AMERICAN PRAETORIANS

Legacy of Terror

A Military Junta Turns to Piracy And the Blackhearts Get Called In for a Rescue But There Are Other Threats Just Out of Sight… When the repressive military government of the tiny country of Costa de las Joyas seizes a US-flagged cargo ship, a response is inevitable. However, given the small nation’s proximity to Venezuela and Colombia, the US government has decided that a subtle approach is called for. Brannigan’s Blackhearts are called in, but not to retake the ship. Regime change is the mission, but it will be regime change by proxy. The Blackhearts are hired to break out an imprisoned dissident, to act as a rallying point for the country’s rebels. However, the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend… As the picture becomes clearer, the Blackhearts must decide between the lesser of two evils. Or neither. Book 13 of the Brannigan’s Blackhearts series is live today, in Kindle and Paperback. Get it now. And, if you haven’t dipped into the series yet, you can start with the first book, Fury in the Gulf. Or, the standalone novel that was eventually folded into the continuity, Kill Yuan.

Legacy of Terror Chapter 3

“Contact left!” Carlo Santelli’s bellow was cut off a moment later by a crackle of gunfire that echoed off the forested hills, as the lead element turned and poured bullets into the targets arranged along the hillside. After the first burst, Joe Flanagan, lean and black bearded, rose, turned, and dashed for the opposite hill, sprinting almost exactly three seconds before he turned, dropped to the prone, and picked up the fire again. The rest of the element, consisting of Kevin Curtis, John Wade, Tom Burgess, and Ignatius Kirk, followed somewhat more raggedly. In Curtis’s and Wade’s case, they’d simply held and kept up the fire a little bit longer, while Kirk was moving a little slower these days. The retired Special Forces soldier had been through the wars, and while he’d mostly recovered from wounds taken on an earlier job with the Blackhearts, he still didn’t have quite the speed or the endurance of his younger days. Tom Burgess, his salt-and-pepper ponytail waving behind him, was almost right behind Flanagan. Outside of the kill zone, the second element, with Miguel Gomez taking charge, had immediately taken cover and then started to maneuver around to the flank. Vincent Bianco, as

Legacy of Terror Chapter 2

Present Day John Brannigan was not a happy man. It wasn’t that life was bad. Nor was it the company. His relationship with the man behind the wheel of the SUV currently rolling through Alexandria, Virginia, wasn’t nearly as adversarial as it once had been. Mark Van Zandt, formerly General Van Zandt, USMC, had overseen Brannigan’s precipitous and unwilling retirement from the Marine Corps, many years before. Since entering the private sector himself, however, Van Zandt had worked with Brannigan and his small team of mercenaries, the men who called themselves “Brannigan’s Blackhearts,” enough that he’d changed. No, the discomfort wasn’t about sharing a ride with Van Zandt, or even the business casual that was pretty far from his usual attire these days. No, it was entirely about where they were. He’d bent over backwards in uniform and out to avoid Northern Virginia, the Beltway, and DC itself. Now here he was, right in the belly of the beast, and he couldn’t do a thing about it. Of course, he could just go home. But there hadn’t been a lot of action for the Blackhearts since Prague, and he knew that the other boys would be disappointed if he

Mongol Moon Live

No, we’re not reading Mongol Moon on stream, but we do have the author, Mark Sibley, joining us this month. As a fellow Wargate author, and also an author of near future war scenarios, we should have a lot to talk about. Even with the inevitable tangents. Come and join us on YouTube, Rumble, or Facebook. (We might experiment a little with Twitter next month, which will require cutting one of those destinations out.)

Legacy of Terror Chapter 1

Forty Years Ago Carlos Hierro looked up at the brassy sky overhead, squinting against the scorching sun. They had run out of water hours before, and he was sure the soldiers down below knew it. That was why there had been only sporadic exchanges of gunfire over the last hour or so. They know they only have to wait us out. He shook his head as he looked around at his comrades. Adalberto was no longer moving. He had bled out from his wounds sometime in the last few minutes. They simply no longer had the medical supplies to save him. The others, all ten of them, were ragged, sunburned, their lips cracked from lack of water, most of them down to their last couple of magazines. Nilo and Omar weren’t going to be able to go far even if they ever had a chance of breaking out, Nilo with a broken leg from a soldier’s bullet as they’d reached this little refuge in the rocks, and Omar nursing a gut wound that would be his death. Carlos knew they were all dead men. He glanced up at the sky again. Here, in the last moments, he found he

The Starship Troopers Stream

So, this might be technically a little late, but Starship Troopers was all over the internet a week or so ago. We’re going to talk about it. The book, the movie, and how bug people don’t understand what “fascism” is. Of course, it being the AP/Slack Ops crew, this could go all sorts of ways. Since the book is more an exercise in political and leadership philosophy than a straight mil-sf story, this could get deep. Come and join us. We’ll be on Rumble, too. (Rumble doesn’t seem to play well with WordPress, or that stream would be embedded here, too.)

Christopher Ruocchio Returns to Talk Tolkien

Since it was Professor Tolkien’s birthday this month, we have invited Christopher Ruocchio back to the stream to talk about Tolkien, fantasy, and whatever else we get into (you know how it is). Come and join us. (It was brought to my attention that Rumble’s subscriber requirement for livestreams is no longer in effect, so we’re going to be on Rumble, as well.)

Update for January

Been a bit busy lately, but I thought it was time to update everyone. The word mines are unrelenting. I’m working on finishing up the second book of a new military science fiction series for Wargate Press. The first one, Spheres of Influence, doesn’t have a release date just yet, but it should be out in Q3. I’m hoping that this first trilogy will be a springboard for more in that universe. It’s been kicking around in my head for over twenty years. Steve Marvel has Non-State Actor in hand, and we’re looking at a potential April release for the audio. Speaking of audio, KDP is rolling out a beta program of using “virtual voice” for audiobooks. That appears to be a fancy way of saying AI generated audio. While that could be more cost effective, I currently have zero plans to do anything with AI. I prefer working with real people. Moving forward, I’m looking at returning to Brannigan’s Blackhearts next, after I finish up Cascade Effect. I’ll have a release date for Brannigan’s Blackhearts #13, Legacy of Terror, once I get it outlined and the schedule figured out. After that, I’ll wrap up the Spheres of Influence trilogy, get that turned in, and then the next

Frontiers of Chaos Has Hit Audio

Today is the day. Frontiers of Chaos, the fourth book in the Brave New Disorder series, has come out on audiobook, read by Steve Marvel. A killing in Seattle A massacre in Northern California A mysterious new client In the aftermath of what appears to be a targeted killing, a mysterious billionaire approaches Pallas Group Solutions with a new job. He seems to be more interested in their intelligence gathering capability than security. None of them are prepared for what they find. In a whirlwind of violence and intrigue, the contractors of Pallas Group plunge into a world of human trafficking and elite capture. And find themselves on the hunt for an underworld facilitator who’s closer than they expected. It’s a pursuit from the Pacific Northwest to the Tri-Border Area of South America. And as the bodies pile up, things can only get darker. Get it today. (Steve has Non-State Actor in hand, and will begin production when he can. Schedules being what they are, it will probably be a couple more months.)

Rick Partlow on the Stream

We are joined this month by former infantry officer and science fiction author Rick Partlow, author of the Drop Trooper and Taken to the Stars series. We’ll be talking science fiction, the military, and whatever else comes up along the way. (If you’ve watched any of these streams, you know where they can end up going, which is why we haven’t really set on a particular topic lately.) Come join us.