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 SEAN FENIAN: United Fleet (The Stardock Trilogy Book 2)
Four months ago, the Crickets — the Chhrt’ktk’t, in their own language — had abandoned a mobile shipyard with a burned-out hyperdrive core in Sol system, as a decoy. They hadn’t told humanity about the decoy part. Then they had picked Alex Holder to operate it, simply because he happened by chance to be the first human they found who could — because that would make it a better decoy.
In perhaps as little as five years, the Khreetan would be coming. The Crickets hadn’t intended for humanity to know that, either.
Alex had those five years to build a defensive fleet from the spines out, recruit crews for his ships, and find enough humans who could reach full rapport with Cricket tech to command and control them — and get all of them trained to work together despite their national differences. All this, while at the same time he tried to share the Crickets’ scientific knowledge, distribute their technology where it was most desperately needed, and somehow still keep the peace.
But would it be enough?
Fortunately, he had help, and he was beginning to find more people who could fully link with Chhrt’ktk’t technology.
FROM JERRY BOYD: Friends With Boomafits (Bob and Nikki Book 46)
BSR thought that things were going well on Zarathrustra. They should know better by now, don’t you think? One thing leads to another, as Bob and the crew do their best to straighten things out. Ride along, with the ships of BSR as they try to keep their world safe.
FROM JAMES TOTTEN: Battle Fatigue and Speed Bumps: Breaching Ain’t Easy
Volume I Battle Fatigue
It’s hell on Earth in the explosive battlefields of the former North Korea. Two Corps, Chinese and Korean/American, are slugging it out to decide the fate of the Korean Peninsula as World War Three rages on. SSG Denise Ware is in the thick of the battle with her four ground combat drones, screening the Corps from attack from a Chinese Armored Regiment. The action comes quickly to the drone drivers as they fight to keep the massed Chinese armor from attacking the flank of IV Corps. Will the drones win or lose, or will the Chinese overrun IV Corps and destroy Korea’s industrial capacity that is supplying NATO with the tanks and vehicles needed to hold the line in former Ukraine? It’s armored combat at its worst as the drones, or “American Murder Hornets,” try to save the day.
Book II Speedbumps
Learn how “Slowball” earned his handle and goes to war after retiring. Follow his exploits as his “tiny tanks” blunt a Soviet attack in the “no quarter asked or given” NATO war in Europe rages all around his tiny tanks. The drivers have the guts and the drones are doing the dying as the battle in the former Ukraine chews through men and materiel. When the drones get decimated, who will come to save the day? Find out in this action packed short story forged on the future battlefields of WW III.
FROM SCOTT MCCREA: Twenty Chests of Gold
Introducing a new series of adventure novels by storyteller Scott McCrea!
Jeff Galleon, California surfer and beach bum, is a “person of interest” to the police when old friends are murdered. Galleon soon discovers he is at the center of a conspiracy involving rogue American agents, a beautiful assassin and missing pirate gold. He traces the treasure from California to New York to Paris to the Dominican Republic, but can he find it before the killers find him?
Twenty Chests of Gold is the first in an exciting new series of adventure stories featuring Jeff Galleon by Western Writers of America Spur Award finalist, author Scott McCrea.
And this one has a book trailer, apparently!
FROM DALE COZORT: Snapshot42-Book2:Through The Texas Gate (Snapshot-42 Book 2)
Snapshot42: Through the Texas Gate is an alternate history novel. In early November 1942, with World War II hanging in the balance, an invisible wall cuts Europe, along with parts of the Middle East and North Africa, off from the rest of the world. With the Allies running out of vital raw materials from the rest of the world, they look for ways through the wall. They find two gates to other realities. One leads to a still-independent Republic of Texas that still uses black powder weapons and is barely holding off fierce nomad raiders, while another leads to a strange land without people but overrun by still-living dinosaurs.
Jim Bridger and Colonel Tillman need to buy oil and food to keep the allies in the war, but first they have to survive fierce new enemies in these new-found realities.
FROM MARY CATELLI: Enchantments And Dragons
A wizard must produce justice enough to satisfy a dragon. A young man tries to rob a tiger’s lair. An enchantress tries to keep a court safe while they ignore the perils of misusing her magic. A lady finds that court intrigues can spread even to the countryside. And more tales. Includes “Over the Sea To Me,” “Dragonfire and Time”, “The Maze, the Manor, and the Unicorn”, “The White Menagerie”, “The Dragon’s Cottage,” “Jewel of the Tiger,” and “The Sword Breaks.”
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.
FROM HOLLY CHISM: Gods and Monsters
Here there be dragons…again, damn it.
Deshayna has her sanity back, and forces older than the gods have granted her a new purpose. Chronos, his freedom restored, fights for his sanity, and with it, a purpose in helping Deshayna—now called Shay—with hers. The gods are starting to pull together more…and it’s about time.
Millennia after the last dragons to threaten human existence have been hunted down, they’ve started to reappear, hinting to the surviving gods that something more sinister appeared first: Tiamat.
Instead of a confrontation, though, the gods—major, minor, and genus loci—are drawn into a frustrating hunt for a predator that flees rather than attempting to strike.
FROM KAREN MYERS: Second Sight: A Science Fiction Short Story
BORROWING SOMEONE ELSE’S PERCEPTIONS FOR A POPULAR DEVICE CAN ONLY MEAN COMMERCIAL SUCCESS. RIGHT?
Samar Dix, the inventor of the popular DixOcular replacement eyes with their numerous enhancements, has run out of ideas and needs another hit. Engaging a visionary painter to create the first in a series of Artist models promises to yield an entirely new way of looking at his world.
But looking through another’s eyes isn’t quite as simple as he thinks, and no amount of tweaking will yield entirely predictable, or safe, results.
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: Heavenly