Category: Uncategorized

Book Promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH

FROM JAMES Y. BARTLETT: THE ORGAN JOB: A Musical Mystery Featuring Johann Sebastian Bach (The Bach Musical Mystery series Book 1)

Award-winning historical novelist James Y. Bartlett has reimagined the great German composer and keyboard virtuoso Johann Sebastian Bach as a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Keith Richards in this imaginative new historical mystery.

During a visit to the German city of Kassel to inspect the church’s newly constructed pipe organ, (based on an actual event in his life) Bach, his wife Anna Magdalena and his cousin and personal secretary Elias Bach (who serves as Dr. Watson to Bach’s Sherlock) discover that the pastor of the church may have murdered his young wife.
And while they investigate that, Bach learns an old adversary from his past is a guest of the Prince of Hesse, and he plots some musical revenge.

While the heads of Bach scholars may explode, Bartlett has created a delightful contrapuntal mystery set in the heart of 18th century Germany that music and mystery lovers are sure to enjoy.

FROM JAMES Y. BARTLETT: The Coffee Garden: A Musical Mystery Featuring Johann Sebastian Bach (The Bach Musical Mystery series Book 2)

Bach is back and investigating another musical mystery!
In this second novel in the Bach Musical Mystery series, award-winning historical novelist James Y. Bartlett has taken the real-life incident that Bach scholars call ‘the Prefect Affair’ and kicked it up a few notches into a musical whodunit.

When Bach’s First Prefect – the student leader at the St. Thomas School in charge of the main choir – suddenly disappears after an ugly incident at a wedding, the school’s headmaster moves to appoint his favorite student to the position, over Bach’s objections.

While the City Council mulls over the conflict between the two, Bach, his cousin and advisor Elias Bach and Bach’s wife Anna Magdalena Bach search Leipzig for the missing boy. All while Bach is preparing for the summer concert series he conducts in the Coffee Garden outside the city walls. And his daughter Dörte begins a friendship with a controversial woman poet.

In the end, truth becomes known, scores are settled, and Bach conducts a triumphant concert in the Coffee Garden before the King himself, featuring Anna Magdalena, once a promising professional singer herself.

Bach scholars’ heads may explode over Bartlett’s audacity in creating this new Bach persona, but music and mystery lovers alike will delight in this contrapuntal story set in 18th century Germany.

FROM HOLLY LEROY: Street Crimes

STREET CRIMES – Global EBook Award Nominee and Mystery Fiction Medal winner.

Holly LeRoy offers this 21,000 word collection of short stories that are “…sometimes funny, sometimes disconcerting, sometimes plain terrifying. Perfect if you like action-packed suspense.”

MISTAKE PROOF – “Due to a run of bad luck and a string of some very uncooperative ponies, I owed a lot of money to a mob bookie.” A bank robbery goes very wrong in this noir story.
RARE JUSTICE – Private Investigator Jillian Varela tries to solve a pro bono, murdered-child cold case, with a potentially dying client. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it’s going to end well.
HOLLYWOOD HITMAN – Spend time with the beautiful people, where an enterprising hit man takes care of a Hollywood couple’s marital problems with a unique and permanent solution.
THE GAME’S END – Return to Jillian Varela’s world, as she races to save the life of a naive heiress who only wanted to know if her boyfriend had been cheating on her. Instead, she could wind up on death row.

FROM DALE COZORT: Aztec Gods: A Snapshot Explorer Novel

Martin Bragg is a Snapshot Explorer, flying into wild, unexplored alternate realities in search of adventure, treasure and video of strange cultures or animals he can sell to TV networks or big Internet companies. He doesn’t want to be a conqueror or king, but he finds himself among modern US mercenaries trying to set themselves up as God kings of an Aztec empire that has survived almost unchanged into the modern age in a hidden alternate reality.
Modern weapons versus arrows and obsidian swords. It should be an even bigger mismatch than the historic conquest. The Aztecs already have Gods, though, and they are far more terrifying than airplanes and machines guns.

FROM MARY CATELLI: The Lion and the Library

The library holds many marvels. Lena and her betrothed Erion had found things that helped the beleaguered Celestians of the city.

But when the king’s caprice decides to sacrifice Erion to protect himself, Lena can only hope a legend can help her. A legend of just kings. And lions.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Perfect Darkness

What would perfect darkness look like? And what would happen if you saw it?

When Pavlik becomes obsessed with the idea of seeing perfect darkness, it becomes a distraction from the pod’s duty as asteroid miners. Little does he know that danger lies in opening one’s mind to the things that lurk in perfect darkness. Things that endanger his pod-brothers, even all of Briar’s Children.

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

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

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

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

FROM KAREN MYERS: Mistress of Animals: A Lost Wizard’s Tale (The Chained Adept Book 2)

Book 2 of The Chained Adept.

AN ERRANT CHILD WITH DISASTROUS POWERS AND NO ONE TO STAND IN HER WAY.

Penrys, the wizard with a chain and an unknown past, is drafted to find out what has happened to an entire clan of the nomadic Zannib. Nothing but their empty tents remain, abandoned on the autumn steppe with their herds.

This wasn’t a detour she’d planned on making, but there’s little choice. Winter is coming, and hundreds are missing.

The locals don’t trust her, but that’s nothing new. The question is, can she trust herself, when she discovers what her life might have been? Assuming, of course, that the price of so many dead was worth paying for it.

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: drink.

The Lion And the Lamb, A short story by Sarah A. Hoyt

©Sarah A. Hoyt 2025

“What is a human?” the lambs asked, their little ears twitching, their moist noses turned up, their eyes full of trust. They were at that adorable age, ten or so, just short of sexual maturity, but fully in control of their vocabulary and very eager to know everything there was to learn.

“It’s a myth,” Agnes explained. “Our pious ancestors on Earth used to believe that humans were a benevolent species that had raised them from non-sentient herbivores to sentient creatures who could travel between the stars. But it’s now been many centuries since we left the Earth. Our kind is strewn across the galaxy. There are other animals, too, who claim origin on Earth. No one has ever seen a human. We’ve come to believe our ancestors created the myth of humans: kindly benefactors who loved all the species of Earth and wanted to give them the stars.”

“So they don’t exist?” Bolimbo asked.

“We have been throughout the galaxy and we have seen all kinds of beings from Earth but we’ve never come across a human,” she said. She loved these cruises with the young people, the three or four months in space to teach them about the nearby planets before they returned home, finished their general schooling and took up training for a profession. Part of it was teaching them to face the hard facts and let go of pretty ideas like benevolent humans. “We think it’s how our ancestors explained how the Earth’s chaotic evolution produced so many intelligent species.”

The children were barely done nodding sagely when the ship’s alarms went. They were strange sort of alarms, not the usual low oxygen or artificial gravity failure ones. “Please put on your seat belts, and be ready to put on your spacesuits,” Agnes said. “I’m going to see what’s happening.”

She met the rest of the crew of twenty somethings up front. Keran, Carnig, Llewyn, Tali and Nohan. They were gathered around the communications console, which made her relax, because it couldn’t be anything terrible, if the problem was communications.

Before she got close, Nohan looked around and twitched his nose at her. “Agnes, there is a ship in distress.”

“A ship?” She said.

She joined them, and looked through the finder. It showed a ship of very strange design, and small enough it couldn’t have much more than one person in it. If it was a ship, and not a cargo pod cut afloat by a bigger ship. But she said that, Keran responded, in the way she did when she felt that Agnes was presuming Keran wasn’t very smart. “Well, it’s not that, because there is someone … some thing talking from in there.”

“Some thing?” she asked. “Is it an alien.”

“An alien,” Carnig answered, shortly. “Wouldn’t speak English.”

They turned the sound on for her. “Mayday, Mayday, I have lost power to the air recycler. I have — here it paused and said in a mechanical tone that indicated the occupant had automated that part — 5 hours left, after which I will perish. Mayday, mayday.”

“We’ve been discussing whether to rescue him,” Keran said. No one doubted the voice was male, though they very much doubted it was an ovid, because the consonant sounds were so odd.

“Our primary duty is to our charges,” Llewyn said, looking all virtuous, as he had a way of doing.

“But we can’t let a sentient die. That would be a horrible thing to show the children.”

The discussion ranged for an hour, with Keran changing sides at least three times, as she perceived one of the sides was about to win and wanted to join it.

Finally they decided to risk it. They would get the children involved. The children would help.

The process itself was easy enough. They had all the equipment to rescue stranded travelers, of course, it was a matter of employing them with the strange ship. There were surprises and challenges, but they overcame them, and the children were so excited they were practically vibrating.

Once they got into the ship, it surprised them. For one, it was smaller than even they expected, a ship that carried only a passenger. The idea of braving space with only one occupant was so strange that it would normally have been the strangest thing they’d found. Until they saw the occupant.

“He looks just like the pictures of humans,” little Oona said, putting her helmet against Agnes’ and speaking so only Agnes heard. And Agnes wanted to tell her that was nonsense, only of course it wasn’t. Because he did look just like the pictures of humans.

He was not furry, or not like other animals were furry, only a little fuzz on tan skin on his face, and the rest covered in clothes, just like the legends said humans wore, not just over their privates, but over most of their body.

He received them with glad cries, and many thanks, until he got a close look at them — at Cornig’s face in his helmet — and then he said the strangest thing, “Bah bah black lamb, have you any wool.”

It was the weirdest thing, because of course all of them had wool. Though they tried to keep it trimmed like civilized sheep. And Cornig was not black.

The rescue turned out very simple. They didn’t even move him out of his ship. His air recycler was a weird variety, but it could be replaced with one of their own. The children did it, and they were so happy doing it.

The gentleman — he was male and courtly — talked to them throughout. He was fascinated that they spoke English, and they couldn’t understand why. In fact, little Anniello pointed out that of course they spoke English. Some of the other Earth species didn’t, but everyone knew Shakespeare had been a ram, and his use of the language had been enough to set it for their entire species.

The man laughed and said, “Oh, yes. Of course. How could I have forgotten that?” Then he told them his name was Bill Trefoil. And when they asked what he was doing that far out, he said exploring.

Finally, when it was all fixed, and before the man left, it was little Oona who had the courage to ask, “Sir, are you a human?”

“Of course. What else could I be?”

“Only, you see,” Agnes said. “We thought you were a myth.”

“I?”

“No, your species. Humans, I mean,” she said. “Because we never found you. We’ve met beavers and deer, and rats, and lions and hippopotami, but never humans, none of us have ever met humans.”

Trefoil had gone silent a while, then sighed. “That is probably,” he said, “that humans tend to live in planets, while your kind prefers habitats. And the planets we live in are concentrated in one arm of the galaxy. So we don’t run into each other, that’s all.”

“But you’re here, sir, all alone. Were you…. were you cast off from the herd?”

He blinked at them in confusion. “No. Just exploring. Sometimes we get tired of being around other humans.” He must have read the incredulity in their eyes because he laughed. “That’s probably the other reason you never meet us. You travel together in big bunches, don’t you?”

They all nodded, because of course, it was natural.

Agnes looked around, curiously, while the children and the rest of the group questioned the man.

There were things he said that made no sense. Such as that humans preferred planets because it gave them a chance to have herds.

The others didn’t catch it. She was sure of it. They probably thought he meant a flock of humans. Only it wasn’t that way. Agnes was sure of it. She was sure he meant they kept herds of other, non-sentient animals. Buy why would they do that?

She took the opportunity as the others were leaving, to stay behind and ask him, “You keep herds? Why do you keep herds? Do you mean animals? Non sentient?”

“Well, of course,” he said. “For protein and…. and wool and leather. Don’t you?”

She shook her head. “No. We create it, synthetic, in the habitats.”

He inclined his head. “Makes sense. You don’t mind living all bunched together. Humans tried habitats, but they went crazy after a while. So we live in planets, and yes, we keep animals for … for things.”

The idea was so shocking, she stared and said, “But you uplifted the animals of Earth. You were kindly and benevolent.”

He laughed. “Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes.”

Afterwards everyone was very excited. It took Agnes a long time to convince them they shouldn’t tell anyone about the human.

“But why not?” Nohan asked. “Everyone will be so excited. We can mount an expedition to the human planets.”

Agnes had to tell them, though only after the children had gone to sleep.

And then she explained. “They are capricious gods. They might help us or they might eat us.”

At first they didn’t believe her, but what the human had said clinched it. “Bah bah black sheep. Have you any wool.”

The stories said once upon a time the humans had kept her kind for meat and wool.

“But we’ve agreed that was horrible. And it makes no sense with them also uplifting some of us.”

In the end, after much discussion, it was decided that since they couldn’t keep the children from speaking, the young adults on the trip would tell everyone it was a story the children had dreamed up and convinced themselves of.

Agnes was sure it wouldn’t work forever. Sure, for centuries they’d stayed away from humans, but sooner or later, they’d stray in their path again.

However, they’d delay that moment as much as possible.

The ovids, or for that matter the other animals of Earth weren’t ready to deal with the sheer capriciousness of creatures who could treat other animals as either food or equals.

None of it made any sense. The humans, those strange, unfathomable gods, would be left to their own devices.

That was all there was to it. It turned out the children didn’t even talk about it, probably because it was so strange. Over time, in everyone’s mind, the story of their odd encounter seemed to fade into something like a dream remembered.

Years later, talking to Agnes, Keran said, “I supposed we dreamed it all.”

And Agnes would like to believe it but she didn’t quite. Sometimes, alone in her bed, Agnes would repeat to herself, “Bah bah black sheep, have you any wool.” And shiver.

*I’ve been meaning to do this to thank you for donating to the extraordinary, one-off Winter fundraiser. I’m going to shut it off tomorrow night. Between it, and things received — thank you, I presume Captain Comic, and whoever else sent the Virginia Editions of RAH’s works — and the donations to the other GSG (the permanent one) and the now semi-secret paypal (since I don’t want them to come poking around here and take issue) it came pretty close, if not exceeded it (I don’t know. We’re not done with the accounting, quite yet.) Anyway, I’m leaving it on till tomorrow night, so no one says “But you put one more story up and I didn’t get to donate.” I mean, if you want to push it over the top, I’m certainly not going to thwart you. If you wish to do that, the link and explanation are here: Anyway, this is the fundraiser, and the link, there’s a Give Send Go for the Winter Fundraiser and well, if you need anything else including a snail mail address and the why and all, please go here.
HOWEVER this story is MOSTLY to thank you. Thank you. Your contribution to pay for the enormous work that goes into this blog is much appreciated. Without you, I’d have quit long ago, out of sheer discouragement. You are as much a part of this endeavor as I am, and you often keep me sane even if “all” you do is discuss the topics here, or link my posts.

Thank you very much. I hope you enjoyed the short story!- SAH*

What? Again? Why are we on this topic again?

Good Lord. I too am sick and tired of it. Trust me.

And yet there is a growing drumbeat for “America is a blood and soil nation.”

It’s ludicrous and laughable. I’ll be honest, it’s ludicrous and laughable even for other countries, but for the US it would be laughable, if it didn’t make me pull out all my hair and cry.

If you pursue that “blood” thing — and as an idea of how crazy this is, my husband thought blood referred to blood spilled in battle, which to be fair makes a ton more sense than “blood is genetic relationship” for our country — with its proponents, you get incoherent moaning and groaning alternately about how the founders meant the nation only for their “progeny” (but this is invalidated by the progeny reproducing with newcomers, which means they were only supposed to marry each other for 250 years now. Well. I guess they’d have eight toes per hand, but they’d play the banjo a treat.) Or we get moaning and eructations about “Anglo Saxon ancestry” or–

This is not just bullsthit. It is complete, utter, smelly scrapings of the filthiest stable you can imagine.

Look, guys, no nation is blood-and-soil. Not really. Even the nations of old Europe with their chest beating about the “French race” or the “Portuguese race” or heaven help us “the German race” are basically full of shit.

Humans are a randy lot. They run around and screw everything that moves. And before one of you comes by to inform me that most people live and die within 20 (or 100, or however many it is) miles of the place they were born. Sure. Most people do. And then there’s the outliers, like the guy of Iberian Jewish ancestry who came to the Americas with Columbus and cut a swath across the continent fathering children with Amerindian women and briefly causing a stir when tests were done, because it briefly lent credence to Amerindian tribes being the lost tribes of Israel. (Let’s take off our hats to his overachieving prowess, shall we?) But beyond that kind of adventurer, there were the guys (it’s easier for guys) who go 100 miles and father ten kids. In Europe that’s enough to cause a whole lot of genetic confusion. But then there’s wars. And wars, let me tell you, leave behind genetic residue from the enemy AND allies, and displaced populations pushed ahead of the armies. (G-d bless the men of Wellington’s armies, without which yours truly wouldn’t be writing this blog.)

So when my dad proudly beats his chest about the Portuguese Race, what he actually means are “people who can convince themselves all their ancestors were Portuguese, and they have these immutable characteristics.”

However, at least until the crazy EU experiment with open borders, it was possible for the nations of Europe to convince themselves they were all “one blood.” And that there were racial characteristics that accrued to that blood.

And you know what? By and large it was a harmless pastime that hurt no one, and probably made cultural integration easier. Because at any time, the people only knew maybe one person who was of foreign origin, and that person would be working really hard at seeming more of that nation than those born there.

Until, of course, this idea that nations were blood groupings hit a nation which had been a divided group of squabbling tribes until very recently. Germany. Germany which while not being as much “the autist of nations” as the US is more autistic than your average culture. Or was, definitely in the early nineteenth and early 20th century. And, ooh, boy, did that notion that a nation is a blood grouping explode and turn sour. Put a pin in that, okay? It’s important and we’ll return to it.

Regardless of whether other nations think they’re blood and soil, or hold to that pretense more easily than we do, no, nations are none of that.

Some tribes in Africa — but not the really big ones — are “blood” in the sense that they have a close genetic relationship with each other. Some of the more isolated and smaller nations in Europe might have managed it too, again, before the EU opened the borders wide.

The rest of modern nations? Not so much.

Now this doesn’t invalidate them as nations, and it doesn’t invalidate their right not to be invaded, or to have the people who come in assimilate.

Why not?

Because nations are territory and CULTURE. Culture is those things that aren’t hereditary — no, really. Like Portuguese tend to be good at creating networks, mostly commercial but not necessarily. This is not genetic. Perhaps a tendency to extroversion is genetic, but seriously? I’m an extreme introvert and I DIDN’T KNOW I WAS ONE until someone defined it as “people leave you drained” — which they do — because I was raised from infancy in a CULTURE where people live in each other’s pockets CONSTANTLY. — There might be tendencies to it, or have been in some original tiny tribal population that really influenced the culture. But the tendencies are imprinted or codified in the culture to such a point that they counter the individual’s natural, genetic tendencies.

Culture is difficult to define, and everyone confuses it with “blood”. It’s not. It’s more than “the rules we all agree on” and it’s less than “You do it whether you want to or not.” But those are the boundaries. To an extent, culture is almost a collective mind. Or that’s how it manifests. The truth is that you absorb it from a very early age, through language through expressions, through everything. And it becomes almost instinctive by the time you’re five or six.

This is why acculturation is so difficult and can take more than one generation (As Vivek decided to demonstrate to the nation at large.) You have to really work at it, and be self aware, and study how to change yourself, how to make yourself into the new thing, how to fit in.

The way it used to work, in the old days is that acculturation was enforced. You had to fit, at least outwardly. You had to speak the language, at least minimally. You had to dress like your neighbors. So your kids absorbed some of the culture — the public schools were great machines for this, too, back before “multicultural sensitivity” — and your grandkids were pretty much part of the new thing, with maybe some quirks.

None of this was blood, though eventually your kids and grandkids intermarry, of course. All of it was CULTURE.

Now, do we owe a massive debt to English culture, as it once was? Sure. For good and ill. The good, well, we’re distantly descended from the Magna Carta and more proximally from the Glorious Revolution. For ill… English culture tends to have rules and take them very seriously. Which has made the US the Autistic Child of Nations.

Which is our culture. Yes, we do have a culture. Though like English steals vocabulary we still useful stuff from other cultures. Oh, mostly food and clothing, but also cultural references, tales, useful things left lying around unused.

Now the thing is, the US can’t lie to itself and say we all belong together, cohesively, because of blood. As my mom put it, driving through Denver “This makes no sense. There’s no look to the people. They’re all different.”

Sure, we all stand a certain way. We all talk a certain way. Different regionally, sure, but you can tell Americans abroad. I know that, because I used to be foreign, and I could tell Americans very easily, even if they looked like Swedes or Irish or Germans (of which there were plenty around usually.)

But we’re not the same physically and genetically. And we can’t be made so.

So, what holds us together? The Constitution. The Founding documents.

Yes, we are a nation of words. We are a nation of oath.

Now, is that the only thing we are? Or are we going to go door to door and examine the minds of our co-citizens for faithfulness to the documents?

Well no. We’re going to demand they don’t violate the most fundamental and basic law of our land, which rests on these documents. And that they don’t spit on the Constitution to our faces by doing things like assume rights are collective, say.

In the same way that other cultures pretend they’re all the same blood without going door to door giving people genetic tests, we’re going to pretend that everyone born and bred in the US are believers in the Constitution, or at least agree to abide by it. What it boils down to? If you’re not, don’t make us notice.

And if you come from elsewhere? You have to prove you believe in the Founding Documents. That’s only the beginning, mind you. You have to fit in too. You have to imbibe the culture. And if you can’t make it all the way, you need to make it to where your kids will take it the rest of the way.

Which is why open borders is bullshit. You can’t absorb into your culture a massive wave of … well, the world. It doesn’t matter after a certain point whether they’re useful or not, whether they’re taking jobs the Americans won’t do or not. At a certain point, it’s too many incoming. How many are too many? More than ten percent every year, with the spigot open for more. It’s too many.

Ten or twenty percent PER GENERATION might be survivable. MAYBE. But I wouldn’t bet. It would be survivable in a nation that had an education system that enforced acculturation and taught its principles to the young. We don’t have that. We also don’t have a society at large that enforces assimilation. We don’t make people speak English. Hell, we don’t make people VOTE in English. We don’t make people be LITERATE in English. And G-d knows we don’t teach them civics OUR style in any language.

So, what does that mean? Oh, that we need a hell of a lot less immigration, if any, until we sort out how to transmit our culture and our civic values to the people born here, let alone to the foreigners coming in.

Lest our nation dissolve in a vat of globalist goo.

That’s what people are perceiving and why they’re blindly groping for some way to keep the stranger out and to fort up with their own kind.

And that’s why — with a good dose of our enemies’ agit prop (they’re just hoping to get a race war going, because they believe our media and think we’re 50% each race, and divided down the middle) — people keep coming back to “blood and soil.”

Dudes, we weren’t all one blood when the American revolution happened. And you can say all you want that we were all “white” and that too is bullshit. Part of the bullshit of the idea that we automatically enslaved all black people is that when the revolution happened there were free black people in the North, for whom no cut out was made in the founding documents. Beyond that their notion of “white” at the time didn’t encompass either Irish or Portuguese or French. It might have encompassed Germans. Maybe. Depending on Germans from where. But you know what, all were citizens and the rules applied to all.

Now? Now unleash the “blood and soil” demon on our land, where we’re both far more visibly different than the Germans were between the wars and FAR FAR more autistic than Germany (or any other country ever was) and the results will make the ghosts of Nazi monsters blench and say “Oooh. That might be too far.”

More importantly, we’ll fall apart. There will be no reason to stay together. The blue and the grey and brother against brother? People! There won’t be a household that doesn’t break into four factions or a village of a 100 that doesn’t have five competing armies.

Anything combustible will burn, and the blood will soak the soil for generations, till no two stones stand together.

So, no. Yes. We are a credal nation. No, we’re not going door to door and examine our citizen’s consciences and understanding. We’re going to assume they’re Americans and believe as Americans UNTIL AND UNLESS THEY PROVE OTHERWISE.

And then we’ll deal with it. Preferably in the courts of law.

Meanwhile, we’ll teach and we’ll behave and we’ll be AMERICAN.

And if you come in, you’d best be prepared to be American, to leave your former allegiances behind, and to teach your children to adopt our ways.

Sure, waving the flag and singing the anthem is superficial and showy. Teach it to your kids anyway. Teach them American history. Teach them to be proud of being Americans.

Or leave. Fit In or Fuck Off.

Live it. Believe it. Be it.

Or fuck off.

Now the culture is wounded. We don’t know much about cultures. No, really. The study of culture is … superficial and silly. Which is how they’ve come up with things like “Multiculturalism”.

But cultures have defense mechanisms and behave in ways that make them almost collective intelligences. And wounded cultures move to survive.

Again, this is not very well studied, but I’m going to say: Whether you were born here or not, we’re going to a time of FIFO Fit In Or Fuck Off.

FIFO.

Don’t try to pretend it’s genetic — not here. If you’re in Europe or Asia, that is a good idea, as much as you can. They’re undergoing their own defense reaction — don’t try to push out those who don’t look like you.

It’s a little difficult for the Odds. We stick out like sore thumbs, anyway.

But if there’s a place we can do it it’s in America. Because it’s autist-nation, and our belief in the principles of the nation will overrule almost everything else.

Be American. Believe. Take the oath. Take the oath in your mind and your heart.

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

Accept it fully. Believe it, live it, pass it on.

And hope the madness passes us by without the fire and the blood.

Ready, set, go!

I have no idea what is coming. I want to make that very clear. I don’t have a crystal ball or a functioning time travel machine. (I could fix it, I could. But someone has misplaced the screws, and now they don’t make those yet.)

Anyway, this to say making predictions is hard. Particularly about the future.

Take today, for instance. I intended to write a short story to thank those who gave to the midwinter fundraiser. Instead, I got multiple-kidnapped by my husband, (this is not a complaint. Might be a brag.) and wrote nothing though some little stuff happened around the hedges.

So do I have any new year’s resolutions. Not really. I’m going to try to get better at finishing and releasing stuff. Obviously I need to feed my newsletters more. But all of this passes through my not getting seriously sick. So I’m working on that.

Not so much resolutions as an ongoing process. I think getting better, but very slow.

BUT if my personal and close in future is occluded and it’s a process, the national and world trends are easier to see and predict, even if it’s not easy to predict times exactly.

For instance, it is obvious the centralized, Marxism infused model of government is falling apart. It was never very together. But the centralized media-industrial complex could fake it for a time. That time is past. The decentralization of the media is pulling the pins off everything else. It starts with the United States, because here is where we started running with blogs and opinionated people on line, and we’re continuing with Tweet-x. But the rest of the world is starting to open its eyes and take big breaths.

Will Trump succeed at everything he promised? Probably not. But he’ll succeed at things he didn’t promise. We’re dealing with a complex game of Jenga. You never know which little stick will bring the whole thing down. And there are a lot of sticks. And the “whole thing” is not our country or our system of government, despite the left’s fevered dreams, but the deranged house of cards they have been building over and around everything and making everything not function. At most they’ll manage to delay some things. But I doubt it.

Is the left going to do what they can to stop us? Undoubtedly. I mean, you know what they’re like. and now they’re panicked and a little stupid. What was it on the 1st? Two? Three terrorist attacks?

They’re trying to ring on that shaky feeling of the summer of 20.

And oh, the stomp stomp clap clap for the bird flu.

It’s not going to work. None of it is going to work. Yes, some people are going to get hurt or killed, and I’m sorry. But we can’t prevent it at that granular a level.

The left have been snakebit for a while. Their playbook has stopped working. Partly because at this point their playbook is largely fictional. They told themselves a lot of just so stories but, take it from a fiction writer, things function differently in real life. There is no “We put this plan into action, and tada! it worked.” (Which is why I say Trump won’t do everything he promised. Unless he does, through sheer chaos and dumb luck.)

To date their most brilliant, multilayered plan was the would-be pandemic and shut downs of 2020. First, I think they really meant it to be a real plague, who would kill mostly the old — remember they think everyone who opposes them is old — though I can’t prove that. Second, and more importantly, they really thought it would work to install a “new normal” in which we stayed in our houses forever, terrified to go out, and listening to all their instructions through the TV. (Parenthetical: this just shows how lousy the writers on their side are. No understanding of human nature, or economics, or frankly life.)

When they were talking about “the new normal” they really, really meant it.

And what did they get instead: A higher than ever level of skepticism about their “experts” and their pronouncements, and the political establishment in general.

And then, for the candle on the cake, the guy they frauded in was such a terrible disaster they had to replace him with the more disastrous idiot they had him choose for a VP. Worse, their attempts on Trump didn’t work. (Guys, that’s one of the inexplicables. We got miracles last year. Multiples. Possibly some we don’t know about.) And their fraud network was just not enough.

They thought they had it sewn up, forever and ever amen.

And that’s with their most sophisticated, largest scale operation. All it did was blow up in their faces and leave them worse off than they started out.

Yeah, they’re going to throw everything at the wall: terrorism, lawfare, faux scandals. Everything.

But they don’t have much imagination and — this part even I can predict — they won’t succeed in that.

I predict this next year is going to be white-knuckles and clenched teeth and the unbelievable piled on the improbable.

But mostly it will be going our way. And like on the day the Butler assassination failed, we’ll be watching in awe and shock, but not in horror.

I know this is too much to ask, but you guys, as political addicts (takes one to know) need to let go a little. You need to pop some corn, sit back, and be ready to be entertained. You particularly need to stop expecting doom around every corner.

For your own — our own — health, you — we — have to learn to do that.

Because the year ahead is going to be a complete roller coaster ride.

And I’m going to give you the advice Jerry gave me, when I was distraught over Obama’s win in 12. It’s the opposite circumstances, but it’s going to take the same remedy, because it’s going to be just as nerve wracking: Organize. Clean. Set your life in order.

Go through with a trash bag and throw out the “what even”s. Make a room perfect, then move to the other room. Set a routine. Fix your habits.

The year is going to be stressful as hell. But it’s a year for cleaning the crap out of our national life.

And you know what? A lot of that crap has fallen into our personal lives. First, a lot of us moved and are still not set up (looks at ceiling). Second, depressed people are pack rats, and unorganized packrats at that.

The problem is living in a life that’s cluttered with a mess and with no pattern tends to worsen depression, and makes it harder to do what we want.

In our nation, and in our home.

This is the year we clean.

The adults are coming home. We are the adults. And we have a duster and a mop.

Now get to it.

I’d planned to do this post anyway, and then I realized it is the perfect post for the last day of the year.

Look, everyone: it’s going to take a long time for us to stop flinching and deciding we’re going to be betrayed. 2020 left scars in the collective psyche, and scars take a long time to fade if they ever do.

The last four years we were hunching our shoulders and just enduring the blows, and that will take a long long time to fade.

And sure, there are things that won’t go our way. But you shouldn’t worry too much about that.

Look, the edifice that supports the boot on our necks is not only rickety. It always was rickety.

Keeping the big lie of the all powerful centralized government in place was a full scale production, and it required a fully coordinated media, fully coordinated panels of “experts”, and a trusting public that believed all of it. Or at least a majority of the public that believed all of it.

It has been eroding for a while, since social media and blogs got really big in the wake of 9/11. Despite their best efforts at censorship, a massed multitude of — what did they call us? — hobbits is harder to control than a few journalists who want to be invited to the right parties.

Trump’s election in 2016 was the first time the media lost to the hobbits. Really lost, publicly. They didn’t like it. The hell the establishment has put us through since is their payback.

It came with unexpected consequences though. The main ones being: their masks were yanked off; and we don’t believe them anymore.

This is the sort of thing that not all the king’s horses and not all the king’s men can put together ever again.

Sure, we’ll “lose” some. Sure, they’re making cunning plans to thwart the will of the people.

But be not afraid. If we win even a few places, it’s enough for the whole edifice of oppression and lies to come tumbling down.

It has been tumbling down, already, even while they were nominally in power, which is why we won 2024.

Be not afraid. This is very important. The rest will fall into place, provided you keep your heads and remember you’re Americans.

Even if we’d lost the H1B argument, the truth is the mass importers of obedient visa-slaves are already losing. For the same reason the South would have lost in the long run if there had never been a civil war.

Look, slave-economies are inefficient. Any economy that minimizes the ability of the employee/order receiver to innovate, create and talk back will lose to one that does.

Yes, we need a certain amount of discipline. Of course. But particularly now in the 21st century, we’re not in an era of silent, robot-like workers standing silently by machines making the precise movements.

And the reason that big management adores H1B holders — other than their being cheap — is the reason they’re a weakness. They obey. They don’t come up with innovations.

Look back at the last 30 to 35 years of our corporations and you’ll see a big history of fail. Since we started hiring by HR and racial preferences, and giving priority to cheap and obedient labor, things have been falling apart. I know this intimately because my husband has made a career in computers despite this and only got laid off once. But we saw friends have career interruptus, and many getting sidelined in their forties and fifties because they were just too expensive. And taking institutional knowledge with them, let alone ability to innovate.

Slaves — and H1B visa holders are that to an extent, as they’re tied to that visa and can’t protest — are always inefficient, and regardless of whether their culture allows them to be creative or not, won’t dare be so while under restrictive conditions. They always lose out to free people.

Take a less obvious case: Journalists who had to stick to the approved story. I have friends who got laid off, sidelined, thrown into peril because their employers demanded absolute conformity. And now newspapers are failing and blogs are eating their lunch. And some of my friends are doing better off of substack.

Same for traditional publishing.

And the same will happen to the big companies that are H1B visa hogs. This is not visible yet, because they’re in bed with government and government is covering their tootsies (and yes, there’s a name for that. It starts with an F. It will come to you.)

But — But– Hear me out: this just means they will fail, if even a single pin holding daddy-government up fails. And we stand to remove a whole lot of them. We have to, because it’s dead and rotting while propped up and pining for the fjords.

Be not afraid.

The future is ours. And the winning is just beginning.

And yes, that kind of open future, where the old certainties are falling is scary all on its own, even if it’s going its way.

A young friend/fan was scared she couldn’t prepare the kids for the wide open future. What will they need? What must they learn?

Well, it’s not just the kids. It’s all of us. G-d willing I have thirty years in me, and that’s time for a whole career. And even in my case, between midjourney and the animation programs (I should show you some of those clips I’ve been playing with) guys…. I could perhaps tell my stories in movies in another ten years. It’s not even a joke. And it is mildly terrifying.

Because change is terrifying, and we’re at the edge of a whole lot of it, in catastrophic, rushing amounts.

So? Prepare the only way you can. Stay flexible, stay ready, stay creative.

America is the country best set to survive and thrive in this, because our culture and we, ourselves, have maxed our creativity stats at the expense of our compliance and orderliness stats. Or if you prefer: we are made of chaos. We’re just entering our element.

How to prepare your kids? Well, by ten make sure they have all the basics cold: math, reading, a modicum of history. As soon as they enter their teens, encourage them in entrepreneurship in a small way. A craft business or something small that they can do. Something you can stake them with a couple hundred dollars. Be prepared to have a lot of them fail, if not all of them. But it will teach them. Teach them to plan and account. Teach them to see what’s a usable niche and where innovation can come in.

And you learn too, along with them. Our lives are getting longer. You’re nowhere near done, and I don’t care how old you are.

America can suck at first and second acts, and rescue it all in an amazing third act.

We haven’t even started. But we’re getting ready to.

Innovate, create, be free in mind and in thought.

Be not afraid.

Dance on the wave of chaos and arrive triumphant at the future.

We win. They lose.

Be not afraid.

I keep giggling when the media — even some on the right — refers to the lively… discussion last week about the appropriate use of H1B visas and when to import workers as “A MAGA civil war.”

Sure, there were the usual sh*theads babbling about how America is a “blood and soil” nation and all that nonsense. (The most amusing was the one arguing with me that America was created explicitly as a white nation. He failed to tell me which documents say so, and explain the divergence in what was considered “white” then, or even show me the set aside for free black people, which, yes, existed in the North.) But let’s be real and talk about the actual argument amid actual Americans. Not the (Mostly Russian. And they probably actually believe what they’re posting) paid trolls. I suggest we mostly ignore anyone screaming about the “white” race or set asides thereonto until they come up with better trolls.

This wasn’t a civil war. This was barely a family argument.

Here I should interject. Where I come from expression is loud and voluble, particularly if your mom is a bit deaf. I remember the first time Dan (the poor man is from a Connecticut patrician family!) found himself at the table with my family. I saw when his eyes got all panicky and he started looking at the steak knives, and wondering whether to dive under the table. At which point I told him we weren’t about to slit each other’s throats. We were discussing where to buy shoes the next day. It hadn’t even gotten impolite. We were all just enthusiastically shouting our opinions and disagreement.

He got used to this communication method later on to the point he didn’t much notice it. Heck, I didn’t notice it, until I was walking back from downtown one day and heard what sounded like two men having a very loud argument about three blocks away from our house. It wasn’t until I got closer I realized it was my teen sons who were discussing their favorite Spiderman timeline.

This example is more germane because at the time I thought “Gee, it sounds like they’re about to slit each other’s throats. I’m shocked no neighbor ever called the police.”

But it was the kid next door, in the quiet house where no one ever raised their voices who tried to commit suicide by dropping from a roof. And it was in that quiet house that the father and mother divorced, in a long, bitter mostly silent process that took years and left them both broken.

I’m not saying loud is preferable (My Connecticut DIL still tries to dive under the table while her husband and BIL scream at each other at the top of their considerably powerful voices over…. who gets to sit next to whom at holiday meals. Or whether one of them set the trivets in the right place for me to place the turkey pan.)

I’m saying that some family arguments — granted not the ones about Spiderman retcons — need to be had, no matter the volume. And that there’s worse than having arguments out in the open where the world can see and hear.

Sometimes “not in front of the kids, dear” is justifiable. And sometimes all it does is tamp down the tensions till everything explodes.

Let me unpack it for you: Of course Musk and Trump had a prejudice pro H1B visas. The first came here with one, and he and the second see only the results after they’ve been normalized, tamped, cleared and made rational by their middle managers.

Look, this is like what I refer to with the publishing industry drinking its own ink. If you only see the end result of the actions taken by your middle managers, you don’t know what goes on in the middle. I call this management by spread sheet, and though both Elon and Trump are too smart to do that exclusively, they run very large enterprises and have to delegate SOME of them.

The publishing industry got caught in this, because they started doing things like judging the success or failure of a book without taking in account anything but the book. Ie. not paying attention to even elementary things like covers, much less push, or money spent on publicity, or what type of publicity, or the fact the pipeline had gotten clogged with things like “ordering to the net.” It was all “the numbers don’t lie” but yes, the numbers do, which is why they ended up drinking their own ink and opening themselves up to having indie eat their lunch.

The problem with the management of any large enterprise is the you end up having to take certain things on faith. Which is how the hyper concentrated management of communist countries fails.

Yes, you can do marketing and opinion surveys, but for anything political or frankly economic or– well, pretty much anything in these days, they are proving more and more useless.

So, of course, Trump and Elon stepped in it, after Vivek really stepped in it by thinking America is how Hollywood portrays it.

But Elon and Trump have walked it back, and I really think they mean it. They truly were not aware of how bad it’s gotten. Yes, every new job created in a quarter going to foreign born people might have been a clue, but I think they didn’t connect it.

They didn’t realize how bad it was 20 years ago and how it has incrementally grown. Yes, sure, offshoring is bad but “inshoring” and laying off your entire department to bring in foreign labor who then perpetuates itself by despising Americans, in a purely xenophobic snit (Hi Vivek!) is just as bad. And creates massive resentment.

Which Elon and Trump got to see, up close and personal.

(Oh, and much as I stare at Vivek in horrified fascination, let me tell you as someone who acculturated, this is one of the phases. You’re trying to understand your new culture, and you go through a phase of believing the media, not realizing it has its own biases. “Oh, so things really are like Revenge of the Nerds. Or Pretty In Pink. Or whatever.” You have to work at moving out of that phase. So I have some limited sympathy for him. Acculturating is difficult and a hell of a lot of work. Which is reason #300000 why mass immigration is a bad idea and makes every country worse. As the world is finding out.)

And then they walked it back. And this is good. Because they saw the rage and the hair-trigger anger people are living with, but more importantly they saw the injustice and the ridiculousness of importing workers because you can essentially enslave them. While you can’t do that to citizens.

Oh, and to the people saying that to want to (really, not pretend, with fake ads) hire Americans first is “DEI”: you are full of shit. American citizens are tax payers. They are also members of the culture, born and raised in it. If their buy in doesn’t get them at least equal consideration for work and the benefits of an economy they and their parents helped build, it’s on you to explain why not. America should be run for the benefit of Americans (of all colors.) I’m not suggesting we slam the gates shut. I’m suggesting small, a trickle really, and for very specific needs and circumstances, where people aren’t committing wholesale fraud to get it. (Like, I came over as a bride. But I’m strenuously against “Marry the maid so she can stay here.” I would have come over, anyway and had a study/employment offer at the same time. I just happened to fall in love. BUT–) There should be routes for entry. I suggest more than for “must be a genius” which is NOT the best criteria, we should screen for “really wants to be American” but that might be just my own bias showing.

The point is, as much as I’m sure Vivek didn’t know what he was stepping into, this argument is one that needed to be had. The pros and cons, and the justifiable anger of the people should be on open display. And the “factors leading to” should be investigated. Because by themselves H1B visas might be a good idea. They are not a good idea as they’re being used/frauded/messed with. And as with publishing, the fraud factors are so many that people at the top don’t even realize their metrics mean nothing.

Yeah, sure, the education in America is a mess, and that needs to be fixed. But we need to find pathways to get kids employed, instead of assuming they’re all stupid and lazy. (They’re not. And keep in mind “kid” for me at this time is anyone under 45 or so.) If you think they are you don’t know how hard they’re fighting/working to stay above water, and have been deceived by reports of a few people. (Look, even in my day most retail workers were flaky and wouldn’t show up for their shifts or paycheck. It’s just now we make it harder for people to work two or three jobs in retail. So we have fewer of the reliable ones, because fewer of them can work more than one job.) BUT all of that is also obscured by people trying to hire cheap people they can bully and by the sheer mess that is our HR and their protocols, including DEI.

So, after this discussion, we are set on a better path to fix the problem. These discussions need to keep happening, and yes, they need to happen in the open and where everyone can see it because no one has the full picture of how messed up the entire process is. Even I didn’t, and I have feelers in a lot of places. (It’s like the people who say illegal immigration is a net plus. No it’s not, if you see the payouts and destruction of education, healthcare, welfare, etc. etc. etc., and I’m sure even I don’t have the full picture.)

This is the time to take a page from the dems and say “party unity my ass.” In healthy families, nations and movements, things get discussed in the open without fear it will destroy everything.

And yes, the dems will think it’s a civil war and that we’re “falling apart” but that’s because they don’t tolerate dissent or even questioning, and frankly any questioning would cause them to fall apart, because they have no coherent philosophy.

Ignore them. The adults need to work through this stuff.

And despite the shouting and the waving hands, I have great hopes for the future.

Book Promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH

FIRST LET’S GET THE INCESSANT AND INTRUSIVE SELF PROMOTION OUT OF THE WAY, SHALL WE?

FROM SARAH A. HOYT, FOR 99C: Odd Magics: Tales for the Lost

Odd Magics
This is a very strange collection of fairytales, recast for modern life. In it the prize isn’t always to the fairest, the
magic is rarely to the strongest.
But lonely introverts do find love, women who never gave it a thought find themselves at the center of romance.
Doing what’s right will see you to the happily ever after.
And sometimes you have to kiss an accountant to find your prince.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT, FOR 99C: A Few Good Men (Darkship Thieves Book 3)

Lucius Dante Maximillian Keeva was born a prince…

or so close to it as makes no difference. He is the son of one of the fifty Good Men who — between them — partition and rule all of the Earth.
But for the last fourteen years, he’s been imprisoned in a small cell, in what amounts to solitary confinement.
You can’t stay sane in solitary confinement that long, not even if someone supplies you with reading material.
When Luce escapes, he finds that his family is dead and people are trying to kill him. He doesn’t respond as a sane man would.
It is just as well.
Restoring a constitutional republic to a world gone mad, five hundred years after the fabled USA vanished from the face of the Earth is not a job for a sane man.
And Luce Keeva is just the madman for the job.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT, FOR 99C: Darkship Revenge (Darkship Thieves Book 5)

The World Can’t Be Made Safe….

But it doesn’t mean Athena Hera Sinistra isn’t ready to try. Flying back to Earth Orbit from her asteroid home, leaving behind unresolved questions and turmoil, Athena becomes a new mother in orbit.

As is perhaps fitting, her daughter is born during battle with an unknown foe.

A battle that ends with Kit – Athena’s husband – missing, and Athena’s ship damaged.

So Athena names her daughter Eris, and goes to war.

What follows is a non-stop fight by a very angry mother, who wishes to make the world(s) safe for her newborn daughter, and other children too.

When the adventure is over, it is just the start of another, where children will be rescued, old tyrants brought to justice, and freedom restored.

If it can be.

FROM D. A. BROCK, ON SALE FOR $1.99: Texas at the Coronation (Republic of Texas Navy Book 1)

For seventy years after a devastating war, the Republic of Texas kept to itself. But it would be rude not to attend the international naval review celebrating Britain’s new king, George VI. So with war clouds over Europe, Texas sends the elderly armored cruiser, San Antonio, and her new captain, Karl von Stahlberg.

While making new friends and meeting Texas’ ancient foe, can Karl and his men avoid sparking a war?

FROM D. A. BROCK, ON SALE FOR $1.99: The Lone Star, the Tricolor, and the Swastika: Republic of Texas Navy Book 2

Autumn, 1939…

The war that the Western nations have long dreaded has erupted in Europe. After the conquest of western Poland by Germany, the war on land settles into the so-called ‘Phony War’.

But the war at sea is anything but phony. Especially when the French Government accuses the Republic of Texas of providing aid to Germany. The tension escalates, and Hitler fans the flames for his own nefarious purposes.

After a devastating sneak attack, Commodore Karl von Stahlberg is thrust into command of the Texas battle fleet. Can he defend Texas against the enemy’s onslaught, or will Texas be defeated?

FROM D. A. BROCK, ON SALE FOR $1.99: Texas in the Med: Republic of Texas Navy – Book 3

September, 1940…

The Battle of Britain is at its height. Every day RAF and Allied fighters rise to meet the swarms of German planes seeking to bomb Britain into submission.

In the Mediterranean, the Royal Navy, badly overstretched by the loss of the French Navy, struggles against the powerful Italian Navy to keep that vital waterway open while supporting the besieged island fortress of Malta.

To aid their ally, the Republic of Texas is sending Vice Admiral Karl von Stahlberg and the Texas Naval Expeditionary Force. Can his small force of cruisers, destroyers, and two aircraft carriers stem the rising tide of Europe’s dictators as the tyrant Pétain works to break up the Allies?

FROM D. A. BROCK, ON SALE FOR $1.99: Tales of the Texas Navy: Volume 1

This mini-anthology contains two short stories in the ‘Republic of Texas Navy’ universe, revealing heretofore unknown facets of that world.

FROM HOLLY LEROY: Sudden End: A prequel to the Hostile Earth Series

Long before the events depicted in Hostile Earth, the end came. This is how it happened. Lisa Evans, sixteen, lives with her mom and dad in a cute little town, Rose Vista, California, It’s an idyllic life, except when you reside at the bottom of your high school’s social ladder. Picked on, laughed at, and embarrassed daily, it’s been rough for Lisa. But the next day things are going to change. She has an opportunity to take back her life. Then a catastrophe strikes. In the beginning, everyone thinks that it’s a simple power outage and everything will be back to normal in a week or two. Instead, the entire world has gone dark, cities have burned, and the jails have emptied. There is sickness, starvation and death everywhere, and each day that goes by, the population shrinks even further. Sudden End is a STANDALONE SHORT NOVEL (22000 words or 92 pages) prequel to Hostile Earth, post-apocalyptic series.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Ghosts of Christmases Past

These are troubled times. The Flannigan Administration’s hostility to clones has reached a boiling point, resulting in the Expulsions. All of NASA’s astronaut clones have been sent to lunar exile in Shepardsport.

Christmas is approaching, and Brenda Redmond is helping put on a musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol. But the three ghosts who visit Scrooge in the classic Charles Dickens story aren’t the only ghosts haunting the corridors of Shepardsport.

Even as Brenda is trying to get her young players ready, she must also track down the source of the strange visions that are coming unbidden to the settlement’s inhabitants.

A novelette of the Grissom Timeline.

FROM MARY CATELLI: Sorcery and Kings

Tales of wonder and magic.

A fire master must find a magical starter of fires.

A mysterious queen holds a ball in a city filled with magic.

Magic of roses and gold are needed to fight a dreadful war.

An oath keeps a ghost captive.

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: Minister