Month: May 2019

In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place: and in the sky The larks still bravely singing fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the dead: Short days ago, We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved: and now we lie In Flanders fields! Take up our quarrel with the foe To you, from failing hands, we throw The torch: be yours to hold it high If ye break faith with us who die, We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields Composed at the battlefront on May 3, 1915 during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium by Lt. Col. John McCrae The ghosts come back a little, today. I realized while at the local Memorial Day ceremony just how long the list has gotten. Men I knew well, men I only knew in passing before they were gone. Men who died in combat. Men who died in training. Men who took their own lives. Not a lot to say about it, today. Fair winds and following seas. We have the watch.

On “Subverting Expectations”

There’s been a lot of talk lately about “subverting expectations” in storytelling, due to the recent ending of Game of Thrones. So, since I’m a storyteller, let’s take a bit of an aside to discuss it. Much of the praise that George R. R. Martin’s book series, A Song of Ice and Fire received was about how it didn’t play it safe. It “subverted” the old fantasy tropes (which, admittedly, had been largely done to death by Tolkien copycats who didn’t understand Tolkien). Unexpected things happened. The good guys didn’t win just because they were the good guys. (It was sometimes hard to tell who the good guys were.) Now, some of this was simply marketing. To listen to some people, you’d think that George Martin invented moral shades of gray in fantasy fiction. David Gemmell, Glen Cook, and a host of others beat him to it by decades. Full disclosure: I read the first three books, the year that the TV show started. I quit after A Storm of Swords. And a great deal of that decision was based on the nature of this “subverting expectations” model of storytelling.

Maelstrom Rising Tech – The M5 Powell Infantry Fighting Vehicle

As I’ve written elsewhere, setting a story in the near future sometimes requires some attempt at clairvoyance. Some of the weapons systems that will be used in a future war are still in development. Some might not exist yet, but getting too crazy sci-fi could derail things, so I’ve got to strike a balance. One of those systems that I introduce in Escalation is the M5 Powell Infantry Fighting Vehicle. This is set up as the replacement for the M2 Bradley IFV, which has been in service since 1981. Now, there is an M2 replacement in the works. The Army calls it the Next Generation Combat Vehicle program, and the Request For Proposals went out in March of this year. Right at the moment, there are three major contenders, the BAE Systems CV90 Mk IV, the Rheinmetall and Raytheon Lynx IFV, and the General Dynamics Griffin III.

Mark Your Calendars – Upcoming Kindle Countdown

I’m running a Kindle Countdown Deal from May 6th to May 13th for the entire American Praetorians series. Kindle Countdown deals are limited-time promos that KDP lets authors conduct, where books can be significantly marked down for no more than a week. During that week, you’ll be able to get the Kindle versions of the entire series for less than $9. Task Force Desperate will be $0.99, with Hunting in the Shadows, Alone and Unafraid, The Devil You Don’t Know, and Lex Talionis each running for $1.99. I’ve gotten slots on a couple of book promo sites for it, as well. I’ll be putting it out on the newsletter next Monday as well, but here’s your heads-up. The American Praetorians series was my first and the one I cut my teeth as an author on. It remains some people’s favorite. If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, this will be a good way to pick it up. What started as a rescue mission turns into a bloody shadow war The primary US base on the Horn of Africa has fallen. America’s overseas assets have been allowed to slip. Now the survivors’ only hope is a group of hard-bitten, veteran contractors,