We know whose side they're on

Item: For the second time in five months, the Pakistani authorities have angered the Central Intelligence Agency by tipping the Pakistani news media to the identity of the C.I.A. station chief in Islamabad, a deliberate effort to complicate the work of the American spy agency in the aftermath of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, American officials said.

NYT story here.

Sure they're mad - our drones are killing half their agents. And who knows how much bin Laden was paying under the table to keep things quiet.



The fight for past perfect tense . . .


. . . continues, and perhaps it is not a losing battle. A copy editor actually INSERTED a past perfect verb form into my latest manuscript.

Correctly!

And I thought past perfect was dead.

(Of course, he also tried to delete a couple of others from the manuscript, but we won't mention that.)
On pre-order




Coming in June, from Clive Cussler and Grant Blackwood.

Gotta love the Fargos... or would that be Fargoes?


Well, yeah . . .

Mr. Keller questioned why Bin Laden would live in Abbottabad, unless he had some assurance of protection or patronage from military or intelligence officers. “At best, it was willful blindness on the part of the ISI,” Mr. Keller said. “Willful blindness is a survival mechanism in Pakistan.”

Story here.
Some days are just . . .


... out of whack, even when they're whacked.

Yes?
Hahahahahahaha . . .


Lead story on the CNN website just a short while ago:


(CNN) -- Was the killing of Osama bin Laden legal under international law?

Next week: Did the Allies have a moral obligation to talk Hitler out of committing suicide?
Sell books?

The marketing types say I should have posted a link for people to buy the new Rogue Warrior . . .

Here's one to my favorite bookstore, a small place with a lot of heart and great people in Millbrook, N.Y. (Merritt Bookstore.)

(You can get the book anywhere you want, honest.)
Coincidence, or . . .



The new Rogue Warrior not only deals with Pakistan, but there's a stealth helicopter (or two) involved as well . . .

I don't read much, but what I do read . . .

. . . sucks (because it's not what I expected) syndrome.

Of all the goofy stories* that have followed the bin Laden assault, maybe the goofiest is a ridiculous lament (??) in the Atlantic (here) that American writers can't credibly write about terrorists.

And, as a capping example . . . John Updike.

Sheesh.


* - Don't get me started on all the supposed insider accounts. And the rapidly growing pile of Denier literature isn't worth mentioning at all, except as an example of collective insanity.
And to be clear - sure, I like a lot of Updike's work, but I wouldn't expect him to be writing a great book about terrorists.

Die as you live . . .


So the murderer of women and children dies trying to hide behind a woman.

Fitting.

Near ground zero this morning . . .
Here

Or here.

No good restaurants nearby, unfortunately.
Justice


Or at least a measure of it. And this . . .

When the end came for Bin Laden, he was found not in the remote tribal areas along the Pakistani-Afghan border where he has long been presumed to be sheltered, but in a massive compound about an hour’s drive north from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. He was hiding in the medium-sized city of Abbottabad, home to a large Pakistani military base and a military academy of the Pakistani Army.



(Does it count if I ride a Ducati instead of a Harley?)
Why is gas going up?

According to the analysts, it's the speculators, not the unrest . . .

Though even Goldman-Sachs says the price is overblown.

G-S story here. (You have to interpret a little. Not to mention realize that G-S is probably already shorting the price even as they're telling their customers to sell.)

Meanwhile, Extortion-Mobil just booked record profits...
Conversation with editor

Overheard at the bar . . .

Editor: Hey, that reminds me - copy editing on your new book is done. Want me to send it over to you tomorrow?

Writer: Go ahead - I haven't broken furniture in a while.
More on Rogue . . .


I neglected to mention yesterday that a number of servicemen and women are getting free advance copies of the new book, thanks to the generosity of our publisher, Forge.

Tom Doherty doesn't take a lot of credit - in fact, as far as I know he takes zero credit - but over the years he's done quite a lot for the country's service people, donating books for various causes connected to veterans and serving military. When Dick came up with an idea to do a little something for some injured (and non-injured) vets earlier this year, Tom stepped in, cut through the paperwork, and told his staff to make it happen.

In the vast sea of things, it may be a small gesture, but it's those gestures that truly count.

Respect

Speaking of the Yankee game, I actually had to remind a few guys in our section to take their caps off and STFU* during the moment of silence and respect for our fallen war heroes, and the victims of 9/11.

WTF?

I wouldn't mention it, except these guys were well into their thirties, and based on all available evidence, un-inebriated.

Kind of makes you wonder what the rest of their lives are like.**


* -STFU = an abbreviation; the first two words are "shut the . . ." You can work out the rest.
** Ordinarily I'm not so obnoxious, but there are a couple of small things do bother me, and that's one of them.

De-trained by MTA


I was on the train home from Yankee Stadium, still wondering how a reserve outfielder could make not one but two great catches to ruin a certain pie game*, when the woman in the seat in front of me turned around and asked, "Is this stop Tarrytown?"

"Uh, yeah," I said - as it raced by.

About a dozen people grabbed for the conductor cord, but it was too late - we were beyond Philipse Manor before the train stopped.

Consultations ensued. My proposal to rush the engineer's compartment and take matters into our own hands was seconded by a plurality of the car. But as the crowd moved toward the engineer's cabin, the train started moving again.

Northwards.

"We screwed up," said the conductor. "We're going up to Croton, where they'll be a train waiting to take you south. In the meantime - free beer."

Actually, the beer came from a Yankee fan who'd somehow managed to snag a cooler after the game. He tried explaining how he had pulled that off, but even after four Coors Lites, I didn't understand.

We made it eventually. But I still wonder about those catches.

* Pie game: a home game where the Yankees come from behind in the 9th or later inning, a reference to the fact that AJ puts a creme pie in the face of the person who knocks in the winning run. As opposed to a Blown Save by Soriano game, which this one was.
Two weeks away . . .



. . . well, slightly more than that.

This one is set partly in India, and based loosely on real events.

Or is it set loosely in India, and based partly on real events?

I'll have to reread it to be sure...

(Pre-sale links here and here, among other places.)
And they want 20% more . . .

. . . in premiums next year, or thereabouts, according to their latest filings.

Item:

UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation’s largest commercial health insurers, reported robust profits on Thursday. The company, which is the first of the major insurers to make public its quarterly earnings, is viewed as something of a bellwether for the rest of the industry.

In addition to besting Wall Street estimates, UnitedHealth’s results would seem to suggest that life under the new federal health care law may not be so bad for insurers after all.

Story, what little there is of it, here.

And note that it's not all that much different than this story, published about the previous quarter.

Mopar's Charger . . .



. . . sure looks sweet. And I'm in the market for a new car. . . .

0-60 in well under six seconds. I think I'd lose the blue stripe though - why show off?

Sometimes it's better to be lucky . . .


. . . than good.

(Slide too early, and you still may score.)
Armed and dry . . .


I can sympathize - I've often reached for a rifle and pulled out an umbrella instead . . . then again, given the run of weather we've been having, maybe taking a rifle to deal with the clouds would be more effective.
Bull's-eye



How the next book starts.

(Almost: Imagine a Caddy instead of that cement bunker.)
Omar Bradley



Great talk with the PR and Marketing people at Regnery History about Bradley today. The book is set for an early September launch, and they have a ton of great things planned. I hope I can keep up with them all.

They were a little reluctant to admit that Bradley was more photogenic than I am, but I chalk that up to politeness.

Omar Bradley: General at War. I think it will change your thoughts about how we won World War II.
Where it goes . . .


In honor of tax day, a calculator to show where your money is spent (or wasted, as the case may be) . . .


Rabid Coyote



One of the new logos . . .
Assault Horizon character update: Bishop



In the original script, Colonel Bishop's nickname was Brass.

You can work out why. (And yes, we had to drop it for precisely that reason.) You'll love flying as him - if you're up to it.
Fallujah


For various and sundry reasons - to be elaborated on when appropriate - I've been reading up on the battles of Fallujah lately.

What is most striking about the descriptions is how different they can be, even when ostensibly witnessing the same thing. Incidents a block away seem like almost a different war.

Almost. it was all a shit hole.
Assault Horizon character update: McGarvey



An Army chopper pilot, McGarvey is an old school hard ass, tough when he needs to be, but generally encouraging - kind of like you wished your high school football coach was.

I wanted him to smoke cigars, but that's a no-no . . .
Game focus


I finally made it to a Yankee game Wednesday that was not rained out (even though it was raining) and was rewarded with an almost great performance by Good AJ* - as opposed to Bad AJ, who showed up in the seventh inning and gave up a pair of two-run bombs over the right field fence.

As the second one was launched, the drunken slob next to me** jumped from his seat and began screaming. "AJ you red-neck son of a @#$@#$@#$@#$! You're a @$%#$#$!@#!! And a @#@#$@#$#%^."

It was an impressive tirade.

"So what do you really think?" I asked as he fell back into his seat.

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely. "I wasn't really paying attention to the game."

* - That would be AJ Burnett, the Yankees' sometimes good, often awful ace pitcher.

** - Not FellowWriter, who was on the other side.

Satire . . .

. . . or every writer's reality?

(I swear I've done a signing like that.)
Assault Horizon character update: Jan



Major Rehl is one of my favorite characters - about the only bomber pilot I'll admit having a crush on.
In the game, she's called to Africa to fly an AC-130 gunship because of her past experience dealing with the French and Russians - tres difficult, no? then she comes back for a key bombing mission later in the game.
Unfortunately, some of her best stuff disappeared on the cutting room floor, but that's always the way, isn't it?
She has a lot of back and forths with Guts, who reminds her a lot of her younger brother, but the character in the game she really likes is Colonel Bishop.
Assault Horizon character update: Guts



One of my favorite characters in the Assault Horizon scenario is Guts - a wiseass from New York. (Gee, why would I like him?)

He's Cuban-American - his parents escaped Castro though you don't actually find that out in the game itself. Guts lives for two things - to bust chops, and to shoot enemy pilots down from the sky. He has a couple of near-death experiences in the game, and if you're playing as Wright, you'll have to save his sorry butt more than once . . .

New York bound



The Enterprise is coming to the Intrepid Air and Space Museum (story here).

Can't wait ... though the MiGs may get jealous.

My kind of education


Item:

A Philadelphia professor is the subject of an investigation following allegations he hired strippers to take part in a symposium where he and students received lap dances, MyFoxPhilly.com reports.

Story here.


Why didn't they have these kind of classes when I went to school?


Assault Horizon update: Warwolf squadron



It's looking more and more like Assault Horizon will be out late this summer . . . assuming the earthquake and related nuclear disaster doesn't further erode the work schedule. (Fortunately, all of the team is OK.)

In the game, the player takes the part of one of several pilots attached to Task Force 108, an international group of top guns who are fighting rebels in Africa (not too far from what's going on in Libya right now, actually).

The fighter pilots are all attached to Warwolf Squadron; that's their patch above.

I think it looks great . . . though I'd like some blood dripping from the fangs . . . you see why they don't ask my opinion on certain things?

What I'm reading now . . .




Actually, I read Jonathan's book a few months ago, but it's only available now.

Highly recommended.

So the mayor hits the car . . .


Deb goes and inspects the damage.

"I guess this isn't a good time to talk about our tax assessment," she says . . .


What's under the tarps?


Hint . . .

They're on the pier next to this:



Could be anything.

Then again, that is the aircraft carrier China has been working on for the last few years.

(Shameless plug: they have two in Red Dragon, and they're both better than this one. News story here.)
Bad karma?

We were wandering through old haunts this past weekend when we happened on a once-favorite bookstore . . .

. . . now turned into a dentist office.

Very disturbing.
Jake Gibbs returns

A number of years ago, I wrote a trilogy of Revolutionary War novels set in New York's Hudson Valley and loosely based on historical events.

The series has been out of print for a few years, but we're using the first installment for some ebook experiments.

I think it's a fun read, but then I'm prejudiced.

You can find the Kindle version here.


Of devotion . . . and beer


Homebrewer, beer judge, journalist and beer blogger J. Wilson has given up food for Lent . . . and taken up beer and water.

God bless him.

Beer lovers all over the world are rooting for you, J.


Website for the project is here.
Spring has finally arrived . . .


. . . and so have the tickets.


A bit much for Sunday morning, I know . . .
Artwork



You gotta hand it to the U.S. Navy - they blow things up with style.

(Photo is of a Tomhawk launch by USS Barry at start of Libya operation...)
BMW pickup



This is just wrong on so many levels . . .

(Supposedly, it's an April Fool's joke from Beemer engineers . . . but come on: since when do German engineers have a sense of humor?)
Assault Horizon







These images illustrate some of the different action in the game. While the Ace Combat series has always featured great air-to-air action in jet fighters (and attack planes, if that's your thing), in Assault Horizon players will also be able to fly helicopters, bombers, and AC-130s. Among the helo scenarios is one involving air-to-air action; we had to work pretty hard to set that up realistically.

Like the planes, the helicopters will operate as realistically as possible; the performance envelope is at least theoretically the same as in real life. And yes, that means the rumors and speculation are true: if you're really good, you should be able to get at least one of the helicopter airframes to barrel roll without crashing.

Not that I will be able to, of course.


Speaking of Japan . . .


Namco Bandai continued the unofficial/official rollout of Assault Horizon last week. Here's part of a press story . . .

由Namco Bandai Games开发的空战格斗游戏《皇牌空战》系列最新作《皇牌空战:突击地平线》今天公布游戏中主角所属的第108特遣部队航空飞行器最新画面,游戏对应平台为PS3和XBOX360。具体发售日未定。

  邀请全美畅销军事小说作家「Jim DeFelice」参与本作剧作制作的本作除了收录系列前作的的各个机种外还将收录战斗直升机和战艇等各式新型航空武器,世界最强战斗直升机「AH-64D Apache Longbow」阿帕奇战斗直升机登场,玩家们可以驾驶这架拥有超高性能的战斗直升机进行时速高达250公里的高速飞行或是使用30mm机关炮或是对地飞弹、可连续发射的火箭弹等压倒性火力进行超近距离的连续大破坏。

I think it says something along the lines of "We managed to get this together despite the interference and beer drinking of Jim DeFelice."

(Actually, of news interest to U.S. fans, it says that the game will be on both PS3 and XBox 360 platforms, unlike the previous version. And yes, you can fly an Apache, among other airframes. Here is a link to the Japanese story above.)

Screenshots to follow.

Turning Japanese . . .


The first installment of Red Dragon Rising has just been published in Japan. (Not a good time, obviously, but maybe it will provide some diversion.)

They had to split it up into two volumes; I'm curious to see how that works.

I'm also interested in the Japanese reaction to a story about Chinese aggression - while not quite taboo, the subject is a delicate one there.

(Needless to say, we haven't sold any foreign rights in China. Then again, they may just bootleg it there anyway.)


. . . continuing a theme and a half . . .
We have a cover



Pub date somewhere in September . . .

Details to follow.
Who you callin' old . . .

Not that the Yankees need any outside motivation, but Cliff Lee supplied a whole bunch the other day:

Philadelphia lefthander Cliff Lee told WIP radio in Philadelphia last week that he chose the Phillies over the New York Yankees this offseason because "some of the Yankee guys are getting older."

Wonder if CC will paste that on his locker.

Cover concept memo

I have a new book coming out next year - The Helios Conspiracy - which features the return of Andy Fisher. The publisher bravely asked for my thoughts . . .

TITLE: The Helios Conspiracy
AUTHOR: Jim DeFelice
SYNOPSIS:Irreverent FBI special agent and serial coffee drinker Andy Fisher investigates the murder of his ex-girlfriend, and discovers a plot to destroy a rocket carrying an American solar energy gathering satellite into space. The energy system, once implemented, would solve American energy problems. There's also as much gratuitous sex as I could sneak in.
SETTING: New Mexico, New York City, Silicone* Valley (*pun; get it?)
LEAD Characters: Fisher, an iconic and ironic FBI agent. Beautiful dead woman. Beautiful undead woman scientist. Evil white guys and suspect geeks.If you do have a particular scene/artist in mind:Maybe something using the sun and naked women . . .

Fighting with no holds barred



. . . for a very good cause.

More info here:

Lent

Brother-in-law: I'm a good Catholic, especially on Fridays.
Me: How's that?
Brother-in-law: I only drink Bass.

Tanks, tanks and more tanks . . .


One of the cool things about writing the Red Dragon Rising series is that we get to "play" with different Chinese weapons. The books being fiction (so far), we get to a) make improvements real cheap and b) make a lot more that than the Chinese actually have.

We don't stray too far from the actual facts, of course, but simply project a few years into the future. Of course, the Chinese seem to do the same. Here's an image of their main battle tank that's been widely circulated:



Notice anything special?

Perfect symmetry - or rather, someone has learned how to put the clone feature in Photoshop to good use.

Actually, they're probably using a Chinese knockoff program. But here's my favorite image:



Sure, that's a real amphib landing ship in the background, and undoubtedly a real tank. But the operation that got them together was undoubtedly computer-controlled.

The Chinese do have a potent army, but they've also mastered the art of good graphics.


Testing the weapon of the future . . .

. . . or maybe of now.

Wreaking havoc . . .


Toons called the other night:

Me: The local community college is offering a course on operating heavy machinery - D10 bulldozers, excavators, rollers. It's been a while, and I was thinking of brushing up.

Toons: Not a bad idea. You could wreak havoc.

Me: Definitely.

Toons: Everyone should, just to release tension. Otherwise you'll go postal.

Me: Is that worse than wreaking havoc?

Toons: Absolutely. . .

Next discussion: Does "going postal" by definition involve a heavily caliber weapon? And under what circumstances can "wreak havoc" be better rendered as "wreck havoc"?

From arms dealer . . .

. . . to renaissance vegetarian guru man.

I was going to laugh at this story in today's paper:

Apparently, a diet is a diet, even if you are Viktor Bout, accused of being an international arms trafficker.

After Mr. Bout appeared at a pretrial hearing in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Thursday, his wife and his new lawyer suggested that Mr. Bout was suffering miserably in federal custody — largely because he was not getting enough food to satisfy his vegetarian lifestyle.

Mr. Bout, 44, was extradited from Thailand in November and is being held in the maximum-security wing of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. His wife, Alla Bout, said he contracted tuberculosis while he was detained in Thailand — where he was arrested — before he was extradited and, as a result, required a very specific nutritional intake.

But then I read further in the story:

Ms. Bout, who is living in New York and visits her husband for three hours each Monday, said he awoke daily at 5 a.m. to exercise in his cell. The remainder of his day, she said, is spent in pursuit of language and culture. Mr. Bout studies foreign languages, like Farsi and Hindi, for several hours, routinely translating foreign texts; he has taken up drawing and produces artwork that Ms. Bout, a designer, said she critiqued. All the while, classical music echoes in Mr. Bout’s small cell.

Clearly society stands to gain from Mr. Bout's continued incarceration and self-improvement. I say give him all the broccoli he can eat.

(Original story here.)

The First Amendment (??)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the First Amendment protects fundamentalist church members who mount anti-gay protests outside military funerals, despite the pain they cause grieving families.

(Full AP story here.)

Just because it's Constitutional, doesn't make it right.

These crazoids should be ashamed. Among other things.

Dream on . . .

Terse* is calling from Indiana . . .

Terse: ... I had this incredibly weird dream last night. I was back at [the place he worked twelve or fifteen years ago].
Me: Weird.
Terse: Yeah. I was in the middle of a menage a trois, and the whole thing degenerated into an orgy.
Me: Uh-huh . . .
Terse: Do you think there's a possibility they kept my position open?

* An ironic nickname



... warming up.
Sure, you've seen an F-86 . . .



. . . but have you ever seen an RAF Sabre?

(More early Cold War RAF photos here. If you go to his home page, you can drill down to other old photos as well.)
Becoming an American

On Friday, Jan. 28, accompanied by my family, I was among 160 citizens-in-waiting who filed into a 3rd-floor auditorium in lower Manhattan to be sworn in as Americans. On our seats were an American flag, a copy of the Constitution, a booklet featuring the stories of prominent naturalized Americans, and a welcome letter from President Obama.

Reading the letter, I began to cry. I had spent more than one-quarter of my life hoping to become American, and I was suddenly overwhelmed by the honor and the significance of the moment. The place I have called home for 12 years was finally claiming me, as well.

I looked around the room and saw other fortunate souls with long journeys now behind them, quietly weeping with joy.

Full article here, in Slate. (Most of the article is about mistakes in the citizenship test.)

Banking on a fight . . .


Have you ever received an insurance bill and wondered why it was double last year's? So did this guy in Pennsylvania:

All Patrick . . . wanted was for someone from Wells Fargo to talk to him. A single, white, goth and industrial music event promoter who declines to give his age, he wanted someone to explain why they were doubling his premiums and requiring him to insure his century-old house for its full replacement value instead of the market value.


Instead of getting an explanation, he ended up putting the bank's local branch office on the auction block.

Full story here. (Complete with Goth pictures, if you're into that.)
Stopping pirates

I'm guessing we'll soon be hearing more about the op and the pirates who murdered the missionaries about the sailboat in the Gulf of Aden.

In the meantime, most sensible people are calling for direct action against them before they take ships. But rather than just attacking the villages they sail out of - which we ought to do - we should hit the people who are financing them.

It's not as if we don't know who they are or can't figure it out - the navy was talking to one of them when all hell broke lose.

Bankroll a pirate, hang from a yardarm: sounds fair to me.
What I'm drinking . . .


Or rather, what I was drinking . . .

Good stuff, and the Black was even better.

More research definitely needed.
Ace Combat: Assault Horizon . . .


This vid gives a pretty good feel of the gameplay. Players have full control over the aircraft and the conduct of the missions...
The next chapter


Borders officially declared bankruptcy this morning. Not exactly unexpected.

(Industry story with other links here.)

It's another part of the (mostly) slow motion destruction/restructuring of the book industry. The immediate effect on most writers will probably be negligible, but it's certainly going to add to the difficulty of making a living at it. All of the big publishers are owed millions and millions of dollars - Penguin/Putnam/Viking etc. tops forty mil - and even though they've seen this coming for a while, the decreased revenues and sales are going to have to be made up somewhere.

The thing that has always confused me, however, is the fact that the Borders store near me is always packed, with a long line at the cash register. If I didn't know any better, I'd think it was the most successful store in the world, let alone the mall.

Happy Valentine's Day



Are we ever going to get serious about this?


Item:

Suspected Somali pirates captured a U.S.-bound tanker carrying around $200 million worth of crude oil in the Indian Ocean on Wednesday in one of the biggest hijackings in the area so far.

Full story, which ought to seem more than a little familiar, here.
Titles . . .

Speaking of Red Dragon Rising, one of these days I'm going to write a post on how difficult it can be to come up with a good title for a book.

The books in the Red Dragon series have gotten into a certain pattern: "X of War" for you math mavens, with X being a variable based somehow on the relevant happenings. "Shadow" and "Edge" have done it for us so far.

That sounded like a good idea when we started, but now we realize that it cuts down on the possibilities. The next installment in the series - which will be out this fall - presented a serious challenge. The best "X" based on the contents would have been "casualties" - but that gives you the title of a fairly famous movie set during the Vietnam War. Not only that, but the movie's central storyline was something we didn't want to connect with this book.

(Full disclosure: I didn't know until I looked it up. Duh. I still haven't seen the movie.)

Fortunately, Larry hit on a much better alternative on the second try, and we ran with it.

Or at least we think we did. The publisher still hasn't OK'd it, which is why it's not appearing in this post.
Red Dragon Rising



Larry and I did this talk over skype quite a while ago, but it's finally been edited down into something semi-coherent. I look pretty baffled through most of this, but in my defense I can only say . . . it's a natural state.
How do these things really work?

I was talking with Rob the Accountant the other day, and he brought up an interesting point:

How do the solar-powered parking meters in New York City (or anywhere else) work when there is a foot and a half of snow on the solar panels? (As there are now.)

Battery backup? Or are there really squirrels inside?
I want one



Patience was never my strong point.
What we're talking about . . .



Item:

Crops Wither and Prices Rise in Chinese Drought


HONG KONG — A severe drought in northern China has badly damaged the winter wheat crop and left the ground very dry for the spring planting, fueling inflation and alarming China’s leaders.


Story here.

Website here.
Helicopters as UAVs . . .

Good, brief roundup on unmanned helicopters for the uninitiated in Popular Mechanics on unmanned choppers, online here.

URL:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/robots/the-rise-of-the-drone-helicopter?src=rss#fbIndex1


Of course, they don't have the Dreamland birds, but what the hey :-)....


Speaking of helicopters, I've always wondered why they became known as "helos" in Navy slang. I can see the British slang - "heli" - but helo? (pronounced heal-O)
Upcoming books


A few programming notes:

The Bradley biography has been moved to the fall so the publisher can put together a marketing/selling campaign and coordinate with other World War II books.

Meanwhile, Helios has been moved to February 2012 - maybe we'll have the actual solar collecting satellite launch by then.
I guess he would know...


Do I file this AP story under the pot calling kettle black, or chutzpah unlimited?

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak betrayed his people and the uprising against his rule is the appropriate response, Iran's top leader said during Friday prayers in Tehran.

Full story here, among other places.
Thanks for the memories . . .



Item: Pettitte retires. Semi-official story here.

Bummer for the Yanks. But Pettitte has certainly earned it.
Shoveling . . .

. . . somewhere over an inch and a half of ice on top of snow on top of sleet.

A three-cigar, two-beer job.
Here's a book to watch for . . .


From Publisher's Lunch:

Attorneys James Daily and Ryan Davidson [are writing] SUPERHEROES AND SUPERVILLAINS: THE LEGAL GUIDE, based on their blog Law and the Multiverse. [The book takes] a look at legal issues in the comic book universe (such as: "Are Wolverine's claws covered by the Second Amendment?" and "Can a supervillain be extradited to another dimension?")

I say yes to the first, no to the second. But the real question is how does a superhero lawyer get paid?