Depression By David Bock

As the title implies, this article is going to be more serious than what I usually post.

I’ve struggled with depression most of my life. By the time I was 18 I’d gotten through almost a decade of therapy, this helped quite a bit and I learned some good coping mechanisms. Unfortunately, depression is never something that completely goes away and the blue devils are always waiting at the edges for me to let my guard down.

I’m not alone in this. A great many people suffer from similar issues of varying severity and we all have our own ways of dealing with the internal darkness. Some healthy, some less so, and some tragically permanent.

This was where I was from childhood all the way through 2019 and leading up to the year that shall not be named or its sequels. Over the past few years I’ve taken some severe emotional blows. A number of people reading this know about some of them.

So if this is what I’m dealing with now, when the lights go on with the flick of a switch and the internet is there to distract me, what am I going to do if things get really bad? Not just for me, but in general.

What I’m not going to do is give up. That’s not in my nature. Will I have the occasional pity party? Of course, I’m a human being. But I’ll find reasons to carry on. In a survival situation we can’t afford to wallow in self-pity. We have to get up and get to work to ensure we see the next day. This can be very hard even in “normal” times.

To get me through the tough times, I have resources and abilities. I spent more than half of my life without the internet or cell phones, I can get used to going without them again if need be. I’ve been involved with a couple of living history groups over the years and they taught me valuable skills, these experiences also helped me add to my reference library. If we’re sheltering in place, I’ll still have access to my books and my tools. Regardless of where we are, I’ll also have my wife and our cats, they are four reasons to get up every morning no matter how much I’d rather stay in bed with my head under the blankets.

In August of 2011, we survived Hurricane Irene, even though our house was the worst affected in our town and the DEC considered ruling it uninhabitable. My wife and I lost a great number of things and the financial hit was significant, but we carried on and we were there for each other.

Which leads to my next point, one of the best resources we have to keep us going is other people, our tribe. Friends, biological family, or family of choice doesn’t matter. Be there for each other, be kind to each other, help each other through the rougher patches and we’ll all be stronger on the other side.

If you have, or know anyone who has, worked the AA program, you’ll be familiar with the phrase “One day at a time.” Dwelling on the past or over thinking about the future will interfere with living in the present. The general meaning is to focus on shorter term and smaller goals to help eventually achieve longer term and larger goals. When we can’t control most of what’s happening around us, we can focus on what we can control.

Having a routine helps. Make lists, keep the items on them achievable, but don’t get too granular. Try to start each day with a small success, it can help set the mood of the day. One of the things I try to do every single morning (unless a cat interferes) is make the bed. Is it a little thing? Yes, but it gives me a minor dose of endorphins from completing a task and makes the next one that much easier.

As Harra Csurik said to Miles when he visited Silvy Vale in the Lois McMaster Bujold book Memory “You go on. You just go on. There’s nothing more to it, and there’s no trick to make it easier. You just go on.”

Brena Bock Author Page

David Bock Author Page

Team And More

Okay, to begin with, this post is not picking on anyone. It might seem like I am, but I’m not really. There are just certain concepts that I need to perhaps make you think through, and consider, because technology has changed, but people haven’t thought through the implications of it. And for some reason the right side of the isle has REALLY PECULIAR feelings about work and about what it respects. And look, here I’m saying I have those issues too, and I had to THINK through them.

We all of us — or most of us. If you’re over 90 it’s only 50/50 it applies to you — were raised in an intellectual environment filled with Marxism, and it comes through.

Yesterday on twitter I came across a post by someone I like and whose opinions — with some occasional croissant flakiness, but who doesn’t have that? — I generally respect. Or at least understand. But her twitter said she’d read Instapundit since 9/11, but now was done. I was taken aback, and because I work for the site, I read her post.

What egregious crime had Glenn committed? Well, he asked people consider donating to instapundit on Giving Tuesday. And because he takes expensive vacations (!) has a day job, etc, he shouldn’t ask, and therefore she wouldn’t read him again.

To be fair to her, later, in an exchange with me — well, you know. Mom always said the beggar might go without alms, but not without a reply — she clarified that what offended her is that Giving Tuesday is for charities, and Glenn doesn’t need the money, and is taking bread from the mouths of widows and orphans BLM and the UNICEF.

Okay, I’m being mean. She’s a nice lady, and I’m sure she donates to children in need, and her parish’s charities. And that’s fine. But those organizations I mentioned? Well, it turns out Giving Tuesday is a UN organized thing, (yeah, there’s an official story, but it’s big because the UN piled on) so absolutely that’s what they mean you to give to.

However, let’s assume that Giving Tuesday is “for people in need.” Yeah, I also don’t think the boss is. I don’t know. I’m not privy to his paychecks and bank account. Yeah, I’ve seen his vacation photos. Yeah, his lifestyle looks nice. That’s fine. He’s not in need.

You know though, he pays a technical team to keep the site running (and I swear guys, I break it every month. It’s a gift.) and unhacked. And even now that he’s not the only poster, he herds cats with all of us, and — judging by my own work load between this blog and instapundit, where all I do is “Night DJ” — I’d be shocked if he takes less than 2 or 3 hours A DAY. And probably more. So yeah, he has a day job. And at night, while his colleagues are chilling, or getting drunk or whatever, he’s at the keyboard. Because I am. Those who’ve visited know. Evenings/early nights, Dan is watching something, and I’m sitting at the laptop, writing tomorrow’s post, culling/looking over comments, instaposting.

So, he does it for fun. Why should you donate to him? Doesn’t he have enough?

The Marx coming through stuck in my craw. HARD. I’m not going to say I’m without sin. I mean, guys, I didn’t ask for money for a long time, because I was afraid of that type of reaction, and after all we were surviving.

Then we weren’t and I needed to ask. And my family had an odd condition. “Okay, but if you’re going to ask for money, you must promise to do an annual fundraiser. Because if you had been doing that, we’d not be in this situation. And it’s not like you don’t do the work, or have the traffic.”

So, I do a fundraiser, in July. But I still edge it around with “This is not a need-fundraiser.” Partly because I hate to beg. Partly because I’m terrified of the reaction above. And partly because I’m even more terrified that people in worse shape than I are going to hurt themselves trying to give me money.

All of this amounts to rats in the head. MY HEAD. Big, stinking Marxist rats. Begging — I’m not begging. I’m reminding people that time and effort go into the work you see on the page. The reaction above — Yeah? I’m not responsible for the rats in other people’s heads. People hurting themselves — they are adults, right? I’m not holding a gun to their heads. I’m not asking for your entire life savings, either. Objectively, I’m pretty happy when people give me $10 once a year. (And if everyone who reads here at least twice a week did that, I’d have more than made my goal. And yeah “if everyone” is bs. NOT saying everyone should, just that I’m not asking for an unreasonable amount. Or any amount. Just saying “if you find value…”)

Now, does Glenn Reynolds need the money? Do I? I don’t know about Glenn. Nor should I. This is one of the classical problems of a communist regime. How do you know what anyone needs? During my highest grossing years, we’d made the mistake of buying a house that was a money pit and were bleeding out more than I made for two half college tuitions, not counting books and maintenance on what the two young men couldn’t cover with catch as can work. (Which was all their schedules allowed.) Also during that time we took a vacation in the South of France. I don’t know that I posted pictures. But as it happens, I paid for none of it. It was covered. Or we couldn’t have done it. Do I know the boss’s vacations aren’t paid? Nope. One of the weird perks of our job is that people give us stuff.

But let’s say he’s as well off as he seems to be, okay? Does that mean he doesn’t deserve to be paid? Why?

Let’s put this another way: say someone came to your front door, rang the doorbell and asked if you needed the lawn mowed. It sure is looking scruffy, so you say sure and how much. He says $50. Cool then. He mows the lawn. You like his work. Then he comes for payment and you ask him: “Do you need the money? Do you have savings in the bank? Do you have another job? Are you taking vacations?”

What would you think of someone who did that?

I can see the stomp stomp stomp “it’s not the same thing!” You’re d*mn right, it’s not. It’s more like someone comes to your front door every week and says “Okay if I mow the lawn?” And you go, “Sure.” I mean, you were paying someone to do it, but weren’t too thrilled with this work, and this guy is just…. doing it.

Okay, so, every time he rings the doorbell, he has a little note he leaves behind that says “If you feel my services were worth something, donate at–” Kind of like the donate link on the side of instapundit — or most other blogs. But he doesn’t say “pay up or I stop” so you don’t. And then one day he grins and says “Hey, it’s Giving Tuesday. Would you care to kick in some cash?”

Then you are offended. Look, he has a top of the line riding mower. He wears brand name sneakers, and look at that jacket. His jacket is better than yours. You’ll never let him mow your lawn again!

THAT is what it actually is like.

Was it silly of Glenn tying his request to Giving Tuesday? Well, I have official funding days. He doesn’t. I ask on those days. But before, when I wasn’t asking for money openly, I had silly occasions. Like Feb. 29 being blogger tipping day.

And yeah, I can see Glenn finding it hilarious to ask for money on a day for UN approved charities.

But does it deserve a “Stomp, stomp, stomp, I’ll never read him again!”? Does it really? WHY?

Well, because he doesn’t NEED it. So, how dare he ask?

Because he does the work. That’s it. He does the work. And by your own admission, you use his service regularly. Do you pay for a newspaper subscription? Did you, once upon a time? Or did you go and investigate the newspaper’s assets, and how much they got from subscriptions, then go “Well, they don’t need it. How dare they ask?”

BUT SARAH! you say, and go back to the analogy. “He came and mowed the lawn. I didn’t make him. I just used what was being freely offered.”

Sure. Because that’s the model. How did you know your digital lawn needed mowing, when it was new as paint? Or that any one blog would provide something you wanted?

So bloggers set up their site, and gave things for free. This is not so much the model anymore. A lot of people set it up in substack from day one. Though if they’re smart, they do some for free too.

But it is work. Glenn, even with co-authors, is one of the few blogs still continuing from the post 9/11 days. And this very humble blog is now — dear LORD — 15 years old in daily posting. 3 hours a day or so. Sometimes 4. (I need to teach my assistant to work the comments. But I have one because I fundraise. And you trade money for time, you know?) Nearly every day. While on vacation or sick, or when we went away a week for my son’s wedding, I might skip Glenn. I rarely skip here, without lining guest posts up.

And work deserves payment. If I were mowing someone’s lawn, I would expect payment. And providing thoughtful opinion pieces, I grant you, is done inside, and in the warm. And I might have killed the sensitivity on my fingertips, but I don’t have calluses. It is still work.

The time I spend on this, day in and day out means I’m paying someone to weed my scruffy garden no one has cared for until we bought it. Means I clean once every two weeks, even though I hate messes. Means time taken from novels. (I AM doing the overdue chapters, I swear.) This and the time spent on Insty means I go to bed late, get up early, and have a list of things to do in my head.

Do I do it anyway? I enjoy it. And I can do it. And it’s, in a way, fun. Also, it funds. (Yeah, this year very slowly, but I anticipate hitting fully funded between all the sources by July.) So I can pay people to do the other stuff.

But if it’s not funding at all…. well. I’m putting 3 or 4 hours up the spout, every day. What do you think I’d do?

Well, I’d shutter the blog, say thank you for all the fish. Maybe start that craft business on the side. Maybe write moar novels. Maybe start that “sex with an alien” sex line I keep threatening every time we’re pinched. (It’s a joke. But we I do deploy it every time we’re pinched.)

The thing is, you see, time is money. I couldn’t really afford to do this for free for many years, but I did it, because to begin with I hoped it would be publicity. That’s sort of mixed, though instapundit IS publicity. And that came from having this blog and being known. So in a round about way it worked. But enough for the work I put in? Ah, no. And the time I spent here I didn’t spend on anything else. And my family was DEFINITELY so tight we squeaked for most of that time. I felt it had to be done. So I did it. But I was stupid doing it for free.

The family were right to say I should ask. My Marxist notions of “but I don’t need it” were wrong. I hurt my family by not fundraising; by being too scared.

And now we get into being scared. Every time I fund-raise, and when I post this at instapundit tonight, there will a commenter of many sock puppets (or perhaps an office that works at trolling. There are indications that way) who will come in the comments under many, many personas to talk about how greedy I am, and how I am all about the money, (like being on the right is lucrative or something) and how I want the money for purposes that he/she/it/them imagines will disgust my “right wing” readers. Hence why his “ex-marine” (sic) persona claims I want the money for my sex game room (something that ANYONE who met me in person probably giggles about. I mean, even if I had the money, who has the energy? Who has the head space? Who doesn’t have the arthritis?)

It’s stupid. It’s silly. It’s an organized operation (fairly sure from what I see in the back panel) dedicated to demoralizing the right.

And it works. Every time I mention fundraising, or link a friend in trouble (I always donate, too, but normally anonymously) I cringe. Because all that bilge is going to be thrown at me, and some people are soft-headed enough to buy at least part of it. I’ve never seen it, but I can imagine it “Well, she and her husband are well off. He has a job. She writes novels. They go to conferences. They visit friends. Her sons have jobs.”

All of which is true. (You’d be amazed though how little novels pay. Though Indie pays better than Trad. And conferences are a net drain.)

But not the point. In fact, utterly beside the point. I do this. I do the work. No one is either forcing you to read or to pay. But if you read, if you read for reasons other than to find something to be offended by, if you’re a regular… well…. I bought many magazines at $50 a year back in the day for one columnist who wrote a column a month. And as for instapundit, have you checked what your local or national newspaper subscription is?

It’s a service. Sane people who expect a service to continue don’t ask if the people doing it need the money, but only “Are they doing it to my satisfaction?” And give, if they can what they can, so the people performing the service don’t have to abandon it and oh, I don’t know, I keep joking my retirement plan is being a walmart greeter. (More likely than an alien sex line. I don’t have the voice for it. And who is that inventive?)

Here’s the thing, though, the trolls shame us for fundraising because it works. Because a lot of you have forgotten the bad years, when you subscribed to a magazine for that one, precious column. Because you’ve forgotten the cost of a newspaper subscription. It’s on line. It’s free. HOW DARE THEY ASK FOR MONEY FOR THE WORK THEY DO?

The right doesn’t have the big pockets. We’re not astroturf. Some of you sent very generous donations (you know I’m grateful, right?) But most of the donations we subsist on? $10 here. $5 there. $20 now and then. What people can afford right then. And we do all right. Because we have the numbers.

But if the trolls, or the people who don’t think about what they’re saying, succeed, and we stop asking for money? Well, when the pinch comes, we go do something that pays. And another dissenting voice is silenced. At remarkably little cost to the left. Just some trolls who probably work for cheap, and the Marxist rats in the head of the right wingers planted there sixty years ago, in elementary school.

Look, I get it, okay? Money is tight for everyone these days. The only reason I’m not crying in the grocery checkout line, which happened often during the summer of recovery years is that well, the boys are out. And the blog by and large funds. And indie pays better than trad. And–

Money is still tight for everyone right now, even those of us who are a little more than okay. As I confessed on the post on Monday, I am having to husband our resources. We have a budget for charity, and over the last 3 years it’s grown to be more than our eating out budget (which is at any rate laughable. We’re really cheap dates, unless it’s someone’s birthday) it’s grown to be more than our vacation budget. Heck, it’s more than our grocery budget. That all said, all of those are tiny. So, it’s not only not infinite, it’s not huge. It used to get hit with a GSG or a gofundme by someone in need…. once a month? so it would all go to one person. Now I get three or four dire-needs a month. And we don’t have much room in the budget. So I’m giving less to each person. I’m sure you’re doing the same.

Plus fixed income people, which the original poster is, well… yeah. Groceries are horrendous, and getting anyone to fix the gutters/paint the wall has become prohibitive.

So, they might not give where before they would have. And that’s fine. When a lot of you said “Sarah, I’d give but–” What did I tell you? “First, don’t hurt yourself.” If the time comes I can’t afford to do this, I’ll cut back to two or three days a week. Regular. And do something else, the rest of the time.

I’ve never held it against anyone for not giving. And in fact, when some of you ran aground, I offered to give them free subscriptions to the serialization or the others (Yes, chapters. Yes, they’re coming) and have them stop paying. A bunch of you who comment here know this. And some of you whose finances I know, I yelled at for subscribing, and you got very insulted “Hey, my money. I want to.” Which…. they’re right, you know?

And I keep books on KU because I know some of you, it’s the only way you can read. Because idiots are hitting the economy with a hammer.

And I give free advice on writing on Madgeniusclub, which heaven help me, doesn’t pull its weight in publicity. And yeah, I intend to do more workshops and stuff. Let me get myself in gear.

And if any of you regulars want my books and can’t afford them, ping me. I’ll send them. (Ebook. Look, some cases I’ve sent paper copies, but the problem isn’t even the expense, though it’s expensive. It’s that I’m scatty. It’s easier to forget.)

I do the charity I can outside giving money, too. Not because I must, or owe it, but because I’m a decent human being who’s needed help and had you all come to the rescue more than once. It’s called paying it forward.

I also get “subscription creep”. I subscribe to three blogs because I love the content. I subscribe to two others because they need encouragement. That’s a lot of money per year. And I’m careful. It’s easy to spend much more and not notice. (I do annual, too. Because it’s easier to reconsider every December.)

I get it, okay? Time and money are both tight, and the world in general has its hand out. And if you don’t want to give/can’t give/are sick and tired of subsidizing blogs? No one thinks you’re a horrible human being. It’s your prerogative. Heck, most of us won’t even know.

But saying you’ll never read someone because he dared — dared! — ask for money for a service you admit you used for years? That’s staggeringly rude. And stupid. And probably evil, since it’s all based on envy of his PERCEIVED lifestyle.

You’re aiding the leftists to demoralize and demonetize the right. And you’re shocked and surprised when I wait for you behind the bike sheds and pounce. Because you didn’t think any of this through. You didn’t think anything through beyond “being nice” (what they used to imprison us during Covidiocy) and “he’s taking money from the mouths of–“

Is asking on Giving Tuesday crass? Well, it might be, if it weren’t a UN instituted thing. But even then, please note we pile on these occasions, not because we’re crass or brazen, but because we’re used to people thinking our work should be free. And we’re embarrassed as heck to ask. So we try to pile on some public thing, and smile, and try to slide it through.

But being paid for your work shouldn’t be means tested. There are things in the Bible about paying the laborer. There are things in the Bible about not binding the mouth of the kine that tread the grain.

There isn’t, that I know, anything in the Bible that says “You should not buy into Marxist arguments and neatly demonetize the people on your side, doing work for which they are often penalized in their careers” (No? FIGHT ME. I can tell you times, and not just for me.) “For which their families are penalized. For which they are often, yes, even now, even here, at risk of various sorts.”

That is because the Bible didn’t, as such, deal with the online world of blogs on the right and the finer line between “of course I’m asking, but you’re not obligated to give.” And even the Almighty probably scratches His head at the right’s cult of never asking for money, even if you’ve done the work, let alone the right’s cult of “POOR but honest.” (Ah, don’t jump me! I know He’s omniscient.)

The point of this overlong blog: Not jumping the original poster. She’s probably already blocked me on twitter, convinced I’m being mean and will probably never see this, but listen, if I wanted to jump her, I’d give you a link.

I don’t. She’s a good person. She’s simply not thinking. And she let her baser instincts take over. Which heaven knows, all of us do now and then. Because asking for money used to be only for beggars. The others? They negotiated price up front.

It’s not like that. Not in the online world. I mean, it can be, but then no one will stumble on this blog by accident and start thinking. I’d prefer not going paid-only. And I know for a fact Glenn also doesn’t want to do that.

So people’s heads get stuck in “if you’re asking, it must be for need.” But ah…. there’s no other way to get paid for this work, in this model.

Note we don’t shake people down for money. We don’t say pay or else. Yeah, yeah, if you don’t pay the thing might/will eventually go away. But that’s not a threat. That’s life and economics, and hey, it is what it is.

And the model has give, so we don’t need people to hurt themselves to keep going.

But don’t take offense because the worker expects to be paid. And don’t call people greedy who work above the required to survive, and expect to be paid for that too.

Don’t demonetize your own side to be a “nice” person.

We already know the left is trying to shut us down. Trust me, they don’t need your help.

Love by the Balloonatic

Earlier this year, my friend Nathan Brindle was experimenting with Midjourney and he began sharing images he had developed using images of his wife. I called them my daily Sally and they brightened up my morning when he posted them. I’m not sure if it was his plan or our encouragement, but he released them in a delightful picture book, AI is Love. Nathan and Sally, while they attended the same high school a few grades apart didn’t start dating or marry until later in life. However, having met them in person several times, they have a love that is tangible despite their differences and they are one of those  couples that, if you had to define love, you would point to them.

It feels a little ironic to be writing about love. I’m a child of parents who split up in my late teens, and the only one of my siblings to also be divorced. I’m one of those people who suits the description of lucky in cards, unlucky in love. One of the best ways to illustrate this is to point out that my older brother moved to Australia as a young adult, fell in love and got married to an Australian woman. Almost a decade after he moved there my older sister followed in his footsteps – attending school for a year, where she met her husband, fell in love and got married. Five years later, I also went to Australia for what was meant to be a year of study. I met someone, fell in love, and he moved to England. Such is the story of my life.

And yet, while I have never had a great romance of my own, I have been fortunate enough to experience it vicariously through many of my friends and family. I have seen the marriages that have lasted for decades, strong and steady. I have seen some that appeared like roller-coasters, full of ups and downs, but with the couples hanging on tight despite that. I have seen the tragedy of several friends losing their soulmate and somehow surviving, and, having had that powerful experience of love they seem to have the strength to go on with the hope that they will be able to find that love again. And some of them do. And I find myself envying them, despite their loss and the hardship that they experienced because they are secure in the knowledge that they were loved.

However, while romantic love may never be in the cards for me, love – as the Greeks taught it – has many forms. I have many people that I love and care for deeply as if they were my family. I have a son I love and of whom I am extremely proud. I have parents and siblings, nieces and nephews who I love even when I do not always like them or the choices that they have made. There is my love of God and His love for me. Plus I have my dog who adores me and loves me unconditionally (because lets face it, the cats, as much as I like them, just tolerate and expect adoration; and the chickens….). I also have a strong love for my adopted land, and the hope that as a country we can redevelop the bonds to the constitution and bill of rights that made us a shining beacon and a place where people could find freedom, justice and liberty. That we can find and strengthen the love of what made us what we once were and could be again.

As the holidays approach, let us reach out in love to those around us. Whether you are married or single, find someone who is struggling and let them know that they are loved. It might be a family member, a neighbor, a friend, a colleague or a perfect stranger. There are so many powerful people who are trying to fracture our bonds of family, friends and country. Let’s fight back not with hate but with love.

There is nothing quite as terrifying — and remember this is coming from a person who has to defeat a baseline fear of driving to drive at all — as pushing your brake pedals and it goes mushy on you. And maybe it has some effect but it’s not what you expect.

As some of you know I’m not a trusting person. Born under one form of socialism, raised under another. Why would I be? Precisely?

So I’m more or less always sniffing the wind, looking for signs, because the economic numbers are not reliable and no, no one trusts what the Talking Mop — oh, pardon me, the Lesbian Talking Mop, so much more important — says. And the idea we should all be happy for Bidenomics is hilarious. If you like dark comedy.

I read the economy as farmers read the weather, and most of it is unconscious or subconscious. “Well, my left knee feels creaky, there will be snow.” Kind of.

I used to keep an eye on want ads, and craigslist ads. I have not been keeping track of the new thing which seems to be Facebook Market Place, and heaven knows I never go to the neighborhood sites, because I have axes, and knowing the crazy my neighbors show might tempt me to use them. (Well, in Colorado there were days. No, I didn’t go there, either, but Dan read me some posts. Like the person who was very upset the horse farmer was shooting cute little prairie dogs. Don’t GET ME STARTED. I can start myself up.)

But I still keep an eye on things. People coming to the door offering to do things for money. (No. Take your mind out of the gutter. I mean chop wood or rake leaves or stuff.) Grocery stores, and what’s selling and what isn’t. Prices. Car prices. Gas prices. Shortages on shelves (seem to be regional and mostly (MOSTLY) not here, though for the love of BOB what happened to chicken? It used to be a whole section. Is the bird flu back?) That sort of thing.

I’m also keeping an eye on — duh — book sales, because of course, well, it’s my job, you know? But others. I have a lot of friends who are specialized craftsmen and–

Anyway, y’all will pardon me, but right now? There’s a storm incoming, and also a mudflow, a blazing forest fire, a flood, and a drought. All at the same time.

The gates of chaos have opened, and my G-d have mercy on our souls.

Let me explain. Nothing makes sense. Nothing. But when I think about it: really think, the word that comes up is “mushy.”

The people in power — let’s remember these mondo-intellects read AOC’s Green New Deal and weren’t alarmed by her line about finding Native Americans to tell us how to take care of the environment. She might be stupid. I don’t think she’s below average, just maleducated. But what is their excuse for that not setting off bells in their minds? — really thought by reversing all of Trump’s policies, from the border invasion stopping, to the throttling down on fossil fuel would usher in utopia. No, they really did. Oh, there are a few malicious ones in there, but most of them are just…. dumb. And maleducated. And economics isn’t taught. And economics is a b*tch. It has no mercy.

I mean, I can almost see it from their perspective. If you had Marx crammed down your throat as a young critter you would too. See, they’re getting cheap labor in. CHEAP. So, it will cause a flowering of the economy, right? (What? Second order effects? Culture? Competence? Wassthat? People are widgets. Also, shut up.) Also, if they stop those greedy greedsters in oil and coal from profiteering and subsidize green energy, everyone will spend less, and have so much more money. And the Earth will be so clean and beautiful. Also– But what’s the point? You know? Even DEI will unleash a marvelous pool of talent we’ve been suppressing because raciss capitalists.

As Ronald Reagan of blessed memory put it: It’s not that they’re ignorant. It’s that they know so many things that just AIN’T so.

Now it’s not working, and they’re running around doing random stuff which they don’t actually understand. Most of which amounts to doubling down, because if it doesn’t work, do it harder. And after all, they have the “experts” on their side.

What they’re actually doing….

I’ll admit I worried slightly at my fund raiser. Not actually horribly, because I make sure to tell you it’s not need. (I mean, it’s not. We survived with no fundraising for years.) And I expect I’ll make most of it by next July, because a lot of people are on subscription. (And yes, I need to do chapters. The health edition of annus horriblis has been special these last few months, but I’m almost human again.) But still. The feel was “Uh… I wonder why…”

And then I started tracking people doing actual in-need fundraisers, the kind that are somewhat low, and used to fund overnight before. Most are hitting half to three quarters and …. sticking. And heck, my donations to others have been halved. Not that we WANT to halve them, but because, well…. everything costs more. We’re not hurting mind, but I hate the feel of hemorrhaging money that anything — anything — brings on. From little things — like heck inflation is only 10% or even 30% she mutters, shopping for Thanksgiving — to big — I’ll paint the back porch, rather than pay the price of a car for someone to do it — to…. everything. I hate the feeling I’m bleeding out money; the feeling that “well, we’ve budgeted x, but now it costs x + y + your left big toe.) So, discretionary spending is way down. (Except I bought a lot of sweaters, and I wonder if that’s psychological.) And donations are discretionary spending.

I’ve tracked this effect elsewhere, and it tracks to my behavior. I still buy ebooks — mostly ebooks, because kindle is easier to read and I haven’t dragged my *ss to the eye doctor in almost two years. Yeah, I know. No, it’s not money, it’s time and getting myself in gear — and I keep up my KU subscription, because, well, d*mn good value for the price. But my reading is more escapist than it has been, and sometimes downright silly. Because I feel like one more serious emotion, and I will pop. I actually bought more music recently — CD because I’m paranoid and we have an external CD/dvr for ripping — than in many years, mostly because…. small pleasures, cheap for the money.

Small pleasures. Friends in discretionary spending fields are all reporting back (I know 10 or twenty people, across the gamut) small/cheap/fun is selling. Particularly in gift giving season. I think people want to give stuff for Christmas, but are looking for value for the buck. Give three small things that are fun, as opposed to one big one that they can’t afford.

What’s worrying me is that this is mirroring in people way above us in the economic scale. People who, in other years, would be buying designer/expensive/stuff we could never afford. There’s that feel, you know?

I’ll confess I’m running sales/keeping my books in KU (though it makes money, but not as much as it used to) mostly so I can allow other people the escape, too. I think it’s needed. Right now.

Stuff in the grocery stores is bizarrely …. weird. Other than the aforementioned lack of chicken. Particularly whole chicken. (I buy them when I find them, because they’re great for Sunday dinner with the kids. Pop it in the oven, and it cooks itself. Throw some veggies in the last half hour, to roast together, in the juices.) I’m told it’s not the same other places, but other places have weirder/other lacks.

But the really weird stuff is the expensive, high end stuff being discounted, consistently, every week for lack of selling.

Look, in every recession I’ve lived through, including the Obama Summers of Recovery, there’s a group of people who aren’t touched. Let’s call them the Champagne and Caviar set. You know exactly what I mean. The rest of us are shifting from Dannon to store brand, but the exquisite little yogurts, in glass containers, imported from France, are still not getting discounted for lack of sale. Or cheaper and cheaper cuts are selling better, but hey, the people who can afford the huge-*ss briskets are still buying.

Now, this is a small fraction, and you can tell the store orders it very carefully, because the market is small. But I’ve never seen a recession where week after week, obviously smaller and smaller sets of this level stuff is selling at rock bottom prices before it expires. It’s…. uh…. interesting.

And it mirrors with big-ticket items not really moving. I mean, they still move, but not like they did.

Now we’re in the middle of almost-somewhere in a medium town, so it might be different. But the reports I get…. aren’t.

All those movies tanking? Well, guys, listen: even if they’re very very good, I don’t think we have room in the budget for more than maybe four a year. I don’t know about other people, though. (And they’re not very good.)

My view is limited. I don’t know how concerts are doing, for instance, and for that matter what age is targeted in those. (Makes a difference.) And I know cons, even the non-woke ones aren’t doing so well. Hotels seem to be surviving, but they’ve also doubled in price. (Keeping in mind we got them always on discount, since our vacations are flexible.) Rental cares are older and higher mileage.

There’s… other stuff? Stupid stuff. The picture is…. weird.

I know tech is in trouble, but only because, pour des raisons connues, we know a lot of people in tech (and in writing) and the number of them looking for work right now is higher than ever. Also, there seems to be nothing out there. It seems to be harder to find a job in tech than to find someone to clean my gutters. (Yes, I know there are signs by the side of the road. And yet, you call and they ghost you. Same way there are signs for tech workers/ads but no one is getting jobs. Certainly not fast.)

All we can tell is things are going wrong and going wrong fast. I know shipping is…. not. And it’s bad when gas demand falls enough the prices fall?

But–

I mean, what in the name of Ned are people doing publishing articles about seeing a crisis in commercial real estate coming? Good Lord. I can see that from the moon. Have seen it for three years. It worries me that the experts still find this WORTH WRITING. What is actually wrong with them? It was obvious from the moment they proved telecommuting is viable.

And of course the importation of an entire medium-sized country of unskilled unacculturated, often incapable of working at anything, sometimes criminal people has consequences. That type of people-movement is on an epic scale, and– Why are the experts suddenly realizing they can’t feed them/house them/keep them warm in winter. Not even with all our considerable resources? This stuff should be obvious. Eyes on your face obvious. Are the “experts” and the policy makers — lefty though they are — really that stupid? Did none of them ever try to imagine the scale of the thing? Did not a single one of them, EVER organized a weekend event for 300 people (say) and realize what scaling up numbers does to the “needful” to have on hand?

Then there’s our so called monetary policy. I have hair I would like to not tear out by the handfuls, so I’ll just say it’s as stupid as asking people who happen to have Amerindian blood how to care for “the environment.”

I have no idea what’s coming. I just have a really, really, really — do we need another really? Sure. Have it. — bad feeling. No, worse than that.

I feel like all my indicators, even those that still seem relatively healthy — entertainment; cheap entertainment — are ‘mushy’. Like pushing on the brakes, and they’re mushy. Like, the things you’d expect to work, mostly aren’t.

But worse, it’s the sheer unpredictability in the middle of the utter predictability. Like, I know that commercial real estate is in trouble. But where is that knock going to hit? How far will the ripples go? And what are the social/cultural effects of that? And why in heaven’s name are some things suddenly, sometimes for the first time ever, doing well? Granted, small scale things.

And when you hit transportation with a hammer, what happens to other things? And what about all the stupid anti fossil fuel laws in states that freeze solid? Europe survived those, but the weather in Europe, except some extreme places, is not as extreme as here. What if the mild winter they predicted isn’t? (Bet you it isn’t. I track volcanism.)

Mushy. All the indicators are mushy. And somewhere off screen, in the back of my mind, there is a siren howling, and I can’t shut it off.

What happens when people who were taught only lies do stuff that forces the economy to fall apart, even while catastrophic change is rewiring it?

I don’t know. Neither do you. More horrifyingly, neither does anyone else.

Throw into this that every specialized field — things we actually need, like oh food production transport, engineering — is in trouble because they either can’t find people to do what’s needed, (because they treat people so badly that they run away) or people have been so maleducated they can’t function, even as the generation 10 years older than I retires or die or because regulations force the field to not work at all, in any meaningful sense.

Add the institutional memory retiring, or running to unemployment to evade DIE.

Some of us can take one tiny portion, one we know well, and work the signals out, and see what’s happening. It’s rarely good. Sometimes it’s not catastrophic.

But the whole thing? I think that no one is seeing the whole thing. Even without the falsification of numbers and statistics, it would be daunting. With it?

Mushy. The whole thing feels mushy. Like wood that’s rotted underneath its impeccable coat of paint.

Prepare, prepare, prepare.

And keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.

Oh, I want to shrug. Don’t you?

I even understand that book and the impulse that drives it, and I’m not deriding it. Once or twice, I might have stomped around the house yelling “Who is John Galt?” Or if you prefer “Who is Jung Alt” (from a vanished comic some of you might remember.)

But ultimately…

Today is a day I didn’t want to get up. before you worry overly, let me assure you that I’m better, but with the current crud, better seems to be process. Yesterday I was better than the day before, in that it took me till after I’d put up the promo post to feel like I really needed a nap. And today I don’t feel tired, but I slept something like 12 hours. And let me tell you, that worried the kitten unduly. Indy started at 7 am, the hour he’s sure we should both be up, by proffering belly for wake-up pets, which is the normal routine. When I ignored him, he escalated and in order, opened the light-excluding curtains, opened the bathroom door and turned the light inside. Brought me the squeak mouse. When that failed, played with the squeak mouse on top of me. And finally jumped into the office, turned on Dan’s synthesizer (Why are you going to ask. Obviously the mathematician has one 90 degrees from his work desk. Sometimes a problem needs to be played out, and unlike Sherlock Holmes, he never learned the violin) and danced on it. By then it was close on to eleven and it worked. Since then he’s been following me around in some worry, because I shouldn’t still be dragging tail.

The point is, while the ginger beasty is silly, and bears watching, because there are too many brains in that wedge-shaped head, and enough thought to get him into trouble, he wasn’t wrong.

While in Ayn Rand’s elaborate setup — and a society that articulated its aims to exploit the productive more than ours does. Ours is just zombie-stumbling to collectivist ghost dance — withdrawing from society works… Does it really?

When I was young and suicidal — did I say that changed? I just learned to control it. Which is why references to my unremitting sunny optimism make me giggle or cry depending on the mood. What you call optimism is called “reality checking”. Someone with my disposition HAS to learn it to survive her teens — I used to imagine that if I killed myself everyone would realize how terribly they wronged me, and everyone would miss me forever, and lament the wonderful person they lost.

I’m told by someone who should know that this is as much bullshit as I started suspecting, about the time I learned reality-checking. What happens — particularly during the holidays, when suicides are endemic — is that (at least in a largish town) — you’ll be in the coroner’s lab the next morning, and the pathologists will be bopping to hard metal under bright lights, while they autopsy you and the rest of the despair harvest.

And then you’ll be buried — or these days likely cremated — and the world creaks on. Oh, you’ll make an immense impact on some people: those who love you. Your parents, your siblings, your children. You’ll scar them forever and increase the chances they’ll follow you. But those aren’t the people you want to “show” their mistakes, are they? Oh, okay, maybe some, if you’re young, but–

Let me put it this way, my own familiar issues, had I killed myself, would have given the person most likely to have driven me to it (in retrospect because we’re like chalk and cheese and still, these many years later, totally opaque to each other) a heroic-tragic story forever. Which is not what I wanted. Hey, I was young, it was supposed to be all about me.

The world creaks on. The world adapts. It will shock you and amaze you how quickly and thoroughly the world heals over your loss.

I know this, because though I never committed suicide, I very thoroughly removed myself. I got married, crossed the ocean, and once the kids came had less and less money/time to go over. So yearly visits (honestly, mostly, while grandma was alive) turned to three year spacing, then, as the kids grew and had school and stuff, five.

I had a shock, eight years ago, going back. Remember, I grew up in a very small place, where my family had been forever, and therefore it was well known and to an extent looked up to. When grandad died, it was like being under the microscope, with the village examining all our expressions and interactions.

Yes, the place has been eaten by the city. Stack-a-prol apartments moved in. This means the population is 10 times bigger, and most came from far away. (All those abandonned villages, in the mountains.) My brother says he can walk up main street, and no one knows him from Adam. I took younger son for a walk, 13 years ago, and we got lost. (He’s hilarious when he gets lost. For some reason, in the middle of an urban landscape, he always assumes he’s going to starve to death.)

That’s all fine. But the thing is, you know? Mom’s circle is not that. With one or two exceptions, mom’s circle are maybe up to 20 years younger than her (she turns 90 next year, so…) but all of them village old-timers. They were all there for my first communion (well, the older ones) and my wedding. Mom probably shared with them my dating misadventures. etc. etc.

…. as of eight years ago, they’d forgotten me. Thoroughly. Completely. In their heads, my mom had only one child, a son. they knew my brother, his sons, their spouses. Me? I was a ghost. I didn’t exist.

If that seems completely insane — it does to me honest, but it was true — I had experienced it before: I moved to the Us before finishing my degree, and went back a year later for my finals. (Then came back, leaving my mom to walk some of my graduations if she wished. She went to the one for the BA in Italian, because the party afterwards had gourmet ice cream. Mom has her priorities right, people.) But going back was a shock. Look, I wasn’t big on the college social scene, partly because I was on a very demanding schedule; tutored; and took external courses. but I was active in the Shakespeare club, the American Culture club, and had various friends and groups and associations.

Gone. Like, one of the Stalinist pictures where you just get removed. Seriously. No one had any idea who I was. There was great shock when I had one of the four (of 200 or so) passing exams, because “I didn’t know you were smart.” (Said by one of the midwits who’d been with me since high school and who, to be a dim bulb would need to borrow someone else’s light.) It was astounding.

So I knew this was possible, I’d seen it. But because we are each the character of our novel, it’s hard to believe our not being there won’t be remarked on, of felt.

Trust me on this, it won’t.

So — Galt’s Gulch… Unless it forms its own country, patents its inventions, etc, and btw is ready to defend them with force? The world will heal over it. No one will remember. (That’s besides and beyond getting every creative/productive person. I mean, even in associations that have obviously crossed the threshold of irrecoverable, some Boxer will still be in there, giving it his all, trying to build up. (And not all boxers are dimwitted, at that. Just, hopeful.)) The world will go on without them.

And the Gulchers? Well…. We are social animals. We who comment here listen to the other side — how could we not? They’re the dominant opinion/flavor — We know their version of things, their idea of history, their motives, their beliefs. They have no clue of ours. Some of the reason they’re struggling, despite dominating the institutions, and a lot of the reason I believe that in the end we win they lose, (besides their being at war with reality) is that they’ve isolated themselves. They not only have no idea how the other 3/4 lives. They have no clue how we think.

Galt’s Gulch, geographical or philosophical means the same for us. We’d be isolated. Separated. We’d have no idea. It’s like deliberately blinding yourself and expecting the other person to be lost. As much as their ideas make our head hurt and we often want to stop listening, it’s worth it to know why they think what they’re doing makes sense/will work.

And then there’s just…. the market.

Look, some of this happens normally when we’re living under an hostile regime. It was what Rand saw/tried to describe, with the added fantasy of a place where you could keep producing/be engaged. (She wasn’t wrong. My most productive years are/were when surrounded by sharp minded creatives, against whom I could sharpen my intellectual blades and my creative sword.)

But under any regime where creation and work aren’t rewarded, people go inside, stop working. Why make that extra 10% when it means another 25% in taxes? Why market your invention when you won’t have half the price it’s worth? Why write another book, when no trad pub will touch it.

We saw that under Carter. We are seeing it now.

But the terminal form of this, when the regime changes after 70 years or so is not some great flowering of suppressed creativity, force and invention.

The terminal form of this is visible in the old ex-communist countries. They’ve forgotten. They’ve forgotten you can create and build. They’ve forgotten you can engage with each other in mutually profitable exchanges. The very mode of innovation is lost, gone, fallen down a well.

Will it come back? Probably. Humans create. It’s a thing we do. But it will take time. How much time? I don’t know. It’s not just the repressive mechanisms being removed. The forges of creation need to be rebuilt and the pathways of dissemination re-created. We who make and build tend to forget distribution and commerce are just as vital, just as important. Perhaps more so, for a healthy society. They are also the first to withdraw and the last to come back, when a society is whacked with a totalitarian stick. And it’s needed for creativity to fully bloom and innovation to flower. Because innovation and creativity have to pay off, and be seen to pay off for people to feel the drive, the consistent need to keep at it, instead of a one-off, a hobby.

In the end our fantasies of Galt’s Gulch — not in the book, and how it worked, but in real life — are a suicide fantasy. “I’ll withdraw! They’ll be sorry!” (Note again this is not a criticism of the book. The book was an anti-collectivist fable, which is needed in our culture.) They won’t be sorry. They’ll forget you. And eventually they’ll forget that creativity and productivity are even possible. And society tumbles into a morass. As with suicide, the ones you hurt are the ones who most need you.

It is the same for your belief in liberty; your belief in the individual; your knowledge of the constitutional republic which, maimed and thwarted almost from the beginning, has been the greatest engine of creation, innovation and wealth the world has ever seen. Withdraw it from public discourse; give up; decide it’s time to burn it all down.

That’s not a suicide fantasy — though it is, really, think on it! — it’s a revenge fantasy. Only it doesn’t work. You withdraw the idea, and people forget it. The world heals over it. You’re banking on a day when it will spontaneously come back. You think we’re natural and normal and inevitable and that this our Republic — under attack, wounded, limping, in the control of its enemies — isn’t, still, the greatest miracle this tired, bleeding old world has ever seen.

It’s not that I don’t understand wanting to shrug. It’s not that at times my fingers don’t itch for a flame thrower. You’d have to be more than human — or considerably less — to not understand both of those impulses.

It’s just that they don’t work. But working quietly does. We’ve seen in in the gun rights movement. We’ve seen it in the fact that computers has removed the left’s ability to utterly control our discourse, and that this is hurting them every day. We’ve seen it in Indy books that stoke the idea of liberty, all wrapped up in fun and amusement.

And if you tell me it’s impossible to win that way, I invite you to study the history of Christianity. Easy? No. Always growing from victory to victory? No. That’s not human. That’s not how any of this works.

But not taking your ball and going home keeps you in the game.

And as Heinlein said (I used to have this hanging over my desk, but it disappeared in the move): “Surely the game is rigged. Don’t let that stop you. If you don’t bet, you can’t win.”

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, and after when lot of people have a lot of things for sale)

YES THESE ARE ABOVE, BUT SOME PEOPLE ARE INSUFFERABLE IN THEIR SELF PROMOTION, WHAT CAN I SAY?

FROM SARAH A. HOYT, ON SALE FOR 1.99 TILL THE 29TH: Darkship Thieves

Athena Hera Sinistra never wanted to go to space.

Never wanted see the eerie glow of the Powerpods. Never wanted to visit Circum Terra. She never had any interest in finding out the truth about the Darkships.
You always get what you don’t ask for. Which must have been why she woke up in the dark of shipnight, within the greater night of space in her father’s space cruiser, knowing that there was a stranger in her room. In a short time, after taking out the stranger—who turned out to be one of her father’s bodyguards up to no good, she was hurtling away from the ship in a lifeboat to get help.
But what she got instead would be the adventure of a lifetime and perhaps a whole new world—if she managed to survive….
A Prometheus Award Winning Novel, written by a USA Today Bestseller.

FROM ELISE HYATT (WHO YES, IS ALSO SARAH A. HOYT) STILL 99C: Dipped, Stripped and Dead.

A Dyce Dare Mystery When she was six, Dyce Dare wanted to be a ballerina, but she couldn’t stop tripping over her own feet. Then she wanted to be a lion tamer, but Fluffy, the cat, would not obey her. Which is why at the age of twenty nine she’s dumpster diving, kind of. She’s looking for furniture to keep her refinishing business going, because she would someday like to feed herself and her young son something better than pancakes. Unfortunately, as has come to be her expectation, things go disastrously wrong. She finds a half melted corpse in a dumpster. This will force her to do what she never wanted to do: solve a crime. Life is just about to get crazy… er… crazier. But at least at the end of the tunnel there might be a relationship with a very nice Police Officer.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE AND EACH ON SALE FOR 99C: The Lion of God (Timelines Book 1)

John Wolff has been handed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Again.
He’s already saved the love of his life from an early death – thirty years after she died.
Now, a beautiful young woman, who is clearly his daughter, has appeared from the timeline branch where that same love of his life survived and married his counterpart.
She says they need his help fighting off invaders from the far future. Who, by the way, are looking for him. Why? Because they want the starship drive he and a friend invented, the precursor to their time machine. Problem is, in her timeline, it hasn’t been invented yet.
What man can resist a cry for help from his own daughter?
Particularly when the invaders think she’s a saint. Or possibly, a devil wearing saint’s clothing. And they’re looking for her, too.
Thus begins the Timelines Saga, and the story of the Lion of God.

The Lion and the Lizard (Timelines Book 2)

Thirty years ago, Dr. Ariela Rivers Wolff, M.D., Ph.D., AKA The Lion of God, had a pretty exhausting week.

Her world was invaded by time-traveling soldiers, she was nearly turned into human toothpaste by an experimental dimension jumper when she went to find her parallel “Dad,” who just happens to be able to borrow a Space Force fleet to come and take out her world’s invaders . . . and then she found out she was considered by those same invaders to be a saint in their odd religion, and one of the targets of their invasion. If that wasn’t enough, she nearly fell completely out of the universe into a time rift, being saved only by the skin of her teeth by her parallel “Dad”.

After all that, learning she was going to be the one to bring universal healing and long life to the human race in her particular timeline was just the icing on the proverbial cake.

Anybody else would go home, turn off their phone, pull all the blinds, lock all the doors, and take the rest of their life off. But Ari isn’t “anybody else”. And her cult of admirers across two timelines won’t take “nobody home” for an answer.

Fast-forward thirty years. Scientists have detected radio transmissions in an unknown language from several hundred light years away. And now she’s been asked to use her special “saintly” skills as demonstrated on her last “mission” to make first contact with whoever they are.

And that’s only the beginning.

The Lion in Paradise (Timelines Book 3)

All Col. Dr. Ariela Rivers Wolff, M.D., Ph.D., USSFM – the Lion of God – wanted was a little piece of paradise to call her own.

Being stuck on a desert world – even if she was the CO of the premiere battalion of the 1st U.S. Space Force Marines that was based there – was not getting her any beach time. Mostly because, without an ocean, there’s really no beach at all.

But she’s got a fix for that problem.

Now, if only the academics studying the problem of terraforming the exile world of al-Saḥra’ would get out of her way . . .

. . . and if only the religious fanatics who want their planet left as a desert, despite all the water from the planet’s former oceans being accessible only a few miles down, will leave the terraforming project alone long enough to see the good it will bring them . . .

. . . then, the Lion would truly be in Paradise.

But even in paradise, black clouds – and black ships – can herald danger for the Lion, herself, and for her daughters as well.

THE REST OF THE BOOKS!

FROM CELIA HAYES: That Fateful Lightning: A Novel of the Civil War

There wasn’t much of an outlet for an ordinary American woman with ambitions in the 184os; marriage and family was as good as it got back then, for most women … But Minnie Vining wasn’t an ordinary woman. A spinster in her forties, of a respected old Boston family, possessing an independent income and an education worthy of any man among her peers. Minnie took up a noble cause – campaigning for the abolition of slavery. The matter of slavery roiled political and social life in the United States for more than thirty years, splitting apart families, friends, comrades … and eventually the nation. And when the war began in earnest, Minnie followed her heart and her calling … as a nurse, tending to sick and wounded soldiers … but at what personal cost?

FROM CEDAR SANDERSON: Running Into Time

Time travel isn’t possible. Is it?
If it was feasible, how would it work?
And what price would the world’s powers pay to have the inventor under their control?

Garry never asked to be assigned to protect the girl he really liked in his classes. He just wanted time to get to know her better.

Pol never minded being called a mad scientist. He had good reasons for being mad. His top priority was protecting his sister, no matter the cost.

Both men were about to run headlong into a surreal reality, where the only answer might be held by a little white mouse cupped gently in a woman’s hands…

FROM HEATHER STRICKLER: Bearskin (To Shame The Devil Book 1)

No one beats the Devil.

Cut loose and abandoned after a losing war, Gregor seeks to bury the past and find a future. Any future.

When his own stubbornness leads to a desperate deal with the devil, Gregor must forge a new path. Can mortal man beat the Devil at his own game? And who will he drag down with him if he fails?

FROM TONY ANDARIAN: Dawn of Chaos: (Sanctum of the Archmage, Volume One)

It wasn’t demons, death, and slavery to the Dark that truly frightened her. It was the woman she would have to become to fight them.

Dawn of Chaos: Full Trilogy Edition (Includes Prologue to Chaos, Hell Gate, and Aftermath)

A new constitution prepares Carlissa for an era of enlightenment. The old order fades, and a promise of freedom stirs the air. In the space of one terrifying day, that promise is shattered in a bloodbath of fire and magic.

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

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

All that comes to an end when a dome of shimmering magic appears in the capital city. The people fight desperately to survive in the chaos that follows, and wonder bitterly why the gods seem to have abandoned them. Their only hope lies with the magic of the Archmage — and his, with a free-spirited princess who never wanted to rule. She must find the strength to set aside her bard’s calling and take up a battle against impossible odds, or surrender her land and people to the Black Magus and his demons.

Dawn of Chaos finally brings the award-winning Sanctum of the Archmage role-playing games to the world of fantasy fiction. Get it today and don’t miss this exciting first volume in the series!

Note to Readers. This is an omnibus volume that collects previously published books in the Dawn of Chaos series.

BY MAX BRAND, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: The Smiling Desperado (Annotated): The classic pulp western

From boyhood, Danny Cadigan only found joy in life when his life was in danger. But while he never got close to people, he also didn’t have any particular dislike for them.

But after showing legendary bad man Bill Lancaster up for a coward, Danny finds himself blamed for train robberies, stage robberies, and kissing the wrong girl!

With his life now constantly in danger, Cadigan should be happy… but he can’t be, because the right girl believes all the lies about him. How can he ever prove to her that he’s not the man that poison gossip would make him?

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

BY MALCOLM JAMESON, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Tarnished Utopia (Annotated): The classic pulp space operahttps://amzn.to/46z9wj1

Allan Winchester was fighting in World War II when he and a girl named Cynthia became trapped underground… and woke up over a thousand years in the future!

Immediately captured by the cruel elites of an interplanetary techno-dictatorship and separated, Winchester becomes a slave in a world he does not comprehend. He must figure out how this slave new world works, and work his way up the cruel hierarchies of tyranny, if he will ever have a chance to find his girl, destroy the powers that be, and set the solar system free!

• This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving genre and historical context, with an aside about drugs.

FROM THADDEUS BLACKHEART: Alien Harem

The wildly humorous coming-of-age story of Jason Andrews, who thought he was an ordinary guy. He had just graduated high school and would be starting college next year.

Only he wasn’t normal, or it turns out, human or even originally from Earth.

They had issued a recall, and he soon found himself on a spaceship heading to a strange planet.

A spaceship where he is the only male, and every female on the ship is beautiful, and they only want one thing…

They all want to join his harem of sexy alien females, and they all want sex, lots and lots of sex.

When they arrive at the alien planet, things get even more amusing. But if he plays it right, then his harem grows even larger.

FROM KAREN MYERS: Monsters, And More: A Science Fiction Short Story Bundle from There’s a Sword for That

A Science Fiction Story Bundle from the collection There’s a Sword for That

MONSTERS – Xenoarchaeologist Vartan has promised his young daughter Liza one of the many enigmatic lamedh objects that litter the site of a vanished alien civilization.

No one can figure out what they’re good for, but Liza finds a use for one.

ADAPTABILITY – The Webster Marble Deluxe Woodsman, Model 820-E, has been offline for quite some time. Quite some time indeed.

Good thing Webster has a manual to consult, and a great many special functions.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Grandmaster’s Gambithttps://amzn.to/4a7mCqP

The disastrous war of 1913 is over, and young journalist Isaak Babel has used his fame as a war correspondent to win a peacetime job covering an international chess tournament in New York City. However, trouble is aboard the airship Grossdeuschland, in the form of the notorious Bolshevik terrorist Koba and his henchmen. Men with a dark plan, and New York City will not welcome their visit

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: Cautious

I regret to inform you my brain seems to be dead this morning. Now part of this might be insufficient caffeine as, for the first time in years, I had to share my breakfast coffee with son, which means I’m low.

But part of it was a day of cleaning, a day of cooking, and then a day with family, even if these are my best beloved people in all the world, people in fact I would die for without so much as blinking, people without whom my life would have no meaning: pieces of my heart running free in the world, in fact.

Still people, and still introverted. Picture Sarah in the corner, extending claw and hissing.

So today I’ve been sitting here for four hours now trying to figure out how to write a post, and then work on books, and just realized NOTHING will happen. Not today. Though i might get my craft tray from upstairs and play with that some.

I need to reorganize the craft room so it’s safe for kittens, but probably not today. I feel like every joint in my body is about to give out. So, maybe I’ll take it easy.

Anyway, we captured the raccoon, who will shortly be on his way to meet his doom. And I’m going to wrap this up, go do some wash, which is all that remains of the gigantic mess, then maybe let kittens play all over me.

The post above has the new book — Christmas in the stars — and the two books on 99c sale for another couple of days: Darkship Thieves and Dipped, Stripped and Dead.

There will be at least one book on sale now through the first week in Jan. Remember you can buy on sale and schedule for 12/25 morning delivery. Your giftees will never know ;) I know it’s tight for everyone these days. That post will stay pinned, but the content will change, so check back now and then.

And now I’m going to have some King Harv Geisha and see if the brain is maybe only mostly dead….

See you tomorrow.

*While I’m AFK doing family like stuff, Alma has undertaken to keep this place minimally safe through tonight and tomorrow – SAH*

Huns-giving Reminders by Alma Boykin

1. No, you may not serve yourself from the turkeys. After someone took two entire turkeys, we have to limit access. Don’t blame us, blame the miscreant.

2. No arguing theology, especially while in the serving line. The last time someone started the “9 mil or .45” debate over the potatoes, the mess took an hour to clean up. No. Off limit topics include: religious theology, trying to convert someone to your denomination*, stuffing vs. dressing (unless you are offering the serving spoon to someone), sugar in cornbread vs. plain, football,** the American Civil War, and the other forbidden topics.

3. Yes, you can have both dark meat and light meat.

4. Yes, you can get seconds, but only after you finish your firsts. No preemption, please.

5. The management is not responsible for what Jeff does to you if you mess with the coffee machine in the main bar. If you want to experiment, that’s what the labs are for. The machine in the bar is very touchy, and Jeff finally got it re-calibrated after the last honyacker tried to program it to make mulled cider. Touchest thou not!

6. The range will open after the buffet line this year. Yes, there are Reasons. No, the management is not going to list all of them. If there’s no range-safety officer available, act like a responsible shooter and follow the Four Rules. Plus the other two posted on the gate. When in doubt, don’t do it. The sheriff is still recovering from last year’s trauma, as well as from getting out-shot on the 100 yard pistol range.

7. No alcohol is allowed on the range. If we have to go back to breathylizer tests to unlock the gate, we will. Yes, you. No exceptions. Seriously.

8. Please warn kids and newcomers that fishing in the sea-monster pool and swimming in the minion pool are both prohibited. Kids generally know better, but some theoretically-adults need a reminder.

9. The Introverts’ Association meeting is in the Diogenes Memorial Library, fourth floor, first plaid door on the left. Talking and eye contact are not required, nor is taking a name tag. It is come and go, as usual.

10. Yes, there is a kosher line this year. It is fleishig, so plan your desserts accordingly.

11. If you signed up for side-dishes or desserts, keep in mind that chtulumari bothers some people, so it needs to be in a covered dish. Midwestern gelled salads go with the green salads and vegetables, while Southern gelled salads are desserts. Unless it is TXRed’s gelled cranberry salad, which goes with the other cranberry sauces beside the turkey.

12. No, you may not use mecha during the touch-football game. Limited cybernetic assists are approved, but check the insurance policy carefully.

Thank you for your cooperation, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

*Unless they are socialist, in which case preach away! Beating up on statism is always appropriate.

**OK, one exception. It is fine to wager on how badly the Dallas Cowboys are going to lose. Remember the House gets 10% of the winnings.

Yes, I know, I have told you to do it for spite. And you know, if you can’t muster love, then duty, need or spite will do.

But if you can do what you do out of love, it really works better.

I’m one of those people who tends to get lost. Mostly because I have ADD, but also because I get depressed. And when I get depressed, I can — sometimes — still produce, but I don’t enjoy it, it’s a slog, and forcing myself to work makes me more and more depressed.

Which you could call “the story of 2023.” It got briefly better when we adopted Indy and Helena, littermate orange kittens. It just did. But then Helena died, and we still don’t know why, and I went right back into a morass of depression, which had a lot of other contributors, including two deaths in the family, moving out of my beloved homeland of the heart, etc. etc. etc.

We did go back to Colorado this summer, and it helped. Although it can no longer be mine (the auto-immune flare up when we crossed back up to altitude was spectacular, and I’m glad we only stayed five days, because of that) it’s good to know it’s still there, and some trends have gotten better, even if it’s still held captive of fraud-by-mail.

But it somehow wasn’t enough. Well, these last two weekends have been very busy, and this week I’ve been fighting some kind of sinus infection, but the spirits just keep lifting.

This is because Celia Hayes (Sargent Mom) very kindly allowed Indy’s parents to have another hot date before fixing, and they produced a litter of seven.

Two weekends ago we went to get all seven, since they were our responsibility, and last weekend we drove around like a deranged kitten fairy, giving them to their permanent people, where to be fair, they will be very happy.

This involved of course prying them out of Dan’s hands, because he wants to keep them all.

Now we’re done to two. Circe, who doesn’t look like Helena (maybe that’s good) but is a little orange girl cat and very smart and perhaps too persistent. (If she were a boy her name would already be Harry for Houdini) and Toast, second of her name, who like Cedar Sanderson’s Toast (first of her name) is a flame point siamesish.

Toast 2.0 is promised to friends, but…. well…. she loves me a lot, and Dan says we should keep her. I told him if he really wants her he should negotiate for her. So far he hasn’t, so likely we’ll let her go to her new people. Which, yes, will hurt, but then again, perhaps be best for all of us in the long run? I mean, we’re sixty one, and five cats are a lot, particularly since Havey and Valeria are 14 and have kidney issues. (Then again– Sigh. I really like the little trouble maker.)

Anyway, the last two weeks have been turmoil filled, and I’ve had to do a lot of things I’d rather not, and yet, I feel better. (Yes, chapters are coming to substack. It’s been the busy, not the depressed preventing it.)

Why?

Well, as I explained at Mad Genius Club just a few minutes ago, it’s like introvert versus extrovert.

Both can go to a party or a conference and be good while there. But the introvert will come home and crash. The extrovert wants to go go go forever.

It’s the same some things please you, some things don’t, but nothing fills the well like doing it for love. Whether it’s writing, cooking, cleaning the house (which I desperately need to do since family get together is here this year) or looking after helpless kittens and children.

If you do it for love, it will fill the well. Whatever your well is.

And while we live in a screwed up world, and everything we do can’t be for love, try to do some things for love in the middle of what you must do, and what you can do, and what others expect you to do.

Trust me, it will make everything better, if now and then you do something for love. It should deplete you, because you’re adding work. But somehow it doesn’t. Perhaps because, as dad puts it, “He who runs for love doesn’t tire.” But more importantly, doing anything for love revives you.

Go do something for love today, and like — Per RAH’s advice, your budget should include the frivolities first — budget your time so you can do something for love on the regular.

And now I go clean this pigsty. For love.

This year, I’m very thankful for loving my family, including my sons’ ladies. It wasn’t a given, but I’m grateful I do. Because love recharges and revitalizes.

And for these two — too — I’m heartily thankful:
Circe, the redhead, and Toast 2.0 the siamesish: