Basil Sands

New Book - Sneak Peek - Cold Summer - Due out late summer 2012

2012-01-20T23:34:00.000-09:00

This is a quick peek at the first chapter of my new book, Cold Summer, due out end of summer 2012. Enjoy.

*********

Southwestern Punjab, Pakistan

November 4th

“Ali aga. How long will the meeting be today?” Kharzai fidgeted as he spoke, looking out the window at the dusty landscape that passed them by.

Ali turned in the front passenger seat and glared at Kharzai over the top edge of his mirrored sun glasses.

“Al Gul, your wedding plans will be as scheduled,” Ali used the cover name Kharzai was known by among the Taliban and allied organizations. “The old man made that very clear.”

“How did you know that’s what I was thinking?” Kharzai replied.

“Because that girl is the only thing you have been talking about for a week.”

“I’ve talked about more than Leila this week.”

“No,” Ali shook his head, “no you have not.”

“I did too,” Kharzai looked indignant, “I told you we needed to resupply the ammo cache at Bahawalpur.”

“That was business. I mean other than business you have not brought up any other subject but this girl you want so bad. If you were so horny, you should have just gotten a prostitute. Hell, get a young boy to take around as your pupil…at least you won’t have to worry about making more kids that way.”

“You Arabs are sick."

"Arabs? You Persians have no room to speak. What's his name...” Ali tapped his temple to draw up the memory, “Iraj Mirza, the poet, diddling boys was all he wrote about.”

“Apparently I do not read the same poets as you,” Kharzai said. "That stuff never happened in my family. Our fathers made us iron chastity belts with razor blades around our bung holes."

"What?"

"Yeah they had a hole for us to let waste out of but blades around the rim of the hole protected us from any wrong way traffic. It was hell on the furniture but any man who thought he could enter me or my cousin's back door would've enjoyed a second circumcision."

Ali chuckled, "You are a strange man Seirim Al Gul, very strange indeed."

"Alright, time to get serious," barked the driver. Kharzai's face reflected back at him in the rear view mirror. The driver's eyes were shielded by silvered aviator sunglasses as well. "We are here."

The column of vehicles pulled into a cluster of single story mud brick houses and animal pens that played at being a village. Children scuttled between the houses in some sort of game and a herd of goats looked up at the vehicles with the blank stare of bestial curiosity. Before the vehicles came to a complete stop a cluster of laughing boys surrounded them chattering all at once like a gang of monkeys, wide expressions of innocent joy on their faces, ignorant of the cold violence embodied in these men to whom they clamored for attention. Ali and the others pushed the boys out of the way, projecting a cruel terrorist persona. Some of the boys cowered and shrunk back, others ignored the mean men and homed in directly on Kharzai.

In spite of his reputation as a cold blooded killer, Seirim Al Gul literally means Hairy Demon, Kharzai loved and was loved by children. He trotted into the mob of boys and with the toe of his shoe snatched a soccer ball from one of them starting an instant game of keep away. Boys chased him, tripping over each other, laughing at Kharzai's silly faces as they tried in vain to get the ball back.

Leila came out of a nearby house and stood at the edge of the play area. The loose end of a clean white dupatta draped around her shoulders and head fluttered in the warm breeze. The sunlight set her unblemished face aglow like a goddess. Like a manga artist's dream of beauty large almond eyes peered at him from beneath the fringe of her dupatta, pools of deep brown that drew him in. Her bright orange loose fitting shalwar kameez made him think of sunrise and fresh fruit. The baggy Pakistani clothing was not nearly as formless as the infamous burka, and while being modest by western standards allowed her vivid femininity to remain apparent as she moved. Around her neck hung a thin gold chain with a heart shaped pendant Kharzai had made from a twisted braid of gold wire. His expression opened with a huge smile and he winked at her flashing bright white teeth through his thick black beard. She giggled in response.

“Al Gul,” one of the men from the convoy called from the door of a house.

He kicked the ball over the heads of the boys sending them on a chase as it bounced into a goat pen. A few of them followed behind Kharzai like a gaggle of goslings as he jogged toward the house. The man at the door snarled at the boys stopping them short in fear.

"Go play," Kharzai said with a swoosh of his hand as he entered the house. They ran off. He glanced over to Leila as she walked into one of the other houses. A jolt of nerves wriggled through his belly as the door closed behind him. He mused how funny it was that al Gwahari's daughter could make him feel so giddy, especially in light of the fact that he was going to kill the man within the week. Then a different thought hit him: He was going to kill his fiancées father.

What if she doesn't like me after.

But then he remembered that although she could never say it aloud to anyone but Kharzai, whom she like the others only knew as Seirim Al Gul, she hated her father and everything he stood for. He was a companion of men like Osama bin Ladin and Iman al Zawahiri, mass murderers who controlled the population with terror. On the day he proposed to her Leila confided in Kharzai that she hated the jihad. She hated the war and the fighting and the killing and wanted to run away from everything. She wanted to move to Australia or the United States and make a new life where she could be free from the fear that always surrounded her home. When he asked how she could trust him with such words when he was a fighter like her father's men, she told him that he was different. He was not just another crazy jihadist. Something set him apart, but she could not put her finger on it. They would marry, then disappear and live happily ever after.

Kharzai entered the house and was lead to the room where al Gwahari sat on a carpet, his war chiefs in a circle around a small table.

"Al Gul," his voice came in a gravelly rumble. "My son in law, please sit. Join us for tea."

Kharzai sat on the floor across from the older man. Al Gwahari did not look the part of a terrorist warlord. He lacked the evil sneer of bin Ladin or the dull eyed mask of al Zawahiri. His grandfatherly appearance had worked in his favor to acquire alliances, but those who crossed him soon learned that it was a ruse. The kind looking old man had no qualms in ordering, and overseeing, the wholesale massacre of villages that refused his demands. He had personally executed two ISI agents and Kharzai’s CIA contact, luckily the latter died without revealing Kharzai's duplicity. Al Gwahari still trusted him, as far as he knew.

"Thank you sir, I am flattered you would invite me in," Kharzai said bowing his head, his gaze staying focused on the floor in a gesture of humility.

"No, it is I who am flattered that a famous warrior of Allah like you would marry my daughter."

"I look forward to being your son in law."

"The ceremony begins tomorrow, the rest of the guests will be here by morning," al Gwahari said. "The next four days and nights will be for celebration, but now there is work to be done."

"Then I will not waste your time sir."

Ali motioned to Kharzai, "Al Gul, bring in the case of surveillance information we left in the car. After that you may go to the mosque and begin your purification while we discuss the mission schedule."

"Thank you Ali aga."

Kharzai stepped out the door and back into the bright sunlight. The boys, had given up on their soccer game and sat on the shaded side of the house playing with marbles in the dirt. Leila approached the house holding a tray of cups and a pot of steaming tea. Her head bowed in modesty, she turned her eyes up to meet his face and smiled when he looked back at her, adding an exaggerated swish to her hips as she drew near.

"Three more days my love, only three days and we will be one," he said.

She twisted her face into pout, "I don't know. I think I might change my mind."

Kharzai raised an eyebrow and forced his face into a serious expression, "If you change your mind now, I’ll strap on a shaheed vest and throw myself into a train."

"Then I will have to marry you. You're too cute to blow yourself up!"

They laughed. He held the door open and she walked into the house. Their eyes locked, like magnets unable to resist each other as she passed. The door closed behind her, breaking the bond. He walked to the car, practically floating above the ground, opened the trunk and retrieved a suitcase of files and photos. Most of the images were already in the hands of the CIA and ISI, and counter-ops were already working on defensive measures. As he lifted the heavy case his cell phone bleeped the tone for a text message. Kharzai set the case on the lip of the open trunk and pulled the cell phone from his pants pocket. He thumbed the text message button and read the words on the screen.

Impact imminent...DUCK!

A bright hiss screeched in the distance growing louder fast. His heart leaped into his throat and he started for the house. He opened his mouth shouting for the boys to run but the words were torn from his breath as the house erupted with an earth shattering roar. The force of the explosion threw him back and over the car landing in the dirt with a brain shaking impact. He willed his stalled lungs to expand and suck in air, then pushed himself up onto his feet and stumbled forward.

Where the house had stood was a heap to shattered bricks and splintered wood. Clouds of dust slowly settled over the rubble. Terrified villagers peaked from inside their homes, looking first at the destruction then up to the sky praying more bombs were not on the way. Dazed, Kharzai stumbled into the ruins searching, praying that she had stepped out the back door, or by some miracle had been protected. He froze, his eyes locked on a piece of bright orange linen that glowed in sharp contrast to the shattered brick and charred wood. He moved toward it and saw her stockinged foot, twisted beneath a large mass of crumbled stone. He started to reach down, to dig her out. A glimmer of gold sparkled two meters away, her necklace. He stepped toward it and reached down to pick it up, hands trembling, tears welling up in his eyes. As he pulled on it, a stone rolled aside, revealing strands of long brown hair that wavered in a breeze that kicked up low to the ground. He glanced back at her foot and instantly realized that Leila's hair and necklace was entirely too far from her feet. His stomach lurched and forced himself to a place of detached calm. He pulled a folding knife from his pocket and cut it as close to the source as he could, refusing the urge to dig her body out, not wanting to see her face, only moments before full of life and beauty, now mangled in death. He would only hold on to the memory of the living woman he loved, he tied the lock of hair into a knot around the gold chain and pushed it into his pocket.

Kharzai walked into a Lahore coffee house, the acrid smell of tobacco smoke and strong coffee stinging his nostrils as he crossed the mostly empty room to a table in the far corner. A deeply tanned caucasian man looked up from the table and acknowledged Kharzai's approach. He started to rise but Kharzai's expression advised him to stay seated.

"You were supposed to wait for my signal," Kharzai growled.

"We had it on satellite,” the man said, “and knew we would only have one chance."

Kharzai grabbed the man by the collar and wrenched him up from the chair.

“We gave you a warning message,” the man pleaded impotently.

“You killed a bunch of kids!”

Barely controlled violence punctuated Kharzai's voice.

The man's face twisted in expectation of getting hit. Kharzai dropped him back into the chair.

“Blame the Taliban, not me!” the man straightened his collar looking nervously around, “They’re the ones who hide among civilians!”

“You could have waited until my signal.”

The man rose to his feet, “Al Gwahari would have slipped away again, it was worth...”

Kharzai rammed his fist straight into the man's nose. Blood sprayed across the man's white shirt and he stumbled backwards, knocking the table over and falling to the floor.

"You killed my wife you bastard!"

The man rose to his knees and touched his face. He winced and looked down in horror as blood continued to pulse from his nose and spread over his hands.

"Jesus, you broke my nose!"

"You’re lucky you still have testicles you son of a bitch,” Kharzai picked up a napkin from the table and wiped the blood from his knuckles. “Tell your boss that I am out."

"You can’t quit," the man's voice was liquid and nasal. "You’re in too deep, they won’t let you go."

Kharzai stared down at him in a barely controlled rage.

"Tell them I am dead, and if anyone comes to find me, they will be too."

The Muses - revisiting a post from 2010

2012-01-17T14:30:00.001-09:00

The ancient Greeks believed that artists were guided by a group of beautiful spirits called the Muses. They led the poet and the singer down the path of creativity toward their creations. I think there’s something to that. After all where do these ideas come from that end up giving us stories and songs and poetry?

I believe I have two muses. One with silky long black hair and a smile that sparkles brighter than the morning star whispers in my ear. Her breath sends shivers of pleasure through my entire body. She holds my hand and sings quietly, sometimes murmurs sounds of love and tenderness that words cannot easily express. We walk together, smiling and she points to things of beauty that I otherwise may not have noticed. But she has inner strength that encourages her to dive through the clouds, opening her parachute at only the last minute. She is able to run with wolves as if they were her family, to swim with sharks without showing fear. I don't know how she does it, I think she has them all hypnotised.

Her rival is quite the opposite. A rather gabby individual and seldom soft or quiet. Her hair is also black and shiny but is tied back tight and ends in a pony tail that bounces and snaps like a whip when she moves her head. She doesn't sparkle, she pops. Sitting still for a photo might catch her in what seems like a moment of motionlessness, but only if the shutter speed is set to very fast. She vibrates with energy, constantly talking and jabbering and tossing ideas into my brain pot at such a rate that I can barely digest one before the next comes barreling in. Perky is a word that might describe her…. or caffeinated. If you want a wild night...or an exhausting weekend ... of creating, touching, travelling through and tasting the forest, seeing the music, grasping the stars, exploding with sensory overload, all the pain, all the pleasure an orgasm of fully lived life...she's the one to go with. But don't expect to be many steps beyond the grave at the end of the weekend. Only the strong and brave need apply.

Those two are my muses. Equal in beauty, power, and strength but mostly not compatible.

Mercifully the two seldom appear at the same time.

They are, as it happens, rather abrasive toward one another when they are together.

The poetess starts making vulgar rhymes and the perky one ends up slapping her.

But they are both very hot.

They are sultry and sexy and drive me crazy.

And I quite enjoy both of their company.

So here I am. Living dangerous in psychological polygamy.

28 hours in the life of Basil:

2011-12-06T13:55:00.002-09:00

28 hours in the life of Basil:

Sat:
8 pm - editing narration of book about serial rapist...almost done.

10 pm - read Bible with my boys & try to erase serial rapist character from thoughts...he's way creepy.

11 pm - lay in bed

11:01 pm - think about how modern
pirates hiding out on an island could be captured by Marines Mike & Mojo for part of my WIP

Sun:
1 am - drift to sleep & dream of Marines chasing serial rapist pirates around island

4 am - wake up to pee....I'm over 40

4:05 am - 5 am - repeat 11p-1am sequence till again asleep...but this time the serial rapist pirates have the upper hand and found some of the escaped hostages

6:45 am - jolt awake realizing I need to finalize my "Ebook Self Publishing" presentation for Tuesday night at the library

6:55 am - sit in comfy wing-back recliner and boot up laptop then realize I already prepared the presentation.

7 am - make coffee, sit down and finalize presentation for Sunday School. Teaching kids "Jehovah Shalom", God of Peace.

10 am - drive ten miles to church on icy rain slicked roads (yeah, it rained on top of our four feet of snow Sunday...very fun driving).

11 am - teach God of Peace Lesson to kids

12 pm - retain calm exterior with class room of 6 six year olds who all have something amazing to tell me...all at once.

1:30 pm - try to reign in a few dozen lunch energized kids to practice for Christmas play...reminding self He's a God of Peace

2:30 pm - Piano Recital for two sons, ...one played jazz, one played classical...both did really well

3 pm - In Laws call during recital, "FIL is sick, can you come cook for this little dinner I am having tonight. Its our choir Christmas party. Its only about 40 people"

4 pm - Start grill, 30 mph freezing wind blows flames toward me wherever I stand...at least the fire on my coat is warm.

5:45 - finish cooking steaks, help finish plating food, eat, help wife & kids do dishes while party goers play Christmas party games.

7 pm - finish dishes, last of guests leave, kids ask to go home so we can watch netflix movie "Thor".

8 pm - watch Thor....it's cool

10 pm lay back in bed again

10:30 - wonder if Thor could help Marines get serial rapist pirates and save hostages on island.

Midnight - remember I have a day job and force self to sleep. Dream about USMC MGySgt Thor Odinson, chasing pirates around the library while I am talking about ebook self-pubbing on Tuesday.

two days after the grilling even, my nice wool coat still smells deliciously like smoked meat

Halloween....or not

2011-11-01T09:06:00.002-08:00

Halloween / Trick or Treat is kinda tricky in Alaska. Last night we got four inches of snow and it was 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Usually the snow has fallen by a week earlier, but the east coast stole it all this year. Trick or treating outside has much less impact than in other parts of the continent due to parka's and boots covering up the costumes.

Add that to the fact that the Sands house, being a fairly conservative religious one, doesn't do Halloween at all and it makes for an empty night for kids on our block. To facilitate kids who wanna beg for candy the local phone company, Alaska Communications, hosts a Trick or Treat Town in their rather massive warehouse so the kiddies can come into a warm building and show their costumed best while going "door to door" through a few score or so booths spouting the obligatory "Trick or Treat" (our Boy Scout Troop 104 gets to be the janitorial staff in exchange for a donation). Being that it is in a warehouse and there are police and private security patrolling, egging and other pranks are pretty limited.

In spite of the fact that the Sands clan was all at church holding our own Halloween alternative ("Hallelujah Night" - demons, monsters, and serial killers highly discouraged) we got home about 10 pm to discover that despite our porch light being off, the fish tanks visible in the front window were enough to have attracted a copious amount of attention as attested to a major highway's worth of foot prints tracked through the otherwise fresh snow leading to our front door.

Sorry to disappoint kiddies.

When my wife first came over from Korea she nearly freaked seeing people dressed as ghouls and zombies and witches back in the 80's. Her grandmother (Halmonim) had been a shamanist leader in their home town who converted to Christianity in the early 70s and then lead the whole town that direction, forbiding such pagan practices as much as possible. My wife was scared even to go outside, perhaps thinking the shamanist hold outs had come to get her, as she was the first convert in the family and led her Halmonim to Christ.

Blog Hop Casting Call

2011-10-26T11:11:00.004-08:00

A few friends over at soyoureawriter.blogspot.com told me about this little Blog Hop thing where we put out a call for actors for some of the characters in our books.

I thought of a few to play various characters but maybe you could help with some even better suggestions. So here's a few of the cast of characters from 65 Below & Faithful Warrior along with their resumes. Whaddaya think?

Marcus Johnson: (65 Below & Faithful Warrior)

Physical Data -

Height: 6'

Weight: 204 lbs

Ethnicity: Multiple - African American / Alaska Native

Year of Birth: 1968

Education:

Ben Eielson High School, Eielson AFB / Salt Jacket, Alaska

Graduated 1986

Job History:

USMC 1986 – 2007

Positions held in this occupation: Sniper, Reconnaisance Marine, Special Operations Marine, Other Classified, Retired in 2007 with rank of E-8 Master Sergeant with numerous combat missions.

1^st Force Recon 1987-1999.

Classified assignments 2000 -2007

Hunting Guide 2007 – Present

Specializing in rifle or photo hunts for high profile / diplomatic tourists, prefers photo hunts

Expertise(s):

Rifle Shooting up to 2000 meters. Pistol & assault weapon shooting in urban / hostage rescue environments. Helped develop modern Marine Martial Arts System for hand to hand combat, holds Black Belt in the system. Wilderness Survival expert. Fur Trapper. Hunting. Stalking. Tracking. Urban assault team leader.

Languages:

Natively fluent French and Albanian; advanced level Russian, Arabic, Spanish, Croatian; intermediate level Italian, Portugese, German, Dutch, Farsi, Pashto; novice level Mongolian, Mandarin, Japanese

Personality Characteristics:

Quiet contemplative personality. Is very calm, and exhibits extensive self control in stressful situations. His full name is Marcus Orlando Johnson which is shortened by friends to “Mojo”. Was a track star in high school and currently regularly walks 25 miles in a single day in the Alaskan wilderness. Physically very strong. Dated Lonnie Wyatt from High School until the mid-90's. Proposed to her but she said he'd had to quite the Marines to marry her. He couldn't do that and eventually they broke up. He remained celibate after losing that relationship and over time wrote more than 400 poems for and about his love for her, which he shared with no one.

Korean Actress Lee Ji Ah for Lonnie Wyatt

Lonnie Wyatt: (65 Below)

Height: 5'4”

Weight: 128 lbs

Ethnicity: Asian-Korean

Year of Birth: 1969

Education:

University of Alaska Fairbanks: Major – Mathematics / Education

Job History:

Lathrop High School, Fairbanks Alaska 1991 - 1997

Math Teacher

Alaska State Troopers, multiple locations in Alaska 1997 – Present

Trooper / Patrol 1997 – 2005

Trooper / Detective (ABI)- 2005-2008

Trooper Lieutenant 2008 – Present

Expertise(s):

Tae Kwon Do – 5^th Degree Black Belt. Hap Ki Do 3^rd Degree Black Belt. Certified Forensics Field Examiner. National Police Academy Graduate. FBI Investigative Officer's Academy.

Language(s):

Natively fluent Korean and English.

Personality Characteristics:

Lonnie has a very strong personality and often comes across as cold and hard. Because of her job she struggles with femininity but can use it as a tool for investigative/interrogative purposes on call. She is capable of putting on a frighteningly cold facial expression to coerce perps into divulging data. She is also adept at martial arts in case that doesn't work. Having dated Marcus Johnson for more than ten years, she rejected his proposal for marriage unless he was willing to leave the Marines. Just as they were about to reunite in 1998 Marcus went missing and was presumed dead on a mission in Africa. In her grief Lonnie got pregnant with another man's child only to discover two month's later that Marcus was alive and had escaped Africa on the hope of seeing her again. Their eventual reunion was somewhat rocky.

Aaron Eckhart

Mike Farris (Faithful Warrior)

Height: 6'

Weight: 192 lbs

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Year of Birth: 1966

Education:

Biola University: Biblical Studies graduated 1988

Fuller Theological Seminary: Master of Divinity, 1999

Job History:

US Marine Corps Reserve: 1984 – 1988 – Recon Sniper (Enlisted Reservist)

US Marine Corps Active: 1988 – 1995 – Recon Officer (Spec Ops)

US Marine Corps Reserve: 1995 – 2006 – Recon Officer (Spec Ops Reservist)

Retired USMC with rank of Major in 2006

Trinity Presbyterian Church: Senior Pastor 1999 – 2009

FBI Chaplain & Counselor 2009 - Present

Expertise(s):

Church management and religious teaching. Ministry and Counseling to sufferers of PTSD. Sniper, rifle expert at up to 2000 meters. Pistol expert. Marine Martial Arts Black Belt. Urban assault team leader. Commanding troops up to battalion size in Urban, Rural, Jungle and Desert operations.

Language(s):

Native English, Advanced French, Intermediate Somali and Hebrew

Personality Characteristics:

Mike has a very tender heart for counseling but is also very capable as a warrior with a philosophy of compartmentalization of each aspect of his personality. After an event wherein he was tortured nearly to death by a warlord in Somali in 1993 Mike became interested in treating people with PTSD. He himself did not realize he had signs of the condition until several years after retirement when a violent tragedy struck his family at their church parsonage. Unknown to all but one of his church members, Mike continued to perform special operations missions, usually in a command role, throughout his USMC Reserve duty and is personally known to every President since Ronald Reagan.

Kharzai Ghiassi (Karl's Last Flight & Faithful Warrior)


Raj Kundra, but he'd need bigger hair & thicker beard

Height: 5'8”

Weight: 165 lbs

Ethnicity: Persian American

Year of Birth: 1971

Education:

Indiana State University: Dual Degrees in History and Physics 1993

Job History:

Tastee Freeze: Cook, Cashier, Lady Hitter Onner 1986-1987

Indiana State University Library: Thing Looker Upper, Info Getter for Whatever 1987-1988

JooJooBees FashionWares: Clerk, Clothes Tryer-Onner, Official Flirter With Chickies 1988-1988

Farquharson Tax Service: Guy Dancing with Sign on Street Corner 1988-1993...really liked that job, lot's of chickies gave their numbers.

CIA: Position Classified 1993 – 2010

(all details of his CIA employment are classified and not to be opened until Dec 31, 2080)

Expertise(s):

Laughing, smiling, flirting, dancing, singing badly, telling dumb jokes. Capable of multi-input/output. Killing people...usually just bad guys, but you never know. Oh and can tie both shoes at the same time, one with each hand.

Language(s):

Lots. Yup....lots & lots & lots. Farsi, Arabic, English of course, French & Italian (cuz that makes the ladies swoon), Hebrew, Russian, Pashto, Eewok, Yoda, Arriana Huffington's language...whatever that is.

Personality Characteristics:

I have beautiful thick black hair that jiggles when I wiggle. I like moonlit walks on the beach, barefoot traipsing through the jungle, eating vanilla bean ice cream, slitting the throat of terrorists who thought I was their buddy, playing dead then scarring the whillies out of new guys. (Chief Psychological Officer's note: Kharzai is an interesting study in everything science says does not exist. In middle school he was diagnosed as ADHD but he refuted the diagnosis and refused treatment based on his self-diagnosis as a new condition he termed Bilateral Rapid Understanding Hyper-Attentive Hyper-Active, which he shortened to the acronym BRUHAHA. He has exhibited the capability to participate in multiple conversations while simultaneously writing and / or reading another. When tested he was able to repeat verbatim the content of up to four simultaneous sources of input. He exhibits nearly photographic memory and is capable of mimicry such that he is practically a master of disguise. Kharzai Ghiassi is either the most intelligent human being I have ever met, or is utterly insane. As long as he is on our side I guess we are safe. End Chief Psychological Officer's note)

Gary Sinise

Paul Hogan (Faithful Warrior)

Height: 5'7”

Weight: 226 lbs

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Year of Birth: 1966

Education:

University of Virginia: Criminology 2007

FBI Special Agent Academy 2008

FBI Executive Leadership Academy 2010

Job History:

US Marine Corps: 1988 – 2006 – Recon Marine (Spec Ops)

Medically Retired USMC with rank of Gunnery Sergeant in 2006

FBI Agent: Anti-Terrorism Specialist 2007 – 2009

FBI Special Agent in Charge: Ohio Valley Anti-Terrorist Task Force 2009-2011

FBI Undersecretary for Anti-Terrorism - 2011-Present

Expertise(s):

All Firearms. If it shoots bullets he can master it within moments of touching it. Explosives, standard and improvised. Investigative Procedure.

Language(s):

English, Irish Gaelic, Spanish

Personality Characteristics:

Paul served through much of the first half of his military career with Mike Farris as both his commanding officer and his best friend. He was the Marine who rescued Mike from being tortured in Somalia in 1993, and later worked extensively with him on secret operations. Paul was often the comic relief for the unit and enjoyed telling stories, especially regarding his Irish heritage. In 2001 Paul was among the first Recon Marines to enter Afghanistan alongside Marcus Johnson and saw extensive combat, both special operations and traditional infantry operations in six successive tours between there and Iraq where he met Kharzai Ghiassi for the first time. In the summer of 2006 Paul was nearly killed by an explosion that forced him into medical retirement two years short of his full regular retirement date. He had been studying online for a degree in Criminology with hopes of becoming an FBI agent upon retirement. That career became a reality shortly after his graduation, but it too took a nearly fatal turn just two years later. Paul still jokes around and has fun in his job, just does it with a serious limp nowadays.

Update: When I originally posted I forgot to add these links to all these other fine writers who are participating in this Blog Hop! CHECK'Em Out!

1. So, Youre a Writer	2. A. E. Martin
3. Ink-Splattered	4. The Serial Killer Files
5. Reading, Writing, and Lovin it!	6. The Eagles Aerial Perspective
7. Untroubled Kingdom	8. Origami Flower
9. moms life ponderings @ wordpress. com	10. Lisa L. Regan
11. Views From the Bald Patch	12. JP @ ~Where Sky Meets Ground~
13. The Doubting Writer	14. Wendy Tyler Ryan
15. Daily Dodo	16. My Pet Blog
17. Forever Rewrighting	18. Authorial Intent
19. Stephanie Diaz	20. Sarah Belliston
21. the contemplative cat, and Susan Kane, Writer	22. Charitys Writing Journey
23. Chai Tea and Quills	24. Cynthia Lee
25. Nancy S. Thompson	26. Michael @ In Time . . .
27. Basil Sands, Alaskan Thriller Writer	28. Across the Border
29. Vive le Nerd - Looking For Inspiration	30. How Many Days In The Year
31. In The Jungle	32. Tyreans Writing Spot
33. Keep on Writing, Keep on Dreaming

65 Below now on Audible.com

2011-10-01T17:11:00.000-08:00

Finally!! The Full Version Unabridged Audiobook of 65 Below is now live at Audible.com!

Click here to get your copy today!

Book Description:
At 65 degrees below zero, exposed human flesh freezes solid within three minutes.

Retired Marine Master Sergeant Marcus Johnson returned to his family homestead in rural Alaska after 20 years chasing bad men. Now he wants nothing but to hunt and fish and run his trapline in peace and quiet, and no more war.

Meanwhile, lurking deep in a long forgotten bunker in the remote arctic hills is a decades-old secret that could not be destroyed, and was never meant to be rediscovered.

Win a free Kindle!.....or Two!!!!

2011-09-14T09:15:00.001-08:00

I'm giving away One Free copy of the Audie Award nominated Audio-book Karl’s Last Flight written and narrated by Basil Sands and available at Audible.com. This is the full retail version, not the podcast and therefore is quite different than the free one you might've heard.
To enter, simply leave a comment on this posting before October 1st, 2011.
Every Entry gets a coupon for a free ebook of Karl’s Last Flight as well!!

Here’s a description of the story:
Karl Alexander had been an adrenaline junky for twenty five years. Whether flying Harriers in the Marines, piloting the shuttle for NASA, or as the chief astronaut for StrataCorp Space Flight his happiness was only found when he hit five Gs. But when a series of minor mishaps sends his ship crashing into the desert of an unknown country, Karl finds a new kind of adrenaline rush as he is swept into a raging torrent of the world at the edge of war. Spies, insurgents, secret police, and an infamous Saudi millionaire terrorist all threaten to make his next flight, his last.
Get a second entry by going to The Big Thrill's Neverending Giveaway site and leave a comment under the Karl's Last Flight entry. Not only will you be entered to win a free copy of the unabridged MP3 Audiobook, since I am feeling just plain generous I am going to give every commenter a copy of the e-book totally free just for the asking!
That’s right… a free ebook copy of Karl’s Last Flight to everyone who simply comments on this entry by October 1st, no special drawing, no special requirements other than to say you’d like one and voila! Just leave a comment and bamo: you’ll have an ebook.
Leave a comment here before October 1st to enter for the free audiobook and I will send you a Smashwords coupon code for a free copy of the ebook version of Karl’s Last Flight.
The drawing winner will get a CD containing the entire unabridged audiobook in MP3 format but every commentor will get a free ebook coupon code!
Enter Today!
Everyone wins!!!!!

"Basil's Very Little Known 'Facts' " Hollywood casting of movies

2011-08-01T14:24:00.000-08:00

A post on my favourite other blog, The Kill Zone, got me thinking about how Hollywood casts its movies.

And now it's time for "Basil's Very Little Known 'Facts' "

The Magnificent Seven: The script for the famous western was based on Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. In the initial readings the intention was not to make it a real “Western” per se, but more of a musical comedy along the lines of Oklahoma meets Abbot & Costello in the days of Blade Runner (yes, Blade Runner had not yet been written, but the ideas were there nonetheless).

The original casting included Bud Abbot in the part of the samurai leader Shimada, Lou Costello as the young untested warrior Okamoto, Larry Fine as Katayama the skilled archer, Lee Marvin as the tough Kyzo, Curly Howard as Hayadashi the comedic warrior, Jonathan Winters as the lieutenant Shiroji, and Milton Berle as the counterfeit samurai with the heart of a warrior Kikuchiyo.

It all fell apart early on when Abbot refused to get a samurai top knot haircut and kept insisting on putting his arms around the pretty girls. Costello got jealous and tried to prove his manhood by learning to use his katana sword for real. Several very expensive set pieces were destroyed before his midnight practice sessions were halted. Add to that Moe Howard's frustration at not being offered a part with his former stooges (Larry had actually specially requested that Moe be left out to give his hair and nose a break from the regular season abuse, something which Moe did not learn until much later in life and to which he responded by saying, “Why I oughta...”). Curly actually felt very much at home in Samurai garb and started to philosophize to no end about how he had probably been one in a former life, and had ruled a vast portion of ancient Japan, and how the word 'Nyuk' can actually be found in historical texts of the Japanese language.

Jonathan Winters at first started off playing his part very well. So well as a matter of fact that he was very nearly at the point of being typecast as the tough albeit slightly chubby hired gun in future westerns. Such aspirations were shot down though, literally when upon seeing an ethnically-Japanese crew member he thought he recognized from WW2 the former Marine had a violent flashback and nearly beheaded the man with a prop sword prompting a security guard to shoot him with a prop gun causing him to suddenly collapse into a sobbing heap then start emulating an alien invasion using only two chopsticks, a Japanese fan, and bowl of noodles.

Between those antics and Milton Berle's constant arrival on set dressed as a Geisha instead of a Samurai Lee Marvin (also a former Marine) finally just quit the whole show and stormed off muttering something about “I may have survived getting my ass shot off in Saipan, but there's no way in hell I'll survive these morons!”.

So there you have it, what might have been had Hollywood had its way on casting that time.

That also got me thinking, if my books were to be optioned for movies who would fill the roles? Any ideas out there?

July has been Busy

2011-07-29T10:27:00.002-08:00

Week 1: Day Job - Visit by Regional Director and her National Director – quite stressful for my little one man office.

Week 1: Fun – Wife Birthday then watch youngest son play in week long Little League Baseball All-Stars Tournament

Weekend 1: Fun – Kayaking in Prince William Sound with son's Boy Scout Troop

Week 2: Day Job – Four day inspection by National IT Oversight and Compliance Team (IT version of IG) – very stressful for my little one man office.

Weekend 2: Prep for Cub Scout Camp, Prep for church VBS in August

Week 3: Day Job: prep for server migration to new blade servers. Evenings: Chaperone Cub Scout Camp all night, tell campfire stories and make sure young son gets to his final Little League Game.

Weekend 3: Prep for dipnet fishing trip – lot's of packing. Someone reset the church wifi and removed security … fixed it

Week 4: Fun (sorta) Head to Kenai for Dipnetting – fished one tide Monday morning – caught 26 red salmon in about 2 hours – wife became very sick – rushed back to Anchorage & went to Hospital – baaad infection, but after 4 days bedrest and care she's better. Canned about 30 pints of salmon, half of it smoked. Froze 200 lbs of fresh fish. Day Job: work two days, lots of training classes, end of month reports, inventory maintenance. Day Job: finish prep for server migration.

Weekend 4: prep for next weeks VBS all day Saturday and Sunday, hope that this sort throat I have now is just a thing for today, and not a sign of what's coming next week.

And this is the slow time of year............

Hot New Audiobook - Threat Warning, by John Gilstrap - Narrated by Basil Sands.... hey that's me!

2011-06-29T08:14:00.003-08:00

Alright ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to ask you to help out a friend of mine and go buy his book, ebook and/or audiobook!

John Gilstrap's newest Jonathan Grave novel is out and your's truly had the privilege of narrating the audiobook version for Audible.com. It is a good story. Fast paced, action packed, even funny at times. Well hey, instead of me blabbing, check out the jacket copy:

In his most terrifying thriller yet, New York Times bestselling author John Gilstrap exposes the darkest threat to America's freedom, a secret society of merciless killers, watching and waiting to strike. The first victims are random: ordinary citizens, fired upon at rush hour by unseen assassins. Caught in the crossfire of one of the attacks, hostage rescue specialist Jonathan Grave spies a gunman getting away—with a mother and her son as hostages. To free them, Grave and his team must enter the dark heart of a nationwide conspiracy. But their search goes beyond the frenzied schemes of a madman's deadly ambitions. This time, it reaches all the way to the highest levels of power...

See...I told you!

Get it the audiobook on Audible.com or pick up the ebook or paperback at Amazon.com today!

Solstice and Rainy day visions

2011-06-21T09:13:00.003-08:00

Yesterday I received yet another rejection letter from a major agent's assistant. This one stung more than most, because after 5 years of pounding the pavement then deciding I would just jump into the self-pub world I had been highly recommended to this agent by another major agent who liked my stories but doesn't represent thrillers. Between the rejection, a day of grey cold Alaskan rain and a little league baseball game where all the kids were acting like a bunch of kittens on meth, I was tired and in a pretty bummed mood by night fall, which never really fell because it is solstice which in Alaska means 24 hours of the brightest sunlight of the year except with the clouds it was as I said earlier cold and grey sunlight. I lay in my bed unable to sleep, wondering if I should just toss in the towel, admit defeat and shelve the book I'm nearly done with, my fourth by the way. I couldn't say this aloud, because my uber supportive wife would be devastated, she has every inclination that I will succeed, much more than I do most days.

I was beating myself up for not paying more attention in High School or College English classes which at the time I had no idea I'd need, since I was going to be a Marine Corps Infantry Officer and probably Commandant one day. Then I beat myself up for getting injured in said Marines and sent home before I even made Lance Corporal. Then the pummeling continued for having given up on my way back dream of owning a restaurant, failing at the computer business I did actually own, failure at farming, the skiing injury that makes serious exercise nearly impossible most days, and now being stuck in the perfect limbo job with a decent but not spectacular salary and no where to go unless I want to move 2000 miles away, and...well...you can see where this is going.

Curled beneath my blanket next to my wife, her soft breaths coming like whispered pleas to pull out of my misery, I lay blaming myself for every failure under the sun, even reaching the point where I started to wonder if that six degrees of separation thing meant that I was responsible for the global recession and the mess in Libya and Middle East (I am sure the President would love it to be so). As I lay there feeling sorry for myself a phrase ran through my mind.

"It rained. It rained the day world caught fire, but the fire didn't go out."

The phrase wouldn't go away. It came with images too, images of a man running, of frightened children changing in the face of danger, of war, of a world collapsing into a new dark ages, and of course rain. I had hoped these images would go away, but they didn't. When, after less than four hours of fitful sleep, I crawled back through the veil into consciousness the images were waiting for me, stark and vivid, nakedly accusing me of trying to abandon them.

There are two things this imagery means in my opinion, the one I am going to go with is that this is the groundwork for my next novel, and that I need to follow it and see where it leads even though it is not the book I had been planning to start next, although that one has a bit of rain in it too. I am going to run with the idea that it's a book, because the alternative is to consider it a vision of the future...and I just don't want to go there.

Father's Day Special! Free eBook!

2011-06-15T13:39:00.002-08:00

Get dad some action packed reading for Father's Day and get a second book Free! Click this link to buy 65 Below, Faithful Warrior, or Karl's Last Flight ebook or paperback and get a coupon for a free copy of one of my other ebooks of your choice.

Make your purchase, send your purchase confirmation to dad@basilsands.com and I will send the Smashwords coupon back to you to get your free book.

Yes...that's right...FREE!!

A bit of advice from my literary blog friend John Ramsey Miller

2011-05-26T17:32:00.000-08:00

1. AVOID CUTTING YOURSELF WHEN SLICING VEGETABLES BY GETTING SOMEONE ELSE TO HOLD THE VEGETABLES WHILE YOU CHOP.

2. AVOID ARGUMENTS WITH THE FEMALES ABOUT LIFTING THE TOILET SEAT BY USING THE SINK.
3. FOR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE SUFFERERS ~ SIMPLY CUT YOURSELF AND BLEED FOR A FEW MINUTES, THUS REDUCING THE PRESSURE ON YOUR VEINS. REMEMBER TO USE A TIMER

4. A MOUSE TRAP PLACED ON TOP OF YOUR ALARM CLOCK WILL PREVENT YOU FROM ROLLING OVER AND GOING BACK TO SLEEP AFTER YOU HIT THE SNOOZE BUTTON.
5. IF YOU HAVE A BAD COUGH, TAKE A LARGE DOSE OF LAXATIVES. THEN YOU'LL BE AFRAID TO COUGH.
6. YOU ONLY NEED TWO TOOLS IN LIFE - WD-40 AND DUCT TAPE. IF IT DOESN'T MOVE AND SHOULD, USE THE WD-40. IF IT SHOULDN'T MOVE AND DOES, USE THE DUCT TAPE.
7. IF YOU CAN'T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER, YOU'VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL PROBLEM.

DAILY THOUGHT:
SOME PEOPLE ARE LIKE SLINKIES - NOT REALLY GOOD FOR ANYTHING BUT THEY BRING A SMILE TO YOUR FACE WHEN PUSHED DOWN THE STAIRS.

(sorry for the shouting....its just the way he talks...)

Good Guys Professional Development Conference: After Action Report

2011-04-30T11:37:00.001-08:00

From: Phil Hardtly, Chief, Janitorial Maint. Staff, Convention Center

To: Management and Scheduling Dept.

Re: Concerns related after Friday's “Good Guy” conference

Please be advised of the following discoveries after yesterday's conference entitled “Good Guy Professional Development Conference”.

Convention Hall:

Several significant modifications were discovered to have been made to the wiring and communications systems
Wiretaps and listening devices had been placed in many locations throughout the room.
Some were not so well hidden, three even had names inscribed on them, “Clouseau”, “J. Bond”, and “English, Johnny English”.
Some were better hidden, nearly impossible to find but given the nature of the types of conventions we host, my staff regularly sweeps the area for such devices.
As you are aware I am sure, The Loosley Amalgamated Corps of Evil Henchmen will be here next week and it cold have had a seriously negative impact had we not discovered these bugs
Many of the tables had a large number of gouges and knife marks on their surface. Once of the maintenance staff had earlier witnessed several parties in attendance playing “that knife between the fingers game from the movie Alien”. The tables will have to be sanded and refinished to make them servicable without table clothes in the future.
Burn marks on the ceiling, two door frames, and one light fixture from “Super Power Demonstrations” seminar
note – Alcohol and Super Powers do not mix

Coat Check / Weapon Check Room

All attendees were required to turn in any weapons, concealed or otherwise, at the coat check room upon entry. This was a good plan and to add to the general security of the conference and attendees I had ordered an additional very large and bio contained safe be placed in the room to ensure both adequate space and containment in case of a mishap
the feared mishaps came in the form of two items as delineated below

Mr. Johnny English of MI7 checked in an ink pen that he claimed was a small thermonuclear device capable of deconstructing at a molecular level any biological system it came in contact with one minute after being armed. We believe Mr. English, while showing it off to the check clerk, unknowingly to both himself and the clerk, armed the pen when he handed it to the young man. After English left and the clerk went to lock up the pen witness claimed to have heard a puppy-like whimpering sound followed by a sizzle. When the clerk did not return from the closet one of his co-workers entered the room and found nothing but an oily puddle on the carpet. This was severely distressful for our staff, as we were already short handed for the event.
Ms. Ellen Ripley dropped off what she claimed was an unloaded alien weapon she had brought for presentation/display purposes. Apparently it was not unloaded, and the alien spawn housed in a hidden capsule inside used its acid saliva to burn through the safe and the floor beneath and cause no small amount of concern in the homeschool conference going on one floor down. Luckily one of the homeschool kids captured it in a Mason jar. With his mother's permission and the assistance of a couple other fifth grade homeschool kids he proceeded to do a series advanced biological, cellular and genetic experiments on the creature in hopes of attaining early college credit.
Related side note, we need to replace the sink, several water pitchers and the microwave in the downstairs convention room.

Toilets:

Due to a practical joke played early on both the male and female restrooms were very messy. Someone had covered the male urinals and about half of the female toilets with clear plastic wrap. The resultant deflection of bodily fluids create a huge mess and tempers flared quite dangerously among some of the victims. The worst even was when a Ms Lara Croft had to do “number two” while the cleaning staff was in the process of removing the plastic wrap. She chose a toilet they had not yet checked.
Apparently Miss Croft had consumed a lot of fresh fruit juice recently.
After most of the attendees had left staffers were quite startled to discover several young adults trapped in compromised positions in the restrooms and adjoining closets.
It is not believed they were engaged in amorous activities due to the manner in which they were discovered.
Miss Nancy Drew was found sandwiched between the Hardy brothers, all three had been stripped to their underwear, and bound together with a copious amount of “Saran Wrap” then duct taped to the plumbing pipes in the utility closet between the restrooms. The words “Pissers” and “Poo Face” scrawled across their foreheads and cheeks in black permanent marker.
The Wonder Twins were likewise duct taped together, but back to back and fully clothed in their case, and rather than being attached to the building in some manner, they were suspended in mid-air by a glowing yellow plasma orb in the handicapped stall of the men's room.
Staff got them down by shorting out the plasma orb with a metal broom handle. The twins did fall rather hard a distance of more than six feet to the tile floor Jayna baning her head on the toilet bowl.
FYI: They have both threatened to sue for the injuries.

Bar:

Mr Tim Drake (aka Robin) and Miss Susan Storm (aka Invisible Woman) were discovered snuggled closely and fully clothed in their “Super Hero” outfits, sleeping off a drunken stupor in the cased liquor storage room
it is assumed they both passed out before anything happened other than perhaps a very minor about of fourplay (get it? 'fourplay')
Large amounts of broken glass were found behind the bar, interspersed with water color paintings of bottles of Bailey's and numerous leaves of kelp.
According to witnesses, the bartender (a Mr Olde Gregg hired from a temp agency) had served over two dozen Long Island Iced Teas to a Mr. Sean Dillon and several bottles Baileys to a Mr. Allan Quatermain then intiated a 'water color contest' with them which turned violent when he said they painted beautifully and then asked both men to marry him.

Summary:
For future “Good Guy” conferences please ensure that security and maintenance staff is present in the same quantity as we generally have for the “Arch Villains” and “Moody Rock Star” conferences, as the damage while in different forms was at a similar level.

Short shorts....not the story kind

2011-04-22T12:13:00.001-08:00

Over on Joe Konrath's blog some folks were speaking of short stories and that made me remember a story about a different kind of shorts that used to make me both laugh and cringe.

Years ago I was the manager of the military dining hall for the National Security Agency. Yup I was Chef to the Spies, meal provider to International Men of Mystery and Black Ops types. There was a supervisor in the dining hall who was a retired Army Mess Sergeant and he was absolutely anal about dress code.

Granted it was a military dining hall and there were rules, and this was in the early 90's before "sexual harrassment training" became standard, but this dude had a thing about girls wearing short shorts. In the event a young lady came in wearing shorts that extended less than three inches from her private area he would send her back to the barracks to change before she was allowed to eat. If she argued that it was within regs ol' sarge, apparently having visually stared at enough women's private area to trust his visual measurements, whipped out a plastic ruler he kept in his pocket for just such an opportunity. The girls almost universally balked at the idea of him verifying anything and stormed out of the mess hall to find something to cover up...or head off base to McDonalds.

After a while, some of the older female employees kept a couple of wrap around skirts available to loan the young girls before sarge saw them.

Of course if guys came in wearing short shorts he didn't bother with the ruler, they just got a snot slinging nuclear shout fest explosion only a mess sergeant was capable of. And they never argued with him...nor did they repeat the mistake. Something about him saying "If those things fall out yer shorts I'll castrate you with a fifty pound potato peeler" or "this ain't that kind of freakin' joint sweetie cakes, if I so much as think yer hairy butt-cheeks are going to peek into view I'm gonna shave them off with this industrial cheese grater!"

Yeah...sarge ended up with a lot of counseling during the Clinton years....

anyway...shorts are difficult issue for me

Dreams and More: visions of flight and my next book

2011-04-19T10:04:00.002-08:00

I dream a lot. But never nightmares, or the weird creatures those who know me might imagine me dreaming of. Usually I am searching for something, sometimes I see quizzical things I spend the whole night pondering, often I am flying. While I don't recall being frightened in any of the dreams, I am often nervous, especially around power lines because I usually am not so good at controlling my flight. Often I forget how to gain altitude, or how to turn to avoid something, but I always end up landing in one piece with my heart hammering in my chest.

Last night was a particularly interesting flying dream. I was in an ejection seat rocketing up through clouds. The upward propulsion was long and went very high, much higher than physics would allow a normal ejection seat to go, especially since the flight didn't originate in a jet or even in the air. I propelled past a cluster of skydivers afraid I would collide with them. Moving in the multi-directional space of sky is very different from terrestrial motion. There are a lot more dangers you cannot see, coming from all directions. Luckily, or by divine providence, after a couple of close calls where the skydivers noticed me just in time, I missed all of them.

Ascending through a higher layer of cloud, I began to slow and suddenly realized I had no seatbelt on. I tried to buckle it but when I let go of the seat it started to tip. That was scary, because now I was many thousands of feet in the sky. So high that ice crystals made sections of the clouds solid. Coming to rest on a bit of that solidly frozen cloud I encountered a group of four teenagers, who were discussing the coolest way to play music as they moved through the sky, live music that is, there was a grand piano nearby they were going to use on the way down. We chatted for a moment, then I realized it was time for me to get back to earth. I scooted off the ice and started my descent. It was fairly controlled and there was a lot of cloud, more than the journey up had encountered. I knew I was miles in the sky and therefore did not want to open my chute till I could see the ground. I broke the bottom layer of cloud and found myself much closer than I anticipated. Yanking the chute cord I slowed, but did not land for quite a while, instead flying around two or three stories above ground, trying to figure out where I was.

Then I saw a sign. I had landed in Hyde Park, London. Long flight, having taken off from Anchorage Alaska.

I still haven't figured out this dream's meaning, if any, but it really has me thinking.

This brings me to one that I had a long time ago, 1989 if I remember correctly.

Over twenty years ago I had a dream that I knew I would have to one day turn into a novel. It involved a king of a group of five northern Chinese cities called Kwai Ler Wang Guo, or the Happy Kingdom. In the dream the king and his people lose a war and king, not willing for his people to be massacred by the aggressive invaders, flees China with them escaping to Goryeo (medieval Korea). There they build a city hidden inside a ring of mountains where no one would find them.

The next morning I told my wife about it. As I related the story she stared wide eyed. I asked what was the matter and she told me that parts of the dream sounded like fragments of her own family history. We had only been married about a year at the time and she, not being a history buff, had never told me the family history.

As it turns out, her family name 'Ma' is not a Korean name (my wife is Korean). It is the Chinese word for Horse. It is a name that signifies either royalty or warrior class. Her father had a copy of the family geneology book, presently sitting in the gun safe at my home, that goes back over a thousand years. It includes the names of all of the sons born to her branch of the Ma family over that period of time. This book of course is not the original, which miraculously survived all those years, including the Japanese occupation and Korean War. It is a facsimile, a complete replica faithfully copied and maintained exactly as the original in the event of the loss of that original.

The fact that they had this book is meaningful, not too many people in that part of the world were literate until the latter half of this century. The part that really intrigues me though is the earliest segment of the book. It is a journal of some type. Only a portion of it has been translated, because while it is written in Chinese characters, the language is significantly different and according to my father in law no one, even at Seoul University, had been able to completely decipher it. Best they can tell, it is the language of a kingdom that no longer exists. The writer they said was most likely a general or a prince. The kingdom was eradicated some time around the rise of the Mongol empire, apparently wiped off the map without a trace. This was a common form of conquest by the way, which is why archaeologists have such a hard time verifying ancient things. Conquerors would destroy all traces of the prior inhabitants and rewrite history.

At any rate, this book and its writer ended up in Korea sometime around the 11th century. My wife said that her grandfather had on one occasion taken her to her ancestral home in the central part of South Korea in the mid-seventies. She said they rode a bus for a long way, several hours on dusty roads. The bus stopped in the middle of nowhere and they got off.

Surrounded by rice paddies and forest ten year old Mikyong said, “Grandpa where's the village?”

“We have to walk from here,” he pointed to a cluster of vertical peaks a couple miles in the distance, “to those mountains.”

It took over two more hours to get there. When they arrived she was stunned. Inside this ring of mountains was a whole city, housing a few thousand residents. As they pass clusters of houses she noticed the mail boxes in front of each one. A disproportionate amount all had the same name imprinted on the box, a name not very common in Korea.

Ma.

She met distant cousins and relatives and learned that during the Korean War the entire area had not heard a single shot. They had barely even known the war had occurred. While the slaughter had engulfed the entire Korean peninsula it had bypassed them entirely. Her grandfather had left the town to study medicine during the Japanese occupation and ended up pressed into service as a diplomat to Japan during that time. He married outside the clan otherwise she would likely have been born there too (if at all).

After the dream and her story I knew right away that I would have to write that into a novel, but at that time as a twenty-something with bigger fish to fry (like becoming a millionaire restaurateur by age thirty) had no clue how to write a novel, nor the time and energy to do it. Now on the other hand, with my kids nearly grown, and youthful ambition realityified (yeah I made that word up) the story is finally in the queue, and God willing after I have finished my current WIP (Cold Summer due this summer) the new one will be up next with both an adult and a YA storyline.

Working title for my first Historical Fiction: Blood of Princes.

Due out...when I get it done.

STORYMAN: A Kharzai Ghiassi short-story

2011-03-08T10:51:00.000-09:00

He held his breath and took in the silence that lay heavily in the cool, moist morning air.

During the hours between the bar closings at two am and the earliest of the delivery vehicles at six am traffic was practically non-existent in the city. The din of noise that reverberated through the streets and alleys, on the sidewalks and in shops and restaurants and bars had ceased hours ago.

The sound of cars, trucks and busses, people talking, shoes scraping, music blaring, had been replaced by the echoing drip of water from a leaking pipe on the side of a brick building in a dark alley. Rat claws scraped against the concrete behind the dumpster a few yards from the restaurant’s back door. Empty wine bottles and various paper refuse lay strewn beside the metal container. Some other beast, a cat or a racoon, rummaged through the trash inside. Street lamps hummed and throbbed with a deep electric pulse. A lone siren sounded in the distance several blocks away.

The ambient sounds of the urban night were nothing like what he had heard the previous afternoon. A sound nearly indiscernible in the noise of the day.

He had heard it…no…he had felt it coming through a wall in the children’s home. It felt like a heart breaking. A tiny heart that had been crushed and was bleeding out it’s last bit of life.

A group of students from the college had come to the children’s home to help for a week with the tasks of cooking and cleaning and playing with the children. Some of the boys and girls who resided at the home were orphans who had lost their parents. Most were drug orphans whose parents were still there in body, but little else. Nearly all were young, under ten. The home took them in for periods ranging from days to months until proper foster care could be found.

Kharzai Ghiassi was not particularly interested in playing with kids. He had only come along because an attractive young lady who had recently gained his interest had volunteered. Regardless of the extra credit for class, he was taking the chance to be able to flirt with her more than anything else. Once at the home though, Kharzai’s heart was filled with empathy for the lost urchin wraiths.

His own childhood had not been easy. At a young age Kharzai had been branded by the school system with ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. The school tried to coerce his parents to give him drugs like Ritalin that could force him to a state of stillness in the classroom. They had fled a country whose new leadership had no qualms about using mind-altering drugs to punish those who rose against them and they would have none of it.

Drugs or not, the brand stuck and he frequently found himself in the awkward position for a child of being instantly disliked by most teachers and ignored by his fellow students. Even though his grades were perfect all the way through graduation, and he spoke four languages with native fluency before he was fifteen, the ADHD label preceded his record.

Kharzai did not like being labeled. He had no problem admitting he was hyperactive, but he whole-heartedly disagreed with the Attention Deficit label. To the contrary Kharzai felt that he had no deficit of attention. No, the reality was more that he had a surplus of attention and could process the details of multiple tasks and conversations simultaneously. This flustered his teachers, especially when they thought he was ignoring them only to have every word they had said for the past thirty minutes repeated back to them verbatim, as well as the text he had been reading or the other conversation he had been in.

Kharzai came up with a name for his condition that he felt more applicable. Bilateral Rapid Understanding Hyper Active Hyper Attentive. He shortened it to an acronym: BRUHAHA.

It was his BRUHAHA that drew his attention to the van that pulled away from the children’s home just as he arrived early on the second day. It looked like any ordinary delivery van, powder blue, no windows, unobtrusive. Others like it were delivering goods to offices and warehouses all over the city that morning. But this one caught his eye. The driver’s movements had been stiff, nervous. The passenger, head covered by a greasey sweat stained ball cap fired a threatening glare at Kharzai as they passed him in the alley. The man’s eyes growled at him as if saying, “Mind your own business, jerk.”

BRUHAHA brought the sound to his ears late on the last day. He had been performing a a highly animated solo version of “Cinderella” to the gathered group of children sitting on the floor in the meeting room of the house. The full assembly of children had their eyes glued to him in rapt attention as he played out the characters all vying to wear the glass slipper. Even the other college students, including the cute girl he was after, were totally enthralled by his skill at story telling.

At one point he drew in a breath and paused dramatically, allowing tension to build. As he held the silence, his audience standing at the edge of a virtual cliff about to drop to the valley below, a sound echoed in a chamber in the back of his mind, not so much heard as simply known.

Somewhere up and behind his head, on the wall above him, it slid through the air. A whimper. Pain. Sorrow. Despair. Without breaking character, he held the silence for a split second more, spun and glanced in the direction of the sound. His eyes passed over the reflective brass finish of a furnace intake grate near the ceiling above his head. He spun back towards the audience, continuing the show.

The children and college students in the group let out a collective gasp as he expertly carried the story to its end in a manner none of them had ever experienced. The room burst into exhilarated cheers as he finished with a bow and a flourish.

The applause went on too long, his ears strained to find that noise again. He had to find out what, who, had been its source. He had not merely heard but felt it in his soul. Someone suffered at the other end of that air duct.

Children rose and with wide smiles and gleeful giggles hugged his legs and pulled his arms.

“Tell us another one Storyman.”

He had made them happier than they had been in a long time. Soon they were all calling him by that name. Storyman.

The headmaster of the home approached. His thin, pale appearance accentuated by a dead emptiness in his eyes that gave Kharzai an uneasy feeling in his gut. Cheekbones and jaw line shone skull like through nearly translucent skin. Wispy strands of blond hair raked in thin lines across his pasty white scalp in a poor comb-over. Blond eyelashes and brows, nearly invisible against his skin, encircled the globes of his dull gray eyes that swam in their sockets like puddles of tepid soap scum.

“Young man, that was wonderful,” he said as he reached out with a clammy dead fish handshake. “I honestly don’t think I have ever heard such good storytelling. One would think you were a professional actor. You are marvelous.”

‘Thanks,” replied Kharzai. “Say, were all of the children down here for the story?”

“Yes, of course. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I just thought I heard something in the middle of my story.”

“Oh, well I can guarantee that this is all of the children we have at the home right now,” the headmaster said.

He was lying. BRUHAHA enabled Kharzai to read souls, no one had ever been able to lie to Kharzai for very long. It was very obvious, he was covering something. Kharzai shot a disarming smile that relieved the tension brewing behind the headmaster's eyes.

“It must have just been the furnace then,” he said and then added with a chuckle, “or ghosts.”

The headmaster’s lips turned up in a vague impression of a polite smile. He excused himself and walked stiffly away. Kharzai rejoined the party and the gaggle of kids. He stood near the air grate as long as possible in hopes the sound would come again but it didn’t. Not the same sound at least. From a floor he reckoned to be two stories above their heads came a heavy thump, like something being dropped.

Kharzai turned to one of the other college students with a start, “What was that?”

The other student dismissed it, “Probably someone moving furniture, or cleaning up stairs.”

The children had not heard the sound, or ignored it, and kept playing. Several minutes later he saw the headmaster again. The man looked calm. He raised his hands to calm the children.

“Children,” he called out, “children, it’s time for your new friends to go now. Say your good-byes because they will not be returning next week.”

The children let out mournful sounds that broke the hearts of the college students, several of whom promised to return again. The headmaster again reached out to shake Kharzai’s hand. As he stretched it forth Kharzai noticed a round light bluish bruise on the back of his knuckles. Fresh. It hadn’t been there when they first talked less than thirty minutes ago.

“What happened to your hand sir?” he asked with a look of shock on his face.

“Oh, I hit it on a doorknob,” he replied. “It’s nothing really, my light skin bruises quite easily you know.”

Kharzai stole a longer glance at it. The bruise was round, but not full. It was only the outline of something round, a ring of blue. And it was not totally round. In the split second of the extra look, he saw something else his eye quickly focusing on something dark, black, embedded in skin of the headmaster’s knuckle. Less than a centimeter long, but clearly visible against his nearly translucent pale skin.

An eyelash.

The eyelash was not the headmaster’s. His were blond. This was ebony black.

He smiled up at the older man and peered deeply into his eyes. The headmaster stared back for a moment, but turned away. Kharzai found what he sought. Guilt. Deep seated guilt. This man had been, make that was doing, something bad…very bad.

Kharzai’s smile stayed in its place, veiling his thoughts. The students filed out at five PM just before the children were to sit for their evening meal. At four AM the following morning Kharzai stood motionless, silent, in a deep shadow in the alley between the children’s home and the restaurant, the alley the men in the van had pulled out from and given him the evil eye a few days earlier. At four nineteen the same van returned and pulled up to the back door of the children’s home.

Two men got out of the van. One from the passenger seat wore a blue denim jacket and jeans of the same color. A greasy cloth ball cap was pressed over a stream of equally greasy, long brown hair. The second man exited from the back of the van. He was tall, well over six feet and appeared big under the long black leather trenchcoat that flowed around his ankles. He looked like someone out of a cheap action movie. Cheap actors or not, they were both armed. The bulge of weapons pressed against their coats. The van’s driver stayed in his seat. Cigarette smoke floated in thin blue strands from the driver's window.

The pair crossed the alley toward the back of the children’s home. Trenchcoat rapped his knuckles against the brown metal door set into its red brick wall. Ball Cap looked around nervously. Kharzai was invisible to them in the inky blackness of the shadow in which he stood.

The door creaked open and out stepped the headmaster. Although the men spoke in hushed tones their voices echoed in whispery strains against the concrete walls.

“Are they all ready?” said Trenchcoat.

“Yes, of course,” replied the headmaster, “lovely specimens, perfect, beautiful.”

“As long as they are fresh,” said Ball Cap. His voice was weird, like a nineteen thirties movie gangster. Kharzai half expected him to say “see” at the end of his sentences.

“Bring them out,” said Trenchcoat. He motioned for Ball Cap to open the van doors as the headmaster disappeared into the building.

A moment later the headmaster stepped out the door with four children in tow. They were small, no more than six or seven years old, and were bound to one another at the wrists, tied together like slaves being led to market.

The children moved as a group, single file toward the back of the van. Their faces looked odd, unnatural. Their lips were too red, their skin did not reflect light in a natural way. Thick black mascara encircled their dazed eyes.

Kharzai glanced at Ball Cap as he opened the back of the van. The greasy man’s lips spread in a sickening smile. He licked his lips. The front of his jeans stretched with an obscene bulge.

Kharzai stepped out from the shadow and moved silently into the alley. As he passed the restaurant’s dumpster he squatted without breaking stride and scooped up a discarded wine bottle in each hand. Beneath the mass of curly black locks that bounced with each step his eyes glowed with hateful fire. Blood coursed thick and hot through his veins. Its metallic taste pulsed in his tongue.

Trenchcoat slid the Headmaster a thick brown envelope. The pale old man’s greedy fingers snatched it from his hand. Ball Cap looked up from the children. He saw the shadowy figure moving in their direction.

“Hey, move on asshole!”

Kharzai did not respond.

“I said, move on!”

Trenchcoat slid his hand into the folds of long black leather. A glint of stainless steel flickered in light spilled from the lamp over his head onto the body of the semi-automatic pistol.

One of the children, a little girl, looked towards him and snapped out of her daze.

“It’s the Storyman!” she cried out.

The other kids turned to see him too. Their eyes widened with excitement, smiles sprouted across their faces but were quashed by Ball Caps rebuke.

“Shut up you miserable little shits!” the children flinched under his grating voice. “Get in the freakin’ van! NOW!”

Trenchcoat raised his arm. The barrel pistol aimed at Kharzai. Terrified by Ball Cap’s order, the children remained frozen in hopeful expectation of salvation from the shadowy Storyman.

One of the boy's drew in a breath and shouted, “Look out Storyman!”

Ball Cap’s hand flew up, a small black box wrapped in it’s grip. He squeezed the trigger on the box. A loud buzz tore the air and the boy screamed in agony, a high pitched, ear splitting screech that shattered the early morning stillness into little pieces that bounced off the walls and the pavement below. The child lurched like a marionette whose strings had been yanked. He slammed into the ground pulling the others down by their commonly bound wrists. They all tumbled to the pavement eyes wide in terror.

Trenchcoat’s eyes diverted to the tumbling children. Kharzai leaned forward and broke into a headlong sprint. His hand flashed up and let fly one of the bottles. It rocketed through the air with the force of a major league baseball pitch. Trenchcoat turned back and fired his pistol without aiming. The explosion of the shot boomed like an artillery round in the wide brick walled alley.

The bullet crashed into the dumpster by the restaurant door with a loud clang followed by a whirring ricochet. Before he got a second shot off the thick bottom of the glass bottle smashed home into Trenchcoats face. The force of the bottle flattened his nose, blood splattering in every direction at the impact. Trenchcoat screamed in a gurgling throaty rage through his broken nose and swollen lips.

Ball Cap, stunned by the speed at which his bosses face had been rendered a bloody mess, was unable to react in time to avoid Kharzai’s attack. The hairy Persian speared him in the ribs like an NFL sacker, driving him into the back compartment of the van accompanied by the sound of cracking ribs and whooshing air. Ball Cap struggled to grasp for a pistol stashed in the back of his pants as they tussled in the back of the van. He brought it around but Kharzai snatched the pistol from his hand in one swift motion, straddled Ball Cap’s torso and raised the barrel to his face.

“NO!” screamed the pathetic child molester. Terror distorted his features as death threatened to take him.

A flash of movement from the front drivers seat, a figure spun towards the back of the van, arm extended, the shadow of a gun in its grip.

Kharzai flattened against Ball Cap, mashing the butt of the pistol into the screaming man’s forehead, silencing his screams. Two quick shots rang out from the pistol in Kharzai’s hand. The man in the driver’s seat lurched violently into the steering wheel. Blood splattered across the windshield and the man slumped into the space between the two seats.

A shadow appeared in the open back door of the van. Trenchcoat. His arm raised with it’s weapon. Kharzai grabbed the semi conscious Ball Cap’s denim jacket and spun him around as a shield. Trenchcoat fired two quick shots into the space.

Ball Cap’s eyes burst wide with shock as the bullets impacted his body. The forty-five-caliber hollowpoints exploded inside Ball Cap's back slamming his body into Kharzai. Blood sprayed Kharzai from remnants of Ball Cap's shattered lifeless face as he forced the dead man’s body up far enough to get the pistol around him.

Trenchcoat fired twice more into Ball Caps shattered body then roared with anger as a bullet jammed in the pistol’s breach. Kharzai finally got the pistol up and fired four consecutive shots from Ball Cap’s nine-millimeter pistol. All four slammed into Trenchcoat's chest, but he didn’t fall.

The crazed kidnapper glared down at Kharzai, still trapped beneath Ball Cap. A bloody hand reached behind his back and drew out a long, wicked looking knife. The two men stared at each other’s blood slicked faces. Trenchcoat raised the knife towards Kharzai who watched the man in amazement, certain that he must be animated by demons.

Trenchcoat spun toward the children and stretched his arm high. He aimed to bring the blade down on the one nearest him. Suddenly energized, Kharzai flipped Ball Cap's limp body aside like a rag doll and fired into Trench coat until the pistol was empty, the last two shots blasted into the back of the man’s head and blew the bones of his face apart as they exited leaving a bloody nightmare of a mess. Trenchcoat toppled over onto the still unconscious child who had been tasered.

Kharzai leaped from the back of the van, the empty pistol still trained Trenchcoat’s mangled body. He snatched up the taser Ball Cap had used on the child then grabbed Trenchcoat's collar from behind and heaved him off the child, ready to zap him if he showed any signs of life.

Sirens sounded in the distance, drawing closer.

The headmaster stepped out from the door of the house.

“What is going on here?” he said as if he had just walked onto the scene. “You! You’ve come to kidnap to these poor children!”

Kharzai stared intently at him.

“How could you,” muttered the hairy Persian storyteller.

“Me?” said the headmaster acting the part of a man in shock. “I had nothing to do with this. I saw the whole thing.” The sirens drew nearer. “You and your gangster friends tried to kidnap my poor children.”

Kharzai moved towards him. The children cowered in terror at his feet, watching the scene unfold, unable to speak, to scream, to breath.

“It would be better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck and be tossed into the sea…” Tires screeched at the entrance to the alley as the police cars turned in. An explosion of headlights burst upon them “…than to lead one of these, my little ones, astray.”

Kharzai stood before the headmaster. Eye to eye, he glared.

“Freeze!” shouts came from the patrol cars. The sound of rounds being chambered into shotguns and pistol safety levers clicking off rattled above the din of sirens and the flashing of lights.

“You’ll never prove anything…Storyman.” he said with a sneer.

Kharzai’s wrist flicked up. His finger mashed the trigger button on the taser and the headmaster felt a pain he had never imagined possible. He lifted bodily and flung against the back wall of the children’s home, carried by the ten thousand volt current of electricity that grasped his testicles and forced every muscle in his body into an involuntary contraction.

Once the convulsion ceased, the headmaster slumped to the ground. Kharzai dropped the Taser and put his hands in the air as the police officers approached weapons raised.

“On the ground! Now! Face to the pavement.”

Kharzai obeyed. They cuffed him to the pleading cries of the children.

“No! He’s Storyman.”

“Storyman saved us.”

My Path to Writing: ie, How in the world did I get here?

2011-03-04T11:19:00.002-09:00

In 1993 I was a manager at the military dining hall for the National Security Agency at Ft. Meade MD, The House of Four Hats. Yup...I was chef to the spies. It was the coolest job and I loved it then and its memories now. We took third in the international Hennessy Award competition (we likely would have won were it not for a rather injudicious feat of stupidity performed by an Air Force officer I will forever remember as Major Buttknuckle Tweedbottom. His real name was long ago wiped from my memory as a result of the professional trauma he induced).
Alas through the labyrinth that is government contracting and some shady midnight deals my company lost the contract and I was unceremoniously dumped from the funnest job I ever had. A short stint in fast food management quickly soured me on the industry and I opened computer store in Columbus, Ohio putting my hobby to money making use. After three years my bank and I discovered that while I was a bang up technician and could get along well with almost everyone professionally speaking (Buttknuckle never came to my store) my business acumen did not attain to the same heights as my nerdiness and geekhood. The operation ended in failure and I sold the business for pennies then moved home to Alaska where I worked a series of odd jobs from carpenter, to pc technician, to mess hall cook for the Alaska Smoke Jumpers to EMT and explosives packer at a dynamite plant (that job was a blast).
Eventually I ended up with a government IT job that sounded challenging on paper but turned out to be veeeeery booooooooring. With long hours of screen staring time I started writing stories for my kid's bedtimes. Then a few poems. Then a couple of shorts. Then some one read one of my shorts and asked me what happens next, and I got curious. Yeah...what does happen next?
And, Blamo! A novel appears. Then I podcast it and people like it then I join The KillZone and send my cousin Leonard back and forth in the time machine and learn that in the future in another dimension I am famous on Planet Fluxinerstationiousis, especially in its capital city of Fluxinerstationiousisville. But Leonard would not tell me how I did here on earth. He just smiled a silly grin and said “Oh, you'll find out soon enough,” then showed me a picture of his alien Fluxi-chick girlfriend who looked surprisingly like a young Lindsay Wagner with a few differences and he said, gazing dreamily off to some far away place, “I'm in love.”
So now here I am. Had I not lost that multi-million dollar contract at Ft. Meade and not failed miserably at being a business man, and not spent a year packing dynamite until my wife begged me to do anything else I would probably not have written, audiobookified and epublished three novels, with a fourth on the way and a bunch of short stories!

by the way did you know those Fluxi-chicks have an extra .... uh … and there's a....on her …. how does that even work?

Nightmare Frontier - by Steven Mark Rainey, Narrated by Basil Sands

2011-02-22T09:53:00.000-09:00

I recently finished the recording of this genuinely frightening audiobook for Crossroad Press. Check out the sample then go to Crossroad Press and buy the audiobook.

Nightmare Frontier by Stephen Mark Rainey.
by Stephen Mark Rainey
Unabridged Narration by Basil Sands
Run time: 9 hours 27 minutes

AUDIO SAMPLE

The town of Silver Ridge, West Virginia, has disappeared from the
face of the earth. To the outside world, a chasm of impenetrable mist
is all that remains of the town. But inside Silver Ridge, the nightmare
is just beginning.
Confined by this unimaginable barrier, the townspeople find
themselves confronted by the denizens of a distant dimension:
horrifying creatures that intend to transform the valley town into
their own outpost. To these extra-dimensional travelers, human beings
are nothing more than pests to be exterminated.
Russell Copeland and Debra Harrington are determined to resist the
invaders… but as they face death to restore Silver Ridge to its rightful
place on Earth, they find that their true enemy may not be the
incomprehensible invaders, but an insidious evil whose origin is closer
to home than they can imagine.

Reviewers say:

“Remember what it was like to read a horror novel that actually made
you sweat with dread and your hand shake ever-so-slightly as you turned
the page? Remember what it was like to feel your heart thud against
your chest as the plight of the characters became your own? Remember
what it was like to have a story cast a spell over you rather than ram
everything down your throat? If so, you’ve reason to rejoice; if not,
then you need to discover what that’s like. In either case, Mark
Rainey’s THE NIGHTMARE FRONTIER delivers the goods. This is the Good,
Real Stuff. From its powerful opening to its nerve-wracking finale, this
novel never releases its grip on the reader’s nerves, brains, and
heart.” —Gary Braunbeck

“By the time I was up to the 7th or 8th chapter of THE NIGHTMARE
FRONTIER, I felt like a kid again, watching a Saturday afternoon monster
movie–only this time with an authentic sense of dread. THE NIGHTMARE
FRONTIER is a slick, fast-paced monster mash that will surely have
horror fans flipping the pages with a wicked grin on their faces. Add a
HUGE plus here for one of the more horrifying endings I’ve read in
quite some time.” —The Horror Fiction Review

eReaders have changed the world...But beware the 'Ed Reader'

2011-02-10T10:37:00.001-09:00

WIN A FREE KINDLE 3 WIFI! GO TO WWW.BASILSANDS.COM FOR DETAILS!

Having an ereader, be it a Kindle, Nook, iPad or even an Android or iPhone I believe makes a ton of difference for reading habits. So far I've only wished for a Kindle but have been too cheap to buy one. But I do have the Kindle App on my Android, and love it. I'm the kind of reader who has at least 4 or 5 books going at any time (one in each restroom/bath, one one the nightstand, one on the coffee table and one in my gym bag as well as an audiobook in the truck). By having the reader on my phone I have my whole book selection with me everywhere I go, which means I finish each book a little faster rather than reading a chapter of whichever of the five happens to be near me. Oh, and I don't mind reading on my phone since this one has a fairly large screen and the fonts can be resized to comfy.

On the publishing side, I have three novels and two shorts out there self-published on Kindle/B&N/Smashwords. While I have not gotten Konrath/Hocking/McQuestion/Morrison rich and famous, I have made enough in the past three months to take our first outside vacation with my entire family of five, something that is not cheap when living in AK (as you probably know, Jordan). The amount I've already made is a lot more than the highest advance offer my previous agent was able to bring to the table.

So as I said regardless of the model ereader you have, it has changed the world.

there is one ereader model I didn't like though. It was the Ed Reader and came with a free trial, which involved a guy named Ed with a backpack full of your choice of used 10 cent paperback books. He holds the book open and turns the page when you make a 'bing' sound. ...kinda creepy that one...especially in the bathroom.

WIN A FREE KINDLE 3 WIFI! GO TO WWW.BASILSANDS.COM FOR DETAILS!

Win A Kindle 3!

2011-01-04T10:16:00.002-09:00

Buy the 65 Below eBook in between January 1st and March 31st 2011 and be entered to win a new Kindle WiFi reader! For every thousand initial entries I'll be giving away a brand new Kindle 3 eReader! No limit on how many I will give away!

To enter the contest email a copy of your Amazon, Smashwords or B&N order number to kindle@basilsands.com.

Want more entries?
Get up to 10 extra entries in the drawing. After the initial entry do the following:

4 extra entries: Go to www.basilsands.com and from the comment page send a comment with the answer to this question:

“What military organization was Temebe a veteran of?”

4 extra entries:

Get four extra entries for leaving a review or comment at the purchase pages:

Amazon.com

Smashwords.com

BarnesAndNoble.com

And three more for leaving a comment at my website

Basilsands.com

That makes for up to 11 entries in the contest to win a free Kindle 3 eReader! What are you waiting for?

Happy Christmas and Merry New Year to you.

2010-12-20T12:41:00.002-09:00

May Santa be nice to you and may Viking Raiders not invade your suburbs and smash your favourite china or rape your chickens and steal your lawn gnomes or eat your dog's food and drink the cat's milk or sing ancient Viking drinking songs while hefting their mighty battle axes and legendary war blades to carve your nicely trimmed shrubberies into the shape of little goats and ponies frollicking about to the tunes of the Warrior Poet "Hlefrundthendun The Rather Interesting and Fearsome Yet Somewhat Effeminate and mostly Inappropriately Behaved of the North."
After Christmas I'm going on a week vacation with a hundred and fifty teens and college kids in the mountains of South-Central Alaska. It's the perfect place to be in January rather than joining those wimpy throngs in "hot" and "sunny" places, playing on the "beach" and "surfing", and "drinking" things with umbrellas" that get "stuck" in one's "nostrils". That's simply not for us Alaskan's, because we know how to have "fun"... at thirty below.

Basil Needs a Blog Tour for his Books

2010-09-24T12:49:00.001-08:00

Got a blog? Want a great guest to interview or to do a guest host article? Then you need to contact me ASAP! ;-)

As you may know I have posted my entire collection of thriller novels on the Kindle Mothership and on Smashwords. The ship is sailing and I am on board, but now I need to steer into the wind. If you are a blog host, or know of someone who is and would like to host me as either a guest blogger or for a written interview, or if you are a podcaster and would like to do an audio interview let me know. I would like to dedicate the month of October to doing as many blog appearances as possible each day. Drop me a line and lets schedule it.

Or as Kharzai Ghiassi would say… Yeehaaa! Buckle you seatbelt baby!

Are Libraries Dead or Dying? … uh… not as far as I can tell

2010-09-22T10:33:00.001-08:00

There’s a lot of talk these days about the death of libraries. EBooks are killing libraries. Online dealers are killing libraries, etc. But is there really evidence of this? Not from my perspective.

Our libraries here in Alaska are doing fairly well as far as I can tell. While the internal hours at the main branch have been reduced slightly I think, everything is available online as well. And during normal business hours (10am-8pm) one can go to the four story building, have a coffee and sandwich at the cafe, enjoy free wifi, and sit in one of the massive reading areas and either read or stare at the surrounding mountain vistas. One of the reading rooms is designed to look like a 1920's library with highbacked leather chairs and books (which are available for reading) from the libraries original 1920's collection lining the tall shelves along the walls. Whenever I go to that room I feel like I should be wearing a red velvet jacket and be sipping a glass of very expensive Cognac.

Honestly though, my primary use of the library is online these days. I download numerous audiobooks, and reserve any paper books I want to be sent to my local branch for pickup. The local branch is located in a shopping mall three miles from my house and looks more like a school library than a muni library. Likewise there are numerous local branches all over the city of Anchorage in pretty much every community. No one in this city of 350,000 is more than 5 miles from a library, or if they are on the computer they’re never more than a click away. Even people in the libraryless bush areas outside of the cities are able to reserve books online and have them sent to their local school for pickup.

Libraries aren’t going anywhere as far as I can tell, at least not in Alaska.

Basil on Kindle! Now, make it work people!

2010-09-15T15:09:00.001-08:00

Alright. You’ve been asking for a print version of my books. You can be at least partially happy to know that I am finally available on Kindle and Smashwords. And the best part is that because they are ebooks, the PRICE IS VERY GOOD!!!! 65 Below and Faithful Warrior are only $2.99 and Karl’s Last Flight, my very first book, is only 99 cents! I know you can afford all three so get in there!

It was a long and hard thought out decision on my part because there are a lot of risks involved. Primarily doing badly on Kindle and ending up not getting a print deal because of that fact. So, that being said, and knowing that there are several thousands of listeners to my podcast out there who would love to be able to read the full version of my books on their e-readers or PC’s it’s now up to you to see me make it to print.

If enough people get out there and buy the e-books, then post comments and reviews then Amazon takes notice and magic can happen. That magic has happened already for several people I know such as Boyd Morrison, Karen McQuestion, and Joe Konrath. And I have faith that it can mine as well.

So make it happen! Raise my ranking to the top and get the word out to all your friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, acquaintances, and strangers you meet on the street! If I get into the top 100 Kindle E-Books ranking there will be prizes…real prizes, the more books I sell the better the prizes will be. If I make the top 10 well lets just say that someone (or someone’s) will be my new best friends.

Make it happen people!

Kindle? Are you ready for my world?

2010-07-26T15:33:00.000-08:00

What I need is a weather and elements proof Kindle type device. Last week I spent 3 days standing with 200 total strangers up to my chest in 40 degree north pacific ocean water scooping up a winter's worth of red salmon into a net at a rate of 1 every 15 minutes or so in a sometimes horizontal rain that alternated with a blazing sun and occasional high surf.

A book would have been nice but would have gotten soggy. The audio-book in my MP3 player was nice but I had to keep taking my earphones out because people kept wanting to chat. (They probably thought my dull stare at the water was due to hypothermia). An e-reader would have been great but of course would have lasted all of ten seconds in the frigid salt-water, rain-soaked, sun-baked environment.

Therefore someone needs to invent an electronic reader that is water proof, temperature proof, can be read in direct sunlight and overcast sky alike and has a really strong lanyard that won't let it be carried away when a slightly higher than I anticipated wave smacks the thing out of my hand, or when I am excitedly running back out of the surf with a rather moody and violent 15 lb red salmon who is of the mind not to be taken any closer to the shore.

Of course, I guess I could just use my pocket recorder to dictate my own stories, especially the action and romance scenes, while standing there. Then the stares would be worth it.

Ooh ... and if the e-reader could double as a fish bonker that would be a real plus.

1917

2010-07-12T12:28:00.001-08:00

(read the short story or click the linked title and listen to the audiobook version)

Oh God!

Stop the noise! Please, please, please, stop the noise!

The artillery shells rained down on us for what seemed like ages. My life flashed before my eyes with every crump and thud. Twice I am lifted bodily off the ground.

I can't feel my face anymore. Everything is numb. Bill's mouth is moving, he's looking at me, shouting something, but I can't hear anything.

He claps his hands over his ears and curls in a ball. He is shaking badly, sobbing and weeping like a baby.

The earth keeps rumbling around me. I am afraid this hole will cave in and I will be buried. Oh God, please don't let me be buried alive.

Looking up from my hole I see flashes of steel shrapnel flying in every direction.

Three more huge explosions, right outside my hole, my world lifts, the ground turns like liquid for a moment.

Will it hold me? Will this liquefied dirt hold me up? Can the earth sustain this many blows? The entire planet must be near shattering. It will crumble into a billion tiny rocks.

Two more blasts nearby. I am blind from the concussion for a second.

It shook me so hard I think I lost my bowels.

Rubble and debris fall into my hole. Bill picks up something and starts puking. It is an arm. It's Sgt. Clark's arm, I can tell because of the watch his wife sent him.

I'm gonna die.

Father in heaven, take my soul. Forgive me for everything. I am really sorry for all the bad things I did.

Bill isn't puking anymore.

He's laying on his back, staring up at the sky.

He looks very comfortable, very relaxed.

There is a growing dark stain on his tunic.

The ground has stopped rumbling.

I can hear a bird singing.

Captain Smythe leans over my hole and shouts at me. He's holding a whistle in his hand and pointing at my rifle. He seems unfazed by the death and destruction. I want to follow him, maybe he'll lead us home. Maybe he knows where Sgt. Clark is, so I can give him his watch back.

I grab my rifle but it comes apart in my hand. Bill's is whole still, I take his. He won't need it anymore. There is no colour left in his face. He is grey, already blending in with the mud on which he sleeps.

The bird sings again, it sounds like a whistle. Captain Smythe is running, pointing.

Sgt. Clark is nowhere to be found, so I follow the Captain. The Hun is waiting. He is hungry. I still can't feel my face.

Trench Coffee, 1917, Part 2

A cup of coffee. The most wonderful thing in the world.
The steam rises into my nostrils flushing away the burning smell of gun powder and strong odour of death that lingers around us.

The cook came through the trench with a big bucket of the nearly boiling black liquid, dishing out ladles of it into our canteen cups, his helper handing us small meat sandwiches. I don't know where they got the meat. Corporal Stanley points out that the cavalry got hit pretty hard this morning too, maybe it's horse meat. I don't care.

The coffee burnt my hand at first, but cooled off soon enough. I am holding it under my nose, breathing only it's steam, drowning out the world in this cup of coffee.

I wish Bill was here. He loved coffee. His dad owns a cafe in their town in Minnesota. He roasted his own coffee there, Bill told me.

Bill will never taste coffee again, unless they make it in heaven.
I hope that's where he went.

Captain Smythe walks down the line and tells us we have to get ready for a counter attack. He tells Corporal Stanley that he is in charge of our platoon now.

The Corporal looks at us Privates with a sorrowful expression. He was Sergeant Clarke's best friend. He says "Yes sir." And salutes the Captain. I give him Sergeant Clarke's watch.

I take a bite of my sandwich and wash it down with my coffee.

Private Mickey Rourke, from Boston, climbs up the side of the trench to take a quick look.

We had pushed the Huns out of this strip of dirt two hours ago, it's been quiet since. But they don't give up very easily, they're tough soldiers.

Mickey ducks below the parapet and says he sees movement in the other trench line, about 50 yards away.

Corporal Stanley tells him to see if he can tell how many there are. Mickey takes a pair of binoculars and stands up again, but there's a big clod of dirt in his way to see. He reaches up to move it.

There's a shot that makes us all jump. Mickey tumbles backwards into the trench screaming bloody murder and holding the side of his head.

Lucky Irishman, the bullet only grazed him, but took a chunk of flesh off his ear. We all laugh at his good luck as the medics rush over.

I take another bite of my sandwich. It tastes funny, must be the horse meat, not cooked enough.

Corporal Stanley stares at me.

"What?" I say.

He points to my sandwich. I look at it. It's got Mickey's blood and his missing piece of ear on it.

I wash my mouth out with the hot coffee. "I'm sorry Mickey" I say. "I'm sorry."

Deathly Fog – 1917 Part 3

I dozed off for a few minutes but it wasn't good sleep, because Bill kept talking to me. His face was grey like a ghost, and his mouth was moving, but the words he spoke didn't seem to come from his mouth. They sounded like they were coming from all around me instead. It was like God speaking, and he was angry.

I woke up with a jolt and suddenly couldn't remember anything he said.

A Lieutenant I didn’t recognize came down the trench and quietly told us to be ready, we were going over the top in a few minutes, gonna try to hit the Germans before they were ready for their counter attack. Seems we got some information from a couple of scouts that made it sound like now is a good time to get them.

I can feel my pulse in my throat at his words. I hate going over the top of the trench. You never know if the machine guns are pointed at you when you poke your head up. Death waits hungrily for the charging army.

Our Artillery boys start firing into the Hun's trenches just before we go. The shells sound like freight trains flying through the sky above our heads as they fall on the Germans just fifty yards ahead of us.

I feel sorry for those boys over there. I know how frightening the falling bombs are. You never know which one is yours. And you can never get deep enough under the dirt to protect yourself, at least not while you are still alive.

Unexpectedly shells erupt from cannon a mile behind their lines too. They are flying toward us now.

The first shell hits a ways down our line, to my left, too far to see. But I don't hear a loud explosion. Instead it is muffled, almost soft sounding then bells start ringing all down the line.

Bits of metal clanging together in a panicked burst of sound.

It's gas! The filthy bastards! They're gassing us!

I start tearing at my gas mask bag,

One button won't come off!

I am scared, really scared.

Oh, God! Come on fingers…come on button!

Mustard gas is clear, odourless, it blinds you and burns your mouth, balls and armpits.

This isn't mustard gas though. I can see a cloud of it coming. It's some other terrible thing.

Chlorine or Diphosgene.

They both kill you if you don't get your mask on fast enough.

My heart is racing, I am holding my breath not wanting to get any in my lungs. I yank hard and the button flies off the bag. I pull my gas mask up and quickly tighten the straps as tight as I can stand against my face.

The long tube goes down to the box on my chest and the filter there keeps me alive. I breathe the boxed air and try to calm down as the cloud catches up and floats around us like a deathly fog.

They didn't use mustard gas. This means they are coming over to our trench.

With their masks and bayonets they are coming.

A whistle blows in the distance, one long tweet and one short tweet. German voices shout something.

We fix our own bayonets, stand on the firing step just below the parapet, chamber rounds in our rifles and prepare to receive the enemy.

The skin on the back of my neck tingles from the gas.

I have to make myself remember to breathe.

Slow and even…..slow and even…….

Oh my God!

Here they come...

Here They Come, 1917, part 4

The shells have stopped on both sides. The sound of voices has quieted.

We stand on the firing ledge of our trench peering over the edge of the parapet. I see the pointed tips of the officer's helmets bobbing up and down just below their line.

There is an eternal moment of silence as everything falls completely still. I have no idea how long it lasts, it seems like forever.

My face is numb again, lips tingling and fat feeling, my nose feels like it is swelling inside my mask. Sweat is pooling up in the bottom of my gas mask, I want to open the bottom of the mask and let it out, but that would let the gas in.

Viewing the world through two small circles of glass, everything seems misaligned and alien. I look down the line to my left and my right. My comrades all look like frightful beasts with giant round eyes set in small elephant heads, like some mythical ancient demon breathing hotly from the gates of hell, ready to pounce destructively on the poor souls who would dare enter our domain.

In reality, the masks are only hiding the terrified faces of thousands of teenaged boys and young men who don't want anything to do with this terrible nightmare.

Michael Smart, from Toronto, is weeping. I can see his back heaving softly as he stands against the line. He got a letter from his mom yesterday just before the bombing, but couldn't read it until we settled in the trench this morning. He showed us a picture of his baby sister, a pretty little six year old girl. Seems she was trying to get close to the cool water that dripped from underneath an ice wagon and the brake came undone. It rolled over her and crushed her spine. She lived, but will never walk again.

Depending on how it goes today, Michael may never see her again anyway.

We've only been on the front for a week, and have been getting hammered by the Hun from the start. The first month we were here, was nothing but sitting around drinking wine and beer with pretty French girls and relaxing in the sun while we waited for our supplies.

We wanted to hurry up and get to the fighting. It seemed like the war would be over before we got to fire a shot.

Now we just wish it would be over. God let it be over before I am killed.

The new Lieutenant is next to me. He has a Knuckle Knife in his hand and his revolver in the other hand. He doesn't look scared.

"Hey Private," he says, "Be calm, it's just a game. Just think of it like a game of football. Stick with me, there's nothing to fear. I was a sergeant with the Newfoundland Regiment at Verdun and the Somme last year. You can make it through as long as you are not too scared. Just fight like hell and never give up."

I nod to him and can see through the eye pieces of his mask that he is grinning. I wonder if he is mad. I had heard about the Newfoundland Regiment. At the Somme they were decimated last July, only 68 men survived from a battalion of 800.

Maybe he is mad. Maybe he is lucky. Maybe today I will die.

There is movement to our front. We looked forward and the air is rent apart by the staccato eruption of machine gun fire that rips the sand bags and piles of dirt across the front of our parapet. Several men fall screaming to the ground, many silently tumble to the bottom of the trench. The back of their heads burst open and blood pours from pulped shapes that used to be men.

The rest of us duck below the line of the trench, as the machine guns keep up their morbid chatter for several seconds.

The guns stop. Whistles screech down the German line. There is a roar of voices, incoherent, beastly, frightening.

Several smoke shells burst in No-Man's-Land and there is a haze through which we cannot see, but we know they are rising from their trenches.

Ghostly figures appear in the smoke, running in slow motion toward our line, terrible ghastly goblins with hideous faces and bayonets that sparkle in the afternoon sun.

We rise as one to the parapet and await the order to open fire on the rushing horde.

The Lieutenant from Newfoundland shouts, "Come on you Hun Bastards! Come and get it!"

I pray. I just want to go home.

Pig Men, 1917, Part 5

The sun glints off the steel of silvery blades held menacingly in front of the evil looking masks of the Hun soldiers headed my way.

They rush through the smoke across the mud and upturned dirt of this rain soaked July. Tall leather boots smash into the soil, arms upraised, weapons lowered toward our trench, they come at us.

They come at me. I breathe heavily in my gas mask, sucking up as much air as I can through the long tube that stretches to the box on my chest.

Their faces are covered in canister masks that render them as evil pig like creatures with long snouts grunting and puffing and cursing on every muffled breath.

A race of round helmeted grey clad pig men pouncing on our race of pan helmeted green elephant men.

I lift my rifle and fire at a bounding shape before me. The .303 bullet lifts the pig man up into the air throws him backwards into another pig man whose bayonet pierces the first pig mans body and they fall.

I work the breech, loading another round as I turn my rifle to another shadowy figure. Before I fire there is a boot on the ground in front of me. I cannot see up past the lip of my helmet but I do see the shadow of the pig man raise his weapon above me, he's going to spear me with his bayonet.

I lift my rifle barrel hard up between his legs and knock him forward, over my head. The blow sends the pig man tumbling into the trench over and behind me.

He lands hard against the back wall. The pig man is on the ground, on his hands and knees. Before he can recover I swing my rifle like a club and hit him on the back of the head as hard as I can.

The pig mans arms buckle and the beasts head falls to the ground, face down in the mud. I drive my rifle butt against him again, an aimed hit, smashing his neck just below the flange of his helmet. There is a sickening crack that I feel in my hands rather than hear.

The pig man's rear end is sticking up in the air. He is bowing, his knees tucked under his body, stuck in this position as if praying to some unseen god in the mud wall.

I turn back and see the Lieutenant from Newfoundland fighting wildly. His pistol is gone now. In one hand is the knuckle knife, in the other he is slashing with a long bayonet, using it like a sword.

Three dead pig men lay at his feet and he slashes a fourth as I watch, nearly beheading the creature with his blade.

Blood sprays skyward from the wound and the Lieutenant laughs like a maniac.

"Come on! Send more! I'm not done yet!"

His shouts are terrifying.

I think he may be Satan himself, in the trench with me.

I hope he doesn't forget who I am, and turn on me.

A shadow swiftly crosses my eyes. There is a thud in the dirt behind me. I spin to find a pig man almost on me with his bayonet.

I am able to parry with my rifle and knock his blade away. My foot comes up and smashes the pig mans knee on the side. He stumbles and I slash with my bayonet across his neck, then back with the rifle and thrust hard into his chest.

The pig man squeals, and grabs the rifle barrel, trying to pull it out of his chest. I pull the trigger and the bullet sends him off the blade. He tumbles back and falls, writhing for a moment in pain until his life oozes out of him draining onto the earthen hell beneath us.

Pig men are now pouring over the edge of our trench. I hear the voice of my training sergeant. I am back in Edmonton, at the Army Post, fresh from the prairie. There are straw dummies hanging from racks in front of our company.

We rush forward by squads, bayonets pointed forward from the end of wooden practice rifles.

"For God and King!" he shouts, "Sweep, butt, thrust!"

I follow his rhythmic commands.

Sweep! Butt! Thrust!

The straw man quivers and shakes with every blow.

The pig men quiver and shake with every blow.

The training sergeant screams, "Kill the enemy before he kills you!"

The Lieutenant screams, "Come on you son's of bitches! Kill me!"

The elephant men jab with bayonet blades and swing their rifles like clubs.

Steel flashes through the air.

Men's voices call out for their mothers.

Curses and screams fill the sky.

The pig men fall into the trench, bodies piling up.

It is hard to move.

The straw men are bleeding.

My arms are heavy.

A pig man jumps in front of me. He slips on the bodies of the other pig men I have killed.

I sweep upward with my rifle butt and knock off his helmet as he falls.

The pig man rolls on the ground, onto his back and raises his rifle to block my next swing.

Tufts of matted yellow blond hair stick out from the straps that hold on the pig man's face.

I drive my boot into the pig mans belly and he curls up, dropping his rifle.

My rifle swings upward to catch the pig man under the chin, but only connects with his snout.

The pig man's face flies off.

Under the pig mask, there is a boy. He has bright blue eyes, and a very frightened expression. He puts up his hands to protect his handsome young face. Tears stream from his eyes.

"Nein! Bitte, nein! Oh! Gott helfen mir!"

He closes his eyes, I bring the rifle butt down on his pretty young face, to wipe it away from my eyes. I cannot stand to see him, I cannot bear to look at him. I want him to be a pig man again.

Once, twice, three times!

There is no more pretty boy. There is no more pig man!

My mother looks at me with a ghastly expression and screams.

"What have you done child!"

Horror fills my soul.

The Lieutenant from Newfoundland is standing on top of several dead Huns. He is shouting and kicking and slashing and stabbing.

He truly is mad.

But he is alive and still fighting.

Mickey, the lucky Irishman from Boston is staring up at me with empty eyes, held wide open. His gas mask must have fallen off.

He was a volunteer from America who wanted excitement. He joined the South Alberta Light Horse at the same time as Bill because they wanted to fight the Hun. He didn't think the U.S. would ever join the war, so he came up to us to get in the game.

Mickey's intestines are splayed across the muddy, blood soaked ground, his cold hands frozen in a vain grasp, trying to hold them in. The bandage that had covered his ear lay on the ground next to his head.

Another pig man falls to the Lieutenants blade.

Footsteps. Coming near. From above and behind.

I work the breach and load a round into the rifle as I swing around, the blade of the bayonet glinting in the hazy sunlight. My bayonet goes into the belly of a pig man...no wait, he is another boy...he has no mask...he is real.

He raises his hand and there is a flash of light. A brick hits me in the chest. I trip and go back, stumbling over a dead body.

The German boy falls forward, my rifle still stuck through him. His fall sends the butt into the ground.

I see the blood soaked blade of my bayonet jutting out from his back. He is leaning against the side of the trench, but cannot fall to the ground to rest. The rifle is holding him up, like meat on a stick to be roasted over a fire.

The Lieutenant from Newfoundland is still shouting curses and sending men to the ground.

He is sending them to the grave.

A whistle blows and the German soldiers retreat from our trench.

The Lieutenant, drops to his knees on the pile of Hun dead and weeps.

"Why couldn't you kill me?" He sobs. "I want to join my friends."

The sharp pain in my chest becomes dull, then fades away.

The handsome blond haired German boy is sitting on the side of the trench looking down at me. The man who was stuck through with my rifle stands up and reaches out his hand to me, helping me to my feet.

He is smiling.

"My name is Guenther. That is my friend Walter." He says. "Sorry for the way things worked out, but at least we are done with it all."

Mickey and Bill come up behind Walter and squat down.

"Well," says Bill, "Are you going to stay down there forever? Get up, they have the best coffee in this unit."

We walk away from the trench toward the rear, Guenther and Mickey and Walter and Bill and me and thousands of others. All friends at last.

I look back to the trench.

The Lieutenant is still weeping and going over our dead bodies, grabbing ID tags from our fallen Canadian brothers.

Perhaps he can join us soon, and his sorrow will end.

I feel like DANCING!!

2010-04-09T09:59:00.001-08:00

I really can’t explain why. Maybe it’s because the sun is out, the sky is blue, and it’s Friday, but I feel like singing and dancing and jumping for joy! Sigh…of course that would look silly in my office wouldn’t it. So I am refraining, but barely.

The world is going to hell in a handbasket, but I am having a good day. So there.

Maybe it’s just the caffeine….is eight cups of espresso too much?

Book Proposal: Spies, SciFi and Boobs a historical cross genre experiment

2010-03-23T14:32:00.001-08:00

I've always loved spy stories and military tales, epsionage, smart thrillers and historical fiction with a twinge of romance...the manly kind (but ,referencing James Scott Bells post at The Kill Zone the other day, not porn. I hate reading porn scenes in books. I get all red faced and no one around me knows why). I also like the occasional well written literary novel that crosses into different territory.

Ireland by Frank Delaney is a good example I think of crossing history/legend with modern literature.

On the other hand, in the spirit of doing something different, I propose to create a new espionage thriller series that crosses into the realm of veterinary science and scifi and middle eastern historical fantasy fiction.

Its about a strikingly handsome Israeli Mossad agent named Basir Sandesman who falls in love with a former Hooters girl turned American CIA operative named Mia Moray whose partner is what appears to be a talking ferret named Colin who spends most of his time nestled warmly between her...in her sweater. Colin the ferret contains the entire MI-6 database in his brain via a computer chip he accidentally ingested in a bowl of ferret kibbels while undercover in an Al Qaeda pet shop sting. Unknown to Basir and Mia, Colin the ferret is actually my time travelling cousin Leonard who went to the past and met a hard hearing Genie who gave him two wishes. First Leonard said he wanted to find his true love, well actually he said "I want to meet and get close to Mi Amore" then for his second wish he wanted to look like Colin Farrel. The genie, being hard of hearing did his best. Now Colin (Leonard) is jealous of the sparking relationship between Basir and Mia but is afraid to shift back to his true identity because Mia will almost definitely not let him stay between her...in her sweater.

The working title is:
Ferret Whisperer #1: A Warm Jiggly Place With A Gun

Opening line:
"Colin did not like wonder-bras."

...let the action packed historically romantic scifi spy stuff begin!

Book Proposal: Spies, SciFi and Boobs a historical cross genre experiment

2010-03-23T14:27:00.001-08:00

Ireland by Frank Delaney is a good example I think of crossing history/legend with modern literature.

Its about a strikingly handsome Israeli Mossad agent named Basir Sandesman who falls in love with a former Hooters girl turned American CIA operative named Mia Moray whose partner is what appears to be a talking ferret named Colin who spends most of his time nestled warmly between her...in her sweater. Colin the ferret contains the entire MI-6 database in his brain via a computer chip he accidentally ingested in a bowl of ferret kibbels while undercover in an Al Qaeda pet shop sting. Unknown to Basir and Mia, Colin the ferret is actually my time travelling cousin Leonard who went to the past and met a hard hearing Genie who gave him two wishes. First Leonard said he wanted to find his true love, well actuall he said "I want to meet and get close to Mi Amore" then for his second wish he wanted to look like Colin Farrel. The genie, being hard of hearing did his best. Now Colin (Leonard) is jealous of the sparking relationship between Basir and Mia but is afraid to shift back to his true identity because Mia will almost definitely not let him stay between her...in her sweater.

The working title is:
Ferret Whisperer #1: A Warm Jiggly Place With A Gun

Opening line:
"Colin did not like wonder-bras."

...let the action packed historically romantic scifi spy stuff begin!

Happy St. Patricks Day

2010-03-17T11:01:00.001-08:00

Some people at my office work tried to pinch me for not wearing green, I politely informed I am Irish & exempt then offered them linguistic proof.

“Pinch me again and I’ll dorn a bhualeadh ar dhuine.”

(don’t shoot me for my grammar)

In a similar vein, enjoy the below observation.

The first man married a woman from ENGLAND. He told her that she was to do the dishes and house cleaning. It took a couple of days, but on the third day, he came home to see a clean house and dishes washed and put away.

The second man married a woman from GERMANY. He gave his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes and the cooking. The first day he didn't see any results, but the next day he saw it was better. By the third day, he saw his house was clean, the dishes were done and there was a huge dinner on the table.

The third man married a girl from IRELAND. He ordered her to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed, and hot meals on the table for every meal. He said the first day he didn't see anything, the second day he didn't see anything but, by the third day, some of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little out of his left eye, and his arm was healed enough that he could fix himself a sandwich and load the dishwasher. He still has some difficulty peeing.

(Oh, and a fourth guy married a Korean girl & made the same demands as his Irish friend {before the failure}. On the first day, after getting out of the shower at the gym, he discovered that his wife had had sprinkled gochu-karu all inside the clean underpants in his gym bag. AIGU! MAEWAHAPO!!!!)

Show Notes & Links for Saturday 2-27-10

2010-03-01T11:16:00.001-09:00

For those interested souls, here are the links to the articles and topics I read/referenced in Saturday’s show. Enjoy.

Obama At Health Care Summit: "I Don't Count My Time Because I'm The President"

Try to stay awake: the President has a healthcare Bill to pass

Joe Biden: It's easy being Vice President

23,000 now expected to lose jobs after shuttle retirement

Scientist eyes 39-day voyage to Mars

Google told by EU to warn people before Street View map photos taken

Secret Service Computers Only Work at 60 Percent Capacity; Agency Uses 1980s Mainframe

WEATHER: HOTTEST JANUARY EVER SAY CLIMATE EXPERTS

Power goes out on Chavez while dissing Bush

Boozy ape sent to rehab

The Muses

2010-01-30T23:00:00.001-09:00

I believe I have two muses. One with silky long black hair and a smile that sparkles brighter than the morning star. She whispers in my ear. Her breath sends shivers of pleasure through my entire body. She sings and points to things of beauty that I otherwise may not have noticed.

Her rival is a rather gabby individual. Her hair is also black and shiny but is tied back tight and ends in a pony tail that bounces and snaps like a whip when she moves her head. She doesn't sparkle, she pops. Constantly talking and jabbering and tossing ideas into my brain pot at such a rate that I can barely digest one before the next comes barreling in. Perky is a word that might describe her…. or caffeinated.

Mercifully the two seldom appear at the same time. They are rather abrasive toward one another when they are together. The poetess starts making vulgar rhymes and the perky one ends up slapping her.

But they are both very hot. They are sultry and sexy and drive me crazy. And I quite enjoy both of their company.

Does that make me a polygamist?

The Muses

2010-01-30T22:54:00.002-09:00

Basil’s Word Search

2010-01-25T20:44:00.001-09:00

Hey!

Check out this free word search based on my books and podcasts.

If you listened to the podcast you will recognize most of the names and places. Enjoy!

Basil’s Word Search

2010-01-25T20:40:00.001-09:00

Hey!

Check out this free word search based on my books and podcasts.

If you listened to the podcast you will recognize most of the names and places. Enjoy!

Pork…and other forbidden fruits

2010-01-20T00:36:00.001-09:00

Some days I feel like eating pork. You know, a delicious slice or two of bacon, or maple and sage sausage. Maybe even a thick juicy pork chop.

But then, I remember I will probably die if I eat pork. No, I am not Kosher or whatever the Muslim version of Kosher is. I am just allergic to pork. While it probably won’t kill me, it will make me wish I was dead. And the smells emanating from my body after ingesting it will likely make anyone within fifty feet of me think I am dead and just haven’t realized I am decomposing.

It has probably always been that way for me, even though I loved bacon and ham as a kid and didn’t know it was slowly killing me. I ate it all the time. Bacon, pork chops, beans and ham, pork sausage. I should have guessed early on when my mother always complained about how rude I was for passing gas as much as I did. But hey, she kept feeding me the poison!

It wasn’t until my appendix was taken out that I realized all the intestinal issues I had as a kid was because I was allergic to pork. The first time I ate pork after recovering from surgery my wife had made a really delicious Korean spicy pork bacon dish that I always loved before. I endured the most violent cramps you can imagine. PMS on steroids for men. I thought my appendix had come back into my body like Freddy Krueger returning from Hell. It nearly put me back in the hospital.

I don’t know if anyone else has ever experienced that kind of symptom from pork after an appendectomy. It was a real shock to me. If it is a regular medical occurrence I have yet to meet the rest of the victims. When I mention it to other people they are quite surprised to hear that. Except of course for my Jewish friends who just say “Of course, the prohibition of pork wouldn’t be in the Torah if there weren’t truth behind it.”

Now I do still eat other non-Kosher foods. Shell fish like shrimp and lobster and scallops and catfish and octopus and so on. But I will say this, I do not enjoy them as much as I used to. I don’t know what it is, but all of that kind of food just…I don’t know…tastes funny. And it makes my burps taste funny too. Funny in a bad sort of way.

So, what does my allergy to pig flesh and recent aversion to shellfish and bottom feeders have to do with my books or politics or news or anything I normally bring up?

Well… I’m not sure. Except that sometimes the thing we think we may be naturally drawn to, the thing we are fed all of our lives under the guise of normal food by our parents and even our spouses may not always be what we are actually meant to consume.

Maybe I need to reconsider my career as an IT Specialist. After all, when I am in the office I regularly spend a good portion of my work day sneezing and blowing my nose…just like an allergic reaction.

Hmmm. Perhaps I should just jump on over to what seems more natural to me. Writing and telling stories and acting like a silly person on my talk show don’t give me allergic reactions.

Something to ponder.

If what you do makes you fart like a brute beast, or it if makes you sneeze like hyper-allergenic cat groomer maybe you should reconsider your path.

Just thinking out loud here.

Same ol’ Same ol’

2010-01-17T21:53:00.001-09:00

I really don't like to be seen as derivative, but I also realise that there is little likelihood someone could write something in the same manner or style as I do or I, they unless I really try...ie cheat.

My problem is that my dislike of derivation, commonality, normalcy, repetition etc has led me into a quandary. I am in the middle of the last book of a loosely connected series and find that I am beating myself up trying not to sound derivative of my own previous works. The other three books had surprises and events that made people keep turning the page (actually they've only been released in podcast audio, so they just kept listening as I turned the page). In this one the characters feel too familiar, too transparent.

Maybe it is just me. Maybe I have grown too close to these characters and like a bad case of visiting relatives too long have tired of hanging out with them.

Or maybe it is the fact that I have only seen ten hours of sunlight in two weeks and it is flippin' cold and I am wishing I had the cash to take a vacation but my agent still hasn't sold the previous three books I wrote so I am feeling like I am spinning my wheels late on a Sunday night and just plain feeling whiny at a time when no one wants to hear me whine even though just yesterday I had a few hundred people laughing when I did my talk show but now can't even get a simple plot in a simple thriller novel to make sense or even keep the tempo and now I just feel like crawling under my chair and eating those little cheesecake niblet thingies my son brought home yesterday from his job at the fancy Italian restaurant that I can't afford to eat at but don't want to eat right now anyway because I have a serious issue with run-on sentences and can't even figure out where to put the punctuation in this one.

Sigh...I'm going outside to make snow angles.

yeah...angles...they're easier than angels...you just lay there in a half fetal position in the snow.

Same ol’ Same ol’

2010-01-17T21:49:00.001-09:00

My problem is that my dislike of derivation, commonality, normalcy, repetition etc has led me into a quandry. I am in the middle of the last book of a loosely connected series and find that I am beating myself up trying not to sound derivative of my own previous works. The other three books had surprises and events that made people keep turning the page (actually they've only been released in podcast audio, so they just kept listening as I turned the page). In this one the characters feel too familiar, too transparent.

Maybe it is just me. Maybe I have grown too close to these characters and like a bad case of visiting relatives too long have tired of hanging out with them.

Or maybe it is the fact that I have only seen ten hours of sunlight in two weeks and it is flippin' cold and I am wishing I had the cash to take a vacation but my agent still hasn't sold the previous three books I wrote so I am feeling like I am spinning my wheels late on a Sunday night and just plain feeling whiny at a time when no one wants to hear me whine even though just yesterday I had a few hundred people laughing when I did my talk show but now can't even get a simple plot in a simple thriller novel seem to make sense or even keep the tempo and now I just feel like crawling under my chair and eating those little cheesecake niblet thingies my son brought home yesterday from his job at the fancy Italian restaurant that I can't afford to eat at but don't want to eat right now anyway because I have a serious issue with run-on sentences and can't even figure out where to put the punctuation in this one.

Sigh...I'm going outside to make snow angles.

yeah...angles...they're easier angels...you just lay there in a half fetal position in the snow.

Back from the Shadows!

2009-12-30T10:20:00.001-09:00

Well, it’s been a couple weeks since my last blog post. The holiday’s are a very busy time of course but that is no excuse for hiding away like that. Well, OK, they actually are an excuse…and one I will use with diligence and care. Anyway….news keeps on moving regardless. Here are a few of the headline stories worthy of blogging as we close out 2009

Item 1

IRAN

As much as the news media keeps beaming stories of Iranian freedom demonstrations I think they are really missing the facts. Who is behind these demonstrations? Is it really western ideals of egalitarin freedom? No, it is actually a different Ayatollah who’s been made rich by tricky business dealings with the outside world that got around the thirty year old sanctions since the “Revolution'” took over. It is not the revolt of the democracy loving, pro-western educated classes against the despotic regimie of Khamenei and Ahmadenijad. It is rather one set of despotic rich rulers fighting another set of equally despotic rich rulers for control of the cash and power of Iran. No matter who wins in this case know this USA and pro-western democracies….you still suck in their eyes!

Item 2

CLIMATE CHANGE

Nothing much has changed here, except the conference is now over, the hypocrites are pretending all the more that there really is a global warming trend caused by man instead of that crazy concept known as ‘weather”, and snow and ice storms are still ravaging much of North America in spite of the ‘fact’ of global warming. It is getting so warm it feels like it is getting cold, but really it is warm….really….it is so….now shut up and pay your carbon credits you worthless little anti-big brother-progress realist.

item 3

Security and Terrorists

No matter how much any one may wish to put their head in the sand, there are bad guys trying reeeeeeaally hard to kill us all. they are called terrorists, and it is only a matter of time before one gets through.The Christmas day flight scare on the way to Detroit is a case in point. I am fairly certain that guy was not really expected to succeed by his superiors. I think he was just sent to test the system. If it was intended as a full on attack I am pretty certain there would have been a number of simultaneous attempts.

This is not to say that the passengers, especially that Dutch fellow who jumped the would be bomber, were not truly brave in their attampt to stop him.They were. Their fast thinking probably saved a whole lot of lives. But I am fairly certain that the bad guys are simply honing their skills and trying a few different methods.

One of these days we will see another 9-11, but bigger. It will probably be multi-continental and it will definitely be brutal. We have no choice but to continue being vigilant, and to keep the fight on their soil. Don’t be fooled, they won’t be giving up anytime soon.

To quote an old military axiom:

STAY ALERT, STAY ALIVE!

On that note, I am still going to go downtown in Anchorage on New Years Eve and watch the fire jugglers and dancers and listen to music, and see the pyrotechnics and have a generally great time with my wife and kids. Then off to church for out New Years service.

In light of that I bid you all a happy new year and many blessings for the months to come!

Back from the Shadows!

2009-12-30T10:00:00.001-09:00

Item 1

IRAN

As much as the new media keeps beaming stories of Iranian freedom demonstrations I think they are really missing the facts. Who is behind these demonstrations? Is it really western ideals of egalitarin freedom? No, it is actually a different Ayatollah who’s been made rich by tricky business dealings with the outside world that got around the thirty year old sanctions since the “Revolution'” took over. It is not the revolt of the democracy loving, pro-western educated classes against the despotic regimie of Khamenei and Ahmadenijad. It is rather one set of despotic rich rulers fighting another set of equally despotic rich rulers for control of the cash and power of Iran. No matter who wins in this case know this USA and pro-western democracies….you still suck in their eyes!

Item 2

CLIMATE CHANGE

item 3

Security and Terrorists

To quote an old military axiom:

STAY ALERT, STAY ALIVE!

In light of that I bid you all a happy new year and many blessings for the months to come!

ALASKA STORIES WANTED

2009-12-17T14:27:00.001-09:00

Have you got an Alaskan story you’d like to share? I want to hear it.

My talk show, Basil’s Alaska Weekly News Review is looking for stories and people to tell them about experiences related to Alaska. When they are adventurous, funny, serious, heartfelt, cutsie, or downright strange I want to hear it.

Every week on the Saturday show the last half hour will be dedicated to Alaska stories as told by people who are or were here or by those who can relate the story. We can tell them live on the air, or it’s longer than a few minutes call it can be pre-recorded or scheduled to make sure you get the full time you need to tell it right. If you are uncomfortable being on the air but want to share your story, write it out and send it in to the email address below.

So get out your hunting, fishing, hiking, backwoods living, ALCAN roadtrip, growing up in Alaska stories and share them with the show. If you need more information drop a comment to this blog or email me at basil @ basilsands . com.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Climate Change Mind Control Ray

2009-12-11T11:57:00.001-09:00

As I stated in my previous blog entry I am increasingly of the mind that the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference is actually a meeting of Dr. Evil Wannabes bent on taking over the world. They are meeting with their evil henchmen and dancing the night away with fembot cyborgs designed for the genetically discerning nerd.

I think this conference is a dual purpose meeting of sorts.

Purpose #1: Mind control of the world. These diplomats and fame hungry scientists have come up with a cracked idea to control the population of the nations by forcing us into a system that makes countries pay up for progress.

“Want to get out of the Stone Age? Pay the Climate Troll.”

Already out of the stone age? Then you owe big mister.

As proof of my theory that mind-control by evil overlords is a primary motivating factor check out the attempt at mass global hypnosis a couple of days ago.

Thousands of Norwegians stared in terror in the night sky Tuesday night as the Dr. Evil’s attempted the first part of their evil plan for world domination. But of course, like all evil dominion plans things did not go as planned. In this case, a henchmen apparently spilled his hot cocoa into the rocket fuel and it did not have the umph to get into the upper atmosphere where everyone in the northern hemisphere would have been drawn into it’s mesmerizing swirliness.

The Russian’s of course claim that it was actually a failed missile test in the Arctic Ocean north of Norway. Yeah Right! I’ve seen that swirly pattern before, and it didn’t work out well for the those people in that episode of twilight zone.

As further proof of my point, after receiving his Nobel Prize in Oslo Norway President Obama immediately left, skipping the traditional dinner with the Nobel Prize committee. The Norwegians were rather miffed by the snub. Why would Barack Obama, a narcissists narcissist, skip out on a major dinner in his honor?

Simple.

He expected to find them in a glassy eyed hypnotic state where he could control the conversation and program their minds to turn them into his very own army of minion henchmen and sexy blond fembots. Instead he finds a group of coherent scientists, diplomats and professors who want to talk science. And the fembots….well they were not what he expected…and man can Michelle slap when she’s jealous. (should’s learned from Tiger, dude)

Speaking of fembots.

Purpose #2: getting chicks. That’s right. Think about it. A bunch of science nerds and guys that look like Al Gore. Getting together in cold wet Denmark to talk about shrinkage caused by being in heat too long. What kind of chicks attend meetings like that?

1. The Cheryl Crow’s of the world, who advocate saving the climate by using only a single piece of toilet paper per visit to the WC. Scientist, being obsessive compulsives by nature, are afraid to touch chicks like Cheryl, therefore:

2. FEMBOTS: Programmed to please and totally sanitary. And they’ll never tell on you.

(Lesson for golfers, hang out with scientists and you won’t have to worry about getting caught. … “What honey? It’s not a real woman, more like a microwave with legs.”)

So, Dr Evil’s of the world, we know what you are doing over there. You will fail….
because I know how to reprogram the Fembots chichi-guns!

The Evil Dr. Chill, Climate Control Dark Overlord in Copenhagen

2009-12-08T12:52:00.001-09:00

Currently I am looking out my office window and experiencing a strange Alaskan day weatherwise. It is both brightly sunny and blindly foggy. At the same time.

It adds a kind of surreal feeling to the day. To look out and see a mile of brightly lit ground, parking lot, runway, highway, but to be totally surrounded by dense fog that blocks out the blue horizon and distant Denali (Mt. McKinley). The local Chugach mountains are quite visible, but right behind them a smooth grey/white wall of mist hangs like a blanket till it dissipates into the blue above. Hmmm. it’s like being in a Stephen King novel. We are in a bubble. It looks just enough like the real world that most people will not question it, because most people don’t go far out of town this time of year. They won’t notice till spring that w e have been captured inside a bubble and are slowly being transported to the secret underground lair of the Dark Overlord of Climate Control, the Evil Dr. Chill where slowly but surely the earth will be cooled and humans put into a Lilliputian time warp prison existence where we only get to come to the surface once in a thousand years for one day to reduce our Carbon Footprint. But his real plan is to chill the earth to the point that his asexual mind control cybots can operate without overheating their core circuits.

It cannot be just a coincidence that the Copenhagen Climate Change Overlords and their minions are meeting at the same time. Their plot is being hatched as we speak. Life on earth will never be the same. We Are DOOMED! DOOMED! DOOMED! DOOmed! DOomed! Doomed! doomed! doo… doo…

Did I mention I slept in the snow at my son’s boy scout camp over the weekend. Yes, on the ground, in the snow…it was 20 degrees below freezing. Global warming was nowhere to be found…it was freakin’ cold!!

Curse you Dr. Chill, curse you!

See This Movie!!

2009-12-02T09:59:00.001-09:00

I don’t watch too many movies, at least not compared to many people. When I do watch movies, I want them to be good. I have now found what I will probably consider the top contender for my movie of the year award.

RED CLIFF
http://www.redclifffilm.com/
I love historical fiction and have a particular thing for Chinese and Korean epics. Don’t know why, but they grab me. Among the greats I have enjoyed are Musa, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, Yom Ge So Mun (Korean tv series), Tae Guk Ki, and The Road Home ( I know it was a love story, but hey it was good).

But my new absolute favourite is Red Cliff, by John Wu. Dang!

Big action, real heros, historical feeling, incredible plot twists, believable story. This was not fantasy, it was like my dream of what the time was. At the moment I am in the early stage of writing a historical fiction set in a similar time as this movie. And I will say that this film has injected itself into my thoughts and the images that will end up on the page of my own work in the future.

This movie made my heart thump and my knuckles clench the couch. It made the new 50” plasma & surround sound system worth every penny.

SEE IT!

Other movies I have seen and liked this year ( they are not necessarily new) include the following:

1. District 9 – wow, good stuff
2. Spirited Away – Anime that kept my full attention
3. Metropolis – Ok, I was on an Anime kick – but it was good
4. Madea goes to Jail – I laughed myself silly

But Red Cliff is definitely my personal favourite for 2009

See This Movie!!

2009-12-02T09:49:00.001-09:00

RED CLIFF
http://www.redclifffilm.com/
This movie made my heart thump and my knuckles clench the couch. It made the new 50” plasma & surround sound system worth every penny.

Other movies I have seen and liked this year ( they are not necessarily new) include the following:

But Red Cliff is definitely my personal favourite for 2009

Talkshow Name Contest Extended!

2009-11-30T09:18:00.001-09:00

Due to my own tardiness at getting the word out I have extended the contest to name my new talkshow by one month. You now have until December 31st to put in your suggestion. Here's the details.

I am starting a new radio talk show on www.blogtalkradio.com starting in December and am enlisting the help of my faithful audiobook listeners to name the show.

The show covers Current Events, Politics, Sports and Entertainment presented against a humorous backdrop of live talk mixed with occasional skits and coming from a fairly conservative viewpoint from America’s northern frontier state of Alaska.

It is guaranteed to be informative, sometimes serious, generally fun and at times downright silly of the Kharzai Ghiassi school of silliness (listen to Karl’s Last Flight or Faithful Warrior and you will know that means).
The title needs to reflect that the show comes from Alaska, is a general information/entertainment show, and sound intelligent when spoken aloud.

If your suggestion is chosen you will receive $25 USD to Paypal or Amazon.com.

To submit your Title by commenting to this post or use this Contact Page with the subject “Radio Title”. You have until December 31st to submit.

I look forward to what you come up with.

He don’t look that tough…

2009-11-27T09:00:00.001-09:00

Someone recently brought up the topic of author photos on the back of books. Some authors really look like their characters, tough as nails and ready for anything. But they wondered how many of those authors were really bad asses like their characters and photos seemed to portray. Other authors look like meek and mild accountants with a temerity that makes Elmer Fudd look like a Hells Angel.

So the question came up, “What does a real bad ass really look like?”

I worked among the military intelligence community for several years during and just after the Cold War, including Special Forces and Delta. One thing that astonished me was the fact that most of the real bad-asses, and by bad-ass I mean people who went undercover in terrorist infested nations, gathered human intelligence, spied on people who trained professional killers or killed said people themselves, most of those real life bad-asses looked like boy scouts, or marching band types. A lot of them never played sports in school and were serious bookworms.

As adults all of them lived for adrenaline and the life and death power moments their jobs entailed. Now, mind you I was not one of them per se. I ran the mess hall they ate at, yes, I was chef to the spies. But I got to know them on a personal level that moved behind the curtain of mystique they let the world raise between them.

With the exception of a few Marines and a couple of Army Rangers none of them made one's spine shiver with an icy glare. (Those exceptions were truly terrifying men too, let me tell you). Those who acted the baddest in public were usually "Sigint", signals intelligence...nerds with headphones listening to the enemy from continents away.

The public perception of bad-ass is skewed. But I guess that makes for good book covers and movie images with muscular dudes and icy stares. And the consumers want us, the writers, to look like our imaginary friends we write about. I remember hearing CS Lewis stepson mention how disappointed he was when his mother married the famous writer and he learned that Lewis was not a six foot tall muscle bound Knight in armour, but rather a balding pudgy professor of English, and Christian teacher.

Should our favourite writers look like the heroes in their books? Maybe. After all, who wants pay ten or twenty bucks to see the guy they remember as the chubby flutist from their high school band slink through the shadowy underworld doing bad things to bad people?

Name My New Web Radio Talk Show

2009-11-23T13:40:00.001-09:00

I am starting a new radio talk show on www.blogtalkradio.com starting in December and am enlisting the help of my faithful audiobook listeners to name the show.

The title needs to reflect that the show comes from Alaska, is a general information/entertainment show, and sound intelligent when spoken aloud.

If your suggestion is chosen you will receive $25 USD to Paypal or Amazon.com.

To submit your Title by commenting to this post or use this Contact Page with the subject “Radio Title”. You have until November 27th to submit.

I look forward to what you come up with.

Basil’s Weekly News Review talkshow

2009-11-20T13:35:00.001-09:00

I am starting a new live call in talk show at www.BlogTalkRadio.com , "Basil's Weekly News Review". It's like Dennis Miller & John Stewart get mashed up and sprinkled with a bit of Alaskan somethin'r'other. Need listener input on what's a good time and day , include your state / prov or country w/ suggestion.

Planned start date will be after thanksgiving, but maybe sooner if I get sufficient feedback.

Win a free CD-Audio book

2009-11-19T14:26:00.001-09:00

Just in time for the Holidays! Sign up for my newsletter at the newly rebuilt www.basilsands.com and you will be automatically entered to win a signed CD-Audio version of one of my books. You can even choose which one you want.

The newsletter promises not to clutter your inbox, as it only comes out once a quarter or less.

If you’ve already listened to all of the podcast novels…well…listen again with no breaks, no commercials, no bumper music. Just the story.

Or give it to a friend who hasn’t heard. Heck, you can even donate it to your local library! Just sign up, and tell all your friends.

While you are there take the poll question and leave a comment on the comments page.

Are Female Authors as good As Male Authors?

2009-11-16T15:17:00.001-09:00

this question came up on The Killzone. I asked my friend Grunk what he thought about whether female writers were as good as male writers. here is what he said.

Hmm...

Me solve prollum

bang woman on hed with stik

drag back to cav

she rite storee

me kill big antler to eat

she cuk

she cleen

she rub my shoulders give hot bath and make Grunk feel like man aprisheyated

me smash things to make her good plot lines...me modul for cuver grafik

Her lituriree fyoocher good...

Hmmm...me like wumun writer...and her look varee hot in bearskin minidress ... Grunk feel primal urges now ... plees leev and clos dor after u.

So there you have it folks, Grunk’s answer to the age old question.

On the radio again

2009-11-13T15:36:00.001-09:00

Between returning from vacation last week and killing / reanimating my entire website, it’s been a busy week. But now there is icing on the cake of busy-ness.

I am guest hosting the Glen Biegel Half Hour Show on KBYR AM700 tonight from 5:30-6 pm AKST ,that’s 9:30-10pm EST. That’s also 0230-0300 GMT…I won’t be hurt if my UK listeners wait for the podcast version.

Then I will be doing Hometown Talk on the same station tomorrow morning from 0800-1000 am (Noon-2 EST, 1700-1900 GMT). that one will longer therefore funner.

I promise to be witty, intelligent and not pick my nose in front of the camera. Tune in via the web at www.kbyr.com and click the ‘listen live” link or check out the podcast archive on the site in a few days and let me know what you think.

Retribution of a sort

2009-11-04T10:02:00.001-09:00

Monday I posted a blog about terrorists getting their due. Then it would seem that the terrorists got back at me.

Half an hour before going home for the day my wife calls and says the washing machine is not spinning, can I take a look at it. I take the look. Then I grab some tools and proceed to figure out what the problem is. It has to do with the brakes, they won’t release the drum. No problem I just take the motor out, pull out the gear box, reseat the brake pads and replace whatever part is bad right?

Well, in an ideal world that is what I would have done. In the real world I loosened the screws on the gear box and it suddenly dropped two inches then the brakes fully deployed and locked in the cylinder. I could not get it out, or in, or even jiggle it in place. I was two hours into the repair and my bum shoulder was killing me. At that point calling in a professional would have ended up costing more than a new washing machine. And I did not want to explain how it had ended up in so many pieces and then deal with the inevitable sneering and “You should’ve called us from the beginning, we could have fixed it in half an hour.

Depression set in. In the back of my mind I think of the harsh words I had for Megrahi and his ilk and wonder if they had something to do with the death of my washing machine. For what may well be the first time in my adult life, I gave up and said “Forget it!”

I determined to just replace the whole machine the next day. After a night of sleep and nearly forgetting the turmoil and depression of the night before I go to Home Depot and get a really good deal on a nice cherry red washer and dryer set with no interest financing and free delivery and setup. I’m in a good mood again.

Then I go to dinner at one of my favourite restaurants with a friend last night. Apparently the Libyans were not happy that I fixed the machine the night before and they decided to poison my dinner with salmonella or some such vile evil. By the time I get home I am starting to experience waves of dizziness and freezing chills coupled with a compelling urge to stay very near the toilet all night. At one point the dizziness over came me and between episodes of liquid rapidly evacuating all intestinally connected portals on my body I passed out for at least ten minutes. When I awoke blood was smeared across my hand and nose from what I assume to be a spontaneous medieval bleeding performed by my subconscious.

I spent the night in a daze of quasi-hallucinogenic dreams wondering if I should wake my wife to take me to the hospital but choosing instead to continue my conversation with the blue rabbit and the pancake bush.

By this morning I pulled out of the haze and now weakly sit in my comfy chair debating on eating this delicious smelling squash gruel my wife made to help settle my stomach.

I don’t know though…she doesn’t look Libyan…but maybe they’ve replaced her.

Mickey Moss Chapter 4

2009-11-03T15:43:00.001-09:00

Basil’s Tweet Book, Mickey Moss, has been updated. Check it out at @basilstweetbook

Mickey Moss Chapter 4

2009-11-03T15:26:00.001-09:00

Basil’s Tweet Book, Mickey Moss, has been updated. Check it out at @basilstweetbook

Lockerbie/Pan Am 103 bombing mastermind still lives

2009-11-02T21:54:00.001-09:00

Despite being released from a Scottish prison on a “mercy ruling” due to terminal cancer that was supposed to have claimed his life within three months Abdelbaset al Megrahi, sent to his home country of Lybia for what was supposed to be his final few weeks of life, is still alive.

For that matter, he is not only still alive, but has ‘miraculously’ improved and recovered enough to be discharged from the hospital and sent home to his family. While the families of those 270 souls on Pan Am flight 103 still mourn their dead more than twenty years later.

This really pisses me off for several reasons.

1. The dude was convicted of planning and supervising the execution of the actions that took the lives of 270 Britons, Americans, and folks from many other nations in 1988. He is a murderer. Murderers should not go free, ever.

2. He is a coward. He and his people rejoiced in their victory over an undefended airliner full of unarmed civilians half of whom were women and children.

3. He will do it again if the chance arises. Of this I have no proof, it is just a gut feeling. But it is a gut feeling based on facts of what is known about terrorist cowards.

And the government and nation of Lybia is complicit with Megrahi for they, in spite of Ghadaffi’s promises that he would be dealt with in a ‘low key fashion’, gave the murderer a hero’s welcome when he was returned to Lybia in August.

There is at least this one consolation from the prophet Isaiah ( CH.5:22-24 paraphrased)

       Woe to those … who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
       but deny justice to the innocent.

       Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw
       and as dry grass sinks down in the flames,
       so their roots will decay
       and their flowers blow away like dust…

Let it be known the prophet’s curse fall on Megrahi and those who follow his path, not by the hand of man, but by the hand of God himself.

Mickey Moss, Chapter 3

2009-11-02T15:14:00.001-09:00

Online now on @basilstweetbook , check out the Twitter novel experiment.

An Experiment: Tweetbooks

2009-10-31T14:43:00.001-08:00

I am trying out a new experiment in literature. A tweet book.

That’s right. Tweetbook. As in a book done Twitter style.

I am going to see whether people would actually read a short serialized story in tweets. Everyday I will feed 15 - 20 tweets into BasilsTweetBook until it is all on the page.

Please take part in the project and give it a whirl. Just go to Twitter and follow @basilstweetbook and see how the story unfolds.

Liberty is to Faction as Air is to Fire

2009-10-28T20:31:00.001-08:00

Freedom and free thinking. Two things on which America was founded. The ability to pursue life, liberty and happiness all of our days.

But what is freedom? What does it mean to be free? Does it mean doing whatever you want whenever you want to? Is it some sort of system where everyone makes their own path as long as we don’t hurt anyone else? The sad truth is that such a freedom cannot and will not ever exist. Because each different person has a different idea of what happiness might be. Therefore what is one man’s happiness may well be another man’s horror.

No, such total freedom would only lead to anarchy of a sort not seen since the dark ages. For there are those whose idea of freedom involves taking everything you have and spreading it around to their friends…or just keeping it for themselves. I am sure the Viking raiders of the 800’s or the Muslim invaders of the 1200’s or the Mongol Horde of the 1400’s, or the Communist revolutionaries of the 1900’s all felt they were advancing their version of happiness, their ideal of freedom. But to those on whom it was being advanced, those on whom the single ideology of a foreign invader was being forced, it was most certainly not a recipe for joy. With their lands laid waste and their peoples slaughtered or enslaved, the other man’s idea of happiness was nothing like that which they had hoped to pursue. The destruction came when the other side was too weak to defend its ideals, or its borders. And those conquerors in time found themselves on the receiving end of the same fate they dealt to the previous inhabitants.

Whether you are conservative or liberal, always be aware that it is not in the destruction of the other side that you will find your peace. Happiness will not be discovered in enforcing your ideal way of living on your neighbors. It is rather in the balance of ideas, the place in between where the best of both sides come together not to make a compromise, but to make a society based on the what is best of both worlds.

There will always be at least two sides to every issue, usually many more sides than that. Be careful not to invest yourself too deeply in one side to the destruction or damage of the other. For it is in the balance of opposites that a boat stays afloat.

But there is a type of joy that every person can experience in a same way, and at the same time. The joy we find in being with people we love, in a place we call home, a place we feel at peace.

Of course if the other simply refuses to meet on common ground, or worse they just plain lied when they said they wanted to parley then the old warrior’s credo comes into play.

Pray for Peace, Prepare for War and only fight to win.

Success!

2009-10-28T15:33:00.001-08:00

My nerdiness / geekhood has been confirmed! I spent nearly twenty hours figuring out/debugging my websites Drupal php files to find out why i could not upload pictures to my website blog. And in the end, it was a combination of resetting lines of code and flipping on a switch i didn’t know existed until I flipped it.

I love it when things work the way they’re supposed to.

New Windows Live Writer Thingy

2009-10-27T10:36:00.001-08:00

i am trying out this new windows live writer doo-hicky to see if it

works for both my website and my blogger site. If it does, great if not …well then I will have to keep trying until I can find something that does work.

On way or another, it will fit.

Has email been killed by IM'ing?

2009-10-21T08:57:00.003-08:00

The Wall Street Journal posted an article last week stating that Email is moving towards the grave. Replaced by instant messaging (IM) and services like Twitter and Facebook, even cell phone texting. While IM is certainly growing in popularity, especially among the younger folks out there, I do not necessarily agree that email will leave the world anytime soon anymore than I believe eating oatmeal with a spoon will be replaced by sucking it out of a toothpaste tube. The latter is certainly faster, but the spoon method is definitely more enjoyable.

I have used email since 1989, two years before the internet went public. I still use it all day, everyday. Best for business as it is a great way to keep a digital record of forms and correspondence. It'll be a long time before it is gone, just because of the easy archival of emails, and the attachment of documents, images, etc.

I also use Twitter, and Facebook almost everyday. They are a great way to chat and have conversation. I recently got back into MSN messenger (I usually shorten the pronounciation to 'messin')because relatives in far off countries wanted to video chat for free rather than call long distance for a $1 a minute. Once in a while I use Myspace as well.

With all of these different applications I have decided to create a single application that will combine MSN with Myspace, Twitter, and Facebook into one easy interface on my blackberry.

I am calling the new app

"MessinWithMyTwitFace"

Aging toward deliciousness

2009-10-19T09:14:00.002-08:00

I felt perpetually 25 until my oldest graduated high school last year. At the same time I realized that my middle son was having serious discussions about marine biology and my youngest knows a surprising amount about musculo-skeletal anatomy and uses words like endocrine and genetic anomolies in sentences without blinking.

I am still only 4.1 decades old, but suddenly feel as if I have grown up. I'm no longer a kid. For that matter, if my oldest suffers a foolish indiscretion I could easily become a grandparent.The thing is, having completed the first third I relish the idea of the next third of my life.

Yeah, I'm going to live to 120. And like the anticipation of enjoying a fine aged wine, I'm really looking foward to it.

Political Discourse for Lemmings

2009-10-16T08:56:00.002-08:00

As one who makes part of my living doing political discourse I am usually astonished by the fact that a lot of folks really don't want discourse. They just want everyone to agree with them. An how often they are willing, even enjoy, being crude and abusive to their opponents but find the utmost offense if the treatment is returned against their side.

Like herds of disgruntled lemmings they curse their enemies for foolishely rushing willy-nilly into the abyss when all the while they are rushing into the very same pit, to the very same death, on the very same canyon floor, just from the other side of the precipice.

Sigh....that's one of the things I will when I finally become king of the world.

That and creamy peanut butter.

Because both have the same sense of "hey I just ate something, and my breath smells, but my mouth isn't satisfied at all."

I can survive/fix/fight my way out of anything

2009-10-08T16:47:00.004-08:00

Over on the Kill Zone blog Michelle Gagnon brought up the subject of things authors write into books that are just unrealistic in order to keep the protagonist in the game. You know, those just in time salvation things that enable them to escape, beat the bad guys, rescue the damsel in distress, or puppy in a creek, or whatever.

Well I just got out of my truck and realized that it is a haven of just that sort of unrealistic clunky plot devices. I checked around and discovered the following in my little ol' F250 Crew Cab:

1. running shoes in my gym bag
2. a military wool blanket
3. a rain poncho
4. a backpack
5. two knit caps
6. a baseball cap
7. about fifty feet of parachute chord
8. an extra pair of glasses
9. a folding shovel
10. enough tools to do most of whatever I'd need to do
11. two pairs of thick wool socks
12. a K-Bar combat knife
13. a Gerber hatchet
14. a first aid kit
15. a whistle
16. a compass
17. a set of maps covering most of southcentral alaska
18. a case of water bottles.
19. a FRS radio / walkie talkie
20. a shortwave radio
21. a flashlight
22. two different multi-plyer tools
23. mosquito repellent
24. a magnesium fire starter
25. a long stemmed lighter
26. a wad of steel wool (makes good tinder)
27. numerous straps, bungees, and zip ties
28. two MRE meal packs
29. a canteen on a web belt
30. a 20x20 blue tarp
31. two rolls of duct tape (one black, one silver)
32. Four pairs of gloves (only three pairs that match though)
33. a candy bar and four packs of gum
34. a canned air-horn
35. a .38 revolver and ammo
36. a chapstick

Most of it was within arms reach from the drivers seat

Hmmmm.....you'd think I lived in Alaska....or a war zone

Books of Destiny!

2009-10-06T08:26:00.003-08:00

There are several books that changed / effected my life.

1.The Torah & The Bible : actually I can't say it changed my life as much as shaped my life, I've been reading it almost daily since I was six. The study of a culture, their worship, history, laws, interactions and philosophies in the light of a single over arching purpose will effect a person's thinking on the deepest levels. When read in context as a whole the ramifications of its teachings are awesome.
2.The Practice Effect: by David Brin, (c. 1984).
It wasn't terribly deep or elbow patch's & a pipe philosophical but really made me think that if you can imagine it you can do it. That has become my own prime directive of sorts.
3. Once an Eagle, by Anton Myer
One of the best books I have ever read, a contrasting view of life as a whole, beginning to end. One of the few books I will read more than once.

Honorable Mention:
Winter King by Bernard Cornwell
Red Badge of Courage
Johnny Tremaine

What is in a name?

2009-10-01T10:57:00.002-08:00

I almost always remember faces and the majority of details of how I know the person, sometimes even the conversation we had and what I ate just prior. But names...not.
So I have developed a system for remembering names. I use a descriptive nickname for the person to help spur me towards rememberance. These nicknames usual refer to a physical attribute or overt personality trait.

For instance I might remember a person as something like these:

Spandex Fitness Hottie
Sparkly Dimple Smile
French Roast Stubble
Stoned Tortoise Face
Combo-Over Tuna Breath
Gadunka-dunka Butt
Skeletal-Technocrat
Perky Booby Chihuahua Girl
or
Peanut Butter Pimples

and so on.

The down side is that this doesn't always work as intended and usually I still don't remember the name and may suddenly blush as I shake hands and remember only the nickname but barely stop myself from saying "Hey, Nasal Whiner Toad! And your wife, Sticky Toe Fungus Lips. Long time no see!"

So maybe everyone would be best off to just wear a name tag.

Interview with Michelle Gagnon

2009-09-19T17:36:00.003-08:00

Check out my interview with international bestselling thriller writer Michelle Gagnon.

Click to listen, or right click and save it to put on your MP3 player

WWW.BASILSANDS.COM

Kickin' it to the Taliban - Ollie North Style

2009-09-18T14:56:00.001-08:00

Check out this cool article from Ollie North in Afghanistan.
This is what is really happening in the war…Oorah!

http://www.freedomalliance.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2587&Itemid=98

Haka vs. Kilts

2009-09-17T23:16:00.002-08:00

Rugby will never be the same

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_WEP9ZkpS4

On Peace

2009-09-11T08:31:00.000-08:00

Pray for Peace
Prepare for War

...and when war comes, for it will, draw out the scythe and harvest the enemy until the fields are drenched with their blood.

In their place a forest will grow, fed by their flesh, and we will name it Peace and we will praise God as we sup in the Warrior Halls of Heaven.

Movie Reviews '09

2009-08-20T09:32:00.002-08:00

I tend to avoid theaters due to my cousin Leonard's flatulence. He pays most of the time since I am still a struggling writing waiting for that big time publishing deal so I can afford to go to the cinema on my own dime.

Therefore I tend to watch movies at home late at night, alone, while the family sleeps and Leonard is back in his own original 1960's velveteen bachelor pad.

My college son though goes all the time. From an 18 y.o. perspective:

UP: Yeah!
Transformers: Dude, wow!
GI Joe: SICK!!
Public Enemy: Eh.. $3 theatre stuff
Star Trek: Dad's generation was cool
Bruno: I'm scarred for life
District 9: For some reason I don't want to look in my closet at night
My Dad & little Brother's home made Bionicles stop motion video: yeah, cool but uh...dad needs to stick to writing

So there you have it, College Justin's young adult movie review list, summer 09...

Idiots have rights too...but fools need beating

2009-08-11T11:43:00.006-08:00

OK. So…deep breath…OK.

I despise idiot fools. Really, really, really find them to be well, idiot fools.

Now I am not talking about general idiots, or lunatics, or the insane or whatever you want to call those who are uncontrollably suffering from a form of mental retardation or handicap. For such persons I have sympathy. But such persons are typically not found in professional environments where people are supposed to have half a bit of sense and function as a major component of a serious enterprise.

No, those folks are OK in my book. What I am referring to as idiotic fools are those persons who pretend to be smart enough to get a job, even a really high paying one, even one with lots of responsibility, and then they turn out to be idiot fools who cannot follow basic common sense instructions clearly laid out multiple times and even in writing.

For instance, I was on a conference call this morning. It was a one hour conference call training session with fifty other people from across the country. The instructor stated at the beginning of the call, "Please make sure you do not put your phone on hold during this call because it will play your on hold music and the rest of us will not be able to hear anything else. So, please do not put your phone on hold during this call. Also please mute your phone's microphone so we do not hear the conversations going on back in your cubicle. Please mute your microphone and do not place your phone on hold."

The first idiotic fool surfaced less than sixty seconds later. Like a cork bobbing up in the water, they could not be kept down.The fool must have tried a little to stay hidden, but they simply could not resist the urge and their finger leaped uncontrollably towards the 'hold" button on their phone. Muzak was suddenly being piped across the conference call at two full decibels above the instructors volume. Some other idiot fool shouted across the lines to get the phone off hold, and kept shouting for several seconds until it dawned on them that the person on hold could not hear a word they said because…they were on hold.

Finally idiot fool #1 finished whatever idiot fool business they had, I assumed they had probably turned to some other idiot fool who in spite of the fact the idiot fool #1 had their phone on speaker mode, and a sign on the cubicle stating they were in a conference call decided they had to chat about their cute new outfit at that moment. Once the outfit discussion completed idiot fool #1 released us all from the hold music and the class was able to start again.

Only now they had also taken their phone off mute and my assumption was verified as we could hear the continuation of the cute outfit discussion in the background as the instructor tried to inform us on the best methods for doing what she was instructing us to do. Someone calmly informed the idiot fools that they were on speaker phone and we could hear them talking, and that while the red skirt was certainly cute we didn't care. Idiot fool said "huh?" then realized they were the one being addressed and put their phone on hold.

Several seconds later they came off hold, presumably wondering why they could not hear the instructor anymore and deciding to investigate by taking their phone off hold. The instructor calmly reminded us not to put our phone on hold then carried on very professionally. She was not yet flustered until five minutes later the same idiot fool put us on hold again. I know it was the same person because the same music came on and ten seconds later they undid the hold and yes, were still talking about the red skirt.

The instructor repeated her order to not put the phones on hold. Apparently some other idiot fool, idiot fool #2, got confused by the command and reflexively put us on hold again (different user, different music). Five seconds later they were satisfied and took it off hold. Then someone else, idiot fool #3, came on speaker phone chatting something about a refrigerator which drew raucous laughter from the idiot fool they were talking to. The instructor was still in control but her voice was becoming tinged with what could best be described as barely restrained murderous intent.

"Please mute your speaker phone."

The idiot fools did.

Ten whole minutes of uninterrupted learning went on before the next hold music was delivered by idiot fool #2. It only lasted about five seconds, but it was there, and idiot fool #1, not wanting to be upped by idiot fool #2, unmuted their speaker, put us on hold, took us off hold and re-muted their speaker in a rapid succession of muzak, clicks, and half spoken words.

Someone in the background started muttering obscenities, obviously being only a half-idiot themselves because they left their speaker phone off mute. Of course they may have done that intentionally for the other idiot fools to hear, which in reality may mean they are not an actual idiot at all.

The conference continued for forty five minutes like that, interrupted by hold music every five or ten minutes, followed by a flurry of clicking mixed with short bits of hold music, under breath curses, and chatting laughter as idiots of varying degree struggled to remember which button they had pushed, could not remember, and so just pushed every button on their phone until it returned to normal.

By the thirty minute mark I had started to fantasize about being a Viking Warrior, charging up the information stream in my dragon-headed ship and raiding their offices, chain-mail-coat glistening, war-axe and shield held high, the blood curdling roar of my war-cry sending the idiot fools into a panic. The axe comes down and smashes into the laminated surface of the desk, chopping off the button pushing fingers the idiot fool seems unable to control. Blood sprays, women scream, men wet themselves….HAHAHAHAHA!!!! I am Thor Thorgellsson, Vanquisher of Idiot Fools!!! FEAR ME Coporate Idiots, or FEEL MY BLADE!! HAHAhaha…..

…anyway...

The worst part of it all was that the constant clicking and muzak barrage prevented me from either getting the full knowledge of the subject being taught or taking a decent nap. Either of which would have been an acceptable outcome for the morning.

So in summary I will simply restate my initial thesis….I despise idiot fools.

What's your favourite 80's movie?

2009-08-10T11:17:00.001-08:00

Or movies for that matter, got a list of favourites from back in the day?

Here are a few of mine:

First Blood
Rambo
Red Dawn
Ferris Buellers Day Off
Weird Science
Transylvania 6-5000
No Way Out (dude…I loved that movie)
The Package
Spys Like Us
SpaceBalls
The Star Wars Series
The Holy Grail
The Fly
Lost Boys
War Games
Princess Bride

Whats on your list?

Basil Sands
IT Specialist
Dept. of Veteran's Affairs
Anchorage Alaska
907-257-6763
basil.sands@va.gov

Who Dares, Wins

OK. Let's face it. The world sometimes sucks.

2009-08-07T12:01:00.001-08:00

It’s just that simple. Life can suck.

Just when you think things may start going your way, they take a turn and blam…you are on your face again.

But does the suckiness of the world around us, even our own potentially sucky circumstances necessarily mean that things are bad? Just because life doesn’t give us what we want, and appears to be pulling us down, does that mean we should just give up and turn our backs to it?

No.

Absolutely not.

Why not?

Because suction makes us stronger. Struggling builds strength. If we are being pulled down by the events we see as sucky we have two options.

Option One:
Do nothing. Accept what appears to be fate. Give in and float down the drain. Its easy, effortless for that matter. Don’t fight. Just get sucked on down to the sewer and float off like the digested remnants of yesterdays pastrami sandwich.

I mean hey, the suction is hard to push against. We get tired right? So Quit, run away and save your energy. Maybe some easier way will show up later. What’s the reason to fight anyway? We’re all going to die in the end. Just float away.

Option Two:
Fight. Fight like mad. Resist the suction tooth and nail and never, ever give up.

Prepare for the struggle. Pull and strain and resist being flushed away. It will be hard. Others will try to drag you down. Resist the temptation to be lazy and float with effortless ease. You will lose friends along the way. But never, ever quit.

What is the purpose of struggling against malaise? Simple.

The one who struggles gets stronger. In the strengthening the purpose for life becomes clear. Once one has purpose there is a goal, a reason to live. And the suckiness is no longer sucky.

The choice is yours. Live life floating like a turd on a stream of wasted nothingness until you reach the end and get absorbed back into the ground.

Or, live like there’s a reason to live. Grow in strength. Struggle against adversity. And conquer every day as you strive towards the goal.

God created each of us with a purpose. Humans are creative, the only creature that builds cities, and consistently tries to find a better way. We are the only creatures who ponder such things as why life does or doesn’t suck.

In the end, at death, you will be judged according to your deeds and how you acquitted yourself in the struggle of life. Do you want to be the one who said “this sucks” and did nothing? Or the one who at the judgement will be told “Well done.”

Of course, if you are one who believes there is no judge, no God, no purpose, no goal but the continuation of the species, I feel for you. Because things will always suck for the purposeless being.

Tactical Awareness and Push-Up Bras

2009-07-16T08:45:00.001-08:00

A friend of mine got a speeding ticket a couple weeks ago. She thought that if she went to court about it she could get the points reduced. She is a four foot tall, cute, innocent looking Asian girl who could probably have gotten what she wanted with an approach that accentuated her natural appearance and skill. Instead she came in like a tiny kimchi tornado demanding a discount. The judge wasn't in the mood to deal with a four-foot-tall pushy Korean girl, and said if she didn't shush she'd get a suspension. Afterward she called to vent and when I told her a different strategy would have improved her situation, the realization dawned on her and she got more upset at herself for not taking a different tactic.

The moral of the story is be willing to, as General Sun Tzu said a couple millenia ago, shift strategy to overcome obstacles and keep the advantage.

When it comes to writing and publishing books I have come to conclusion that tactical awareness is just as important as literary skill. We must adjust our approach at times as market needs and publisher needs shift. But one thing must never change and that is the goal. That goal for me is to get my stories published, and to keep writing stories. My podcast audience thus far has told me that they like my stories. A couple of publishers have expressed interest but not bitten yet. What does it take to get their attention? That's where the tactical shift comes in. Keep my end product in focus, but adjust my avenue of approach and redeploy my forces to take advantage of terrain and battlefield momentum. In the end, by what ever method I take, I will have the victory of getting published, that much I know.

A writer on another blog suggested that getting published can be like being a hooker on the street trying to get a customer to take the bait. I look pretty scary in a short skirt and fishnet stocking. Push-up bras chaffe my ribs. But if that's what it takes...

no...wait...erase that mental image....I won't go that far.

Are You American?

2009-07-06T08:57:00.004-08:00

Being Alaskan has been an interesting mix of patriotism and marginalization. We in Alaska, when outside, typically refer to ourselves as Alaskans as opposed to Americans, even though Alaska is a state in the union. Its not that we don't love the USA, we do. Not everyone does, we are the only state with an officially recognized secessionist party that got a governor elected.

But the vast majority of us love the USA. The truth is though, if you proudly tell people abroad you are an American they are likley to roll their eyes and find a way to politely or not so politely walk away. Or if your having a particularly bad day they may take you hostage. On the other hand, if you say you are Alaskan they will want to talk and chat it up about life in the arctic. So it has little to do patriotism and more to do with these two things: Identity and Desire to Get Along.

Even in our own country we are for the most part sidelined. Until the recent national attention toward Sarah Palin a significant number of Americans were not even sure Alaska was part of the USA, or they thought we were a territory like Puerto Rico and Samoa. It still stuns me when American tourists ask local shops if we take US Money, or what is the exchange rate. When I travel to cities in the lower 48 I find it to be not too much like where I live.

Alaskans are like the child born of an affair. Mommy loves us, but Dad kind of ignores us other than to throw a few dollars our way as an act of appeasement. With all of the attention we now have on the national political scene perhaps this will change to some degree. Or, depending on how Palin carries herself, and how the media decides to honor or vilify her, we may or may not get a better image in the world scene.

We are not particularly flag wavers up here. Even though 75% of Alaskans are military veterans, expressions of patriotism are moderate. Maybe its just our understated temperment. Maybe its the fact that it costs so much to ship stuff up that we just don't have all the red, white & blue stuff available like they do in the lower 48.

Or maybe its the fact that most of us are of mixed ancestry within the past few generations and don't really know where to call home. A friend of mine from Vancouver BC, Canada, lived here for two years for his job. He mentioned that Vancouver was one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world. In Vancouver there are more different nationalities represented than any other city on the planet, or something like that. But those ethnic groups tend to stay in their own little communities. You know, Chinatown, Koreatown, Indiatown, Pakistanitown, Kenyatown, etc. I don't know that they suffix the word -town to every nationality but you get my point.

What astonished him in Anchorage Alaska though, was that there were almost no ethnic enclaves here. Yes there is a section unofficially called Koreatown, but it is only about a dozen small buildings, and there are several non-Korean buildings in between them. What really blew his mind was the first time he went shopping at a mall here and saw the ethnic diversity within the same families. Black, Alaskan Native, Caucasian, Asian, Latino, Islander, European, African, you name it. Everyone walking in multi-colored families, holding hands and carrying babies that could not be identified as any particular ethnicity.

That is what Alaska is like. We are a mixed up bunch of people at the end of the world in a state of the USA, but most of our cousins don't even think people live here. And we're just fine with that.

So from an Alaskan of Irish, English, Polish, Swedish, Danish, Sioux and Cherokee descent married to a Korean woman who most people assume to be Mongolian or Eskimo....God Bless America, land that I love.

Some days you just feel like smiling.

2009-06-30T09:42:00.000-08:00

Today is one of those days for me. I don’t know why. Nothing spectacular has happened. My desk at the office is piled with work, no big news on the publishing front, my kitchen is a mess as my wife and father-in-law repaint it, I’ve been fighting a cold for two weeks and my shoulder aches like someone’s stuffing a giant frozen needle into a Basil voodoo doll…but I still feel like smiling.

Maybe it’s because the sun is out and the sky is blue the mountains are majestic and I am alive. Maybe its because I have a family to go home to when it all gets too much. Maybe its because I’m not a road-kill porcupine being plucked apart by a bunch of squawking ravens in the middle of the road. Whatever the reason, it’s a good day to be Basil.

God is good.

Have a nice Tuesday.

Guest Blogger: Kharzai - Last words out the door....

2009-06-05T10:39:00.000-08:00

The last lines of a book can and do leave lasting impressions, even without reading the rest of the book they can have an intersting impact. For instance, look at these:

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." –F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." –Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

"P.S. Sorry I forgot to give you the mayonnaise."–Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America (1967)

or of course,

"No glot…C’lom Fliday" –William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (1959)

I've no idea what that actually means, but I mean...hey...wow...that's some powerful last line.

And of course a good last line can be a great cliff-hanger-ony tool as well.

But just as powerful are last images or thoughts left behind at the end of a story, yet potentially not spoken in the words of the ending. I cannot remember the actual last lines, but Douglas Adams books (Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul) always left me with a sense of "wha...huh?"

Such a sensation made me want to read more of his stuff because the ending, being for the most part rather absurd, always drove me towards the next just for closure.

Likewise with serious series novels. I remember as a child reading Louis L'Amour's Sackett series and absolutely needing to carry on to the next, just because there was a next.

When it is time for a story to end, the ending if it truly is the ending and not the beginning of the next episode, should conclude. Whether happy or sad, bright or mobid, the ending must indeed be the end. And upon reaching the end, if it's all well done and the closure is right, we can feel pretty good about it all, and satisfied with the impressions left behind.

And so in ending this entry I will go so far as to say, in all finality:

Life... is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, and has a few pips in it, and some folks have half a one for breakfast. Douglas Adams

Kharzai Ghiassi

CD Sets on sale! Save big on all four audio books!

2009-05-29T12:19:00.002-08:00

Buy All Four of my CD Audio Books and get $13 off!

Normal Price $78 for all four (+shipping)

SALE PRICE $65!! +shipping

Get them now while I'm feeling generous!

Go to www.basilsands.com & drop me a line via the contacts page for ordering instructions.

(shipping inside North America $5 postal, $10 2nd day, outside N America $20, postal only, free in Anchorage Ak Metro Area)

Gilles Duperon: Karl's Last Flight

2009-05-13T21:27:00.002-08:00

DOB: 1976
Place of birth: Southern France
Physical Characteristics
Height: 6’2”
Weight: 215 lbs
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Skin: Caucasian
Other:
Tall, thin. Dark personality and brooding expression, he looks like a movie vampire in the right lighting.
Education:
Little is known of his past except for a few bits he told Liam and Kharzai. His parents are dead. He went to public school in France until he joined the military at the age of seventeen. He prefer Cognac over wine and likes attractive yet timid women.
Military Service:
Legion Etranger, Le Regiment Deuxieme Parachutiste (French Foreign Legion, 2^nd Parachute Regiment) 1993-2003.
Professional Career:
Gilles served in the Legion for ten years and attained the rank of Sergeant Chef (Chief Sergeant). He is known to have seen action in Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Cote D’Ivoire. He left the Legion and signed on with a mercenary firm based in South Africa but quite midway into his first assignment due to an argument over the treatment of a prisoner. He wanted to kill the man, but his boss would not let him. He became a free lancer and was introduced to Kharzai through a third party contact.
Other Characteristics:
Gilles has a naturally intimidating personality. He is quiet and tends to stand in the shadows. He is also a ruthless killer. Kharzai and Liam have a contest between them to be the first one to see him smile. In six months neither has seen it happen.
Current:
He has been hired as an extra gun by Kharzai and Liam in Iran.

Accupuncture & Yucky Tea

2009-05-12T15:20:00.000-08:00

For the past several months I have been feeling...well...like a slug.

Until about mid-summer of last year I worked out a lot. I had a full time day job, a part time job as a youth minister of my church, and spent about two hours every day in the gym on top of that. I also had the energy to write and podcast three novels and a set of short stories during that period. I seldom slept more than six hours and was always doing something. I have run that hard since I was a teen and never felt a need for a break.

Then all of a sudden I got tired. I mean really tired. Tired like I have never been before. Not only was 4-6 hours of sleep not enough, no matter how much I got I could not get rested. My work suffered, my writing faltered. I transferred my ministry job to a younger leader, thinking that maybe it was just that I'm over forty now and need to quite hanging out with teens and college kids. ...no change.

I got so tired that I fell down a mountain and got badly hurt while skiing. That made it worse.
Now, six months after shoulder surgery I am still not fully recovered and still just plain exhausted.

Until last weekend. I figured something else must be wrong so I went to a local accupunture and herbal medicine doctor here in Anchorage. Dude!

Why didn't I do that a year ago?!?!?!?!

After just one accupunture treatment I felt markedly better. After the second I started to feel more like myself. And he gave me these bags of herbal tea to help cleanse my body and "equalize the energy levels in my system". This tea is not the kind you buy at the store. It ain't no raspberry & chamomile concoction. This stuff tastes like sucking dirt through a snail's butt.

But it works! Man do I feel good!

Look out world! I'm BAAACK!

Making a Best Seller

2009-04-29T23:26:00.001-08:00

In terms of reaching the top it seems that there are two ways to me.

1. Write an outstanding book, both storywise and readabilitywise.

or

2. Have an adequate story/readability index, but a topic that everyone is hungry for.

Both of these are also contingent on finding the right agent/editor/publisher combo as well, which is pure luck it seems.

Things that don't work:

1. Using a time machine. It freaked out the agent when my cousin Leonard showed up in the past to tell him to buy my book and therefore changed history against my favour. I should have told Leonard to take off the crash helmet before speaking to people. (the agent later wrote a book about being visited by future people, it became "Back to the Future" and I got nothing because I was only sixteen then).

2. Lacing the pages with psychedelic drugs...that was just bad in all ways. Agents can't really fly.

Keeping Up With The Future of Publishing

2009-04-28T11:22:00.003-08:00

A question has been bugging me as I am heading towards publication in the near future myself. How in the world does an author jump into this publishing business, become a best seller, then stay on top for the rest of their life? I fully intend, hope, expect, what ever you want to call it, to be the next Tom Clancy, Frederick Forsythe guy. At least that's what I am aiming for. And as the saying goes:

"It is better to aim for greatness and almost achieve it, than to aim for mediocrity and make it dead on."

Actually I just made up that wording, but I read something like it somewhere.

Basically, I want to make sure I stay in the game once I get on board. But how in the world did the world know to buy and read and buy again those great Military Fiction dudes like Clancy, Forsythe, Griffin, Higgins, et al and keep buying them for years and decades and into the next century. I want to know what the trend is going to be for the future so that I can learn and write in that direction. I do, afterall, have three boys to put through college. The oldest (starting college this fall) plans to be a great business man / musician, the second (class of 2016) an award winning biologist, and the other (class of 2019) a world famous doctor who cures diabetes. I teach them to aim high too.

To reach that goal, I have to make some serious dinero. Which means I have to write and sell some super terrific, spine tingling, brain jolting, keep you up until you've read the whole thing in one sitting, books. And once written get them sold.

As I write this my surprisingly wonderful and hard working agent is busting her tail cross country to achieve that last bit. I can almost taste it. I thought I smelled it earlier, but that was meatloaf & rice with colby-jack and powdered jalapeno sprinkled over it...almost as good, but can't pay my kids college tuition.

Once sold though, I need staying power. The ability to recreate success over and over ad infinitum. In addition to that, I need to be able to guess the next trend in what people want to read and jump on it. Which means I may not always write military/terrorist/espionage thrillers. As it is I have three historical fiction works synoptisized and waiting for the chance to jump on the page. Ken Follet, one of my favourite authors, has manageed to make quite an amazing career writing books that follow no sequence, or series. I hope to do the same as much as inspiration allows. But how to figure out those trends. Hmmmm....

After much long thought and contemplation I decided to work on my time machine a bit over the weekend. It needed some fine tuning. The Fifi experiment was tragic, and quite messy (on the bright side, the dog food bills are not a concern anymore). I think I got it right this time.

Not wanting to risk turning myself inside out or getting my body parts miscellanously reattached, I gave my cousin Leonard ten bucks and a promise of a six pack on his return. Wearing a 60's style blue motorbike helmet with a digital video camera attached he pulled down his clear plastic chemistry lab goggles and I flung him into the vortex to find out what books will be popular over the next fifteen years.

The time machine door opened, and Leonard looked up.

Some huge muscular guy dressed in a full body blue leotard turned around and stared at him.

Leonard stuttered a bit then finally blurted out, "Basil wants to know what kind of books do you guys like in the year 2019?"

To which the guy replied in a thick German accent, "GAAAAAAA!"

Then he punched Leonard in the face and ran away.

A bunch of people in red leotards came chasing after the blue guy. Leonard didn't want to get hit again. He scuttled backwards, tripped over the pilot's seat. His hand smacked the "go" button. The door shut and seconds later he was back in my garage. He stumbled out of the machine, wiping blood from his nose and looked at me with a wild eyed stare then went straight for the six pack.

So the trip did not answer my question in any significant way. Apparently, though, books based on 'Running Man' will not be too popular. So...I guess I'll need to rewrite that manuscript.

As a side note, Leonard downed the whole six pack in one go, without even removing his helmet. I think Leonard may be an alcoholic.

Vacations in the mind

2009-04-25T18:11:00.001-08:00

I love it when I read a book and get transported to a different time and place. When the words on the page create a reality of their own that in the mind is virtually indistinguishable from memory. Even a memory that could in no way be mine. Such scenes if perfectly painted can feel like a vacation in my living room.

I've experienced that with several writers, but the one's that impress me the most are those who do it with historical fiction. For instance Bernard Cornwells "The Winter King" which told an Arthurian legend without any feeling of fantasy, it was incredibly realistic. I also recently finished Ken Follett's "World Without End" and found the setting to be incredibly detailed, even though it took place nearly 900 years ago. Whatever he did that managed to get so many details about the look and feel of Kingsbridge that long ago is what I want to do with my own work.

Therefore I am actively working on a time machine to transport me to the Mongolian Empire circa 1150's. I thought I had it the other day, but upon the first live test...well things didn't go as well as I hoped.

...poor Fifi.

Dan Browns next big whoopdeedoo

2009-04-23T08:30:00.002-08:00

As a super multi-millionaire after The DaVinci Code (TDC) Dan Brown no doubt could probably care less about whether his new book, The Lost Symbol, does terribly well. I mean, it took more than four years to get it out, which means one of two things.

1: He really did a ton of research and greatly improved his writing skills after so many people complained about the poor literary quality of TDC.
or
2: He was too busy partying on the gazillions he made from TDC and simply put it off until his publisher threatened to have a hit man come over for a visit.

If you haven't read The DaVinci Code, don't feel lonely. I never read TDC either, and don't plan to. In my humble opinion, anything written as poorly as the overwhelming majority say it is and becomes that popular probably has some sort of mind altering chemical laced throughout the pages, or spiritual forces whispering into people's ears, or aliens involved in some way.

Even more troubling is fiction that the author openly states is fiction and yet so many seem to earnestly believe to be true. Quite troubling to my rational mind.

Reminds me of an LSD trip back in the 80's where the ceiling opened up and I went to space and aliens with puppy dog heads took the time to tell me the real truth about cheese and the moon.

Uh...did I say that out loud?

See..case proven...Dan Brown could probably care less. He can afford all the moon cheese he wants no matter how well the book does. In the end he'll have to answer to God, but hey his stuff proves that's all just a conspiracy anyway...right?

“Your characters seem so real, like people I have met.”

2009-04-09T15:30:00.001-08:00

Are my characters real?

“Your characters seem so real, like people I have met.”

That has been mentioned by several listeners and readers to my stories. Truth be told, many of my characters are as real as fictional characters can get. Especially the most tragic characters.

A list of characters based on real people and just how close they were.

Karl’s Last Flight:

Karl – based on a retired navy fighter pilot I met who lived for adrenaline every chance he got, but was the most mild mannered, quiet guy in person….until he got onto a fast engine of any kind.

Esther – based on a real girl, although from Afghanistan instead of Iran, who endured almost everything my Esther did. She was rescued by Voice of The Martyrs missionaries and now works in other Muslim countries helping sexually abused girls find a new life.

Kharzai – an amalgam of people I met during my lifetime including several rather interesting people I knew at the NSA where I ran the military dining facility. One of those individuals it turned out, although it was never verified to me, was a real Iranian spy.

Liam – Made up guy, a kind of character I think I could’ve been if I were a classically trained singer turned MI-6 operative.

Gilles – never met him, and I’m glad.

Faisel – based on one of the elders of my church (although he is Korean and Faisel is Arabic). This guy is tireless, and the nicest man you’d ever meet.

Eagle One (aka Kevin Arlington) – based on Ollie North type.

Mojo Johnson – an amalgam of people I met throughout my time in and around the military. The back woods of Alaska have a bunch of them. Really impressive people just don’t upset them.

Lonnie Wyatt – she was an interesting character. A combination of a real person I know and a few extra parts I added here and there and her history. She was one of my favorites to write.

Harley Wasner – based on a guy I met in my day job at the VA. The dude walked into the Voc Rehab office where I was working on a printer and said, “I just retired from the military and need some educational assistance so I can train for a civilian job.” The clerk said, “OK. What did you do in the military?” The veteran said, “Kill people.” He had been in the Special Forces for 24 years.

Mike Farris – he was a guy that I imagined, but I would not be surprised if at least one of the pastor’s I have met over the years had a past like him.

Dan Martin – based on a guy I knew in high school. I don’t think the dude was really an East German spy, but he was a virulent atheist. And I don’t say that to discredit other atheists, he just was that way.
Paul Hogan – made up guy. But the kind of bloke I would love to have by my side in a desperate situation.

Hildegard Rottbruck – based on a lady that worked in the same building I did for a while. Never really got to know her, but she seemed pretty nice. Hilde got her looks and what little bit of her personality I remembered.

Mr. White – met a guy once with that kind of complex personality. Kind of like life was a Japanese anime card game of and the evil magic was real. He had a serious "Small Guy Complex". He reminded me of the guy in the old horror movie Willard. The dude really creeped me out at the time.
There’s an idea of where the characters come from. Not all just made up. And like I said, the most tragic ones are based on very real people. So to quote myself from earlier: I tried to write something close to reality.

Violent Stories for a Christian Guy, Part 2

2009-04-08T09:32:00.000-08:00

In my last entry I defined what a Christian is as compared to those who call themselves Christian.

Today I want to answer the primary question of “How can you write such sex, swearing and violence and yet call call yourself Christian?”

Well, first off let me answer by saying that I have two hard and fast rules in my writing. I never use those English words considered the most foul or sexually derogatory i.e. F**k and C**t. And there are no graphic sex scenes. So, if you thought you read or heard either of the above, it was all in your own head, not in my book. That being said, other swear words are used through out the dialogue as is common in English, although my heroes seldom swear. They don’t need to, they’re too cool for that kinda talk. And there may be a bit of what a friend calls “psychological nudity” but only as required by the description.

(there was a rape scene in Karl’s Last Flight, but it didn’t get too far before the hero stepped in)

Why write that kind of stuff at all? The answer to this is simple.

I am writing something very close to reality.

Often times, especially here in America, we are fed a version of the world that is not at all realistic. The images of violence we see in movies are either too clean and bloodless, or go way over board on the blood and gore. Things are over sexed to the point of being raunchy, or so squeaky clean they represent a fantasy world akin to a pre-schooler’s cartoon. Not that there’s a problem with that, but my target audience is men and women aged 18-45, and they aren’t buying stories about purple dinosaurs and rainbow coloured ponies. Therefore I have tried to find a place in the middle, the place where the reality actually lies.

What I don’t want is for some one to read my books and walk away thinking that the trauma and hardships my characters overcome can be taken care of easily just because they are the good guys. I want them to go through the whole book wondering how in the world the hero or heroine is going to survive, or even if they are going to survive. If you notice, all of my good guys end up getting hurt to some degree. They feel weak, they get tired, they are scared at times.

I want my readers to understand that the heroes in my stories got to the point where they could take care of themselves in horrific situations because they worked hard at staying fit and when the trouble hit the fan they made a hard decision and took take sides in the drama that unfolded. They cannot be wishy-washy, or half-ready. That state of being would simply get them killed.

The converse is that I also don’t want my readers thinking “There is no way that can happen, people just don’t have that much blood or guts in their bodies.” Or, “No one is that strong.” Etc.

I want my story to be believable. I want the violence to be realistic. When a person hits another person with their fist that fist hurts. They may even break a knuckle or a finger. If you get punched in the stomach, unless you managed to tighten you abdominal muscles just in time, you’re probably going to puke or at least get the wind knocked out of you. There might even be broken ribs and will almost certainly be a serious bruise. My characters, those who are combat trained warriors, are smart enough to know that combat should always be considered a fight to the death whether it ends that way not. They don’t shoot to injure someone. They shoot to kill.
I try and research every thing I write to make sure I set the scene as realistically as possible. Whether it is the climate of the Somali desert or the wooden house boats of the Mokken people I do everything I can to not have to make things up when it comes realism. And even the things I do make up, such as the bio-weapon in 65-Below are as close to real as I can make them. In the case of 65 Below, I had a biologist and a geneticist review my work to make sure it was plausible.

The fight scenes I paint are as realistic as I can make them and still put them down on paper. I have had combat veterans from around the world write to me and say how some of the stories captured them and brought back memories of what it was really like in the Jungles of Vietnam or Africa. Scenes like those from Burma in Karl’s Last Flight, or the short stories 1917 and The First Time (from the In The Shadows podcast) elicited a whole slew of letters from people who have been there.

What I am trying to say is that the violence in my stories, while quite graphic, is certainly not overblown. The stories do not glorify violence, foul language or sex. They merely portray it as it is. And yes I do actually hold back sometimes, because real is sometimes just too gross.

In that sense I do not claim to be a Christian writer. I am just a writer, with a Christian worldview. Not all of my characters share that world view. Liam does. Kharzai does not, that’s for sure. Mojo is mostly on board, Lonnie is close too. Farris is probably the strongest adherent to Christianity I will ever write. Because I am writing real world.

And reality is just that: Real.

And if the realism makes you look over your shoulder when the next time you walk down a dark street, well…that’s all part of the plan.

Violent stories, for a Christian dude

2009-04-07T14:16:00.006-08:00

Recently I have received a few comments from both Christian and non-Christian alike on my writing asking how a conservative Christian like myself justifies writing stories with such graphic violence in them. My main characters are warriors who deal with their enemies in absolute terms, like most warriors do, and lots of people end up dead or maimed along the way.

Over the rest of this week I will be posting a response. Mind you, this is not proselytizing; I am just explaining my own position. And since that opinion has taken more than forty years to form it can’t be pushed out in a quick blurb. So…here goes.

To start off we have to look at what we perceive Christianity to be, and what humanity and the universe really are.

Christianity is a religion adhered to, at least nominally, by about one third of the world’s population. I have to qualify that statement with the word nominally, which means in name only, because a vast majority of those who claim to be Christian simply call themselves that because they were born into a Christian tradition. Regarding their lifestyle they do not adhere in any meaningful way to the teachings of the religion. According to a 2008 Barna Research Survey less than 19% of people who call themselves Christian actual hold a bliblical Christian worldview.

Christianity in the truest sense is not a religion in which one chooses to join, performs a ritual of induction, then claims to be a member. In its real form it is a behaviorally linked religion. And the proof of its authenticity is found in a lifetime of growth and internal change as evidenced by deeds that grow increasingly more meaningful in Gods eyes.

Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ (Messiah) for whom Christianity is named, stated very clearly that we can know a tree by its fruit. He said that in the end many will stand before God on judgment day crying out “Lord, Lord.” exalting God as their Lord and Master, but he will say to them “Who are you? I never knew you.”

Just because a person claims to be a Christian, or a godly individual, means nothing in God’s eyes. It is the life of obedience that God judges. There are those who claim to be servants of Christ, even pastors and priests, who God has not nor will ever accept as his children because they live in disobedience. Likewise there are those who have never heard of God who will be received into heaven later because they lived life in obedience to him even though they never heard his words.

One caveat to this is that those who have heard of God and rejected his authority cannot be counted among those who will attain heaven. I am not referring to submitting to church authority, a man-made institution. The teaching of the Bible states very clearly that those who overtly reject God’s authority and refuse to submit to him will be left to their own life here on earth and in the end be rejected by God.

These things are taught pretty clearly in the Hebrew Torah and Christian Bible. Sadly most people, even ardent adherents to either religion, only read the parts they quickly understand and don’t complete the lessons the books teach. In so doing they end up only understanding bits and pieces, and those usually far out of context.

People who angrily reject Christianity because of crimes committed in the name of the religion have frequently challenged me. They claim that God either does not exist or he is evil because the deeds of those who carry his name have been evil. From the Dark Ages to the Spanish Inquisition to Massacres in Bosnia and Africa people claiming to represent God have committed atrocities.

To quote the book of First John 2:19 “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us.”

Those who claim to be God’s followers but act against God’s will are not really his followers. Regardless of what title they claim of the fancy robes they were.

To Summarize: Just because people call themselves Christian means nothing. It is only in their deeds that they can be judged as a true Christian. And even true Christians make tons of mistakes along the way. The test is not, how close one is to God, but are you drawing closer as time goes on.

So now, you can see approximately where I stand on what it means to be a true believer in Christ.

Tomorrow: "How can you write such violent characters and yet claim to be a Christian?"

Seeds of the Story in the Soil of Life

2009-04-04T20:56:00.001-08:00

I read a great article on one of my favorite blogs, The Killzone. John Miller was talking about how childhood upbringing and experiences form the stories we create as writers. He talked about a lot of rather morbid, and some dangerous or scary, experiences he had growing up in Mississippi in the sixties. When I read John's account my first reaction was to think, 'Man, I'm glad I didn't grow up in the south. Seems like a harsh place.'

I grew up between Alaska & Ohio in the 70's & 80's.

Then I got to thinking, especially after considering the comments of some of the other authors who brought up their own experiences. I began to realize that the good old days weren't quite as good as I remembered.

The disciplines I endured as a kid, would certainly have been grounds for abuse charges today. The creep down the street who touched my sister and nearly got himself killed by our step father. The neighbor's wife who walked like she was scared and never made eye contact with anyone. The day I went for a walk, a four hour fifteen mile walk, without telling my folks. After I got home my step father pulled up in his big Buick. He had his old .45 in his hand and tears in his eyes. I didn't understand. I was thirteen and had my dog with me, we always played alone in the woods. Mom said something about a nearby barn where detectives found bloody pentagrams and disembowelled animals...and some kids shoes.

It didn't click then, it didn't seem real.

The fist fights, sneaking around in the dark, imagining death and war. Taking out rage on a heavy bag I built in the basement out of encylopaedias, pillows and an army duffle bag.

I sat back and thought about my own writing. A lot of bad guys seem to die very hard deaths. And the good guys seldom walk away without scars...some don't walk away.

If it weren't for the outlet of art, I wonder how much blood would be on my own hands.

My writers studio

2009-03-28T10:57:00.007-08:00

On another blog I frequent, The Killzone, John Miller posted a wonderful article that included a picture of his writing studio. It was a wonderful looking place. A one room little cabin in his backyard in the Louisianna woods. So comfortable and conducive to creativity. I began to wish that I had such a place.

I don't though. Therefore I do my writing where ever I and my laptop tend to be. Preferably in my comfy wingback recliner next to the fire place in my living room. Twice a week its on a hard metal chair at the swimming pool while my son practices or on the floor of the Tae Kwon Do Dojang surrounded by the sound of shouts and fleshy whacks as my other son kicks his way to his 2nd degree Black Belt. Sometimes its in my truck at lunch time if I don't go to the gym. Frequently its in my bed from 10-midnight as my wife breathes in soft slumber beside me.

My days are surrounded by natural sites. Denali is framed in my office window, unless three hundred miles of clouds billow over it. The Chugach mountain range is in my truck window in the parking lot where I work. My house, even thought we are in the suburbs, is surrounded by trees and flanked by the same Chugach mountains to the east. In the summer I might ride my bike down the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail to a secluded bench that overlooks Cook Inlet and watch the mountains beyond my part of the Pacific change colours as the tide rolls in, with the occasional pod of belugas cresting and sliding back beneath to their world.

Someday, when I have enough books to justify the cost I hope to build just such a studio as John has. Mine will be a log cabin in the mountains with a panoramic view of the Ocean and surrounded by thick trunked spruce trees pointing heavenward. Until then the place I have is well enough.

Winter is Slip Sliding Away..and so is the volcano

2009-03-27T08:33:00.002-08:00

And thus it goes. Thaw time is upon us, of sorts. It is actually snowing outside and according to the weather service we will see a "light ashfall" as well from the erupting Mt. Redoubt.

Ah the joys of Arctic life.

;-)

Writer Interview: JA Konrath aka Jack Kilborn

2009-03-25T09:05:00.005-08:00

Today I am happy to have touring Crime writer Joe Konrath aka Horror novelist Jack Kilborn.
Joe is doing a huge and apparently successful blog tour of the web appearing on as many as half a dozen blogs a day to tout his new horror novel "Afraid" written under the pseudonym Jack Kilborn. As I understand this is neither a novel for the faint of heart nor the child at heart...unless that child is "Chucky".

Joe also hosts a really informative blog and forum titled "The Newbies Guide to Publishing". Go check it out, I really recommend it. And join some of the contests at his forum, you'll learn a lot in the process.

How long have you been a published writer?
Since 2003. My first novel was published in 2004.

How many books did it take before one got picked up by an agent/publisher?Whiskey Sour, my first sold book, was the tenth one I'd written. A few of my early, unsold books are available for free on my website, www.jakonrath.com/freebies.htm

Have you ever sung an opera or performed a ballet?
Karaoke is the closest I come, but I win karaoke all the time.

What got you into the whole writing thing in general?
I love to tell stories.

Do you have plans to write other genres in the future?
Yeah. I'll be doing a sci-fi series soon.

If so, what pseudonym would you use those genres?
We'll see. But the initials will be JK.

Where do you hail from and what is your favorite part of the country?
From Chicago. I like it, except for winter, which lasts from October until May.I've been to most of the states in the union, and they all have their pluses and minuses. Eventually, I want to live on a lake, someplace where it doesn't get too cold.

I once saw the three Tenors (Pavarotti, Domingo, and Carreras) sing together on stage. They were joined by pop singer Michael Bolton. Would you consider yourself an opera singer in the class of Pavarotti, or more like Michael Bolton....or Michael Jackson maybe...or whatever?
I'm more like Tom Waits, before anyone knew who he was.

Ever been to Alaska?
Not yet. Still haven't made it to Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, and North Dakaota.

Wanna come up?
It's on my list of things to do before I turn forty. I turn forty next year.

Once it was so cold in my hometown that I went to pee in the outhouse and the urine froze before it hit the ground. Instead of going tinkle, I went clinkle. It's not really that cold too often. But you might wanna take a summer tour if you come up here.
Summer may be the way to go. I don't think I'd like pissicles.

Let's say your book Afraid is so scary that you frighten the mayor of your hometown and the governor of your state so badly that they banish you for all eternity. Which state would you want to set up your new identity in?
Florida. They don't ban anything in Florida.

Let's say then, that President Obama and the director of the FBI both agree that you are too scary an author to reside in the US, what country would you choose to live in then?
Australia. It's warm, and I don't have to learn a new language.

If you did ever sing an opera would you rather it include a fat lady with butterfly glasses or someone with a horned helmet?
If the one wearing the horned helmet is Elmer Fudd, I'll go with opera.

Your Jack Daniels books are all named after alcoholic drinks. What is your personal favorite cocktail?
Small batch bourbon, on ice. I like Blanton's a lot, but there are other good spirits.

Favorite Wine?
Pinot Noir. No real label preference. I don't drink wine very often.

Favorite Beer?
Sam Adams Utopias. It's a bargain at $250 a bottle.

Black French Roast Coffee or Latte?
Black. Why cut the caffeine with dairy?

When writing your very scary novel Afraid, did you envision yourself as the killers or the killees?
I pictured them in my head, but didn't imagine I was them. That sounds like too much work.

If detective Jack Daniels was in your new book Afraid, what would happen to her?
She'd have a rough time, but emerge victories, like she does in all of her books.

You have a pretty strong web presence and your forum has a lot of greathelpful ideas for new writers. I myself have read a large part of yourNewbies Guide to Publishing and found it quite informative. Why do you do that?
If we can't pass along what we've learned, what's the point in learning it?

You hold a lot of cool little writing contests. What has been the mostinteresting writing competition you have done?
I like the contests that require a story written using a limited amount of words. They really make every word count.

What was the weirdest?
The poetry contest. It ended weeks ago, and I'm still trying to pick a winner.

If you did dance in a ballet what colour would your tights be?
Pink. I'm man enough to wear pink tights.

If the life was ebbing out of your mortal body and you only had the strength to say twenty words or less what would your last advice to your literary disciples be?
Don't sell the movie rights for less than a mil.

After those twenty words, what would your last sentence to the world be?
Before you bury me, make sure I'm not just joking.

Well, there you have it folks, straight from the horses mouth, actually the novelists mouth, and he looks nothing like a horse or any other kind of four legged creature. For that matter I don't even know if horses are mentioned in his books in any major form, so you might as well get that image out of your mind now. I don't even know why you brought it up.

At any rate, be sure to check out Joe's books and his very informative blog and forum at http://www.jakonrath.com/freebies.htm and pick up a copy of his new really scary, hide under the covers and don't let your limbs hang beyond the edge of the bed novel "Afraid" due out March 31st.

Liam Cleary: from Karl's Last Flight

2009-03-22T18:52:00.003-08:00

DOB: 1974
Place of birth: Antrim, Northern Ireland
Physical Characteristics
Height: 5’8”Weight: 245 lbs
Hair: Brown, short. Combed over.
Eyes: Brown
Skin: Caucasian
Other: Very large body, like a power lifter, not a body builder. Neck size 20 inch, chest 60 inch, waist 36 inch, biceps 21 inch. Bench Press over 450 lbs, deadlift 860 lbs.
Education:Classically training singer from the age of four. Cambridge University, dual degrees in History and Economics.
Military Service:Major of the British Royal Marines. Served with 43 Commando and Special Boat Service from 1995 until 2007.
Professional Career:Major Cleary served for twelve years in the special forces branches of the United Kingdom’s Royal Marine Commandos. In 2007 he was tasked to MI-6 to be inserted into Iran as a covert operative under the cover of a French cloth merchant. He stayed in country for more than two years observing Iranian politics and military movements first hand. In addition to English he is fluent in Irish Gaelic, Farsi, French. He can also passably communicate in Arabic, Urdu, Pashtun and the dialects of the Assyrians and Kurds.
Other Characteristics:Liam is calm and relatively quiet much of the time. He is a devoted family man with a wife and two young children back home in Plymouth England. Many have questioned how an Irishman ends up being a member of one of the UK’s most elite military units and a covert operative for the Queens government. Liam explained that he chose this career after both factions of the Troubles in his native Northern Ireland committed actions that were directly responsible for the deaths of both of his parents. Liam decided that rather than following his grandmothers wish to become a classical singer he would a proactive position at stopping terrorism and factious violence first hand.
Current:In Karl’s Last Flight he is working undercover in Iran trying to disrupt the Iranian Nuclear program.

Perspective

2009-03-20T08:41:00.001-08:00

Doing the Research

2009-03-17T07:42:00.000-08:00

Once for a play I was doing I wanted to find out what it was like to be in an artillery barrage...without getting blown up that is.

I had been in simulated combat and spent endless hours on the rifle range and assault course in the Marines and the Alaska Defense Force. But it was not the same, not what I was looking for.
We had a fireworks show coming to town so I went to it and stood directly under it with my back against the wall of a building so the shock waves would hit my body full on. Out of that experience I got almost all I needed. Ringing ears, upset stomach, headache, singed sinus from the cordite (gun powder). I also went around after that and smelled several kinds of dirt both at the surface and beneath the surface, since a bombardment tends to put the dirt on the wrong side of the person. Add to that the smell of blood, vomit and feces and the sound of screaming men and we have an artillery barrage.

Later folks said the play, and short story, seemed too real they thought I was there but couldn't figure out how a then 35 year old Alaskan described World War 1 so accurately. Of course, I could barely hear their compliments...my ears are still ringing.

That show later became the short story "1917". The audio version is Episode 3 of my collection "In The Shadows". You can listen to the free download on my site, www.basilsands.com.

Peopletalk, interview at a great BBC style podcast

2009-03-10T09:58:00.001-08:00

I've always wanted to be on one of those BBC World Service shows. They always sounded so cool Well, I just completed an interview with a show that sounds just like BBC and has nearly as much reach.

Let me introduce to you Nigel Killick and his wonderful podcast station PeopleTalk.

This guy has an incredibly well produced show and was quite a fun person to chat with as well. Jump over to his website Peopletalk.libsyn.com and check out my interview as well as many other wonderful talks and topics.

Cheers!

Basil's Shorts Featured on Crimewav.com

2009-03-04T15:42:00.006-09:00

The Plumber, one of my short stories from the collection In The Shadows was featured last week on Seth Harwood's http://www.crimewav.com/ website.

Right up there with Michael Connelly and Jonathan Santlofer.

Now that feels special.

;D

An old timer's view of the recession

2009-03-03T09:13:00.000-09:00

My Grandfather had an interesting perspective on the depression of the 30's that applies today I think.

Joe Balch (you can google him) had grown up in North Dakota in the twenties and thirties and experienced the depression and an outbreak of Tuberculosis at the same time. His thought was that those who try hard will suffer just as much as those who don't. Rich or poor, classy neighborhood or urban projects didn't really matter.

Everyone gets kicked just as hard. The difference is not whether or not you get kicked, its how you respond and what you do to improve your situation.

In his case back then, he started on his way to Alaska, but ended up in a coal mine in Wyoming, then in the Marines for WW2. In the end he got to Alaska, but not until '46.

If you'd seen him its unlikely you'd think he had much money at all. But after homesteading a huge tract of land for nearly 60 years he was a millionaire by the time he died at 84. How did he do it?

Simple hard work. He farmed. He was an inventor. He never took loans...for anything. If he couldn't pay cash, he lived without. He looked like a plain old Joe living in the Arctic outback, but none of the depressions, recessions, or bear markets ever really hurt him. Even when he did lose a ton of money in the late 70's recession (a few hundred thousand from one of his inventions vanished in a bad investment) he just tightened his belt and kept on trucking.

I think we all stand to learn something from guys like him. Don't let the depression depress you, just think of it as a challenge and find a way to surmount it. That's what Grampa did.