Seven Suspenseful Sentence Sunday - Week Two!

             I don't remember the explosion, only impressions.

            The air, a solid presence, a hot rushing wind, the odor of sulfur, like the doors to hell had been blown open.

            How did I come to be lying in the grass?  Sharp pain in my ears, as if they had been ravaged by a dentist's drill.

            Where was I?  Confused by my witlessness, I struggled to my knees. Pieces of leaf and grass stuck to my hands--and glass, bits of glass gleamed like raindrops, all over the lawn, everywhere.

           

These seven sentences  are from The Shadow Warriors.  Emma, the narrator has gone out late at night to investigate a break-in at a computer institute, only to have the building blow up.

Late in 2010, my novel of Information Warfare and software agents, The Shadow Warriors, was released to the Kindle.  Only $2.99 until end of February!

 Here is the blurb on the back cover of the trade paperback.

Emma Lee Davis must delve deep into the past to find a weapon to end the Infowar that threatens to de-stabilize a computer-dependent global economy.  Project manager of a  tiny firm of cyber-sleuths, Emma scrambles to make the connections between a body washing up on a beach in Singapore, and the technical derring-do at a German university.

She tracks a desperate hacker planning a unique software auction, a determined entrepreneur who will stop at nothing to acquire  ‘bleeding edge’ software and tumbles onto a new generation of terrorists with their own agenda. 

Emma and her colleagues are sucked into a vortex of lies, spies, and betrayals and ultimately into the sleaze and paranoia of Berlin in the months before the wall comes down. Not quite glamorous, sometimes nerdy, always nosy, irreverent and intuitive, Emma becomes the reluctant sleuth. She narrates the story as she scrambles to manage a software project and her complicated love life, while puzzling over the paradox, “if our mission is to stop computer crime, why are we abetting it?”

  The Shadow Warriors Kindle  

For more information about cyber-warfare see: Cyberwar

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Suspense Sunday Seven Sentence Authors

Cyber-warfare novel

The takedown of Twitter and news of various other hacks always makes me think of my cyber-war novel, The Shadow Warriors.

If "information warfare" broke out, I'd be sitting in the catbird seat with a cool book about it, but how would I sell the book, which is mainly sold via the Internet?

In the meantime, Spenser's Mystery Books is featuring The Shadow Warriors this week, and here is the link. Way cheaper than Amazon by the way. http://www.spensersmysterybooks.com/

On the food front, I tried an original Mexican recipe from Bon Appetit, and the sauce has a big afterkick that maybe the guests won't like. The chilis were not supposed to be hot, but no one told the chilis. We're having the spicy sauce on a pork tenderloin, and I'm serving grilled corn, zucchini, summer squashe and egg plant. All saturated with fresh herbs from the garden and healthy olive oil. Salad will have an avocado to carry out the mostly Mexican theme.

I made lemon-lime ice milk in my ice cream maker, and I'm dipping mint sprigs in dark chocolate for a garnish. How cool is that? Stay tuned for the photos. The table looks great, too. Sometimes it's nice to make the effort.

Onward,

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Cyber Czar

All this news (you do read a newspaper, don't you?) about the Cyber-Czar has me thinking of The Shadow Warriors, the book about Information Warfare that I wrote in the late nineties, published as an e-book in 2001, and by Booksurge in 2003. Jeepers, that's six years ago.

One of the cool things that in the opening pages of the book the protag is reading a paper about the appointment of the new cyber czar.

When we actually have an "info war," perhaps a mainstream publisher will pick up The Shadow Warriors, give it a quick edit and put it out for the world to find and read. Maybe it will even be available on the Kindle.

The "Warriors" are really rather fun, a dark romp, with scenes from Singapore and Hong Kong to a university town in Germany and Boston's Fanieul Hall and Public Garden. The sweep of history, if you will. It was such fun to write and I still had a lot of passion for writing in those days.

Now I carefully craft words, almost bloodlessly, although every now and then I work up a big push of enthusiasm when a scene that interests me needs to be written. Not true, really, but I had MORE enthusiasm in the old days when I thought a mainstream publisher would snap up my novels like carp after a worm.

Didn't happen.

I've been tweaking Festival Madness. When I wrote about Burning Man, the passion came back, because I could return to the Man, actually be there in my writing. I've been tweaking the beginning. Still not quite there. The queries weren't eliciting requests for the full manuscript or even partials. Zero interest. Sometimes I want to set my hair on fire.

Once more into the breach. Thank god the stuffed escarole is history and tonight we had black bean soup with chorizo and chicken and it was tastsy. I'm making composed salads from the garden and the supermarket and using my plane grater and they are good, good good.

Reading Sue Grafton's T is for Trespass. She's such a fine writer. Her writing never calls attention to itself, but keeps you on the page.

I loaded three more books and my friends manuscript onto my Kindle. Wheee!

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Sunday, Kerouac, The Pawsox, Infowar and Burning Man

Trying to find a cheap Sunday activity. Options were to visit Kerouac's scroll in Lowell, go to the races at Suffolk downs or take in a Pawsox game in Pawtucket. We picked the latter, and spent $32.00 which wasn't bad. Big crowd with the nice Sunday weather and also a day game. I wore my 2004 World Series Championship shirt, old jeans, and a baseball cap. White sneakers. I mean, where else can one wear white sneakers? The home team won. We had never actually been in Pawtucket before. Sort of New England working class with lots of two-deckers. Reminded me of Lowell and Kerouac.

Next weekend we may visit the scroll, which is the first draft of On the Road. The Times gave it a good review. I can't find any of my Kerouac books. Probably gave them to a child in the throes of adolescence. I do feel the urge to re-read On the Road, esp. as S.O. and I have begun taking road trips again. Of course, we are not racing through the great American night like I used to do, but checking into motel rooms before dark. But the undercurrent of the road trip is there. The road is life.

Jim Melnick, who has been flying under my radar, had an interesting article in the Boston Globe today, about computers and terrorism. Cyberwar. This is a topic near and dear to my heart since my novel, The Shadow Warriors, (not to be confused with Clancy's book) deals deepy with this topic and I began writing it about 14 years ago, but the germ came 15 years ago. Lots of water under the damn. I felt like a voice crying in the wilderness, and there have always been a few of us, sounding the alarm.

Last but not least, The Style Section of the Sunday Times, has a review of Burning Book, which is, you guessed it, a book about Burning Man, a topic I've been blogging about off and on since I began blogging. My latest literary effort, which is in its next to last draft, has many scenes set at Burning Man, and not to boast, but (WTF, yes to boast) I really do take the reader to the Man. If this novel is like the last two, finding a publisher will be hell on wheels. I haven't made my usual mistakes, but that doesn't mean anything, does it? I noted in the Times today that reviewers were carping about novels being slow to get going, and I thought, cripes, at least somebody liked it enough to publish it, no matter how the beginning creaked and shuffled along like an old man with a walker. At least I drop a body on page one.

Let's see. Friday is cat blog day, so I won't mention the felines. Yesterday's eggplant salad tasted good, but it also looked spectacular. The purple of the eggplant (skin) along with yellow and orange peppers and red tomatoes and green mint and white cheese created a beautiful dish that you just wanted to stick your fork into.

At the ballpark, I had a hot dog and Crackerjacks, a glass of decent wine (times they are a changin') and bottled water from home, a no-no. I probably haven't had Crackerjacks for 20 years. Still tasted good, but could have used a few more peanuts.

Now I need to write to a few agents pushing Promiscuous Mode.

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