I was going to post this yesterday, and– So life has been semi-weird. Then I was going to post this today and– Well, today is easily explainable. I had to take the face that launched a thousand purrs, and her brother,(now renamed Indiana (Indy for short) for his tendency to go on adventures, explore odd places and come back very happy and bearing odd treasures. (He needs a hat.) ) to the vet for their first appointment. They’re healthy and sassy and we thought the nurse wasn’t going to give them back, because she kept kissing them…

Anyway, but then we had to book boarding for liberty con for the two older cats, and we had to stop at three stores to get stuff we’ve been putting off, and– so, oh, hi.

And on the way here, I took a detour through my discord group, where we were talking of motherhood, and I remembered how many years I spent paralyzed I was doing it all wrong, or that I’d somehow taken the wrong path.

Yes, I know any number of you are going to say “it’s not worth worrying about what you can’t change.” Wise words, but they mean plain nothing for that annoying voice at the back of the head that says “if only.”

“If only we’d gotten married earlier. If I’d stayed here and not given up the offered scholarship for tech field. If– If– If– If–.”

I kept obsessing I was on the wrong path too. To be fair, it took me 13 years to break into print with the half a cent a word short story. A good three years from there to crawl to pro. Everyone else I knew, including members of my writers’ group, were starting and getting published in three years.

In my head this was because I was totally unsuited to being a writer, and who the heck even tried to do this for a living. Also, third language and dyslexic.

Well, with the years of experience, the language had less — way less — to do with it than a weird sense of story. (Portugal has completely different tempo and beats for story. And though I read a lot of translated stories, something tot he internalized culture still made me too slow, and … odd until I acculturated. Which, yeah, took about a dozen years. But I couldn’t see that, so I thought it was the language.)

I was sure I was, to us Pratchett’s phrase, down the wrong leg of the pants of time, and headed into even more wrongness.

How long did I spend on this? Decades. I was in my mid forties when I started getting over it.

Now, I’m not going to say I have no regrets. If Dan and I had married sooner, we might have a couple more kids. And he might not have had some issues in college. And if we’d understood things better, we’d not have lost money in our first house.

But mostly the regrets we have now are of the “We’d have gotten where we are faster.”

Am I meant to be what and who I am? I don’t know. It feels like I am. I don’t know when that changed, though, and it might be survivor bias. I.e. nothing else worked, this works, well, this must be for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

Am I still totally unsuited to be a fiction writer here and now? Well, yes. For one I’m dyslexic and it’s my third language. For another I tend to have no patience with mass media or the fad of the moment. My time waster is politics, followed by economics. Okay, there’s also improbable history (like, the big rocks were put there by aliens) but that’s more when I’m either depressed or just being silly. And even when doing deep dives, I remain aware of how silly it is. Oh, also, I really need security to function well, which over the course of my career was maybe five minutes one of those days there.

And?

And nothing. I’m a writer. And it feels like it’s what I was meant to be, crazy as it is. And it’s not just me, you know? The world is full of dyslexic professional writers, ADHD chess players, asthmatic runners, etc. Sometimes I think that the Author of this novel likes playing against strengths.

It just is what I is. What I am supposed to be.

Again, I have no clue when I came to this conclusion. The last time I looked for a job was…. five years ago. Or rather I didn’t look. I opened my word processor and tried to craft a resume, and realized I didn’t have one. the last job had been 25 years ago. I no longer remembered my languages, so getting another translating job was stupid. And…. well, what do I have to show anyone?

But then I also couldn’t think what job I wanted to do. Not really. “I just want to do something where I can’t be fired out of the blue for reasons not in my control” wasn’t a thing. For one, you know, I’ve looked at husband’s career. We actually tended to find ourselves unemployed at the same time. For another, I still wanted to tell stories.

I mean, I did consider just selling crafts (still considering, but more because sometimes I need to do things that aren’t words, and if it pays so much the better. I’m highly money motivated.) and writing for a hobby. But that’s about it. Then the indie writing started paying. (Yes, I know. I need to do a lot more of it. Bear with me.)

And I keep coming back to two things: the first time I met Glenn Reynolds, he came to Liberty con, and we were at a Baen party together, as part of a group, oh, 14 years ago or so. And someone asked him how he’d become THE Instapundit. And he said “Like most major things in my life, more or less by accident.”

Which gave me a great feeling of relief, because that’s pretty much me. I mean, 20 years ago, the last time I talked to my best friend from childhood (she’s alive, so far as I know. Or was three years ago when she crossed paths with mom. We’ve just lost touch and not managed to find it again. She married a Frenchman. Things happened. Some of them strange) and she said “Of all of us you’re the only one who is where she said she was going to go and doing exactly what she always wanted to do.”

And that’s true…. from 100 feet up. I was in Denver, and I was a professional writer. But the story was in the details. (Including the fact that me at eight had no clue about different cultures, or immigration, let alone effectively switching out your native language.)

I mean, I navigate in life by aiming myself in a general direction and running, and the route gets pretty interesting as I careen pinball-like in various directions, pushed by things.

Sure, I set out to write science fiction. Space opera to be exact. And by gum, my 20th novel was indeed that. And the most successful thing I’ve written to date. But on the way was all this other stuff that sort of happened by accident and accreted into a career.

And then there is this blog, which feels like a major part of my calling, but was supposed to be, like my newsletter is, just a cute thing to keep in touch with the fans of my fiction, and post cute cat pictures.

Then…. well, I got in my way, and here we are.

Exactly where I’m supposed to be? Or in the wrong place, doing it all wrong?

It feels like in the only place I can be, doing things the only way I could.

Could there be better? Well, this brings to mind the second thing, in Terry Pratchett’s Lords and Ladies, two successful older middle age people, a wizard and a witch, who had been sweet on each other when young but broken up for not very well defined reasons, come together again, and are talking about it. And it’s obvious he has regrets and he asks if maybe in another world, they got married, and now have children and grandchildren.

And she says, “Ah, yes, but you forget when our house burned down in the night, and we all died. Us, and all our seven children.”

Because you know, sure, things could be better, but they could be massively worse, too.

And for our country as well.

As they are right now, for what they are right now?

We are alive and doing what we can in the only way we can do it and in the place we’re in.

Keep doing that. Sure. It might all turn to dust and destruction tomorrow through your actions or not. I mean, there are no guarantees.

You are required to do the best you can where you are, that’s all. At least if you care about what you do and the world in general.

You are not required to be perfect.

Sometimes the fairy godmother will pick you up and put you in a place you could never have imagined, but to which you are perfectly suited. And sometimes all your efforts will be for nothing and everything you do will come to dross. And then the very strange fairy godmother….

I know it’s trite to say that when a door closes a window opens, but that’s literally been my experience, although often it’s the opposite, as in my inimitable way, I’m likely to find the window first, only know about it, and have been coming and in out through it for ten years, completely unaware that that giant wooden rectangle on the wall actually opens to allow people through.

I’ve never seen a complete fail with no alternative. And an alternative that often leads to people being more fulfilled in their new place.

I have no explanation for it, except we are in a novel, and well…. you’re not required to accept that, so call it the workings of a chaotic system.

The only people who fail forever are those who decide they are doing so, and thereafter close every door that tries to open then return to pumping arms and legs on the floor and screaming they never should have failed.

So, here we are. Maybe not in the best of all possible worlds, but where we have to be. In the way we have to be.

Now, sure, we want it better.

Shoulder to the wheel. Keep pushing.

This is Holly reporting in on our intrepid leader.* Sarah has been, together with her long suffering husband, kidnapped by the kittens to act as hands, drivers, payers of vet bills, for well-kitten appointments.

Or at least only slightly troublesome kitten appointment. Or something like that. The amount of trouble depends on if Sweet Helen is in charge of the matter or if her brother is.

Sarah will be back, by and by, with kittens. Please don’t make too much of a mess of the blog: wordpress kind of hates me and I don’t want to have to try to fix things.

*She gave instructions, I followed, is not a leader determined by if she has followers?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that while the Left has rats in their heads, (Marxist rats, at that. No rat that could survive in the real world, even), they come up with pretty catchy phrasing.

Not that they use the phrases right, of course. I mean, we could tattoo “I don’t think this word means what you think it means” on their foreheads (backwards, so they could read it in the mirror) since that problem is pretty much constant. Because as usual they mistake form and function, container and contents, and compelled speech for truth.

Their idea of a truth bomb is running around screaming “Women are paid less than men” and cancel you if you point out that a) it’s a lie, if you compare apples to apples. (Women actually make more than men.) b) the fact they’ve screamed it a million times doesn’t make it any more correct than it was ten years ago c) It’s a lie and we’re tired of hearing it.

Then they accuse you of being afraid of the truth, of trying to preserve your white male privilege (even if you’re not male or while) and repeat it some more. The fact that we tell them to pound sand is viewed as proof of how true it is.

See, rats.

But without rats in one’s heads truth bombs are inherently very powerful things.

So, what is a truth bomb, when not a leftist lie-screed masquerading as such?

Well… It starts with being true. But being true by itself doesn’t give it that power. For instance, leftists truthfully have rats in their heads. Marxist rats running around on little cultish treadmills. But since Marxist teaching has been so universal for almost a hundred years, so do you. And I. Though I keep putting out glue traps for them. So, most people don’t know that leftists, truthfully, have rats in their heads. And if they do they, like me, are beyond caring, and just say it, like that, out loud.

Also, for instance, it’s true that Havey is a very fuzzy and adorable cat. But my saying it has no power, unless you’re a cat lover, in which case you go “Aw” which is not an amazing power.

So clearly for a truth to act like a bomb you need something more.

So, truth bombs, as far as I can tell are truths that everyone can see, but everyone is afraid to say out loud for whatever reason.

And when uttered out loud, even in veiled form, it has a disproportionate power because the people who hear it feel liberated and also relieved. It’s a combination of “Oh, thank heavens, I’m not crazy.” And “Preach it sister/brother of mine, say it loud.”

Even veiled, truth bombs have the power to sweep the nation. Look at Let’s Go Brandon. The incident combined people’s knowledge the media lied to them and the truth that everyone hates the unelected puppet installed over us. Let’s Go Brandon went viral overnight.

Admittedly what propelled Donald Trump to his win in 2016, despite all his mistakes in campaigning (gleefully highlighted by everyone) was truth bombs: America can be great again and is being held up by the leadership. And: real nations have borders.

Against this, all the left could pose was the weak sauce of “jobs are never coming back, but we’ll give you so much welfare, peasants” and “racist.”

Those weren’t enough, because we’d heard them a lot, and we knew PLAINLY they weren’t true. Because, well, obviously the truth is that we see everyday a nation being kept in shackles by sh*tty leadership and the woke infection. We are capable of so much, and we all know that, even from our friends’ groups — even those who have semi-helpless friends — but between fantastical (in the sense they should apply only in a fantasy world) environmental regulations and stupid “sensitivity” to other’s potential sadness or humiliation (I am for humiliating people who steal, yes) we are letting the bad elements run insane, and holding back the productive, the sane, the law-abiding.

And we know d*mn well we’re not racists. Heck, in public places, weddings, etc, I keep running into groups of Americans that would give Hitler nightmares. Sure, in some places, and some people — mostly hard left — are still trying to keep their groups “pristine race x” but the rest of us are gleefully making friends, mating and adopting (if only the states let this happen more often) across color lines and feature lines and hardly noticing.

No one cares.

And if they stopped making us fill little “race” lines in forms for everything, we’d not even know. There might be the occasional glee when getting a 23 and me report “Hey, this says I’m 1/32nd Pacific Islander. I wonder where that comes from!” but that’s it.

Also, the people pouring over the border are every race known to man. The stereotypical Mexican family portrayed by the left isn’t even close to representative these days. There are Africans, South Americans, Asians (about 50% in some areas) and even people of pallor, a lot of them from Eastern Europe. Being racist against that kind of genetic soup would imply that we are racist against all non-Eskimo lefthanders with a club foot. And even then.

No, Americans knew the reason they want us to have borders is that we’re being invaded. The race of the invaders doesn’t matter, but culture does. And culture is very hard to shed. And it’s even harder to assimilate into American culture when our culture is being riven by streams of people with very different cultures (who don’t even agree with each other, btw.)

The left are culture denialists. Which is kind of bizarre. they think that culture doesn’t exist and it’s all genetically determined (Nazi “scientists” have entered the chat.) So if we oppose the invasion of people who will try to drink from the toilet because they’ve never seen one, and think it’s a water fountain (yes, that was what was behind that incident. Now you know.) or who can’t read or speak our language, or read any language, because the language they learned has no written form, or who have … loose ideas of private property, or who consider everyone beyond their tribal group (and a tribal group that in some cases is not much more than immediate family) as non-human and prey; or who are wholly wedded to not exactly legal clans and tribes and allegiances (I’m looking at you South America) at more or less perpetual war with each other, the left calls us racists. To them all behavior, even language is genetically determined. (This is built in in school assignments where they ask your kids to describe their culture when they mean their ancestry. As a note, pushing back on that has hilarious results, since the leftist-indoctrinated teachers can’t process what you’re saying and end up metaphorically speaking dropping to the floor, flailing arms and legs and demanding their binky that you respect their authoritah.)

But in fact assimilation is possible and you can change your language. I’m writing this in my third language. I will never lose my accent, mostly because it would take months of work with a speech specialist and I don’t have the money or time (though the ability to dictate in standard programs might make it worth) but I can function in the language just fine, thank you. (And if you immigrate before some ill defined boundary around 17 or 18, you do lose your accent. Interestingly, the left is sure that the fact that I — or Melania Trump — have an accent means some kind of mental retardation. This means the cosmopolitans…. aren’t.)

Assimilation is just difficult, takes a long time, and is best done in isolation from your original community. None of which can be done while the world is pouring over our border.

And the invasion comes with its own hatreds. Which means Americans are not racist, but a lot of the newcomers are. If you want to see race wars, stand by and oprima 2. Also and more visibly our rather generous safety net is being used almost exclusively by the invaders. Social services, schools, hospitals are all straining under looking after the newly arrived indigent who have neither the means nor the cultural capacity to be productive members of society.

So when Trump said, “You’re not a racist, you have a right not to be invaded” the truth bomb blew up in the minds of everyone who felt that if we were going to have welfare — and some of us do think we shouldn’t — it should go to people born and raised here, and that our schools shouldn’t be trying to teach — badly — in five different languages, and that old hatreds shouldn’t be replayed on our land.

And that plus “you can be great, if the government gets out of your way” wafted him to victory. A victory for which the left was completely unprepared because their cult prevents their seeing the truth.

Truths that everyone can see but not say have been revealed again and again since then. Off the top of my head and missing a lot, I’m sure:

• This country is indeed being held back by its government and the Deep State will KEEL you before losing their jobs.

• The state wants to import a new citizenry. And they don’t like you.
  
• Destroying Trump — because they think he has Svengali like powers — is their number one priority, even as everything falls apart.
  
• They either have no clue how anything works, or gleefully want to destroy economy and society. And probably “yes”.
  
• They have some weird fetish with wanting you and your kids to eat all the bugs.
  
• They can steal elections with impunity and there is not even a shred of credibility or security to our elections.
  
• Our courts are useless against a color revolution.
  
• They have a weird fascination with sexual fetishes, and a need to parade them before our eyes at every level of power and control.

Right now, the strongest repressed truths which everyone knows, but which will destroy you if said or written, in most circumstances; the truths that even a lot of “right wing” (which sadly is now anything to the right of Lenin) sites suppress because they’re either afraid of being cancelled or because they don’t want to “sound crazy”.

• The 2020 election was stolen. We all saw it happen. The bizarre stoppage of counting and suddenly it’s all Biden. The idea that someone like Biden had 80 million votes. The fact that most of us who live/d in vote-by-mail states call it vote by fraud. The fact that a lot of states changed to vote by fraud for the occasion. A lot of us have friends who either directly were or have friends who were among the ejected poll watchers. And we know that what we saw, after the Biden Potemkin campaign was impossible. We also can tell from the way all talk of the election being stolen has been suppressed and from the bizarre inauguration under guard, behind barbed wire, that not only was the election stolen, but they know it too.
  Opinion is more divided on whether 2022 was also stolen (Spoiler, it was) but we are sure that our election integrity is such that it’s almost impossible to tell what is legitimate any more.
  
• The Covidiocy was in fact idiocy, engineered from the top, partly to steal the elections, but in part because the so called “elite” are terrified of us, and were afraid we’d legitimately revolt. (They don’t understand this country. Americans don’t revolt easily and when they do, you’ll know it. Late and thorough is practically our motto.) And they wanted to install a new-normal in which we all obeyed them like automatons. The vaccine might very well have been intended as a mass contraceptive. (It hasn’t worked superwell, because “chinese science.” And some of them might also have hoped it would reduce population. (Again, I think they wanted that, it’s just their science is made of Chinesium.)
  
• We are being invaded and need to stop it right now and deport all the “not the best” who’ve been coming over from every sh*thole in the globe. Because a nation without borders isn’t a nation.

Now the interesting thing about the elections coming up is that each of the main truth bombs is being spoken only by a “eye catching candidate.”

Well, Trump speaks two, but he has serious issues with admitting the covidiocy was stupid. And while he wasn’t the one who locked us down, he also didn’t stop the governors and mayors from going crazy cakes. Yes, in a way it was admirable. He was respecting local authority. But– all the same, it is held against him, and the fact that he can’t admit it’s true will hurt him with the public. How far, who knows?

DeSantis cannot admit that the 2020 election was stolen. Heaven knows why. He thinks it’s a stick to hit Trump with. I think it will hurt him majorly. Running without admitting there’s something wrong with the elections brings the two way too close.

And yep RFA Jr. is the only one saying the entire Covidiocy was wrong and the vaccines for it are worse than the disease. Yes, sure, DeSantis has made noises in that direction, but not loud enough. Of course, he’s neither admitting election theft nor that open borders are daft. (Also, according to a friend, he has a voice that will make most sane people want to stop it. Possibly with a mallet. Don’t know. Don’t know if it matters that much to anyone not music oriented.)

There is an outside chance that the truth about the entire Covidiocy is THE MOST SALIENT suppressed truth in people’s heads right now. (Though fast getting crowded by the border. As the fall out of both reveals itself more and more.) In which case RFK Jr. will have the advantage.

But each of those truth bombs are powerful in the way truth bombs are. By hitting people’s resentment at being silenced, and at having to lie even to themselves, they release very powerful emotions and a sense of righteousness, which, fully unleashed, can transform the face of the world in a relatively short time.

And they will be unleashed. They have to, because the longer it takes for them to be unleashed, the more power they gain.

At this point, we’re living IN a powder keg. The question is: who will dare speak the truth to us?

I would like to talk about finding your place in the world, loving it, fitting in and being ousted by it by politics, and political insanity and resentment.

I do this at the risk of being told to cry you a river, and in full understanding that at least I can still earn a living. It could, and for a lot of people it is, worse. You wouldn’t be wrong. Except…

Except that the left is a deranged cult, affirming things on fiat that have no contact with reality and demanding more and more that everyone agree with them, or be ousted, and it is part of what is contributing to a malaise of the soul for a lot of those of us already affected. But more importantly, it will come for you. All of you.

It affected the artsy and creative and academic communities first, but it’s hitting medicine, and engineering, and retail, and food service and honestly? everywhere now. And you need to know, you need to be prepared, you need to know what is headed for you and how you can jump or perhaps insulate yourself and your livelihood from them.

First the trauma.

It’s probably not news to anyone who reads this blog that the black dog has been very very bad. But it’s more than the black dog, it’s a malaise, an inability to pull up and deal with life. It’s not just writing not happening, it’s bookcases still taking up half the garage, not assembled. It’s my bedside table needing a coat of paint, it’s I haven’t called the handyman to deal with the leaking window, it’s–

Now part of this is physical. Don’t know much about it, yet, but tests are scheduled. The other part–

I was trying to reason my way out of it, because that’s what I do, right? And my reasoning goes something like this: Why am I so depressed? Yeah, we lost my father in law. It was a punch to the gut, but it was expected. And there is some trouble on the horizon, with a half dozen things, but they’re not as dire as they could be, and if they turn dire, we can deal with it. There’s trouble with the country, but man we’ve seen it coming since 2020. And —

And then I was watching a movie — I don’t remember what, just that one scene, because I don’t really watch movies or TV, I look up from the computer at whatever Dan is watching, and catch scenes –where the main female character falls in with a group of artisans and you can see her fitting in for the first time.

And… I remember that. It was a great part of my falling in love with America. There’s room for creatives here. There’s entire communities. If you feel a strong need to make things even if you’re a little strange, there’s space for you. And you fit in, and it increases everyone’s output. I think it’s part of the reason that the future comes from America.

Now, I’ve never considered myself an artist, but I’ve always considered myself an artisan. I might have been wrong on the artist thing. Watching it in the kids, and DIL and DIL in training, I might be an artist. It’s not the need to write as such, that defines it, it’s the sudden “Look, yes, I have to make a lampshade entirely out of crush eggshells! My brain won’t leave me alone till I do.”

In the US there are entire groups, and communities — we’ve lived in an entire small mountain town like that, and hung out in a part of downtown Colorado Springs where such people gather — dedicated to those like us. We don’t quite fit in, you know. We’re the Odds own Odds and being around our kind “feeds” us in some way.

The happiest years of my life I had such groups.

I do not have such a group now, though if the medical stuff isn’t as scary as it sounds, and things slow down just a bit (Did we really subscribe to the catastrophe of the month club?) I’ll start one. I have the beginnings of the making of one.

But things I used to love to do, like take art classes, or join craft groups are closed to me now for the same reason a lot of you have lost your D & D groups or your favorite little cafe. Because most places like that have gone crazy woke, and you can’t, you just can’t.

Even if they don’t make out who you really are, you’re surrounded by people eternally wishing death on those like you. It wears on the soul. Over time it drains you and makes it impossible to work.

So, instead you cut yourself off from that fun group, that cute little coffee shop, that bookstore you used to hangout at, that egg-shell-craft group that had such great ideas. And you feel a little less energy.

In the same way a lot of us had to leave our neighborhood or even our state behind, and if we loved it, if we were connected to it, it was like losing a chunk of our soul.

I know refugees of lefty progroms who used to work in the arts, in academia, in music, in theater, and yes, in writing and crafts.

We feel cut off, dislocated, exiled in the middle of strangers who aren’t like us, because even in the new places, those occupations and interests are likely to be left.

And if you’re saying “But there’s bound to be people like you”! Well, of course there are. And we’re re-establishing connections and networks, most of them on line, and eventually we’ll reconquer, but probably NOT in my life time.

And it’s not death or starvation, but it does suck. It sucks.

Creatives cut off from “their” circles die a little. And rebuilding takes time.

And this is coming for you. All of you. The left demands loyalty tests and vocal endorsement of their insanity. And if you don’t follow along they’ll cut you off from the places and things you love, from the kith and kin of the heart.

So… prepare now. Build alternative networks. Have plans b and c and d and e and f and while you’re at it g too.

And make friends and connections that will be your kith and kin and keep your spirit alive.

Because it might all boil over tomorrow, or it might be years and years in the desert.

But in either case the past isn’t coming back. And you are not secure in your niche, no matter how much you love it, no matter how much you think you are.

Hear the voice of the exiles: prepare your path of retreat, and your way back to kith and kin.

Be not afraid, but look before you fall, so the fall doesn’t kill you.

Go build.

Book promo

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

FROM CAROLINE FURLONG: Contact: Angeles

While removing a prototype sensor from the prow of her new Alliance battleship, the Ausa, Captain Elizabeth Goodwin and her crew encounter a setback when one of the engineers sent to remove and stow the device is injured in an accident. Before the other engineer can help the man, the two are surrounded by amoeboid creatures which seem immune to the effects of vacuum.

Thought to be hallucinations experienced by early spacers who had been alone in deep space too long, these creatures – known as “angel fish” – startle the crew by their sudden appearance. Despite her misgivings, Goodwin allows three of the aliens to be taken aboard for study. But less than an hour after the aliens have been brought on the ship, one of Goodwin’s men is killed and another is seriously wounded.

Her search for both the murderer and the escaped “angels” soon leads to a disturbing revelation. Eventually, Goodwin must decide which threat is greater: an old enemy of the Alliance, or the fabled “angels” encountered by the first explorers from Terra.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Lion of God

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.

FROM KAREN MYERS: The Ways of Winter – A Virginian in Elfland

Book 2 of The Hounds of Annwn

TRAPPED BEHIND ENEMY LINES, CAN HE FIND THE STRENGTH TO DEFEND ALL THAT HE VALUES MOST, OR EVEN JUST TO SURVIVE?

It’s the dead of winter and George Talbot Traherne, the new human huntsman for the Wild Hunt, is in trouble. The damage in Gwyn ap Nudd’s domain reveals the deadly powers of a dangerous foe who has mastered an unstoppable weapon and threatens the fae dominions in both the new and the old worlds.

Secure in his unbreachable stronghold, the enemy holds hostages and has no compunction about using them in deadly experiments with newly discovered way-technology. Only George has a chance to reach him in time to prevent the loss of thousands of lives, even if it costs him everything.

Welcome to the portrait of a paladin in-the-making, Can he carry out a rescue without the deaths of all involved? Will his patron, the antlered god Cernunnos, help him, or just write him off as a dead loss? He has a family to protect and a world to save, and little time to do it in.

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 LEIGH KIMMEL: Grandmaster’s Gambit

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

FROM HOLLY CHISM: The Last Pendragon

“The last thing I expected when I went to grieve in the mountains was to get chased by werewolves, kidnapped by a dragon, or meet a legend. But that was exactly what happened.”–Sara Hawke

Sara Hawke, a highly-educated former PhD candidate in Linguistics, is plunged into a situation that strains her skepticism: first she meets a pack of werewolves while camping on the night of the full moon, then she’s rescued by a man the werewolves seemed to fear. Her rescuer then decides that she’ll be good company until he decides to let her go. Then he tells her that she has the potential to be a sorceress, and offers to teach her.

Along the way, she learns that legends aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be, and are occasionally more than they seem…

FROM PAM UPHOFF: Aslanov

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

Twenty years before the Fall . . .

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

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

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: Preternaturally Familiar

Where is home for a Hunter?

Uneasy rests the head upon which rests the leadership of the River County Hunter clan. Arthur Saldovado’s older brother grows distant and untrusting. Arthur must balance his duty to the senior Hunter with protecting the shadow mage Hunter in Shadows and preventing strife within the clan. Arthur’s adopted daughter, Lelia Lestrang, watches and worries. That is, when she’s not trying hard to keep from ordering her children to marry (she wants grandchildren!) and sighing mightily when her much loved husband leaves his clothes lying in front of the laundry hamper yet again.

Then a sorceress discovers the remains of a gate between the worlds, cast with blood-path magic.

Where can an out-cast Hunter find shelter, save for the grave?

“I wish something would happen and clear the air!” When the storm breaks, Lelia, André, their Familiars, and their family pull together to fight a battle Lelia though had ended fifty years before.

The end of an era? Or the start of something Preternaturally Familiar?

BY CHARLES CLOWKEY, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: The Swordsman of Sarvon

Teenaged author Charles Cloukey did not lack for ambition when he wrote The Swordsman of Sarvon. It combines Edgar Rice Burroughs-style planetary romance with an anachronistic planetary culture (they have airplanes, but never discovered gunpowder) with an espionage technothriller about averting a world war between Europe, Asia and North America; with the secret of atomic energy, and its potential to annihilate all of civilization, as one of the MacGuffins in play. And he did all this in 1931, sixteen years before the birth of Tom Clancy, eleven years before the Manhattan Project began, more than ten years before the US entered WWII, and at least six years before the beginning of WWII as a whole.

FROM M. C. A. HOGARTH: To the Court of Love: A Peltedverse Collection in the Fallowtide Period

Sediryl Galare’s first official function as the formally invested heir to the Eldritch Empire is to open the summer court, on Escutcheon and on the world of Chalice. But behind every big event are a myriad of stories—some smaller in scope, and some enormous in implication. Join the Eldritch and their allies in this Fallowtide collection for a glimpse into those everyday stories. Who are the musicians of Ontine? What happened to the nobles of Asaniefa who didn’t care to fight the Empress? Will Jeasa and Haladir ever come to an accommodation? And how are the social changes sweeping the world affecting those who wish they hadn’t?

This reader-commissioned collection includes stories written by the author at reader request. Come home to the Alliance with seven tales of hope, renewal, romance, and change.

FROM CEDAR SANDERSON: Crow Moon: A Collection of Fantastic Tales

Eight fantastic tales of swords, sorcery, love and justice.

The honeymoon is over…. before it even began. Nico and Emie face the biggest decision of their lives, and hope that it won’t kill them.

Cecelia’s dowry is a worthless field, and a friendship begun in a macabre deal.

Soleh fights her way out of a cruel marriage and swears vengeance by the lost gods of a dead clan. She rides with the darkest of companions at her side.

In a breath of air on an unmasked face, the worth of a life is laid bare.

Amaya Lombard faces her past, risking her future, in the very place where her magic was stripped from her blood and bone.

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: FETCH

Years ago, I came across someone a little older than my kids who refused to read Heinlein juveniles because “they’re dated.”

Uh… note this was someone in his thirties. There might be some legitimate claim that the language, being dated, would be difficult for new readers, but even that, surely not with a mere fifty years difference.

Meanwhile my kids grew up reading Heinlein juveniles, and Enid Blyton books most of them taking place just before or during WWII in an England that no longer exists, and it never occurred to them that it was wrong in some way.

Note this is not arguing there isn’t a reason for “updated” Heinlein juveniles — not updating the books but writing something like. Jeff Greason and I had talked about them, oh, five years ago, but my life has been in a black hole since. If I can get myself healthy and disciplined, and I’m not too old by then, I’d love to try it because — but that’s because what the juveniles accomplished in terms of getting kids interested in current day space science and exploration might not work too well when the science in the books is outdated and the dates in the past. Now, I just think I’m the worst possible author for them, even in collaboration. Someone like Laura Montgomery would do so much better. But if no one else will step up, I’ll try. And a certain need might be adduced, due to the timing and nature of the books. The juveniles can now be read as alternate universe, but for kids just getting their feet into what reality is, they can be confusing.

And yet, my kids reacted to them exactly the same way kids in the fifties did, and got interested in science anyway. 12 year old younger son insisted on writing lengthy explanations of how our understanding of the solar system has changed and also verifying all the calculations, but that’s because he’s broken in a very specific way.

So, yes, in this specific case updating might be needed for the non literary purpose. And yet, the characters and situations still grab, and still speak to kids today. (And the language isn’t that difficult. If your kids find the language difficult, teach them phonics and give them a dictionary. If your kids taught themselves to read and can’t find things by following alphabetical order get them an electronic dictionary. Either an ap, if you let them have phones, or its own gadget, which they do sell. I know. we had to get it for younger son, or we’d never get anything done answering “Mom/dad, what does x mean?”

However, in most cases, unless you’re so extremely unimaginative that you can ONLY read present day things, set exactly in the time you live in or you can’t figure it out, (this dysfunction must be related to the “I have to have a character I identify with” obsession. Both are unfathomable to me, who have read characters in strange and alien worlds since…. ever.) you can follow along with the story. Even stories from the 19th century or before. Sure, our way of life has changed. but not so much that medieval fairy tales are opaque, so why will other stuff be?

A friend suggested that like all the other year zero stuff it is because the left thinks human nature is so malleable that we become completely other every five or ten years.

This is nonsense. Not only do I read with pleasure books written in the 20s or 30s, but books about writers often give me a sense of commonality with these long-dead people. Until Indie, nothing much had changed in trad pub. Not for us, bottom tier producers — which is what writers are — so, you know, it’s reassuring.

I actually think that’s the real reason for ‘can’t” and ‘don’t’ read old books from all the usual suspects, and some idiots on our side, who go along to be hip.

If you read old books, you not only catch everything that didn’t work, but all the things that did. And you catch the similarities in ideologies being sold as the opposite (no, seriously. read books of the seventies and what the “nice” people in the West thought of Hitler.)

Of course the most insidious betrayal, now being done to every book, but being done Enid Blyton for decades, for “marketability” is the continuous “updating” of books, that show the Famous Five at the turn of the century with cell phones and computers.

This is insulting in assuming kids can’t bridge the gap and also in outright lying to children about how those times were.

They fall under my “stupid lies” ban. So, while I still recommend Enid Blyton, try to find them used and on paper.

Oh, yeah, and all the “bigotry” that they’re now eliminating from her and Agatha Christie’s and all 20th century books: some of it is actual bigotry. There is a massive streak of anti-semitism in great Britain for instance, and it comes through loud and clear in places.

Why it shouldn’t be revised and removed: Because even seeing bigotry that is out of fashion and/or rightfully despised in our time, gives us a feel for how a time or place can fall into unconscious bigotry, how otherwise good people can go around knowing in their heart of hearts that all blonds are whatever, or all people with pink pokadotted clothing are evil.

Knowing this, in turn, will help us realize when our own culture is guilty of demonizing entire groups. It might make us stop before it’s too late.

Because, you know, things change a lot, but human nature is universal and well nigh eternal. Not only can’t we bring about the perfect Homo Sovieticus, we change very slowly and fractionally. And at any time we can go “full natural” again. (Look at the French revolution. Or World War II.)

Reading old books allows us to see our own prejudices through the eyes of the past.

Which is why it’s invaluable.

And why would-be tyrants of every stripe hate it.

Tucker Carlson first public appearance after leaving fox hit me very hard, the ones about truth. (Ignore the ancillary stuff from WSJ, but there’s a video here.)

It hit me hard because I’d been thinking along those lines already: how powerful the truth is. How suddenly telling even a grain of truth can dissolve a river of lies.

First I want to say for the rest of you, who simply aren’t sensitive to the feel of professions and places that no, none of this muzzling and cancelling is recent.

I notice that Tucker Carlson also seems to think it’s now, or very recent. And that we’re just at risk of silencing dissent.

He’s younger than I. At no time in his professional adult life has it been okay to tell the truth. NO TIME. At no time have we been allowed to go against what “everybody knows.”

I am perhaps more sensitive than most people to “What must not be uttered” because of when and where I grew up. If my real political opinions and leanings had been known, I’d never have made it to college, let alone out of it. My political opinions were known to be stupid, and believing in them would mark me as stupid.

This didn’t really change when i moved to the US….

Look, in all the intellectual fields, the “smart” thing was to parrot the message being put out by the media, which was uniformly and strongly socialist/communist. (Honestly indistinguishable from speeches heard from socialist/communist candidates in Europe.)

And if you talked out of school and countered them, the shock was enough to label you… oh, extreme right wing. Or outright evil. Or at the very least “someone who likes messing with people.”

And absolutely, if you were in a profession where they could do that, you’d absolutely be shut down cold.

There is a problem with this sort of environment when it stretches to generations. Because you know, you might start out with a lot of people who know they’re just keeping their mouth shut to keep their job, but after three generations, you’re buying some of the premises of the other side implicitly.

Look at how many on our side, before things became obvious, bought the Covid scam, hook line and sinker. Or how many still buy the utterly nonsensical anthropogenic global warming and its imperatives, even though every prediction has been wrong. And let’s not start on their fully canned opinions of Trump, etc.

Because when you live in an environment where this can’t be challenged, and a lot of you are falsifying their beliefs, it becomes “All sane people believe x.”

It’s not true. But the crushing weight of it actually changes opinions.

Which is what the left had for a long time. Seriously, you’ll be amazed if you research at how soft-left Nixon was, how little evidence there was of any chicanery, and how much they built on that. And let’s not get STARTED on “The climate of hatred that killed JFK.” No, seriously. But it became sanctified and went into history books.

They don’t have it all their way nowadays. I mean, if they did, they wouldn’t — still — be so worried about Trump.

But telling the truth is still a massively powerful thing. The truth, by itself, has a weight that melts away things on all sides.

Like, you know, RFK Jr. is as far ahead on poling as he is because he tells the truth about COVID. That grain of truth is recognized by people, and embraced. Because we all know, even if some won’t admit it, that the entire country was scammed. And just speaking it aloud has power. It might be enough for him to win, which would be a pity, as he’s still a global warmerist, etc.

Now I know many of you are still stuck in environments where telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth can get you in serious trouble.

But have you tried the power of minor truths. There are always some you can say without getting booted, but which will be powerful enough to start making people wonder about the other “everybody knows”. Like: “No, that’s not actually correct. Women don’t need to achieve parity in graduate degrees. They are now at 60%. I’m in awe of how strong women are.” With the dilution, it’s safe, but it’s still a truth bomb. And someone in the crowd will go “Wait, that’s not what I heard.”

Or “I’m just worried about how many women are being trafficked over the border.”

Or “You know many of those people are fleeing the cartels, and we’re dong nothing to keep them safe.”

Or “But do we have the services for these many refugees?”

Yes, some will still need to be careful, but the truth is important. The truth is how we reclaim the culture.

The truth has power and strength and those who hear it know they’re hearing it.

Misquoting Pratchett because the books are in storage:

“I come now to ransom my love

And ounce of truth is worth a pound of gold”

It really is. I don’t know how to put this, but the truth is recognized. And like water on highly wrought poisonous spun sugar, it melts a corner of their creation.

It might be a tiny, tiny corner, but it will add up, if all of us are out there and telling the truth.

And little by little the edifice of truth replaces the lies that are outright killing us.

It’s time.

There are four fingers. There are four lights.

No matter what the party says.

The truth is the truth.

And the truth will set you free.

Farewell to Childhood – a guest post by the Balloonatic

Even though I am in my early fifties, I have still clung to parts of my childhood. To the things which brought me joy and happiness, through good times and bad. To the love that I passed on to my son, and which has been a big part of his childhood. I am speaking of my love of Lego.

Lego has been an iconic part of many childhoods throughout the world. I remember when my parents bought my brother and sister and I our first sets – huge boxes of mixed bricks, with ideas for things we could build, but the freedom to let our creativity run wild. My younger brother built race cars while my sister and I built houses and furnishings and figured out how to build small animals – horses and sheep and so  many things. I still have some of those original Legos. They were like a building block that carried me into adulthood. A solid foundation. And now that foundation is crumbling and shattering into pieces that will never be the same.

I admit, there were years where my love of Lego was not as evident. Going through late teens into my twenties, I wasn’t really buying Lego or building it. But then I began a career as a church worker, and  part of that was working with kids and young families. I still remember having a family over to visit, and bringing out the box with my childhood Lego for the kids to play with, only to have a young man of five or six look at me solemnly and tell me that my Lego sucked. Apparently Lego had evolved and changed, and my old bricks had become outdated. So when I would go to the store, and found a good sale, I began buying Lego again, investing in some Bionicle kits to appeal to these savvy young builders I was working with.

One of the most exciting things about having my son was being able to introduce him to my love of Legos. While we started with Duplos, as soon as he was old enough to not swallow the parts, I quickly moved him on to my little bricks. They were presents for every birthday and Christmas, and we would buy sets for him to build in the backseat of the car when we went on long road trips. He has Lego Advent Calendars from every year of his life. When he outgrew the City set, he moved on to the Star Wars and the City Advent Calendars were bought for me. Every day in Advent, for so many years, we would have our daily build and post the photos on social media. Almost every May the 4^th I would be ordering kits and hiding them in the house until December for his birthday and Christmas. Santa even started to bring me Lego Holiday Village sets every year, and my son started buying me Lego for my birthday and Christmas as well. Half of my attic was converted to a Lego building station. We would buy everything from the smallest kits to the largest, including the Lego Titanic – the biggest kit they had made to date, combining two of my son’s loves in one huge box.

But now, while my love of Lego will still continue, my purchasing days are over. Lego has changed in ways that I can no longer support. I wasn’t thrilled when they came out with the “Lego Friends” series to appeal to young girls, because, as a girl, I already found Lego appealing, but I understood that they were trying to stay with the times and reach a new market. When they came out with a Lego Minifigure LGBT rainbow set, it made me pause; but I closed my eyes and ignored it, because I loved Lego so much and didn’t want to give it up. Recently however, Lego has gone further. They have created a “Dreamz” line with “Gender Neutral” sets. And I have to ask myself why? What does Lego have to do with gender? Almost every kit has mini-figures with both boys and girls. What is a gender neutral figure? They are neutering our childhood, our toys and our children. Literally. They are contributing to societal psychosis where girls are no longer allowed to be girls, and heaven forbid that boys be allowed to be boys. Our childhood loves, and our children themselves are being mutilated to conform to the craziness that is pervading society today.

So now, enough is enough. Every person has to find that point where they, like Luther did over 500 years ago say, “Here I stand. I can do no other.” This is my standing point, my line in the sand that I will not cross. It is time to say goodbye to Lego and farewell to this important part of my childhood. I pray that some day they will return to sanity. That they will put children’s lives and mental health above profits and temporary fads in society. That they will once again become a foundation of childhood and teach children the joy of building things rather than tearing them down. Until then, I will retreat to my attic, to the blocks and sets that brought us so much joy and refuge from the troubles in life, and remember the good times. The love of a toy that wasn’t tied to political correctness, but was about the simplicity of imagination and creation.

About ten years ago, someone pointed out that for wars and governments massacring their own people, alone –leaving aside changes in the way things are made and done that meant great dislocations for people, perhaps as high as what took place throughout the three centuries of the industrial revolution — the 20th century was as “bad” as the 14th.

Not exactly wrong, except that the 20th century also saw a marked standard of living worldwide. (So did the 14th, but that’s mostly because for a little while the population dipped.)

Honestly, it’s part of what has fostered the idea that central government is good.

As I’ve said before, part of the reason Obamacare never got wildly popular is that it came later than other socialized medicine. If you try to talk to citizens from other countries about their — 1930s vintage — socialized medicine, they’ll tell you it’s wonderful because look at how many people died before.

What they’re missing of course is the massive improvement in MEDICINE itself, which meant fewer people were going to die, no matter how administered, and that (looking at used-to-be-relatively-free, though not free-free US healthcare) the improvement might have been much bigger without the statist impairment.

In the same way, there was massive improvement in feeding and keeping the masses alive in the 20th century, and it’s easy to think it was due to centralized nation-states, and regulations interfering with manufacturing, worker’s conditions, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.

The fact is that it wasn’t that.

This dawned on me because I’m doing world building on a re-barbarized world.

They were a lost colony (with unique and massive handicaps that would have made it bad anyway) but most of the adults died, when the ship crashed. The few remaining barely got the first generation of kids to adulthood. So, high tech to primitive with a hammer, in two generations.

However, my Earth-like character is flabbergasted because they are a barbarian society, but at the same time they have a certain level of prosperity and ease of acquiring rare and out of season foods that means they are better fed/clothed/housed than any barbarians should be.

The answer is simple. They developed sideways-methods of world wide transportation.

Part of what fed and clothed and lifted the 20th century well above the historic mean was the ability to travel/cheap transport/mechanized manufacturing/refrigeration.

Now some of those might be the result of government research due to the wars. Heinlein thought so. But no one has proved — nor can it be proven, absent travel to a parallel world — that the same discoveries wouldn’t have happened without the super-states and crazy wars of the 20th century.

Yeah, I can’t prove otherwise either, obviously, but looking at how government does things and what it’s good at… I have theories. And doubts.

At any rate, there is a good chance that where science was in the late nineteenth, we were due for a major kick in the transportation, manufacturing, improvements in production and distribution areas. And that the 20th would be prosperous anyway.

But it makes you wonder how prosperous it would be without governments that interfered in everything and consumed vast amounts of wealth in huge wars. I mean, unless you subscribe to the broken window fallacy, you know that wealth and effort could go to something more productive. Perhaps we’d have outer space colonies by now.

What no one can dispute is that these days government has turned sour. It’s trying to undo all the sources of prosperity, starting with transportation and manufacturing, and it has a massive war (in the name of the weather, at that) on things that work, from flushing toilets to dishwashers. (The later matters because freedom from domestic drudgery created more labor able to pursue innovation and ease of manufacturing.)

It’s time to realize that what we have, likely, isn’t owed to big government and top down command.

And even if it were, the gains possible from that are all gone. At this point central-point governments over vast territories seem determined to make their people starve in the dark.

If we’re going to rebarbarize — we’re not — we can do it on our own. And they’re doing nothing to help civilization.

It’s time to clip their wings and their sphere of influence. This might be difficult abroad. They’re free to debate how small government should be.

We KNOW. It’s right there in the constitution. And let’s stop widening the commerce clause, till — like a tent — it covers the universe.

The federal government should protect the border, negotiate with foreign powers, and intervene in disputes between the states. Leave everything else to the states, the cities, the individuals.

And get out of our way.

We’ll get to the stars on our own.

The prosperity of the 20th century is not due to government (More than likely.) But the wars that filled mass graves, and the totalitarian governments that filled even more are.

The blue model of everything through and form the government is passing away. It is our job to kick it on the rear on the way out.

Be not afraid.