“No,” John Brannigan said. “Not only no, but hell no.” “John,” Hector Chavez started to remonstrate with him, “we’re not talking about some half-assed Pemex contract, here.” The two men were facing each other across a table in the Rocking K, the best—and essentially only—diner in tiny Junction City. It wasn’t the sort of place most people would immediately think of when it came to planning covert operations, but it was the closest meeting place to Brannigan’s mountain hideaway, and so Chavez had pegged it as their contact spot, more often than not. John Brannigan was a towering, six-foot-four former Marine Colonel, his hair gone shaggy and gray on his head and his face. He shaved his cheeks and his chin, but his handlebar mustache was bushier than ever. He might have had a few more crow’s feet around his gray eyes, especially after his recent turn to mercenary commander. Activities like a hair-raising mission on the island of Khadarkh in the Persian Gulf, followed by a jump into northern Burma to take down a North Korean liaison operation in the Golden Triangle, were not calculated to keep a man young. Brannigan was dressed in his usual flannel shirt and
Soldiers of Barrabas #2 The Plains of Fire
This was my first SOBs novel. And at the time, I was simply interested in the premise. Iran goes nuclear. It was a pretty high-profile concern a few years ago, and has been simmering in the background ever since. There was even a documentary made about it, Iranium. With Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an avowed “Twelver” as President of Iran, the likelihood of Iranian nukes soon being used against the US and Israel seemed to be pretty high. So imagine my curiosity when I found out that an obscure, 1984 Gold Eagle pulp mercenary story had been written about just that: stopping Iran from launching a nuclear attack.
Welcome To The Action Thriller Renaissance
As some of you may remember, a few days ago I talked a little about a new plan, both for my writing and for marketing my writing. Part of that plan was creating first a Facebook Group, later to possibly expand to other outlets, in which we could build a community of action adventure/thriller enthusiasts. Because as much as I looked for one, that wasn’t specifically tied to a particular author or series, I couldn’t find one (with the possible exception of MackBolan.com, which isn’t so much a forum as a guide). That group now exists. There’s not a lot there yet, but it’s young, and that’s why it’s a group. It’s not just about me or the other authors who joined me in putting it together. Anyone who joins can add to it, posting about the books, movies, or games they have enjoyed in the genre, as wide as it is, along with anything else that might be applicable (guns, war news, cool military videos, that sort of thing). Anything that counts as an action thriller is welcome, from Mack Bolan and Casca to Tom Clancy and Brad Taylor. (And any of us in the recent indie thriller genre,
New Ideas
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?
Book Review: Somewhither
How does one describe John C Wright’s Somewhither? That is, indeed the question. While this book won the Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction novel this year, Science Fiction doesn’t quite cover it. In some ways, it’s about as Science Fictional as Star Wars. But since it deals with multiple parallel universes, with technological interfacing between them, I suppose the label “Science Fiction” works. It could just as well have been called “Philosophical/Metaphysical Action Adventure,” though even that wouldn’t quite cover it.