The state of electricity . . .

American Society of Civil Engineers:

The U.S. generation and transmission system is at a critical point requiring substantial investment in new generation, investment to improve efficiencies in existing generation, and investment in transmission and distribution systems. The transmission and distribution system has become congested because growth in electricity demand and investment in new generation facilities have not been matched by investment in new transmission facilities. This congestion virtually prohibits outages required for proper maintenance and can lead to system wide failures in the event of unplanned outages. Electricity demand has increased by about 25% since 1990 while construction of transmission facilities decreased by about 30 percent. 

Report here.

The Helios Conspiracy touched on some of this, but the problem is far greater than most of us are willing to imagine, even in fiction.

Soldiering on

Item:

The historic Fraunces Tavern, after surviving the Revolutionary War, nearly poured its last round thanks to a domestic invader: Hurricane Sandy.

When the floodwaters receded from the 250-year-old lower Manhattan landmark, owner Eddie Traverse surveyed $200,000 in damages — without any flood insurance.

“For a couple of days, we were feeling the gloom,” Traverse said Tuesday. “But now we know we will get back. When you put it in perspective, we are here to fight another day.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/fraunces-tavern-poured-article-1.1205443#ixzz2CqsQb3dG

The tavern was one of Claus van Clyne's favorites, and Jake Gibbs liked to lurk in its shadows . . .

Fear not, Twinkies lovers

Item:

Hostess and its striking bakers union have agreed to mediation, avoiding a shutdown that would have given 18,500 workers the ax.

A bankruptcy judge demanded that the groups enter a mediation session at a hearing Monday.

“My desire to do this is prompted primarily by the potential loss of over 18,000 jobs as well as my belief that there is a possibility to resolve this matter," said Judge Robert Drain, who will preside over the mediation Tuesday. 

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/hostess-mediate-striking-union-article-1.1204664#ixzz2CkfBqykk

I know Shotgun*, for one, will be very happy.

* Rogue Warrior sidekick. Seriously, you didn't know? You're not keeping up, Grasshopper.

Venice

Not Photoshopped...

The "logic" of terrorists

From the NY Times. I'd call it chutzpah, but that would be insulting the word:

“This attack on journalists and freedom of expression reflects Israel’s disdain for international law and the little value it affords the lives of Palestinians,” said Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

But Hamas's terror indiscriminate attacks on unarmed civilians, intended to panic and kill women and children, those have a higher purpose and are OK, right?

Erekat is talking about a raid that destroyed a media building, but didn't kill anyone. It's pretty rich for a Palestinian to be talking about freedom of expression in the state (or Hamas) controlled media, let alone to make reference to international law.

The reason no one was killed in the attack is this: The Israelis fired a warning shot, and let everyone clear the building before destroying it. Maybe if Israel simply steamrolled Gaza, which is absolutely within their capabilities, Hamas would get the message.

Then again, stupid in life, stupid in death: The logic of psychopaths bears no relation to reason, and treating their BS as if it does only makes you look like a fool.

Hogs

In the early 1990s, I began writing and publishing a series of books centered around missions conducted by A-10As and their crews during what is now called the First Gulf War.*

I had a lot to learn about the planes and writing at the time. (Still do.) But it was a labor of love and an intense one at that, as I began turning the books out on a six-month schedule (among other things) as interest in the series built.

There were a total of six books, loosely based on action missions and exploits during the war. At the time, not too many people knew about the A-10A. Today, I'd venture to say that it as well-known as more "glamorous" aircraft like the F-15 and F-22. (It's also been so greatly overhauled that the current models are designated as A-10Cs. Same great plane, though.)

Though you can still occasionally find the paperbacks, technically, the series has been out of print for several years. It's now available for Kindle ereaders at Amazon.

For more information, visit this page on my website. Samples are available directly from Amazon. If you want a free story in pdf format, send an email to author (at) jimdefelice (dot) com, and we'll get one off to you straight away.

* I was using a pseudonym: James Ferro for reasons explained on that webpage.

Now on Kindle

The first two installments of Hogs are now available as ebooks.

More details to come.

Role model

For 97, (Herman) Wouk is remarkably active. His personal trainer comes on Mondays and Thursdays; a yoga instructor swings by on Tuesdays and Fridays. And don’t, whatever you do, ask if he ever plans to stop writing.

“What am I going to do?” he said. “Sit around and wait a year?”

He acknowledged, though, that he occasionally worried what was left to say.

“Sometimes, when I’m down, I feel like I’ve shot my bolt,” he said. “But it passes, and I go back to the computer.”

Story.

Thank you

Iranian air power


Today Iran confirmed that it had fired on the American Predator in the Gulf last week, but claimed that it was over Iranian territory.

The obvious conclusion: Besides being terrible shots, their pilots have no idea where they are.

Done

Phillip Roth has retired his pen:

Roth, who has written some 25 novels, told Les Inrocks that he had always found writing difficult and that he wanted nothing more to do with reading, writing or talking about books.

He said that when he was 74, he started re-reading his favorite novels by authors Ernest Hemingway, Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and others, and then re-read his own novels.

"I wanted to see whether I had wasted my time writing," he explained. "After that, I decided that I was done with fiction. I no longer want to read, to write, I don't even want to talk about it anymore," he was quoted as saying.

"I have dedicated my life to the novel: I studied, I taught, I wrote, I read - to the exclusion of almost everything else. Enough is enough! I no longer feel this fanaticism to write that I have experienced all my life. The idea of trying to write again is impossible," Roth told the magazine.

Story.

Call them aces . . .

According to the Pentagon, two Iranian jets "intercepted" a Predator last week over the Persion Gulf and engaged it in a dogfight.

The unarmed plane escaped without harm.

First reports said the Iranian planes were Su-25 Frogfoots. While the design was intended as a ground support aircraft, it's equipped with cannon and could in theory carry air-to-air missiles. Apparently the Iranians used their guns but missed the Predator, which can manage something in the area of 200 knots - less than half the Frogfoot's speed.

If they do this well against unarmed drones, just imagine how well the Iranians will fare against F-22s.

Meanwhile, something tells me there's a line of eager UAV pilots hoping to get a Sidewinder on a Reaper and get the first remote shoot-down, courtesy of Iran's aces . . .

(One story here.)

From the graveyard to the voting booth. . . .

. . . or nearly vice versa:

Sometimes dead men really do get to vote.

Ty Houston, 48, a home care registered nurse, was toiling on his absentee ballot Monday afternoon when things got strange at township offices on 13 Mile.

"I was filling out the form as were an elderly couple sitting at a nearby table," said Houston on Tuesday. "His wife, who was helping him fill out the ballot, asked him a couple of questions but he didn't respond. She screamed for help and I went over to see what I could do."

Houston laid the victim on the floor and went to work.

"He was dead," Houston said. "He had no heartbeat and he wasn't breathing. I started CPR, and after a few minutes, he revived and started breathing again. He knew his name and his wife's name."

What happened next astounded Houston and the victim's wife.

"The first question he asked was 'Did I vote?'"

 The rest of the story in The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121106/METRO02/211060410#ixzz2BaGKCVzR

Best of the year

Congratulation to Larry and Chris on being named one of 2012's best thrillers by Publisher's Weekly. (PW)

The Hustler . . .



Old metal, from the folks at Zeno's.

Hard-boiled writing . . .

It's all just talk - James M. Cain on style:

Let's talk about this so-called style. I don't know what they're talking about—“tough,” “hard-boiled.” I tried to write as people talk. That was one of the first arguments I ever had with my father—my father was all hell for people talking as they should talk. I, the incipient novelist, even as a boy, was fascinated by the way people do talk.

Interview, recently re-posted by Paris Review.

Thanks, we're good

Power is back, as is internet. We have been tremendously fortunate, with no real damage. Lots of trees to cut for next year's firewood.

The key to managing . . .

. . . baseball and everything:

“He’s unique with every individual personality,” said Giants first baseman Aubrey Huff, a star in 2010 and a backup now. “Some guys need a kick in the butt, and he’ll give it to you. And some guys need to be cuddled, and he gives you that. He knows personalities. I think it’s just intuitive about him. Some people have that gift of knowing what guys need to hear, and he’s got it.”

(Huff is talking about his skipper, Bruce Bochy, but the comment is universal. Of course, if the Giants lose, he'll be a bum like everyone else . . .)

(Source.)

The taxman goes topless . . .

This is going to hurt a lot of people I know, starting with Dogboy.

Item:

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Lap dances are taxable because they don't promote culture in a community the way ballet or other artistic endeavors do, New York's highest court concluded Tuesday in a sharply divided ruling.

Story.

A war by any other name

Item:

On Aug. 15, more than 55,000 Saudi Aramco employees stayed home from work to prepare for one of Islam’s holiest nights of the year — Lailat al Qadr, or the Night of Power — celebrating the revelation of the Koran to Muhammad.

That morning, at 11:08, a person with privileged access to the Saudi state-owned oil company’s computers, unleashed a computer virus to initiate what is regarded as among the most destructive acts of computer sabotage on a company to date. The virus erased data on three-quarters of Aramco’s corporate PCs — documents, spreadsheets, e-mails, files — replacing all of it with an image of a burning American flag.

United States intelligence officials say the attack’s real perpetrator was Iran, although they offered no specific evidence to support that claim. But the secretary of defense, Leon E. Panetta, in a recent speech warning of the dangers of computer attacks, cited the Aramco sabotage as “a significant escalation of the cyber threat.” In the Aramco case, hackers who called themselves the “Cutting Sword of Justice” and claimed to be activists upset about Saudi policies in the Middle East took responsibility. 

Summary of the attack and some notes on the present situation in cyber insecurity today's NY Times here. You should expect more and more of these attacks in the future.

The Yankees . . .

Having waded through a flood of What Went Wrong With The Yankees stories over the past week, I have three observations:

- stories about how “the Yankees got old” are amusing to begin with, but especially when written by sportswriters in their seventies;

- sports “analysis” is even more of a pure Rorschach Test than political reporting;

- it's amazing how much time and attention one can waste analyzing things that are beyond analysis.

The one story I haven’t read is how utterly useless statistical analysis is when you forget the psychological elements of success. Or to put it another way: I wonder how much of a role panic on behalf of management played in the team’s demise.

In defense of the LCS


Or, the Navy strikes back . . .

There has been a lot of carping about the Navy's new littoral combat ships: too expensive, supposedly not survivable, etc. At least some of the criticism comes from a false premise about the ships' mission and role; despite some of the early stories, the ships are not intended to be all things to all people.

Last week, the chief spokesman for the Navy countered the critics:

Nobody ever said this ship can — and no engineer can ever design a ship to — withstand every conceivable threat on the sea. But the LCS is significantly more capable than the older mine counter measure ships and patrol craft it was designed to replace, and stands up well to the frigates now serving in the fleet.

It is fast, maneuverable, and has low radar, infrared, and magnetic signatures. Its core self-defense suite is designed to defeat a surprise salvo of one or two anti-ship cruise missiles when the ship is operating independently, or leakers that get through fleet area and short-range air defenses when operating with naval task forces. 

Full statement, as a blog entry, here.

Frankly, if the Navy had called the design a minesweeper or counter-PT ship, there'd be zero critics. But it might not have gotten funded either -- "littoral warfare" was the buzz word at the time.

Coming soon:

To the UK and beyond - First Team, the British edition . . .

Baseball or football?

As a young man, future-five-star General Omar Bradley was an avid sportsman. He especially excelled in baseball, starring in the sport at West Point. Some witnesses believe he could have played professionally, had he not been in the army.

This photo is included in his scrapbook, and has been assumed to be of a baseball team:

I thought (and wrote) that as well, but sharp-eyed baseball historian William Swank recently pointed out that it would seem likely the kids in the photo were playing football, as three of them have old-fashioned nose guards hanging from their necks. Here's an image of similar guards, circa the early 1890s:

I note too that one of the kids (on the right) is wearing what looks like an early football helmet. But is that a backwards baseball cap on the boy in the middle? And why aren't they all dressed for a game? Is the fact that there are twelve people in the photo - eleven players and a coach (the older-looking young man in the middle)? - another clue? Or is it just an accident - was it really the baseball team quickly gathered from other activities for a photo?

I think Bill is right that this must be a football team, though admittedly there is room for debate. It's an interesting historical mystery, if definitely something of a footnote. (More on Bradley here, on my website.)

Touch and go


Item:

The new Chinese J-15 has reportedly practiced touch and go landings aboard the country's training carrier.

(Touch and go - basically a practice landing where you don't actually set down. Easier than actually landing on a carrier, but still a very significant step in the training and development process.)

Toys for Tots . . .

One of my favorite charities, Toys for Tots, will be stoking up efforts again with the holiday season, with the Marines ready to do their typical Marine-like job. Everything you ever wanted to know about the charity can be seen here.

Information on local drives should be available soon.

One more time

One more way for authors to go nuts . . .


Writers have something new to obsess about: Amazon.com had launched a new metric (at least, I guess it's a metric): Author Rank.

The rating purports to measure authors against others, using overall sales. Or at least I think that's what the explanation amazon has posted means. There's an overall rank, and different breakouts, including Kindle and what will soon be called legacy"book-delivery-systems. And then there are subcategories as well.

It updates every hour. So now writers don't have to fret about missing royalty sheets or unanswered phone calls from their agents; they can freak about how far they're falling behind Sylvia Day and E.L. James, numbers 1 and 2 respectively as I'm writing this.

As if we're not neurotic enough.

For the record: As I'm writing this, I'm number 14 in History. Number 18 in biography and memoir. (Better in Kindle.) Fiction? Number 225 in fiction, thrillers, etc. And my grand, overall author of all time rating:  303. But trending downward, I'm afraid, and no doubt very quickly.

Sleeping spam?

Having just spent a good hunk of time deleting some 2,500+ spam comments (ouch), I am left with the question: Why would anyone fool with Internet Ambien?

Old-school sedatives, tranquilizers  even Viagra - that I understand. But black-market sleeping pills? Not only is the stuff easy to get legitimately, but it's not exactly known for getting you high.

I suppose if you need to get down off a buzz and don't want to explain the circumstances, it has a certain appeal. But doesn't beer work nearly as well with less hassle? Or is it a gateway drug . . . to aspirin?

Israel shoots down drone



Video released Saturday afternoon, not long after the shootdown. No definitive word on where the drone was flown from, or what it might possibly have been spying on.

On the horizon . . .

There are a few adjustments to be made to the cover, but the mass market version of Helios should arrive by the end of January . . .

Shades of Holy Terror

. . . must be a Rogue Warrior fan. Hopefully he didn't use the book as a guide to how to get there.

(News story here. Yes, that book includes quite a lot of action on top of the basilica. Sacrilegious, I know.

Amazon vs. B&N - battle joined

Item:

Barnes & Noble has told any of its stores that have stocked Penny Marshall’s My Mother Was Nuts to remove the book from shelves. B&N has a corporate policy to not carry physical copies of books acquired by Amazon Publishing in its stores . . .

Full (though brief) story here. Just to explain briefly, the ebook at present is only available for Kindle, which B&N doesn't particularly appreciate.

Readers send pictures . . .

This one kind of struck my fancy:

So true.

The playoffs, wild card and otherwise . . .

I admit it: I thought the one-game wild card playoff was a dumb idea and kvetched long and often. Call me a traditionalist: Baseball is a long-term commitment and a long-time sport; championships should be won over course of many games.

But I have to admit: the new format has made the playoff races much more interesting and intense, and restored meaning to winning the division.

Just as long as they're not too interesting this year: With the way the tiebreakers work, even though they are tied for first, the Yankees can win every game and still end up with the wild card rather than the division lead.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that in that case they will have a one-day playoff with Baltimore, with the loser then having a one-day Wild Card playoff. Sudden death baseball - it's a brave new world.

Typos and second chances


No matter how many people read through the galley proofs of a book before it goes to press, some errors manage to sneak through. We just found a few new typos (as opposed to the old typos, which we had already found and-or corrected) in an upcoming edition of American Sniper. And we just did a substantial overhaul on Silver Bullet, which is now available as a Kindle download.

Why and how do these things get through?

Authors are notoriously bad at proofreading their own work; the eyes see what they want to see, and anyone already familiar with the book - writers especially - will miss even the most egregious errors because of this. There are also glitches that get in due to problems in different versions of files used; I've had uncorrected files substituted for correct ones (don't ask), which can be really frustrating.

Perhaps the most pernicious, though, are the ones that occur when something is corrected, creating a different mistake. If you see a wrong verb tense or a number agreement problem, you've probably found evidence of that.

Of course, writers making changes on the proofs - tweaking as we call it - cause a great deal of those sorts of problems, whether we're doing it on hard copy ("can't read his @#$!! handwriting") or electronically. So it comes back to us in the end.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying thank you not only to the copy editors and proofreaders employed along the way, but to readers for helping rake up the ones that get through. (And please accept my apologies in advance.) But as a teacher once told me: The only thing we truly own in this world are our mistakes.

Liaoning commissioned


Item: China commissions its "first" aircraft carrier.

While most analysts and news stories trumpet the fact that the carrier itself is not exactly the match of anything in the West (forget U.S. ships; the Garibaldi* could sink it), that really is not the significance of the ship at all.

This, though, buried deep in a NY Times story, is:

In contrast to some of the skepticism expressed by military experts outside China, Li Jie, a researcher at the Chinese Naval Research Institute, said in an interview in the state-run People’s Daily that the carrier would change the Chinese Navy’s traditional mind-set and bring qualitative changes to its operational style and structure, he said.

Although the Chinese military does not publish a breakdown of its military spending, foreign military experts say the navy is less well financed than the army and air force.

Times story.

The Chinese have been very clear that this is intended only as a training vessel, one that will help prepare the way for better vessels in the future.

* The Italian Navy's light aircraft carrier. It's actually intended for anti-submarine warfare, though it can (and does) operate with Harrier aircraft.

If you can't get a hold of me . . .

. . . here's why:

Obama copying Reagan . . .

. . . in counter-terror strategy?

So says a provocative article in Foreign Policy:

In the weeks and months after the October 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 242 Americans, Reagan and his team became deeply concerned about the terrorism problem. But it was the abduction and torture of the CIA's Beirut station chief, William Buckley, in March 1984 that truly brought matters to a head. Secretary of State George Shultz called a Saturday meeting of terrorism experts, led by Brian Jenkins of the RAND Corporation, and the team brainstormed until a strategy emerged, one that called for something that strongly resembles the kind of campaign that Obama is now pursuing. Rather, the resemblance is in reverse, as Reagan's plan came first.

Soon after that weekend conclave of experts, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 138 -- most of which is still highly classified. Christopher Martin's declassified history of political and military policy during this period points out that the directive called for "secret FBI and CIA paramilitary squads and use of existing Pentagon military units -- such as Green Berets and the Navy SEALs -- for conducting what amounted to guerrilla war against guerrillas...a de factodeclaration of war."

The signal success of this first war on terror came in a campaign against the Abu Nidal Organization -- the al Qaeda of the ‘80s -- which was conducting terrorist hits for hire on behalf of Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Some of the network's hidden finances were detected and, instead of freezing or seizing these funds, they were covertly moved about in ways that convinced Abu Nidal that many of his operatives were embezzling. He had about a hundred of his agents bumped off, which did little good for the morale of the others. Soon the organization was all but defunct.

Full article here.

Guilty pleasures dept.: A Touch of Frost . . .

If Andy Fisher were British, and older, and worked for CID, he would be Jack Frost. (Full series available on Netflix.)

The future of civil air




The concept of formation flying isn't half as interesting as the future planes in the video, but who knows . . .

And even more amazing . . .

Real human organs, custom-made from your own cells:

So far, only a few organs have been made and transplanted, and they are relatively simple, hollow ones — like bladders and Mr. Beyene’s windpipe, which was implanted in June 2011. But scientists around the world are using similar techniques with the goal of building more complex organs. 

Story.

Monkey brains . . .

Item:

Scientists have designed a brain implant that sharpened decision making and restored lost mental capacity in monkeys, providing the first demonstration in primates of the sort of brain prosthesis that could eventually help people . . .

Story.

Negotiate with anyone . . .

. . . except your wife.

Frank A. Bolz, the legendary hostage negotiator and retired NYPD captain, recently answered questions about negotiating. My favorite:

Have you ever applied your hostage negotiation techniques with your wife, and what was the success rate? =)—Paul, Brooklyn
Are you kidding me!!!! She has been a cop’s wife for over 60 years. Just as a doctor can’t or shouldn’t operate on his wife, a negotiator will probably not be successful with his wife. =(

More Q&A with Bolz.

My favorite Rogue . . .

People are always asking, which Rogue Warrior book I like best. It's not one of the ones I wrote with Dick. It's book one, a great job by Dick and his co-writer, John Weisman, a great writer in his own right.

Still available, and a bargain.

What I'm drinking now . . .

Rogue, of course. the Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout to be specific . . .

Publisher's Weekly likes Rogue Warrior

Review:

Publishers Weekly
Marcinko’s fast and funny 15th in his Rogue Warrior series, his sixth with coauthor DeFelice (after 2011’s Rogue Warrior: Domino Theory), takes Dick Marcinko south of the border with his gang of shooters: Shotgun, Mongoose, Trace Dahlgren, and Tex Reeves. An assistant to the U.S. secretary of state wants Dick’s company, Red Cell International, to find evidence that Hezbollah is not setting up training camps in Mexico. At the same time, Dick agrees to look into the kidnapping of Melissa Reynolds, the gorgeous daughter of a fellow Navy SEAL. Dick calls in the rest of the Red Cell regulars, and they go to work, which means they institute a scorched earth program of killing and/or maiming every variety of Mexican bad guy, from the head of the country’s largest cartel to the lowliest corrupt cop. As always, Dick supplies the running commentary and all the gags. For everyone—readers, authors, characters—the usual good time.

American Sniper - 16th Printing

From the publisher Monday:

Great news: we have gone back to press for 15^th and 16^th printings, bringing the total in print over 465k

And of course that doesn't count ebooks.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Thank you, everyone.

Whose islands?

Item:

In a show of strength, China dispatched two maritime law enforcement ships to the islands, which are known as the Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan.The ships, belonging to the China Marine Surveillance, are commonly deployed in the South China Sea, where China and its neighbors have other territorial disputes over islands.

Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, said Tuesday that the marine agency had drafted an “action plan” for asserting China’s claim to the Diaoyu.

The Japanese government’s purchase of the islands from a Japanese family was intended to prevent the conservative governor of Tokyo buying them, a step that would have heightened the clash with China, Japanese officials said. The Tokyo governor, Shintaro Ishihara, had said he would develop the islands, something the national government does not plan to do.

NYT story.

We're back . . .

The main website, jimdefelice.com, went down for a while yesterday after our host had some security issues. We're back live, last time we checked.

No, it wasn't a deliberate stunt related to the newest Rogue Warrior, though it was a(n) (un)timely coincidence . . .

Web security has been a continuing "theme" both in Richard Marcinko's fiction and in his real-life work over the past decade or so. Roguishness aside, it's a continuing and deepening problem that still isn't taken seriously enough. If a mischievous or otherwise hacker can take down a few hundred thousand websites for a day, think of what a government-sponsored cyber attack unit could do.

Call it "Liaoning"

An official state media source reports that China will name its first aircraft “Liaoning” after the province that contains Dalian Naval Shipyard, where it has been refitted.An authorized government portal site, China Internet Information Center (China.org.cn) is published under the auspices of the State Council Information Office and the China International Publishing Group (CIPG) in Beijing.

Story.

The reference is to a province in China where the ship was outfitted. Perhaps not coincidentally, one of the characters in the name  遼寧 can be read as "peace."

Now available

The latest takes us south of the border . . . on sale this week.

Nuns and sentences . . .

I sort of picked on one of my parochial school teachers the other day, mentioning her "critique" of my early story efforts. (Said critique consisted of her application of the business end of a Bic pen to the hard side of my head. One of the more pointed notes on my work I've ever received.) So in fairness, I should note that she - and all of the nuns and lay teachers I had in formative years taught me quite a bit about grammar and the ins and outs of the English language. (They'd hate that cliche, I should add.)

One of their best tools was diagramming sentences. I'm guessing that's out of fashion now, but learning how to breakdown and schematically represent how different types of sentences work gave me an invaluable foundation for writing. I had to know the rules before learning how to abuse them.

I really loved the diagonal and dotted lines of conditional clauses and phrases . . . though not enough, I guess, to do that now. And parallel constructions always reminded me of seesaws and train tracks.

I'm sure a few of them would be pounding the rosary beads pretty heavy these days to read some of what I write. Still, I am grateful for the Sisters, pointed pens, metal-edged rulers, and all.

The "suit"

The lastest:

A federal judge on Thursday approved a settlement with three major publishers in a civil antitrust case brought by the Department of Justice over collusion in e-book pricing, paving the way for a war over the cost of digital books in the coming months.

Story.

Here's something I would never do . . .

. . . Let people watch me write a book:

UK author Silvia Hartmann is aiming to achieve a worlds-first by offering her readers the chance to see her latest novel being typed live online. . . .
This project, known as “Hartmann Book Live” aims to go one step further and give fans the chance to not only see the manuscript being typed, but to also comment on the storyline and provide feedback as the novel develops.
Silvia Hartmann said, “This is an amazing opportunity for me as an author to push the boundaries of the author/reader relationship. It will be amazing to write knowing that people will be viewing each word, paragraph and chapter, each backspace as I go along! Some authors plan their manuscripts in advance, but my stories tend to have a life of their own and I look forward to seeing what unfolds with everybody else!”

Full press release. With a hat-tip to GalleyCat.

In my case, I'm sure it would be the most boring thing anyone has ever watched.

Beyond that, I'm seriously paranoid about having people watching - or reading - over my shoulder. The last person who did that was Sister Mary Elephant, my sixth-grade teacher, God bless her, who caught me drawing a comic strip in class and gave me my first critical review - a Bic pen in the side of my skull. I still have the indentation.

Iran, Iraq & Syria

Item, from a story showing that Iraq is allowing Iranian flights to cross its borders to Syria:

As part of Iran’s assistance to the Assad government, it has provided the Syrian authorities with the training and technology to intercept communications and monitor the Internet, according to American officials. Iranian Quds Force personnel, they say, have been involved in training the heavily Alawite paramilitary forces the government has increasingly relied on, as well as Syrian forces that secure the nation’s air bases.

The Iranians have even provided a cargo plane that the Syrian military can use to ferry men and supplies around the country, according to two American officials.

In a new twist, according to one American official, there have been reliable reports that Iraqi Shiite militia fighters, long backed by Iran during its efforts to shape events inside Iraq, are now making their way to Syria to help the Assad government.

Story

Iran's aid to Syria is by far the best argument for intervention by the rest of the world.

Writing in 1st person - a lesson

I don’t teach writing – different skill set, really – but if I did, I think I’d use the first chapter of Bang The Drum Slowly as an example of how to create an effective first person character.

Author Mark Harris manages a world of miracles in that first chapter, and does so on the sly. First and foremost, he gives us the main character, Henry “Author” Wiggen and his distinctive voice, introducing us to Wiggen’s colorful vernacular, which he uses to lend authenticity throughout the work.  Then, as in many contemporary novels, he essentially tells us the nature of the book – to simplify, it’s a buddy book – and its specific world – baseball. (He also plugs the earlier book where Wiggen appears, something I’m sure the marketing people would appreciate. You don’t have to read that book – The Southpaw – to appreciate Drum.)

Most masterful, though, is his use of a very small incident – a temptation with a stewardess – to illuminate Wiggen's character. The scene is so deftly handled that it seems almost like a throwaway bit – yet once the reader accepts it, he or she is willing to accept what in reality is a much bigger leap in the character’s actions, namely his decision to take his friend and sometime catcher Bruce under his wing.

The work is fiction, but the techniques also apply, to some extent at least, to narrative nonfiction.

Great read. It's a masterpiece of technique in a popular novel form. Enhanced if you like baseball, but that’s not a necessity, I think.

(The cover here is by the great illustrator, George Salter. You can see more of his works here.)

Spirit(s) of 1776

THE Marylanders’ story is among the more underappreciated chapters of the Revolutionary War. Vastly outnumbered, they launched a series of counterattacks that stymied rapidly advancing British forces, enabling thousands of American soldiers to evade encirclement and certain death or capture. Had the British not been checked, it is possible that the Continental Army would have been smashed, forcing Washington to surrender and effectively bringing the war to an abrupt, inglorious end. “These soldiers saved the Revolution,” Mr. Furman maintains.

Though little known, the (losing) battle in Brooklyn helped Washington retreat and save the bulk of his army. The Americans were vastly outnumbered and probably betrayed, but their courage was essential to the Revolution.

Some historians believe they know where the remains of the soldiers are buried, but getting proof will be difficult. New York played a major role in the Revolution, though today few know about it.

 Details in this NY Times story.

Neil Armstrong, remembered . . .



Still one of mankind's greatest moments ever - and no steroids here.

One story (of millions).

Still taking the long way . . .



. . . and never kissing the asses they tell you to.

You want big?



I have sledgehammers lighter than this gun. Hell, I have sledgehammers lighter than the bullet.

Britain's new frigate . . .

. . . er, "global combat ship." More details here.

Is it just me, or does that look like a large salt shaker aft of the bridge?

RIP, Tony Scott

Critics

Some writers take a hard line:

It hurts to be criticized, and there is exhilaration in firing back, sometimes literally. The novelist Richard Ford, after a dismissive review from Alice Hoffman in The New York Times Book Review in 1986, shot bullets through one of her novels and mailed the mutilated thing to her. “My wife shot it first,” he reportedly said. Years later he spat in public upon the novelist Colson Whitehead, who had harshly reviewed another of his books. Afterward Whitehead commented, “This wasn’t the first time some old coot had drooled on me, and it probably won’t be the last.”

Article. I can honestly say, I've never shot anyone's books but my own.

Speaking of autonomous drones . . .

Another story, this one from Popular Science:

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-07/i-am-warplane

(Hat tip to David Tehranche posting on the Old Pooners Group on Facebook; I hadn't seen the article myself.)

Greed takes precedence . . .

. . . over international security. Or, why let a little nuclear war get in the way of making a few million dollars?

Quote:

"You f---ing Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we're not going to deal with Iranians?!"

- Head of British bank, Standard Chartered, accused of helping Iran transfer money (and, indirectly, fund its nuke program).

Story.

Autonomous drones . . .

One of the issues in the next Dreamland, due out later this year . . .

And a world class cover . . .

Marching on . . .

Raven Strike, one of our earliest Dreamland books, made a showing on the best-seller list this week over at Barnes & Noble, and the information led me to a shocking realization: I’ve been working on that series for over a decade.

How quickly time, and words, fly.

It’s amazing how much has changed in those ten years. When Dreamland started, the idea that UAVs would play an important role in air (and all) warfare was very foreign to most people, and I remember a lot of questions from editors to the effect of, Do you really think things like this will happen? Ever? Really?

Even more radical was the suggestion that a man in a wheelchair might be able to have an active part in battle, to persevere and be a hero. Today, I wouldn’t be surprised if younger readers thought Zen was based on a real person.

People sometimes ask why the series has lasted. I think there are a lot of reasons – I don’t undervalue luck, among them. the tech is cool, though at times hard to keep up with. But for me, the books have always been about the people in them. Whether it’s Zen trying to overcome a disability, Breanna trying to both prove she’s both a bad-ass pilot and an attractive woman, or Turk Mako trying to prove he belongs, the characters are people we all identify with. Even Mack Smith, the man everyone loved to hate in the early books, reminds us of people we know in real life (and in his case, may want to avoid).

Dale and I greatly appreciate all of the support readers have shown us over the years. News of the best-seller status hasn’t, however, made me very nostalgic for the earlier installments. I’m too busy working on the next-next Dreamland, the one that will come in 2013. In the meantime, there’s one due to hit the shelves and the ebook stores soon. By the time you see it, we should be outlining the 2014 book.

RIP Marvin Hamlisch, 1955-2012

'Retired' Iranians fighting in Syria . . .

. . . while seeing the sights on a holy pilgrimage.

Item:

(CBS News) - The State Department tells CBS News it has no reason to doubt Syrian rebels' claims that 48 Iranians they are holding hostage are members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard military unit.
Iran has flatly denied the claim that the hostages are military personnel, insisting they are all civilians who were in Syria to visit the Sayyida Zainab shrine, south of Damascus, when they were abducted. The shrine has been frequented by Shiite Muslim pilgrims in the past, including many from Iran.
On Wednesday, however, Iran's foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted by the Islamic Republic's government-controlled media as saying, "some retired individuals from the Guards and army" were among those being held.
"After some time in which pilgrims from Iran were not being dispatched to Syria... we took steps to send retired forces from various organizations," he was quoted as saying by Iran's state news agency and other state-run media. "Some retired individuals from the Guards and army were dispatched to Syria to make a pilgrimage."

Story.

Bet they have a helluva retirement plan.

Iran is fighting in Syria because its collapse will hurt Iran badly, and not because it will deprive them of sightseeing destinations. The question is whether the contagion can spread.

Up on Nook

Barnes & Noble is running a special promotion this week, with the Nook edition of one of the very first Dreamland books, Razor's Edge, offered for only 99 cents. (Available here.)

Razor's Edge was first published back in 2003; it was the third book in the series, and the start of a period where we were publishing two Dreamland installments a year. I don't know about Dale, but I know I was blown away by the response of readers.

It was an exciting if ultimately exhausting time. The pace now is a little easier to keep - I wish I could write as fast as a lot of people read.

The book moved up to 20 on the Nook best-seller list when the special debuted this week. I hope everyone likes it. Hopefully they'll enjoy some other installments as well.

One thing I should note for readers new to the series - the timeline of the Dreamland books before Dreamland: Whiplash is set in the 1990s. It was always conceived as a (slightly) alternate universe.

P.S.: Amazon has a special of its own for the Kindle.

Japan, China & the rest of Asia



There's been a small boom in analyses on Japan, China, and Asia recently, as Japan and the U.S. reevaluate their focus. This report from Stratfor, as usual, is succinct and perceptive.

Meanwhile, the Sinai . . .

This hasn't gotten a lot of attention in the U.S., but it's very significant, and perhaps ominous:

Masked gunmen attacked an Egyptian Army checkpoint around sundown on Sunday, as the soldiers were preparing to break their Ramadan fast. Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman, said on Monday that the gunmen then seized an armored vehicle and a truck, and stormed the fence at the Kerem Shalom crossing into Israel with the apparent goal of kidnapping an Israeli soldier or civilians.

Times story.

Road signs

While the road I live is a county highway, it's not exactly the most heavily traveled road in the area, let alone the world. But it's become even less populated over the past two weeks, as the county has closed it down to fix a deadly curve and do some other work not far from my house. There are barricades and a sign down where my half connects to another county road warning that the road is closed.

Still, plenty of people come down, hoping to cut about ten minutes off the drive to town (it is convenient for that, when open).

I figure one of two things is going on. Either (a) they can't read, or (b) they distrust the government so much that they don't believe the signs.

Addendum: Having conducted an informal survey of the last six vehicles and discovered that two were Mercedes, one a BMW, and another a highly-pimped-out four-door pickup, I'd say the reason is definitely (a).

Controlling for change . . .

How much have aircraft changed since the 1940s? Below is the pilot's "office" on a DC-3:

Here's an image from the flightdeck the Dreamliner, Boeing's 787:

You can't see the seats in the bottom photo, but they look a lot cushier than their DC-3 counterparts.

In some respects, what hasn't changed may be most interesting - you have wheels, pedals, and throttle sticks in both . . .

Friday fireball



Some days you just feel like destroying the world . . .

The Captain doesn't slum . . .

It's hard to say anything without a pun that will get me in deep trouble. You can look, but you can't touch:

http://www.mandatory.com/2012/08/01/derek-jeters-celebrity-girlfriend-gallery/#photo=1

Blowing up history

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jenns Robertson has developed an historical database showing where every bomb has been dropped since World War II. From Boston.com:

“What if you had the detailed data on when and where every bomb was dropped from an airplane in combat? What would you know?” . . .

A lot, as the article goes on to say. Here's one critical (and I'm sure controversial) point from World War II:

Unlike land battles, whose outcomes have been well understood by those who were physically engaged with the enemy, the impact of air attacks has historically been far more difficult to discern.
Initial analysis of THOR has raised at least one intriguing possibility in that regard: airstrikes, not tanks, may have been most responsible for the Allied breakthrough against the German Army at El Alemein in Egypt in the fall of 1942, a major turning point in the war against Nazi Germany.

Article.

The database could have a major impact on World War II histories, and not just those assessing air battles. A reassessment of El Alemein would force a (long overdue) reassessment of Montgomery. And I suspect that would be the tip of iceberg.

Cover art

Final sketch for Blood of War, due this winter.