Author Archive: Sarah Hoyt

FROM NATHAN BRINDLE:  I’m The Beautiful But Evil Space Princess Who Rules A Galactic Empire But Really Wants To Leave People Ruthlessly Alone!

Alice is the Imperial Princess Regnant of the Galactic Empire. At 22, she has been thrust into power after her father (the Emperor) and her two older brothers have all died in various ways. Her Imperial Chancellor, Lord Rupert, does everything he can to support her, but has somewhat different ideas about how the Empire should be run than did his late Emperor.

Alice has one major problem: She cannot be crowned Empress Regnant until she marries and produces an heir.

But Alice, being kept busy three days a week by interminable audiences with petitioners, and the rest of the week with what she terms “mostly busy work”, has no real way to meet young men — well, reasonably eligible young men, anyway, and of her own age — with whom she might eventually take up and form a household. And she chafes at the necessity of trying to rule, hands-on, an Empire so huge it cannot be truly ruled by any one person to begin with.

THIS CAUGHT MY ATTENTION AND MADE ME WONDER SOMETHING:  What we don’t know about mother’s milk. (It’s a TED talk)

What it made me wonder: apparently Mother’s Milk is not the same for everyone. It’s not a “formula” as is implicated by what we call artificial baby food, as though there were a single, scientific formulation.
America had problems with obesity and chronic illness earlier (the rest of the world has caught up about a generation later, tbf. It’s not super-visible yet because those people haven’t hit older years in numbers) and I wonder how much of it is because such a massive number of my generation was bottle fed by “scientifically designed” formula.  I don’t have the means or ability to test it, but it might be worth looking at.

AS SOMEONE WHO GREW UP IN EUROPE? AND STILL HAS FAMILY THERE?  EVERY WORD OF THIS. EVERY WORD:  Perceptions of Other Countries.

AND ALSO:   Lest I forget.

I PROBABLY SHOULD SHARE THE MEME POST (IT’S BEEN THAT KIND OF DAY):   Thanks for the Memes.

FROM JAY MAYNARD:  Royal Crystal.

A princess is breaking.
The crystal is her last chance.

Princess Helena of England has everything—status, duty, lineage.
What she lacks is the ability to feel anything at all.

Shattered by trauma only her family knows, Helena enters the Laminatrix Mental Hospital, where healing means surrendering mind and body to the seamless black suit and the silent depths of the crystal. Inside, she must confront the memories she has hidden from the world—and from herself.

At the Laminatrix Mental Hospital, Dalton Ward has taken the white suit to understand the truth behind the magic he once defended in court. His transformation will force him to choose who he is when every illusion of control is stripped away.

And as Helena’s treatment pushes the boundaries of what the crystal was ever meant to do, LMH faces a question with national consequences:

Can crystal magic heal a princess…
or will it remake her into something the Crown never expected?

A story of trauma, duty, and rebirth—
Royal Crystal expands the Laminatrix world into its most powerful, emotional, and politically charged form yet.