Interview With Peter Nealen

I had originally intended to share this interview on SOFREP's Hot Extract blog. But recently Hot Extract has been downsized and will now be exclusively for videogame reviews. The 2FB still covers books and movies, though, and so I offer this interview with former Recon Marine Peter Nealen, who has authored two paramilitary adventure novels, Task Force Desperate and Hunting In the Shadows, both of which I've reviewed right here. So let's get to it.

HANK: Both your novels, particularly HITS, occur with what seems like a very complex political backdrop. Tell a little about that. Obviously you learned a lot from being in Iraq, but then extrapolated from there into your near-future scenario.

PETE: The series as a whole actually got its start when I wrote down a backstory for a science fiction story (which I might get back to one of these years) in between missions in Iraq in ’07.  The background was based on a growing sense that all of the optimism about the 21^st Century back in the late ‘90s, before 9/11, was tragically wrong, and the 21^st is going to be far, far worse than the bloodletting of the 20^th.  A good chunk of the chaos revolved around a global war with Islamism.

HANK: Wouldn't have guessed that. What was going to be science fiction about the story as originally conceived?

PETE: The original story I was working on was completely separate.  The roots of the American Praetorians series began as a way to map how we got from here to the future interstellar war I was gearing up to write about.  Maybe I'll get back to that someday.
 

Over time, I started thinking that I could tell stories set in that background.  My first attempt at getting into it was going to be an Anabasis-style tale about a Marine Special Operations Team trying to escape from Afghanistan with some Polish GROM guys when everything goes completely to hell.  It was ambitious as hell, and never really went anywhere.

After that, I started on a short about first Marines, then PMC guys defending the US Embassy in Baghdad as Iraq falls apart.  We might see elements of this later…

Finally, in 2011, I got the idea to start sort of a “history repeating itself” story, starting with Bin Laden being convinced the US was a paper tiger after we pulled out of Somalia following the Battle of the Black Sea in October of ’93.  So I went back to East Africa to kick things off.  I did as much research as I could, including picking the brain of an officer I was working with at the time, who had done six months at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti.  How accurate some of the details are, I still don’t know for absolute certain, because getting solid information out of Somalia these days is difficult.  Even those who have worked in intel there warn that a lot of what comes out of all sides is nothing but lies and propaganda.

When it came to Hunting in the Shadows, I drew on a lot of my own experience from being in Iraq, but since it takes place in areas I never got to, I still had to do a lot of research.  I never got to work with the Kurds, so I had to read up on the relationships between the Kurds and their neighbors.  I had to read up on Iranian operations, as well as drawing on some of the whispered information about things like EFPs (Explosively Formed Penetrators) coming from Iran for IEDs while I was there.  I’ve also been keeping some tabs on the place since I started writing for SOFREP, so I’ve been watching its disintegration into sectarian and tribal vendettas for a while now.

The Syrian angle actually came to me partway through writing Hunting.  What’s going on there is largely a contest between Salafi Sunnis and militant Shia, largely centered around AQI on the one side and Iran on the other.  While a great deal of the scenarios in my books are in fact “What if?” scenarios (TFD was “What if the Muslim Brotherhood really solidified their hold on Egypt, and started directly supporting Islamist groups on the Horn in order to seize the strategic position of the Horn of Africa?”), they are based on immediate happenings.  There has already been spillover from the Syrian Civil War into Iraq.  So I posited, “What if Assad fell, and the Salafis took over Syria?  What would Iran do?  What would a weakened, divided Iraqi government do?”  Then I threw my hardass PMC shooters into the mix and let them go at it.

HANK: It makes for a potent mixture, I'd say. While I'm not as up-to-date on the political minutia over there as you veterans of the occupation, it all rang true to me. How about your characters--based on real dudes? Amalgams?

PETE: Some are based on real guys.  Some are amalgams.  Most I won’t name; they’ll probably recognize themselves if they read the book, and that’s enough.  “Larry” is actually somewhat based on one of my favorite authors, Larry Correia.  During an early draft of TFD, I had a character show up who at least physically resembled Larry and shared his love of STI 2011 pistols, so I contacted him and asked him if it was all right with him.  He gave me his thumbs-up, and so now there is “Hardass, former SOF, Contractor Larry.”

HANK: Dontcha' love how some characters just show up? "Hey, where did you come from? Who's writing this thing, anyway?" You met Larry Correia in person, didn't you?

 PETE: Yes, briefly.  He was signing books at the STI booth at SHOT Show in 2011, and I happened to be there as a rep for Force Recon Company, I MEF.  I got him to sign Monster Hunter International and Monster Hunter Vendetta for my wife.  Great guy.

HANK:  I like that. And it just so happens I've recently finished his Monster Hunter International on Audible Audio. It was a fun read and got me to chuckle quite a few times. Sounds like there's at least a physical resemblance between him and his protagonist. And I loved that he was a gun nut. Where else do you find a firearms enthusiast character who's not evil and stupid?

As a writer, I've filed away little experiences from here and there, and drawn from them later on. Some of my scenes, or portions of scenes, were tweaked, adapted or just lifted from stuff I saw happen. I think all writers must do that. So can you point to some specific scenes, sequences or snippets in your two books that came about this way?

PETE: I can’t really point to any specific scene that was drawn directly from my experiences.  A lot of details, yes.  As I try to be quick to point out, the adventures of the Praetorian shooters are way, way more exciting than anything I did overseas.  Though there is an interrogation by one of the Iraqi militiamen in Hunting in the Shadows which was pretty well lifted from a similar interrogation by one of our terps in Iraq.  Some of those guys didn’t mess around.

HANK: I guess that's fairly universal. I know my life has been pretty dull compared to the lives of my characters.

I love that your main character uses an M1A, and from a previous exchange I understand you yourself have one. So talk about why you like this MBR and how you came to like it.

PETE: I’d read up on the SOCOM 16 for a while before I decided to get one, and immediately found I liked it.  I like the action, I like the fact that while it might be heavier than an M4, it packs way more of a wallop than any 5.56 rifle, in a package only slightly larger.  In fact, I’ve seen a few raised eyebrows at the use of full powered battle rifles in CQB in my books, but I have to point out that the SOCOM 16, as well as most of the other 7.62 NATO carbines I describe, are no larger than most M4s.

I also decided on 7.62x51 as the go-to rifle cartridge after seeing firsthand the lack of effectiveness of 5.56x45, as well as many conversations in Humvees and hide sites about what we’d do if we had control over weapon choices.

HANK: Even with the wooden stock, I've always thought the M14 was a better MBR. It's comparable in weight to the M-1 Garand (which its design is partly borrowed from). Are we so much wimpier now than the grunts in WWII and Korea? 

Ahem. 

So many of us are writing about good-guy PMCs these days. Have you had any experience with actual mercs or is Praetorian Security entirely from your imagination?

PETE: I’ve had some small experience with PMCs, and know a lot of good Recon Marines who went on to contracting after getting out.  I’ve found that for the most part the media stereotypes are mistaken; most of these guys aren’t really any different from the guys who are in.  They might have some more leeway in certain things, depending on the company, and might get paid more, but they’ve got a lot less support if something goes wrong.  Most of the ones I know are pretty professional.

That said, Praetorian is in many ways a product of my imagination, and, again, many hours of BSing in the desert about, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if…”  I originally turned to the idea of a PMC instead of actual military because of the increasing restrictions being placed on deployed troops in combat zones.  I wanted these guys to have some more leeway and self-determination.  I figured I could get that with mercs.  And Praetorian is closer to an actual mercenary company than what are today called PMCs.  These guys operate by the principle of, “Whatever gets the mission done,” and don’t give much thought to the kind of legalities that would get someone operating like them shut down pretty fast in today’s environment.  It helps that the future I’ve extrapolated is seeing a breakdown in the (in my opinion, artificial) niceties of international and economic order.  In many places you can already see that breakdown starting today, if you look past the miasma of distraction on TV.

HANK: I knew a guy who'd done merc work, but this was before OIF and the explosion of contract opportunities. My character Sam DeChalk in Hell and Gone is partly based on him. 

While it's impossible to find a real life military or paramilitary unit without flaws, it's nice being a writer because we can make them as altruistic and ethical as we want. Whatever flaws they exhibit have to be approved by us and ultimately we control how much the bad apples and jerkoffs get away with.

What's next up for you?

PETE: While I’ve started some work on the next volume in the American Praetorians series, “Alone and Unafraid,” for the moment I’m kind of taking a break from the series, letting my mind rest a little.  I’m working on a presently unnamed novel (much shorter than either TFD or HITS), in the horror/adventure genre.  I’m serializing it on www.wethearmed.com right now, and hope to finish it up in the next month or two, after which I’ll hit Alone and Unafraid hard and fast.

I’ve also got a nonfiction book in the works, though it is something of a long-term project.  Following an article on SOFREP, “The Cost of Limited War,” I decided to tackle “History, Moral Philosophy, and War.”  It’s a huge project, and is probably going to take several years to complete.

HANK: Thanks, Pete, for taking the time to converse.

Folks, it's gonna be hard to find novels in which the author puts such emphasis on realism and still winds up with an entertaining read, outside of Pete's books. And these are books for thinking men, not the lowest-common-denominator drivel writers in the genre are so often accused of. If you want to feel like you're there in the sandbox with bullets coming uprange, I highly recommend them.

As alluded to above, I will no longer be writing for Hot Extract. I was already reducing my cyber footprint, and the news about HE was an omen, divine confirmation, or however you choose to look at such things. For the immediate future I'll keep blogging right here, and posting Amazon reviews now and then. I may check Facebook every once in a while, or I may stop using it altogether--not sure. While I appreciate all the authors asking for reviews (in a way I guess it validates the existence of this blog?), I simply can't commit to much anymore. The list is pretty bleeding long already. If I can't get to your book, it's not necessarily because I think I won't like it, and certainly nothing personal against the author. 

Okay, bye.

Politically Incorrect Sci-Fi?

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

Interview with Reflexive Fire Author Jack Murphy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JACK MURPHY: In no particular order:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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