Authors

Sookie, the old bulldog, has to have canned dog food in the wake of her surgery so her mouth can recover. She absolutely loves it. She gobbles it up, and then we suffer.

Yesterday, as I was trying to catch up on a novella we are working on, because we need another release this year, Sookie was in a rare form even for her. It went somewhat like this:

The cave passage stretched in front of me, a narrow tunnel painted with bioluminescent swirls of strange vegetation. It split about twenty yards ahead, with one end of it curving to the right and the other cutting straight into the gloom. 

Fart,

The pale green and pink radiance of the foreign fungi and lichens didn’t illuminate the darkness, but made it seem even deeper.

A cold draft flowed from the tunnel, bringing with it an odd acrid stench.

Fart.

Bear whined softly by my side. Whining seemed entirely appropriate. I didn’t want to go into that darkness either.

Fart.

“We don’t have a choice,” I told the dog.

Something rustled in the darkness, a strange whispering sound.

Faaaaaart!

Bear hid behind me.

“Some attack dog you are.”

Fart, fart, faaaart.

I posted about my woes on Facebook, because I wanted to share the glamor. This morning, Facebook delivered this gem to me.

We knew she was a special dog, but we had no idea that her gas troubles were high quality content. We feel so privileged to share it with you.

The post Quality Content first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

I know, I know. It’s April Fool’s Day. And Dean Wesley Smith decided to launch a Kickstarter anyway. It’s for his Poker Boy series, which is one of my favorites. If you back it, you’ll get four Poker Boy ebooks and whatever stretch goals we hit. And writers, there’s some really great rewards here. So take a look.

And if you’re uncertain, at least watch the video I did. Enjoy! (Oh, and head to the Kickstarter here.)

Since I’ve been working on The Pilot, we’ve had most of our beta reader team read at least one draft, so I thought you might be interested in hearing what they thought!
​
Anonymously, of course. I wouldn’t want to embarrass them.
~~~
“It was a bold choice writing this entire book without Varic and making the whole thing a flashback to Omega’s past instead, but it paid off.”
~~~
”My favorite scene was probably the six-page instructions on how to craft and polish your own cabinets. Really made me feel immersed in the space fantasy universe.”
~~~
”Too much Lemon.”
~~~
”It’s about time! You’ve finally taken my advice and replaced the Bloopers with a PSA for a rare medical condition. Engorged Face Syndrome doesn’t get the attention it deserves.”
~~~
”You broke the rules, Will. You failed to repost my review to all your social media accounts, so you will suffer my curse. Now you are doomed to wander The Halls until you defeat Gathmat, Duke of Rotting Things.”
~~~
”This book tastes disgusting.”
~~~
​”This science fantasy action-adventure novel is okay, but you’re really missing your calling as a writer of Victorian era teen romance vampire murder mysteries.”

Hi! I love all your works, with the Sorcery Ascendant and Tainted Cabal topping the list! Eagerly awaiting Chain of Eyes! Any news on an anticipated release date?

Hope you and your family are well, especially mentally as you’ve been churning out books consistently!

Carol wants a nap. Carol needs a nap. And no one will let her have one because she’s important. She’s important because the grown-ups believe she’s an average five-year-old. Average five-year-olds have uses for bad guys who want to conquer the world. Only no one realizes that Carol isn’t average. Carol’s smart. And tired. And will do anything to get her nap.

“Advisors at Naptime“ is available for one week on this site. The ebook is also available on all retail stores, as well as here.

 

Advisors at Naptime By Kristine Kathryn Rusch 

It was time for Carol’s nap. They always forgot her nap. Mommy says every kid needs a nap. Carol used to hate naps, but now she’s tired. All she wanted was her blankie, her cuddly dog, and her squishy pillow.

And Mommy. They never let Mommy into the playroom with her.

They said Mommy sat outside, but once they left the door unlocked and Carol got out. She was in a cold hallway that looked like a giant tube or something. No chairs, icky white lights, and a hard gray floor.

No Mommy, no guards, no one to hear if she cried.

She stamped her foot and screamed. Everybody came running. Mommy said they were watching a TV screen with Carol on it in that room up there—and then she pointed at this tiny window, way up at the end of the hall—and Carol got mad.

“You lied,” she said, pointing her finger at Mommy in that way Mommy said was rude and mean. “You promised. You’d be right here. You said!”

Mommy got all flustered. Her cheeks got kinda pink when she was flustered and she messed with her hair, twirling it like she yelled at Carol for doing.

“I meant,” Mommy said in that voice she gets when she’s upset, “I’d be able to see you all the time.”

“You said—”

“I know what I said, honey.” Mommy looked at one of the guards—they’re these big guys with square faces and these weird helmets you could see through. They also had big guns on their sides, latched down so nobody can grab them away—and then she looked back at Carol. “I meant I’d be able to see you. I’m sorry I said it wrong.”

Carol wiped at her face. It was wet. She was crying and she didn’t know it. She hated that. She hated this place. It wasn’t fun like Mommy said it would be. It was a stinky place filled with grown-ups who didn’t get it.

Mommy said she’d be playing games all day, and she did, kinda, but by herself. She sat in front of this computer and punched numbers.

Once this scary guy came in. He wore bright reds, and he kinda looked like a clown. He bent down like grown-ups do, and talked to her like she was really stupid.

He said, “Carol, my dear, I’m so glad you’re going to help me with my little project. We’ll have fun.”

Only she never saw him again.

Which was good, because she didn’t like him. He was fake cheery. She hated fake cheery. If he was gonna be icky, he should just be icky instead of pretending to be all happy and stuff. But she didn’t tell him that. She didn’t tell him a lot of stuff because she didn’t like him. And she never saw him again. Just his mittens.

Mommy said every important person had mittens. Everybody who worked for him could be called a mitten, which meant Carol was one, even though she didn’t look like a mitten. She finally figured it was some kinda code word—everybody here liked code words—for workers.

She thought it was a stupid one—Mommy would say, be careful of Lord Kafir and his mittens—and Carol would have to try not to laugh. How can people be afraid of big fake-cheery guys with mittens? ’Specially when they had big red shoes and shiny red pants like those clowns at that circus Uncle Reeve took her to.

Carol had a lot of uncles. Mommy used to bring them over a lot. Then she met Lord Kafir, and the uncles didn’t come to the house no more. Lord Kafir promised Mommy a lot of money if Carol would play games at the Castle with him.

Mommy asked if this was a Neverland Ranch kinda thing and Lord Kafir’s mittens—the ones who’d come to the house—looked surprised. Those mittens didn’t wear helmets. They wore suits like real grown-ups and they had sunglasses and guns that Carol had seen on TV.

They wouldn’t let her touch the guns (she hated it when grown-ups wouldn’t let her touch stuff) but they promised she’d be playing with “weapons” all the time.

Mommy had to explain that weapons were like guns and stuff, only cooler.

So here’s what Carol thought then: she thought she’d be going to a real castle, like that one they show on the Disney Channel—maybe a blue one, maybe a pink one, with Tinkerbell flying around it, and lots of sparkly lights. She thought she’d get to wear a pretty dress like Cinderella, and dance with giant mice who were really nice, or meet a handsome beast like Belle did.

All the girls who go to castles get to wear pretty dresses with sparkly shoes, and they got to grow their hair really long (Mommy keeps Carol’s hair short because “it’s easier”) and got to dance what Mommy called a walls, and they lived happily ever after.

But that’s not what happened. The Castle wasn’t a castle. It’s this big building all gray and dark that’s built into a mountain. The door let you in and said stuff like checking, checking, all clear before you got to go through another door.

Then there was the mittens. The ones outside the mountain door wore suits and sunglasses. The ones inside actually had the helmets and weird-looking guns and big boots. They scared Mommy—the mittens did, not the boots—and she almost left there. But the assistant, Miss Hanaday, joined them and talked to Mommy and reminded her about all the money she’d get for just three months of Carol’s time (Carol didn’t like that), and Mommy grabbed Carol’s hand really tight and led her right into the castle/hall/mountain like it was okay.

Carol dug her feet in. She was wearing her prettiest shoes—all black and shiny (but no heels. Mommy says little girls can’t wear heels)—and they scraped on that gray floor, leaving black marks. Mommy yelled at her, and Carol hunched even harder, because the place smelled bad, like doctors or that school she went to for three days, and Mommy said the smell was just air-conditioning, but they had air-conditioning at home and it didn’t smell like this. At home, it smelled like the Jones’s dog when he got wet. Here it smelled cold and metal and—wrong.

Carol hated it, but Mommy didn’t care. She said, “Just three months,” then took Carol to this room with all the stuff where she was supposed to play with Lord Kafir, and that’s when Mommy said she’d be right outside.

So Mommy lied—and Carol hated liars.

And now all she wanted was a nap, and nobody was listening because Mommy was a liar and nobody was in that room. Carol was gonna scream and pound things if they didn’t let her nap really soon. She wanted her blankie. She wanted her bed.

She wanted to be let out of this room.

She didn’t care how many cookies they gave her for getting stuff right. She hated it here.

“Hate it,” she said, pounding on the keyboard of the computer they had in here. “Hate it, hate it, hate it.”

Each time she said “hate,” her fist hit the keyboard. It jumped and made a squoogy sound. She kinda liked that sound. It was better than the stupid baby music they played in here or the dumb TV shows that she’d never seen before.

She wanted her movies. She wanted her big screen. She wanted her blankie and her bed.

She wanted a nap.

She pounded again, and Mommy opened the door.

“Honey, you’re supposed to be looking at the pretty pictures.”

She was leaning in and her cheeks was pink. If her hands wasn’t grabbing the door, they’d be twirling her hair, and she might even be chewing on it.

“I don’t like the pictures,” Carol said.

“Honey—”

“I wanna go home.”

“Tonight, honey.”

“Now,” Carol said.

“Honey, we’re here to work for Lord Kafir.”

“Don’t like him.” Carol crossed her arms.

“You’re not supposed to like him.”

“He’s s’posed to play with me.”

“No, honey, you’re supposed to play with his toys.”

“A computer’s not a toy.” Carol was just repeating what Mommy had told her over and over.

“No, dear, but the programs are. You’re supposed to look at them and—”

“The bad guy always wins,” Carol said. She hated it here. She wanted to see Simba or Belle or her friends on the TV. Or maybe go back to that kindergarten that Mommy hated because they said Carol was average. She didn’t know what average was ’cept Mommy didn’t like it. Mommy made it sound bad.

Until that day when she was looking at the want ads like she did (Honey, don’t mess with the paper. Mommy needs to read the want ads) and then she looked up at Carol with that goofy frowny look and whispered, “Average five-year-old…”

“What?” Mommy asked.

“In the games,” Carol said. “The bad guy always wins.”

Mommy slid into the room and closed the door. “The bad guy’s supposed to win, honey.”

“No, he’s not!” Carol shouted. “He gets blowed up or his parrot leaves him or the other lions eat him or he gets runned over by a big truck or his spaceship crashes. The good guys win.”

Mommy shushed her and made up-and-down quiet motions with her hands. “Lord Kafir’s a good guy.”

“I’m not talkin ’bout him!” Carol was still shouting. Shouting felt good when you couldn’t have a nap. “On the computer. The bad guys always win. It’s a stupid game. I hate that game.”

“Maybe you could do the numbers for a while, then, honey.’

“The numbers, you hit the right button and they make stupid words. Nobody thinks I know letters but I do.” Carol learned her ABCs a long time ago. “What’s D-E-A-T-H-R-A-Y?”

“Candy,” Mommy said. Her voice sounded funny.

Carol frowned. That didn’t sound right.

“What’s I-R-A-Q?”

Mommy grabbed her hair and twirled it. “Chocolate.”

“What’s W-H-I-T-E-H-O-U-S-E?” Carol asked.

“That’s in there?” Mommy’s face got all red.

“What’s W-O-R-L-D-D-O-M-I-N-A-T-I-O-N?” Carol asked.

“D…D…O…” Mommy was frowning now too. “Oh. Oh!”

“See?” Carol said. “Stupid words. I hate stupid words and dumb numbers. And games where the bad guy wins. I want to go home, Mommy.”

“Um, sure,” Mommy said. She looked at the door, then at Carol. “Later. We’ll go later.”

“Now,” Carol said.

Mommy shook her head. “Carol, honey, you know we can’t leave until five.”

“I wanna nap!” Carol shouted, then felt her own cheeks get hot. She never asked for a nap before. “And a cookie. And my cuddly dog and my pillow. I wanna go away. I hate it here, Mommy. I hate it.”

“We have to keep coming, honey. We promised.”

“No.” Carol said and swung her chair around so she was looking at the computer.

It was blinking bright red. It never did that before.

“Mommy, look.” Carol pointed at the big red word.

Mommy looked behind her like she thought somebody might come in the room. “Honey, I’m not supposed to see this—”

“What’s that say?”

Mommy looked. Then Mommy grabbed Carol real tight, and ran for the door. She got it open, but all those mittens with guns and helmets was outside, with guns pointed.

Mommy stopped. “Please let us go. Please.”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” the man with the biggest gun said. “You have to wait for Ms. Hanaday.”

“We can’t wait for Ms. Hanaday,” Mommy said. “My daughter punched the computer. Now it’s counting down to a self-destruct.”

Carol squirmed. She watched Star Trek. She knew what a self-destruct was. “We gots to go,” she whispered.

Mommy just squeezed her tighter.

“We gots to go!” Carol shouted.

Mommy nodded.

The guards kept their guns on them.

“A self-destruct?” one of them whispered.

Another guard elbowed him. “She’s the average five-year-old. She finds the holes before we implement the program.”

“Huh?” the first guard asked.

“Y’know, how they always say that the plan’s so bad an average five-year-old could figure out how to get around it? She’s the average—”

“Enough!” Mommy said. “I don’t care if it is fake. I’m not going to take that risk.”

Carol squirmed. She wanted to kick, but Mommy hated it when she kicked. Sometimes Carol got in trouble for kicking Mommy. Not always. Sometimes Mommy forgot to yell at her. But right now, Mommy was stressed. She’d yell.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the first guard said. “We can’t let you go until Ms. Hanaday gets here.”

“And she is!” a lady’s voice said from far away. Carol peered around Mommy, and sure enough, there was that Ms. Hanaday, in her high heels and her black suit and wearing her glasses halfway down her nose even though she wasn’t as old as Mommy was.

“I wanna go,” Carol whispered.

“I know, honey,” Mommy said, but she wasn’t listening. She was just talking like she did when Carol was bugging her. But she did set Carol down, only she kept a hold of Carol’s hand so Carol couldn’t run away.

Ms. Hanaday was holding a bag. Her heels made clicky noises on the hard gray floor. It was colder out here than it was in that room. Carol shivered. She wanted a jacket. She wanted her blankie. She wanted a nap.

“I wanna go home,” she said again.

One of the guards looked at her real nice-like. He was somebody’s daddy, she just knew it. Maybe if she acted just a little cuter…

“What have we got here?” Ms. Hanaday said as she got close. She reached into the bag, and crouched at the same time. She whipped out a giant chocolate chip cookie, the kind Mommy said had to last at least three meals.

Carol reached for it, but Mommy grabbed her hand.

“We would like to leave now,” Mommy said.

“May I remind you, Ms. Rogers, that you signed a three-month contract? It’s only been three weeks.”

“Still. My daughter isn’t happy, and I’m not real comfortable here. No child should have to work all day.”

“It’s not designed as work, ma’am. It’s play.”

“Is not,” Carol muttered, wanting that cookie. She stared at it. Maybe if she stared hard enough, it would float over to her. She seen that in movies too.

“Did you hear her?” Mommy asked. “She doesn’t think it’s play.”

“Wanna nap,” Carol told Ms. Hanaday.

Really want that cookie, but Mommy still had a hold of her hand. Too tight. Mommy’s hand was cold and kinda sweaty.

Ms. Hanaday was frowning at her.

“I don’t like it here,” Carol said louder this time, in case Ms. Hanady didn’t hear so good. “Wanna go.”

“The day’s not over yet,” Ms. Hanaday said.

“Delores!” Lord Kafir shouted from down the hall. Carol knew it was him because he had the funny accent Mommy called Brid Ish. Some people from England had it. Most of them got to be bad guys in movies.

Carol shivered again.

Ms. Hanaday stood up. Lord Kafir was hurrying down the hall. His shoes didn’t make that clicky sound. They were kinda quiet, maybe because they weren’t official grown-up shoes.

“Is it true?” he asked Ms. Hanaday like there wasn’t Mommy and Carol and all those guys with the big guns. “Did she break the code?”

“I’m afraid so,” Ms. Hanaday said. She was holding the cookie so hard part of it broke. She had to move really fast to catch it before it fell to the ground.

Now the cookie was Carol-size. Carol looked at Mommy, but Mommy wasn’t looking at her.

“This is the five-year-old, right?” Lord Kafir pushed past Ms. Hanaday, knocking the cookie again. She had to grab real fast and still parts of it fell on the floor. Wasted. Carol wanted to get them, but Mommy wouldn’t let her go.

“Yes, sir. This is Carol. You’ve met her.”

“That’s right.” He crouched.

Carol made a face at him. She hated people who forgot her.

“You look pretty smart,” he said.

“I’m tired,” she said.

“Are you smart?” he asked.

“Of course I am, dummy,” Carol said.

“Carol!” Mommy breathed. “We don’t talk to grown-ups like that.”

He wasn’t a grown-up. He was a mean man in bright red clothes. He was glaring at her like she’d done something wrong.

“I think you’re pretty smart,” he said like that was bad.

“Her teachers said she was average,” Mommy said.

“We tested her IQ three times. She always came out in the normal range.” Ms. Hanaday sounded kinda scared.

“You know that children often give unreliable IQ tests.” Lord Kafir pushed up and looked at the other grown-ups. “I don’t think she’s average.”

“Mr.—Lord—Sir,” Mommy said. “She’s—”

“The other five-year-olds couldn’t beat that self-destruct,” he said.

“They barely got a chance, sir.” Ms. Hanaday was dripping cookie crumbs. “She got it earlier than the others—”

“Because she solved the earlier puzzles sooner. She’s good at code words and passwords and secret plans. She shouldn’t be this good if she’s average.”

“She watches a lot of television,” Mommy said.

“Can I have that cookie?” Carol asked.

Everybody looked at her.

“Please?” she asked in her best company voice.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Mommy said, but Ms. Hanaday handed her all the parts of the cookie.

Carol chomped. The cookie wasn’t as good as it looked. Maybe because it got all sweaty and gooey in Ms. Hanaday’s hand.

“I swear, sir,” Ms. Hanaday said. “She’s average.”

“I’m tired of five-year-olds,” he said. “It’s time to implement the plan.”

“Sir! We can’t do that! It’s not ready!” Ms. Hanaday said.

“Get it ready,” he said.

“But the five-year-old—”

“Isn’t average,” he said.

Ms. Hanaday looked at Mommy like Mommy had gone into the living room without permission. It was like that code grown-ups had. Lord Kafir understood, even if Carol didn’t.

“Have you seen anything?” Lord Kafir asked Mommy.

“No,” Mommy said. She was lying. Carol looked at her in shock. Mommy was a horrible liar. She lied all the time. Carol just didn’t know it before.

“She saw the red lights,” Carol said. She didn’t want Mommy to get in trouble with Lord Kafir. “It scared her.”

“Red scares a lot of people,” he said, smoothing his ugly clothes. Was that why he wore them? To scare people?

The guards looked at each other, like they didn’t like any of this.

Ms. Hanaday shook her head.

“Pay the lady her three weeks and get them out of here,” Lord Kafir said to her. “And wash your hands. You’re a mess.”

“Yes, sir,” Ms. Hanaday said, but Lord Kafir was already hurrying down the hall.

The guards had lowered their weapons.

Ms. Hanaday ran a hand through her hair, making a streak of chocolate on the side of her face. It looked a little like poo.

Carol tried not to giggle.

“You know that this is all just war games,” Ms. Hanaday said.

“Sure,” Mommy said.

“Pretend stuff,” Ms. Hanaday said.

“Yeah,” Mommy said.

“None of it means anything,” Ms. Hanaday said.

“I know,” Mommy said.

“I’ll get your check,” Ms. Hanaday said, “and meet you at the door.”

“Okay,” Mommy said.

Ms. Hanaday hurried off after Lord Kafir. The guards just stared after her.

“I don’t like this,” one said to the other.

Mommy picked Carol up like she was a baby. “We’re going, honey.”

Carol swallowed the last of the cookie. Cookies were yucky without milk. “Okay,” she said.

Mommy hurried down the hall, a different way than everybody else went. It only took a few minutes to get to the door.

Ms. Hanaday was already there, holding a long piece of paper. It had to be a check. Mommy snatched it, then said thanks in a kinda rude voice, and then hurried out the door.

Nobody stopped them. In the movies, somebody would’ve stopped them. ’Specially the way Mommy was breathing, like she was all scared and stuff.

Carol wasn’t scared. Carol was glad to be outside where the sun was bright and the air smelled really good. She stretched. She wanted down. She wanted to run, but Mommy held tight all the way to the car.

They backed up and headed out of the parking lot, driving really, really fast.

“If you want a nap,” Mommy said, “close your eyes.”

“Where’re we going?” Carol asked.

“Far away,” Mommy said.

“Can we get my blankie?”

“Maybe,” Mommy said. That meant no. Carol sighed. She hated no. But not as much as she hated that place.

“What’s far away?” Carol asked.

“Good guys,” Mommy said.

Carol smiled. This was how it was supposed to go. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. But she couldn’t sleep. Mommy was driving really bad. Fast like in the movies. Tires squealing. Going around corners on two wheels, stuff like that.

Mommy’d been watching Carol play too many games.

Carol opened her eyes. They were on a road outta town. Carol’d never been outta town before. This was kinda cool.

“Mommy?”

“Hmm?” Mommy said in that don’t-bother-me voice.

“Am I average?”

“I hope so, honey,” Mommy said. “In fact, I’m praying that you are.”

“Because average kids beat the game?” Carol asked.

“And that means it’s easy,” Mommy said.

It didn’t seem easy. It was just dumb. But Carol didn’t say that. She closed her eyes again. She didn’t care about numbers and weird letters and computers. Or bad guys like Lord Kafir. They could be scary, but they always lost in the end.

At least she got part of what she wanted. She got a cookie. She got outta there.

And now—finally—she was gonna take a nap.

 

___________________________________________

“Advisors at Naptime“ is available for one week on this site. The ebook is also available on all retail stores, as well as here.

Advisors at Naptime

Copyright © 2016 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First published in If I Were An Evil Overlord, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Russell Davis, Daw Books, March 2007
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and Layout copyright © 2016 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © Lane Erickson/Dreamstime

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

 

::waves::

LibGen

Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram, etc., has developed its own AI, Llama 3. For this AI to be competitive with Chat GPT, they needed a massive amount of fiction. They could’ve licensed it – they have the money. Instead they chose to pirate it. They scraped a massive database of pirated books. Our books are in there. Everyone’s books are in there. Here is a breakdown from Authors Guild.

We’ve received a lot of outraged messages about it. Thank you so much for your support.

What can be done about it?

Not much. We are part of Authors Guild, who right now is engaged in a class action suit. Here is a plan of action from Authors Guild.

Actions You Can Take Now 

There are important actions you can take to defend your rights now: 

1. Send a formal notice: If your books are in the LibGen dataset, send a letter to Meta and other AI companies stating they do not have the right to use your books. Here is a template you can use. 
2. Join the Authors Guild: You should join the Guild and support our joint advocacy to ensure that the writing profession remains alive and vibrant in the age of AI. We give authors a voice, and there is power in numbers. We can also help you ensure that your contracts protect you against unwanted AI use of your work. Join today.
3. Protect your works: Add a “NO AI TRAINING” notice on the copyright page of your works. For online work, you can update your website’s robots.txt file to block AI bots. The Authors Guild offers practical resources to help shield your content from AI scrapers. 
4. Get Human Authored certification: Distinguish your work in an increasingly AI-saturated market with the Authors Guild’s certification program. This visible mark verifies your book was created by a human, not generated by AI. Get certified.
5. Stay informed. Sign up for the free Guild biweekly newsletter to keep updated on lawsuits and legislation that could impact you and your rights. The legal landscape is changing rapidly, and we are keeping close watch. Subscribe here. 

You are not powerless in this fight. Together, we can have and continue to build our collective power in responding to these blatant violations. 

And that’s kind of all we can do. Here is a link to Elizabeth Wheatley’s Instagram post, where she basically goes all of the above probably in a more accessible format.

If I sound meh, it’s because I am past the point of stressing about it. I’ve gone right into the grim acceptance. I pay our author dues to the Guild and that’s about it.

The post AI and LibGen first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Dat sunbeam are belong to ME!

Yeah, fine, whatever, I didn’t want it…is that a bug?!

Nope it are PTERODACTYL

I am so confused by the ongoing dialogue. Also…zzzzzzz

I will kill it with my mind and wear its feather as a crown!

Hey, Bodi, maybe dial the intensity down to…11?

…………………………………………Good start, but probably not enough.

 So, a few days earlier than I'd intended, but better than on April Fools I guess?

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The Cadre has been rebuilt after the disastrous battle in Horath over a decade ago. They are better and more dangerous than ever before but they will need all of that and a healthy dose of luck for their greatest challenge to date. Round 2 is shaping up with the pirate empress in Sigma Sector. The fleet believes that they have located El Dorado. Jethro McClintock and his team are itching to settle the score.

Meanwhile forces are swirling around Jethro's family. Will he survive the battle to come? Will his family?

 

Amazon: Siege

 B&N: To be continued

 Sitrep:

So, I received the manuscript back from Goodlifeguide this morning. I'll be uploading it this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

 On to the snippet!

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Chapter 4

 

Antigua

 

Zuhura and Jethro managed to pry Bagheera away from his gaming system but the other siblings were busy. The trio of adults took Ember to the zoo. Ember was wide-eyed and a bit fearful of some of the larger animals. She did enjoy the petting zoo briefly; that enjoyment ended when a pig blew snot on her fur.

She had fallen asleep on her mother’s chest at lunch. The boys took off to ride a roller coaster through the aquarium area while Ember took a nap in the shade with Zuhura.

When they returned, they were a bit damp and giddy. Zuhura was amused by their antics as they playfully swatted at each other. She ended up trading with Jethro in order to go on a ride with her younger brother.

Jethro curled up next to Ember in the shade of the tree. There were other families nearby. He watched the little imp sleep. She rolled onto her back and stretched and then curled up on his arm. After a few minutes, the arm started to fall asleep. When he tried to move it, the little imp locked onto it with her paws to keep her warm pillow in place.

He snorted and resigned himself to his fate for the time being.

“She yours?” a fox asked softly. He looked over to where the Vixen was nursing a trio of pups.

“No, my granddaughter,” Jethro admitted.

“Granddaughter?” the vixen asked blinking in confusion. Jethro flicked his ears. “Well, there is quite a family resemblance.

“Something like that,” Jethro admitted and then yawned. The fox looked politely away and after a moment looked down tenderly to her trio as they finished up nursing.

Jethro relaxed and waited for the others to return. He knew he was going to feel a lot of guilt over leaving the little imp behind but it couldn’t be helped.

<<(O)>>

Suqi slipped down the hall and then waited. Her lead robot had cleared the path but she paused when something glittered in the vent. She checked the corner with a scope and noted the glitter again and then carefully changed position.

Tricky, she thought as she rested her hand against the wall. Her AI sent out a single stream of nanites out and down the wall. It took time but for the moment she had time to spare.

The nanites went around a hatch and then into the vent. They found a small sniper robot waiting there. It had a camera lens and barrel ten centimeters from the vent. If the user hadn’t bent the vents apart to allow the barrel and camera to get a good shot and view, she wouldn’t have picked up on it.

She couldn’t hack it without the other side noticing. Nor could she just shut it off, that would alert them of her location and that their trap had failed.

Instead, she had the nanites form a camera above the robot camera and then take a snapshot of its view out the vent.

She then directed her AI to create a false image with a web of nanites over the vent. It took time. There were a lot of nanites to move into position and program with the RGB, but eventually, she had replaced the view with a false image.

Only when it was finished, did she move out carefully.

She grinned slyly and then hand signed her team to begin moving out again. That was a trick she had picked up from Sabu, and it was nice to use it against him.

<<(O)>>

Sabu had a feeling that his sister was up to something. Their respective platoons were on Orbital Fortress 9 training against each other in a cleared section of the massive station. It was far better than a virtual game session, allowing them to employ some real world tricks and toys to test out in real world conditions. So far so good.

He knew his sister was highly motivated to get revenge for his trouncing her in the last exercise. Well, he had no intention of going down easy even though he was playing the defender in this round.

She had found his sniper hide but had missed a patch of light sensitive nanites he’d put up as a tripwire at the corner. That told him her approach path.

He had his squad activate a series of mines. The claymores were thin, coated to look like the bulkhead. When Suqi’s squad came around the next corner, it would go off.

<<(O)>>

Suqi’s robot crept around the corner and then paused. It was programmed to stick to the shadows and to the sides of the corridor. It tripped the sensors for the claymores and the mines went off.

The bot was covered in pink paint and immediately shut down, falling over in a simulated death. Suqi narrowly missed getting splattered.

“Missed me, bro,” she murmured as she deployed a second bot; this one she directed to climb the wall and then hang from the ceiling. It would move slower but it wouldn’t trip any pressure sensors on the ground.

She winced when a second claymore went off with a loud thud and the bot was ripped off the ceiling and went flying into the wall across from her.

Unless of course he’d thought of that too.

Well! She thought as she reconsidered her options.

<<(O)>>

General Lyon smirked as Sabu and Suqi faced off. He had traveled with the two platoons to the fortress in order to umpire the exercises and possibly even participate in a few of them.

So far Sabu seemed to have picked up the tricky side of Jethro’s lessons. But he refused to underestimate Suqi. There was something to be said about the female always being deadlier than the male of the species. No doubt because they liked to be underestimated.

The training and prep for the assault was going well. Pretty soon they would be ready to move out.

<<(O)>>

Bagheera was playing a first-person shooter and managed to win the match using a few tricks his dad had taught him. It was a simple matter of finding the right spot to snipe and having an escape plan if they spotted him.

When he took out the enemy medic trying to revive a shooter, that more or less won the match for his side. They easily captured the objective.

As the match cleared, the other side complained about being taken out by a pro. He grinned. “I am a pro.”

“Dude! Not cool! Vets have their own servers!” a couple of players complained.

He blinked. “I’m not a vet,” he said, trying to cut in. It took a couple of tries before he got through their complaints. That earned some disbelief and raspberries.

“Look, my dad is a sniper. I picked up some tricks from him.”

“Marines or Army?”

“Well, he was in the marines.”

“Oh, he’s out now?” one of the gamers asked. “Why?”

“No, he’s in the Cadre.”

The disbelief was almost palatable and then people went ballistic with excitement. He became peppered with questions about the Cadre to the point that the next match countdown was forfeited. The team he had been on wanted to keep him but they wanted to play too.

He was annoyed when he pulled back to the main forum only to find out that word of who he was had followed. He was besieged by players wanting him on their team or wanting information about the Cadre. It bugged him. They were more interested in him for his dad than for his own skill set. That irritated him so much he ended up logging out.

When he logged in later, he was flagged with an email and then an alert that his ID had been frozen. Incensed he emailed corporate to find out why and found that they had been told to do so by the FBI.

He was confused. “Look, I’m not a piker …”

“We cannot reactivate your ID. You’ll have to speak to them and create a new ID,” the customer service chatbot warned.

“Are you serious?” he demanded, incredulous that he’d lost all of his stuff as well as his points and prestige. He had been about to make the next tier damn it!

A knock at the door made him look up.

“It is for you,” Bast said from his computer.

“Damn it, leave my PC alone!” he growled as he got up. “Who is it?” he demanded. A video screen window opened, and he saw the video camera image of two people in business suits. They looked either corporate or … “Ah hell,” he muttered.

“Bagheera McClintock?” the lead agent asked as he opened the door.

“Yes?” Bagheera asked. He had his headphones around his neck.

“My name is Agent Smith; this is Agent Roberts,” the male agent said, indicating his female companion. “We are with the FBI.” He showed off his credentials.

“What is going on? Is my mom okay?”

“She’s fine. This has to do with you.”

He blinked and then his eyes narrowed. “What did I do? Do I need to call a lawyer or something?”

“You aren’t under arrest. We just need to clear up a few things,” the junior agent said soothingly.

He blinked and started to relax a little.

“You spoke about the Cadre and your father in a chatroom and in the forums earlier this evening?”

“Damn it …,” he muttered. “Is that why my account got locked? Look it was stupid I know. Someone was bitching about my being too good, and they thought I was a ringer. I said I learned from my dad.”

The lead agent nodded sagely.

“Your account was locked because you broke protocol. Are you aware of the secrecy act in regards to the Cadre and their family members?”

“Yeah,” he sighed heavily. “I know; I screwed up.” He felt his ears flatten. Something his mother had taught him was not to make excuses, especially to the authorities or to her.

“I’m proud of my family. I should be able to show it,” he muttered resentfully.

“We get that. But you need to understand that they need to work from the shadows to work effectively. And for their safety and your own, you need to help them keep their anonymity,” the lead agent said patiently.

“Okay, fine,” he growled. He wasn’t looking forward to starting out as a nugget again though.

“If only to keep from a repeat interview from us?” Agent Smith asked. “We could of course take this downtown, take a day or two …”

“No, no, I’ll be good. Honest. I know I screwed up. I’m sorry,” Bagheera said hastily. The two agents looked amused.

Bagheera rolled his eyes. The agents looked at each other and chuckled a little.

“Just remember, people can and will bait you. They’ll try to get details out of you. Some of the best cons out there gather the data and use it to steal your identity or to get you into trouble in other ways.”

Bagheera looked a bit affronted.

“And yeah, we know, you are too good to get caught out like that. Believe me, we’ve heard it before,” the female agent replied dryly. She shook her head in resignation at the stupidity of some people who thought that they were invulnerable. “Just think it through before you say something. Even something minor can get you into trouble.”

“Loose lips sinks ships?” Bagheera asked amused.

“Exactly.”

“I’ve been told that a few times. I’ll try to be more careful.”

“Good.” They shook hands and departed.

<<(O)>>

I do most of my business writing on Patreon these days, but roughly once per month, I’ll put a post for free on this website. This post initially went live on my Patreon page on December 22, 2024.  If you go to Patreon, you’ll find other posts like this one.

Glocalization

In the past year, I have started to read Billboard regularly. The music industry is always ten years ahead of traditional publishing, and the music industry has already figured out how to handle the small mountain of data that each song, each stream, produces.

The fantasy-novel-sized Grammy Preview issue that came out in October took a while to get through, but it had a lot of gems. Some pertain only to my business, so I’m sharing those with the staff. There were also some lovely nuggets that I’ve posted either here (or will post here) as well as in my November Recommended Reading List.

But one article on business really caught my attention. Headlined “U.S. Artists Are Dominating The Global Charts,” the article explored the way that music crosses international boundaries.

The premise here was that in 2022, 85% of the hits on the Bilboard Global chart came from outside of the U.S. In 2023, 92% of the hits on that same chart were not from the U.S.

But in 2024, over 60% of the hits on the global chart came from the U.S. All fascinating, all important for the music industry.

It’s a change that the U.S. welcomes, of course. It’s also what’s new is old. Early in my childhood, the bulk of the music in the U.S. came from England. (British Invasion, anyone?) And then, throughout the seventies—with the exception of Abba and Olivia Newton John—most of the music worldwide came from the U.S.

That changed with the advent of streaming. Then the cost of making and marketing music plummeted. As Will Page, former chief economist for Spotify told Billboard last year, “When the cost structure changes, local [music] bounces back.”

Page should know. He and Chris Dalla Riva, a musical artist and senior product manager at the streaming service Audiomark wrote a paper on this topic in 2023.

They examined the top ten songs in four countries—France, Poland, the Netherlands, and Germany. In 2012, local artists accounted for less than 20% of the song market in those countries. Ten years later, that number had flipped considerably, with the rise the biggest in Poland, where fully 70% of the top ten songs were local.

Here’s the part that caught me…and got me thinking about publishing.

The authors call this shift “glocalization.” This all points to a growing marketplace where the power has been devolved from global record labels and streaming platforms to their local offices and from linear broadcast models to new models of streaming which empower consumers with choice.

There are still the big performers, of course. They tend to get enough press so that people will hear of their songs and sample. But, as the article points out, if Polish rap is big in Poland along with, say Sabrina Carpenter, there’s a slimmer chance that Polish rap is big in France, but Sabrina Carpenter might be.

Replace all these names with Nora Roberts and Stephen King. They have built-in audiences worldwide who are looking for their next book. But those audiences might want something that has a lot more local flavor for the rest of the big sales.

Not to mention the language barrier. That’s not as big a deal in music. People have grown up listening to music in other languages. Heck, opera would not exist without afficionados being willing to listen to gorgeous, sweeping melodies in a language they do not understand.

But reading books in another language requires you to understand that language. Translation programs only go so far. They usually lack the finesse of a translator. The good translators add their own artistry to the work. (The bad ones are…well…bad.)

It’s easier to translate nonfiction, particularly if it’s utilitarian (as in how-to books). But utilitarian books usually don’t rise to the top of the charts. Nonfiction is often stubbornly local. I do care about the political situation in France, but not enough to pick up a translated book about it or to attempt to read (or listen to) an AI translation of it.

My reading time is limited, and I’d rather use it on things that really interest me.

Fortunately for most of us, though, English is the most widely spread language in the world. In 2024, 1.52 billion people worldwide spoke English in 186 countries. Only 25% of those people are native speakers. Everyone else learned it as a second (or third or fourth) language.

And…over fifty percent of websites worldwide use English for their content.

Our books in English can and do sell outside of the U.S. and other English-speaking countries.

Which brings us to the other part of this article that really caught my attention—marketing. U.S. music labels now run global campaigns for some of their product or, as the article says, are…

…even starting promotion abroad, in territories where marketing is cheaper and fandom can be more of a social activity, before [the companies] begin a push stateside.

There was even more strategy on this buried in an article from the November 16th issue. In a piece about the co-founders of Broke Records, there was this little gem about marketing to Eastern Europe and Latin America.

The question: Why those territories? And the answer:

Cheaper cost and these markets start a lot of trends on the internet.

The founders go on to explain that there’s a tipping point where influencers will jump on board to promote because they see the song getting bigger in other markets.

All of this caught my attention because it feels so familiar. In the 1990s, before the U.S. book distribution system collapsed, book marketing was aggressively local. Some writers sold well in certain regions of the country or in certain large marketplaces such as, say, Detroit or Los Angeles.

If those books sold a lot more than usual or if they started dominating the conversation more and more, then the publishers would push harder in other regions.

The publishers soon learned that some books did not cross over, not matter how much money was put behind them. Others took off quickly. It was predictable on some level—local authors tended to sell best in their local regions—but not predictable in others. Why did gentle contemporary fantasy sell well in the American South, but not in big Eastern cities?  No one cared enough to put in the legwork to get the data, in those days before computers.

Now, that information might be available with the right kind of market research.

While we would all like our books to sell equally well in every single country, that’s not going to happen. (Remember that there are 186 countries where English is spoken. There are nine where English is not spoken much at all.)

The key here isn’t to become a dominant worldwide bestseller, but to use the data available to us to see where we’re doing well. If we can target those areas where our work is already selling, then we might be able to leverage that and increase the sales.

The increased sales will lead to all kinds of other opportunities, from licensing games and other products (even local films) including—you guessed it—some kinds of translations.

I love this term “glocalization” because it breaks down the gigantic world into bite-sized pieces. With the way that data works these days, we can actually view these pieces without doing a lot of guessing about them. You’ll know if your books are selling well in Australia, but not doing well at all in Austria. Or vice versa.

And if you have limited marketing dollars, like all of us do, you’ll target places where your name is already familiar…unless you want to grow your work in a part of the world that is similar (you hope) to another place where you are doing well.

Also, a lot of online distributors have targeted ad-sharing and/or marketing opportunities. You might want to take part in a bundle of ads that focus on the Sydney area and not do a similarly priced promotion in London.

It’s your choice, which is, in my opinion, fun.

If you do this right, you can also adopt the right mindset. Instead of saying, Yeah, I’m a bestseller in Italy but nowhere else as if that’s a problem, understand that being a bestseller anywhere is great and work to grow your audience in that country—as well as worldwide.

Yes, we’d all like to be the biggest bestsellers in the biggest markets in the world, but that’s not really happening with any writers any more. Glocalization has hit us all. A book might take off, but a writer rarely does these days.

Things are changing, and in a way that we can all understand.

Realize, like the U.S. music labels have after their banner international year of 2024, that the success is due to a confluence of events, not to their increased marketing.

As the first article notes:

Executives contend the uptick is partly due to random chance. A surfeit of American heavy hitters including Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Ye, Ariana Grande, Future, Taylor Swift and Post Malone have dropped albums this year. At the same time international powerhouses…have been quiet.

Random chance. That’s all we have. So write your work, market it everywhere, and then look at the data on occasion, particularly when you have marketing money. Give your marketing strategy some thought.

Just accept where you’re at and figure out how to move forward—without taking too much time away from the writing.

Because that’s all we can do.

 

“Glocalization,” copyright © 2024/2025 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Congrats on good news in Germany, and I hope everything’s OK now.

Actually, this month has gone by pretty slowly.

In addition to being beaten with sticks, I've spent a long time working on The Pilot this month. We had a full Hidden Gnome meeting, where we hid a bunch of gnomes in a room and challenged visitors to spot as many as they could. And I've been playing League of Legends again, after a long hiatus.

Playing League was the hardest part.

Anyway, we'll be releasing news about The Pilot very soon! Then I get to work on a [SECRET PROJECT] that will remain [TOP SECRET] for the time being, but I'm looking forward to it.

And for now, since I finished a draft about fifteen minutes ago, I get to go collapse into my couch and eat popcorn! That's my favorite activity!

More soon! Thanks for reading!

​-Will

From Mod R:

If it’s Friday, it’s winner time!

The much-coveted prize of last week’s Secret Giveaway was a galley of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me (Maggie the Undying 1), the new fantasy isekai series by Ilona Andrews. A galley is a plain-bound (no illustrated cover, sprayed edges, very likely pre copy-edits version of the Advanced Reader Copy). We do not have an exact ETA on when the galleys will arrive, but one lucky person today will have one heading for them as soon as they are ready!

Without further ado, the winner is:

Amanda says

March 25, 2025 at 4:00 pm

I absolutely love your books but don’t think I’m hardcore enough to be transported into most of them. Certainly not the Kate Daniel’s or Edge worlds, although I think I’d like living at Gertrude Hunt. One of my first sci fi reads was Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and I think as long as I had my towel, I could travel around that universe for a bit.

Congratulations!

I will contact Amanda privately with details and arrangements about the prize, from the modr@ilona-andrews.com address on the email provided with the comment. If we do not hear back from you by Wednesday, April 2nd at 12:00 pm Central, we will chose a different winner in your place, so please keep an eye on the blog and your inbox.

Happy weekend!

Harvest Day

“You have got to be kidding me.”

 Hugh stood on the side passage on the first floor of Bailey. Elara was next to him.  Three of the centurions, Stoyan, Lamar, and Sharif, waited a few feet away. Bale and his century were on duty today.

This spot gave him an excellent view of the great hall.  The last time they’d used it, they’d hosted Rufus Fortner, the head of Lexington’s Red Guard.   

 The tables were gone.  Most of the chairs were gone too, except for the single row against the two side walls for those who had trouble standing. Fall garlands draped the walls, with wreaths of wheat and oak branches encircling the decorative weapons he’d ordered hung on the walls for the Fortner’s visit.  Young maples grew from big barrels, spreading red and orange leaves.

A long red carpet stretched from the doors all the way to the back of the room, where two long banners streamed from the high ceiling, one the black and silver banner depicting a dog bearing his fangs and the other the green and white banner with a cauldron filled with herbs, the symbol of the Departed. Beneath the banners, on a raised platform, stood two thrones carved from wood in painstaking detail.  Apples, pumpkins, gourds, bunches of wheat and herbs, and baskets of fall flowers decorated the platform around the thrones, spilling to the main floor.

On the side, just below the right throne, a huge wooden barrel waited with a stack of paper cups by it.  He remembered the barrel.  They had filled it with beer for Fortner’s visit. He didn’t recall a white table on the side, bristling with skewers.  Hugh squinted at it.  Fruit dipped in chocolate.

Elara’s people flittered through it all, making last minute adjustments.

He had no problem with the maples, the pumpkins, or the wreaths.  Even the barrel.  That was fine. Nobody said anything about the thrones. Or the cornucopia that threw up around them.

“Walk me through this again,” he said.

“We are going to go and sit on the thrones,” Elara said. “The doors will open. People will enter, mostly families with small children. They will greet us with a small gift.  Something the children picked themselves. We will wish them a happy Harvest Day and then they will get a cup of spiced Harvest cider.  They will think of a wish, drink their cider, and then Nadia and Rue will give them a skewer with chocolate dipped fruit.”

“You want me to play Harvest Fest Santa Claus?”

She nodded.

He stared at her.

“You agreed to it,” Elara reminded him.

He had agreed to it. The night after he came back from Aberdine, she’d spent an hour trying to deal with Amelia’s curse. Finally, she touched her fingers to the young woman’s forehead, and he felt a pulse of magic from her.  It washed over him, soothing and cool, and Amelia’s rigid body relaxed. The curse was still there, Elara told him.  She had only slowed it to a crawl, but it was alive and growing, and if they didn’t find a cure soon, it would consume Amelia. His wife had just bought them time.

He was already grateful, and then she invited him back to her suite. They sat at a table on a secluded balcony off her bedroom and she’d served him the chicken she made.

Elara’s chicken tasted like childhood.

Hugh couldn’t recall eating it frequently when he was a child, but something about the combination of flavors and savory herbs threw him right back to that blissfully happy decade before he turned seventeen and began killing in Roland’s name. It tasted like summers in Occitanie, where winds had names, and the long sandy beaches flirted with the turquoise sea. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine sitting at the scarred table on the veranda of the old bastide that used to be his home. He would’ve spent the morning in sword practice, studied after that, then ridden a horse to the beach and swam until his body could no longer move. The house with its stone façade and pale blue shutters would be to his left, the pool and the view of the sea nestled between green hills to his right, and when he finished eating, his father would come to quiz him on things he’d learned that day.

It was bittersweet, and he savored every bite, while she promised that she would get her witches to look into the curse and talked about the Harvest Day preparations. If she had asked him to jump over the balcony rail at that moment, he might have done it.  She’d asked him to be the Harvest King instead. The fool that he was, he said yes.

Now he was standing in the middle of the main hall, wearing an embroidered white tunic, brown pants, and a red Celtic cape cloak. And Elara was standing next to him. She wore a light green gown with ridiculous trumpet sleeves.  It clung to her chest, flowing over her waist to her hips, where it flared into a wide skirt.  Her hair was down and streamed down her back like a white waterfall. A flower crown made with purple asters, bright yellow goldenrod, and red maple leaves rode on her hair. She looked like she had walked out of Edmund Leighton’s Accolade.  All she needed was a sword and some fool to kneel before her.

Nadia, one of the women close to Elara, approached, carrying a wooden box.

“I’m afraid to ask,” he said.

Elara opened the box and took out a flower crown twisted together from golden oak branches, red maple leaves, and clusters of small purple berries.

“No.”

“You promised.”

She was looking at him with her beautiful brown eyes.  He looked at her face for a moment too long and surrendered to his fate.  How bad could becoming a king for one day be?

He bowed his head, and she put the crown on his hair.

“You look lovely, Preceptor,” Lamar offered.

Hugh looked at him for a minute.

Lamar grinned back. Stoyan’s face was perfectly neutral.  Sharif cracked a razor-thin smile.

“Hugh?” Elara asked.

He sighed.

She smiled at him.  The magic was thick today and that smile was regal and witchy.  His eldritch queen, the Ice Harpy, asking him for a favor.

Oh what the hell, why not? “Let’s get this over with.”

#

A three-year-old boy with round cheeks and dark hair clutched a yellow astra flower to his chest.

“Go ahead, Bao,” his mother murmured.

Bao looked at Hugh, looked at the sword by the throne, and made a beeline for Elara.  She gave him a smile, and Bao offered her his flower.

“What a pretty astra!” Elara cooed.

They had seen at least two hundred people in the last couple of hours. Most of the ones under 5 went to her. He got older kids and a surprising number of adults. The Departed believed in Elara with all their heart.  They brought flowers, fruit, and walnuts, deposited their gifts on the cornucopia pile, made their wishes, and drank their cider. And then they lingered, watching others do the same.  The grand hall was full. People talked and mulled about, and he’d spotted more than a couple of his Iron Dogs in the crowd.

The pile of gifts by his side of the throne was growing unwieldy. Fruit, mushrooms, weird rocks from the children.  One kid brought a grasshopper.  A little girl brought a “pretty worm” which turned out to be a scarlet snake and caused a bit of commotion until Sharif grabbed it.  The snake was safely released outside, and the culprit was rewarded with a chocolate strawberry.

He didn’t mind. He understood now why Elara wanted this. The smiling faces, the content conversation, the abundance of food, it swirled together into communal happiness, and it wrapped around them all like a warm blanket.  They were together, secure, and happy. The Departed needed it, but Elara herself needed it more. He could see it on her face.  In this moment, his wife was truly happy. 

A hush fell onto the hall.  He raised his head.

Vanessa stood on the red carpet.

She looked exactly the same: arrogant face framed by dark hair, a body that was almost too ripe, with big boobs, long legs, and tight ass wrapped in a red sweater dress. Back before the wedding, he’d used her as a distraction.  He’d made the terms clear from the start, but it had gone to her head anyway, and eventually she tried to use it against Elara. They had words, as Bale would put it. To call it a fight would be giving Vanessa too much credit. Elara sliced her to pieces with ten sentences. Going back to her job as a paralegal after she imagined wielding power as his mistress proved too much for Vanessa.  She fled in the morning.

She stood on the carpet now, and there was something not quite right about her face.

The two families behind her turned and walked off the carpet to the walls.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bao’s mother pick him up and scurry to the side. The hall was silent now.

An ice-cold power flared to his left.

He glanced at Elara.

Her face was rigid with rage.  Her magic burned around her, a glacial invisible flame, a seed of a hurricane threatening to burst. The edge of it seared him, and only his willpower kept him from recoiling. She was Death.

The Departed stood frozen.

“Take it off,” Elara ground out.

Vanessa grinned.

“Off!”

Vanessa’s scalp split. The skin sloughed off her, like a biohazard suit, curving to the sides.

A slender middle-aged woman bared her teeth at them.  Thin, her features sharp, her light skin coated in a grease streaked with blood, she stared at Elara with triumphant disgust. Magic wrapped around her, a dark, violent miasma.

The last of Vanessa’s skin peeled off, falling to the ground in shreds.  How the fuck…

Elara’s magic convulsed like a furious colossal viper.

In the hall, the faces that were happy just a moment ago turned into cold, grim masks.  The Departed stared as one, and he felt it again, that collective power binding them. The cheer, the happiness, and warmth were gone, snatched away by the Departed. Everything Elara treasured, everything she looked forward to, ruined. It was the wedding all over again.

He felt something stir inside him and realized it was rage.

“Brooklyn.” Elara spat the name like it was poison.

The woman raised a bony hand and stabbed her finger at Elara. “The reckoning is here, niece—”

“Aarh sapawur eseran.”

The blinding flash of agony tore through him. He’d sank so much power into the words, the grand hall quaked.

Brooklyn froze like a statue.  Unable to move, unable to speak.

The entire hall stared at him, shocked.

“Elara,” he said into the silence, keeping his voice casual. “Why don’t you ever bake me anything from those shows you like to watch.”

Elara’s eyes were big as saucers.

He gave her a pointed look.

She cleared her throat. “What would you like me to bake you?”

“I think I would like some rough puff pastry.” That was the only thing he could remember from his trip to the ledge.

“What?”

“I’m a rough man.  I should have some rough puff pastry.” What the hell was coming out of his mouth…

The spell’s hold shattered. Brooklyn stumbled forward.

“Aarh sapawur eseran.”

The pain slashed through his gut like a sword. It took everything in his power not to wince.

“I’m having a conversation with my wife.” He hammered each word out like he was carving it into stone.  “Will nobody rid me of this annoying thing?”

A dozen Iron Dogs congealed from the crowd.  They swarmed the petrified woman. In seconds she was gagged and tied. They tipped her like a tree and carried her out of the hall.

Hugh turned to Elara. “When am I getting my desert?”

“I will make it tomorrow,” she said softly.

“Thank you, love.” He turned to the hall.  “Now, who is next?”

For a moment nothing happened.  And then a family with two children shouldered their way out of the crowd and approached, carrying some pears and a bundle of wheat.

Hugh smiled at them and waved for Irina to start pouring the cider.

The Last Hughday

From Ilona:

Hugh d’Ambray, living his best Henry II life, heh.

This week brought a lot of This Kingdom work. We pulled together a ton of material for the maps, drew the sketch of the world map, noted the major landmarks, then wrote everything out in text, moving from north to south on both sides of the map. Then we redid that same map with the political landmarks. We pulled together the city map, edited it to match the new manuscript and sent that in. Hopefully that is enough for the artist to get started. Then we worked on the cover copy for the publisher insider galleys.

I had forgotten how much work it takes to release a book through the traditional publisher. The fault is entirely mine. I’ve gotten used to self-dictated release schedule, where we determine the deadlines, the number of edits, and the cover copy. When the cover copy goes back and forth 7 times, with several people concentrating on making it the best it can be, it puts things in perspective.

Not that we cut corners when we self-publish, but usually it’s our agent and us and we are mostly on the same page. We don’t have the marketing department to guide us or the expertise of an editor who is very good at what she does.

This week, we have also gotten out first foreign rights offer. I can’t say anything about it except that it is a really good offer. We will need to review the documents today. We always read the contracts.

This is now two separate publishers who have chosen to place a big bet on Maggie.

It’s both exciting and nerve-wrecking. I really hope the book is strong enough to meet the expectations, but that’s not the biggest stress factor. We’ve written this book. It’s done. It’s too late to worry about it. It will do or it won’t.

The second book is due in November.

We’ve sent the “where are we going” summary to our editor yesterday. If it’s green lit, great. If not, we will need to adjust. The first book is almost 200K. This one will likely be of significant length as well. It’s a lot of story and there is still a lot of work left on Maggie #1. Copyedits, galley proofread, etc, etc.

All of this means that we cannot give Hugh 2 the attention it deserves. Especially not while serializing it. If this was a novella, it would be one thing, but this is a novel and it is complex. We will have to bump it back until Maggie #2 is done.

I thought we could knock it out, but apparently we can’t. This is humbling. In a way, it is a testament to the strength of the book – it requires undivided attention. But still, I really, really wanted to get it done before starting on the sequel. Not only we need to finish the story, but we need that extra release, because Maggie 1 won’t be published until March 31 of next year.

The problem is also the hands. A few months ago I developed this fun new nightmare where my hands and feet, and sometimes arms and legs, go numb. There was a lot of nerve pain with a dash of allodynia. I learned to sleep on my back with both hands in braces. There was a variety of possible diagnoses, none of them good, but right now the consensus is that this is a medication-induced side effect. I’m off the meds and getting better so we will see if this improves over the next few months.

It slowed me down quite a bit. At some point I couldn’t even sit in the chair for longer than an hour or everything went numb. You never plan for crap like to happen, but sometimes it does.

Anyway, for these reasons, we are pushing Hugh 2 to the backburner, so we can meet our contractual obligations. We may have a shorter project for you as a serial. We are not sure yet. Mod R has read it and she feels it would be a good serial.

No worries, we will figure out something fun in the meanwhile. Happy Friday!

The post Secret Giveaway Winner and Hughday first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

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Chapter 3

 

Antigua

 

Jethro continued to deal with the pain of loss of Lil Red. Shanti continued to blame herself. Both had been to a therapist but it helped to talk to each other. “I was supposed to keep her safe,” she said.

Jethro shook his head. She sounded so … broken. Like it was her fault. It wasn’t; they both knew that. She hadn’t been home; it had been a freak crash during an air show that had killed their adopted daughter.

“You can’t be blamed for a freak accident! Murphy maybe, but not you love. It happened. We can’t wrap them in cotton and keep them safe forever.”

“You’d think she’d be safe at home! I should have insisted she stay with you.”

“It happened,” Jethro sighed. “It is something that … the rest of us will have to live with. I love you,” he said softly.

“I love you too,” she murmured back, kissing her fingertips and then holding them out to him. He smiled tenderly to her holographic image.

A blinking LED caught his attention. He knew it was time up. He reached out for a phantom caress of her cheek. She smiled tenderly and closed her eyes and seemed to rub into it.

“I won’t tell you to stay safe. I know you too well,” he said.

She chuffed.

“But watch your six and kick ass.”

“Yeah,” she said huskily. “We have to go.” She dashed a tear and then straightened up and nodded. “Kick some pirate ass. I love you.”

“I know and I will. And I love you too,” he said. “Thanks, Captain,” Jethro said as he looked up.

“You’re welcome, Chief. Terminating virtual chat,” Commander Enki replied.

<<O>>

Jethro prepped for work quietly. “Was that mom?” Baghera asked sleepily. He was the black panther male of the quartet. All four had a ways to go in the maturity department. A bit of that was because he hadn’t been around to be a father. He was trying to make up for lost time but it wasn’t easy this late in the game.

“Yeah, she had to go; sorry, you lot were asleep.”

“Was she here?” Bagheera asked, looking around in confusion. He sniffed the air, his brows knit still in confusion. “Wait, I don’t smell her.”

“No, it was a holo call. Brief,” Jethro explained patiently as he cleaned up the kitchen.

Bagheera blinked in confusion. “Oh,” he said.

“Red is …”

“They cremated her body and will ship it back as a diamond,” Jethro said quietly.

 Bagheera blinked again and then yawned. “Damn,” he muttered. “It is … is she really gone?” he asked and then ran a finger under his nose as he snuffled.

“I’m afraid so,” Jethro sighed softly. Some of the family were still struggling with the loss. Red had been their adopted daughter and an older sister/aunt/sitter to each of the litters. They were each dealing with the grief in their own way. The FBI as well as the Cadre had each offered a grief counselor to the family. So far he wasn’t aware of anyone taking them up on it.

The first litter were buried in their work. They were more mature and knew intellectually such things were bound to happen eventually. The sudden reaction was what caught them off guard.

“Mom should have left her here to be safe with us,” Bagheera muttered bitterly.

“Red was an adult; she wanted to be with your mom to help her out and so she wouldn’t feel so alone.” Jethro shook his head.

“Yeah? And it cost her her life!” Bagheera flared.

A corner of his father’s mind recognized anger as one of the stages of grief so he kept to reason. He didn’t want to provoke the fragile truce with his son or make the irrational anger turn towards him.

No, it wasn’t irrational, the anger was real. It was just adrift without a target as they all were, he reminded himself before he spoke.

“No, a freak accident did. She was at home safe. It could have happened here as easily as their or anywhere,” Jethro said, trying to keep his tone even. Bagheera glowered at him. “When fate chooses to snip your thread, it's a part of the circle of life.”

“Oh gah, not that shit again,” the smaller black panther said voice rich with disgust. He snorted harshly.

“It is what it is,” Jethro said with an ear flick of a shrug as he felt his fur stiffen. Bast shook her head on his HUD. He took it to indicate a lost cause. “Some things are just out of our control. It sucks. Trust me, I’ve felt it. I still feel it.”

He reached out to touch his son but his son turned away and headed into the bathroom. The door clicked shut with a sound of finality to the argument.

Jethro escaped to his commute to work while he could.

<<O>>

Jethro saw motion in the hallway near the floor as he walked through the new section of the base. His attention flickered from thinking about the list of things he had to do to prepare for the movement to curiosity. Bast rolled her eyes on his HUD and highlighted a familiar feline figure crouching in the shadows.

He chuffed softly in amusement and pretended to ignore her in passing. Ember had figured out how to cloak in order to try to sneak out of the crèche again. She was good, but she had been tagged with an IFF tag and her cloak was only good if she didn’t move. She didn’t have implants or an AI to manage her cloaks so everything ran on instinct.

He turned suddenly and swooped in to catch her and swing her off her feet. She growled in surprise as he held her with one arm under her armpits and the other under her bottom as he leaned over her and gave his invisible prey a cheek rub.

She mock growled and her ears went flat but he chuffed and purred. After a moment, she started to purr in response.

A tech saw him cheek rubbing something and holding it but whatever it was it was invisible. The human stopped and stared until Jethro tickled his prey. Ember growled and lost focus and faded into place in his arms giggling and squirming. “Stop!” she said in a high pitch giggly voice.

Jethro churred and laughed at her and hugged her tightly. The observer then blinked and puckered his lips and looked away. After a moment, he shook his head and walked off.

“So, what are you doing out and about, young lady?” Jethro teased. “Aren’t you supposed to be with your friends?”

“No nap,” she growled as he slung her up to his shoulder. She began to play with his ear in retaliation.

“Really? You don’t like to nap?”

“No,” she pouted as he walked to the crèche.

“Uh huh,” he said. “Do they know you are gone?” he asked in a light voice. She suddenly looked shy.

Bast rolled her virtual eyes and sent a text out to the crèche as well as Zuhura.

Just as she did a security alert came over the 1MC to look for a lost black kitten.

“I think they know you are missing. Your mommy is going to be upset,” Jethro warned.

Ember looked a little contrite but then flicked her ears.

Find out supposed to be in crèche. Snuck away in naptime.

Zuhura arrived outside the crèche. She was clearly exasperated with her wayward charge.

Jethro play fought to hand her over, eventually relenting with a mock pout. Ember giggled. The byplay lightened the mood.

“You aren’t supposed to leave the crèche without an adult, young lady,” Zuhura scolded.

“She’s getting good at being sneaky,” Jethro said. “She almost got past me,” he said. He shrewdly tickled her. “Almost,” he teased as she shrunk back and giggled and then growled and play swatted at him.

She might be playing but her eyes flashed, her ears went back and she started in with her trademark head cock that said she was ready to get feisty.

“Uh oh,” Zuhura laughed. “Now you’ve done it,” she chuffed. She pretended to hold her charge away from Jethro as Jethro pretended to box with her and then hold his arms out on either side and then move in to strike. She couldn’t look in both directions and growled ears flat.

Zuhura chuffed as her father used one hand to distract and the other to strike. The head cock came out again.

“I think they need to learn to wear this little lady out a bit more before naptime,” Jethro observed.

“No nap!” a certain kitten said, crossing her arms and instantly pouting.

“Yeah,” Zuhura said with a snort as she took the kitten into the crèche. “Thanks, dad.”

“Anytime,” he said with a wave to the kitten.

<<O>>

I have just found the Inheritance of magic audio books after finishing the Alex Verus series (which I loved) I am on chapter 10 of book 1 and I am thrilled so far…..can not wait to see what is to come.
I hope your family are well.

It's time for the DOGE Supernatural Division series finale. Hope you're ready for dragons, gold, and chat room app shenanigans!

Very sorry to hear that book four is delayed but family do come first and, as you say, focus is on Book#3 at the moment. I hope that you are able to straighten things out quickly and get back into the routine again.

I am looking forward to the world-building articles, although I have to admit that Judgement of Powers is even more eagerly anticipated!

Good Luck!

Hope the writing goes on well.
I instantly bought the German version of Inharitance of Magic 1 and it was great. I read the thing in a couple of days and I am thrilled for book 2 in German.❤️

The full-cast dramatized adaptation of Small Magics will be released by Graphic Audio on July 2nd and the pre-order is live on the GA website here. Audible and all the other usual audio retailers should have the preorder sometime in the beginning of May.

The release will include the full content of Small Magics: extended Curran POV; Jim POV; Questionable Client prequel; the Julie-POV short Magic Tests; the Kate-world story Retribution Clause, featuring Saiman’s cousin Adam; as well as Of Swine and Roses and Grace of Small Magics, set in independent universes.

Nora is hard at work on the Small Magics script and finishing touches on GA Magic Triumphs, and I have an arm-long list of pronunciations clips and questions for Ilona due back to her. But GA Magic Binds came out just Tuesday and I’m still busy replaying the “I won’t allow it” Deimos reveal scene 476 times a day! A girl has to have priorities.

Speaking of audios (but not Graphic ones), the small chapter data issue in the Hoopla version of the Wilmington Years has been identified and fixed by Dreamscape, so it should now synchronize properly. Thank you so much Teresa for signalling.

And finally, I am so sorry to be the bearer of p*tience-requiring news, but to everyone who is emailing in dismay that Maggie the Undying first installment, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, is being released in 5 days and there’s complete radio silence about it on the blog…it’s 369 days, beloved. The date is indeed 31st of March, but the year on the announcement is 2026. Sorrows, sorrows, prayers. We will weather that storm and This Year of W*it Will Not Kill Us!

I won’t allow it! ::Deimos flight::

The post Small Magics and Small Housework first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

 Sitrep:

So, yesterday I was at the hospital waiting on dad's pacemaker install and heart checkup. He's good, ignoring doctor/nurse's orders as usual so... normal. That is a relief? Maybe? 

Anyway, while I was out Rea finished Jethro 9's edits and shot it back to me. I just dealt with the final edits and shot it off to Goodlifeguide.

On to the next snippet!

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Chapter 2

 

Antigua

 

Jethro called a family meeting. Cleo and Shy were on their way home and arrived before the Cadre members did.

Bagheera complained about the interruption when Cleo went into his room and practically dragged him out by his ear.

“Will you sit down and shut up? This is important,” Cleo growled.

“How do you know that?” Bagheera demanded as the toilet flushed in the hallway bathroom. The sink turned on for a moment.

“I can tell just from looking at them,” Cleo retorted, nodding her chin at the Sabu, Suqi, the holograms of their AI, and Jethro.

“This isn’t another lecture about getting a job or going to school is it? I mean, I am taking classes …” Bagheera insisted.

“Believe it or not this isn’t about you,” Sabu rumbled quietly. Bagheera glanced at him and then fell into a pensive silence when he started to pick up on the vibes in the room.

“Yes, well, Zuhura and Ember will be joining us in a bit. But …,” Jethro broke off and glanced to the side as Shy left the bathroom and sank into the seat next to Cleo. Suqi reached out and grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

She looked at her and noted that Suqi was looking grave and sad. Her ears were back. She looked to Sabu and saw similar looks coming from him. She felt her ears go back as trepidation mounted. “What’s wrong? What happened?” she asked.

“Did the cancer come back in White?” Cleo asked suddenly. Bagheera felt the mood shift and slowly sank into a chair. Sabu reached out and patted his shoulder gruffly.

“No …,” Jethro said slowly.

“I’ve got a class in an hour and a half …,” Cleo warned.

“You may want to skip it,” Suqi said softly. She looked expectantly to Jethro.

Jethro felt his insides twist. Bast gave him a sympathetic look.

“There is no easy way of saying this,” he said. He wiped at his eyes. The kittens all stared at him. The ones who didn’t know suddenly had an inkling. All of their ears were back and eyes wide.

“There was a crash on ET …”

“Mom!” Cleo wailed, lunging to her feet.

Jethro and Suqi immediately shook their heads. Suqi pushed Cleo down gently. Slowly she sank back into her chair. “If not mom …?”

“I’m afraid Red was killed by a fighter that crashed into their apartment complex. Your mom is fine,” Jethro said roughly. He paused as there was a knock at the door and then it opened to reveal Zuhura and Ember. Zuhura was somber and Ember had clearly picked up on the vibes and was looking troubled and confused.

Cleo and Shy teared up as Suqi tried to comfort them. Sabu hugged Bagheera. Jethro got up and hugged Zuhura, squeezing Ember between them until she nipped him.

He chuffed in amusement and felt her little arms wrap around his neck. He took her from her adopted mother and hugged her for a moment. “Sorry, sweetie, we just got some bad news,” he murmured.

“I’ll say,” Bagheera said. He got up and went to his room and slammed the door. The others watched him go and then gave out a soft collective sigh.

“We each deal with grief in our own way,” Sabu said as he still looked at the door.

“Give him a moment. We’ll talk to him in a bit,” Jethro said.

<<(O)>>

Jethro had to deal with the flood of sympathy from friends and colleagues.

Hurranna texted him that she had received the news. She sent her condolences to Jethro and the family and stated that she’d be by later for a hug.

He appreciated that.

<<(O)>>

Chief Warrant Officer Ox and his dwarf counterpart Warrant Officer Mariah Willow were putting their finishing touches on some of the robots when he received an email about Riley. He shook his head.

“What?” Willow asked. Minotaur and Peggy were busy going through lines of code with their respective debug bots to clean it up.

“Riley will be in town shortly. But she said she has a gig and can’t chat tonight. Oh, well,” Ox said with a flap of his ears as his hands continued to assemble a robotic leg. There were some delicate connections but his massive fingers handled them easily.

It helped that he and Minotaur had a master grade level of control over his implants and nanites.

Minotaur and Peggy looked up and then both turned to their respective partners.

“What?” Willow asked. “Finished all ready?” she asked.

“No. We have news,” Peggy said.

“Out with it,” Ox said absently.

“There has been a death in the McClintock family,” Minotaur said in a bass rumble. Ox stopped what he was doing and looked up sharply.

“Suqi and Sabu?”

“No. Lil Red was killed on Epsilon Triangula.”

“Oh, damn,” Willow said. “Isn’t that Jethro’s adopted daughter?”

“Yes,” Peggy replied.

“Please send our condolences,” Willow said.

“Done,” Peggy said.

“Minotaur, do the same. And tell Jethro I’ll check in with him when he’s ready,” Ox said gruffly.

“Understood,” Minotaur replied.

Ox went back to working, but after a moment, he pushed the robot leg aside and sat down heavily.

Willow patted him on the shoulder gently.

<<(O)>>