Andy is back - hide your coffee

My new book featuring FBI agent Andy Fisher is out today - more information and buying links here:

http://www.jimdefelice.com/Andy_Fisher_37IG.html

PW called it pointless. Kirkus gave it a starred review as one of the best books of the year. Go figure.

Extensions

For reasons known primarily to my host company, the home/landing page for my website has changed to
http://www.jimdefelice.com/Home.html

If you look real close, you'll notice that the extension is slightly different. It's not a problem if you get there from the flash opening at www.jimdefelice.com, but if you've bookmarked the shortcut, it may end up as a problem.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

BTW, there are audios from the American Sniper work sessions inside, as well as material on the new book, The Helios Conspiracy.

Shameless promotion - for indies

I love bookstores of all sizes and shapes. When run well, superstores are fantastic places to browse and shop, full of chance and surprise.

But I also love small bookstores. The best ones are not just a good place to shop, but a valuable contributor to the community. One of my favorites, Merritt Books, runs any number of programs that help a variety of people, and plays an important role in encouraging young people to read.

To get my new book - or any new book - at your local independent bookstore, you can order it through this website:

http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780765323279

Dreamland audio

Some of the early Dreamland novels have not been available on audio. That's going to change this spring.

This is a concept cover from the new series - I don't know how close it will be to the final product, but it already looks very, very cool.

I don't think Dale or I ever dreamed of how popular the series would become. I'm sure I speak for him when I say we're both extremely grateful to our readers, and humbled by their continued interest.

Finding the independents

Looking for a good local independent bookstore? Here's a page that will show the closest ones in your area:

http://www.indiebound.org/indie-store-finder

Sample chapter

You can get the first (and maybe even the second) chapter of Helios on this page (scroll down): http://www.jimdefelice.com/Andy_Fisher_37IG.html

Code Name Caesar

A book I'm looking forward to this summer . . .



Among other things, the book will document secret technology transfers between the Germans and Japanese during WWII.

What does a solar tornado look like?

A serious lack of imagination


Item:

“All the pundits who talk about ‘Oh, yeah, bomb Iran,’ it ain’t going to be that easy,” said Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, who retired last year as the Air Force’s top intelligence official and who planned the American air campaigns in 2001 in Afghanistan and in the 1991 Gulf War.

NYT story, which is as clueless as the rest.

Ya think? So what would they do? Give up?

Or use all of the resources at their disposal?

There's a reason pundits and reporters are pundits and reporters, not military planners.

Another take 



. . . on the Fisher Helios trailer. . .

Iran, Israel & the U.S.

How much influence does the U.S. have over Israel when it comes to Iran?

Not as much as some think:

“A strike at this time would be destabilizing and wouldn’t achieve their long-term objectives,” [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin] Dempsey said of the Israelis. “I wouldn’t suggest, sitting here today, that we’ve persuaded them that our view is the correct view and that they are acting in an ill-advised fashion.”

Dempsey doesn't think a strike would be prudent "at this time." But he didn't predict the future - or the present, for that matter, given his candid comment about the Israelis.

Bloomberg story here.

Pandora's Box revisited . . .

Item:

The full details of recent experiments that made a deadly flu virus more contagious will be published, probably within a few months, despite recommendations by the United States that some information be kept secret for fear that terrorists could use it to start epidemics.
The announcement, made on Friday by the World Health Organization, follows two months of heated debate . . .

Story.

A star is born . . .

Kirkus, the book industry trade publication, gave The Helios Conspiracy a starred review in its latest issue. (Web page here.)

I'm extremely grateful for the review, and also for the feedback and help I received while working on the book from a host of people, including the Guru, who as always gave me very useful notes.

Don't worry about my head getting too big - the book was smashed by PW (the other major industry reviewer) last week. Just goes to show how personal reading is.

I think Helios, with its satiric and comic tone, may be hard for some to adjust to after Leopard's Kill and American Sniper. I can completely understand that. We all have different moods and interests; Helios and Fisher represent a particularly bent set of both on my part.

Helios will be available March 1.

Blundering their way to war


Item:

Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the belligerent moves by Iran actually underscored weakness.

“If there’s a meta-narrative here, it’s that Iran tends to speak loudly but carries a small stick,” Mr. Sadjadpour said. “Their alleged terror attacks projected incompetence more than fear, their announced nuclear progress is likely exaggerated, and their threat to pre-emptively cease oil exports to Europe turned out to be another bluff.”

(NYT story here; the analysis is somewhat better than elsewhere, and corrects some of the knee-jerk reaction of their earlier stories.)

Massive miscalculations - the perfect prelude to a war.

Happy Valentine's Day...

Romance

I hadn't seen Dogboy in many months, so when he ran into the bar the other night, my initial response was something along the lines of happy shock. The Dog is always good for a story and a laugh, though not always together.

Then I noticed the troubled look in his face as he ordered a double Jack.

"You OK?" I asked. "You look like you just saw a ghost."

"I did. An old girlfriend."

The details came out in bits and pieces. Dogboy had been in the local supermarket, stocking up on beer and pizza, when he saw his old girlfriend at the other end of the aisle. He was stunned.

"She looked like bag lady who'd been in a train wreck," he told me, pushing his glass back for a refill.

"This is a bad thing?"

"You don't understand. I think about this woman all the time. I always thought she was the one. I always thought . . ."

Neither one of us spoke for a bit. I gathered from what he had been saying that his marriage -- yes, the Dog is married - had been somewhat rocky lately. But that seemed to have changed in a supermarket instant.

Finally, I asked what he'd said to the old girlfriend. He shook his head.

"Never got close to her. I pretty much fled the store," he said. "But on the way out, I bought every rose they had. Tomorrow's Valentine's Day, you know."

"Uh-huh."

"Sometimes you don't know what you've got until you see what you might have had."