The flying cloud, the frosty light
Jan 01, 2025 7:24 pm
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
--From "Ring Out, Wild Bells" - Lord Tennyson
I made the Tangent Online 2024 Recommended reading list. The lists begin after the lengthy proposal regarding SFWA. My story on the list is "Tokens of Moonlight and Mist" which just came out in Cirsova Magazine #21. So, I've got that going for me.
Another short story, "A Stardust Memory," goes out for submission this week.
I finished Jed and Dead by Alan Dean Foster. My brief thoughts on it can be found here (following the account of the 1850 battle for the House passage of the little omnibus bill).
On the new additions to the reading front, I'm currently reading Lincoln's Last Trial by Dan Abrams. So far it has been background and such; I'm only just getting to the start of the trial--but it's all interesting.
For part of our Christmas festivities, we basked in the radiant glow of the flat screen to see Red One, It's a Wonderful Life, and Christmas Vacation. I can't see the first of those ever becoming a classic in the league with the latter two, but it was a fun romp that wasn't terrible. It's a Wonderful Life has to be in my top ten favorite movies of all time. I have to put The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence in the top ten as well.
Save Your Christmas loot and pick from these free books of all genres
Don't forget I'm having another flash fiction contest in February: not to exceed 350 words and featuring a space alien in the USA on Valentine's Day or Groundhog Day. Get your entries to me by February 15.
Free Science Fiction and Fantasy
More fun facts from The Men Who Lost America, by Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy: Britain was one of them most highly taxed nations in Europe at the time of the revolution. The revolution eventually expanded into a global conflict involving France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic. Britain's previous military successes had often been predicated on cooperation with other powers. However, 1763 changed the old alliances. Britain had miffed Frederick the Great in negotiating a separate peace with France in 1763. It failed to create an alliance with Catherine the Great of Russia. In 1780, it could not create a coalition with Austria and Russia. Before the war, the British army was spread around the globe, and the navy budget had been cut with the result that the navy was insufficient to serve the army, deal with privateers, and blockade American.
I note that the first three books in the Tomahawks and Dragon Fire Series are still only 99 cents each. Get them now, or use your Christmas loot to add them to your library. It is the first trilogy of the series, forming a single fantastic story arc.
