Robin Hardy's Abbey Lands
The Stories of the Abbey of St. Benedict on the Sea
Random Mutterings
Archive IX
(April 18, 2026 - June 14, 2026)
UFOs Are Real
June 14, 2026: Another side note: Due to a rookie error, I have to start all over on the audiobook for Streiker's Morning Sun. But now that I know what I'm doing, I hope it will go pretty fast.
Now for our main attraction: on Feb. 19, 2026, Pres. Trump announced: "Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters. GOD BLESS AMERICA!"
There is an enormous amount of material, especially as the third tranche was just released on June 12. The following sighting was one of those.
We are not alone
Cartoons that Were Based
on Real People
June 11, 2026: First, just a side note: three chapters of the Streiker's Morning Sun audiobook are in the can, but there's nothing really to post about it. Instead, we're looking at important historical information, that is, some of the most famous cartoon characters in history were directly based on real people. Behold:
And they didn't get any royalties
Streiker's Morning Sun Audio Recording, Chapter One
June 8, 2026: Okay, here's the first chapter of Streiker's Morning Sun (Book 3 of the Streiker Saga). You can listen or download, though it's not in final form. It will take me a couple of weeks to do the whole thing, then I'll let you know when it's up on Amazon.
Have a listen and tell me what you think!
Audiobook Drama
June 5, 2026: Hello. How are you? I'm fine, now. For the past three days I've been tearing my hair out trying to get the first chapter recording of Streiker's Morning Sun to pass the ACX check. Then I finally, finally deduced that the cheap little microphone I had used for the first two books in the series had given up the ghost, and required a dumpster burial.
Then I went on Amazon and ordered this bad boy:
It should arrive today, so I hope to be back in the closet making the Morning Sun audio happen. Wish me luck!
UPDATE: It works! The new mic works! I'll be back to recording tomorrow.
Streiker's Morning Sun Audiobook
June 2, 2026: I got a notice from ACX (Amazon's audiobook platform) about their new royalty model for audiobooks. The gist of it was that I needed to transfer my audiobooks to their new model if I wanted to continue receiving royalties. I did that for the two audiobooks I have: Streiker's Bride and Streiker: The Killdeer. Then I had to stop and think about why I hadn't recorded Streiker's Morning Sun.
And then I remembered: when I reread it preparatory to recording it, I hated the ending. It was such a cheap cop-out—something stupid like it was all a dream. (Readers agreed, as was reflected in ratings and reviews.)
So I rewrote much of that book and republished it as the 4th edition. That took so much time that I was onto new material, and dropped any idea of an audiobook.
Now the idea is back, and I'm anxious to redeem the series, as it leads directly into the Sammy/Streiker Salmagundi, beginning with If Only for This Life. (The two sequels, Abby's Monsters and Today and Forever are available on the Home page.)
So that's what I'm working on now. I'll keep you posted.
Heye the Octopus
May 30, 2026: In Book 6, Lord Efran and Krems, we meet Heye the Octopus, who becomes a major player in a few of the stories. When I saw this short, I immediately thought of her (click the pic to open the link):
The Heye in our story is a lot bigger than this one, but the same species. Sadly, this short doesn't mention the fate of all octopuses: the males die after mating, and the females die after their eggs hatch.
Mushroom Music
May 27, 2026: Engineers are playing with nature again. Click the pic below to watch a mushroom play on its wee xylophone.
But of course there's more: "[R]esearchers from The Ohio State University recently discovered that common edible fungi, such as shiitake mushrooms, can be grown and trained to act as organic memristors, a type of data processor that can remember past electrical states.
"Their findings showed that these shiitake-based devices not only demonstrated similar reproducible memory effects to semiconductor-based chips but could also be used to create other types of low-cost, environmentally friendly, brain-inspired computing components."
What's next? Maestro Mushroom?
Beaver Wins Again
May 24, 2026: Remember our heroic beavers?—who knew land and water management better than people did? Well, I've found another example:
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
Thank goodness there's usually someone who asks, Why are they doing this?
Horses Love Their Farriers
May 21, 2026: I love horses, but their hearts belong to their farriers:
Find someone who loves you like that
Timelines for All!
May 18, 2026: When I started writing the Abbey stories in 2021, I was so anxious to get the stories down that I ignored some basic principles of storytelling. So I had completed a couple of rough drafts before I went back to reread what I had written.
It was pretty much a mess—inconsistencies everywhere I looked. In the Annals and Latter Annals, the Abbey was located some distance from the coast. But in this new series, the Abbey had to be ON the coast, as it was "The Abbey of St. Benedict ON THE SEA." After some wrangling, I had Efran discover that the earlier maps were wrong. [insert peeved face here]
So I started drawing maps, which created other issues: How long did it take to get from the Abbey to Westford? to Eurus? When did Minka get back to the Abbey from Eurus to demand that Efran marry her?
This forced me to draw up Timelines to keep all the dates straight. From there, the Timelines evolved into crib sheets to note names or details about characters and events. So I just now decided that readers should have the option to see these raw, messy documents. (FYI: The dates in the upper right corner are when I began and finished the first draft. You'll also see that I used whatever scrap paper I had on hand.)
So I added the Timelines as links on the Home page. Each book's icon contains a link to that book's Timeline. Click the icon, and the Timeline opens in a new tab as a PDF. You can save it to your computer by clicking the download icon in the upper right corner. Then you can open it with whatever you use to read PDFs. (This is on a PC; I can't tell you how to do it on a Mac or Linux.)
See how it works on this icon for Book 21: Lord Efran in the Hall of Memories. Click on it.
Let me know how it works for you!
I Love Happy Endings
May 15, 2026: This short story is about an abandoned baby zebra, and how it found acceptance outside the herd.
There's always hope for the weird.
Why I'm Grateful
May 12, 2026: Back in the old days, when I got my first contract with a traditional publisher to publish Chataine's Guardian, I was thrilled to discover that they had an associate in London who would publish mass-market paperbacks to be made available in the UK. Otherwise, my books would be sold in the US only.
With the publication of the next two books in the series, I began to grow dissatisfied working with a publisher. Their aims appeared to be making as much money off me as they could without regard for my messaging or longevity. So with the Sammy Series, I began looking for ways to self-publish.
That worked well until May 1, 2021, when I started writing a new series that grabbed me in a head lock, threw me down, and sat on me until I had completed 36 stories, each over 50,000 words. At this point, I saw traditional publishing as completely unworkable.
So on August 24, 2024, I bought a website domain, named it "Robin Hardy's Abbey Lands," and began offering books free for download.
Not quite two years later, this map shows where my books are being downloaded* (the numbers are blacked out):
*This is according to my Wix website statistics. Wix itself is based in Israel.
It's international
Scary Robotics
May 9, 2026: Click the pics to see how rapidly Chinese robotics has advanced. In weeks we've gone from this:
To this:
The next model will turn around and level the guy that's knocking him over.
Oz the Mentalist
Oz (pronounced "Ohs") insists he's not a magician or a mindreader; he just reads people's posture and unconscious actions. But he's got some tricks up his sleeve—how else could he do it? Click the pic to watch.
This chap bears watching.
Birds' Funky Mating Displays
May 3, 2026: —Can best be appreciated when set to Cha Cha Reggae. Click the pic to watch.
Another Reader Unloads a Truckload of Thoughts
April 30, 2026: The Contact form may be the best thing on this site. Reader “Rachel (SMH)” used it to tell me this:
Just found your site and see “35 Years after Henry was assassinated….” No! He was my second-favorite character. So Sad! Please say Renee was assassinated as well. I couldn't stand it if she got to die peacefully but Henry got that. If not assassinated at least died slowly and in great pain like she deserved.
My reply is:
Oh, Rachel, I’m so sorry! If it’s any consolation, my point was that Henry ruled fearlessly in doing what he knew to be right. And of course he still lives to us. As for Renée, I believe she lived to be a bitter old woman, because girls who are beautiful think they’ll look that way forever. Aging brings such a rude shock that they usually can’t adapt.
So I’m urging you to get into the new series. I hope you’ll find Efran a worthy successor to Henry—or whoever was your first favorite character. (Spoiler alert: Efran does not die.) And I believe you’ll find an engaging new villainess in Adele. She does not die either, though you may want her to. She’s also good for comic relief.
Incidentally, in Book One, Efran stumbles onto three burial crosses on the back grounds of the Abbey Fortress. These mark the graves of men whom Renée buried and included her name in their epitaphs. Studying these, Efran has a short conversation with her. To find out what he said, you have to read it for yourself. :D
Something this fun should be illegal.
The Charms of Musick
April 27, 2026: We've all heard these lines by William Congreve: “Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Beast, To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.” (The word he used is actually Breast, but today we're going with the misquotation.)
You can watch him play for a wolf, elephants, cows, giraffes, lions, a highland cow, and many others. It's amazing.
Introducing Our New
Hall of Famer Kathy LePain
April 24, 2026: About a week ago I received this message through our Contact form:
Hello Robin
You are my favorite author! (outside of our Lord God, who just has to breathe out his words...) I started with Chataine's Guardian as a young adult and just kept going. I have read through the relationships of: Deidre and Roman, Nicole and Ares, and Minka and Efran. If that wasn't enough, I also followed the ups and downs of Marni and Sammy, and Fletcher and Adair, and then all the Salmagundi. I even traveled to outer space with The Idecis. Now I'm reading your Whimsey Reade mystery. So, do I make your Hall of Fame? I may have to refresh my memory on some books, but I think I can answer any of your questions.
Blessings in Christ, Kathy LePain
Reading it, I was thinking: Who in the world is this, who’s read just about everything I’ve ever written?—even Unknown Name, Unknown Number! NO ONE has read UnUn! When I noticed her aside about the Great Author, He seemed to whisper, Pay attention. She's important to me.
So this is what I wrote back to her:
Hi, Kathy! Honestly, technically, the Hall of Fame is intended for those who read all 36 of the Abbey Lands stories. Regardless how many of those you read, I think you absolutely do qualify. Send me a photo, and tell me what name you want me to use. With your permission, I'd like to reproduce your message in my blog, Random Mutterings.
Congratulations!
best,
Robin
I have the best readers in the world.
I'm Not Scared. Are You Scared?
April 21, 2026: The first time I watched this, it scared me to death. The second time, I realized that this dad has mastered the art of parenting.
The Brilliance of Carol Burnett
April 18, 2026: The Carol Burnett Show was a long-running comedy/variety hour that originally ran for 12 years on CBS, winning 25 Emmys during its tenure. Fortunately, sketches from the show are widely available on YouTube.
Below are two of my favorite segments. The first features Carol, Harvey Korman, Paul Lynde, and Dyan Cannon. The second features Carol, Harvey, Vicki Lawrence, and Tim Conway. Click the pics to watch.
You Don't see many like this anymore.
You could call it Chataine's Guardian 2.0