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 PAM UPHOFF: Out of Contact
Radmir Gagarin is not an Exec, he just does the job of one. Working for the richest man in the Alliance, Lord Diomid Devi, is not easy, even though he’s retired. And it gets a lot harder when the Plague strikes the World Lord Diomid purchased as his personal retirement home. And then the invasion . . .
As the Three Part Alliance crumbles, it’s every world for itself, and even a man so rich he can buy an entire parallel Earth to retire on, can find himself in a lot of trouble!
FROM HELENA D’ARGENTO: Monster
Don’t really know what I’m writing this for. Maybe for you. Maybe for him. Or maybe just cause I don’t want it resting on my soul alone. God knows I’ll never forget it. Don’t seem so good at forgetting things. And I don’t reckon I’m a bad man, not really, but I’m not a good man neither. Wickedness and vengefulness come easy to me. And I’ve done these things for what I saw as good, but I was happy to do them, I enjoyed every bloody second.
Giorgio Mezzanotte has never led a normal life; from childhood, he has possessed peculiar skills, but he cannot explain why. He has lived a life on the outskirts of society, but when he finds himself falling in love, he is forced to confront the present in an effort to understand the past.
Monster is the story of men: of lovers and fighters, of poets and politics, of psychological warfare, sin, and seduction. Set in a world much like our own, it casts a different light upon an election which changed our perspective and pursues justice for those wronged in the creation and maintenance of the systems which rule us.
FROM DOUG IRVIN: A Spaceship For Joe
Joe has a problem. It’s summer vacation, and all his friends are unavailable. One moved away, another is
sick and the others are all gone for some reason or another.
In desperation Joe looks for his uncle, who makes a suggestion that he build himself a fort, and even
volunteers the space and materials for it.
But Joe has other ideas. He doesn’t want a simple fort; he wants a spaceship!
There’s just one problem with that. He built it too convincingly ….
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: She Dreams Day and Night
Nancy White they called her, a good, solid name for a troubled girl. But she knew her father had called her by another name, before he disappeared through the gate into another world of strange stars and stranger moons. No matter how hard the staff of Hildred House try to force her to forget, she remembers. And longs to reopen the gate, to rejoin her father on that alien shore where cloud-waves break.
FROM HOLLY CHISM: Faerie Gifts
A collection of short stories about the intersection between over- and under-hill, between human and faerie.
FROM NATHAN BRINDLE: AI Is Love
The Japanese word Ai (愛) means “love”. The English acronym AI means “artificial intelligence.” But they both use the same two Roman alphabet letters…and the author loves making puns.
Thus, AI 愛 is Love is a collection of 65 images made using Artificial Intelligence tools and methods. Each image is the author’s loving re-imagination of his wife at various stages of her life, using old photographs and digital models and post-processing software, not to mention plain old-fashioned skull sweat coming up with prompts to feed the MidJourney AI in the first place. While the author cautions his readers that his wife actually doesn’t look entirely like the lovely ladies depicted (mostly because they all have long straight or wavy hair), he does wish to make clear that all of his love for his beautiful lady wife has been poured into the present book, which he humbly recommends for your consideration.
FROM BLAKE SMITH: Hartington Abroad
Jeriah Hartington is far from home. Born into a wealthy family, he is now reduced to poverty. In desperation, he signs on to a ship headed for the planet XKF-36. Their mission? To search for colonists who’ve been lost nearly as long as Jeriah has been alive.
Jeriah fully anticipates an adventure as they travel into the unknown wilderness. He never expected to find living people, eager to tell the tale of their sufferings. But their hair-raising account could be the downfall of everyone on the planet, even their rescuers. For a villain lurks within the ship’s crew, and no one can say who he might be.
FROM CELIA HAYES: That Fateful Lightning: A Novel of the Civil War
There wasn’t much of an outlet for an ordinary American woman with ambitions in the 184os; marriage and family was as good as it got back then, for most women … But Minnie Vining wasn’t an ordinary woman. A spinster in her forties, of a respected old Boston family, possessing an independent income and an education worthy of any man among her peers. Minnie took up a noble cause – campaigning for the abolition of slavery. The matter of slavery roiled political and social life in the United States for more than thirty years, splitting apart families, friends, comrades … and eventually the nation. And when the war began in earnest, Minnie followed her heart and her calling … as a nurse, tending to sick and wounded soldiers … but at what personal cost?
FROM CAROLINE FURLONG: Contact: Angeles
While removing a prototype sensor from the prow of her new Alliance battleship, the Ausa, Captain Elizabeth Goodwin and her crew encounter a setback when one of the engineers sent to remove and stow the device is injured in an accident. Before the other engineer can help the man, the two are surrounded by amoeboid creatures which seem immune to the effects of vacuum.
Thought to be hallucinations experienced by early spacers who had been alone in deep space too long, these creatures – known as “angel fish” – startle the crew by their sudden appearance. Despite her misgivings, Goodwin allows three of the aliens to be taken aboard for study. But less than an hour after the aliens have been brought on the ship, one of Goodwin’s men is killed and another is seriously wounded.
Her search for both the murderer and the escaped “angels” soon leads to a disturbing revelation. Eventually, Goodwin must decide which threat is greater: an old enemy of the Alliance, or the fabled “angels” encountered by the first explorers from Terra.
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: CONDEMNED
According To Hoyt 
I condemned her to death.
I didn’t know it at the time, and I still don’t completely understand it. But it was the beginning of a rivalry way above my pay grade, that would put two worlds at each other’s throats. And only one would survive.
I condemned her to death.
I didn’t know it at the time, and I still don’t completely understand it. But it was the beginning of a rivalry way above my pay grade, that would put two worlds at each other’s throats. And only one would survive.
Sorry. Double posted.
And here I thought it was déjà vu all over again! :-)
“They’ve condemned me to death? What have they condemned me for?”
“Commander, it’s all in my report. Some is nonsense but there are other charges that could be argued as true.”
The Commander quickly read the report and said “I suspect that in a real trial, I could win but they aren’t going to give me a real public trial. Still, they are fools.”
“In general, I won’t disagree but what do you mean?”
“My dear Andrew, according to your report, the general public doesn’t know about this but plenty of the Elite know about this and my enemies imagined that I would never learn about this. If they did imagine that I’d learn about it, they would have sent a major force to arrest me. But they just sent me a message to report in person to the City. Inform my officers and senior NCOs that I want to discuss this report and my possible response. They’ve condemned me to death and I suspect my officers are next to be purged. I’m thinking that we should do more to earn their condemnation.”.
Fine beginning to a real story.
Finally had something come to mind…
<i>”Carys! Run!”
“Do not be absurd, Vincent!” the sorceress cried, readying her spear. ”This beast is too much for you!”
“If I go out here it’s what I deserve,” Vincent replied, moving Ashleshia between Zornitsa and the massive black dragon that faced them. ”Now go!”</i>
Everything was black, yet Vincent Austin’s mind came back to that moment. It was a natural thing, he supposed, to revisit the one thing he could have done to make things right to her. His life for that of her brother.
<i>”Vincent Austin! What have you done?!”
Vincent looked up to find Headmaster Atterberry and Matron Burgess standing over him like gargoyles.
“I-I’m trying to remember, sir,” he stammered. ”Where’s Lionel and the others?”
“Lionel Adair is dead,” the Headmaster responded coldly. ”You were the only one we recovered from the basement intact.”
“Reginald Bullock still lives but we’re not sure he’ll make it through the night,” Matron Burgess added. ”Even if he does his mind will never be the same.”
“Earl Adair is furious,” Headmaster Atterberry continued. ”He’d gladly see you condemned to the noose for this even though you’re still a minor, Austin.”</i>
Earl Adair hadn’t gotten his way but from the looks of things Vincent had been condemned to something far worse, an endless darkness where he kept reliving his worst memories. The blood and chaos of that night in the academy basement and of course…
<i>”Very well, Vincent,” Carys sighed after watching the monster quickly reorient itself after taking a lightning bolt. ”But know this. This beast cannot be your end.”
“I think it gets a vote in that, Carys…” Vincent muttered, raising Ashleshia’s gunblade as the sorceress and Amethyst Sage escaped.
The black dragon had been wounded by Carys’ magic but not nearly enough to slow it down. These beasts were notoriously difficult to kill by sorcery, possessing quite a bit of arcana power themselves. Whether he killed the dragon and lived or fell here the balance would be settled between them today.</i>
And so it had been. The darkness and horror could only mean he’d fallen in battle and gotten the reward he had so richly deserved in the next life as well. All had ended the way it should have.
“How long are you going to keep laying there, lad?” a familiar voice asked.
“The poor dear probably thinks he died and fell down to Helheim, Walter.” another, effeminate voice sighed.
<i>”Huh? I didn’t? Could have fooled me.”</i> Vincent thought. If anyone would be there to greet him in Hell it’d be the two men who just spoke, Walter Dunst and Anders Blomgren. Their reputation for being demons in human form was hardly unjustified.
As if sensing Vincent’s thoughts Dr. Dunst spoke up: ”You’re not in Helheim, lad. You’re safe in my operating room in Bleidabrik.”
“Now hurry and quit playing possum, will you?!” Dr. Blomgren demanded. ”We haven’t got all day you know!”
Vincent slowly opened his eyes. Sure enough, he was exactly where Walter said he was with both scientists standing over him. The former had a serene, vaguely amused smirk on his face while the latter looked as huffy and impatient as he always did. Satisfied that he had somehow survived the battle, Vincent tried sitting up. It was a struggle to do so, like he really had just crawled out of a grave. The dragon must have done more damage than he thought.
“Is Ash…?” was all Vincent could think to ask.
“Beat up pretty bad,” Anders grumbled. ”Not a total loss, happily, and getting her back in fighting shape is the perfect chance for me to show off for His Majesty! Otherwise you’d be in deep, deep doo-doo young man.”
“…Ah.” was all the wounded soldier could manage before something on a coat hanger caught his attention. It was a black leather duster. Even half-dead he could tell the craftsmanship was exquisite, both in the leatherwork and in the bright silver snaps. Whose could it be?
“You like what you see there, Vincent?” Anders continued, his face splitting into a wicked grin. ”I hope so ’cause it’s a get well present from me and Walter!”
“We weren’t going to let that dead dragon go to waste,” Walter added, gesturing towards a pair of gloves and boots on a table near the duster. ”Anders had them all made to your exact specifications.”
“Thank you,” was all Vincent could manage. ”Not a bad way to show you survived an encounter like that.”
Anders laughed uproariously at Vincent’s remark while Walter shook his head, his amused grin twisting into a cruel smirk. He was the only one of the two composed enough to speak, “What do you mean survived, lad?”
“What do I mean survived?” Vincent asked, visibly confused. ”I’m here in your operating room, aren’t I? I couldn’t be here if I was -“
Vincent fell into silence as the memories came rushing back.
<i>”Dammit! Go down already!” Vincent cried, blocking a slash of the dragon’s claws with Ash’s wings before hitting back with a charged gunblade strike.
“Vincent. My arcana reserves are running low as are yours,” Ashleshia warned. ”Let us withdraw for now. Carys is safe, I’m sure.”
“It’s not just about her being safe, Ash,” Vincent hissed. ”It’s about setting things right between me and her.”
“This is not the way to do so, Vincent.” the Jade Tempest said, her tone both solemn and sad.
“Besides, the dragon gets a vote too,” Vincent emphasized. ”And it’s clearly voting to take us down with it!”
Vincent finally saw what he was looking for. The dragon was rearing back for a breath attack, brandishing its claws as well. Yet it exposed a vulnerable spot underneath its neck. He urged Ashleshia forward, activating the gunblade right before impact. It struck home…and so did the dragon. Then all was black and silent.</i>
“What the hell did you two do to me?!” Vincent shouted, his eyes going wide with horror.
“Not letting one of His Majesty’s best assets go to waste, of course,” Dr. Dunst answered, barely restraining a malicious chuckle. ”We simply can’t wait for Ashleshia to choose someone else when we have the means to keep her with her current Chosen.”
“Indeed, indeed,” Anders chimed in when he finally got control of his laughter. ”Consider yourself honored and humbled, Vincent Austin, for you have achieved something many crave but few get: immortality!”
“Immor – wait! You sick bastards made me into an Undying, didn’t you?!”
“Sick b – oh, how rude and ungrateful of you!” Anders screamed. ”Do you want to go to Helheim that badly?! ’Cause I can -“
“Now, now, Anders,” Walter said, putting a restraining hand on his colleague’s shoulder. ”Vincent just received some shocking news and he needs time to process it. Shouldn’t you be heading back to Lady Ashleshia anyway?”
“I suppose.” Anders sighed, throwing up his hands and shaking his head theatrically before stalking out of the theater.
After watching his colleague leave Walter turned to Vincent and said “Take all the time you need to process things, lad. Your new uniform and equipment are all over there. The orders to let you take all the time you need to recover beyond any time spent repairing Lady Ashleshia come directly from His Majesty so you’ll have plenty of time to adjust to your new…life, as it were.”
Walter Dunst gave Vincent a formal bow before he left the room, though he could have sworn he heard a malicious chuckle from the old man before he did so. Shocking news. Right. Of all the things he could have been condemned to this was the worst imaginable. Not facing Earl Adair’s justice as a teenager. Not sacrificing himself for Carys’ sake and ending up in Hell anyway. It was having his sacrifice not only fail but leave him as one of the cursed Undying, the damned souls who were neither truly alive nor truly dead. If things got worse than this he didn’t know how.
<i>”And what will Carys think when she hears about this…?”</i>
Crap, formatting didn’t go as planned, sorry.
Detective Hager was somewhat surprised by Tom Weyland’s enthusiastic response to his knock. In his experience visits to witnesses were more likely to involve suspicious stares than an invitation to come into the kitchen for a drink; a moment later, however, his welcome was explained by a survey of the living room. The floor was covered with bits of an abandoned board game, and the coffee table had dolls seated around a toy tea set.
“My wife’s getting her hair done,” Tom murmured in a low voice. “Susan, look who’s here! Remember the detective at school?” Susan nodded and whispered a bashful hello. “We’re going to the kitchen for a minute, just so he can ask a couple of questions. Be right back.”
“So you’re babysitting?” Hager asked as he accepted a glass of ice water.
“Condemned, for my sins,” Susan’s father agreed. “I shouldn’t say that, but we’ve been playing tea party for at least half an hour and I can’t hold a conversation with a doll that long.”
Perrin looked at him.
“A matter of death and death, if you so choose. Life until death, rather soon.”
Karlos looked uncommonly calm, as if he suffered little distress, whatever condemned him to that fate. He did not jest about death being the fate of all men, in due course.
Bjorn looked at Lord Pennington, the young whelp, really he was an ass, he sighed, it always happened this way.
“And what fate has your crooked twisted black heart condemned me to?” Bjorn tiredly asked.
“You have ruined everything, stole my princess, killed my best troops, killed my best friend, so I am going to feed you to my pet Dragon” Lord Pennington snidely said.
“You do know a Sage was on this trip don’t you?” Bjorn asked.
“What has that got to do with anything?” Lord Pennington almost screamed at him.
“Sages see these little forays as a quest, you already killed one of my men. That means in her eyes she has already failed once. So Lord Pennington, Just how pissed off and angry is she going to be with you if you kill me?” Bjorn asked.
“Just who is this Sage?” Lord Pennington warily asked.
Because face it, it made a big difference.
“Julie Archer” Bjorn said.
“Never heard of her” Lord Pennington replied.
“You might recognize her other name, Scar Face Julie, only I wouldn’t call her that to her face” Bjorn said as lightning crashed outside the palace.
“Oh, Shit!” Lord Pennington said.
Oh shit indeed Bjorn thought.
Just then a lightning bolt crashed through the window and Julie was transported in between the restrained warrior and recalcitrant Lord.
“I hope you know I am quite upset with you” Julie said.
“Look, I…” Lord Pennington started to say.
“Enough, you not only broke treaties but you also broke the Shadow Proclamations, toots” Julie yelled.
“Release the Dragon” Lord Pennington yelled.
The Dragon entered the room spoiling for a fight, he had been promised a warrior to eat and by the gods he was going to have his prize. There was a flash and Lord Pennington turned into a female dragon. In heat.
“Well, Hello cutie pie” the Dragon said to Lord Pennington.
“Stay away from me” Lord Pennington said as she crashed through the wall.
“You’re not getting away from me, Um what’s her name?” the Dragon asked.
“Call her Penny” Julie amusingly replied.
“Ooh. I like that name, Penny, Oh, Penny” the Dragon said as he flew after Lord Pennington.
Bjorn laughed.
“Karma really, he wanted love, so I came him Love” Julie replied.
“Now stop laughing so I can get these shackles off of you” Julie seriously said.
LOL
“This building should be condemned,” I sighed. “Do you want me to do the whole Ghostbusters speech?” I waved my hand around while I held the thermal camera in my other hand.
“It’s not that bad, is it?” Ishtar asked, looking around as well.
“Foundation is sound and the basement is dry, which is something,” I pointed out. “So, that means the sump pump works. How, I have no clue, as the electrical system is easily sixty years old. Maybe seventy. Which means plug-in fuses and a power board that is hideously inadequate to the needs right now, let alone what we’re planning to do with it. The coax and phone and network lines are run through holes in the wall that are this,” and I held my fingers so close together you could maybe slip a piece of paper through them, “close to being structurally unstable. Insulation is old and busted, so it needs replacement. I did some strip tests for asbestos, came back positive. So that means we’ll need a licensed demo crew come in to pull it all.
“Windows? Single-pane, caulking is almost rotted out along with the frames. So, we’ll have to replace those. And the plumbing-another strip test, and there’s lead in the pipes. But, since we’re going to have tear the walls apart to get to the asbestos, new plumbing won’t be that bad. All the structural issues means that we’re going to have to replace a lot of lumber. Might need to install steel beams to hold everything up. Doors? Inside doors are falling apart, outside doors have so much paint on them, I’m surprised if we aren’t getting lead flakes from those as well. And we’ll have to put in a new kitchen, new power box, new HVAC, new air-conditioning, security systems, and all the equipment for our special needs.
“Only things good about this building are location, lot size, and we have a three-car garage that leads out onto two main streets via the alley. Give me…a month and I can have the bots dig us a tunnel and line it with fibersteel to the subway station and stick in a concealed doorway. Foundation is solid and we could put two Mark Three fabbers and a Mark Three smelter in the basement and conceal a cargo elevator in one of the garage bays. It’s everything else that is going to be an issue, and we can’t cheat on this one. It’ll have to be done by local contractors and we can’t put any of our additions in until they’re completely done.”
“I think this our best choice,” Ishtar sighed. “The other two…we can live here and nobody would be suspicious of us for now. How soon could we get started?”
“I can start making the calls and sending the emails tonight, have the first crews in tomorrow morning if I’m willing to pay a premium. It’s going to take a lot of time, couple of months at least,” I replied. “If we’re going to do this, let’s do it right.”
“Do it right,” Ishtar agreed.
“Starting now,” I nodded and my muse was already sending off the emails and making the calls in my voice.
Nice!
…But then, anyone who refers to the Ghostbusters speech gets a +1 to Grins from me. 😉
Damn! Seems like it’d be faster/cheaper/better to demolish it all and build anew.
Ahh, but to do that, you have to get a demolition permit, and then a building permit for a new structure. 10X the cost of a remodeling permit, at least. Then, you have to bring the lot up to all of the current building codes and zoning, which may be very different from the ones in effect when the existing structure was approved.
As Larry Correia put it, he didn’t just have to build a house on an empty lot, he had to spend 2 years building the empty lot first.
Not to mention if its NYC there is also the bribes to the local politicians, local mobsters in the form of union bribes, the local unions as well. And you had better donate to the mayor as well that is if you want construction to start before the next election.
Historic building, I suspect. And you have to demolish the building then build something new, which takes a lot more time and a lot more permits and a lot more money.
Nah, you get a remodeling permit, build a garage onto the end of the house, then get another remodeling permit and build a new house onto the garage.
Much less red tape that way.
Nomination time:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/22792970-may-2024
He was born condemned, child of two who had left their castes and shamed their guilds for love. But they fed, taught, and loved him while they lived, and when they died they sent him to the orbital ports for a chance of survival.
He starved, and grieved, and searched for a place to fit in. He found scutwork in the bars, heavy labor at the cargo haulers’ docks, finally a berth on a low-flying merchant ship. Found hardship, found kindness, found knowledge. Found trade alliances in uncharted systems. Found kindness once more. Found a captaincy waiting for him to earn it.
Now he sails between worlds with a strong ship beneath him and a strong mate at his side. And whenever he touches down on the planet of his birth, he lingers. He showers the port’s orphans with food and clothing and data discs that teach them what they need to find their own berths.
Each disc ends with the same words: “Condemned and doomed are not the same thing.”
I LIKE that.
Me too. It read to me like the blurb on the back cover of a book, and intriguing enough for me to buy it.
ditto
Three vignettes of young Nigel Slim-Howland at school Here’s the first one:
Young Nigel gazed out the dorm window, watching the wind-blown rain. Three months at Saint Peregrine’s, and he was every bit as miserable as when he started. “I’m condemned,” he thought, though he couldn’t identify the sin that put him there. “Well, they don’t call it Saint Purgatory’s for nothing.”
Young Nigel gazed at the old photo, picturing happier times with Lily, remembering the lilt of her voice. What would she say now? “Well,” she’d say, “I shouldn’t equate education with condemnation.”
“Sounds like Mum and Dad,” Nigel thought. Well, she would, wouldn’t she? Mum and Dad had programmed her.
“So, you’re homesick and feel left out,” said the housemaster, raising his eyebrows.
“I don’t fit in,” said Nigel. “I’ve nothing in common with anyone here.”
“Look,” the housemaster said, “most boys here are condemned to be credentialed mediocrities all the lives. But you have a chance to be different.”
No ideas for a drabble, but here’s a filk of guys who condemned themselves to bad ends….
“And so she arrived at the ball as lovely as the cloudless dawn, and for all the jealous mothers condemned her as a stranger intruding where she had no place, the prince had no eyes for any maiden there except for her. They danced every dance together, until midnight came.
“Statistics are so boring.”
Rand looked across the module lounge in search of the speaker. Young and female, from the sound of the voice, and utterly uninterested in studying, from the tone. Probably a dependent of an adult Expulsee, resentful at having been sent up here to Shepardsport because her father was a clone of one or another early astronaut.
At his shoulder, Tara whispered, “She must not be taking stats with Dr. Doorne. I remember someone grumbling like that in her class, and getting told that anyone who doesn’t understand statistics is forever doomed to depend on other people’s interpretations of the data.”