Author of sci-fi/fantasy, horror and adventure/thriller fiction

ANOTHER RIVER, ANOTHER TOWN by John Irwin

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John Irwin’s ANOTHER RIVER, ANOTHER TOWN provides a powerful autobiographical account of a teenage tanker during World War 2. It’s a gripping memoir about coming of age in war.

Irwin shows up at the front idealistic and wanting to be a hero fighting the Nazis. A series of mishaps and the brutal fighting during the Allies’ final push into Germany quickly cures him of both. In the end, there is only his desire to survive and not let his fellow tankers down. Through the process, a local misfit boy becomes a man. When the war comes to an abrupt finish after endless combat against SS diehards in one German town after another, there is far more a sense of relief than victory.

In ANOTHER RIVER, ANOTHER TOWN, Irwin provides an engaging memoir about what life was like in a Sherman tank fighting the final months of World War 2. Recommended for history buffs.

THE FRONT 3: BERLIN OR BUST Now Available!

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berlin or bustAn airborne operation of German, American, and British paratroopers drop on Berlin in this exciting new episode in the WW2 zombie series, THE FRONT! This is a fun series I’m doing with the great David Moody and Timothy W. Long. You can read it as the third in the series or as a standalone.

While the Battle of the Bulge turns into a bloodbath due to the introduction of a serum designed to create super soldiers but creating flesh-eating zombies, a German paratrooper unit rests in Genoa, Italy after years of hard warfare. They celebrate an announced armistice hours before flying to England to learn the truth: Germany has collapsed due to the spread of these monsters, and they must work with their former enemies to drop on Berlin and recover a pure sample of the Overman serum.

What follows is an inside look at how the elite German paratroopers fought and their bloody homeward mission to recover the Overman serum before all Europe falls.

Realistic combat and depictions of the German Fallschirmjager, plus zombies, makes for some fun, action-packed reading.

Check it out here.

THE RETREAT 5: CRUCIBLE Now Available!

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the retreat 5The fifth episode in THE RETREAT series is now available! Authored by me with the great Stephen Knight and Joe McKinney, this series follows a lost battalion crossing a plague-devastated America to reach the last major bastion of the U.S. government.

After securing High Point Special Facility, Colonel Lee and his lightfighters of Tenth Mountain have been shot up, run out, and worn down. But another mission awaits—roll to Fort Stewart and extract Dr. Courtney Moreau, one of the engineers of the virus now devastating humanity, and whose immunity promises a fast track to a vaccine.

The bad news: Fort Stewart is under siege.

Stephen Knight wrote this episode following my ALAMO episode, and it’s packed with riveting military versus zombies action.

Check it out here.

BAD MAN by Dathan Auerbach

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BAD MANDathan Auerbach’s Penpal, self-published in 2012 after a series of connected short stories became popular on Reddit, is an intensely eerie story in which the innocence of childhood collides with a bad man’s obsession. Bad Man revisits some of the same themes but does not achieve the same level of creepy goodness.

When Ben was a boy, he was forced to take care of his younger brother Eric. On a visit to the supermarket, Ben looked away for only a moment, but that’s all it took. His brother had vanished. Five years later, Ben continues his search and ends up taking a job at the same store as a stocker, working the night shift. Eerie clues begin to emerge that lead Ben down a rabbit hole until he learns the truth.

From the first few pages, Auerbach sets up a horrifying story: every parent’s worst nightmare, the kidnapping of a child, with understanding and closure forever being out of reach. As with Penpal, Auerbach takes his time building characters that are likeable, flawed, and realistic, and it’s easy to root for Ben and others in the story. He takes his time building plot as well, showing normal life that is slowly invaded by a corrupting influence, in this case clues Eric may still be alive. While the story is a bit long, the clues keep the reader turning pages.

Unfortunately, the story never achieves the creepiness of Penpal, one of my favorite horror stories and admittedly a very, very hard act to follow. It’s also missing some of that story’s magic, in which the expertly portrayed wonder of childhood is contrasted with a corrupting obsession. In the end, Bad Man has a big payoff in the form of a very strong dark twist, but I found it anti-cathartic and unsatisfying as Ben simply isn’t flawed enough to justify it.

Overall, however, Bad Man gets solid marks for delivering a compelling premise, personable characters, and a well-told tale. I liked it, and I’m curious what Auerbach is going to come up with next.

SHADOW’S FALL by Ron Bender

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shadow's fallThe first in a series, Ron Bender’s SHADOW’S FALL is a top-notch cyberpunk thriller set in New White Sands City, one of the megalopolises that emerged from the ruins of a collapsed America. I hadn’t read cyberpunk since the classic MONA LISA OVERDRIVE, and had a lot of fun with it.

Raven, a good-time girl and gun for hire, runs afoul of big corporate interests when she kills a man she later finds out is Shadow, a high-profile vigilante with widespread connections across the city. Accompanied by Brios, her loyal muscle, she goes on the offensive and eventually learns the truth about her identity and her past.

This is just good fun. Raven’s a bit hard to swallow, as she’s abrasive and erratic (with reason, we find out later), so while I still wasn’t crazy about her even after closing the covers, I’d totally fallen for the author. The action sequences are absolutely riveting, the secondary characters are all stand-out, and there’s enough weird future, high technology, and gun play to satisfy anybody who’s ever enjoyed or think they might enjoy a cyberpunk story.

His second novel, STREETS OF FIRE, is out, telling a different but connected story with some new and familiar characters, and I’ll be checking it out.