According To Hoyt

Covers are a funny thing, you know. And by that I don’t mean funny ah ah.

It’s one thing to do a cover for another person. I only really need a blurb, pick out central elements and mood, and I very very rarely go wrong.

But for me, it gets complicated. Usually it gets complicated because whatever I’m using to do covers can’t do what I wanted. I had Musketeer problems until AI got good enough to do Musketeers.

And the clanker has real issues with Ellyans, because, well, if it gets them right our hypersensitized eyes see “trans.” And that on a cover would not be really good to sell. Not for me, at least. Besides having the major problem that the people who bought it for the cover would really, really hate it with a burning passion.

So I had a cover and I was happy with it. It conveyed the duality of the worlds, and while Brundar (the Ellyan) looked a little odd, it wasn’t wrong.

And then Dan hated it. So I tried to do another figure….

Look, We Don’t Talk About Covers.

They looked okay before I uploaded them, and then I wanted to claw my eyes out because after processing by Amazon and in thumbnail, they looked horrible.

I should explain, lest you think it’s ignorance that I was DELIBERATELY going for a late seventies early eighties feel to the cover. This came about while talking to Foxfier and Holly F. who were my unwilling cover sounding board.

I had come up with more modern covers, but they either gave the feeling of “mil sf” which it ain’t or “YA sf” which it CERTAINLY ain’t.

So the two juvenile delinquents (look, they’re in their forties) said “the problem is that nothing like this has been published since the early eighties.

And my brain flicked. The unofficial name for this cover is “That seventies cover.” It’s not ideal, nothing is, but it’s the best I could do for the feel. (The cover before last of the alternates was ALMOST perfect, except all the colors were too dark and believe it or not that immediately gives the feel the book also is “dark.” So.)

If it sells really well, there will be an artsy cover, probably centering on a hand holding the power ruby, and there will be interior illustrations too. BUT that’s if it sells really well.

So, we don’t talk about covers…. And last night, just before the gate clanked shut, I looked at the covers on the side of the site, because my web person hasn’t been able to change it (Because I kept changing them. some lasted hours) and realized I still like it best of all. So were back to the first cover, and we don’t talk about covers.!

Meanwhile, of course, on Sunday as I was trying to figure out how to do a promo push (do you see a promo push? I don’t see a promo push!

Yeah, I gave it to a bunch of people with blogs, and hoped– But that’s fine. if people don’t like it, they don’t like it.

I know some are still reading, and a couple got back to me with “wow, just wow.” Which is highly gratifying. But I still don’t know how to do promo.

I’ve done very strange little videos, and some even capture the dual nature of the critters.

Like this one, of Nikre Lyto, Archmagician in waiting. (Can’t remember if I’ve shared before.)

Most of them, though are just… odd. Midge has the certainty that what you really really want is a sword. or at least it does that in MY videos. “Nice family breakfast!” “Why did someone pull excalibur out of their pocket and brandish with intent? But anyway….

I found Uncle Lar’s blurb for No Man’s Land (it really is just a blurb) and since I’m all out of crying I can do it now:

It’s an open secret that I do beta reads, copy edits, and some subject matter research for a small cadre of indie authors.
Mostly SF, but I’m a pushover so western and even Regency romances have been slipped in front of my red pen for a quick scrub.
So when Sarah asked me to take a look at her latest of course I agreed as I always have since millenia ago when she first delved into independent publishing.
I am not writing this bit for her fans or those long time readers of her works. All y’all already know what you’re getting. This is for the readers looking to pick something interesting up by an unfamiliar author. My message is simple, dive in and stick with it. First ten pages or so I felt like walling the thing out of frustration. Things were not adding up. By a quarter through I was disgusted with myself for failing to properly appreciate her skills in foreshadowing and the planting of suggestions that would take full flower later in the tale.
Now done I’ve gone back and reread the first several chapters just to chastise myself for missing so very many hints.
Sarah tells me she was inspired to write this in response to Left Hand of Darkness, and that certainly makes sense, but for me I caught a definite whiff of Keith Laumer’s Retief stories.
A word of general caution, even though my review copy clocks in at 275 pages do not expect everything to be wrapped up in a bow and settled. The title is after all No Man Volume 1.
My recommendation, buckle up, dive in, and enjoy the ride.

Larry A. Bauer
aka Uncle Lar

I’m going to miss him terribly, and can’t believe this is the last book in which he’ll be in acknowledgements. Maybe Mom has found him and is trying to organize him. (For some reason the idea amuses me, even though it would drive him to distraction.)

Anyway, when I got word mom died, I’d just discovered (via my kid) a site where I could put lyrics and it wrote music and “sang” it for me.

I don’t know if it was finding it out right then, but I got stuck writing lyrics and putting them to music and having AI sing it to me. Every style from sea shanty (son’s favorite) to Celtic metal. I might not be totally sane just now.

Anyway, I am going to share, but you’re not obligated to hear them. Mostly I’m doing this post today because it’s easy and because I am starting to stress over not doing promo.

So, I started with songs FROM Elly, two of which are quoted in the book. The first one is their culture hero story (Amissar (Missa) Mahar.) Or as Foxfier calls it “the cowboy murder suicide song.” (I honestly don’t know why cowboy.) It sounds subtly “off” because it’s of course a translation. And though their voices run the gamut don’t for the love of your sanity imagine this sung by a male.

Oh, for those not having seen that, Elly is populated by humans genetically modified to be hermaphrodites. It is the longest waiting book in my head, as it appeared there when i was 14 because I read Left Hand of Darkness and decided I could do better. I couldn’t, of course, but the irritation the book sparked led to this world and to my learning to write.

It’s in two parts, because it is in two parts, though usually sung together in Elly.

Missa’s Confession.

Missa’s Lament.

Another song, in volume 2 is Master of Illusion, so of course, I did it too: Master of Illusion. (Eighth circles are … um… the lowest power in the brotherhood of magicians, but also they have a knack for people and creating illusions and have a reputation.)

And for a palate cleanser, this doesn’t appear in the book (other songs do) but it will appear in book two, and it’s a parent singing to his future eighth circle child. Because eighth circle’s have a reputation, they’re called “snakes” which they tend to embrace, though not complimentary. So this is: The Snake’s Lullaby.

But then I got caught in making …. well music to advertise the book. Something might come from it…. or not.

Anyway, lookit (They all have slightly different lyrics. Lyrics mine, the rest AI with some… okay a lot of direction “I created a monster” quoth younger son.):

The Ballad of Skip Hayden.

The Ballad of Skip Hayden — Power Celtic Metal version.

I did a lot others. How many? Well, younger son likes sea shanties and…

HOWEVER I’ll just share two more. Dan’s favorite: Skip Hayden Goes Kpop.

And mine: Skip Hayden’s No Man’s Land.

So, yeah, I’m done with that now, before it becomes “We don’t talk about songs.”

If you want to read the first chapters of the first book, it’s on my website which is mostly unbuilt, but hey. And you get to see the problem with covers, since it has the second cover we came up with: https://www.sarahahoyt.com/shrodinger-worlds/

Anyway, all this was in the name of promoting, so I’ll end in a link, and I promise to have a real post tomorrow when hopefully I’ll write something other than… lyrics? What even?

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.

In All Nations, Raise the Colors, a guest post by Bill Reader

I have written before in this blog about the value of nationalism. But this moment in history has both clarified some points of my argument that I have struggled to articulate, and motivated me to once again attempt to put these points forth so that they can be understood—even if not wholeheartedly adopted— by any good faith reader.

I realize now that I need to begin this article by stating explicitly certain things I consider to be true. If you disagree with these points, you will likely disagree with all I have to say beyond this point. I consider this to be a fair trade off, because if you disagree with these predicates, then from my perspective, your outlook on reality is so warped that reasoned discussion is going to be impossible on a wide range of points.

I believe fundamentally that things which are immoral for an individual to do, do not magically become moral when a group of individuals does them. I believe fundamentally that things that are damaging, dissipative, or foolish, when done by an individual, do not magically become healthy, productive or wise when a group of individuals does them.

I acknowledge there are many ways of successfully existing in the world, but I in no way concede that they are all of equal merit. I explicitly favor those ways of existing that first contribute the most to the survival, both short and long term, of the individual, to their comfort, to their safety; and also to the survival, comfort, and safety of those around them, in descending order of priority beginning from those most cherished by and related to themselves.

Those who maximize the first with no regard to the second trend towards sociopathy and—at any rate— rarely are successful in the long term when the game is iterated long enough. Those who maximize the second, while admirable in their own right, at the logical extreme will do too little to ensure their own survival, and grind the corn to feed the poor today that might be planted to feed a hundred times more people tomorrow. I do concede that the full extent of the best mode of being is not fully understood, and that its expression is in dialogue with the circumstances of a person to some degree (EG- you can be a good Christian in a church and on a battlefield, but what specific actions that belief is instantiated in will differ greatly).

I believe, therefore, that people are due grace regarding their differing approaches, in direct proportion to their good faith and reciprocal good will. And as a final and pragmatic point, I believe that all these truths are intrinsic properties of humanity and the world it inhabits— which is not to say that I believe humans cannot delude themselves, even in large numbers, into treating these points as untrue. It is however to say that when they do, their fundamental opposition to reality will bring them to ruin, fast or slow, but whether they destroy people who recognize the nature of the world and set back the progress of humanity before they destroy themselves is ever an open question.

From this I derive the duty and mission statement of this blog against the opponents of civilization— for in the long run they will always fail, but it is up to us to secure victory so their failure does not take the world with it.

Having laid out these premises I want to turn to my thesis. It has been time, it remains time, and by the grace of heaven I hope there will be yet some time tomorrow, for people of all nations to abandon the mad sickness of globalism and re-embrace nationalism. Not just Americans, the English, the Australians, the Argentinians—people of all places and all creeds.

I have stated before and I will state again that Europe took the very wrongest lesson from World War II in one particular.

In looking at the sins of the National Socialists in Germany, they attributed all of their sins to the Nationalism, and their leaders began to seek, from that moment forth, to eschew nationalism, while embracing socialism.

In this folly they had no small help from propaganda originating in their erstwhile allies from the Soviet Union. The cold war came, pitting these same people against their very way of life. They persisted in foolishness. The Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its inefficiency, inhumanity and brutality. But its roots had grown too deeply into European hearts and minds for them to regard the implications. The interpretation of “the right wing” as being wholly defined by its nationalism— with socialism not just in name but fully embodied in policy, laughably excepted as inconsequential to the political alignment of a party— was accepted without thought (it could hardly be accepted any other way). Why? Because nationalism was nominally the difference between Stalin and Hitler. But of course, in practice, it was no such thing. Stalin was every inch the nationalist that Hitler was. It’s self-obvious from looking at his modern successor in Putin that the Russian Left is steeped deeply in Nationalism.

Globalism as preached by the USSR was a way of getting other countries to abandon their national identities in favor of a new Russian hegemon. It was always a weapon. They never meant a word of it.

How then can I advocate nationalism, if I begin by stating that two of the world’s most rightly-reviled ideologies were nationalist?

Because their sins did not arise from their nationalism.

Hitler and Stalin seized control of, both directly and indirectly, private industry large and small within their countries. That is the action of a socialist, not a nationalist. Hitler and Stalin disarmed their people and suppressed their speech— you have to do one to effectively do the other. That is the action of the socialist, not a nationalist. Hitler and Stalin confiscated the private property of their people for redistribution to their favored groups. They took from them everything up to their very lives for the primary crime of being effective opposition. They sought to control the people they ruled, and to expand their rule to all people. Every one of these actions is motivated by and wholly justified within the philosophical constraints of socialism, independent of nationalism. Every one of these actions is done today, to a greater or lesser degree, by every socialist country in the modern era, to include the so-called enlightened lands of Europe. Socialism is inextricably an oppressive, totalitarian ideology— and hence as a place becomes more socialist, its leadership becomes more totalitarian.

It has never been otherwise, because it cannot be otherwise. To build a government large enough to tabulate in detail the output and need of every citizen is to build a surveillance state. To justify the taking of a majority of the fruits of a person’s labor by the state, with or without their consent, is to make peace with theft. To justify the state control of their business is to make peace with slavery, howsoever gilded the cage that results.

To return to the premises we began with, what would we say of a man who spied on his neighbor’s every move; stole his neighbor’s wallet and took half its contents; helped himself to half the contents of his neighbors house or bank account; who inserted himself into the running of his neighbor’s affairs against their express consent? These actions do not become moral because a government does it, they merely become harder to oppose. Left wing thought always begins and ends, as I argued in one of my first essays for this blog, in the fundamental proposition that might makes right.

Countries that cast their lot in with socialism become evil even if they do not start obviously evil, because only evil men and women are comfortable with the mode by which socialism operates.

Moreover their conditions quickly worsen as the sensible citizen does not tolerate their idiocy. This is why every socialist country hemorrhages its best and brightest. Socialists raid their luminaries for their treasures, take a substantial cut for administration of their theft, and pass an inadequate pittance to their poor, with a promise to improve upon the pittance if re-elected. So the latter happens—but the prior, never. In consequence they end up inevitably with many more poor and dependent and many fewer rich and capable, and such rich as they do have must either not be the brightest (so as to not realize how badly they are robbed) or be so loyal to the country as to endure it out of love for it.

Only, of course, the latter is not allowed under the globalist regime, so perhaps you can work out what happens. The hangers on who believe in freedom but lack the means to leave endure oppression of every flavor from governments that, bit by bit, recapitulate every sin of totalitarianism in the name of defending against it. Europe’s final form, on the path it’s walking, is a man in a uniform, standing vigilant guard for any signs of a rising dictator… at the door of a dictatorship.

And what of nationalism? Nationalism is nothing more than the belief that your country’s ways are the best.

It is an earnest belief in one’s own language, culture, arts, priorities, morals, modes of thought. It has been a hallmark of every successful country in world history, whatever their moral valance. The Aztecs and the Spaniards were both nationalists of their own kinds. So too were the very people who actually fought the Nazis. Europe might have tried with some success to sell America on the idea of fighting on the side of “the allies”, but said allies were very much fighting on behalf of themselves. The French resistance was first and foremost a French resistance. It is not some inconsequential accident that the “Keep Calm and Carry On” sign is headed by the crown.

Europe didn’t have the luxury of being so stupid about this point until after the shooting stopped. Truly, how even does one articulate the desire of European powers to oppose Nazi Germany without acknowledging their justifiable fear that the Germans would wipe out their local customs in favor of their own? And what a tragicomic turn it is, therefore, that they went through all the effort of opposing the depredations of Berlin only to be willingly ravished in the selfsame manner by Brussels within the century (a tip that the Europeans would have done well to heed, and one well substantiated by the historical record, is that if you are going to be colonized by any country in Europe, pray to all the saints in the heavens that that country isn’t Belgium. They ought to have fought to the bitter end what they willingly acquiesced to.).

Why is this treated as some shock or surprise? Anti-nationalists are the kinds of people who would ask a man take a spouse but carefully never express any love for her.

They want the behavior of good citizenship while erasing the rights, duties and responsibilities of citizens. The individual version of the globalist philosophy is a person wracked by self-hatred not only at their own sins but at the sins of people they are merely descended from, sometimes so remotely that the sins of their fathers are practically the sins of everyone’s fathers. It’s a person incapable of asserting themselves to defend the most obviously innocent from the most transparently evil because some unspecified person somewhere in the dusty past with whom they might share a fragment of genetic code committed sins, and who then are they to stop a Muslim man from raping their countrymen’s children? No evil he can commit can ever make him not “oppressed” and no virtue of their own can ever make them fit to confront him.

You need not imagine this man, he is out in force applying his boot to his fellow’s face because unlike the people actually causing pain and distress in his country, he know his own countrymen will not fight back. What long term goal could he imagine himself to be serving except his own country’s extinction? And isn’t this, he thinks, in its final estimation, such an improvement on Nazism, to have all the horror of totalitarianism but turned entirely inward? For truly that was the problem with the Nazis, yes, the fact they believed in themselves, think the members of their police as they busily defend the violent third world antisemites who do to their citizens in peacetime what any European would be reviled for opportunistically doing in war.

But now at long last St. George’s cross is once again rising above England, and the southern cross over Australia.  And while the destination is far from certain, in these embers lies a chance of rekindling the health and well being of these countries. In fact, on long enough time scales, nationalism taken to its logical conclusion could overthrow even socialism itself. The global Left, of course, believes that to be its intrinsic threat, but as discussed above, the global left fears the right thing for very much the wrong reason. Many of the “right wing” movements they revile are still heavily laced with Left Wing thought. They’re simply falling for old soviet propaganda. And yet, though they’ve done the math wrong, in a way they have come to the right answer in one particular.

Nationalism is rising at the moment because the leaders of nations are trying explicitly to destroy the health, happiness, and future of their own subjects. Where the USSR and 3^rd Reich were homicidal, Europe is suicidal. It happens, however, that many of the good people of England are not particularly interested in committing suicide. So too in the US, hence Trump. So too in Argentina, hence Milei. But so strong is the cultish fervor for suicide among the global Left that mere belief in one’s own country now evokes the ghost of Hitler (nobody inform them of Hitler’s flagrant habits of drinking water, eating, and sleeping; or actually, perhaps do inform them, but film it for me).

The Left is committed to putting down its marker as the people devoted to sinking the ships aboard which the whole world floats, and they will tar all who oppose them as every -ist, they will censor, fire, and slander anyone who tries to pry the axe from their hands. And of all the things we could ask for at this moment, perhaps that is the best.

Because, at the heart of nationalism lies a belief that one’s nation is good and is worth supporting. That implies in turn a belief that the long-term well being of one’s nation is good. And the people turning explicitly against the well being of their own nations are taking an opportunity at every breath to declare fealty to socialism. Even if it were not the fundamental reason for their totalitarian behaviors, the fact that it’s the preferred draught of these fevered madmen will, I hope and pray, make its toxicity obvious if only by pure association. Europe’s socialists held a gun to their own people’s heads, and there is some small, faltering chance that having been the people to do so brings the wisdom of their other ideas into question.

But I will make even bolder, because I want to make a further point.

Right now, I believe the world is suffering more greatly than is fully reckoned for lack of nationalism. Iran in particular is being oppressed under Islam, which a bit like if a stone-age madman came up independently with all the worst parts of socialism but imagined them through the lens of a crazed desert raider. In fact Islam is subjugating much of the world under its banner and making huge chunks of the world unlivable Hellholes in consequence.

The result of this is two-fold—people flee the unlivable Hellholes and bring the source of their misery with them. It would be better, much better, certainly in Persia at least, for them to reclaim the history that preceded this madness. The Arab world at large, meanwhile, could use a different variety of nationalism. Rather than the arbitrary lines that keep warring factions bound within artificial countries, they could use borders that reflect actual coherent groups interested in self-determination. While they would still undoubtedly engage in constant tiresome warfare, at the very least they would have less built in internal conflict. Even a soupçon of an improvement in stability, combined with a sterner immigration policy on the part of the Western world, might do much to quell the relentless torrent of third world predators washing up on our doorstep. The history of this influx is, it must be remembered, relatively recent, and the conditions under which it did not happen, not so terribly remote.

South and Central America have much to offer the world in culture and resources, but they must spit out the poison pill of socialism. Argentina has lead the way, giving hope I never thought I would see in my lifetime on this front. Will the rest of the continent be wise enough to learn the lesson presented by their neighbors? Will they take anything away from the predictions of doom that fizzled, from the material improvements where the experts promised a deepening of the destruction (as if that was even possible after decades of socialists looting the ever-diminishing treasury)? Will any of them get a glimmer that when a man says what he’s doing, how and why he’s doing it, predicts what its effects will be, and then turns out to be entirely correct, that that is not a miracle, a trick, a fluke, a  magic trick, but the man with two eyes coming to the fore in the land of the blind to don the crown? A cynic would say no, but an empty stomach, and an empty future, are as powerful of an inducement for change as any man in history has ever had. Call me a fool, but I harbor some little hope.

And last but not least, how much better could China be if instead of Communism with Chinese Characteristics, it were Chinese with Chinese characteristics? The great con game of the CCP, to make their own knock off of Marx’s work and tie it by pretzel knot logic into their own national identity, has lead to misery, market distortion and stupidity of a scale perhaps never before seen in world history. China wants to be dangerous, and it certainly is. China wants to be ascendant, but it never will be, because in the current of history it tied itself to the boat anchor of socialism. The best it could have hoped for was to temporarily be the top of the heap as the other countries suffering under the benighted political theory fell. Now I’m not even sure I give them that much credit. How much better might it be if West Taiwan gave it a rest already, for everybody’s sake, and rightfully shucked the fundamentally European sickness they’ve contracted, stopped pretending Marxism was somehow perfected by China (behold, my perfectly polished cowpie!). I grant you Chinese history is a frustrating ring of déjà vu all over again up until such time as the Mongols beat some sense into them, but even that morass of slow learning couldn’t possibly be worse than what they have currently.

Let the world’s people once again believe in themselves, pick back up the threads of their histories and begin to act again in their own self interest. We have tried the alternative. Nowhere has it succeeded. It has failed the people of every nation, and left a power vacuum which has been invaded by collectivist and stone-aged ideologies whose first draft might as well have been written in the seventh ring of Hell. Enough. Enough. Enough.

To all people, of all places—abandon these unworthy nightmares, turn your thoughts back to the lands your fathers built before you fell into this dreadful sleep, and as the Brits are doing now—raise the colors!

Thank you for your comments, everyone.

To make things more confusing, we were away from home and had to drive back, and I was out of internet range for most of it.

We still don’t know if we’ll be traveling for the funeral. It’s a tiny country so they expect Wednesday and I don’t know if we can make it work.

I can’t see comments on Holly’s post (don’t ASK ME WHY. I’m the blog owner) on the back panel. And WP won’t let me comment from the front. But I have read all the comments, and you made me cry.

Mom was okay until 3 days ago, so it’s a bit of a shock. (Stepped wrong, broke either her hip or the head of the femur. (Family is unclear.) Got through surgery okay, but never came back fully. It’s a big ask in your 90s to put up with that kind of physical insult.)

It was surprising (Yesterday night they were still expecting her to recover) and I still don’t know how I feel. Particularly coming so close after losing Uncle Lar (not my real uncle, but very ductapped on for… 15 years?)

So I feel like I was smacked upside the head and still walking sideways, all while trying to prepare for the release of No Man’s Land.

Once more I must apologize to those who subscribe to the substack. Yes, serialization will resume, it’s been a crazy two weeks, with one thing and another. (I’ll tell you the story of the cover insanity soonish, too. Not sure I’m done with it, yet.)

I’m still not absolutely sure how I feel or how I’m coping. Sometimes I think I’m doing fine, then I find I’m crying.

Please be patient. Holly F. will keep you updated in the (looks unlikely) event I travel.

Right now I’m feeling very tired though I slept and Dan did all the driving.

Anyway, thank you all of you. I’ll post again soon(ish). Might post late tomorrow. Again, I’m SO tired. Or I might find I can’t sleep, so….

Good morning, Huns, Hoydens, and other Creatures!

Sarah’s out of pocket and I promised to accompany family to the Fair. So, please don’t panic if your comment stays in spam til after your bedtime today! I’ll get it later.

That said, can you all tell me how you first found Sarah’s writing? Where, when, and why, and what made you keep reading and come back for more? Fiction and non-fiction, both.

And also, check out the newly updated author website: https://www.sarahahoyt.com/ it’s very much a work in progress.

Oh. She says to tell you why she’s out. She just received an overseas call no one is ever ready for or wants to get. Please pray for comfort for her and her family, and for the repose of her mother’s soul.

Try and not burn more than two or three small dumpsters today, please? And I’ll see you all later. Holly

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 BETH HOMICZ: Some Guy Wants to Buy the Fourth of July: A rollicking, lighthearted, timeless story for Americans of all ages

SOME THINGS SHOULD NEVER BE BOUGHT — OR SOLD.
When ten-year-old Allie Campion wins a finalist slot in the Friendly Family Freedom Franks national Fourth of July essay contest, she and her dad, Dan, depart their small Virginia town, embarking upon a zany whirlwind adventure in the nation’s capital. During their week in Washington, Allie and her spirited fellow finalists discover a conspiracy of crony corruption in high places, and – inspired in part by a curmudgeonly American bald eagle – gallantly set about revealing the truth and righting the wrongs, all while navigating betrayal, defamation, and their own growing desire for independence.

Intelligently and charmingly written by a former licensed D.C. tour guide, Some Guy Wants to Buy the Fourth of July™ offers readers a heartwarming, wholesome, laugh-out-loud tale of the indefatigable American spirit.

“A bedazzling book! A fun read for all freedom-lovers… Former D.C. tour guide, Beth Homicz, takes readers on a rousing ‘tour’ of the capital that includes political chicanery, vile villains, an eloquent eagle, and some very smart, determined children.”
— Claire Wolfe, author of Hardyville Tales and other books

Children’s / Middle Grades / Young Adult
American patriotic adventure fiction
Suitable for independent reading by ages 8 and up. Family-friendly, educational, enjoyable entertainment.
Highly recommended for helping young readers to build vocabulary and civic knowledge.

FROM AMANDA S. GREEN WRITING AS ELLIE FERGUSON: Witchstorm Rising (Eerie Side of the Tracks Book 6)

For generations, Mossy Creek was a haven where Others, people with “special” talents, and Normals lived in peacefully. Unknown to most, trouble brewed just under the surface and is now about to erupt. Outside forces are determined to destroy the town in a vengeful plot that goes back generations. The only thing that might save Mossy Creek and those living there are the town’s “wayward children”.

Over the last few years, Annie Caldwell, Meg Grissom, and Jax Powell have all returned, facing down their personal demons and rising to the challenge to protect their town and loved ones. Now the storm clouds once again gather. Trouble from the past returns. Trouble the town isn’t ready for. Trouble that is determined to destroy the Others and the town they love.

Shay Griffin is the last of the town’s “wayward children”. She is also the one with the best reason not to return. Will she be able to put the demons of her past behind her and help protect her family, friends, and the town she still loves despite everything that happened? Or will she turn her back on those who betrayed her?

FROM FRANK HOOD: Advance Guards

A young man and woman abandon a near-future Los Angeles that is so addicted to technology that human needs are met at the cost of everyone’s humanity. After 40 years in the wilderness that has been abandoned by the population, the family they raised returns to the city one by one to either revolutionize the dying city or be consumed by its seductive allure. Does all hope rest on their youngest son?


“Seth, everything I have, and everything I am, I now bequeath to you. Do you understand?”

“Yes Father,” Samuel managed to stammer despite his father’s mistaking him for his eldest brother, the brother he had never met, the brother that had died before any of his siblings were even born, the brother that had never had the chance to grow up.

“Take care of your mother. She’s your responsibility now.”

FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Siege of Proxima Colony (The Proxima Chronicles Book 2)

The Siege of Proxima Colony

The dream of a new world has become a desperate fight for survival.

On Proxima Centauri, humanity’s fragile foothold is shattered when mysterious machines descend from the skies, laying waste to the colony’s domes and towers. With weapons useless against the invaders, the settlers are driven underground, forced to endure starvation, fear, and the creeping sense that hope itself is slipping away.

As leaders falter and factions divide, ordinary colonists must find the courage to endure. From desperate raids to haunting discoveries, their struggle reveals that Proxima is more than a hostile frontier—it may be the key to humanity’s survival, or its final grave.

Blending the tension of classic survival tales with the wonder of golden-age science fiction, The Siege of Proxima Colony is a gripping chronicle of resilience, sacrifice, and the strange partnership between humankind and an alien world.

Perfect for readers who enjoy Kim Stanley Robinson, Arthur C. Clarke, or The Expanse, this is science fiction with a human heart—where the true frontier is not the stars, but the courage to endure.

FROM VICTOR TANGO KILO: The Baddies

He joined the enemy to take them down from the inside. It’s not going great.

The Imperium of Greater Scorpius is brutal, relentless, and bent on galactic conquest. Their massive interstellar army, the Scorpion Horde, uses overwhelming force, bureaucratic ruthlessness, and a complete disregard for ergonomics.

Ogden “OK” Kevitch meant to join the rebellion and fight Imperial tyranny. Really, he did. But due to some bad decisions and misunderstandings, he joined the Imperial Horde instead. Assigned to food service, he’s slinging tuber-tots in the mess hall of a Scorpion Horde battle cruiser.

Still a rebel at heart (but an engineer by nature), OK tries to sabotage the Horde from underneath a hairnet. Unfortunately, his efforts have a tendency to backfire—and accidentally make things better for the Horde and worse for the rebellion.

His latest scheme involves smuggling out the stolen brain of a dead rebel scientist. It’s risky, it’s stupid, and it just might be exactly what the Horde wants.

The Baddies is a darkly satirical military science fiction novel about failure, rebellion, and the quiet horror of being employee-of-the-month for the bad guys.

The Baddies and its companion novel, Hell Yeah! We’re the Baddies, explore the light side of the dark side—where one hapless food tech and one disgraced intelligence officer try to outmaneuver an empire built on cruelty, incompetence, and performance reviews. Together, they tell two distinct stories wrapped around the same set of events: a Rashomon-style exploration of different perspectives inside the Scorpion Imperium.

FROM MACKEY CHANDLER: A Sudden Departure

The Earth below is a house in disorder. The spacers increasingly just want to be left alone. They need less from Earth all the time so many don’t really care what they do down there on the Slum Ball, but what if improving technology made it easier for them to bring all their old factions and sects and rivalries among the stars? The three partners April, Jeff and Heather hope to beat them at that game and find a firm foothold out there before the Earthies arrive. The book is also laying out details leading up to the merge of the “April” series of books with the story of the “Family Law” series.

FROM MAX BRAND, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Train’s Trust (Annotated): The classic pulp western adventure

Steve Train, gambler, adventurer, clever rogue, didn’t care much for work. But then he was offered a job with no work, but plenty of danger. The job: track down outlaw Jim Nair — and hand him a pile of money!

• This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction by indie author D. Jason Fleming giving historical and genre context to the novel.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Lion in Paradise

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

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

But she’s got a fix for that problem.

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

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

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

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

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: No Man’s Land: Volume 1

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.

FROM BLAKE SMITH: In Pursuit of Justice: A Novel of The Garia Cycle

When love sparks a war, can four hearts survive the flames?

Zara thought escaping to freedom with Téo was the end of her story. She was wrong—it was only the beginning.

Their forbidden love has ignited a war between two kingdoms, and now they’re refugees fighting for survival in a hostile land where every shadow could hide an assassin and every stranger might be the end.

Meanwhile, back in the marble halls of the East Morlans, Prince Hanri races against time to contain his father’s burning thirst for revenge before it consumes everything in its path. And in the glittering palace where whispers are weapons, Alia must navigate a maze of deadly rumors and half-truths to uncover the secrets that could save them all—or destroy everyone she loves.

With armies gathering and alliances crumbling, four young hearts must learn that sometimes the greatest battles aren’t fought with swords, but with courage, loyalty, and the unbreakable bonds of love.

In a world where kingdoms clash and hearts collide, who will you trust when everything falls apart?

War changes everything. But love? Love endures.

Perfect for readers who crave epic romance, political intrigue, and characters who will fight to the end for what they believe in.

FROM KAREN MEYERS: Broken Devices: A Lost Wizard’s Tale (The Chained Adept Book 3)

Book 3 of The Chained Adept

CHAINS WITHOUT WIZARDS AND A RISING COUNT OF THE DEAD.

The largest city in the world has just discovered its missing wizards. It seems the Kigali empire has ignited a panic that threatens internal ruin and the only chained wizard it knows that’s still alive is Penrys.

The living wizards and the dead are not her people, not unless she makes them so. All they have in common is a heavy chain and a dead past — the lives that were stolen from them are beyond recall.

What remains are unanswered questions about who made them this way. And why. And what Penrys plans to do to find out.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Other Side of Midnight

Life has been a nightmare for Mitya ever since he was arrested on trumped-up charges and exiled to Siberia. But this labor camp in the far north of Magadan Oblast hides a secret far more terrible than the merely human evils of the Great Terror. For the universe we know is not the only one, and there are places where it interpenetrates with universes where the laws of nature as we know them do not operate, where humanity has no place. Worlds inhabited by beings ancient and terrible, to whom humanity are slaves, playthings, food.

ALSO THE BASED BOOKSALE COMETH. IF YOU’RE A WRITER, CONSIDER PARTICIPATING: Based Book Sale.

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: WEIGH

News update: 45th Prometheus Awards show set for Zoom at 2 p.m. Saturday (EST) Aug. 30

For immediate release:

The 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony will take place Saturday Aug. 30 at 2 p.m. Eastern time (11 a.m. Pacific) via Zoom and is open to the public.

This will be the first ceremony in the Prometheus Awards’ 46-year history in which both of this year’s winners – Poul Anderson (1926-2001) and Michael Flynn (1947-2023) – will be recognized posthumously, with eloquent, personal, revealing, amusing and inspirational speeches about their lives and works by the family members who loved them.

Among the speakers for the awards show, expected to run about 40-45 minutes:
* guest presenter David Friedman – a leading economist, law-and-economics professor, libertarian theorist, and Prometheus-nominated fantasy novelist
* Astrid Anderson Bear – daughter of the Hugo-winning SFWA Grand Master Poul Anderson (Tau Zero, The Broken Sword, The Psychotechnic League, Ensign Flandry, Time Patrol, The High Crusade, and wife of the late sf author Greg Bear (Eon, The Forge of God, Darwin’s Radio, Anvil of Stars)
* Kevin Flynn – brother of the late SF author Michael Flynn (Hugo Best Novel finalist for Eifelheim), Denver City Councilman, a retired journalist and co-author with Gary Gerhardt of the books The Order: Inside America’s Racist Underground and The Silent Brotherhood: The Chilling Inside Story of America’s Violent, Anti-Government Militia Movement.
* Shahid Mahmud – publisher of CAEZIK SF & Fantasy, which has published its first Prometheus-winning novel with Michael Flynn’s In the Belly of the Whale
* emcee and LFS president William H. Stoddard – a freelance editor and author of half a dozen SF role-playing-gaming books on GURPS
* Prometheus Blog editor-contributor Michael Grossberg – an award-winning, retired journalist and theater/film/book critic who chairs the Prometheus Best Novel Judging Committee.

Astrid Anderson Bear will accept the Prometheus Hall of Fame award for Best Classic Fiction for her father’s 1983 novel Orion Shall Rise.

Kevin Flynn will accept the Prometheus Award for Best Novel for his brother’s last novel, In the Belly of the Whale (CAEZIK SF & Fantasy.)

Orion Shall Rise – the fifth work by Anderson to be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame, following Trader to the Stars (in 1985), The Star Fox (in 1995), “No Truce with Kings” (in 2010) and “Sam Hall” (in 2020) – explores the corruptions and temptations of power and how a free society might survive and thrive after a post-nuclear-war apocalypse on a largely depopulated Earth with the emergence of four drastically different socioeconomic societies.

In the Belly of the Whale – the third work by Michael Flynn to win a Prometheus award for Best Novel, following In the Country of the Blind (in 1991)and Fallen Angels (in 1992) – offers an epic drama and cautionary tale about challenges, conflicts and threats to liberty among 40,000 human colonists aboard a colossal generation ship during a long 12-light-years voyage to another star.

David D. Friedman (son of Milton Friedman and a leading libertarian theorist himself since the 1970s) will present the Hall of Fame category. Friedman’s speech will discuss libertarian science fiction and how he was influenced in his economic thinking by Prometheus-winning authors such as Robert Heinlein and Vernor Vinge.

Among Friedman’s books: The Machinery of Freedom, Price Theory: An Intermediate Text, Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World, Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life and the fantasy novels Harald, Brothers and Salamander.

Shahid Mahmud, CAEZIK publisher, will speak about Michael Flynn’s final posthumous novel and legacy.
Michael Grossberg, who will present the Best Novel category. contributed to six books, including essays in four editions of The Burns Mantle Yearbook of the Theater and a critical-essay afterword to the 2nd edition of J. Neil Schulman’s Prometheus-winning 1984 novel The Rainbow Cadenza (notable as perhaps the first sf novel to envision a future where gay marriage is normal and legal).

The 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony is open to the public (with subsequent reports and transcripts on the Prometheus Blog at www.lfs.org/blog/)

Here is the Zoom link to access and watch the 2-2:45 p.m. Saturday (EST) Aug. 30, 2025 event:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87344910540?pwd=rD6ckCN7j8k5Ytyh2n2YaQbpqoGkjr.1

Meeting ID: 873 4491 0540

Passcode: 396343

So, what on Earth is going on….

Well, I had a doctor’s appointment this morning which went on to mid afternoon. Normally I’d have posted last night and scheduled, but I got pulled away by a minor emergency and ALSO ….

Hearing someone in your duct tape family died is a little sapping to the focus. Even if you were if not expecting it, aware he wasn’t doing well.

And then last night. Oh, dear Lord. I’m sitting here on three hours of sleep. THREE HOURS. And that’s a high estimate.

You see, we had a massive storm. And Indy is afraid of thunder. So he tried to break into our room. But he must have skipped his paw day recently, because he couldn’t manage enough strength to lift and open the metal gate in front of the bedroom door. (He’s done it before.)

So he just lifted and dropped it, with a clunk. ALL NIGHT LONG.

And he howled, because he was terrified.

So, clunk clunk HOWL every time I was starting to drift off again. And I had to get up early because appointment.

The appointment went well. The writer is non compos mentis.

I will at some point do a post on Uncle Lar. Might even be tomorrow. But I’d like to do him justice.

I remembered, late at night, that he did a post for me, on No Man’s Land. He thought I’d need help selling it, because it’s … wholesome, really (Save for ONE shady chapter in the beginning, but to be fair, the character knows he’s doing stuff he shouldn’t, for so many reasons. And it’s in no way graphic.) and definitely not woke, but people are weird and might perceive it as being either risque or strange.

So he did a post. I meant to read it and get back to him, then life went off the rails, he had a stroke and wasn’t processing, so I let it chill.

I will confess I’m still not up to reading it. Probably next week, sometime.

… I knew he wasn’t doing well. he hasn’t been doing well for several years. I think 21? 22? was the last year he came to Liberty Con. But he wasn’t that much older than I, and–

I don’t like saying goodbye to my friends.

I’d like to think somewhere on the other side there’s a little room set up where Huns departed (we have a growing contingent, alas) can go in and see old friends. I hope he and CACS are amused by our antics.

Until we meet again. (I will eventually stop crying like someone is cutting onions. It’s just lack of sleep, really. Honestly. I swear.)

First of all, sorry this is so late. Yes, yes, I am still fighting the clanker. DEAL.

I’ve changed the cover of No Man’s Land, but I’m still not happy. To be fair, it’s a big ask for the thing to produce Ellyans. But…. well, I wish I were a little less autistic about it, okay? Or obsessive. This might just be “obsessive.”

Anyway I’ve been staying up late and beating on the clanker, and I’m cranky and a bit out of it. I need to write — for my own sanity — and haven’t been able to.

All of which makes me unreasonably cranky. Those of you in the back row who just rubbed your hands together and giggled should be ashamed of themselves! And sit up straight. And no, don’t put in orders for popcorn.

That said, yesterday, on Twitex — stop giggling — I ran across a particularly old and pernicious form of idiocy.

The context was of course the idiots who seem to believe no one can change cultures, and acculturation is utterly impossible. Look, I’m not saying acculturation is easy and yeah, mass migration curtails it by immersing people in their culture of origin and therefore making it impossible.

Also, this “acceptance” and “diversity is our strength” bullshit curtails acculturation because frankly humans don’t change unless they’re uncomfortable. Make them comfortable with their old culture in the new environment, tell them they’re special and bring wonderful things to these heathens they’re now living among, and they’ll not only never change, but view it as a terrible imposition to accommodate their hosts in anything. (Which is why you get these ridiculous entitled illegals flying the flag of their homeland and acting like we should all bow.)

Those are absolutely true. But it is equally true that humans are adaptable. The oldest saga of mankind, the Epic of Gilgamesh, is a story of acculturation, of bringing the “wild man” in to civilization.

The story of MANKIND is one of acculturation. Humans move to a new climate and adapt. Humans move to a different society and “go native.” We wouldn’t even have that phrase if this weren’t true and a known effect.

Sociologists — who say a lot of nonsense — call humans the animal who domesticated themselves. And supposedly domestication comes with physical changes, yeah, but you know I question the extent of those and the rapidity of those. Yes, I know, the Russian Foxes. But as far as I know that experiment hasn’t been replicated and Soviet Science should be printed in the same roll to disbelieve library as English High Cuisine.

But one thing is absolutely true: We don’t live the same way our ancestors lived in the fertile crescent or the Neolithic. Pretty much anywhere over the world. Yes, some societies seem more barbaric than those were, but if you study history, they’re really not. In some ways they’re far more barbaric because only people who have civilized and then rebarbarized can be that appalling. In others they are a vast improvement over, yes, even Ur of the Chaldees.

And besides, most of us, even in the “single origin” (AH!) nations of Europe, have blood from many other places. In fact, that is the “normal.” And in the US? We’re the original, spicy blended flavor. Not that diversity is our strength, but that bringing in many potentialities and forcing people to keep only constructive ones does improve the country. (This assumes we bring in the best, not whoever can walk across the border with their flag and a grievance.)

People adapt. They shed languages, habits, ways of being.

I was mentioning to Dan only the other day that The Three Guys are gone from Portugal. No, this is not a burger chain. It used to be you couldn’t walk outside anywhere in Portugal without three guys leaning on a wall looking at you appraisingly. And if you were a woman alone between eight and eighty, no matter how obviously “above their touch” they saw it as their sworn duty to shout graphic remarks of sexual things they’d like you to do to them.

I’m sure this was a survival of Arabic culture, where a woman alone is assumed to be a whore, but it persisted through all the centuries of Christendom. And while they didn’t dare attack you or touch you, it put a definite pall into such excursions as going out for groceries on your own, or even walking to class.

They’re gone. Completely vanished. And it’s one of the things I’ll praise the EU for. Of course, it’s partly the EU and their feminism, and partly the fact that Portugal’s primary industry is now tourism. I’m sure the police cracked pretty heartily on those more enterprising souls who shouted suggestions in bad English or bad French. And from that, they likely expanded to everyone doing that, in case some tourists spoke Portuguese or enough Spanish to understand the disgusting drivel.

And no, it’s not because they all died. They were around 20 years ago, and some where 20 years old. But they’ve adapted because being harassed back by the police was not to their taste.

Dogs, old and new, learn new tricks. They simply have to be taught.

Anyway, the conversation on twitter devolved to someone saying that he was descended from people on the Mayflower (my husband, not being a show off is descended from people on the next boat) and one of these new deep thinkers telling that was impossible since his profile says he’s Catholic and the pilgrims, of course, being all Protestant.

Because, y’all, religion is inherited. Other things I’ve found are inherited (And this was from the left, trying to slam my kids into Spanish — SPANISH! — language only classes) is language, way of dressing, propensity to crime, etc. etc. ad most definitely nauseum. (And how. I need anti-nausea medication at that drivel.)

No one — NO ONE — denies some tendencies are hereditary. I grew up in a village — channels Miss Marple — and you get to see this play out over generations, because your grandmother likely knows the grandparents of your school friends, and her mom knew the grandparents’ parents. And even with influx from outside — by my time quite common — it’s amazing how consistent some lines are. Grandma’s had a tendency to be flaky depressive story tellers. Fortunately I got none of–

Stop laughing. It’s rude.

Dad’s father’s line was known for its steady application to everything, its detailed intelligence and its taking on of very difficult professions. (Going way back a tendency to law, engineering and doctoring.)

On my mother’s side, they’re brilliant and crazy, but tend to dull the first and heighten the second with alcohol. That particular curse passed me by. They did however give me the berserker and an inability to keep my mouth shut when something pisses me off. (And my fondness for knives and axes. Not that I make use of them. But they’re ready, in case an opportunity should arise.)

Going into school we were known quantities. The teachers knew they could expect flakiness on schedule and keeping track of our possessions, great ability of memorization, a fondness for languages, history and math, that our lowest level of achievement would be a B for all academics, and that our gym performance would suck. No, listen… suck on ice. We’re a family mostly known for tripping over both feet while standing still.

But even in that limited gene pool those are TENDENCIES not genetic imperatives. My dad excelled at soccer, my brother in handball. Dad and his brothers were all natural sharpshooters. None of them could ride a bicycle, not even with the help of all the angels and saints, so they walked everywhere. And that I know of none of us, ever, could jump a rope. I remember mom trying to teach my brother and I by demonstrating it and being utterly puzzled it unobtanium to us.

What I’m trying to say is yes, some characteristics are inherited, but they they’re either way more granular than you can apply even to the inhabitants of a largely inbred village — or family — like, being unable to ride a bicycle or jump a rope, but great at soccer or, contrary to family history, sucking at geography, but excelling at everything else — or they’re far more general and frankly overcomable. (Totally a word. Deal.)

Look, yes, my tendency to depression is inherited. As is the ADD. I cope with both as best I can. I have a tendency to excessive amiability and conflict avoidance — stop laughing. To the extent I can do this it’s because I’ve acculturated — because of being raised as a woman in Portugal in the sixties and seventies.

But culture can influence you to a level that overcomes whatever you were born with. And I do actually have proof in myself. Until my fifties I did NOT have the slightest clue I was an introvert, much less an extreme introvert. In fact, most of you who’ve met me will refuse to believe that.

And yet I am. As I found out accidentally while reading that introversion makes you exhausted after being with people.

So, how come I didn’t know it? Because introversion as is possible in the US was simply not allowed. Portugal as a culture lives in each other’s pockets all the time. The extended family and the friends who are like family are in your face all the time twenty four seven. You can’t tell them to go away. That’s unthinkable. And my habit of locking myself in my room so I could read in peace made mom try to drag me to a psychiatrist.

I was trained, before I was even verbal, to be able to put on a front and act extroverted, even though all my instincts are to introversion.

I’ve been slowly becoming more myself in a culture that allows introversion — and it’s a relief — but it took almost thirty years to even realize my natural inclination.

People change. People adapt. People even civilize.

The people who believe otherwise, or pretend to (I suppose that was the snide intent of the guy who came over to tell me Portugal was so backward and why had I come here) are dirty, evil eugenicists who want the right to kill everyone who doesn’t conform to their version of what an American should be.

And you know that once it starts going down that path no one is safe. Absolutely no one. Because you might be Catholic or able to tan (despite ancestors going back to the revolution) or even — gasp — have a thought they didn’t approve of.

I recommend the insane eugenicists move to tribal Africa. It’s the only place the majority absolutely agrees with them that every aspect of behavior is inherited. I’ll even chip in for the spray-on-tan.

The fact that we don’t demand assimilation and adaptation to our culture has been pushing everyone, newcomers and old residents, in the other direction. Barbarism has advantages when you can act “natural” (Jean Jacques Rousseau must die) and get rewarded and treated as a victim.

Humans don’t change unless they have to. Once they have to, though, the changes will astonish you.

It’s time to start demanding changes of newcomers and old. Adherence to our founding documents, civic behavior of free citizens who are responsible for themselves, eschewing criminality and taking your hands off other people’s taxes.

It’s time to start demanding that people who come here and claim to want to join us speak English if not without an accent — listen, I’d get rid of it, if I could — at least fluently enough it doesn’t matter.

It’s time for Americans to be unapologetically American and make people fit in or fuck off.

Because humans are adaptable, and our culture is the best in the world and worth adapting to.

(Like the Nidiot I am I scheduled this…. and forgot to flip pm to am. And for this I stayed up till midnight actually two am. Which means I carefully changed am to PM because…. Yeah. There’s a proud tribe of Nidiots and I’m their chief….. Sigh.)

For those of you who just dropped (from outer space!) in here, this is what I’m doing and why.

Yes, we did a double reverse and went back to this book, since one of you (Thank you Uncle Lar) sent me a copy. I refused to buy one because they run upwards of $30. And I’m cheap.

Anyway, for those not wanting to go through all of it, I’ve been reading myself back to my origins in science fiction, or what I read in science fiction. Until I was about 12 or 13 there was only one collection (after that there were others, often of Brazilian imprints. I remember fondly the blue-paper imprint that was designed for “night reading.” Fondly because, as advertised, it didn’t reflect the glare of the bedside lamp.)

For those wondering about only one imprint of science fiction, remember that there, as here, science fiction is a minority taste and when I was growing up Portugal had barely 10 million people. So, counting only those who read for pleasure, and only those who read science fiction… it was a very small readership. The side effect of this is that they did from the beginning what companies in the US only started doing in the oughts: print to the net. Which meant if you wanted to grab a book, you had to be there in time to pick up one of the limited copies. This led to lines on the day of the releases of the people everyone read. Sometimes books hung around in spinner racks in less travelled locales — I scored Glory Road (and other books I don’t remember) — in a small village we were traveling through. It was in the tobacconists. Why I don’t know, since in the big city any Heinlein sold out in mere hours.

Anyway, since I came on the scene a long time after the series started publishing, I missed a lot of the early ones, though I did find them afterwards in weird ways, like when I scored a box of old sf books by helping someone move.

Anyway, all this to say: I’d never read this book. In fact, until you guys told me I didn’t realize that David French was Isaac Asimov.

So, before we dive into this, let me say Asimov was never one of my favorites. I found him generally competent, and he wasn’t on my list of “I’ll read this under protest” — there weren’t enough books available that I could say I wouldn’t read a book — but he also didn’t light up my day. I can’t tell you why, even. This is a highly individual thing and his stories just didn’t interest me as much or stay with me. I did enjoy his short stories more than his novels and remember enjoying the puzzle science fiction mysteries.

Anyway, that out of the way and with the understanding he wasn’t one of my favorites, let’s plunge in.

If you need to refresh your memory on who Isaac Asimov was, go here.

The short version:

Isaac Asimov was born on January 2, 1920, in Petrovichi, Russia. He immigrated to the United States with his family in 1923, settling in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were Orthodox Jews, and he was the oldest of three children. Asimov graduated from Columbia University, earning a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1948.

Asimov was a prolific writer, authoring or editing over 500 books. He is best known for his contributions to science fiction, particularly the Foundation series and the Robot series. His first published story, “Marooned off Vesta,” appeared in 1939. He also wrote extensively in popular science, making complex topics accessible to the general public.

Anyway, this book published in Portuguese as O Veneno de Marte (The Poison from Mars) was published in America for the first time in January 1952. (It was published in Portugal in 1954 which is very fast and perhaps relevant. The taste of the people selecting these books were WEIRD even aside from their mad pash for French and obscure British books. Put a pin in this.)

The story starts with David Starr newly admitted to the council of science. (In all the human worlds, there’s a Council of Science which is … never mind. An interesting concept.) He was raised by two of the scientists in it, because his mother and father were killed when their ship was boarded by the pirates from the asteroids.

(Here let me insert that perhaps it’s not an accident that the rest of us consider the asteroids the symbolic bastions of freedom, but Asimov put the pirates and evil doers there.)

Anyway, David Starr is in a restaurant when someone dies of poisoning. There have been a lot of these poisonings and they all originate with products from Mars. The Council of Science sends him to find the origin of the poison in Mars.

There follows an unlikely set of adventures…

I think I should say that part of the problem I had with reading the book is that he seems to spend a lot of time tripping over what would be mundane stuff. Like, I really don’t need to hear about the force field tables in detail even once, much less repeatedly, while we’re dealing with someone who just died of poisoning, unexpectedly. I don’t know. It’s a matter of taste, but maybe this is part of what bothered me.

Another thing that bothered me was that though Mars is supposed to be “arm country” there isn’t much in the way of reality to the “farms.”

Perhaps Asimov simply hadn’t spent long enough in farms? I don’t know.

Anyway, while escaping an attempt on his life, David Starr ends up in a cave where he meets the Martians, who became… Well, it’s hard to tell? Either beings of the ultraviolet/energy or mind-beings, who live in caves under the surface and have absolutely no stake in what is happening on the surface, let alone in other worlds. They give him a…. scientifically cloaked magical invisibility device. (Look, I feel better about the science in No Man’s Land, suddenly.)

With the help of this, he solves the mystery of who is putting poison in the food to Earth.

I want to take a break here to note that the reason he’s called Space Ranger is not, as you might expect, because he joins a force of Space Rangers. Oh, no. It’s because one of the Martians names him “Space Ranger” because he ranges over space. Head>desk.

So, to return to that pin in the beginning: I find it weird that the people curating the publishing line chose David Starr over … Red Planet.

Though perhaps it makes sense since Red Planet is the American revolution turned into Science Fiction for kids and that might not have resonated with normal Portuguese people?

Anyway, this is relevant because when I was reading the book, it struck me as condensed, kind of floating over the top Red Planet fanfic. It was in fact published 2 years after.

Here I must insert that I don’t think Isaac Asimov did anything wrong. Look, ideas aren’t copyrighteable, and the story is not even the same. Not really. Except insofar as young spunky kid gets stranded in Mars and has to spend a night, and gets through it by strange means.

It’s more I feel like he read Red Planet and thought “I can do this better” and then wrote David Starr Space Ranger. Which… to my mind isn’t better, but that is obviously a matter of taste, and I’m sure there are people who prefer this book to Red Planet.

And it’s okay, because I feel like Heinlein read David Starr’s history and then decided to write it better for the character in Citizen of the Galaxy.

Anyway, on the salient point of the book: it was okay. It certainly wasn’t painful to read like the French one. Unfortunately it also failed to rock my world. I mean, it wasn’t bad, precisely. It just didn’t rock my world.

Anyway, um… if you decide to read David Starr Space Ranger, it’s okay. (It’s probably more worth the money in Audio, tbf.) It’s not like I want my time back from reading it. And I’m certainly in no position, being who and what I am to throw stones at a legend of science fiction.

It’s just I have a feeling our personalities don’t mesh, and what he was fascinated by (Council of Science. Pfui.) leaves me indifferent.

Oh, for the record, I think I would have liked this book much better if I’d read it when I was much younger and that might be part of the problem. I think he was going for a YA feel, and few YAs play well past their intended target.

One point of interest is that in this story, there was life on Mars before humans, of course, and there still is. Spores and bacteria and the like. And I practically flinched when Asimov’s people blithely talk about this not mattering at all, as they set about essentially terraforming Mars piecemeal to grow Earth food.

It is a mark of how much we’ve changed over the decades, that even I flinched from that and thought “well, that’s wrong” while Asimov, who — were he alive — would be still very much on the left and probably claiming the right of every microbe to avoid “colonialism” at the time was happily envisioning Earth life driving this other, inferior life to extinction. (Another point there being that the Council of Science isn’t even vaguely excited about thiis potentially completely different life and what they can learn from it.)

I don’t know. Perhaps I’m reading too much into all of this, but what went through my mind was “Well, yes, the left was all for colonialism and the extinction of any aliens that were in our way, until the USSR started to obviously fail, denying their ultimate ideal. And then slowly they changed their view and put on the skin of environmentalism over the same old tired Marxism.”

Note I’m not even accusing Asimov of this, just noting that this might be the mechanism through which our culture changed, and through which the left came to believe a bunch of quasi-religious ideas (some nonsense. Though I find that if there is life with a different origin than ours it would definitely be big scientific news and worth of study, duh) that coalesced in an attempt to find another vehicle for the socialism/communism that had failed as “scientific governance.””

In any case, the left today sure ain’t like the left back then. Not even the “scientific left.”

Which is why things like a Council of Science, centralizing such decisions, is a bad, bad idea. Because scientists are still human and emotionally susceptible to their peer group’s culture and decisions.

The best science is distributed science, where mavericks and Odds can find the things that “Official” science laughs at, and which often prove to be true after all.

So, next week!

That is From What Far Star by Bryan Berry.

A friend secured me a copy, as it doesn’t seem to be available anywhere, except used and pricey in print from Amazon. (Keep in mind that the Brian Berry listed on Amazon is not actually the same person. I don’t know who he is.)

For some reason clicking on his name there is no link to these books, but a search for his name brings up other used ones.

Anyway, I’ll try to do that for next Tuesday. Sorry this one took so long. A lot of things got in the way, mostly stupid things like really bad sleep. Which has also been getting in the way of doing Witch’s Daughter. I hope I can tomorrow. I’m “this” close to the end.