The house is full and I have a million things to cook!

See you tomorrow.

ON SALE RIGHT NOW: (A new section for this time period when a lot of people have a lot of things for sale)!

Also I wish to remind everyone that you can order now on sale, and have a bunch of books delivered to your loved one’s kindle on Christmas morning and look like a big spender!

ON SALE FOR 99c

FROM D. A. BROCK: Texas in the Med: Republic of Texas Navy

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 TOM VEAL: Strange Tales for Strange Times

If you think you live in strange times, these tales will show you what strangeness really is.

• “The Miracle Wrought by Silas Gantry”: A down-on-his-luck pastor performs a world-shaking miracle, then has to endure the unanticipated consequences of a world where everyone believes in deity.
• “Shadowloves: A Tale of Desire”: Approaching middle age, a man who let romance pass him by rekindles an old flame at an exotic resort, only to discover that it won’t let him go.
• “The Monkey and the Amazon: A Tale of Illusions”: In ancient Babylon, the alleged daughter of a warrior princess finds her fate entangled with a monkey that is more than it seems.
• “Igor’s Campaign: A Tale of Ambition”: The World Science Fiction Convention comes to Yeltsin-era Russia and turns into a scene of speculative stock frenzy.
• “A Fire at the End of Time: A Tale of Immortality”: On the universe’s last-born planet, a young scholar is offered a fearful chance to prolong his life past the death of the stars.
• “Daimon Born: The First Adventure of Theagonistes”: In the realm above the Moon, a daimon who seeks to penetrate the cosmos-enclosing Empyrean changes the Earth forever.
• “Pages from the Universal Library”: The Universal Library contains every book that has been or can be written. Presented here are reviews of works that lack only a connection to our version of reality. You will discover how thwarting the 9/11 plot led to the impeachment of George W. Bush, which holiday could not be decolonized, who made cricket America’s national pastime (with an assist from the designated hitter rule) and why a German politician killed in the military coup of 1936 became a progressive hero.
• “Clicks & Colluders”: A Russian spy, a naïve journalistic neophyte and the aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s election victory, which quickly veers in directions almost as strange as real life.

When you finish these stories, you will appreciate the placidity of the mundane world.

from sarah a. hoyt

Christmas In the Stars: A collection of Christmas Short Stories

This is a collection of four Christmas short stories.
It starts with a star-explorer stranded in unknown coordinates listening very hard for sleigh bells. Then there are two deserters of a doomed planetary war, in a forsaken planet, trying to do the right thing to secure peace and good will, even if one of them happens to be dead. And did you know there was a small, sweet robot at the nativity? Also, sometimes, all you need for a Merry Christmas is a cat.
This is a short collection, but it’s heartwarming and cozy, and the sort of thing to read on a snowy afternoon, by your fireplace, with a cup of eggnog nearby.

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.

A Few Good Men

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.

THE REST OF THE BOOKS!

BY ANTHONY GILMORE, HARRY BATES AND DESMOND W. HALL, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Space Hawk: The COMPLETE Hawk Carse Stories: The Retro Pulp Space Opera Non-Classics!

In 1931, Harry Bates, the editor of Astounding Stories, was dissatisfied with the quality of the fiction he was getting from writers. So he, along with his assistant Desmond W. Hall, rolled up their sleeves and created a protagonist, and antagonist, and wrote four stories to show the other writers “how to do it right”.

The result, Hawk Carse, and his nemesis, the diabolical Ku Sui, are certainly memorable. As critic Schuyler P. Miller put it, “Hawk Carse was so bad, he was almost good.”

This iktaPOP Media collection of the original stories includes, for the first time, the fifth and last Hawk Carse story, “The Return of Hawk Carse”, written by Harry Bates alone, and published in 1942 in Amazing Stories rather than Astounding.

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

FROM KATHRYN ZURMEHLY: Doomwalker

Dark powers are on the move in a world on the brink of chaos… Paladin Valen has hunted the broken remnants of the dead elven gods all his life. Now he is tasked with delivering a warning from his goddess. Called ‘Doomwalker’ for reasons he does not understand, Valen makes his way toward the great capital city of Crownshold with a sense of duty and foreboding. He crosses paths with the elf Maryx, a spy for the doomed kingdom of the elves. She is bound to him through childhood oaths that connect her to the terrible destiny of the ‘Doomwalker’. War is coming to the land and it is hard on their heels. Accursed warriors stalk the woods and an army moves towards the city with no sign of their passing but burning villages. Valen and Maryx’s fate looms over them, though just what that fate will be, neither can tell.

FROM CARLINE FURLONG: The Guardian Cycle, Vol.1: In Dreams and Other Stories

A man whose debts must be paid by vengeance. A woman desperate to save her husband. A grieving father finding a young enemy soldier on his veritable doorstep…

These fantasy and soft sci-fi stories wonder whether or not heroes need families. Are we not told that families slow the hero down? Is it not typically implied that they get in the way of the adventure? Are they a burden, or truly the greatest strength from which the hero and those he loves can draw?

Six tales in this collection center on family, faith, and self-sacrificing love as men and women fight for the ones whom they hold most dear. Whether the enemy is inner turmoil, a nightmare, or a demon really does not matter. If the threat seeks to harm a member of the family, it is going to pay dearly.

FROM MOE LANE: Ghosts on an Alien Wind

Science Fiction! Horror! Adventure!

Something murdered the Galaxy. There was no warning, no explanation, and no mercy… except for humanity. Humans were the only sapients spared, and nobody knows why. Now Earth and her colonies gingerly explore the Tomb Worlds, picking through the ruins of dead civilizations for answers, or at least treasures. The researchers sent out can bring back wonders. If they survive.

Pamela Tanaka is the Chief Pilot for a research outpost on the terrifyingly comfortable world of One-Eighteen, and she is precisely where she wants to be. But when madness, murder, and mass sacrifice profane her chosen home, she must search for answers on her own – but not “before it’s too late.” Everybody who goes to the Tomb Worlds knows ‘too late’ has already come and gone.

FROM I. M. LERNER AND CATHERINE OSORNIO: The Hidden Entrance (Under the Staircase – An Economic Adventure Series for Kids Book 2)

On a hunch, he pressed down on the ledge, first on Hubris and then on Nemesis.
Crrrr….
The click-clackety sound of moving gears creaked loudly on the other side of the wall.
Slowly the bookshelf slid aside, revealing a dark hallway.

After spending the summer discovering the Under the Staircase Society, Nate, Maya, and Maggie are finally back at school. But while Nate would be happy puttering in his workshop and tinkering with his 3D printer, he can’t stand by as their beloved Apprenticeship Program comes under attack. The discovery of The Road to Serfdom sparks a chain of events they could never have expected. From Cipher Wheels to Cicero, secret desks to hidden passages, the kids must solve the mystery…before it’s too late!

Under the Staircase® Books A mystery and adventure series that teaches treasured values: personal responsibility, individual liberty, and economic freedom.

Psst! Parents & Teachers: The second book in the series introduces a variety of Friedrich Hayek’s economic concepts—individualism and collectivism, the knowledge problem, the fatal conceit, and other topics—using examples from kids’ day-to-day lives in school, with friends, and in familiar situations.

FROM KAREN MYERS: King of the May – A Virginian in Elfland

Book 3 of The Hounds of Annwn.

MORE VALUABLE AS A WEAPON THAN A KINGMAKER, HE MUST MAKE HIS OWN CHOICES TO SECURE THE FUTURE.

George Talbot Traherne, the human huntsman for the Wild Hunt, had hoped to settle into a quiet life with his new family, but it was not to be. Gwyn ap Nudd, Prince of Annwn, has plans to secure his domain in the new world from the overbearing interference of his father Lludd, the King of Britain.

The security of George’s family is bound to that of his overlord, and he vows to help. But when he and his companions stand against Lludd and his allies at court, disaster overturns all their plans and even threatens the Hounds of Annwn themselves.

George and his patron, the antlered god Cernunnos, must survive a subtle attack that undermines them both. Other gods and gods-to-be have taken an interest, but the fae are divided in their allegiances and fear the threat of deadly new powers in their unchanging lives.

George and his companions must save themselves if they are to persuade their potential allies to help. But how can they do so, attacked on so many fronts at once? Will he put his family into greater jeopardy by trying to defend them?

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 LEIGH KIMMEL: Beach House on the Moon

The Moon is a dead world, airless and desolate. Emmaline Waite has known this fact since childhood, when she watched the Apollo landings.

But here she sits on the shores of the Sea of Tranquillity, looking up at the gibbous Earth as the waves roll in. What madness can this be?

She gets no time to contemplate that question, for she is not alone. She is about to enter a realm of love and fear, of mindbending secrets that change her understanding of human history, and of self-sacrifice.

Her life will never be the same.

ALSO, ATTENTION, PLEASE, THIS CHRISTMAS, CEDAR SANDERSON HAS A CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR HER READERS: 

Just So

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: smart

I started to write this post yesterday, then realized I didn’t have quite enough brain. (Yes, I am better today. Should be perfectly fine by tomorrow. I’m taking quantities of C and D that probably will make me glow in the dark, but it’s working.)

And then this morning I realized the problem was that I didn’t actually have all the factors in play. So, indulge me while I lay the background, shall I?

I’ve been reading They Walked Like Men by Clifford Simak. It is in many ways a gimmick book, and as a fellow professional now I can see where he rushed the ending and to an extent stuck the landing, though I’m not sure how I’d do it differently, except take a few more pages and resolve on logic issue.

My guess is either editor breathing down his neck, or he was out of allotted words and didn’t feel like going back to the beginning to start cutting at it.

BUT note its good enough that I’m not going to give you spoilers. You should read it. To this day, Dan and I get antsy if we’re driving a mountain road, and there’s a car with a single light behind us. Also, the book has one of my favorite openings ever in science fiction, closely followed (note FOLLOWED) by Puppet Masters and preceded by Citizen of the Galaxy and Have Spacesuit.

Anyway, the entire gimmick of the book is that the Earth is under alien invasion using the forms we have for normal commerce/interaction. And that there’s nothing we can do about it, since the majority of people not only don’t know the aliens exist, but don’t believe you if you tell them. And so the invasion proceeds apace, because other than the people who were brought forcibly in contact with it, NO ONE BELIEVES it. It’s that outrageous that people can’t process it.

I’ve read this book every few years since I was 12 or so, but this year it hit like a brick, for obvious reasons.

Oh, not the aliens. Despite Tucker Carlson, I don’t believe there are aliens and having the government scream there are every time they want to distract us is not enhancing credibility.

I mean the “corrupting our institutions to acquire power and wealth, in such a way that no one believes it. Particularly none of those who should and could do something about it.

And you know, in the book the whole thing is solved when the character proves aliens exist.

In a way that solution is right, because secrecy allows a lot of things to flourish that would be stopped right quick if they were out in the open.

Take election fraud. If it were properly reported, we’d already have one day, paper only, purple fingers, not to mention none of the crazy like “same day registration”. But most people don’t know how crazy and easy to fraud it is. They would not themselves commit fraud, so why would anyone else. And our news…. er…. democrat operatives with bylines aren’t reporting stuff like “no other country does this, because every time stuff like vote by mail is tried anywhere, the fraud is always next level”. Or “they will register you to vote, if you’re a foreign national signing up for a driver’s license with your passport.”

But the myriad and crazy ways to cheat are so many and so unreported, that their obvious outrageousness makes them hard to believe. People think fraud is a little thing on the margins. 2020 was step one at breaking that “it can’t be real” but many in the establishment and out really want to deny it and go back to sleep. The entire “it’s time to talk of something else” is indicative of this. No, sorry. If our method of elections is broken, NOTHING ELSE is important. Because you can’t win elections rigged against you. It’s the only thing to talk about. Forever. Until it’s fixed. The public seems to sense this, btw, even those who would like everything to “go back to normal”. I think it accounts for Trump’s lead almost by itself.

The thing is Trump’s election in 2016 started ripping off a lot of those masks. Partly — and only partly — because Trump will say things everyone is afraid to say, out loud. (Which, to an extent is why he was elected in the first place.)

But partly because the left went so insane at the unexpected election result that it ripped off its own mask in favor of going completely and thoroughly nuts in public.

What I was missing yesterday is that there have been several of these “steps” and they still keep coming. Because having lost their minds, the left isn’t find it. And the very things they do are only holding because they’re so stupid they’re unbelievable. BUT every time they do the next one, the previous becomes more believable. Also, they’re increasingly, like the cheating, in front of G-d and everyone, really blatant.

And it feels like each of these incidents puts people in the frame of mind to see things clearer. And sometimes makes it so you just can’t ignore it. Each hit reveals “the aliens” doing the unthinkable.

And ooh, boy, the hits have been coming fast and furious the last three years. The covidiocy, and then every revelatory hit coming out about it. The red speech. The lawsuits against Trump. Oh, yeah, the entire conspiracy nonsense during his presidency, from the “Russia, Russia, Russia” to the insane stuff they brought up against his supreme court nominees, all of it made the masks fall off, and people go “Oh.”

Now, the masks go back on, and people try to go back to the safe place, because, well, no one, not even me, likes the hideousness revealed. OTOH those of us, like me, who have seen it for a long time, feel a certain amount of relief when it’s out in the open.

But the people trying to get back “to normal” keep having the “normal” ripped off their eyes again and again. There is no road back to normal. None.

At this point, the left is so much in evil villain mode (partly because they always were, partly because their hiding methods are working less and less every year, thanks to the net. Hence why they are now attacking the first amendment) that they can’t help themselves. So, you know, when Hamas does horrible stuff in Israel, they think it makes perfect sense to tear down hostage posts and attack Jews. Because…. why not? They thought this would be absolutely a good strategy. Because stuff like this has always worked before, and they missed how utterly horrendous the attacks were, and how in public they were.

So, the masks were ripped off yet again. And then watching University presidents, all women, and all obviously and clearly incompetents trying to defend it was just sh*t icing on the sh*t cake.

I feel like the results of that haven’t yet fully played out, but like it moved everyone to yet another stage of “Oh, you’re just really evil and there is no truth in you.”

My guess is Trump or no Trump the hits are going to keep coming. At this point, they can’t help themselves. They don’t know what else to do but keep trying to herd us by doing stuff that’s absolutely horrifying.

They’re doing what they always did, only up to eleventy now, and out in the open. And they don’t know why we’re all going “whoa, now!”

And it’s going to keep happening. Trump started it, but at this point it’s a perpetual motion machine. The masks just keep falling.

Thing is we need them to fall harder and faster, because it’s our only chance to avoid more unpleasant options.

Without spoilering too much, there is a moment in Simak’s book (And he’d be horrified at my seeing it this way, btw, for his time he was very much progressive as you’ll find reading the book) when the president offers to nuke the aliens, and the main character says “Why? Everyone knows they exist now. They can no longer operate. It was the secrecy that allowed it.”

It’s the same thing. We need all the ugliness to come out as fast as possible, so the masks can’t go back on.

Because as evil and dirty as our “elites” are the only thing that allows them to operate is the nice-nice mask, and people wanting to pretend they see no evil.

Remove that and they’re done. They become a shame, a reproach, and a laugh stock.

Which for them is worse than death.

So in the coming year, I wish you the masks falling harder and faster. And no worries, they will be.

Just refuse to forget the masks that fell. Keep notes if you have to. And bring them up when people try to look away.

The sewer is horrible. But it might save us from worse choices.

Don’t look away.

I have a good excuse. Okay, maybe not good, but an excuse: I woke up with every symptom of a bad cold. MIGHT be “just” allergies, but yowza.

I battled it enough not to sleep all day, but I feel like I’ve been. More soon.

Sorry, I should have posted an update, because you’re probably all worried about Circe.

I do actually have news on Circe, but they’re good. (Does this mean I’m going to stop worrying? Do you know me? Of course, not, but I’ll worry less frantically.)

But mostly the day was completely crazy, with three can’t avoid appointments, one for Circe.

I’m still halfway in awe that we got to all of them. And two of them were very good news. (Dan maybe, might, perhaps need further surgery. We don’t know yet, and probably won’t for a couple of months.)

We took Circe for an appointment with another vet, mostly because our vet is booked weeks away, but also we wanted a second opinion/second eyes on the kitten. And this is our son’s vet (Now you know, our son is secretly a lion shifter) and he’s highly impressed with her.

Anyway, so this vet thinks Circe is perfectly healthy, just recovering from some infection. She thinks possibly herpes, which she says is rampant in kittens. (Who knew? My kitten gave me herpes?)

Anyway, she is acting better, though right now she’s exhausted from going to the vet, of course.

So, apparently I sleep like an anime character with my hand near my face, palm up. I found this out because last night Circe came and curled up in it, and tucked her little wedge-shaped head under my chin. And that’s how we slept last night. She left as I woke up, but it must have been only a box visit, because she came back and was bumping my chin and wanting to play.

Anyway, she’s eating more, and apparently drinking more, so she no longer looks as much like a bag of bones.

And in compensation for keeping you in suspense this late, I’ll tell you the funniest cat story EVER. So, as far as Indy is concerned, we brought home six of his little siblings, and then we took one or two out periodically in a carrier, and they NEVER CAME BACK.

So he was alarmed when we took Circe out in a carrier, and tried to follow us out the door.

Then when we came back, he was very happy, but also puzzled. So Dan said, “They didn’t want her, so we brought her back.”

And because I never thought he’d understand, I said, “Yeah. They wanted an older male. So we’re taking you. Get in.”

He looked up at me, looked really sad, and this cat who never voluntarily goes in a carrier, started to get in.

I was so shocked he understood what I said!

Of course I pulled him out, cuddled him and told him we’re never giving him away. And he’s fine, playing with mini-me and the Siam-Muse.

And that’s it for now. Real post tomorrow.

There are some paradigms you find again and again in comments on right-side blogs that make me wonder if everyone has lost their mind. I know they haven’t, of course. The thing is the paradigms sketched either rhyme roughly with a misapprehension of the current situation or the parallel being drawn, or are…. well, things that happen in movies. And being soaked in story we think they are plausible because they happen in movies.

One is the “we’re just like the Roman Empire, and we’re decadent and we’ll be all gone in fifty years” (or ten. Or one.) That one is fun because it’s part old USSR propaganda that worked, it’s part not knowing much about Rome, it’s part knowing our political system is partly based on the Roman, and it’s part well, not knowing much about us, either, but knowing all the things lefties have been putting in movies and “news” and “science” for the last several decades.

There are others, like the hard times makes strong men thing that fall apart if you poke it. (Hard times make both meek and cruel men. And sometimes yes in the same person.) People think it’s true, because we all know people who were raised with everything, and became useless nincompoops who wasted all their wealth. But that’s not true universally. It’s selection bias and cautionary tales. There are families who have been very wealthy and had easy childhoods for over ten generations. And they’re still “hard men.” (Sometimes the hardest, as in evil and cruel.)

I’m very glad people at least on this blog — I don’t read much of other blogs comments, tbf — have stopped with the bizarre “The EB cards stop working, and they’ll fan out to the suburbs.” There is a subset that assumes all welfare cases are black. (Yes, there is a large number. They were targeted early. But seriously, they expanded welfare so much since the Obama years it affects every race and demographic, but probably more the new migrants who these days are deluged with both “aid” and pap about how everyone discriminates against them. So that one can have a weird racist undertone, but most of all, honestly, it just doesn’t hold up, and we have case studies. We have when disaster hits, the welfare class doesn’t fan out to pretty much anything. Yes, it loots. But it loots its own neighborhood. It burns its own neighborhood. And then it sits around waiting for the cameras to grift. Because, like rolling left before dying allowing executives to find a better job after killing a company, the burn and destroy your own place then act pitiful has always worked in the past.

But now we’re into “When society goes bad” or “If transport stops working” the locusts of the city will fan out. And that seems superficially true, because of course it’s what happens in movies, right? And in the news? We’ve all seen “refugees” fanning out in the surrounding areas. Though, be fair, normally not as raiders, but as beggars.

It’s also for most people treating “city people” as a group of widgets. They’re all the same, and we’ve argued with them on line, and if they become pinched, all that anger is going to fan out and–

Okay, lesson one: Twitter — or blog comments — is not real life. The loudest people online are the least dangerous in real life. (Some of us admit it. Also are ready to compensate for it.)

Now, to the rest of it: I’m an urban person. Not how I was born or raised, and my predilection for living in cities is still considered bizarre by most of my family. However, there might be a deep-genetic confluence of characteristics, since the Romans were urban a long time ago. Who knows. Or I’m weird. I loved the big city the first day I went there for high school and until I was done with college, I mostly “lived” there, coming home to eat and sleep. Once I was married, we first lived in a little suburb-like area, but we found out we were driving to the next big city all the time, and just moved there. And since then we’ve lived in cities. Usually large cities, in older, Victorian neighborhoods that you could walk to coffee shops and bookstores and with a little effort to a grocery store. We don’t live in a large city or in such an area right now, and it feels kind of odd, I’ll be honest.

But most of our amusements are urban: museums, botanic gardens, zoos, lectures, that sort of thing. And most of our eating out and shopping is where poor, urban folk shop. Or at least “poor but not the poorest”: dive diners, thrift shops, used furniture stores.

So, we are urban people, and we rub elbows with all sorts of classes and strata in the city. It’s not one class, one type of people, one set of behaviors. 

First of all, I suspect cities are blue because fraud is easier there. Not only is it not uniformly left, I would be very shocked if it’s more than 50% left. And it’s only that because it tends to have a lot of young people and “trendy” people, and leftism is a positional good.

Yes, I know the cities all SOUND super lefty. The conversations you hear; the murals; the way they dress, etc. etc. etc.

I enjoin you to stop and think: positional good. That means people signal how left they are, because that’s the point. It signifies (or used to signify, and people take long to adapt) that you’re educated and smart. Also lefties tend to assume everyone else is left, so they talk really loud, while the rest of us tend to confine our talk and lower our voices in public. One of the more encouraging signs of the times is that young rightists also talk loudly and defiantly in many circumstances.

So let’s break this out by groups of people who live in the city:

First, yeah, you have a welfare class. Those usually don’t even vote. They are so indoctrinated by the establishment that they consider anyone running for office as at best not caring for them, and at worst the enemy. You don’t rouse yourself to vote in those circumstances. This is why “vote harvesting” where, let’s face it, the “harvesters” often — if not always — mark the ballot for the harvested, is a powerful hack to fraudulently win elections.

Then there is a working class. These are more and more absent from the cities, either because they can’t afford to live there, or because the areas they can afford to live in are dangerous or just plain bad. So, most working class live in remote suburbs, at least if the city is large enough.

There is usually an “immigrant” class, often illegal. This shouldn’t be a consideration in voting, but we all know what the idiot left has done with vote by mail and motor voter, so yeah, it is. However those votes are fraudulent by nature, or most of them are.

And then… well, there were professionals. Used to be, before the lockdowns initiated a great diaspora, that for certain types of well-paid jobs you had to live in a big city. I’d estimate that the majority of these professionals are actually on the right and keeping their lips zipped, because corporate is loud and left.

And there are any number of young people, professionals, students, and just people who gravitate to the city, because it’s where you have a chance to meet marriageable people you’re not related to.

The young tend to be either left or signal that way, because it’s …. social positioning, and also because a lot of young people were so poorly taught they think “socialism” is better. These by and large vote, hence the 50% easy. However, some number of them are being shocked out of the “duh socialism” position. How many? We don’t know, because of course social positioning.

Some portion of those young (meaning under forty in this case) people are the leftists you argue with on line. Who are maybe the “shock troops of the left” only…. not.

I saw most of these people on display when the DNC had their annual convention in Denver in 08. Before the convention, there was the whole bragging about how the Denver police had never seen anything like them, and they were going to f*ck up those cow-town cops.

And then… well, Denver has mounted cops. One of the most illuminating encounters was the mounted Denver police surrounding a group of would be trouble makers, and riding in tighter and tighter circles. The poor would be trouble makers had panic attacks, and couldn’t breathe, and….

Re: the dangerousness of the urban class is so exaggerated that they had to bus antifa from city to city to get up any kind of riot capacity.

So suppose we stop transporting food to the cities? Bah. Yeah, the heavy welfare neighborhoods will burn and there will be rioting. Because it’s always worked before.

And the rest? Well, most of the working people, at whatever level are still Americans — even those who are on the left. I know, I know, but they’re still Americans. They’re going to roll up sleeves and find ways around the problem.

There are plenty of animals to hunt in a city, if there’s a dire issue, raccoons, squirrels, geese, even most places deer. And once you’re past the immediate emergency … networks develop. They did this even in Portugal. When bakers were unreliable, local women started baking bread, and you had to knock a certain way to buy bread in the morning. When food distribution was iffy, there was the person on the corner who could buy meat from their friend the farmer in the country, and if you knocked a certain way…

Black and grey markets develop, and people find ways to transport and acquire food. No one sets out to walk and rob food. This hasn’t happened ANYWHERE at any of the crisis in civilization. When aqueducts vanished in Rome population fell — slowly — it didn’t just walk the countryside, like locusts.

Will there be more crime? There already is. Will there be bands of raiders? There already are. Both of these are mostly illegal and used to disarmed people, and it will be curbed by the fact that sooner or later they hit the non-disarmed ones. But yeah, it’s going to be a problem given our “elites” organized invasion and crime incentivization. Will it go all the way to roving hordes? Oh, please. This is NOT a movie. Yes, it will suck being one of the people hit by this, and yes, it could happen to any of us, but it won’t be “this will happen to all of us, or to everyone we know.

There will be no hordes of zombies headed out to the countryside. That’s movie logic, not real.

If the cities implode, which they might not, what you’re going to see is alternative means of food acquisition and distribution. Already, you’d be shocked how many city people, often against regulations are keeping chickens (or quail in apartment balconies.)

And don’t write the cities off. You hate them for the way they vote. But the thing is our system is so vitiated no one knows how anyone REALLY votes. All we know is the result of fraud.

And remember that what you see online are not the real people. Most of the people on line gloating about how the city will starve the country side are poor shut ins who will have panic attacks and reach for the asthma inhaler at the first sign of resistance.

Be not afraid, and remember you don’t live in a movie.

We’ll survive this, both urban and rural. And we’ll come out of it more ungovernable than ever.

So, over the last four days, one of the newest kittens, tiny Circe has been on hunger strike.

As you probably imagine, this means I didn’t do much in the way of sleeping or concentrating.

Last night she finally ate a half can of kitten food, and today she’s had some dry kibble, and I’ll give her more gooshy tonight again. It’s good to have her eating, because when they’re this young they lose weight very fast. So she’s all sharp tones and skin.

Hopefully she now recovers quickly. She’s very cuddly and knows everyone. She knows her own name, and the name of all the other cats — she looks at them when we mention them — and who Dan is, and who i am. So…. anyway.

I realized that losing another tiny orange girl this horrible year would just about finish me too from the depression POV. And yes, I realize it’s very weird to have cats as emotional support animals. Sorry.

This is tiny Circe, taking a nap.

Oh, we think it was a reaction to the vaccines that made her go on hunger strike.

It’s kind of funny that during her not feeling great, Indy never left her side, and was all protective when Muse tried to play with Circe.

But he’s made up with Muse now, so that’s okay.

I finally slept well last night, so today I did all the things I’ve been putting off, like cleaning the truly awful box room, so you can’t smell it in other rooms. And clean and organize my office.

I’ll probably do an early night tonight, then work on the serialized stories — somehow over the weekend of being sick and worried about Circe I lost a couple of chapters of Witch’s Daughter — and two short stories.

And put out the outdoor lights, stripped down version this year because I’m not putting up anything that interferes with painting the front probably right after Christmas. (Yes, I got the safe ladder, okay?)

I really need to write and make writing THE priority this year, so I’m trying to finish the work on the house and unpack my library before January.

This year has not just been bad because of all the deaths, but also because of the ridiculous mess remaining in the house. I need my house organized because it affects my mind.

Anyway, I guess that is the state of the writer. Real post tomorrow.

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

ON SALE RIGHT NOW: (A new section for this time period when a lot of people have a lot of things for sale)

(Oh, and if you have things on sale, why haven’t you sent them in to be promoted? Allergy to money? Chafing at the thought of lucre? Hives at the idea of wealth?)

YES THEY ARE ABOVE IN THE PERMA PINNED POST, BUT SOME PEOPLE ARE INSUFFERABLE IN THEIR SELF PROMOTION, WHAT CAN I SAY? (AND SORRY I TOOK A WHILE TO CHANGE IT. YESTERDAY WASN’T…. GOOD.)

Also I wish to remind everyone that you can order now on sale, and have a bunch of books delivered to your loved one’s kindle on Christmas morning and look like a big spender!

FROM SARAH A. HOYT:

Gentleman Takes A Chance -99C

Family! Can’t live with them and can’t eat them.
Tom Ormson, owner — with his girlfriend — of The George, a diner in downtown Goldport, Colorado is well on his way to becoming a responsible and respectable adult, despite his rough start and the fact that he turns into a dragon.
But then the unpredictable Colorado weather, the ancient leader of a dragon triad and an even more ancient shifter-enforcer combine to destroy his home, put his diner at risk and attempt to kill him.
All this, of course, has to happen while Tom’s friend, Rafiel, is trying to solve a series of murders-by-shark at the city aquarium, and Tom’s newly-reconciled father is attempting to move to Denver.
Fasten your seat belts, a wild ride is about to begin.

Originally published by Baen Books.

Noah’s Boy – 99C

Tom Ormson and Kyrie Smith are suffering the growing pains of young romance and young business people. Tom worries obsessively about the new fryer in the diner exploding. As though he didn’t have enough on his mind, though, life decides it’s time for a sabre-tooth with vengeance on her mind to come to town, and for the Great Sky Dragon to try to arrange a marriage for Tom. Meanwhile, out at the old amusement park, the one with the really good wooden roller-coaster, a series of bizarre murders is taking place. And, as if that were not enough, Conan Lung, dragon shifter, ex-triad member and waiter extraordinaire starts his country singing career with an original song “If I Could Fly to You.” When Kyrie is kidnapped, it’s all Tom can do to make sure he protects her while not eating anyone. With new afterword by author. Originally published by Baen books.

Bowl of Red – 99Chttps://amzn.to/475FinM

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

Lights Out and Cry -99C

It is New Year’s Day in Goldport Colorado, the most shifter-infested town in the known universe.
At the George — the diner where shifters gather — Kyrie is about to give birth, Tom is getting psychic messages from the Great Sky Dragon and Rafiel is looking for information on why the mayor exploded.
Fasten your seat belts. This is going to be a fast ride into adventure and shape-shifting, after which things will never be the same.

Death of a Musketeer -99c

When D’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis discover the corpse of a beautiful woman who looks like the Queen of France, they vow to see that justice is done. They do not know that their investigation will widen from murder to intrigue to conspiracy, bring them the renewed enmity of Cardinal Richelieu and shake their fate in humanity. Through duels and doubts, they pursue the truth, even when their search brings them to the sphere of King Louis XIII himself and makes them confront secrets best forgotten.

THE REST OF THE BOOKS!

FROM JERRY BOYD: Kid Stuff (Bob and Nikki Book 41)

While checking into the fleet’s poor reception at Oak, Bob finds out the reason. The Emperor was busy with other things, and he needs Bob’s help to get them sorted out. Bob and the Gene ride to the rescue, only to find a whole new bunch of folks they need to understand.

FROM MARK TINDELL: A 10-Foot Christmas Tree

Eva had just escaped from an oppressive relationship with a guy who hated holidays, especially Christmas. She, on the other hand, loved the holiday so much that the deprivation had been painful. Now that she was free, she was determined to have the best Christmas ever. Her new roommate, Betts, liked Christmas and everything that came with it, so she was the perfect partner for Eva’s crazy plans. Betts was even willing to join in the interminable search for the perfect Christmas tree, although the variety was dizzying. Betts ex-boyfriend, Lee, was dragged into the search as well, supposedly only as driver. He and scrawny assistant muscle Roddy tried to stick to the toting and stay out of the adventure, but that never works, does it?

FROM MAX COSSAK: Zarah’s Fire

Human traffickers have kidnapped ten-year-old Zarah to an alien desert. Frightened for her safety and disgusted by her captors’ plans for terrorist attacks on a nearby city, Zarah escapes in the dead of night and begins a dangerous trek across the wilderness. On her flight she encounters predators and helpers; smugglers and saints; threats and kindness. Meanwhile friends of her murdered father go all out to find her and save her.

FROM I. M. LERNER: The Secret Under the Staircase (Under the Staircase – An Economic Adventure Series for Kids)

“So, you’re the ones…”
A mysterious package appears just as Maya and Nate start helping in their grandparents’ store. Inside is just one book: a faded copy of Free to Choose. In a race against time, they must decipher a series of cryptic messages to discover the secret under the staircase. But can a bunch of kids really solve the centuries-old riddle? Can they save their beloved town before it’s too late?Under the Staircase™ Books
A mystery and adventure series that teaches treasured values: personal responsibility, individual liberty, and economic freedom.Psst! Parents & Teachers: The first book in the series introduces a variety of Milton Friedman’s concepts—the Power of the Market, the Tyranny of Controls, What’s Wrong with Our Schools?, and other topics—using examples from kids’ day-to-day lives in school, with friends, and in familiar situations.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Detritus

Nick Bryant was a junkie. Lived on the streets, and everything. And then, he saved a baby girl from drowning, and fell into the role of protector. As he, the baby, and her older brother get to know one another, he decides that maybe, there’s more left to him than the drugs, and decides to try to live again. And maybe build a family.

FROM CELIA HAYES AND JEANNE HAYDEN: The Luna City Compendium #1: The Chronicles of Luna City, The Second Chronicle of Luna City, and Luna City 3.1

The first three volumes of the Luna City Chronicles , with expanded maps of the area, and of the town itself:

The Chronicles of Luna City

Welcome to Luna City, Karnes County, Texas … Population 2,453, not counting a fugitive former celebrity chef…
Where the high school football team is called the Mighty Fighting Moths … and their yearly Homecoming game is under some strange and irregular curse.
Which was once meant to be a stop on the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad, but which was derailed by True Love …
Where half the townsfolk has the surname of Gonzalez or Gonzales, they’re all related and descended from the holder of the original Spanish land grant… but no one has ever been able to figure out whether his name ended in an ‘s’ or a ‘z’, due to illegible handwriting on the original paperwork …
Where the last two members of a Sixties hippy nudist commune still still keep the faith with peace, love, and organic vegetables at the Age of Aquarius Campground and Goat Farm …
And a historic marker on Town Square marks the spot where a local bootlegger was nearly hung in 1926 for (among a long list of offenses against the laws of God and Man) impersonating a nun.
Luna City, where eccentricity is just a part of every-day life. Drop in for a visit – you might never want to leave.

Welcome to Luna City, Texas – a small town, rather like the one which almost everyone wishes they lived in, full of mild eccentricity, friendly neighbors and now and again the focus for things like a curse on the high school football team homecoming game, a stolen hoard of 19th century gold coins, where a movie crew is doing locations shooting for a major motion picture, and the little cafe on town square is being run by a runaway celebrity chef … and then there is the Age of Aquarius Campground and Goat Farm, run by a pair of 60’s drop-outs…

The Second Chronicle of Luna City

Welcome to Luna City, Texas – a small town, rather like the one which almost everyone wishes they lived in, full of mild eccentricity, friendly neighbors and now and again the focus for things like a curse on the high school football team homecoming game, a stolen hoard of 19th century gold coins, where a movie crew is doing locations shooting for a major motion picture, and the little cafe on town square is being run by a runaway celebrity chef … and then there is the Age of Aquarius Campground and Goat Farm, run by a pair of 60’s drop-outs…

Luna City 3.1

Welcome to Luna City, Karnes County, Texas … Population 2,454. This does not count the strangers come to town, searching for the fabulous Mills treasure-hoard, the seldom-seen Agua Dulce ghost-horsemen, and the mysterious lights spotted floating over the highway on one dark and moonless night.
Ex-celebrity chef, Richard Astor-Hall (formerly Rich Hall, the Bad Boy Chef) has his hands full managing the Luna Café and Coffee … plus some outside catering jobs … and a fund-raising charity event in which he might be drafted into playing a much bigger part than he agreed on at the start. A touch of mystery, a bit of possible romance … in this third serving of small-town Texas life in Luna City, where eccentricity is just a part of every-day life. Drop in for a visit – you might never want to leave.

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: Familiar Tales

Smiley Lorraine: Wolverine. Rosie Jones: 100-lb. Skunk. Morgana Lorraine: Witch with Editorial Problems.

Welcome to a world where Familiars choose magic workers, and a few others, as their partners. A world of adventure, tax-deductions, bad publisher tricks, and odd veterinary clinics, where wolverines wear glasses and iguanas sing along with the radio—badly—while casting spells and keeping their chosen humans out of mischief.

Or try to.

(Five short-stories.)

FROM SABRINA CHASE: The Long Way Home (Sequoyah Book 1)

Run to Danger

Moire Cameron ran to protect her secrets — ran to the heart of an interstellar alien war. Her fellow mercenaries care only about her fighting skills, not where — or when — she got them. You’d think that would be good enough…

But a false name and fake ID can’t conceal her dangerous lack of contemporary knowledge, and they won’t help fulfill her last order, given by a dying man eighty years ago. To do that she must find a reason to live again. A cause worth fighting for, comrades to trust, and a ship to sail the stars.

A tale of adventure, survival, and loyalty in the tradition of Firefly and Louis McMaster Bujold.

Book I of the Sequoyah trilogy.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Secret of Pad 34

Who would put a ceiling on humanity’s expansion into space?

That’s what Gus Grissom wants to know. While fishing offshore from Cape Canaveral, he glimpses a mysterious undersea city of unearthly geometries, marked with a strange three-armed cross symbol.

His efforts to research it bring him veiled threats from strangers at his door. Trouble blights an exemplary career. However, Gus refuses to be cowed into silence, and pursues every lead he can find.

HP Lovecraft wrote that we live on a placid island of ignorance and were not meant to travel far. This is the Space Race in a world where the Soviet Union is not our only adversary.

FROM PAM UPHOFF: Aslanov (Chronicles of the Fall Book 1)

The Three Hundred Families control the Three Part Alliance. To the Elite, their Family is their first priority.

Twenty years before the Fall . . .

Lord Dzon Konstantin Aslanov returns Home after a five year long assignment to another World to find his Family as poor a fit as ever. He is about to find out the cost of disobedience.

If only they’d tell Konstantin why he needed to marry so soon, to the right woman. And not like his idiot brother eloping with . . . the daughter of Kon’s new boss at the Bureau of Intelligence. And why should Kon marry this particular woman when her aunt was so much more interesting . . .

As Kon investigates government contract fraud, he begins to suspect his Family is involved . . .

And the consequences . . . deadly

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: cry