According To Hoyt

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, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. By clicking through and buying (anything book-related, 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. Remember though all of these submissions are from people willing to be associated with this blog. So if you’re trying to buy from people who don’t hate you, this is a good place to start.– SAH

FROM CEDAR SANDERSON: Child of Crows: Wings of Broken Magic (Witchward Book 3)

Some ghosts refuse to stay buried.

Fresh from the cursed hollows of Possum Creek, Special Agent Amaya Lombard is yanked back to the one place she swore she’d never return: Nesika House, the coastal coven that once cost her everything. When the high priestess who nearly destroyed her demands help recovering a stolen ritual chalice, Amaya has no choice but to walk through those familiar, poisonous wards — this time with a badge, a partner, and fourteen years of hard-won scars.

What she finds inside is far more dangerous than any illusion.

Child of Crows — a Witchward novella.

FROM SAM ROBB: A Sense of Murder: Road Mage Volume 1

In a far-flung corner of the worlds-spanning Empire, Ser Kellan tor Iaestus is a Highwayman, sworn to keep the peace in the rugged Outlands. Armed with a revolver from a forgotten war and a hidden Talent to see truth, he is an agent of justice and peace in a wild land… so long as he keeps his talent hidden, lest he be pressed into the service of the Empire.

When Prospero, an Imperial Magus, arrives in the Outlands hunting for a magical truth-teller, Kellan is assigned as his guide. Certain he can keep his Talent concealed and maintain his freedom, Kellan escorts the magus on his journey. All goes well until a string of seemingly unrelated murders exposes demons, dark powers, and a warlock weaving cruel designs in the shadows. As Kellan and Prospero investigate, they follow a thread that leads from the Outlands to the city of Victar de Reya, links whores and politicians, and takes them from fine restaurants to piratical celebrations.

Saddled with a suspicious young seer and facing demons clawing at them from the Unreal, the two must work together to unravel the warlock’s conspiracy before he kills again. But can Kellan locate the killer without exposing his own power, and surrendering the independence he’s fought so hard to protect?

Duty demands truth. Survival demands secrecy. Kellan can’t have it both ways… and time is running out.

FROM B. K. GIBSON: Freedom’s Vow: Shepherd Trilogy: Book 1

Stand tall, Citizens. Shields up. Spears out. Hold to the Passion of Courage!

In the world of the Three Seas, two city states stand at the brink of war. The city of Helemar faces destruction as hoplite armies prepare for battle. Within the city, Arete, knowing only a life of slavery, vows to seek freedom at any cost. She is thrown into the conflict when she and her master discover she is a Shepherd, one who has the mystic talent to kindle passions in the hearts of people. Passions of rage, joy, fear and courage… all rise and fall at her will.

Fifteen years ago Arete’s soldier friend Philon witnessed a single Shepherd destroy his army and take his people captive. Seeking not to control, but to understand the ability behind the destruction, he joins Arete on her quest to repay a debt, venturing where not even the creatures of myth dare to tread.

As Arete and Philon seek answers, the city-states clash, each exploiting the talents of their own Shepherds, and a greater unknown threat is growing. A power may yet rise that will lead to the destruction of all, one brought about by the war and the talent itself.

An epic tale set in a Hellenistic world that is both familiar and yet fantastical, in place that just may very well be real … somewhere and somewhen.

FROM EDWARD HERING: Pax Oceana

A world out of time. A young man with no direction. A battle that uncovers a century-old secret.

For a century, the colony world of Pomoxis has been a ghost in the stars, its interstellar network links severed since the fall of the Terran Confederation. While his friends head off to university to build their futures, eighteen-year-old Ian McCracken is idling—the directionless son of a wealthy family, content to drift.

But when he is tapped to take part in a high-stakes auxiliary mission to blast through an enemy blockade, a daring parasail escape over active no-man’s land reveals a structural anomaly hidden in the dirt. Buried beneath the grass is something made of an impervious and unfamiliar metal: a functional shuttle to a starship that has sat silent in orbit for a hundred years.

What starts as a reckless gamble to restore a lost network link quickly pulls Ian out of his aimless youth and into a sprawling galactic theater. From the frustrating apathy of a forgotten Earth to the treacherous underworld of Leonis, Ian and a raw crew must navigate a shifting landscape of political betrayal, a two-year tour in an elite interstellar navy, and a desperate race to stop a totalitarian cabal from weaponizing his find back home.

Across the water-world of Oceana and the savage ruins of dead colonies, Ian must face the heavy cost of personal loss and the steep price of a life with a purpose. The long climb of humanity has been interrupted—and the boy who had no future may be the catalyst to restart it.

FROM LEE ECKHARDT: FALLING THROUGH TIME: A Sequel To H. G. Wells’ ‘The Time Machine

WHAT WAS THE FATE OF H. G. WELLS’
TIME TRAVELLER?

It is the year 188 of the Modern State Era. Raymond Lange, a rebellious citizen of the Modern State, makes an unauthorize visit to the ruins of London, a city destroyed during the wars that brought the old world to an end. There he makes an amazing discovery, a machine created by a 19th Century inventor – a machine that can travel through time.
Raymond also finds the inventor’s journal, which describes an incredible journey to the world of 802,701 AD, where the human race has split into two separate species – the decadent Eloi, who live on the Earth’s surface, and the cannibalistic Morlocks, who dwell below ground.
When Raymond is accused of treason he has no choice but to use the Time Machine to flee into the future. Once in 802,701 AD he faces not only the threat of the Morlocks but the vengeance of the Modern State, which is willing to send a team of agents – a team led by Raymond’s worst enemy – 800,000 years through time to apprehend him…

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Witch’s Daughter (Empires of Magic Book 2)

Some letters come from the living. Some come from the dead. This one comes with a formula that turns a rowboat into a miracle.

Seventeen-year-old Lord Michael Ainsling — youngest brother of the Duke of Darkwater, builder of mechanical marvels, survivor of fairyland — receives a letter from a man sixteen years dead. The inventor Tristram Blakley has not perished; he has been imprisoned by his own genius and begs the one mind in all of Avalon brilliant enough to understand his work to set him free. All Michael has to do is find seven missing brothers first and walk a magical path..

Fifteen-year-old Albinia Blakley has spent her whole life under her mother’s iron thumb — and her mother is a witch. The day Al finally escapes down a rope of knotted sheets, she lands in a world she doesn’t recognize, with no money, no magic kit, and no idea that the stranger who catches her is about to become her greatest ally.

Together, a girl with more secrets than she knows and a boy who builds machines that try to murder him must outwit a sorceress, navigate the treacherous courts of Fairyland, and unravel an enchantment years in the making — before a family is lost for good.

Witch’s Daughter is a gaslamp fantasy brimming with wit, warmth, and wonder, for readers who love their magic wrapped in velvet and their adventures served with morning tea.

FROM MAX COSSAK: White Money (The Wilder Bunch Book 11)

When his friend shares half his fabulous silver claim, a smalltown storekeeper must battle claim jumpers, a corrupt judge and ruthless killers.

Most people are at least dimly aware of the Great Depression of 1929. But how many have heard about the Panic of 1873, which was nearly as devastating? In White Money (a wonderful throw-back to old-timey Western novels like Shane and True Grit), Civil War veteran Morris Goldwater, like millions of his fellow Americans, has been caught up in the financial disaster of the Panic.

With his business collapsing, and desperate to support his wife and children, Goldwater leaps at the promise of half interest in an Arizona silver mine claimed by his old Union Army comrade and mentor. Riding the rails, camping with hoboes, encountering the best and worst of humanity, he makes his way southwest.

Dangers and disappointments abound, not least of which is finding that the Arizona desert in winter is not the paradise Goldwater hoped for. Claim jumpers, a corrupt judge, bigots and brigands conspire to thwart his dreams. Will evil be a match for the ingenuity and the basic goodness of the average American? Never count a war veteran out, even against formidable odds.

FROM DRAGON SOUL PRESS: The Wild Frontier: A Dragon Soul Press Anthology

Welcome to the wild west…

Plans are bound to go awry with bandits and robbers on the loose. Anyone can become a victim if precautions aren’t taken. These stories tell of epic quick-draw duels, fights for justice, and survival of the fittest.

Featuring 18 stories by the following authors: Barend Nieuwstraten III, Robert Walton, Rod A. White, Charles Kyffhausen, Marc Sorondo, Zachary Vincent, J. Benjamin Sanders, B.F. Vega, Nicholas Samuel Stember, Daividh Eideard Mitchell, Bruce H. Markuson, George Zamalea, Nicholas Arkison, Steve Loiaconi, David J. Vowell, Zsaffryn Terra, Sarah Cline, and James T. Siburt.

FROM DALE COZORT: The Best of Space Bats & Butterflies – Book Two

Space Bats & Butterflies Book Two is another eclectic collection of the best alternate history or time-travel stories, book excerpts, essays and world-building exercises from the ninety-plus issues of a long-running Alternate History zine.

• Part Two of a two-part book-length alternate World War II scenario-The Moscow Option-1942.
• The Interrupted Trajectory: Indians without the Old World.
• Could you save the Incas from Spanish conquest?
• American Revolution: Britain Keeps the Deep South
• D-Day Landings Fail.
  Fiction stories and excerpts:
• World War II Germany invades a divided alternate history US that still uses black powder muskets.
• Bootleggers from the 1920s invade a far-future sanctuary for massacre victims.
• Modern US collides with an alternate reality full of deadly animals.
• Tasmanian Wolves are supposed to be extinct. What is one doing in a Illinois cornfield?
• An ageless, vastly intelligent dog holds the secrets to immortality. Can he survive long enough to give it to humanity?

FROM KYRA HALLAND: Dreams of Magic (Mage of Storm and Sea)

They called him a war hero. The savior of the Islands. The greatest weather mage the Islands ever knew. But once, he was a lonely, misfit youth with some impossible dreams.

Esavas Daruvias wants two things in life – to become a weather mage and to marry the girl of his dreams. But, bookish and awkward, his magical power stunted since childhood, he’s a failure at everything a highborn mage is supposed to be, and life as a scholar at the remote, secluded Tower is his only hope of refuge from a society where he doesn’t belong.

Then his father offers him the impossible, an arranged marriage to the beautiful Pirazina, the girl he’s always loved – who barely knows he exists. To win her heart and admiration, Esavas takes desperate measures to become the mage and man he longs to be, determined to make his dreams a reality even at the risk of losing his power, his freedom, and his future.

Start your magical adventure through the Islands with Dreams of Magic, the prequel to the epic romantic fantasy series Mage of Storm and Sea. From an austere scholars’ tower to sun-soaked beaches, from desperate hillside battles to seas full of danger, come discover a new world of wonder, danger, and magic.

Contains strong language and mature subject matter, including drug and alcohol use and sexual references.

FROM MEL DUNAY: “Skynet” As Your Secretary: AI Tools For The Indie Author

FROM RACONTEUR PRESS ANTHOLOGIES: With stories by Karl Gallagher, G. Scott Huggins, and more: For Want of a Rivet (Raconteur Press Anthologies Book 76)

Small decisions. World-altering consequences.

That’s the premise behind For Want of a Rivet, an anthology of eleven alternate history military stories that asks one deceptively simple question: what if a single invention, tactical choice, or quiet act of courage had gone differently?The stories span a century of conflict and a dozen theaters of war. A Royal Navy pilot spots the German fleet and changes the shape of World War One. Air privateers carrying Letters of Marque dogfight over the Western Front while a brash young balloon-buster rewrites the record books. A Japanese naval officer quietly suppresses a breakthrough antenna technology that will shape the Pacific war. German engineers develop a submarine that makes the Atlantic a killing ground. British scientists discover how to bend the enemy’s own guidance beams back against them, and a stage magician helps make the resulting deception invisible. An all-Black paratrooper battalion that was supposed to be fighting wildfires instead drops into the Battle of the Bulge. A French Foreign Legion scout finds a Roman tunnel under the most heavily defended line in Italy. A Polish tank crew fights to hold the cork in the bottle as Operation Unthinkable opens. A SOE agent moves through occupied France on a prosthetic leg — and the rivet that keeps it silent may decide the war. Britain and Germany forge an uneasy alliance against Soviet France. Japan defends the Imperial Palace to the last man.

These are stories about the human cost of invention, the weight of small advantages, and the soldiers, spies, and engineers who never made the official record.

Eleven contributors. One question. For want of a rivet, the war was lost — or won.

Stories include: ”Wings over Jutland” (William Meinert) · “Ace of Aces” (Karl K. Gallagher) · “Radio Waves” (Joe Salem) · “The Danzig Ghosts” (Michael Patrick Coady) · “The War They Could Not Print” (Ross Hathaway) · “Little Groups of Paratroopers” (Bart Kemper) · “Callis Caecus” (Nick Aalderink) · “Operation Unthinkable” (Samuel A. Mayo) · “Cuthbert’s Silence” (D. S. Ligon) · “Axis of Alliance” (G. Scott Huggins) · “The Last Kamikaze” (Robert Miller)

FROM RACONTEUR PRESS: With stories by Zan Oliver, J. Kenton Pierce and Z. M. Renick: Steam Rising: Tales of steampunk and wondrous inventions (Raconteur Press Anthologies Book 35)

Steampunk. It’s not just a genre, it is science fiction in its purest form. In this collection, you will read of the ways that technology could both help and harm mankind. Steam power took a special kind of bravery to use and master, and the people who live in a steam-powered world adjust to that need: engineers, inventors, tinkerers and experimentalists of every kind and every manner imaginable.

Within, you will meet clockmakers and war-widows, steamship captains and airship pilots; you will see wailing engines race and clanking automata strut. Hurry on! The engineer is feeding the coal, and says she’s raring to go.

See that red lever over there? Grip ‘er tight, and heave forward the throttle…

FROM MARY CATELLI: Spells in Secret

Magical doors and other mischief mix badly with tales about murder, as young scholars return to Graytowers.

Kenneth, as prefect, thought he had his hands filled with the beginning of the new session, but when one magical door takes him and another scholar far past the bounds of a prank, they barely escape with their lives, and their escape means only that they are in graver danger. They must hide, leaving the school, and casting all their spells in secret.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: Intrigue at the Interstellar Gate Book I: Ledger of Shadows

At the Interstellar Gate — humanity’s largest transit hub for interstellar freight — every container, every cargo class, and every timestamp is logged across three independent ledgers. The system was built to be foolproof.

It isn’t.

Elara Venn is a mid-level auditor who notices what the system is designed to overlook: a single mismatched checksum during a peak traffic surge. The automated protocols flag it yellow and move on. Elara doesn’t.

What she uncovers — with the unlikely help of customs linguist Tomas Iri — is not a glitch but an architecture. Ghost containers. Shadow bandwidth. A distributed conspiracy that exploits the Gate’s own optimization logic to move cargo invisibly through the most surveilled facility in the known systems.

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: SPARE.

Now that there are more songs, I am redoing this list. If you’re up on the sound track, just page down to “New this week”. Because I’m putting up a song a day, I will just do this once a week, okay? If you don’t want me to do this, tell me.

Space Admiral’s Son.

Seventeen.

New London, New London (is a hell of a town.)

The Prodigal

Royal Escape

Valhalla is for Heroes.

Thanks for the Boats. (Possibly my favorite when I’m in that kind of mood.)

Can I Get You to Look.

Strains of Earth

Betrayal

Defenestration

When Worlds Collide

So Different and Yet the Same

Brothers in Arms

I’ve Got to Bake

Further Notes on Ethnographic Collection

The Beast in the Snow

If I die Tonight

The Stone Speaks

Silence and Stone

A Birth At Midnight.

Morning Breeze and Sea

Looking for Home.

And the Marble Wept.

Nursed on ice

NEW THIS WEEK:

First thank you to Michael Hooten for the meme. It made me LOL. You people are nuts. What has the Secretary of State done to deserve Indy crawling on him and yelling? (The yell means “Put on a British Mystery, hold my paw and rub my belly, but how would Marco know that? And incidentally, Happy Belated Birthday (Yesterday) to the Secretary of State.) Also that sampler on the wall is the most me thing ever. (Though for the record it’s five people, since I like the boys and the Pickles. And honestly it should include all of you, but “I like coffee and maybe 300 people” doesn’t have the same punch.) As for the mug, I’m going to have to have one made, as soon as I have time to order it.

Okay, first to set your mind at rest: I’m much, much better. This is not LIKELY the permanent solution, there is a CT scan and other stuff planned for July and until then I’ll be on a “low dose maintenance antibiotic”. BUT I’ve definitely turned the corner on this bout of “Dear Lord, what is happening to my right kidney?” And my mind has largely unfogged. (Not fully. I think I still need a few dozen hours of sleep to be fully me, but–)

So what is the almighty rush and why am I putting up a not-post?

Because we have an appointment (move related — and it’s a long story, and no, I’m not explaining, at least not yet. For one we don’t know it really is happening yet. We will in a couple of weeks, give or take. It’s not a forced move like the last one, but a “Oh, this would be so good for us, at our time of life and given how we actually live.” ) non-medical, which we thought was at three pm and is actually at twelve thirty. Fortunately they called us to make sure we brought all needed stuff and … well. Part of the reason I need more sleep is that I was all curled up and getting some Zs when Dan hauled me up and strongly suggested I get in the shower and dressed, because we’d screwed up the times. (He didn’t write it down as when we made the appointment the move was even more of a blue sky thing, so we didn’t think we’d need it.) IF there is a move, the plan is to outsource almost all of it, and not interfere with my writing. We’ll see how that works. SHOULD work. There’s reasons it didn’t last time. They don’t apply now.

Anyway, so. Here we are.

So I have like less than half an hour to get this post up, which even at the rate I type is not enough for the post I had planned which is about how the sides view each other, about the cringe stuff occasionally on our own side (Hey, desperate people sound weird. I know. I’ve been there) and the outright terrifying stuff the other side says. And not fringe figures, but their candidates.

I have been meaning to do that post for a while, but now I have the brain and don’t have the time. So, if we’re back sort of on time (it could take an hour or three, depending on how likely the move looks. It could even take more. Sigh.) I’ll do another post today. If not, I’m going to ask you to just consider this a wasted week, because really. Between one thing and another probably my worst blogging week in years.

If you subscribe to my substack, if I can manage not to get sick again for a couple of weeks, I’ll start snippetage again, not just Orphans, but also Winter Prince, which I THINK I figured how to disembugger. I could give you Rhodes to Hell, too, which is in the process of almost-finished, but well, I’ll ask the substackers.

I really should update them more often, but I get tired of putting in “Welp, sick again.” Hopefully the scan, etc, will figure out what’s going on, because I figure everything else is weakened by recurring infections and who knows what. (But we hopefully will mid-July.) “Of course my autoimmune is just nuts” is a possible answer, but the doctors don’t think so. So, here we are. And yet, the memento mori reminds me that I have some 40 books to write (and the Elly 6 are MASSIVE) before I’m done. So, don’t worry too much, because I have miles to go and promises to keep, and I won’t let the stupid body get in the way of that.

Meanwhile, there’s yesterday’s clanker song (yes, there will be one today, too. I have to finish the video.)

I tried anime style for this video, and I can’t say I’m in love with it, so I’ll probably go back to more painterly, and try to figure out how to make the images coherent another way. And yes, lyrics videos are coming, they just take time. (Again hopefully the low level maintenance antibiotic keeps me functional until we figure out what’s going on, and keeps my Little Pickle from threatening to pick me up bodily (hint, she probably can’t, but I wouldn’t like to try it) and throwing me in the back of the car to take to ER, when she comes over and I’m not functional. Look, this sounds a lot more dire than it is. I’m okay, really. It’s just a bothersome thing.)

And this is the previous one, if you missed it yesterday.

Yes, another experiment with graphics. Reactions are mixed, so there.

Will I make songs for other books? I don’t know. I suspect I need to finish this sound track before the next one has room to even arrive. Maybe I’ll give Witch’s Daughter a spin. Who knows? Maybe Witchfinderr.

Anyway, please forgive me for running, but it’s one of those days. I don’t even know whether to wish I’m back shortly or not, since that would mean things.

Hold the fort while I’m gone. Don’t talk to strangers (or truthfully to pollsters). And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. (Yes, that does indeed give you a wide latitude. Still.)

*Before I start the post, a small update: Yes, I completely forgot I was supposed to do promo yesterday. This thing — between the infection and the anti-biotic, has given me a preview of being ninety. Which I don’t like. I give it no stars and am trying to send it back. Mostly it does so by being too tired to think.
That said, today I woke up better. We’ll see if that survives the antibiotic dosage I just took. But hopefully it will.

OT and separately, the clanker song of the day: I’m insufferably proud of the style of the video, which I came up with to circumvent the whole “birth” thing which otherwise would get weird. OTOH I could just be crazy. It’s a choice. Anyway A Night Of Years, first song of the third book of No Man’s Land.

And that’s it. Today, in fact very shortly I have to leave for an appointment with a specialist. So I guess Promo Post will be on Sunday. I promise I’m trying to get over this thing as fast as humanly possible. – SAH.*

When did you start suspecting there was an anti-AI psy ops going on?

For me it’s the “Water that goes into data centers just evaporates on contact” thing going on in Twitter.

Do data centers use disproportionate amounts of water? I don’t know. And neither do you. What we do know is that any number of people on X (and other places) assure us the water use is apocalyptic.

It’s hard to figure out how this can be. I know what the water is used for — cooling — and a lot of industrial processes use it the same way.

When I pointed out that the water doesn’t simply vanish, someone on X assured me that it’s then not in a state to be returned to reservoirs. To which my answer is “Why not?” And in the same way, why would they be using a lot of “new” water. I believe the normal way of using water as coolant is to run it through a closed system, where it’s run somewhere to lose the heat (usually underground) and then back up to cool. Am I wrong in this? I know a lot of you are far more knowledgeable on this stuff than I am.

The problem is that this isn’t being treated as a “new process that might have these problems, we need to make sure the plants don’t use too much water”. It’s being treated as the beast of the apocalypse and we’re enjoined to banish it to the outer darkness.

And I can tell you when things like that are done, and uniformly pushed, particularly by a band of foreigners and bots or foreign bots, I get mulish and go “No.” And fix my little hooves on the path and can’t be moved. Because the psy-ops are never in your best interests.

I don’t care if psy-ops are telling you that going outside once a day and eating an apple is good for you. You’ll find they want you to to run outside starkers or to eat radioactive apples. Because it is never in your best interests.

Now I think a lot of the psy-ops is being run by places like China and people who wish us ill. And I think part of that is that they have an inflated idea of what AI can do for our country and therefore, of course, would like to defang us.

Inflated? Oh, come on. A lot of you will tell me that no, really, AI is all that and a jar of peanut butter. And maybe it is, but right now I think most of what it does is be a force multiplier for the highly competent.

I’m not deriding this as an advantage, particularly in the short term. As I have said before, we are facing a massive crisis of competence, so allowing our competent people to do more is a bridge to getting out of this bind. Provided, of course at some point we train MORE competent people. (The path to that is… well, the indications are mixed though I’m immensely chuffed by the rise in homeschooling.)

However I suspect most of the reason the psy-ops was unleashed was the overestimation of what AI can do and how amazing it is.

It is amazing mind you, but we’re going to try to use it for all sorts of things it can’t do. How do I know that? Because we’ve done that with every single technology when it’s new. Who can forget putting radioactive buttons in kids’ clothing so you could follow them with a geiger counter? Okay, so that’s a Disney comic, but at the time it was clearly viewed as a completely sane thing to do. Not to mention doing x-rays of your feet to fit shoes. Or a dozen others highly inappropriate uses of radiation.

And this happened for every single technology. So why not for AI. And it’s happening to the extent that corporate managers are telling people they have to use AI even when it makes no sense.

Now, I’ll admit since I’m not a programmer my use case for AI is much more reduced. I mostly can get it to do things like bring me up to speed on the setup of series I’m trying to finish after years of lying dormant. So if I hit a wall I can go “What does Kyrie’s earring look like?” And it spits it out. Very handy. (Yes, I do have to verify. it can be wrong very confidently. But it’s much easier to look for “feather” than to look for earring, which might not be called that at that particular point, say.)

But I know it’s more useful to a ton of other people.

I think it is being overestimated, particularly in its defense/war capacities, and that is causing the psy-ops.

Or maybe it’s not.

At any rate we shouldn’t let it be decided for us by allowing foreigners or bots, or foreign bots to stomp us into unreasoning fear.

Water and energy use? Well, those have known solutions. (Including nuclear.)

We should also, of course, try to curb unreasoning blue-sky uses.

The key though is unreasoning. Go back up there where I said AI is most useful for leveraging the competency of highly competent people.

The best we can do is create a lot of very competent people by teaching the new generations as thoroughly as we can.

Since that’s the same recommendation as for “merely surviving as a species” it’s a no brainer.

Ignore the psy-ops and move on, using your reason and abilities, and passing those on as well as you can.

*First, and OT, the next Clanker Song “Blood On Ice” has dropped. Again, not happy with the video, but I have ideas for improving it. (Likely easier when the antibiotic isn’t trying to kill me, yes?) Anyway, here’s the new song:

Note that it helps immensely if you like and comment on the videos. It tricks the algorithm into showing it to more people. And the comments can be just “I like this” or whatever. If you have no idea what this is all aoubt, the rest of it is here. Now for the real post. -SAH)

Some days ago I got — of all things — in an argument on libertarianism on X.

I said pure libertarianism is a utopian ideal that — because it is utopian — can never be achieved. Someone got very upset at me and told me that someone whose name I don’t know (or if I know, I don’t remember, because my mind is made of taffy right now) said that libertarianism is not utopian. So, I was wrong. Which I have to tell you is the most libertarian argument yet. Because libertarians are people of philosophy and often argue in screamed quotations.

So, am I abjuring libertarianism? Oh, please! I retain a high value for the philosophy. It is important for any number of reasons, but mostly because it stands in direct contradiction to most other philosophies of government. Even if it were completely insane, (it’s not) it would be desperately needed in today’s world.

First, let’s make it absolutely clear that EVERY political position, taken to its ideal is absolutely impossible. Yes, even monarchism at the twitter-monarchists view it, where the King is appointed by G-d and either very good or supposed to be a scourge the people deserve. In fact monarchy with rare intervals ends up like any given family business where the guy who takes over does so by nepotism and not competence: slowly grinding downfall, but taking an entire country along for the ride. And it’s peculiarly brittle around rapid change, be it social or technological.

In the same way I don’t need to outline the failure of communism to anyone. Marxism is a theory built on air, with no connection to real economics. (Any theory that misunderstands distribution as waste has serious issues.) It appeals to minds broken by envy, but anyone else can see what it does it cut off the economic signals of individual consumption from the producers, leaving people to decide what’s needed by fiat from above, from people who — by the nature of it — are misinformed or not informed at all. The result is a rapid devolution into “rule by a king” by any other name. And, stripped of upbringing meant to make them think they owe the people something, the ruler tends to rapidly fall into the “mad king” category. (Looks North-Korea, or for that matter Cuba-ward.) What it doesn’t do is become a utopian stateless society where everyone automagically gets what he/she needs.

Socialism is Communism on the installment plan, having surrendered the idea that they’ll eventually get to that magical state withering away and instead believing it’s possible to stay suspended in that place where everyone gets what he needs and everyone contributes what she can. Like communism, in its most functional form, it is an oligarchy, nepotistic and brittle in the face of any new technology. For its failure mode, see the sh*tshow of Europe these days. Or the way we were headed two years ago. Eventually the nepo oligarchy becomes an open kakistocracy that can stay in power only by brutal repression. Next verse, same as the first, welcome to the end stage of various dictatorships as the velvet glove comes off and the steel clad boot comes down.

And then there is us. Are we a libertarian country? Meh. Somewhat. It scares the pee out of the rest of the world, to the extent we are, actually.

What we are is the result of founders who had the foresight to say “Government should be as small as possible, and central government smaller than local government, and the individual should have the most power of all.” Did it work? Are humans involved?

As someone pointed out in some comment, we started betraying our own constitution when the ink was barely dry.

And yet– And yet, what remains and our absolute certainty that this is how things are SUPPOSED to work is enough to make us the powerhouse of civilization and prosperity for the world.

But is constitutionalism and an unwavering devotion to minarchism (not the i not o) libertarianism.

I don’t know. Do you?

Part of what we’ve run into is “who defines Libertarianism?” or if you prefer “The individualists are still arguing over it.”

As I first encountered Libertarianism, I’m no longer a libertarian. Why? Open borders. Open borders are absolutely an utopian idea, predicated on the idea that cultures somehow stopped existing, or that people won’t have greater loyalty to their cousins than to complete strangers. For a soft failure, look at the H1B visas and various companies being wholly taken over by foreign ethnic groups for whom nepotism is a POSITIVE value, much more important than competence. For the hard failure, the open borders under autopen and oh, Venezuelan gangs. (Though the Mexican gangs are enough to do for us, honestly.)

I hate to say this, but humans aren’t interchangeable, and even without a welfare state open borders would be dangerous. Because if you dilute the culture to the point that people don’t understand their neighbors social signals, the failure mode isn’t “we fall apart” it’s “multiple warring ethnic and cultural groups.”

What I don’t understand is how I came to forget that in the nineties, when I’d seen it among exchange students, with people clinging to their nationality, the next closest nationality, and vaguely related cultures after that. Except me, because I’m broken or something. BUT all the same. It’s a human thing that makes open borders suicidal.

And I’m not sure about legalized drugs. Look, I’m divided on this. Because the war on drugs has caused enough trouble. BUT on the other hand, there are foreign cartels who view pushing drugs everywhere, including on those too young to know better, as an excellent business opportunity. And a lot of the newest stuff are “take it once and destroy yourself” (Okay, it’s a Russian roulette, but). And also I saw the results of legalization in places like Portugal.

It’s hard to know what part is the drugs, and what part the reaction to the drugs, and what part well, fraud around, under and between all the drug dealing. For instance, how much of the mess in Portugal is just “Portugal.” And how much of the fact that legalizing pot destroyed Colorado is real? How much of it was JUST fraud masquerading under the new influx?

How much, in fact, of the havoc I’ve seen legalization wreak is the drugs, and how much of it is stuff like no enforcing laws against petty theft, camping in public spaces, homelessness, etc. etc. etc.?

I don’t know. Hence “I’m not sure” and not a hard coming-out against it. Because I don’t have all the data and can’t therefore decide. What I’m sure about is that legalization destroys neo-liberal states in which letting drugs eating your mind is proof you’re a victim and need to be given everything.

Other things: still sure you should be able to do whatever you want sexually, provided no force or coercion (or inability to consent) is involved, and you don’t do it on my front lawn and scare my cats.

Still think taxation is theft. (No, hear me out, how about a lottery to finance the few functions that are actually constitutional to the Federal government. Because we don’t need the rampant theft and grift going on at all levels of government. Less money would make it less attractive.)

Still sure “public education” is an oxymoron, and we would be better off with “charity schools.”

I still think the Libertarian Party as an entity is over its skis and has been for a long time. Their last chance at redemption was the election in 16 when they decided to nominate… a democrat.

I still think that the socialist libertarians are as L. Neil Smith put it “something smelly clinging to our shoes.” And to prove it, I’m going to quote Ayn Rand, because of course I am.

And I guess that makes me a libertarian, since I’m arguing in loud quotations. :D

On the serious side, I’m exactly what I’ve always been, the same person who wrote A Few Good Men. I believe in our Constitution. I believe the government should wear it as a girdle cinched tight enough that it can’t escape. I believe in the quotient of individual versus government the individual should now and always have primacy.

To my view that’s libertarian enough, without accruing the utopian and evangelistic view of open borders that requires libertarianism all over the WORLD. The world is not our concern. Let’s start here and make this a shiny city on the hill.

I am in truth an OWL — Older, Wiser Libertarian — who has learned some things sound great in the abstract but are in fact impossible in this our fallen world.

And in the end, I think that’s the greatest value of Libertarian, small government and individualistic philosophy. A grand implementation of it is at its complete best, absent small colonies away from Earth (eh) is utopian and impossible.

But just by existing, by being loud (and sometimes shouty in quotations (eh)), by keeping emphasizing that power always comes from the individual in ultimate instance, we provide much needed leavening to a world that is sure of the opposite, and in which the solution of all problems is assume to be “get a man” (Or these days often woman) “with a bigger stick.”

In that sense, I’m perfectly happy to be lumped in with the liberty lovers, the trouble makers, the goats refusing to be herded, the rebels who refuse to fall into line.

Because we’re the ones who keep humanity from rushing forward, as one…. and fall off the cliff.

Hey remember I said I wrote nine songs in the brief interval before the infection and antibiotic came back (appointment with specialist on Thursday. Everything crossed.) Well, I’ve been making videos and scheduling them for release, but doing things while I have a fever is … funny.

So this song was published today, and I didn’t remember. For those of you who read No Man’s Land, this is the song for the big Troz gathering in the huge cave.

Against the better (snort, giggle) angels of my nature I have not done a version of the besieged nomad, though my writer’s group has created six or seven verses. Maybe I’ll do it later. It’s funny. Also like Skip on hearing the original challenge-song, I get very embarrassed. For now, have Nursed On Ice. (Oh, yeah, and these jokers take it absolutely seriously. Baby is born, you have a clear icicle to at least touch to his lips. Weird people, Erradians, and that’s considering that Ellyans are already baseline bizarre.)

This video bothers me as I couldn’t get a unified art style. I’m dealing with it.

Coming up, already with videos, hopefully in order but probably not: Blood On Ice, A Night of Years, and Kitten.

And now, may I ask you to please reflect on winding up the slightly obsessive author and causing her to embark on a audio track project for the 900 page long book?

What lessons have we learned from this?

No, no. It’s not to do it again, harder! Face paw. You would think that, wouldn’t you? You’re all reprobates. It’s a good thing you’re cute and I like you.

And for Peter who asked for the order of the songs, here goes:

Space Admiral’s Son.

Seventeen.

New London, New London (is a hell of a town.)

The Prodigal

Royal Escape

Valhalla is for Heroes.

Thanks for the Boats. (Possibly my favorite when I’m in that kind of mood.)

Can I Get You to Look.

Strains of Earth

Betrayal

Defenestration

When Worlds Collide

So Different and Yet the Same

Brothers in Arms

I’ve Got to Bake

Further Notes on Ethnographic Collection

The Beast in the Snow

If I die Tonight

The Stone Speaks

Silence and Stone

A Birth At Midnight.

Morning Breeze and Sea

Looking for Home.

And the Marble Wept.

Nursed on ice

I have a post started on Libertarianism, of all things, and why I still am, mostly (small l) libertarian, even if I’ve moved away from some of the beliefs. (Like open borders.)

But I simply don’t have the energy to finish it today. I (think) I’m better, but it’s still like lifting a heavy boulder. And Marco Rubio isn’t writing posts for me, alas.

Remember today is the last day for the Based Book Sale, books at 99c or less!

I do promise to get back to work asap. Honestly, I suspect what’s beating me at this point is the actual antibiotic. I went through two rounds of this back in 2015 for the same complaint, and I remember being so prostrated I sometimes spent the day dozing. I’m doing better at lower altitude, but still not well.

Thank you for your patience. Normal posting will resume Thursday at latest.

The above is just a funny. And a way to say “Sorry I was so late getting my behind out of bed.” On the good side, I AM feeling better, so there’s that. And it amused me to put Marco Rubio in charge of you lot, virtually.
Like the poor man hasn’t suffered enough.

Speaking of suffering, of course today is not veterans day, but memorial day. This means we are remembering all those who gave their lives in service of this nation.

Was the nation sometimes in error? Well, have you seen some of the people we elect? Or, at least who occupy the oval office? However, there is virtue in those who died, doing their best for what seemed like the life of the nation.

And while on that, I am not anti-war. I am against recklessly wasting the nation’s sons (and some daughters.) However what is reckless and what is necessary doesn’t often become clear until after the fact. Sometimes a long time after the fact.

Everyone who lives, not just presidents, are prisoners of their own time and their own prejudices. This means sometimes something will look absolutely necessary to fight against, or a certain type of evil might be tolerated that costs many more lives (communism) because everyone believes the alternative (nuclear war) is worse. I have a strong suspicion Russia is and always was a paper tiger even when it was the Soviet Union. I believe that long-marchers in our own institutions made it appear otherwise, to keep the USSR alive. (And that was a boon for the state so many ways.) I also believe those who served and fought during the cold war were still admirable, and those who died should be honored. (I’m not even blaming presidents during that time. Okay, maybe FDR, but I blame him for so many things, that’s just one more. After all, they might get briefed at a certain level, but as the covidiocy taught us, they are also often WRONGLY briefed to manipulate them. So, I hold them harmless and will assume they were trying to protect Americans.)

I do disapprove of what I’ll call altruistic wars. (Somalia, really? Why?) The US is not a charity organization, and spending our sons’ lives in service of goals that have little to nothing to do with us is wanton and evil. Yes, I do realize a lot of (idiot) presidents thought they were winning hearts and minds. It was the same sort of grift that gave us USAid. Do I hold presidents harmless in such boondoggles? Well, no. Yes, a lot of them were brain damaged by Marxism. That’s no excuse. They’re functional adults and should know better.

Still I honor the men who died in such forays. Because theirs was not to know all the circumstances. Their oath was to serve and so they did to the last full measure. For that they deserve our honor and gratitude.

If you’re the praying kind, say a prayer for those who died in the service of the nation. If not take a minute and think of them, anyway. They deserve that much honor.

And let’s all of us keep a close eye on those who have the ability to order our young to war and raise a clamor when they abuse it.

America’s sons are made of too fine a stuff to waste in ridiculous and ill thought out charitable expeditions. But let’s hope also they’ll always be willing to serve. Because a nation whose young won’t defend her with their lives if needed is already dead. She just hasn’t fallen over.

The Based Book Sale is still going on — two more days — packed full of books for 99c or less.

C. CHANCY: Tell No Tales

Some nights it just doesn’t pay to rise from the grave….Corbin wants to uncover the truth behind her death at a demon’s hands. But her memories have been shattered by the grave, and even with footloose Sighted mechanic Devon Fortunato helping her search for answers, a restless ghost is up against the darkest spells and lies of the living. If they can’t unravel who sabotaged the Cunning Folk circle’s spellcast defenses, the child Corbin meant to protect will suffer a fate worse than death. Corbin’s notes hold clues, but the broken circle would rather die than admit the truth….

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: I’m The Beautiful But Evil Space Princess Who Rules A Galactic Empire But Really Wants To Leave People Ruthlessly Alone!: Volume 1

Book 1 of 3: I’m The Beautiful But Evil Space Princess Who Rules A Galactic Empire But Really Wants To Leave People Ruthlessly Alone!

Alice is the Imperial Princess Regnant of the Galactic Empire. At 22, she has been thrust into power after her father (the Emperor) and her two older brothers have all died in various ways. Her Imperial Chancellor, Lord Rupert, does everything he can to support her, but has somewhat different ideas about how the Empire should be run than did his late Emperor.

Alice has one major problem: She cannot be crowned Empress Regnant until she marries and produces an heir.

But Alice, being kept busy three days a week by interminable audiences with petitioners, and the rest of the week with what she terms “mostly busy work”, has no real way to meet young men — well, reasonably eligible young men, anyway, and of her own age — with whom she might eventually take up and form a household. And she chafes at the necessity of trying to rule, hands-on, an Empire so huge it cannot be truly ruled by any one person to begin with.

She just wants to leave people alone, as her father and his predecessors did for centuries.

Then, into her life walks the Crown Prince of a planet many, many parsecs away from the Capital Planet…and her life begins to take on a life of its own…

FROM JAY MAYNARD: Reflections in Crystal (The Crystal Therapy Chronicles Book 1)

Magic fixes people the world cannot touch.

Alex Sullivan isn’t crazy — just angry. Angry enough to get arrested. Angry enough to be given a strange choice: prison, or an experimental magical program at a private facility in rural Missouri.

They claim to fix broken people not with medicine or therapy, but with silence, service, and a skintight suit of latex.

Inside the suit, Alex is cut off from the world — unable to speak, eat, or even cry in the ordinary way. Inside the crystal, time flows differently. There, guided by someone who seems to know him better than he knows himself, Alex must face his deepest wounds… and either heal, or shatter.But this is no simple treatment. Alex finds himself on a journey into a hidden world where redemption is earned, the broken are made whole, and some choose never to leave the suit again.

Previously published as Foundational Laminate.

“One of the rare novels I hope becomes reality—a hard look at how to turn the antisocial into good neighbors.”

— Karl K. Gallagher, author of The Fall of the Censor and Torchship

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Light Up The Night.

Dane Crockford is tired. Tired of the green energy crapping out and leaving his wife Rose gasping for breath when their air conditioning dies, tired of trying to hide his use of his own solar panels from the nationalized electrical company, and tired of worrying about his daughter and son-in-law, trapped in an abusive indenture program to pay off their student loans. He’s not the only one, either. Everyone in his home town is in a similar situation, many of them with their children doing dangerous jobs without pay to offset crippling student debt. So when his grandson Toby accidentally discovers an energy generation method that isn’t wholly owned by the federal government, he jumps on the possibility of building something that works, in spite of and around the federal monopoly.

But what the monopoly doesn’t realize is that their grip on Dane, and on his home town, is far less secure than they think. When they disconnect his house from the power grid, they have nothing to hold over him, to force him to work for small rebates on his monthly bill. The utility has unleashed the power of a cranky old man with a rare skill, and they’ve got no idea that they’ve tossed the pebble that starts an avalanche.

“Holly Chism is one of the great, unappreciated authors of our generation. Her work reminds me a lot of Clifford Simak’s.” – Sarah A Hoyt, author of Darkship Thieves

C. CHANCY: Gateway to Fiction

Do the Research, Keep the Shiny! A writer’s guide. Want a good story? Choking on yet another sparkly cinematic production that has all the flash and explosions yet no real people in it? If you want stories done right, sometimes you’ve just got to do it yourself. But how? Roll up your sleeves, we’re going to cover it all. No preaching; no “but thou must follow steps X, Y, Z”. Just, here’s some ideas, and some examples, of how it can work. From getting over that first hump of pen to page, through getting ideas and characters from point A to point B, all the way to how to keep breathing when the whole world’s crumbling in. There are links. There are tropes. And there’s a sober explanation of why fanfic has always mattered. In your mind’s eye there’s a world no one else has seen. Here’s some tools. Worldbuild away!

CAROLINE FURLONG: Theophany

Ten years ago the Savients took over Niban, forcing the independent inhabitants into poverty and despair. Bass White saw the careless cruelty of the Savients kill his mother and his father. When a resistance cell is discovered in his city bloc, the Savients seek to make everyone pay.

With his wife Amie, Bass races into the caverns to escape the Savients’ brutal enforcers: the Atrasai. The couple barely make it to the limits of known territory outside their underground city, however, before the Atrasai catch up with them. It would take a miracle to save them…

…or a combat medic robot.

Join Bass and Amie in this sci-fi story of healing, hope, and wonder. After a decade of fear and pain, even a little light can bring out the best in man and machine. But will the best be enough to heal?

MARY CATELLI: The Princess Seeks Her Fortune.

In a land where ten thousand fairy tales come true, Alissandra knows she is in one when an encounter with a strange woman gives her magical gifts, and another gives her sisters a curse. And she knows that despite the prospects of enchantments, cursed dances, marvelous birds, and work as a scullery maid, it is wise of her to set out, and seek her fortune.

CEDAR SANDERSON: Possum Creek Massacre: A Paranormal Police Procedural (Witchward Book 2)

Detective Amaya Lombard sees the unseen—and pays for it with a chrome hand and a broken past. When a reclusive woman is found murdered in an abandoned Kentucky farmhouse, her body cursed to return to the scene, Amaya is pulled into Possum Creek’s shadows.

Ancient wards hum with rage. A heart has been ritually removed. And a band of young occultists is harvesting magic from the dying. With help from a no-nonsense local deputy who’s getting too close for comfort and an elderly hedge-witch named Merlin, Amaya must unravel a web of blood magic before the curse claims her too.

TIMOTHY WITCHAZEL: The Saving of the City: A poem in Alliterative Verse

Sing now the song Of the city besieged
And our salvation unlooked for On the verge of their victory.
The Sultan of the Sandlands Sent forth a sorcerer
A master of magics Mighty and malign
And loosed his legions To lay our walls low.

From author and award winning poet comes a fantasy retelling of the story of the Battle of Vienna in 1683, where Polish winged hussars rode to the rescue of the besieged city and won the day with the largest cavalry charge in history.

TIMOTHY WITCHAZEL: Noah and the Great Flood: A Poem in Alliterative Verse

From author and poet Timothy V. Witchazel comes a retelling of the story of Noah and the Ark in the alliterative verse, the style of poetry used in Beowulf, Piers Plowman, and other Anglo-Saxon works.

FROM TIMOTHY WITCHAZEL: Joshua and the Battle of Jericho: A Poem in Alliterative Verse

From author and poet Timothy V. Witchazel comes the story of Joshua and the Battle of Jericho in alliterative verse. Tracing the story of the Israelites from the parting of the Red Sea to the fall of the walls of Jericho, the story is retold in the style of Beowulf, Piers Plowman, and other Anglo-Saxon poems.

AND OF COURSE

SARAH A. HOYT: No Man’s Land vol.1, No Man’s Land vol. 2, No Man’s Land vol 3.

Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.

On a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong. Catastrophically wrong.

Now technology indistinguishable from magic courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson, Envoy of the Star Empire—Skip to his friends— has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it all.

Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies, Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total destruction.

Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.

SARAH HOYT: Draw One In The Dark

Deep in the Colorado Rockies, Kyrie Smith has mastered the art of keeping secrets: like how she turns into a panther at will, or how she’s trying to solve a string of shifter murders while serving up the daily special. But she’s not the only one with something to hide.

Take her coworker Tom Ormson—your typical guy next door, if your typical guy could transform into a dragon and might have accidentally killed someone. Then there’s the lion-shifting cop investigating the murders, a guilt-ridden father, and a trio of dragon shifters hunting for something called the Pearl of Heaven.

As if navigating a world of supernatural intrigue wasn’t complicated enough, Tom’s falling for Kyrie, discovering powers that shouldn’t exist, and learning that trust is a two-way street paved with decades of secrets. In Goldport, Colorado, where the coffee’s always hot and the shifters are always watching, solving a murder might be the easiest part of Kyrie’s day.

Welcome to small-town life where everyone has something to hide—and some of those secrets have scales, claws, and a tendency to roar.

SARAH A. HOYT: Done with Mirrors.

From Prometheus Award winner Sarah A. Hoyt comes a dazzling collection that showcases why her work has appeared in Analog, Asimov’s, and Weird Tales—and why readers can’t get enough.

Magic-soaked noir in 1920s Denver. Mirror-hopping time lords fleeing across infinite universes. Survival in John Ringo’s zombie apocalypse. Murder and mystery in the world of Darkships and Rhodes. Each story in this collection pulls you into a different world—and refuses to let go.

Previously published in acclaimed anthologies from Baen and Chris Kennedy Publishing, these nine tales span Hoyt’s most beloved universes alongside standalone adventures. Whether she’s writing in Ringo’s Black Tide Rising series, exploring her own Darkships and Rhodes worlds, or crafting speculative noir that defies categorization, Hoyt delivers the vivid storytelling and emotional resonance that has earned her a devoted following.

From rain-slicked streets where magic and murder collide to the far reaches of space-time itself, Done With Mirrors demonstrates the genre-hopping brilliance of one of speculative fiction’s most versatile voices.

Nine stories. Nine worlds. One unforgettable collection.

Contains the short stories: Honey Fall; Scrubbing Clean; Last Chance; Great Reckoning in a Small Room; Horse’s Heart; Do No Harm; Dead End Rhodes; Knights of Time; Done with Mirrors.

With an introduction by Holly Chism.

SARAH A. HOYT WRITING AS SARAH D’ALMEIDA: Death of a Musketeer

Book 1 of 5: The Musketeers Mysteries

The musketeers never expected to stumble upon her body—a beautiful woman bearing an uncanny resemblance to Queen Anne of France herself, lying lifeless in the shadows of Paris.

D’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis swear a solemn oath to uncover the truth behind this mysterious death. But their quest for justice quickly spirals into something far more treacherous than they imagined. What begins as a murder investigation soon reveals layers of intrigue and conspiracy reaching into the highest echelons of French society.

As the four friends follow a trail of clues through duels and deceptions, they find themselves squarely in the crosshairs of their old nemesis, Cardinal Richelieu, whose shadowy hand seems to guide events from behind the curtain. Each revelation brings them closer to King Louis XIII himself—and to dark secrets some would kill to protect.

With their loyalties tested and their faith in humanity shaken, the musketeers must decide how far they’re willing to go for truth when the price of discovery might be their very lives. Some mysteries, once unveiled, can never be forgotten.