So, after scrapping the first 400 words of the next chapter of Lex Talionis (getting close to finished, but not there yet), I had an interesting idea for a new series. This wouldn’t be taking the place of any other projects, but would be woven into the years’ schedule along with others. The idea was spawned by thinking of the old action series, such as Executioner, Phoenix Force, Able Team, Soldiers of Barrabas, or Stony Man. What if I came up with an episodic (old-school episodic, with continuing characters but not necessarily any long-spanning arc) action series, roughly 40k-60k words per story (roughly the length of A Silver Cross and a Winchester or Nightmares)? It would be somewhat less “THE WORLD IS ON FIRE!” than the Praetorian series, mainly focusing on going after various bad actors in various real and fictional parts of the globe. Short, pulpy, hard-hitting action pieces, not terribly geopolitical or intrigue-heavy, but with long-running characters and fast pacing. With a set, fairly low, word count, I could concievably knock one out in about a month, month-and-a-half, and get the ebook out for around $3. What do you think, readers? Interested?
“Lex Talionis” Is Up For Pre-Order!
Still got a lot of work to do on it, but that’s why it’s not coming out for another 90 days. Lex Talionis, the fifth and final American Praetorians book, will go live on June 6, but you can pre-order the Kindle now. “War And Politics Have Consequences.” Praetorian Solutions has a rep. Not a particularly pleasant one in some circles, either. Over the last few years, they’ve run roughshod over the plans of terrorists, warlords, pirates, militias, narcos, foreign intelligence services—even some American politicians—and left a considerable trail of dead bodies behind them. But when Jeff Stone and his team were in Mexico, someone who was supposed to be an ally sold them out, leaking information on their identities to the Dark Net. Now the wars are coming home. Before, they fought for hire, offering their services where they thought they could fight for their own sense of justice, putting the hurt on bad people for pay. Now they’re simply going to have to fight to survive. To do that, they’re going to have to embrace the Law of Retaliation. And, quite possibly, earn the title of “Praetorian”…in every sense of the word. “Peter writes brutal, believable action at
Book Re-Review: “The Maverick Experiment”
This post is a bit of an apology, truth be told. I reviewed this book a few years ago, on the now-defunct “Hot Extract.” Overall, I found the book to be a decent shooter thriller, and something of a wish-fulfillment fantasy for a lot of shooters who have been in the sandbox and the rock-pile, chasing ghosts and being yanked back by the choke-chain by higher whenever it seemed like they might get somewhere to the shooters and go too far to higher.
“Kill Yuan” Coming To Audio!
So, I’ve been keeping this a little quiet until we got the ball rolling, but Kill Yuan went into production as an audiobook last week. I’ve listened to the first fifteen minutes, and it’s badass. Note, this is not the same narrator who did Task Force Desperate. Cody Parcell, who’s done audiobooks for M. Todd Gallowglass, is taking the reins on this one, and so far, he’s nailing it. Hopefully it should be up on Audible and iTunes in a couple of months. And for the fellow nautically inclined, he will be pronouncing “gunwale” properly. You’re welcome.
Lovecraftian?
Yes, I’m pretty deep into the shooter genre mode right now, having just passed 75,000 words on the first draft of Lex Talionis, but I’m going to digress for a little, to explore a thought I had while sitting in the “Death Is The Least Of Your Worries: Writing Lovecraftian Fiction” panel at LTUE. The panelists agreed (and so would I) that the nature of Lovecraft’s horror lay in the confrontation of unfathomable powers which barely noticed human beings. You might get squished along the way, but it was hit or miss as to whether the monster actually noticed you in the process. A vital part of the Cthulhu Mythos is mankind’s insignificance, and helplessness, in the face of the chaotic forces that rule the cosmos. You can try to fight Cthulhu, but it won’t end well for you. Granted, this is not entirely a hard and fast rule even within the (admittedly broad) confines of the Mythos itself. Brian Lumley’s Titus Crow bests a few eldritch abominations, and no less towering a figure than Conan the Cimmerian (Howard was a regular correspondent with Lovecraft) banished a few to whatever weird dimension they’d come from with a powerful stroke of
Lex Talionis Chapter 8
This will be the last sample chapter. After this, I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait for the book to come out. Don’t worry, though, the preorder (and thus the release date) is coming soon. *** We had just passed Franktown, north of Colorado Springs, when my phone buzzed. I cursed, since the phone was in my pocket and I was driving. Risking a little bit of swerving, I dug the phone out of my pocket and passed it to Jack. “Fuck,” he said flatly. “Tom just sent us ‘Extremis.’”
LTUE 2017 After Action
The 35th Life, The Universe, and Everything conference, my second, has come and gone, and it was a blast. I got to sit on a few panels, hang out with Larry Correia, Jim Curtis (OldNFO online), and a few others, chat briefly with James Minz (executive editor at Baen), and along the way let the gears turn, leading to several new ideas, refinements of old ones, and possibly get some new, or new-ish projects rolling. (There should be audio of Kill Yuan forthcoming in the next few months, for instance.) Most of the panels I was attending (as opposed to being a panelist), I was sort of half-listening, half letting the gears turn. That’s how the back-cover byline for Lex Talionis changed halfway through the “Hook” panel. Originally intended to be “The Hunters Have Become The Hunted,” which fits, but has been used before, it will now be “War And Politics Have Consequences.” There were a couple of weird parts. There was a member of the “Writing Action Scenes” panel, who will remain nameless, who asserted that video gaming provides the real experience of being in a fight. (I may or may not have seen Larry twitch toward a double-handed
Lex Talionis Chapter 7
By the time we hit the rally point, it was pretty obvious that things were threatening to spiral out of control. Gunfire was echoing through the night, more intense than anything we’d unleashed yet, except for maybe the mad minute into Fat Boy’s safe house. Red and blue flashing lights were clearly visible, as were the flames from something having been set on fire not far from them. The local PD was in the middle of one hell of a firefight. Given what I’d seen, I didn’t imagine it was a fight that they were remotely prepared for. Even though it had been a pretty successful night, we were all pretty subdued as we gathered around the vehicles in a field south of town. Granted, some of our silence was simply professional habit; once you’ve spent as long as we have running around hostile environments, outnumbered and generally outgunned, you don’t get loud and chatty very easily. Some of it was because of fatigue. There hadn’t been a lot of sleep since Jim’s death.
More on Realism and Storytelling
This post, while following on from the last one, will be addressing a bit more of a broad problem across genres. It’s gotten a lot more talk in the science fiction and fantasy genres (particularly fantasy) than it has in the thriller genre, but it still applies. The fantasy version of this has been most recently highlighted by the work of George R.R. Martin, though there are plenty of authors working along a similar vein, which has been coined “grimdark,” a term that became at first something of a joke, based on the tag-line for the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop sci-fantasy wargame: “In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.” Taken to its extreme, it can become so ludicrous that it shades into “grimderp.”
Authenticity vs. Reality vs. Story
A friend of mine just ran up against the fact that the research questions he was asking for an Unconventional Warfare story may or may not have run up against the brick wall labeled “Classified.” As in, “You’re not supposed to know the answers to those questions, let alone put them in a book. Stop asking.” This got me thinking about a few things I’ve run up against as an author over the last few years.