According To Hoyt

So, I got in a fight on X and … Look, I realize the idea of forgiving student loans irks a lot of people. I even understand why.

I just think you need to think of it by turning it around another way. Because there was so much duress all along.

Were there some assholes borrowing half a mil to study fly fishing on Mars? Undoubtedly. There are always assholes. But that was neither the majority, nor the reason we should consider forgiveness, relief of staggered forgiveness or something — though for practical reasons I’m going to back forgiveness, and THEN SHUTTING DOWN THE WHOLE SYSTEM. Throw it to the free market. Things are changing anyway, and the duress is passing. But there is a whole 20 years of people with their butts caught in a vise.

“So, their problem,” you’ll say. And sure, it is their problem, but problems that affect that many people and are that big, affect all of us. And they are.

Not only should we look again at the question for fairness and justice but we should look at it from the POV of “clean the wound and let us heal” in a timely manner, that allows for a next generation.

Look, I know I have zero influence on this. ZERO. And I know this administration is committed to making people pay the loans as a matter of optics, etc. I also think the discourse around student loans has been hard-poisoned with false ideas, so that it seems like a no brainer to insist “Pay it, deadbeat.”

The fact that it’s me telling you to take a second look, should warrant a second look, though. Because I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think it was needed.

I’m going to start from the practical side, first.

You have a lot of people between the ages of 45 and 25 not even looking at getting married, much less having kids.

Yes, I know it’s really hard to wrap your head around because everyone says we’re over populated, but we’re not. And we might — it’s hard to know because no one is telling the truth or keeping the right numbers — be on the verge of serious demographic trouble. The US almost certainly is, not sure about the world, because counting there is even harder.

There is a contingent of this generation, maybe 1/3 who are under crushing student loans and have no hope of paying them off.

Yes, there are other economic barriers to getting to where they can marry, own a home, have kids. There are many sources. BUT the loans are putting a crushing pressure on a system already tilted against the young.

Saying “Shut up and suffer, you’re young” is not a lot of fun, unless said in jest while you make kids carry heavy stuff for you (and feed them and pay them for it.) But it’s even less fun when it’s going to destroy civilization.

This is one barrier we can lift.

Then there is fairness.

“They signed. They should pay.”

Cool beans. Yes, I do understand that’s how civilization works. “My word is my bond.”

But I also understand that civilizations, nations, and heck villages (even if there it’s the law of “I give you such a kicking”) have laws, regulations and other ways to stop people who signed unfair contracts from having to be further victimized.

Were most student loans unfair.

Depends. I’m going step by step, okay?

1- They signed the contract.

They ABSOLUTELY DID. The vast majority of them were between 16 and 19. Most of them probably could read the contract they signed. (Though not all.)
Let’s assume they were all legal adults, though. Legal adults on paper. But note that the overwhelming chances — due to our anti-child labor laws and insane regulations — are these people have not worked a single day in their lives. NOT ONE DAY. They’ve never signed another contract. Not for more than “I won’t eat candy before dinner” with mom and dad. They probably have a bank account but likely it’s mostly for gifts and such. If they’ve worked at all, it was unpaid intern stuff during summer to buff their resume.

Both the concept of money and paying back money, let alone a full understanding of the bind they’d be in are at best academic concepts.

They are in fact the ideal population to be loan shark victims.

So, yeah, they signed the contract but there were extenuating circumstances.

But wait, there’s MORE!

2- Most of them signed under duress.

What duress? Well, you might not know this if you don’t have kids or have never actually had to get a pinch job without quite the right credentials, or don’t have friends who don’t have degrees, but by the 2010s it was almost impossible to get a job even in retail, even as a barista at Starbucks without at least an associate’s degree. And if you expected to go beyond entry level, you needed at least a BA.* (The * are because this is going to have footnotes.)

Yes, there were people who got somewhere without those, but it took being very special and also luck. You can’t count on luck.

So if you’re a kid who wants to get a job; don’t think that you can make a living from your tunes, or your game design that you never do, etc. you need to go to college.

Duress.

3- In addition, if you’re smarter than the average bear EVERYONE tells you to go to college. Parents (guilty), teachers, authorities, government. “Go to college. Make something of yourself.”

4- There are no scholarships. Or rather they are, but they have absolutely NOTHING to do with ability or hard work. They go to earmarked “protected classes.” You stand somewhat of a chance if you are a female of any color, with a good tear-jerking story. BUT mostly you need to be female, can tan, etc. Even male from “minority” ethnicity doesn’t really count. Because male.
There are little scholarships, hard to chase, and you can amass a number of them. Younger kid managed one. Substantial. Takes a lot of time and is hard if you’re in advanced classes. (He was.)

So that’s it for “they freely signed.” They signed because they had to**, and most of them didn’t have enough practice in financial stuff to sign anything in an informed way. The circumstances under which these contracts were signed would be ILLEGAL if it weren’t the feds doing it.

“But they have to pay or the economy crashes.” And “It’s not fair to make the little people pay for doctors and lawyers.***”

1- Bull. That money has been spent. It’s not waiting to be paid back. Obama made the government the only lender for student loans.
They then printed the money and handed it to the universities. It’s been spent.
It’s imaginary money. Like most of the money from the government. By being spent, its value was already inflated away. You already paid. I already paid. All of us already paid.

2- the way interest accumulates on these things and the fact they are non-dischargeable in bankruptcy AGAIN makes them on par with loan shark stuff.

3- People have a lot more of them than you expect, and they’re some of our more ambitious, hard driving people.

Like, for instance, if you want to enter medical school (there you have “doctors and laywers”) they prefer if someone has a masters or a doctorate. but you usually have to have at LEAST 2 BS degrees. With perfect grades. (No, it didn’t use to be like that.) But there are thousands of applicants for each medschool position.
I happen to know it’s the same with every highly desirable degree, particularly post-graduate. you have to make yourself look good. It’s a bet. Most bets don’t pay off. It costs a lot of money to bet at this table, though, and most people making that bet have been star students ALL ALONG. And most of them end up with debt they can never pay for. EVER.

We’re pulling these people straight out of the gene pool. Unless of course, they come from wealth.****

4 – A lot of the more accessible (money wise) colleges are playing games that force people to take longer to graduate, or simply make it impossible to graduate in any reasonable time. Look up the graduation rates at your local State college. Particularly for STEM. It’s easy to say “the kids are stupid now” but I’m going to beg you to believe they’re not. Most of them are not. And the ones who are, most of them aren’t aiming for STEM.
There are now scam “colleges” that work. You pay a lot of money and they get you graduated in a year. I know more than one kid whose parents had to do this. Neither the parents nor the kids are stupid, and they all work hard as heck. (No, neither are family.)

How to fix it:
FORGIVE the loans. Not like Biden did, which left so much room for fraud and also left the system up.

The only way to do it is to shut down the system of loans (it is my belief that the colleges are headed down anyway, particularly if the EO on disparate impact sticks.) If people need loans for college, let private lenders fund them. (I bet you that the price of college comes down from the stratosphere pretty fast too.

Set people free. Among other things, heck of a political statement. And who knows, might get some people to rethink their stands.

It won’t be noticed. It’s already been inflated away. And it opens the door to productivity and adulthood.

Now is that the only way to do it? No.

But what we’re doing is eating our seed corn. And when that’s done, we won’t have any more corn.

And no future corn either.

Yes I know “But they signed contract.” Consider, in the bowels of Christ that you might be mistaken.

Notes:

*This was done because they couldn’t administer literacy tests, and our schools are so floridly and obviously horrible, that you can’t tell if someone can read and write with A HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA.
Now, the thing making tests impossible was “disparate impact” and it might be gone. Eh. Depending on judges. Or it might not. If it is, that is the right way to negate the need for “credentials” which is what all this idiocy is built on. Also what feeds the need for H1Bs: they are being tested abroad where it’s legal. Not the whole need, but a lot of it.
Which is why disparate impact has to go.

**Let’s dispose of “might have joined the services.” Not everyone can. A lot of kids have issues that preclude it. That’s one. Another is… well, let’s look at the last four years. or the ones from 2008 to 2016.

The other point is: the services don’t want to take every kid, do they? What would they do with them? And do you want people to only go in to get college paid for? I don’t.

***Not all doctors and lawyers make the money the envious imagine. Second they sacrifice a lot of earning time and most of them graduate under crushing loans. And they too are being undermined by “imported” workers. (A startling number of them from China.) Also they are a tiny percentage of those who owe money. Why are you concentrating on them? Leave envy to the leftists. They do it better.

**** if you want for it to be so that IN AMERICA people have to be massively wealthy to be doctors, or yes, lawyers, or higher level scientists, explain to me way.
And yes, we should be able to make medical degrees more available, etc. But that’s the institutions, etc. NOT people’s decisions.

Of sorts. Real post tomorrow.

I realized I’m coughing less, and less stuffed up, which means I am getting better. My voice is still not back. I sound like a three pack a day smoker, but I don’t sound like a goose hissing anymore.

The truth though is that I am tired. SO TIRED. Tired like I just ran a marathon. This apparently might be due to being on antibiotics, or at least some of you said so.

I’m hoping to work tomorrow, including a chapter of Witch’s daughter for the substack. I’ll even make this one free. (Don’t hold me to it, though. Tomorrow might end up being Wednesday.)

I do need to get on my feet though, because Indy is driving Dan nuts. Not enough occupation.

This was the crime scene in the office this morning:

AND someone got super-salty when I cleaned it up. “But but but, we had play dirt and SALAD.” Yeah.

The blackout: I would assume it’s lack of energy above all. (Kind of like I feel right now.) I mean when we were there six years ago they were going house to house — they, the government — and installing some kind of switch to make the switch on the board pop at lower loads. To make this clear, BEFORE the change I couldn’t turn on a heater and a hair dryer without taking down the electricity in this four bedroom upper middle class home.

What shocked me most of all was that my parents were okay with this, because climate crisis, don’t you know? (I bite my tongue a lot.) Kindly remember my family are neither stupid nor hard left (with one exception and he doesn’t realize he is. Just trusting the best sources in “academic” circles.)

I haven’t heard from them this time, but with Trump and the demonization of Trump over there — oh, by the way, an idiot left a comment that I’m handing to one of the fans to shred. I have volunteers, but if anyone else wants it, I’ll let Holly Frost know. It’s all about how Trump is “Destroying the world”. No, I’m not approving the comment. He’s an idiot (Probably from Europe.) I’m just outing him for a fisking. They don’t play fair on their sites and I know game theory. I’m not doing it here, either. — so with this, yeah, my tongue is going to be bleeding by the end of the next phone call.

The lights are going on in Europe. Literally it seems. Meanwhile they think the shadow of fascism is over…. us? It’s inexplicable.

Sometimes I wonder if the stress is keeping my auto-immune spun up.

I’ll go watch videos of the guy walking through cemeteries. (Faces of the Forgotten.)

BUT quickly: Whichever one of you told me to put vicks in very unlikely places — no, not there. It would hurt.

Anyway– “you magnificent bastard, I read your book!” I am better. Still extremely far from well, but you know? I’m starting to maybe believe hypothetically I might be well again some day.

And speaking of magnificent bastards in the best way: To the Eternal Glory of the Infantry shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young.

Sorry, got up very late and the cats murdered one of my potted plants. I need to go clean the crime scene. See you later.

I won’t say I forgot the promo post. I didn’t. I merely have been low on spoons all day, too low on spoons to think about getting a post up. Or to do more than think about it.

Only thing I can say is that I’m better than yesterday. Yesterday I crashed HARD. Really hard, back to being as sick as I’ve ever been. EVER. Since this stuff began.

So– if you’re on a CPAP and are very ill? Don’t forego washing it one morning. I did, because I forgot on Friday morning.

Anyway, I have no idea how I’ll be tomorrow. I hope better?

There will be a post either way. Just wanted you to know. I’m alive.

While on that, if you are a praying kind, spare a prayer for Kate Paulk. I hadn’t heard from her in a little while, thought she was in one of her depressive cycles. It happens to both of us and when we’re in the “I can’t even” phase we give each other space, and just try to check in once a month with “I’m okay.”

But I’ve been sick. I don’t know. Might have been more than a month.

Today I heard that early in the month she was in a house fire, severely burned, is undergoing surgeries and treatment.

She lives across the country, and there’s not much I can do for now, or until she’s better, but pray. All I can do for now is pray. So I’m praying, and if you’re of a praying kind, please pray for her.

Kate is an enormously talented writer, and if she didn’t have bad luck, she wouldn’t have any luck at all.

Sarah. Flaking out.

Mostly this is me phoning it in, as it’s been a fairly exhausting if short — I didn’t drag butt out of bed till 11:30 — day.

two days ago the u-turn of the cold from hell became clear. It not only did a U-turn, it headed down and started making itself worse and worse and worse.

Today I went to the doctor. It was a long-waited appointment for another reason, but she looked into this too. Apparently besides my asthma acting up, my body decided this was an excellent time to develop sinus infection from hell.

So, improvements: I have found what was wrong with my CPAP and got it fixed. Needless to say being able to sleep solves a multitude of issues, though I seem to have some sleep debt I’m recovering from.

Also, the doctor gave me a couple of medicines to deal with the asthma (a new thing) and an antibiotic and prescription cough med. Also a different kind of allergy med. We’re going to hit it with everything on the market and probably some stuff extra too.

That’s what I’m doing to deal with my stupid health.

The walks will resume as soon as I am sure of not passing out.

Now the good news is today is the first time I COULD resume the long-postponed revision. And it’s still going well. Hopefully I’m better tomorrow and can spend more time on it.

Now various notes: on my promo post email, it’s started randomly dumping people in junk. If I don’t remember to check every week, it just erases them. So if you’re a friend, or even “just” someone hoping to be promoted or to get in touch with me for other reasons, ping again, and if you can ping me by another means, and I’ll look for it.

I’m trying to figure out how to publicize the upcoming book. Anyone wishing to volunteer as a stop in the blog tour (Not for two weeks, at least. it won’t be up for preorder before that) or who has some bright idea of how to promote, please let me know.

I think that’s it. Any other complaints? Requests? Thrown rotten oranges and peanut shells?

Let me know. And again, sorry to phone it in, but I’m not functioning very well.

Oh, and just as I start feeling sorry for myself, a friend has it much worse. Because some people can’t catch a break. Please Help Us With Medical Expenses.

We’re going to look at our finances tomorrow, and then I’ll figure what I can give. I totally understand these are my friends, not yours, but if you can, G-d bless you.

For those of you who have no idea what this is about or what I’m doing, I’m reading back through THE Portuguese collection of science fiction, the one I read and which pulled me into this crazy fandom and eventually this crazy profession. (I might have come into it to write mystery, maybe, but considering how ill mystery was (yes, worse than sf) when I started, I doubt I’d have stuck it out.)

Anyway, if you missed it, the full explanation is there: The Future of the Past.

This week is kind of weird, because it should have been this book: L’Univers Vivant. Which would translate as “The Living Universe”. They didn’t get creative with the name, either. They called it O Mundo Vivo in Portuguese.

Des galaxies en collision ; des milliards de mondes volatilisés : un chaos a l’échelle cosmique progressant vers notre Voie Lacté… et l’escadre spatiale de Jerry Barclay lancée vers l’Infini pour tenter de juguler ces cataclysmes… et découvrir alors le fantastique secret de l’univers.

Roughly: Galaxies in collision; millions of worlds vaporized: chaos on a cosmic scale progresses towards our Milky way…. and Jerry Barclay’s space squadron launched towards the Infinite to try to curb these cataclysms… and then discover the fantastic secret of the universe.

To be fair this sounds like it would be more fun and not get caught up in the author’s private obsessions. The author’s private obsessions? you say. Hold fast.

First, what happened: I couldn’t find L’Univers Vivant in English, and while I could read it in French it would be rather baffling to throw it at you if you couldn’t also read it. What if I really loved it?

Anyway, so I went to Amazon and I found a series by the author. I picked the first book.

Now, this series, from what I can tell started later, and the writer fell more and more under his particular obsessions as he got older.

So, let’s get into the author: Jimmy Guieu was the pen name of Henri René Guieu who mostly wrote as Jimmy Guieu. (Incidentally the only time I had a touch for a translation in Portuguese, they wanted me to use my “English name” for the Musketeers. Eh.)

Sorry, I know from Wikipedia, but…

Henri René Guieu (19 March 1926 – 2 January 2000) was a French science fiction writer and ufologist, who published primarily with the pseudonym Jimmy Guieu. He occasionally used other pseudonyms as well, including Claude Vauzière for a young adult series, Jimmy G. Quint (with Georges Pierquin) for a number of espionage novels, Claude Rostaing for two detective novels and Dominique Verseau for six erotic novels.

I have a weird feeling I read at least one of his erotic novels. (My best friend stumbled onto one and shared. I found it was not my thing.) Weirdly, I’m fairly sure I never read Time Spiral. (I might have read L’Univers Vivant, but if so it didn’t leave a mark.) See that ufologist thing? Yeah, the more Jimmy Guieu wrote the more he started viewing his novels as channeled (more or less) non fiction in which he wrote to “evangelize” his ideas on UFOs and Ancient Aliens.

They think by hooking up into the UFOlogists and Ancient Alien people he got more readership than he would otherwise. This strikes me as odd, as it’s weird for UFOs and Ancient Aliens to have more readership than SF, but France is a strange country and there was a cottage industry in Chariot of the Gods like books. So, it is possible.

Anyway, Jimmy Guieu is the best selling science fiction writer in France, in all times, sort of like their Heinlein. They gave him his own imprint. So–

Perhaps I’m judging him too harshly, as the time spiral was published in 1952. Perhaps my reaction to it has to do with my having been ill and underslept and at the beginning of recovery. Or maybe the ideas in this book rubbed me particularly wrong, part of it due to the ancient alien stuff rubbing me very, very wrong.

A quick summary, with some spoilers, but trust me, if you decide to read it you’ll still find surprises… (and how.):

Jean Karaven who has theories about the origin of mankind is called upon by his friend in… Caltech? (I don’t remember. None of the American setting rang “right”) who has invented a time spaceship. The mechanism for time travel is weird, but not unheard of, if you read a lot of weird stuff. Anyway, it takes a spaceship and it travels backwards. They travel with military personnel, since this is a government research project, and they first go back to Lemuria — shut up — where they hook up with the party of aliens there to civilize the natives. There, improbably, a pair of identical twins fall in love one with Jean Karaven and another with an Austrian engineer who is along for… reasons. They fall in love with them so hard that they end up returning to the present with them. While there they have adventures, mostly relating to a tribe of hairy red cyclops. (Oh, I have words on the origin of those.) Then they go further back in time to where the first “alien teachers” have come to Earth to teach the natives who are…. golden hermaphrodites. These golden hermaphrodites are descended from, for lack of a better term, spirit jelly fish. Don’t go there. Don’t even. The adventure in that time is curtailing a would be space Lord who if he lived would cause da eeevile on a massive scale. Then they undo a snaffu in Lemuria where Karaven’s girlfriend got killed, and unkill her. This inexplicably (or perhaps explicably, but by that time I was not tracking very well) required them to kill their time doubles, which they do with no compunction. And then they come back to the fifties,with their brides.

The main problems I had with it:

As some of you know I’m semi-nutty on there having been ancient civilizations. I am sure there have been, at least at the Greeco-Roman and perhaps at the 17 century level. We really can’t DISPROVE their existence in the vast, unrecorded years of human presence on the planet.

This is based on my belief that building civilizations is as natural to us as building dams is to beavers, and that the present civilization is only 10k years old. 20k if you want to go to first traces.

HOWEVER I do not believe in Ancient Aliens. Look, I have an issue with aliens to begin with, it’s why I don’t tend to write them much. However I’m agnostic on whether aliens exist and whether they’ve ever visited the Earth.

What I don’t believe in is these “helpful, advanced aliens coming to teach mankind.” That makes my teeth hurt. I read a lot of those books (yes, a lot of them French) when I was young, and I still read them sometimes because anything touching traces of ancient civilizations will eventually end up in that and make me ARGH. Because even reading them as a kid, I got the contempt for mankind, the desire for someone more “enlightened” to come and help us, etc. The need for someone perfect to rescue us from our imperfection. Look, guys, I already have a religion. Which is what this seems to be to me, groping for religion and refusing to consider the traditional ones, out of spite.

I hate it for other reasons, like the assumption that humans are the slow children of the universe. (I much prefer the idea, mooted in Have Spacesuit Will travel that Humans are the old ones of the Galaxy. No reason, but I’m human, so I’ll cheer for the home team.)

As a plot (or life theory) device, it ends up becoming deus x machina that explains everyhiting, solves everything, etc.

In this case it was bizarre, because while the aliens supposedly looked down on us because we’d got into war, etc. the aliens themselves have wars, and take gleefully tot he suggestion of using virus weapons against the cyclops in Lemuria, and to pre-kill someone before they commit a crime. In fact the aliens have amazing weapons (disintegrators) and are ever eager to reach for them, etc.

All of that seriously upset me. It might have upset me less if the book came right after Lost in The Stratosphere, as it’s only a reasonable bit worse than that. But after last week’s this was a big letdown.

More minor things that I disliked intensely: the treatment of women. Note this is me speaking, okay? It’s so bad that I wondered whether the cardboard character women that so annoy feminists in SF are picked up exclusively from foreign novels? I mean, these female aliens are leaders of their groups, blah blah blah, but go head over heels for these guys, despite the fact, btw. that they’re 7 feet tall and these guys are just over six. And the fact that they’re supposedly much further advanced aliens. They go for them so hard in a few days acquaintance that they abandon their mission and everything they trained for to go to a time they know nothing of and marry these guys.

Now, can you make that fly? And make everyone human? Sure you can, but Guieu DIDN’T. It’s like they take a look at the Frenchman and the Austrian and man, oh, man, they’re in love forever. I could make crude jokes, but I won’t.

A giggle-worthy point that might be a mistranslation, the first time the main love interest — Layla — shows up, she’s described as blond and pure. I don’t know how they get “pure” from visual, but cool, whatever.

Evolution. Oh, dear, evolution. Evolution is supposed to work linearly and always make species better. Oh, also the aliens guide our evolution. (If you just saw me with middle fingers aloft, you can see through space. Because ARGH. We’re not livestock.)

The action was not told in slow enough motion to matter. The people never seem to have an internal life.

Really minor stuff, and might be translation. The beginning particularly is filled with brand names for everything mentioned, from cars to guns, and always by the formal name. Thompson guns, not Tommy guns. Etc. etc. etc. It felt wrong and unnatural.

Anyway, I didn’t like it. which is me and might have as much to do with where I am right now and my own particular sensitive points, but well, I’m glad I added knowledge of this author to my arsenal, since he seems to be the most influential sf writer in France. (He only died in 2000.)

Fortunately (?) the next book on the list is an old friend, though one I haven’t read in a long time now.

Yeah, that is the Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.

I remember being mildly confused by it when I first read it partly because the Portuguese title promised more of a hard sci fi about the colonization of Mars or something. (The title is literally translated as The World of Mars.) However, even confused, I remember loving it.

The last time I read it was when the older boy was going through a Bradbury thing…. Oh, dear, 20 years ago. (He had to pick an author for a project in English and he picked Bradbury.) I was of course a very different person.

I’m looking forward to getting reacquainted with it and seeing how it hits me now.

I’ll report next week. And sorry for being so scathing on this book. It’s entirely possible I’m unfair, but there it is.

Okay guys, just checking, but I think this is a case of “We are not the same.” And I think most of y’all will be with me.

If you were adventuring throughout the galaxy and you landed on a planet where people told you “oh, we no longer have wars or violence. We evolved past that.”

Would you

a) assume they’re superior beings?

b) get the hell out of dodge as far as your spaceship can carry you, before whoever has farmed these sheep comes to collect?

Because my answer is B with an extra “make sure I can’t be traced from here.”

As you probably can deduce, reading of this week’s “legacy sf” book is not going well. My kindle estimated 2 1/2 hours to read it, and it’s probably been that, in five minute increments, because it’s that long between “pshaw!”s. Yes, there will be a post about it, but for now this is just about one thing I stumbled on this morning.

That was … well, the setup is ancient aliens guiding humans. More on that later. But anyway, as the ancient aliens turned their back, the humans created atomic bombs. And used them for peaceful (?????) stuff like leveling mountains for engineering purposes (just keep on going.) But then a scientist created a super-bomb and was made minister of war and decided to attack the neighbors with it… Which meant humans weren’t evolved enough to blah blah blah….

Wait, let me give you the quote because it exemplifies the thought pattern so well:

“A generation passed during which time this dangerous invention was used only as a controlled explosive for building dams, destroying mountains, to divert the flow of rivers, etc. But one day a scientist drunk on power built A-bombs with the agreement of his government, which appointed him War Minister, he started a dreadful conflict. The conquered under the supervision of the conquerors pursued their own research no less secretly. We do not know exactly how it happened, but the fact is that 20 years later a new atomic war broke out. This time the two antagonists each had their A bombs and even hydrogen bombs. It was a cataclysm of unheard of violence.”

Jimmy Guieu, The Time Spiral

That sound you heard across the miles between us was me hitting my head on my desk repeatedly.

Look, this book is full of many, many bad ideas of the Alien Civilizers suborder. And again, we’ll go into why those rankle later. Much later.

That paragraph above though really got under my skin because unlike, say, the idea that evolution leads to more perfect and moral forms which is also in the book, it is very much still an European attitude.

Some of you are in various off-blog groups with me and have been unlucky enough in recent weeks to trigger rants about Europe, specifically about what my European relatives think is happening here and their refusal to believe my lying eyes might be better than their “best source” news in Europe. (Which, let me tell you, having heard the news on CNN international while I was there, it makes our plain, old Communist News Network seem right wing.)

I keep getting this sense that this is what families spread across Germany and the US must have felt like in the 30s, but I also realize that’s bs. That was more or less a narrative imposed during the war. Actually given our own shitheads (I’m looking at Woodrow Wilson, FDR etc.) our beliefs about good governance and how to organize a country — at least as propagated from the top. I’m sure American citizens were always different to an extent — weren’t that different. The big difference was Germany going on an invading rampage and also their bizarrely massive extermination program and its ethnic/religious overtones. (Look, we also sterilized and euthanized people. Leftists always do.) And for various reasons most people didn’t believe that was actually going on in Germany, so it wasn’t a point of contention for families across the Atlantic.

But now, the international leftist media complex has the bit between its teeth. In a bid to save its project of making us own nothing and eat bugs, they’re painting a picture of us abroad that doesn’t even have a vague, coincidental resemblance to us.

Yes, I do realize that due to our movies and people thinking they depict reality Europeans always thought that we engage in a minimum of a firefight a day, that all our places are as dangerous as the most dangerous areas of Chicago, etc.

Famously etched in my mind is the picture of being in a store with my mom a few years ago — having left a house that since I moved has acquired industrial strength steel shutters on every window, and bars on the lower level one, and taken the wheel, the stereo, etc. out of the car we parked — and hearing the lady said America sounds great but she couldn’t live with the crime and the danger.

At the time I lived in Colorado Springs, downtown, where I not only routinely forgot to lock my car (or my house) sometimes for days at a running, but one particularly crazy week left my purse in the car for a week, with the car unlocked. (Yes, I am aware you couldn’t dot hat now. Even before open borders, the provision of better and more comprehensive services to “homeless” had made the city a vagrant addict paradise and frankly it was getting dicey to walk alone downtown early morning or after dark. HOWEVER even then it was better than the good neighborhood in Portugal my mom lives in.)

So, yeah, it’s been like that for a long time, but now it’s deliberate and fairly insane. From what I gather, they think anyone who tans is at risk, that there are people marching in the streets with swastika armbands, and the country might not be safe for me and mine because of our — fairly unremarkable — Mediterranean appearance.

Also of course, Orange Man Bad hates Europe and loves Putin, and he’s just going to give Europe to Putin, and–

I can’t. I can’t even. I’ve started answering with “I remember when you were smart enough not to buy commie lies.” (Look, dudes, they think MACRON is right wing. They probably think Castreau is a conservative.)

BUT at the bottom of it, at the bottom of their puerile rage at Vance for telling them they have to defend themselves, at the center of their anger that we are telling them we will no longer send American boys to bleed for them, is the attitude about war.

Now, if you look at that bizarre paragraph above, you’ll understand why Europe thinks the way to prevent violence is to forbid the weapons. Because first they build atom bombs, and then a SCIENTIST is mad with power and uses them. Look, dudes, dudettes and dudissimos, this is not how government works in any sane country. I really don’t know about France — see sane — but in the US the only weapons scientists mad with power are allowed to deploy are biological and information control, and that’s because idiots didn’t see it coming.

No scientist in a nuclear lab ever said “Hey, I have a bomb! I’m going to use it to nuke South Nostrillia.” And most people don’t research/create/keep weapons, whether private or public because they twirl their mustaches, cackle evilly and think they will now have the power to kill others.

Even the bad guys don’t get weapons for that reason. They get weapons because some force, either mental or practical, makes them think they need them to defend from something, be it either mental “They’re going to get me, I have to get them first” or practical “I need money, they have money.”

The hierarchy is “Wanting to do something” and then getting the weapon, not the other way around.

Sane nations, yes, develop and stockpile the scariest weapons they can think of (but not biological, because we’re all human and that’s just stupid. Yes, I’m looking at you, China. You might think you’re a completely different and superior type of humanity, but really you’re just like us, and what kills us kills you. What you are in fact is eating rocks dumb for thinking you’d found a cheap shortcut to world supremacy.) And they let other nations know they have them. Because that keeps you relatively safe, and if you’re lucky in relative peace. Until that one nation or group is dumb enough to try sh*t.

Which is why the whole evolved and above it all theory that if you don’t have weapons there will be no war does not work, and makes China’s eating-rocks-stupidity seem like a flash of brilliance in the dark.

What it is ultimately is “If only everyone,” but applied to nations. “If only everyone gave up all their weapons, we wouldn’t’ have war.”

This is bullshit, because war comes from competition for scarce resources, from illusions of cultural supremacy, from dictatorships not being able to feed their own serfs without it, etc. etc. ad nauseum, up to and including the actually righteous “Well, we have to go and exterminate the Northern Anklians because they eat babies alive.” (And the number of times they actually did is shocking. And yes, the only way to destroy a culture that perverse is to exterminate it root and limb, because cultures have a life of their own.)

For all those reasons and some I can’t think of right now, humans will have war. And if they gave up all more advanced weapons, they’d fight with spears and knives. And if they gave up those they’d fight with rocks. And in the bizarre instance they lacked even those, they’d fight with teeth and nails.

The other is a fable for maiden aunts, (as Heinlein put it) and not very smart maiden aunts at that.

(Which is why the instance in the Bible requires a spiritual transformative event. Not confiscation of all books about war.)

The problem is Europeans really, really, really believe that war is always evil, that having weapons and a will to fight CAUSES war, that the military is inherently evil. That even a liking for military history or uniforms will bring about war.

I’m not actually joking that I was taught this in school in the seventies. Patriotism, plus a military mind set causes war.

This utter bullshit must have been very comforting when they didn’t want to face the actual stew of bad ideas, bizarre utupianism and misguided centralization of government, not to mention scientism and worship of “experts” that caused the long war of the twentieth century.

It must have been super comforting to think that now they had evolved past it. And if they didn’t mention the bad things, or own weapons, they would be safe.

Honestly, I suspect America too preferred they dreamed pacifist dreams so we didn’t have to come over and clean up their mess again.

But it was wrong. it was wrong for them, and it was wrong for us. Because it’s based on the “if only everyone” and never, in the history of ever, has everyone done something. If there were a shot invented tomorrow that made us perpetually healthy and young, not everyone would take it. If I tried to give away magic cornucopias that would be perpetually filled with whatever food you wanted to eat, not everyone would take them. If there was a button you could push that would ensure every child in the world was born healthy and beautiful, not everyone would push it.

Because never, in the history of ever, even in small groups has “everyone done x.”

Which means we’ve been protecting them from the bad actors, including those straddling their continent and Asia, while they made us their sin eaters and have lived in an idiot’s dream believing they’ve “evolved” past war and they’re naturally peaceful, not like us, the savages that we are.

Meanwhile their neighborhoods and cities turned into gangland, they were taken over by openly hostile invaders, and in response became more and more restrictive with the law abiding. I expect Great Britain to conduct a great search for nail files, and confiscate them next. (Oy, do you have a license for that nail file? You could put someone’s eye out with that, you could.) I’m only shocked they haven’t started declawing and de-teething their citizens. (Yet.)

However you need to understand they view their helpless state as superior, and look down on us as dangerous savages who live in a land of constant violence.

…. which is why they’re running in circles, trying to demonize Orange Man Bad to bring him down, because how very dare we say we won’t go die for them and protect them, and that it’s time they sharpen those nail files and buy some books about war.

Why do we want to make them savage barbarians like us? Don’t we know what they’re capable of? Think of all the wars they could start. Why, they might have to control themselves. Worse, they might have to face they are normal human beings and not some magical evolved species, beyond aggression, war and patriotism.

Meanwhile, we know very well what they’re capable of. We know what they do to their own citizens and expect announcements tomorrow that they’re serving live baby. We know that they might not embrace extreme nationalism, but their other extreme, non-functional isms, like socialism, are probably worse.

And we’re tired of abetting their dreams of superiority and their false Utopia.

And we found the most hurtful word in our vocabulary is “No.”

I’m a bad person. I want to keep saying it, over and over again.

I’m going to propagate this across my substacks. I keep meaning to post there, but haven’t for several months.

Of course, I haven’t been exactly well for several months. I realized yesterday that I still haven’t opened and read the Christmas cards people sent us. I’ve also only cleaned I think 4 times since October, not the normal weekly cleaning.

So, why?

Well, when we landed I was very ill with pneumonia. That took me to the beginning of October to beat.

And then my thyroid went sideways, partly because of the stress leading up to the illness and, doubtless, the illness itself.

So that took till January to start getting treated. I’m now on the lowest dose, and the hypothyroidism symptoms have resolved somewhat (yes, I had thyroid problems before, but this is a different and more obvious type) I was due for a follow up early March, but I was very ill and coughing a lot, so it’s been postponed till May.

Then I was okay by the end of March… And I got ill again, and that’s been the last three weeks. A little better, much worse, almost well and it does a u-turn.

Now, this might be ALL the thyroid, because hypothyroidism messes with your immune system, or it might be… who knows?

It’s probably not cancer, just to get that out of the way. My tests all came back clean. This is particularly important because my brother has lung cancer, so of course my parents are convinced I must too, because they think in narrativium.

However, the hypothyroidism does things like make my mouth very dry, which means I wake up several times in the night, which also leaves me susceptible.

Again, this is by way of explaining why you haven’t yet seen the book finished in October. (Okay, there’s another thing there, which is that HOW to revise it beyond minor tweaks, actually hit me only a month ago, and I did about 1/4 before I got sick. I’m probably just about well enough to resume that, and release e-arcs and put the first volume of that book (well, it’s too large to BIND) on pre-order.

The voice remains too wonky to do readings. I don’t know if it’s the cold or the thyroid or yes.

There have been other things, mostly under life disruption and work, but honestly, the recurring illness is mostly what’s messing me up.

Older son has suggested — not ordered, which is rare enough — that perhaps I need a vacation. Perhaps all the dislocations, extra work, etc. of the last three years have taken their toll, and I just need a week of not doing much.

Which in theory is an excellent idea, except it requires us to GO somewhere, because if I’m in the house, that’s half of my work, and my husband doesn’t have the vacation days he can take and… well…

Anyway. If you’re on my substacks, I am better, or at least in one of the upper plateaus of whatever the heck this is, and I’ll resume feeding them, I SWEAR. I might figure out an alternate to the fiction substack for next year. Like, a subscription on the blog, now that wordpress allows it. Let me investigate it. Just because I like the interaction here (or on discord, even) better than on substack. That would also make it easier, since it reduces the number of things I have to keep track of.

The decision hasn’t been made yet. And I might keep all of it. We’ll see.

Anyway, I’m giving myself to the end of April and trying to take things easy, but I promise posting on the substacks will resume and the edits will get done. Because enough is enough. And I feel like I’m letting all the subscribers and the people waiting for the book down.

And I’ll try to post like a normal human being on my blog, too, instead of letting things slip. A measure of how weird it’s gotten, my friend Charlie gives me a post a month for Mad Genius Club. Last week I cued his post up, made some edits, put an image up. Well, I thought I had. When he told me he couldn’t find it to link, I went to MGC….

Either I posted it on someone else’s blog (Look, who knows?) or I did all that and then closed the window without posting.

That’s how weird things have gotten. Particularly at night, when I am tired. Reminds me of the bad year in 2015 when I’d find myself waking up in bed without any memory of having come up from my (then) basement office. I’d go downstairs and find out that I’d left the computer on, or sometimes a manuscript on the stand, with changes to be entered (Which often meant the cats had spread it all over the floor.) I called it “the veil of darkness” in the sense that my mind blanked out, and my body went on and did things.

It’s not QUITE so bad. It’s mostly the things I don’t do that I thought I did. (Particularly annoying is when I DREAM of doing things, because then I have the work TWICE.)

I’ve also learned to stop and go to bed when I start feeling “fuzzy”. If you miss me at the aggregator blog, that’s why.

Oh, I should say I’m not losing my mind, in the sense that I’m not forgetting things, beyond the usual ADHD. It’s more that I have very little energy and am at least a little tired at all times. Which means that I do basic triage (which is why I haven’t managed to READ the Christmas cards, yet. ) When I’m well, I’m trying to overdue work. And when I’m not well, I’m trying to do the minimum to not have it all collapse on me. Stuff like doctor’s appointments, vets appointments (one of our cats is terminal and getting much worse, so that takes up a high priority bit of time, too. Not quite at the point of our helping him over the bridge, but he requires medicine and such.)

Also to be fair, this last cold-like-substance got both sons, healthy men in the prime of their lives, and they both still have residual cough. It even managed to get Dan sick for three days, and Dan NEVER gets sick. So this was some kind of serious illness. Not the flu, no. Not Covid, either. Just a cold, but a heck of a cold.

Look, this will resolve itself. I have an endocrinologist appointment first week of May. That should give us some answers.

I have an appointment with my regular doctor next week. I think what I have going (beyond stress and tiredness, which I admit might be part of it, since last year was awful) is a synergy between real viruses and my auto-immune. Like, my asthma gets spun up and that makes my colds much worse. So I might need new meds to keep the auto-immune under control. (I can’t take montelucast, it makes me suicidal. It’s a rare side effect, and it hit me. One of the daily inhalers makes me permanently hoarse to the point I can’t make myself heard. And the newest supposedly best one I can’t have because my insurance refuses to pay for it and it’s a ridiculous price.)

Anyway, let me have the rest of this week to be a bit of a flake, and I will do my best to be back in the saddle next Monday, okay?

UPDATE

I figure this warrants an update. I called my CPAP place and got an alarmed phone call back very quickly. They went and checked the stats it calls home. Apparently my tank is either warped or cracked because it’s gotten a leak so high it turns itself off twice an hour or so. They will get me a new tank tomorrow (since they’re closing soon.).
THAT should make a big difference. I’ll keep you updated. IF it works, I might take a couple of days to just sleep….

I mean, I still have a cold/allergies/autoimmune, but sleep makes things a million times worse.

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 DAN MELSON: The Fountains of Aescalon: Connected Realms Book 1

The first thing Alexan knew was standing over an impossible corpse with an ichor-stained sword.

Exiled from home for reasons of politics and health, he has to orient himself in a new home, but he still has the skills he was ‘born’ with, skills which make him a wizard in his new homeland. A blasted, sterile cavern has many portals, but the one he chooses leads to the top of a huge tree, the source of magical power for an entire world.

Power is plentiful in Aescalon, but those who have it want to keep it all for themselves, and the arrival of a new wizard upsets the balance. It seems everyone who doesn’t attack immediately wants something from him – including a cursed demi-goddess desperate to escape her fate who thinks Alexan may be able to help her.

But Alexan can’t even help himself until he unravels the secrets of The Fountains of Aescalon

WITH A SHORT STORY BY ROBERT MILLER: Face the Storm (J. R. Handley Presents Book 6)

In the darkest corners of space…
They protect the galaxy.

When chaos strikes and the unknown threatens, only one force stands between civilization and destruction: The Space Coast Guard.

Rescue. Defend. Survive.

Elite officers face hostile aliens, deadly storms, and intergalactic warfare in a fight for survival. No mission is ever routine. No sacrifice too great.

The stars are waiting. Answer the call.

Are you ready to FACE THE STORM?

FROM MEL DUNAY: Loving A Deathseer (The Jaiya Series Book 3)

Journey to the country of Jaiya, in a world not quite like ours. Here, humans ride trains, drive cars, and use cell phones, but they share their world with insect people and trollfolk, and stranger things lurk in the shadows… In a place like Jaiya, a servant has to obey his employers’ every whim, even if the whim isn’t in the job description. Erno spends his days rushing around while his wealthy employers bark orders at him. By night, he cases out his employers’ homes and sells the information to his burglar friends. He has only three rules: don’t get close to anyone, don’t let anyone get hurt, and don’t let anyone get framed for the crime. But his latest job will plunge him into a world of political intrigue,and test his rules to the breaking point. His only chance at redemption lies in the love of a persecuted young woman named Zeni, with the power to foresee his death…. Note: Zeni is related to a couple of characters from Monster and Dreamlost, and the heroines of those two books show up in this one. However, Deathseer is meant as a standalone.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Fire and Forge (Modern Gods Book 3)

Long after their worshipers are forgotten, the gods are still holding up a corner of the bar at the Godshead Tavern. Some have learned since their stories became myths, some never did, and some are still finding old curses coming back to haunt…

Poseidon wants Artemis to lift Medusa’s curse so he and Medusa can resume relations, while Chronos seeks another chance to be whole and get to know his kids.

Meanwhile, Ares falls head over heels for a mortal half his size who manages to kick his ass not once but twice, and Loki’s son is trying to rebuild his life (and his credit) after a short marriage to Pandora.

Life and love runs smoothly for no one, god or mortal. And another disaster is brewing…

FROM DAVE FREER: Storm-Dragon

On the treacherous Vann’s World, Skut battles a savage wind and deadly hamerkops to rescue a mysterious, telepathic creature. Fleeing a rising tide and a menacing Loor-beast, he forms an unexpected bond with the tiny, electric-charged being that sees him as its protector. As Skut navigates the perilous tidal tiers, his impulsive escape from Highpoint Station unravels into a fight for survival—both for himself and his newfound companion.

Podge is the new kid in town, trying to keep his head down. Meeting Skut is about the only bright spot in his introduction to this strange new world. The boys bond over Skut’s creature, and trying to avoid the class bullies. This is only the beginning; soon Skut finds his new friends do not ease the growing concerns of the adults around him while the town is coming under a mysterious threat. What can two boys and a tiny storm-dragon do?

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Darkship Thieves.

Athena Hera Sinistra never wanted to go to space. Never wanted see the eerie glow of the Powerpods. Never wanted to visit Circum Terra. She never had any interest in finding out the truth about the darkships. You always get what you don’t ask for.
When escape becomes discovery…
After waking to an intruder in her bedroom aboard her father’s luxury space cruiser, Athena’s desperate fight for survival catapults her into a small lifeboat and the vast darkness of space. But her attempt to find help takes an unexpected turn when she encounters the legendary darkships—legendary vessels rumored to steal the energy-producing Powerpods that orbit Earth for their own secret purposes.
As Athena is drawn into the hidden world of a secret colony nestled within an asteroid in our solar system, she begins to question everything she thought she knew. The truth about her father’s empire, the true nature of the darkship thieves, and her own place in this complex web of secrets will challenge her understanding of power and freedom.
With dangerous forces hunting her and nowhere left to run, Athena must navigate a new reality where old legends prove true and new allies might become something more. What started as a desperate escape becomes an adventure that will forever alter her destiny—if she survives.
Darkship Thieves—the Prometheus Award-winning space opera that combines high-stakes action with thought-provoking exploration of liberty, authority, and human resilience.

FROM DECLAN FINN: Wyverns Never Die (Honeymoon from Hell Book 3)

THE SEQUEL TO THE DRAGON AWARD NOMINATED “LOVE AT FIRST BITE” CONTINUES!

Marco and Amanda have been hounded from Chicago to San Francisco by all the forces of Hell. Surely, Wyvern Con science fiction and fantasy convention in Atlanta would be safe? Who would dare attack a convention the size of a small city?

Everyone.

Before the newlyweds even arrive, they are nearly killed by Chinese assassins. The local vampire nest has turned on them. Cyber-zombies have been unleashed on the streets.

Somebody has been playing a game with Marco and Amanda. But this is one honeymoon couple that like to play chess. And now, it’s time for their gambit to commence.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Shadow of a Dead God

What secrets lie beneath an alien world?

A routine archeological dig on a world once ruled by the mysterious Star Tyrants. For Moon-born Liu Shang, working on a planetary surface might be unsettling, but she could manage — until the dreams started.

Unwilling to drag others into a harebrained search, she headed out alone, contrary to mission rules. Just as she was about to give up, she found an unlikely artifact.

Handling it connects her to the mind of a long-ago rebel against the Star Tyrants’ rule. Nothing will ever be the same.

A short story.

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: DIFFICULT