All posts by Machine Trooper

Non-Fiction/Documentary

A New Publisher in Town

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I met author Jim Morris a few years ago, and we’ve been in sporadic contact ever since. It’s just come to my attention that some of his books are being picked up by a new publisher.

I contacted Chris and Janet Morris (no relation to Jim) of  Perseid Press, and they agreed to answer a few of my questions.

VP: What is your story–how did you become authors?

PP: We met when we were 19, actually through the music business.  Each of us had written songs, lyrics and music, independently. Both had begun playing instruments at an early age. Janet had created a school newspaper in the sixth grade and won prizes for poetry even earlier; Chris had worked in bookstores, and started playing guitar when he was 12.  Both families were highly literate, so music and musicals, as well as fiction and nonfiction, were always part of our lives.
Janet could read and write and tell time before entering the first grade; Chris’ influences took a more political path, since his father was a famous photojournalist, and picture editor for the Washington Post and the New York Times. We met in New York City’s Greenwich Village, where we first lived together; and those were heady, sometimes dangerous, times for all involved with the arts and politics.

We began writing songs together, joining bands, and put several bands together, two of which had production interest.  Janet started her first novel at 25, High Couch of Silistra, about the same time Chris started The Christopher Morris Band, and both projects got different agents the same week, and signed unrelated book publishing and record deals the same month.  Chris’ album on MCA and Janet’s first Silistra book, published by Bantam, were each released in 1977.  This led to a redistribution of effort:  Janet wrote three more novels in the Silistra series, later to be called the Silistra Quartet; Chris focused on his band and song writing.  We wrote together, edited and assisted one another.  And still do. In the late 1980s, we each became research directors for a Washington think tank, where we were the architects of the US Joint Nonlethal Weapons program,  and assisted select western nations in starting their own programs; we also led the first defense technical evaluation team to the then-Soviet Union to assess Russian military technology, and supported the US Army and the USMC in various areas, including what was at the time called the Marine Expeditionary Rifle Squad (or MERS).  For a score of years we raised and showed American Morgan Horses, the remnants of the U.S. Government’s only horse-breeding program, and had several World Champions.

VP: Both of you’ve been writing SF/F for a while, now. What would you say makes your “brand” unique?

PP: Our books are not for the faint of heart, or the politically correct, nor are they dumbed down. They are challenging and meant to be so. We explore the human condition, and what relationship and responsibility an individual has to self, society, and planet.  Just as our deep experience with horses informs our books about ancient cavalry fighters, so do our futuristic books have a basis in technology areas that will shape our future. But most of all, the books we write are the books we want to read.  By pleasing ourselves and writing honestly, we bring a directness to the topic areas we explore, whether those are nuclear war, time travel, genetics and behavior, or questions about government itself, good and bad.  And we hope always to meet our own standard.

VP: Are there recurring themes you deal with in all or most of your books?

PP: We examine the heroic model, the importance of individual struggle in service to an ideal. In Greek mythology, philosophy and ancient history, we find lessons that can help people today, whether those lessons are presented allegorically or directly. We are particularly interested right now in hero-cults and how humans deal with crises, as well as considerations of metaphysics, mortality and morality.

VP: What motivated you to become a publisher?

PP: We stopped writing fiction when we began writing in the national and international security area.  This meant walking away from burgeoning careers as novelists, but we thought it important to serve as we did.  When, in 2009, we felt the need to write a new novel, which became The Sacred Band, we talked to our agent about sending it to the usual suspects, but we wanted to keep our e-publishing rights.  Under those conditions, a 21st century publishing deal of substance would be difficult, and this was the final deciding factor:  Rather than give up our e-publishing rights, we started Perseid Press, where we can control the covers, print size, book length, and production values as we had never been able to do when published by New York behemoths.

VP: Was it difficult establishing a publishing house; or with your contacts/network, was it just a matter of making a few calls?


PP: Anything worth doing is difficult. Perseid Press evolved, rather than being established.  We provided some backlist titles, our agent facilitated some e-publishing for us under Perseid’s name to begin with.  We revived our Heroes in Hell series so that we could help showcase emerging talents.  We conceived our “Authors’ Cut” editions so that we could go back and revise and expand books we felt deserve digital immortality. Writers came to us, people we knew and people we didn’t know.  So we have become a very small press, publishing what we like from writers who “write dangerously,” which is, in a nutshell, what we ourselves do.  Often the books we buy and write don’t fall into existing marketing categories.  And that doesn’t scare us.

VP: (Just a personal note, here: As a young GI (“cherry” in the unit-specific dialect) I quickly learned an axiom popular at my first duty-station–that there were probably 80 males for every female for a 50-mile radius around Fort Bragg, NC. It might have been an exaggeration, but it was true enough for practical purposes. Whenever time off was granted (but not enough to drive beyond that 50-mile radius), I got away from the barracks as fast as possible, even if I didn’t have a plan for what to do. Two of my favorite haunts were Ed McKay’s Used Books off Yadkin Road, or the news stand/bookstore in the Cross Creek Mall. At the latter, I remember seeing a few of your Heroes in Hell books. I almost bought one a couple times, but reading about anyone in Hell wasn’t quite the escape I was looking for. I was worried I might be on the road there, myself.)

What are your ambitions for Perseid Press?

PP: Our main goal for Perseid is that we not lose quality as we grow.  Perseid wants to be bigger than we had intended, and we are keeping a very tight rein on it, but new opportunities are hard to resist.  We have a website that functions as a bookstore of sorts, and a network of people who believe in what we’re trying to do.  In one sense we are a couple of fingers in the leaky dike holding back the flood of illiteracy; in another sense, we are curators selecting books we think should survive. In yet one more sense Perseid is a literary triage effort, for a society which has lost its cultural compass and lies close to intellectual death. This is an uphill battle, perhaps, but as Tempus said in The Sacred Band:  “We make the world better one battle at a time.”

VP: I hear you on the illiteracy deal. It’s been the bane of my existence for a few years. Do you plan to remain focused on SF/F?


PP: We love sf in the true sense:  speculative fiction with a moral component, but not a moralizing component.  We will always look at well-thought sf, if the adventurous literary quality is there.  We already have published a rigorous historical by Janet, I, the Sun, about the greatest king of the Hittite empire, and that character has much to say that applies to life today. We are publishing a magical realism/literary book called Truck Stop Earth by award-winning author and journalist Michael A. Armstrong, whose novel Bridge Over Hell we have already published; we have published a memoir about an ex-patriot in Peru, Reckless Traveler, by Walter Rhein. We are publishing Andrew P. Weston, the author of The IX, Exordium of Tears, and Hell Bound, in both fantasy and science fiction; Andy is a former Royal Marine and is still active in the security area.  A new addition to our roster is Jim (James Franklin) Morris, author of the bestselling War Story; we are honored and excited to be publishing Jim’s alternate history/magical realism novels, beginning with Tahlequah, and republishing at least three of his nonfiction books, including War Story.  And we’re readying our first entry in the paranormal-suspense area, Schade, by  J.P. Wilder, also a special forces graduate.  And of course, we continue the Heroes in Hell series, and have begun a new shared concept series with Heroika 1: Dragon Eaters, to be followed by…  you guessed it…  Heroika 2: Shieldless.

The Perseid Press website is: http://www.theperseidpress.com/

VP: Somewhat involved in the book biz myself, I’m impressed with what an increasingly tough racket it is. The pool of potential readers seems to be shrinking all the time, while the number of published authors grows rapidly. POD publishing and ebooks have revolutionized the industry, which is a double-edged sword: It’s easy to break into the business now, but it’s harder than ever for readers to find an author’s books (at least when that author is an indie, and doesn’t have some sort of platform to exploit). Frankly, so much of the indie fiction out there is poorly written, that the stigma indie authors are saddled with is understandable. Yet the Big  Five are in such trouble financially these days, there is speculation that indies and micropublishers will be the only game in town one day. As professionals in the industry, I’d love to hear any insights or opinions you have on the state of things, the future of publishing, etc.

PP: As far as insights into publishing as it changes: along with the rest of humanity, we are trying to deal with the information overload of the internet, which in its turn is reducing literacy and attention span. We see audio books as a possible mitigating factor, but no such factor will make up for the simple lack of education that is so pervasive, coupled with the pernicious assurance that the uninformed opinion is as important as the informed opinion.  We go forward based on our own goals, prejudices, and perspectives, hoping to attract a growing readership of like mind.  When we edited books or anthologies for the big NY publishers, we learned that you, as an editor, are looking as hard for a writer to excite you as that writer is looking for a simpatico editor.  When the two meet, sometimes magic happens, but not often enough.  We’re concerned by the “dumb like me” attitude we see growing, by poor-quality books proliferating — but then one remembers Henry James, who coined the term “trash triumphant” to describe publishing at the end of the 19th century. Literature survived those days; it will survive these days. There always will be bad writing, self-indulgent readers, and those who only want to hear ideas with which they already concur, literature that ratifies their pre-existing tastes.  We simply have more people today.  The ones who choose video games rather than books are not our readership.  We’re not serving the reader with a five-hundred word vocabulary, but we have no quarrel with those publishers or authors who are doing so, now that the slush piles of former days are all available free of charge.

VP: Please explain the “dumb like me” expression–I haven’t heard it before.

PP: “Dumb like me” is a phrase describing the attitude of those who consider reasoning a chore, a stressful exercise threatening to revisit dearly held notions of reality, worse, to overturn them with a priori observation, undermining ‘blissful’ ignorance. We won’t use it again in any way implying that we harbor such a view.

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” -Isaac Asimov

VP: Sounds a lot like what I routinely encountered in school, and on Facebook.

As I’ve found out first hand since throwing my hat into publishing, there are hundreds of reasons an author might fail to gather a following, and many of them seem to be completely random wrong time/wrong place kind of reasons. I have my own short list of authors to whom I am grateful because of the books they’ve written; but for whatever reasons they have not enjoyed the success I believe their writing deserves. Two such authors from the tradpub era are Len Levinson and Jim Morris.

Jim Morris has been slept-on for long enough. Now his latest book, Talequah/Battle of Sorcerors and some of his classic non-fiction (including The Devil’s Secret Name) have found a home where they’ll be getting new covers and some adept marketing. Virtual Pulp wishes him phenomenal sales, and thanks Perseid Press for taking the time to respond.

I can’t say exactly when, but we’ll be reviewing some Perseid Press books here in the future.

Non-Fiction/Documentary

The Culture War Heats Up

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There is a surging groundswell in the grass roots of America. I’ve noticed it (I daresay I’ve been a part of it) for the last few years. It is pushing back against the left-wing cultural svengalis and their Narrative. It’s not huge or sensational (yet), but it is widespread.

Anti-war protestors in the 1960s had a saying that went something like this: “What if there was a war, but nobody showed up?” Well, I’ll tell you what happens when one side doesn’t show up: that side loses.

For generations centrists and everyone right-of-center simply have not shown up for the culture wars. Predictably, the leftisWWIIposterdefendfreedomts have blitzed right through battlefields of opinion and ideas unopposed–like the Red Army rolling through eastern Poland in 1939–so that their monopoly on the flow of information, including creative expression, was ironclad.

It took some irritated computer nerds to show us that the left is far from invincible.

WWIIpostercarpoolingIn fact, #gamergate showed the world that the SJWs, feminists and Marxists (cultural and otherwise) are not only vulnerable, they’ve become arrogant from never being challenged for so long, and prove to be weak, inept cowards when confronted by a smart, determined opposition. They are beatable. Very much so.

But you have to actually show up to the fight if you’re going to beat them.

In greater and greater numbers, the right wing is finally showing up to fight in the war for the mind and soul of our posterity.

WWIIposterlickem

One of the armies joining battle now is the Conservative/Libertarian Fiction Alliance.

Looking for a good book to read, but tired of sucker punches and nihilistic misery when all you want to do is relax? You’re in luck … Behold! A gallery of conservative and libertarian-friendly fiction.

 

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The CLFA has expanded from Facebook into their own website, and are compiling a wish-list library of books written by non-leftists (or at least sans the ubiquitous leftist Narrative rammed down our throat at every turn).

Books need not be political or moral message fiction; we’re mainly looking for good, entertaining stories that happen to embrace things we love, like individualism, self-reliance, the importance of liberty, and so on. Sometimes these books are even written by self-proclaimed leftist authors. But whatever – a good story is a good story!

Hoowah. At least one of my favorite books was written by an author who I later met, and it turned out we were quite at odds, politically. WWIIposterbuybondsBut by whatever arrangement of circumstances, he told a great story.

It’s nice to read a novel with a political slant that cuts against The Narrative. But often, it’s even nicer to read a book that’s apolitical–no message or counter-message; just a good story, told well. But even those are more and more difficult to find, so it pleases me that such books won’t be excluded from the CLFA gallery.

(BTW, have you ever noticed how right-wingers are openwWIIposterbiggunshomefront about their political biases, but left-wingers pretend to be impartial centrists and throw a fit when you call them out on their biases? Hmm…there’s at least one blog post in that curious state of things.)

CLFA’s gallery of fiction is in its infancy right now, but already it is proving  to be as diverse as the right wing writ large.  Authors run the gamut from “social libertarians” and “establishment conservatives” all the way to radical “religious right” rebels like me. You’ll find not only tradpubbed popular authors like Larry Correia and Andrew Klavan, but plenty of indie authors you’ve been missing WWIIpostersavecansout on until now.

The CLFA has also organized its own award. I believe this is the second year of said award. The finalists have been chosen for 2015 and voting begins in June to determine the winner.

WWII was the last time the USA fought a war with the intention of pursuing absolute victory. It wasn’t just the soldiers, sailors and marines committed to the war effort–the wives, children, parents, grandparents and 4Fs also did what they could. They bought War Bonds, collected cans, organized bake sales, wrote letters to GIs overseas, and fed them or danced with them when they came home.WWIIpostermetaldrive

If you are a reader, consider doing your part on the home front of the Culture War. When you’re looking for a good book, go somewhere like the CLFA first. (And buy using their links, to help them offset the cost of their website–and provide them incentive for the time and effort they put into doing this for us.) If you’re going to spend your “voting dollars” on a book anyway, why not vote for books written by authors who are fighting to take our culture back?  When you discover a good read, don’t just finish it and go about your business–write a review and increase the book/author’s chances of being discovered by others who would appreciate it like you did. Then tell another reader about your discovery.

WWIIposterbumperscrapWWIIposterscrapping

 

 

 

 

 

It’s natural to assume that documentary films and nonfiction books would be the most influential weapons in the culture war, but they’re not. Entertainment, in its various forms (fiction, movies, music, etc.) has been an enormous influence on how people think. Consider which political faction has dominated entertainment; then examine the state of our culture today. If that dominance isn’t challenged now, while it’s still possible, you are only going to get more of the same and worse…but to a greater degree.

The soldiers on our side in this war are marching to the sound of the guns. Your support would be dearly appreciated, down in the trenches.

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Military, Socio-Sexual Studies

Warfighters, Patriots, and Masculinity

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Quintus Curtius at ROK asks the question, “Why Does America Lack A ‘Warrior-Patriot’ Ethic?”

He answers this well into the article.

America has spent the past forty years shaming and denigrating that ethic by systematically removing masculine virtue from the public sphere.

Unfortunately, he only answers half of the question.

An observant, intelligent, and honest person won’t deny that true masculinity is villified at every turn in our increasingly toxic culture.  This is pretty well documented in the manosphere. The post handles that aspect well. But what about the patriotic aspect?

Whether inside or outside warrior circles, American patriots today comprise a marginalized counterculture.  Only in America are people who love their country demonized by the establishment, mainstream media, the education cartel, pop culture, and the average Joe.

We’ve learned contempt for the American republic from all the above, beating The Narrative into our heads everywhere we go, all our lives. Finding the information to overturn all this conditioning is still possible, and not yet even all that difficult…but few citizens of this country, including “conservatives” (whatever that means) ever do discover the antidote to the anti-American worldview.

The elites have not only poisoned and confused the warrior-patriot ethic, they’ve fundamentally transformed our armed forces into a hostile environment for warrior-patriots. And their social engineering plus ubiquitous propaganda has just about driven the American warrior-patriot to extinction.

Partially on-topic is this new clip from InfoWars. Alex Jones touches on how feminization is being used to destroy the effectiveness of the Armed Forces. He also touches on drones–to include replacing human ground troops with robots.

Non-Fiction/Documentary, Politics/Current Events

The Whitewashing of Bill Clinton is Complete

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The alternative media first grew some teeth during the Clinton Administration. Nevertheless, cucks and even the “alt right” have been programmed to believe Slick Willie’s only (or worst) crime was his perjury concerning a blowjob he received from an intern in the Oval Office.

Before Hussein occupied the White House, American politics had never seen anyone as corrupt as the Clintons, or any politician who could get away scot-free with so many blatant abuses.

Putting aside, for the moment, the Clinton’s rap sheet from Arkansas, here are just a few items from Blythe’s legacy that have been censored out of recent history:

  • Trading military secrets to Red China in exchange for campaign contributions. This was high treason, period. But once caught, the Democrat and mainstream media (but I repeat myself) spin doctors deflected any scrutiny of the Teflon Traitor by concocting a narrative that the real problem was in rules about campaign donations. In impressive Hegelian fashion, they got “Campaign Finance Reform” codified into something more accurately known as “The Incumbent Protection Bill,” making it harder for grass roots voter movements to compete with the elites like George Soros; David Rockafeller, Warren Buffet, Henry Kissinger, et al.
  • Letting the Red Chinese raid the US Patent Office. Slave labor, suicidal (on the US side) trade policies and selective environmental policing weren’t enough of an advantage for the mass murderers in Beijing. They must also be allowed to steal the inventions and ideas of Americans with no redress of grievances.
  • Using the FBI to spy on, intimidate and silence his political opposition in Congress. This was a precedent, by the way. Think of how the IRS has been a tool Hussein uses to intimidate and silence his enemies in the electorate.
  • The immolation of men, women and children after using platoons of federal troops, helicopters and armored vehicles to lay siege to peaceful civilians. The siege began with a shoot first, knock later, “search” of a home and church based on a dubious warrant after previous attempts to entrap and incriminate the victims had all proven baseless.
  • The lame duck presidential pardon of multiple criminals whom the Clintons owed favors for committing perjury to shield the Clintons from criminal investigations.
  • The theft of furnishings from the White House upon leaving office.

These are just a few examples of the high crimes (though I guess the last one was really just a petty crime) and treason committed by the Teflon Traitor as president.

He also gets (and gladly accepts) credit for the economic recovery which began before the ’92 election, which his policies slowed down. Same thing with the “balanced budgets” and renewal of the recovery orchestrated by the “Contract With America” Congressional majority elected in 1994. He fought against them every step of the way, yet receives the credit for their accomplishments.

And in a coup of unprecedented proportions, Clinton’s allies on both sides of the aisle appointed as an “independent council” (to investigate Whitewater and his other scandals as Governor of Arkansas), leftist idealogue and closet Clintonista Ken Starr, lawyer to the middleman in the treasonous deal with the Red Chinese. Predictably, the “investigation” was just another layer of coverup.

Remember, the Chinese have been preparing for a war with us they believe is inevitable, and during these same years they threatened to nuke our west coast. Thanks to Clinton, that is no longer a laughable threat.

The Monica Lewinski scandal was and is just a smokescreen to hide Willie’s crimes against we the people–they used one of his minor scandals to distract us from all the major scandals. It’s sad how effective this strategy is, even on those who fancy themselves as red pill.

Politics/Current Events

The Trumpening is a Big “Up Yours” to the GOP (Democrat Lite) Establishment

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Captain Capitalism nails it once in a while,  as in paragraphs like these, aimed at the Lesser Evil Party:

You couldn’t protect the constitution if your wife’s loyalty depended upon it.

No matter what you say, no matter what politician you throw forth, you have lost 100% of the GENUINE, REAL republican American constituency, and we are now voting for anybody (and I mean ANYBODY) who isn’t a career politician and actually might make a change.

The key thing to understand (and I know that’s hard for you lazy, fat establishment types, not to mention baby boomers who are stuck in the Nixon era) is that no matter how much you HATE and LOATHE Trump, the American republicans HATE AND LOATHE you even more.  They’re sick of your non-performance, they’re sick of your corruption, and they’re sick of you impotence and incompetence.  They are so sick of you they’d rather vote for what is clearly an opportunist over your “best” candidate you present forward because he is at least “different.”

 

What he (and most Americans) miss is that the pattern of GOP betrayal is not due to well-intentioned buffoonery.  It’s not because “Republican leadership” is incompetent. It’s not because they’re cowards (though they are). It’s not because they’re corrupt in a general sense (though they are). It’s because they are owned/controlled by the same foreign and domestic enemies who own/control the Democrats.

You are under the assumption that we the people are the boss, and our public servants are beholden to us (who pay their exorbitant salaries)  who they allegedly represent.  But they changed sides while you were napping.  Their real job now is to sell us down the river, bleed us dry, all while pretending to be our hapless advocates who are just too consistently incompetent to ever win a significant victory or stop our leftward slide over the cliff.

It is also their job to sabotage and assassinate the character of any Republican who is not compromised like they are. This is why they fight harder against the Tea Party than against the Democrats.  It’s also why some of them go on record admitting they will vote for Hillary if Trump wins the nomination.  (Or, in some cases,  if Cruz wins the nomination. )

Trump may prove to be just as corrupt (in a general sense) as they are. He may institute/accept/perpetuate disastrous, suicidal, anti-American policies just like they do. But the puppeteers can not allow somebody they don’t own/control to attain a position of such importance. Period.

You need to realize the problem is not with Trump, but that it is with you.  YOU are the problem.  YOU are the ones who failed.  You are so corrupt, but more so, inept and cowardly that the real Americans would rather vote for a potty-mouthed, straight shooter, than any of the “Slop v. 3.0” you’re going to serve up this round.

This reminds me of how I once broke up with a girlfriend. She was absolutely convinced that it was because I must have found someone else. My response to her assumption was approximately this: “Don’t flatter yourself. The only woman to blame for me leaving you is you.”

Action, Reviews, Sports

Creed, Rocky, and the Warrior Spirit

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Rocky did to boxing what The Fast and the Furious did to street racing and motorsports, unfortunately.

People who have never boxed, know nothing about boxing, and would probably never voluntarily watch a fight, have all seen at least one of the Rocky movies. And because of that (plus “boxercise” and similar fads) a whole lot of them think they know something about the sport.

But I’m not here to knock the Rocky movies or the mythos they built. How can you not appreciate an underdog who overcomes much adversity; who fights on when there’s no realistic hope of success; who beats astronomical odds to achieve the most preposterous victory, yet never stops being a humble, decent guy even when on top of the world?

The franchise is full of masculine and heroic themes that resonate with red-blooded Americans–especially young men. Certain scenes from the movies are universally remembered; and certain dialog has become household cliches.

Rocky I  is probably the “best” of all the franchise. My personal favorite is Rocky III. And now, even in his advance years, Rocky Balboa is still appealing to our primordial masculine instincts–this time by taking the son of Apollo Creed under his wing. The old imparting wisdom to the young–a Biblical concept that is all but forgotten as every living generation has become increasingly selfish, foolish, and mercurial.

Adonis (“Donny”) Johnson is the byproduct of an extramarital affair Apollo Creed once had. Apollo died before Donny was born. Donny’s mother did about as good a job as the average single mother in the real world does: her son has been in trouble all his life–most likely on a road to drugs, violent crime and prison or premature death.

Settle down, ladies, because it’s a woman who steers him off that path. Apollo’s widow (the one he cheated on) takes Adonis in and becomes his mother, giving him the love he needs to turn him away from self-destruction. Now this is a female role model our culture needs to see more of, instead of the obligatory amazon superninja (or action hero with tits).

The old teaching the young--as it should be.
The old teaching the young–as it should be.

But no matter how saintly a mother figure may be, she can never fulfill the role of a father. A young man craves a positive father figure, and anyone who says different is pushing an agenda. Absent a father and lacking wise council to focus their masculine instincts, some boys will pursue a career in sports; some will join gangs; some will join the military; some will abandon masculinity altogether and become feminists, sodomites, or gender-bent freakshows.

Adonis Creed is consistently stupid through most of the film. He endangers his girlfriend’s career and reputation by attacking some headlining rap star for calling him “Baby Creed.” He loses his classic Mustang on a sucker’s bet that he can’t be hit by a fighter with much more experience than he has. One of the first and worst moments of stupidity is when, after just getting a promotion in a some white collar job presumably with career-to-retirement potential, he flushes it down the toilet (and breaks his adopted mother’s heart, incidentally) to pursue a professional boxing career.

I can relate to that bonehead move. As a young man I turned down all the military specialties that promised an easy life and skills which translate to civilian occupations…and insisted on the infantry.

Both me and Donny’s choices were idiotic from a strictly objective viewpoint. But, silly as it sounds to put it in words, boys and young men (especially those lacking a father figure) feel a strong compulsion to immerse themselves in a masculine milleu and reclaim their lost warrior heritage (if they had one; or to start one if they didn’t).

Some boxers have died as a result of a fight, but it’s pretty rare. According to the characters in the movie, though, it seems to be commonplace. Even a trainer at Apollo’s old gym refuses to let Adonis train there, for some unexplained reason. All the possible reasons are dubious, but the audience is left to assume it’s because the trainer just knows Creed Jr. will be hurt or killed if he laces on the gloves.

While I’m on the subject of silly crap, I might as well address the fight scenes. All cinematic fight scenes are full of overly dramatic choreography, and most of the ones in this movie are no exception. What makes it stand out worse here is that some scenes show an actor throwing fundamentally sound combinations…and then in the very next shot he’s sending Western Union roundhouse Hollywood haymakers, which is the first habit a competent trainer (at the amateur level, no less) will get you to break.

In one shot an actor will slip punches, bob and weave like he’s been schooled in the sweet science. In the next shot he’s just standing there waiting to get clocked by one of those aforementioned haymakers. There would be a lot of deaths in the sport if professional fighters routinely absorbed the kind of punches that get eaten in this movie (probably all the Rocky movies, truth be told). In the scene below, it looks like they just had the actors spar, and the result was so much more believable. The movie would have benefited from more scenes like this (and this is all one shot, BTW).

Also, once Rocky begins to train Donny, the kid quantum-leaps from raw brawler to contender level. Come-on now, Hollywood, give him some experience, first. At least some tune-up fights. Even if you have to reduce it to a montage. The overall film would be no less dramatic, and would be far more credible. You can save screen time by cutting out some of the window dressing–the romantic subplot, for instance. There’s not enough substance there to be meaningful, anyway.

And then there’s old Rocky. He’s even more likeable as a has-been than he was as a Cinderella Story. But while it’s hard not to like him, it’s also hard to respect a guy who is so easily, and frequently, persuaded to do things he is dead-set against. Either he doesn’t believe his own words when he says this or that is a bad idea; or he is too weak-minded to follow his convictions. Either way, this is not the kind of man you want to be.

Like any other flick in the Rocky franchise, Creed is not a great movie for a boxing fan. But it is a memorable (perhaps even inspirational) myth for the Everyman.

Politics/Current Events, Satire, Sneak Peek/Sample Chapters

The Council of Czars

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Troy Abdul Obaid Akbar wanted to be somewhere else.

Why did he…or anyone, for that matter…have to hang around in the White House Situation Room listening to boring reports about some attack on a CIA safe house in North Africa?

He was sick of hearing generals and admirals whine about the ambassador trapped inside, and the two or three fools trying to hold off the valiant army of Arab Spring holy warriors laying siege. They would hopefully hurry up and die soon. Akbar and his staff might as well all go do something fun.

The dumbass ambassador had it coming—he got caught brokering secret arms deals. Akbar himself had instructed the ambassador to broker the deals, but it was still the ambassador’s fault. Or maybe it was the Agency’s fault; or the previous administration’s fault. Whatever—it was somebody else’s fault besides Akbar, anyway.

In a rush of decisive leadership, Akbar snuck out of the Situation Room and stole down the hallway to his own private screening chamber, before one more imperialist warmonger infidel came up to him with offers including elite forces standing by to rescue the besieged embassy staff.

Akbar made it into the screening room, locked the door behind him, turned on the popcorn popper and cued up his favorite drone snuff video.

He was just starting to relax when someone banged on the door.

“Troy? I know you’re in there!”

He shivered at the sound of that voice. His popcorn feast froze in mid-chew.

“Troy Abdul Obaid, open this door at once!”

Akbar silently cursed, holding his breath and remaining very still. Maybe if he didn’t respond or make any other noise, she would just go away.

“Don’t make me call your wife!”

He cringed. Then he heard the jangle of keys outside and knew the jig was up.

The lock clicked; the door swung open; and there stood Vendetta Jones, flanked by two Secret Service bodyguards.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Vendetta demanded. “You’re the President of the United States! You can’t just sneak away like that.”

Akbar took a moment to find his voice. It sucked not having a teleprompter when you were an inspiring orator like him. “C’mon, Vendetta: I’ve been listening to all that ’emergency this’ and ‘urgent that’ crap for hours, now. I’ve got an important trip to Vegas tomorrow. Can’t I just relax for a while?”

Vendetta noticed the drone footage on the screen. “Oh, Lenin’s ghost! This video again? You’ve seen it eight times already.”

Akbar threw his hands up. “But I’m never given the chance to actually enjoy it! Am I?”

A strand of dark hair fell out of place from Vendetta’s pixie hairdo and she blew it out of her face in exasperation. “Look, you’ve got a press conference scheduled in a little while; and the real press conference just before that. I’ve got to get you ready for that after you put in your time in the Situation Room.”

“No,” he said, decisively. “I won’t do it. I’m going to sit in here and watch this video, and finish my popcorn. I’m not going back into that boring room and taking any more calls from generals or admirals with requests to launch rescue missions. In fact, I don’t want to see another uniformed person all day, unless it rains and I need the Marine Corpse to hold my umbrella!”

Vendetta Jones marched over to where Akbar sat on the divan, grabbed him by one of his prominent ears, and twisted.

Akbar yelped and half-chewed popcorn sprayed from his mouth.

“You listen to me, you little worm!” she hissed. “You are not going to embarrass me again!”

He tried to slap her with both hands but his wild swings missed. He tried to scratch her face but she moved her head out of the way. He tried to grab her by the hair and yank it, but it was too short. Then he thought of twisting his own head to bite her on the arm, but she tweaked harder on his ear and brought him to his feet.

“Quit acting like you’re still in Chicago,” she commanded.

On the screen the image went black.

“You made me miss the best part,” Troy Abdul Obaid Akbar complained, as she marched him out of the room by the ear.

***

When Akbar entered the private conference room down the hall from the Oval Office, it was with all the swag and dignity expected of a man in his position. Vendetta Jones followed him inside.

They had kept Chase O’Buffer waiting for a while. As soon as they entered, the CEO of the International Broadcast Service (IBS) shot to his feet and bowed a greeting.

“I’m so pleased you could take the time to meet with me, Mr. President.”

“Yes,” Akbar said, simply, as he took a seat in a throne-like padded chair.

Vendetta sat to Akbar’s right on a smaller chair. O’Buffer sank to his knees in front of Akbar and began removing the Presidential Shoes.

“How is everything?” O’Buffer asked.

“They’d be a lot better if you did your job right,” Akbar said.

“But sir,” O’Buffer protested, “we’re doing everything we can…”

“My approval ratings are a disgrace!” Akbar interrupted. “If it weren’t for illegal aliens, serial voters in swing states, United Nations election supervisors, and the Black Panthers, the outcome of the upcoming election would be in doubt!”

O’Buffer sheepishly peeled off the Presidential Socks. “It’s those damned armchair bloggers, Mr. President. Now they’ve leaked the information about your application as a foreign student, and your Social Security Number belonging to some dead guy in a state you never lived in.”

“Racists!” Akbar declared. “They’re all racists.”

“Of course they are, Mr. President” O’Buffer agreed. As the Presidential Feet were bared, O’Buffer breathed deeply the rich, intoxicating aroma and bolstered his courage. “And we’re doing everything we can to make that known.”

Akbar leveled his index finger at the media magnate and fixed him with a stare of raw, righteous outrage. “I paid millions to seal up my records and you swore right along with the others that you would prevent this kind of snooping. You know—right after my speech about what a transparent administration this would be.”

O’Buffer reverently took the Presidential Toes in both hands and began the foot rub, giving it just how His Leader liked it. “Yes, yes. I remember. How can I make this up to you, Mr. President?”

“Well,” Akbar said, “the fringe lunatics are still whining about my long-form birth certificate.”

O’Buffer grinned with relief, pleased that he could redeem himself in a tangible way. “I have a whole stable of image editing experts. We’ll put something together for you. You can put it right on your website.” He cast a furtive glance up at His Leader’s face.

“What is it?” Akbar snapped.

“Um, well Mr. President, there’s also a buzz about those murders committed with assault weapons given to the Mexican drug cartels. Any reasonable person knows it’s a small price to pay for the greater good…but a few people wonder what decisive action you’re going to take.”

Akbar yawned. “I’m way ahead of you, boy. I’ve already invited the President of Mexico to come lecture Congress about gun violence.”

Vendetta cleared her throat. “I hate to rush this, but we do have a few more meetings before the public press conference.”

O’Buffer sped up the motions of his fingers, now massaging between Akbar’s toes. “Oh, sure. Almost done.”

Vendetta handed him a manila folder with a couple pages inside. “No, you are done. Here’s a list of the questions your reporters are allowed to ask.”

O’Buffer halted the foot rub abruptly to take the folder. He climbed to his feet, morose that his kneading efforts had failed to please His Leader. “You know I’m here for you any time, right?”

Vendetta shooed him out and escorted the next CEO in—this one from United Broadcast Service (UBS). His foot rub was a little more skilled. And he promised to create a website called “Totally Non-Partisan Urban Legend Debunker dot org” to counterattack the forces of hate trying to expose scandalize Akbar’s record and qualifications.

After IBS and UBS came Neutral Broadcast Service (NBS); Associated Broadcast Service (ABS) ; Equality Broadcast Service (EBS); Global Village Broadcast Service (GVBS); Socially Responsible Broadcast Service (SRBS); Common Cause Broadcast Service (CCBS); Lock Step Broadcast Service (LSBS)…no getting around it: there was way too much BS to keep track of in mass media.

At least Jacob Hornswoggler had performed his foot rubbing duties earlier in the week. He was Akbar’s favorite and most trusted, as well as newly appointed Media Czar over all the variations of BS.

Still, Akbar didn’t know how much more of this strenuous brinkmanship he could take. And his voice was hoarse from issuing the news corporations’ marching orders. President of the United States was the most taxing job he’d held in his life.

Well, it was the only job he’d held in his life, but still…

No lesser man could handle all this sub-par foot-rubbing. He needed a break. It had been almost a month since the taxpayers had ponied up the cash for another multi-million dollar vacation, so they owed him. He would rectify that very soon.

His mood darkened when he realized the First Lady would probably want to come along, too, with at least 20 of her personal assistants. He would much rather go with just his own entourage—especially his handsome, buff personal trainer. The guy still hadn’t taught him how to throw a baseball, but excelled in other physical endeavors.

After all the foot-rubbing, it was time for the press conference that took place with cameras rolling. His PR team had his answers cued on the teleprompter so the world would know he was the smartest, most scholarly political thinker in all 57 states. Many questions were about the hurricane heading toward the east coast.

“There’s going to be a lot of wind,” he prophesied, solemnly, “and a lot of water.”

Reporters all over the room felt a tingle up their legs, overwhelmed by their president’s clairvoyance and inspiring leadership. Once the briefing was over most of them swooned in place or ran off to masturbate.

Afterwards, Akbar still wasn’t able to sneak off and enjoy his drone snuff films the way he really wanted to. Oh, those pesky reports kept coming in about those crybabies besieged in North Africa, whining for help, distracting him from last minute plan changes for his important Vegas trip.

But that wasn’t the worst. Vendetta ordered him to her office with a grave tone of voice and ominous expression. That could only mean a severe emergency.

Inside Vendetta’s office were other VIPs who usually only appeared together in public when there was an emergency. Flanking her were Jacob Hornswoggler, Chester Snaykoil, Elsa Von Branefuq, Doctor Seikobabel, Chairman Schmuckafeller and General Blunderbuss. Collectively, this group was unofficially known as the Council of Czars.

If an outside observer were to see this group meet inside, well, technically they’d no longer be an outside observer. But for the sake of argument, if these insiders were to meet outside, the theoretical outside observer might imagine some kind of conspiracy.

(Of course the very idea of conspiracy was so ridiculous that only members of the vast right-wing conspiracy entertained such farfetched notions.)

This was no conspiracy, but merely a clandestine agreement to covertly implement secret plans that would affect those who were outside the inner circle and ignorant of its agenda.

Akbar stood before Vendetta’s desk, hoping she would offer to let him sit. She didn’t.

“There’s another crisis,” she intoned. “I’m afraid they’re getting out of hand.”

He brightened, heart soaring. “Is it finally time to suspend the Constitution altogether?”

“Not yet,” Vendetta Jones said.

Akbar deflated. This day had been a disaster so far, and he was desperate for something to cheer him up.

“We may never have to resort to something so ham-fisted as that,” Chairman Schmuckafeller said.

“As I was saying,” Ms. Jones continued, “we have a real situation here. There’s an epidemic of sorts breaking out, and it requires radical, decisive action.”

“Listen to this,” General Blunderbuss said. “We intercepted it from a private interview by a rogue media outlet.” Blunderbuss tapped his tablet to play the clip.

“If the creator of the universe defines what marriage is,” said the voice on the audio clip, “then who are we, as created beings, to tell him he’s wrong?”

With a grim face, Vendetta said, “I think that speaks for itself. But what you should know is that these words were spoken by a business owner with a restaurant chain.”

The individuals let that sink in. It was bad enough that a religious right fanatic was allowed to run a business. Even worse that the business made a profit (without contributing appropriate amounts to the Democratic Party). Now he had the audacity to flagrantly commit his thought crime hate crime out in the open.

“I’ll make a call to my people in Chicago,” Akbar said, with an eruption of decisive leadership. “We’ll pull his building permits, for starters.”

“Stand down, Mr. President,” Vendetta Jones said. “That might get some of the wingnuts out there whining about the Bill of Rights or some such nonsense.”

“This can’t be a frontal assault,” growled General Blunderbuss. “It calls for a more covert solution.”

“But there’s more,” Hornswoggler said, gravely. “As Ms. Jones said, it’s an epidemic. A star on a nationally televised TV show…nationally televised…admitted off-camera that he believes marriage is strictly one man and one woman.”

A collective gasp sounded in the room, but Hornswoggler went on. “And thanks only to the proactive investigative work by the IRS to root out potential enemies of the State, we found out the CEO of a prominent web browser provider once contributed $1,000 to a traditional marriage initiative.”

Those in the room trembled with righteous rage. This was the worst atrocity since Auschwitz.

Finally, Vendetta Jones spoke up to provide perspective. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is but one front in a growing war. We’ve got non-Muslims clinging to their guns and religion. We’ve got crackpots in flyover country trying to make it illegal to be an illegal alien. We’ve got greedy ranchers running their cattle roughshod over land we’re trying to give to China for a solar farm…er, I mean the habitat of an endangered desert turtle…and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Desperate times call for desperate measures. General Blunderbuss?”

“Let me put this in civilian terms,” the general said, the smoke from his fat cigar wafting up past his eye patch. “What we need is an all-star team to take the fight to the enemy. Hand-picked agents with very specialized and complimentary skill sets. This is a Tier One program we’re calling…”

General Blunderbuss paused for dramatic effect. Or maybe he sucked cigar smoke down the wrong pipe and was silently choking. In any case, the suspense was dramatic.

“…Operation ‘For the Greater Good’.”

This was Chapter 4 from The Greater Good.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Non-Fiction/Documentary, Politics/Current Events

The Race Card Has Been a Single-Edged Sword…

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…Up until now. But sooner or later, SJWs will start feeling the bite of the other edge.

It amazes me how some people don’t choke on their own hypocrisy. Most white people alive today have spent all their lives just rolling with the double standards but not sinking down to the level of their antagonists. Whites are discriminated against routinely, while simultaneously being blamed for discrimination.

There is a rapidly growing pool of uppity gringo honkies who won’t be content to just level the playing field, but who would like very much to give every single dark-skinned person payback for decades of institutionalized racism against whites.

It’s ugly; it’s tragic; it was completely unnecessary…but the SJWs (both in and outside of institutions) have made it inevitable: they are going to find out what real racism looks like.

(When they’re NOT looking in the mirror, that is.)

Politics/Current Events

Trump on Foreign Policy

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…And other matters.

First off, respect to The Donald just for having the stones to appear on InfoWars. A lot of sheeple will dismiss him as unfit for public office for that alone.

I’m thankful to Alex Jones for making this available, as it addresses a couple of my concerns about Trump. The Donald intends to dismantle Obamacare post haste, according to his own words. That’s nearly the opposite of what I was led to believe.

He also explains his previous relationship with the Clintons. As someone with tunnel-vision tendencies myself, it does make some sense: he was doing the best he could for his business at that time, and wasn’t paying much attention to politics (this was confirmed by Roger Stone). That would partly explain why Trump’s clothing line (for instance) used offshore labor, too.

I’ll make it personal. When I shop for something, I try to find American-made items, and am willing to pay more if necessary. Such products are nearly impossible to find anymore, so I’ll buy stuff made in Taiwan, Japan, Germany, etc., to avoid sending my money to Red China or Vietnam. But even that’s proving to be difficult. So when there is no other choice, I buy Red Chinese slave labor goods.

I get pissed at American companies that export their production overseas, but really, they’re making the same choice as businesses that I’m making as a consumer. It’s not realistic for me to expect them to go bankrupt when taxes, regulations, union wages and our suicidal trade policies have made it impossible to compete employing American labor.

Trump wants to quit weakening US defense, and quit provoking Russia.
Trump wants to quit weakening US defense, and quit provoking Russia.

I was afraid Trump was dodging Jones’ question about whether he would pull a Ross Perot; but he finally did answer it toward the end.

I am a little less suspicious of The Donald now. There are still red flags here and there, like his desire for more domestic surveillance. Hey, if it targets our enemies rather than law-abiding citizens, great. But I haven’t heard him articulate it that way yet.

If Trump is for real, then the traitor elite hasn’t even begun to go after him yet. They have been engineering the demise of the American republic for too long, and are on the verge of striking the death blow. The public at large is too ignorant and apathetic to stop them. In fact, at least half the population living in the USA have been dancing to whatever tune the puppet masters fiddle. If Donald Trump follows through on even a fraction of his promises, it is going to set their agenda back significantly, if not wreck crucial aspects of it.

They can’t let that happen.

If The Donald is for real, he desperately needs prayers of protection from those who serve the highest authority in the universe.

Military, Politics/Current Events, SHTF, TEOTWAWKI

All This and Civil War Too (Part Two)

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Here’s the continuation of our discussion of Homeland: Falling Down, and the trends which inspired it.

 

HENRY BROWN: So, whether faced with our own military or with modern-day Hessians under globalist command (assuming the 3 percenters have prepped adequately enough to avoid being simply starved to death) with no support from a foreign ally and probably without popular support, how viable do you consider a guerilla resistance effort to be?

R.A. MATHIS: You mention in False Flag that no insurgency has ever won without foreign intervention and popular support, which I thought was a very good point. The two things America has to counter that are the 2nd Amendment and the 2008 election of the best gun salesman the country has ever seen. We have over 300 million citizens and about as many firearms in this country. We are also buying up ammo as fast as it can be produced (at least what is left over after DHS gets their share). Combine that with hundreds of thousands of highly trained combat veterans scattered to every part of the country, and the odds don’t look so long.

(HENRY BROWN: What a coincidence that veterans, patriots and gun owners top the list of potential “domestic terrorists” the government is most worried about, eh?)

R.A. MATHIS: This alludes to the working title of book three, “Every Blade of Grass.”

HENRY BROWN: How appropriate–that very quote (whoever said it) was just going through my mind as your words sunk in.

R.A. MATHIS: I think the success of a resistance would vary by region. Rural areas would be virtual no-go zones for regime forces. Some urban areas may just welcome them like the Vichy French.
It seems to me that the biggest problem for the resistance would be the lack of electricity. If the regime restored power to each region as it was brought into compliance, it could make for effective deadly propaganda against the resistance. It’s the old “freedom vs security” dilemma on steroids. I’m not sure which way the populace would go in that case, especially in winter.

HENRY BROWN: Very good point. Most people  take electricity for granted. Few of us have any concept of what a struggle life will be without it. And that’s even without somebody intentionally trying to kill you.

R.A. MATHIS: How would you go about establishing a resistance? Could it succeed?

HENRY BROWN: That endeavor would be a kettle of quandries stuffed full of dillemmas and wrapped in Catch-22s. What I would encourage is a cellular structure perhaps similar to the French Underground or other successful resistance movements. But if it is successful, at some point it would have to take the offensive. And that would require somewhat centralized leadership–anathema to the principles hopefully held by those who constitute such a movement. That would require very rare leadership–willing to step down and surrender the reins of power when victory was secured–as George Washington did.

Could it succeed? Yes. But it would be an uphill struggle from start to finish, with no room for mistakes at the strategic level. At a tactical level I like its chances a little better, partly because of the points you made.

In Falling Down, Cole’s father, Hank, is an honest cop. In my experience that’s a rare, dying breed. But now and then I come across memes regarding certain sheriffs who have gone on record stating they will not comply with unconstitutional orders from the Feds, including civilian disarmament. As with the military, I’m skeptical that many who wear the badge will honor their oaths at crunch time. How do you see it?

R.A. MATHIS: Again, I think this may be regional. I believe small town sheriffs would be more likely to resist the regime as they personally know most of the people they would be asked to arrest, kill, etc. The impersonal nature of bigger cities allows collaborators to see numbers rather than real people. Like Stalin said, “The death of one man is a tragedy…”
Of course, there would be exceptions on both sides of the spectrum. And we must always remember that power not only corrupts, it draws the corrupt.

That last sentence ran through my mind as I read the McMillan scenes in False Flag. You mention window tint citations a few times in regard to this trooper. Was this character and situation inspired by actual events?

HENRY BROWN: Actually, yes. I made friends with a state trooper a few years back. Unlikely, but true. Stories he shared fit with things I’ve heard from other cops and ex-cops. Basically, somebody with a badge can make your life hell now for any reason at all. Window tinting was one of the specific excuses he used to harrass people and help eat out our substance. And that BS fits thematically so well, because the Surveillance State just HATES it when something impedes their invasion of our privacy.

In Homeland: Falling Down, Cole strikes me as a character who’s just an honest soldier who wants to do his duty and avoids politics like the Plague. First of all, is this an accurate assessment?

R.A. MATHIS: Yes. Like most people, he just wants to be left alone. But also like most people, politics affects him in huge ways, whether he likes it or not.

HENRY BROWN: Like the saying goes: You may not be interested in politics, but politics sure has a keen interest in you.

R.A. MATHIS: I found your character Adiur rather fascinating. His connection to Greeley, the secret government training program, the other members of his unit with equally unusual qualities and names. Can you go into detail about this character and your inspiration for him?

HENRY BROWN: This goes back to my research on the occult and mind control, again. There are documented cases of this kind of thing, including superhuman strength, drastic voice changes, change in spoken language, and being oblivious to pain. There’s other bizarre stuff like “remote viewing” and “automatic writing,” too, but I don’t know much about those phenomena yet. Anyway, molestation as a child is pretty common in these “sleeper agents” and sex acts are incorporated into the occultic rituals for adults, too. This is where Greely comes in.

It’s all pretty horrific stuff, which is why I left it behind closed doors, and only implied “vanilla” sex, at that.

Is Cole based to any degree on some particular individual?

R.A. MATHIS: He is the personification of the dilemma faced by our troops in such a time. Hank is the same, but for civilian authorities.

I’ll ask you the same thing about Greeley and Adiur.

HENRY BROWN: Greely and Handel are amalgam characters, based on different people I’ve known and met. I’ve never been involved in drugs or the occult, but I’ve rubbed elbows with others who were. Niether of these characters are what they seem to be on the surface. Greely appears to be the sultry cougar-type “strong independent woman.” She’s the object-of-every-schoolboy’s fantasy. But deep inside she’s a sick tool who is about as independent as a marionette.

Handel’s facade is perhaps just Joe Blow Normal Dude. He’s handsome, clean, in his prime, average intelligence, a “good person” on paper…but there’s more to him than superficial observation would ever indicate. He’s been horribly abused since childhood and doesn’t even know it. He’s fractured. At the risk of spoilers, he has been conditioned to surrender his will and his body over to be used as a vehicle by Adiur–a malicious personality given access to Handel when his psyche was fractured.

I don’t know for sure that anyone I’ve ever met was a bona fide MPD. But I’ve known some guys who were blank slates like Handel, susceptible to that sort of conditioning in my opinion. Such a person has a hole in their soul, and nature abhors a vacuum.

When you first introduced Eduardo in Falling Down, I couldn’t help thinking of Geraldo Rivera. But as the story progressed, I shelved the connection. You really drew a 3-dimensional character in him. He’s a disingenuous self-promoting media whore on the one hand, but he proves to have streaks of decency as well. Congrats on that, BTW. What were your thoughts when you conceived the character, and did he wind up like you first envisioned him?

R.A. MATHIS: He actually was inspired partly by Rivera, especially after I saw how Geraldo behaved on Celebrity Apprentice (not a good look for him). He represents exactly what you stated: the self-serving, headline-grabbing media. He doesn’t care if his reporting is biased or disingenuous. The next step in his career is all that matter to him. He’s not an ideologue, but he will toe the line and support ‘the narrative’ his superiors provide to get ahead. He is a tool (in more ways than one).
It’s interesting that you ask if he is winding up as I first imagined him. I like the question because it implies Eduardo has a life of his own and makes his own choices. As a writer, that’s when I know I’’m onto something…. When I stop directing the characters and let them do their thing, writing down what I observe. That’s when it’s most fun. I don’t know what Eduardo will do or how he will turn out. How will he react when he discovers the true nature of the regime? I don’t know. He is a bit of a wild card.

HENRY BROWN:  Definitely onto something. He lives, breathes, sweats and stinks. Seriously: kudos. Very well-drawn character.

Will the presidential candidate from the prologue appear again in subsequent books?

R.A. MATHIS: The candidate, Martha Jefferson, will have a big roll down the road. And that road is gonna be a rough one.
The assassin’s “little green book” will be a factor going forward.

HENRY BROWN: How many books do you think the Homeland series will last?

Right now I.m thinking at least three, maybe four. It really depends on where the characters take the story…and sales (You’re laughing–I’m not laughing).

HENRY BROWN: Not laughing, really. Just smiling. But think of it as a smile of solidarity.

Is there anything you’d like to share about Executive Order?

R.A. MATHIS: Yes. President Tophet is just getting started. If you thought things are bad now, just wait.

Can you give a hint as to what is in store for the next Retreads book?

HENRY BROWN: I haven’t woven it all together completely yet in the cobweb of my mind, but there’s got to be a showdown between Adiur and Tommy Scarred Wolf. Also between McCallum and either Rennenkampf or Cannonball. The latter would be more dramatic. An EMP. Grid down. Starvation. Dissident extraction. Internment camps. The clergy response team. Jihadi terror cells completely unleashed. Texas secedes. Rocco and his crew take in some refugees. Clashes with occupation forces. And, oh yeah: World War Three. That’s a few off the top of my head.

Changing gears a bit, where did the idea for Ghosts of Babylon come from?

R.A. MATHIS: A few months before deploying to Iraq, I found a picture of my grandfather taken in Germany during WW2. With the photo was a note written on the tissue paper issued to GIs to write home with in those days. He had just learned of Germany’’s surrender and was looking forward to coming home and not sleeping in a foxhole anymore.

I wished I had more. More of his experiences. More of his thoughts and feelings. More of him.
So I kept a journal during my Iraq deployment so my family would have more than a picture and a note decades from then. When I finally got back home, I started writing, using the journal as the basis for a memoir. It was partly self-therapy and partly out of a desire to pass my experiences down to my children while they were still fresh on my mind.
It eventually morphed into a novel. I still don’t know why. Maybe there were things I needed to say that could only be said through fiction. In any case, it eventually turned into Ghosts of Babylon.

We all begin writing for different reasons. I once read that no one writes because they are happy. What inspired you to start writing?

HENRY BROWN: First of all, that is a cool story unto itself. Thanks for sharing that.

As for me and writing, I’ve always had an active imagination, for one. Also, from a very young age, no matter how much I liked a story (either on film or on paper) I saw room for improvement. “It would have been even better if this was changed, that was tweaked, if so-and-so would have said/done such and such…” At least that motivated me in my first creative efforts.

I kind of did that with real stuff throughout my life, too. “Hey, what just happened would make an intense scene in such-and-such type of story.” Or, “Oh wow–check that out! I’d love to be able to capture what I’m seeing/feeling right now and reproduce it.”

There have been times when I really should have been completely focused on reality and my part of whatever task was at hand, but part of my mind was already busy plagiarizing the situation. Somebody once called me “a cultural scavenger.”  I still have mixed emotions about that remark. Maybe he meant it as a compliment, but it still seems a bit insulting. Nevertheless, there must be some truth to it, since I’m constantly compelled to weave fragments of life experiences together into stories (which are much more exciting than real life).

In fact, that’s still at work today, in yarns like False Flag. All these trends are converging toward a perfect storm that promises a bleak future and an end to life as we know it…so why not insert some guys like the Retreads, who won’t take it lying down, no matter the odds. Islands of integrity in a world of treachery. They’ve got the skills and wits to bring smoke on some scumbags in the process. And most important, they’re compelled to try to make a difference.

You strike me as a voracious reader. I sure used to be. When I was on active duty, when possible, I always had a paperback stashed in my cargo pocket or rucksack, for the inevitable “wait” phase of the old hurry-up-and-wait S.O.P. Did you keep a book stashed in your tank?

R.A. MATHIS: I read a little of everything. I especially enjoy sci-fi, fantasy, history, philosophy, and even a little horror. Unfortunately, working and writing leave far less time for reading than I would like. I read as much as I can, but am frustratingly slow at it. I often supplement reading with audio books and YouTube.
I usually had a book handy in the Army, but never got to read it on the tank as I was the platoon leader and barely found time to eat and sleep during operations. But I read constantly during after-operation downtime. Like you, there were also the times waiting on the tarmac for a flight, leaning on my rucksack, stealing a few pages here and there.

HENRY BROWN: Oh yeah, I got a lot of reading done sitting around Green Ramp in my lower enlisted days.

R.A. MATHIS: What do you enjoy reading most?

HENRY BROWN: Excepting horror and philosophy, the same ones you listed, plus classic pulp; westerns; war (fiction and non); military history; and various & sundry fare from the blogosphere in the “neomasculine” genre.

Have you/do you read SHTF or TEOTWAWKI fiction from other authors? If so, which do you recommend? (Some authors I recently discovered, who have written some enjoyable books, are “Joe Nobody” and Mark Goodwin. I’m curious about “A. American” and some others, but haven’t taken a chance on them yet.)

R.A. MATHIS: Oddly enough, I haven’t read many other SHTF works other than False Flag (which I thoroughly enjoyed) and a bit of James Wesley Rawles first book, Patriots. I want to keep Homeland original as possible, so I’m avoiding similar works right now. I do plan to read them once I’m a little further into the Homeland series.

HENRY BROWN: Interesting. It seems that it’s paying off–Falling Down did not seem derivative or imitative of any other SHTF works I’ve read. And thanks for that!
I read Patriots as well, and have considered trying more of Rawles’ fiction…but haven’t, yet.

R.A. MATHIS: Which authors do you recommend I start with?

HENRY BROWN: Me, of course. But seriously, you might want to try “Joe Nobody“–he blends prepping info into his narratives fairly well. The protagonist in the ones I read was easy to root for. The action was believable. Overall a good read.

R.A. MATHIS: Thank you again for having me, Hank. Your questions were enjoyable and thought provoking. I truly enjoyed them.

HENRY BROWN: Hey, same here. We should do this again some time.