Post-Modern Pulps

Lies, All Lies.

2012-01-05T10:57:00.001-05:00

I'm a big fat liar. I claimed several weeks ago that I'd be getting back on the horse and posting more, writing more, yadda yadda yadda. It hasn't really happened. I spent most of my holiday vacation working around the home, overseeing the renovation of my bathroom and some other floor work, as well as dropping about a grand in new bits and pieces for the apartment. Who's got two thumbs and sank $400 into just Venetian blinds and curtains? This guy.

A few things, however. First is that it appears we finally have a publishing date for the new Death Merchant novel, The Ways of Killing Men. I may actually cave and buy myself an "autographed copy" of the book just for the novelty of it all. The Death Merchant series is one of the catalysts for my interest in "post modern pulp fiction" and the fact that someone (or some people) out there liked the series enough to ghost write a sequel to the series tickles me to no end.

Let's see, what else? I set up both HFJ #1 and my short ghost story Rivalry on Amazon Select, so they can be "borrowed" for free by Amazon Prime members. Shockingly enough, someone's already "borrowed" HFJ #1. Am I going to make bank off of Select royalties? No. Am I making bank off of just plain selling those two titles? No. So, I'd rather go with the option that gives more of an opportunity to put my works in the hands of more people. Money, if it comes at all, can come along later. I am content with this right now.

I really really hope to get down to the nitty gritty of editing Killer Instincts over the next month or two. I know what needs to be done, and I know what I need to do to make it happen, I just need to do it. Six months away from the draft is more than enough time to separate myself from the work, I just need to move forward. I need to tell myself it's not going to be perfect, it is going to be what it is going to be, and if there's problems with the novel, I just have to absorb those mistakes, learn, and move on. Fingers crossed.

That's it for now. I hope to get some book reviews coming along soon.

Teaser Trailer for The Expendables 2

2011-12-21T09:41:00.000-05:00

If you regularly read this blog, you probably like action movies. And if you like action movies, you probably saw, if not enjoyed, Sylvester Stallone's Neo-Retro 2010 powerhouse The Expendables. It might not have been perfect, but it was as close as you're going to get these days to a "new" 80's action movie, with a lot of veteran actors as well as a few new faces.

Well, Stallone's doing it again, and this time, we're seeing even more 80's action actors lock and load. Here's the teaser trailer for The Expendables 2...

I gotta admit, seeing Norris and van Damme is pretty awesome, and we're finally putting guns in the hands of Willis and Schwarzenegger. Not exactly sure where this movie is going to take us, but I'll sure be along for the ride.

Crawling out from underneath the Work Rock

2011-12-13T09:53:00.000-05:00

So a couple of you might have noticed that, well...I disappeared.

I won't get into the gory details, but long story short, my tiny department of 3 dropped to a department of 2 (and, let's be honest, it's really more a department of 1.25...). My workload and responsibilities increased a lot this fall, and coupled with a few other hiccups here and there, my time for writing, blogging, or really anything else that was fun went away.

But now, I think it is safe to say that if I'm not entirely back to my usual level of writing and posting, I'm making a concerted effort to get there. I have a lot of editing work to do on my larger writing projects, and I've got a couple of short story ideas in the pipe.

I've also got a lot of book reviews I'd love to get out there, so hopefully this week i can put a few of those out for reading, and get the ol' Blogger grindstone milling away once again.

Gotta say, it feels good to be back.

Hornady Ammunition Manufacturer Releases Anti-Zombie Munitions

2011-10-14T09:30:00.002-04:00

I can't believe we're halfway through October and I haven't posted - so here we go! Over at The Firearms Blog, we find this article. Hornady has been making ammunition for ages, and it looks like they are cashing in on the Zombie Craze and the Halloween season to market a new line of "anti-zombie ammunition".

I will let the video below speak for itself...

I gotta say though, that for a guy who's out there, surviving on his own against a Zombie Apocalypse, his reckless expenditure of ammunition and failure to consistently aim for the brainpan is a little underwhelming. C'mon dude, double-tap to the head, and then move to the next target!

Book Review: Sitrep Negative, A Year in Vietnam by G.J. Lau

2011-09-28T09:20:00.000-04:00

If you're looking for the usual Vietnam memoir filled with dope-smoking draftees, necklaces of ears, guys running around tripping on LSD while shooting up their base camps with M16s, and all the other negative stereotypes of Vietnam, you're looking at the wrong book review. G.J. Lau's memoir has some of the usual stories about bad food, awful heat and rain, nervous short-timers, foolish cherries, and the like, but it is not another bitter, disillusioned rant against The Military-Industrial Complex.

My grandfather was in WW2, serving aboard a battlecruiser in the Pacific. A few years before he died, he worked with his sons and grandsons to compile a memoir of his time before, during, and after the war. Some time down the line, I'd like to see that book published as an e-book, and reading Sitrep Negative, I saw a lot of similarities between G.J. Lau's work and my grandfather's.

Lau wasn't a soldier "in the trenches", although he came under fire and found himself in dangerous situations on a regular basis (Lau was a Radio Operator in a base camp). There is a lot of conversation about how he observed military operations, both in positive and negative terms, and while there is some wry commentary about "the Army way" of doing things, Lau doesn't come off as a vehement anti-war fanatic, although he has some strong, well-formed opinions about the war.

It is also clear that he was deeply affected by the war, but he tempers his commentary with a lot of intelligent thought. Some time is spent at the end of the book discussing the public's reception to Vietnam, and how Lau feels soldiers were and are treated post-war. One might casually dismiss his opinions as that of a "REMF", but I imagine when you're huddled in a slit trench in the middle of a nighttime monsoon, listening to mortar rounds exploding all around you, the war seems pretty damn close.

Sitrep Negative isn't particularly long - I think I finished it all in one extended evening's reading. But it is definitely worth the paltry 99 cents, and I think if you want a truly balanced account of the war, it should be required reading.

Book Review: Across the Fence by John Stryker Meyer

2011-09-19T15:59:00.001-04:00

I read this book within a couple of days - it is a short (but not too short) and engaging story about the author's experiences as a SOG commando in Vietnam. It is an interesting counterpart to the other book I read on the same topic, SOG: The Secret Wars of America's Commandos in Vietnam by John L. Plaster.

Plaster's book is much larger in terms of the scope of the story he tells - the exploits of many SOG Recon Teams and Hatchet Forces are covered, and the time frame extends throughout SOG's involvement in Vietnam. Meyer's story is much more personal; it starts with his arrival in Vietnam and follows him for several months. Only a few side stories involving other friends and Teams are discussed, but these are also engaging and informative.

One of the more interesting aspects of Meyer's story is that he's coming into the SOG experience rather late in the game. The Studies and Observation Group had been established for several years by the time Meyer fought during late 1968 to early 1969. From what I've gleaned reading Plaster's book, Meyer's tour put him in-country during the word period of SOG's operations, the point where almost every team was being ambushed as it was reaching the LZ, and SOG was regularly losing whole teams, never to be heard from again.

Meyer's story is well worth the read. It is very personal, very raw at times, and it is interesting to read about many of his Recon Team (or as they were called in his AO, Spike Teams) missions. Particularly grueling is one mission where Meyer's team has to flee enemy search teams by climbing a mountain under bad weather, pursued by dogs and sapper teams. The team was carrying so much ammunition for its experimental pump-action grenade launcher (which is a cool bit in the story in and of itself) that the team had to bury and booby-trap ammo left behind.

If I have one complaint about Across the Fence, it is that this memoir seems to end rather suddenly. I didn't really feel a sense of closure, and there is no real discussion of the end of his tour, or his opinion of the war or the effect his missions had on the war effort. Meyer is a good writer, with a lot of heart, and I would have enjoyed reading more about his impressions of the war. As it is though, this is well worth the money, without unnecessary vitriol, ego, or anger.

Borders #1 Shuts Its Doors Today

2011-09-12T13:24:00.000-04:00

I just read this story on CNN.com. Looks like today is the day the first-ever Borders bookstore closes down for good.

Talk about depressing. I hate bookstore going out of business sales. A few years ago, a Barnes & Noble near me closed down after being there ever since I lived in the area. I ransacked it for Christmas presents, for random gift ideas, for books I *might* someday read. I felt like someone trying to save irreplaceable treasures aboard a sinking ship or from a burning house before they were gone forever. Silly of course, since everything you'd find there would be in stock online or in another big bookstore.

I had a similar experience a few years before that. A famous Boston used book store, Victor Hugo's, closed its doors on Newbury Street. I found a treasure trove of old pulpy novels, and I regret not buying some of the books I saw there but passed up. Again, I felt like I was trying to salvage lost treasures before they disappeared forever. Now I realize that any of those books I bought or didn't buy I can find for a song on Amazon's used book offerings.

E-books and Amazon's vast network of sellers and affiliates give a degree of availability to content like never before. But there is something just plain wonderful about walking through a store filled with books, and people who love books. Conversations, friendships, even love can be found there. And nothing beats wandering the shelves of a well-stocked bookstore when you don't know what you want to read, and then coming across a new title that starts a lasting relationship with you, or you find a new work from an author you hadn't read in ages. I can, and have, spent hours at a time in bookstores. None of it is time I would ever consider wasted.

So while this is the painful part of progress, and eBooks and indie e-publishing is the wave of the future (and one I am taking advantage of, natch), it still makes me sad to see any bookstore close its doors, no matter how "big box" or commercial it might be. Hopefully this environmental disaster, like the death of the dinosaurs, will bring about a flurry of bookstore evolution, as the indie brick & mortar stores reinvent themselves and continue to pull in new customers.

Book Review: The Forbidden City - Rogue Angel #5 by Alex Archer

2011-09-08T10:25:00.000-04:00

While I was a little disappointed with Book #4, this next title really stepped up its game. The Forbidden City starts off with Annja helping a young Chinese man try to find the remains of one of his ancestors, who came to America during the gold rush years of the mid 19th century. But the man's true motives are revealed in a hail of gunfire, and Annja finds herself on the run (once again) with an ancient belt plaque, possibly the key to a lost city of thieves and an immense fortune that has been lost for over a thousand years.

This book features both Garin and Roux in prominent secondary roles, and of course, their interests are diametrically opposed to one another. It turns out that there is a mysterious artifact of great power hidden in this lost city; Garin wants the artifact for the power it contains, while Roux wants the artifact to keep it out of the hands of people like Garin. This book goes a long way to deepen the mystery of Roux's past (just how old is he, anyway?), and it reveals to Annja a little more of the mysterious, magical shadow world that she is now involved with since re-forming Joan's sword.

We also find ourselves meeting a bunch of new secondary characters. Some of them make it through to the end of the book and some don't, but I would like to see a couple of them re-appear in later books if at all possible. One of the great things about a series like RA is that secondary characters can come and go from book to book and help enrich the feel of the RA-verse as much more complex and interactive. Whether that happens or not remains for me to discover, but I have my fingers crossed.

All in all, this was a very solid offering, and it is clear that the Rogue Angel series has come into its maturity. If you like history, mythology, and a healthy dose of action-adventure, this series is for you. Fans of adventure games like D&D will especially enjoy this book, I think, because of the "treasure hunt" aspects of the plot and the journey into the subterranean "forbidden city", filled with traps and treasures, will be enjoyably familiar to any veteran dungeon-crawler. Where's a ten foot pole when you really need one?

Book Review: The Chosen - Rogue Angel #4 by Alex Archer

2011-08-25T11:58:00.000-04:00

I hate to admit it, but I was a little disappointed with this book. There are plenty of interesting characters, especially the mysterious and deadly Father Godin, but I think this book was begun without a really strong grasp of how it was going to end.

Essentially, this book takes place in the American Southwest, but Annja winds up traveling all over the world in the quest for her answers. She is attacked in Mexico City, in the Philippines...really everywhere she turns, someone's trying to kill her. While this makes for a lot of cool battle sequences (Annja's body count in this book is insanely high, easily the highest so far), it makes for a very disjointed novel that seems like it is just that - a series of battle sequences.

The overall "monster" of the book is also very weird. A series of black, ominous creatures with red eyes and a strange screaming cry are popping up all over - are they demonic, extra-terrestrial, or what? There is an explanation at the end, but it is something of a non-explanation. I really do think the author wrote himself into a bit of a corner and wasn't sure how to end the book.

As mentioned in the beginning, the saving grace of this novel is Annja's rival / partner in crime, Father Godin. A real Inquisitor for the Vatican, he hunts down all things demonic, evil, or just plain in need of an old fashioned killing. He comes off as one of those older, veteran warriors who are so cool if done right in an action novel, and his interplay with Annja makes for a great story.

In summary, if you want to read this book for the sake of completion, it's not awful, it just isn't as good as the others in the series. If you don't really care about being consistent in which volumes you read, I would skip The Chosen and read the next volume in the series, which I found to be a lot better.

Rivalry Reaps Rave Reviews!

2011-08-24T12:01:00.000-04:00

So my short ghost story "Rivalry" has been out for a couple of weeks now, and it is getting some very solid reviews over at Amazon. I'll copy over a few of them here for your perusal:

Aman S. Anand writes:

In the first paragraph of this gripping read, the narrator and author make clear their literary influences as our protagonist reveals the authors whose ghost stories he has enjoyed. It is a clever way to open a ghost story, but it is the influence of Spielberg that haunts the majority of the text. I couldn't help being reminded of one of Spielberg's doe-eyed teenage protagonists of the eighties - and that is no bad thing.

The story's greatest strength is its pacing. On completing the story, I enjoyed it so much I went back and re-read it and the careful structure of the story became apparent. I do not wish to give away too much, but the author never resorts to cheap tricks or deliberately shocking moments. Every paragraph is carefully measured and furthers this suspenseful story.

If you like ghost stories this book is highly recommended.

Ben Goshko says:

"Rivalry - A Ghost Story" was an excellent read. It's extremely well written and flows naturally. I particularly appreciated how the author was able to build up so much suspense in a short story. Amazing technique.

The characters were strong as well, for the precious few pages they had to develop. Very realistic too. It's hard for me to comment on any of the content without giving away spoilers, so I'll just say that ghosts are NOT cool. Not anymore, anyway.

I highly recommend this short story to anyone.

And Ian McRay states:

The front page draws you into the story....you just know that something strange is going to happen inside that house! A good 20-30 minute short story at only .99 is also a great value. Can't wait for more from this author!! I.M.

There are a few more reviews posted, all of them quite positive. I was a little nervous at first putting out a purely fictional writing piece (as opposed to the Hatchet Force Journal), but the responses I've gotten have been nothing but glowing. Many thanks to all of you for your support!

On Sale Now: Rivalry - A Ghost Story

2011-08-11T09:00:00.002-04:00

A couple of months ago, I had a dream about hunting ghosts in an old hotel. I occasionally have weird dreams like that, but this one was unusually creepy, and inspired me to come up with a short ghost story.

However, "Rivalry" isn't that story. Instead, what began as the main character's introduction and origin anecdote turned into a six-thousand word short story in and of itself. The story of "Rivalry" is based around, in part, a weird experience I had at a friend's house when I was in grade school. We kept thinking his house was haunted; it wasn't of course, but a couple of odd occurrences did spook our overactive imaginations.

It's rather amazing how little things that happen to you as a kid can have a strong impact on you decades later. And the bigger that trigger event is, the bigger the wallop can be later on in life. I'm no developmental psychologist, but I don't really buy into that whole "kids bounce back better" theory. Personally, I just think trauma at a young age buries the scars deeper and affects your life in the same way an underwater mountain can affect ocean currents, waves, and tides without anything being obvious on the surface of the water.

So with that in mind, I wrote "Rivalry". It is not a horror story, per se. Many classic "ghost stories" are not necessarily horrific. Most are creepy, unsettling, and by the end you give a shiver and find yourself a little less comfortable sitting alone at home late at night. That was the objective I set out to meet with this story, and from all the feedback I've received, "Rivalry" comes pretty darn close to achieving that goal.

So if you enjoy a classic ghost story a la M.R. James or Sheridan Le Fanu, I invite you to give "Rivalry - A Ghost Story" a try. $0.99 at Amazon, approximately six thousand words. Perfect for a ten-minute read just before going to bed tonight!

Here's the description copy from the Amazon product page:

Owen is a kid fascinated by ghost stories, but he's never seen a ghost, or met anyone who has - until Doug moves into town. Owen soon learns that Doug's family is haunted by a ghost that follows them from town to town, an entity that can slam doors and throw coffee mugs, an entity that finds Doug's family no matter where they move.

Fascinated by his friend's haunting, Owen begs Doug to let him spend the night, hoping to have a ghostly encounter of his own. Doug reluctantly agrees to ask his parents' permission, but when Mike and Sharon say no, it's the ghost that throws the temper tantrum, forcing Doug's parents to agree to the sleepover.

Owen packs a "ghost hunting kit" and prepares for a weekend of thrilling supernatural encounters, but what he experiences will change his life forever...

Book Review: The Spider Stone - Rogue Angel #3 by Alex Archer

2011-08-09T10:30:00.000-04:00

In this third Rogue Angel book, I think the series finally hits its stride. Don't get me wrong - the first two books were good and I really enjoyed them. But this installment of the series feels very solid. I think Mel Odom (this book's ghost writer) has Annja's personality and how she would react in various situations firmly zeroed in, and the story weaves together a good blend of history, mythology, action, and mystery to give us a very interesting read.

In brief, the bodies of a number of escaped Civil War-era slaves are found in the basement of a long-abandoned warehouse. Annja Creed, our heroine, is asked to come and investigate the scene from an archaeological perspective along with a local professor and a handful of eager college students. But what gets the ball rolling on the whole mystery is that one of the slaves was in possession of The Spider Stone, an African artifact of the Hausa people, a tribe favored (supposedly) by Anansi, the Spider God. The Stone supposedly represents a promise from Anansi to the Hausa people that as long as their tribe is in possession of the stone, they will never die out.

Even more interesting, and what really kicks things off, the Stone is supposedly a map to a fabulous treasure hidden somewhere in the Hausa people's ancient tribal lands. A number of factions - some good, some definitely not good - begin moving to find the Stone and therefore find the treasure. An African warlord, a Homeland Security investigator, Annja, her archaeological entourage, and a number of other people get sucked into the mix, eventually traveling to Africa in search for this treasure. Some of Annja's old acquaintances make an appearance, and some new ones come along - this book definitely has a full and flavorful cast of characters.

Of the three Rogue Angel titles so far, The Spider Stone feels the most like an Indiana Jones movie. If you blended together elements from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade, you'd get a very good feel for the sort of treasure hunting vibe this book radiates, and it makes it a lot of fun. Thrown into the mix is a lot of interesting history and folklore, some no doubt manufactured for the novel, some based on actual mythology. But it is the interweaving of fact and fiction, story and myth, that makes this book work. This is the sort of thing that The X-Files would get "just right" in its best episodes, and I hope that this trend continues in future Rogue Angel installments.

Book Review: Solomon's Jar - Rogue Angel #2 by Alex Archer

2011-08-08T11:24:00.000-04:00

I read this second installment of Gold Eagle's Rogue Angel series literally as soon as I finished the first (go Kindle!). Written by Victor Milan (who wrote the post-apocalyptic series The Guardians as well as a bunch of FASA's Battletech media tie-in novels and a number of other works), Solomon's Jar has a somewhat different, grittier feel than Destiny.

For one thing, the body count is substantially higher for Annja Creed. In the opening couple of chapters - which don't really connect to the overall plot of the book - our heroine kicks some major butt and winds up killing quite a few bad guys with her sword, rather than just using it to knock aside guns so she can punch and kick people a la Xena: Warrior Princess. While there are times in this novel where she will use her magical blade in a non-lethal manner, Milan definitely upped her kill quotient this time around. This isn't to say Annja has abandoned guns, either; she still gets in a few gun kills, continuing to show that her character can shoot, punch, kick, stab, and slash with the best of them.

In addition, unlike the first novel, which took place largely in one geographical area, Solomon's Jar jet-sets us around to a number of different exotic locales. I think this is going to be one of the series' biggest strengths, taking the reader around the world where we can dip our toes into a lot of different cultures, the same way the James Bond books and the classic Gold Eagle books would spotlight one country after another during our hero's adventures.

Another thing I liked about this book is that we can see how Annja uses her semi-celebrity status, and how it can sometimes backfire against her. I enjoy how her character is being portrayed living this double life of television starlet / wandering hero, and how it seems to pull in a large rogues gallery of secondary characters. And while Garin doesn't make an appearance in this book, Roux does have a cameo; as I have read the third book, I can say that it appears one or the other character seems to pop in every novel, either to drop off a tidbit of information or to lend a helping hand.

According to the Wikipedia entry for the Rogue Angel series, Odom and Milan trade off for the first eight books, at which time a number of other authors step in. It's going to be cool to see how each author takes a crack at the series in true Gold Eagle fashion. The more I read of the Rogue Angel series, the more highly I recommend it as a solid action / adventure line, definitely something new and different compared to yet another "elite cadre of anti-terror specialists".

BookReview: Destiny - Rogue Angel #1 by Alex Archer

2011-08-05T09:00:00.002-04:00

I've been interested in this series since I saw it debut in 2005, but as I am mostly buried under paperbacks already, and I was worried about what exactly the series was going for and how well it would last, I let it pass by me.

Fast forward a good six years. There are now over 30 Rogue Angel titles out, and they're all available as Kindle books for less that five bucks apiece. So hey, why not give it a shot?

Overall, I found the book rather entertaining. One part Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (Annja Creed, the heroine, even makes an oblique jab at the video game character in this book) and one part Witchblade, with some vibes from Alias thrown in (at least, in my mind), Rogue Angel - Destiny was a pretty solid action novel.

Annja Creed is an investigative archaeologist who works for a cable television "history" series that's about as serious as anything you'd find on the History Channel at 3 o'clock in the morning. But it gives her the freedom to roam the world and stick her nose into various little-visited areas of the globe. On one such trip in France she gets mixed up in the hunt for an ancient amulet, the Beast of Gevaudan, and the search for Joan of Arc's sword.

A mysterious old man named Roux who is definitely more than he appears, adds a great deal of mystery to the mix. As well as the son of a deceased burglar, a maniacal criminal mastermind, and a cabal of unsavory monks hiding a centuries old secret. Combine all this with a five-hundred year old broadsword that lives in a pocket dimension of its own, and you've got quite the modern fantasy / mystery novel.

Mel Odom (the ghost writer for this book) did yeoman's work in setting the stage for future installments. I'm already reading the next book, Solomon's Jar, and it doesn't disappoint either.

Most importantly, neither does our heroine. Annja Creed is smart, she's tough, she's skilled, and while she is lithe and beautiful, these assets are used sparingly, if at all. In my mind, she's a good combination of Sydney Bristow and Sara Pezini, both tough and capable heroines who use brains, brawn, and beauty in deadly combination.

If you're a history buff, you might squirm a little now and then while things are bent for the purposes of entertainment. I was a little annoyed reading this story when they kept referring to "knights in armor" in the time period of The Beast, which was the mid 1700s (around the time of the French and Indian War). While there were certainly knighted individuals going to war and having adventures during that time, any mention of armor just seems silly - if such is used, perhaps a cavalryman's cuirass or a "lobster tail" helm, or a pair of armored gauntlets, it should be specifically labeled as such to keep it from seeming silly, otherwise the idea of an armored knight riding about a decade before the American Revolution puts a fork in the historical crediblity of the story.

But ultimately, this is an action novel, and I'm willing to forgive a bit of mis-handled research. The book was a fun, fasts read, and I hope to enjoy many more.

Book Review: How to Write Action Adventure Novels by Mike Newton

2011-08-02T09:00:00.000-04:00

The Action Adventure genre, or "Men's Adventure" as it is sometimes erroneously labeled, has been the focus of this blog since its inception. My amateur writing career, such as it is (or - hah! - isn't), has always focused on this genre. But one thing I have found lacking is advice for writers who cater to the shoot-em-up, punch-em-out variety of fiction. You can find writing guides for mystery, thrillers, espionage, and other niche genres, but they all tend to try and carry themselves with a little more finesse than your average action yarn, and forget about the generic "advice for aspiring novelists).

Back in the late 80's veteran action writer Mike Newton, who has written a number of Gold Eagle Executioner novels and a pile of other action adventure reads, sat down and wrote a guide for poor schmucks like me who wanted to write about guys running around with Uzis and grenade launchers. This reference book, How to Write Action Adventure Novels, has no doubt been buried largely unread in the back room piles of used bookstores for decades now. But Mike is a smart guy and knows that his work can live on once again in an eBook format. I picked this up for my Kindle late Wednesday night, and finished it Saturday evening.

Overall, this is a very solid book. Mike covers a lot of the basics that most writers should understand (but its always good to be reminded), like having a strong hook, how to develop good characters, and so forth, but he always looks at things from an action and adventure standpoint. This is coupled with a lot of excerpts from books and some of them are of what NOT to do, which I always think is a good idea. He also reminds writers that research is vital for such a niche genre because so many of the readers have military or law enforcement backgrounds, and can sniff out a fake very quickly. Although very dated now, a large number of reference works are provided for authors who didn't know where to begin in the pre-Google days.

Lastly, there is a whole chapter on breaking into the genre publishing gig. This is actually the saddest part about this book, because it makes it so obvious how much of a stranglehold traditional publishers have over the authors. Advice like how you never want to call unsolicited - which in and of itself is not a bad thing to say - is badly colored when it's followed up with how you never want to annoy anyone, ever, because somehow, some day, they might be in a position to open or close the gates for your career. Reading this section of the book, is it any wonder Kindle Direct Publishing and other indie pub outlets are being flooded?

For five dollars, I think this book is still a good investment. I found most "so you want to be a writer" books make me want to throw up, and this one is refreshingly honest, well-written, and possesses just the right amount of cheek and sarcasm. Highly recommended.

Summer Action Adventure Movie: Cowboys and Aliens (2011)

2011-08-01T09:00:00.002-04:00

I saw this movie Saturday at a matinee, after a proper cowboy meal of steak and baked potatoes. I went in to escape the noonday heat and the burning sun, and found cool shade and cold refreshment. This is what summer action movies are all about; escaping the heat and putting a smile on your face for a few hours.

If that's the objective of a "summer action movie", then Cowboys & Aliens succeeded on every level. Walking out of the movie theater I heard one lady complain, "It was so full of stereotypes!" Well, yeah? The classic Western is built around iconic images, strong archetypes, and well-worn themes. It is the most perfect generic setting for a pure "adventure", and because of that, you can mix "Western" with just about anything - horror, comedy, drama, pulp, fantasy, sci-fi - and it will work.

This is certainly not the first "drop an advanced evil alien species into a historical setting and watch shiz blow up" movie. Outlander did this with Vikings just a couple of years ago, and Karl Edward Wagner wrote a nasty little novel called Killer about an alien loose in ancient Rome. And of course you have more contemporary settings with the whole Predator franchise. The key to all of these movies, what makes them work or fail, is how the characters accept what they are dealing with and cowboy up (in this case, literally) to take on the bad guys. I think in C&A, this is handled well enough that any disbelief I had washed away as soon as Harrison Ford started growling about slitting throats and killin' sumbitches.

I think this movie did yeoman's work in giving us a fun, riotous, classic cowboy movie, with a twist. Maybe genre purists will roll their eyes and walk away, but I enjoyed every minute of it, and you might, too.

The First REAL Avengers

2011-07-22T09:39:00.005-04:00

Coming in late August to Amazon Kindle eBooks...

Corporal Thomas Lynch won fame at the Battle of Arras, and felt the shame of defeat at Dunkirk. A year later, as a member of Britain's elite No. 3 Commando, Lynch wants nothing more than to go back over the Channel and kick open Hitler's Fortress Europe, guns blazing.

Introduced by his commanding officer to the enigmatic Lord Pembroke, Lynch is offered a chance to be part of a special team of hand-picked Commandos. Their assignment: sneak into occupied France and ally with the French partisans to fight back against the Nazis.

Lynch readily accepts the challenge, but when the mission goes awry from the very beginning, and the motives of the partisan leader become suspect, the Commandos begin to wonder about their role in the mission: trusted allies with the partisans, or worms dangling as bait for a much larger fish?

Summer Action Adventure Movie: Rain Fall (2009)

2011-07-20T09:00:00.022-04:00

While on vacation last week I found myself browsing Netflix's instant queue, and I came across Rain Fall. I knew that Barry Eisler's first novel had been turned into a movie at some point, but that the movie hadn't made it onto the big screen in the States; it appears that it was only shown in commercial theaters in Japan. Curious as to how Eisler's noirish assassination thriller had been adapted for film, I fired up the movie and sat back to watch.

And by watch I mean, I spent about half the time reading my Kindle, looking out the window bored, and contemplating if I was wasting time that could be better spent writing. The film is a serviceable thriller, with the usual government conspiracy, some techno-thriller bells and whistles, some gunplay, some knifeplay, some karate or judo or whatever it's supposed to be, and some other boilerplate moments here and there. Gary Oldman does his best to play a barking, frantic CIA supervisor running this little operation, but in the end it feels like he's just redressing his character in The Fifth Element with a pair of glasses and a cheap suit, but without any of the flash or quirk that made Zorg a fun villain.

The biggest flaw in the movie is that it really has very little to do with the book itself, and more importantly, it is missing the "soul" of the novel. Eisler, for all his "I was in the CIA and I learned about self-defense from a guy nicknamed Animal and I get romance writers to rubber-stamp my often creepy sex scenes" nonsense, is able to capture a very surreal vision. His characters operate in the Shadow World of espionage, assassination, mercenary operations, and other highly illegal shit, but at the same time, they have relationships, enjoy good music and drink great single malt whisky. Eisler's books are one of the reasons my collection of single malts has been maintained so well over the years, and the image of the lone wolf assassin chilling in a dark, smoky Japanese jazz club, sipping an eighteen year old single malt while ready to kick ass at a moment's notice, just plain works.

But the movie adaptation has almost none of this cool. There is about fifteen seconds of jazz in the whole movie, the character lacks any kind of panache or style at all, and in fact, the movie makers completely change the character's identity and background. John Rain in the novels is in his fifties, wears glasses, was a Vietnam veteran and carries with him an older man's sensibilities, style, and sophistication. He's careful, cautious, and deliberate, well aware that most of the men who hunt him are almost half his age. The experience and gravitas that the novel's Rain carries with him allows him to turn the tables on his more aggressive, reckless opponents, and seeing this play out is very engaging. On the other hand, the John Rain in the film is just another "highly trained operative" blah blah blah. He's a two-dimensional, cookie-cutter character that adds nothing to the film and takes away so much of the spirit of the book that it is, in fact, embarrassing that this fate could befall such an excellent novel.

So although this is a "movie review", I actually recommend people skip the movie completely and go read Eisler's book (the Amazon link above takes you to the novel, not the film). Although it has its faults, I still think the John Rain series is one of the best modern espionage thriller stories of the 21st century.

Book Review: An Army At Dawn by Rick Atkinson

2011-07-19T09:00:00.014-04:00

For the last couple of months, I've been saturating myself in "all things World War Two". From watching HBO's The Pacific and re-watching Band of Brothers to reading E.B. Sledge's With The Old Breed, through movies and pulp novels and several Fairbairn manuals as well as an ever-growing pile of Osprey books. Much of this is both self-education and refreshing my knowledge of the war, as well as research for my next big project, but it is all fascinating and entertaining, if at times shockingly grim.

My latest WW2 read has been Rick Atkinson's An Army At Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943. This rather massive volume (the paperback runs 768 pages) is a very engaging, almost literary look at the Allied invasion and eventual conquest of the North African theater of World War Two. This is a part of the war that I was not terribly familiar with, except from some of the early battle scenes in Patton and in playing through the early British missions in Call of Duty 2, so this was going to be a great education for me.

And what an education it was. In 1942 America had just thrown its hat into the ring after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but our military might was less like Captain America and more like shrimpy Steve Rogers, pre-transformation. We had some pluck and a resolve to take the fight against the Axis, but our military was woefully obsolete, not only in terms of much of our equipment, but in our training methods, our officer corps, and most importantly, our manpower. America was 17th in terms of the world's armies as of 1939, but in six short years we would come to dominate the globe. That enormous transformation has its genesis in North Africa, and Operation TORCH.

But TORCH was definitely an ugly baby. Reaching Atkinson's book, it is a miracle the Allies were able to win in North Africa; no one had the foggiest notion of how to launch amphibious assaults with a modern combined arms army, and not only were we fighting against the Germans, but the Vichy French were duty-bound to defend their African colonial territories against "Allied aggression". Friendly fire casualties were enormous, hundreds of men drowned before they even made it to the beaches because no one knew how to get them ashore correctly, and once ashore, no one had prepared supplies and logistics to take modern combat operations of this nature into account.

And even when men made it onto the beach and eventually took the ports, there was the actual conquering to be done. As is noted by Atkinson and other authors, our soldiers in North Africa "had not yet learned to hate" and hadn't yet learned the "profession of killing". This is nowhere more true when reading about those early armor battles; pitting Stuart tanks and their 37mm "squirrel rifles" against German Panthers and Tigers makes for some really cringe-worthy reading, and in many places you simply have to put the book down, take a deep breath, and reassure yourself that it all works out in the end.

On another note, this was the longest e-book I've read, having purchased and downloaded the volume onto my new Kindle. Although the merits of a e-reader vs. a simple paperback can be debated ad nauseam, the Kindle is far, far lighter and more compact than the roughly pound and a half of the paperback version of the book. Virtually "shrinking" big, heavy books like this into a slim, lightweight package is clearly one of the advantages of the Kindle.

In conclusion, if you are looking to begin a well-researched, well-written account of the American experience in WW2, this is the place to start. Atkinson's "big picture" concept behind writing his Liberation Trilogy (of which this is the first volume) is to show the growth and evolution of the Allied forces in general, and the American Army specifically, from a largely incompetent train-wreck into a massive war host capable of defeating two of the largest, most aggressively militant nations on Earth...at the same time. I think with An Army At Dawn, Atkinson has succeeded in the first of his objectives.

Joe Kenney is a God Among Mortals

2011-07-07T10:24:00.000-04:00

Why is this book-reviewing machine made flesh a resident of the divine realm? Because he finds and reads - nay, devours - such delightful trash as David Alexander's Phoenix #1: Dark Messiah. You all really need to go over to Joe's blog and read this review ASAP, because Joe considers this one of the most over-the-top action pulps he's ever read. And considering he's read titles I've never even heard of, that is a gold-leaf seal of approval from deep in the heart of Texas.

Joe was the fellow who brought us the review of Penetrator #1: The Target is H, which appeared in Hatchet Force Journal #1. He's got dozens of amazing reviews up on his blog, Glorious Trash, and since I have been following his reviews, I see now that I must really step up with my A-Game if I'm going to compete in the pulp review arena.

Joe points out in his Dark Messiah review that the five novels in the Phoenix series are now available as an e-book compilation. One of the most awesome (in my mind at least) aspects of the new e-book revolution is the e-pubbing of titles that have been out of print for years or even decades and lack any real justification for a new print run. After all, what 21st century publishing house would print this stuff and distribute it to brick & mortar bookstores? Sadly this won't be possible with every series (although, Gold Eagle Books, if you released your old Able Team and Phoenix Force titles as e-books you would make bank), but for many this would be a wonderful occurrence.

I just picked up the Phoenix Rising e-book compilation, and if you like lurid post-nuke trash as much as I do, you should too.

Book Review: THE DEAD MAN #5 The Blood Mesa

2011-07-05T12:13:00.000-04:00

This time around, Matt Cahill finds himself in the American Southwest, trudging through New Mexico. While hitching a ride, Matt notices a blood-red mesa off in the distance, and feels a now-familiar calling to go investigate. Walking on foot, he encounters a man and a woman with a broken down flatbed truck. The woman is pretty and friendly to boot. The man is quarrelsome, suspicious, and to Matt's eye, half his face is falling away from the evil rot Matt is able to see. Much adventure ensues.

The Blood Mesa is not an extraordinarily complex story. In fact, I would say it's the most linear and straightforward of the DEAN MAN stories so far. But this doesn't make it bad, or detract in any way from my enjoyment of Reasoner's yarn. Cahill journeys with his new acquaintances to the top of Blood Mesa (can anything good ever come of going to a place with the word "blood" in its name?), where an archaeological dig is taking place, examining an abandoned Anasazi village. The Anasazi, as anyone who reads weird adventure stories and creepy folklore can tell you, disappeared very suddenly from the southwest with no real reason that anyone can pin down - the Roanoke settlers of aboriginal American tribes. What makes the Anasazi even more ripe for weird/horror story fodder is the archaeological evidence found around some of their abandoned camps; namely human remains that appear butchered with tools and gnawed upon by human teeth. Yes, that's right - the Anasazi are suspected of being cannibals.

All of this, as well as the appearance of the diabolical Mr. Dark early on in the story, and you've got a nice recipe for trouble. Matt's axe comes into play in a big way over the course of this adventure, one of the most brutal and violent entries in an already brutal and violent series. The story riffs off of some creepy western themes, with a hefty dose of cannibalism, whacko/zombie-movie mania, and did I mention there's a few sticks of dynamite thrown in for good measure?

I have recently read a couple of James Reasoner's novels, and I consider The Blood Mesa another excellent yarn from the Texan author - it is highly recommended.

Book Review: The Hunted by James Reasoner

2011-06-30T10:53:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, I bought and read James Reasoner's long-lost, but recently e-published novel Diamondback. I will review that book here shortly, but suffice to say that it was good enough and piqued my interest enough in Reasoner's work that I went out and bought his 1997 novel The Hunted for the Kindle. It was actually the first book I read on my new Kindle, and while I'll have a short article soon about my impressions of the device, I will say that it was a pleasure to use.

The Hunted follows the adventures of Evan Littleton, a Confederate soldier who has spent two years in a Yankee prison camp until the end of the Civil War, at which point he is turned loose and walks all the way back to his home in Texas. Or what used to be his home - he discovers that a lot has changed in the four years since he has been gone, and now Evan must range across much of West Texas in order to find his children and bring them together again.

Trouble seems to rear its head wherever Evan goes, and the former soldier finds himself pitted against the Texas State Police, squatting carpetbaggers, outlaws and bandits, marauding Indians, Mexican renegades - a whole rogue's gallery of ne'er do wells and scoundrels. At the same time, however, Evan also meets and befriends a number of honest, compassionate people who help him in his quest. The story shows you the best and the worst of human nature and how Evan handles both extremes is both entertaining and heart-warming.

While I have seen my fair share of western films, I haven't read many novels. These days, the Western is a mostly forgotten genre (and according to John Locke in his kindle publishing "how to" book, the western is the worst-selling fiction genre on Amazon). But it wasn't too long ago that many of our culture's most profound and engaging stories emanated from westerns fiction. There is something so perfectly archetypal about a Wild West tale that you can't help but be pulled into these stories, and yet, not all of it is fiction; there were gunfighters, marauders, bandits, noble farmers, drunkards and whores, fortunes made and fortunes lost. The Hunted isn't an epic story, but in a way - sure it is! You can see a touch of The Odyssey deep down in there, mixed in with a number of other classic "quest" stories.

As an aside, coming from a background of almost twenty years playing pen-and-paper tabletop role-playing games, I find it curious that while the Wild West is the archetype frontier environment upon which Dungeons and Dragons was built, there have only been a tiny handful of Western-themed role-playing games, and none of them have really been extraordinarily popular. I guess it is a credit to the genre that so many of its themes are, instead, ported to other places - fantasy worlds, science fiction and post-apocalyptic settings - where the themes work just as well.

So if you're looking for a fast, fun, easy read, and you've been intrigued by the western genre but haven't yet dipped your toe, give The Hunted a try.

Hatchet Force Journal #1 Receives Warm Reception

2011-06-27T09:33:00.000-04:00

My new action-adventure e-zine, Hatchet Force Journal, went live on Amazon.com a week ago. I've been averaging a few sales a day, enough so I know it's not just a handful of loyal readers who're always commenting on this site. It's an exciting but nerve-wracking feeling to know that people you've probably never even corresponded with are now buying your product, but that's what happens when you take the Big Leap and click "Save and Publish".

So far the responses I've gotten have been great. Jim Cobb over at Survival Weekly declares that HFJ is "...awesome drenched in win". Jim makes an especially insightful comment about my essay, The Children of Vietnam, noting how I discuss "...the interesting dichotomy of being part of a generation who grew out of the hippy and counter-culture movements, yet became fascinated with violent movies, gory books, and really what should be considered to be the early days of torture porn."

Adventure and westerns author James Reasoner writes over at Rough Edges that HFJ is "...a fine piece of work". James was, as best as I can figure, the second person to purchase the Journal, and he was kind enough to give me a lot of good advice in private about what can be done to make it better. I'm currently reading one of James' e-book westerns, The Hunted, and it's a lot of fun.

Special Forces veteran and weapons expert Jack Murphy, who can now add "Self-Published Badass" to his resume, gave a review of HFJ over at Reflexive Fire, noting "Overall, Issue One is a solid effort and much more worthy of a periodical reader’s time than what is frequently available on physical news stands". Jack's new paramilitary action novel Reflexive Fire went on sale the same day as the Journal, and if you're a fan of action, intrigue, and conspiracy, you need to check it out.

Paul Bishop over at his super-cool blog Bish's Beat put up a promotional post, and over at Amazon he was kind enough to give me a concise and almost embarrassingly good review. Bish says HFJ "...kicks off a whole new world, not only for Men's Action and Adventure novels, but for the whole concept of fan-type zines for niche interests. That said, The Hatchet Force Journals is one of the most professional entries in the field. Good articles, great interviews, and strong reviews". Bish has just re-released a couple of his own book as e-books, namely Hot Pursuit and Deep Water. Do the man a solid and check 'em out.

I've received a number of other positive responses, both public and private, and they have all been very encouraging. I've requested from a number of professionals that they give me an "extraordinarily blunt" critique of the first issue, and even when there were a number of suggestions for improvement, as well as praises for what definitely worked, all have said they thoroughly enjoyed the Journal's debut.

With Issue #1 barely out the door, I'm already planning #2. From here on in, every issue is going to have a featured theme, plus a number of regular columns focusing in various topics. The theme for Issue 2 is going to be "21st Century Action & Adventure" and will focus on movies, books, and other adventure media from the last 10 years. I'm aiming for a release date some time in the second half of August.

Thank you all again for your support!

Book Review: THE DEAD MAN #4 The Dead Woman

2011-06-25T09:00:00.001-04:00

Fourth in the DEAD MAN series of short action-adventure stories published by Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin, The Dead Woman is written by David McAfee, who has a number of titles in both print and eBook editions up on Amazon. McAfee drops our (un?)dead hero Matthew Cahill in the small town of Crawford, Tennessee. Of course, as luck would have it, there's been a serial killer on the loose in town, and pretty quickly Matt gets himself embroiled in the local drama. Offering to aid Abbey, a young woman trying to close up her mother's antiques shop, Matt runs afoul of Abbey's ex-husband, Dale, one of the town's police officers. Killers, cops, and beautiful young ladies, oh my...

I won't ruin the plot by giving much else away, but Matt winds up discovering that he is not the only person to possess his gift of seeing the evil within a person's soul manifested as rot and decay eating away at their bodies. There is also more conflict with Mr. Dark, the ancient and demonic entity who torments Matt on his adventures. We are given glimpses of more layers beneath other layers; the plots of the DEAD MAN stories continue to shed light on something much more elaborate, perhaps even epic, taking place with Matt caught in the middle having far more questions than answers.

The DEAD MAN series has gone on for some months now, with several more books on the way, and it is in no danger of growing stale. In fact, with each new author comes a new perspective, a new lens through which we are viewing this twisted world. While The Dead Woman doesn't have the jaw-dropping gratuity of Ring of Knives or the brutal violence of Hell in Heaven, there is found in The Dead Woman one of the more well-developed and interesting secondary characters thus far, and I hope this isn't the last time Matt runs into this character again. Maintaining each of the DEAD MAN stories as its own complete episode, while at the same time drawing out an overarching plot that pulls us along, this series has legs enough to carry us through for many more installments to come.

Hatchet Force Cover Gets A Pro Makeover

2011-06-21T09:46:00.000-04:00

What do I find upon waking up this morning? A couple of e-mails from Christopher Mills, a fellow whose blogs I've been following for several years now.

And what does Sir Christopher have for me in said e-mails? Why, a professionally re-designed cover for HFJ#1, of course:

When I originally designed the Hatchet Force cover, I drew heavily from the old vintage paperback covers (the font I picked is as close as I could get to the font used for the Phoenix Force books) as well as old 70's and 80's Soldier of Fortune magazine covers.

But it's not 1981 anymore, and Christopher saw that my cover needed a little modern pop! to give it some bite. I couldn't be happier with the results.

I'm taking on Christopher as my cover layout and design artist from here on out, and will be sure to offer up my firstborn to a god or godling of his choice as a sign of my appreciation for his support.

Jack Murphy's Reflexive Fire Coming This Week

2011-06-20T10:04:00.001-04:00

Former US Army Special Forces Sergeant Jack Murphy's debut novel, Reflexive Fire, will be hitting Amazon's Kindle store this week. I've read Reflexive Fire, and it is one of the coolest, hardest-hitting military action thrillers I've read in a long while. Think a mix of 80's anti-terror commando novels a la Phoenix Force or Able Team, mixed with some Tom Clancy techno-thriller (only fun to read) and sprinkle on a little bit of the computer game Deus Ex, and you'll come close to what Jack has achieved with this novel.

Books like Reflexive Fire are what independent e-publishing is all about. This isn't "Amazon Spam", or "The Drivel of the Masses", this is a solid, well-written novel that is a true pleasure to read, and it's going to be published without any gatekeepers, without any ivory towers, and with the majority of the profits going into Jack's worthy hands. Exactly as it should be in this day and age.

This is the action-adventure renaissance I am championing with the release of Hatchet Force Journal. I uploaded the file to Amazon last night; the Journal is "in review" and should be available in the next day or so. As soon as it's up and ready for business, you'll all be the first to know.

Congratulations to Jack Murphy for his debut novel - I'm hoping to see many more to come.

My Decision to Price Hatchet Force at $2.99

2011-06-17T10:25:00.000-04:00

When I originally decided to put together and sell an eJournal built around my interest in action-adventure fiction, my gut reaction was to make it as cheap as commercially possible. You can't sell anything on Amazon cheaper than $0.99, so that was going to be my initial price point.

But in reading a lot about independent e-publishing and pricing, I have seen a number of people making solid arguments against pricing your wares "as low as you can go". For one, the buyer will look at the price of the product as a reflection of the creator's value of their own work. You sell something too cheap, the buyer is wondering if there's a reason you feel it is of such little value. Selling something at $2.99 helps say "I think this is worth more than the absolute lowest price I can charge".

Another, more personal argument is that giving the product a more respectable price means I am taking the project more seriously. I've been promoting action-adventure fiction for ten years now, and what first started as simply a preference in reading and a desire to talk to other fans has now become a commercial venture for me. Giving this product a serious price tag helps solidify in my mind that this is a serious undertaking, and I have been investing a lot of time and effort into learning as much as I can about e-publishing, contacting and communicating with contributors, and promoting the work as best I can.

Also, I hate to say it, but $2.99 makes this venture much more profitable. I've seen arguments for the theory that pricing a book at $0.99 means you'll get more sales and make up for the lower profits, but the arguments against this idea look much stronger. The way Amazon sets the royalties for independent publishing, a product sold at $2.99 gives 70% of the profit to the author, while $0.99 only gives 30%. This means pricing at the lower value, I'd have to sell more than six times the number of copies at the lower price to make the same royalties as a $2.99 product. Many authors have actually seen sales figures (not profits, but actual numbers of sales) go up with the higher price; I think that is a solid argument for my first point above; that the higher price gives the buyer more confidence in a better product.

Finally, I don't really think for a niche product like HFJ a price difference between $0.99 and $2.99 is going to sway a purchase one way or another; either you think this is a product worth investing a few bucks to buy, or you're not the sort of person who'd probably read the Journal in the first place. For those fence-sitters out there who'd actually reconsider - hey, skip the three dollar iced coffee, and invest in some quality reading material instead!

I'm still aiming for a June 20th release date, hoping to put the Journal up on Amazon Sunday night, but it may take 24-48 hours for it to process through and be available for purchase. As soon as it is available, I'll be sure to let everyone know.

Thank you all again for your support - I literally couldn't do this without you.

Hatchet Force Journal #1 On Deck For Next Week

2011-06-16T09:00:00.003-04:00

After what has been a relatively short but incredibly encouraging journey, Hatchet Force Journal #1 is almost ready to land on Amazon's Kindle bookstore. All the material is in hand, layout is mostly complete, and I hope to have the final editing finished by this weekend. My hope is that the Journal will go on sale Monday morning.

As a little bit of a sneak peek, here is the cover for Issue #1:

Do I sound like a jerk if I say I'm really excited that this is coming together?

Trailers for Bronson's Death Wish and The Mechanic

2011-06-15T13:27:00.001-04:00

This past weekend I finally finished the rough draft of my revenge thriller, Killer Instincts. It took me about a year of irregular writing and editing and pecking at the project when I could work up the courage, but it's finally there, all ~100,000 words.

When people ask me what the story is about, in typical former film student fashion, I fall back on the stereotypical Hollywood "This story is X meets Y" method of explaining a plot, so I tell people "The book is Bronson's Death Wish meets his movie The Mechanic". One part vigilante crusade, one part contract killer origin story.

With that in mind, I provide trailers to both films. The second trailer is newer than the theatrical release; I'm guessing it was included in a DVD of some sort. It does, however, show the dynamic between Bronson and Jan Michael Vincent's characters a lot better.

If you've never seen either of these movies, I urge you to check them out - both are great 70's action thrillers.

Black Gate Article on Serialized Fiction

2011-06-14T10:25:00.001-04:00

Jack Murphy passed along to me this article from the fantasy literature website Black Gate. It is a discussion of the nature of "serial fiction", and it is pretty thought-provoking.

My biggest quibble with the article is that, like so many literary theorists and critics, the author spends what seems to me like an inordinate amount of time trying to pin down exactly what should be considered "serial fiction", but in the process, he seems to step on his own toes a few too many times. Apparently short mini-series comics aren't serials, and perpetual titles like Spider Man aren't serials, but the 75-issue Sandman series is, as is the 300-issue Cerberus. I guess his definition of a serial is that it has to have a definite beginning and an end, with a story arc that encompasses the whole, but with individual arcs that make up the installments.

To me, this makes sense, but I think it should be a little more open to interpretation. Was The X-Files a serial television show? It had an arc of sorts that it was trying to tell, but many episodes (the "creature features") had nothing to do with that overall arc. The original Star Trek could also be considered a serial, as the crew of the Enterprise was on a "five-year mission", but almost no episodes of the show weave together into any kind of over-arching plotline. Is the old 1930's Buster Crabb Flash Gordon a serial? It certainly seems like it should be. I think the sci-fi spy series Alias and the newer series Lost are excellent examples of modern serial stories on television, but what about shows like The Wire? Each season has an arc, and the seasons interconnect in various ways, but I'm not sure that story could ever "end" like a serial should.

And what about historical fiction? Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe novels, set in the Napoleonic War, by default have a beginning and an end - the Napoleonic War itself. But Cornwell then expanded the series with prequels and at least one "sequel", so does that change the original Peninsular Campaign novels from "serial fiction" to something else? Likewise, what about Patrick O'Brian's naval adventures? You could write a series of novels about a historical event knowing that the event does, eventually, come to an end - is that the "end" of the arc, or is the arc something more abstract? Is it the journey the character goes through, such as in stories like HBO's Band of Brothers or The Pacific? Each of those has a historic start and end, but also follows arcs in the development of the people involved.

I refer to book series like The Executioner and The Death Merchant as "serial action adventure fiction" because they are simply a series of interconnected novels. You could say Pendleton's original 38 "War Against the Mafia" novels are a "serial fiction" story, but then the later 300+ novels are just barely related episodic stories. In my mind, any series of novels written from the beginning with a numbering scheme feels to me in some way as "serial fiction"; after all, don't these books have "serial numbers" on them?

Anyway, much food for thought.

Book Review: Phoenix Force #3 Atlantic Scramble

2011-06-13T09:00:00.004-04:00

Truth be told, I think Atlantic Scramble would have made a far, far better first book than Argentine Deadline. There is an excellent introductory chapter, where we see all five men in their "native habitats"; Gary in the Manning in the Canadian wilderness, McCarter gambling and womanizing in Vegas, Encizo in bed with a woman, Ohara meditating, and Katz admiring Starry Night in the MoMA with a female companion of his own (which amuses me, as I was recently at the MoMA and was introduced to that very same painting by a female friend of mine - but I don't wear a beret...).

This chapter is all the introduction we would ever need for the five men of Phoenix Force, and could have easily kicked off the series, with a few mentions of how the team had been recently formed but had yet to go into battle together, yadda yadda yadda. It would have meant less wasted paper and would have given us more action, while still telling us everything we needed to know about our heroes for the first novel. Instead, we were subjected to a rather boring "...you were picked by a computer from six thousand candidates..." speech, something which utterly killed any forward momentum Argentine Deadline might have had. Instead, we see in this book each of the men raring and ready to go into battle, their "civilian" lives a boring cover story for their "real" lives as Mack Bolan's "Foreign Legion", which I think is the best description of Phoenix Force I've ever read.

Did I say action? Oh yes, there is action - quite a lot of action, in fact. There are four solid action sequences in the book, each of them has a pretty substantial body count, and each of them takes place with a different scenario. In fact, there is probably twice as much combat in Atlantic Scramble as there is in the first two books combined, and it is handled quite well; lots of chattering Uzis and Ak-47s, M-16s and CAR-15s blazing away. Grenades are thrown, demolition charges are set and blon up, and lots (I mean lots) of bad guys are killed, some in pretty nasty ways.

In fact, if there is one criticism about this book, it is that it can be a tad bit too nasty. Thomas Ramirez, although I feel he saved the series from a rather boring death, also seems to have taken a few too many pages out of the Joseph Rosenberger school of writing about your enemies. The Libyan terrorists are spoken of in terms that border on racially derogatory and often come across as just uncomfortable to my bashfully sensitive 21st century sensibilities. Their swarthy features are repeatedly pointed out ("...brown as a donkey's ass..." gets used at one point) as well as needlessly remarking on one Libyan's "Levantine nose". Rafael and a couple other Hispanic characters in the book also banter around some "beaner" humor; maybe Ramirez, presumably of some kind of Hispanic descent himself, was going with the old "I can make fun of my own people if I want to" excuse when he wrote these jokes in, and as this book was written almost 30 years ago times have indeed changed, but I do find it a little awkward, especially since although the Gold Eagle titles are merciless on the various hero's enemies, they don't often lean towards racially-oriented slurs unless it is part of a character's dialogue.

That having been said, though, the book is overall much better written, in my mind, than the first two Phoenix Force titles, with some rather amusing turns of phrase thrown in here and there. Manning's Ferrari takes off down a curving wilderness road "...like a fuck-starved jackrabbit", which I found hilarious, and a Libyan terrorist gets "...sent to Allah-bye Land" by one of the team. If I didn't know better, I would almost think that "Thomas Ramirez" was a pen name for Joseph Rosenberger himself, as his Death Merchant books are filled with this sort of humor. Indeed, the "super-weapon" stolen by the Libyans, the Dessler Laser Submachine Gun, is a weapon that shows up in only one other place than I can find; a Death Merchant novel (I have read it, but the number escapes me at the moment). Whoever Ramirez is or was, I think there is no doubt he was a big fan of the Death Merchant series, which was about a decade old by the time Atlantic Scramble was published.

From Atlantic Scramble onward, the Phoenix Force titles become much more readable, and I hope to keep passing these reviews along for some time to come.

Summer Action Adventure Movie: Super 8 (2011)

2011-06-10T17:08:00.001-04:00

Children are not stupid. A child or adolescent is an information processing machine that is unmatched by any adult - their brains are assimilating data at an amazing rate, their body chemistry is designed to help them learn and develop quickly, and they have yet to fall into dangerously predictable patterns of thinking. A child can make intuitive leaps of logic and imaginative reasoning that would never occur to an adult, and because of this, we often underestimate a child's ability to figure out problems and find solutions. Wisdom does often come from the mouths of babes.

All that having been said, I think children today are a lot worse off than children from my generation and older. Yes, I'm going to say it - back in my day, which let's be fair, wasn't that long ago - we had to learn a lot of stuff on our own. There was no Wikipedia or Google or Ask Jeeves; there were school books and libraries and the home edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Learning was a more painstaking, time-consuming process, and there was a lot less information to cram into our young minds. We weren't distracted by Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr or internet porn or IMs and texting; there were distractions, but there weren't so many and they weren't so in your face, all the time.

I was a bookworm as a kid, and something of an introvert, but I still spent time outside, countless days running around in the woods capping imaginary terrorists and Soviets with a Crossman scoped air rifle and an imitation Colt Python CO2 revolver. I also played with friends, thank you very much, and all sorts of normal childhood activities that got me out of the house and into the world around me. I made stuff with my hands, found problems and came up with solutions. I got hurt, I got better, and I learned from my mistakes. I read about geology and history and mechanical engineering, what made a jet fly faster than the speed of sound or what kept the moon circling the earth. I think a lot of us forget that at that time in our lives, we were in many ways more learned than our parents, who'd forgotten so many things and fell into focusing on the singular tasks of their job, raising their family, and putting food on the table. Every child was a Renaissance Man (or Woman). Think about that for a moment.

So what does any of the last three paragraphs have to do with the dang movie, you might ask? It's just this; Super 8 is the direct descendant of all those movies I grew up with as a kid, movies that showed kids not only holding their own against the world, but finding ways to come out on top. Movies like E.T., War Games, Goonies, Cloak & Dagger, and even Red Dawn. Movies where the kids figured out problems and found solutions before the grownups, who were usually too unwilling to face the situation or believe there was another solution besides their own. I don't know if these movies were a reflection of Generation X's anti-authoritarian streak, or if they helped nurture it, but these kinds of movies influenced young kids such as myself, reminded us that grownups didn't always have the answers, to believe in ourselves and trust that we were smart, capable, and when need be, heroic.

This is the heart of Super 8; it is a movie that reminds us that back when we were young, we weren't stupid kids who didn't know anything and couldn't do anything. We were bright, creative beings who could take what life threw at us and climb right over, then come at you swinging. We could make movies, we could find clues, we could solve mysteries, and we could show that sometimes, adults didn't always have the answers, and there was always another solution to a problem.

If you want to remind yourself of that time in your life, you should go see this film.

Book Review: Phoenix Force #2 Guerilla Games

2011-06-10T11:58:00.000-04:00

This time around, Phoenix Force is sent back into South America again, this time to rescue more kidnapped Americans - but with a twist. Apparently these Americans had been held hostage ninety-four days before their company had ransomed them...and then captured by another group of Paraguayan terrorists. Talk about bum luck, eh? I was never clear while reading the book if the kidnappers and the other set of terrorists were related; this premise, like in Argentine Deadline, is a little wobbly. Kidnapped along with the American businessmen are the pilot and co-pilot of the plane flying them out, which was forced down by a military aircraft (never explained).

But wait - there's more. One of the hostages is actually an American intelligence operative whose been working hidden in the corporation for a while now, monitoring its international activities. Why more of an effort wasn't made to get this operative (who is Phoenix Force's primary mission goal) during the previous ninety-four days of captivity, we aren't exactly sure. Regardless, in goes Phoenix Force, back to South America.

The good news with Guerilla Games is that the group, by and large, spends the whole book working in teams of some fashion, so there's plenty of inter-character interaction and development. Manning and McCarter work together along with a French ex-pat arms dealer named Sweetie Pie Sazerac, probably the coolest secondary character name in a Gold Eagle title I've ever come across. Meanwhile Keio, Katz, and Rafael work together to acquire transportation out of the jungle once the hostages are located. The banter in this book is much, much smoother, and you really begin to see how the characters relate to one another; Manning thinks McCarter is a bit of a rabid dog, while Keio and Rafael work very hard to not embarass themselves in front of Katz, who the whole team holds in an almost worshipful regard.

The biggest problem with this book is that there is almost nothing action-oriented until the last few pages. So much time is taken getting through the jungle, finding the hostages, arranging transportation, and interacting with secondary characters that the book as a whole becomes very anti-climactic. There is a very brief firefight at the end but beyond that, Phoenix Force doesn't fire a single shot. I can give the writer and Gold Eagle the benefit of the doubt and presume this was done intentionally, to show that Phoenix Force can solve problems without gunfire, but given the rather anemic action quota of the first book, having your second book come off as even more tame seems a weak strategy in my opinion.

Overall I consider this a better-written book than Argentine Deadline, but it is still a weak offering, especially compared to Able Team #2, The Hostaged Island. Fortunately for Phoenix Force fans, book #3, Atlantic Scramble, makes up for the deficiencies of the first to books - in a BIG way.

Summer Action Adventure Movie: We Were Soldiers (2002)

2011-06-09T13:03:00.001-04:00

I saw this movie when it came out in theaters, and a few years after that, I read the book. In 2002, Mel Gibson wasn't quite as notorious a Hollywood figure as he is today, and watching the movie again today I must admit knowing his predilections and prejudices sours the film a little for me. Like a number of Hollywood personalities, we have a hard time separating our feelings about them as people from how we feel about their performances or their directed / written / produced works. I know there a number of people in the industry who I consider rather abominable people, but find their bodies of work to be quite solid. C'est la vie.

We Were Soldiers is a film adaptation of the book We Were Soldiers Once...and Young by Lt. General Hal Moore and Joe Galloway. The book and the film cover the multi-day battle for the Ia Drang Valley between the US Army's Air Cavalry and the NVA. It was the first major engagement between these two bodies and one of the few major "set piece" battles during the war. Both sides suffered heavy casualties, and both sides claimed victory. The battle did, among other things, give validity to the air cavalry operational model, which would become the hallmark of almost all operations during the Vietnam War (our first "Helicopter War").

In a way, the battle for Ia Drang Valley is a miniature version of the entire war for Vietnam. US forces engage the NVA or VC, we bloody their noses badly before they inevitably fall back although we take substantial casualties ourselves, and then we almost immediately fall back after the battle is declared "won", giving the ground up to the NVA or VC who move back in and re-claim the battlefield. This is a cycle we will repeat for the next seven years. Whether or not the US military and the government could foresee this cycle at the end of 1965 is still, I feel, up for debate. That the American people did not foresee this cycle is, I feel, without question.

Still and all, I think We Were Soldiers is a pretty solid movie. There is a lot of melodrama in it that can be tear-jerking and / or teeth-grinding depending on your disposition, but be forewarned that it is there. Probably the most solid and enjoyable aspect of the film is Sam Elliot's portrayal of Sergeant Major Basil L. Plumley. Sam Elliot is one tough ol' sumbitch, and he puts every ounce of that mettle into his performance. No one makes five combat drops in two wars and then goes on to fight through a third, and is still kickin' at the age of 91, without having balls of solid, stone-polished brass.

Here's an alternate trailer for the film, without the "Daddy, what is a war?" crap in the beginning that makes me throw up in my mouth a little. I wish I could find other, better clips from this film, but they are rather scarce, of have spoilers I don't want to reveal. Pay special attention to Sgt. Plumley's opinion of Armstrong Custer - it's classic.

Book Review: Phoenix Force #1 Argentine Deadline

2011-06-07T13:14:00.001-04:00

I recently got in a bunch of old Phoenix Force and Able Team titles, and I've slowly been chewing through them. These Gold Eagle books are extremely fast reads; you could probably get through a PF or AT title in a lazy weekend afternoon or a week's worth of lunch hours with little trouble at all. If you have an interest in these older titles, you can often find them through Amazon via third-party vendors (see the link near the end of the review).

I was never as much a fan of Phoenix Force as I was of Able Team in my youth. There wasn't any one thing in particular to put my finger on, but that's just the way it was. I read more Able titles, and maybe the greater exposure helped. Either way, I wanted to start from the beginning in each series and begin reading them to see how each progressed and developed. So, I thought I'd start with Phoenix Force. My review of Able Team #1: Tower of Terror will appear in the inaugural issue of Hatchet Force Journal later this month.

Unlike the members of Able Team, who all came into association with each other through Don Pendleton's Executioner stories, Phoenix Force meets for the very first time in chapter 4 of Argentine Deadline. Following the usual pattern for Gold Eagle titles, both PF and AT, the crisis develops in the first couple of chapters, and then the main characters become involved. Although that's usually okay when you know who they are going to be, doing this for the first PF title, when we've never met the characters before as we had with Able Team, seems a little weird to me.

This is coupled with the way the team is introduced. There's about two dozen pages of "You're all the best, and we want you to do all this secret stuff. If you don't want to, bye. Oh, and even though you JUST met, there are people who need saving in just a couple of days or they are all dead, and it's entirely up to you. No pressure or nothin'".

I know we need to get the story moving along, but having Phoenix Force go from never having met each other before to working together in the field twenty-four hours later just doesn't work for me. No real-world anti-terrorist organization would throw together a team of five different men from five different countries, two of whom get into a brawl five minutes into their introductions, without weeks if not months of training and acclimation to each other's methods and abilities.

What further drags the book down is that, in order to give each individual some spotlight time, each member of the team immediately splits off once in-country, so we can dedicate a chapter or two to their abilities and point of view. A noble effort, but it also wastes the entire middle third of the book, and most of the "action" is at most a paragraph or two. Two of the characters also immediately get their asses kicked, which further complicates the plot, as one needs to be rescued and the other spends a whole chapter dealing with a bad blow to the head. It's an enormous waste of paper in my opinion, and having them alone and not interacting with each other means less inter-character devlopment, which is so critical to these sorts of "kill team" type books.

To further frustrate matters, I found the plot of this book needlessly complicated, and just kind of boring. Some Americans get kidnapped while on an "academic retreat" - who takes an academic retreat to Argentina? Apparently their last retreat was in NYC; maybe they should have gone to Vegas instead. It's also pointed out that none of them have any money or collatoral to be ransomed with, something the kidnappers screwed up on (they were mistaken for "wealthy American business people"). Apparently this bunch of academic paupers could still find the cash to fly down to another continent to have their meeting.

All in all, this book is a little weak for a "#1". However, it's worth reading if you are a fan of the Gold Eagle titles, as it's the first in its series and helps lay the ground work and backstory for the other characters. I still definitely think it could have been handled better. I'm reading the first Able Team book now, and the quality is considerably higher - it helps tremendously that Pendleton had already fleshed out the characters and established their working dynamics before the series began.

You can probably pick up Argentine Deadline for a few bucks off of an Amazon retailer. If you're interested in these titles, pass on the next iced mocha, and spend the cabbage on a couple of these instead. They make for great back-pocket summer reading.

Buy Argentine Deadline Phoenix Force #1 Through Amazon Here.

Summer Action Adventure Movie: The Longest Day (1962)

2011-06-06T11:27:00.001-04:00

I know I wrote an article about this movie not too long ago, but as it's June 6th - D Day - I feel it's important to bring the film up again. While there have been other movies that involved the momentous Normandy Invasion (Saving Private Ryan, the Band of Brothers miniseries), The Longest Day is somewhat unique in that it is an epic, multi-faceted film that covers many of the aspects of the day, both from the Allied and the German side.

(As a side note, there are a number of posters out there for this film, but I'm not a fan of the more modern DVD box posters - I prefer vintage posters like this one.)

The most expensive black-and-white movie ever made at that point, The Longest Day was an immense undertaking. Thousands of extras were used for the Normandy invasion sequence, and while excavating along the Normandy beach for the making of the film, an intact Allied tank was discovered, buried in the sand. The tank was excavated, repaired, and used in the film - quite the feat of engineering and restoration!

One of the most interesting things about this film is that so many of the people involved with, or consulted on the making of the film were actually involved in the D-Day invasion, and not just British or American troops, but Germans and Frenchmen as well. The film was truly an international undertaking, with American, German, and British film-makers filming the sequences involving their respective nationalities.

There is so much trivia involved in this film, I won't go on here any longer. You can view the film's entry on IMDb as well as its Wikipedia article for more information.

Here's the trailer for The Longest Day. There are other portions of it on Youtube, but sadly it hasn't had as much of a presence there as other war films. I wish I could find a sequence for the assault on Pegasus Bridge, but I don't see it out there anywhere - if someone has better luck, please post a link in the comments section!

Book Review: Get Tough! by William Fairbairn

2011-06-03T10:35:00.001-04:00

My parents, it must be said, were pretty cool. No parental helicoptering for me - they largely left me to my own devices, and not pressuring me one way or another beyond making sure I wasn't going to get into too much trouble.

One cool thing my parents did was offer to pay for and get me to and from martial arts classes. My dad learned of a jujitsu instructor in a nearby town, and so for a couple of years, we went once a week. While I didn't progress very far in terms of rankings (and besides, I was only in junior high at the time), I learned many of the fundamentals of unarmed self defense; understanding stance, balance, the application of force and angles and using an opponent's balance and posture against them. We learned falls, throws, locks, escapes, strikes, kicks, holds - all sorts of fun stuff.

A lot of "modern" self-defense experts pooh-pooh "martial arts" techniques as being too formalized and not realistic enough, but I think the important thing to take away from it all was not the indivdual moves but the holistic methodologies involved. Whether you're learning jujitsu, karate, tai chi, kung fu, or some back alley MMA technique, the human body hasn't changed, nor have the ways to destabilize, topple, wrench, tear, and break that body.

This is the essence of William E. Fairbairn's approach to unarmed combat. Serving as a police officer in one of the nastiest, roughest ports in the world during the 20's and 30's - Shanghai, China - Fairbairn, who looks more like an accountant than a whirlwind of hand-to-hand destruction, learned from the School of Hard Knocks how to take on and defeat all manner of armed and unarmed bad guys.

So when some bad guys called Nazis came along in the late 30's, Fairbairn was enlisted to train British Commandos and SOE agents in the ways of kicking butt. He created a series of simple, brutal, and effective moves that boiled down the art of close combat to something any fir and motivated individual could learn in a relatively short amount of time. These techniques were then codified into an instruction manual, and Get Tough! was born.

The book itself doesn't seem like much. A slim volume filled with short paragraphs of text and simple line illustrations showing strikes, throws, holds, and so forth. But this is the key to the volume's effectiveness; I read it cover-to-cover in about an hour, it is easily understandable and very to the point; this isn't a book about "self defense", this is a book about kicking ass. Or, more accurately, kicking balls, since over half the maneuvers in the book include a grab, kick, or punch to the junk at some point or another. There's also a lot of palm strikes to the chin (favored by Fairbairn over a punch to the face since it won't wreck your hand in the process), finger rakes to the eyes, shin strikes, knee-breaks, and lots of other fun moves that can leave someone permanently crippled or dead.

Along with the unarmed combat techniques, there are short segments showing the use of a chair, a short stick or cane (which would work very well with a carbine or Sten gun), the use of a fighting knife (this is a particularly gruesome segment, and leaves no doubt that this is NOT a "self defense" manual), and last but not least, the use of the Smatchet, a weapon devised by the Fairbairn for extremely direct hand to hand combat, particularly sentry removal. Allow me to quote two of the best sentences in the book:

"The psychological reaction of any man, when he first takes the smatchet in his hand, is full justification for its recommendation as a fighting weapon. He will immediately register all the essential qualities of a good soldier - confidence, determination, and aggressiveness."

If you have an interest in the history of military unarmed combat, I definitely recommend this book. I would not recommend this book as a "self defense manual" because claiming in a court of law that you stopped a mugger using the same techniques taught to British Commandos for the purposes of killing Nazis will probably not help your case very much.

My Reading For Vacation Week Has Arrived

2011-06-02T16:04:00.009-04:00

And there's more on the way. At least four other Able Team titles and another Sergeant book. I won't be going through all of them next week, but I'm going to put a damn big dentin the pile, that's for sure.

Hopefully somewhere along the way I'll finish my manuscript and get the first draft of Hatchet Force put together for scrutiny.

And then there's Paintball this weekend, and some vacation sightseeing, and graduate school, and...I'm going to need more vacation days...

I was a little surprised I could find "Get Tough!" so easily, but it's been reprinted many times over the years, and it looks like a fun read. And by "fun read", I mean it is of course serious research for my World War Two adventure stories...yeah that's it...

Book Review: With the Old Breed by E.B. Sledge

2011-06-02T09:36:00.007-04:00

It seemed strangely fitting that I finished With the Old Breed while hunkered down through one of the worst summer storms I've seen in a long time. The driving wind and rain, coupled with the continuous barrage of lightning ripping down out of the sky and the never-ending boom and rumble of thunder, reminded me of nothing other than a heavy artillery bombardment during a Pacific tropical storm.

Yet even though I couldn't help but make the analogy, I felt guilty at the same time. The indescribable hell that the Marines and Army troops went through during the Pacific campaign is heroic, heart-breaking, and incredibly humbling in equal measures. I was loaned HBO's The Pacific last month and after watching it ("experiencing it" might be more appropriate), I was determined to read Sledge's memoir of his experiences in the war. If anything, his book is more vivid and brutal than the television series, and after reading chapters before bed, I'd often find myself tossing and turning, the terrible images conjured up by his narrative finding their way into my dreams.

War is always a terrible thing, and World War Two was one of the most terrible, if not the most terrible conflict in human history. Out of that war, after having read about the battles for such hellholes as Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, I feel that if I was ever sucked back in time and given a choice as to where I'd want to be dumped, the last place I'd ever want to wind up is on one of the Pacific islands fought over by the Japanese and the Marines.

If you have an interest in war memoirs, in particular World War Two, you really must read With the Old Breed. It's not overly long, extremely well-written, and provides an incredibly visceral, human, and honest account of those terrible battles. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

My Gold Eagle Books Collection Grows

2011-06-01T10:17:00.005-04:00

I've spoken often about the influences Gold Eagle's Able Team and Phoenix Force books had on me as an impressionable youth. Sadly, many of those books I read in junior high were borrowed from other sources and I only owned a meager handful of Gold Eagle titles myself.

For a few years, I was able to purchase a title here or there from used bookstores in the Boston area, but the pickings were fairly slim. In the last few weeks, however, with the idea of releasing HATCHET FORCE JOURNAL and the return to my roots that project provides, I've been making an effort to expand my collection of Gold Eagle titles.

Over the last two weeks, I've received Able Team #'s 2, 3, 7, and 8, and Phoenix Force #1. I hope to get a review of PF #1 up here soon. I've got Able Team #'s 1, 4, 5, and 6 and Phoenix Force #'s 2, 3, 6, and 8 on their way. It's going to be my goal to get at least one Gold Eagle title reviewed and posted every week, and I hope to have a review of AT #1 in the first issue of HFJ.

Oh, and if you're wondering, the knife is a CRKT First Strike. That is one badass piece of cutlery, just sayin'.

Promoting Lee Goldberg's THE WALK

2011-05-31T09:27:00.010-04:00

Lee Goldberg has been very good to me lately. I've been privileged with receiving review copies of some of his works, particularly the JURY series of action-revenge novels and his new periodical pulp project, THE DEAD MAN. In return, he's been sure to post snippets of my reviews on his own web page, and as a result the traffic to PMP has always spiked around these review releases.

So to give Lee a hand, I'm passing along to my readers this promotion for Lee's book THE WALK:

"It was two years ago today that, at Joe Konrath's urging, I began my "Kindle Experiment" by making my out-of-print book THE WALK available as an ebook. I've sold close to 20,000 copies of THE WALK since then...and to celebrate, and in a blatant to attempt to propel THE WALK into the top 100 on Amazon for the first time, I am selling the book for just 99 cents for the next week.

But to make the offer even sweeter, and to promote my original ebook series THE DEAD MAN, anyone who emails me proof of purchase (at lee@leegoldberg.com) will get a free copy of FACE OF EVIL. That's two books for just 99 cents.

To pull this promotion off, though, I am going to need your help. I would really appreciate if it you would spread the word about this sale and, if you are really feeling generous, say a few kinds words about THE WALK and/or THE DEAD MAN series, too.

Here's a link to the eBook version on Amazon's web site.

Summer Action Adventure Movie: ZULU (1964)

2011-05-27T09:00:00.002-04:00

Work has slowed down around here, and the weather has heated up. I actually had quite a good day at work yesterday, and managed to get out an hour early. After picking up dinner makings and some cold beer (Dos Equis is common here at Chez Badelaire in the summer months) I found myself flipping through my Netflix instant queue, and I found the perfect movie to kick off a good summer:

If you're too lazy to look up the Battle of Rorke's Drift, I'm not going to do it for you, and if you've never heard of it, then you're simply rubbish. So off you go then, lads and lasses, and no coming back until you've schooled yourself right proper. I'll be enjoying a pint over here until you finish.

Returned, have you? Brilliant.

To me, this is one of the great classic war movies. It deals with a relatively small, unimportant British military action, but it is really the stuff legends are made of, as attested to the 11 Victoria Crosses and other medals handed out to the survivors of the battle. The British killed or wounded close to a thousand Zulus, while taking around three dozen casualties of their own. And let's not forget they are fighting in some pretty snappy duds.

And for those of you who might be cringing at the idea of a war movie that may boil down into "white guys killing black guys", ZULU treats the antagonists very well. Yes, many of them die in droves, but the British are very respectful of their enemies, and the Zulus as a people and a culture are handled with a good deal of honor and respect. No stupid, bloodthirsty savages here; just proud warriors looking to prove themselves against a worthy enemy.

There are a number of clips out there, but some are of pretty poor quality. Here's a very good looking synopsis of the film:

Russian Filmmaker's COMMANDO Remake

2011-05-26T09:00:00.001-04:00

One of these things is, well, EXACTLY like the other.

Apparently a Russian filmmaker has made a remake of Commando, almost shot-for-shot, as an homage to the original film.

Amusing that this was done when, apparently, someone else is looking to remake this action classic. But here's a bit more chatter about the Russian remake, also known as "D-Day" for some reason.

Whatever - I'll watch it when I can get my hands on it. I loved the original, and Russian filmmakers are a buncha nutjobs, so this can only end well...

Age of Heroes Film Portrays Ian Flemings 30 Commando

2011-05-25T09:00:00.001-04:00

Apparently this movie landed in UK theaters (or is it "theatres"?) this week. It's a (very) fictionalized account of the formation and operation of 30 Commando. Although the junket for the movie keeps talking about how it is the "model for all modern special operations", we should keep in mind that Durnford-Slater's 3 Commando was created only weeks after the Dunkirk invasion, a year before 30 Commando.

What 30 Commando did during the war is to advance ahead of conventional units and gather intelligence, particularly maps, codes, ciphers, enemy intelligence documents and dossiers, the sorts of things that conventional troops might ignore or, worse, simply destroy. In this respect they are a lot like modern small unit special operations teams, such as the teams sent into Iraq during the first and second wars to pinpoint targets, observe and report troop movements, and so forth. Intelligence operations, rather than combat operations.

This is 30 Commando's connection to writer Ian Fleming; as a Naval Intelligence Officer, he would pick targets likely to possess valuable intelligence assets, and have elements of 30 Commando attached to conventional units that would then strike (or be striking regardless) those targets, allowing 30 Commando (at this point known as "30 Assault Unit") to snatch up all the valuable intelligence and send it back for analysis. The movie trailer seems to make it out as if Fleming is the creator or leader of the unit, which is wrong; he was merely the man (or rather, one of the men) who picked their targets and planned out their operations.

One of the more pondered and notorious activities attributed to units like 30 Commando (it is not unique in its operations by 1944, with the creation of the even more notorious "T-Force") is the seizing of German technology secrets; many conspiracy theorists and speculators think units like 30 Commando and the Target Force procured top-secret Nazi "Super-Weapons" and other advanced technologies before the Russians could get to them, or before the Germans could hide or destroy them. Apparently, Fleming wrote his character James Bond into such a unit during World War 2; a suitable unit for a spy who would go on to deal with all manner of technologically advanced villains over the course of his career as an agent.

In any event, here is the trailer for Age of Heroes (2011):

What WW2 Allied Weapon Is Right For You?

2011-05-24T09:00:00.001-04:00

Over the last month or so I've been reading and watching a lot of World War Two material; The Sergeant series of action novels, plus HBO's The Pacific and I'm re-watching Band of Brothers, as well as watching The Longest Day and other WW2 movies. In addition, I've been working on and off on a pen-and-paper role-playing game focusing on WW2 Commando operations.

This has gotten me thinking about WW2 personal arms, everything from pistols and knives up to light machine guns, bazookas, mortars, and the like, and what I would want to carry with me were I to find myself suddenly fighting in Europe or the Pacific theater. Would I want to be a rifleman, a machine gunner, a mortar man, a sniper, or some other kind of combat trooper, and what would I want to carry with me?

Considering all the Allied weapons, what would probably suit me the most is the M1 Carbine. It's compact, light weight, fires a reasonably powerful cartridge that has good range and accuracy within "combat distances" (~200 meters), it's semi-automatic and has a fifteen round magazine capacity, and you can carry a lot of ammunition without a lot of weight or bulk. I don't see myself as a "in the teeth of it" sort of soldier, so a weapon that provides me with a lot of defensive and modest offensive firepower with minimal encumbrance appeals to me.

So, what WW2 Allied weapon is right for you? Do you see yourself as an SMG-toting commando or hard-bitten NCO, or the sort who carries an M1 Garand on the front lines? Are you lurking about in a sniper's nest with a scoped SMLE or 1903 Springfield, or are you laying down some firepower with a BAR or Bren Gun? Or perhaps you'd like something a little more exotic, like a 12-gauge combat shotgun or the DeLisle Commando Carbine? Let's hear your choices and the reasons why.

Book Review: The Sergeant #9 Hammerhead by Gordon Davis

2011-05-23T09:00:00.003-04:00

Just a quick Monday morning book review here, folks. I read Hammerhead in about two days, very fast, lots of action, and a fitting wrap-up for the series, although it's a shame that the books don't see us through to the end of the European battlefront.

In this book, Master Sergeant C.J. Mahoney makes it back to his division after taking a detour to Bastogne for a while (of course), to discover that he's got a new Platoon leader, the stiff-necked Second Lieutenant Woodward. Woodward is your classic "all theory, no practice" West Point graduate, the sort of guy who'd get himself fragged in the middle of the night were he in 'Nam around 1969. He's a jerk, he's all about the chickenshit details, and as soon as he runs into Mahoney and his reputation for being a total badass, Woodward decides he needs to break him like some sort of wild stallion, only without the obvious homoerotic overtones that phrase might imply.

While Woodward is no coward, he and Mahoney come into conflict time and time again, and eventually Mahoney does something that earns Woodward's decision to see him court-martialed. Unfortunately for Woodward, about five minutes after that, Mahoney performs a company-saving act of bravery that earns him a Silver Star, making the chickenshit court-martial almost impossible, especially since Woodward is about the only officer in the Division who doesn't think Mahoney is the son of Ares himself. Even so, Woodward tries to get the drop on Mahoney and tace care of business mano-y-mano, with hilarious results.

All the while we've got a sexually depraved nurse, an equally sexually depraved Nazi officer, the sexually depraved Mahoney up to his old skirt-chasing ways (are we noticing a pattern here?), and some good old fashioned people-getting-blown-away World War 2 combat action. And if you thought the use of bayonets in the first Sergeant book I reviewed (No. 6) was nuts, it's even more ridiculous here; practically every firefight boils down to both sides shooting off their loads (no pun intended) in the first few seconds of the engagement, then charging in and battling it out with fixed bayonets and rifle butts, no one ever bothering to hunker down for a moment and reload. Nor do we see the guys with Thompsons or M3s just cutting down Germans with empty rifles and fixed bayonets; such folks aren't to be seen at all. Still, the overuse of bayonet combat does make for some grisly and varied death scenes, for both the bad guys and the good guys.

The interplay between Mahoney, a seasoned and skillful combatant who carries rank but is often challenged and stymied by less experienced, but higher ranking officers, along with the mention of how Mahoney "just happened" to get stuck in Bastogne last book (one I need to find now), makes this series even more of a favorable comparison to the Sharpe novels written by Bernard Cornwell. In fact, the idea that the main character has these running enemies on both sides of the lines who he much constantly deal with and defeat is very much in the spirit of the Sharpe novels, where the main character was always in the shithouse with some peacock of a senior officer who tries to get Sharpe killed or disgraced, only to find himself defeated in the end. In addition, the way Cornwell would "write in" the arrival of Sharpe and some of his men into a historical engagement in order for the author to write about it, seems to be a common theme in the Sergeant novels as well.

I have acquired the first of the Rat Bastards series recently, and I hope to give it a read in the next month or two. It'll be interesting to see how it compares to the Sergeant series, especially since they were supposedly written by the same author under different pen names.

Gettin' My Commando On

2011-05-20T10:16:00.006-04:00

Colonel John Durnford-Slater was the commander of No. 3 Commando, the first fully established British Commando unit (No.s 1 and 2 were formed slightly later, I believe because of their training regimens). 3 Commando saw a lot of action, from the first raids against German occupied Norway and France right through to the Normandy invasion and the end of the war.

Because of its long service record and the number of engagements it took part in, I've decided to use it as the mother unit for the characters in my forthcoming World War II action stories. There's a decent amount of information out there for the unit, and the British Commandos themselves are very well documented, but I was especially pleased to discover that Durnford-Slater had written a memoir of his experiences and the battles and adventures of 3 Commando.

Although I've got a few other books on deck at the moment, I hope to get into this one as soon as possible. It looks like a quick read, with some good maps and photos, and it will really help flesh out my research on the unit as I prepare to begin my first Commando adventure.

The Longest Day - Assault on Quistreham

2011-05-18T10:31:00.004-04:00

So I finally got around to watching the D-Day Invasion epic The Longest Day (1962). This is one of those massive Hollywood epics that you probably couldn't make nowadays, not for any technical reason, but because you couldn't pay all the stars their contractually obligated wages, since this movie is almost a Who's Who of veteran tough guy actors.

I had only seen parts of this three-hour long war extravaganza before, snippets on TV or online. Last night was the first time I sat down and watched the whole thing from beginning to end. In my mind, despite being made almost 50 years ago, this movie stands toe-to-toe with Saving Private Ryan or any other war movie made after it's release. Yeah, maybe the "special effects" are dated, and yeah, maybe guys clutching their chests and spinning to the ground when killed isn't as "cool" as a CGI explosion of blood and gore out of someone's chest, but this movie is a MASSIVE undertaking; there were over 23,000 extras in the production of this film, and with a budget of ten million dollars, it was the most expensive black and white movie made up to that point (and the highest grossing).

One of the scenes that really stood out for me is the Assault on Quistreham by the No. 4 Commando, and especially the 177 men of the 1st Batallion of Fusiliers Marins Commandos who were part of No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando, who were given the honor of being in the first wave to assault Sword Beach, coming home to defend their country and drive out the Nazis. This scene, with it's almost two-minute long single aerial shot of dozens of commandos fighting and dying along the riverway of Quistreham, riddled with machinegun fire and bombarded by shells, is as "epic" a war moment as anything in SPR, Lord of the Rings, or any other "big battle" war movie. If you've never seen it, here it is:

I think come June 6th I'd like to do another post about The Longest Day, but for now, I'll leave you with this clip to whet your appetite.

Crime Is A Disease. Meet The Cure.

2011-05-17T09:00:00.001-04:00

I love this movie. It is a ridiculous, gratuitous mess, but if I get a chance, I'll stop everything and watch it. Just thought I'd share that this morning, since I don't have much else to report other than I'm halfway through Able Team #7 (that is a fast read) and about halfway through the second-to-last chapter of Killer Instincts. Throats are being cut, crime family estates are being infiltrated, and there's a satchel full of frag grenades just itching to be tossed. Stay tuned...

Vintage Able Team and The Rat Bastards Arrived Today

2011-05-16T13:56:00.003-04:00

Thanks to Amazon's used bookseller connections, I'm able to find a lot of old titles you can't seem to find anywhere else. After reading a couple of volumes from The Sergeant series, I decided I needed to hunt down The Rat Bastards, which is apparently written by the same guy who wrote The Sergeant, just under another pen name.

I also decided I needed to get more of the early Able Team novels. Truth be told, my love affair with "Post Modern Pulp Fiction" began when, as a junior high school student, I discovered that a small lot of Able Team and Phoenix Force novels were tucked away in our junior high school library (I cannot even fathom how that'd be possible these days). I started reading the Able Team novels, and was immediately hooked. I remember giving a book report on one of them, and let's just say if that had happened today, I'd probably have been kicked out of school, only to find myself in a counselor's office the next day. Thankfully this was the late 80's, no one had yet heard of Columbine, and I could enjoy the blood-soaked adventures of Ironman, Politician, and Gadgets to my heart's content.

Once I finish the current novel I'm reading, I'm going to have to dive into that Able Team title. I'm fairly certain I read Justice by Fire back in the day (I believe it was volumes 4 through 8), but it's no doubt been at least 20 years. Good times, good times...

The Hatchet Force eJournal Is Gaining Support

2011-05-11T13:11:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update for my readers.

This week I announced my intent to create an eJournal dedicated to the sort of serial "men's adventure" action fiction popular in the 60's through the 80's, books like The Executioner, Death Merchant, The Guardians, Black Berets, Vietnam: Ground Zero, and so forth. The journal will contain reviews of books, movies, and television shows, as well as interviews, editorials, and essays, plus short fiction and excerpts from larger works.

After some struggling to find an appropriate title for this journal, I settled on Hatchet Force, a term that hearkens back to the days of MAC-V SOG operations in Vietnam. Hatchet Forces were large assault teams of SOG commandos leading indigenous troops against enemy strong points in quick, brutal lightning raids.

When I had the idea to create this journal, I e-mailed a number of bloggers who covered similar topics, and the result was largely positive; a good number of them agreed to send me materials for review. Several of these individuals have already submitted articles, and now that I'm past one of my deadlines for work, I'll be digesting these in earnest.

More surprisingly, I've already had several unsolicited offers for articles, which I feel is a sign that there is definitely interest in a periodical of this nature. Many thanks to both those who I contacted directly and those individuals who contacted me on their own initiative; your support is essential for this project to get off the ground.

Right now, I'm setting a semi-firm submissions deadline for the end of May, and I'd like to get the first issue of Hatchet Force out the door mid-June. Since this is going to be an eBook and not a print magazine, a lot of the layout headaches I'd encounter with print publishing will be a non-issue; formatting is intended to be "low drag" so it can be compatible with the greatest number of e-readers.

I intend to sell the eJournal through Smashwords first, then push it to the Kindle as soon as I know things are up and running. The price for the first issue will be $0.99, although I don't know if it'll stay there for later issues; time will tell.

And that's where we stand so far. I've received at least half of the submissions that will go into the first issue already, with others shortly to follow. I'm guessing the last articles to be ready will be my own. If anyone is interested in submitting an article for review, please feel free to e-mail me (my address is located in the "About Me" page).

Thanks again, and I hope to hear from many of you soon.

The eJournal Project Now Has A Name

2011-05-10T09:43:00.003-04:00

So around 1 AM last night, tossing and turning and unable to sleep, I was contemplating a name for this new eJournal Project. I wanted it to be something that sold the project, something that told the reader what they were getting into right away. I thought of titles like:

The Post-Modern Pulps Review Journal

or

The Serial Action & Adventure Fiction Review

But you know what? These are the sorts of convoluted title structures that you'll see on peer review medical journals that talk about skin disorders, or ecology periodicals talking about the life of the mealworm. That is not our kind of journal, no sirree.

This is a journal for people who love to read about automatic shotguns spraying terrorists with storms of high-velocity steel, chattering Uzis stitching drug dealers across the chest with streams of hollowpoint slugs, and karate kicks to the groin so powerful they shatter a bad guy's pelvis and send them into lethal shock.

That kind of journal needs a title with a little more bite, so to speak. Short, sharp, and to the point. Like a bullet punching through a bad guy's x-ring, or a blade biting into flesh. A title that resonates both with the sorts of titles we're dealing with, titles like The Executioner, Able Team, Phoenix Force, Black Berets, Hard Corps, and The Death Merchant. Something that pulls us back to the Vietnam-era roots that define, for me, the genesis of what I call Post-Modern Pulp Fiction.

A title like Hatchet Force.

Short, sharp, and to the point, indeed. It also hearkens back to the MAC-V SOG days, which I think is critically important when you're talking about a sub-genre of fiction that owes its genesis to the Vietnam War.

So now our journal has a name, it has contributors, and content is coming in. I will provide future updates, but I hope to get issue #1 out the door some time in mid June.

Again, many thanks to all of you who have provided your support - I literally couldn't do this without you guys.

Possible Project: A Post Modern Pulps Review eJournal

2011-05-09T11:40:00.007-04:00

Blogs are great. I read at least a dozen of them regularly, and probably check in to another two dozen or so on an intermittent basis. The power that Web 2.0 has given the individual to express themselves and reach out to other like-minded individuals is extraordinary, and while there is always bad mixed in with the good, it has allowed people to form communities and share resources in ways that twenty years ago, you'd never believe were possible.

Part of the problem with blogs, especially blogs that are frequently updated, is that the content goes by so fast that you might just miss it if you're not paying attention. A lot of bloggers out there have scads of content in their "back issues" so to speak, but if a reader doesn't see it in the first couple of weeks, it will likely go unread thereafter, even if it is technically still available. This is somewhat mitigated if your blog is niche enough that a Google search of a certain topic will place your article at the top of the search listings, but that is a relatively rare occurrence.

The other day I was contemplating ePublishing and thinking of various ways and means to dip my toe in the water, and it occurred to me that one experiment might be to put together a simple, cheap, no-frills eJournal of blog content written by myself and other like-minded bloggers, sold through Smashwords and/or Kindle. I've seen other niche interest groups put together blog-inspired journals before, and the reception has actually been quite positive. It allows the buyer the chance to read content by people they might not have encountered before, and gives new life to old, but still relevant content that is sitting on the Internet, mostly forgotten.

So I am now in the process of putting out feelers to bloggers who have a strong interest in the men's adventure novels of the 60's through the 80's, what I term "Post-Modern Pulps". If anyone is interested in sending me materials for this journal project, please e-mail me (my address is available in my "About Me" page) and let me know. I'd love to see book reviews, movie reviews, even TV series reviews (Airwolf, A-Team, Knight Rider, etc.), essays and editorials, and even short fiction or excerpts from longer works.

I am considering about a dozen articles, each somewhere in the 1,000 word range, but this is a flexible word count. If I get more articles - great! If the interest is there, I can always put together more issues. My ideal would be either monthly or once every two months, depending on how much content I have to work with and the turnaround time for putting these eJournals in the pipeline.

If the project is a flop, well, c'est la vie. But if it is a success, I think it'll be able to bring bloggers of a similar interest group together, and introduce readers to writers they haven't yet discovered.

The Sergeant #9 Arrived Today

2011-05-06T11:34:00.004-04:00

Although this is the last of the books in the Sergeant series, I'm really looking forward to reading and reviewing another Mahoney story - lots of butt-kicking, bayonet-stabbing, cussing and whoring adventure to be had here.

I ordered this book through Green Earth Books, a used bookstore that promotes "recycling" of books by buying used. Although we don't really think about it much, buying used books, as well as borrowing from the library and loaning to and from friends is a good way to save a tree, as is buying eBooks and reading them on a portable device or your home computer. While I'm far from being the best role-model for living a sustainable lifestyle, I think it's important that books don't just get read once and shelved forever. Books are meant to be read, not collect dust, so if you've got books you don't plan on reading again, consider selling them, donating them, or loaning them out to someone else who would appreciate them as much as you did.

Oh, and sadly, while this book was in rather excellent condition when I received it, in an attempt to remove the bookstore's ID sticker, I damaged the front cover. I'm kicking myself for doing that now, but I'm always annoyed by stickers and such on my books. C'est la vie, I suppose.

I hope to get you this review sometime soon, but my dance card is filling up fast. When I'm done with it, y'all will be the first to know.

Book Review: THE DEAD MAN #3 Hell in Heaven

2011-05-04T09:00:00.004-04:00

One of Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories was "The Phoenix on the Sword", and this story was later re-written into a Kull story called "By This Axe I Rule". The basic gist of both stories is that Conan (or Kull), having slain the former King and usurped the throne, is now stuck with the task of ruling over a bunch of petty, scheming jerks who keep trying to manipulate him into making decisions that only further their personal agendas. Essentially, lobbyists.

In the Kull story, Kull gets fed up with all this "civilized" nonsense, because his chamberlain or seneschal or whatever keeps telling him he needs to rule according to the laws written down on some ancient stone tablets gathering moss and dust in the corner. After some lobbyist jerks try killing him in his bedchamber (he doesn't like pork-barrel politics much), Kull is sick to death of these laws because they keep staying his hand from making decisions as he sees fit. So, being the sort of "to the point" guy who usurps thrones for a laugh, Kull calls for one of the tablets (that which forbids slaves to marry) and then smashes the tablet into bits with his axe, declaring "By this axe I rule!". If he's the king, then he makes up the rules, period, end of discussion.

So yeah, what the hell am I getting to by talking about Conan and Kull? Am I one of those reviewer jerks who just rambles on but doesn't actually review the book? Well, what I'm getting to is, THE DEAD MAN #3: Hell in Heaven is a direct spiritual descendant of the sorts of awesome pulp action adventure tales that the greats like Robert E. Howard loved to write. Its got magic, its got evil, its got murder, its got beautiful women and grotesque violent freaks out for our hero's blood. It's even got axe-fighting and law-giving and a general tone of complete badassery. I won't give away any plot spoilers, but I will say the story ends in a much different way than you might expect when you read the first couple of pages.

After I received my review copy from Lee Goldberg, I burned through this story in one sitting and was grooving on the Sword & Sorcery vibe the entire time. The direct Conan references the main character makes, rather than coming off as corny or annoyingly self-referential, just make you nod and say "Hell yeah, dude!" and as I write this, I have not one, but two Conan Frazetta prints hanging over my writing desk. That's just how we roll here in Chez Badelaire.

By tapping into the sort of stories written by Howard and Leiber that I feel defined the 30's Sword & Sorcery pulps, and a generation later the post-modern pulps of such writers as Gardner Fox and Karl Wagner, Hell in Heaven further cements THE DEAD MAN series as a crossroads of pulp action, a storyline open and flexible enough to accommodate any niches or sub-genres. This means that as each new author comes in to write the next volume in the series, they have the artistic license to approach the story from the angle they find the most comfortable, ensuring a lot of variety and quality in these stories for a long time to come.

How I Figured Out WTF Is Up With Seal Team Six

2011-05-03T12:14:00.004-04:00

So apparently it's all over the news now that "Seal Team Six" was responsible for "Operation Geronimo", the raid to take down Osama Bin Laden's compound. I first learned about ST 6 while reading Richard Marcinko's biography, "Rogue Warrior". Marcinko was the Commander who established ST6 as the Navy's specialized counter-terror force, and created "Red Cell", the Navy's specialized faux-enemy infiltration unit, created to test US Naval facilities' ability to defend against elite hostile penetration teams.

So apparently things have changed a lot since the last time I did some digging. Here's the Wikipedia article on the US Navy SEALs, their history and organization. Notice that "Seal Team Six" isn't part of the organizational chart anymore; instead, it has been formally replaced by the US Navy Special Warfare Development Group.

"DEVGRU" is one of two "Tier One" Joint Special Operations Command operational units, the other being the more famous 1st Special Operations Detachment - Delta, aka, "Delta Force". Here's the article detailing the Tier One / Tier Two breakdown; I don't know if this is a truly formal designation or just a naming convention that gets used to separate the Black Ops forces from the more public special operations units.

So to me, it appears now that ST6 / DEVGRU stands apart from the conventional SEAL teams in the same way that Delta stands apart from the other Green Berets - members are recruited from those parent units, and are still ostensibly part of those units, (i.e., a ST6 member is still a "Navy Seal" and a Delta operator is still a "Green Beret") but operationally, and I imagine to some extent culturally, they stand apart. I knew this was the case for Delta, but I wasn't aware that ST6 had moved so far away from its association with the other Teams.

EDIT: See Jack Murphy's comment below regarding Delta membership. Thanks dude!

So, there we go. This is what we learn when we're bored at work and haven't been doing our SOCOM homework lately...

I Think This Is Thematically Appropriate For Today

2011-05-02T09:35:00.003-04:00

I try to keep this blog as apolitical as possible. On the other hand, I've got a Spec Ops Boner the size of the Florida Panhandle right now, so without further ado:

Teaser For My Next Writing Project

2011-04-29T10:15:00.001-04:00

I'm a couple of weeks away from finishing the first draft of Killer Instincts, and I've already got my next project lined up - a series of short historical adventure novels. Here's a working prototype of the cover for #1:

Three guesses as to what I might be writing about...

"There Is No More Deadly Weapon System..."

2011-04-28T10:07:00.004-04:00

"...than a Russian with two AA-12. Keep in mind I am a professional Russian. Don't try this in home."

Automatic shotguns are great. Shotguns in general are pretty cool, and semi-automatic shotguns (SPAS-12, Remington 1100, Browning Auto, Benelli) are even more badass, but a shotgun that fires full-auto? That's like putting chocolate on awesome.

Back in the day when I was a wee lad and cutting my teeth on Able Team and Phoenix Force books, I loved how Carl "Ironman" Lyons had to have a weapon more badass than all his other combat buddies. While Pol and Gadgets were happy with their Beretta 93 Rs and their M-16s, Ironman had to have some customized Frankenstein M1911A1 .45 automatic with three-shot bursts and extended mags and suppressor, and his combat weapon of choice was the somewhat obscure Atchisson Assault Shotgun, a weapon designed in 1972. This is the original AA-12:

But the weapon has been redesigned into what you see in the YouTube video. This is one sick shotgun, and I can see now why Ironman loved running around with it, turning bad guys into sausage meat.

Apparently the spirit of Carl Lyons was ported into Actor Terry Crews when his character started kicking ass in The Expendables, blasting away bad guys by the bucketful (and you'll need a bucket to cart them away after he's done, believe me...). Here's some shotgun action from the movie:

One of these days I need to get my hands on an AA-12 and wreck crap with it. And hey, shotgun ammo is cheaper when you buy in bulk...right?

Book Review: The Sergeant #6: Slaughter City by Gordon Davis

2011-04-27T09:00:00.000-04:00

Although post-modern pulp fiction is dominated by the serial vigilante novel, closely followed by the serial spy thriller / anti-terrorist kill team / gaggle of badass mercs adventures, there have been a couple of solid World War II post-modern pulp titles. The most notable of these is The Rat Bastards, which have at least 16 titles and possibly more (if anyone can give me a more accurate count I'd much appreciate it).

I've been recently directed towards another World War II title - The Sergeant, by Gordon Davis (the pen name of Len Levinson). This is a series of nine titles following the exploits of Master Sergeant CJ Mahoney, a real rat bastard himself, a thug and miscreant who enjoys screwing and fighting in equal measures, and apparently has to get some of each in each of the novels. I will direct readers to pulp blogger Henry Brown's excellent reviews of Book 1 and Book 4 - this is a review of Book 6, the crossing of the Moselle River and the assault on the city of Metz by Patton's 3rd army.

First off, I will mention that I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. It's not terribly written; although it isn't prosaic it is very readable, no better or worse than a lot of PMP fare. Levinson must have watched Patton about twenty times, because his depiction of Patton in this book is so spot-on with how he is portrayed in that film, especially during his morale speech before the crossing of the Moselle, that I could hear George C. Scott's voice practically reading the dialog to me.

Beyond the serviceable writing, this book reminded me a great deal of Bernard Cornwell's utterly awesome Sharpe series of Napoleonic War novels. I am a huge fan of this historical military action-adventure series, and so I was pleased to discover that in reading Slaughter City, the feeling was quite similar; a tough, no-bullshit lead character and a handful of repeat offenders who always get stuck with the dangerous important jobs because they've got the rare misfortune of being really good at what they do. Cornwell's sly mix of history and fiction allowed him to backdrop a lot of great fictional adventure with the history of the Peninsular Campaign, and I can see a similar feel in this book. Patton, Bradley, Hitler, Himmler and such are of course real characters fighting a real war, but interacting with Levinson's fictional creations to create a fictitious story loosely set within a number of facts.

And a bloody fiction it is. There is some real brutal violence in this book, which is fine by me, since, well - it's friggin' World War II. Bazookas, hand grenades, machine guns, high-powered rifles, tanks, artillery - it all makes for messy fighting. The most brutal examples of this combat take place during the Moselle landing, the house-to-house combat during the battle for Metz, and a desperate German gamble to use a rail line to punch deep into the Allied lines. Foremost in the insanity is the use of the bayonet in close combat.

Now, I won't argue that the bayonet was never used in WW2 - I'm sure it was. And I'm sure there were a few "bayonet duels" during that war, here and there. But at one point in the book it's as if every single soldier on the battlefield forgets he's carrying a repeating-fire (if not semi-automatic or selective fire) weapon, and resorts almost entirely to bayonet duels. At one point, a character even lays about himself with an engineer's hatchet, splitting German skulls and severing limbs by the sackful. Although Cornwell is guilty of an over-abundance of bayonet fighting in his Sharpe novels, at least the soldiers have a plausible excuse; the men of the 95th Rifles are carrying single-shot muzzleloaders, not M1 Garands.

Overall though, the action is fast and furious, the writing doesn't over-scrutinize the weapons and bullet trajectories a la The Death Merchant or other "gun porn" series, and there's enough amusing sexual content (a certain bet worth five hundred dollars comes to mind...) to remind ourselves that this is definitely "men's adventure" and not 196 pages of who shot who where with what caliber weapon. If you get a chance, pick up a copy if you come across it in your local used book store.

Scenes from Michael Mann's Collateral

2011-04-25T10:34:00.003-04:00

I've been pretty quiet the last few weeks. Trying to wrap up my manuscript while working on reading at least five different books for future reviews and begin another writing project...on top of work and graduate classes. Hectic times.

Michael Mann is one of my favorite modern movie directors, and one of my favorite Mann movies is 2004's Collateral, with Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. The story of Vincent the assassin and the way he is characterized was one of the seeds planted in my imagination that eventually grew into Killer Instincts; Richard, Jamie, and William all owe some of themselves to this film.

One of the coolest scenes in Collateral is the Club Fever Hit: Cruise goes into a crowded nightclub and assassinates his target with extreme prejudice...as well as a few bodyguards and cops along the way. This scene has a mix of combat and cool that really appeals to me.

During part of the DVD commentary, we learn that Michael Mann hired an ex-SAS commando to train Cruise for three months in the ways of combat tactics and marksmanship. A big part of that training was shooting drills...with live ammunition. I tip my hat big time to Mann for having the balls to insist on live-fire drills to instill in Cruise the methodology of firearm management you learn when handling a "real" weapon, not a blank-adapted pistol. Here's a chunk of that commentary:

One of the most lauded moments in the movie is the "Briefcase Shooting" - Tom Cruise out-shoots two guys in 1.3 seconds, one of whom has a gun in his face. Although yes, it is "fake", the methods and moves he uses are very well done - an impressive bit of shooting skill.

If you haven't seen this movie already, it's definitely worth checking out.

Book Review: DEAD MAN #2 Ring of Knives by James Daniels

2011-04-04T17:39:00.004-04:00

The Dead Man isn't your typical serial vigilante. He's not a former Marine, an ex-Special Forces sniper, CIA freelance operative, martial arts expert, grieving liberal accountant, disgruntled cop, or any of the usual former professions for the average protagonist in the men's vigilante adventure sub-genre. Matthew Cahill was just a lumberman working in a sawmill, until one fateful day something horrible and unexpected happened that forever changed him. Now Matt wanders alone, searching for the mystery of what happened to him, and the origin and motives behind the mysterious Mr. Dark.

Lee Goldberg was kind enough to send me a review copy of DEAD MAN #2, Ring of Knives just before I went on vacation for the weekend, and as I was planning on bringing my iPad with me anyhow, I read RoK on the bus down to NYC. It was definitely a page-turner; I read the whole installment in little more than an hour. The action and suspense came fast and furious, and when I reached the end, I was immediately disappointed that I'd have to wait (im)patiently for the next tale of the Dean Man to come along.

Now that the origin story in issue #1, Face of Evil is out of the way, Ring of Knives gives us a glimpse into what this series could really look like, and the prospects are fantastic. This is a creepy, violent, action-packed tale of suspense and supernatural horror. This isn't just weird, it's a glimpse into a dark, bizarre, and twisted world, one that the average person is completely unaware of...until the screaming begins. And then it's too late. If you loved the glimpses into the world of the strange and unusual given by such shows as The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, X-Files, and Fringe, you're going to love DEAD MAN.

After having read the first two installments of DEAD MAN, I feel I can say with some confidence that this is the future of serial adventure fiction; short, snappy page-flippers that provide a solid hour (or two, or three) of exciting literary entertainment delivered right to you instantly through the Internet. As long as prices continue to stay low and quality continues to remain high, I see the DEAD MAN series having a long and successful publication run, the pioneer for what is sure to be many more serials to come. This is going to become, in more ways than one, a return to the era of the classic serial pulps, and I for one couldn't be happier.

When it happens, I'll be the first in line every time.

Book Review: Roughneck Nine-One by Frank Antenori

2011-03-28T09:23:00.006-04:00

Having recently finished SOG, but finding that book somewhat depressing and tragic, I hesitated to read another book about special operations forces, even one that dealt with a heroic victory against superior numbers and resources. But I was intrigued enough by Roughneck Nine-One to read the introduction while at the bookstore, and the author's summary of the action seemed positive and upbeat enough that I decided to give it a go and pay out.

I'm glad I made that decision. Although you'll grit your teeth like I did at some of the bureaucratic and leadership frustrations Antenori and his team experienced, you'll also grove on the positive, can-do will-do attitude these operators had from day one. Antenori, a veteran of Afghanistan and a number of other operations, decided early on that he would not run from a fight, even one against a numerically superior foe, and his team captain and fellow team members agreed with him. Thus, their team motto, "Nine-One Don't Run", was born.

I want to pause for a moment and look at this a little closer. A few years ago I took a military history class for the hell of it, mostly to see if I liked going back to school, and one thing that came up in discussion was the misconception that "Americans are risk-adverse in war". This notion was apparently something born, I guess, from the Vietnam war, and supposedly carried through to this day. My professor did his best to argue against that theory - that the American people may be risk-adverse to war, but the military was not. Furthermore, that there was a difference between "taking risks" and "being stupid".

American combat doctrine is filled with risk-taking and aggression. The fundamental philosophy of destroying the enemy through advancing under a process of fire and maneuver is inherently risky and aggressive, but it's how we helped break the stalemate of the Great War, it's how we took the beaches of Normandy and pushed through to Berlin, it's how we jumped from island to island in the Pacific and twenty years later, it's how we would send patrol after patrol into the jungles of Vietnam, hunting for the enemy so we could bring down the pain. It's how we planned out the Song Tay Raid, the Hatchet Force assaults launched against enemy targets, the SEAL team recon missions deep into the heart of the Mekong Delta. That military aggression is what drove Anthony Swofford and his fellow Recon Marines into the lion's den during the first gulf war, disappointed that he never fired a shot in anger the entire time. And when the second Gulf War rolled around a decade later, the next generation of Recon Marines in their over-burdened Humvees would barrel through enemy-occupied territory, daring the enemy to reveal themselves by firing at them so the Marines could tear the enemy apart with automatic weapons fire.

When Sgt. First Class Antenori and his team made the decision to never run from a fight unless they were in danger of being wiped out, this decision was not made out of reckless bravado, but in the spirit of the aggressive American fighting man. Antenori knew his team had the training, the weapons, and the resources to bloody the nose and halt the advance of an enemy much larger than his team, and that his mission, above and beyond the specifics of any individual operation, was to seek out and kill the enemy whenever he was encountered, to capture and destroy the enemy's resources, and find and exploit intelligence assets. In short, Antenori's mission was to bring the fight to the enemy, using their mobility, aggression, weapons and training to, as he puts it, "eat the elephant one bite at a time".

Truthfully, I found the battle to be, if anything, a little bit anti-climactic. There are certainly tense moments, an increase of the "pucker factor" as Antenori puts it, but without giving away any spoilers there is never really a moment while reading the book that I was thinking "Oh man, they are toast!". The men of Roughneck Nine-One were cool under fire, performed their tasks admirably, and even when the enemy brought superior weapons to bear and attacked with main battle tanks and armored personnel carriers, the team knew what to do and handled the situation like pros.

In fact, the most depressing and disheartening part of the book is Antenori's disgust over the performance of their company leader, a man referred to only as "Major X", who refused to "let slip the dogs of war" and allow his teams to finish out their assigned tasks for fear that a casualty so late in the mission would tarnish an otherwise superbly executed operation. Without exception, every individual warrior under Major X's command was furious; as several of them put it, "We didn't join the Special Forces because we were afraid of getting hurt."

Roughneck Nine-One is a fast, enjoyable read; I finished the book in two days. It's a great account of a modern Special Forces A-Team in action, and what they are capable of when put to the test. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about small unit operations during the second Gulf War.

What The Libyan Rebels Need is Airwolf

2011-03-25T09:00:00.004-04:00

I didn't realize it, but I am apparently some kind of psychic foreign policy rainmaker. Just a couple of weeks ago I decided to start watching Airwolf on Netflix, and of course, the first two episodes, Shadow of the Hawk Parts One and Two, deal with Airwolf's evil genius creator taking the super-copter to Libya so he can use it as a bargaining chip to do all sorts of sadistic things to women. Hey, I guess even aeronautical engineering madmen need love too - it just involves dead hookers.

C'mon, do you want to try and pick up chicks in a back-talking blabbermouth sports car,
or a silent, bulletproof, supersonic assault helicopter that resides in a secret desert lair?

When I was a kid, I loved Airwolf. Of course, I also loved The A-Team, and Magnum P.I., and Knight Rider, and MacGyver, and pretty much any other 80's television series that involved kicking ass and taking names. This was the era in which America's post-Vietnam angst provided television with a smorgasbord of ideas; television shows about Vietnam veterans, or episode plots that revolved around vets, or simply grooved off of the post-modern pulp fiction era's themes of harsh vigilante justice, taking the fight to the enemy and "winning the unwinnable war", and many others.

Airwolf was, in many ways, a top contender for the king of the post-modern pulp television series. Although A-Team might beat it out in some regards, Airwolf had the secret government agency, the Vietnam angle, the high-tech gizmos, the Cold War adventures, and most telling, it had a body count. I understand the plot reasoning as to why the A-Team didn't kill people, but just as I got tired of Xena: Warrior Princess punching bad guys with her fist instead of stabbing them through the head with her sword, I got a little tired of the A-Team not lighting up the scumbags they always dealt with.

Okay K.I.T.T., let's see you do THAT. Oh wait...you can't. Because you're unarmed. Like a little bitch.

Airwolf, on the other hand, kicked ass for reals, yo. Rocket launchers, cannons, machine guns; Airwolf had it all. Stringfellow also packed a .45 and knew how to use it. But most of all, what two key aces did Airwolf have up its supersonic sleeves?

An Agency honcho with one eye and a spotless white suit, and Ernest Borgnine wearing a bad tie.

If you haven't had a chance to see this show in a while (like...20 years or so...), give it a shot. It's the 80's, the plots are about as tightly woven as a fishing net, but it's still a lot of fun.

Latest Killer Instincts Cover Design

2011-03-24T16:03:00.007-04:00

Jumping on the theme of everyone posting cover designs, here is the latest offering for KI. I like the slight texturing of this cover, because it keeps it from being "flat" while not being "busy".

I'm sure there will be other changes and alterations as time goes on, but right now, this is the design I'm working with.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.

New Article Series: The Urban Survivalist - Water

2011-03-21T11:06:00.004-04:00

This is a series of articles I've wanted to write for a while now, as it is a subject of interest to me, but with the earthquake and reactor troubles in Japan recently, I've felt a push towards getting a few of these articles written, or at least getting the ball rolling.

As you might have noted if you read the "About Me" page, I grew up in Alaska in the late 70's, and then moved to rural Maine in the mid-80's. My father has been a cold-weather survival instructor, fire chief, paramedic, back country rescue expert, and Maine Guide for years, and between his tutelage, as well as family friends, professional colleagues, and my own experiences and research, wilderness survival is something that I have been familiar with my entire life. Even now, after living in the city for 15 years, I still feel comfortable in the woods, and I know that the best tool for ensuring survival in the wild is nestled right between my ears.

Living in the city for so long, however, has also made me think a lot about urban survival. This isn't necessarily "Zombie Apocalypse / Nuclear Winter" hyperbolizing; after seeing what happened after Hurricane Katrina and in other areas of urban buildup post-disaster, it's important to take some time to think about short-term urban survival. One of the ironies of urban living is that while you have "access to everything", in general the population is far in excess of what any supplies in place are capable of supporting at any given time; a neighborhood would eat it's local market to the bare shelves in 24 hours if no other source of food is available. In a rural environment, the population density is much lower, and people in general have more on hand; shopping is often done by the week rather than the day, freezers are often stocked, lots of canned goods are on hand, and gardens are often maintained and harvested all summer long. We city-dwellers often laugh when we come home and say "There's nothing to eat in the house!", but what if there's nothing to eat, period?

To ground this discussion a little better and keep it more close to home, late last spring one of the main water pipelines into the metro Boston area broke a number of miles outside of the city, and that line was feeding contaminated, non-potable water into the city in the middle of some rather warm (high 80's, low 90's) weather. For about three days, Bostonians did not have potable running water, and the effect was pretty immediate. I went over to the grocery store next door just an hour or so after the announcement, and the drinking water was completely stripped from the shelves. I of course didn't have a stockpile of bottled water in the apartment. What to do?

- You can always boil the water. The problem wasn't chemical or radioactive contaminants, but bacteriological. Because of this, worse came to worse, I could just boil it and let it cool. For hand-washing or dish-washing (i.e., not drinking) water, you'd want to do this anyways even if you have a supply of bottled drinking water. Beyond boiling however (in the event, say, of a chemical contaminant), I could use:

- Vending machines. I wound up going in to the campus and buying a half dozen 20 oz bottles of water from a vending machine in the basement of a building that doesn't see much foot traffic. Vending machines are often overlooked because its something you walk by every day and don't really think about, but a well-stocked vending machine contains a surprising amount of water (or food if you're willing to have a mostly-snacks diet).

- Office Water Coolers. Although our current machines use a piped-in water feed, at the time, I could have simply filled water bottles by going in to work that night and tapping off the bottled supply for the office water fountains. In a true emergency situation, simply grabbing a couple of the sealed 5-gallon water bottles and carting them home on a folding luggage two-wheeler (concealed with a plastic trash bag of course) wouldn't be a bad idea.

- Dehumidifiers. Many homes have a dehumidifier in the basement to keep out the damp, and some offices as well (especially those with archival spaces). A good dehumidifier during a hot, humid Bostonian summer can easily accumulate a gallon of water every 12 hours. If you have power, of course. If you don't, there's always...

- Moisture Tent. If you have access to some open space, like the roof of your apartment building or condo, or your backyard, setting up a moisture tent (also known as a solar still) can provide a limited source of water. It's not a very efficient way of collecting water, but for emergency situations, it's better than dehydrating.

That's it for now. I'll return to this subject and many others in future articles. Feel free to comment and provide further information and links if you like.

Film Review: Heartbreak Ridge (1986)

2011-03-18T19:19:00.007-04:00

Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway is an ancient Devil Dog, tough as an old tree root and twice as unyielding. Although he was kicked out of a combat unit for disciplinary reasons some time ago, he's managed to pull enough strings to get back in again. Gunny Highway finds himself leading a platoon of Recon marines, with an LT who is "pure theory and no application", to put it nicely, and a Major who runs his battalion like his old supply outfit. Highway has to turn his "ragtag band of misfits" into an actual combat unit before they are sent off to invade the island of Grenada.

Gunny Highway enjoys a bit of Havana's Finest after wasting some more pissants.

After just having finished SOG, watching Heartbreak Ridge is even more of a bittersweet experience. Eastwood does an excellent job of portraying one of the few remaining old-timers, not only a veteran of Vietnam but also Korea, closing in rapidly on mandatory retirement age. Highway keeps being told he has no place in "The New Marine Corps", that he is an anachronism, a relic, as it is put by his CO at one moment "...you should be kept under glass with a sign that says 'Break Open Only in Times of War'...".

But as time goes on, his men begin to see that Highway's tough methods and no-BS attitude are just what they need to succeed, and when the platoon finds itself at the tip of the spear when the Marines land in Grenada, his training and leadership get the unit through in good order, despite the Major's incompetence and their Lieutenant's inexperience. Oh, and do you think by the end of the film, he might have won back his long-lost sweetheart? Take a wild guess, pencil-neck.

It's sad to say that not all of the "left-over" Marines and other veterans who stuck it out and stayed career post-Vietnam had such happy endings. I'm sure many in fact languished in the units they were assigned to, the subject of whispered rumors mixed with admiration, pity, and scorn in equal measure. A reminder of our failure in Vietnam, they lived through a period of time when the morale of our armed forces was at it's lowest, through the mid 70's and early 80's, where the main reason many joined up was because of the G.I. bill and a steady job, and the recruiter's promise that the armed forces were essentially a "Real World MBA" for free; that you'd leave the Army and instantly be hired as middle management because of your leadership capabilities and can-do attitude.

But it wasn't all roses. Grenada and Panama came along, followed by the first Desert Storm. This was the generation of kids who grew up on G.I. Joe and Nintendo, who joined the armed forces never thinking they'd pop their combat cherries. Most of them were right, but some were very, very wrong. In a way, Heartbreak Ridge reminds me of the movie Jarhead, although looked at from a very different perspective.

Either way, this is definitely an "80's war movie" in that most of the actors (save Eastwood, who actually kept his finger largely off the trigger until he was ready to engage a target) don't know how to carry a gun to save their lives, and the enemy armor appears to be something cobbled together by a movie studio's design department. But of course, this is the pre-internet 80's, where no one could jump online and tell the world "how it's really done", so we can forgive the film for its minor inaccuracies, and applaud it for showing that the Old Guard still had something to give.

And is it just me, or does Eastwood essentially look no different in 1986 as he did in 2008? His character in Gran Turino might as well have been named Gunny Highway...

Book Review: SOG by John L. Plaster

2011-03-16T19:32:00.007-04:00

I think we can all agree that the Vietnam War was a pretty messed-up affair.

No war is pretty, but when we look back at such conflicts as the Great War, World War II, and Korea, things seem, if not simple, then at least straightforward. Of course, if you dig deeper, there are layers and sub layers and sub-sub layers of intrigue and self-interest and many other maneuverings going on behind the scenes, but the public perception of these conflicts is largely a positive one. Even the activities of such organizations as the OSS and SOE, who practiced many "dirty" tactics to win the war, were seen as largely thrilling "spy adventures"; James Bond meets Sgt. Rock, if you will.

Vietnam? Not so much. With a country still reeling from a presidential assassination and the messes of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, along with years of quiet "advisement" by the American military and the CIA before we ever went to "war" in Vietnam, America was a country in no mood for a new war, especially a war in some pissant country on the other side of the globe, a civil war no less, fought "to stop the spread of Communism". Hey, didn't we just fight one of those ten years before? Yeah, that one wasn't fun either. Hey, aren't we on the brink of civil war here in the States? Yeah, man, totally. Make love not war, brothers and sisters!

So from the very moment we put boots on the ground in Vietnam, the public perception of the war was completely screwed. This was a war being fought by politicians and the "military industrial complex" wrapping some mysterious dark agenda in the flag of Capitalism and thrust down the throats of drafted minorities. An ugly business all around, and it got uglier as time went on, eventually culminating in America's first "lost war". One of the things that made the war so ugly was the CIA's involvement in so much of it, and that many casualties of the war were occurring during various "covert actions" that no one could talk about. Once the American people smelled that they were being lied to about the way little Jimmy got killed while in Vietnam, it was just a big political dungheap from that moment onward.

Foremost among the "covert actions" taken during the war were the "cross-border operations" undertaken by secret teams of Green Berets, SEALs, and USAF Commandos. Brought together under the benign-sounding "Studies and Observations Group", these teams of elite special forces soldiers, some of whom had fought in Korea and even World War II (only twenty years gone in 1965), partnered with their fearless indigenous allies such as the Montagnards and Nungs.

These teams of elite warrior-scouts would chopper into North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in order to find and report on the operations of the NVA and their VC allies in areas where American troops were, officially, never touching the ground. These were classified, covert missions and at the time officially denied by all levels of government. Even today, much of what went on and when and where it took place has not so much been revealed by the government as "admitted by lack of retribution". This is especially true when the missions involved something other than simple recon, such as prisoner snatching, electronic surveillance operations, and more "direct action" assignments.

I've always had an interest in the Vietnam war. Having been born in the 70's, growing up I knew a number of Vietnam veterans and as a young kid, when others were reading Charlotte's Web or The Giving Tree, I was reading Vietnam memoirs like Mekong or Huey, or pouring through gun magazines and paramilitary rags like Soldier of Fortune. Because of this, I had heard of SOG long ago, and had a fair understanding of who they were and what they did during the war; classified commando operations in countries where we were officially not supposed to have military assets.

But the details of SOG's role in the Vietnam war have been shrouded in a lot of myths and legends, mostly because a lot of the official disinformation released during the war has remained public perception in the minds of most people. So even knowing that there were "layers or truth" going on, reading SOG: The Secret Wars of America's Commandos in Vietnam by Major John L. Plaster, three tour SOG veteran, I was blown away by the exploits of these elite commandos. When every battle was an hours or days long running gunfight against an enemy force that outnumbered you a hundred to one (if you were lucky), it's amazing that any SOG team made it out of the jungle alive.

Unfortunately, many did not. The war swallowed whole recon teams without a trace, hundreds of men who disappeared and went MIA, possibly captured, possibly killed - we'll never know for sure. Probably the most eerie part of reading SOG were all the actions that ended with "RT Such and Such was never seen or heard from again" or "One Zero Sgt. Whathisname's body was never found". Even when the fate of SOG members was known, it was often brutal and nasty; men who were blown away, burned up, shot to pieces or plummeting from damaged helicopters. Some years, a SOG base's personnel (typically 40-50 Green Berets and twice as many indigenous allies) would suffer in excess of 100% casualties; every member of the SOG teams had been either killed or wounded, sometimes wounded more than once, or a member was killed, only to have his replacement wounded or killed as well. Casualties also included MIA, and some years, up to half the American casualties would be MIAs.

On the bright side, however (if you can call it "bright"), many SOG teams did manage to fight their way through impossible odds. Reading this book, so many of these battles are amazingly, mind-blowingly heroic; men fighting through ambushes and evading whole companies of the enemy, suffering mortar and RPG fire, grenades and withering hails of bullets, wounded multiple times and still fighting on for days before daring helicopter crews literally plucked them from the jungle at the end of STABO harnesses. These are the men who earned more medals and commendations per unit than any American military force in the 20th century (and many actions were either denied or had awards downgraded due to their covert nature), and in reading these accounts, you can understand why; kill ratios among SOG teams were some years as high as 150:1, ten times that of the average American military unit. And yet, if a man had survived more than twenty missions, his comrades wondered how he was still alive.

Sadly, the worst part about reading SOG is the jaw-clenching anger you may feel reading about the ways in which SOG operations, especially rescue operations to find POWs and MIAs, were hindered or thwarted by government politicians and senior military brass more concerned with appeasing the enemy or "neutral" (hah!) governments than rescuing their own military men. I can understand when a government says "these are sterile, deniable operations" that there is a risk MIAs and POWs will remain such, but if they can be rescued without public exposure, they should have been. Of all the terrible things that happened during the Vietnam war, I think it was the mishandling of POWs and MIAs that angers me the most. I might be able to forgive a "dirty war", but I can't really forgive preventing able and willing men from doing what it takes to rescue their lost brothers-in-arms.

So, if you have any interest in Vietnam, or in the history of American Special Forces operations, I highly recommend this book. Heart-breaking and pulse-pounding in equal measures, it is an utterly unforgettable read.

Review: Airsoft M1911A1 Replica

2011-03-15T09:00:00.003-04:00

Partly for photo prop and research purposes, and partly for the hell of it, I bought myself a cheap Airsoft M1911A1 replica last week, and it arrived today. I only paid about $13 for it, plus shipping and handling, so I'll just preface this review by saying you get what you pay for, and for $13, this isn't too bad.

Here's the box. Note the finish on the gun almost looks like government-model matte gunmetal grey. Also note that there's no orange muzzle cap on the end, and there are no markings by the slide release, mag release, or safety. Also, there's a picture on the side of the box showing a drawstring bag and mention of a manual inside.

Here's the gun in the box, minus the cellophane wrapper. Note the third indentation, which had nothing; I bet that is where the bag or manual should have been. Also note that the gun is a matte black finish, not the dark metallic gray appearance on the box. Also note the white markings by the three mechanisms. The paintjob was uneven, with a number of small flaws here and there. If I had the skill and a good airbrush set, I'd paint this thing a dark gunmetal metallic gray.

Here's the gun out of the box. At this point I've handed it for maybe ten minutes. Although it's obviously a cheap replica, it still has a nice heft to it. The lower frame is plastic, while the slide and trigger/levers are metal. However, if you look closely, you can see that the paint is already beginning to wear along the edge of the safety and the hammer.

Here's the pistol locked back. Note that the orange safety tip is actually the whole shroud of the small 6mm barrel, so you can't just "pop" the end off - you'd have to actually saw it away from the end in order to make it look less like an Airsoft gun. Doable, but definitely more effort. Also, there is very little tension on the slide release spring; it actually wouldn't really catch unless you locked the slide back with real "authority". However, the magazine has a good weighty heft to it, and when fitted into the pistol, the gun's plastic lower assembly doesn't feel as off-balance. I've handled and fired an M1911A1 before, and this feels pretty good in the hand, all things considered.

Here's the pistol in "Condition One". Fun fact - the safety does NOTHING on this pistol. If you pull back the hammer and pull the trigger while on safe, the hammer drops. If you cock the gun by racking the slide and pull the trigger, the firing spring trips (which would fire the pellet) and the hammer drops. However, to the designer's credit, the grip safety DOES work, so unless you have this thing firmly gripped, the trigger can't be pulled, and the trigger when cocked is fairly robust; it won't go off with just a light touch but needs a few pounds of pressure to trip.

All in all, for $13, it's not bad. I'd consider doing some touchup painting, and I expect the minor springs to wear out fairly quickly, but if this was a theater or reenactment prop piece, especially with the safety barrel shaved down and painted black, it would be shockingly realistic; I doubt anyone who didn't know better would know it's a fake pistol outside of five or ten feet. Note that this means leaving the orange safety barrel on there is probably a VERY good idea if you live or take this thing anywhere you might get shot for "brandishing a firearm".

After buying this, I'd consider buying a somewhat better quality Airsoft M1911A1 and compare the two. I know there's a lot of Airsoft MilSim guns out there, and I'd definitely like to get my hands on a couple more.

Great Source for US Army Training Manuals

2011-03-09T12:22:00.003-05:00

I discovered this website a few days ago, and thought I'd share it with my readers:

http://www.enlisted.info/

A huge catalog of military training manuals on a variety of subjects, all available for reading and download. A good resource for us civilians who need to do research into military subjects and want to get our hands on official training, tactics, and other information.

I'm seriously considering loading my iPad up and turning it into a virtual bookshelf of US Army Training Manuals.

Book Review: Judgment by Lee Goldberg

2011-03-08T10:49:00.005-05:00

When it comes to gratuitous food, you can’t go wrong with the chili dog. Taking what is essentially the discarded remnants of other “edible meats”, packing it with spices in a “casing”, turning that into a “meat product”, wrapping it it a bun that’s mostly processed flour and sugar, and THEN covering that with a big pile of spiced ground beef sauce and beans? There really isn’t a single thing involved in the construction of a chili dog that is actually good for you.

And yet...and yet...

Because of this, I think it is rather symbolic that chili dogs make an appearance early on in Lee Goldberg’s vigilante thriller, Judgment. The first of a four-book series of men’s adventure novels Goldberg wrote while still in college back in the mid-80’s, Judgment is the story of Brett Macklin, a peaceful man who owns his own small aviation business with nary a care in the world until the murder of his father, JD Macklin.

JD was your classic “one good cop in a bad city”, a simple foot patrolman trying to keep crime off the streets, walking the pavement of his beat so that he was at eye-level with the city and the citizens. When JD is killed by a gang of vicious thugs, Brett hopes that the capture and conviction of his father’s killers will be swift, sure, and merciless.

Boy, was he wrong.

When the gang of killers goes free, Brett takes up his father’s .357 Colt Python (“...the Cadillac of handguns...”) and sets out to get himself a little vigilante justice. What he finds instead is a web of conspiracy and corruption that goes much further and much deeper into the fabric of the city than anything he could have possibly imagined.

Much badassery ensues.

I’m going to roll back to that chili dog metaphor for a moment. As I stated in my review of Machete, pulp fiction, be it in literature, film, or on television, serves a purpose; it might not be a grand purpose, but it is there nonetheless. It serves our need for quick, greasy, deliciously tawdry entertainment. It is fast food for the mind - nay, for the Id - and while a steady diet of this sort isn’t very healthy, we indulge ourselves now and then for the puerile thrill of the experience. Fittingly, cheap fast food appears throughout Judgment; the chili dogs, cold pizza right out of the refrigerator, cans of cold beer and flat soda, buckets of fried chicken, flat-top egg breakfasts.

When looked at in this light, Judgment definitely delivers the goods. People don’t just get shot - they get their freakin’ heads blown apart in a shower of blood, bone, brains. There aren’t just “car accidents”; people get torn to pieces in a cataclysm of shattering glass and tortured metal. The violence in Judgment isn’t awful or unbearable, it’s just delivered in Technicolor. In many ways, Judgment has the same feel that a lot of 80’s crime / action movies possess, an amped-up, neon-bright, burning rubber down the main drag doing sixty while blaring Motley Crue so loud you can’t even think sort of quality. And that’s how I like it.

A couple of other choice comments.

First, Goldberg doesn’t over-elaborate on his guns, which is a good thing in a book like Judgment. While Mack Bolan or Carl Lyons may wax philosophical on the terminal ballistics of 230-grain jacketed hollowpoints, Brett Macklin just wants to blow away bad guys. Therefore, the gun talk should be at a similar, pedestrian level, and Goldberg gets this right.

Second, while I don’t really need or want awkwardly graphic sex scenes in men’s adventure fiction, I do tire of the protagonists being sexless killing machines lacking all libido. The fact that Brett still finds time for a little nookie during the course of his adventures is something that I heartily approve.

And third, this book was lean and mean, without a lot of padding or needless over-elaboration. People, places, and things are sketched out in a handful of words, the dialogue is kept fast and to the point, and the scenes move right along without a lot of dithering about. In my opinion, there’s nothing to add, and nothing I’d pare away.

There are three more books in the Jury series, and I hope to read them all. I’ll probably have to save them for some summer reading, but I’m definitely looking forward to Brett Macklin blowing away some more punks, eating more cold pizza, and bombing around in his “Batmobile”.

Pretty Awesome Short Movie

2011-03-07T16:24:00.002-05:00

More trailer than short movie, this is just seriously cool:

Not Dead, Just Reloading

2011-03-07T14:55:00.004-05:00

Sorry I've been a little quiet lately, there are a number of irons in the fire and I'm trying to keep them all nice and toasty. Here are a few of the things I've got cooking for PMP in the next few weeks:

I've got to write a review of Lee Goldberg's excellent 80's vigilante thriller Judgment.
A review of James Reasoner's long-lost 80's thriller Diamondback needs a-writing.
I read and need to write about Jack Murphy's excellent military thriller Reflexive Fire.
Gotta read and review a couple of books put out by Granton City Press.
More discussion of my experiences using and enjoying the Kindle app on my iPod and iPad.
I continue to chip away at Killer Instincts, and begin R&D on my next novel.

There really aren't enough hours in the day or days in the week to get all this done; the more research and reviews I'm working on, the less time for writing, and vice versa. I did realize that I hadn't posted anything for a couple of weeks, so here's me letting y'all know that I haven't fallen completely off the face of the Earth!

Book Review: Lee Goldberg's New Series THE DEAD MAN

2011-02-21T11:51:00.005-05:00

Mix one part lurid crime thriller, one part Stephen King-esque weird supernatural horror, add in a dash of colorful sex and a few sprinkles of gratuitous violence, then shake well over ice and pour into a tall frosty mug of icy death. You've just mixed up Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin's new short novel series, THE DEAD MAN.

I've been asked to avoid any spoilers, so I'll just say that the plot involves a young man who suffers a traumatic event, and afterward, finds himself exposed to a mysterious secret he never knew existed. To quote the Amazon.com page for THE DEAD MAN - Face of Evil:

Matthew Cahill is an ordinary man leading a simple life...until a shocking accident changes everything. Now he can see a nightmarish netherworld of unspeakable evil and horrific violence that nobody else does...

For Cahill, each day is a journey into a dark world he knows nothing about...a quest for the answers to who he is and what he has become...and a fight to save us, and his soul, from the clutches of pure evil.

The short novel (only about 25K words) is fast and tightly written. There isn't a lot of action (this is the first book, so a lot of things have to be set up first), but what violence there is counts as definitely cringe-worthy - in a good way. After reading Goldberg's book JUDGMENT I have definitely become a fan of his over-the-top depictions of murder and mayhem, and this new book doesn't disappoint.

Face of Evil has some sex thrown into the mix, which is always a good thing. I for one think there needs to be more sex in action novels; like peanut butter and chocolate, the two go so well together. There's some sharp humor as well, although the humor is rather bleak - just the way I like it in a crime / horror novel. The random asides given to minor characters throughout the book are especially amusing.

With the soaring popularity of the eBook format, I think we are going to see a great resurgence in the short novel and novella as a legitimate book length, something that's been largely missing from genre fiction since the late 80's. Despite the book's modest word count, I felt it is worth every penny of its $2.99 price tag, and would have been more disappointed if the story had been "padded out" to give it bulk. Face of Evil is a lean, mean story that does well to whet your appetite for future DEAD MAN releases.

Dropping the Hammer and Punching Paper

2011-02-17T11:27:00.005-05:00

While renovating my home office, I came across this paper target, dating back probably about 3-4 years ago when I went to the Boston Gun Range (which used to be out in Worcester, an hour's drive away from Boston, but I digress). As best as I can recall, I was firing a CZ-75 at this target from 25 feet.

Note that this is a half-size silhouette, so the "effective" distance would be 50 feet if this was a man-sized target. The cluster of shots on the left marked "JC" were made by a friend; the rest are mine. I can cover all the shots center mass, except for the low 4 o'clock flier and the two at 11 o'clock in the 5x zone, with my hand. All the shots to the head I can cover easily with my palm. I think it's not too bad after 15 years of soft city living, never having fired that particular model of pistol before in my life. A few weeks of regular practice and I could have probably shrunk that grouping by half. Living in Boston I don't have regular access to a range anymore, and even when the BGR was open I only went perhaps once or twice a year, so every visit was an exercise in shaking the rust off the trigger finger and learning to relax into a proper sight picture again.

I've been handling guns for over 25 years; my father has been a hunter, firearms safety instructor, guide, and all-around outdoorsman all his life, and when you grow up in Alaska and Maine, guns are as common as iPhones here in Boston. I don't know exactly how old I was when I first shot a firearm, but I left central AK when I was 8, and before that age my dad had cut down the stock on a .22 rifle so it would fit me better (we still have the rifle, with the rest of the stock reattached).

Since then, I've handled a wide variety of pistols, everything from Dan Wesson and S&W .357 magnums to pearl-handled .32 Colts, from Ruger MK IIs to Glock 19s to customized M1911A1 .45 automatics, and plenty of other models in between. I've shot shells in pump 12-gauges down to break-open .410s, and handled all sorts of bolt-action, single-shot, and semi-auto rifles, from .22s to an antique .38-55 lever action, from a Mini-14 to an AR-15 to a semi-auto AK-47.

During all that time I've shot with Maine State Police members (one of them a member of their Tac Team), US Customs, several local law enforcement officers from various places, and even a retired USMC Colonel who had been on the Corps' Pistol and Rifle Championship Teams (even at 70, he shot his custom .45 auto better than I ever could or will, and was "very disappointed" in his tiny little groupings).

With only one exception, my interaction with "shooting professionals" has been nothing but pleasant. I was never chastised for how I handled a firearm, or made to feel awkward or uncomfortable. I have no doubt that as a civilian I was given a hairy eyeball or two the first time I broke trigger in front of of a lawman, but it was always done with respect and a friendly nod.

The single instance where I felt otherwise was at the Sig Sauer training facility in Exeter, NH. I went with three other people because they have a good catalog of firearms training sessions, from basic gun safety to all manner of tactical shooting scenarios. We were all going because the Sig Sauer facility will give a certification that meets the Massachusetts standards needed to get a Firearms Identification Card, the first step on the long road to handgun ownership in this state. The basic class was eight hours, and cost each of us almost three hundred dollars.

I'm not going to belabor the whole experience point-by-point, but it was extremely disappointing. There was ~2 hours of "This is a gun. There are many different types of guns...", followed by an hour of "This is how you stick your finger in the breech to make sure there's not a bullet in there (which is fine, except we never do this in class, we just watch the instructors do it) and other handling safety guidelines. On top of that there were several hours of discussing various laws and regulations relating to gun ownership and transportation, as well as laws pertaining to self-defense and the legal ramifications of using a firearm in self-defense. All of that, while interesting, isn't really what we were there for - we signed up for a class to certify us in firearm safety and handling.

But wait, when do we get to the handling? Each of us had a "red gun" (realistic plastic training model) in front of us, which we were not allowed to handle at any point during the ~ six hours we were in the classroom, as we "hadn't been shown the right way to handle a firearm yet". In fact, we never picked up the red gun; not when we were being shown (and only shown) how to handle a firearm, or at any point while in class. I never laid a finger on my red gun the whole time I was there.

The only time we handled an actual firearm was the last hour of the day. We went into the indoor range, where each of us was issued a Sig 9mm auto appropriate for our hands and build (I believe mine was a Sig 239). We were informed by the more senior of the two instructors that he had a Tazer, and if we got out of line, he wouldn't hesitate to use it. That's right - paying customers were informed they would be Tazered if they "got out of line". This guy was a diminutive, Napoleonic, former law enforcement officer and retired LEO firearms instructor, and once we were on the range, he must have been having Full Metal Jacket flashbacks, because he was always right up behind you, mouth to your ear, riding your butt about everything you did and how if you did that thing again, you're done here, mister!.

I'll stop here and just remind you all that I'm 100% Safety First. I don't want to get gut-shot by some moron who can't handle their firearm safely, and I know it must be stressful to get a bunch of newbies up on the line with loaded guns in their hands. On the flip side, he was instructing about $8,000 worth of paying customers, not buzz-cutted raw recruits. I felt like I should be bellowing out "YES DRILL SERGEANT!!!" after everything he said.

And truth be told, I was more nervous, anxious, bumble-thumbed, and awkward there with him than I have ever been in over a quarter century of incident-free gun handling. Shooting with the Colonel, shooting with Maine State Police SWAT, shooting with US Customs - perfectly calm, cool, and collected. But there at the Sig Sauer training center, I was made so uncomfortable I felt like I was liable to drop the dang pistol. I even got yelled at for attempting to make my shooting accurate! "I DO NOT WANT YOU TO BE ACCURATE! I WANT YOU TO DO WHAT I TELL YOU TO DO WHEN I TELL YOU TO DO IT!".

The sad part is, the junior instructor was the exact opposite. He worked with both of the women I went with, one of whom had handled pistols before and another who had never fired a gun in her life. He was calm, cool, professional, and made them feel safe, confident, and reassured that they were doing the right thing. When one of them had difficulty with a stiff magazine spring and loading her rounds, he even gave her a hand and loaded it for her. He was only a part-time instructor, and told us he worked full-time in the factory assembling and testing the pistols, and was an amazingly pleasant and respectful individual to work with. It's a crying shame he has to work with that other blowhard.

At the end of the day, we all got our certifications. We were all safe, we all followed directions, and no one got Tazered. I did, however, feel utterly robbed of almost $300, and even if I have a chance, I'll never buy a Sig Sauer firearm because of that experience. Despite the fact that the Boston Gun Range was eventually closed down, they were always friendly, safety conscious, but once they worked with you and saw that you knew what you were doing, they wouldn't ride your behind every moment you were on the line.

Some time in early April, I hope to go up to New Hampshire again, and this time, try out The Firing Line. I'd like to give an Uzi a try, and I have a few friends who want to come along as well. If and when I go, I'll be sure to post a report.

Hell and Gone Made Me Cry Tears of Sweet Violent Joy

2011-02-11T15:43:00.006-05:00

First, I'm going to say something kinda mean. Then, I'm going to say a lot of good things.

Let's begin.

I have always been extremely leery of war fiction written by veterans. Not necessarily combat veterans, but just veterans in general. I don't know if it's because I see the whole "Written by a guy who's been there, so you know the realism will Jump Off The Page!" as something of a marketing gimmick, or if it's because all too often I find that the use of over-authenticated terminology and other military trappings actually annoys me to some degree.

In movies and television, I feel that level of verisimilitude adds a lot because while at the time you may see something odd and say to yourself "Hey, why are those Delta Force guys wearing hockey helmets?", you can then look it up and say "Ohhh, hey, that's cool that they did it like that in the movie!". It can be taken in at a glance and appreciated almost as an afterthought while everything else is going on. Too often in the novels, the author feels the need to pointedly explain - almost directly to the reader - the "real-world" tactics the characters are using, or military terms, or whatever.

And, God help any author who uses the phrase "Unlike what you see in the movies..." or "This is real life, not some action movie...", or some variation on that theme, either as character dialogue or in a descriptive exposition. It's actually more annoying in movies (since you ARE in an action movie, jerkwad...), but it's just as annoying in books; that's an automatic one-star penalty to any rating I'd give.

So, when I set out to read Henry Brown's novel Hell and Gone, I approached it sorta like going on a blind date. I know Henry's a veteran, but I also know he was shooting very much for a "pulpy action novel" vibe when he wrote the book, so I wasn't sure how those two competing influences were going to blend, and what they would produce.

Well, what they produced was an action novel that hits you like a brick through a plate glass window. Hell and Gone is, in every positive way possible, a literary cousin to Stallone's action opus The Expendables. A cadre of crusty "has-been" mercs sent on a supposed suicide mission, taking on an overwhelming number of bad guys and repeatedly kicking them square in the wedding tackle. There's a lot of conflict, both internal and external, and some of the guys you love to hate, and others you hate to love, but they're all interesting and fun to read.

At 82K words, Hell and Gone isn't a particularly long novel, nor should it be particularly long; it's an action movie in written form, and thus there's no reason for it to look like every other Tom Clancy techno-thriller doorstop novel. I read the book over the course of three evenings on my iPad via the Kindle app, and it read very quick and clean; this was my first purchased eBook read entirely on an electronic device, and I was surprised at how easy it was to read the book. I also have an iPod touch, and using the Whispersync, as long as both devices had a wifi connection I could move from reading on one while at home to reading on the other while waiting for a meeting or getting coffee. It was very handy, and has encouraged me to look to buying more eBooks.

This isn't to say, of course, that I wouldn't have bought the book in paper form; I wanted to try buying an eBook for the first time, and Hell and Gone was my trial run. Having read it, I might just have to buy a hard copy to have on hand. The action is snappy and well-orchestrated, the dialogue is smooth and feels natural, the plot is tightly constructed; simple, but with a few good twists to keep it from being boring. I hope I don't ruin things by saying that not everyone makes it back home alive (and in this regard, I actually think this story trumps The Expendables), and thankfully the deaths were handled very well, with sufficient gravitas but lacking the typical groan-worthy war movie melodrama.

And lastly, while I think you can tell that the book was written by a former serviceman, it mostly comes out in the interactions between the characters and a lot of their viewpoints on life, war, and camaraderie, and in a way that doesn't feel awkward and forced. There's never that "This isn't an action movie, bucko!" moment even though, especially regarding one particular character, that could have easily happened.

In conclusion, I highly recommend Hell and Gone, either the print or the eBook version. If you're a fan of the military / para-military / action genre, you are going to enjoy this book.

Introducing A Young Film Scholar

2011-02-10T16:37:00.003-05:00

This young boy likes the movie Commando. I mean, he REALLY LIKES IT. I can't remember if I had seen Commando by age 9; I know I'd seen Red Dawn, and Beastmaster, and Blue Thunder, and a number of other action movies, but I can't say for sure if I'd seen Commando by that point (I'd only have been 8 when the movie came out, and living in Alaska, so I'm guessing not).

So here it is: Alex presents: Commando

The Penetrator Disturbs My Lily-Livered 21st Century Morality

2011-02-09T09:51:00.003-05:00

Political correctness is a funny thing. We all love to say "Hey, I'm not a 'PC' kinda guy, har har hur hurr." And then crack a bad joke to show how we're not all a bunch of quiche-eating, latte-sipping, metrosexual pantywaists who've caved to cultural pressures and now recycle, buy organic foods, and occasionally wonder if turning in the Chevy Avalanche for a Prius would actually be a good thing.

But at the end of the day, we all know that beyond the "stop trying to shove an attitude of over-acceptance down my throat, you liberal commie pinko scumbags" bravado, its actually a good thing to not be a racist, sexist, bigoted ignoramus who still thinks it's perfectly acceptable to swat your secretary on the backside because, hey, you didn't hire her for her ability to file TPS reports, right sweet-cheeks?

Wait, aren't we supposed to be talking about pulp action novels here, bucko?

Oh yes, my apologies.

So yeah, why did someone decide 'The Penetrator' was a good name for a pulp action series? The Executioner, he executes people. The Butcher, he butchers people. The Destroyer, he destroys people. The Death Merchant is a guy who deals in death. The Ninja Master...I think you get my drift. So what does the Penetrator do? He...penetrates...? Really? I won't even go into the character's name; Mark Hardin. Yeah...Hardin. I know other reviewers have beat this to death, but really now...someone needed to have put a stop to that real early on in the series development process.

Of course, the series tries to make sense of the character's moniker; Mark Hardin was a "penetration specialist" in Vietnam, by which we mean, he was an expert at passing through an enemy's defenses, "penetrating" the territory and performing his mission, then getting out again. Yeah, that's fine. Except for the part where he starts getting called The Penetrator.

All right, I'm done with that.

So the plot of Penetrator #4, Hijacking Manhattan, is that a militant black extremist group has teamed up with a Chinese drug / terror syndicate to hold New York City hostage. First they blow up a subway station, then they blow up the relay to the Empire State Building's radio tower, and finally they threaten to release some kind of weaponized super-germ into the water supply in order to wipe out the population of the city. The mastermind behind this enormously complex and shockingly successful criminal enterprise is a former juvenile delinquent named Abdul Daley, a five-foot tall miscreant with a "duck's-ass" haircut. Apparently this dude killed his first cop around the age of fifteen, then later signed up into the Army, learned to become an expert at all things killy and explosive, then got himself dishonorably discharged so he could put all those new skills to use as some kind of paramilitary crime boss.

Anyhow, this pint-sized criminal genius (who is banging a Chinese assassin / liaison / femme fatale named Soo Lin, by the by) first cons NYC out of two million dollars, then another three million, in a couple of exploits that are so contrived as to be laughable. Honestly, if it was that easy to blackmail / hold hostage a city for money, NYC would have gone broke long ago.

Enter The Penetrator, who shows up in NYC to investigate something called "Black Gold" which his sources have only heard rumblings about. Well, he gets there just after Black Gold (Abdul Daley's terror group) blew up a subway station. Hardin then spends the rest of the book just kinda wandering from one place to another, getting into trouble, shooting guys, torturing guys (like pouring lighter fluid into someone's slashed chest wound and setting it on fire), wearing some kind of blackface...it's a little embarrassing, actually. For a guy who's supposedly a "penetration specialist" his modus operandi seems to involve A) getting a tip from someone to the effect of "check this place out, it might have bad guys", B) going to said place and seeing that - woah - there are bad guys there, C) getting spotted almost immediately as some kind of intruder, and D) killing a few guys and leaving, while saying "Yeah, there were bad guys there".

Hmmm, what else? There's a completely artificial love interest with some private investigator woman who's got a big rack (and he has to mention this multiple times) who falls in love with Hardin for no apparent reason. There's a wise old Chinese man who is - woah - rather inscrutable. There is a gang rape that never gets resolved by the end of the book, which makes no sense whatsoever.

And of course, there's the "black" thing. Every time Hardin faces one of the black (whoops, I mean 'bad') guys, the author HAS TO point out that they are black. Hey, I think we got keyed in on the fact they were a black power militant group in the first chapter, and every chapter after that; I don't think we need to refer to the color of the guys getting shot every time one of them gets wasted. The book is filled with "the bullet punched into the man's black chest" or "...I'll blow your head clean off those black shoulders!".

And I don't even want to bring up the dialogue for all the black characters in the book (but I will); it makes the dialogue in Coffey and Foxy Brown and Shaft and all the other Blaxploitation films sound like something written by P.G. Wodehouse. Every other word out of their mouths is "honkey" or "whitey" or some other kind of "jive". Now, although I wasn't alive in 1974, never mind hanging out on the streets of NYC, it makes my head ache to read that kind of dialogue, because I get the distinct impression that no matter how black urban militants circa 1974 spoke, it wasn't nearly as ridiculous as what I found in the book. This is so obviously a white collar white guy trying and failing to imitate how he thinks the black urban criminal element speaks, it honestly makes me gag a little. I am willing to cut someone like Joseph Rosenberger a little slack for his stereotyped caricatures of other cultures (usually with a derogatory slant) because Rosenberger was quite simply a bit of a whacko, and, like Harry Callahan is described in the original Dirty Harry, he hates everyone equally.

At the end of the day (and this column), I know that a series like The Penetrator is essentially lurid escapist trash, and that a lot of the stereotyping is a product of it's time; the early 70's weren't exactly a Utopian period in American race relations history. It just bothers, or perhaps simply annoys me, because it's one of the negative aspects of the "men's adventure" genre during this time period that keeps dragging these books back into the mire, when I'd actually like to see them receive a little - if not respect - appreciation.

I've got a couple more Penetrators lying around. I will eventually get around to reading another, and they are near the middle of the series' run, but it probably won't be for a while.

Seriously though...The Penetrator???

Joe Kenney's Letter From Gar Wilson

2011-02-07T13:09:00.004-05:00

Over at Glorious Trash, blogger Joe Kenney shares with us a letter he received from "Gar Wilson" (a pen name for Gold Eagle Books' Phoenix Force series) after his 13-year old self mailed in a story idea for a Phoenix Force novel.

Although the idea was rejected (it involved a trip to Mars), someone at Gold Eagle decided to write a very thoughtful and informative letter to the young reader, giving some really great, inspirational advice on how to write, doing research, and what one should do to get published. Whoever this GE staffer or house writer was, they took a good deal of time out of their own schedule to write back to a young fan and give real, usable advice that is as worthwhile today as it was in 1988.

Here's the blog post over at Glorious Trash. You should all give Joe's blog a read-through; there's a lot of great content there!

Press Release - Unit 13

2011-02-07T11:57:00.002-05:00

For immediate release -- February, 2011

UNIT 13 HEADS INTO WORLD WAR I ACTION

Unit 13 is the fourth title from Granton City Press.

The Unit brings a rag tag special force under the wing of rough and rugged Sgt. Crake, who must take the unit behind the German lines to stop the enemy from creating a legion of abomination which could turn the tide of the Great War.

While a World War rages in the trenches of Northern France, Sergeant T.S. Crake leads Unit 13, a secret elite military force, deep behind enemy lines. The diverse force follows the rumors and vague reports of diabolical medical experiments back to a small occupied village where the Germans have created something monstrous -- an unexpected weapon that will fundamentally change the very nature of modern warfare.

When one of their own is captured during their escape, Sgt. Crake must decide whether to risk the rest of the Unit in a daring rescue. Reuniting with the Unit's support team, they are joined by two new powerful allies and the question becomes that much more pressing. Do they return to their temporary base in England or do they follow their friend's trail into the very heart of darkness?

Crake ultimately decides he cannot leave a comrade to suffer at the hands of madmen and will risk everything to save his friend. Half the German Army and a host of other dangers stand between them and success, but they have their own secrets that may just give them the edge.

Their journey takes them halfway across Europe to the German's main medical facility hidden in the ancient Altenschatten Castle. Will they survive the treacherous road into the lion's den? And what will they find when they get there? What horrors are lurking in the shadows of Altenschatten?

The story comes from the co-writing team of Canadian Calvin Daniels and American Tyrell Tinnin, who met through the social networking site Facebook which has been a key networking tool for Granton City Press, although it wasn’t always a process which worked.

“I’ve made attempts with several writers, but styles and visions don’t always mesh, so several efforts went to the trash bin,” said Daniels.

But Daniels did find Tyrell Tinnin, a writer from Wichita, Kansas.

“Tyrell has been a blast to work with,” he said. “We get along great and are really on the same page in terms of the spin-off title Unit 13.”

Tinnin said he decided to give the project a try because he liked the premise.

“History with a dash of science fiction, who really could resist that combo?” he said, adding he has found co-writing with Daniels, “Working with Calvin is crazy, you never know what story curve balls that guy will throw at you.”

Unit 13 is a sort of prequel set in World War One.

“Some of the characters show up in Granton City years later,” said Daniels. “Others are unique to Unit 13, at least for now.”

Tinnin explains the ‘feel’ of the title as being “a mash-up of pulpy ‘Weird War’ and ‘Kelly's Heroes’ or ‘Inglorious Basterds’.”

Book #1 of Unit 13 is now available.

In preparation for the book’s release, Granton City Press did some pre-selling which Daniels said was important to bolster interest in the book, and to offset initial costs. People were provided a chance to pre-purchase the book, however, not just a regular copy of the book.

Instead, the first 100 pre-sales were sold as signed & numbered copies of the book. They were numbered 1/100, 2/100, 3/100 etc., and signed by both Daniels and Tinnin.

Anyone purchasing a book through the offer will have an opportunity to purchase signed & numbered editions of future Unit 13 novels with the same sequence number. That will mean ensuring every book you purchase has a matching number such as 3/100, said Daniels, adding there are a few S&N copies of The Horrors of Altenschatten still available.

Follow Unit 13 at http://www.wix.com/grantoncitydesk/togc and http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=81770083773

-30-

For further information or to order any of our titles;

http://www.wix.com/grantoncitydesk/togc

or interviews contact:

Calvin Daniels 306-782-1783

email calmardan@sasktel.net

Press Release - The Ghost Wind

2011-02-07T11:54:00.001-05:00

For immediate release -- February, 2011

THE GHOST WIND - COMBINING PULP and MANGA INSPIRATIONS from GRANTON CITY PRESS

The Ghost Wind is the first spin-off title for Granton City Press.

Following on the heels of The Black Wolf, The Ghost Wind operates in the same fictional locale of Granton City, being a force of good in the city's Chinatown district, a place where the magic of the Far East is still a force.

In a remote monastery in the mountains of Japan young Yoshi Kobayashi is trained in the ways of the ninja, forged into a deadly weapon, his instincts and fighting prowess honed to perfection. He is the ultimate warrior. He is the Ghost Wind.

Indentured into the service of Japanese Crime Lord Hideki Yakamura Yoshi is sent halfway across the world to the glamour and madness of 1920s America and the gritty streets of Granton City. Plunged into a seedy underworld of gangsters and speakeasies Yoshi soon realizes nothing and nobody are really what they seem.

Yakamura is no mere mobster but in reality an ancient sorcerer and the target of powerful supernatural forces hungry for his power. Yoshi becomes embroiled in a dark and terrible war beyond the Veil between worlds which only he alone can put an end to.

In the climactic battle to come Yoshi is forced to choose between his duty as Ghost Wind and the woman he loves. Supported by strange allies and beset by monstrous enemies is he strong enough to stop the legions of darkness from conquering the earth when the Veil is finally torn?

The story comes from the co-writing team of Canadian Calvin Daniels and Brit Mitchel Rose, who have yet to meet face-to-face.

Daniels said the social networking site Facebook actually proved an important networking tool for Granton City Press, and The Ghost Wind.

“Mitchel is another writer I connected with on Facebook. I saw he had an interest in Manga and thought he might be a good fit for Ghost Wind, and he has been perfect,” said Daniels.

Rose said the book, and it's follow-up The Runaway Princess which is nearing completion, has been fun.

“I've really enjoyed writing for Ghost Wind. I love pulp style adventures and I had the freedom to take it to down some pretty strange and fantastic avenues.” added Mitchel.

Ghost Wind is a young ninja who owes hie life to a local crime lord and community leader in the ‘Chinatown’ of Granton City in the 1920s.

“It’s sort of Green Hornet and Big Trouble In Little China meets The Untouchables,” said Daniels. “It’s quite unique from the other books, but has the same terms of reference.”

“A real roller coaster ride of a story.” added Mitchel.

In preparation for the book’s release, Granton City Press did some pre-selling which Daniels said was important to bolster interest in the book,and to offset initial costs. People were provided a chance to pre-purchase the book, however, not just a regular copy of the book.

Instead, the first 100 pre-sales were sold as signed & numbered copies of the book. They were numbered 1/100, 2/100, 3/100 etc., and signed by both Daniels and Mitchel.

Anyone purchasing a book through the offer will have an opportunity to purchase signed & numbered editions of future Ghost Wind novels with the same sequence number. That will mean ensuring every book you purchase has a matching number such as 3/100, said Daniels, adding there are a few S&N copies of The Torn Veil still available.

Follow Ghost Wind at http://www.wix.com/grantoncitydesk/togc and http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=81770083773

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For further information

http://www.wix.com/grantoncitydesk/togc

or interviews contact:

Calvin Daniels 306-782-1783

email calmardan@sasktel.net

Press Release - The Black Wolf

2011-02-07T11:19:00.003-05:00

For immediate release -- February, 2011

THE BLACK WOLF - A NEW PULP-INSPIRED HERO from GRANTON CITY PRESS

A noted mechanical engineer has gone missing in Granton City, as has a professor with a past live as an inventor of miraculous machines.

That puts The Black Wolf on the case.

The Wolf is a vigilante with a pair of Colt .45s, and the attitude that the cops in 1920s’ Granton City can too easily be bought, so he has appointed himself sheriff, judge, jury and at times executioner.

But can even a bad attitude and a loaded gun solve the newest mystery before the world is threatened by a diabolical menace?

To find out you will have to read The Black Wolf #1 - Metal Monsters of Doom, the first release from Granton City Press, and Canadian authors Calvin Daniels and Kevin Lee. The book was released in 2010, and has already been followed by Book #2 - The Demon Door.

A third volume of The Black Wolf will appear later this year.

Creator Calvin Daniels said the idea of doing pulp-era novels sort of popped into his head one day while trolling through Facebook.

“I’ve always had a soft spot for the purple clad Phantom from reading his stories in the old Charlton Comics line, and of course The Shadow, and Batman,” said Daniels who has been a journalist for more than 20-years. “But, that interest really never coalesced into wanting to write a pulp book until early last year (2009).”

So Daniels, who has previously published three books with a hockey theme, one fiction the others non-fiction, came up with a broad concept, then went looking for a co-writer.

“I had a basic idea for The Black Wolf,” he said, adding, “I thought it would be fun to share the writing.”

That’s where Kevin Lee came on-board.

“I’ve known Kevin casually for a while, and I had written stories for Yorkton This Week on his fantasy trilogy TRIO, so I thought why not ask him,” said Daniels. “Thankfully he said yes.”

Lee said he decided to take on the project because it was a story quite different from his fantasy world.

“Black Wolf sounded like fun when Calvin first pitched the idea of being a co-writer with him on it, and it was an entirely different universe in comparison with my fantasy trilogy TRIO. Black Wolf is a lot shorter in length as well, which makes the story move along rather quickly. It's been fun and challenging at the same time because Calvin tends to work at a much faster rate than I do!,” he said.

Co-writing The Black Wolf has been a great experience, said Daniels.

“It’s great because we use a pretty simple system, basically taking turns writing chapters,” he said. “It really keeps you focused because you feel obligated to get back to writing every time a chapter comes in.

“It also keeps ideas flowing, because we feed off each other. You never know what the other will do in their chapter. It’s fascinating to watch characters and plots develop.

Lee said he too finds the process an interesting one from a writer’s perspective.

“By working on a pulp style of story instead of a fantasy setting it gets the imagination working on a completely different level because you're not thinking of sword and sorcery but more along the lines of those old crime TV shows, heroes and villains that are from our own world. Not to mention by switching up on the two stories the creative energy gets renewed each time!” he said.

The process has resulted in books the pair are proud of.

“The first book is great! After it was all said and done I found it to be fun romp and now as my third TRIO novel is nearly done my focus is back on Black Wolf #2 and the creative ideas are already beginning to roll! It should be just as fun if not better on the second go around,” said Lee.

“They may not win a Pulitzer, but pulps are supposed to be quick, easy and fun reads, and I think The Black Wolf is all three,” added Daniels.

Metal Monsters of Doom and The Demon Door both have cover art by Daniel Bradford, who is the artist of the indie comic Robot 13 from Blacklist Studios (www.blackliststudios.com).

“I fell in love with his art when reviewing his comic for Yorkton This Week,” said Daniels. “He was a friend on Facebook, so it was a natural to ask him to come on board.

Follow The Black Wolf at http://www.wix.com/grantoncitydesk/togc and http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=81770083773

-30-

For further information or interviews contact:

Calvin Daniels 306-782-1783

or

email calmardan@sasktel.net

Trailers for Machete and The Expendables

2011-02-04T17:14:00.003-05:00

It's been a little while since these movies came out, but I figured I'd put up the trailers for both films, just to add a little fun to a slow Friday afternoon.

Machete:

The Expendables:

Enjoy, and have a good weekend!

Finally Discussing The Expendables and Machete

2011-01-31T08:49:00.006-05:00

I took the day off today. I've had a head cold all weekend, and rather than go into work and be a miserable, sniffling, hacking wretch all day, I decided to stay home and write. I used to be one of those tough guys who would go to work rain or shine, thinking that if I wasn't there, something would come up and without me, it'd all fall to shit. As time went on, however, I realize that a) I wasn't that important, b) I loathe being around people when I'm sick, and c) I get over two sick days a MONTH, meaning right now I could probably hack off my leg and still be enjoying paid sick leave by the time Medical Science finds a way to re-attach it and have me dancing a jig.

In order to justify staying home for a day, I do hope to get some serious writing accomplished. I'm going to warm up the keyboard by writing a column this morning on a much neglected subject; my comparison of the two funnest, pulpiest movies to come out in a long time; The Expendables and Machete. I saw The Expendables three times in the theater, each time with a different batch of friends, and I saw Machete twice for the same reason. It certainly wasn't a chore, and that is always a good sign; if I can watch a movie two or even three times in the theater within a month or so and not be bored those repeat visits (Inception, I'm looking at you right now), that is a movie I'll have to add to my collection some day.

I'm not even going to bother talking about the plot of either film. I can't imagine anyone reading this hasn't seen these two movies, and if you're one of those unlucky few...I dunno what to do with you. Go read the wikis on the two movies, or their IMDb entries (I put those hyperlinks in for a reason). I can hear the peanut gallery already piping off, "Those are action movies, there is no plot! Hur hur hur!". Now, that's just being dumb. Of course there is a plot - it's just not the focus of either film. A plot is the road by which your story moves from A to B to C, and the engine is the motivations of the characters involved. I actually think in most action movies, the engine, the character motivations, are more important.

In The Expendables, the initial drive is simple - money. The guys are mercs, here's some cash to go in and bring down a tinpot dictator, have at it. Of course, it's never that easy. A simple recon turns into a bloodbath, there's a beautiful woman involved, and our leading man decides he can't leave the leading lady to her ignoble fate. Despite his protestations to the contrary, the rest of the team mounts up and goes in with him to bring the girl home and give the bad buys the finger; the trigger-finger, that is. I guess this is the sort of dramatic conflict you get when the "Bros Before Hos" rule gets turned on its ear; is it still applicable when you back a Bro because of his love for a Ho? Does the "All's Fair in Love and War" rule kick into effect somewhere in this mess? Am I even making sense?

In the end, it's not about the money, it's about love, pride, and brotherhood. Stallone's character won't leave a courageous young woman to her terrible fate, the team wants to prove that, "Suicide Mission" or no, they can do a job the Agency figured would see them dead, and they go in together as brothers in arms, each fighting for each other more than anything else. At the end of the day, through thick and thin, these are guys who love each other and are willing to die to defend each other, even if sometimes they want to (and try to) kill each other. And, although by the third viewing, Mickey Rourke's speech about the girl on the bridge had me giggling like a little girl, he had a point; if you keep fighting for nothing but money, some day you're going to wake up and discover that you've sold your soul to Ares, so to speak, and there's nothing left inside. Sometimes, you need to feel good about the things you do - you need to feel like you fought for a cause.

This is where we shift gears and look now at Machete. I actually liked this movie a lot more than I thought I would. I had seen Rodriguez' Planet Terror and thought it sucked ass. Coupled with a string of "I'm making movies for my kids now! Wheee!", and I'd pretty much written him off. But oh man...Machete. This movie is The Shit, and I mean that in the best way possible. When you've got a scene involving rappelling out a window using another man's small intestine, when you're three minutes into the movie and already you've got a triple beheading accomplished with one swing of a machete, and do I even have to mention the Secret Cell Phone Hiding Place? I didn't think so, but I mentioned it anyways, because it's just that awesome.

Machete is a movie driven by two motivations; the main character's thirst for revenge against those who set him up, and the secondary character's drive to escape persecution at the hands of the Haters. I'm not going to get into the whole Illegal Immigration tar-pit here, but knowing that there really are legions of heavily armed, paramilitary rednecks driving around the border "defending our country from the invaders from the south" makes me queasy on multiple levels. I don't think there's an easy solution to the problem, but I am fairly sure none of those possible solutions involve a drunken hillbilly with a Remington 700 chambered in .300 WinMag sniping at women and children from the back of a Chevy pickup truck at 2 AM. But I digress.

The Expendables and Machete draw from similar, but separate, wells of homage / retro goodness. The Expendables pulls from the action movies of the 80's; Commando, Red Scorpion, Rambo: First Blood Part II, fun shit like that. Stallone has done, in my opinion, an excellent job of going through his film career and putting a quality polish on every franchise he's helped build; I really thought both Rocky Balboa and Rambo were very, very good films. Both took a hard, uncompromising look at these aging characters and how their lives have turned out decades after their filmic journeys began. In a way, The Expendables does the same thing for an entire genre of movies, the Military Action Thriller. None of the guys in this movie are young; the youngest is Jason Statham, and he was born in '72. And I find that critically important.

I always find it interesting that the best action movies are made with actors who are at least in their 30's, which I think stems back, originally, to the Vietnam plot device, which fueled Stallone's Rambo movies and was also the driving motivator behind Lethal Weapon and many other films; by the 1980's, you had a whole crop of actors in their 30's who could play Vietnam vets who were blooded in the 70's. Hell, it's what drove most of the characters in most of the Post Modern Pulps for a good twenty years. At the very least, Stallone and Rourke are both old enough to have fought in Vietnam, and at least Statham was born when the war was winding down. That all of these actors are old enough to have some kind of connection to Vietnam is, I think, important; that war, and the aftermath that followed both historically and culturally, is what drove the PMP genre in film and written fiction for a solid 20+ years. The idea that Barney Ross and Tool could very well be Vietnam vets who've followed the Path of the Mercenary ever since is pretty sobering, and if you read the film from that angle, I think it adds a lot more gravitas to their character's motivations.

Ultimately, I think this movie is, like his other two "end-cap" films, not so much an homage or remake of his earlier works but a way to provide closure. I saw many people pooh-pooh The Expendables for not being "80's enough"; there weren't enough great one-liners that you'll be quipping for months afterward, there was no pointless nudity (hey, is nudity ever pointless?), blah blah blah. Well, I think the point is, you can't go back. The movie was made in 2010, not 1985, and those of us in our 30's who saw those classic action movies in our junior high years (usually taken with a dad or older brother, or edited on TV, or as a rental years after the fact) are viewing the older genre through a lot of lenses. The fact that the paramilitary action movie largely died out by the mid-90's, and hasn't really resurfaced until now, says a lot about the genre and the sentiments of the movie-going audience. That might be a whole other column, since this one is getting a little long in the tooth anyhow.

So let's circle back around to Machete. This movie finds its roots in older films and books, the trashier, pulpier madness of the late 60's and early to mid 70's. I feel that in every measure, this should have been the movie Rodriguez made for Grindhouse, because it is pure, raw, exploitation and Id. The movie is filled with gory violence, it's got full frontal nudity about five minutes in, there's a minigun bolted to a motorcycle, and a machete the size of a 13th century bastard sword. As much as I was cheering and enjoying the great moments in The Expendables, there were moments in Machete; many, many moments, where I found myself clapping and braying like a jackass because it was so wrong, it couldn't have been more right.

If the acting is awkward and wooden in some parts and utterly hyperbolic in others, if there are gaping holes in the plot here and there and in other places, stuff just simply doesn't make any sense, that's okay; a lot of the material this film is based on was written in days, hours even, and shot / edited / produced / delivered like fast food; sloppy but quick. And sometimes, just like you might have a sudden terrible, regrettable, awful craving for a Big Mac and extra large fries, washed down with a large, 1,000 calorie chocolate milkshake, you need the pure insanity that is this film. The reasons people watch a movie like this are the same reasons you might be watching gladiators duke it out circa 100 AD, or why you're up at 3 AM watching gratuitous porn on the internet for no good reason (wait, see pointless nudity comment above...), or why you just ate a whole bag of Doritos in one sitting. You do it because some times you just need to dunk your head in the gutter for a few moments to appreciate the sunny side of the world.

And now, I'm spent. And seriously considering a matinee of The Mechanic today.

Female Duo Revenge Movies

2011-01-28T11:07:00.003-05:00

Last night I watched The Assassin Next Door, a rather good, powerful and emotional movie about Galia, a young mother who's trapped in Tel Aviv working (as far as I can tell) as an indentured escort for an organized crime syndicate. She's got a daughter back in Kiev and she's trying to get home, but since her passport is being held hostage, she has no way to escape.

Oh, here's a link to the IMDb page on The Assassin Next Door. Incidentally for Neil Marshall fans, the actress who plays Galia is the "huntress" Etain in Centurion. If you haven't seen that film, just stop reading now, go see it, and then come back here.

Eventually bad stuff happens, and then there's more bad stuff, and Galia is given the offer that, if she'll act as a trigger-(wo)man on a couple of hits, she'll be given her passport and tickets and money to go home. Galia moves into a shitty apartment building during this time, and finds herself next door to Elanor, a young wife of an abusive husband who fights with her and beats her every night.

Eventually Galia and Elanor enter into a friendship and partnership as each helps the other get out of their awful situation. Fear not, folks - I have not suddenly started watching the Oxygen channel. While there is a lot of emotion and talk about friendship and loss and childbirth yadda yadda yadda (which I will say, is done with craft and subtlety and a fair degree of good acting), there are a number of gunfights and some pretty shocking displays of violence. This movie falls squarely into that category of "Violent Drama"; it's not an action movie, but the action that does take place is brutal, graphic, and very meaningful and real.

I find it interesting that some of the best female revenge stories I can think of (Kill Bill excepted, of course), such as this movie, Thelma & Louise, and as one person pointed out to me, Bound, feature a pair of women who form a relationship and partnership to work through their conflict. On the other hand, when guys get vengeance in movies or books, it's almost a "Lone Wolf Crusade", where there is no partner in crime.

I am not sure if I think of this as a bad stereotype, or rather, a negative stereotype. Certainly as Kill Bill shows you can have strong solo female revenge stories, and in terms of male revenge stories where there is a partnership, you most often have the "buddy cop" archetype where one guy is out to avenge a partner or some similar injustice, and his new partner finally agrees to help him on his crusade.

I feel the question is, when you tend to have women seeking revenge in a partnership while men seek it on their own, are you saying women need to work together to take on their male nemesis, while men don't need help? Or is it that a female revenge story seems to work best with two characters in a team playing off against each other in the same way that "buddy cop" movies work so well with partners playing off against each other?

If anyone can point me towards other female revenge films where there is actually a pair of female protagonists, I would appreciate it. I'd like to explore this idea and see if there are any conclusions that can be drawn.

My Thoughts on The Big Sleep

2011-01-26T15:11:00.004-05:00

So I feel just awful about this - I've never read Raymond Chandler before this week. I'm sure in the past I might have read excerpts or snippets, but never one of his novels. Last week I picked up his first novel, the 1939 classic The Big Sleep, and gave it a (very quick) read. I finished the book in a couple of evenings. It's not especially large, nor is it terribly complex, but damn, is it ever good.

First, I feel Chandler is a great writer. His style is quick, it's clean, and it's very visual; he uses a lot of analogies and a lot of relational imagery. The downside of this is, of course, that his style has been parodied unto death by decades of "crime novel" writers who have turned Chandler's style into caricature. In many ways, it's the same problem Robert E. Howard has had in terms of his reputation being built not on his original works, but on the 70+ years of pastiches, copycats, and imitators who all tried to follow on his stylistic coat-tails.

Beyond the writing, there is the story itself - the sleaze, the corruption, the greed and the hatred. For a book written in 1939, it is almost shocking in it's plunge into the gutter. The Big Sleep is a plot filled with sex, pornography, illicit homosexuality (so not the shiny happy 2011 state of homosexuality, but the dominating, woman-hating, unable to just be myself kind you see in such period exploitation fiction, like Eddie the Dane in Miller's Crossing), drugs, gambling, drinking, mental dysfunction, abuse both verbal and physical...it's quite the catalog of vice and depravity, and Phillip Marlowe swims through it all like a battle-scarred sea lion.

If the Private Eye story set the tone for much of the 20th century's crime fiction (setting aside the Sherlock Holmes-style detective story archetype which is much older), Raymond Chandler's fiction set the standard for the Private Eye story, and I believe The Big Sleep is the book that set him on his path to immortality as a literary figure. So many works of fiction - either written or filmed or made for television (or my 5th grade musical play, Lucky Dollar, Private Eye), owe their creative genesis to Chandler's works.

All in all, if you're a fan of crime thrillers, or even just 20th Century American fiction, it is worth it to at least read one Chandler. At the very least, you'll know what I mean when I refer to Chandler's Law.

Micro Review: Coen Brothers' True Grit

2011-01-24T09:00:00.001-05:00

I caught this film as a matinee today. Prepared for the event with a lunch of beer, steak, and potatoes after a brisk mile-long walk through some parkland, enjoying the bright sun and sub-freezing temperatures. There's something extremely invigorating about a quick jaunt outdoors when it's real "winter" weather out - not a 36 degrees and brown grass lawns winter, but thermometer in the mid-teens, feels like single digits with a foot of snow on the ground winter.

The walk and my lunch couldn't have prepared me better for the film. Don't get me wrong, I like John Wayne and I like his Rooster Cogburn just fine, and I think the original film has great merit. However, the Coen Brothers are expert film makers, and they approach the subject with due gravitas, as do all the actors involved.

Everyone gives an excellent performance, especially Hailee Steinfeld; I am almost embarrassed that her name is listed after the title during the end credit sequence, especially since Josh Brolin is in the movie, all told, for probably no more than 15 minutes.

It was good, however, to see Barry Pepper (the sniper in Saving Private Ryan) show up - I had no idea who the actor was until the end credits, he was so transformed in appearance from his younger, more clean-cut roles. I'd like to think his performance as Ned Pepper would have earned him a tip of the hat from Robert Duval, the original Ned Pepper.

One thing I especially like about this film is that it portrays "Indian Territory" as a truly untamed land, filled with bizarre characters, remote and mysterious locales, and danger or death at a moment's notice - if any notice is to be had at all. It reminds me of the Yukon wilderness and the characters who thrive there portrayed in the Lee Marvin / Charles Bronson film Death Hunt, one of my favorite "Manhunt" movies.

Whether or not you feel a remake or re-envisioning of True Grit was unnecessary or unwanted, I feel there is no denying this is an excellent film. The story may be told from a somewhat different angle and with a slightly varied tempo, but just as one song can still sound great played by two different performers, so it is that this story can be told well by two different generations of actors and film-makers.

Observations on The Shootist

2011-01-21T09:00:00.002-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I finally sat down and watched The Shootist from start to finish. I hadn't seen it in its entirety before, and I feel bad about this fact. Although I'm not one of those people who stroke themselves furiously at the mere mention of John Wayne, I do think that he is an incredibly important figure in American film history, having been a part of so much American cultural iconography over many years.

The Shootist was Wayne's last film, and although he wouldn't die for a couple more years, the similarities between Wayne the actor and J.B. Books the character are more then a little obvious. By the end of his career, Wayne was a living caricature, with so much legend and apocrypha woven around his life and his career that he has become almost infamous. Like his character J.B., every person who came into contact with him at the end of his life no doubt wanted something from him or had some kind of angle, or at the very least, approached him with some kind of seriously skewed misconceptions.

While watching this film, I began to draw some interesting parallels. The most blatant of these was that Book's return to Carson City, and the sort of awkward, impolite reception he received, reminded me of a lot of Vietnam veterans who would have come home over the years preceding the making of the film. In some ways, the movie even reminded me of First Blood; the confrontation between the tired, misunderstood warrior and a cold, unfriendly, "civilized" or modern world that sees the warrior as an unpleasant, misplaced problem to be dealt with as quickly as possible so the Pleasant People can move along with their lives. This comparison was driven home when Books talks to the Carson City marshal, who becomes almost ecstatic when he learns that Books will die soon, and "can't wait for it" so his town will return to normal.

I also found a lot of Books' platitudes on violence really resonating with many of the post-modern pulp protagonists; men who are violent not in nature but by necessity, who live by a code, and kill by a code, but do not kill indiscriminately or without thinking. It was also interesting to hear Books take on gunfighting; that it is not the man who shoots the fastest or the most accurately who wins, but the man who doesn't hesitate or pause in "taking the shot" and killing another man. The man who can kill without hesitating will win out over the man who can shoot straighter or draw a little faster because the killer shoots to do just that - kill his opponent. Being willing to hit a man with a bullet in actuality is ultimately of more value than just being able to hit a man in theory and practice.

I also find it interesting that both The Shootist and Shane are western novels that became very successful films, and both deal with similar themes; the role of The Killer in Polite Society, and the awkward duality of how this person is both necessary and reviled. I'm sure there's a film/psychology Ph.D. thesis out there written on this topic, and I'd love to read it some time; the closest I've come to it is On Killing, which deals in part with the killer's interactions and attitudes with society.

I think that's it for now. I may have further thoughts on the matter, especially as I work more on my current novel; one of the main characters is an aging retired mercenary, and I was able to see some similarities between his sentiments towards a life of violence, and those of J.B. Books. The similarities were very encouraging.

Embracing Indie eBook Publishing

2011-01-14T09:00:00.002-05:00

As of this week, I've made the decision that when (not if) I finish the book I'm currently writing, I will publish it as an eBook through Amazon and B/N's self publishing portals.

I've come to this decision for four reasons.

1. I'm tiring out. Writing part-time while there are a million other things vying for my attention drags this process out to an intolerable degree, and once it's done, I simply don't have the stamina to then spend months - hell, years - finding an agent and a publisher who'll take my novel. I just can't wait that long. The way I see it, writing for publication is like gambling; you can play the short odds and be careful and amass a small but tidy sum cautiously, or you can keep throwing money on the long odds and hope that someday - someday! You will win it big. I see Indie ePublishing as the short odds, and traditional publishing as trying to win the lottery. And for the record, I don't play the lottery.

2. Electronic Self-Publishing is here to stay, and I want to ride the wave while it's still growing. What was considered a "vanity press" idea ten or fifteen years ago is now becoming a viable alternative to finding a publisher. This is something indie game publishers have know for a while now, but non-game book publishing is taking a while to catch onto the idea that someone being able to publish their own work != the downfall of the literary world. This was the case of all the Web 2.0 technologies as they came along, taking the ability to "publish to the world" out of the hands of certain gatekeeping individuals and giving that power to the masses. Yes, it's given us some stupid crap on the internet (okay, a LOT of stupid crap), but it's also created some truly amazing things as well. If you're one of those "All People Are Idiots!" folks, the ability for just anyone to write a novel and potentially have someone pay to read it is anathema to you. But on the other hand, five years ago, I thought "blogging" was stupid, and here I am. A year ago I thought Twitter was stupid, and yet, I'm on it, Tweeting away. People make money blogging and Tweeting, too. People even make a living teaching others how to blog and Tweet, shockingly enough. Journalism, Film (see: Youtube et al), and now Fiction publishing is all shifting to a Web 2.0 paradigm; it's Publishing 2.0, and it is only going to get bigger.

3. Indie ePublishing suits what I want to write. Quality aside, I honestly do not think there is a viable market for what I want to write in today's dead-tree publishing paradigm; the short serial action thriller as was popular back in the 60's - 80's in titles like The Executioner, The Death Merchant, Able Team, Longarm, The Ninja Master, The Survivalist, the Richard Blade series, Casca the Eternal Warrior, and so on. There have been dozens of these titles over the years, cheap "post-modern pulp" paperback novels out of those few decades selling for $2-3, averaging less than two hundred pages and 50-80K word lengths. These books were enormously popular at the time, and I think the sort of serial fiction they provided is still viable, but no one is going to see the profit in that kind of publishing in today's print fiction market, at least not outside of Young Adult fiction (which I don't write...yeah no). On the other hand, a short novel format would be perfectly acceptable - even preferable, on an eReader, and the price point hasn't changed much, either.

And finally, one last big reason. I want to be paid to write. I've been writing fiction since grade school. I might not be a great writer - I might not even be a "pretty good" writer, but I am a passable writer, and the more I write, the better I get. I've got ideas, I have some modicum of talent, and if properly motivated, I can produce copy quickly. But the motivation is the key, and my motivation right now, as I close in on my mid-30's, is income. I'm not satisfied with my current job, but it pays better than some, and that keeps me locked in. If I could supplement my income with a small but steady stream of royalty payments, it would be both encouraging and pleasing to the pocketbook, and I could consider a less stressful job even if it meant a pay cut, in order to put myself into a better frame of mind for writing. And Indie ePub money - that's money now, as in within a year, not fantasy dream lottery money that I might get if I'm one that one single writer out of every ten thousand potential new fiction writers that gets picked up for distribution by one of the Big Six, and then waits another year to eighteen months before my book hits the shelves. There are fiction writers out there in the hot genres - not a lot of writers, but a fair few - who have seen real, I-can-do-something-with-this amounts of money within just a few months of putting their eBooks up for sale, and we are talking rookie authors who are doing it all by the skin of their teeth and the sweat of their brows.

I'll conclude this little soapboxing session with the link to the blog that's turned me around on this idea: J.A. Konrath's "A Newbie's Guide to Publishing". I read an anthology of hitman stories edited by Konrath a few months ago, "These Guns For Hire", and having looked him up, I now see that he is a very big proponent of "Indie Publishing" as he likes to put it (sound familiar, gamers?), and his blog has become a rallying point for Indie authors who have started to make a living publishing their own eBooks. Anyone who's interested in self-publishing fiction - or anything, really - should read through his blog.

And with that, back to the typewriter...

Ten Random Non-Guilty Pleasure Movies

2011-01-10T18:51:00.003-05:00

Knocking out a brief list and explanation of ten random movies that might fall into the category of "guilty pleasures", but I feel no guilt at all in my enjoyment of these films. This isn't to say people can't have guilty pleasures in movies, but after four years of film school and countless hours of debate before, during, and after college about the films I watch, I have developed a "put up or shut up" attitude about my tastes in movies.

So, in no particular order, but off my "Top Shelf", we have:

01: Conan the Barbarian (1982): This is the film that put Arnold firmly in the spotlight, although it was the next film on my list that made him a true Hollywood Juggernaut. This is John Milius at the top of his game, great production values (especially compared to other 80's Sword & Sorcery movies) and a truly, utterly epic score by Basil Poledouris. I saw this movie in the theater (twice) a few years ago, and on the big screen, it is friggin' incredible.

02: Commando (1985): Arnold's superstar action vehicle, and the movie that set the tone for action movies over the next decade. Utterly gratuitous (including completely pointless nudity), great one-liners, extras dead by the dozens, some totally, wonderfully slimy bad guys, and who can forget the steel drum soundtrack? This movie knows what it is and what it tries to do, and embraces it like a long-lost lover.

03: The Running Man (1987): Are we noticing a trend here? This sci-fi manhunt movie (and I will have to one day do a whole post on the manhunt movie sub-genre) pretty much explains the appeal of "reality television" a decade before such trash became popular. Some great gruesome deaths, cool character actors, and just about the ONLY time you see Arnold with a beard on film.

04: The Terminator (1984): Although I do love T2, the original is dark, it is gritty, it is brutal and uncaring, and it absolutely will not stop...oh, wait, never mind. Michael Biehn begins his long career as "Guy wearing a comms headset" in this film (seriously, start looking at his other movies...). This might also be the earliest that Bill Paxton works with either Arnold or James Cameron.

05: Red Heat (1988): My last Arnold movie, I promise! This is one of Walter Hill's great "buddy cop movies", with a fish out of water twist; Russian (excuse me, Soviet) cop hunting down Russian (excuse me, Soviet) drug dealers in Chicago. Also contains one of my favorite Arnold lines of all time, "You think parakeet is feminine?" Priceless.

Okay, to keep this from just being a list of Arnold movies:

06: Revenge of the Ninja (1983): One of the great Sho Kosugi's martial arts / ninja movies, this movie is more than just karate in a black bodysuit; Kosugi and his ninja bad guys employ a whole host of historical and semi-historical ninja weapons and equipment. Way better than any of the American Ninja movies, and very close to being better than The Hunted.

07: Prime Cut (1972): You gotta love a movie that starts of with a dead man being made into sausage. Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman go head to head in a crime thriller that pits big-city enforcers against a midwest criminal enterprise. Filled with cornfield gun battles, sex slavery, and Marvin packing the Cadillac of 70's era submachine guns, the Swedish K 9mm SMG. You'll never look at a plate of scrapple the same way ever again.

08: Starship Troopers (1997): Yes, I read the book. No, I don't really like it. I think the movie tells pretty much the same story, but points out how fucking twisted the whole concept truly is. Verhoeven is one of my favorite directors, and I think this movie is a big "piss off" to the ivory tower of 1950's/60's science fiction (i.e., psychotic Cold War politics with a palatable candy coating).

09: The 13th Warrior (1999): Yes, I read the book. No, I don't really like it. Yes, I know the armor is inaccurate, and the horses are too big, and...well just piss off, it's a Viking version of The Dirty Dozen And Guest, and it kicks some serious ass. Beheadings, badasses, guys who dress up in bear outfits and bear-claw clubs and bear-man cavalry and battles in caves filled with piles of freakin' skulls and bones and all sorts of other goddamn insanity.

10: Spice World (1997): Yeah, go fuck yourself. It's on the movie shelf. I didn't buy it, but I haven't thrown it out. Honestly, it's pretty entertaining. Meatloaf, Roger Moore, and Alan Cumming are all awesome, and the Spice Girls, for all their ridiculousness, knew what they were about and sold it for all it was worth. I put this one in here to make a stand and say YEAH I WATCHED SPICE GIRLS AND I FOUND IT AWESOME IN ITS OWN SPECIAL WAY. So there.

Annnnnd, I'm spent. Although this list is written with a light heart, I am serious when I say I find all of these movies utterly watchable. I do have movies I can't stand, and movies I think are really only watchable under certain circumstances, but I also feel that movies are all about watching with the right kind of eye, and with the right sort of attitude.

My Reactions to the Death Wish Novel

2011-01-03T16:14:00.006-05:00

Over the holidays, I found, bought, and read a copy of Brian Garfield's 1972 novel "Death Wish". This is the novel that was adapted into the 1974 film of the same name starring Charles Bronson, which then went on to have four sequels, most of which depart from the somewhat believable reality of "a gentle man pushed to the edge decides to seek revenge on a cruel world" and by the last couple of movies, Bronson's character Paul Kersey rivals any other 80's - 90's over-the-top action hero for his gratuitous violence.

Truth be told, I've only seen Death Wish I and II, and only small snippets of the other movies, but I know Death Wish 4: Crackdown ends with a climax involving Kersey killing a bad guy in an apartment building by blowing him to bits, literally, with a LAWS anti-tank rocket. This has definitely moved well beyond the realm of a roll of quarters in a sock and a small caliber revolver. Regardless, this post isn't about the films, but the book that inspired them - Brian Garfield's dark and twisted little 1972 crime thriller.

The plot of the book is pretty close to the plot of the film. Paul Benjamin (the name is different) is a middle-aged accountant (not architect) who's always lived in NYC. An avowed liberal, Benjamin contributes to a number of charities and social welfare / benefit organizations. He's the sort of mild-mannered "bleeding heart" who feels that it's the fault of "the system" that so many people fall on hard times and find themselves in positions where they commit crimes for a variety of "sob story" reasons. He knows there's crime in the streets, but he also feels that a lot of it is hyped up by a sensationalist media, and that a variety of social programs, re-education, and "understanding" could make it better.

Needless to say, when his wife and daughter are victims of a brutal home invasion, his wife having her neck "wrung like a chicken" and his daughter suffering such psychological trauma that she enters a catatonic state and needs to be committed, that liberal bleeding heart attitude begins to lose the majority vote, so to speak. Growing more and more frustrated with a justice system that can't find the guilty parties, health care system that can't do anything to help his doctor, and friends and family who are confused, angered, and ultimately moved on past his tragedy.

Finally, feeling like he has come to the breaking point, Paul decides to pick up a roll of quarters at the bank and drops it into a sock, making himself an ad hoc blackjack or kosh of sorts. He goes out and gets himself mildly drunk, and walking home late that night a young scared kid tries to pull a knife on him and rob him. Paul whirls around and swings his kosh at the kid while bellowing an inarticulate cry of anger and frustration. The young punk runs away terrified, and although the incident causes him a great deal of stress at first, the next day Paul realizes that he feels better than he has in weeks, "...that he was experiencing all the symptoms of a sexual release".

While on a trip to the southwest, Paul finds a sporting goods shop and purchases a snub-nosed .32 caliber Smith and Wesson 5-shot revolver, along with several boxes of ammunition. He spends the afternoon that the shop's shooting range and gets comfortable with the pistol, and then takes his chances and smuggles the pistol home on the plane. Back in NYC, Paul eventually works up the courage/gumption to go looking for trouble, and eventually winds up killing a junkie who tries to rob him at knife-point.

After the initial "what have I just done" wears off, long story short, Paul Benjamin begins to hunt down criminals on the streets of New York City. He realizes he made some elementary mistakes his first time around, and learns from them (such as buying a reversible coat, hat and gloves that can be taken off and put in pockets, etc.). He makes sure to vary his hunting patterns some, and when the newspapers begin to catch on that there's a vigilante killer on the loose, he starts to be wary and avoid anything that might resemble a police trap set up to catch him on the prowl.

One thing that Garfield spends an almost inordinate amount of time focusing on is the public reaction to the killings, to the idea of a vigilante killer on the streets. Almost the entirety of the books third-to-last chapter is a multi-page article in a local newspaper covering a psychological profile of the killer. The psychologist interviewed gives an almost spot-on description of Paul; a middle aged, white collar, semi-affluent social liberal who has suffered a terrible personal tragedy at the hands of a random criminal element, and not having seen justice done, decides to strike out at that random criminal element in his own way. The psychologist qualifies that while the killer's behavior is utterly reprehensible, he doesn't consider the man deranged or insane, but simply pushed past the breaking point, where all bonds of societal inhibition have come undone.

Before this article, of course, there is much discussion in the papers, on the radio, on the television, about whether the killings are a good idea or a bad idea, whether it's one lone man or a group, if it's some Vietnam vet coming home broken in the head (it is 1972 after all). Paul's biggest concern is the police; there is constant debate in the public forum about whether or not the police tacitly approve of what the vigilante is doing, and how they are going to approach it. The police's public statement is of course that "every effort is being made" to catch the vigilante, but off the record, some police think it's "the only way to clean up the streets".

I will leave the end of the book a mystery to anyone who hasn't read it so as to avoid any gratuitous spoilers. I was a little surprised at the ending, and at first, disappointed. After a while, though, I've warmed up to it and think it ends on the right note, or at least, A right note. Definitely a more thought-provoking ending than I was expecting, and quite different from the ending of the film.

In conclusion, I think that this book is one of the best treatments of the vigilante I've seen or read in a long time. There is nothing at all macho or heroic about the character. In fact, while reading the book, I wasn't even picturing Charles Bronson in my mind's eye, but someone far weaker, gawkier, potbellied; an out of shape middle-aged desk drone who's never had to do any more exercise than lift his briefcase or a bag of groceries. Because, these are the sort of people who fantasize about striking back at the world; not the ex-special forces commandos, not the retired CIA agents, not the peace-loving black belts. Rather, it's the accountants, the computer programmers, the mild-mannered English teachers. This, more than any other aspect of the book, is what makes Death Wish so good; seeing a mild-mannered white collar liberal (and please note, I don't have any particular loathing for this demographic) tumble down the rabbit hole of fear and anger and emerge from the other side a very cold-blooded vigilante killer.

Quick Observation on Guns in Fiction

2010-11-23T10:32:00.006-05:00

I just read The Executioner #20, New Orleans Knockout, in about 24 hours. Very fast read and pretty entertaining novel. Bolan's "Attack Winnebago" was especially hilarious.

The observation I wanted to bring up, however, is this: while there is a modicum of what I like to call "gun talk" in the book, as there is in most of the Pendleton Executioners, it is not overdone. Yes, we know what sorts of guns Mack Bolan totes around; .44 Automag, Beretta 9mm automatic with silencer, Uzi, etc., but Pendleton is careful to never let the "gun talk" stray into the realm of "gun porn".

Just like the shift in movie "vibe" from the 70's to the 80's moves from "thriller" or "crime drama" to "action movie", the Post-Modern Pulp of the 70's moves from discussing weapons and action in a modicum of detail to, in the 80's, being in many respects simple vehicles for showing off the size of the author's firearms reference works collection.

I will freely admit to being a bit of a gun nut. I like guns, I like shooting guns, I like talking about guns and reading about guns and in general I think that while what they do is regrettable, the firearm is a fascinating technological and socio-political story for the last five hundred years or so.

On the other hand, reading through some of these early Executioners, you can see that Pendleton wasn't writing the saga of Mack Bolan just to talk about the .44 Automag any more than the Dirty Harry movies were about the Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 magnum.

And that's perfectly fine with me.

The Dirty Harry Series

2010-11-11T19:26:00.004-05:00

I've recently watched the Dirty Harry series over again with an eye to how it changes between 1971 and 1988. Over that period of time, Not only does Hollywood change, but American sensibilities change, and our tastes in heroes (and anti-heroes) change.

At the time the original Dirty Harry came out in 1971, America was hip-deep in Vietnam, and the socio-political changes that were evolving us into a society ready for "post-modern pulp" type themes was well under way. Civil rights strife, drugs, violent crime, political unrest, and a nation that has recently had it's post WW2 innocent, noble glow roughly stripped away; this mix opened the door wide for a crime-fighting anti-hero cop, carrying a weapon no real-world cop could possibly get away with, doing things that no real-world cop could possibly do and keep his job. Although it is 14 years before Rambo First Blood Part II, Dirty Harry is to winning the war on crime that we knew we could never win the same way Rambo "wins" the war we couldn't win 10 years after the fact.

And like Rambo, Harry Callahan is a good person who is forced to bend, and even crack - but not break - the rules in order to get the job done. Callahan is given the offer in Magnum Force to join up with the very post-Vietnam-esque "kill squad" of young rookie cops who, having no doubt all come out of Vietnam (at least one of them was an Airborne Ranger), and have decided that the "war against crime" needs to be fought in the same unorthodox, unconventional, and utterly ruthless manner that they fought overseas ("We're the first generation that's learned how to fight." one of them tells Callahan). But Callahan, although a SFPD pariah in his own right, still has defined lines for himself that he won't cross, and true vigilante justice is one of them.

The Enforcer is, sadly, where the series begins to tip over. Pairing Callahan with a female partner is just somewhat groan-worthy, since while she is obviously a competent police officer, the sort of shit that Callahan swims in becomes inevitably too much for her (as it is every other partner he ever has). My problem with the pairing is that, along with the hippie / counter-culture revolutionary dorks Callahan goes up against, the movie isn't "Dirty Harry, rogue crimefighter" but "Dirty Harry, stuffy misogynist hippie-hater".

Then we have Sudden Impact. I actually think this is a pretty good Dirty Harry movie on some levels, and a terrible movie on others. I actually very much like it's slower pace after the 'splosions and such in The Enforcer; Sudden Impact is a "smaller" story and gets handled as such. I also like that the main character isn't really Callahan, but actually Sandra Locke's character, with Callahan as more of an observer / PoV character. On the other hand, by this point in the series, Dirty Harry is becoming almost a caricature of himself; the idea that he needs to have a "punchline" every movie that gets used once in the beginning and once at the end is now so engraved that it's actually becoming annoying. Also, various 80's-isms are beginning to worm their way into the movie, meaning what used to be a pretty bleak, 70's feeling character has become, to one degree or another, an almost Terminator-esque figure who can get the living crap utterly kicked out of him, and yet be right back on his feet and busting ass mere minutes later.


"Go ahead, make my day..."

And finally, we have The Dead Pool. I'm sorry, but this movie is pretty much crap. Not awful, unwatchable crap, but by this point, the series has really just become another "rogue cop takes on bad guys the rest of the force can't handle", no different than Lethal Weapon or Die Hard or any other 80's cop movie. The subtext of the ouroboros formed by real world violence -- glorification in the media -- fascination in fiction -- stimulus for real world violence is just wearying by 1988. And while using Welcome to the Jungle is always appreciated, Jim Carrey flailing around lip-syncing to it just kinda makes me want to cry. This movie is a picture-perfect specimen of what happened to violent films in the twenty years-ish that the series has been around; "crime dramas" or "violent thrillers" have become "action movies", with all the baggage that entails.

At the end of the day, I love the Dirty Harry movies. I think they are very much a cinematic overview of the path post-modern pulp fiction has taken over the years, warts and all. Although there are ups and downs and pros and cons in every film, any fan of the post-modern pulp genre should do themselves a favor and make sure they've seen all these films, and seen them together recently enough that the others can be kept in mind (Netflix users; all but The Enforcer are available via Netflix Instant).

Whoring Myself on Twitter

2010-11-10T12:49:00.002-05:00

I won't bother going through posting the same article here verbatim as I posted on T&B, so I'll just state that I have now caved, and as of the end of October, I've created a Twitter account. In all honestly although I mentioned it first on my gaming blog, I really don't see myself tweeting about gaming that much - the content will probably be much more attuned to the PMP crowd (guns, booze, Harry Callahan, etc.).

Anyhow, here's the link to the T&B post.

And you can find me on Twitter here.

Calling all N.Y.M.P.H.O. Lovers

2010-11-05T11:23:00.003-04:00

I was recently reminded of a little known (?) series of sex/action pulp novels written under the pseudonym of Glen Chase, which represented several authors (apparently among them Gardner F. Fox, who wrote several campy Sword & Sorcery novels that I own and love).

Here's the Fantastic Fiction entry for the "Cherry Delight: the Sexecutioner" series:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/c/glen-chase/

Cherry Delight is (apparently...) the top agent of N.Y.M.P.H.O., the New York Mafia Persecution and Harassment Organization. Although she is a full-blooded "secret agent", her methods of "getting her man" are a little different than some of the other crimefighters out there like Mack Bolan, the Death Merchant, or Nick Carter (well, maybe not Carter...).

Is there anyone out there who has read any of the Cherry Delight books and can give an account of them? I'm sure they are utterly ridiculous, but I'm curious if the overall impression is "fun and entertaining" or "offensive and crappy".

Review of Death Merchant 15: The Iron Swastika Plot

2010-09-11T17:17:00.005-04:00

I had read this Death Merchant novel quite a while ago, back when I first started collecting them, but the details became fuzzy over time (sharks, ships, Nazis, etc.) so I gave it a re-read. Overall, this is a pretty interesting Death Merchant novel as almost all the action takes place at sea - there's ship to ship fighting, boarding actions, and even underwater fighting in shark-infested waters.

Long story short, a neo-Nazi organization known as Die Spinne (The Spider) has finally located the handful of survivors from a German U-boat that sank off the coast of the Falkland Islands near the end of World War Two. The submarine was carrying a fortune in Nazi gold, jewels, and other precious commodities, as well as a great many secret Nazi files that could reveal many of Germany's still-murky wartime secrets; something of even greater value than the treasure to the right organizations (remember that this takes place in 1974, only 29 years after WW2; many of the idealistic young Nazi officers in their 20's during the war would only be in their mid to late 50's, successful older men still vital enough to want to see their precious Reich rise up again).

Richard Camellion is brought in to find and "recruit" one of these survivors, and while he fails in getting one man out of Europe alive, he succeeds with another who knows where the submarine sank. Unfortunately, the Die Spinne agents also captured one of the survivors and got the location as well, so the rest of the novel is a race to see who can beat who to the treasure. Each side has at their disposal a yacht as a floating base of operations, and each side battles the other on the seas and below the waves, as well as ashore. Rosenberger did a fair amount of research into the capabilities of deep-sea divers during the 70's, including cutting-edge advances and discoveries into the sorts of exotic breathing gases (the 'diver's cocktails') needed to survive down hundreds of feet below the surface. This great attention to detail is one of the most positive hallmarks of the Death Merchant series, and goes to show that despite some of his other faults and quirks as a writer, Rosenberger has a great mind for detail and a knack for research.

I will also point out that this is the only Death Merchant novel I've read where Camellion gets laid. In order to provide a reasonable cover with regards to their pleasure yacht, several female CIA staff members are recruited and assigned to "lounge about" on the deck of the yacht, to give the impression to anyone who sails past that the ship is simply enjoying the sun and waters of the south Atlantic. Camellion beds one of the women, but the way in which he interacts with her is almost sociopathic; he seems to have little regard for her as a "real person", but not necessarily because she is a woman; more because Camellion has, in a sense, an almost autistic inability to relate to other people, and while he shares his bed with the female agent, in terms or real human closeness, the Death Merchant might as well be on Pluto.

Overall, this was a fun novel. Nazis, especially post-war neo-Nazis, are great villains to drop into any kind of PMP-style storyline, and Rosenberger makes good use of them in this adventure, particularly the ties between South America and Nazi Germany. True fact: I had a college roommate my freshman year for half a semester who was one-quarter German, three-quarters Argentinian. He as much as came right out to say his grandfather was a Nazi. Kinda creepy, actually, but cool in that surreal, pulpy, that-just-happened kinda way.

My New RPG Project

2010-08-30T11:35:00.007-04:00

Although this blog isn't about role-playing games, it is one of my interests and there is, I feel, a strong tie between the sort of casual escapism that most PMP-style fiction gives the reader and the act of playing a fun adventure-style pen-and-paper RPG. Because of this, I think the two interests are more linked than many people might realize.

So without further ado, I present the "teaser" for an RPG project I'm currently developing:

Zombie Apocalypse Phone

2010-08-30T09:27:00.002-04:00

Ok, so I have my doubts that we're all going to get overrun by the walking dead some day. But having a phone that can last a couple of weeks on a charge, that's light and simple to use and can be unlocked to work on multiple carriers, is a great idea to put in your "bug-out kit".

Here's the CNN Article on the Zombie Apocalypse Phone.

I'd actually seriously consider getting a phone like this, with a well paid-up prepaid SIM card and one of those emergency battery-powered phone chargers. I've got a small "bug-out kit" that I keep at home, something mostly for natural disaster type emergencies where I know all the important stuff will be in case I need to get a flashlight / first aid gear / emergency knife / etc. in a hurry.

Any other readers out there keep something like this handy, and if so, what do you typically keep in it? What would your "fantasy bug-out kit" look like?

My Favorite Gun Range is Closed

2010-08-20T09:18:00.004-04:00

The Boston Gun Range, which didn't live in Boston but rather Worcester, has been closed apparently for some time now. I hadn't been there in probably three years, but I've gone there a number of times while living in the Boston area and I always had fond memories of the place. The employees were always friendly, professional, and promoted a safe and comfortable environment. If you wanted to talk shop, they would talk shop. If you wanted to go there, do your business, and leave, you could do that as well.

I fired my first Glock 19, my first CZ-75, and most importantly for me, my first Browning Hi-Power at the Boston Gun Range. I fired semi-auto versions of both the M-4 and the AK-47. I was shooting at the range with a friend when his rented .44 magnum blew it's cylinder in half, ripping away the top strap and knocking it through the ceiling tiles. I got to see some older family members shoot for the first time in years, and discovered that some people never lose whatever it is inside you that puts 'em all in the 10-ring even decades after the last time you picked up a handgun. I even got to "compete" (and by that I mean, watch while also doing our own shooting) against some law enforcement types a few lanes down, and we shook our heads looking at their groupings, easily twice the size of most of ours (hint: "tactical" pants don't make you a better shot).

Here is an article from 2007 about this happening.

Here's a blog article commenting on this decision.

Another blog article about this event.

What bothers me about this situation is that the gun range's policies were apparently perfectly acceptable for a number of years until there was an incident, at which point, like the policeman in Casablanca, authorities are "shocked, shocked!" to discover that regular, law-abiding citizens can rent a firearm there for use on the premises. Really? I was there shooting while the local Sheriff's department was doing their training, so I'm sure a fair number of law enforcement personnel had come and gone through the premises while it was in operation, and they must have been aware of the rental policies and procedures. Never mind the fact that the range must have documented these procedures with local law enforcement when it first opened. And, let's not forget that they published their policies for rental on the internet, for the whole world to see. To let the the gun range operate in peace that way for years until it's "suddenly illegal" just bothers me, as the place apparently had a good relationship with law enforcement, who should have stood up and defended the business.

As a writer and gun enthusiast I enjoyed being able to go to a range and seeing, handling, and firing a number of firearms in order to build familiarity and understanding. I grew up in rural areas and I have been shooting since I was probably six or seven years old, when my dad cut down the stock of an old bolt-action .22 rifle so it would fit me better. Moving to Massachusetts, I lost touch with my "shooting roots" here until I discovered the gun range, and now it's gone. Thankfully, there is a range in Manchester NH that I hope to visit soon, since it's not that much further away.

Non-Fiction Review: Big Boy Rules by Steve Fainaru

2010-08-03T09:00:00.004-04:00

I read Steve Fainaru's book Big Boy Rules in a day and a half. It's relatively short, easy and quick to read, with a casual but evocative manner that quickly draws you into the narrative and keeps you there through the whole book.

Big Boy Rules is about mercenary companies in Iraq, the "Private Security Contractors" that perform all the convoy escort and protection details that the military doesn't want to or can't spare the manpower to provide. I am not going to dive into the political quagmire of whether or not mercenary forces should or should not be used over in Iraq; the fact of the matter is that mercenary troops have been a part of military life for thousands of years, and I suspect they will always play a role in such conflicts.

What does disturb me is that these mercenary companies have little to no objective oversight into who they are hiring, what their qualifications are (or whether or not they should be disqualified from employment) and how they are behaving once they are in-country. Throughout the course of this book, Fainaru looks at several security companies, focusing mainly on Crescent Security (which seems to be something of a bush-league outfit with questionable hires and management and poor equipment), but also discussing larger organizations such as ArmorGroup (whose review seems mostly positive) to Blackwater (who appear to be running rampant across all of Iraq).

I picked this book up to get a little more information on what the modern mercenary scene looked like, especially in Iraq. What it looks like, after reading Big Boy Rules, is that:

A) It all depends on the outfit who hires you.
B) It all depends on the missions you run and the area you operate within.
C) It all depends on your level of experience and whether or not you know when it's time to "bug out", or if you stay in too long and get a little cracked in the head.

From a "Post-Modern Pulp" angle, one could easily envision a series of adventure novels centered around a "crack security unit" operating out of Iraq, providing high-risk protective details and other paramilitary services that the military isn't or won't be able to handle. You could also take it a couple of other directions; perhaps your main character is a "one man security company" who sells his services to the highest bidder, operating on his own but encountering a whole host of characters throughout the theater of Iraq. Another possibility would be a rough-and-tumble merc outfit, a "bad news bears" styled group of highly skilled but irascible misfits who take the dirty, dangerous jobs that other, slicker companies won't touch.

Also, it should be noted that Big Boy Rules, without giving away any "spoilers", covers a pretty grim event in the history of mercenary outfits in Iraq. The events surrounding the activities of Crescent Security in the 2006-2007 time period go to show that many of these companies can suffer severe tragedies while in the line of fire and on the job, and they do fall into a weird gray area - they are supporting the war, working in conjunction with the governments of the US and Iraq to promote the rebuilding efforts, but at the same time, they are not afforded the same support and aid the military gives troops in the field.

All in all, I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for more information on private security contractors and mercenaries operating in Iraq, especially from the perspective of the "B-Teams". After all, not every company out there is Blackwater in terms of their gear and their reputation (for good and bad).