Two-Fisted Blogger

So This Guy Walks Into a Barsoom...

2012-03-18T23:26:00.000-04:00

I don't go to the movies much, anymore. Two I really wanted to see so far this year were Act of Valor and the John Carter adaptation. Unfortunately, both came to theaters at roughly the same time. I saw the former, but don't know if I'll make it back in time to catch the latter.

Frankly, with the polarized opinions about the Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation, I didn't know what to think. Well, it's good to have a network--Jim Morris came to my rescue. He watched it, and agreed to let me publish his report on the experience. Here it is:

My son Crews, named for my CO in Vietnam, called me last week. He said my six-year-old grandson Hayden had been totally psyched by the John Carter trailer that had been running on the OKC stations, and that he and my other son Ben were going to take Hayden to see it last Sunday.

All of that totally pumped me up as I had been a biiiiiiig fan of the John Carter on Mars books when I was maybe twelve. I flat loved those books, and was also psyched to see the flick. So the deal I made was that I would see them here in LA and Skype with Hayden afterward.

Called a couple of buds here to see if they wanted to go with me, and they did, but failed to figure on Spring Forward day and missed the gig. I'd be a bit snarky about that if I hadn't screwed up too. Went into the sixteen screen multiplex in Woodland Hills and strolled into the first theater I saw with John Carter on the sign. I was soon badly perplexed by the fact that I was in the middle of the movie and my 3D glasses didn't work. I watched it through to the end, gaining much eyestrain in the process, and then went and bitched to the ticket taker.

She kindly did not call me an idiot and asked if I had gone into theater 10. Nope, theater 9. "Uh, your glasses don't work in theater 9."

Tell me about it.

"Okay, you've only missed ten minutes in theater 10," so I zipped back upstairs and went in at the point that Carter was getting the hell kicked out of him in a Yankee jail. Gotta say I loved the flick. The art direction was fabulous, fully realizing Burroughs' vision. I doubt this was possible even five years ago.

The screenwriters dickered with the plot and characterizations a bit, but not enough to do any harm to the movie. One change that I liked was that the character of Dejah Thoris was more fully developed.

I don't think anyone has ever claimed that characterization was Burroughs' long suit. In the books her principle role is to get kidnapped and rescued by John Carter, a lot. In the movie she is no slouch with a longsword. I like a semi-naked woman swinging a sword. It just seems right somehow.

Another by-product of the movie is that I downloaded all five books on Kindle for $.99 and am now about halfway through book three.

Talked to Hayden last night. He was totally psyched by the film, loved it. I also bought him all five books in print from Amazon and he's read the first three chapters of A Princess of Mars. My grandson, six years old. How about that?

Purty dang cool, I say!

BTW, for those who don't know it (and missed my previous blog posts), Jim Morris is an accomplished and renown author of some doggone good fiction and non-fiction, available on Virtual Pulp Press, Antenna Books and any other bookstore worth its salt.

Serious Swords, Silly Sorcery

2012-03-15T17:33:00.000-04:00

I couldn't resist the title, folks.

Some new old-fashioned hack-and-slash fantasy fiction is out there and it's CHEEEEEEEEEEEAP!!!!!!

All I mean by "serious swords, silly sorcery" is that some of it takes a straightforward approach, like the first two installments of Tales of the Honor Triad (The Bloodstained Defile and The Gryphon of Tirshal); and others poke fun at the genre in a respectful way (like Chris J. Randolph's Vengar and Jack Badelaire's NANOK).

Vengar the Barbarian is a not-so-subtle parody of another savage sword-wielding bronze giant from a forgotten age.

NANOK is, to quote the author:

"...a pastiche fantasy adventure short story written as a humorous, light-hearted homage to many of the Sword & Sorcery creations from the 60's and 70's: The Kyrik and Kothar novels of Gardner F. Fox, the Thongor stories of Lin Carter, John Jake's Brak the Barbarian, Karl Edward Wagner's Kane adventures, and much more.

Blend in a healthy mix of cheesy barbarian movies from the 80's, Dungeons & Dragons-esque fantasy tropes, inspiration from heavy metal album covers, Frank Frazetta paintings, comic books, wargames, gratuitously violent adult cartoons, and a pigpile of other influences. What you get is a story that'll have you laughing out loud one minute and fist-pumping the air in victory the next"

I don't know about you, but I sure could use some fist-pumping.

Hmm...I'm almost positive that last statement could be interpreted in some rather embarrassing ways.

Oh, well. Moving on...

Tales of the Honor Triad are heroic fantasy more than sword & sorcery. There's plenty of sword, but only a little sorcery in the two titles published so far.

The author says:

"Tolkien and his legion of imitators have not influenced me much. You can lay the blame squarely on the heads of Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Poul Anderson."

Ain't this a great tagline?

A great storm, an epic battle, and three dangerous warriors...all on a collision course for a narrow mountain pass that is already a bloodstained defile.

And here's a teaser about Gryphon, now with a snazzy new cover:

The Honor Triad have journeyed to Javo's native country shortly after its transition from a free republic to a monarchy. The first king of Cemar has hired the three mercenaries to rid the land of the legendary supernatural beast that lives high on Mount Tirshal, outside the city. Neither the bowlegged little horse-archer Turgar, nor the furry giant Krag the Wrecker feel comfortable with the mystical forces surrounding Tirshal, but their lust for gold outweighs their fear. Still, the horrifying truth awaiting they and Javo at the gryphon's perch is more chilling than the legion of reptilian predators they'll have to fight through to reach it.

Use your battleaxe to chop open a keg of mead, ale or Red Bull, throw a few logs on the fire and download some of this gratuitous violence onto your e-reader for some good, clean fun.

Time to Frogman Up: Go See Act of Valor

2012-03-10T20:20:00.000-05:00

Last time I sacrificed a small fortune at the theater, it was to see Red Tails. I got burned on that one. But I march to the beat of a completely different drum than the lock-stepped mass media, so the hate spewing forth against this flick helped me decide to give it a chance on the big screen.

I'm glad I did.

Not that I've read all the knee-jerk criticisms of Act of Valor, but I'm sure the acting was panned. Okay, I'll admit that the performances were not Oscar caliber, but considering that the SEALs on-screen were portrayed by real life active duty SEALs, it wasn't that bad. Better, in fact, than in many films I've seen. Let's not forget this is an action movie, either.

Much of this movie was shot in something like cinema verite` (reminded me of how John Milius and George Lucas originally planned to shoot Apocalypse Now...in 16mm on location in Vietnam). In general, this worked pretty well, but did cause occasional confusion during the action sequences. Otherwise, they were fantastic.

It was nice that the Special Boat Squadrons got a little bit of cowboy time, and pretty cool to watch, too. As with all war/military flicks, I took issue with some of the tactics depicted. For instance: I've never been a SEAL, nor do I watch the reality shows about BUDS, but I should hope that on a mission requiring surprise, SEALs would know better than to silhouette themselves in front of a bright, low moon. But cinematicly, it makes for a pretty shot. Directors like to cram multiple characters into the frame, too, in tactical scenes--which causes combat formations to shrink to tactically unwise intervals. But I can nitpick pretty much any shoot-'em-up movie with those kind of observations.

The language was actually a shade tamer than in real life military units. The technical details seemed to be solid. The action was violent, but not gratuitously so; and was necessitated by the plot. In short, this was a humdinger of an action flick.

And as I suspected, Act of Valor did no political soapboxing. But the very fact that a conflict was portrayed in which there was a clear deliniation between right and wrong--and American fighting men happened to be in the right--has infuriated the Hollywood establishment. See, American GIs should be ignorant rapists, racists, murderers, exploiters of harmless Third World Paradise-Dwellers, dangerous immature loose cannons committing a Mai Lai Massacre every time the military industrial complex gives them live rounds and a plane ride over the pond. Act of Valor has committed Hollywood heresy.

It's a mystery how they avoid choking on their own hypocrisy when they call this movie "propaganda."

It's a good movie, and probably one of the least propagandistic you're going to see in theaters OR on TV this year.

The State of Action/Adventure Books (Guest Blog by Splitter)

2012-03-07T07:20:00.000-05:00

Today we have a guest blogger: C. S. Splitter, who has a couple noir-esque ebooks out that are gaining significant traction on Amazon. I welcome yet another member of our growing fraternity and encourage all Two-Fisted Blogees to check out his books; as well as follow him on the remainder of the blog tour. Warning: Drooling excessively over the books' cover art may cause damage to your keyboard.

Please believe me when I say that this blog approaches “unique” status.

When you write a book these days, one thing you seemingly MUST do is a blogtour. A blogtour is nothing more than a promotion where the author does guest posts, interviews, and reviews, in a finite period of time on various sites. Yes, it is exhausting.

So, when my second book came out, my little team decided I needed to do such a tour. The first thing I did was research on Action/Adventure blogs because, nowadays, bloggers matter. Let me tell you, there are not many! I checked GoodReads for groups dedicated to Action/Adventure and found exactly one. One! The “Two Fisted” site was one of the stops that I simply had to make. I turned my marketing person loose to make it happen and am happy to be here today. I feel at home here and that is something I cannot say for many other blogs.

Action/Adventure movies draw large audiences but the books market is dominated by a few well known authors. The reason for that, I think, is simply audience size. I am not knocking other genres, but it is pretty clear that sparkly vampires and magical romances where no one actually has sex, have huge audiences.

Maybe a smart author would look at the statistics and decide to write to the largest audience they can find. No one had ever accused me of being terribly gifted in the brain department so I never looked at statistics or researched fiction reading habits until AFTER I wrote “The Reluctant” and began the “Crayder Chronicles.”

When the idea hit me for the series, I decided that I just wanted to write a good story with believable characters. I have this undying belief that “regular people” can be heroes too. Not that all of my characters are heroes...as a matter of fact, they do some pretty questionable things. But, I longed for the “good ole days” when I, as a reader, could just lose myself in a book and that is what I blindly chose to attempt to write.

I am glad I went about it without foreknowledge of the market.

I have been exceedingly lucky. Amazon made “The Reluctant” free and it hit number two in Action/Adventure. The second time it climbed back to the same spot, I guess they took notice and put the minimum price back on it. Business is business to a corporation like that. I was using the first book as a sample, sort of like a drug dealer would do, to get people hooked on the series and buy the second book (“The Willing”) and subsequent releases. It is entirely possible that Amazon was smarter than me.

Then, a strange things happened: people started to care.

Once you put out a couple books, they start thinking you are smarter than you really might be. They ask your opinions on subjects like: What makes a good Action/Adventure book? It is awful when you have to confess that you do not really know. Authors are supposed to be smart, right?

There really is no single answer except that characters and stories still matter. A movie might get away with one action scene after another, but a good book cannot. People have to be able to identify with and care about the characters. They need plot twists and surprises. And, of course, Action/Adventure readers want some pulse pounding scenes (which are a BLAST to write, too).

The good news for those of us who write such books is that, while the audience for Action/Adventure might not be as large as that of paranormal, romance, or fantasy, the readers are dedicated and actually do some research to seek out good books in the genre.

There is an additional good piece of news for everyone: People are buying more books. Ebook sales are more than making up for the drop in print sales. That means that the audience for Action/Adventure is growing too.

The publishing world is in a huge state of flux. Traditional publishers are being replaced in some measure by independents and self published authors. That is great for readers, especially in genres like Action/Adventure that have had limited releases in the past. Now, there is choice even though you might have to dig a little bit to get to the good stuff.

The present state of Action/Adventure books might not be the brightest, but no one knows what the next trend might be. Today, it is vampires and paranormal romance, but tomorrow could see a return to the kick-butt, high adrenaline rush of a good action story.

Because...don't we all want a good escape every now and then?

Take heart. There are a bunch of new Action/Adventure authors out there and some of the books are as good as you will find anywhere. More choice has to be good.

Splitter

Many thanks, Splitter, for taking the time to share your thoughts.

Below are the jacket blurbs for his two published books, plus a brief bio:

The Reluctant:

Action, adventure, suspense, and thriller in one story told with a liberal dose of humor.

Tom’s problems are not unique. His business is failing and his wife has to work too many hours to make ends meet. He is under some rather large financial pressures and wants more from his marriage and his life.

He finds his respite in the air as a private pilot. Unfortunately for Tom, he is behind on payments for his plane and is forced to take odd jobs from a local crime boss. Tom is no criminal, but the errands he is running are just slightly on the wrong side of the law and the money is almost good enough to allow him to make his plane payments.

Just as things begin to come under some semblance of control, he meets a woman who just might represent the adventure he seeks. He soon discovers that appearances, and beautiful women, can sometimes be deceiving.

“The Reluctant” is the first in the Crayder Chronicles series and yet is a stand alone story with a satisfying conclusion of its own.

The Willing:

Book Two in "The Crayder Chronicles"

How far would you go to protect your friends and family?

Tom Crayder is the All-American guy next door with a business, a wife, a son, a mortgage, and an expensive hobby. He is also a politically incorrect, wisecracking operative working for a shadowy organization dedicated to administering justice outside of a broken system. Not even his wife knows of his other life when she finds herself unwittingly involved in a drug war.

Strap in with Tom as he navigates his way through the strata of a drug cartel. Lock and load with Lorena, a hard-hearted assassin, as she lends her deadly skills to Tom’s fight for his family. Sit back to watch Tom and Lorena figure out how to work together without killing each other.

Join the rest of the cast from "The Reluctant (Crayder Chronicles)" as they pitch in to track down the hitmen that threaten their associate.

Some mysteries are solved. Some questions are answered. Some live. Some die.

C.S. Splitter is a business man, author, and stand-up philosopher living in rural Maryland with his beautiful wife, small dog, and astonishingly large cat. He is an avid shooter and loves being 5000 feet above the ground, upside down, in an open cockpit.

He will never again jump out of a perfectly good airplane and feels the need to color outside of the lines.

Act of Valor: An End-Run Around Hollywood Thought Police?

2012-03-01T13:40:00.001-05:00

So how is it that a movie with so little Hollywood hype (that I never heard of it until after it opened) blast enough profit in the first three days to earn back its investment X2?

Judging by the industry's silence about the film, you gotta wonder if they were hoping it would flop. By all accounts, it is not the typical leftist portrayal of American fighting men as savage raping racist warmongers, which probably explains why Hollywood didn't invest nearly the marketing into it as they did for, say, Brokeback Mountain. Whatever the reason, I'm proud of moviegoers who thought for themselves this time and spent their voting dollars on something different.

And boy, does it sound different--active duty SEALs as actors, reenacting real missions? I didn't even know that was legal. This goes a step beyond those classic war flicks that show a credit to the US Armed Forces during the opening music. You know, back before schools and movie studios began conditioning citizens to be ashamed of being American and insisting on how unexceptional our country is.

I've read that the film itself really doesn't get political. By Hollywood standards I guess that makes it "conservative" or "right-wing."

Whatever. I look forward to watching it.

Task Force Intrepid by D. R. Tharp

2012-02-20T09:21:00.000-05:00

I am chipping away at my TBR (to be read) pile. Will I ever completely finish said pile? Highly doubtful. In any event, I was stoked to find yet another new paramilitary action novel available as an e-book, and set in a rather fascinating part of the world.

Ironically (because I reviewed Dark of the Sun not long ago) there are strong similarities in Gold of Katanga to the Wilbur Smith novel originally titled Road to Katanga: Both are about white mercenaries operating in the Congo, in Katanga Province, and involve missions to rescue missionaries. With those ingredients for a shoot 'em up adventure in common, each chef diverges into his own recipe (as they must, since the respective time periods are 50 years apart and the conflicts significantly different).

Dan Tharp's military experience was in the Navy, yet his research was obviously dilligent. His depiction of land-bound operators is plausible, as is his African backdrop. Where he really hits his stride, though, is during the action sequences.

I regret I was unable to read this book in a couple sittings. More like 250 mini-sittings. That's no way to read a book. Still, this is a promising kickoff to a new paramilitary series in the tradition of The Hard Corps and Soldier for Hire (also somewhere in my towering TBR pile), if not Able Team and Phoenix Force.

Task Force Intrepid is not a government-sponsored secret team of shooters, but a Private Military Company. An altruistic PMC, of course. Rest assured that moral ambiguity was not a goal of the author's, so you will have no trouble distinguishing who to love and who to hate.

US-based (but Afrikaaner-led) TFI's mission is to recover a couple gold mines captured by the bad guys. An additional objective is later added to rescue what is left of a missionary group now hostages of a cutthroat jungle gangster.

The plot and themes are timely; the technical details are well-researched, and the action flows like blood from a major artery. Stalwart men's adventure, here.

Rocky-Sockem Robots (Real Steel)

2012-02-11T10:09:00.002-05:00

Looking back over January, it seems I inadvertently turned it into Military Month.

The military is where I came from and a large part of who/what I turned out to be, so I suppose it's natural this sort of thing can happen without conscious effort. But let's set the record straight: the Two-Fisted Blog is not just about the Armed Forces and/or war. I blog about violence, mayhem and fiery explosions in civilian contexts, too.

The missus picked out Real Steel at Redbox thinking that both our four-year-old and I would like it. She was right about that, but didn't anticipate how much she herself would enjoy it. I watched it once with them and they watched it twice more while I was at work the next day. And she doesn't normally watch movies more than once. So right there I can dub this a fine selection to watch with the family.

While the plot unfolded on screen, I couldn't help comparing this flick to an old Twilight Zone episode about boxing robots. It turns out I had also read the source material from which that episode was adapted: a short story titled Steel. In it, the sport of boxing has become all about fighting robots. The protagonist, a manager with an old clunker robot, decides to fight in its stead when the old rattletrap breaks down for the final time.

Sure enough, a quick Bing search revealed that this movie was indeed inspired by that story. But the adaptation was loose. There were superficial changes, such as the boxers were huge robots that could in no way be mistaken for human beings. But more characters and themes were introduced as well. There was a tiny romantic subplot that your significant other might appreciate. But the main theme had to do with a deadbeat dad who gets a second chance to be a father to his abandoned son. There's no danger of an Academy Award nomination, here, but it's a worthwhile family bonding opportunity.

I wouldn't mind watching it again myself, though the Hugh Jackman character really gets on my nerves for the first half of the flick. (Intentionally so.)

Also, there are suggestions that the sparring 'bot is sentient, but that's never completely established.

One of my coolest Christmas gifts ever as a boy was Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots. When I saw the trailer for Real Steel, I initially thought this was another Hollywood fluff piece based on a toy (or a videogame, though I don't know if there ever was a videogame version of RSR). Even so, it looked cool. And I suspect RSR was an influence for the film makers. Also the familiar impossible underdog theme used to such popular effect in Rocky I and other jock movies (Mystery, Alaska comes to mind).

You not only get to see robots fighting each other, but also a robot fighting a 2,000 pound bull. Tell me that's not worth a buck and change at Redbox.

Another Triumph For Truth, Justice, and Automatic Weapons

2012-02-01T00:10:00.002-05:00

Americans love a great comeback story, don't we? Whether it be John Elway, Sugar Ray Leonard, Frank Sinatra, Douglas MacArthur, Superman II or Rocky III, we're all suckers for heroes who suffer reversals but come back swinging. Heck, Arnold Swarzenegger's superstardom began the moment he uttered "I'll be back" from the silver screen.

As a Special Forces officer in Vietnam, Jim Morris suffered a significant setback in the form of a combat wound which forced his retirement. But that didn't keep him away from Indochina or from the Montagnards he'd lived, fought and trained with so extensively--he returned as a war correspondent. In fact, he covered several Third World hot spots after that.

And lucky for literate, red-blooded males, he began writing books, too. War Story, The Devil's Secret Name and Fighting Men earned him the respect of servicemen, veterans and lifelong civilians. He wrote some dang good fiction, too.

Time marched on. Books went out of print. Self-appointed soothsayers in the publishing industry decided for us what we were willing to read...and it wasn't the kind of books Jim Morris wrote. Oh yeah--there was also a movie called The Rookie which helped supplant the identity of the man associated with that name in the popular consciousness.

Time kept marching. As tends to happen, changes in technology and culture take place. First came POD publishing. Then e-publishing. Then the Two-Fisted Blog! Maybe not in that exact order, but the point is, some great books and great authors will be fighting their way back into the literary landscape.

I've already got some teasing tidbits on my Virtual Pulp Press site, while more and better morsels are in the works. Jim's got some great stories to share, both within and without his books, and I'll be passing some of them along in months to come.

Red Tails Report Card

2012-01-29T12:48:00.001-05:00

Hollywood titans have always enjoyed varying degrees of success or failure vis a vis the amount of creative control they have over their films. Charlie Chaplin's success skyrocketed when he began directing his own comedies. Contemporary silent clown Harold Lloyd crashed and burned when he was given directorial control. Or so I've read. George Lucas's ascension from California film school nerd into the Hollywood pantheon happened because of two films: American Graffiti and Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope).

Despite his debut, the box-office flop THX1138, he was given a chance at another feature. American Graffiti did so well, having such a great return on the investment, that the studios let him shoot his fairy-tale space opera despite a consensus that it would be a colossal failure. In fact, he funded much of the production with his profits from American Graffiti (creating Industrial Light and Magic in the process). Well, he proved everyone wrong with the phenomenal success of Star Wars, obviously.

I want to point out that Lucas's screenplays for these great films were tuned up by other writers. The first two Star Wars sequels were box office smashes, too (despite the annoying Ewoks and growing obsession with grotesque aliens), written and directed by someone other than Lucas. As evident in More American Graffiti, when left with sole creative control of a film, Lucas's cinematic efforts were forgettable.

A generation later, his Star Wars prequel trilogy was a special effects bonanza (soon to be re-released in 3D), but the storytelling had lost a whole lot of zing. Surprise surprise: his creative control over the projects was as unquestionable as the Pope's decrees are to Catholicism. Detect a pattern yet?

So, as I blogged before, I was invited to see Red Tails with some friends, and jumped at the chance since it's about the Tuskeegee Airmen in WWII. We just went last night.

Lucas is credited as the producer, not the director, but his fingerprints are all over this flick. Deep, deep fingerprints, as in "dictatorial control" fingerprints. Unfortunately, it conforms to the pattern of the Lucas canon. I've decided to review this flick via letter grade, based on a few different aspects.

TECHNICAL ACCURACY: C-

Hey, they seem to have gotten the superficial aircraft details right. Also, they did have a broad-brush grasp of the air campaign in Europe.

But the bulk of the research to fill in the military details seems to have been done, not by consulting technical advisors with military experience or studying military history, but by watching old war movies. Writers should know something about what the military is like. Actors should be taught how to wear the uniform, how to throw a friggin' salute, when to have their headgear on and when not, etc.

I've never been a fighter pilot, but it seems to me the air combat sequences were comic-book fanciful. No biggie--it was fun to watch...with one irritating caveat: No P-40 or P-51 pilot in the film dropped a single bomb, yet their guns seemed to have the same effect that bombs would have. Whatever they strafed exploded as if the Germans had coated all the equipment in their entire war machine with C-4 rigged with gunfire-triggered detonators. I mean, if a pilot's machineguns scored a hit on a sheet of plywood, it would have caused a half-kiloton explosion.

ACTING: B

"90% of directing is casting." So goes the old sage's axiom in Tinseltown. All the actors in this film are either talented or at least competent, though I grudgingly agree with other critics that the characters they were given to play were little more than types (stereotypes, archetypes--call them what you will).

SPECIAL EFFECTS: A-

The dogfight scenes are terrific. About as good as CGI is presently capable of.

SCREENPLAY: C+

This didn't become a big hairy political diatribe, and I'm grateful for that. But the dialog, while not horrible, was pretty hackneyed--something you'd expect from a WWII film shot in 1942. There were some transitions that gave nice understatement to the thematic stream. But significant plot points struck me as contrived. And the romantic subplot seemed tacked on merely to make one character's fate more poignant. It was underdeveloped, overplayed, not very honest considering the geo-historic backdrop, and ultimately pointless.

OTHER ELEMENTS: D+

I don't normally include criticism of the musical score, and never before have criticized credits. When those elements are bad enough to draw attention to themselves, let alone merit mention in a review, they're pretty bad. Lucas financed this film all with his own money, and these are two aspects in which it shows. The credits looked like what you'd see in a low budget TV show--like they were added by a vintage video toaster at an access cable station. The score wasn't as bad; but it was unremarkable. I did like the inclusion of America the Beautiful, but I can't help thinking it was added due to its public domain status, not because the musicions had any passion for the music. There were points in the film where the maker(s) were trying to pull my heartstrings, or at least generate some kind of emotional response. A good composer can help them do that, even when the writing and acting don't carry their fair share of the load. Whoever this composer was did not. This was most disappointing, since other Lucas films were so spot-on in this regard (think of John Williams' Star Wars theme--it was absolutely perfect).

My overall assessment of Red Tails is a "C." Wait for Red Box, then watch it with your 13-or-older kids on a family day with lots of popcorn. Loud, crunchy popcorn.

Recently Discovered Mack Bolan Trailer

2012-01-25T16:15:00.000-05:00

Somehow I never imagined the Executioner with toy cars on his dresser...

Was I such a dork when I was a kid? Yeah, probably.

No, make that definitely.

Nice to see the youth of America prying themselves away from the PS3 long enough to do something creative.

Planning to go see Red Tails

2012-01-18T10:32:00.001-05:00

2011 struck me as a more-abysmal-than-usual year for Hollywood. The two bright spots, for me, were Captain America: The First Avenger and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. But George Lucas' new WWII flick is one I'll probably see in a theater instead of via Redbox.

Reason enough is that some friends I haven't spent time with for quite a while suggested we go see it together. But there's a lot of other factors motivating me to spend a small fortune at the box office. The most obvious to Two-Fisted Blogees is that I like history, and am a WWII buff. That's still the most fascinating time period for me, out of many. (As I've admitted before, it was from learning about D-Day and the 101st's defense of Bastogne during the Bulge that made me want to go Airborne...)

In addition, I studied both the Tuskegee Airmen and the Buffalo Soldiers (and began writing about them) years before movies were made (by someone else, doggone it) to bring the subject matter into the popular consciousness.

While I vainly(?) hope I'm not going to be cinematically lectured for two hours on what a racist nation we are, the fact is there was a lot of institutionalized racism back then, which is infuriating to think about. History has been revised to deceive the masses about what side of the aisle it came from, and that's infuriating, too.

In the film titled Tuskegee Airmen (also staring Cuba Gooding, Jr.), the filmmaker focused not exclusively on race-based oppression, but how a group of determined Americans overcame it and beat all the odds stacked against them. If Red Tails takes the same approach, I'll probably like it.

Politically Incorrect Sci-Fi?

2012-01-07T23:48:00.002-05:00

2FB: I am pleased to present this interview with science fiction author Walter Knight, who has 14 books (so far) in his America's Galactic Foreign Legion series published. I had put some of his books up on Virtual Pulp Press before realizing this was the same Walter who occasionally commented on the Two-Fisted Blog. Welcome, Walter! Tell us about the AGFL series.

WALTER: Thank you Hank for inviting me to the 'Two-Fisted Blogger'.

America's Galactic Foreign Legion is a 14 book science fiction series using humor to depict a strong America taking humanity and American culture across the galaxy to fight aliens on a distant planet colony. AGFL started out as serious “Starship Troopers” type military science fiction, but soon evolved into something else, something special.

I explore the Americanization of space. What does that mean? In the universe I create, after several wars, America is forced to share a distant planet colony with the Arthropodan Empire. They're spiders. In fact, humanity is alone in a galaxy full of various bug civilizations.

America's Galactic Foreign Legion maintains a fragile truce with the spiders across a DMZ, but our real secret weapon is our culture. The aliens succumb to American culture when we bring in the heavy artillery: satellite TV, fast food, McDonald's, Walmart, the Mafia, drugs, alcohol, casino gambling, sports betting, football, baseball, Nike sports products, skateboards, the Teamsters Union, the internet, gold rushes, immigration, Starbucks coffee, cigarettes, MREs, terrorist insurgency, lawyers, democracy, freedom, American music, and sex. The aliens belatedly try to legislate against the Americanization of their culture, but resistance is futile.

I draw a parallel with the Americanization of third world countries in our real world. For example, you have Kentucky Fried Chicken in Baghdad, and McDonald's hamburgers in Pakistan. Rioters in Egypt complaining about American influence carry iPods, and wear American T-shirts and Nike shoes. Iran and China tried to legislate against American influence by restricting internet use and banning satellite dishes, but it's too late. America has already won. It's just a matter of time before the whole world becomes American.

America's Galactic Foreign Legion has been described as politically incorrect, and I will admit some of my legionnaires have issues, and are a bit shady and unethical. Some will steal anything not nailed down, and the lead character is a compulsive gambler. However, unlike other military humor (M.A.S.H. and Catch-22, for instance), my books have a positive American military spin. If humanity ever crosses the galaxy, it will be on American starships. No one else can do it. Is portraying a strong future America politically incorrect? I don't think so. Some people just can't handle a strong America. Too bad, so sad, for them.

2FB: Pontificate a bit on the state of science fiction, where it came from, how it got to the point it's at now, and where you see it going. Also how your books fit into it, and/or into the military sci-fi niche.

WALTER: Science fiction represents about six percent of book sales. It truly has become a niche market. Many publishers will not even consider Sci/Fi submissions, considering the genre unprofitable. Divide science fiction into speculative fiction and fantasy. I do not consider tales of magic and vampires to be science fiction, and it irritates me to see real science fiction forced to share shelf space with such books.

Science fiction is sub-categorized even further into end-of-the-world stories, zombies, space exploration, and military science fiction. I have created even more of a niche market by leaving the Star Trek type starships behind, and writing about infantry soldiers. The humor aspect leaves America's Galactic Foreign Legion all alone among new science fiction.

I am not happy with the current state of science fiction in books and film. Science fiction has been abandoned to liberals, with their sorry tales about failed ecology, Apocalypse America, U.N.-type galactic governments, evil corporations, politically correct female warriors, and anti-military rhetoric. Someone needs to bring back John Wayne. I suspect that Hollywood and the Big Six New York publishing establishment is biased, and suppresses conservative science fiction. At the very least there is a void that I will gladly fill.

2FB: Oh you suspect that, do you? Personally, I suspect the Al Capone mob sometimes engaged in behavior that could be construed as possibly illegal. How long did you try to get somebody in New York's attention before you got published?

WALTER: My story started out similar to many other writers. I sent my manuscript out to every publisher and agent I could find online, getting back many form rejection letters. To my dismay I found that large publishers did not want unsolicited manuscripts from new authors, and required I submit through an agent. These days you almost need an agent to get an agent. Finally an agent in his rejection letter gave me some sage advice. He advised that I write a sequel. He stated that no matter how well I write, one-hit wonders are unprofitable, and no agent will touch them.

Read the complete interview on VPP, where you can also find links to all 14 books in the series.

A New Men's Adventure Smorgasbord

2012-01-03T23:18:00.000-05:00

Years ago when snail-mailing traditional publishers in the fruitless attempt to get one of them to answer my query letters, I sometimes wondered if the market for men's adventure, military fiction in particular, had disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle, the Phantom Zone, or whatever nether-region was now home to John Doe # 2, the Lost Ark of the Covenant, and rugged individualism.

Since joining the e-publishing revolution I've discovered that, not only does the market still exist, but I've got competition, too!

First I met Jack Murphy. Anyone who has followed the 2-Fisted Blog is probably familiar with his books. But recently, Jack introduced me to a couple more authors writing the sort of fiction I miss from back in the day. You know--before the tradpub (traditional publishing) fiefdom became all about vampires, chick-lit and political thrillers.

Frankly, I welcome the competition. Hey, I like to read, too, and I've worn out some of my favorite old paperbacks. Know what else? Evidently, the new breed is writing action-adventure with a much more substantial grounding in reality than most of the escapist fare we cut our literary teeth on.

One of my new comrades is Jack Silkstone. If you haven't heard of his Primal series, I don't know where you've been hiding. Maybe the YA paranormal section at Barnes & Noble. Wait a minute...Barnes & Noble IS the YA paranormal section. Anyway, quit pining for your imaginary shapeshifting teenage soulmate, shed those Gothic clothes and the emo makeup and ride along with a private army of well-funded international vigilantes dedicated to putting down the scumbags that western governments are unable or unwilling to kick where it hurts.

Another up-and-coming author is D.R. Tharp, who has conceived Task Force Intrepid, an ethical mercenary unit following in the footsteps of Executive Outcomes--fighting battles that SpecOps won't and conventional armies can't.

Is it just me, or did the collective cinematic output of Hollywood in 2011 suck even worse than normal? No doubt the Tinseltown suits are rifling through old TV series, action figures and board games right now to find the next fresh, original, CGI blockbuster.

Now you can rediscover your literacy without drowning in a sea of estrogen. Unless you want to.

Enjoy the kind of stories somebody in Hollywood should be telling, with pyrotechnics detonated directly in your mind; and characters who are true badasses--not pampered wimpy movie stars pretending to be the real deal.

This is just the beginning of the dude-lit renaissance. Pencil-necked lawyers and bisexual werewolves are no match for us.

US Military Jargon Part 4

2011-12-24T12:06:00.000-05:00

Another installment from the Hell and Gone website is long overdue, so here it is:

DD214: Official discharge form; "walking papers;" ticket to the World.
Deck: Floor or ground (navy/marine term).
Delta Force: A semi-secret subunit within the US Army portion of SOCOM, organized for direct action in counterterrorist ops, hostage rescue, etc.
DEVGRU: Short for "Development Group"--unofficially "Seal Team 6," a sub-unit within the Navy SEALs with a mission similar to Delta Force.
Didimau: Leave, run, escape, evacuate. (Vietnam era.)
Dittybop: To walk at civilian speed, usually with a swagger.
DILLIGAF: "Does it look like I give a (flute)?"
Dinki-dau: Insane; nutso; loony; whacked-out. (Vietnam era.)
Fartsack: A sleeping bag.
Fast mover: Jet fighter, jet bomber or jet attack aircraft (not counting the A10).
FNG: "F(lipping) New Guy"; a rookie; cherry; newbie.
Frag: Noun: Fragmentation grenade. The famous WWII/Korea "pineapple" type was replaced by a "baseball" type during Vietnam. Verb: To assassinate a unit member--usually an officer or NCO--in the field.
Front Lean-and-rest: The position from which push-ups are executed. There is no resting (or leaning, for that matter) involved. "Lean'n'rest" for short.
FUBAR: F(ouled) up beyond all recognition. (Originally a navy term, WWII era. Used by characters in Saving Private Ryan probably because the technical advisor was a marine.)
F(orget) the dumb s(tuff): Just get the job done, and don't waste time and effort going by the book, following assinine regulations or adhering to strac SOPs.

New Two-Fisted Fight Series

2011-12-11T09:21:00.002-05:00

So far as I know, it's been quite a while since fiction like this has been available, and I'm pretty stoked that it's making a comeback.

Felony Fists is an installment in the new pulp Fight Card series by "Jack Tunney." For you armchair fight historians out there, that nome de plume is exactly what you suspect it is--a fusion between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, though the series takes place in the '50s, not the '20s.

Patrick "Felony" Flynn is an LA beat cop who is also possibly the world's most seasoned amateur middleweight. He's offered a spot on the detective squad if he'll help knock gangster Mickey Cohen out of boxing. That means he has to move up in weight to light-heavy, turn pro, and check Cohen's fighter Solomon King's ascent toward a title shot against Archie Moore (who really was light-heavyweight champ at that time, and quite an extraordinary man). A middleweight moving up to fight a badass light-heavyweight is a monumental chore all by itself, but in case the reader doesn't appreciate that, the pressure is heaped upon Felony Flynn increasingly right up until the last chapter.

During all this time, Flynn becomes partners with another rookie detective, Tombstone. A black detective on an historically/notoriously bigoted force like the LAPD must be exceptional, and Tombstone is. This subplot, a counterfeiting subplot, and the fight plot all come together and are tied off nicely. The writer set out to tell a retro-style pulp boxing yarn and I'd say he did a good job.

For my taste, Cohen's tactic to get Flynn to throw the fight was overkill. The stakes were plenty high already, as were the odds against Flynn in the fight. For Cohen to be so scared of an Irish brawler with one professional fight (against an over-rated has-been) presenting a threat to a contender who consumes talented pros for breakfast (and who Archie Moore is worried about) was just too much. In Flynn's other fights, he never was 100% on. He was either distracted, or careless...something to put the outcome in doubt. I really would have liked to see Flynn go to war from Round One in the climactic fight, and let the tension come from the fact that he's overmatched, and making it through 15 rounds with Solomon King requires a superhuman effort. Plenty of tension that way and far more realistic.

Speaking of realism, I just have to provide the following advisory about boxing technicalities:

In boxing, a right-handed fighter does not have a right jab or a right hook. He jabs and hooks with the left. He throws straight rights or a right cross. (Everything I'm saying is mirror-opposite for a southpaw, of course.) What some people call a right hook from a right-hander is actually either an angled right uppercut or a roundhouse right--an ill-advised punch 99% of the time, though I did see Lennox Lewis score a knockout with one.

I don't know how many other readers would notice or care about getting these fundamental details right, but for me it was an annoyance in what otherwise was an enjoyable read. And to be fair, a LOT of authors who write about boxing make these kind of mistakes. Even legendary writers like Robert E. Howard didn't always get everything right.

At the back of this book are sneak previews of two other tales from the Fight Card series. In The Cut Man, the author confuses the 1st Marine Division ("The Old Breed") with the 1st Infantry Division ("The Big Red One"). That made me grind my teeth, and I know any marine or grunt who reads it will have problems with it, too. I hope the author will correct this (edits are easy and painless for e-books), because details like this can really ruin a story for some readers.

The Wild Geese

2011-12-06T00:56:00.001-05:00

Don't ask me why it's taken so long for me to see this movie. It's up there with The Dogs of War for famous flicks about mercenaries. Finally having seen it, my feelings are mixed.

In short, I'd like to read the book because I suspect it is substantially better (usually a safe bet). There are things that bother me a lot about the movie from a tactical perspective. Even if the writer/screenwriter knows their stuff, actors and directors can still screw up the realism. These guys fight like they have no concept of cover or concealment. They don't even attempt to maintain reasonable intervals in the bush. They wear their berets (even the maroon ones, complete with shiny insignia) in the field--honestly, who does that? I could go on.

On the positive side, there were some realistic things. A plan only survives up until the first contact with the enemy, and we see this happen more than once in this flick. And our heroes are betrayed by the suits who sent them to do the dirty merc work. Boy, does that ring true--especially in Africa.

My original title for Hell and Gone was The Has-Beens. That label fits the Wild Geese even better than it fits my fictional mercs. I think there were only 2 bodies under 40 years old in the whole outfit.

Anyway, there are more wasteful activities you could engage in for 129 minutes. And I do want to read the book, now.

PROMIS # 2: Rhodesia by Jack Murphy

2011-11-24T00:09:00.000-05:00

The love affair with my Kindle rolls on. I have kicked off this Thanksgiving by finishing Jack Murphy's latest installment in the PROMIS series.

Sean Deckard is back. Last we saw him, in PROMIS: Vietnam, he was a One-Zero on a SOG team. He made some mistakes fatal to his career in the US military: he assumed the top brass in his chain-of-command wanted victory in Vietnam (an assumption so many people still make), and he went berserk on a room full of field-grade officers.

Despite that most un-soldierly conduct in his past, Deckard is a soldier through and through, with no desire to be anything else. I'm tempted to compare him with the main character in "The Hurt Locker." War is all he knows and seemingly all he wants to know...the family he acquires in this tale notwithstanding. But Deckard isn't just an adrenaline junkie. He cares about more than just the rush of death's presence--namely achieving the long-term, big-picture objectives that win wars. IOW what western politicians allegedly send young men to war for.

What happened in Rhodesia is a sadly familiar story to anyone familiar with what's been happening in Africa from 1945 to the present. The betrayal of the men sacrificing for duty, honor and country by fat cats and chairborne commandos with hidden agendas is also tragically reminiscent of what Deckard glimpsed in Vietnam. If allowed to pursue victory on a strategic level, the Rhodesians probably would have prevailed, and the author shows that (or at least Deckard's perception of it) without getting bogged down in the geopolitics.

The action is fast and heavy, but never without purpose and impact on the flow of the plot. We are also teased along with Deckard by another encounter of the "predictive algorithms" of the PROMIS project. We can't help but imagine (especially given the title of the series) that Deckard is on a collision course with PROMIS, which will play a larger and larger role in future installments. This e-book could use some editing, but is a good, fast read.

The Return: a Novel of Vietnam by Charles W. Sasser

2011-11-15T06:36:00.000-05:00

I've read a couple of Sasser's autobiographical works, as well as 100th Kill--his other Vietnam novel. While I appreciate his perspective (he's a vet of the Special Forces Reserves, an author and a rancher, among other things), I've always found his writing to be competent, but not stellar. By his own admission he is not the most talented writer...but he is hard-working at his craft (if any of you remember the paramilitary magazines of the '80s competing with Soldier Of Fortune, he wrote many articles for them). So I wasn't quite prepared for the caliber of this novel.

The Return is one fine work of fiction--probably Sasser's best, though I haven't read all his books to state that emperically.

The narrator is Jack Kazmarek, a widower with miriad health problems on top of his PTSD. For many years he has been neighbors with another Vietnam vet, Pete Brauer. Both of them were mustang officers--having taken their lumps as enlisted men prior to being commissioned. Kazmarek was a platoon leader in the 9th Infantry, while Brauer had been a Navy SEAL. Although both of them spent a tour in the same AO during the same time, they never met until retiring in the same Florida trailer park decades later.

The story opens on the loss of Kazmarek's closest friend. Pete dies alone in his trailer, clutching a photo of a beautiful French-Vietnamese woman. Jack has noticed the portrait in his friend's house over the years (even finding her face familiar), but Pete rarely talked about it. His only mention of the woman in the image was cryptic: "May God forgive me."

Jack is almost as intrigued as I was. Eventually he begins investigating, to find out who the woman was and where she might be now. The investigation leads Jack back to Vietnam where he must confront some of his own long-buried demons.

The story is filled in with flashbacks--some of Jack's own, but most by the people who remembered Pete and Mhai (the woman in the photo). All the reader's curiosity is satisfied by the end, as we learn just how extensively Jack and Pete crossed each others' paths during that insane conflict.

Sasser is not your typical war novelist who portrays American involvement in Indochina as one huge Mai-Lai massacre. And yet he does depict atrocities committed by Americans. And there is surprising depth to all the main characters, including the Viet Cong, who are treated as even-handedly as any reasonable person could hope for. Sasser's Vietnam is not black or white, but a convoluted, maddening mess of grays. Perhaps the Cong sympathizers (which comprise most of our government, media and education establishments) would even enjoy how, in the novel, US forces suffer a significant tactical defeat--something that didn't happen but makes the VC seem more heroic in retrospect. Everyone conveniently forgets that failure to achieve victory in Vietnam was mandated by the very government that put Americans in harm's way to begin with. The VC and NVA didn't defeat the US military--the "war" was lost in the Oval Office.

There are a few plot twists Sasser has in store, and I didn't deduce all of them beforehand correctly. Characters are complex and believable. Narrator Jack Kazmarek has political opinions, but the story "he" tells lets the chips fall where they may, regardless of who it may please or offend (in fact, it reminds me somewhat of The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna). There's enough action and conflict to keep you turning pages, and even a few tugs at your emotions here and there.

This is a very good novel.

Mercs in the Congo: Dark of the Sun by Wilbur Smith

2011-11-08T06:40:00.001-05:00

The 20th Century history of the (formerly Belgian) Congo is a fitting representation of what the United Nations is all about when the rubber meets the road.

A novel about mercenaries operating for Katanga, written by Afro-centric historical thriller writer Wilbur Smith just promised too many savory ingredients (prepared by a master chef) for me to resist. I haven't researched this yet, but I have a strong suspicion the Bruce Willis flick Tears of the Sun was adapted from this yarn--updated from the early 1960s to about 2003, changed from mercenaries to SEALs, and some other tweaks.

(It turns out what I have is an abridged version, so my comments may not apply to unabridged versions.) Uncharacteristically for Smith, he completely ignores the politics of the historic backdrop and focuses solely on the immediate plot: Mercenary commander Bruce Curry (a Rhodesian) is tasked to rescue a small community of Belgians who've been cut off by the cannibalistic Balubas. More importantly (to the warring powers-that-be) there's a stash of diamonds among the refugees. More importantly (to Commander Curry) there's a hot French widow among them, too.

Initially the plan is for Curry and his Mercs (diseased-but-faithful Sergeant-Major Rofi, ostracized alcoholic surgeon-turned-soldier Mike Haig, loose-cannon type "A" psycho Wally Hendry, and a couple platoons of gendarmes) to put the civilians on a train and ride with them to safety in Katanga. At first it goes along quite well. Even UN fighter aircraft fail to stop the train. But, c'mon folks, this is Wilbur Smith. Nothing can go well for long. An enemy field gun takes out the locomotive, then Curry has a few more bridges to cross (sometimes literally) while encountering various flavors of adversity along the way.

Used to Smith's doorstop-sized epics, I found this to be an unusually quick read. Perhaps because this is just a straightforward adventure tale with a small cast of characters taking place in a short period of time. I almost felt a little cheated that it ended so quickly.

The good thing about this book's brevity is that the author minimized scenes that test the squeamishness of his readers (for a non-horror author, Smith seems to enjoy the gruesome side of violence, if not the macabre, in most of his books). There was a gross moment when Curry was sobering Haig up in one scene; and a combat amputation made me grit my teeth --though he thankfully went into no gory details.

I would not call this Smith's best, or his worst. IMO it could have benefited from a bit more action or fleshing out, but even when he doesn't give 100%, he is still a heap good adventure writer.

Picture Yourself Reading e-Fiction Magazine, and Win a Kindle Fire!

2011-11-01T07:05:00.001-04:00

It's almost that simple: Submit a photo of yourself reading this e-zine and you'll gain entry into a contest to win a free Kindle Fire.

Here's a description from eFiction's website:

eFiction started as a small group of writers and fiction-enthusiasts getting together online to share stories. It has exploded into a global fiction phenomenon. eBooks are taking over the world and eFiction is leading the charge. The best authors on the internet collaborate to produce eFiction for your reading pleasure.

Back issues are available for download right on the site, and of course you can subscribe to them via your Kindle.

Each issue seems to have its own theme (will November be a Halloween issue?) with multiple stories from various writers, plus author interviews and the like. This could be a chance for you to discover your next favorite author (and maybe win the Kindle Fire!).

Coming attractions (projected book reviews in the 2-Fisted Blog Queue): Dark of the Sun by Wilbur Smith; The Return: A Novel of Vietnam by Charles W. Sasser; Jack Murphy's PROMIS: Rhodesia; and The Adventures of No Eyes by Phil Duke.

Social Networking For Bookworms

2011-10-20T22:31:00.000-04:00

I wasn't even aware of Facebook until it had (apparently) taken over the world. People had tried to get me to join My Space and I think I did create a profile once, but didn't do much with it. Same with Twitter. I tweeted up a storm for a few weeks or so, but never understood what the use was. Still don't, frankly. I don't find others' tweets very interesting. I don't think mine are all that interesting, either.

I was told "everybody" was on Facebook, and only losers weren't on it. I heard friends talking about statuses and walls, friends and likes, but it was all Greek to me. I finally joined due to advice that it was a fantastic marketing tool, and I had just published a book.

From a marketing perspective, Facebook has been a bust for me. But I did play some lame-but-addictive Facebook games for a minute when I first started. I made hundreds of new "friends," was found by relatives I didn't remember...I even found a couple guys from units I served in.

Joining Facebook was like opening a floodgate. Since then I've been inundated with invitations to join more social networks--of which the variety seems to be infinite.

Are you kidding me? I can't even keep up with Facebook! (And Twitter, and my blog, and the Kindle Boards, and Goodreads, and Shelfari, and Library Thing, and VPP, etc. etc. etc...much less my writing.)

I've got some quality pals on Facebook, but probably less than 5% of them like to read. (Read anything besides Facebook posts, that is.) That's how Genrebuds offers a significant advantage for booklovers. It's meant to be a network for literate people. Instead of compiling lists of activities and interests, favorite songs, movies, etc. (which will be obliterated during the next Facebook "upgrade"), you choose what genres you like to read when setting up your profile. There are freebies, different ways to earn points, ribbons and such if you're into all that.

The list of genres reflects the market shares of the publishing industry, so far as I can tell. Hence the sort of fiction I prefer will likely be under-represented. Even so, the chance to connect with potential readers there should still be far greater than on Facebook.

If it had been around when I first entered the social networksphere, I probably would have concentrated my efforts there.

If you like to read, and would like to network with others who do, this might be the site for you.

Louis L'Amour...Need I Say More?

2011-10-07T23:43:00.000-04:00

This incredibly prolific author is to westerns what Stephen King is to horror and Agatha Christie is to mysteries. Modern critics who insist all heroes be flawed despise writers like the old merchant marine (that's right--he spent more time asea than he ever did on horseback--as you'll learn in the interesting introduction/L'Amour biography). And yes, his books do tend to be formulaic. But hey--he developed his own formula. He didn't copy Zane Gray, Max Brand or anyone else.

In West of the Tularosa, a compilation of some shorter fiction from his early career (most of it written for western pulps), the legendary author is a bit more versatile than most of us have gotten used to. Oh, sure: The hero of each story is pretty much the same guy with a different name and a different gun (once in a while a different occupation--like an hombre who traps mountain lions for circuses). OK. And the leading ladies are all the same fetching western lass, as well. Granted. And big surprise: aforementioned hero always beats the bad guys and wins the heart of aforementioned fetching western lass. But don't assume L'Amour was just conforming to the times he grew up in. Watch a boxing movie from the time period in these tales were written (late '40s-early '50s), or some film noir, or read some of the crime fiction of the period. Pop culture had its share of squeaky-clean, handsome, G-rated good guys up to this point, to be certain; but to stick with that ran against the artistic zeitgeist.

L'Amour's protagonists weren't just handsome good guys--they were good good guys. Clean, honorable and honest. This reflected the sentimentality he and his readers felt about the frontier stage of American history. As Gene Autry sang in "Back in the Saddle Again":

...Out where a friend is a friend
Where you sleep out every night
And the only law is right

The "wild west" is frequently characterized as lawless. Well, they certainly didn't have all the police and jack-booted federal agents harassing the citizenry that we do now. Or lawyers, either. Yet society as a whole functioned much better then, despite the respective technology (women and children were safer, statistically, in the very worst frontier towns than they are today in our cities, for instance). Why? Most of the citizens didn't know much about the law, but they sure knew right from wrong.

Can't really say that today, can we?

We could sure use the kind of men L'Amour wrote about in our country now. It would be nice if everyone could brag that their "friends" were truly friends, too.

There were some good yarns in this anthology. Some felt cut a little short, probably due to their original pulp-bound purpose. A few could (should?) have been expanded to novel-length. It's easy to see why so many readers relate to this author's protagonists--they're young, strong, brave, good-looking and honest to a fault. Oh yeah, and almost always a phenomenal gunfighter, even if they punch cattle for a living. As Jeff Cooper might say, "They ride (hard), shoot straight, and speak the truth."

My favorite yarn in the batch was the last, the longest, and the one from which the title of this anthology was taken: West of the Tularosa. It's on the complex side for a L'Amour tale, some whodunnit mystery mixed in with the familiar range conflict.

R.I.P. Louis, we miss you. And your heroes.

Robert E. Howard's Map

2011-09-29T12:46:00.001-04:00

Seems like most fantasy authors these days build worlds from scratch for their characters to quest through. Not the case with some of the pioneers in the genre, I would guess.

I'm far from an expert on Tolkien, but the fact that his most famous fictional setting was a place called "Middle Earth" suggests that he intended some sort of connection with historic reality.

When introduced to Robert E. Howard's fantasy, I first assumed the Conan character's home world had been built from scratch, so foreign were most of the geographic and ethnic terms to me at the time. But as I delved deeper, I discovered clues now and then (some subtle, some huge) that Conan's world was Earth...maybe just in some sort of alternate history. (A whopper of a clue happened in the John Millius film when the Cimmerians are called "Northmen".)

In time, I came to understand that Conan did, indeed, live on Earth--but during the "Hyborian Age." From then on, I couldn't read a Conan story without trying to figure out how his geography fit into the maps I was familiar with. Some of it was determinable by logical means, like the Land of Shem and the Pictish Wilderness. But much of it left me scratching my head.

That's why I was delighted to discover a reproduction of this map, sketched by Howard himself, in which you can easily discern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa underneath his Hyborian boundaries. Now I (and you) have this handy reference to help us trace the barbarian's footsteps.

Celebrate Cheap Kindle Books!

2011-09-19T16:30:00.000-04:00

Hello 2-Fisted Blogees. Just a quick note to tell you about Daily Cheap Reads--a site where all books are $5 or less.

You may think I'm crazy for plugging the competition like this. Well, selling books is not a zero-sum game, as others have pointed out. People who like to read don't stop after the first book they buy, then never read again. Plus, the focus of Daily Cheap Reads is different from Virtual Pulp Press. There is some overlap in our target demographics, but I can live with that.

Most of the books featured at Daily Cheap Reads have at least 5 reviews on Amazon, so vetting is fairly easy. I hope you'll go check their site out. With all the changes happening in the publishing industry, this may be the best book lovers have ever had it.

Good News For Pulpy Action Adventure Fans Part 2

2011-09-08T16:00:00.000-04:00

It's official! The Virtual Pulp bookstore is now open. I'm pasting an excerpt from the "about us" page below:

Ever since Quentin Tarantino's film, just about everyone is familiar with the term "pulp fiction." But do you know where he got that title?

Unlike highbrow literature from the 19th and 20th Century, pulp fiction was written entertainment for the regular guy, printed on the cheap paper from which it got its name.

Writers in pulp fiction gave the world escape from the dreary and mundane with heroes like Conan, Tarzan, Sam Spade and Buck Rogers. Over time, the pulps evolved into the action-adventure paperbacks of the 1960s-80s, as documented in Jack Badelaire's first issue of Hatchet Force. Characters like the Executioner, Nick Carter and Remo Williams inspired legions of imitators, as well as blazing a trail for other "men's fiction" authors to tittilate us with action adventure series set in WWII, the Wild West, the Banana Wars or outer space. Some of it was bad. Some of it was good. Most of it was great fun, giving us something to chuckle or smile about (however guiltily) for far longer than a feature-length film could entertain us.

Unfortunately, "men's fiction" had all but disappeared by the 1990s. Many avid readers quit visiting the book store over the succeeding years, since there were fewer and fewer books that appealed to them. Sure, some of the gutsy, testosterone-charged titles could still be found at used book stores, or thanks to online sellers, but either venue required hours of browsing to find the desired book among the multitudes of romances, chick-lit, horror and political or techno-"thrillers."

The good news is, there are developments coalescing to benefit those who enjoy reading pulp or pulpesque fiction. One such development is a renewed interest in the genre, represented in several blogs and Facebook pages/groups dedicated to the subject matter. Another promising trend is some great new fiction by talented authors inspired by the classics--some of which is arguably even better written than the inspirational source material.

Another significant victory for the genre is the opening of Virtual Pulp Press.

Unlike other online bookstores, Virtual Pulp Press is dedicated to a certain flavor of entertainment, and is focused on that whether the format is book or e-book; non-fiction, fiction, or film.

In days to come, I'll be working on making Virtual Pulp Press even better. For right now, I think it's pretty cool and worth all the work I put into it. I hope you will check it out, and tell somebody about it.

Feel Guilty, But Enjoy Plenty Gruesome Violence First

2011-09-04T00:36:00.000-04:00

Somebody lent me the Condemned DVD and, with no internet connection at the crib, I burned up a couple hours watching it recently.

It's a scenario I've seen before: evil rich guy throws a bunch of desperate cutthroats into an elaborately controlled environment and has them fight to the death (Similar to The Running Man, in a way). The "twist" this time is that they're all death row prisoners from around the world. Evil Rich Dude's logic is, "They're gonna die anyway, so why can't I make a buck off it?"

OK--sounds logical, I guess. And there were some nice touches throughout the flick. But amidst all the splattering blood, the film makers kept going back to the theme of how inhuman the spectators can become in spectator sports. Sort of like the original Rollerball, only subtle.

As subtle as a 12-pound sledgehammer.

There were some real douche-bag characters in this flick, and the director employed all the usual tactics to make us want to see them suffer the same kind of torture and horrific deaths that they inflicted. And then we were supposed to feel guilty about it. "OMG! We're just as bad as the 40 million people paying to see this snuff circus on the internet! Maybe we're almost as bad as the eeveel capitalist scum that's getting rich off the whole thing!"

Yawn. OK, whatever. Let's get to the fighting, since that's really the appeal of this kind of film, ironic guilt messages notwithstanding.

Steve Austin...wasn't he an astronaut who suffered a terrible accident, then wound up with bionic legs, arm and eye?

I like old western movies, alright? But even so, I admit they had some of the most ridiculous fight scenes ever filmed: 20-minute bare-knuckle brawls. Punches telegraphed from two miles away. Men on the receiving end of those dramatic haymakers standing around waiting to get hit (when it was their turn). Heros flooring villains with said haymakers, then stooping down to pull the villain to his feet in order to hit him again.

Well, the fight coreography in this flick was that bad. Not just with fists, either. The sadistic, murderous ex-SAS dude was given a bow with arrows. Twice he had our hero dead to rights, but didn't take a shot. One of those times, rather than launch an arrow into Austin's considerable target area from his protected position on high ground, he jumps down to Austin's level to menace him with the bow at melee range.

I guess classic westerns have some stiff competition for Most Ridiculous Fight Scenes in "professional wrestling." That's where I think Austin came from and probably what influenced the stupid fighting.

Movies like this are hard to pull off, I guess. Especially when they take their hackneyed message too seriously.

Where There Were No Innocents by Thomas Drinkard

2011-08-28T23:27:00.000-04:00

This novel offers an officer's perspective on SOG during US involvement in Vietnam. I understand this is a prequel to another book, but this was my introduction to the author and character.

Mack Brinson is the type of officer every good soldier wishes was in charge. Though his duties in MACV-SOG seem rather nebulous, he voluntarily tags along with SOG teams that go behind the fence, and earns enough respect to be invited to the one-zero table more than once after a mission.

No Innocents provides a fascinating glimpse into the pseudo-secret SOG command structure, administration, and even some operations. It overlaps nicely with Jack Murphy's PROMIS Vietnam, which was written from the perspective of a one-zero, or SOG team leader.

After his tour begins, Brinson is targeted almost immediately by VC assassins, and has numerous close calls. The reason for his targeting really struck me as plausible, too. In fact, though I'm at least a generation too young to have ever been to Vietnam, most of this book smacked of authenticacy, thanks to the author's experience in-country. Especially the geography and character interaction...with one exception.

That exception is Brinson's whirlwind relationship with the beautiful Song. I know love-at-first-sight does happen, so it's not that that bothers me, really. But these two decide to get married after one date. I know that happens, too, especially during wartime. I just think, story-wise, it could have been milked for a lot more suspense/conflict. Some suspense did get added to the mix by way of Song's father--an influential man in South Vietnam's intelligence organization, though.

In any event, the guts of this novel is SOG's part in the war up to and including the Tet Offensive, and it was presented so well as to outweigh my issues with the romantic subplot.

Survivor #2: The Nightmare Begins by Jerry Ahern

2011-08-22T20:11:00.003-04:00

I admit this at the expense of dating myself badly, but I grew up during the end of the Cold War. From the age of seven or so, when a sibling informed me that the world could be annihilated at the push of a button, I lived with the threat of nuclear holocaust looming in the back of my mind. In fact, the very first time I heard the beeping of a phone left off the hook too long (I think I was 12 or 13), my very first thought was, "Oh, no. This is it!" Not having seen the previous generation's "Duck and Cover" films, I just assumed there was no possibility of surviving such a conflict.

A few years later, I saw The Road Warrior. That film influenced me in a few different ways. I'll mention two of those ways: 1) It caused me to consider the possibility that a nuclear exchange did not necessarily guarantee the obliteration of all human life on the planet. 2) Despite my fear of a nuclear war that could set the skies on fire at any moment, I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much that I've had an affinity for the post-apocalypse genre ever since. Back in the day, I couldn't wait for the next Doomsday Warrior or Last Ranger to be published. Yet somehow, I missed Jerry Ahern's Survivalist series.*

I've recently corrected that oversight. I now have one Survivalist under my belt* and am hungry for more.

The series' title character is John Rourke, a former CIA operative who was on a civilian flight at the hour the missiles struck. His sidekick in this book was Paul Rubenstein, a former white collar geek type with a good heart, and a mental toughness allowing him to cope and adapt well to the new world, under Rourke's hands-on tutelage. Rubenstein was on the same flight, which crashed out West. The story picks up as the pair are making their way through Texas for the eastern seaboard, where Rourke hopes to find his wife and kids still alive somehow, and Rubenstein plans to turn south into Florida to look for his parents. They're traveling on motorcycles (Rourke in style--his is a Harly).

This series has most of what you would hope to find in a post-apocalyptic yarn: A smart, skilled, resourceful hero who is up to the extraordinary task of surviving in such a world; a wide-open Wild-West type landscape of dangerous wilderness and ghost towns; and a rogue's gallery of brigands and Soviets to ensure Rourke's quest is no radioactive milk run. And yet Ahern avoided some of the cliches...er, conventions I've come to expect in the genre. There were no human mutants, for instance. Our heroes did encounter a group of infected teenagers, but the author made it clear they were living on borrowed time--not transforming into vampires or Marvel supervillains. And though there was some sexual tension here and there, there was no prose-porn.

What about gun porn? From what I've read, Ahern has a reputation for this. Maybe I still don't understand where the threshold is defined between describing a weapon/its use and descending into "gun porn," but in my opinion the author's treatment of firearms in this book was the former, and not the latter. Rubenstein's primary weapon (a WWII German submachinegun, MP40) is so interesting that I now am tempted to seek out the first issue just to find out how it was acquired. Rourke's signature side armament are twin Detonics Combat Masters, and his use of them at one point (though nothing flamboyant enough for a John Woo movie) actually had me break reading silence and sound off with a hearty "ooh-rah!" For long range, he carries a CAR-15, arguably the father of the M-4 carbine in such wide use today in US troop deployments.

I have a prejudice against the entire M16/AR15 family of weapons. The 82nd Airborne Division was usually one of the first units to get new toys (the Kevlar helmet, the M249 SAW, etc.), and I did get to plink with some M16A2s when they were still brand new. Their accuracy was pretty good, I'll admit, and they were far more dependable than the A1s I had used in OSUT. Yet I was apalled by their tendency to malfunction in spite of diligent cleaning. Especially in sandy environments. Yet the AR15 and its derivatives are still the most popular assault/battle rifle with the Pentagon and in men's fiction. There's a chance I may be able to present an interview with Jerry Ahern here on the 2-Fisted Blog soon, and this is one of the details I'm hoping he'll share his thoughts on. There are some other choices he made I'm curious about, too, so I'm hoping this interview deal pans out.

OK-moving on.

The bad guys in Nightmare Begins were also a breath of fresh air. No "B" movie Nazis here--even the KGB honcho. And his wife/agent Natalia is surprisingly complex. (Rourke recognizes her, BTW, from one of his spook missions in Central America.) In addition to the knowledgeable depictions of weaponcraft, I appreciated thoughtful details like the difficulty of finding gasoline after a nuclear war. A very popular author in the genre fails to address this issue honestly. Another author in the genre, many of whose books I personally like, had his protagonist once use Federal Reserve notes to pay for something in the post-nuke economy...and they were accepted! Rourke and Rubenstein find it necessary to forage (though they make an effort to deal fairly and honestly with others). This is a far more sober speculation, IMO.

Nightmare Begins has left me with the impression that at this point in the continuity, the series is just hitting its stride. I certainly plan to read the other Survivalist book I picked up, and will be on the lookout for others. Based on this reading, I recommend The Survivalist as an intelligent, well-written TEOTWAWKI series with plenty of action to keep us turning pages.

*From what I've read about the series, I remember reading a book many years ago that may have been a much later installment in this series. But I can't swear yes or no.

Captain America and Art Deco-Punk

2011-08-16T17:06:00.002-04:00

I had intended to do something special for August, since this is the 1st anniversary of the 2-Fisted Blog. I still might, depending on whether somebody gets back to me soon.

Meanwhile, I'd like to comment on the high point of Hollywood's summer.

Ever since learning Joe Johnstone was the director, I felt confident that the character was in safe hands. And he was. Other critics are kvetching about the "safe" screenplay, but aside from the obligatory irritation of one of my personal pet peeves, I think Johnstone did a fantastic job. Rather than a typical review, I'm gonna focus on a challenge or 2 Johnstone met with aplomb.

In the Golden Age of comics (coincident with the halcyon days of pulp fiction and cliffhanger serials), when Captain America was first created, people couldn't have guessed half of the technology we take for granted today. And yet, creative types imagined some technology that has yet to be achieved in reality.

Like practical rocket packs and a super-soldier serum.

(Individual jet packs were developed during the Vietnam War, and demonstrated at one of the first Superbowls, but consumed too much fuel for more than one short flight and were abandoned as impractical for transport of troops by the US Army. They were never more than an expensive and dangerous novelty.)

So one of the challenges Johnstone faced was presenting still-futuristic (?) gadgets during an historic setting. Not that this hasn't been done before. One of my favorite reruns to watch, growing up, was The Wild, Wild West, which did just this. And there is an entire genre called "steampunk" which features this anachronistic premise as a primary ingredient. In The Rocketeer and Captain America, Johnstone pulls off the anachronisms so masterfully, I think it deserves it's own phrase. I'll call it "art deco-punk."

Howard Hughs' rocket pack looks like it could actually work. And yet it also looks like something designed and built in the 1930s. Same for the helmet Cliff Secord wears. Of course the Rocketeer props were based on the drawings from the comic source material, but kudos to the film makers for not attempting to "fix" something unbroken.

In First Avenger, the same imaginative skills are in evidence in the Red Skull's fortress and aircraft, as well as the secret lab where Steve Rogers is transformed into Captain America. But the art deco-punk was carried out well in the costume, also. The original Captain America costume from the comics (with the triangular shield) is cleverly incorporated into the flick as what Rogers wears for USO and War Bond appearances. But when he hits his stride as "the bona fide article," Cap wears an outfit a little less outlandish. Johnstone and his crew rose to the challenge of finding a "realistic" excuse to have an operative in the ETO fighting the Nazis in a red, white and blue costume.

In comic books, readers have apparently never had a problem with flamboyant costumes in robust hues. But in real life, people are offended by bright colors. So with the exception of the Superman and Spiderman films, and one particular campy TV series from the 1960s, every successful comic book adaptation for the screen has either replaced the superhero's costume or modified it with bland, muted colors. Johnstone's costumer did mute the Star-Spangled Avenger's colors, but it's also noteworthy that they conceived his headgear more as a helmet than a mask, but didn't take the cheap, ridiculous route the makers of the '70s TV pilot did (in photo below):

In the medium close-ups of Cap in his costume, you can see material and stitching consistent with that issued to American troops during WWII.

Did the screenwriter also modify the origin story from the comic book canon? Yes, but not in the disrespectful, ham-fisted manner of so many other adaptations. Bucky and other stock characters were worked into this cinematic tale, re-conceived to be more believable, and even my own purist/stickler-for-accuracy self was pleased with how it was handled.

There are two other things I'll mention about this movie. In the political sense, they disprove the contention that Johnstone "played it safe" in the making of this film.

For whatever reason (verisimilitude, probably), Johnstone chose to show Captain America bearing arms--something I've never seen in the comics (most superheros have some sort of "code against guns"). Johnstone's leftist contemporaries in Hollywood will only show firearms responsibly used by cops, government agents, Communist revolutionaries or soldiers in wars they grudgingly approve of. I guess Cap falls into this latter category, but it's still a departure for a big-screen superhero.

After Watergate, the writers at Marvel found sufficient excuse to reveal their scorn for a "patriotic superhero" by turning Captain America into Nomad. That didn't go over so well. But now that the mass media has redefined patriotism to justify their lionization of politicians who commit treason, a supposed form of patriotism is considered acceptable again. It's okay to pay tribute to our flag as long as you pervert what it stands for. It's okay to pay lip service to our Constitution as long as you subvert its actual meaning and intent with globalist or Marxist plattitudes. The "safe" road for Johnstone to take would be to present Captain America as "a citizen of the world" who just happened to be born in the USA (remember when the Justice League of America became the "Justice League, America"? Or Bill Pulman's Independence Day speech, in the movie of the same name, that was really a globalist soundbite for interdependence?) And yet during Captain America and the Red Skull's climactic confrontation, it is clear from a short exchange about flags that the Skull is the globalist and Cap is rather proud of the exceptionality of his country.

Not to take anything from the other great superhero adaptations (of which Batman Begins might be the best), Joe Johnstone, along with his cast and crew, really did a bang-up job on this movie IMO. If Marvel Films can harness the swag of this one and the first Iron Man flick, then The Avengers should turn out to be something truly spectacular.

New Pulp is Spearheading the Revival

2011-08-08T01:16:00.001-04:00

In an earlier post, I pontificated on pulp authors coming together and creating a brand for quality fiction that readers could grow to trust over time. Well, that is exactly what Mike Bullock, Tommy Hancock and others plan to do via New Pulp. And "others" includes me. I couldn't commit to a regular column of my own, but I am the columns editor now and will be contributing some of my own occasionally, starting with some interviews of movers and shakers in the Pulp Renaissance.

New Pulp is really a cool development on the one-year anniversary of the 2-Fisted Blog. Y'all may not be hearing from me much, these days, but I assure you I am working my tail off every chance I get. I've got several projects in the works right now that I'm stoked about and should prove to be something to be proud of if I execute well.

I'll be keeping you posted.

Hank

Terminal Departure by Joe Crubaugh

2011-08-02T08:31:00.001-04:00

When agent Cleo Matts boards an airliner to defuse a false flag operation, things don't go as planned. He didn't count on the CIA planting a pound of C-4 in the cargo bay. He didn't count on being seated next to a gorgeous runaway Hollywood superstar. He didn't count on the ancient Watchers intruding in the flight path. And he didn't count on a U.S. President gone rogue who can't bowl worth a crap.
Instead of business as usual, Matts embarks on a balls-to-the-wall adventure that takes him from 35,000 feet in the sky to the back streets of the Big Easy, from the halls of NASA to the corridors of Washington, DC, to a final bloody showdown with the Ministry of Streunberg in a raging ice storm.
This espionage action thriller is a plunging, twisting roller coaster ride that serves up a heaping helping of political satire, aliens, secret agents, scientists, beautiful women, a genetically-modified super virus, a CIA false flag operation, men in black, a jetliner that isn't going to make it to the ground in one piece, and many eccentric characters driving the plot.

Crubaugh has written a page-turning gigglefest involving competing secret and pseudo-secret government agencies, germ warfare conspiracies and alien abduction. This is one of those indie books that overcomes the stigma of poor editing, amateurish prose, etc. It's quirky and laugh-out-loud funny as Crubaugh weaves his eclectic tale, with a political outlook in synch with the entertainment industry as a whole. Were the publishing industry not in such a crisis now, I can easily imagine this being published conventionally and placed beside the latest from Hiassen or Coben.

Cleo Matts is sometimes on the loopy side of eccentric, which makes him all the more appealing as a hero. Movie star Julia is unique for Hollywood in that she's pretty down-to-earth; but typical in that her Hollywood marriage is going down in flames when we meet her. Perhaps my favorite character was Stormi--a girl with a great attitude even when she's verbally tearing somebody a new hole. Airline pilot Dallas is the lucky guy who fate throws together with Stormi, and though complete with human weaknesses, he's still a guy you want to root for.

Terminal Departure is certainly entertaining. I would have liked just a bit more exposition about the CIA-vs.-Trapdoor conflict, and maybe how Roman knew about Cleo but not vice-versa. I felt a little off-balance, too, that the aliens play such a major role during the first act, but aside from some telepathic advice, go MIA for the rest of the novel.

Depending on your sense of humor, this book is well worth your time for the laughs alone.

From Writer's Purgatory to the American Dream

2011-07-23T10:40:00.000-04:00

Granted, this topic has been hashed and rehashed ad infinitum...but not on the Two Fisted Blog, okay?

In the late 1990s I did not envision the revolution in publishing that is taking place before our eyes. But I wanted to write. The only respectable route to publishing for a non-celebrity who had no contacts in the biz then was the traditional method: send out hundreds of queries, receive hundreds of rejections and maybe, if the stars were aligned just right, somebody who mattered would read your query and sample chapters. If it was great stuff, and it just happened to be read by someone who liked it, and they just happened to push it up the food chain when the suit above them was having a good day, and a bazillion other variables all clicked in your favor, you just might wind up, a few years down the line, getting a book published by one of the Big (insert number here) of the New York Publishing Cartel.

"Tradpub", or traditional publishing, was the only game in town. So I prepared to play the game. Having learned in college the value of having others read and critique my written work (ripping it, and my ego, to shreds if necessary), I joined a writer's group.

I suppose all writer's groups consider themselves the best, most talented collection of literary geniuses the world over, but the group I was fortunate enough to be accepted into did have plenty of bragging rights. Several of the members achieved tradpubhood, accruing accolades from hoity-toity authorities like Kirkus; and the founder of the group attracted Hollywood interest with one of her books. I mention this not so much to boast, but more to provide perspective on some of the experiences I intend to share. And one reason I intend to share is that I'm convinced that the attitudes encountered in that writing group are very similar to some of the attitudes prevalent in the big publishing houses.

The first attitude I'll mention has to do with trust in the author.

Not everyone who reads fiction about cops and crime are themselves cops or criminals, and yet we know a lot of police jargon and procedures. Terms like "rap sheet" and "APB" were not always universally understood. How did we learn it? Not because we went to a police academy, or took a class about it, or read expository paragraphs in which the author spoon-fed us the information up front in most cases. Most likely we learned it from context--whether in a book, a movie or a TV cop show.

I've never been a medical professional, but I know what "scrub in" means. Not because anyone overtly taught me, but because the missus likes medical shows and I've watched enough of them with her to pick it up via context.

For those familiar with Star Trek, you didn't come to understand "beam me up" or "set for stun" or photon torpedoes or dilithium crystals because Kirk, Spock, Picard, Ryker or Gene Roddenberry lectured you on what it all meant. You picked it up by context. And if you're like me, you can learn stuff like this about subcultures that are new to you simply by reading a book set in that subculture by an author who will reveal these tidbits by context.

If the author's name is Stephen King, Tom Clancy, J.K. Rowling, etc., members of a writer's group will also learn this way. If the author is unknown, no matter how competent a writer, typical writer's group members will not trust them, and will demand the explanation of this new term, procedure, technology, whatever, be spoon-fed in full to the reader up front. (If the unknown author follows their advice, the read ink will fly again for insulting the reader's intelligence. But that's another story.) Ever notice how some people won't believe you, until they hear or read the same thing you said from some "expert?" Same principle in effect, here.

The next attitude I'll call "finding excuses to reject." I was accepted into the aforementioned group because the founder loved my prose (in a manuscript I as yet haven't published, BTW). There were no membership dues at the time, so I didn't doubt her sincerity. Plus, it was pretty doggone good, if I do say so myself. Ahem. Anyway, when I submitted that very same manuscript for a critique session, the critiquer I was assigned was all over me from the first sentence. (I could say quite a bit about this individual, and probably will one day, but don't want to get off-track here.) My competence came into question because I made a time reference, and the person assumed I meant pm when I meant am. Indeed, assuming pm made my introductory passage ludicrous; am was the only way it made sense. Now me, as a reader, I would have simply accepted the passage in the way that it made sense and read on. I tend to give people (politicians excepted) the benefit of the doubt, and there really wasn't much doubt to be found there.

Well, therein lies the distinction: They weren't reading it--they were searching for faults to criticize. This was a mild omen of things to come during this critique of a manuscript which did, honestly, have problems in need of correction. Unfortunately the actual problems, as I see them now in retrospect, went largely unaddressed by this person so intent on nitpicking everything they possibly could.

I once had an otherwise great, helpful critiquer in this group take issue with my use, without explanation, of the acronym "GPS". Correct me if I'm wrong, somebody, but GPS is a household term that civilians and everyone else is familiar with. (In case I am wrong, it stands for Global Positioning System, though the term is routinely misused, referring instead to a device that accesses the GPS. OK?)

When a member of this same group looked at my first draft of Hell and Gone, they raised the red flag when I wrote that one of my characters dove "to the prone." Granted, that's not Oxford-approved English, but it is exactly how that term is used in the military. She must have caught me during an insecure moment, because I wound up changing it to "the prone firing position."

Ah, insecure moments. I've had plenty, as a writer. In another manuscript, I mentioned that my protagonist sat down to breakfast. One group member, who undoubtedly read one of those "how to write fiction" manuals, thought I should reveal what he ate. I changed it so that the reader knew he was eating biscuits and gravy. The next person who gave me feedback wanted to know why he ate biscuits and gravy. Well, what he ate and why he ate it was not crucial to the chapter or the overall plot, but in another insecure moment I revised, figuring I could use it to work in some character background (after all, that's why those "how to write" manuals drill these things into critiquer's heads) and decided that biscuits and gravy was a habitual breakfast choice from when the character was going through financial difficulties, since the meal is both cheap and filling. The next person who gave me feedback thought, by reflecting on this, my character was wallowing in self-pity. At this point I considered omitting any mention of breakfast or any other meal altogether.

This maddening, time-consuming process was probably an effective orientation for the publishing biz at that time. Agents, editors and assistants don't read manuscripts; they search for excuses to reject them. Pick any 50 of them and each one will find a whole different set of excuses to reject Gone With the Wind. That's not entirely a sarcastic exaggeration--experiments like that have been conducted by frustrated writers, illustrating the mercurial subjectivity in the tradpub lottery.

There are reasons why the suits in New York have this attitude: They are buried under tons of manuscripts (most of which are garbage), they have very little time, and they're under constant pressure to pick only winners. Stamp your approval on too many books that don't sell enough to cover expenses and you're out of a job.

Valid reasons to be picky, right? So then, even with their Remorseless Rejection Machine set to Maximum Filtration, why do they still wind up publishing so much crap? Including crap that doesn't even sell? And non-crap that doesn't sell, despite all their marketing clairvoyance and gatekeeping wisdom?

I once had a publishing insider explain something about the selection process to me. I can't remember all the percentages she gave, but the gist of it is educational. This was a minority woman, BTW, who had worked for a major publishing house, and a major literary agency.

During a given fiscal year, a tradpub house only has so many books it can publish. First dibs go to the proven heavy hitters like Stephen King, whose grocery list would become a New York Times Bestseller as long as his name is on it. Next in line (and this is nauseating, if not surprising) are the writers who "know people" inside the industry. There is a little more scrutiny/quality control here than for the big name authors, but this is where a lot of the worthless drivel comes from. Next on the pecking order are female minorities. Then male minorities. (Homosexuals have been given quota parity with racial minorities for quite a while. Now they are one of the most powerful special interest groups in existence and I have no doubt this is reflected in the current pecking order.) Then women in general (which sometimes includes men who write for female audiences and/or who write female protagonists, plus men who use female pseudonyms). Everyone not heretofore mentioned is at the bottom of the slush pile, competing for the very smallest portion of the publishing pie.

And for those fortunate few whose manuscripts are actually opened by somebody with a modicum of decision-making authority, the axe chops something like this: First to get the axe are those manuscripts that fail qualitative inspection. Fair enough. Next are those with a low Crystal Ball Factor ("This is about a rogue submarine captain. It's never been done before. There's no market for it." "Rogue submarine captain stories have had a good run, but the market is now saturated with such fare. I sense the popularity of this genre will wane by the estimated print date." "Mysteries concerning racehorses aren't trending well right now." "A school for witches and warlocks is just plain silly." And so on.) Somewhere in there (unless the author is a celebrity with clout), the book must pass the ideology test--the politics must resonate with that of the New York Publishing Cartel, and any characters in the book who believe differently had better be either from the Archie Bunker/Frank Burns/Denny Crane cookie cutter or, better yet, the next Hitler or Darth Vader. Next on the chopping block are the books that offend the personal tastes of the gatekeeper ( "I don't like the main character's name." "This character reminds me of my ex-husband." "The hero drives a car that I hate." "Happy endings are stupid." "Sad endings are depressing.").

Yech. I just depressed myself. Enough about the old regime.

That's one of many fantastic aspects of the indie author/POD/E-Book revolution: none of that can keep a book from being published anymore! It's all up to the reader now. If the book is gonna be rejected for some unfair, subjective reason, it will be case-by-case. If it's rejected for political reasons, same deal. The reader gets to decide, instead of some suit in New York deciding whether or not the reader should even have the opportunity to decide. Now there is a big step toward true democracy!

Yeah, there's a whole lot more literary garbage available to readers now, just like there's a whole lot more video garbage on the internet. It's a trade-off I and most readers will gladly take. With free sampling, we have as much chance of avoiding purchase regret as we did before. And there are refunds. I've bought some horrible tradpubbed books over the years, but I never, ever, asked for a refund of a book purchase until a couple nights ago, when I realized I could get a better E-Book value from a different edition. My refund was granted promptly, with no fuss at all.

So far, reactions to my own books have been overwhelmingly positive. That's because (as an example) readers who buy Hell and Gone actually want to read a paramilitary adventure. They're not looking at it because it's their job or because they're fellow members of a writer's group (but would rather be promoting their own erotic lesbian vampire coming-of-age diary).

I'm idiosyncratic in many ways, but in one aspect I believe I'm in synch with book lovers everywhere: I would much rather enjoy a book than find reasons not to enjoy it. Readers would prefer to read than nitpick line-by-line.

BTW, I quit the writing group earlier this year, mostly due to my schedule and an inability to keep up with group email, exercises, etc. I left on good terms, and was assured I would be welcome back. Maybe I will re-join some day if time permits. I did learn some important things there. But at this stage of my life/fledgling career in fiction, I believe I'm learning more by being a published author than trying to get New York's blessing to become one. I hear from readers, listen to their opinions (on my books and others), likes and dislikes, plus what interests them outside of fiction.

I have no interest in even attempting to be tradpubbed anymore. I could spend the rest of my life trying to win that lottery. And if I did, I'd lose the rights to my own creative work indefinitely, and, statistics suggest, be making less money than I am now. That ship is sinking, anyway. What's happening to Borders Books is a harbinger of what's coming to the industry as a whole. Maybe the New York Publishing Cartel will adapt and survive in some form (I hope not via more criminal misuse of my tax dollars), but certainly not as we have known it.

It's hard to believe how close I came to never taking the indie route, but my eyes are open now. I don't plan on closing them again.

When in Rome, Don't Capture an Ape Man

2011-07-20T22:33:00.001-04:00

Coming out soon is a film version of John Carter of Mars, but up until now, pulp writer Edgar Rice Burroughs' most famous character (especially on the big screen) has been Tarzan the Ape Man. Between all the movies, TV shows, comic books and Burroughs' own stories, Tarzan is a household name and most people have at least some idea what he's all about. This volume in the Tarzan series appealed to me because I've got a soft spot for lost civilization tales.

The jungle lord is approached by one of his civilized (European) friends, and asked to search a vast canyon where the guy's son, Erich Von Harben, is believed to have disappeared in search of a "lost tribe of Israel." What Von Harben found instead were two rival Roman city-states, perfectly preserved since the canyon was colonized in the 1st Century. Not a bad find, actually, and Von Harben also discovers love at first sight with a noble Roman girl, as can only happen in a classic pulp. But alas, not everything is sunshine and puppies in this anachronistic canyon, and Von Harben finds himself in prison due to corrupt politicians and their paranoia.

Tarzan, who entered the other end of the canyon, has also suffered a mishap that landed him in prison in the rival city-state (one is Castra Sanguinarious and one is Castrum Mare). Both Tarzan and Von Harben find allies among the political prisoners in their respective cities, but time is running out for the Ape Man to rescue Von Harben before the tyrannical Caesar has the suspicious outsider killed for sport in the arena.

Burroughs was fairly enlightened for the time in which he wrote (the first edition of Lost Empire was printed in the 1920s), but I still cringed a bit at the underlying attitude toward black Africans. You've got to take those factors into account when you read something this old. Something else I struggled with were the names. So many characters had authentic-sounding Roman names my head was swimming trying to keep track of them. Another annoyance was due, I think, to the fact that this book was originally written as serialized pulp--each episode a given length according to the requirements of the periodical it was written for, with a cliffhanger ending to be continued next issue: Tarzan came off almost skitzophrenic due to his changing opinions about whether he could escape and when he should attempt escape, etc. And one final criticism I'll offer is that for a pulp tale about a feral savage raised by gorillas, in an adversarial position vis-a-vis hordes of sword-wielding legionaires, there wasn't nearly as much action as you might expect. And what action there was disappointed me a bit--particularly in the arena.

I must give credit where it's due, though: when Tarzan is paired against a gladiator, his goose is cooked until the fortuitous intervention of a newfound Roman friend. Tarzan is a bad dude, but not invincible. He can't match up against a master of single combat who lives or dies by the sword just because he is the hero of the story, knife or no knife; ape-like agility or no ape-like agility. Weapons and all other factors being equal, the only individual who could have stood a chance against an experienced gladiator was another experienced gladiator, and Burroughs knew this. Thank-you, Edgar. No eye-rolling from me on this aspect.

This concept had heaps of potential, but fell a bit short in my opinion. I still hope to read Tarzan and the Ant Men some day.

The Dawn of Apartheid: Power of the Sword by Wilbur Smith

2011-07-15T20:56:00.001-04:00

I discovered Wilbur Smith by chance. The public library just happened to have Triumph of the Sun in audiobook and I just happened to find it when desperate for something to listen to during commute time. Since then I've been looking for his titles.

Smith's chosen genre is one I guess I'd label "historical adventure." He follows the Courtney family's generations through different periods of history, but always somewhere in Africa, so far as I can tell. Some of his novels strike me as sagas while others, like this one, might be described as "epics." For some reason Africa has always fascinated me, and the continent comes alive through Smith's skillful prose.

This novel's setting is South Africa, from the early days of the Great Depression up to the beginning of Apartheid. I've long considered Wilbur Smith an armchair social anthropologist, and it may not be as evident in the characters of this book, but he certainly gave every last one of them some serious flaws...so much so that it's difficult for me to decide who the hero is. I guess I'd have to name Centaine Courtney as the heroine. She may be an adulterous, ruthless capitalist opportunist who destroys those who get in the way of her ambitions with no remorse, but the author bothers to show sympathetic traits in her perhaps more than any other character.

She seems like a choir girl compared to ganglord/political organizer Moses Gama; his half-brother Swart Hendrick; Centaine's bastard son Manfred, who grows up to become a fanatical Nazi; or even her ostensibly legitimate son, Shasa, who grows up to be a pampered, womanizing, shallow fop. I think my sympathies lied mostly with Lothar De La Rey, father of bastard Manfred.

At the very beginning of this tale, Lothar has just gambled all he has on a fishing business and through cunning and determination, has just brought in a haul that will pay all his debts and put him on firm footing to build an inheritance for Manfred. That's when Centaine shows up to utterly wreck him and his business. She has bought up his debt and now prefers to let his fish rot in the cargo holds than to let him can them and use the profits to get in the black. She has bad blood for her former lover and it's about to cause a vicious cycle.

Lothar decides that an eye for an eye is in order, and plans a robbery of Centaine's diamond mine. It's a clever and detailed plan, actually, with multiple safeguards...all rendered moot by fate, Centaine's tenacity, and, most of all, Lothar's fits of mercy. It goes downhill from there, and I must admit I skimmed a bit when I got too disgusted with the characters. Not just the deceit of Moses or his revolting behavior; or the corruption of the weak-minded Swart Hendrick; but also the gullibility and stupidity of the book-smart Manfred. And what he does to the girl who sincerely loves him. Of course my disgust is probably testament to the author's masterful orchestration of the elements of fiction.

Half brothers Shasa and Manfred are on a collision course that has ramifications well beyond the looming global conflict. When they do come full circle, their meeting was rather disappointing for my taste. Still, even at his worst (?), Wilbur Smith is a master storyteller, and despite my issues with this book, it's rich with South African history, geography and cultural insights. And for those who like family dynasty drama on an epic scale, this book is dripping with it.

Good News For Pulpy Action Adventure Fans

2011-07-12T23:24:00.000-04:00

Today it became official: Virtual Pulp is a recognized corporation, ready to do business in these United States. Just minutes ago, I received my tax ID # from the IRS. I'm not quite on the path to world domination just yet, but this is a significant milestone for me after months of misfires, mistakes, mucho legal mucky-pucky and financial follies. Now the real work starts and I'm hoping this is where it starts getting fun.

This business endeavor could possibly grow into something I've wanted to do since I was a teenager: run a publishing company...of sorts. With the publishing industry in the state of flux it's in now, who knows if this will ever be feasible. For now, Virtual Pulp, Inc. is going to be an online store focusing on fiction and film that falls under the action-adventure umbrella.

I've already undertaken a virtual recon by starting an Amazon affiliate store. That's what the Action Central ads on the right and at the bottom of the blog are all about. Amazon has made it easy for people to start these online stores (and somebody with both more business acumen and time to pimp their products would probably already be banking by now), but the navigation and some other features are not quite what I want.

This means that I'm starting with a clean sheet of paper. I'll be building/designing the Virtual Pulp store as I try to build on my rudimentary web-developing skills. I've got a concept that doesn't look too bad, but I need to learn how to incorporate all kinds of widgets, and I've got a LOT of product to add/link to. I know some people who could theoretically help me put it together, but with the amount of work involved they would probably want to be paid. Greedy capitalists. So this project will have to creep along in between my writing, blogging, and real job. Yup, that's what I need: more irons in the fire!

This will differ from Amazon and other online bookstores in that I intend to keep it focused on dude-lit (action-adventure; military/war; western; heroic fantasy; post-apocalypse; etc.) and, on the movie side, dude-flicks. Therein is one of the advantages I see for the customer: since I'm not trying to sell everything to everyone, fans won't have to browse for hours to find titles in these genres among the mountains of other stuff. I'll have already narrowed it down so that guys like me can choose between several titles that appeal to them, instead of wearing out their eyes, wrist and mouse button trying to find one among the thousands that don't. To the best of my ability, I will also weed out the phony, false-advertised "action adventure" or books that truly are action-adventure (classic pulp; new pulp; post-modern-pulp; dude-lit; whatever) but are terribly written.

Another advantage the VP store will have, for both readers and authors, is that I won't discriminate against those who have bypassed the New York Publishing Cartel. I fully intend to mix the product so that books by talented indies will have equal billing with those by tradpubbed authors. A browser may have read everything published with Don Pendleton's name on it (or is that even possible?), but right next to that thumbnail of an Executioner is Jack Murphy's latest, or M. R. Kayser's, or Jack Badelaire's...you get the idea.

In case you're wondering: Yes, my books will be available in the store, too. (If you're not wondering, sin loi!) Speaking of that, every ebook I publish from now on with my name on it will have the Virtual Pulp logo on it. My little "publishing imprint." Hopefully a portent of things to come. Other pulp fans/bloggers/writers have proposed uniting under one heading, logo, meme... but so far as I can tell this has not happened yet. So fellow writers and authors, this is for you:

I'm willing to extend the Virtual Pulp logo beyond my own fiction, as a sort of stamp-of-approval. VP is not a full-blown publisher so I'm not looking for a cut of anyone's profits. There is no prestige associated with the VP logo yet, but over time with consistent quality, I hope to build trust among readers so they know, when they see it, odds are it's a good read no matter what the author's name. Like I said: others have mentioned doing something like this, and it still may happen. And I will welcome it and probably want to help or participate somehow if it does. In the mean time, I'm offering this. If you'd like an ebook (or print book, for that matter) placed under the VP umbrella, I will consider it. If I read it and it passes muster, you're welcome to use the logo on that book.

Back to the VP online store: I plan on adding a forum. Maybe a swap meet section too. I'd like to do more than just sell stuff on the site. I'd also like to present some sort of free content there...videos, podcasts, articles, blog feeds, maybe all of the above. Suggestions and advice are welcome now, and probably always will be.

So Virtual Pulp Press is taking its first baby steps now. I hope to have the store online and open for business in the near future.

Murder, Mass Media and Indira Gandhi: Deadline by Richard Sanders

2011-07-10T20:40:00.001-04:00

Last year I reviewed The Seventh Compass Point of Death, my introduction to author Richard Sanders and his Quinn McShane character. McShane is a media insider, reformed alcoholic/junkie and ex-con, who functions much like a traditional fiction private detective in the two books I've read, now. Perhaps that puts his adventures somewhere between cozy and hard-boiled.

McShane is an editor at a magazine owned by a news conglomerate in New York. One day the heads above him on the totem pole dispatch him to California for an investigation of a loose cannon on their payroll. Trish Fenellosa (the loose cannon in question) has tilted to the weird side of eccentric lately, after an apparent attempt on her life, and tried to dedicate an entire issue of her trendy girl-talk magazine, Trish Dish, to Indira Gandhi. "Why a subject that will sell exactly eight copies?" McShane's boss asks. "You tell me."

As a teenager, Trish Fenellosa was tried as an adult and convicted of murdering her sister, whose body was never found. Trish served some hard time, but the case was reopened, conviction overturned due to reasonable doubt, and she was free again at 22 years old. She quickly parlayed her infamy into a publishing deal for her magazine, which became a sensation and the cornerstone of an empire. Some 20 years later, her weird behavior is worrying the suits in New York and Quinn McShane is off to Frisco.

I believe this book is a bit longer than Seventh Compass Point, but still a quick read. Characters are developed well, dialog is good, and the narrative voice has a comforting familiarity. Also, the Indira Gandhi role-playing scenes were progressively hilarious. Over all, a very enjoyable book.

Unfortunately, the author has tweaked some pet peeves of mine. I'll mention two that many authors of detective fiction also rub:

1. McShane pulls his gun a lot, when he's not prepared to use it. Most of the time, seemingly, it's only to lose or surrender it.

2. McShane needs to find a guy called Sumo (great name for a heavy, BTW). He puts himself on stakeout at a place Sumo frequents. Sumo shows up, but doesn't know McShane is tailing him. McShane knows about Sumo but Sumo knows nothing about him. All kinds of options, right? Continue tailing him or use your advantage of surprise to get the drop on him, something like that. Instead, even though he knows exactly where Sumo is (right there in the same restaurant), McShane starts asking a waitress about him--how he can find him, meet with him, etc. The waitress claims complete ignorance. He gives her $100. She says come back later and maybe she can help. He leaves her a $10 tip and walks away. Of course she tips off Sumo, who calls in backup and bushwhacks McShane on his way to make the alleged rendezvous. C'mon, McShane--they would have suckered you for free. No need to pay $110 bucks to get doublecrossed and piss away your advantage of surprise. I'm not sure what to label this pet peeve. Suffice it to say that our hero was something less than streetwise.

Pet peeves aside, this was a good read and Quinn McShane makes an interesting guide through Richard Sanders' off-kilter mysteries loaded with bizarre and sometimes convention-busting characters.

Independence Day

2011-07-03T12:55:00.001-04:00

No, I'm not referring to that summer blockbuster from 15 or so years ago. I'm not reviewing today, just taking a minute to express my appreciation for this country.

There's a lot wrong with America, and more all the time, but there's still more people trying to get in than get out. This was even more true in previous generations, when our uniqueness was even more pronounced. What escapes the intellect of those who want to make America more like other countries is that, as you do, it begins to have the same drawbacks as other countries (we become "unexceptional," in a word).

There's a popular assumption, sometimes spoken, sometimes not, that the United States of America was (or is) a racist nation, because some states allowed slavery prior to 1865 (and because people who live here are free to believe and speak as they choose--including racists). Slavery was a reprehensible practice, imported with the Europeans who settled on this continent long before we became a nation. But we fought a war to end it--the most costly war in our history, measured in American lives lost. And if you want to look at numbers, there have been far more people of color who came from Africa to settle here of their own free will than ever came across on slave ships.

There's nowhere else I would have rather grown up. And nowhere else I'd have a better chance, now. Sure, I'd have more money if I was born into the ruling class of some other nation. But I'm a working stiff, born to regular people, and even though I've bobbed from middle class to lower middle class all my life, I've had it pretty good compared to other folks around the world.

The reason so many have had it so good here for so long is because some individuals in the 18th century had the intelligence to design a unique system of government; the courage to fight for it, and the moral fortitude to keep fighting when the going got tough.

I couldn't care less about firecrackers, or if I see any fancy rockets bursting pretty patterns in the sky. In a time when our independence is more threatened than ever, I thank God for what I have enjoyed and still enjoy. Freedom has a price. I'm thankful for the men who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for the cause of liberty that Americans have benefited from since then.

GI Joe: The Complete Story of America's Favorite Man of Action

2011-06-30T00:45:00.004-04:00

My experience with GI Joe goes back to the age of five. Somebody bought me one for Christmas or a birthday--a 12 inch plastic dude with a scar and a beard in an orange jumpsuit. The box he came in told me he was a smoke jumper, but a picture on the box showed him in a different uniform carrying a medical bag next to a toy ambulance, so I knew he was a paramedic, too. Having no knowledge of word or phrase origins at the time, I simply accepted that "GI Joe" meant a scarred, bearded, smoke-jumping paramedic.

When my big brother explained what smoke-jumping was, I decided to make a parachute for Joe out of some of my mother's yarn and plastic from a bread wrapper. As a feat of engineering, my effort was a bust. That brilliantly designed parachute just wouldn't deploy, no matter how many times I chucked Joe into the air . And that's how I lost him. I found him again later, but the dogs had found him first. Joe was a hideously mutilated wad of peach-colored plastic. So ended my hands-on experience with GI Joe.

About 10 years later I still hadn't quite become fascinated with word and phrase origins, but I did have a keen interest in history and popular culture from bygone ages. I was also on my way to becoming a World War II buff. So I was starting to read the term "GI," always in military contexts, and accepted it as just linguistic coincidence. But then, when reading about war movies, I came across a review of one titled "The Story of GI Joe." The review (with some production stills) convinced me that this was a film set in WWII about the rigors of combat. I couldn't, for the life of me, imagine how that scarred, bearded, smoke-jumping paramedic in orange coveralls could be the star of such a film.

My epiphany came while reading a Silver Age DC comic from the days of Batmania. I encountered a full-page ad about GI Joe, who, in those black & white days of yesteryear, was a real, honest-to-gosh GI! My first reaction was, "Aha! No wonder he's called GI--that's what he was before he grew a beard, put on an orange jumpsuit and became a smoke-jumping paramedic." My next reaction was, "Cool! Why couldn't he have been a real GI back when I still played with toys?"

The ad photo showed Joe in uniforms from every branch of service, and I thought they were all nifty. The soldier and marine were decked out for combat (the marine had a camo cover for his helmet while the soldier did not--WWII was still THE conflict that came to mind when the subject of war came up back then, I guess) with rifles and web gear; the sailor had his snazzy crackerjack outfit on, and the Air Force Joe had a flight suit on, oxygen mask, etc, and was climbing into a scale model fighter plane. Man, all the imaginary heroics I missed out on!

Many years later Hasbro released some throwback Joes--not the little two-inch (or whatever) fantasy characters Hollywood recently made a movie about, but 12-inch, fully articulated fighting men from specific units...some were even specific servicemen (like Dorrie Miller, complete with anti-aircraft gun at Pearl Harbor, on his way to earning the Navy Cross). Try as I might, though, I couldn't justify to myself spending money on any of that. What I did spend my money on, though, was this book that tells Joe's story.

One of the guys at Hasbro got to reading an encyclopedia, and his son became fascinated at all the different medals listed therein. That's where the seed was planted. Toy soldiers have been around probably as long as real soldiers have, and now at Hasbro, plans went forward to develop a toy soldier for the 20th Century.

One of the toy Moguls involved in the Barbie line lent them some business advice that stuck: "First you sell them the razor, then they have to keep buying the blades." Or something like that. With Barbie, little girls got the doll one time, but turned Mattel into a toy empire buying accessories for it (different clothes, purses, doll houses, etc.). This was a perfect strategy for Hasbro, too, since Joe could be any flavor of GI a boy wanted him to be: deep-sea diver; scuba diver; pilot; astronaut; grunt with rifle; submachinegun; flamethrower... And speaking of Barbie, Hasbro was adamant that their new toy was for boys, and should never be called a doll. This is when, where and how the term "action figure" sprang into the American vocabulary.

I chuckled when I read how Hasbro settled on his name. There were only three TV stations to choose from in any given city back in the early 1960s, and it turns out that during the period when they were agonizing over a name for their serviceman, one night, with no planned coordination among them, the members of the Hasbro think-tank all wound up watching the same movie: The Story of GI Joe. The next morning, they unanimously decided to adopt Ernie Pyle's (the movie was based on his war correspondence) catchy euphemism for their entire "action figure" line. In a cockeyed way, this part of the tale gave me a sort of personal connection, having read about that film years before and pondered the title.

There are many interesting tidbits revealed in this book, like how Joe's backward thumbnail came to be and why they kept it; how they designed his face; and how they staged that picture of the fighter plane I mentioned above. The reason behind Joe's transformation from a GI into a smoke-jumping paramedic in the 1970s is explained in the book, though hardly a mystery to anyone who knows anything of those times. It can be summed up in one geographical name: Viet Nam. (And had Joe not burned his draft card, grown a beard and put on an orange jump suit, my mother probably never would have allowed me to own such a toy. So Hasbro's demilitarization was a wise move, I suppose. Sigh. Pragmatism...)

The book takes Joe up into the fantasy paramilitary organization of the 1980s, complete with cartoons and comic books, and it's all an interesting read if you have an interest in toys, business marketing, or pop-culture.

In many ways the evolution of GI Joe mirrors the mental journey of the boys who first played with him. Their fathers and uncles had saved the world from the Axis in "the war" (WWII), and as children they idolized fighting men, and thought it great fun to simulate war in their bedrooms or back yards. Then they saw their big brothers drafted and sent overseas to kill and die for a cause nobody could, or would, define. When big brother came home, it wasn't to tickertape parades and universal gratitude from the folks on the home front, but to Marxist protestors spitting on them, calling them war criminals, baby-killers, murderers. Often big brother came home in a wheelchair or a body bag.

I won't go into all the cultural conditioning undergone by the baby boomers. There was a lot of it. But between that and the natural process of maturation that transforms men in every culture, war ceased to be an opportunity for unlimited adventure, and became a gruesome, smelly nightmare. The military went from an being an honorable profession and a patriotic duty to a brutally half-witted dictatorship dedicated to crushing personal liberty. (I suppose there's some truth in all those perceptions.)

GI Joe probably came on the scene a decade too late for his own good. Yet his is a household name, connoting different images to different people and different generations. To Ernie Pyle, GI Joe was an everyman in uniform, a regular Joe (pun intended) thrown into the trenches to fight for his life. To the young boys of the 1960s, GI Joe was a cool, heroic warrior, fighting in noble conflicts of whatever scale their imaginations dictated (and whatever accessories their parents could bankroll). To my generation, he was a smoke-jumping paramedic with a beard, an orange jumpsuit, and Kung Fu Grip. To later generations he was a member of a secret paramilitary government organization thwarting COBRA's quest for world domination. In my opinion, the later incarnations merely hijacked the brand name, and bear little resemblance to what GI Joe was intended to be.

There's a whole lot of cultural commentary Joe could make after studying America through his plastic, painted eyeballs, too.

Some men remember the true GI Joe fondly. Some despise him because of what they feel he represents. But wind the clock back far enough and he was a loyal comrade, indefatiguable personification of their own warrior spirit, or an imaginary friend, to almost all of them.

Thanks, Joe.

Interview with Reflexive Fire Author Jack Murphy

2011-06-26T10:21:00.003-04:00

Today I'm sharing a Q&A with fellow action-adventure author Jack Murphy. In my last blog post I reviewed his debut novel, which follows our hero Deckard as he commands a Private Military Company in Asia and, ultimately, takes on a sinister power structure that makes Ian Fleming's SPECTRE seem like...well, a fictional conspiracy.

2FB: So tell us about Deckard: What would his resume read like? More importantly, how would you describe his personality, motivations, etc.? Assuming he has time off in between jobs, how does he like to spend it and where does he go?

JACK MURPHY: As far as his professional and personal background, I leave that fairly murky. This was done intentionally in order to reveal a little more about him with each book. I hope it doesn't tick readers off but I think it is interesting to develop a character over the course of several books, revealing more about him within the plot of each novel. However, even in Reflexive Fire we learn a little bit more about him as we get deeper into the book.

Deckard comes from a military background and at some point was recruited into the world of covert operations, but somewhere along the way he had a falling out with certain governmental agencies and now plies his trade as a freelance operative, working mostly singleton operations in the far corners of the world. In terms of personality he is a little odd, you'd have to be in order to do his job, and somewhat obsessive. He is the type of soldier who went far too deep to ever return to "normal" life, I don't think there is any turning back for him. Despite this, Deckard is a reasonable human being; he lives by a certain code and has lines that he won't cross. What does he do in his down time? I don't think he even knows what to do with himself during those moments and probably indulges himself until he can't take the boredom anymore.

In terms of motivation, well, if there is any doubt in the reader's mind by the end of the book, Deckard's final words in the novel will leave no doubt as to why he does what he does.

2FB: How long have you been carrying this guy around in your imagination? Where did he come from? By that I mean, is he based on a real person, completely fabricated or somewhere in between?

JACK MURPHY: I've been writing this character off and on since I was in High School, so well over a decade now. Deckard has evolved and changed somewhat as I have, but the core of the character remains the same. Deckard isn't completely fabricated, he encompasses the experiences of a number of real soldiers but he is also fictionalized as someone like him could never actually exist within any military command structure. Maybe that's why he is a freelancer now...

2FB: I have a pretty good idea what your influences are/were; but you might as well share them here.

JACK MURPHY: I grew up reading Mack Bolan and similar novels, so from the standpoint of action-adventure writing I would say the Don Pendleton and Robert E. Howard are two authors I've always wanted to emulate. I don't think I'm even close to touching those two men in terms of talent but I'm going to keep trying!

Many readers will scoff at this but I'm also influenced by certain video games. I found that many of these games have plot lines that are far more innovative and edgy than what is to be found on book shelves, more sophisticated as well. Games like Deus Ex, Assassin's Creed, and even the Call of Duty games ratchet up the intensity in the action genre and set the bar quite a bit higher for any aspiring writer.

Besides that, my own experiences are probably the biggest influence on my writing. Deckard is a fictional character but of course much of my personality is in there as well. Some of my experiences and observations are expressed through many of my characters. Eight years in Army Special Operations units did have an impact on me, larger than I thought when looking at it in retrospect.

2FB: I think I remember you saying you had a sequel or 2 in mind. Would you like to see this become a long-running series like the Executioner, or something with a limited run?

JACK MURPHY: It really depends on what readers want. I've already been working deeply on my other series, PROMIS, which is about Deckard's father. He was a 'Nam vet turned mercenary who fought in Rhodesia and elsewhere so I get to cover all those nasty forgotten conflicts that happened in the final years of the cold war. That said I do plan on writing more Deckard novels, at least a trilogy.

2FB: I communicate with an SADF veteran who pulls security gigs around Africa. He suggested I write a novel dealing with piracy. With recent developments around Somalia, I've certainly been considering it. In fact, Mack Maloney's current series is about pirate hunters, as discussed in Hatchet Force. Will Deckard be going in that direction soon? Do I need to keyboard-race you to see who does it first? ("First" being relative to us.)

JACK MURPHY: I've already written the first five chapters of the sequel to Reflexive Fire, it takes place in Mexico so you are safe for now. However, I recently bought the Maritime Sniper Manual for research purposes so watch your back! I definitely see Deckard tackling piracy sometime in the future. There are so many overlooked aspects of that issue that I think it can make for a great story.

2FB: You were deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. If my math is correct, you served for about 8 years--some of it in a Ranger battalion, some of it in Special Forces. As you were doing your job over there, did you know you were going to try to get published when you were done? Did you consciously store ideas, scenes you'd like to put in a story, little tidbits that would be good for a novel in some compartment of your mind?

JACK MURPHY: I wrote very little when I was in the military, just a couple short stories. I kept some stuff in the back of my head for sure but didn't have any elaborate plan for getting published. It wasn't until I got out of the Army last year and started to discover the world of e-readers and self publishing that I really resolved to sit down and write a full blown Deckard novel. Now that I’m writing, albeit in a fictional manner, I do strive to include the details that make the story more authentic, especially the randomness that happens in the chaos of combat. It is somewhat hard to incorporate that into a novel because fiction has to make sense while reality doesn’t.

2FB: Did you read when you had downtime--between missions; in base camp; on pass; etc.? If so, what kinds of books did you try to get your hands on? Also, did your comrades give you hell for doing that instead of getting plastered and chasing whatever tail was rumored to be accessible?

JACK MURPHY: I probably read a small library while I was in the military. You know the saying, "Hurry up and wait." Even when working overseas with a high op-tempo there is a decent amount of time to screw off. Wander around the PX, hit the gym, and then you have to find something to do. I read both fiction and non-fiction. I think reading non-fiction, about geo-politics and how America fights (or doesn't fight) modern wars, was partially what led to me leaving the military, actually.

I recall my Squad Leader being pretty blown away with how many books I'd tear through but no one ever gave me a hard time about it. Sometimes you can even pass books on to other soldiers. In Special Forces selection you are given lots of downtime, it is part of the selection process to see who cracks up by internalizing their doubts while sitting in the barracks. I read a great book called In Secret Mongolia, a travel memoir written by a Dane in the 1920s and passed it off to another candidate who ended up really enjoying it.

As far as the latter activities, don't worry, I imbued more than enough times to make up for my reading.

2FB: What are some of your pet peeves as a reader? IOW, what do authors do that turn you off?

JACK MURPHY: In no particular order:

-Authors who have their female protagonist raped repeatedly throughout their novel in a pornographic manner. Strangely, it seems that it is always female writers who do this

-False advertising. Novels that are made out to be about adventure but turn out to be about shopping and nail care.

-Overly cynical or nihilistic protagonists. This seems prevalent in our genre, the mentality that the ends justifies any means. Among men in our culture that sort of attitude is seen as being "tough". I disagree.

2FB: Shopping and nail care? You don't find that adventurous? Thankfully I have not read any purported A/A with that specific flaw. Haven't read the pornographic rape scenes, either (that sounds pretty disturbing). But then I all but gave up on mainstream fiction years ago.

The sister question is, what do you like or love to find in a work of fiction? What wins you over, and what do you look for in a book?

JACK MURPHY: More than anything, for me, I look for the atmosphere of a novel. A sense of something that is hard to put your finger on, you just know that you are reading some really edgy material due to a number of factors that work together to create or evoke a feeling in the reader.

As a jaded action junkie, I want to see something new and exciting. Show me edgy characters, a sophisticated plotline, and avoid the cliches and you've probably got me hooked.

2FB: Any books in the To Be Written list you'd like to mention?

JACK MURPHY: I'm currently working on the second issue of PROMIS which has blown up into a novella rather than a short story that takes the protagonist through the final years of the Rhodesian bush war. Somewhere in between issues I'd like to continue working on the sequel to Reflexive Fire. As I said, it really depends on which project I get stronger feedback on.

2FB: Finally, here's your chance to plug your published work and tell us how to find it.

JACK MURPHY: Reflexive Fire is hot off the electronic printing press, you can get it on Amazon’s Kindle store with the paperback coming available in July. I really tried hard to smash some of the norms or stereotypes of the genre and write something that hard core action-adventure fans have never seen before.

My short story, PROMIS: Vietnam is a short story that is the first in a series of shorts and novellas that I am writing. Each will take place in a different country as the trajectory of Sean Deckard (the father of the protagonist in Reflexive Fire) is followed from one war zone to the next. The conflicts he partakes in are not yet consigned to history, so in a way I’m writing contemporary historical fiction with this series. The research is in depth to the point I feel like I should be writing non-fiction but it is worth the effort. I really hope that PROMIS takes off once it finds its audience. Issue One is available now for the Kindle.

I also have a short, non-fiction article available for the kindle. It is a Special Forces Weapons Report Card. I wrote it in response to a rather dubious weapons report card circulating the internet that is allegedly written by a soldier serving in Afghanistan. Unfortunately it is full of inaccurate and misleading information so I decided to rectify this issue by writing my own.

2FB: Thanks, Jack, for taking the time to share these details. As stated elsewhere, I am happy to have the competition. There are good things happening in the genre, and you are one of them.

Reflexive Fire by Jack Murphy

2011-06-23T16:51:00.001-04:00

Since the early 1990s, men's fiction has dwindled to almost nothing. Critics of the genre will point to the abysmal writing in some of the titles during its heyday. I have reason to hope for a resurgence in men's fiction that the critics of the genre won't be able to dismiss easily. I say that because of well-written, hard-hitting novels like Reflexive Fire.

The hero is everything you could hope for in an action-adventure--intelligent, charismatic, honorable, a combat veteran from an elite unit, and just slopping over with badassity. We meet Deckard during a guns-blazing rescue of some POWs from a covert operation gone SNAFU. From there, a mysterious rogue on the ragged fringes of the intelligence community hands him a deep cover assignment as a mercenary commander for Soros and Kissinger-esque insiders from the shadow government. Pretty impressive that these Princes of Darkness can be duped, with the resources at their disposal. Still, Deckard's cover could be blown at any moment.

Deckard organizes and trains a private army on the steppes of Kazakhistan, and leads them on direct-action missions at the behest of his sinister bosses, while tapping into his own substantial resources to find out what these puppetmasters are really up to.

There is no shortage of action in Reflexive Fire. The main characters are warriors, and fighting is what they do. Having winced, groaned, rolled my eyes and gritted my teeth at many authors' attempts to depict military (or paramilitary) operations, it was really satisfying to read a military thriller written with this level of technical accuracy. Afterwards it made me want to have a cigarette and raid the fridge. And I don’t even smoke.

I've learned to avoid political thrillers, and ordinarily wince, groan, roll my eyes and grit my teeth when the author of any novel starts to portray their naive concept of how back room politics play out. This was another pleasant surprise for me. The author bypasses the two-party good-cop-bad-cop charade to tickle the truth hidden behind it. A few years ago, to even mention the workings of the shadow government was to invite ridicule and worse. Maybe this has changed as certain evidence becomes more difficult to hide. Still, I admire the author's courage to reject the blue pill publicly.

I don't know if this should be considered authoral courage too, but Jack Murphy isn't afraid to let important characters get snuffed in all the spray of shrapnel and deluge of full-auto fire. The body count is high, but not gratuitous. The progression of the plot is both plausible and logical. It is hard to imagine, though, how the stakes could be raised much higher in a sequel.

It's not very common to discover an action-adventure author who is also a SpecOps veteran. When you do, unfortunately, the quality of the fiction usually leaves something to be desired. Richard Marcinko was a competent SEAL team commander, but his Rogue Warrior series is “un-sat” IMHO. Barry Saddler was respected in SF, had a decent singing voice, and I'll even admit his Casca series was a neat idea, but after struggling to plod all the way through a couple of those books, I found myself asking what the point was.

Jack Murphy has not only done some of the same types of things he writes about, but he has consolidated them into an intelligent, entertaining novel. And Deckard is a character with plenty of juice for more shootouts to come. I highly recommend this book.

It is out now for the Kindle, and soon to be in paperback. Please consider buying it through Jack's blog, Reflexive Fire, from Amazon, so the author gets to keep a little more of the fruit of his work. I hope to interview Jack about this novel in the near future, so stay tuned.

Hatchet Force In Da House!

2011-06-20T22:34:00.003-04:00

I'm excited to announce that the first issue of Hatchet Force Journal is now available in the Amazon Kindle store. Jack Badelaire, the blogging mastermind behind Post Modern Pulps, put this periodical together with the help of other fans and writers of men's fiction, action adventure, new pulp, post-modern pulp, dude-lit...whatever you prefer to call it.

I can't think of another publication like it, though some of the comic fan-zines had a similar focus on their chosen medium. But it doesn't just cover fiction--Jack is keeping flexible. There are films and TV series discussed in this issue, and I believe there will be articles about firearms and military subjects in the future.

Here's some info about the contributors to this first issue, lifted right from Hatchet Force:

Jack Badelaire received his degree in Film with a minor in Classical Studies. He currently

works in Higher Education Technology. His hobbies include collecting single malt whiskys and

knives, military history, and of course, reading paperback action-adventure fiction. You can

find his blog at postmodernpulps.blogspot.com.

Tom Johnson is a former US Army military policeman and a long time champion and author

of pulp fiction. He has also contributed to a number of non-fiction works as well as several

anthologies. You can find Tom’s blog at pulplair.blogspot.com.

Joe Kenney hails from Dallas, Texas. His ability to consume vast quantities of lurid, violent

paperback fiction remains unmatched in the history of mankind. You can find all of Joe’s many

reviews over at his blog: glorioustrash.blogspot.com.

Mack Maloney is the author of several dozen novels, most notably the Wingman series of postapocalyptic adventures. His latest series of books is The Pirate Hunters, and Mack recently

released an album, Sky Club. You can find Mack at his website, mackmaloney.com.

John Mayhem and Jack Badelaire survived the bloody trenches of film school together and

have been fast friends ever since. An avid hunter and outdoorsman, Mr. Mayhem works as a

Digital Archives Manager specializing in film and television collections.

Brad Mengel is a long-time scholar of action-adventure movies, television, and fiction.

Brad wrote the excellent reference book Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction, a must-have

for anyone doing significant research on the subject. You can find Brad’s blog over at

my.opera.com/AggressorBrad/blog.

There's even some two-fisted material provided by yours truly.

There's an interesting examination of that maniacal maven of movie violence from the Vietnam era, Sam Peckinpah, and his most definitive film; a discussion of the evolution of the pulp fiction from the golden age into the adventure paperbacks of the 1980s; and a review of Able Team #1 to name just a few.

I found the interview with author Mack Maloney an unexpected treat. Friends of mine back in the day read his Wingman series but I never did. After reading his comments, I'm stunned by how similar his creative seed was (for that series) to my Barbarian Nation series. Aside from the type of aircraft, I'm sure our execution is markedly different, but with the knowledge that his characters are also pilots who build their own hot rod planes, in a post-apocalyptic future, the series just went up a couple notches in my estimation.

I've been longing for a resurgence in dude-lit (or whatever you prefer to call it), and am beginning to find reason to hope one is underway. The Hatchet Force Journal is one tangible exhibit of that hope.

Marvel Romps Onward On the Big Screen

2011-06-18T10:50:00.000-04:00

I've recently watched Thor and the latest X-Men movie, and will probably blog something about them in the future--especially the X-Men. For now, I wanted to share the Captain America trailer with you, in case you haven't yet seen it.

Having groaned through every previous screen adaptation of this character, it looks like Hollywood may have finally gotten it right. Judging by these trailers, anyway. It won't surprise me if the film makers subject me to the obligatory amazon superninjas, and make some snide political statement equating the Nazis to the Tea Party or the Red Skull to Ron Paul. But so far as I can tell from the previews, it looks like they took the time to study Captain America's history, and maybe even respect the character. Not only that, it looks chock-full of pulpy superhero action. The Green Hornet trailer convinced me not to bother paying a small fortune to watch that one on the big screen. With The First Avenger, I'm chomping at the bit.

Breeder by Jim Morris

2011-06-10T17:44:00.003-04:00

One of the coolest things about blogging is when I'm able to play a part in helping other fans of men's fiction discover, or rediscover, some entertaining novels that have all but been forgotten.

Jim Morris spent 3 tours in Vietnam in the Special Forces. He has authored non-fiction titles on military topics, and for many years was a contributor at Soldier of Fortune Magazine. Until recently, I thought this title was the only proof that he had ever dabbled in fiction, but it looks like his other fiction is showing up on Amazon, finally.

Breeder is on the Guilty Pleasures shelf of my home library in between the Renegade Series, the Last Ranger, the Sergeant and the Ratbastards. It is in no danger of ever being recognized as important literature, but it sure gave me something to enjoy for a few hours.

Published in 1988, the novel takes place in the then-near future of 1991, and Morris makes some interesting predictions, to say the least. Not many of them have come true, yet, but I can see the same societal undercurrents Morris saw then. Either his prophecies were premature, or he was just having fun pulling my leg. For instance: there has long been an attitude among certain political circles that all our Armed Forces in the United States should be merged into one polyglot "Defense Force." The Marines would be combined with the Army to form the "Land Defense." All aircraft, whether stationed on carriers or air bases, would be consolidated for the "Air Defense" branch. And so on. This has happened as of 1991 in Morris' book.

But that's not all. The USA is fighting a second civil war. Not between the states, but against the "Geebees," an interesting anticipation of the citizen militias that would rise up between 1993-95.

Our hero, Jeff Clendenning, is, at first glance, a parody of every men's fiction super-stud you've ever read about. He's the model of physical perfection. He's stronger, faster, and a better fighter than anyone else. No woman can resist him and even the frigid ones are left satisfied. Unlike most authors in the genre, though, Morris has a reason why his protagonist is such a superman: genetic engineering. In fact, it's central to this deliberately cartoonish Cold-War adventure. Morris took the Sleeper Agent plot, combined it with the Master Race plot, gave them a twist, dressed it all up in pulpy action conventions, and out came Breeder.

Jeff Clendenning has one special ability beyond the usual action super-stud's: he can tell when a woman is ovulating. He is the "breeder" of the title, of course, so you can imagine how this super power would be essential to his mission.

Trouble is, the breeder doesn't know what he is--what he was designed to be. In fact, there's a lot about life and the world he doesn't know, due to the disinformation he's been fed and the elaborate "Truman Show" existence he's been raised in. But between deployments with the Rangers, kidnapping by the Geebees and a Patti Hearst-like bank-robbing spree, the breeder discovers the whole incredible story. If Morris' cheek wasn't dented out so far by his tongue, I might be tempted to suspect he was trying to get the reader to sympathize with the emotional side of his super-stud, because the breeder's story might be sad if it wasn't so doggone funny and gratuitously violent.

From the very first time I read this novel, I dismissed the Master Race aspect of the plot as silly, simple, and off-the-wall. After all, no tinkering with the American gene pool has been necessary to bring us to the brink of financial ruin (to name just one calamity that we now face). All it has required has been Pavlovian conditioning, softening, and dumbing-down of the electorate over a couple generations.

But then, Europe is rapidly transforming into a Muslim continent as I write this, and this paradigm shift is taking place in the womb.There is a political power base here in America that hopes to forge an ironclad monopoly over the three branches of our government, and one method they've been using to great effect (besides the aforementioned Pavlovian conditioning, softening and dumbing-down) includes tactics like refusal to enforce immigration laws, granting of amnesty to illegals, and the encouragement of "anchor babies" through redistribution of taxpayers' money. Again, the key to victory, for some, is considered to lie within the womb.

So maybe the whole Master Race plot is not as silly as I assumed. Certainly it's no sillier than some of the plot devices being used today.

In any event, I don't purport that this was Jim Morris' attempt at an Atlas Shrugged of his own. It's an action adventure/paramilitary thriller, or perhaps a deconstructive parody of the genre. It's a fast read with some crazy action and an appealing set of bookends to the story (has to do with his roomie's poster). I can't really call it subtle, but it's possible you could miss it. (Is anything subtle in this genre?)

If a professor of literature asked me to defend my recommendation of this book, I doubt if I could. Yet I recommend it nonetheless.

Omaha Wasn't the Only Beach

2011-06-05T20:05:00.000-04:00

It's D-Day Anniversary minus 1. Aside from the related airborne operations, I've been neglecting everything besides the landing at Omaha. Why? Because that was the point of heaviest German resistance; hence the bloodiest battle; hence a significant hinge point in the invasion, the war, and history. But I haven't emphasized it because I don't appreciate what happened on Gold, Sword, Juno and Utah.

Though less dramatic, here's a scene based on the Utah landing, with Henry Fonda playing Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Now this is more like what military strategists would like to see during amphibious landings. Most of MacArthur's landings in the Pacific met light resistance like this, if they weren't altogether unopposed.

And here's a scene from Sword Beach, so you Anglophiles don't get upset with me. Notice Sean Connery in a fairly early role, before the James Bond persona so rubbed off on him that he carried it with him into every flick he acted in.

Finally, here is a documentary which provides a little perspective on the invasion.

At this time 63 years ago, General of the Army and Allied Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower was visiting the paratroopers who would be dropping behind the Atlantic Wall in a few hours.

Hope everybody had a good weekend. Stay tuned for more 2-fisted blogging.

Hell Harbor: The Sergeant # 2 by Gordon Davis

2011-06-02T20:53:00.000-04:00

In keeping with my lead-up to the D-Day anniversary, I decided to post a review of a relevant installment of my favorite pulpy WWII series. I'm thankful I've had so much free time lately, but I'm not sure how frequently I'll be able to blog between Sundays after this.

Previously, I've reviewed Death Train and The Liberation of Paris from this series. In addition, Jack Badelaire has reviewed Slaughter City and Hammerhead at Post Modern Pulps. You might consider reading those reviews, if you haven't already, as a sort of introduction to Master Sergeant Clarence J. Mahoney.

It's D-Day plus 3 (in the book) and, though conventional Wermacht wisdom had the allies invading across the narrowest point in the English Channel (into Pas de Calais) and in good weather, those crafty Yanks and Limeys have instead landed at Normandy during a brief lull in horrible weather. The German commander in Cherbourg has rigged a gawd-awful amount of explosives in the sewers. Enough to destroy the entire harbor and deny its use to the allies. Without that key harbor, reinforcing and resupplying the invasion force will become very difficult. And, if Hitler decides to release his panzer divisions, the invasion force will probably be crushed against the Channel. Between perdition and the deep blue sea, if you will.

Lucky for the allies, a young German officer who thinks with the wrong head has gotten friendly with a local French girl who knows how to play with both heads quite effectively. The French girl also happens to have a patriotic streak, and is a valuable intelligence asset for the good guys. Through her, the Allies learn of the German plan to destroy the harbor.

Enter chain-smoking, hard-drinking, skirt-chasing, butt-kicking Sergeant Mahoney, fresh back to the 23rd Rangers from his cloak & dagger mission with the Maquis. Along with Corporal Cranepool, Captain Boynton, and a handfull of other rangers, he is voluntold to fight his way inside Cherbourg and figure out some way to prevent the demolition.

It's hard to believe Boynton and his superiors are so dim-witted that storming the German fortress would be the best plan they could come up with. But eventually they wise up and, unfortunately for the rangers behind German lines, the mission devolves literally into the crappiest operation Mahoney can imagine. So crappy that he vows to quit the Rangers and transfer to a line unit if he survives.

There is all the bloody mayhem you should expect from a title in this series, plus the subplot of the German officer and French spy (which provides some good laughs), a groanable episode in which Cranepool mistakes a VD inspection tent for a USO donut tent, and a somewhat longer episode in which Mahoney first impersonates a doctor, then plays doctor with a lonely nurse.

By the end of the book Gordon Davis (Len Levinson) has nicely set up Mahoney's transformation back to a line doggie--which means reams of ludicrous bayonet combat in subsequent books. Speaking of that, I have finally acquired The Sergeant # 3: Bloody Bush, making me the first one on my block to own the entire series. Very soon, hopefully, I'll have a chance to read it and complete my Mahoney/Cranepool education.

...Not a German Was Shamming, Except For Erwin Rommel

2011-06-01T15:22:00.001-04:00

We're at D-Day minus four (Memorial Day plus two), and I'm nowhere near out of cool clips to post on the topic.

By the way, my first unit's barracks was on the street at Fort Bragg named after Carentan (almost all the streets in Division's area were named after WWII battles fought by the All Americans).

Here's another fantastic piece of film making--the Omaha Beach sequence from Saving Private Ryan:

Field Marshal Von Rundstedt actually had a logical plan for countering the invasion of Fortress Europe. Thankfully, Rommel agreed with Hitler's typical "don't surrender one single inch to the enemy" philosophy, and thought success meant he had to stop the allies right on the beach. Hitler's assumption that the entire coastline of Europe could be simultaneously defended was, of course, ludicrous, even for a Wermacht not spread out on multiple fronts. This accounts for the fairly light resistance encountered at Gold, Sword, Juneau and Utah Beaches. But Omaha was a meatgrinder--the bloodiest amphibious landing in recorded history.

Spielberg's film pushes my suspension of disbelief a little too far later on, but this opening sequence is a masterpiece IMO. I've never participated in an amphibious landing, and watching this clip is as close as I ever want to get to a hellground like Omaha Beach.

...And All Through Northern France...

2011-05-30T23:17:00.002-04:00

Some guy added music and really fowled up this scene, but you can still get an idea what a nightmare these guys dropped into at St. Mere Eglise when they overshot the drop zone. They really earned their jump pay that day, to say the least.

Nobody FUBARed the next clip up with music, so, in the spirit of the coming D-Day anniversary, here is another clip from The Longest Day--the Rangers assaulting Pointe Du Hoc to knock out some German guns they were told could wreak havoc on the invasion fleet.

Personally, I think some handheld camera/POV shots could have enhanced this scene, because, to me, the danger of this mission doesn't really come across as is. Scaling cliffs like that with weapons and gear would have you smoked WITHOUT enemy gunners on the high ground enjoying a turkey shoot at your expense. RAAAAAAAAAAAIN-JAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!! Hoowah! Woof, woof, hui hui hui!

BTW, Happy Memorial Day and thanks to all who have served or are serving.

T'was the Night Before D-Day...

2011-05-28T23:26:00.003-04:00

The D-Day Anniversary will be here before we know it. With both that and Memorial Day coming up, I thought it would be appropriate to revisit some cinematic recreations of a momentous point in history.

Here, from the Band of Brothers miniseries, is a dramatization of the jump into Normandy the night before D-Day. And a nice piece of film making IMO.

By the time I myself became a paratrooper, the Actions On Aircraft routine had only changed a little bit from what is shown here in this WWII jump.

As a side note, it was my personal studies of WWII--particularly of the 101st Screaming Eagles' defense of Bastogne--that greatly influenced my decision to go Airborne. Unfortunately the 101st was no longer truly Airborne by the time I came of age (actually, the "Airborne" tab above their division patch had been rendered meaningless long before), and the only Airborne Division left was the 82nd...so that's where I wanted to go.

Concerning this series, this is rather ironic because the Bastogne episode was maybe the most lackluster in Band of Brothers IMO, capturing none of the desperation...or, dare I say: heroism...of that battle. Nevertheless, this drop into Normandy sequence is a gut-wrencher, I think, capturing the nerves, danger, and havoc of that night pretty well.

For the non-historians/military buffs out there, one classic purpose for airborne troops was a tactic called "vertical envelopment"--paratroopers are dropped behind the lines to catch an enemy in the rear while conventional forces meet them head-on. In recent history, the Rangers were thus employed in Grenada; the 504th PIR (82nd) in Panama; and the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Iraq during the opening stage of OIF. Granted, the missions in Grenada and Panama had plural purposes, but this is just a simplified explanation.

Specifically, in France the Airborne was supposed to capture key bridgeheads inland from the invasion beaches and either hold them until Allied armor could break out, or blow them before German armor could blast the Allies back into the English Channel. In theory, paratroopers are supposed to be dropped in undefended, or lightly defended, drop zones within a reasonably short march to their objectives. But American and British air forces had been bombing the living crap out of Germany and Hitler's "Fortress Europe" was bristling with anti-aircraft guns, ready to open up on anything coming from a westerly direction. Ike and his staff actually expected 60% casualties--an unheard-of risk acceptance for American planners.

Well, I could go on about this, but hats off to producer Spielberg and the film makers for telling Easy Company's story, and hats off to the men who put it all on the line in the fight against Nazi Germany.

Virtual Pulp Press Lurches...er, Launches Forward

2011-05-27T13:41:00.001-04:00

My new e-publishing strategy is out of the gates. It might be a couple weeks or months before the next phase in my plan solidifies, and I start getting more short pulp adventures out there, but I've got five 99-cent titles out now, so that's a start. These two covers are from my hack-and-slash fantasy series; Tales of the Honor Triad.

I actually wrote Gryphon first, then "went back" and wrote the origin story, Bloodstained Defile, which I included in the anthology. The next couple installments I have in mind will progress from that first one, but after that I doubt I'll try to keep it all chronological. Robert E. Howard didn't (his first Conan story had the Cimmerian already a king, then later stories featured a younger Conan during his wandering barbarian days) and nobody seemed to mind. The radical difference in cover concepts is partly an experiment. I'm conducting a lot of those, these days.

There are other short pulp adventures I've written over the years. I'm still having trouble finding some of them. Others I haven't been able to convert from the old WordPerfect files yet (and my laptop just bit the dust, which will seriously limit productivity for a while). And there are more ideas I just haven't translated from brain to print, yet. Nevertheless, I am advancing on multiple fronts. It's just that my advance is at more of a Bernard Montgomery pace than a Heinz Guderian.

Pulp Fiction Revival; Ebook Revolution, and My Own Two-Fisted Retrenchment

2011-05-23T01:16:00.002-04:00

I've been dealing with some challenges lately that have really put a damper on my quest for world domination. Nevertheless, my criminal genius mind has kept busy plotting and scheming. More on that in a moment.

In the last year I've met some other fans and writers of pulp or pulpesque fiction, including Jack Badelaire at Post Modern Pulps and Jack Murphy at Reflexive Fire. It's been encouraging to interact with them, to see the beginnings of a possible pulp revival taking shape, and to find that, though technically competitors, at least a handful of us share ambitions that could dovetail nicely to everyone's benefit. I certainly want my own literary efforts to meet with success, but I want, almost as badly, my fellow pulpeteers to succeed, too.

Because a few of us are thinking along similar lines, I am envisioning a reawakening of interest in the genre sweeping along on the coattails of the ebook revolution already underway. But I can't predict how it's all going to shake out. I have signed on to participate in some of the pooling of resources others have proposed, and I'm eagerly anticipating what could result.

Meanwhile, let me share part of my personal plotting/scheming in the 2-fisted microcosm of the pulp universe:

Here is a cover concept I sketched on typewriter paper when I was a teenager--giving you an idea how long I've had a dream of publishing my own pulp magazines (and, if you've read Barbarian Nation, how much my concept for the Rebble Rauser character has evolved). What the blazes is a typewriter, right?

Well, there is a glut of information on the web about the history of pulp fiction that I won't regurgitate here. Let me just fast-forward to this:

This short-lived magazine from the late 1980s was not so much an inspiration, as a motivation. Although really a b&w comic book in format, this was a pulp mag in flavor (though as you can tell by this cover, with a decidedly "post modern" attitude), featuring tales of feudal Japan, the Wild West, Vietnam, post-apocalyptic California and the Depression-era Ozarks, to name a few.

Knowing less than nothing about publishing, I let life happen and shelved my dream of producing retro-pulp of my own. When I finally overcame my own stubbornness and took notice of the e-publishing revolution, I pulled Virtual Pulp off its virtual shelf and dusted it off. But even while accepting new technology, I was still clinging to some dated publishing ideas.

See, Savage Tales was perfect for me, because I love reading in almost all the pulp genres. Since I love writing in different genres as well, I packaged Virtual Pulp pretty much the same way. But...big surprise, here...most people aren't like me. They may love westerns, but hate war; love sci-fi, but hate fantasy. You get the idea.

So, realizing this, I have decided to scrap my plans for Issue #2, for the foreseeable future. But that doesn't mean I plan to quit writing/publishing short (sometimes serialized) pulp tales in various genres. I'm merely liberating them from the old-school grab-bag packaging, and letting readers pick and choose for themselves which genres/characters they want to follow. Starting this week (barring any publishing mishaps), some of my short pulp tales should become available for the Kindle at 99 cents apiece. Availability in other ebook formats will follow in succeeding weeks.

To sustain some semblance of symmetry to this blog post, here is the cover to my first offering in the Barbarian Nation continuity, which centers around my evolved Rebble Rauser character:

My logo in the upper left might be difficult to make out in the thumbnail, but suffice it to say that I'd like to make "Virtual Pulp" my e-publishing imprint, rather than the title of a series of anthologies. Same dream; different strategy. I'm sure all my loyal 2-fisted blogees know about DC Comics. "DC" came from Detective Comics, the title of the first comic book they published. What I'm doing is similar, though for different reasons.

I might not have a chance to blog again until next Sunday, but I'll try to post updates on my diabolical machinations as I'm able. My alternate history novel is still in the works, and I'll be publishing more short pulp works in addition as time and the muse permits.

Blackberry Boondoggle (or, What's the Point of a Thousand Cool Apps When the &^%$#@! Things Don't Work Worth a ~!@#$%^&+?)

2011-05-15T00:09:00.002-04:00

Hello faithful two-fisted followers. I haven't been neglecting my blogging duties; just juggling a lot of irons through the fire onto my plate, with my nose to the grindstone and all that rot.

Well, whip out your violins and prepare for a snivel-fest.

The line of ~~drudgery~~ work I've found myself in requires a lot of driving. Not such a bad thing--I like listening to music, and I can check out audiobooks from the library to listen to while I drive. Well, the selection is limited in the East Bumfuq Public Library, so I've broadened my genre horizons considerably. But the gig I'm working now has me driving boocoup miles everywhere but my county of residence, and checking out books on CD has become unrealistic.

Lo and behold: Public libraries have entered the digital age, offering audiobooks in mp3 and other formats for checkout/download. High speed, sez I, and jumped on the bandwagon. I'm sure iPod and iPhone owners have no trouble taking advantage of this advancement, but my experience has fallen somewhat short of the technological potential in theory.

I installed MP3 Overdrive and some other apps on my Blackberry. After more hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing than I care to detail, the only mp3 Overdrive/Blackberry allows me to download/play is Overdrive's "Welcome to Our Wonderful App" message. Big surprise, but listening to this welcome-to-this-app-that-only-plays-this-one-single-friggin'-file 400 times doesn't really hold a candle to a Wilbur Smith historical adventure...or the pulpnificent periodical I checked out but can't friggin' download. I tried to outflank the cyberkilljoys by downloading to my PC, then transferring the file to my ~~smart~~ retarded phone, but those diabolical bastards are one step ahead of me: My PC doesn't acknowledge the existence of the Overdrive folders, and when I copy the file into a folder it does recognize, then Overdrive refuses to acknowledge the file's existence.

Sigh.

Not all is lost, sez I. Critical Press Media is podcasting an indie novel. I'll listen to that. But when I get to the point I reached before (it never fails) somebody friggin' calls me. Then nothing but error messages until I yank the stinking battery out and power cycle the furshluggoner ~~smart~~ retarded phone. After ages of rebooting time, then eons spent getting back to where I was, guess what? That's right: another phone call. Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

I'll have the Overdrive welcome message memorized verbatim after another 400 listens or so.

A Roadside Men's Adventure Smorgasboard

2011-05-07T23:28:00.000-04:00

Recently, work-related travel has not brought me near any public libraries for which I have a card. However, for a few days I passed a roadside used bookstore in a rural area. On my very last trip that took me past it, as it turns out, I stopped by to see if they had a copy of The Sergeant #3: Bloody Bush so I could be the first one on my block to own the whole collection. It's almost impossible to find men's fiction in the chain stores (because so little of it is still being traditionally published), but I thought maybe I'd have at least a chance at a place like this with a painted plywood sign.

I walked inside, steered past the obligatory romance section (from which such places probably get 75% of their business), found sci-fi, bounced over to westerns, then, about 2/3rds back on the right I found the men's fiction section.

And what a section it was! A shelf-and-a-half stocked with testosterone-tainted treasure. I didn't find Bloody Bush or any other Gordon Davis titles. Nor were there any Mac Wingate installments, though there were a couple of John Mackie's Ratbastards. But they had some series that were only a few books away from being complete collections. Having heard about Ahern's Survivalist series but never having read it, I grabbed 2 samples of it. The shelves were sagging under the weight of the Executioners, Bolans, Stony Mans, Able Teams and Phoenix Forces! I picked up an early Executioner, wanting to read one of his Mafia Wars titles.

There were some series and stand-alone titles I own, but a lot more I've never been exposed to. If I was still single, I'd have gone crazy. Relatively speaking, maybe I did go crazy.

Every now and then I get a hankering for some '80s paramilitary pulp. So I picked a few of those off the testosterone tree.

I wish I'd had time and an internet connection so I could consult www.mackbolan.com and Jack Badelaire's Post Modern Pulp forum to inform my buying decisions a bit. I feel confident about the Pendelton and Ahern titles, but I have no clue what quality the other stuff is. I also don't know when I'll get a chance to read these. But when I do, 2-fisted blogees, you can bet I will spout off my opinions about them.

This place was a literate caveman's Nirvahna.

The Bin-Laden Bandwagon

2011-05-05T22:54:00.001-04:00

Am I a prophet, or what?

You may think I'm late jumping on this hot topic. If so, alas! Thou art wrong-eth.

About a week before the news broke, I uploaded my newly tweaked book trailer with the title: Osama Bin Laden Gets Machinegunned into Swiss Cheese!

That's right, dear readers: I scooped the world.

Buy my books right now and maybe some of my greatness will rub off on you through the pages!

As for rumors that Bin Laden was killed back circa 2003...don't believe it (unless doing so causes you to buy my books). I like being a prophet, OK? All except for those sack cloth outfits.

Good Writing Despite Bias: Exile by Richard North Patterson

2011-05-01T13:24:00.001-04:00

If I only read books by authors who I agreed with ideologically, I would probably be as illiterate as the mainstream culture has become. If I were to boycott authors whose ideology I find repugnant, that would probably reduce my library by at least 90%. I'm guessing Mr. Patterson and I would irritate each other greatly were we to have a conversation about the Middle East. However, he is an able storyteller who wrote a fine piece of fiction it was hard to put down.

David Wolfe, a lawyer with a promising career in politics ahead of him, engaged to an impossibly good woman from an influential family, damages his own future beyond repair when Hana Arif, an old college flame, reenters his life after 13 years. The lawyer happens to be of Jewish lineage. The woman from his past is a Palestinian activist. She doesn't just cause him to flush his life down the toilet the way women normally do. She's the government's suspect in the assassination of the visiting Israeli prime minister, and she asks David to represent her.

Patterson serves up tension, suspense and conflict in generous doses, while revealing just enough to convince the reader the assassination was part of an intricate conspiracy meant to implicate Hana...but never quite enough to reveal how innocent (or guilty) she really is. Some people will see the major plot twist coming, but that doesn't reduce the grip the story has on you.

Where it breaks down is during David's trip to Israel to dredge up evidence for his case. The plot is not advanced significantly, if at all. All that is advanced is some thinly veiled soapboxing by the author. Many writers have been guilty of this--perhaps even me (and on this very topic: Israel/Palestine), though I'm pretty sure I showed much more restraint than Patterson.

Patterson attempts to make it appear he is "even-handed" and shows "both sides." Not really. He beats the reader over the head with the Palestinian side. Then, to make it fair by his standards, he admits that the Holocaust took place and Jews have suffered throughout history. That is the extent of the Jewish side of the argument as Patterson sees it. And though other political axes are not as blatantly ground, there's little mystery about the assumptions he goes into this with: The worst aspect of radical Islam is that it's not feminist. Anti-Semitic terrorism is caused by Jews' mistreatment of Palestinians. Right-wing boogymen are both stupid and crazy, yet dangerous, and really dupes of the sophisticated enemies of peace around the world. Those who believe the Bible is true...whether practicing Judaism or Christianity...are dangerous right-wing boogymen.

Upon David's return to the US and the trial, the narrative jumps back into gear. It's a courtroom drama from then on, and written well. The legal minutia seemed plausible, yet never bogged down the plot with courtroom tedium.

The so-called "justice" system in America has become one in which prosecutors are not interested in seeking justice, and don't care whether defendants are innocent or guilty. All they care about is getting a conviction. I thought this was reflected accurately. But the flip-side is also true: Defense lawyers couldn't care less whether their clients are guilty or innocent. All they want is to get their client off. This is represented as well, though not as obvious. David is never certain about Hana's innocence, but he does ask her, presumably because he won't represent her if she was involved in the assassination. In real life the lawyer would probably know, and if the client was guilty, would fabricate a story for them to testify with as fact. But this is not a criticism of Patterson's novel. It wasn't his intention to dissect the legal system. And the behavior of both David and the prosecutor (Sharpe) is easily believable.

Hana is married, BTW, with a 12-year-old daughter. Her husband is the one she chose over David, because her family approved of him, and would have died of shame had they known she once had relations with a Jew. Though the characters don't speak of it, and David doesn't overtly think about it so far as is revealed, the reader is led to hope, via Patterson's storytelling voodoo, that 1. Hana is innocent, 2. her radical sexist husband will be taken out of the way somehow, and 3. Hana and David can find a way to be together again. This adds to the tension throughout.

If you enjoy courtroom suspense, you'll probably like this book.

Full-Auto Shotguns

2011-04-26T22:27:00.000-04:00

This Ruskie triggerhead has quite the arsenal. Kick back, pop open a beer and enjoy some gun porn.

New Improved Book Trailer

2011-04-21T07:14:00.002-04:00

The latest chapter in my blue collar dronedom has kept me from the keyboard quite a bit lately. No writing has been possible, and not much blogging, either.

I will share a silver lining, though: my musician friend has finished his professional remix of the score he made for the Hell & Gone video. It is the same music, but it does sound very crisp now, and some of the drum work really stands out. At some point soon hopefully, I'll drop it in place of the "rough cut" soundtrack, along with some minor visual tweaks, and re-post it.

Speaking of that, I wonder if I'll lose my existing view count when I do that. Not that <600 views on Youtube is anything to brag about (except compared to other book trailers, maybe), but it took some work just getting to that point and I hate to become even less relevant to search engines.

The casual observer might not even notice a difference in the videos, but Dave and I both share a persnickedy artistic OCD so I'm compelled to replace the inferior cut.

Dave still doesn't have a website, BTW. I was hoping he might at least get some recognition for his work through this. Well, he's got his own white collar dronedom to deal with, and I can relate.

Watch, like, subscribe, pimp to your friends.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss 5 minutes goodbye...

Behind the Lines by W.E.B. Griffin

2011-04-09T22:31:00.001-04:00

My introduction to W.E.B. Griffin's fiction was a few volumes from the Brotherhood of War series (or so I thought--more on that later). I read The Captains,The Majors, and The Colonels from that series before giving up on it. I wanted to read some war novels, and wasn't sure beyond a reasonable doubt until after reading three installments that Griffin wasn't really trying to write war novels. He is more interested in the back room/office politics of military brass--some of which takes place when the country happens to be at war. Those three books, to me, read like novelized versions of a few seasons' dose of Army Wives--albeit with a FAR greater degree of accuracy in military details.

Behind the Lines was my introduction to his "The Corps" series, my favorite of his military novels, and a pretty good read. WWII is still the period of history that fascinates me most, and American guerrilla action in the Philippines is a subject I haven't read much about, so those were points in the book's favor. But I think what made it a winner for me were the characters. I related to Fertig, McCoy and Weston, and wanted them to prevail.

My complaints about this book are similar to those I have against other Griffin tomes: office politics are interesting up to a point, but he really emphasizes them at the expense of plot and action. The word-for-word (simulated) top-secret memos did become old after about six of them. Characters who jump from enlisted ranks--or even civilian life--into O-3 to O-5 commissions are extremely over-represented, while officers like Macklin are severely under-represented. There were also some plot devices, meant to up the tension probably, that just didn't strike me as worthwhile (all wrapped up in the aforementioned back-room politics). But there was enough good in this book to outweigh all of that.

Griffin may pick details to dwell on that run against my tastes, but his stories are very plausible. His main characters are three-dimensional. Macklin, for instance, probably couldn't have been drawn better. Also, I hadn't experienced Griffin getting into the minds of the opfor before, so it was nice to find that he gave just as much careful attention to depicting characters and office politics on the Japanese side as the American.

All-in-all this was a page-turner; and I cared about what was going to happen to the characters, from beginning to end.

Imagine my surprise when, after googling Griffin, I discovered that he also authored one of my all-time favorite young adult books under a pseudonym. I read that one before ever imagining I would have an interest in the military (much less join it). Stylistically or content-wise I could never have guessed it was the same writer. It shows how versatile this author is.

Death Train: The Sergeant # 1 by Gordon Davis

2011-04-01T06:15:00.003-04:00

Back in October 2010, I reviewed the first book I ever read in this series, which was also my introduction to war fiction and military pulp (though I didn't know it was considered pulp until many years later).

The title character is Master Sergeant Clarence J. Mahoney, a bruising, brawling hardcorps hardcase who is one of those characters you love to read about (guiltily, perhaps), but who you probably wouldn't care to associate with in reality. Speaking of reality, this guy is not the kind of soldier who would go far in the post-war peacetime Army, despite his spit & polish proclivities hinted at in this book, and his mercurial egocentric nature. He's a whoring, hard-drinking savage not good for much of anything besides killing and fornicating. No Neanderthal Switch to turn off until the next war.

Mahoney and his sidekick Corporal Cranepool are introduced to us working with the maquis of the Resistance in German-occupied France shortly before D-Day in 1944. They've been dropped into Fortress Europe with other volunteers from the 23rd Rangers because they speak fluent French. (Mahoney also speaks fluent German--evidently this caveman from New York City is an idiot-savant when it comes to languages--hence his code name/nickname "the Parrot.") To preempt redeployment of Wermacht divisions when the invasion takes place, Mahoney and Cranepool are ordered to destroy a crucial railroad bridge.

The Air Force has bombed this bridge to little effect. Ike wants it ruined, and ruined good, post-haste. Mahoney asks for 10 crates of TNT. The French give him two. When he sees the bridge, it's obvious he can only do minimal damage to it with the ordinance at hand. He decides that the mission could be better accomplished damaging the railroad somewhere else, and a local member of the Resistance cell Mahoney and Cranepool are attached to just happens to be a former railroader.

Gestapo Major Kurt Richter is on the ball, however, and hot on their heels, rallying SS troops from around the region to hunt them down. When the two forces meet, the action is bloody and fast-paced.

I read numbers four-through-nine in the series many years before, and re-read a few several times, but was a little spoiled by the gratuitous frontline infantry combat to read about Mahoney and Cranepool behind the lines pulling off demolition missions while posing as French peasants. It was interesting, when I finally did delve into Death Train, to observe the author's style shortly after conceiving the character. I don't mean to say the character evolved much over the series, but how other characters thought of him seemed to (they tend to recognize him for what he is in this first book).

Later in the series brief mentions are made of Mahoney's past in New York, but this first installment brings it into sharper focus. Mahoney was basically a hoodlum who joined the Army in 1934 because he couldn't make a living elsewhere during the Depression. I personally think such a man would have prospered in the short-term just fine rolling drunks, mugging people in Central Park, or as hired muscle for an Irish gang. Lucky for us pulp addicts, though, three squares a day in uniform must have had more appeal than (eventually) three squares a day in the slammer. He later volunteered for the Rangers because it offered more pay. He stuck with that up to this point because the professionalism of soldiers in an elite unit appealed to him more than the mediocrity of the line doggies.

It's even more obvious here than in subsequent books what a whoremonger our "hero" is, yet the sexual interludes are not nearly as graphic as they later become. Mahoney's habit of stealing watches off of KIAs originates here, too, BTW.

This is not a bad (for a trashy pulp) novel, but is probably my least favorite in the series. Mostly because the character is better suited to conventional combat (of the pulpy persuasion) than this clandestine stuff. There is no need to read the series in sequence. Other than recurring encounters with Richter, the progression of the war, and the deaths of some supporting characters, there is no continuity to keep track of. Each book stands alone just fine.

The Sergeant series is a guilty pleasure, and the cold brutality of the protagonist is perfectly acceptable to most readers because he has been unleashed against the Germans during Hitler's reign. Gordon Davis (a pseudonym of Len Levinson, from what I read) had a lot of fun writing this series, I suspect. And we can have a lot of fun reading it.

PROMIS: Viet Nam

2011-03-23T11:53:00.008-04:00

Jack Murphy's novel Reflexive Fire is due to come out any time, now, and I'm looking forward to it. In the meantime, he's begun a series of short stories which comprise the mercenary career of his Reflexive Fire protagonist's father, Sean Deckard. In Issue #1,we find Sean Deckard on a SOG team snooping and pooping in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, during the post-Tet chapter of US involvement in the region.

The innocent-sounding "Studies and Observation Group," more widely known by the SOG acronym, is surrounded by far more secrecy than I once assumed: I heard some of the old-timers talking about it (though never in specific detail) when I was a lowly grunt. Now I wonder if those people had any actual knowledge of it, or were just passing on vintage scuttlebutt from the pseudo-mythical CIA operations in southeast Asia.

Both the CIA and Special Forces branched out from Wild Bill Donovan's Office of Strategic Services (OSS) of WWII fame. During the tragic fiasco in Vietnam, the two organizations came full-circle to reunite in the form of SOG. As I mention in my Elite Forces pages on my website, special operations/unconventional warfare forces are most effective when operating with their own intelligence-gathering capabilities organic to their organization(s). Futile sacrifices of the lives of elite warriors like Pont du Hoc; or just plain wastes of effort and resources like the Son Tay raid demonstrate this principle. SOG, therefore, should have been a force to be reckoned with. Though still shrouded in secrecy, by all accounts, they were. But like the entire Vietnam experience (and, arguably Korea and other military misadventures), tactical success after resounding tactical success all are rendered meaningless, along with their cost in human lives, when the command structure that put our men in harm's way is not committed to achieving strategic victory. Jack Murphy gives us a short glimpse into this insane mess through the eyes of Sean Deckard.

Deckard was recruited into SOG from the LRRPs (Long Range Reconnaisance Patrols--later organized into Ranger companies), and he is a hard-charger. Whatever his inner motivations might be, he is the ideal soldier, dedicated to his mission at the cost of most everything he might hold dear. However, he is on his way to some hardcorps disillusion when he proves just a little too effective at what he does.

In the interview segment below, the author provides a link to some information about PROMIS. It is spooky stuff, if true, and evidently not easy to explain well in simple terms. This process, shrouded in even more mystery than SOG, provides the subsurface impetus for the surface action in this series. I'm already fascinated to watch how this technilogical monstrosity is unveiled throughout the series.

But even without all that, Issue #1 of PROMIS is a great read. I would have finished it in one sitting if life hadn't got in the way. The action is fluid, visual, and at no point made me groan in disbelief. Jack did his research well enough that I had nothing to nitpick. On top of that, he's a veteran and knows how to write about combat operations without sinking into shellshocked introspection. He knows how to tweak real-world scenarios to make an entertaining read without interrupting our suspension of disbelief.

PROMIS is short, but packs a wallop. At 99 cents, you can't beat it. I've spent much more for fiction not nearly as good. I plan to buy the whole series as he writes it.

INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR

2FB: Let's start with some biographical info.

Jack Murphy: I’m originally from New York and enlisted in the US Army at age 19. I went straight from infantry basic training to Airborne school and then to the Ranger Indoctrination Program (RIP). Upon graduating, I was assigned to 3rd Ranger Battalion at Ft. Benning, GA. While there, I served as an Anti-Tank gunner, Sniper, and Team Leader. After my second deployment with Ranger Battalion I attended Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS) and got picked to go to the Special Forces Qualification Course. After about a year of training I was assigned to a HALO (military free fall) team with 5th Special Forces Group at Ft. Campbell, KY. I completed three combat tours and graduated from Ranger School, Sniper School, SERE, HALO, and other courses too numerous to mention here. Last year I decided to leave the military and attend college. Currently, I’m working towards a degree in international business.

2FB: First of all, thanks for your service to our country, Jack. BTW: The man I dedicated my first novel to was in 5th Group during Vietnam. He was an old-school NCO, and probably the best one I've ever known. Anyway, though there have been some notable combat veterans who authored books about war, it's still kind of unusual to encounter an action-adventure writer who earned both Ranger and SF tabs and served back-to-back tours in Injun Country. How does that happen?

Jack Murphy: I started writing when I was a teenager, mostly short stories. I was a big fan of action-adventure novels and started writing about the types of things I would want to see in one of those books. I suppose not much has changed in that regard. I wrote a little here and there while I was in the Army but it wasn’t until I left that I felt comfortable really sitting down and hammering our fiction for public consumption. Special Operations has it’s own type of culture and none of us really talk to civilians about what goes on “behind the fence” so to speak.

2FB: It strikes me that you've noticed some of the same sad states of affairs I did in our military.Few Americans could even imagine it--especially those who support our deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jack Murphy: Most Americans try very hard to ignore that we are even fighting a war, or if they do, have no idea how it impacts them. I can understand the second point because I’m not sure that it does. Sadly, I have to say that the US military has put career advancement ahead of victory in Afghanistan and Iraq. The bureaucracy and risk adverse attitude of commanders, even in Special Forces units, is completely unreal. That’s a message you won’t be hearing from the mass media anytime soon.

2FB: And it was surprising to me how far back it goes. Even our "great patriotic war," WWII, the last declared war we fought, when everyone from the top down was earnestly seeking victory, some of this garbage was going on. But nowadays it's the rule, not the exception. Ahem. Were SOG operators still on US Army (or whatever branch) payroll, or were they "officially" civilians working for the CIA?

Jack Murphy: From what I have read it appears that SOG operators were always under the Army's chain of command. SOG was commanded by an Army Colonel and fell under the Army's Table of Organization and Equipment. However, SOG drew from all branches of service and combined them with the unique capabilities of the CIA. This fusion of Special Forces combat troops and intelligence gathering seemed particularly effective, and to be frank, well ahead of it's time.

2FB: Back to you and your books: Tell us about your fiction.

Jack Murphy: I wrote a novel called Reflexive Fire which I am still preparing for release, but what I have out as of now is a short story called PROMIS. It is the first issue which I hope to serialize into a longer plot that follows the career of a professional mercenary through the 70′s and 80′s. I was inspired to write this series because of the research I have done into unconventional warfare, a hobby as well as my former profession. Through my research I discovered some of the most amazing accomplishments in the history of Special Forces, accomplishments that the public at large has little if any knowledge of. In this sense, PROMIS is like historical fiction and brings factual events and histories to new audiences, or so I hope.

2FB: How would you classify this series, and how does it differ from other work in the genre?

Jack Murphy: If I were to assign a genre to PROMIS, I would put it under military fiction. It is an action-adventure short that follows the career of a Sergeant serving in America’s Studies and Observations Group (SOG) , a highly secretive Special Forces unit that conducted cross border operations during the Vietnam War. Very little has been written about SOG, and if you read between the lines of what has, I suspect a lot of their activities are still highly classified to this day. PROMIS is unique because it draws upon source material and speculates on subjects related to espionage and Special Forces missions that most people have never even heard of.

2FB: Where does the title PROMIS come from?

Jack Murphy: PROMIS is the name of a controversial computer program developed in the 1980's by a company called INSLAW. PROMIS stands for Prosecutors Management Information System. Back in those days the Justice Department was losing cases because they couldn't keep track of the files in the primitive computers they had. PROMIS was developed and sold to the government to allow various computer systems to cross talk and communicate between each other. The software was eventually stolen by the CIA and allegedly used to launder millions of dollars of drug money. This is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the PROMIS software scandal and any investigation into this subject will inevitably lead down a road that takes the researcher into subjects like Iran-Contra, the October Surprise, and the murder of a journalist named Danny Casolaro to keep it all quiet. I can't do the subject justice here but those who are interested should read "The Last Circle," by Cheri Seymour or for a primer read the following article: "http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/pandora/052401_promis.html"

I named this series PROMIS because the over all story arc will cover the development and intrigue surrounding the PROMIS software scandal. In issue one we see the very beginnings of a fictionalized PROMIS in Leon Petraska's formulas.

2FB: Every book presents a challenge of some sort when writing it. What was that challenge with this one?

Jack Murphy: My greatest challenge in writing PROMIS was getting the details correct. Although I served in Special Forces, things were a little different back in 1970 when this short story takes place. I went through great pains to “get it right” but really I have Paul over at ModernForces.com to thank for really keeping me honest. His group does Vietnam reenactments, including SOG, and has spent a huge amount of time communicating with Vietnam vets and putting together uniforms and equipment with an extreme degree of attention to detail.

2FB: Expound, if you would, on the scene where Sean flips out on the top brass. Not just their reaction to Petraska's predictive algorithm, but the business of the Soviet military advisors in the COSVN.

Jack Murphy: The existence of Soviet military advisers and the Viet Cong's headquarters, called COSVN, is highly controversial to this day. From my research, I believe that SOG came damned close to catching up with several Soviet advisers. If you read about the dirty little wars of that era, you find communist advisers from Russia, China, Cuba, and East Germany all over the world. Western intelligence agencies were playing chess with the Third World and it would be naive to think the Soviets were not doing the same. In regards to COSVN, I think it existed, SOG certainly did, but probably not the way I wrote about it in my short story. COSVN was probably a fairly small command and control element that stayed highly mobile and coordinated certain actions along the Ho Chi Minh trail. We see the same thing happening today in Iraq and Afghanistan where the enemy maintains a command and control node across a border into an adjoining country, hopefully out of American reach by their logic. Although terrorists operate in a decentralized manner, they still have some higher functions coordinated by well placed individuals or groups.

In PROMIS, the brass reacts poorly to Sean Deckard's discoveries, in regards to the subjects mentioned above, because they are in denial and also because acknowledging the issue would mean having to do something about it. In 1970, something that explosive could have potentially led to World War Three. The sub-context of course, is that such a discovery could have led to the end of the Vietnam War, something that certain vested interests were in no hurry to have happen.

2FB: It surprises nobody, I'm sure, to hear that Vietnam was a dirty war. Still, every time I hear or read about specific dirty details of it, I get pissed all over again. I'm gonna cut myself off right there or I will turn this blog post into an ugly, angry rant.

Thanks, Jack, for taking the time to answer my questions.

Jack has his own blog, Reflexive Fire, linked in the blog roll to the left, with many posts of interest for military/paramilitary enthusiasts. You can buy the PROMIS ebook by clicking the links on his blog. And, of course, you can click on the one below.

I Went There!

2011-03-19T21:25:00.000-04:00

Where I went was into the zany universe of Robblogger, in his smashing debut ebook, Don't Go There. But it's not really the debut ebook that's smashing. The smashing you hear are household appliances and other objects being hurled at Robblogger by his girlfriend, after he has frustrated her beyond the threshold of domestic civility yet again. Evidently, this happens quite often. In fact, Don't Go There grew out of one such Robbloggerish episode.

It seems the (extremely patient/longsuffering and saintly, I'm sure) Significant Other in question wanted to venture out beyond the smokey interior of the crib. The silly gal even suggested traveling somewhere outside Canada. This ebook gives you an idea of the logic and methods he used to talk her out of it.

It's not really a travel guide; it's an anti-travel guide. Armed with info gleaned from Google, Wikipedia and the US State Department, our cynical soothsayer slays the reputation of many potential vacation spots/travel destinations, doing his dangdest to dissuade daunting daredevils from endangering themselves from attacks of international lameness.

Here's an excerpt from the Switzerland chapter:

A land of mountains, more mountains, and to break up the monotonous mountains, some more mountains. They also had a couple of big tiffs in Europe awhile back and the Swiss chose not to get involved.
I don't like that. The Germans showed a little initiative, wanted everyone to wear brown trousers, and shiny boots. The rest of the world wasn't keen on high stepping so we spanked them a bit. They've been quiet since, and I think they apologized for the inconvenience.
Where were you, Swiss Miss? You could have been a big help with all those Swiss army knives. You could have shortened the whole Germany Strikes Back, The Return of the Fatherland by a couple weeks anyway.
You had a lot of nerve selling those army knives of Swiss when you did the equivalent of hiding under the bed during the storm. I liked you better when I thought you were fictional. I had one of your multipurpose cutlery dispensers when I was young. I can't remember if it had a white flag in addition to the cork screw. It probably should have.
I'm going to try and remain neutral, however. I'd hate to offend the Swiss and find they had become apathetic towards me. If I spark an international incident I'm sure their total lack of involvement and ambivalence would be crushing.
Actually I'm rewarding a point for this. Why, dear readers? Well I figure if I get caught fooling around with a buxom Swiss watchmakers wife, and she yodels and wakes her husband, he likely won't want to fight.

This is a great book to keep in the bathroom. And I don't just mean for those times when you run out of toilet paper (it's an ebook, anyway). Robblogger took me on a virtual rollercoaster of reactions from grinning to giggling to guffawing. His humor has such an appeal to me, I'm willing to forgive him for not knowing that The Sound of Music took place in Austria.

Six Easy Pieces by Walter Mosley

2011-03-17T09:32:00.000-04:00

I didn't read the description carefully and assumed this was another Easy Rawlins novel. It is actually a collection of Easy Rawlins short stories, as the title hints.

The year is 1964 and Easy is in his '40s now, with a full-time job as custodian at a public school. He is drawn back into the business of trading favors and unofficial detective work and once he starts, he can't stop during the course of these adventures. The stories are loosely connected, mostly by two themes: 1. Guilt over the death of his crazy friend Mouse, and the incredible rumor that he might still be alive. 2. Suspicion of infidelity by Easy's Stewardess girlfriend Bonnie.

I like Mosley's novel-length stories better, but these did improve as they progressed. And Rawlins meets and reacquaints with some fascinating (or sometimes grotesque) characters along the way, just like the old days. I also liked the Easy Rawlins character better before he became so respectable with the full-time job, adopted kids (Jesus and Feather) and white picket fences. But he's still likable and has the same moral strength that always legitimized his extra-legal endeavors. This reminds me a lot of an anthology of Dashielle Hammett shorts I once read. About the same entertainment value.

Grayton Beach Affair by James Harvey

2011-03-11T00:02:00.001-05:00

This is the second tour for the Two-Fisted Blog. This time, I'm featuring author James Harvey and his debut novel, Grayton Beach Affair. Here's some details on the author and his book:

Returning to Berlin after being educated but disenchanted with America, Christian Wolfe finds that he and Germany are on a collision course with destiny. Because of his skills in English and knowledge of America, he is coerced by the German military to board a U-boat bound for the Gulf of Mexico to locate and extract a high level German officer imprisoned in a POW camp near the coast. Christian's mission runs smoothly until he witnesses an unusual and violent act by Maggie Neal, a young woman living in Grayton Beach, against a man who had taken advantage of her and her servant. Suddenly their lives collide, resulting in a death and involvement with the local police. He and Maggie discover they need each other to survive. Sparks fly and they have a brief and passionate affair, leaving each with deep but unsettled feelings for the other. Upon returning to France, Christian relies on his instincts when an opportunity arises to reconsider his future. He joins the French Resistance and when he saves an American flyer who offers him a new start in America after the war is over, he seizes it. Arriving in Atlanta, he is determined to find Maggie, but with their relationship founded on death and deception, could they possibly build a future together?

James Harvey was born in a small textile and farming town in South Alabama just a few miles from the town portrayed in To Kill A Mockingbird. His family was a poor, but genteel southern family more resembling a Tennessee Williams story than Margaret Mitchell. Harvey’s grandparents owned a home in Fort Walton Beach, Florida where he spent summers and heard stories of World War II German submarine activity in the waters off shore in the Gulf of Mexico.

Upon graduation from Troy State College, Harvey borrowed enough money for a one way ticket to Key West where he taught for a year at Key West High School. During this time, he fell in love with Florida and especially Key West where he enjoyed fishing, diving the reefs and navigating the local bars. In the spring of that year, Harvey met his wife-to-be, Marie, on a Friday and asked her to marry him the following Monday. He courted her on his only means of transportation - a motorcycle – and they will soon celebrate 43 years together.

Realizing that he would rather be in the jungles of Vietnam than the high school class room, Harvey attempted to join the military as an officer, but due to a military oversight, was given a deferment. He reluctantly left the Keys and began a successful career with IBM, first in Boca Raton and then in Atlanta. During his IBM career, he went to law school in the evening and was awarded a Juris Doctorate in 1984 from Woodrow Wilson College of Law. Realizing that most new lawyers barely make a living, Harvey used his degree to leverage advancement in the business world. After taking an early retirement from IBM, he began a second career in commercial real estate brokerage and development in Atlanta, advancing to Vice President of one of Atlanta’s largest office park developers.

The stories of German submarine activity that he heard growing up continued to intrigue Harvey, and in 2007, he began work on his first novel, Grayton Beach Affair in his spare time. In 2009, he made the decision to write full time and is currently working on his second novel.

Harvey and his wife live in North Georgia where he fly fishes the North Georgia and the Rocky Mountain trout streams when not writing. Living in Key West opened Harvey’s eyes to the beauty of the area and influenced him to pursue sport fishing, diving and sailing throughout the Keys and Bahamas. They also live part of the year in the Panhandle of Florida where he fishes the Gulf waters.

After starting on the review copy sent to me for the blog tour, I had some questions for the author.

Two-Fisted Blogger: What is the inspiration behind Grayton Beach Affair?

James Harvey: I grew up in the area of Grayton Beach and learned of German submarine activity off the coast during the war. I then learned of German POW camps that were established in Florida and the SE U.S. I realized that a lot of people were unaware of both and thought it would make a good story . I was able to incorporate an actual U-boat voyage and a German POW camp that existed near Grayton Beach to add depth to the book. I started with the idea that it would be a war, action and danger story for the male reader, but when I introduced the female character and made her very strong and willing to take control of her circumstances, the book evolved more into one of war, action, danger, sex and romance.

Two-Fisted Blogger: How much has Grayton Beach, Florida, changed since WWII? Is it still as isolated as you describe in the book?

James Harvey: Grayton Beach is still a small community of approximately 240 residents at the end of a two lane road. There are only 3-4 businesses, including The Red Bar, a popular restaurant and meeting place for visitors in the area. The Red Bar was previously known as Butler's store, a grocery store and bar, referred to in the book as Bailey's store. In the 1970's, the residents were able to establish prohibitions against high rise condos and as a result, maintains an old world charm. There are new homes, but most are contructed to maintain the old "Florida cracker" style of architecture that I tried to describe in the book. Nearby Grayton Beach are large developments such as Seaside, Watercolor, etc, but Grayton Beach is on 18 mile "scenic highway' 30-A that prohibits highrises, billboards and fast food chains.

Two-Fisted Blogger: How many ships did German U-Boats actually sink off our southeastern coasts?

James Harvey: I don't remember. I did a lot of research on U-boat activity on the Gulf Coast and there are some really good non-fiction books that would easily answer that question. Once I found U-67 and determined that her voyage would perfectly suit my needs to get my character to Grayton Beach, I focused on that. U-67 sank 8 ships in the Gulf in the months of June and July, 1942.

Two-Fisted Blogger: It surprised me that Christian experienced such anti-German prejudice so long after the First World War, and yet well before fear of Germany's ambitions broke out again in the United States after Pearl Harbor (and quickly reached a fever pitch). Is this one of those trends in history that has been swept under the rug?

James Harvey: Growing up in the deep and segregated south in the 40s and 50s, I saw prejudice on all fronts; Religion other than christian (even catholic), race other than white, etc. A lot of the people were uneducated, struggling to make a living during and after the depression and distrustful of anyone not from the south. I used that general distrust and prejudice only to move the story along, not because people were focusing on Germans.

Thanks, James, for taking the time to answer my questions.

I've been fascinated with all aspects of WWII since I was a teenager, so when approached to join this blog tour for a wartime novel, I made room in my schedule.

Grayton Beach Affair, as the title implies, is about an affair that takes place in the Florida panhandle, and how that chance connection affects the involved parties for the duration of the war. Despite the sex scenes in the book, I found the romance between Christian and Maggie to be presented quite innocently. This is love at first sight, pretty much. I once knew a gunbunny from the Aleutian Campaign who met his wife at the USO. When he first laid eyes on her, he told his GI buddies she was the one. Sixty years later, they were still together. So that kind of storybook stuff was not unheard of in that generation.

I've read/watched wartime romances about Americans trapped inside Fortress Europe (in fact, my first abysmal effort at a war novel had such a scenario), but not too many about Germans hiding out in the USA. Christian is not a Nazi, but there's no love lost between him and Uncle Sam, either, having lived in the Southeast USA and suffering some perhaps anachronistic anti-German bigotry. He's a civil engineer, which gives him a military deferment in the Fatherland despite being of draftable age. Nevertheless, his fluent American English makes him a candidate for a mission to rescue a Nazi rocket scientist from an American POW camp in Florida, near the title location. Even a loyal German citizen would balk at such a mission, but der SS haff vays uff makink you covoperate...in this case, the threat of conscripting Christian and shipping him to the Eastern front.

What I found most thought-provoking in this book was Maggie's dilemma. She intuits that Christian is basically a decent guy, sees some evidence to support that, and there is a physical attraction...yet she knows he is a German agent, on a mission for a foreign power her nation is at war with. His life is in her hands. Should she do her patriotic duty and dime him out, or trust her heart/hormones and hide him? I wonder what choice real life people would make in her circumstances.

Well, Christian is a decent guy, after all. The plot takes an interesting turn when, instead of returning to Berlin after his mission, he joins the French Resistance. He has opportunities to bed other women in France but doesn't, usually because he's still smitten by Maggie. As very well should happen in such a story, the two do meet again...but Maggie is engaged to a Georgia attorney. You'll have to read the book to find out what happens from there.

You can buy this book at Amazon or here. My thanks to Florida Book Bloggers and James Harvey for the review copy.

Hank

Read An E-Book Week @ Smashwords

2011-03-07T11:49:00.000-05:00

Smashwords is an online bookstore with thousands of e-books for sale, available in all the major E-Reader formats, as well as some of the minor formats. In fact, if you don't have an E-Reader yet, you can download a PDF to your computer, or just read your purchase on the site.

Mark Coker, who started Smashwords, has a great thing going IMO and is also a pleasant guy to deal with.

From March 6-12, there is a promotion going on at Smashwords, with a lot of titles half-off, 3/4s off, or even free. I'm participating, so you can get Virtual Pulp there for about $1.50 or Hell & Gone for $2.00. If you like to read, you should really visit and search for books in the genres that interest you. I'd definitely read the blurb and sample first before buying, though--it often gives you a clue as to how well the book is written.

More Sample Covers

2011-03-04T21:03:00.001-05:00

If you suspect I'm going crazy with all this e-book cover stuff...you might be right. Here's a couple more variations.

And then...

Well, it's simple alright. But it doesn't really look like a book cover to me. All the design tweaks I have in mind would make it "too busy" probably. Sigh.

Oh, what the blazes...might as well showcase the cover that will be on the paperback come April, too:

Doubt if you can read it, but I quoted from Jack Badelaire's review in that top bar.

E-Book Cover Ideas

2011-03-03T22:17:00.003-05:00

Well, I did 5 of these with different backgrounds.

These are the only ones that don't get murky when reduced to thumbnail size.

I don't like the one with the map very much. But then maybe it would look better with a topo map? I like the mushroom cloud, but it's probably too colorful. So I guess the top one is the best of the batch. But does the Sudanese flag imply that the soldier (silhouette) is Sudanese?

Nobody's commented yet, so I'll add one more:

I just bought this off of iStock, stuck my name/title on it and voila: the easiest cover I've made, to date. Simple enough? Looks OK as a thumbnail? Anyone? Bueler?

Covers, Colors and Subjectivity

2011-02-28T22:41:00.001-05:00

In an earlier blog post, I wondered aloud (well, not really aloud...atext? Aprint? Ablogged?) about why people like and dislike certain colors. And why pretty much everyone disagrees with my aesthetic tastes. Well, the subject has come up again.

Recently, someone was kind enough to explain to me (in detail) why they hate my book cover. No, not the old one. The new one I was so proud of and happy with, and which I thought had addressed the shortcomings of my first attempt (as well as incorporating snippets from some reviews, and a new blurb). Not as aesthetically offensive as the first one, I was informed, but they both pretty much suck.

(The colors came out pretty dull in these photos. But that's probably a positive to everyone but me.)

Well, in a nutshell, a lot of what I was told made sense. I'm still not convinced I should change the print cover as radically as suggested, but I've decided to change the ebook cover to a more conventional (yawn), simple design. The points that really sunk it are as follows:

1. Ebook shoppers see thumbnail images first. And when a detailed cover ("busy" is the graphic design/marketing term, I guess) like mine is reduced to that size, everything is muddled and confusing, or "ugly."

2. Even when displayed at size, a 72 dpi web image of even an attractive cover murks up the details and makes it kinda' ugly. So...

3. The name of the game is to keep it simple. Stone friggin' simple, judging by all the other book covers out there. Outside of western, sci fi or fantasy covers, the most detailed illustration you're gonna see on a book these days is the presidential seal with blood splattered on it, a sinister shadow cast over it or a figure running across it. (I've just described every other paperback cover in Barnes & Noble, BTW.)

4. Evidently the only colors acceptable to most of Earth's population are black, white, or (dull, drab, bland) variations on blue or green.

5. Despite the wise old adage, people do judge a book by its cover.

Somewhat aware of this, even a year ago, my original cover concept for Hell and Gone was merely a Halliburton-type metal suitcase with a radiation symbol on it. But, to me, an image like that does not connote a military adventure/action novel. More like a Sum of All Fears technothriller or maybe an espionage novel. Besides, doggone it, I wanted a five-body fireteam standing in wedge formation in the desert with the sky behind them aglow from a nuclear blast. I thought it would look cool, so nyah-nyah, orthodoxy.

Well, keeping #5 above in mind, I'll soon be conducting an experiment of sorts. I took some pictures. A grenade on various camo-pattern BDU shirts. A grenade next to a bandolier, with another camo pattern as background. A grenade on a stack of ammo boxes. A helmet on a stack of ammo boxes. A carefully composed shot with loaded magazine in the foreground, a nylon assault rifle case standing up on the right (topped by a helmet), web gear on the left, a flack vest in between, tactical kneepads above that...even as I took the last couple photos of that display, I could hear the voice of the Great Sage of Advertising Orthodoxy whispering, "Too busy...too busy..."

I don't particularly like how any of these photos came out, but I'll probably take one of them, sandwich it in between letterboxing in an approved color with title and author in bold, stark letters, and see how it looks. If it's boring, but conveys what kind of book it is somehow, logic dictates that it should improve sales.

No, actually what I think I'll do is take one of the bodies in my fireteam (probably the guy with the M21), sandwich him between some drab letterboxing with fat, stark letters, and call that my ebook cover. Yeah. Look for that, coming soon.

The Unwanted by Daniel L. Carter

2011-02-23T22:16:00.001-05:00

Back in October, I interviewed Daniel L. Carter about his book, The Unwanted, the first in an urban fantasy/thriller trilogy. At that time I had not read it, but Daniel later sent me a free PDF copy as an apology for some chaos that ensued when he switched blog addresses. After interviewing him, then reading the book, I decided it would make a nice gift for certain family members, and purchased three print editions to send out before Christmas.

Clever marketing tactic, Daniel!

Anyway, I've intended to review The Unwanted here for a while, but just had too much on my plate. I may never completely catch up on everything I need to do, but I am starting to chip away at the pile.

The great deconstructive revolution in superhero comics began (IMO) with Alan Moore's Watchmen series and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns in the mid-1980s. Its influence has affected every medium featuring superheroes to this day. In comics, perhaps the aftershocks can be felt strongest in Astro City. On television, the recent Heroes series followed in Moore's footsteps (or more accurately, perhaps, it took the superhero to the logical destination on the route Moore initiated). Daniel weighs in with his own deconstructive depiction, though in prose form and (thankfully, for me) from a markedly different ideological perspective.

Whereas Moore's story concept grew out of the question: "How would the world be different from what we know if someone like Captain Atom ("Dr. Manhattan") really existed?" Daniel may very well have started with a question like, "What would it have been like for Ma and Pa Kent to raise a child like Clark/Superman?" Or Xavier raising the X-Men. You get the idea.

FBI agent Nick Catlin is on the tail of some interstate arsonists with a penchant for black market hospital equipment. But every time he gets close to the perps, they are tipped off, a secret laboratory goes up in smoke, and bodies of five infants (always five) are found dead at the scene.

This time, though, nurse Janet Renard, a woman with a conscience, was hired by the bad guys to work at the lab. Rather than let them die, she and a friend spirit the babies away before the explosion. Rightly fearing the resources available to her erstwhile boss, she disappears off the grid, sneaking from Chicago to Oklahoma where she seeks refuge on the ranch of her estranged Uncle Leigh.

From here, the story really becomes about these children, who it turns out were genetic experiments. They begin to demonstrate superhuman/supernatural abilities at an early stage, as well as rapid aging.They're a youthful superteam-in-waiting, kind of like the X-Men, though there are no masks, capes, costumes or grandiose platitudes about "fighting crime." There's a huge, strong one, a fast one, an empath/intuitive one, a technological savant, and a berserker. The latter, Marcus, becomes the heavy-hitter in the narrative after Nick Catlin disappears through the second act. His abilities are not precisely explained, but he strikes me as a Wolverine-type character whose superhuman amp-ups work much like the TV version of the Hulk (Bixby/Ferigno) did.

The action is crisp during the first chapter. Then the novel, necessarily, shifts emphasis to character development. All these characters are human, so there's some drama and conflict you'd expect to find with real people in real life...compounded by the challenges of raising five superbeings on the down-low. Saving your property from the bank and tax man is a tall enough order without the added stress of an evil supervillain scouring the earth to find and kill you. (But am I being redundant here? Nevermind.)

The Unwanted: Book One does work toward a climax, but one which leaves plenty hanging for the next book in the trilogy. I can't be specific on chapter and verse because I'm going on a reader's subjective sensibilities here (my own, in case you were wondering), but the ending is the weakest element IMO. Daniel was careful to let his Darth Vader get away, but I didn't feel the closure of the Death Star being destroyed, either. This is my biggest gripe and, like I said, it's so subjective I can't argue it with tangible bullet points.

In summary, Daniel has written an entertaining, thought-provoking urban fantasy here, which I expect to get even more interesting, and have plenty more action, in the next two novels now that the "origin story" has been established.

Book 1 The Unwanted is available now through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Christianbooks.com, Parable or you can simply purchase it directly from Daniel's official website www.theunwantedtrilogy.com via PayPal.

An Indie Adventure E-book

2011-02-18T15:27:00.002-05:00

In coming months (and years?), I'll probably be reviewing more and more indie books here on the Two-Fisted Blog. Specifically, I'm always on the lookout for dude-lit. I've got some really cool books from my personal library I'll be touting here, some of which you may have never heard of. But I'm gonna try to give priority to indie authors who write in genres which interest me.

I've already dabbled in indies here a bit with my review of The Seventh Compass Point of Death, and Patriots: a Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse. But much more is forthcoming.

So I'm gonna revisit my earliest days of fiction marketing for a moment.

Writing a book is kinda' like hunting...at least for me it is. When you successfully stalk your game, score a clean kill and drag it back to the truck, you feel like you've really accomplished something and life is good. But all your Pavlovian salivations imagining how tasty that venison (or wild turkey, or whatever) is gonna be dries up when the reality of cleaning/gutting the animal bops you in the nose.

Earlier last year, I had a finished, published novel available for sale. It was well-written, and had little competition in a genre which appeals to what I hope is a sleeping giant of an audience. I felt I had really accomplished something. Then a stampede of adventure-starved readers found my book, bought umpteen-bazillion copies; I quit my job, was offered movie deals and merchandising opportunities (there's an action figure deal with Hasbro going through for Christmas of 2011), and now Vin Diesel won't stop leaving messages on my voice mail to please cast him as Jake McCallum in the big-budget summer blockbuster in pre-production.

April fool!

No,what happened then is that the real work started. It's been a knock-down, drag-out uphill battle getting visibility for Hell & Gone, and unlike the guest posters on Konrath's blog, I still have not cracked the code yet. I do know a lot more than when I started, though, and that's why I no longer waste time on the Amazon genre boards. That place is a morass of half a million writers trying to pimp their books to half a dozen readers. But my naive wanderings there did lead me to discover Mahko's Knife by John O'Dowd.

I clicked on a thread titled, "New West Meets Old-West Values."

Turns out that's a pretty accurate description. Having grown up in the Southwest, and hearing many a tale of Apache prowess from my father (an old cowboy and wannabe pioneer), there was a ring of truth throughout O'Dowd's manhunt story.

Mahko's knife is a Ka-Bar, by the way, like the one I still have from back in the day (it's hanging from my lowrider webgear in my profile pic, though details are nearly impossible to make out in that untactical night photo). Knife enthusiasts will prattle on about how outdated it is, but I still think it's a great knife and have never had the urge to replace it.

Said knife is to be passed down to Mahko's son, Geronimo (they are Apache) when he completes his rites of passage. Thanks to some low-life drug-dealing gang-bangers, Geronimo gets his chance to earn it independent of his father's training.

Make no mistake: ex-Ranger Mahko is a bad dude, and model of an old-school action hero, but not without his flaws and not invincible. The tough love and surreptitious raising of his son appeals to me, and probably would appeal to any man who feels shortchanged and underequipped for life by his own father. The tragedy that befell Mahko's wife, Maria, is hinted at now and then, and finally explained, but I would have enjoyed just a touch more delving into that poignant aspect of Mahko's character.

The villains were believable, and painfully human. I found it...I dunno, refreshing? charming?...that despite the barbaric behavior of some characters in this novel (making for gritty, if not gruesome, action), the budding romance between Geronimo and Laura was depicted so innocently, with a tender finesse.

While O'Dowd's storytelling ability surpasses that of most indie authors I've encountered, his text is unfortunately plagued with the typos and general lack of editing so common in indie fiction. Actually, it's increasingly common pretty much everywhere. (I don't know why, but I've become a little sloppy myself.I thought I'd gain precision with age, but I catch annoying mistakes in my drafts now that I never made when younger. Go figure.)

Last I heard of Mr. O'Dowd, there were rumors of a sequel to Mahko's Knife. Whether there is or not, this would be a solid title for your e-reader's fiction bin.

Masquerading as an Action Novel: The Hunger Games

2011-02-11T19:43:00.003-05:00

Hello, Two-Fisted Bloggees! I'm pleased to post a review by my first guest blogger tonight. Winston Crutchfield (Mindspike) is a podcaster and a regular contributor on the Mack Bolan forums. Here he goes:

With the aggressive promotion surrounding Suzanne Collins' trilogy of Hunger Games novels, it seems unlikely to have missed any fan of dystopian sci-fi action novels. Unfortunately, the Hunger Games trilogy only wears the trappings of sci-fi action surrounding books that are rabidly chick-lit - violent chick-lit to be certain, centering on human brutality, gladiator-style duels to the death, and culminating in a brutal urban military action.

Even given the action-novel wrapping, dudes looking for a good sci-fi, adventure, or military series will be too easily deceived by the marketing campaign. While the cover copy depicts the story as focused on the dystopian world and the inhumanity of the Hunger Games themselves, the reality is somewhat different. The stories are told from the first-person POV of a teenage girl, and predictably focuses on those things that a teenage girl finds most evocative.

"The Hunger Games" follows Katniss Everdeen into the Hunger Games, where she must fight for survival against eleven other teenagers. In the process, she comes to know love - thereby establishing the romantic triangle between herself, her friend the violent hunter, and the sensitive baker who becomes her partner in the Hunger Games. In "Catching Fire" Katniss struggles to pacify the ruling government in order to keep her family safe while she sorts out her feelings for the two boys in her life. When she goes back into the Hunger Games, she finds her feelings a source of conflict between team members in the Games. In "Mockingjay", Katniss spends the majority of the book in a state of emotional confusion, finally showing up for the climax in an emotionally charged, but physically unsatisfying conclusion. I don't feel it spoils anything to say that this book ends like most other chick-lit, with the heroine happily married and raising children.

While "The Hunger Games" reads quickly and easily enough, the remainder of the trilogy doesn't concern itself with the physical action, the political reality, or the actual process involved in rebellion and revolution, focusing instead on the feelings of the characters and how they respond to a government that actively oppresses them and a rebel leadership that cannot be trusted. If the setup sounds too good to be true for a bestselling action-adventure series, it is. This isn't really a series written for dudes. Even though it claims to be.

- Winston Crutchfield

Email Winston/Mindspike

Catch the Critical Mass Podcast

My thanks to Winston for this thoughtful analysis. It certainly has informed my opinion.

A Return to Normalcy(?)

2011-02-07T19:33:00.001-05:00

I've finally finished a passable trailer for Hell & Gone. I also imbedded a Youtube widget here on the blog, but had to put it way down at the bottom because it wants to hog half the screen. I don't know why, but Blogger isn't letting me tweak the template/layout, either.

In other news, Virtual Pulp received a 5-star rating on Red Adept Reviews. Now that's something I never thought would happen; but it did and it boosted the Amazon rankings for a minute. Actually, for a couple of days. I'm happy to see that the trailer is making an impact on Hell & Gone sales too, though I had hoped more friends would watch it and give me a better launch out of the gates. (Probably less than 2% of my friends--both from Facebook and real life, have bothered to click on the Youtube link.)

What all this means for you, dear readers, is that my horrendous schedule will downgrade to merely brutal. I should be able to start working on the reviews I've had in the queue soon. So more two-fisted blogging should be coming your way this week.

Cheers!

P.S: Oh yeah--forgot to mention above that I'll be switching publishers for the paperback version. Will be cleaning up some technical mistakes in the text, and changing the color scheme on the cover to match that of the e-book.

Regarding those mistakes in the text: The most embarrassing one has been brought to my attention by Reflexive Fire and corrected in the e-book version already. I really appreciate that. Most readers would never be the wiser but I still will feel much better once it's been purged from the print version.

PMCs, SOFs and Mercs, Oh My!

2011-02-03T22:39:00.001-05:00

The word for the day is "mercenary." If you can't get past the negative connotations of that word, please substitute "soldier of fortune" (SOF) or "Private Military Contractor" (PMC).

Over on Post-Modern Pulps, Jack Badelaire has a thoughtful, intelligent post about the Expendables and another flick I haven't seen (Machete). The Expendables is a throwback action flick in which macho mercenaries happen to be the heroes of the story.

At Reflexive Fire, the other Jack reviewed Eeben Barlow's book about Executive Outcomes, the mercenary organization he founded. A good read by itself that made me want to read the book, it also has blog comments from Barlow himself, as well as Wayne Bissett, who wrote Chronicles of the Mexican Horse Thief, about his time as a merc in the early days of EO, in Angola. While I don't agree with his anti-Christian sentiments, Part 1 of Chronicles is an informative and entertaining read.

While doing the research for my novel, Hell & Gone, I studied up on 20th Century mercenaries. I unearthed paramilitary magazines from the '80s, books from the library, documentaries for the History Channel, and, of course, web pages and sites devoted to the topic. This is when I learned about Executive Outcomes--an amazingly successful paramilitary force which became a victim of politics because of their success. Their track record was even more impressive than Five Commando and the Rhodesian merc units (which themselves were far more effective than any other mercenary operations in Africa up until EO).

I explored the subject because, as I envisioned the story, the CIA's SOG teams would be busy operating in preparation for Gulf War II, and mercs would need to be used as a means of providing some "plausible deniability" of US State Department involvement in the mission. Initially I had most of Rocco's Retreads recruited through Military Personnel Resources, Incorporated, but later replaced them with a fictional PMC organization to avoid offending anyone in MPRI. Like 95% of real-life mercs, most of my characters are veterans of national armed forces who found out they are good at war, and/or like it on some disturbing primordial level.

As it turns out, I hardly used even a quarter of the research I did. Yet the topic still interests me. One day I'd like to write a novel set during the conflict in the Congo during and after the Belgian pull-out. And, of course, there's the possibility of a Hell & Gone sequel that keeps coming up, even though I never imagined one when writing the book.

Mercs have a bad name in the public perception--with good reason in some cases. With some of them it's really as simple as killing for money. But there have been some idealistic mercs, "good guy" mercs, and others who just happen to be good soldiers with no army to serve in (or allowed to serve in anymore, as happened to some SADF veterans, for instance).

During part of my training WAAAAAAAAAY back in the day, me and a whole company full of other snot-nosed kids just out of high school sat through a phony briefing by a fake Soviet officer, meant to motivate us I suppose. Anyway, this guy asked how many of us had received an enlistment bonus. To everyone who raised their hand he said, "You are nothing more than mercenaries."

The truth hurts, even when uttered by a fake Russian soldier. The majority of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines sign on the dotted line because they want job training or college money. (As someone who joined out of patriotism primarily, I was a supreme oddball.) When it comes down to it, most of them will do whatever they're told to keep out of trouble and get that money and job training, even when it violates the Constitution they swear to defend or when they just know, deep down, that it's wrong. How is that any better than what a soldier of fortune does?