil. So evil that you taint the rest of us by association. Or can be painted as doing so.

Let me put it this way: while we might not be able to get rid of taxes, I hate taxes as they exist right now, and I think Lois Lerner’s IRS is a corrupt institution deserving being disbanded.  I do not think, however, it is legitimate to bomb buildings that also contain day cares.  And I think — know — that this did more discredit to the cause of reducing taxes than just about anything. FOR DECADES.  There is also good reason to believe the person who committed that act was linked to agents provocateurs. [Oh, and judging from the flaming *sshole on my facebook page: pretending I mean it’s okay to bomb buildings without daycares in it is cute. It’s like you don’t understand allusion or the depth of the English language. It is in fact as though your mind is doing what it can to stop thinking, because thinking might puncture your Marxist illusions.]

I keep hearing that our Republican party is now to the left of the Dems in the sixties, and I want to line up the people who say it and hit them on the head with actual history of the time till they quit it. This despite the fact I like some of them. It is one of those instances of rewriting history in your own head to save the left the trouble.

Until Reagan, wage and price controls were acceptable for REPUBLICANS. So was gun control. Gun control was pretty much accepted throughout much of the land.  This has changed.  Also, I will repeat that most Republicans in politics at least through the seventies were more Mitt Romney than Ted Cruz.

And I’m tired of “We have too many immigrants. We’ve lost the demographic battle.”  Anyone believing that people who can tan are natural constituencies of the Marxists: stop embarrassing us, and join the Democratic party. They LIKE racists over there.

Sure, most newly immigrated groups go left. Partly because it’s natural in their homelands.  But they change.  And heck, these days a lot of countries are changing, too.

Yes, there is work to be done, mostly in encouraging if not REQUIRING (which I’d prefer) acculturation and integration.  But my guess? that is a self-solving problem. Because people are losing patience with the multi-culti hose beasts.

Sure, because of ILLEGAL immigration (and yeah, something is going to happen on that front soon. people are losing patience) and allowing them to vote, the dems seem like they own that demographic. They don’t. And the times they are achanging.

There are gains in other fronts. Universities are panicking because people are on to their game. And the pronouns thing has already become a punch line.

An witness please, what happens when institutions like trad pub go woke.  Yep, they go broke.  Or if you prefer, they roll left and die.

No. We didn’t turn a page and everything is suddenly wonderful. DUH. DO YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT?

But I remember the seventies. Apparently most people don’t.  And the sixties.  For that matter, I’ve read enough of the times before. The only people who think those were “conservative” in the American sense have rosy memories of childhood, or are toking hard. Or, of course, both.  Conformity, collectivism, and the presumption that central government is the means and agent of prosperity is NOT on the right in the US.

The twentieth century — all of it — was to the left of where we are now.

We are winning the culture war. It’s just slow.  Throwing it all away because you’re impatient doesn’t make you a hero. It makes you a child, who will have his lollipop or start destroying things.

That is not the way you win a culture war. It is however an effective way to lose it.

I’ll only add that I’m probably angrier than you are, that fighting my berserker instinct makes me physically ill. And that there’s a special place in hell for those who force a BERSERKER to talk them down.

Now on what I said: you are not alone.

I don’t talk of religious matters here, because as far as I’m concerned they are intensely private to me.  Also because they convince no one.

HOWEVER, when I read this Richard Fernandez article, now a few years old, it resonated with me and without explaining I’ll just say it’s correct.

Night of the Demon

Have faith. In America, in Americans, or in something higher. But have faith. For the times, they are achanging.  And you are not alone.

Yet what should have been unstoppable wasn’t. The big mystery continues to be why an all-conquering meme suddenly found itself thrown back by ideas of almost equal force with no obvious origin. An opinion article in the NYT by Paul Krugman acknowledges the existence and power but not the provenance of this sudden counterforce.  Worse, Krugman warns the left might actually lose to this mysterious power.

Be not afraid.

*My friend Synova and her friend John cooked this up between them. (John is text, Synova whom you might know from her cartoon blog, is art.)
And it’s a very weird day.  As you know we’re dealing with two terminal cats, and Greebo who hopefully isn’t, and the morning has already involved more cleaning after cats than you can probably imagine.  So I thought I’d put it here. Because it’s fun and interesting.  Oh, and they let me. I’m hoping they’ll take my encouragement and do a lot of these in the future, and maybe, eventually, publish books of them. -SAH*

Unthought- A guest post by John Worthington and Synova.

Text © John Worthington
Images © Synova

Linking to this post permitted. Not copying, storing and/or re-posting without express permission.