AMERICAN PRAETORIANS

Something in the Dark Chapter 2

I wasn’t sure at first whether the older man who came through the door was the sheriff or one of his deputies. He was probably in his late fifties, balding, and with a bit of a gut, though I wouldn’t have called him fat. He was wearing a uniform jacket over his dark brown shirt, pulled aside to show the star on his chest and hiked up to keep his sidearm clear. He walked past my table as I leaned back, clearing my access to my own sidearm, just in case. I wasn’t eager to get in a gunfight with the local law, but I’d seen enough in little towns where the heebie-jeebies put my hackles up to know that I couldn’t necessarily count on things to stay sane. I didn’t know what was going on here, but the fact that the diner’s staff had apparently called the sheriff over some stranger who just wanted to eat given the relatively early hour didn’t bode well at all. I was taking care not to stare at the sheriff or the waitress as she came to the counter and spoke softly to him, pointing toward my table, of course. The sheriff—his presence

Something in the Dark Chapter 1

While I couldn’t put my finger on it when I drove into town, there was something about Leutenburg that was just a little off. Now, granted, when you’ve spent as much time as I have in this profession, you start to realize that every place is a little off. Evil likes to burrow in like a tick, whenever it’s given an opening. And human nature being what it is, somebody’s always going to open that door. Demons are legalistic, and once they’re given a foothold, they’ll cling to it by right like the miserliest miser who ever went to sleep holding onto bags of cash. That metaphor got away from me a little, but you get the idea. The point is, no matter how bucolic and peaceful a place looks on the surface, somewhere there’s a dark side to it. Nature of the world as it is. Of course, the Otherworld is every bit as tenacious in the legalistic department, even if they aren’t usually quite as bad as the demons. I paused at the first of the three stop lights on Main Street, thankful for the momentary red light so that I could take stock. Try to figure out

Cascade Effect

The Flames of War Spread Even as the clash on distant, desolate Zhogalgan winds down, the spark it has ignited now threatens to set entire star systems aflame. Now Corvanite Lieutenant Ulric Bannon leads his special tasks phalanx on a deep reconnaissance on an alien world to discover Zolarian plans… while elsewhere, on an airless moon, Zolarian First Sergeant Cul Draven faces savage war against a Corvanite client-state that has launched an offensive in the wake of the Zhogalgan confrontation. Corvan and Zolah. Two great powers hurtling toward war… … but the real enemy may be the mysterious alien operatives manipulating the conflict from the shadows. *** Prologue Space seemed to twist, and with a burst of bright blue Cherenkov radiation, a blunt cylinder appeared in the Gamma Corvi 822 system. Cone-shaped drive nozzles at the aft end flared white, pushing the starship toward the distant world that the humans called Zhogalgan at just over one otuchan gravity. The light of that burst of Cherenkov radiation would reach the planet and the human starships that now dominated its orbitals within sixteen of the humans’ minutes. The starship would reach it much later than that, though at its current acceleration, it

Demoralization vs. Patriotism on Stream

Going to be a bit of a different stream tonight. We’ve been talking amongst ourselves for a while about this problem, about a form of revisionist history and a Plato’s Cave of media and social media that has reduced our society to a vaguely connected pack of self-centered individualists who no longer believe in much of anything, and so are being duped by just about everything. We’re going to discuss it tonight, in about as much depth as we can get in an hour and a half, two hours. There might be some follow-ons. We’ll see. Yes, I do have a release out this month, and I’ve talked live with Nick Cole and Walt Robillard on X about it. It will get some time tonight, but not the main focus. Come and join us. (Going to try for X again tonight, but we’ll see how it works out.)

Spheres of Influence

Some of you might have seen a little short story that I put out through Wargate Nova a few weeks ago. Well, the main story has now begun. A “Peacekeeping” Mission That Might Be Anything But Lieutenant Bannon and his phalanx of Corvanite warriors have already seen some of the worst that the irregular war between the reptilian otuchans and the human latecomers can offer. Or so they think. First Sergeant Draven, trying to hold his company of Zolarian citizen soldiers together, has been on the desolate planet of Zhogalgan longer than Bannon. He’s seen even more. Yet while they are both there as peacekeepers, they are not there to help each other. Spheres of influence and empires clash, on a dry, harsh world that might become the flashpoint in an interstellar war! So begins a new military science fiction series, in a universe that I hope to explore at great length in the years to come. Get Spheres of Influence, Book 1 of Edge of Imperium, on ebook or paperback. Audio is coming on August 27. Check out a preview here: This series is the first in a universe that I’ve been working on for a long time, even before the

Galaxy’s Edge Fan Expo AAR

It has been a while. It’s been a busy summer, and the blog has suffered, plus we had to skip the stream last month. We’re back now, though, and Walt Robillard, the Wargate Books Trunk Monkey (his actual job title) joins us to talk about the Galaxy’s Edge Fan Expo, which went down in Oak Harbor, WA, last weekend, as well as books, science fiction, fantasy, dogs, knives, martial arts, interesting violence in interesting places, and anything else that might come up. (Walt’s also the author of the sixth Order of the Centurion novel, Callsign Valkyrie, as well as the Forgotten Ruin spinoff Underspire.) Come join us. We’ll be on YouTube, Rumble, and X/Twitter again.

Galaxy’s Edge Season Three Chat

The Emperors, Nick Cole and Jason Anspach, join us this month to chat about Galaxy’s Edge Season Three. GE changed a lot when it launched in 2017 with Legionnaire, and it’s not often a series can go this long with such a fanatically dedicated reader base. Nick and Jason have also been both friends and publishers of mine, lending advice, support, bringing me in to contribute to the Order of the Centurion series, and publishing The Lost (plus a couple more upcoming series). Come and join us. We’ll also be on my Twitter/X account: https://x.com/AmericanPraeto2

Guns, Mags, and Words – David Reeder Joins the Stream

This month we’re joined by the founder of Breach Bang Clear and one of the first to really help get the word out about the American Praetorians series, back when your host was just getting started. Writer, SPOTREPS contributor, and web guru David Reeder. Dave was one of the first enthusiasts about the American Praetorians series, after I sent him a copy of Task Force Desperate in the hopes that Breach Bang Clear would review it. In fact, he put the review on Military.com’s Kit Up, which got the book some visibility it would not otherwise have had. He is also a SPOTREPs contributor, having written two pieces for that anthology. We’re doing the stream slightly differently tonight, streaming on YouTube, Rumble, and Twitter/X. Come and join us. The Twitter stream will be on my profile: @AmericanPraeto2

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