PRESS RELEASE: FORGOTTEN SON BY WARREN MURPHY AND GERALD WELCH

It’s the second coming of Warren Murphy and Gerald Welch is riding shotgun!

Forgotten Son is the first book in the new Destroyer spin-off series, Legacy. Violence is escalating at the US/Mexico border. Smugglers run rampant while decapitated heads decorate billboards like Christmas tree lights. But the cartels choose the wrong place to conduct their business when they decide to cross the Arizona border belonging to the Sinanju tribe.

That’s where Ex-Mossad agent Benjamin Cole comes in. Ben has just been tapped to head a secret new government agency responsible for stopping terrorist acts. He is only given two field agents, but fortunately for him, Freya Williams and Stone Smith are the daughter and son of a certain Remo Williams.

This is old-school Murphy at his best, with explosive action, biting satire and engaging characters. Welch, coming off strong from the first five books in his Last Witness series, brings a spark of magic to the mix, but you kind of expect that from someone who has an honest-to-God lightning bolt scar on his forehead.

Fans of the Destroyer are going to love Forgotten Son and if you’re one of the four people on Earth who have never heard of the Destroyer, then buckle your seat belt, because you’re in for a ride. If this book is any indication of what we can expect from future Legacy books, then Forgotten Son will be long remembered.

Friendship

"I simply mean to say that truly close friendships are often very difficult to find, no matter who you are, and if I were counseling someone with AS, I think I would be very honest and objective about that possibility. I would try to explain that sometimes, no matter what we do and no matter how wonderful we might be, things happen to interfere with friendships. I would lead them, for example, through elaborated stories that illustrate people moving to far away towns, people getting wrapped up in their busy schedules, following different routines, having different interests, enjoying different kinds of play, and having their own set of difficulties and responsibilities.  I would try to explain that sometimes time and place and sets of circumstances work against real friendships."

From Pretending to be Normal, but I think it's something we all have to remind ourselves about from time to time, those of us who resist change and don't understand change and so fear it.

Destroyer Author News

Lesson One and Lesson Two are up on Warren Murphy's blog.  If you've ever wanted to write a novel or if you're just curious how an author creates, check them out.

Also, Jerry Welch's short story "War in Heaven," set in his The Last Witness universe, is being made into an audio book. You can listen to the sample here.

Warren Murphy's Site...

has been updated.  Go to warrenmurphy.com.  He has a new writing class page, where he will shortly begin posting "how to write a novel that doesn't suck" blogs.

And when my novella goes live in a few days, it will be posted there (and here, of course).  And also when Warren (and Jerry Welch's) Legacy is published and later the full-length novel.  Here of course also.

Update on my life (so far)

It's been a long time. Not that I have any readers, but still, as long as I'm only blogging to hear myself talk, I feel I've been giving myself the silent treatment.

So what's new?

Since 2010, my horrible job folded when my boss got fired by her bosses.  My so-so part time job became my (almost) full time job.  I kept reading, I kept writing (but not nearly enough).

Some good changes.

Former Destroyer ghost and  co-writer James Mullaney decided to launch not one but two series -- The Red Menace and the Crag Banyon Mysteries.  I've been trying to help him get the word out that these exist.  There are so many ebooks out there, competing for attention. But Moonstone has picked up Jim's first Red Menace book, Red and Buried, and are issuing a paperback copy, due out next spring.  You can pre-order it through the link.

Warren Murphy and his sons Devin and Brian have decided to bring back the Destroyer series.  They have a publisher who is going to be re-issuing the first twenty five Destroyers as e-books, replacing the ones that the Murphys put up on their own.  Warren has a new agent, who is trying to get the back catalog of Destroyers out to the foreign market again which will give the books a bigger audience overseas.  That market had dried up when the books were at Gold Eagle back in the mid nineties to 2006.

Warren is co-writing Destroyers again.  He has two new Destroyers and one spin-0ff series written and ready to launch soon.

The first book on Kindle will be Take Two, a novella written by Warren Murphy and Donna Courtois. Yes, me.  Warren approached me last July about writing some Destroyer novellas.  My online friend and Destroyer Club creator Jerry Welch was tapped at the same time to outline and write the first book of a spin-off series featuring Remo's children, Freya and Stone (formerly known as Winner) Smith.  It's called Forgotten Son and should be out shortly after Take Two.  And last -- but definitely not least -- Warren and Molly Cochran have written a new, novel length Destroyer, which should be out shortly after Forgotten Son.  I've seen the first two chapters and they're terrific.

I'm very excited and happy to be a part of reviving the series.  The characters are as fresh and timeless as ever, and as long as there are pompous people or idiot trends and unbelievable beliefs to target, there will always be room for more books.

Right now I'm working on the plot and outline of the second novella. So I'd better close this up and get back to that.

I'm starting a group to oppose tornados

There's a Facebook group to support Sarah Palin's Discovery series. I've also seen an ad on my page about a group organized to protest Palin's Discovery series.

Here's a thought. It's a TV series. Discovery signed Palin to do the series because they figured she was popular with segments of the population. And at the least she is recognized by the majority of Americans who haven't been in a coma the past two years.

Now, if the series airs and a lot of people watch it, ratings will be high and Discovery will please its advertisers. Probably they would ask her to film more of them.

If the series airs and few people watch it, Discovery will probably air the number of episodes they contracted with her to air, or perhaps if the ratings are bad enough, they will exercise an option not to air them, or air them in the dead hours of early morning.

Notice the key word here: ratings. It's all tied up to the number of people who watch (and of course key demographic groups). Palin doesn't need groups supporting Discovery's decision to offer her a series. Groups opposed to her series will not affect anyone, least of all Discovery.

If you like her, watch her. If you don't, don't. The ratings will decide the fate of the series. Or Palin, if she decides a limited run series fits into her life better.

Ratings usually decide these things. Unless you're MSNBC.

I am an American.

Pass this on. I got something from the census department the other day and it turned out to be a notice that in one week I'd be getting the census form. Your tax money at work.

From the Department of Wah Wah Wah

Code Pink is complaining about the protests against health care at the town meetings:

The right-wing, always so scornful of CODEPINK, has taken a page from our playbook and distorted it by disrupting congressional town hall meetings on health care. While we wholeheartedly support the practice of peaceful dissent, we can't stomach it when that dissent is based on ignorance or when the dissenters are actually thinly disguised lobbyists for the corporate health care industry.

Where to begin. Their "dissent for me but not for thee" attitude? Their smug self-assurance that while their causes are "just," ours our just foolish? Or that anyone who protests nationalized health care is a tool of an "industry" (ie; that old devil big business).

What I find most annoying of all, it's their assumption that most or all of the protests are planned and not outraged citizens waking up and realizing for the first time how close this country is teetering on the brink of socialism and ruin. And in an effort to play by the rules of Democracy, try to approach their representatives with their fears and questions only to get rebuffed and talked down to.

Most protesters are just ordinary people thinking the official who was voted in to represent them should listen to the will of the majority, while many of these officials seem to think they were elected because they are superior and know what's best for their constituency, who should appreciate their inferiority, shut up and allow themselves to be herded.

It's Rational to Ration

It's happened in England. It's happened in Canada. It's happened in every country which nationalized their health care.

But of course it won't happen HERE!

On this 4th, trying to define the problems (and suggest possible solutions)

If the founding fathers could see the American people today, they'd be angered and disappointed. We've squandered our birthright for breads and circuses.

It's not everyone. But enough. Too many for certain. And for far too long.

People who see the way the country is going -- government run health care, government takeover of the auto industry, bailouts, stimulus and running up trillions of dollars of debt -- shake their heads and wonder if the country will be able to turn itself around after four years of Obama.

But this began long before Obama. Even before FDR decided that the "pursuit of happiness" should be supplanted by the "right to happiness" and believed the Federal government had a duty to level the playing field at the expense of our liberties and right to self-determination.

I don't want to make this blog overly long by going into the books and blogs I've read and the incidences others have cited as first steps away from the Republic envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

But I realized, thinking about the state of the country this Fourth of July, I shouldn't be blaming Obama, or Pelosi or Rahm Emanuel or any of the Kennedys great and small.

If I do that, I'm doing the same thing I accuse the liberals, the socialists, the statists of doing. I'm taking too much blame away from those on whose shoulders it should sit.

I'm talking about us. You and me. We the People. This is our mess. It's our apathy, our ignorance, our willingness to give up our autonomy for security. Our willingness to give up maturity for perpetual childhood. Not all of us, and not all to the same degree. There are voices crying out warnings. There are a few actively trying to steer us back on course.

And a percentage of US citizens aren't operating through ignorance or apathy: those liberals, statists, socialists who are actively working to "fix" the Constitution and alter our system of government.

So I am blaming Obama, et al too. But as citizens, not as the leaders who have bullied their way into power. Obama's presidency is a symptom, not the disease. Barney Frank's reelection term after term after term is a symptom.

What's the disease? Diseases.

Voter apathy. The 43.2% who couldn't be bothered to vote last November. Are they right? Is it futile because their candidate didn't make it to the final two, or they didn't like any of the candidates from the beginning? Or because all politicians are crooks so what does it matter?

Or those voters who did turn out and voted for McCain because he was the lesser of two evils? If their candidate was forced to drop out before they got a chance to vote for him or her in their primary, I can understand their frustration. I've felt it myself.

Perhaps the way primaries are conducted need to be changed? Maybe people need to come up with ideas on how to make it fairer, petition their Representatives and the changes could be formally written up, voted upon, implemented.

Or not. Yeah, whatever.

Let's skip over those voters who voted for Obama because they understood and agreed with his plans for this country. They're a problem, but they'd be a much smaller problem if so many of the rest of us weren't apathetic.

Or ignorant.

And those are the other diseases: ignorance and stupidity.

Ignorant people who didn't know Obama's platform and didn't care. We were making history and many of us didn't want to know what he stood for if that meant we wouldn't want to vote for him. Who heard the pretty words and let themselves be lulled into thinking "how bad could it be?"

Stupidity. People who did know what Obama stood for, didn't agree with it, still wanted to make history. Or thought this was the opportunity to right the wrongs of slavery and oppression. Who thought we needed to prove to the world that we have overcome our crass and prejudiced past.

This is the same world, by the way, which still contains numerous dictatorships, autocracies, fascist and communist regimes, socialist experiments which strangle their own people's autonomy in the name of fair distribution of resources. This is a world where most of the countries condoned or participated in slavery in their past also. And where slavery still continues in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

So what's the answer? Are more of us finally noticing our ship of state is sailing into an iceberg? This is a big ship; it can't pivot on a dime. If we're to avoid disaster, we have to start turning now.

How do we turn?

They say recognizing there's a problem is the first step.

The second step? Get involved. Not on the national level. Most of us don't have the clout to affect change at that level.

How about getting involved with local politics? Find out what your city candidates stand for so you're not just filling out the little ovals next to a stranger with a cute name. Or voting for someone who's been the incumbent for so long you shrug and figure he must know what he's doing.

Your state's been blue for so long the populace has passed out and been passed over long ago? You figure what use is it to vote Republican? Or Libertarian? Or Independent?

Try it anyway. If enough habitual non-voters got out and used their votes to register their displeasure, even if the status stayed quo this time, it would send a message.

And speaking of Independent, why not change your affiliation? Since, let's face it, too many in the Republican Party don't stand for the ideals they claim to, a massive number of voters leaving the party would alarm them. Even the Democrats, their contempt for the public notwithstanding, they know who pays their salaries. Or rather, they know whose apathy and blind following gives them a license to steal everything that isn't nailed down.

What would it say to the politicians of both parties if, starting this Monday, people started registered as Independents? If the rolls of registered Democrats and Republicans began dropping? And continued to drop till next November?

Most politicians are pragmatists. Most of the true socialist fanatics don't run; they work behind the scenes, influencing politicians, picking candidates who both believe as they do and have the charisma and best combination of qualities to put themselves over with the electorate.

So, if we can panic the politicians, it may be a beginning.

That, and taking more action, increasing our knowledge of local and state candidates. Even presidential candidates were local politicians once.

We have to begin somewhere. We get the government we deserve. It's up to you. And me.