Tipping at Windmills and Men’s Adventure

As a young paratrooper back in the day, there were many times when I wanted to escape from everything that reminded me of my job. But there were other times when I couldn’t get enough.

A limited sample from my personal library. Some of these are in bad shape from being stuffed in a rucksack or buttpack during Happy Camping excursions.

Literarily (is that a word?) speaking, I was probably spoiled. All around Fort Bragg, it was easy to find stuff to read that appealed–namely: anything that offered more excitement than what I was getting out of real life. During my escapist periods, I gravitated toward sci-fi, sword & sorcery, and pulpy adventures (I was a big Indiana Jones fan, to give you an idea). When I was gung-ho, I read Vietnam novels, WW2 novels, military sci-fi, and tons of paramilitary fiction. The 100-mile radius around Bragg probably has the worst male-to-female ratio in the world, so options were limited for off-time–especially when on DRF-1 (a ready-stand-by status for the Rapid Deployment Force; when troopers were on a short leash and had to be close and sober awaiting deployment).

Here’s the new E-Book cover.

Anyhoo, as a civilian later on, I noticed my reading options dwindling quickly. The New York Publishing Cartel just wasn’t producing anything I enjoyed reading anymore. I’ve blogged about this before, so to make a long story short: when I first discovered the opportunities presented by publish-on-demand (POD) and e-publishing, I assigned myself the quixotic task of reviving the “men’s fiction” I had once so enjoyed.

Surprisingly, I ran into other fledgling authors with similar goals.

The revival did happen–albeit on a small scale (because men have by-and-large given up on reading). Some of us carved out a niche for ourselves. My most focused effort to date is Tier Zero.

Here’s the original, pulpy retro-paramilitary adventure cover (which I still like best).

Fellow author, blogger, and men’s adventure fan Jack Badelaire over at Post-Modern Pulps has a nice post about his connection to the revival, combined with a review of my testosterone-fueled shoot-em-up.

The e-book is currently on sale for 99 cents at the online stores. But for those of you who don’t have time to sit down and actually read, there’s an audio version you can listen to while driving or performing mundane tasks, narrated by Johnnie C. Hayes.

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