According To Hoyt

Normally I hold 9/11 for memory and thought and for missing, maybe, that other timeline, where perhaps things would be better. Or at least we’d be more innocent and trusting.

Today I must write this. And the reason I must write this is another reason to miss yet another timeline where I might have been more innocent and trusting. Though perhaps it’s more fair to say: where a lot of us wouldn’t be so angry.

I had a brief dip through twitter, because No Man’s Land hit #3 in Galactic Empire. (Behind Brandon Sanderson and…. a zombie romance????) and I don’t want to anymore.

But I must say this. And do please understand it’s a very difficult post to write. Oh, not because what I have to say is unpleasant, but because I have to choose my words. And I’m sick. And apparently this feeling like you’re hollow and whatever batteries were powering you have completely died down is grief? (I don’t recommend this grief thing. It sucks, and I would return it to Amazon if I’d bought it there.)

What I must say is this: I understand your anger. I’m also slightly puzzled by it, but that’s because I come from a different time and place.

I always knew the left was violent and unreasoningly so. It’s in their philosophical DNA. They can’t help themselves. They were born of the French Revolution, hatched by Lenin, and they’ve been fed blood and innocents ever since.

When you believe history comes with an arrow and leads to your inevitable win, and also that your win equals the actual return to the Earthly paradise you place somewhere in pre-history (without realizing this is just a rewriting of Eden) before the “invention” of private property, any murder, any violence, any horror is justified, if it will get you there. If you could bring about paradise by a few murders, wouldn’t you? After all, it’s for the good of humanity.

That’s their well spring and what moves them.

More importantly their most basic “virtue” is envy. If you’re “downtrodden” and “held down” because “others have more” and that’s what radicalizes you, you’re going to be predisposed to revenge. After all, them over there are oppressing you all the time, by having more than you do. Or in the current incarnation, for being more normal than you are, for having better families, for being happier than you are.

So the murder didn’t shock me. The choice of victim did a little, but then again no. You see, they’ve convinced themselves that religious people hate them and want them dead (this is bizarre to the point of “what even?”) and therefore they’ve been on a rampage against the religious. Mostly a rampage of words and screeching, but there are a lot of unbalanced people on that side and that inevitably leads to murder.

They also piously believe the news and broadcasts, and the news apparently was obsessed with Charlie Kirk. I have a theory as to why, and it will come. But mostly because he worked in audio and appearances, and these people can’t read.

To the rest of us, he was a little milk toast, sometimes to the point of having fights with us, as well as with the left. G-d rest his soul. He was fighting with all he had. Just not the same as us.

But to me nothing of this is shocking, because I saw the communists firebomb the headquarters of all parties to the right of them (which included socialists) by the time I was 16.

“Oh, but not in America.” Pardon me for being David Brin, but “bet me.” Look, mostly you don’t remember how violent the left here is, because the media buried that deep. And history books never mentioned it.

I will grant you though that it’s not just we have social media now. They’ve gotten crazier and more blatant.

And that’s what I wish to talk about, so please listen.

That they murdered Charlie Kirk is not a sign that they are not in charge, or on the verge of winning, or that they will now start killing every one of us one by one. That’s movie reasoning and not real.

Oh, I’m not saying a bunch of us (I type us advisedly) aren’t at risk. Not much to be done about that and I knew what I was doing when I first spoke out. We all owe G-d a death, and cowards die many times before their time, as the Bard would say. I don’t hanker for martyrdom, nor am I rushing to meet the end, but if it comes because I spoke out, it comes because I spoke out. (Mom used to worry obsessively about this.) There are things that are more important than safety. (And to be fair, I think I’m at more risk or at least as high when I attend mass on a Sunday, or worse weekday mass as I am for having this blog. They are functionally illiterate and also ineradicably convinced that religious people want to murder them. Because some vlogger says so. In fact, anyone on our side working in video or appearing on the news is at much higher risk than myself, as has been proven, yet again.)

But it’s entirely possible they’ll go after a few more of us, maybe a lot more of us. They have lists, which in the way of all of these are more personal revenge than how important a person or cause is politically.

That’s almost irrelevant. I mean it’s relevant and tragic and horrible for those who die, but in the long run and for what matters it’s almost irrelevant.

What you must understand is the reason they are on a tear. And it’s not because they’re strong. It’s because they’re losing. They’re losing hard.

Yesterday I was ambushed by a doomer on X, telling me that they could just install world communism tomorrow, they were on the verge of winning.

That’s what’s known as “historical blindness and movie-thinking and also where has this person been the last fifty years?”

First of all, global communism was ALWAYS a pipe dream. We just didn’t realize it because our media, our establishment, our spy agencies are all so frigging bad. But communism can’t feed itself. Without the free world to parasite on, it dies. (Keep in mind that dying means a sort of general anarchy, but from that there’s hope of something emerging. And what’s there is NOT EVER world communism.)

But we didn’t know it fifty years ago. We didn’t know it, because no one would report fairly on communist countries.

Now? Now that’s stupid.

What we’ve seen since the USSR fell is not the triumph of communism, but the desperate grasping of a dying ideology to control power by any means necessary.

Think back to 2020. We weren’t the only ones where the left frauded or couped itself in. It was a trend all over the world, starting around 2018.

It’s just that unlike the triumphal take overs of the early 20th century, they couldn’t EAT what they chewed. As here, they could do a damn lot of damage, but they couldn’t really implement their agenda.

After yesterday, maybe you’ll believe me that if they could the left would have seen us all in camps or before firing squads. They just couldn’t do it.

Even in the hardest dictatorship there’s always the consent of the governed. If the people on the street are in White Mutiny, you can’t do it. You just can’t. You can do some things, but not impose the boot on neck you want to.

As I suspect the British are about to demonstrate. In spades.

They can’t. They no longer have something enticing to point out to. They no longer can keep the horrors of communism hidden. Yeah, I know “But more people believe in socialism than ever.” Yeah, no. Did that poll dig down to what they think socialism is? Because that’s the main thing. No one younger than me, I swear, has a firm grasp on what socialism is or for that matter that “capitalism” is just “the free market.”

They think socialism is anything done communally, like libraries or roads — and let me tell you, the fact the left has needed to redefine socialism to that ridiculous degree tells you they’re losing, too. — not confiscation of bank accounts and state apartments, shared with your local mad bum. And they think corporatism is “capitalism.”

So that poll is worthless.

In point of fact, on real things, the left is losing. If they weren’t aware of being a minority (I’m going to bet 25% at the most. And it might be lower today) they wouldn’t be so invested in opening the borders and vote fraud.

And they wouldn’t be so violent.

I’ve known since before 16 too that when communists lose an argument they try to kill you.

More importantly, they’re losing the demonstration. Milei is cleaning up Argentina (ARGENTINA people!) and Trump is — more than you think — quietly, behind the scenes, removing their sources of power.

Turns out a lot of international leftism subsisted because you and I were paying for it out of our tax dollars. Even billionaires like Soros aren’t commies for free, it turns out (You shouldn’t be surprised EVERY communist I’ve ever known has been grasping. Every single one. Just not openly and often very under the table.) Trump hasn’t fully removed that, but he has taken a substantial chunk out. And now he’s turned his attention to elections. And he’s putting the spotlight on how insecure vote by mail is. And, and, and–

They feel the doors closing. If they don’t do something RIGHT NOW they’re done.

And what they’ve come up with to do is of course murder. As I said, it’s in their DNA. They are an ancient beast out of nightmares, a Trex with a brain barely large enough to move its tail, but sharp and bloody teeth.

I’m not lying, and please understand I know this: they can do a lot of damage.

But they’re already dead. Once it enters this phase, an ideology is ALREADY DEAD.

I know you’re furious, I know you want revenge, but honestly THE WORST WE CAN DO TO THEM IS LET TRUMP DO HIS WORK and support the clean up of elections and tax money distribution with everything we are and everything we can.

And tell the truth. Telling the truth is the most lethal power of all. Tell the truth. About history about society. Yes, they might kill you for it. Take no risks you’re not prepared to take, but tell the truth.

Look, I too want blood. I have three axes which were given to me by the Minotaur (No. I haven’t lost my mind. If you’re in fandom, you know who he is). The axes would very much like to be taken for a spin.

And it’s not even that I’m old, and I’m tired. Or that I am bound by my religion to believe the most ridiculous of these blood-lusters are human.

It’s that I know the end result of that. It will start as “They put one of ours in the hospital, we put two of them in the morgue” but it always widens. It always goes local, personal.

If you don’t think so you need to study history more.

I’m at risk, yes, because I speak with an accent. Dr. Sowell, to name someone off the top of my head, is at risk because he’s black. A lot of my friends are at risk for being Jewish, because the young people think the opposite of the left is …. endorsing leftist hatred of Israel. A lot of my friends are at risk because they look like (they are, largely) old hippies. And then comes the personal. You’re at risk because your neighbor though nominally on the same side, once hear you say something he thought sounded like “Bernie Sanders has the right idea.” And besides, your lawn is a mess and he hates you for it.

This dance starts it doesn’t stop till the music stops on judgement day. I point you at Rwanda, Zimbabwe. I point you at the Balkans.

We are winning. Yes, we might have to pay in blood, but it will be less blood than if the dance starts.

Note, though, that I heartily endorse bringing to room temperature ANYONE trying to attack you, or trying to attack anyone in your sight. That’s not a joke.

Other than that: The beast is dead. It just hasn’t fallen over.

The most deadly phase of a war is the mop up. That’s when you take the most casualties. The enemy has nothing left to lose and can give vent.

I won’t tell you that we won’t have more of these. I have the uncomfortable feeling that they tried with a lot of other people before hitting Charlie.

I won’t tell you that you’re perfectly safe at church (and for some reason they seem to hate Catholics particularly just now. No idea why even.) I won’t tell you you’re safe at a demonstration.

You’re not safe. Life isn’t safe. The world isn’t safe. But you can’t live hiding under the rug. And some things are worth doing. Square your shoulders, decide what you have to do. Then do it. Death will come either from it or from merely living. Death is the price of being alive.

But I can tell you with absolute certainty that in the end we win they lose. Yes, even if this ends in strife and blood. I’d just like to win before 100 years. I have children. I might have grandchildren. (And I have ducttape ones.)

As for “We can’t reconcile.” and “We can’t share a nation with people like this.” Well, your ancestors did.

After the revolution, after the civil war, wounds were bound, and people learned to live together, even though each had done horrible things to the others.

You will too. And most of them not-media-personalities are mostly dumb, lied to and histrionic. Which is bad enough, but not evil incarnate.

That’s all I have for you today.

If this must fall into an endless war of revenge, then it must. But I believe — I hope, I pray– America is better than that. I won’t answer for the rest of the world. But I believe America is better than that.

And that when the smoke clears, our flag is still there.

May G-d bless you and keep you. And may His hand be upon us these perilous days.

Lest we fall.

We remember the clear morn.

We remember the surprise.

We remember the death.

We remember.

The wound gaping in our hearts

The change in who we are

And who we’d be

We remember the clear morn

And death that came

Uninvited

Unwarned

We cry a little

We hang out our memorial flag

With every name of the dead

And we pray with desperate need

That today won’t be a clear morn

Bright and promising

An untroubled future

That never came.

I try to keep this blog non-religious. And I will again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Save for emergencies. This feels like an emergency.

If you’re a believer whose belief allows it, say it with. Say it with me NOW.

St. Michael the Archangel, 
defend us in battle. 
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. 
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, 
and do thou, 
O Prince of the heavenly hosts, 
by the power of God, 
thrust into hell Satan, 
and all the evil spirits, 
who prowl about the world 
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. .

O glorious prince St. Michael, 
chief and commander of the heavenly hosts, 
guardian of souls, vanquisher of rebel spirits, 
servant in the house of the Divine King
and our admirable conductor, 
you who shine with excellence
and superhuman virtue deliver us from all evil,
who turn to you with confidence
and enable us by your gracious protection
to serve God more and more faithfully every day.

Ok Huns, Hoydens, and Assorted Creatures.

I need you to do something.
Go to your local library if you’ve got one and it’s physically safe to do so. Please do not do this on the website UNLESS you have successfully done so before, or your library is physically unsafe: badgering, er, gushing at, a librarian about this book you really, REALLY want is an important part of actually getting books bought. Also you need to have a library card for the library, or if you’re part of one of those weirder library district exchange things, a validation sticker (if you are, like me, do please do the several libraries you have borrowing privileges at).

Ask to request that the library buys a book. Fill out the book request form. You need your library card number. You need to fill in Author: Sarah A. Hoyt. You need Title: No Man’s Land Volume 1. You need ONE of these and pay attention to which they want: ISBN-10 1630110698 OR ISBN-13 978-1630110697 (These are for the paperback.) Do this with as much hype and enthusiasm of your particular flavor as you can muster. You want this book SO badly and you REALLY hope the library will purchase it for you. If the librarian says they’re out of funds ask when the new funding cycle starts and put in your calendar right there in front of him or her when to come back in to request the book, and then follow through.

You MUST check the “I want you to reserve this for me” box AND then go check it out if they buy it, even though you have read it already. Take it home and return it the next day, if at all possible inside, and if there is a librarian about who isn’t directly interacting with a patron tell the librarian “This book is so good I stayed up all night” when you slide it in the drop. You can also then go on your facebook if you have happen to have it, post about getting this book and @ your library. They have someone who monitors their mentions.

You guys are the best community on the internet and I will get you the two ISBNs for volumes 2 and 3 when those come out, so you can get your libraries to have the whole set for people to read.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

I often quote Leonard Cohen “You don’t want to lie, not to the young.”

And in this one thing I’m going to point out we particularly shouldn’t lie to girls. For two reasons. Because they are more vulnerable than boys, more attuned to the social zeitgeist and more likely to go along with it, no matter how crazy the zeitgeist is, or how manufactured. And girls who are killed or emotionally destroyed are future denied, since their ability and interest in the future determine whether there are humans in that future.

Don’t get me wrong. We need boys too — duh — and as the mother of (exclusively) boys, I am very aware of their vulnerabilities and the deep cracks that hide under the “strong and silent” exterior. And also of how hard it is to pull boys out of a depressive spin.

And we need boys to grow into men to be husbands and fathers and protectors, now more than ever.

(As it turns out the situation in mind right now reveals a deep crack in both boys and girls or in this case men and women.)

This article has a beautiful title The Girl on the Train.

And you expect it to be something that Agatha Christie wrote. In fact she has a story about a girl on a train called What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! or, in England 4.50 from Paddington. In the book, a young woman is lured out to the countryside and killed on the train.

I won’t spoiler it for you. It’s not one of my favorites, but it is worthy of being read on its own.

However the article is not about an intricate crime which we need Poirot’s Little Brain Cells to solve. It’s about a sordid, desolate and senseless crime that snuffed out a young and promising life in the name of nothing but the delusions of a schizophrenic.

And it exposes layers and layers of lying to the young. Which blossoms in this kind of thing in the full grown.

It is about the murder of Iryna Zarutska, and if you’re my husband, or have been living under a rock for the last few days, here’s a link.

Basically this girl, a Ukranian refugee was in the rapid transit train in Charlotte, NC, when the homeless man sitting right behind her stood up and stabbed her in the neck killing her. He then walked around in the tone of someone who was vindicated “I stabbed that white girl.”

First let me tell you that this thing puts the peep in me. When I was 23 years old, I also lived in Charlotte and worked at a mall (in a store, not a pizza place) and because I didn’t drive, I took the bus home if my husband couldn’t pick me up.

The parallels are weird and make me feel like I’m probably dead in some other universe.

Second let me tell you I’m very happy I grew up in a fairly mono-racial society (yes, that has changed now, but not then.) and went to school in a large and dangerous city starting at 12. And then lived most of my life in Colorado, which has a lot of Latins but practically no black people. (Or did. I think that too has changed.)

I’m happy not because I think that black people are uniquely scary/evil/dangerous but on the contrary, because I can identify the pathologies around/beyond race.

I will point out the man being black is relevant, because of where he is black and what I know about the black population in that city: I was friends with a lot of them when I lived there. And I found out that however much people might have been racist against them in the 80s, they were just as racist back. In fact, the black community in Charlotte, NC at the time could give a friend grief because we dropped her off in the heart of her neighborhood. What was she doing consorting with honkies?

I’ve lived in many places since then, and that was the worst I’ve experienced. Now, it’s been 40 years, so I don’t know if it’s gotten better, worse or more tubular. And I’m not going to speculate, except to say there are a lot of people very invested in making the races hate each other and some of them were mildly good at it, like Barrack Obama.

Also that I eventually broke most of those friendships, not because I didn’t like the people but because they were stuck in a vicious cycle of everything bad that happened to them was because of racism.

Now, for real, at that time there was racism and sometimes vicious racism. Usually from people whose IQ wouldn’t keep a mouse warm. Not just my black friends, but myself as well.

But I realized that if you attribute everything bad that happens to you to racism and forces you can’t control, you’ll never do anything. You’ll become a crying puddle on the floor. Or hate everyone. But you’ll never DO anything. So I decided to behave as though racism and prejudice didn’t exist, even though it did.

And to do that, I had to get away from the echoing reinforcing chorus of “They hate me and done me wrong.”

Again, this was my personal experience and 40 years ago, but I can easily see race mattering in this. Not because black people are uniquely dangerous but because — let’s face it, through our schools and institutions — we’ve taught them that they’re uniquely done wrong by and that white people are always to blame. And if there’s a big enough black community, they’ll pass the tales of woe around and reinforce the resentment, so when one of them goes off the rails, it will take a racial tone. Let’s however remember that the murder, earlier on, attacked his own sister, whom I doubt was white.

While on that, black people in America aren’t uniquely violent, or uniquely anything. You can think whatever you want about black people in Africa (I know Africa well enough that my opinions go by regions, which tells you it’s mostly culture) but black people in America are ultimately Caucasians. Most of them have more Northern European blood than I do. And a lot of them are lighter, even though the thyroid deficiency has bleached me.

BUT they are uniquely farmed into resentment, envy and a belief of being done wrong by by the government/media/democrat-industrial complex. I’ll grant you that.

The way back from that is not lying to the young. Including not lying about slavery and telling them no other slavery was as bad and that white people enslaved them because they’re black. That’s bullshit. Their ancestors (and my one singular ancestress) won the lottery because the Dahomey who trafficked most African slaves to slavers killed some portion of them over the tombs of their ancestors on arrival to their villages. On top of that compared to my one ancestress, they came here, not to Portugal, which, honestly!

We need to have the courage to teach the truth to the young.

You know other truths we need to teach to the young? The “homeless” or “unhoused” aren’t in fact normal human beings in need of a house. The names are a lie.

Naming them that, pretending that, just points at the wrong problem and calls for the wrong action.

Yes there are a lot of people in the US who can’t afford a place to live, or are in trouble house wise, because times are hard right now, particularly for the young.

BUT–

But that doesn’t mean that people who have any skills/ability to navigate the normal world are living on the streets. Oh, there will be some: orphans without friends exist. But they’re rarer than hen’s teeth.

Most people on the street are mental health tragedies, and/or criminal and/or willfull mooches, or some combinations of all three.

And I’m torn on this, because mental health is a slippery thing, but on the other hand there’s such a thing as an obvious danger to himself and others.

The poor girl being the focus of his anger was maybe because of incipient racism, or because the numbers in his head added up just the wrong way, but those numbers in his head were scrambled. His mother threw him out of the house because he was a danger to his family, but he remained a danger. Unexploded ordinance about to go off.

We shouldn’t lie about that. Not all humans are safe. And some humans are not human.

Part of that being grateful Colorado Springs was so white I was dark was that until people accused me of racism for talking about homelessness, I had no idea that race had ANYTHING to do with homelessness. I still don’t think it does, though in certain places there are probably a lot more black homeless people. And with the influx over the border, it’s probably a multicolored sh*tfest.

BUT when I describe encounters like the guy that didn’t even feel human, these were white homeless. And just as disturbing and potentially dangerous as that guy on the light rail.

And speaking of that, reading that article about The Girl On The Train, I realized she went in and sat in front of the homeless guy in the hoodie, and put her earbuds on and….

Guys!

That’s something I wouldn’t have done even in my early twenties. The person in the article thinks it was because she didn’t want to appear racist. This is possible, since the first years in the US as an European you, OF COURSE, buy the media narrative.

But I suspect it was just cluelessness. Just a general belief that homeless people are just poor things, and not dangeours.

I didn’t have that. Not by the time I was in my 20s. I knew humans were dangerous, and I was wary of them, knowing I weighed 120 lbs soaking wet with my pockets full of lead.

I always had a knife on me. Alright, usually more than one.

And I’d not sit with my back to anyone, particularly not anyone looking menacing. And if possible, I sat between other people, particularly women.

Why did Iryna do that? Who knows?

My guess though is that she’d been sold on one of the many lies we tell young people. Like, women can fight men with no problem at all. The media sells it, the movies sell it, very, very stupid feminists sell it. Why shouldn’t she buy it?

She was probably sold on the idea that people don’t attack you unless you’ve done something to deserve it and that minorities are sort of cute, adorable little fluffy pets, incapable of hurting anyone. Why shouldn’t she? The media sells it, government sells it, everyone sells it.

So, of course, that’s what she bought.

And the price was her life.

Right now, right here, while the idiots on twitter are escalating that everyone who tans is dangerous or some insanity, (it’s curious many of them assume anyone with dark hair is Mexican. The only people who think that are, weirdly, Chinese. Like, from China. That’s their idea of the US,) it’s time to look at the real truths.

The truth is that it’s not that easy and not that difficult.

The truth is that telling the truth to the young is difficult. They’ve been lied to so much.

It is also essential.

If you want them to live.

No Man’s Land is out!

Are you tired of seeing it? Probably. But it is still my book and by contract with the guy upstairs — my husband. He’s working in the office, directly above me, while I do all internet stuff in the family room computer. Then I go upstairs and work in the office — I’m obligated to tell you IT’S OUT, IT’S OUT, IT’S OUT.

Also, GLEEEEEEP! As I’m terrified it will sink like a stone. And for reasons I can’t even define, except its being my oldest and most long-held world, this one is heart’s blood. It hurts that it doesn’t look like it will hit #1 in category. (All my other ones have.) Ah well. Is what is. I’ve never wanted to lose a bet (with Dan) more. But it looks like I’ll win.

Laura Montgomery gave me a very nice review — no we’re not engaged in a trade. I sent out a wide swath of e-arcs to friends, and she sent me one of hers, and…. — and I’m very shocked she liked it so much, since her stuff is so much more serious and hard. I was actually almost too embarrassed to ask if she wanted to read it.

I particularly like she got what I put in which is not always the case. (Most often WHY my fans like books surprises me.)

She got the “feel” of an adventure in a (very) strange land.

I’ll point out that IT’S NOT THAT KIND OF BOOK. I.e. if you’re looking for the sexy-sexy this ain’t it. There are relationships, but they’re mostly the “care for people” type ones. There is a scene in which Skip wakes up (literally and figuratively) from a very inadvisable entanglement but not only doesn’t it show anything beyond his waking up and going to the window to look outside, it’s the only one that even gets close to being uncomfortable in that way. (And it was uncomfortable for me. It stopped me writing the book for almost three months, because I didn’t wanna.)

I’ll be doing a “real” post in a little while. I’m down with something, and I honestly don’t know if it’s a cold, or just my auto-immune reacting to my desire to hide under the sofa at book release.

We’ll figure it out I guess.

Anyway, oh, yeah, the very weird songs…. This is my new favorite one.

Skip Hayden’s No Man’s Land.

Now begins the raveling

Of what has unraveled

With a bright thread removed

The tapestry will be rewoven

Refitted

Remade

Some of the design is gone

Put away forever

Or for another place where eyes see

Differently

Here we’ll go on with the practical

Clean

Fold

Put away

Fight today’s battles

She won’t see

Start another thread

Begin again

With hands numbed

By exhaustion

And eyes blinded by tears

Again

And again

As it’s been

So it shall be

Nothing to see here

Except perhaps

As ages unfold

A sparkle of the eye

A hint of a smile

A turn of the phrase

A voice that rises in perfect song

Ave Atque Vale Mater

Until we meet again

At the perfect time

In a bright shore

Where all the unraveled

Brightness

Is made whole.

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 LAURA MONTGOMERY, GO AND GET IT. I READ IT AND LOVE YOU AND YOU NEED THIS IN YOUR LIFE: PLANTING LIFE: Shut the Kingdom

The road to Mars has to start somewhere. It might as well be central Virginia.

Jack Darien scorns his parents’ path. After the disaster at his father’s Mars settlement, the high school senior scraps both his lifelong interest in space exploration and his college plans. Even his rescue of a college student from assault doesn’t make him see his own future any differently.

Jack becomes obsessed, however, when one strange comment from the attacker draws him to unravel secrets at the former Superfund site that is now Webb University, the school where his returning father teaches and eco-restoration reigns. What starts for Jack as a distraction from thinking of his future turns into a dangerous journey that puts him, his mother, and sister at risk. As for his father, Jack decided long ago the man was on his own.

Jack’s determination to chart his future clear of his father’s failures hits a snag when he learns the school’s hidden mystery. Unfortunately, those determined to bring Webb down learn it, too, and ratchet up their own efforts toward Webb’s destruction.

Planting Life is an immersive young-adult science fiction adventure. If you like unearthing secrets, a dogged hero, and reckless courage under threat, you’ll love Laura Montgomery’s near future coming-of-age saga.

*I read this book. It kept me up all night. You need it. You do. – SAH*

BY SARAH A. HOYT, COMING OUT THIS TUESDAY! No Man’s Land: Volume 1 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)

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.

Volume 1
The Ambassador Corps has rules: you cannot know everything, don’t get horizontal with the natives, don’t make promises you can’t keep.
They’re a lot harder to follow when assassins are hunting you, your barbarian allies could kill you for the wrong word, and death lurks around every corner.
The unwritten rule? Never identify with the natives.
Skip’s already broken that one.
Now he’s racing against time to save his new friends from slavery—or worse—while dodging energy blasts and political intrigue. One crash-landed diplomat. A world of deadly secrets. And absolutely no backup.

Some rules are meant to be broken. Others will get you killed.

(Also, I have a new Self Made favorite song on this book: Skip Hayden’s No Man’s Land.)

E. L. LYONS: Austringer’s Wrath: Gifts of the Auldtree, Book Two

Sequel to Starlight Jewel


The Austringer has fallen! A new Austringer is risen!

Minalav is in pieces, needs are high but trust is low. After Axly’s plan placed her on the throne, she is faced with the displeasure of High and Low Birds, the Nameless, and the humans of the city.

In a bid to bring much needed supplies, Axly offers the one thing all nations covet: sprygan weapons. In the lands of Remorra, General Grimwalt is selected to represent his kingdom. Sent by his cousin, King Henry, who has more in mind than just the sprygan weapons, Grim must negotiate with a woman he doesn’t remember.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Quilted Circle Mysteries 2: : Eight More Suburban Scandals (The Detective Stories)

The Quilted Circle Mysteries 2: Eight More Suburban Secrets
A Cozy Mystery Collection Featuring the Quilted Circle Sleuths

The Quilted Circle is back — and suburbia will never be the same.

Five retired women from the northern suburbs of Philadelphia claim to meet for quilting, crafts, and community projects. In reality, they’re an unstoppable (and nosy) detective club whose “hobbies” keep unraveling local scandals. Whether it’s a sabotaged PTA bake sale or a dog-napping at the neighborhood park, these lifelong friends can’t resist pulling at loose threads until the truth comes out.

In this second collection of laugh-out-loud cozy mysteries, the Circle faces:

• A yard sale box hiding a fortune and a family secret.
• A poisoned PTA fudge tray that turns school politics deadly.
• A golden retriever ransom scheme with suspicious paw prints.
• A country club accident that looks far too tidy.
• A Halloween disappearance inside a haunted house.
• A cookbook contest scandal with recipes worth killing for.
• A parade float sabotage that puts one of their own in the spotlight.
• A stolen snow globe that draws the Circle into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse.

With wit, warmth, and more than a few well-timed casseroles, Vera, Dottie, June, Lois, and Marie prove that curiosity, friendship, and sharp observation skills never retire.

Fans of Agatha Christie’s village sleuths, Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club, or Rita Mae Brown’s Sneaky Pie mysteries will adore this second installment in The Quilted Circle Mysteries.
Quilting may keep their hands busy — but solving crimes keeps their minds sharp.

FROM ANDREW MILBOURNE: Flames of Retribution (A Bayonet Books Anthology Book 13)

Are you ready to face the fury of dragons that aren’t just beasts—they’re harbingers of vengeance? In “Flames of Retribution,” Bayonet Books unleashes 11 scorching tales of mythical monsters, ancient evils, and fiery showdowns. From bio-engineered horrors stalking primate troops in “The Ghost of Arriscado Basin” by Jon Michael Kelley, to a steamship crew battling an unseen terror in “Isle of Ash and Flame” by J. VanZile, and a knight’s desperate quest against legendary lizards in “Born of Blood and Flame” by J.T. Arralle—these stories blend fantasy, horror, and pulse-pounding action like never before!

Featuring gripping contributions from authors like Andrew Milbourne, Dean Stone, Matthew Olaranont, D.J. Swift, Eric J. Juneau, Gaetan Battaglia, A.B. Casadella, and Sarah Das Gupta. With an incendiary introduction by J.R. Handley exploring humanity’s eternal dance with dragons—from ancient lore to modern myths—this anthology pays homage to the ultimate predators that haunt our dreams.

Why settle for friendly fire-breathers when you can dive into tales of raw retribution? Perfect for fans of “How to Train Your Dragon” gone dark, Dungeons & Dragons epics, or classic monster hunts like Beowulf and St. George.

Don’t let the flames die out—order your copy today!

FROM JAMES YOUNG: Days That Never Were: An Alternate History Art Collection

This book contains 14 visual representations of alternative history scenes from the universes created by James Young, Slinger of Tales. Each piece not only depicts key events from his Usurper’s War and Arc of Ares’ series but also explains the background of how the artwork came to be. An additional purpose of this work is to give fans of fine military art another unique avenue to enjoy this medium. Dive into this book today to find days that never were…but could have easily been.

FROM MARK CHESTEEN: Great Moments In Beanery: (A Book For Victims Of Short Attention Span Disorder)

A collection of short humorous stories, quotes, headlines, and articles designed to make you laugh out loud. Straight humor, no politics or satirical derision of others disguised as humor. If you can read these stories without laughing, you might need a funny-bone implant.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: The Schrödinger Paradox: Entanglement

In the face of extinction, you do what you must, regardless of who stands in the way.

Tom Beadle only volunteered for NASA’s neighborhood watch program when his department said it would maybe help him get tenure.None of them counted on the Neighborhood Watch becoming a mortifying political liability when a malfunctioning probe accidently reveals an asteroid hiding behind the larger outer planets, setting off impact alarms– and politicians looking for blame. When their answer is to defund the Watch program and fire all involved, Tom’s only chance to save the earth is to lie through his teeth and try to deflect the asteroid under cover of harvesting rare not-of-this-earth elements. And even that may not work.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Cross-Time Kamaitachi (Timelines Universe Book 5)

I did not land here as a warrior, but a warrior I so soon became . . .

One moment, Dr. Yukiko Yamaguchi was in her high-tech singularity research lab in California, busily adjusting an electronically-leaky fitting playing hell with her instrument readings.

The next moment, she was falling through space, and landing hard in a wilderness area she would quickly discover was her family’s ancient stomping grounds in Japan – but with an apocalyptic twist.

A hundred years later, there would be legends of a great yōkai, a demon, whom some called a kamaitachi – a sort-of whirlwind, weasel-like creature with blades for claws, which catches up unwary humans and slices their skin. But this kamaitachi is no ordinary yōkai – rather, she is

The Cross-Time Kamaitachi

FROM BLAKE SMITH: The First Adventure of Sir Garamond de Crecy

Sir Garamond- Gerry, to his friends- has been knighted for less than a month, and he’s already found his first great quest: saving the beautiful and helpless Princess Alyssia of Ollandra from the dragon that is holding her in dreadful captivity. Or so he thinks…
A lighthearted short story.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Love in the Time of Campaigning

As Frank Correra brings his family to a lunar settlement to get them away from a worsening political situation on Earth, he reminisces about how he and his wife met.

Frank had always dreamed of the skies. As a clone of an astronaut who subsequently became a US Senator, Frank thought he had a clear path ahead of him. But when it comes time to apply for the Air Force Academy, it is an election year. His ur-brother can’t promise a nomination until he’s won another term, and this year promises a hard race to run. When the other side puts up an ugly attack ad, can Frank find a way to discredit it before it destroys his ur-brother’s chance of re-election, and with it Frank’s slot at an Academy appointment?

A short story of the Grissom timeline.

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: grubby

I’ve been very disturbed by various “mental” health initiatives and attempt to codify declarations of madness into law.

No, I don’t think Trump is evil or Hitler. Yes, I do think mental health is a massive crisis in this country and we need to do something. I just want so many bumpers and padding on that “something” that it’s not even funny. And I’m absolutely sure whatever we do, the left will weaponize once they get power again.

Weaponize? you ask?

Well, you see, every communist country committed their opposition to madhouses, sanatoriums and rest homes for being mentally unwell. I remember in the late eighties going to a lot of talks by poets and writers from anywhere ranging from East Germany to Russia, who had spent years in various kind of mental health hold ups and sometimes heavily “medicated” for their crime of not being communists. How they were treated was a sliding scale of how well known they were abroad. If they weren’t well known at all, they got the harshest treatment.

And the most horrifying, scariest part about this is that in doing so the communists (yes, they called themselves socialists, mostly) weren’t being hypocrites. They really thought it was mental illness. Particularly the ones who’d gone through various college programs. They were taught the full on “weird Christian heresy” tale, including that humans in the beginning shared everything and there were no hierarchies or private property. And then property and hierarchy appeared, and that twisted humanity. (Yes, it’s Eden and the fall dressed up in red clothes, with a little hammer and sickle.) So communism restored sanity and allowed humans to be sane. And to reject communism was a mark of insanity. (Curiously, being insane was also a mark of being an opponent of communism. They had the courage of their delusion.)

How do I know this? Well. I read a lot of AMERICAN psychiatry manuals in the seventies, and they — as usual for academics — had bought the entire story from the Soviet Union lock, stock and barrel.

Part of the push for the de-institutionalization of the mad — something given full court press, from A Flight Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, to various stories in all the sf mags, to oh so many biographies from “feminists” claiming that promiscuous women were treated like mad and institutionalized because they were “just” trying to live naturally (There are various reasons why promiscuous women should be institutionalized. NO, not ALL promiscuous women, duh. BUT there are forms of mental illness and self-abuse that manifest that way. The fact these stories blur the distinction between “likes sex and likes men” and “can’t control herself and sleeps with people who might kill her, and has caught three venereal diseases this week” is your first warning they’re unsound — was because the Soviet Union’s sincere belief they were doing the sane and logical thing bled over here.

And if you’re going to say “Sure, but people here will never be convinced that people who disagree are insane” you’re whistling past the graveyard. The well intentioned ones on the other side already do.

That is the people who used to be friends, who know I’m not evil or stupid, or uneducated think I’ve gone “peculiar” which is British for raving mad.

And they’re utterly serious about it, and utterly honest for a change. Which is where the danger lies, to be honest.

The truth is that when your entire concepts of the world are completely opposed, it’s impossible not to end up thinking these other people must be crazy. How often do we say the other side is mentally ill?

Which is the danger of this whole thing.

Is it a danger insofar as putting the homeless in institutions where they can be looked after? Well… no. Not if restricted in certain ways. BUT the problem is that once the bureaucracy is in place, you can’t restrict it that tightly.

Look, I fully understand that we can’t go on the way we are.

And in the same way, I’ll say — about the full court press above — that yes, I’m aware that mental health accusations and commitment were improperly used in the past. Because mental health is hellishly difficult to diagnose. You know something is very wrong, but … there’s a spectrum?

People today make fun of the idea that people in the past thought the mentally ill were possessed. Having found myself attempted-cornered by a homeless guy, and looking in his eyes seeing nothing human, I’m not sure the middle ages were wrong in every case.

Were they wrong in some? Well, we diagnosed a vast amount of physical illness as mental, because it’s all connected. Epilepsy was considered a form of madness, for instance.

Also, the “village madman” who died committed to a madhouse was probably only suffering from a case of a recognized syndrome that comes in the aftermath of a stroke (I can’t find the link now but was horrified when I found it) where you decide some part of your body doesn’t belong to you, and will not look after it. Unfortunately for this man he declaimed ownership of everything below the neck. So when his mother failed to force him to dress (He was a very distant cousin, and built like my kids, while his mom was a normal-sized Portuguese woman) he’d run through the streets of the village mother-naked and screaming “it’s not mine.”

This kind of illustrates the issues with mental health. This was HIS ONLY quirk. He was calm, biddable, would still work, was not a danger to himself and others. Except he wouldn’t wash or dress below the neck, because it wasn’t his.

It might be “just” the result of a stroke and physical, not mental, but what the heck do you even do with it?

The village mothers decided they couldn’t have this giant guy randomly running mother-naked through the street and went to the city fathers and got them to take him and have him committed.

I don’t know how he was treated in the mental hospital. Look, yes, bad mental hospitals existed. It wasn’t all propaganda. I figure the percentage was the same as bad old age homes or bad care for disabled children (because dealing with the helpless.) Which is WAY higher than bad normal hospitals.

And maybe that’s something we can do something about, though G-d help me, the government would make an ash of it and I don’t know any other institution that will reliably supervise and not make it worse.

I used to think the place the man was committed was one of the good ones and well run, but then in high school I met a young man who had been committed between 12 and 14 due to some emotional breakdown when his mother died, and during those two years he was raped countless times, which screwed him up more. So it was, at the very least, poorly supervised at times? (And I do realize administrators are human.)

So yeah, there are horrors, and there’s a responsibility towards making sure people who are committed are at least as well treated as prisoners in minimum security wards?

On the other hand, you know, what we have is untenable. Because schizophrenics for instance, can be controlled with medication. The problem is making them take the medication. And if you want to read fully on how cruel we are being to the mentally ill by letting them live on the streets, read My Brother Ron. (Yes, that, as all book links on this site are linked to my associate account and I get a tiny portion of the purchase at no extra cost to you.)

To make it even more cruel, there are predators and just regular bad people who hide among the homeless and are neither mentally ill nor disablingly drug addicted. I found this out by spending time in a downtown area with lots of homeless and hearing the talk. A lot were what I call “homeless by choice” and thought we who insisted on having jobs, paying our bills, etc. were idiots. A not insignificant portion of these preys on the mentally ill homeless.

And then there’s yet the other side. The people who owned small ma and pa shops in downtown Colorado Springs that ended up closing because the mentally ill would chase their customers around yelling stuff, or come in and pee on the merchandise, or menace them and passerbyes downtown.

Homelessness, as practiced in 20th century America (and all over the west, because we exported the damn psychiatry books) is not a victimless crime.

I’m wary and horrified about talk of involuntary commitment. Because I know it can become a horrifying weapon against political dissidents or (merely) the very Odd (like most of us.)

On the other hand, I’m also aware a significant portion of the “unhoused” (I love how we keep concentrating on that, like THAT is the relevant part. “Rebarbarized” would be a better term.) are a danger to themselves and others. AND by giving the predators a hiding place, are making our cities (and a lot of small towns and villages) frankly unlivable.

So what is my solution. I don’t know, short of “Sure, we do need to reopen mental institutions, with a lot” A LOT “of safety bumpers” including in what meds can even be administered, because a lot of these can kill people either by using too long or on the withdrawal.

Because we can’t go on as we’ve been. At this point it’s like embodied mental illness, spread to the whole of society.

On the other hand it’s almost impossible not to worry about how it will be weaponized and used in bad ways.

You’ll tell me the left is quite capable of doing it to us without us doing it onto them first, and fair point. In fact, if Kamala had won, people like me would be in the crosshairs of “We must institutionalize these poor mad people now.” They were leaning that way for a long time with all of their “disinformation” bs.

And perhaps actually that’s a reason to do it now, and to build in as many safeguards as possible. And hope they hold for a little while at least.

Sometimes the best you can do is the best you can do. “And let the devil worry about the rest” as mom would say.

The problem is that the devil (in the non-metaphysical sense) is very inventive. And I fear what hell do about the rest.