Numbah-Juan Best Sellah!

Yes, that's right: my dystopian thriller, False Flag (third in the Retreads series) thrust into Amazon's Top 100 in the paid Kindle Store. Before I went to bed Saturday night it had reached #69 over all.

Even cooler, it reached #1 bestseller in three categories that I know of: Men's Adventure; thrillers>political; and thrillers>conspiracies. Having learned my lesson from last year when Hell and Gone became a bestseller but I didn't document it very well (or use best-selling status as a selling point), this time I've gone crazy screen-shotting everything. I'm now like that annoying uncle at your family reunion with a stack of photos from his glory days on the high school track team, ambushing relatives who he can force to relive his 15 minutes of fame with.

What's that? You have no such uncle? Well, you've got the next best thing now, buddy.

I'm expecting sales to fall off today, so I don't know if False Flag can improve from #2 in Dystopian (right between A Handmaid's Tale and Starship Troopers), Action-Adventure, and Post-Apocalyptic. In that last genre, something must have been going on because the top eight bestsellers were shuffling around quite a bit. Mine may have actually hit #1 for a hot second--if so, I didn't catch it.

So, I'm like a kid in a candy store (or an annoying uncle with a photo album). But YOU need to jump on this bandwagon and make me a little richer...er, I mean do your part to help spread love, enlightenment, Christmas cheer, or something.

All these images are from Amazon, but it's on sale everywhere where E-Books are sold...FOR LIMITED TIME ONLY! I won't post links because it's not hard to find...MUAHAHAHAHAHA...!

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.

It's a Wrap!

WARNING: By viewing this post, you agree to hold blameless the Two-Fisted Blogger for any increased levels of testosterone, additional chest hair growth and irresistablility to shapely nubile fly girls.

Yes, unfortunately, the Men's Adventure Blog Tour has come to an end. Now what're we gonna do? Well, for starters, read the rest of this post!

In the days before social networks, a lot of us were routinely spammed by friends and relatives with email jokes, anecdotes, questionaires and smarmy stories. One of the best ones I ever received was called "The Writing Assignment." Because it meshes so nicely with some of my guest blogs during the tour (and because it's so doggone hysterical) I tracked it down and pasted it below:

PROFESSOR MILLER: Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to reread what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached. Ready? Begin.

REBECCA: At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The camomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked camomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So camomile was out of the question. 

GARY: Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.

REBECCA: He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth — when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.

 GARY: Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through Congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion which vaporized Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow 'em out of the sky!" 

REBECCA: This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic, semi-literate adolescent. 

 GARY: Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. 

REBECCA: You total prick! 

GARY: Stupid bitch!

Hey, don't blame me for what Gary and Melvin say...even if it turns out they are fans of the Two-Fisted Blog.

Well, I hope all who followed the first ever Men's Adventure Blog Tour enjoyed it. Thanks to all who participated, and that includes my fellow authors/bloggers James Reasoner; Wayne Dundee; Nate Granzow; Peter Nealen; Paul Bishop; Jack Badelaire; Dan Tharp; R.A. Mathis; Sean McLachlan; Winston Crutchfield; Jack Murphy; Mel Odom; and Jack Silkstone.

Some of you have also given Tier Zero reviews on Amazon, and I'm especially grateful for that. (John Scott and Jim Morris are not bloggers, but I don't want to leave you out--boocoup thanks for taking the time to read and post reviews!) Same goes for those who plugged the novel on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere: thanks very, very much. And thanks to all who clicked "like" on the Amazon page.

So here comes February and it's back to blogging for me. I believe there are some major changes coming in 2013 and those might include the Two-Fisted Blog. I have some ideas I want to implement--I just need a little help with them. The changes will be obvious if/when they occur.

Until next time, folks. 

Men's Adventure Online Event of the Century!

Say hello to my little friends...

BAM!

To celebrate the launch of my new novel, Tier Zero, the Men's Adventure Blog Tour starts now!


Remember the unapologetic literary mayhem from the glory days of men's adventure paperbacks in the 1980s? Well, those days are back, only better, and we're going to celebrate that for the next two weeks. You are invited to the online traveling party.


We're gonna tour the World Wide Web, stopping at the very coolest blogs for guys who like books for guys. Through these blog stops, you're probably gonna discover some great reads by authors you haven't yet been introduced to. As a bonus, while surfing the blogs you just might find the lowdown on that movie you were wondering about, videogames, guns, military gear or other cool guy stuff. You never know with a motley assortment of miscreants like the bloggers in my network.


But back to the reason for this epic explosion of virtual testosterone:

Tier Zero is a present-day throwback to all that was good about the men's fiction of yesteryear, and a sequel to the military thriller Hell and Gone which Jack Silkstone (PRIMAL) calls "a man's book, through and through." In this guns-blazing sequel, Tommy Scarred Wolf leads the survivors from Hell and Gone on a rescue mission that pits them against human traffickers, pirates, a typhoon...and that's just for starters.



Each stop of the blog tour takes the participants to the online stomping ground of a fellow blogger who welcomes men's fiction/action-adventure/dude lit/whatever ya wanna call it. The tour runs from January14-30.

THE TOUR SCHEDULE

January 14: The Two-Fisted Blog (You are here!)

January 15: American Praetorians

January 16: Rough Edges

January 17: Reflexive Fire


January 18: Bish's Beat

January 19: R.A. Mathis

January 20: Post Modern Pulps


January 21: From Dundee's Desk

January 22: PRIMAL

January 23: Critical Press Media

January 24: Adventures in Writing

January 25: Civil War Horror


January 27: Sharp End of the Spear

January 28: Hot Extract

January 29: Nate Granzow


January 30: Wrap-up right back here on the Two-Fisted Blog!


I'll see you on the next tour stop!

Military Fiction Done Right--Hoowah!

As we grow closer to the release date of my latest men's adventure novel, Tier Zero, and I scramble around getting the coolest blog tour ever ready to go, I thought I'd take a look back over the bloody battlefield of my burgeoning fiction career to the opening shot, so to speak: my debut novel, Hell and Gone.

Above is the paperback's cover image. All but one of the surviving protagonists from that bloody shoot-'em-up are back for more madcap mayhem in Tier Zero.

Here's a bit of trivia for you: The original title was The Has-Beens. I liked it. Nobody else did. I changed it to The Samson Doctrine. People liked that, but it sounded too techno-thriller for me. As the original publication date loomed closer, I argued myself in circles about those two titles. Then I pondered what else I could call it.

It was an old-school commando tale. I figured a title that sounded old-fashioned would clue potential readers in on what sort of novel this was. I wrote about a dozen different blurbs for it, hoping a title would come to me before the deadline for publishing. While working on another blurb, I was summarizing what's at stake. Rocco and the gang had to steal a suitcase nuke away from Khaled Ali and his martyrs-in-training before they used it to blow Tel Aviv to...

(Here's where I thought: "Eureka! Herein lies the inspiration for a title!")

...Blow it to...

Smithereens. Nope. Although it would work well as a title of a comedy, or Clancyesque thriller spoof.

Kingdom Come. Hmm. I was getting warmer, but was sure that title must have been used a thousand times already.

And then it came to me. It was different. It was old-fashioned. And it sounded like something protagonist Rocco Cavarra would say. Bingo. I had a title, literally just a couple days before it was printed. (Yes, the print version came out first--another mistake I've learned from. Of course, I knew nothing about e-books at the time, so cut me some slack already. Okay?)


Anyhoo, there is a brand new Amazon review of H&G, and some others I have not yet shared on the blog. So let me correct that, now:

Military fiction done right., January 8, 2013

By 

Winston Crutchfield "MindSpike" (Indiana, USA) Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hell and Gone (Kindle Edition)

In the tradition of "The Expendables" and "The Dirty Dozen", Hank Brown delivers rock solid military action with just a hint of techno-thriller. Brown paints "Rocco's Retreads" with a solid brush that emphasizes gritty, realistic action instead of a troop of invincible soldiers. The fighting is brutal and intense; the characters are recognizable and empathetic. The language of the book is noticeably less crude than one might expect from this type of military fiction, which makes the book that much more enjoyable. The plot is straightforward, and complications derive from perfectly natural mission-creep rather than complexly contrived circumstance. Brown stays on target and develops his characters and story without resorting to vulgarity, graphic violence, or gratuitous sex. This is a book about experienced soldiers on a dirty covert op; the writing is well-rounded and professional. I enjoyed reading this story, and immediately went looking for the author's blog (do a quick search for "two-fisted blogger"). Henry "Hank" Brown is definitely an author to watch.

Great Read - Fast moving Military Fiction, July 15, 2011

By 

J. G Scott (United States)
   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hell and Gone (Kindle Edition)

I am a reader who likes military fiction and have found the field pretty sparse for quite a few years. I look for believable action, realistic characters and straightforward moral clarity - the next "Dogs of War," but relative to the modern world of instability.

Hell and Gone gives the reader all of it - and the style is so smooth it can be easily read in an afternoon, it was that good that I could not put it down.

The work starts by setting the scene for the twisted antagonists (they are truly sick) - just enough detail to whet my appetite and move us along to the good guys. It is very believable and makes me wonder if the author has seen something like the terror camp described....

The good guys are not supermen - they are men with faults but have innate clarity that allows their leader, D. Cavarra, to prove his mettle. The author takes just enough time to give us some insight into each characters inner workings - enough that we want more from those who survive. The various characters have to be a microcosm of any small unit out in various nasty parts of the world - from the bumbling wannabe goofball to the quiet man of many virtues, with a couple of intriguing twists.

The location looks to be prime, who could argue against the Sudan, and with a hint of Isreali intrigue the stage is set for a good tale. Scary in it's implications for nuclear holocaust but very relevant and even takes some time to poke back at inadequate leadership in DC!

No spoilers here - except when I put the work down - I could only say "sequel/prequel?"

Nuclear Suicide Mission, February 20, 2012

By 

James F. Morris "Jim Morris" (CA USA)
   

This review is from: Hell and Gone (Paperback)

Look at these reviews. Have you ever seen reviews this long? Readers care about this book, and the reviewers have deconstructed it. So I will stipulate what they have said, that it is well-written, well-plotted, and has excellent characterization, which is hard to do when you have a military unit worth of characters to delineate.

The first fifty pages introduce the main characters and the mission, and they are interesting in themselves. After that reading this book is pretty much like being strapped to a rocket for about three hours. This is high praise for an adventure novel. The sucker moves and carries the reader with it, fast and smooth.

Nobody73 "D.R. Tharp" (Missouri) 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hell and Gone (Kindle Edition)

I had this book on my 'must read' list for awhile. I should have read it earlier. I read it in 3 sittings and it went by extremely fast. I really love the characterization in this book. Anyone who has served in the military will be jolted back to the service by reading the cast's resume and the way they do things. Even if you never served in Combat Arms, the people are the same. They range from Solid Officers who aren't afraid of work to the bitter angry socio paths who try and maneuver their way through 20 years and along the way they try and screw Anyone and everyone they can. Obviously, the author has been there and done that.

At first, I thought the plot to be a typical hadji hunt. The author has done a great job at assembling a mission that you might find anywhere and drags you into the depth of the characters. God, The Flag and American Pie, this is not. And I love it. The sequence of events in the last 2/3's of the book are extremely unique. I won't give away the plot of the book as it has been discussed above. Mr. Brown has a talent that I wish he would put to more novels of the military adventure class. This book is worth the time and price and then some. Do yourself a favor and spend the time getting to know the characters of this book. Bravo!

A man's book through and through., January 5, 2012

By 

Jack Silkstone 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hell and Gone (Kindle Edition)

I read Hell and Gone over three days on my Iphone. Every opportunity I had I read it, on the train, at the barbers, waiting for physio, sitting in the park whilst my do burned off energy even waiting for a meal in an expensive restaurant (oh my girl loved me for that).

I couldn't put this action thriller down. Why? Because it grabbed me in the first few pages and didn't let go till the very end. It has it all, it's contemporary, it's well developed, the plot is solid, the weapons and tactics are spot on and the writing style is easy to read and doesn't bog down in to much detail.

There is a lot of independent crap on Amazon but this ain't some of it. This is an exceptionally well produced piece of action writing that any major publishing house would be proud of. Not that I think that all of their work is worth being proud of.

So why only four stars? Well I think that there was a few to many characters in the team. At times I found myself confused as to who was who and what background they had. I think the book would actually read better if the number of good guys was halved.

All in all a great read that I recommend to any man who likes real action.

Well done Henry!!

There are some more I haven't shared here before, but this post is already getting kinda' long. (Of course you're more than welcome to read them all on Amazon prior to buying about four million copies for friends and family all over the English-speaking world. What? Not quite four million? Quit being so unsociable and start sending some Facebook friend requests!)

When we meet again, Two-Fisted Bloggees, it will be time for the Men's Adventure Blog Tour, kicking off Monday, January 14 2013, after I pull the trigger on Tier Zero!

Rocco's Retreads Saddle Up and Move Out

Most of the survivors from my paramilitary novel, Hell and Gone, are gearing up for another go-round. This time they're on a completely different type of mission, in a different Third World hellhole.

In the first novel I kinda' painted myself into a corner at the end, because the thought of a sequel didn't even occur to me. But a few readers put a bug in my ear and, after stewing on it for a while, I realized it would be a shame to never use those characters again. I also had a specific request from a South African friend (who does some "contracting" work not entirely unlike what some of those characters do) that my next novel should involve modern piracy. So guess who the bad guys are this time?

Of course, after deciding to go for it, I discovered there are quite a few action-adventures out there about pirate-busting. Ah, well. It's hard to be original these days. Nobody has yet accused me of "borrowing" a black-market suitcase nuke plot for Hell and Gone, but with the preponderance of those kind of stories/movies out there, I'm sure it will happen. Rest assured, though: I built the plot around some severely under-reported news I was privy to at the time. I won't classify it as "intelligence," though intelligence journals were just about the only news sources covering it.

Anyway, this time there will be at least as much action, if not more. I'm toying with some ideas for plot twists, too. Should be a lot of fun. I'm hoping to take some time off next week and work on it and a few other projects. It will probably be the only chance this year to build some momentum writing it (instead of this paragraph-a-week exercise in creative frustration) so wish me well.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd share the latest Amazon review of Hell and Gone:

On his website, Hank Brown compares Hell and Gone to a novel version of "The Expendables." I'd argue that it's better, and I liked The Expendables. Between the real-world setting, the backdrop of real events, and the portrayal of characters who act and talk like real-life veterans, as opposed to Hollywood's version, it has a plausibility that most movies, and some of the big-name thrillers, don't. The technical details were obviously well researched, and the action was written to draw the reader in. No Clancy clinical detail to make up for lack of experience here. If you're looking for an action fix, look no further. 

My thanks to reviewer Pete for taking the time to share his reaction. It's a real help for working stiffs like me, who are trying to get a foothold in the writing biz, to get reviews and even "likes" on Amazon. While I'm at it, thanks to everyone who left a review. I should share some more of them.