According To Hoyt

Ever since the deep-set organization and by-the-numbers programming to the circus in Minneapolis came out, people on the right have been blackpilling.

Well, you know my opinion on black pills. It’s two fold: You know exactly where it’s been, and nothing that’s been THERE belongs in your mouth. AND even if it all were lost, what could you accomplish by getting people to despair and give up? This last is why people in a war shoot those spreading fear and despondency, even if what they are seeing is right. Because Blackpill fights on the side of the enemy. And while you could argue someone like the Red Baron coming out with his certainty the war was lost before his death might have saved death and destruction (maybe) in our case that is never true. There is no surrender to communists. Communists are as my friend Eric S. Raymond reminded everyone on twitter recently, Hostis Humanis Generis, and therefore the only surrender they accept is death. Well, f*ck them very much. I was never going to go quietly and without making sure I took an escort with me to hell. Even if they were fated to win, I’d fight them for every inch, every breath, every micron of mind space, in hopes of planting a seed of freedom for future generations.

However the bizarre thing about all this doom and gloom is that THEY AREN’T WINNING. The situation is very far from hopeless, very far from lost, and in fact, barring our complete and abject surrender to a panicking foe, we will win this and send communism to the ash heap of history with its cousin, fascism. And that even if they manage to win you can count their victory in maybe years. Maybe. My guess is less than four, because four is all they managed before, and even then they couldn’t implement all their dreams. Or most of them.

This is important. They need all the organization to give the impression of support they don’t have; to push an image of an ideological upswelling that simply isn’t there. They need organization and financing, because THEY AREN’T WINNING.

Yesterday one of you, reading the post on carefully orchestrated demonstrations and protests got it into his head that the demonstration in which I found myself at sixteen facing machine guns was equally organized. Snort. Giggle. It was organized like the Tea Parties were “organized.” A friend told a friend told a friend. I say we had a phone tree, but the truth is we used phones as little as possible as we were convinced that our phones were tapped. (Were they? Who knows? Ours was. I know the tell-tale sound in a mechanical system. But then mom ran a pirate radio station, so what do you expect?) SOMEONE printed banners. At a guess someone who happened to own a print shop. But they were such novices at the business, they didn’t punch holes in the fabric, so in the normal mizzle and wind of Northern Portugal (if you read of Wellington’s campaigns you know what I’m talking about) holding that banner (half of it) about broke my arm. And the rain fell down the pole and down the sleeve of my anorak. (Anorhank, a symbol of holy abstinence, according to Pratchett and boy was he right.) There were very few banners. I think three in an immense crowd. And I happened to grab the end of that one as the previous kid holding it (It was specifically about youth) got tired of almost breaking her arm.

For display no one would pick me. I wasn’t a pretty kid, and in the anorak you couldn’t tell if I was a boy or a girl. And anyway, it was all organic and …. disorganized. I won’t say the right in Portugal are exactly individualists (they’re not) but they are individualist enough to fail to organize.

But that disorganization, those thousands upon thousands of silent people walking across town. (Had to be silent. We didn’t have a protest permit. But they couldn’t stop people just happening to walk together) brought down a government that thought it was on its way to full control.

In the same way, the tea parties while they couldn’t completely curb Obama unnerved him enough to stop a lot of the worst overreaches he would have attempted. And they BAFFLED the left, because they were what the left was trying to achieve with Occupy Wall Street.

They started Occupy Wall Street in the serene belief that all they had to do was astroturf the beginning and then the people would rise up and support them. But despite a compliant media reporting it that way, and swelling the movement in image they never achieved more than “boomers with oxygen tanks and mentally ill homeless pooping on cars.” And then the Tea Party came out of nowhere and blindsided them.

They look at us, and wonder how we’re organizing on the quiet. Hence the insane search for “dogwhistles.” Which make no sense because what moves us is not what they attribute to us anyway. And we look at their organization, know we can’t do that and think all is lost.

We don’t need to do that. We have reality and the fact we’re not trying to hurt people and take their stuff.

Look, the left largely hid what a shitshow places like Russia were by the time the Soviet Union collapsed. And they are very much in denial of what a soft, decaying shitshow Europe is for that matter. But the last four years of the Bidentia showed people what the left wants to do to them, personally.

Ignore pollsters. Ignore the media making big scary noises. The left is — to quote one of their own — a paper tiger. They have nothing, or nothing people want. And most people now know it. Unless people are very well off and willing to buy into boutique causes at the cost of sky high groceries and transport and no employment, the left has nothing for us.

Movements that are winning don’t work so hard at keeping illegals here and voting. Movements that are winning don’t work so hard at keeping illegals who have committed CRIMES here and voting. Movements that are winning don’t work so hard just to cause turmoil in ONE city.

More importantly movements that are winning don’t need a carefully choreographed danced to present a frong that makes them seem like many.

Stand down. Take a deep breath.

No, we won’t win tomorrow. Or the day after. For too long we let leftist bullshit infect our education, our arts, our media. Perhaps “let” is the wrong term. They were top down systems and once taken over we could do nothing against them. But they had them for decades, and we’ll suffer the results of that for decades yet. However, things will be improving all the while. Yes, there will be setbacks and we’ll lose very good people (salutes Charlie Kirk) but in the end we win, they lose.

Look, you blackpillers think that I’m counter-black-pill because I don’t see what you do. You’re so wrong you’re not even on the map. I see what you do. What’s more, I’ve been seeing it since I’ve been aware of politics, which is now close on to fifty years. (What can I say? Mom was political to her fingertips, and a force of nature besides, and if she’d been born in a civilized country, she’d probably have shaken the world.)

My time of despair was somewhere in the seventies when the left’s deadlock on media, government AND academia was iron clad and when I despaired of being able to topple it. But even then I refused to stop and I refused to shut up. Because no. Because I read Heinlein and I knew the Lieutenant wouldn’t like THAT.

But yeah, that was the time all the protest babes were on the left. They still organized. They do it naturally, I swear, but it wasn’t AS orchestrated and choreographed as now. They had more useful idiots. They could always get a PREGNANT martyr when needed.

Now? Now they are at very thin on the ground martyrs. They have to buff up those they have. They have to pay their protesters who aren’t extremely and glaringly mentally ill.

What did them in? Losing the lock on communication. Having people see the man behind the curtain, the sneering disdain for humans behind the leftist cry for the plight of “workers.”

And lest we forget Limbaugh started this. That is not a sign of strength for the left. One man, in an outmodded form of communication was the beginning of their doom.

How much more can you do today with better communication?

Yes, they’ll become louder, and more choreographed, and yes, alas, more lethal the less in control they are. That’s the bad part we have to go through. And we’re going to lose a lot of good people. And yes, we’ll lose some battles, too.

But think about it, with all their resources, they orchestrated the election of the corpse. They locked the entire country down. They surrounded DC in barbed wire. They’d won. They were in charge.

And now they’re a rump movement causing trouble in one city and even that mostly for the cameras.

The desperate effort they managed in 2020 is now out of reach. Can they fraud 2026? Probably. BUT IT’S NOT WRITTEN IN STONE.

The media lies. Polls are a tool. You’re not alone. None of us is. We are the VAST, overwhelming majority.

And things are going our way. Slowly but inexorably, we win, they lose.

Be not afraid.

Give Them The Old Razzle Dazzle by Foxfier

Bright colored, sparkly, and moving fast even if it’s just flailing– all of that says look here. Know that ghost dance that Sarah’s always on about? This is that scene in Chicago where the court room is completely full of sparkle-covered dancers clad mostly with feathers that outweigh them. If you’ve been watching Paliwood for a while, this might seem familiar — all those girls are in red. Like the Mandatory Bright Colored Children’s Toys often are, although blue is a distinct second, with other bright colors in the running. The one guy in the crowd who has a on clean coat or hat, in a bright color, is also popular. If a production has something brightly colored and clearly different, they want you to look there. Guess what, that applies to protests, as well. There’s a very good tweet on the “layers” of a protest, here: https://x.com/LukeTaylorUSA/status/2011147517262774298 We’re looking at Layer 1, from a slightly different angle– these are the folks that they want to have as the face of their movmenent. If you look at old protests, this is where the cute girls or emotionally packed character sketch stood. Think the cute hippy chick putting a flower in the barrel of a gun, or the “I am totally not trying to look like a parody of Jesus” hippy dudes in similar moves. Those photos even help drive it home because the folks behind them are usually out of focus– now, the people behind the “pay attention to these ones” are usually in hoods, masks, or both. Now, if you go to the tweet that Luke was responding to, you’ll find a video that does the unusual thing of not being from the desired perspective. https://x.com/i/status/2011130745125826859 There’s two attention-grabbers there– the chick with the dyed red braids, and the guy in the clean jean jacket and red-brown glasses. Well, and the ‘found out’ who is helpfully literally wearing a day-glo jacket, but we don’t see much of him before he’s finished with the f around portion. For the rest of the group? It’s hard to tell who is law enforcement and who is a protester, and even if it wasn’t winter it’d be hard to tell if some are male or female, which is why they’re not made up to be targets for attention. It’s like all the other camouflaged herds, it’s harder to pick out a target to focus on when they all blend together. You can see a non-evil example of this in that video of the ICE agent that picked up a rose, and handed it to a female colleague, where without him pulling focus on to her it wasn’t obvious there was a woman in the group. Now, with that in mind… why do I see all this talk about how “all the protesters” are white women? People keep sharing photos of protesters where there’s three or four women right up front, yeah, bright colored in both meanings hair and all, but there’s a dozen often-masked mostly guys who outmass even the landwhales right there. Even after we have videos of definitely-males doing things like chucking a frozen water bottle at the cops and trying to outrun them (and failing)? They put the pale, brightly colored examples out front to get your attention. It’s not just visual, either. They put women as spokesmen for exactly the same reason that the military uses a female voice for their cockpit AI– it gets attention. Same way that performative anger or sorrow does. Quit cooperating with the stupid activist games, please!

*For those wondering why this is so frigging late: I went to bed at 10 pm last night, and woke up today at almost 1pm. The only times I remember sleeping like that before were after giving birth, or similar outrages. Or as I said “I didn’t even know I could sleep that long”. Worse,t here’s the likelihood of a nap in the horizon. BUT I am feeling better. And my brain obligingly gave me a blog topic while I was asleep. Note, I haven’t checked the news yet, so if the government fell or Europe was subsumed by the waves during my epic sleep, you’ll have to use the comments to discuss it, because I don’t know yet. – SAH*

As we’ve talked about before, one of the left’s strengths, perhaps its last remaining strength and the one that’s hardest to break is that for so long being a leftist was a positional good.

No? Well, even in the US wearing a Che t-shirt didn’t immediately identify you as an idiot who couldn’t think his way out of a paper bag and who knew no history to boot. It should have, but it didn’t. By the time I was in high school, now almost 50 years ago, it made you look cool, hip, daring and willing to question the establishment. Any Hollywood writer writing that student — Hollywood traffics mostly in stereotypes, since that’s easier to sell in visual format — would make him a deep thinker, concerned for the plight of the poor. This despite the fact that Che was a cold blooded mass murderer, one who preferred to kill people with his own hands, though he could also order it done, and despised…. well, everyone, but at the top of the list were students and the educated. Though the poor were there too, somewhere.

The “coolness” factor only increased for the next generation, as communism had fallen and the lefties and opinion makers (BIRM) of the generation before mine could say smugly that the good guys had lost the cold war, and pass on that bullshit to their kids with a side dollop of grand lost cause, like aging confederates moaning the glories of Dixie in slave-owning days.

By the time I came of age as an adult, and certainly by the time I became a published author at 35, one had to at least pretend to be leftist to be able to get on in any intellectual field. You could, yes, attack prominent personalities on the left, but you had to do it from the left. “I’m not sure Clinton is really committed to the cause. He’s just in it for the money and the chicks” was acceptable. “I’m not sure I can support of even tolerate a man who went to visit the USSR in his college days and remained a man of the left” wasn’t and would see you disgraced.

Positional good. “The lefter the better.” There were a never end of people declaring themselves communists in award speeches and such. And this only catapulted them to higher ground.

Which if you think about it is insane. “Yes, I am for a regime that murdered a hundred million. That’s how pure and wonderful I am, give me cash and contracts.”

Of course to maintain that several things were needed, but the most important thing needed was that the various circles be compartmentalized. Mr. and Mrs. average geek retained the power to be shocked by their favorite author or director or what have you chest-thumping his love of Stalin, but they never heard of that, because they were presented curated snippets in the media.

People like Ghandi and several others, are wholly media-constructions, their halo formed of a tightly focused lens.

And it used to be that this positional good status of leftist nonsense was the least of their weapons. it was merely the ability to make people falsify their preference, thereby giving the impression of far greater strength to the left. Oh, don’t mistake me: It was valuable. It allowed them to commit any amount of fraud and it was assumed as they put on the cover of Time magazine, when Obama was elected “We’re all socialists now.”

Which brings us to now. The walls have fallen. They were never as impermeable as the left pretended, at that. Despite their complete lock on the media, the news, the arts, the culture, and more importantly education, they could never get the majority to vote for them, requiring higher and higher amounts of fraud by less and less secret means. (No? Look, no civilized country has default vote by mail. It’s too stupid to even contemplate. But they were finally driven to it. After “voting week/month” after “lowering the voting age” after “no voter ID” etc.)

Now they can’t keep up the media barrage. And a camera in everyone’s phone means that anything that happens there are three or four videos or more and the truth is so to put it “Out there.”

And entertainment has so much competition — from the past, if nothing else, since indie movie/visual media isn’t yet a thing. Though we’re getting there. We’re getting there. Indie writing is of course competition — that they can’t force people to watch their stilted “entertainment.”

Their last defense; their last trump (eh) card is positional good. And ooh, boy, they’re playing it. Like the idiot who asked the sportsball coach tos ay something bad about America. Or the daily — daily, I tell you — challenges I endure, open and not to “say something bad about Trump.” to prove “You’re not a cultist.”

The only answer to that is the stone face and “no.” Just “no.”

Is Trump perfect? Oh, heck no. But perfect was not on the ticket. Kackling Kamala and the Retard Timwalz were. And anyone who thinks that we’d be doing better under that regime is sicker than I am, and should take two ibuprofen and go to bed till the desire to have civilization commit suicide passes.

Is he doing everything I wanted? Ah. Is the income tax abolished? Are all the fraudsters of the left exposed, tarred, feathered and run out of the country on a rail? etc. etc.? No. But I am also aware my rather radical wishes would create incredible turmoil and upheaval if implemented all of a sudden. He’s done more in the time he’s been in than anyone could ever imagine, a lot of it flying under the radar. I would vote for him again without a regret.

Cult? I think not. If Trump were killed tomorrow — almost happened, remember? — I’d cast about for someone who would make the left even madder and then throw all my support behind that. He’s an instrument, not a messiah. Yes, left, this is how much you’ve pissed off we the people.

America? The question of “What’s bad about America?” is “In comparison to what?” Because, yeah, America isn’t the Earthly paradise. Duh. And yes, we’ve been enduring a lot of rule by “enemies, domestic” which has caused several problems, including a lost, aimless and deeply wounded youth. But…. in comparison to what? Because it’s like that the world over and worse some places, and at least here we have an entrepreneurial culture that makes it possible for kids to make something of themselves: with immense effort, but there it is.

So, if you find yourself in a situation where they make it obvious that you have to say something lefty to position yourself as “once of us” refuse it. Give them nothing but the stone face.

This is all they have now. And if we neg it enough, they have nothing.

Oh, sure, paid mercenaries, and an organization inherited from the USSR and carried on by various political groups. And that’s…. inconvenient and difficult.

But it’s not the same as the creation of a vast preference falsification front that allows them to claim legitimate wins when in fact they win only through gargantuan fraud.

The stone face. It’s all they deserve. And it’s all you should give them.

I’m under attack by alien virus from heck. I know, I know. I WAS going to write a post, but breakfast exhausted me.
So consider this an open thread. Have fun.

*Sorry to be so late this week. I caught the extreme coughing bug that’s going around, and it’s making everything slow. – SAH*

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 PAM UPHOFF: A Political Marriage (Chronicles of the Fall Book 20

Lord Kalev Meknikov a young noble in a high tech civilization . . . Lady Aurora Denhart a young lady with a father in politics . . . and you’d think in such a high tech society that political alliances wouldn’t require silly things like marriages between young members of the families . . .

But here they are . . .

A somewhat silly and sweet romance within a Science Fantasy Universe.

FROM MARTIN L. SHOEMAKER: Silent Tears (The Route Books of Bobo Buttons, Private Eye Book 2)

The end of a grifter…

When Heath Brothers Greater Shows settles in Florida at their Winter Village, word of Bobo’s detective work spreads among the local shows. Bobo is approached by Storywise the Clown, a mute mime from another show. Storywise’s mother has been roped into a financial con, and she’s in danger of losing her life savings. Bobo tries to help without breaking Mama Wise’s heart.

But when the grifter is found dead and Storywise is accused, can Bobo find the real killer? Who’s behind this deadly long con? In this Hanukkah season, Storywise needs a miracle. Fortunately he has Bobo Buttons, Private Eye.

FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY: WALKABOUT: A Waking Late Prequel

For fans of the Waking Late trilogy.

Clarence Satcom, prince and heir to one of Earth’s lost colonies, sets forth on a walkabout outside the terraformed valley of First Landing. He has plans both for the valley’s future and for the Pan who live outside it. The Pan steal First Landing’s children, and he intends to stop them.

But when he comes across one of his subjects trying to leave his domain, his journey veers down a more educational path. Whether he can learn the lessons offered is another question entirely.

For fans of Nwwwlf, the Waking Late trilogy, and Martha’s Sons. If you want a glimpse of Clarence in his youth, this story is for you.

FROM CHRISTOPHER G. NUTALL: Crash Landing (Boy’s Own Starship)

Eric Crichton and his brother John thought they knew all about space: buy a beat-up old freighter, haul cargo from star to star, and stay one step ahead of the bankers. Easy, right? But when a shady charter lands them a mysterious medical package bound for a newly terraformed world, things go from routine to red-alert in a hurry.
A pirate ambush knocks Max Jones out of the sky, stranding the young crew on a wild, storm-swept planet where the weather is only the second most dangerous thing. The “plague” they were supposed to deliver turns out to be a lie, the package hides something worth killing for, and the pirates want it back, along with the kids who carry it. With their sister Maryam fighting for her life in a stasis pod, Eric must team up with a tough colony girl named Daisy, a sharp-eyed heiress who won’t be left behind, and a handful of hard-working settlers who know how to handle trouble.
They’ll need every trick they’ve got: quick thinking, faster hands, and the kind of stubborn courage that turns a crashed ship into a fighting chance. Outnumbered, outgunned, and running out of time, the young crew of Max Jones learns the hard truth: in space, no one’s going to come save you—you save yourself.
A fast-moving tale of high adventure, daring escapes, and the unbreakable spirit of youth: straight from the Heinlein tradition of boys (and girls!) who face the unknown and come out on top.

EDITED BY LAWDOG WITH A STORY BY LEE ALLRED: Plasma Pulp: Lost Worlds (Raconteur Press Anthologies)

Step into ten stories of vibrant universes, where gleaming rays of energy shape the future and the past collides with the fantastic unknown. This collection of short stories invites you to explore a genre that is often called “Raypunk” or “Raygun Gothic,” but we call “Plasma Pulp”—because “punk” is overused, and we can. We bring you the electric optimism of retro-futurism, blending sleek technology of the future with the Old School spirit of adventure. Here, the impossible becomes tangible through visions of shimmering cities, heroic inventors, and cosmic mysteries illuminated by pulsating light. Within these pages, you will encounter daring escapades and enigmatic characters who navigate a landscape defined by gleaming technology and surreal possibilities. Whether it’s battling sinister forces with futuristic weaponry or unraveling the secrets of radiant power, each story pulses with the incandescent energy of plasma pulp’s unique vision.

FROM J. KENTON PIERCE (This time with cover because I got a link.): The Warlord of Greenline Town (Tales From the Long Night Book 2)

In the ruins of Hesperides Colony, scarred by volcanic winters and orbital threats, Captain Ravati Aziz safeguards underground Greenline Town. A veteran trooper turned cop, she balances family with bondmates and kids amid a corrupt town council, brutal Blackcheek gangs, and nomadic Pridesmen driving herds through deadly badlands.

When a notorious homesteader unearths a crashed starship packed with lost tech and comes to Greenline looking for help, Ravati volunteers, knowing what’s at stake.As vanished Gentle Walkers return with secrets and politicians scheme for power, Ravati allies with warriors and scholars to defend her home.

In a brutal world of hard choices, can she stop Greenline’s slide into tyranny?

EDITED BY JAMES YOUNG: On The Sea: Naval Alternate History (Arc of Ares)

You seldom hear of the fleets except when there’s trouble, and then you hear a lot.
— Admiral John S. McCain

The sea. Bearer of commerce, fertilizer for empires, and a battlefield where the environment itself is set to kill the warriors who engage each other upon it. From the galleys of ancient Greece to the deadly, silent murder machines of the nuclear age, Mankind has set across the oceans to visit great harm upon their fellow man on distant shores. On The Sea brings you alternate endings to these voyages, with characters and points of divergence as varied as the oceans themselves.

Prefer your sea tales in an era of wooden ships, coal smoke, and iron men? Dragon Award Winner Sarah Hoyt (“For Want of A Pin”), 2025 Imadjinn Award Winner Dan Kemp, and Day Al-Mohamed (“Martha Coston and the Farragut Curse”) will give you all the splinters, canvas, and cannonballs you could ask for.

Like your torpedoes to be self-propelled rather than damned and your fleet actions wreathed in coal smoke? Veteran authors Joelle Presby (“A Safe Wartime Posting”), Rob Howell (“Far Better to Dare”), and Philip Wohlrab (“Beatty’s Folly”) bring you very different endings to the Spanish American War and World War I that stretch from the Falklands to the Irish Sea.

“I don’t know, I’m more a fan of Long Lances than Black Lung…” Dear reader, On The Sea has so many Imperial Japanese Navy cameos, there should be an Imperial Chrysanthemum on the cover. Two-time Dragon Award nominee Kacey Ezell, 2024 Imadjinn winner William Alan Webb, and Sidewise Award Finalist Lee Allred will give you turning points from the volcanoes of Rabaul to the far reaches of the Indian Ocean.

More a fan of Détente than Bushido? 2010 Sidewise Award winner Eric G. Swedin provides a new short story set in his When Angels Wept universe, while 2020 Sidewise nominee William Stroock keeps the Geiger counters growling with his short “Atlantic Flash.” If you like your points of deviation with more pho sauce and less unscheduled sunrises, 2025 Dragon Award nominee Justin Watson (“Decision Over Cam Ranh”) and editor James Young (“Mr. Ford’s Cats”) provide two very different views of war in Indochina.

Bottom line: Whether you’re partial to Ares or Poseidon, On the Sea has alternate history that scratches the nautical itch. With a carefully curated mix of previously published favorites and new stories, this thunderous conclusion to the Arc of Ares series reflects what happens when the war god brings his chaos over the water’s edge. Grab a cutlass or activate the CIWS, as the fish are about to get fed!

Editor’s Note: Also includes excerpts from James Young’s Wonder No More, an alternate history of the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

FROM JERRY STRATTON: The Padgett Sunday Supper Club Sestercentennial Cookery: Celebrate 2026 with recipes from 1796, 1876 and 1976.

This Sestercentennial Cookery celebrates the 250th anniversary of American Independence with recipes from Bicentennial cookbooks and from Centennial cookbooks. It also features recipes from the very first American cookbook, the 1796 American Cookery, and is interspersed with historical texts from Independence Days of yore.

FROM CHARLI COX: Whistles of the Wendigo: A Joint Task Force 13 Legacy Novel (Joint Task Force 13 (JTF 13))

When the war ends… a new nightmare begins.

The smoke of the Civil War has barely cleared when another battle ignites—this time, on the homefront. A fiery prohibition movement is tearing the state apart, and the governor calls in the US Army’s 6th Cavalry to keep the peace.

But peace is the last thing they’ll find.

On patrol, Sergeant David Wilkerson and his troop ride straight into a ghostly fog—and straight into hell. A terrified horse disappears—a mangled carcass returns. Something ancient and hungry has awakened.

The saloons go silent. The townsfolk go missing. The line between law and chaos is about to be crossed.

Now, with tempers boiling and terror creeping in from the shadows, Wilkerson and his men must ride into the unknown, face what lies in the mist…

…and stand as the last defense between Heaven and Hell.

FROM JOHN C. A. MANLEY: All the Humans are Sleeping (The Metaverse Trilogy)

A Farmer, a Robot and the End of the World

World War III lasted only six days. Within the first few hours, my farm in Manitoba burned to the ground. The blast that destroyed our home came from the same mushroom cloud that killed my wife. I wish it had nuked me, too, but those heartless robots saved me.

They also rescued my daughter, so I can’t damn them. She was the only thing keeping me alive… until the metaverse took her away.

Yes, I’ve tried to kill myself. I may do it again. But that purple Domesticbot with its pompous British accent keeps on interfering.

The robots won’t let us go to heaven and the humans have made Earth a living hell. As an alternative, the United Nations has offered our minds a virtual purgatory in the metaverse, while our bodies are preserved in synthetic amniotic fluid like overgrown babies. One billion survivors “live” in those pods — hard-wired to the internet — forced to dream a digital fantasy where flowers never wilt and wither.

Well, I refuse their faux flowers. So what if they burnt up all the real ones?

Still, how can I accept this post-apocalyptic world? Can I endure being cloistered on this desolate mountaintop on the northernmost tip of Norway with an unhinged robot that wears a suit and tie and aspires to be a poet?

My name is Peter Stevens, the last of the Luddites. But I don’t know if I can remain awake when… all the humans are sleeping.

FROM CHARLES ALDEN SELTZER, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: The Raider (Annotated): The classic pulp western!

When Ellen Ballinger got abducted, she managed to turn it into a complicated scheme to end up married to Jeff Hale. Jeff didn’t much like liars, nor stubborn, wrong-headed women like Ellen… and yet, there was something about his new wife, something a good deal less complicated than the land-grabbing scheme that he was facing from skunks like Dallman and Kellis. And seeing justice done, while staying on the right side of the law, and the right side of his new wife, would be more complicated still…

• This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving the book historical and genre context.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: The Law of Magical Contagion

The capper to Siobhan Miller’s terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day was a dog, tied to the stop sign. She hates dogs. She’s terrified of dogs, and that was a big dog. Looking sad and lonely, tied to a stop sign. That was not okay. She was the only one around, so she took him home. Only to find that he wasn’t a dog, but one of the Good People, under a curse. And there were more of them.

And they were all after her. And all she had was the dog (who wasn’t a dog) to help keep her from being taken away from all she’s ever known. Because that dog? He and his twin sister are family that she didn’t know she had, and their appearance has upended everything she’s ever known about herself. Including that she was human to begin with. She has a lot of questions.

Starting with curses, and how and why they sometimes spread.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Lion of God (Timelines Book 1)

John Wolff has been handed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Again.
He’s already saved the love of his life from an early death – thirty years after she died.
Now, a beautiful young woman, who is clearly his daughter, has appeared from the timeline branch where that same love of his life survived and married his counterpart.
She says they need his help fighting off invaders from the far future. Who, by the way, are looking for him. Why? Because they want the starship drive he and a friend invented, the precursor to their time machine. Problem is, in her timeline, it hasn’t been invented yet.
What man can resist a cry for help from his own daughter?
Particularly when the invaders think she’s a saint. Or possibly, a devil wearing saint’s clothing. And they’re looking for her, too.
Thus begins the Timelines Saga, and the story of the Lion of God.

I’m rotating my recommendations like a sensible person would… Next week there will be a Collection on pre-order. Until then: this one’s still here, still awesome. (And every time I link it, it sells. I’m not arguing with results!)

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: 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.

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: LIMPING

This is not a post (solely) about writing. It’s also about politics, but first we have to get there.

Yesterday I was talking with a group with friends who also happen to write. (Look, there’s writer-friends, who are mostly friendly acquaintances because that’s at the center of what we have in common. And then there’s friends who are friends for a million other reasons and would probably be my friends even if their mind had never spun a single tale.)

Anyway, in this the topic of “Betrayal” came up. More than one author (some my friends) have had their fandom turn on them, suddenly, when they found out the author is actually not a raving, lunatic lefty. Or not a swinger. Or not a fur or in one remarkable case male. How they could have missed he was male is inexplicable, though I think that’s just like fandom turning on Heinlein suddenly when being male became the equivalent of being anti-woman. (In the heads of the deeply indoctrinated. Not any sane person.)

These situations are always profoundly wounding, because the fandom feels betrayed — even if they were talked into/spun into feeling betrayed. That’s something I don’t fully understand, because if I were capable of reacting that way I wouldn’t have arrived at my beliefs. But I know it happens — and the author is usually sucker punched and really, really, really feels betrayed.

Writing is weird and weirdly isolating. There is a reason writers need to have writer friends. When I wake up and realize I dreamed all night of an imaginary world, for any non-writer this would be alarming and possibly a sign of psychosis. For me it’s Tuesday and an occupational hazard. Other writers just sort of nod and sigh.

So writers have writer friends, but almost all of us who have some measure of success, even beginners with a knot of five or six readers, have fans they rely on. Because writing is communication. When I talk about my alpha readers (I promise, guys, you’ll get Chinchilla of Hope T-shirts before the end of the year. You poor sods earned them) I’m talking about the people who see stuff fresh off the brain. Sometimes their reactions tell me if I’m giving the wrong impression, which will need to be corrected, or when things that were merely okay to me will ellicit a “wow.” My own group for that is small, though the paid subscribers to substack serve as beta readers (THANKS YOU GUYS for not running screaming when I started posting No Man’s Land. That would have stopped me cold.) And then there’s a larger group of fandom I’m not that close to or close with. I like a good number of them, and if they ALL decided they hated me it would have a bad effect on my bottom line, but we’re not emotionally entangled.

To an extent I’m envious of the writers to whom the larger group is like an extended family, at least on the fans side. There’s a lot of support there, and it helps you and buoys you through the rough stuff. But then there is the risk. Specially if what you write is not–

How do I put this? It might be impossible for writers to write something they don’t believe in. Which is why I don’t tend to write aliens, except in short stories where I can get away with it without thinking too hard. My aliens tend to be modified humans. And I don’t think I could write a functioning, happy communist society. Because I can’t believe in it. At the same time it’s possible for incidental things in our writing to be things we don’t like, don’t approve of OR MORE IMPORTANTLY would never do in our daily lives. For instance, much to the relief of all and sundry I’m not a nudist. (I don’t disapprove of it, I just find it in general unaesthetic and it makes the furniture smell.) I don’t kill people left and right. If brooms existed I’d never, in the history of ever get on one to fly around (fear of heights AND no sense of direction.) I also have never — to date — turned into a dragon. And for the record, I would never kill a bunch of strangers to lay my eggs in them. Er. If I lay eggs. Which I don’t. Oh, and though I have gay characters, I’m not gay. In fact I am hard-core monogamous. (I was going to say I’m only attracted to men, but more and more every day I’m only attracted to man — and he’s sitting there, right now, being sick as a dog with a head cold. Ah well.)

However, because books are the closest we can come to living in someone else’s head, we tend to think of the character as the author. The right (broadly) is better at knowing there’s a difference and appreciating the writer anyway, because for decades all we had was well… commies who inadvertently wrote stuff we liked.

The left doesn’t have that experience. The people who fall on the broad left are also way more … socially conforming. (Not incidental, leftism has been a positional good for decades. So it attracts the socially conforming.) and therefore seem to identify HARDER with stories and characters and project them on to the author/director/actor.

So, when they find out this person is not in fact of them and doesn’t have the characteristic they love in the character, they become furious. They feel hurt and betrayed. And they go to war in the way of the socially adept.

Which in turn wounds the author because this is the author’s SUPPORT that suddenly turns and bites him/er on the butt.

I was thinking about it, and realized I’m not like that for various reasons. One of them being because I’ve been betrayed so often I have calluses. There really have been a lot of these. Some politics, some just because I’m oblivious about social duck speak, and will obliviate (totally a word) past the first two, three, ten warning signs, then be shocked at the sudden yet inevitable betrayal.

I’m not saying if my alpha group suddenly ejected me and started telling nasty tales about me I wouldn’t be hurt like a teen girl who finds her boyfriend kissing the cheerleader, but probably could be cured by rocky road ice cream and a week of moping. And then I’d find other alpha readers. It’s happened before.

Then I thought part of the reason of course is that my fiction writing which isn’t political (Oh, yes, look, it has my ideas in it, and to the extent everything including a character shooting someone is now political, that is inescapable, but–) I mean, I’m not writing to promote a political idea. I’m writing the story that won’t shut up. Political points come from being written by me and my being a political being.

Most of the betrayals and messy break ups have come from the political side. And I even GET that. My beliefs have … evolved. When I wrote Darkship Thieves (13 years before it was published) I was a far more red-meat Libertarian bordering on anarchist. But times go by and things happen to and around you, and you change. I abandoned open borders at 9/11. I hadn’t yet realized the cultural risk, but I realized the military/terror risk. And I had kids. So that became a “no” really fast. Then in the last ten years I’ve come to understand the cultural risk, because we’ve all been living with it. (Also seeing my kids grow and cope with visits to Portugal highlighted the difference cultures make.) I’ve — kicking, screaming and under protest — become less of a free market absolutist. Oh, no. Not inside our borders, but outside. Look, there is no way you can separate “trading freely with countries that aren’t free” from undue political influence and money used as weapons, and for the love of all that’s holy, ending up with our chips and our medicine being manufactured by people we can’t trust.

I guess my opinions change, as things happen. I’ve become a lot harder in some ways. Scar tissue in the soul will do that. (10/7. I’ll never be okay. It hardened my opinion that some cultures are not fixable.)

Thing is, I also know the right has experience betrayals, and I understand that too. There have been people on the right who carry the flag for a while and then change, inexplicably over night. And none of us knows the risk factors other than that most of them came from the left, and there’s a chance they are a minority or otherwise belong to a group claimed by the left.

It’s never fully explained. The person themselves don’t seem aware of having changed. And the readers/listeners/watchers are left contemplating a transformation sudden and complete that we can’t help but experience as betrayal. This is not gradual change, like what I’ve gone through over the years, but sudden screaming fury.

I’m not going to hypothesize. I mean anything from possession to blackmail is on the table, though it’s probably particularly for those going against type just the attrition of being hated — really really hated. They bring the hellfire forge out for us — by the left, and distrusted by the right. Humans are social creatures. Isolate them and at some point they break.

I broke long ago, and am not sure I can break further.

Can I prevent you feeling betrayed? Probably not. A lot of people felt betrayed I didn’t think Russia is wonnerful TM. (Look you, I’d never think a totalitarian regime is wonnerful, even if it seem to support “right” values. Also, I’m afraid I know too much about Russian History and culture to even think their values are our own. I also won’t think China as currently constituted or in any form possible in the near future is wonnerful. I also think blackpill fights on the side of the enemy and I’ll never swallow it. Insert bit from Heinlein about being free even if chained. Will never surrender.)

What I want to say is that the problems I’ve had getting in arguments with long established fans are because either they’re trying to convince me of something I know is impossible, or because they are in violent agreement with me but refuse to realize it. And I have very little patience for being yelled at. I get enough of that from the cats, thank you.

But even when I get very upset, it’s not because they — or I — changed completely overnight.

Will I have the same opinions in ten years or twenty, supposing I’m alive? no. Things will happen and as facts impose upon my thoughts, my thoughts change.

However barring brain injury I’ll never change overnight. And if my opinion changes, I try to explain why. And some people — Foxfier, RES to name two — have pushed me back from forming and weird convictions by beating me with facts and figures which after research and investigation proved correct and my opinion wrong.

Anyway, not sure if any of this makes any sense. Just: I understand betrayal hurts. I’m a multiply-scalded cat, which is why I’m less likely to break completely.

As for the rest of you? Carry on. Even when betrayal breaks out heart, we must carry on.

Or as my grandmother said “Make your gut into a new heart and forge on.”

You’re allowed to be tired, and despondent, and eat rocky road ice cream even though it’s bad for you. But be not afraid. Through fire and betrayal, through falling and picking ourselves up: in the end we win, they lose. Even if not today.

By Holly the Assistant

A couple days ago, Sarah had the bright idea of listing off a bunch of authors on X, and asking her followers who else writes and Xeets. So we have a list, of Indy, Trad, and whatever other flavors of writers are around. This also prompted me informing a whole lot of folks that if you get paid for it you are a professional, and yesterday’s repost at MGC of the Real Writer Certificate. (You can get yours here: https://madgeniusclub.com/2026/01/21/the-velveteen-author/)

Here is the list of Xeeting authors. They may or may not post politics, writing, or anything else: the single requirement was that someone who follows Sarah put the handle on the list. (FTR IndyAntifa is MadMike. Because trollolol.)

@davefreersf

@Jringo1508

@mcahogarth

@JulieCFrost

@TKratman

@NathanCBrindle

@BradRTorgersen

@karentraviss

@Sverizona

@The_Hankerchief

@JohnTaloni

@monsterhunter45

@zakueins

@Andrew_G_Nelson

@RocketPulpHack

@RickPartlow66

@TheJasonAnspach

@Hadrians_Gate

@hpcjoe

@wallywaltner

@DentonSalle

@JayMaynard

@Ogiel23

@KarlKGallagher

@paul_leone

@AlysssaHazel

@LydiaSherrer

@Devon_Eriksen_

@RileyCBolt

@RGWilliscroft

@AlastairMayer

@Dr_Mauser

@NewCoffiest

@Rhodri2112

@JohnBailey64182

@bpardoe870

@caitliniwalsh

@Jesse_A_Barrett

@raconteur_press

@WatcherDamned

@cedarlili

@HollyChism

@dagney_kavanagh

@IndyAntifa

@DavidB90524

@djwojcik57

@wombat_socho

@PulpHerb

@mmcshanewrites

@profornery

With that out of the way, you may notice that some of your favorite authors are pointing you to places other than Amazon a lot more than they have previously. This is likely mostly for the very practical reason that Amazon has been having some code issues lately. They appear to be fixing it as fast as they reasonably can, but it is, I am told by those who have reason to know, a large and kludgy amount of total code. They have informed authors of the problems, but the problems are on going, and if you encounter one on the buyer end, go ahead and report it to them.

For instance, I went hunting for a brand new book by a friend that I knew Sarah wanted a link for. Brand new, as in it had only dropped that moment, the friend had posted it on Facebook and as is the nature of Facebook, it put a bunch of tracking crud in the link. I had the author name and title in hand. And Amazon’s website refused to turn off the 4 stars plus filter for me. Which, being a brand new book, I could not find, because no one had yet finished reading it and starred it. I griped to friends: Nathan didn’t have the broken filter issue and was able to get the actual clean link for me.

That sort of silly code problem. If we can’t find books, we can’t buy books, and authors really like us to buy books.

And if no one told you, the new Dresden Files dropped yesterday. Early reports from friends include “Didn’t sleep” and “Work’s going to suck today but worth it”. So see you on the other side!

AND I got to see another chapter of the sequel to No Man’s Land. I adore the first voice character. She’s the kind of woman I aspire to be. Though maybe leaving fewer dead bodies behind . . . but they all deserve it, so . . . yeah. When I grow up, I want to be Vic.

Friends (Romans, Countrymen, Dragon otherkin!) I’ve found Antro the Lifegiver by John Degan, but I haven’t finished it.

Partly it’s going slow because of my not seeing as well as I did in the eighties, and having trouble reading the teeny print of a 60s paperback. (I have new glasses on order. They haven’t arrived yet. And my astigmatism is way off.) I prefer books on the kindle, because they allow me to lie to myself about being older than dirt, I guess. I can put the print at six or seven and never tell anyone (except you guys now.) I mean, eventually it will be at nine and I’ll get a word per page. Maybe they’ll make massive kindles then. Or maybe there will be robotic eyes or something.

Anyway, there might also be the slight thing of the new Dresden files having dropped today, and — um… — anyway, so….

One thing that has occurred to me while reading the beginning is that the science fiction of the mid century is almost all infused with a heavy military subtext. Even when they are not strictly military — like Star Trek — the structure is military and there is a bearing and a behavior to the people that are more military than not.

What do I mean they’re not military in Star Trek? Well, it’s not Starship Troopers style mil sf.

Like most mid-century sf, it’s exploration, but the exploration corps has a military structure.

In that sense, it’s actually pretty interesting, because the earliest, pre or just after WWI sf pulp is the individual genius or group of them, or the lone scientist having a breakthrough. But by the mid century is exploration groups in military format, with ranks…

And there’s something about the way people interact that bespeak military experience.

Oh, I don’t mean there aren’t exceptions. Of course there are. But the basic, most generic, pulp sf is people in vaguely military arrangements.

And it occurred to me this made perfect sense. Most of the authors writing in the fifties and sixties were in fact veterans and likely WWII veterans.

But even those who hadn’t fought for whatever reason, had probably grown up watching World War II movies. As did I, btw, and reading WWII biographies and analysis.

This is because — even though to me at the time it seemed like ancient history, since most of the movies were from when the world was in black and white — I was born less than twenty years after the end of World War Two. This, of course, affected the generation before me.

Not just the various analysis of the war and the embrace or repulsion of war as a method, but the discipline, structure and experience of the war itself.

So the default, low effort writing had military or quasi-military groups.

Equally logically, that is no longer true, unless you’re specifically writing mil sf.

What do I mean by this?

Well, I was thinking there are many things a generation — or two, or three — think it’s “natural” but it’s not. It’s the result of when the genre took off. Or of what was happening in the world at the time.

Now that we live more than say four to five decades, at least a substantial portion of us, and the cultural influence of generations is taking way longer to clear from the culture, it’s important to remember this. It’s important to remember that the circumstances of our childhood are not necessarily more “real” or better than today’s.

We were born in a particular place in history. And it came freighted with baggage of — for it — recent events.

Very different, yes, but then our generation was very different in upbringing from the previous.

It’s important to step back and look at things with a curious eye. Not all difference is wrong. And things change with time. Right now it seems very likely that whoever lands on Mars will be a civilian employee of a privately held corporation. And heaven only knows who the first colonists will be.

None of that matters. Those are details. It’s the will to go, to reach ever farther, to take humanity out of the one single place where we exist and to the stars, so we won’t go extinct by accident or due to the vagaries of climate and circumstance that matters.

Whatever form that pushing forward takes.

Jeff Greason once told he always wondered if the form the expeditions to Mars took was the result of German influence on the space program. And that’s likely true. But it was also a quintessential midcentury project. “If we can defeat the Nazis, we can put a man on the moon.” — Note this was later weaponized into “if we put a man on the moon we can defeat poverty.” None of which made sense. — and the idea that big government and its projection of force were the way to accomplish big things.

In a way this was also the result of the concentration of industry and news and… well, everything that reached its apex mid century.

We live in different times now. In fact so different it’s shocking how far we came in such a relatively short time.

And it doesn’t matter. In the end what matters is getting off this rock. By any means necessary.

Yesterday, in my long puzzlement as to why Europeans don’t seem to get into big groups online (the kids do a little more than the older people but not like Americans where most of our friends might be spread throughout the country.) It was suggested this is because Americans form spontaneous organizations like mad people. And this is true and probably most of it. There are probably other contributing factors, including that Europeans have more “local community” things. Partly because they all live in countries so small you need a passport to swing anything larger than a ten week old kitten. And partly because the automobile took a lot longer to get widespread there, while here we have a century of it.

In fact by historical norms we are the weird ones. The very, very weird ones. Our own little mutant country. If you’re an American (since I don’t think there are any pure blood Amerindians left, except by bizarre genetic piling on accident) either you or your ancestors, when you decamped to America, left everything behind once already. So it’s perfectly normal for us to move all over. And when our kids grow up, they move too. Our families might be spread across distances that would make Europeans’ eyes water. (You should have heard me trying to explain to the family that my older kid didn’t move that far away. It’s less than ten hours driving, after all. We can do it in a single day if we start up early and only stop once for lunch. That’s nothing. Practically next door. We see him every couple of months. Meanwhile, the Portuguese family is trying to condole with me as if he’d moved… well, across the ocean.) Anyway, that combined with the fact we work way too much compared to Europeans, means that we have little time for local stuff or to establish local ties, even when we try. (We see our local friends once every three or four months.) On the other hand, we’re still humans with need for community, so in between the edges of our very weird lives, and around the corners of our work, we make friends online. Which explains why we have friends all over the country, including in some places you don’t expect to have conservatives. (Waves at Bill in New Haven and Ian in Chicago!) Which means we have on the ground reporting, which means that the “official truth” from on high increasingly gets us to snort-giggle.

All this long introduction has nothing to do with today’s post and Honorable Truck-Kun above. I had an allergy shot yesterday, and it hit me as it hasn’t since early on, in that the entire day reads fuzzy in memory and I committed some interesting howlers. As in, I realized I left a whole cup of coffee by my computer, which… let’s say it’s a good thing I covered it up. Since I sweeten my coffee, Indy would have consumed it and would probably be at the emergency vet today.

Anyway, this brings us to Honorable Truck Kun.

The other things Americans do that is not so common in Europe is self improvement. I figure it’s also because we (Hi, guys) and our ancestors came here as the ultimate self-improvement, leaving everything behind and reinventing ourselves.

All the books from Thinking Yourself Skinny (I do, I do. The body doesn’t agree) to completely reinventing some trait of your personality do big in … America. Oh, they sell overseas too, but the mechanic is different. They’ll catch fire in an entire country, and then the entire country will get disillusioned at the same time and ditch it.

Yes, sure, this also leaves us wide open for things like cults and very weird — I still think of them as California — manias, chakras and auras and heaven knows what else. There is good and bad.

Europeans tend to resign themselves. They usually know what their ancestors were like, and therefore accommodate themselves to “this is how we are.” Which is more tranquil but also more subject to despondency and manipulation. (Few people directly remember their ancestors more than three generations. Which is also why being blamed for your ancestors’ guilt is nonsense.)

Anyway, I am of the trying to improve and reinventing myself mind. Of course I am. I mean, I came here, all by my own self, didn’t I? (Okay, husband helped, but he was already here. Born here. Ancestors here for generations. Since… 1650? Very forethoughtful (totally a word) of him. He’s a planner. I like that about him.)

Now, is self-improvement extra specially effective and last forever? Are you kidding me?

We’re still human, with human bodies and human limits. And I don’t know about all of you, but my body doesn’t JUST ignore me on thinking myself skinny. It pretty much holds two middle fingers aloft when I ask it to do something, more and more as I age. It’s very annoying. It also never tells me anything like, you know “those disgusting sweats you’ve been having, waking you up at night? You should be taking an anti-histamine while doing these desensitization treatments.” Annoying meat-suit.

Anyway, yes, self-improvement only does so much. Most of it tends to rubber band by sheer inertia.

However it does something. Each time I try, it improves a little, and now looking back I’m a completely different beast than I was forty years ago, and largely, yes, for the better.

My perennial battle, more than anything else, is with the fact I’m ADD AF (As F***. My older son’s scientific classification of me. Apparently other people are ADD. People who can’t stand in line at the grocery store more than three minutes and wander off to look at things that catch their eye are ADD AF.) as well as with the fact that yes, to be sure, I’m cramming three lives and five jobs onto a normal day.

When you’re like that, mistakes are made. The mistakes accumulate. And after a while you can’t move for the debris of regret, guilt and depression. And unfortunately, at some point you become the walrus in Alice in Wonderland, wallowing and crying (and still doing more stupid sh*t, because who cares.)

And this is why I’ve come up with the Honorable Truck Kun and the Isekai Rag.

Note that ragtime (which is my husband’s favorite thing to play on the piano) is a repetitive, recurring rhythm. This will happen again and again.

As for Truck-Kun and Isekai, I don’t read this stuff (though I’m willing to try it. I just recently popped up from 3 years of Jane Austen fanfic, so…. I have a lot backlog to read) but my younger fans, my kids’ age tell me there is a whole range of being hit by a truck and waking up in a whole new life: Isekai. For a movie with this beginning, try Yesterday. (His decision is stupid, the mechanism of fate doubtful, the morality flawed, but the movie itself is a delight nonetheless. Just don’t think too hard on it.) For the other works, I’ll let the fans in the comments tell you.

BUT before I’d heard of Isekai I’d come up with this solution to cut the threads of regret and guilt and “if I could go back in time.”

Okay, you’re you but not really you. Your consciousness belongs to someone else who got hit by Truck Kun on the streets of some other world. You don’t have those memories. In fact the only memories you have are of the body you landed in.

But the important thing is that: You’re here. You’re not responsible for anything that created this situation. It’s not your fault. And you feel in your heart of hearts you came from greater things and are destined for greater things.

Yes, the house is a mess (how does someone not only not finish unpacking in five years, so that one room is just impassible, but accidentally create another such room? Guys, this chick was a mess.) The cats are — oh, yeah, cats. And the work is years and years behind.

But I’m here now, and it’s time to clean, organize, and set a schedule.

I’ll fall off the horse, of course, because the body I fell into has its own habits. But something will remain, and I’ll be a little more productive, a little neater, a little less verklempt.

And there’s things I want to do. Resume the art thing — turns out one of the few gifts I can give people is portraits. — Resume ancient Greek. Books I need to read. And oh, my heavens, books to write. Yes, it’s all a mess. That’s what happens when you drop in.

BUT– The Isekai rag is playing, and I’m going to do it.

Come with me. Wave at imaginary Truck-Kun as it speeds on to hit another dancer, and let’s get going.

We’re destined for greater things (DUH, we’re American) and we can’t stand around waiting.

Now — isekai rag!